Category: Video Games

Anime Cutscenes in Video Games

Published August 20, 2020

I’ve recently been playing (and enjoying) the PC port of Persona 4 Golden. I had previously played the original Persona 4 and was eager to return and see the new additions to the game in the upgraded Golden version. Amongst the many new additions to the game, of which there are many, there are a few new anime cutscenes that have been added to bolster those found in the original game. This made me think about the usage of anime cutscenes in video games and how different they are to regular cutscenes.

Just in case some of you are unfamiliar with the concept of a cutscene, these are typically non-interactive sequences where a scene within the game plays out linearly with many pre-animated elements. An easy comparison to make is to compare these cutscenes to typical linear media such as movies or television and they have received criticism for taking away control from the player. Nonetheless, cutscenes remain a very important aspect of storytelling in video games.

A screenshot of an anime cutscene from Persona 4 Golden.

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JRPG Recommendations

Published August 10, 2020

I have spoken before of my adoration of Japanese games and I believe that no example of this is greater than my love of JRPGs. However, JRPGs went into a bit of a decline from around the beginning of the 7th generation of consoles and while we have seen the beginnings of a recovery since then, JRPGs remain in an unusual place. In my effort to bring more attention to the genre, I thought it would be worth making a list of recommendations for people who might be looking for some JRPGs to play.

With regards to these titles, it is important to remember that I (as of currently) only play games on PC. All of my recommendations for JRPGs are going to be available on the PC platform but many will also be available on other platforms as well. I am also going to be trying to pick titles that might not be immediately obvious when discussing JRPG recommendations. For this reason, you will not see me recommending Final Fantasy games (I’ve already made a list for those!) or some of the other more recognisable titles.

Grandia

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Curation and Discoverability on Steam

Published July 30, 2020

There is a lot that I love about Steam. I have been using Steam for many years now and have had the opportunity to play a large variety of games on the service. However, Steam has been pretty lethargic for a while when it comes to fixing problems and while the Epic Games Store seems to have given Valve a wake-up call, there are still a myriad of issues to be fixed on the service. Amongst the many problems that Steam faces, I think the issue of curation is the most important for Valve to fix.

It wasn’t too long ago when getting your game released on Steam was a challenge rather than a given. In the past, Valve handpicked what games were released on Steam. A famous example of this was Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale who had to release a demo to get noticed by Valve and allow them to release their game on Steam.

Recettear had to fight to get onto Steam.

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The Concept of Choice in Video Games

Published July 16, 2020

I’ve recently been playing a few games that were developed by Telltale Games and I always take note of the opening text “This game series adapts to the choices you make. The story is tailored by how you play”. This idea of choice is very appealing but, while I still enjoy their games, I am disappointed by how little difference the choices make in the grand scheme of things and thought it might be interesting to discuss the idea of choice in a video game.

Since video games are an interactive medium, having been influenced by traditional role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons as well as Choose Your Own Adventure books, it makes sense that games would allow players to make choices that influence and change the game they play. However, many video games only offer the illusion of choice to the players, changing some minor aspects here and there but failing to change the story in any meaningful way.

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The History of PC Ports of Japanese Sega Games

Published July 2, 2020

There was a lot of excitement recently when rumours began to spread that Persona 4 Golden was coming to PC. When it was finally released on the 13th of June, it quickly broke the concurrent players record for a JRPG! However, the effort that eventually saw Persona 4 Golden released on PC actually began many years ago.

As I’ve spoken about before, there was a long time where Japanese game publishers and developers didn’t release their games for PC. This was for a variety of reasons but, around 2010 to 2012, we began to see more Japanese games release on PC. Excluding the Sonic series, the only Japanese game that Sega released for PC at the time was Binary Domain (the port of which proved divisive).

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Asymmetric Multiplayer: A Discussion

Published June 22, 2020

I was recently watching The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (great horror movie by the way) and decided to look up the character of Sally Hardesty. On her Wikipedia page, it mentions that she is referenced in a game called “Dead by Daylight”. I was familiar with this game from a few years ago but seeing it again reminded me of the topic of asymmetric multiplayer and, given the recent release of Resident Evil: Resistance as part of Resident Evil 3, I thought it worth a discussion.

Let’s start with what an asymmetric multiplayer game is. In contrast to normal multiplayer games where team sizes are typically the same (think of Overwatch and how each team is typically 6v6), asymmetric multiplayer games (usually) feature imbalanced teams where each side is mechanically distinct. Taking Dead by Daylight as an example, a team of 4 survivors attempt to activate generators and escape the premises while the other team consists of a killer who attempts to hunt them down.

A shot of gameplay from Dead by Daylight.

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Games As A Service

Published June 8, 2020

Within the last few years of gaming, a buzz word going around the industry is the term “Games as a service”. An odd phrase with strange connotations, it’s worth exploring the advantages and disadvantages of this format and why, while it works for some games, it should not become the new default model for game development.

But what is games as a service? It refers to a business model where a game, which can either be free to play or bought, is continually updated with a combination of free and paid content. MMOs with their monthly subscriptions were amongst the earliest examples of this model but games as a service has since expanded to include microtransactions, DLC and season passes.

Meridian 59 was one of the earliest MMOs to have a subscription.

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Visual Novels: A Unique Japanese Video Game Genre?

Published May 28, 2020

When I began to explore the worlds of anime and manga, it wasn’t long before I heard the word “Visual Novel”. I had no idea what they were and it wouldn’t be until many years later that I was able to play visual novels (back then, Steam was highly curated and visual novels weren’t available on the platform).

I eventually learned that a visual novel was a text based game usually with anime style visuals. This genre is very popular in Japan with visual novels making up a majority of the PC gaming market. As you might expect, these types of games are controversial for many reasons from the level of sexuality in some of these games to how cheaply many of these games are produced and many even question whether a visual novel is even a video game!

An example of a visual novel, in this case Clannad.

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What is the Ideal Video Game Length?

Published May 14, 2020

Given the recent controversy over the length of the Resident Evil 3 remake, I thought now might be a good time to discuss the ideal video game length. As you might imagine, there is a lot to take into account here from how different genres inherently have different playtimes, the cost of said product and, obviously, personal opinion.

When I was a kid, the length of a video game was pretty much irrelevant to me. I would spend so much time messing about that the game lengths would become inflated. I can remember talking to a girl in college about our favourite Final Fantasy games. I brought up Final Fantasy IV and she responded that it wasn’t one of her favourites. I asked why and she said that the game was too short. I was stunned as I recalled how I could spend 50-80 hours on it as a kid. Soon after I got the opportunity to replay Final Fantasy IV on Steam and was taken aback by how comparatively short the game was, now that I was playing it in an efficient manner.

A battle screen from Final Fantasy IV — Turns out Final Fantasy IV is only a 20-30 hour game.

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How Difficult Should Video Games Be?

Published May 4, 2020

“How Difficult Should Video Games Be?” is an interesting question. Search anywhere on the internet and you will find people impassionately arguing for one side or another. It’s an interesting debate that begets many points of discussion and viewpoints.

When discussing video game difficulty, it is always worth bringing up the concept of “Nintendo Hard” which refers to the brutal difficulty that many games of the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) era (which would include games on the competing Master System) possessed. This is due to the short lengths of the games (which would often be completed too quickly if they weren’t hard) as well as being inspired by arcade games where the goal is to make players spend money when they die.

NES games such as Ninja Gaiden were notorious for their difficulty.

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