Missing Essay

[Lordthanda]

On the "Extras" page of good ol' nuklearpower.com there is the essays section.
The first essay listed was a very well written "paper" on old school v. new school games. Unfortunately, when I went back to read that essay tonight, I found it to be a broken link.
Does anyone happen to have a copy of that essay?

[fay wray makes my day]

hmm.. thats weird. but it just so happens i do have a copy. here go. in two parts. (sorry about the double posting)


Old School vs. New School
or
Where It All Went Wrong


I’m a Gamer. Capital G. I’ve watched games go from Atari 2600, through the NES age, the SNES age, the last next generation system age, and now the current next generation age in which we find ourselves. I don’t know about you, but I’m not happy with the way things have turned out.

Now already I’m betting most of you out there are thinking one of two things: “Yay, Brian’s gonna stick it to these newbie gamer jerks with some classic gaming kung-fu action—BOOYA!” or “Ugh. Not another one of these morons with their heads stuck up their pasts.” Well let me to put to rest the concerns of both. I am from the old school, and I have grown up into the new. This isn’t about one or the other; they’re exactly the same in a lot of respects, and that is the problem with both. I think a lot of people miss out on this fact and it causes them to have these inane “old school vs. new school” arguments that don’t get anywhere because the proponents of each side think they’re pitted against one another when in reality they are on the same team.

I’m not trapped in the past. I don’t want the same kinds of games over and over. I don’t hate games that try new things just because they’re different from the old games. I see games today and for the most part I’m disappointed with them because for the most part they haven’t changed. We’re playing the same games we were playing fifteen years ago. To put it another way, software and hardware technology has taken a quantum leap from the days of Super Mario Brothers, but game designers are not applying these incredible new technologies to their games in innovative ways. They dress up these tired old rehashed-into-oblivion concepts in fancy 3D graphics and use words like “revolutionary” and enough of you suckers buy into it that you’re giving them the perfect excuse to continue screwing us over: why should they invest in expensive experiments in gaming that may o may not work when they can hire a couple 3D guys to piece together another Tomb Raider?

Let’s step back for a moment. I’ve been gaming for years now, but I didn’t get into RPGs for a long time. My first one was Secret of Mana (SoM), a damn fun game. It was followed up by another of Square’s efforts, Final Fantasy 3 (FF6), and I loved it. I got my hands on FF4 and had a blast. Chrono Trigger was next and I was completely blown away. It was a great combination of SoM and FF style gameplay that propeled the player through an epic adventure spanning millions of years—and Magus, sweet zombie Jesus, Magus! In short, I’d played these four Square games and I could see how each one was an improvement over those which had come before. So then when I heard that Square was working on FF7 for the PSX… I was literally floored. I didn’t listen to any of the hype. I didn’t get my opinion of what the game was going to be blown out of proportion by gaming sites, magazines, word of mouth, anything. I was simply going to sit back and wait for the release and enjoy what was going to be, if history was any indication, an amazing gaming experience: something new, something a cut above our 16-bit RPGs, something to change the industry. What did we get? FF6 with a smaller cast and 3D graphics. I thought “Okay. Well, it’s their first jaunt into the realm of 3D. I’m sure they were just experimenting with what they could do with the hardware. FF8, now that game will give us something unique, this will be the game use the technology in our next generation boxes to tell a story in such a way that the game and the player will interact.” Again, I didn’t listen to any hype, I let the game prove itself to me. What did we get? FF7 on crack. At this point, I’m thinking “Oookay. I don’t know what that was all about, but I hear FF9 is supposed to be something of a throwback to the older days. Maybe this is a sign that they’re moving away from the themes of the last few games (i.e. graphics) and they’re finally going to utilize all this new technology to give us some kick ass story telling.” What did we get? FF4, 5, or 6 on crack.

I don’t like the latter-day-FF installments because they are not innovative. They do not take advantage of the incredible technologies available to them in order to better involve the player with the game. No improvements have been made. “But Brian,” some of you are saying, “look at the graphics! They’re in 3D! Look at that polygon count, man! That’s improvement!”

Is it? Let’s consider the following test. If taking away a game’s 3D element significantly alters how the player and game interact with one another via gameplay and storytelling, then the 3D was necessary (FMV does not apply as we can easily imagine a purely 2D game that uses 3D FMV—FF6 rerelease for example). Apply the test to a game like Metal Gear Solid (MGS). Take away the 3D, and we’re stuck with Metal Gear for the NES, a significantly inferior gaming experience. The 3D of MGS is extensively used to tell the story in a cinematic style never before seen in gaming. And the 3D also impacted gameplay! The very way in which the player’s avatar had to function in the game world was by taking advantage of the realistic three-dimensional environment to hide and sneak around opponents. Three-dimensional interface was the crux of the whole game! Using 3D helped make the game what it is. Now take away the 3D from FF7. How would its method of telling a story change? Why, without the 3D, FF7 would tell the story by having characters talk to one another in little dialogue boxes while their sprites make occasional motions to indicate their mood and we’d have to sit through the occasional cut scene… Just like FF7 did with 3D. So the storytelling of FF7 wasn’t impacted by the use of 3D graphics, now let’s take a look at how the gameplay changed. Without FF7’s 3D, we’d crawl around an overworld map fighting random battles with enemies and bosses, barging into strangers’ homes, cycling through battle menus, etc… just like we did with FF7’s 3D. The same applies to FF8 and 9. So if 3D graphics didn’t add anything to the game, then why were they used in the first place? My bet, because I’m a cynical sort, is that Square wanted to distract us from the fact that they know they’re not doing anything revolutionary, they know they’re not pushing any envelopes, but they don’t want us to pick up on it, so they wave sparkly shiny graphics in our face between trying to figure out the perfect Materia and Junction combinations. Using 3D graphics just because the console can process them is somewhat like having a voice say “Keep on gamin’, soldier!” every five seconds just because the console can produce CD quality sound. Okay, so I admit that last part is just bitter commentary, but I can’t help it.

Now some of you are probably saying “Oh Brian, you’re just stupid because you are so obviously biased against 3D games!!!!!!11” Nope. For instance, here’s a quote from Craig, an avid FF7 and 8 fan who e-mailed me about the FF series. In fact, our correspondence became the basis of this very essay. Craig says, “Indeed. FF6 was so bright and shiny and expansive and pretty compared to FF4 that nobody really realized that they were playing the same game in a lot of respects. Now, of course, many people have twigged to it. Ever since FF4 or 5, combat and interaction in FF has sort of been in a lull; whereas other series try to shake things up a bit (like Xenogears or Vagrant Story), FF seems content with same-old same-old gameplay. that is the problem.” I’m inclined to agree with him. If a fan of those games can speak out against them using the same sorts of criticisms I am, then I’m not very biased. Also, I love MGS and the entire Mega Man Legends (MML) series specifically because of their 3D elements. It’s games that apply 3D graphics for no other reason than to look pretty that I’m biased against. I know a lot of people enjoyed FF7/8/9. Good for you. If you can enjoy them despite the fact that they use 3D graphics for no real reason, then more power to you. Have fun. Seriously, don’t let me and my opinions stand in the way. Playing games you enjoy is a blast, that’s why we do it. Personally, I can’t stand the recent FFs. Maybe I’m harder to please, maybe I expect more from my games. All I know is that when I play those games, all I see is what the developers didn’t do; what the developers didn’t try at the expense of making a pretty looking game. Am I being unfair? Maybe. But considering there are games out there that do push the envelope of storytelling in video games, I think it’s fair to point out when a company that’s supposed to be on the cutting edge isn’t.

[fay wray makes my day]

Now maybe some of you out there are saying “Brian, you are just stupid because you don’t have any ideas that are better for more better games other than saying stupid things like ‘MAKE STORY BETTER!’” That’s like a true statement, only not. I want an RPG where we’re able to decide who the main character is. I want to determine the character from creation (a la table top RPGs) through the actions I choose for that character to take in the game. No more random battles. When there are battles, they will be for the sake of character development and moving the story along. Don't give the player sub-quests and the like so much as direct choices that will impact who the main character becomes as a living, breathing thing inside the game world and thus effect every subsequent decision from there on out. With this kind of game, every game session would be unique. It would make who the character is be important to the story and the game and its outcome. That's a roleplaying game. Not FF7, 8, 9, 6, 5, or 4. From what I’m told, Torment for the PC is most like the type of game I just described and is supposed to be an experience all its own. It’s refreshing to know that technology has finally caught up with an idea I had when I first played my copy of Dragon Warrior I got through some Nintendo Power promotion back in eighth grade.

I think a big part of the problem is that developers have flocked to 3D as though it is a necessary part of making games these days. It’s not. It’s simply another tool, another option. Three-dimensional games do not automatically mean Fun or Innovation the same way that 2D games don’t automatically mean Fun or Innovation. It’s how the game uses its chosen environment that makes the game fun. Bangai-o for the Dreamcast, for example, is a 2D shooter—the oldest, most rehashed genre of video game there is. Yet I’d call it innovative because it takes the tire old concept of a shooter—2 or 3D—and breaths new life into it with hectic non-stop action, puzzle solving, and exploration. It gave us a whole new way to think of shooters. Final Fantasy hasn’t raised any bars for gameplay or storytelling for a long, long time and I’ve had enough.

Games today aren’t any better than they were years ago. If you think about it, that means that relative to the technology and budgets available to them, games today do not measure to those of the past. No, I’m not saying that newer games are automatically worse than older games. I’m saying, as a whole, games today seem to make little if any attempt to take advantage of the technology available to them. RPGs as a whole and the style of play of the FF series has changed so little since the days of the NES, that we could have played them on it and hardly notice a difference. This works for things like platformers and shooters--though Bangai-o turns the art of shooting on its ear--but RPGs have no defined method of player-to-game interface. Yet Square doesn't seem to understand this. See, most other genres are defined by how the player interacts with the game world. Think about it: FPS, shooters, platformers, sports games, etc. They're all based on what you do to the game. An RPG is an RPG by the depth of its story and characters, not by scrolling through menus and having random battles. I feel that the FF series, and roleplaying as a whole, needs to figure that out. We could have played FF7-9 on the NES and outside of FMV it wouldn’t have changed the games much at all. There’s something seriously wrong with that.

Of course, the other side is "Well, if the story and characters are cool, then who cares how the game plays as long as the gameplay doesn't significantly detract from those elements?" Now, I can respect anyone who enjoys an RPG because of the quality of its story and characters. This is why this essay isn't one of those typical "FF8 IS SO STOOPID I HATE STRIEF HE IS A STUPID GAY WITH A GUN IN HIS SWORD!" rants that give all of us a bad name as Gamers. However, the gameplay of FF7/8/9 did significantly detract from the story and characters of those games for me because it was just the same old thing all over again. It is my contention that if companies would embrace other styles of play, it would open up vast new plains and methods of storytelling that have yet to be (or have only been dimly) explored to date and thus give us even better games.

I’m tired of playing the same games over and over while being told how “revolutionary” they are. If we don’t do something about it, then developers sure as hell won’t. As long as we keep swallowing their tripe, they’ll keep shoving it down our throats. This is capitalism. They aren't going to sell us things they know we won't buy. So how do we tell them what we want? Support games like Fallout, Torment, and System Shock 2. Why can't we see similar innovation on consoles? And don't tell me it's the technological constraints of the console market. The PS2 for example can launch surface to air missiles, so why can't it do what these games do and did years ago?

Enjoy this latest batch of uninnovative games as much or as little as you like, I don’t care, but know that they aren’t doing anything you haven’t played before.

But that's just me. Your mileage and opinions may vary.

[Lordthanda]

Thank you SO very much. I was increadibly upset when I could not find that essay on the site. You have absolutely made my day.