Category: Video Games

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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What Minigames Add And Take Away From The Gaming Experience

Published April 20, 2020

It can take a long time to complete a video game. The average video game can take you anywhere between 10 to 20 hours to beat and there are plenty that can take even longer! While many video games are undoubtedly fun, doing the same thing for hours upon hours can potentially exhaust you. You might be tempted to take a break and do something different, perhaps play another video game of a different genre or watch a film or a TV series. The game developers, of course, don’t want you to do this and many choose to include minigames…

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Do You Finish Your Games?

Published April 9, 2020

It seems like the logical answer to this question should be a resounding yes. Surely the majority of gamers finish the games they play, right? While pondering the question, I was reminded of a statistic I saw many years ago where I read that only 10% of players finish the game they are playing. Of course, that news story is quite old by this point. I went looking for more recent information and discovered a news article from late 2017 which calculated how many people completed a game based on their achievements. While not as dire as the earlier news story, it does seem to show that a majority of gamers do not complete the games they start. Why is this?

An obvious answer would be that people give up games they are not enjoying. I know for sure that I have given up on games in the past because I was not enjoying them. Life is too short and time too precious to be spending time playing a game that you dislike (unless you are reviewing the game, streaming the game, doing research etc).

An image of Geralt from the Witcher trilogy.

As of this article, only 26.8% of people who own Witcher 3 on Steam have completed it.

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Should Japanese Games on PC Be More Competitive During Sales?

Published March 30, 2020

I remember going onto the Humble Store in the past year and seeing that Square Enix games were on sale. From past experience I knew that the sale would only include their Western titles such as Tomb Raider, Life is Strange and Deus Ex. A few days later, I saw that Square Enix Japan had decided to join the sale. However, whereas Square Enix’s Western titles were as much as 85% off, their Japanese games were limited to 50% off or less. This made me think about how Japanese publishers price their games during sales compared to Western publishers.

The first thing I want to address is the possible misconception that this article is about self-entitlement. I could easily imagine someone reading the first paragraph and thinking “This guy just wants cheap games!” However, as I’ve mentioned before, I primarily play Japanese games and my only platform for video games these days is the PC. It wasn’t too long ago when very few Japanese games came out for PC and I wish to see them succeed on the PC platform.

While only one of many Japanese games publishers, the difference in pricing between their Japanese and Western divisions make them an ideal example for this article.

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Linear Vs Open World Game Design

Published March 19, 2020

I can remember the controversy of Final Fantasy XIII when it was released. People had a variety of problems with the game (I’m more fond of the game than most as evidenced by my Final Fantasy game ranking) but one of the more prominent issues was the linearity of the game. Considering how open world Final Fantasy XV ended up becoming, I thought it might be worth discussing the pros and cons of linear vs open world game design.

To start with, I should explain that I have always leaned towards Japanese games over Western games. In my youth I played as many JRPGs as I could get my hands on (this usually meant just Final Fantasy). These games tended to favor a linear design which meant exploring a world where you progressed from point to point, occasionally exploring a side area but, in general, limiting exploration until you acquired vehicles that allowed you to traverse mountains, sea and air late in the game.

Often in Final Fantasy games, you will receive an airship to explore the world near the end of the game.

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My Thoughts On Collecting Merchandise

Published March 5, 2020

Whether you are into anime, manga, video games, western animation etc, it is near impossible to avoid the intense marketing of merchandise. Whenever I enter a GameStop store these days, I note how much of the store is now dedicated to merchandising. Perusing Twitter (and the internet in general), I am flooded with ads for collectible figurines, plushies, mugs etc. Why is merchandising so crucial to the industries and what are my thoughts on collecting it?

Merchandising has always been important as a source of revenue for anime. When Osamu Tezuka created the 1963 TV series of Astro Boy, he realized that he would not be able to recoup his costs from television networks. Instead, merchandising was viewed as key to making the Astro Boy anime profitable. Even today, merchandising is vital to the anime industry with series such as Puella Magi Madoka Magica bringing in $400 million of merchandise within 2 years. I would be remiss if I did not mention one of the most successful anime franchises of all time, Gundam and the fact that the series has made billions in merchandising.

Astro Boy established the importance of merchandising for anime.

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VR: A Discussion

Published March 2, 2020

It has been nearly 4 years since the first commercially available VR (Virtual Reality) headsets such as the HTC Vive, the Oculus Rift and the PlayStation VR were released. Despite all of this time, it still feels like VR gaming is niche and has yet to break into the mainstream. 2020 is poised to be an important year for VR and I felt like having a discussion of why I’m excited about VR while, at the same time, pointing to some of the problems that must be sorted out.

Let’s begin by explaining what VR gaming is. Pretty much all VR headsets feature a screen for each eye and the goal is to make you feel immersed in the world of the game. Beyond that, the headsets differ in how they track the movement of your body, whether they use a console, PC or other device and what controllers they use.

2016 felt like we were on the verge of a gaming revolution. The first VR headsets became commercially available and we began to see YouTubers and streamers showing off VR games. Many of these games felt more like tech demos than proper games but, even so, we saw many interesting titles such as Job Simulator, Space Pirate Trainer, Superhot VR and more.

Space Pirate Trainer was one of the most exciting games I saw for VR in 2016.

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Why You Should Play Puzzle Games

Published February 13, 2020

Recently I played a game called “Zero Escape: The Nonary Games” which is a compilation collecting the first two games of the Zero Escape Trilogy. These games are visual novels where you proceed from room to room and solve puzzles in order to escape from them. As I played through them, I remembered how the satisfaction from puzzle games feels different and unique compared to other game genres.

It is true that many games make use of puzzles within various genres. Quite often these are simplistic where you move pillars to determined spots or direct beams of light. These puzzles can make a good break from the normal gameplay but are typically easy to complete as the game doesn’t want to slow you down too much. My question to you is when was the last time you played a game that you had to take notes to solve a puzzle?

Notes I made while playing Zero Escape: The Nonary Games

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