I can remember quite vividly that, while I was in secondary school, I wanted to see some good video game movie adaptations, something which was and still is quite difficult, and I quickly ran into a name that I was told time and time again to avoid, Uwe Boll. Sometimes called “the world’s worst director“, I thought it may be interesting to take a look at Uwe Boll and his strange career.
Recently a Kickstarter to fund two JRPGs from veterans of the JRPG industry was launched with the intention to provide spiritual successors to both the Wild Arms series as well as the Shadow Hearts series. When I told this to someone the other day, their question was “What does being a spiritual successor mean?”. This made me wonder how many other people are unaware of the meaning when a video game is called a spiritual successor. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at what a spiritual successor is when it comes to video games.
The first thing we should discuss is what the term “spiritual successor” actually means. A spiritual successor is a work that employs the style, themes or, in the case of video games, gameplay of a prior piece of media while being separate and legally distinct with none of the characters, creatures, world etc. that made up the previous work. There are many reasons why this may be the case and we’ll go through these reasons while also providing examples.
The titles featured in the Kickstarter are spiritual successors to both Wild Arms and Shadow Hearts.
When it was announced that Microsoft was going to be acquiring Activision-Blizzard, I remember a lot of discussion surrounding how many gaming studios Microsoft would have after the deal went through. Within this discussion, there were a few people who stated that Microsoft would still pale compared to the Embracer Group. As you can imagine, I was quite surprised that there was such a massive publisher of games that I was unfamiliar with. However, upon researching the subject, it quickly became apparent why I had not heard of them. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the Embracer Group and why I consider them to be the hidden giant of video gaming.
I recently saw an announcement stating that THQ Nordic are producing a new Alone in the Dark game. Upon seeing that announcement, my first thought was “I wonder if the other Alone in the Dark games are available on Steam”. Taking a look, I saw that they were heavily reduced and quickly picked up the first five games for a little over €2. As a fan of the Resident Evil franchise, it surprises me that I’ve yet to play any of these games but I’ve learned enough about these games now that I thought it would be interesting to provide an overview of the Alone in the Dark franchise which is both incredibly important in the history of video games but is also very inconsistent in quality.
Of course, it makes sense that we begin with the game that started it all, the 1992 Alone in the Dark video game. Originally released for MS-DOS and developed by Infogrames, Alone in the Dark has you select either Edward Carnby or Emily Hartwood to explore a mansion which ends up being supernatural. The game laid the foundation for what would become the survival horror subgenre by establishing fixed, claustrophobic camera angles, finding items to solve puzzles and defend themselves from the monsters that inhabit the mansion etc. which was later popularised by the Resident Evil franchise. The game proved to be so successful that the idea of producing an anthology of horror games, called Virtual Dreams, was scrapped in favour of producing sequels to Alone in the Dark.
The two Mega Man ZX games were originally released for the Nintendo DS between 2006 and 2007 and takes place a few hundred years after Mega Man Zero where, after living peacefully for a long time, reploids are going Maverick. Interestingly, you’re given the option between playing a male or female protagonist who can use abilities by transforming into heroes from the Megaman X and Zero series. Mega Man ZX also introduces an explorable world similar to a metroidvania.
The first time that I encountered the Mega Man franchise was the Battle Network series that were released for the Gameboy Advance which appealed to me due to its RPG mechanics. Only recognising Mega Man as Battle Network, I saw Mega Man X7 in a store one day and immediately wanted it. Upon getting it, you can imagine my surprise when I began playing and it turned out to be an action platformer game. When I eventually developed a renewed interest in the Mega Man franchise in 2017 with the release of the second Legacy Collection for the classic Mega Man series, that’s when I began to learn that the Mega Man franchise was much larger than I thought. Having played through Mega Man Legacy Collection 1 and 2, Mega Man 11, Mega Man X Legacy Collection 1 and 2 and currently playing the Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection while also looking forward to the upcoming Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection, I thought it would be interesting to provide an overview of the various subseries that make up the Mega Man franchise.
Mega Man (Classic)
The original Mega Man series, sometimes referred to as Classic Mega Man, was the first incarnation of the franchise. Beginning with the original game, released in 1987 for the NES, this series is set in 20XX and sees Dr. Light develop robots with free thought. However, another scientist called Dr. Wily reprograms many of these robots to go on a destructive rampage, causing Mega Man to spring into action in order to defeat Dr. Wily. This series has spanned 11 games with several spin-offs but the basic gameplay has remained the same. An action platformer where you select levels to go to in a non-linear manner, the defeat of each Robot Master grants Mega Man a new weapon which also serves as the weakness of another Robot Master. Once you’ve defeated each Robot Master, you go to Dr. Wily’s lair where you must face several bosses, a boss rush of the Robot Masters and, ultimately, Dr. Wily himself. As the series went on, new mechanics were added to shake up the gameplay but these games remain the foundation of the franchise.
Steam recently held a gaming sale called “Going Rogue: A Festival Of Persistence” with the idea being to highlight roguelike video games alongside several other subgenres such as souls-likes and metroidvanias. Amusingly, Steam themselves acknowledged how complicated the question of what a roguelike video game is by releasing a blog post called “Going Rogue: A crash course in a confusing (sub) genre“. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at this topic, share some examples that I’ve played and clarify some details.
Starting with a little bit of a history lesson, the term “Roguelike” comes from a video game called “Rogue”. Originally released in 1980, Rogue laid down the foundations of what a roguelike was such as permadeath and procedurally generated dungeons. Roguelikes were historically turn-based RPGs but the genre has developed to the point now where the gameplay covers a wide variety of playstyles such as shooters, platformers, strategy etc.
The most common argument that I see as to why all video games should include multiple difficulty levels is that it would allow the game to be played by more people. I understand this argument and, as someone who used to pick the easiest difficulty settings as a child, I can see why people would believe that. However, I also think that this ignores several good reasons why a game may not have a difficulty setting in the first place.
I want to start off by saying that I love JRPGs. My favourite game of all time is a JRPG and I am continually drawn to these games as I quite often enjoy their storytelling, graphical style, gameplay etc. However, there is something that I’ve come to dread now when I play JRPGs and that is having to deal with their side-quests. It feels like JRPGs are not only behind Western RPGs when it comes to side-quests but that they’re getting progressively worse as well! Given that, I wanted to discuss this problem and take a look at some JRPGs that are rife with bad side-quests.
Before I start discussing the problem of bad side-quests in JRPGs, I want to take a moment to discuss what side-quests are, what makes a side-quest good or bad and some examples of JRPGs and Western RPGs that have great side-quests. At its most basic, a side-quest is an optional quest that the player can do to earn some kind of benefit such as new gear, lore and experience. Ideally, the task presented to the player should be enjoyable, contribute to the world and characters and have a reward that makes the side-quest worth doing. It’s easy to point to Western RPGs such as The Witcher games and The Elder Scrolls as great examples of how to do side-quests right but I also want to point out some JRPG examples. One JRPG side-quest that I remember very fondly is the Wutai quest from Final Fantasy VII. The side-quest introduces a problem that shakes up how you’ve been playing until then, presents quite a bit of backstory to one of the characters and their motivation, completes the arc of a villain from earlier in the game and presents numerous new equipment, materia and experience to make it worth doing. Chrono Trigger is another great example of a JRPG with great side-quests which develop your party members’ backgrounds while presenting great rewards for doing them.
Before I start sharing these thoughts though, I wish to briefly run over what a video game remake is as opposed to a video game remaster since these terms are sometimes used interchangeably. To quickly summarise, a video game remaster uses the original assets while making changes to UI, improving graphics and audio, increasing the frame rate etc. while a video game remake rebuilds the game from the ground up.
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