Setting Sail For Adventure

Well...since this is MY blog...I guess I'll put stuff up here that I myself do from time to time.

For today's entry this will be about a video game I've been wanting to do since High School. Xenohunter.

The premise was sort of a reverse Metroid. You would play as the Space Pirate, Xenohunter, who had come to a planet to find all sorts of treasure and it would play sort of like a mix of Earthworm Jim, Yoshi's Story, and Kirby the Great Cave Offensive. Along the way a bounty hunter by the name of Bounty Brain would be after you to collect money from your capture. The ultimate treasure however would be a legendary sword that had either beaten or sealed away the mythical Space Dragon, Klendauk, who would serve as the final boss of the game.

That premise has remained basically the same over the years with me adding in more and more details quite frequently. What was once a rather barren planet is now a lively cave system with villagers, a run-down galactic prison, an abandoned construction site, a clan of origami people at war with the villages of the planet, ancient ruins, a female cop now keeping an eye on Bounty Brain as he does his job, and plenty of other tidbits here and there.

As I said, Earthworm Jim was one of the inspirations. That's clear in the whipping motions that Xenohunter attacks with and such, but it goes deeper than that. You see to me Earthworm Jim is arguably the best game ever made. Not just because it was fun, but because it was alive. It was sooo much more animated than any other video game back then and it still holds pretty true today even with the advancements in technology. I knew from the start that I wanted Xenohunter, like all of my stuff, to be as animated as possible. I would stand for nothing less than cartoons. I wouldn't be wasting my time with crappy 8-bit pixel art or anything. No, I wanted to make a playable cartoon.

Of course back then I had not the skill nor dedication to take on such a task. Hell, I hadn't even made an animation back then. But over the years I grew and so did my abilities. I started drawing up 2D animations on paper after I'd finished High School in my free time with the first attempts being really uh...primitive. But even then it was a joy to see my characters actually alive. Eventually I tried Xenohunter...and completely messed him up. The animation was crap. I needed to get better and moving thick limbs and objects first. So I sorta...forgot about him for a while.

Then the best game in years showed up. Rayman Origins. I could not believe my eyes. It was THE game I had been waiting for. It's the kind of game that the industry should've been working towards throughout the past generations instead of abandoning 2D sidescrollers. With that game I'd decided it. It was possible to make cartoon video games! Even better graphically than Earthworm Jim! I got back to animating Xenohunter and in time I came up with a loose slumping walk cycle. But by now I'm pretty sure I've gotten his figure down. Every so often I'll accidentally draw him bigger for a few frames and have to go back and shrink him by redrawing the frames, but I'm now more dedicated than ever to make the thing look good.

 

But the details in visuals aren't the only things to have improved. A few months back I finally played a game that'd been out since 2004. Even though I'd always heard and seen it, I never played it. So I bought the best looking version for WiiWare and...my god...Cave Story has to be like my favorite game since when I was a kid. It showed me that I can have an actual plot going on alongside the exploration that the game is based around. That is what's been getting me thinking of a slew of new ideas for the game.

And it's not just a single game neither that I wanna make. Even though I'll be fine with just doing one Xenohunter game if that's all I ever get to do/complete, I do have a bit of a series thought out. Different planets and locales that his adventures would take him across. From mythical Space Dragons to ancient Weapons of Mass Destruction, Xenohunter would take on all sorts of galactic trials that threaten interstellar civilization and in the process collect all sorts of treasure in his quests.

As of right now I've got a slew of concepts and stuff in my Xenohunter folder on Deviant Art (which you can view here: http://warahi.deviantart.com/gallery/23905581 ), with this being the latest piece I finished. A painting that I'll be using as the background of the first area of the game:

And now that I've come across Pulseboy, an 8-Bit music-making program, I'm able to get the music tracks for the game put down in some form to listen to (though I'll definitely want actual instruments or at least a better sounding medium to make the actual tracks with), I'm closer than ever. This is the folder on my youtube account for Xenohunter's (8-Bit) Soundtrack: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvPThgQknXcJ0r1m4CsQXNMSX5qgQTcTJ&feature=mh_lolz

I guess I'll paste updates here as I continue with the project =)

Preserving the Energy

The 64-bit era was a changing time. And a downfall. You see, as revolutionary as the new dimension was, 3D essentially killed 2D gaming. Now most people didn't really care back then nor did they see the drawback. You see, as limiting as 2D was, it provided for an experience like no other. A much more complete style of gameplay when compared to the new ambitious 3D titles that could usually be broken open like a walnut by comparison with how buggy and inexperienced the field was at the time. 2D was also beautiful when 3D hit which is a real shame as, had 3D not gotten in the way, we could have gotten even more unfathomably eye-pleasing visuals for sidescrollers.

Mega Man 8 and Mega Man X4 were proof enough of that. But everyone wanted 3D, and so everyone unfortunately forgot about 2D gaming. Sure there were astounding sidescrollers in that era like Klonoa and Yoshi's Story, but those were so few and far between that the genre had practically died.

Now don't get me wrong, games like Super Mario 64 and Banjo-Kazooie are incredible and I'd play them any day of the week. But they simply could not reach the level of visual quality that a 2D game at the time could. The hardware was not ready for that kind of strain. But even then, many games simply didn't try hard enough with visuals.

Now I know people will hate on me for this but...I like visuals to look good. That's part of why I always like Classic Sonic over NES Mario or Star Fox 64 3D (in many instances) over the original Star Fox 64. Like it or not, graphics ARE part of a game. They don't MAKE a game, but neither does gameplay. Everything put together makes a game, and if one of those qualities is lacking I'm going to like that quality in a game that does it better over the title I'm presented with. That's part of why I can't stand what they did with Mega Man 9 and 10. I'm sorry, but they look like **** compared to 7 and 8.




By this time we should be playing cartoons, not 8-bit sprites. It's fine to poke fun at the old stuff and all, but making entire games utilizing that for professional titles is just wasted ****ing potential. That's why I consider Rayman Origins one of the greatest sidescrollers in recent days. It actually progressed from what Rayman 1 was.

 But that's neither here nor there. Point is, things did not look as good as they used to in the 2D era and people simply didn't put the effort forth to make them look as good as they could. That is why I usually remember the 16-bit era as well as I do and usually put it over the 64 one.

That's not to say that it all looked like crap though. Far from it. Many looked nice and molded their own style with the limitations they had. But it wasn't until a certain small gaming company starting in a garage took their stab at the genre that we got a game that brought back the liveliness of the gaming world. I am of course talking about Naughty Dog and their first true success and breakthrough in the video game industry: Crash Bandicoot.

Now Sony was just breaking into the gaming industry in those days. Playstation 1, their very first system to get back at Nintendo for screwing them over with the whole CD-I incident, was fresh on the market and they were bringing in a new light to gamers. With Sega preoccupied by their American division suiciding themselves, it (sadly) wasn't too hard for Sony to fill in their shoes for the time being. But Nintendo had something that Sony didn't. Mario. A mascot. Sony didn't seem that interested in really tackling the situation, but Naughty Dog didn't seem to care. When they were brought onboard to make a game they wanted to make something impactful. Something that could be recognized. An actual cartoon character in the 3D world. One that could compete against the popular plumber.

Naughty Dog wanted to make the best game they possibly could. And that's the real difference between classic gaming and modern gaming. Yes, games brought in money, but the people working on them back then, by and large, wanted to make actual good games. Now that's not to say that people don't still want to do that, but with the industry as bloated and overblown as it's become, it's inevitable (as with any form of medium when it gets popular) that mostly games are made simply to make money due to executives that have no business (or knowledge of gaming even) running things being in charge.

Back then there was a passion and drive for game-makers. It was a testing ground in that time period and pretty much anything was allowed with how new and ambitious the field was. A stark contrast to the marine-filled dark gritty blandness of things today.

 

No, Crash Bandicoot was lively and vibrant. A world full of color and art, the likes of which had not been seen in the 3D world until that point. Naughty Dog truly wanted to bring a cartoon to 3D, not just another game character. They made the world as detailed as possible and pushed the Playstation to its very limits with each new game they came out with.

 

To ensure that the characters themselves were able to be felt by the players Naughty Dog had actual cartoonists working in the making of the characters.

 It went beyond the simpleness of Mario. The blocky chunkiness that focused more on making obstacles and paths to test how platforming operates in 3D. Crash Bandicoot stuck to a more simplified style of movement with just one path that you followed instead of a more opened world. It wasn't that they didn't pay attention to platforming, not by a long shot. But this more linear style of gameplay understandably lead to a better focus on designing the visuals and flow of the world and characters that Super Mario 64 simply had not the excess to leave room for.

 

I had seen 3D games before Crash Bandicoot, but the first time I saw him I was young. My dad worked at an animation company in Cincinnati, Ohio by the name of Lightborne and I came in there one day. I still remember the spinal cord-looking staircase they had to the second floor. And they had the biggest TV I had ever seen in my life next to it. And below that? A playstation. I turned it on and this played.

I could not believe what I was looking at. I thought it was some 3D animation project the crew was working on at first, but then I pressed the buttons and started playing the game. I'll never forget that experience. It was like no other. The character was actually alive. He stretched and squashed with his movements. His hops felt like they had actual weight to them. His eyes could get bigger and shrink and wobble. And the death scenes.

Genius.

And as time went on and new installments came out the quality only got better. Deaths got more outrageous.

More movement was added.

Crash did dances.

And he just felt alive. As fun as Mario 64 was, Crash provided much innovation from bringing personality back into the industry.

The Less Remembered Classic

"Well I guess my favorite anime might be uh...um...hm...oh! Probably Dragon Ball!"

"Oh yeah man I love Dragon Ball! Frieza and Ginyu and-"

"No I said Dragon Ball, not Z."

"oh..."

"..it's the one before-"

"Y-yeah...that..."

*Later*

"How is Dragon Ball better? Z was what kicked ass. It's the one that's popular. It has Saiyans. It-"

*sigh*

...yeah...sadly that's how a majority of the conversations end up.

But I guess I can see why, Z, especially in America, is WAY more popular than Dragon Ball. Hell, a lot of people (somehow) don't even know Dragon Ball exists...even though it's clear in the first episode of Z that you're jumping into the middle of a story.

But regardless, why do I think Dragon Ball is superior to Z curious person that I made up? A number of reasons. The story's way better, things are a hell of a lot funner, there's actual adventure rather than just constant bland fighting and talking, there isn't the whole "world will be annihilated at the flick of a finger" crap, it feels way more magical, no Saiyan crap, and numerous other things.

The main thing though is that Dragon Ball is more of a cartoon than Z and is thus far more enjoyable to me. You see the only part of Z I actually liked was Buu. Because it was fun and cartoony again. Sure how powerful everything was by that point was ridiculous, but it was way more entertaining to watch than any of the embarrassingly serious crap that came before it.

Now a lot of you are probably thinking "it being more of a cartoon doesn't mean it's better". Allow me to explain how it does make it better then. How it makes the scenes more pleasing to the eye. How it amuses the viewer's head even if they aren't noticing. How it gives the show life.

Now this applies to anime in general. When anime was first getting started, with Astro Boy and the other such titles that Osamu Tezuka made, they were focused far more on animation. It was a much simpler time which meant much more effort was put into making things move. People were enthralled to even see characters take a step. In this way, Osamu Tezuka's shows were essentially the Disney of Japan and are some of the most like Western cartoons that there are.

In that sense, Dragon Ball was somewhat following in that vein. Yes it was more about fighting and far better animated than those original Tezuka shows were, but it still had the wonder of movement. The bounciness that shook the characters upon impact and exaggerated their postures for visual effect. Naturally this provoked more of a venture into humor which Akira Toriyama put to full effect in the original Dragon Ball.

Unfortunately as time went on he felt the need to make things more serious. Now more serious can be done fine if it remains interesting like with Piccolo and Red Ribbon. With those they constantly had stuff happening and they didn't last for HUNDREDS of episodes. They were nice compact adventures that didn't dawdle on boring locations like Namek or random canyon number seven. It also helped that the character designs were much more interesting. I don't give a damn what no one says, Frieza just looks gay and is the epitome of boring....

In fact...Frieza represented everything wrong with Z in my eyes. I mean the only thing all that Namek crap had going for it was the Ginyu Force.

Other than that it was just constant sitting around.

Waiting for crap to happen.

In the blandest setting in the entire series...

Against mostly uninteresting looking gay aliens (seriously, why was everything gay in that part of the series?).

With their leader just sitting in his throne room all damn day long...

And FINALLY, after ALL of his troops are killed he FINALLY comes in to fight.

And it takes...

For....

Fucking...

Ever....

Seriously! Like 3 god damn hours long! Why the bloody hell did it have to be that damn long?! It certainly isn't helped by the fact that everyone and their damn grandma in Z have to comment on every little move that happens in each fight during the whole thing, but it's just too god damn much! Frieza's already boring to look at. But three hours?...THREE HOURS?! Yet for some reason he seems to be the most remembered thing to many people...and I really don't get why.

...look, there's a point at which the viewer stops caring. Not fanboys, but normal people usually do. It's at that point that they question "why am I watching this? It's the same crap...going on...forever...". It isn't a game where you become accustomed to what you're playing and expect to have more of the same respond to your inputs on the controller. It's a cartoon. It's supposed to have stuff change often enough to keep the viewer locked in. If it just dawdles on forever on the same thing they lose interest and flip the channel.

The same fight with Frieza could've taken place in like thirty minutes or even shorter and would've still gotten the point across without wasting so much time on the redundancy of the situation. But what kills the fight is the animation. It's not as bad as some of the Android Saga animation, but it really went downhill quite a bit after the Saiyan Saga animation-wise (not that that was much better).

Now I ain't talkin' about the art. I'm talking about the animation. Many people get the two confused if they aren't familiar with one. Art is the style.

And while I'll always love Dragon Ball's nice soft roundness when compared to the jaggedy bland generic crap that Z became that's not what I'm talking about.  Animation is how something moves. Bounce and stretch as I explained thoroughly above. One of the reasons I loved Dragon Ball so much was because the animation was so much better.


Everyone always talks about the fights in Z being better, but that simply is not true. It's, again, just the same crap over and over. In Z the animators seemed to just get into a monotenous and, quite frankly, annoying formula of "punch, teleport, punch, teleport, teleport, appear in front of opponent, punch as opponent teleports away". And it just goes on...and on...and on like that. There is no life to it. Dragon Ball Z is like robots fighting each other.

Dragon Ball was so much more interesting when it came to fights. It wasn't all about that beam crap. Yes there was the Kamehameha, but that was hardly ever used until the situation actually needed it. In Z they're constantly throwing those ki-blasts. Dragon Ball focused a lot more on actual physical fighting and as such provided quite a bit more in the way of visual wonder when it came to the feats that characters pulled off against the diverse opponents they came up against.

And this is where animation came into play. Too many people pass off things that utilize bounce and stretch as goofy when in fact they're just tools. They're a means to pour life into the product. Cartoons are about exaggerations. Since they aren't real life they have to have extremes drawn to amplify the scene. Your eye sees the drawings going by too fast for you to realize what you're looking at, but your brain does pick up on it and puts it together that something that has more bouncing and stretching and warping in the frames is something that is more alive and active and as such is something that it's going to pay more attention to than something that has less of that type of element.

Basically what I'm saying is the squashing and stretching made Dragon Ball feel more alive than Z. The more constant movements and flow of the body actions is far more pleasing to the mind than the robotic stiff animation shortcuts that litter Z. With opponents that flew and that moved too fast for people to see half of the time the animators didn't need to animate as much. The manga is nowhere near as bad with this as Akira Toriyama drew still images. But in the cartoon teleporting during fights and disappearing was just cheap tricks most of the time so that the people working on it didn't have to actually animate parts of the fights.

Now yes, that same thing happened in Dragon Ball from time to time, but that was just it. It was "time to time" not "EVERY SINGLE FIGHT EVERY SECOND". And the first time it's even used during the Krillin vs. Jackie Chun fight it's completely for comedy purposes with the Budokai Announcer participating afterwards in the hilarious Play they put on of what they did during the time that the audience could not see them. Even when those techniques were at their most prominent however, the fights still possessed amazing animation.

Even the most basic of fights against henchmen tended to have better animation. Take for instance the fight where Krillin is fighting General Blue of the Red Ribbon Army.

That scene that starts at about 15 seconds in is what I'm talking about. Not the best executed, but it certainly beats out the stereotypical "standing in one place and making the same punches over and over" from Z. The characters actually flip around the camera. And that's not even getting into the Goku portion of the fight.

Sadly, I couldn't find the Goku portion on youtube (seriously, why the hell is it so hard to find some of the original series' fights?), but I do remember this one bit where Goku ducks beneath Blue's attack and you can see a single frame where his head jerks up before squashing down to avoid the hit. It may sound silly, but watching it in motion adds quite a bit more liveliness than if he'd just stooped down without acknowledging the hit like they would do nowadays.

But let's not stop there shall we? Let's grab some more examples! How about one of the most memorable fights (to me) from the series? Jackie Chun vs. Goku at the end of the first tournament!

It may be clumsy at parts, but by and large is far more interesting than Z in that you can see all the movements. This is a rare moment of the combatants in the series actually being worn down to their last drop. They have no more energy to spare so they're actually having to fight and giving it their all instead of resorting to the typical tricks like in most other matches. This may be one of the, if not the, most relateable fights in the entire franchise. Nothing left to spare so they're moving at normal speed allowing you to see all the twists and flips that they do in full. All the impressive physical feats.

And of course the ever kick-ass Japanese theme, Mezase Tenkaichi, certainly helps the atmosphere.

And that's one thing that always sort of killed Z, at least in America. They always redid the soundtrack. You didn't get to hear the music that was supposed to be throughout the show like in Japan. You didn't get Cha-La-Head-Cha-La or Piccolo's theme or Buu's theme. You got techno club sounding crap.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that the Falcouner music isn't...okay...but it doesn't belong in Dragon Ball is the thing. Dragon Ball is supposed to sound grand and orchestral. Take that away and you take away most of the atmosphere for the show changing it entirely which has sort of played a part in people expecting just non-stop gritty boring darkness in the West whenever they think of the show instead of the joyful fun happiness that's supposed to be present.

This came to its most rediculous extreme in the Broly movie (forgive me if it did get worse and I don't realize it since I stopped watching the American versions of Dragon Ball movies long ago) where they used actual metal Korn songs...I mean...seriously?...in DRAGON BALL?...what the fuck?

But that's neither here nor there. We're here (mainly) to talk about the animation. So why not present another tournament fight?

The fight between brothers. Goku vs. Krillin.

This fight is all about animation. At instances like 1:56 you can see Goku's arm actually bounces from the impact of Krillin's blows while Krillin himself gets a split second look of shock at around 1:58 or 1:59 when he notices Goku getting ready, Krillin's head yanking down slightly as the action happens.  Sadly cheap tricks are prevalent a bit here with reusing scenes but there's enough variety to keep it interesting.

Then, at around 2:06, a scene starts with Goku fully animated running at the screen which then pans around to a POV looking at Krillin where Goku finishes the attack, his feet constantly running (not something done in Z without lazy animation) which ends at around 2:12. Then shortly after at 2:20 another impressive feat begins where Goku hops into the air with Krillin taking off after him, them trading blows in rapid succession until they hit the ground. The camera actually pans slightly lending more to the feel of life in the scene which ends at 2:28 after panning around to face the now grounded Krillin. And of course, there's the delightful little scene of Krillin puffing up like a balloon. Sadly it's entirely absent of Mezase Tenkaichi which was in the original Japanese version so here's that:

For a final example let's head towards the end of the series with the main antagonist himself, Piccolo Daimao.

Now to me Piccolo was probably the best villain in the franchise. Scary when he first showed up as the creepy old man, the King of Demons, and was actually smart.

By now the teleporting really is starting to show, but mainly from the villain who's supposed to be better than the hero. Goku's moves are still shown mostly without interruption by quick movements, his skills on full display against a far more menacing opponent and one that in the end manages to actually overpower and practically kill him without much effort. Without the use of repeating scenes Piccolo and Goku are shown battering each other using weight and momentum to counteract the other's moves. Piccolo's tall form (him being amongst the tallest characters in the franchise) makes for some interesting maneuvering from Goku whereas in Z he would just be punching him anywhere to hurt him. You wouldn't get the scene of Goku rolling once he misses Piccolo and then immediately launching upwards after him in Z at 1:31. That would all be cut in favor of more teleportation animation shortcuts or generic looks upwards before leaping up.

And then the scenes right afterwards where Piccolo slams his hands into Goku's head is just painful. You can feel the surge of agony in that split second as you see Goku's head squash out in those few frames (something that would be a miracle to see at all in a Z fight), sweat peppering the air around him. Oh...and to all the people impressed by the "Frieza dodging everyone" crap, Piccolo did it first right here at 1:55. And finally the finish. That last punch. Goku goes sailing straight towards Piccolo and then WAM! Face is there in his fist for a few frames before the fist passes and Goku hurtles through the air. That all would pass far quicker in Z with less attention to the impact that that kind of blow would have. Instead here we get the same sense of pain that must have rocketed from that strike. The nose shattering force slowing the scene down for full effect.

Now, let's compare all this to Z. Since Frieza's the most popular I'll be doing him I guess...not that I'll have much to show. Just two videos cause I really can't stand the three hour fighting crap they pulled. But these should be enough to get my point across.

The first one will be the first part of Vegeta fighting Frieza's final form.

This right here is the epitome of what Z is. Just stale boring dodges and punches. The same damn actions used over and over in the most basic of patterns that can be drawn for the character's choreography.

As for the other video, here.

Surprisingly I have some positive things to say. This video possesses some of the best animation from a fight in Z...which is sad, but hey, at least it's a positive...for that little bit. It's those bits where Frieza is dodging Vegeta's blasts at 2:08-2:15 and 3:03-3:09 that I'm surprised made it into the show. You'd think they'd just continually teleport him in a blank floating animation. But no, they take the time to actually have Frieza bend in interesting ways before he makes the teleports.

...and sadly...that's about as good as it gets. At least for the Frieza fight. Most of Z isn't any better, and the little bits here and there of full animation are not nearly enough throughout the series.

With all that I've said, well...I hope I've explained why I like Dragon Ball more than Z. Why it feels magical and alive while Z feels robotic and boring.

But...just my opinion...