This review contains spoilers
"There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person," says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex. - IGN Staff, 2001
I may have ruined this one for myself, and that's the worst thing.
I bought Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes shortly after it came out. Not immediately after, as I was still knee-deep in exams, but a couple of months after. Just enough time for consensus to percolate on the game. And when I posted about beginning to play the game, that consensus was clear:
"You really should play The Silver Case, Flower Sun and Rain, and The 25th Ward if you want to get the most out of this."
And, somehow, I believed this completely ludicrous statement. And Travis Strikes Again sat on my shelf, waiting to be played, as I went through those three games one by one, as the expectations in my head for this game were built by the effusive words of those around me, until finally, just about a month ago, I finished The 25th Ward and sat down to play Travis Strikes Again. It's possible that the letdown was inevitable.
(incidentally, if you're anything like me in 2019, first of all, good luck, second of all, don't make my mistake, and just play this game. The Silver Cases and FSR are fabulous games well worth playing, far more so than this one for my money, but all you're really missing out on is references on par with that you'd find in a typical MCU film, and since I personally find that kind of indulgent key-jangling reference kind of annoying, I think knowing who Kurumizawa is, for example, actually made me like this game a bit less, because I understood how shallow the reference really was.)
Sorry. I got distracted. Where was I?
I have two fundamental issues with TSA. The first is how insubstantial it is. It's not like there aren't great things in this game: there are. But they take up so little of the experience in terms of sheer volume. Dialogue is sparse, and dialogue that actually hits is even sparser among that, and it really feels like so much of the game is trudging through treacle to reach those nuggets of gold. This game is far, far too long, easily twice the length it needed to be. If this was a 2-3 hour game, like so many of the referenced indie games that Grasshopper holds an obvious amount of affection for, I think I might love it. But as it stands, as a game that can last anywhere from 8-12 hours, it's hard to shake the feeling that so little of that time is spent experiencing things that are valuable and actually say anything that hits.
The problem with the gameplay is not necessarily that it is tedious. Tedious gameplay is not new to the No More Heroes series. The problem is that the gameplay here is not purposeful. Even if it was incredibly fun - I didn't find it to be so, personally - it would still have the same issue: the gameplay doesn't work with the story so much as just feel in the way of it: the almost never-changing gameplay loop sands down the supposed unique character between the games Travis is playing and makes me wonder what exactly he sees in them. I didn't learn much of anything about these games or about Travis through massacring hordes of identical bugmen, and the way the gameplay has almost no verbs apart from that leaves every game world feeling hollow and empty, without the capability to engage with these spaces as spaces, none of them feel appreciably different from each other, or, indeed, from the abstract maze that lies at the end of the game. It just felt perfunctory, obligatory, lacking any weight or purpose, or meaning.
And I could maybe tolerate this if the dialogue we were fighting through all this to reach was solid gold but most of the time it just isn't. The most demonstrative level for this issue is the much-discussed Serious Moonlight - which - as you already know, of course - is actually an extended reference to Shadows of the Damned. I say "reference to" rather than "sequel to" or "meditation on" because it's very hard for me to take seriously that this level says anything of major substance about that game or the development process behind it. The only thing even slightly aiming at that is the intro sequence where - according to someone on discord - Garcia Fucking Hotspur is killed by a prototype version of his character, from back when the game was called Kurayami. If I hadn't known that tidbit, I don't know if I would have intimated even slightly that this was a game Suda51 and Grasshopper Manufacture feel divided about, or, indeed, one that has been remembered pretty poorly. Because the rest of the level is just a love-in for the three or four Shadows of the Damned fans that exist. White Sheepman's musing's on the game are just factoids of things that happen in the game without any commentary that isn't just basic praise, and Travis won't stop talking about how cool Garcia is, and the premise of the entire level is that the genius auteur (we'll get back to this) Dr.Juvenile saw it in a dream and loved it so much she made a sequel to it before it even came out.
None of this is reacting to or engaging with the legacy of Shadows of the Damned as it actually existed: a financial disaster that got good reviews at the time but is remembered poorly if at all today, instead it mythologizes Shadows of the Damned as a misunderstood masterpiece with a cult following. There is no reflection on the game's outrageous misogyny, bad jokes, and disastrous development that resulted in a game that seemingly no one (except, apparently, Akira Yamaoka) involved wanted to make. I can see why, for people who have invested a huge amount into Suda, that know the history of Grasshopper Manufacture inside and out, that the mere presence of this level in this game can invite reflections on the ghost of Kurayami and what might have been, but the game doesn't inspire those thoughts on its own. It doesn't let me in.
There's no room for me here. There's only room for Grasshopper, and those so invested in them that they can fill in the myriad gaps TSA leaves behind.
Travis Strikes Again does not feel like a coherent, unified thesis on much of anything. It feels like a sketchbook, a collection of ideas, often evocative, enthralling ideas (god I cannot express how much I wish the game explored more deeply its brief flirtations with the intersection of US state violence and the videogame industry), that never congeal together into something that completely resonates. This is Grasshopper Manufacture's Unfinished Tales, or The Salmon of Doubt, posthumous writings from a period in their history they are drawing a line under here. And in the abstract, y'know, I like that. I like the sound of that.
I just wish I played this game sooner. I wish I played it in 2019, and not in 2021. Because times have changed, and I have too. And I can no longer simply take this game's musings with the earnest spirit with which they were so clearly intended.
If Travis Strikes Again has any coherent overriding theme, it is the concept of the Auteur. The real story we're experiencing here is Travis Touchdown exploring the work of legendary game developer Dr.Juvenile and beginning to feel like he can understand her through her games, until he comes face to face with her digital ghost, living on in the games, at the end. He is, essentially, doing an auteur reading on Juvenile and her games, bordering on psychoanalysis.
This is one of the most popular ways to read art, and is certainly the most popular way to read the games with Suda51's involvement. Nonetheless, it's something I try to avoid doing. The majority of games are a collaborative medium, with anywhere from a dozen to a hundred developers working on a game, each talented and creative people in their own right, and while I won't say that directors don't have an appreciable style that can't be gleaned from their work, the tendency to attribute a game to a single creative voice is something that I have always been cynical about and have completely turned against over the past two years.
How many Michel Ancels, how many Neil Druckmanns, how many John Carmacks, how many Chris Avellones or Jesse McCrees, how many David Cages do we have to see revealed to be toxic individuals who use the cult of personality around them to abuse their staff and wield their myth like a knife to harm those around them before we rid ourselves of the image of the genius auteur whose flaws only serve to highlight their impossible genius? How many more people in this industry have to be hurt before we rid ourselves of the specter of Dr.Juvenile?
When the games of the Death Drive Mk II are discussed, they are always discussed as Juvenile's games. The games are her vision, and anything that is not her vision was a compromise placed upon it by the restrictions of technology or moneymen or other outside forces impeding on her art. She wasn't a solo developer, for whom this claim might hold some water: we are explicitly told she had a team working with her, one that wanted to fulfill her vision. But what about their vision? Where are the Jun Fukadas, whose superb sound design is about all that makes the gameplay loop of TSA tolerable? The Ren Yamazakis, who is credited as co-director alongside Goichi Suda, yet I don't see anyone effusing about his return? The Hajime Kishiis, the Takashi Kasaharas? They aren't here. They exist, but their vision is not allowed to intrude upon these games. There is no space for anything else in them, no space for anyone else. They simply exist to attempt to fulfill Juvenile's creative vision, even when such creative vision is obscured in such a way we are encouraged to read as being emblematic of her ahead-of-the-curve genius, but reads less romantically as someone who was hopeless at managing projects and a nightmare to work under.
(there is one concrete person who worked with Juvenile on the games themselves that we encounter, and it's an, uh, interesting choice of TSA to use that character to characterize the degree to which EA meddled with the development of Shadows of the Damned as a man beating a woman to within an inch of her life. Real fucking classy, man. And, no, I don't think I'm being ungenerous with that read, given how close the game aligns itself with Juvenile and the fact that the character in question has the exact same name as John Riccitello, CEO of EA during Shadows' development, with a couple of letters changed in the first name, who has actually been accused of sexual harassment by a co-worker at Unity, which just compounds the grossness of this. I'm sorry Kurayami didn't turn out how you wanted. But that isn't the same as being physically abused by John Riccitello.)
I cannot buy into the narrative of Dr.Juvenile as an effusive genius ahead of her time because all I see when I look at her story is the uncritical recitation of a myth that has caused genuine, real harm to people. A myth that you would think that Grasshopper Manufacture would know better than to buy into, given how games with relatively little involvement from Suda51 have used his name to market games that would ultimately contribute to tanking the company's reputation in the eyes of all but the most dedicated fans. This doesn't mean my sympathy lies with the corporate moneymen either: what I want is a recognition of games (again, solo projects aside) as a team effort made my diverse voices performing genuine labour to will these impossible things, all the more special and characterful for their flaws, into life. And TSA just...doesn't.
I don't think this game is presenting this viewpoint maliciously, or deliberately, to be clear. But I think it is the result of this self-indulgent, uncritically reflective game that truly lacks the bite it really needs. It's not a terrible game. I'm glad it exists, despite all the shit I've talked about it here. And I admire and respect it greatly, in a certain way, and I completely understand the people for whom this game truly was a deeply meaningful experience. This would be a lesser medium if not for Travis Strikes Again. It's a masturbatory game, but I don't mean that entirely as negatively as the connotations of that word would imply. We all need to let off some steam every once in a while.
But you can't expect me to get much out of it.
I may have ruined this one for myself, and that's the worst thing.
I bought Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes shortly after it came out. Not immediately after, as I was still knee-deep in exams, but a couple of months after. Just enough time for consensus to percolate on the game. And when I posted about beginning to play the game, that consensus was clear:
"You really should play The Silver Case, Flower Sun and Rain, and The 25th Ward if you want to get the most out of this."
And, somehow, I believed this completely ludicrous statement. And Travis Strikes Again sat on my shelf, waiting to be played, as I went through those three games one by one, as the expectations in my head for this game were built by the effusive words of those around me, until finally, just about a month ago, I finished The 25th Ward and sat down to play Travis Strikes Again. It's possible that the letdown was inevitable.
(incidentally, if you're anything like me in 2019, first of all, good luck, second of all, don't make my mistake, and just play this game. The Silver Cases and FSR are fabulous games well worth playing, far more so than this one for my money, but all you're really missing out on is references on par with that you'd find in a typical MCU film, and since I personally find that kind of indulgent key-jangling reference kind of annoying, I think knowing who Kurumizawa is, for example, actually made me like this game a bit less, because I understood how shallow the reference really was.)
Sorry. I got distracted. Where was I?
I have two fundamental issues with TSA. The first is how insubstantial it is. It's not like there aren't great things in this game: there are. But they take up so little of the experience in terms of sheer volume. Dialogue is sparse, and dialogue that actually hits is even sparser among that, and it really feels like so much of the game is trudging through treacle to reach those nuggets of gold. This game is far, far too long, easily twice the length it needed to be. If this was a 2-3 hour game, like so many of the referenced indie games that Grasshopper holds an obvious amount of affection for, I think I might love it. But as it stands, as a game that can last anywhere from 8-12 hours, it's hard to shake the feeling that so little of that time is spent experiencing things that are valuable and actually say anything that hits.
The problem with the gameplay is not necessarily that it is tedious. Tedious gameplay is not new to the No More Heroes series. The problem is that the gameplay here is not purposeful. Even if it was incredibly fun - I didn't find it to be so, personally - it would still have the same issue: the gameplay doesn't work with the story so much as just feel in the way of it: the almost never-changing gameplay loop sands down the supposed unique character between the games Travis is playing and makes me wonder what exactly he sees in them. I didn't learn much of anything about these games or about Travis through massacring hordes of identical bugmen, and the way the gameplay has almost no verbs apart from that leaves every game world feeling hollow and empty, without the capability to engage with these spaces as spaces, none of them feel appreciably different from each other, or, indeed, from the abstract maze that lies at the end of the game. It just felt perfunctory, obligatory, lacking any weight or purpose, or meaning.
And I could maybe tolerate this if the dialogue we were fighting through all this to reach was solid gold but most of the time it just isn't. The most demonstrative level for this issue is the much-discussed Serious Moonlight - which - as you already know, of course - is actually an extended reference to Shadows of the Damned. I say "reference to" rather than "sequel to" or "meditation on" because it's very hard for me to take seriously that this level says anything of major substance about that game or the development process behind it. The only thing even slightly aiming at that is the intro sequence where - according to someone on discord - Garcia Fucking Hotspur is killed by a prototype version of his character, from back when the game was called Kurayami. If I hadn't known that tidbit, I don't know if I would have intimated even slightly that this was a game Suda51 and Grasshopper Manufacture feel divided about, or, indeed, one that has been remembered pretty poorly. Because the rest of the level is just a love-in for the three or four Shadows of the Damned fans that exist. White Sheepman's musing's on the game are just factoids of things that happen in the game without any commentary that isn't just basic praise, and Travis won't stop talking about how cool Garcia is, and the premise of the entire level is that the genius auteur (we'll get back to this) Dr.Juvenile saw it in a dream and loved it so much she made a sequel to it before it even came out.
None of this is reacting to or engaging with the legacy of Shadows of the Damned as it actually existed: a financial disaster that got good reviews at the time but is remembered poorly if at all today, instead it mythologizes Shadows of the Damned as a misunderstood masterpiece with a cult following. There is no reflection on the game's outrageous misogyny, bad jokes, and disastrous development that resulted in a game that seemingly no one (except, apparently, Akira Yamaoka) involved wanted to make. I can see why, for people who have invested a huge amount into Suda, that know the history of Grasshopper Manufacture inside and out, that the mere presence of this level in this game can invite reflections on the ghost of Kurayami and what might have been, but the game doesn't inspire those thoughts on its own. It doesn't let me in.
There's no room for me here. There's only room for Grasshopper, and those so invested in them that they can fill in the myriad gaps TSA leaves behind.
Travis Strikes Again does not feel like a coherent, unified thesis on much of anything. It feels like a sketchbook, a collection of ideas, often evocative, enthralling ideas (god I cannot express how much I wish the game explored more deeply its brief flirtations with the intersection of US state violence and the videogame industry), that never congeal together into something that completely resonates. This is Grasshopper Manufacture's Unfinished Tales, or The Salmon of Doubt, posthumous writings from a period in their history they are drawing a line under here. And in the abstract, y'know, I like that. I like the sound of that.
I just wish I played this game sooner. I wish I played it in 2019, and not in 2021. Because times have changed, and I have too. And I can no longer simply take this game's musings with the earnest spirit with which they were so clearly intended.
If Travis Strikes Again has any coherent overriding theme, it is the concept of the Auteur. The real story we're experiencing here is Travis Touchdown exploring the work of legendary game developer Dr.Juvenile and beginning to feel like he can understand her through her games, until he comes face to face with her digital ghost, living on in the games, at the end. He is, essentially, doing an auteur reading on Juvenile and her games, bordering on psychoanalysis.
This is one of the most popular ways to read art, and is certainly the most popular way to read the games with Suda51's involvement. Nonetheless, it's something I try to avoid doing. The majority of games are a collaborative medium, with anywhere from a dozen to a hundred developers working on a game, each talented and creative people in their own right, and while I won't say that directors don't have an appreciable style that can't be gleaned from their work, the tendency to attribute a game to a single creative voice is something that I have always been cynical about and have completely turned against over the past two years.
How many Michel Ancels, how many Neil Druckmanns, how many John Carmacks, how many Chris Avellones or Jesse McCrees, how many David Cages do we have to see revealed to be toxic individuals who use the cult of personality around them to abuse their staff and wield their myth like a knife to harm those around them before we rid ourselves of the image of the genius auteur whose flaws only serve to highlight their impossible genius? How many more people in this industry have to be hurt before we rid ourselves of the specter of Dr.Juvenile?
When the games of the Death Drive Mk II are discussed, they are always discussed as Juvenile's games. The games are her vision, and anything that is not her vision was a compromise placed upon it by the restrictions of technology or moneymen or other outside forces impeding on her art. She wasn't a solo developer, for whom this claim might hold some water: we are explicitly told she had a team working with her, one that wanted to fulfill her vision. But what about their vision? Where are the Jun Fukadas, whose superb sound design is about all that makes the gameplay loop of TSA tolerable? The Ren Yamazakis, who is credited as co-director alongside Goichi Suda, yet I don't see anyone effusing about his return? The Hajime Kishiis, the Takashi Kasaharas? They aren't here. They exist, but their vision is not allowed to intrude upon these games. There is no space for anything else in them, no space for anyone else. They simply exist to attempt to fulfill Juvenile's creative vision, even when such creative vision is obscured in such a way we are encouraged to read as being emblematic of her ahead-of-the-curve genius, but reads less romantically as someone who was hopeless at managing projects and a nightmare to work under.
(there is one concrete person who worked with Juvenile on the games themselves that we encounter, and it's an, uh, interesting choice of TSA to use that character to characterize the degree to which EA meddled with the development of Shadows of the Damned as a man beating a woman to within an inch of her life. Real fucking classy, man. And, no, I don't think I'm being ungenerous with that read, given how close the game aligns itself with Juvenile and the fact that the character in question has the exact same name as John Riccitello, CEO of EA during Shadows' development, with a couple of letters changed in the first name, who has actually been accused of sexual harassment by a co-worker at Unity, which just compounds the grossness of this. I'm sorry Kurayami didn't turn out how you wanted. But that isn't the same as being physically abused by John Riccitello.)
I cannot buy into the narrative of Dr.Juvenile as an effusive genius ahead of her time because all I see when I look at her story is the uncritical recitation of a myth that has caused genuine, real harm to people. A myth that you would think that Grasshopper Manufacture would know better than to buy into, given how games with relatively little involvement from Suda51 have used his name to market games that would ultimately contribute to tanking the company's reputation in the eyes of all but the most dedicated fans. This doesn't mean my sympathy lies with the corporate moneymen either: what I want is a recognition of games (again, solo projects aside) as a team effort made my diverse voices performing genuine labour to will these impossible things, all the more special and characterful for their flaws, into life. And TSA just...doesn't.
I don't think this game is presenting this viewpoint maliciously, or deliberately, to be clear. But I think it is the result of this self-indulgent, uncritically reflective game that truly lacks the bite it really needs. It's not a terrible game. I'm glad it exists, despite all the shit I've talked about it here. And I admire and respect it greatly, in a certain way, and I completely understand the people for whom this game truly was a deeply meaningful experience. This would be a lesser medium if not for Travis Strikes Again. It's a masturbatory game, but I don't mean that entirely as negatively as the connotations of that word would imply. We all need to let off some steam every once in a while.
But you can't expect me to get much out of it.
5 Comments
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>I absolutely do not think that the intent was that Suda was comparing the development of SotD to beating abused, rather making a statement on the abuses perpetuated by high level executives with a lot of power in the industry, which as you yourself said were actually true in the case of the person Damon is supposed to be a stand in for. That to me feels like very intentional and biting commentary that's basically saying the opposite of what you wrote.
I disagree. I think the game is explicitly comparing it to what happened on Shadows of the Damned. Why else would it be in the TSB segement directly preceding Serious Moonlight? Why use the specific name of a specific person associated with a specific project in Grasshopper's past if you're just making a broader statement on high level executives in general? To read it as separate from the context of Shadows of the Damned's development, I think you have to wilfully ignore too much of the scene for me to take it entirely seriously. For the record, I don't think that the intent of the game was to say that the Shadows of the Damned was the same as physical abuse. But the thing it ended up coming out with does end up making that comparison, and it is absolutely a fair critique to say that, if the intent was to make a statement on the abuses perpetrated by high level executives, then it could have have done a way fucking better job.
> I think it's weird to suggest that people with a lot of creative control and a distinctive voice can't be "auteurs" because there is also a large team of talented people working on the game.
That's not what I said. Not once did I say that someone "can't be an auteur" because they have a team working under them. For someone accusing me of making a very bad faith read, you're not exactly acquitting yourself of that accusation here by bold-facedly putting words in my mouth.
> I don't see what benefit there is in pretending that isn't a thing, especially when in most cases the alternative is either art by committee or a completely solo project (which inherently limits scope).
What am I pretending "isn't a thing"? The existence of a director? I have no idea what you're accusing me of here. Regardless, the suggestion to me that the dichotomy is either "work to fulfill the vision of director" or "art committee" seems kind ludicrous to me given that this game has two directors, and yet when people talk about the intent of the game, it's almost always about Suda. A game is not solely the product of one person's vision: character designers add their own style and flair to characters, composers utilize their own flourishes and techniques, programmers contribute tremendously to the overall feel of the game through how each of these elements can interact.
> (and the game is even critical of Juvenile's obsession with her vision! It's got some nuance there!)
An obsessive quality is literally a core part of the harmful stereotype of the genius auteur. Like, that is maybe the foundational aspect of that image: a genius whose obsession leads them to be anti-social/abrasive/difficult to work with but that ultimately the end product was genius worth that obsession. That's literally part-and-parcel with the fantasy! Frankly, the game would actually be far more critical of this stereotype if it didn't portray her as obsessed.
I disagree. I think the game is explicitly comparing it to what happened on Shadows of the Damned. Why else would it be in the TSB segement directly preceding Serious Moonlight? Why use the specific name of a specific person associated with a specific project in Grasshopper's past if you're just making a broader statement on high level executives in general? To read it as separate from the context of Shadows of the Damned's development, I think you have to wilfully ignore too much of the scene for me to take it entirely seriously. For the record, I don't think that the intent of the game was to say that the Shadows of the Damned was the same as physical abuse. But the thing it ended up coming out with does end up making that comparison, and it is absolutely a fair critique to say that, if the intent was to make a statement on the abuses perpetrated by high level executives, then it could have have done a way fucking better job.
> I think it's weird to suggest that people with a lot of creative control and a distinctive voice can't be "auteurs" because there is also a large team of talented people working on the game.
That's not what I said. Not once did I say that someone "can't be an auteur" because they have a team working under them. For someone accusing me of making a very bad faith read, you're not exactly acquitting yourself of that accusation here by bold-facedly putting words in my mouth.
> I don't see what benefit there is in pretending that isn't a thing, especially when in most cases the alternative is either art by committee or a completely solo project (which inherently limits scope).
What am I pretending "isn't a thing"? The existence of a director? I have no idea what you're accusing me of here. Regardless, the suggestion to me that the dichotomy is either "work to fulfill the vision of director" or "art committee" seems kind ludicrous to me given that this game has two directors, and yet when people talk about the intent of the game, it's almost always about Suda. A game is not solely the product of one person's vision: character designers add their own style and flair to characters, composers utilize their own flourishes and techniques, programmers contribute tremendously to the overall feel of the game through how each of these elements can interact.
> (and the game is even critical of Juvenile's obsession with her vision! It's got some nuance there!)
An obsessive quality is literally a core part of the harmful stereotype of the genius auteur. Like, that is maybe the foundational aspect of that image: a genius whose obsession leads them to be anti-social/abrasive/difficult to work with but that ultimately the end product was genius worth that obsession. That's literally part-and-parcel with the fantasy! Frankly, the game would actually be far more critical of this stereotype if it didn't portray her as obsessed.
> This is one of the most popular ways to read art, and is certainly the most popular way to read the games with Suda51's involvement. Nonetheless, it's something I try to avoid doing. The majority of games are a collaborative medium, with anywhere from a dozen to a hundred developers working on a game, each talented and creative people in their own right, and while I won't say that directors don't have an appreciable style that can't be gleaned from their work, the tendency to attribute a game to a single creative voice is something that I have always been cynical about and have completely turned against over the past two years.
This is what I was referring to when I said you were suggesting that people can't be auteurs/pretending that the idea of a collaborative effort still being primarily the vision of one person isn't a thing. If I misunderstood what you were getting at than I apologize. But I think it seems dismissive of the personal stamp that a director/"auteur"/whatever we'll call it can leave on a work. Whether it be Suda or any other number of directors with a unique personal vision oftentimes the collaborators they bring in are reflective of that vision and they often provide guidance as to what exactly that person is aiming for.
With Suda this is an especially strong example as it's clear that as you said he does let people put their own personal stamps on his games and is very collaborative, from his cowriters being given relatively free reign on the alternate storylines in TSC/25th Ward to how much he lets the character designers go off and do their own thing. But I'd absolutely still call Suda an auteur as the talent he brings on are adding their own unique perspectives onto his vision which in turn makes the work more interesting.
I guess ultimately where my confusion is here is why this seems to be positing that auteur is a dirty word when I think it's really just supposed to mean that someone is taking ownership/authorship of a project through their own personal style. I don't think that's inherently a bad thing and I don't think it's diminishing the work of other talented people who also contributed.
Bad faith was the wrong term to use and I apologize, I think your analysis here is interesting and I don't think you approached the game in bad faith. I do think it's more cynical than they way I read it though, if that's fair. I also don't want to come off as combative here, I just wanted to put my own thoughts out as to why I think some of these aspects of the game are positives rather than negatives, or at least that there are different perspectives from which it can be looked at. Thanks for taking the time to point out some things in my own writeup that are worth reexamining about the game.
This is what I was referring to when I said you were suggesting that people can't be auteurs/pretending that the idea of a collaborative effort still being primarily the vision of one person isn't a thing. If I misunderstood what you were getting at than I apologize. But I think it seems dismissive of the personal stamp that a director/"auteur"/whatever we'll call it can leave on a work. Whether it be Suda or any other number of directors with a unique personal vision oftentimes the collaborators they bring in are reflective of that vision and they often provide guidance as to what exactly that person is aiming for.
With Suda this is an especially strong example as it's clear that as you said he does let people put their own personal stamps on his games and is very collaborative, from his cowriters being given relatively free reign on the alternate storylines in TSC/25th Ward to how much he lets the character designers go off and do their own thing. But I'd absolutely still call Suda an auteur as the talent he brings on are adding their own unique perspectives onto his vision which in turn makes the work more interesting.
I guess ultimately where my confusion is here is why this seems to be positing that auteur is a dirty word when I think it's really just supposed to mean that someone is taking ownership/authorship of a project through their own personal style. I don't think that's inherently a bad thing and I don't think it's diminishing the work of other talented people who also contributed.
Bad faith was the wrong term to use and I apologize, I think your analysis here is interesting and I don't think you approached the game in bad faith. I do think it's more cynical than they way I read it though, if that's fair. I also don't want to come off as combative here, I just wanted to put my own thoughts out as to why I think some of these aspects of the game are positives rather than negatives, or at least that there are different perspectives from which it can be looked at. Thanks for taking the time to point out some things in my own writeup that are worth reexamining about the game.
i guess my response to this is that I have a slightly different conception of what "auteur" means. If I'm using Auteur theory, I don't apply it strictly to directors: one can just easily examine the evolving and shifting style of, say, the music of Nobuo Uematsu through projects, or indeed the sound design stylings of Jun Fukuda from this game through the Danganronpa games and beyond. My conception of "the auteur" is simply the subject of an auteur reading, and that can be a director, but it can also be a programmer, a writer, a composer, a UX designer. Anyone can be an auteur because anyone can be the subject to an auteur reading. And crucially, this means that auteur is not a positive label: David Cage, for example, is a wretched man who makes wretched games but I can absolutely track his directorial style through his work, which makes him a prime candidate for such a read.
So I will agree with you as far as directors have a style that can be absolutely considered their own. What I would push back against is that this means they take creative ownership over the work, or that those involved are necessarily simply fulfilling their vision. This is why when I talk about games, I try to take a more post-modern, holistic approach, and talk about what the game says to me by itself, rather than attempt to decode what the director might be trying to tell me, because not everything in a game is a result of the director's intent, and indeed, even something made directly by someone can have a meaning to others that they did not intend.
What I am criticizing of TSA is not the concept of the Auteur, but rather, both the tendency to reduce a game to the work of a single creator and the tendency to build the mythological auteur, which is distinct from the auteur in practice: this figure is what Doctor Juvenile, is a flawed genius who's vision is so incredible that it makes the suffering she leaves in her wake ultimately worth it. Those are the concepts I am critiquing here, and the concepts that I dislike TSA for reciting uncritically, rather than taking issue with the idea that you can track a director's style through multiple works.
I appreciate the apology!
So I will agree with you as far as directors have a style that can be absolutely considered their own. What I would push back against is that this means they take creative ownership over the work, or that those involved are necessarily simply fulfilling their vision. This is why when I talk about games, I try to take a more post-modern, holistic approach, and talk about what the game says to me by itself, rather than attempt to decode what the director might be trying to tell me, because not everything in a game is a result of the director's intent, and indeed, even something made directly by someone can have a meaning to others that they did not intend.
What I am criticizing of TSA is not the concept of the Auteur, but rather, both the tendency to reduce a game to the work of a single creator and the tendency to build the mythological auteur, which is distinct from the auteur in practice: this figure is what Doctor Juvenile, is a flawed genius who's vision is so incredible that it makes the suffering she leaves in her wake ultimately worth it. Those are the concepts I am critiquing here, and the concepts that I dislike TSA for reciting uncritically, rather than taking issue with the idea that you can track a director's style through multiple works.
I appreciate the apology!
Thank you for going into more detail on this as well!
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Hylianhero777
2 years ago