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Category: December

What Are Video Game Engines And Why They’re Interesting

There’s a lot of discussion these days about the development of video games and one of the areas that I find most interesting has to be video game engines. These are such intrinsic and essential parts of video game development that can often shape the strengths and limitations of a video game and I think it’s important that we take a look at what these engines are, how they add or subtract from a video game and a concern of mine when it comes to a lack of competition.

Let’s start with the history of video game engines and the purpose that they serve. By the 1980s, video games had become significantly more complicated than they had been in previous decades. This meant that, rather than developing the tools needed to develop games on a game by game basis, some developers began to reuse development tools between games in order to more efficiently develop games. A notable example of this would be the 1985 classic “Super Mario Bros.” which reused the game engine that was developed for Excitebike, a game which had been previously released in 1984, in order to achieve the acceleration of Mario’s runs. However, one of the biggest shifts in the history of video game engines occurred with the release of the 1993 first-shooter classic “Doom”. The engine was very impressive from a technological perspective and many other developers became interested in using it themselves for their own games. As time went on, companies began to make more and more use of engines such as id Tech, Unreal Engine, etc. by buying a license to use the engine in order to develop games more quickly and efficiently. Thus, a new market emerged where some developers would develop game engines with the intention of licensing them out to other developers.

The cover for the 1993 Doom.
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Some Of The Most Significant Samurai Manga

If you were to ask most people what they think of when they hear the word “Japan”, it’s likely that the word Samurai will pop up pretty quickly. Unsurprisingly, there are plenty of manga that centre around these warriors and I thought I might take a look at some of the more important and significant samurai manga.

Easily one of the most important and significant samurai manga of all time, and the first one that I think of when I think of samurai manga, is the legendary Lone Wolf and Cub. Running from 1970 to 1976, the story follows Ogami Ittō, a former executioner for the Shogun who has been falsely accused and disgraced by the Yagyu clan, as he travels Japan with his three year old son to prepare for his vengeance. The series has been critically acclaimed with the manga often considered to be one of the greatest manga of all time for its storytelling, characters, worldbuilding and incredible artwork and has been adapted into several live-action adaptations.

The cover of the Dark Horse Omnibus edition of Lone Wolf and Cub.
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The Fascinating Practise Of Location Scouting In Anime

You may have heard of anime pilgrimages in which you travel to a location that’s been featured in an anime. The reason that this is possible at all in the first place is because a lot of anime series and films base their settings on real locations. While this isn’t unheard of for other types of animation, just look at Saludos Amigos for instance, this practise seems surprisingly widespread in anime and so I thought I might take a look at location scouting in anime and why I find it so fascinating.

I remember the first time I heard about location scouting in anime was when I was listening a podcast (either Manga UK or ANN, I can’t remember) where I heard a story that an older couple in London were running their shop when a group of Japanese people came in and started taking pictures. A few months later, a few people came to the shop to visit and told the older couple that their shop had been used in K-On! The Movie. This movie was quite meticulous when it came to recreating London and the idea that the shop had been recreated in the movie was very interesting to me.

The Japanese poster for K-On! The Movie which itself is based on a real location.
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The Strange But Important Disney Package Films

There are a lot of things that I’m proud of in my DVD/Blu-Ray collection but one of the more notable things that I have are nearly every film from Walt Disney Animation Studios (I refuse to buy Chicken Little even for completion purposes). A lot of people seem drawn to that section of my collection whenever I have them over and they quite often show a great deal of familiarity with a lot of the films there. However, one section of my Disney collection that always seems to be unknown to a lot of people seems to be movies six through eleven. These films were known as “Package Films” and, while strange in comparison to a lot of other Disney films, prove to be an incredibly important part of the history of the company.

Before we get into the films themselves, I feel it’s important to explain why they are called package films and the reason they were produced in the first place. Disney had been incredibly successful with the release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs but Pinocchio and Fantasia had both been box office failures and while Dumbo and Bambi were successful, they weren’t anywhere near as successful as Snow White had been. By 1942, the year Bambi was released, the US had entered World War II and many of Walt Disney’s animators had been drafted or had left the company due to the 1941 Disney animators’ strike. Due to this shortage of funds and staff, the next six films that Disney would produce would combine multiple stories from as few as two to as many as ten, hence the name “Package Films”.

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The Stupid Strategies of Square Enix Continue To Surprise Me

I want to start off by saying that I adore Square Enix. Squaresoft, one of the predecessors to Square Enix, created my favourite game of all time in the form of Final Fantasy IX. Beyond that, they’ve contributed greatly to my passion for gaming with series such as Dragon Quest, Kingdom Hearts, Star Ocean and many others. However, as the years have passed, my enthusiasm for Square Enix has waned to the point now where I now view their products with scepticism. This is due to the many stupid strategies that Square Enix continue to follow, to the point now where they often surprise me. Taking all this into account, I thought I should write my current thoughts on Square Enix and why my passion for them has faded.

Probably the first time that I seriously began questioning Square Enix’s strategies was when Life is Strange 2 was announced. I had really enjoyed the first game, even though I had a few problems with its concept of choice, and was really looking forward to seeing how they could build upon the franchise. However, I was immediately taken aback by the pricing. The first game had been perfectly priced at €19.99 and I truly believe that this price tag contributed greatly to the incredible sales that it managed to reach. However, Life is Strange 2 was priced at €39.99, double the price of the original game! I couldn’t believe it and, while I don’t know how well it ultimately sold since Square Enix have never announced the sales figures, it felt like Life is Strange 2 didn’t come anyway near the cultural impact that the original managed to achieve. I was hoping that Square Enix might have learned their lesson but then they announce Life is Strange: True Colors, the third main game in the series, at a price tag of €59.99. I was stunned, I couldn’t believe that they had decided to raise the price tag even further and it felt to me that Square Enix were simply trying to milk the series for all it’s worth.

Life is Strange: True Colors is triple the price of the original game!
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Interesting Non-Japanese/American Adaptations of Manga

Being a Japanese product, it’s pretty obvious that manga will be adapted into a wide variety of Japanese media such as anime series, live-action films, etc. It’s also clear that America, with the largest film industry in the world, would also adapt various manga series. However, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at some non-Japanese/American adaptations of manga since it feels like these are less well known.

While Japan had worked with other countries to coproduce film adaptations of manga, such as the Golgo 13 films and Lady Oscar, the first film that I’m aware of that adapted a manga without any involvement of the Japanese film industry was the 1990 Hong Kong film “Killer’s Romance” which was a loose adaptation of Crying Freeman. Amusingly, another Hong Kong film called “The Dragon from Russia”, which was also released in 1990, also adapted Crying Freeman!

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Some Amazing Classic Anime Recommendations

It’s easy, just like any medium, to get distracted by new anime releases and to forget about many of the amazing anime that have been released throughout history. Therefore, I thought I might do something a little different than usual and recommend some of my favourite classic anime series and films. While I’m not going to try to make these classic anime recommendations obscure, I will be trying to recommend amazing titles that aren’t particularly obvious.

Starting this off, I’d like to bring particular attention to a series called “Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water”. Directed by Hideaki Anno of Neon Genesis Evangelion fame, the series is loosely based on “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” and begins with Jean, a 14 year old French inventor, coming across an acrobat called Nadia who is being pursued by several villains for her mysterious blue necklace. The series has an incredible sense of wonder and has crisp animation, wonderful characters and numerous twists and turns. It would honestly probably be one of my favourite anime series of all time if it wasn’t for a dreadful filler arc that has become known as the “Island Arc“. Nonetheless, I’d enthusiastically recommend this series to anyone eager to find a new anime to watch.

An image of the character's of Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water.
Some of the cast of “Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water”.
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What’s The Difference Between A Great And Terrible Prequel?

I have recently been watching some of the more questionable in quality Don Bluth films in an effort to both say that I have seen them and to learn more about his change in style over time. One of these films was Bartok the Magnificent, a prequel to the 1997 film Anastasia, that follows Bartok, the minion of Rasputin in the original film. Watching Bartok the Magnificent, I observed that it was clearly a below average animated film but, more importantly to me, it was a terrible prequel. Realising the difference between the quality of the movie and its purpose as a prequel, I decided to take a look at what makes a good prequel and a bad one.

Having brought up Bartok the Magnificent, let’s begin by analysing this film. The structure of the film isn’t terrible even if it is very generic. Bartok is an entertainer who works with a bear called Zozi, voiced by Kelsey Grammer with the character being a clone of Fraser Crane. They visit Moscow and Bartok finds himself responsible for rescuing the child Tsar who has been kidnapped by Baba Yaga. He encounters Baba Yaga, must perform some tasks for her in return for the location of the Tsar and there is a twist, albeit a predictable one at that, near the end of the film. While not a good film in my humble opinion and it’s certainly not one that I could imagine myself rewatching in my spare time, there is some pleasant animation, the characters are voiced well and there are moments of entertainment from time to time.

The cover for Bartok the Magnificent.
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The History Of One Of The Greatest Game Developers, FromSoftware

I’ve recently started playing Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, the latest game released by FromSoftware, and, after a steep learning curve, I’ve been blown away by how incredible Sekiro is. I had doubts when I heard that Sekiro wasn’t an RPG like their Dark Souls series but I’ve been truly astounded by it’s quality and how fun it is. This, along with the hype for the upcoming Elden Ring, made me think that it might be interesting to take a look at the history of FromSoftware, a company that I consider to be one of the greatest game developers of all time!

For a company that took the gaming world by storm in the past 15 years, it might surprise you to learn that FromSoftware was originally founded in 1986 to develop software for businesses! Eventually, FromSoftware shifted to video game development and released their first game in 1994 for the PlayStation, King’s Field. A first-person RPG, King’s Field would go on to have three sequels and featured many mechanics that would go on to define their later games such as difficulty, exploration and abstract storytelling.

The cover for King’s Field, FromSoftware’s first video game.
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