Good And Bad Difficulty Settings

I don't like difficulty settings, they feel too fake to me. I'd rather have a game with one difficulty setting whereby the mechanics allow me to choose between "hard but rewarding" options and "easy but unrewarding" options. That way also you can constantly choose the difficulty and have the game adjust accordingly.

Odin Sphere I think does difficulty badly, you can choose a setting and switch it at any time and you aren't rewarded for playing on hard in the long run. So there's really no incentive to use the harder settings, because there is no defined state of "completed on hard mode".

Although I don't like difficulty selection, Ys Origin does it right, the game is all about doing multiple playthroughs. On most difficulties you get SP from enemies in order to learn abilities, and the further through the game you get the more SP they give you. On nightmare mode, enemies give only a couple SP no matter where you are in the game, so getting enough SP to get the mid-to-higher skills is insane. However if you complete the game once on any setting with all 3 characters, for every character you complete if with on each setting you complete it with, you start off with a bonus 10,000 SP. The idea is to build up on those easier difficulties so that when you start nightmare mode you have a chunk of SP that you can spend. This also changes how you play the game, because usually you'd choose what order to get the abilities to get as you play through the game, but with the bonus SP feature on nightmare mode, what you are choosing is not the order of abilities over time, but rather a defined set of abilities that you will keep throughout the entire playthrough. Ys Origin takes difficulty selections and integrates that into the game.

I also quite like how Kingdom Hearts does the EXP growth thing, where you can choose between either leveling up fast early and then super slow, or leveling up slightly above average the whole way through (or in between). That way it's as if the game is making you choose between that which is better for simple game completion or that which is better for post-game content (though I wish the game was more clear in this). When I get the PS3 version, I'm going to choose the "level fast early" option for my speedrun playthrough (since there's a trophy for it).

Analysing The Final Fantasy XV Battle Footage From E3 2013

So Final Fantasy XV has been announced at E3 and I am psyched. There has been the original announcement trailer and a battle gameplay first look video:

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3xKbPooKAo
Battle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBilT83Uq4A

ok, so going to try analyse this....

first of all its extremely cinematic, hopefully there's not too much scripting in when and where battles will take place. Since there's a scene where the characters are falling does that mean it would be on a time limit? I know they did it with Baren Falls on FF6 but that was just via background animation. The scene where 2 of the characters grab the Iron Giant's sword just makes me think of the trigger commands from FF10.

It looks like there's a lot of physical attacks going on, and the menu in the bottom left corner is very small and only has 3 options, none of which are "Magic" or "Abilities". They are "Warp", "Attack" and "Link-Form"... strangely, "Attack" isn't at the top of the list as it always has been (other than FF13 where it was "Auto-____"). There is no cursor but things do flash up, so I'm guessing they're maybe assigned to buttons? There isnt any sub-menus opening up so is it seriously just those 3 options? Also, what could "Warp" and "Linkform" actually mean? To the right of the menu there's a bunch of icons of weapons. Maybe it means that the game focuses a lot on changing weapons during battle to switch between different fighting styles like Dress-spheres (FF10-2) or Paradigms (FF13). Since there is a lot going on with what appear to be little choice or actions taken during batle, it could possibly mean that this game focuses a lot more on the importance of customising (like FF7, 8, 12) more than in the moment quick-thinking on-the-spot (like FF4, 13). If the action itself truely is simple, then I hope it is more customisation based. However the weapon icons hint that the fast-paced stuff could also be interesting enough

Let's talk about number of characters, this clip shows 3 characters in a party, even though this doesn't necessarily mean it's the party-limit, a limit of 3 has been standard since FF7 (exception being FF9) so it's most likely 3. The trailer at E3 showed 12 character portraits at the end. If there are 12 playable characters then that is a lot for a modern day FF game. considering:

(biggest party size/all playable characters)
FF1: 4/4
FF2: 4/10
FF3: 4/4
FF4: 5/12
FF5: 4/4 or 5 (depending on how you look at it)
FF6: 4/14
FF7: 3/9
FF8: 3/6
FF9: 4/8
FF10: 3/7
FF12: 3/6
FF13: 3/6
FF15: 3/12?

FF15 having 3/12 would be the biggest "amount of patry-sized groups"  (which would be 4) than FF6 (which has 3.5). Despite not having more total unique combinations since 12c3 < 14c4 (maths stuff), this still leads to a lot of potential for an interesting party formation system like how FF6 does. This is where the customisation options come heavily from forming the teams rather than the individuals. Also this could lead to some pretty interesting customised party-splitting. Of course it's too early to call, there might be little option in that regards but the potential is there.

Last thing I want to comment on for now is the stats in the lower-right corner. You have your 4-digit numbers, which will be the health, pretty standard. The white lines most likely represent health too in percentage form, since there is no "/xxxx" written next to the health it makes sense that it would be. The main character has another bar even though the other 2 dont. This could be because the other characters dont use that stat, but most likely its a feature used for the "Leader" of the battle. Its blue so it could be MP, but why would only one character have MP? Of course this really is just speculation, FF6 started out with only a few characters having MP. I do suspect however it is there because it is the "Leader", the character you control and since the game looks pretty fast, I'm guessing that like FF13, you have more control over one character compared to the other 2. This is interesting, in that in adds another layer of depth in a sense by, having you assign a leader that would indicate more party set-ups. What's also interesting though is how the bar uses dots. Could this mean that whatever this bit of data is, is more discrete and less continuous?

Overall my biggest concern really is just how cinematic it all looks. I know games are more cinematic these days but back when your characters would stand in a line taking turns with menus, it really made you feel that YOU were in control. I'm perfectly fine with having less control if the system does follow the "think quick!" style. I'd really need to see the menu screen to have more of an idea. But anyway, these are just some thoughts I had from this little info we have so far. Regardless, I am psyched.

Targeting Our Nostalgia

I think Sonic 4 Episode 1 is a good example of a bad way to try to target people's nostalgia. Since with nostalgia the aim is to try to get you to feel that "when you were younger" feeling, but if you do that by trying to copy exactly what you had before, it doesn't work. Using the sonic example, first of all, Sonic is everywhere, the early Sonic games have been re-released everywhere. As much as Sonic 1 plays a significant part in my childhood, I've played it so much since then that its not as easy to associate the game with that time frame.

Something like Gex 3D, that's more specific to the time that I did play it because I haven't played it loads since then. Also with Sonic, a lot of the excitement I got as a kid was wondering what the next Robotnik battle was going to be like. In S4E1 they pretty much just copied across the ones that I already knew about. This means that I in fact did not relive the "what is the next boss?" experience that I cherished.

The point is that if the purpose of something is to make us feel nostalgic, it should do so by emulating the emotions we had at the time, and not copy/pasting the content. Besides, nostalgia is a very personal thing anyway and hard to capture. I doubt Capcom would ever try to capture my own personal nostalgia of "eating white chocolate whilst listening to Mega Man 10 midis whilst working on my university project".

A Character's Departure Is Neither Unfair Nor Disruptive

So I was shown an article on Kotaku about an article that Masahiro Sakurai make in Famitsu (http://kotaku.com/5984189/kirbys-creator-shares-his-thoughts-on-game-writing). There is one part of that article specifically I wish to address:

"Take when a character you have spent time building up dies or leaves your party: for someone playing the game, it feels unfair." Sakurai explains. "The departure of a companion. In a standard story, this is a very basic plot point. But in games, it leads to a disruption."

So having characters leave your party is "unfair" and "leads to disruption"?

First of all I would like to point out that it is by definition impossible for a single-player game to be "unfair". Sure games can be dissatisfying at some points, but "fairness" is about how all the participants are given an equal opportunity. Since single-player games consist of one player, then it must follow that all the players get equal opportunity, it's not like a computer can be prejudice towards certain players. But by "unfair" it seems he doesn't mean that, rather he means that the players suffer a great loss from something outside of their own control. So from now on, I'll use the word "unfair" to mean that.

The "disruption" he mentions is really nothing more than an alteration presented by the game. I find it strange how RPGs can be blamed for being too repetitive and yet here they are being blamed for being "disruptive" (and we can see he is talking about RPGs here since he mentioned "spending time building up  characters").

So let's think about these two complaints.

When characters leave or enter the party its to set the game up as to present the player with a new scenario. Sure there's great games where you pretty much stick to one party the whole way through (like Final Fantasy V and Dragon Quest VIII) but we don't need to have that in every game.

Indeed, if the game gives us new party set-ups, it is up to us and our strategy to figure out how to effectively use that party. Equally the case, if the game gives us the choice of what characters to use then it is up to us to make strategic decisions on what party we should form.

Even if we do get to the case where you need a certain character that you have not leveled up. That does not mean you should fret from not having that character a certain level. As much as it means you do have to train that character you still have to figure out the best way of doing that. And besides, this also means you get some extra EXP that will help you later on.

There are all sorts of different examples of how you can mix up the party set up

and still have it a fun game. Let's think of some possible examples:

1. Games where you have set characters that never change:
 if your characters never change then that means you will always have your own custom set-up with you

2. Games where you can change to any characters at any time and it is advantageous to focus on a few:
here the strategy is trying to figure out which team is the best team in the long run whilst also taking into account what characters are worth taking in a certain situation. Is it worth holding back your final team back temporarily in order to make this section of the game easier? that's something you need to be strategic over.

3. Games where you can change to any characters at any time and it is advantageous to focus on a many:
In this case the strategy lies in not how unevenly to distribute the EXP, but rather when and where to distribute it with each character.

4. Games where you can change to any characters at any time and it is not strictly  advantageous to focus on a many or focus on a few:
Well in this case what you have to consider is how you want to distribute the EXP, as well as who works well at what points in the game. It may not be clear as to what the best thing to do is, but this means that the player has to figure it out.

5. Games where you can't change any characters at any time and the game keeps switching between them:
In this case the strategy lies in how you approach the individual parts of the game. How can you deal with what you are presented with.

These are just a few examples, and there are a lot more that can be explored (such as if the EXP is distributed in certain ways, if you have points where you create multiple parties, if certain characters grow at different rates, etc.). The point here is that all of these require the player to be strategic in some shape or form. These examples do not inherently result in the player having "wasted time" and the results do depend on the player using skill. Even if we try to think of extreme examples, they end up not being all that extreme. One reason is that we can't judge the loss of the purely on the loss of the characters. Let's use the most common example that everybody knows about: Aerith's death in Final Fantasy VII. Yes, she dies, and yes, you lose all the levels you built up for her. However:

1. In FF7, EXP is distributed 100% to all the alive party members and 50% to all the inactive ones. If what we are saying is that Aerith's death makes her EXP worthless, then lets consider how much EXP you get total depending on wheteher or not she is in your party. There are 9 characters overall, if an enemy gives 1000 EXP, thats 1000EXP to all alive party members and 500EXP to all out of party. That would be a total of 6000EXP (assuming all party members are alive). Running off the assumption that all Aerith's EXP is "worthless" and can be ruled out, then having her in your party nets you 5000EXP total and 5500EXP total if she is out. That difference is not so extreme. And yes I know you would also have to take into account all the stuff you would have to do for her such as buying weapons and building up limit breaks but I'm addressing just the leveling here for the sake of simplicity.

2. Secondly, it still would not be fair to claim all the EXP she does gain as "worthless". This is because you have to use her in the Temple Of The Ancients where the EXP she has accumulated helps you to get through. So even though it will be lost it does help.

So that is an example of where a character's death (or departure) does not result in a great loss for the player. The reason for this is because we are given context and the game is set up to fit the context. The second disc onwards was designed and released with the full knowlegde that Aerith would not be playable anymore. It is not reasonable to believe that the loss will make the game a lot harder because of this. A huge difficulty spike may be disruptive,
. A game that completely changes the gameplay at one point in time may be disruptive. Aerith's death is neither disruptive or unfair (regardless of what definition of "unfair" you want to use).

I suppose it is possible for the departure of a character or the introduction of new characters to be "unfair" or "disruptive". But they would be rarer and more specific cases and not simply "the departure of a character".

"Worse" Does Not Mean "Bad"

I don't really understand the idea that if you make something new, the whole purpose is for it to be better than the last. That makes sense in terms of functionality (a TV in 2013 should be better than a TV in 1995), but when it comes to creative pieces I'm not so sure. Sure you should always make something as good as you can, but should the creation of something new be dependent on it's quality compared to the previous?

Last September I released my album "The Eclectic Duck" and I believe it was an improvement over my previous album "Another Acidic Album". I have started (though not done much) of my next album (which I'm not revealing the title of yet :P ). To me, this album (so far) isn't as good as TED, and I don't suspect it will be (just being honest). Sure, I will try to make it as good as I can, but I really feel TED was a high-point for me. Even if I do complete the new album and still feel that TED is better than it, does that mean the new album is not good enough for release? I don't think so.

Even if the new album is (to me) worse than TED, somebody else who hates TED might like the new album. Likewise, it's possible for somebody to love AAA but to hate TED. I'm not trying to say that you shouldn't put effort into making things as good as you can, I'm not saying that at all. Even if (hypothetically) I release this new album and nobody prefers it to TED, that's still fine. You don't have to spend your life enjoying just your favourites. How many people (in all seriousness) would be happy enough listening to just their favourite album or playing just their favourite game? Sure I'd love to play Azure Dreams whilst listening to Rancid 2000, but to be limited to that?

All in all, I think its fine to indulge in that which is "above average" or "quite good". We should look forward to improvements but not demand it. We should try to improve our works but not be limited by them. When a series "isn't as good as it used to be", my question to you is: "well is it bad?". Should they end the series just because it's getting worse? Well, what good would it do if they did stop? Has the series become so bad that its continuation is a hindrance? If not, I don't see what the problem is.

"The Eclectic Duck" Is Now Available

My album "The Eclectic Duck" is now available to download on bandcamp

Final Fantasy VII Re-Released On The Square Enix Website

So Final Fantasy VII got re-released on the Square Enix website (as I'm sure you can tell by the title) and I will refer to it as the "new PC version". Admittedly I've never played the "original PC version" so I'm going to compare it to the PSX (Playstation) version.

Price
Like Super Meat Boy on XBox Live, the game is released "on offer" making it better to get it early (which is effective it seems).

Graphics
No this isn't a HD remake, it's the same game, but the new PC version looks so much smoother than the PSX version. Also I notice the characters have visual mouths on the new PC version, which can look really odd on characters like Wedge and Jessie where they always have their mouth open.

Speed
It may just be me, but the new PC version seems to run so much faster. That may be because I'm so used to playing a PAL copy of the PSX version.

Controls
The controls on the new PC version are a bit hard to get used to, but you can change them anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

Music
The music does sound different somewhat, I think worse on the new PC version, but that may be down to nostalgia.

Saving
Unless you have piles of PSX memory cards (or a PS3). The new PC version supplies loads more save slots. Whilst a PS1 memory card can hold 15 files, the new PC version has 10 separate lists of save files. Also the new PC version (and I know the old PC version didn't have this) is cloud saving (ay? ay!? get it!? "Cloud" saving!?"). This means that when you save your game it gets uploaded to the cloud, meaning you can access them online.

Achievements
Achievements are a really neat idea for a classic game, but they really could have been more creative. An achievement each for using the character's first limit break? Since the game is not on Steam or XBox Live. The achievements themselves don't accumulate to anything outside of the game itself, you have a separate profile online just for that game, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Also the achievements page on somebody's profile says "Aerith" when the game still translates it to "Aeris". There's an achievement to "get" her final limit break, so does that mean she has to learn it or can I just get the item? Some of the achievements are missable such as "master all materias" (I thought the plural of "materia" was "materia", then again it could be confused with mastering the "All" materia). So you need to be really careful if you want 100%. But that achievement could be rather ambiguous, does it mean master one of each type? do you need to have them all at the same time before "fusing" them? or do you need the "Master _____ Materia" too?

Character Booster
So on your online profile you can choose a save file and activate the "character booster" and it's irreversible (you can back up anyway so it doesnt matter really). Doing so takes your HP, MP and gil to "max". It doesn't cost anything, and it just happens. I find it really hard to accept that they would implement a "get super strong" button without any consequences. I have a feeling that achievements will be disabled, or you will be limited in other regards. There is an achivement for getting 99,999,999 gil, and the booster gets your gil to the "max" of 49,999,999 gil so maybe it just lowers the gil limit? There MUST be SOMETHING!