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.

Broken Consistency

You must be joking. I know opinions and all that... but RE4 is one of the best games ever made, and it's one of the best in the RE series.

 That was the latest message of the usual type that I receive, courtesy of Kyle Fedora from youtube (congratulations on being the first non-popular person I've mentioned!). Ever since the game came out I have been receiving these types of responses from people that I discuss the series, Resident Evil, with. For those that don't know, Resident Evil was a Survival Horror series that involved backtracking, puzzle-solving, and trying to decide how to use one's ammo and health items to survive and figure out the mystery of what is going on in the individual game with the stories linked by the viral agents that play pivotal roles in the incidents.

Then Resident Evil 4 came out. Once Remake and 0 were presented (or even before then), we started seeing trailers of an all new game. Resident Evil 4. Finally. Ever since Code Veronica people had been wanting a new main sequel. And what they showed us...was incredible.

It was Leon, the cop from Resident Evil 2, investigating some old mansioney looking place. It was quiet, tense, isolating, and really made one jump when they first saw the trailer when classical tricks like the knights pictured above swung their axes down in front of him. And then there was the enemy. The Hookman who's weapon became the very symbol that the number 4 in the title is based off of.

This entity would pop up every now and then to chase down Leon and try to kill him with the bladed item. But was the enemy real? It was pretty hard to tell as, while Leon does manage to "beat" him at one point, he's all warped and seems to manifest out of the walls or thin air. This element likely had to do with the fact that Leon in the beta was to become infected with The Progenitor Virus (the viral agent that all the other viruses came from) and begin hallucinating. It would've been a nice addition considering it'd probably make you question even more when you should or shouldn't use your ammo on something that might not even exist.

Sadly most fans write off the entities that Leon sees in the beta as ghosts when in fact they are hallucinations and as such fit in just fine with all the other scientific elements in the series. As for Progenitor, the game was supposed to have something to do with "The Cradle of the Progenitor Virus". Whatever that meant, it would clearly have had something to do with the origins of Umbrella and their viral research. The game was even going to be the final one in the series had it stayed this kind of Survival Horror that it was continuing on from the previous titles. My expectations were skyrocketing and I couldn't wait to see what it turned out like.

So I waited...and waited...and eventually pictures started showing up in magazines. And what I was seeing...was...weird.

Why were there all these out of place rural-looking villagers?...in Resident Evil?...in a game that was supposed to be taking place in some desolate mansion-type setting?...

But being the tolerable fan I was I waited, researching everything I could and catching back up on my lore and everything for the series. And finally it came out. And as happily as everyone else I bore witness to it.

...and right from the get-go I could tell something was wrong...

....I'm sorry...what?
Lemme read that agai-oh my god I read it right...Umbrella...the Corporation that controlled the world...the main antagonistic force behind the series...has been destroyed in the intro paragraph...from stock prices...

...

STOCK PRICES

...

...alright no. Yes, Umbrella's a Corporation, but it's also a VIDEO GAME VILLAIN. The OVERARCHING villain of the SERIES. It does not ****ing die from stocks dropping! It controlled the damn planet pretty much! It had militaries! It had hordes of experimental monsters! Facilities littering the map! Having THAT be their end is just a slap in the face. Added to that, since this was originally going to be the final game you'd expect the game to END with Umbrella's destruction, not start with it!

*huff*

...*sigh* but okay...okay...it doesn't need Umbrella to be Resident Evil. Their research and viral legacy are what make the series what it is storywise. So I kept watching, mainly intrigued to see how it could continue without the vile company.

Leon for whatever reason now is some secret agent that protects the President's daughter and has been sent to some Spanish village to find her...alone...one agent...to find the PRESIDENT'S daughter...

...the ****?

Kay, whatev. So that's why the game's full of rural Spanish villagers...but where's the connection to past games? The viral agents? Obviously something's making the villagers act up, but what is it? They don't appear to be deteriorating or anything...in fact...they don't even look messed up...just like normal people...normal angry people...not scary...just people...in a game series that's supposed to be horrific...

...it's like some kind of god damn Frankenstein mob. Not scary...just...slightly miffed.

Now THAT is how you do it! Tight corridor, decaying zombie clawing at you! Just a sudden BAM and its got you! No guy hollering a comedic line in Spanish to tell you you're gonna get ambushed. Just right then and there, the chipped away flesh dangling right in your vision. All good stuff.

But with 4? **** that! You get people!

But back to the matter at hand. What's with them exactly? Well, turns out they're infected with a parasite called the Las Plagas.

Now at this point I was thinking "oh my god finally! A connection! They're finally going to reveal more about the NE-Alpha Parasite aren't the-" No...they're not...nothing to do with Nemesis...just some random parasite...dug up by a random cult...lead by a random racist...that's easily the most disappointing main villain in the series...with no ties to anything else...

"But wait! Luis said he saw samples of T back when he was a cop! Surely that has something to do wit-" No. No it does not. That's just the game saying "Hey! Look! T-Virus! Resident Evil, am i rite? =D ".

So, story completely fails in any aspects at being a Resident Evil game. Has no relevance to anything else in the series...and for some reason it has the title "4". Now some people might think it has to do with 5's plot since Las Plagas are again used in that game, but no it does not. They're just used to make the basic human enemies is all. Just tacked on for people coming off of 4. Nothing to do with the plot or Ouroboros since all that we know Ouroboros was made of was Progenitor (FINALLY they get into that some), and Jill's T-Virus Antibodies.

But, the plot is not the main point of a game. A GAME is a main point of a game. How well it plays as the type of game that it's supposed to be. So as a game IN GENERAL, Resident Evil 4 and 5 and blah blah blah are amazing. I'll never deny that. I love playing through them. But you see, if it's part of a series, it should act like it's part of one. It should play like the previous numbered titles. If it doesn't it shouldn't be labeled as such.

When I play Sonic the Hedgehog 2 I should know that it's going to play like the previous game in its series. When they changed the gameplay they didn't call it Sonic the Hedgehog 4, they called it Sonic Adventure.

When they changed Mario's gameplay they didn't call it Super Mario World 4 or something.

They called it Super Mario 64.

And if you want an example of 3D titles changing, Sonic Adventure changed to Sonic Heroes when the gameplay changed again.

You see a title should let you know what you're getting into. The genre. For movies and books it obviously just has to do with the plot as that's the experience you can get from them. For games however the interaction is much more prominent with you actually controlling it. The type of game that it is should take priority. And for the type of game that the Resident Evil series was, Resident Evil 4-onwards do not belong. They belong in some shooter adventure genre or something.

The Resident Evil games always felt like a point and click adventure with puzzles all over the place that were the main focus.

The main difference was that Resident Evil, along with the others of its type, had weapons and combat between the puzzles. But the puzzles were still the main feature and required much exploration and backtracking to find items. While most people might write such things off as annoying, that kind of gameplay familiarized the player with the setting. Gave the location that the game took place in more meaning to their subconscious. So when someone hears the words Resident Evil 2 they automatically think "Police Station! Sewers! Labs! Oh my god, that old room with the drawings on the board and fireplace around back. The power generator that Ada falls over the rail at." or with Resident Evil 1 they might think "the tick tock of that clock...god it never stopped...and the crests! Yep, downed that plant with the chemical. Know the layout of the mansion like the back of my hand.".

With Resident Evil 4 I barely remember a thing because it's all just one straight path pretty much from start to finish. No real interlocking anywhere. Just trails. Every place was the same. Run-down houses with an exploding barrel next to it. Hardly any puzzles to speak of and those that there were could hardly be called them.

Whereas this is the map of the first game

THAT is a place to get lost in! A setting to familiarize one's self with. Just looking at it right now I can picture the Cerberuses breaking in at the lower right hallway or the Hunter the infests the upper right area with the bathroom next to it later. A maze...a joy for any adventuring nut to admire.

This kind of game isn't everyone's cup of tea though. And that's all fine and well. But a series should not bend over backwards to please people that aren't even into it to begin with. It should stick to the kind of game that it is to further please those that do enjoy it.

In spite of the vastly changed gameplay though, the main control of 4, 5, and so on are pretty much like the classics only with the camera behind the character...so...there's that I guess...as similar as Fall of Cybertron is to Silent Hill pretty much.

And I mean you can still find weapons lying aroun-

...

what...the...****...

Alright, I'm gonna say this right here and now.

*Clears throat*

The Merchant is one of the absolute worst things to ever happen to Resident Evil.

...and since I'm not dead I guess I'll continue. What I mean by that is that, while the character himself, along with things like Salazar, are fine for the series in their just bizarreness, his FUNCTION is not at all acceptable.

There should not be a SHOP in a survival horror game, especially of the type that Resident Evil was. You should not be able to buy crap. Hell, you shouldn't even be able to get money. It should serve no function what-so-ever. The weapons and ammo that you find? That should all be found in the setting itself. There should be a finite amount of it. And I know, there's ALWAYS more than enough to kill everything in the game. If there wasn't it wouldn't be fair. But the difference is that in the old games you have to actually FIND things to use. In the newer ones, this happens.

You kill an enemy and they drop an item. That should not happen unless it's something holding a key item. Enemies should not be feeding you ammo and health throughout the incident. There should be a FINITE amount of ammo and health lying around that you have to FIND. Just giving it to you takes away from the effort it takes to find it and as such decreases the very nature of the type of game that it's supposed to be. Playing detective and finding things were what the games were. Come 4 it's just a shoot em up that requires no effort what-so-ever.

And to further drive home the detective...ness of the titles, there were notes lying around everywhere! Remember these?

Yeah, I hardly do too by now. You see, from RE1-CV we had these pieces of paper that were just drizzled all over the place. It could be the diary of some cell mate or scientist or it could be something as important as how the specific virus of the game came to be and what it's purpose and effects were. They provided something called lore to the games. It was another element that gave the settings such meaning in the player's experience. You got a sense that there had been life there and that the location was something of importance with the notes building up a much larger world than if you had just played through it as a simple game. It's the same effect that you get from reading up on the history during your time in Metroid Prime and such.

Once RE4 hits the notes practically vanish with only a few left just to warn you that a boss is coming up. It's irritating as hell. Fans like reading about the mystery that makes the story. Their brain loves piecing it together so that in the end there's a real sense that you've come to an understanding. And with crap like this:

This game NEEDED notes. How the hell do you get a ****ing GIANT from the Las Plagas? How would you get the U3 or Verdugos? There's a piece missing here in how one thing leads to another. It's clear that some mutations can occur sometimes, but HOW? What makes the process of getting to a certain monster different from another? It's bad enough that the damn things don't have anything to do with any other viral agent, but they don't even try to explain! It's just "oh, boss coming up, look out". And that's pretty much three quarters of the notes in the game. Inexcusable.

But then you get to Krauser. At first I was just like...who the hell's this guy?

Cause they have this big dramatic foreboding entrance to him as if he's some character you've seen before in the series that has some relevance of some sort, but no...he's just this stereotypical G.I. Joe looking guy that faked a death in a helicopter crash and used to be Leon's partner. Now if this was actually material from a previous game I might have interest. Since it ain't though, I didn't give a crap about him. Just another new forgettable character that gets killed off with little-to-no development. Only thing of importance was that he was really working for Wesker.

But what really got me was his initial fight. It was a quicktime event...

...now I gotta ask...why the hell is this in the game?...why is this in anything calling itself a survival horror?...it's nothing but irritating. It's just "tap this button now to watch movie!". If you're gonna play a cutscene then play a cutscene! Don't kill me for not interacting with a movie! Quicktime Events are some of the most annoying things in this or ANY game I have played. Yes, you can panic and press all sorts of buttons when you get grabbed. But interrupting a cutscene and then punishing you out of nowhere cause there's no indication at all that what you're supposed to be WATCHING is what you're PLAYING is aggravating as all hell!

GAH! NO! What happened to the days when I could just run normally from a boulder?! Was THIS so wrong?!

And then you'd have a new path that you'd have to find a new item box in since the one you were going to drop your items off in is now blocked off. Yeah, in the old days you usually only had about 6-8 slots where you could store ammo and weapons and stuff. But that made you think a bit. What did you wanna take with you? What did you think you need or could afford to waste? What should you leave behind? It was all about tickling your brain.

I never had a problem with that kind of inventory, nor did much of anyone I've talked to that likes the old games. It just enough to get stuff done and not overload you to take on anything in sight. Actually get you a tiny bit worried of "hm...I only have three herbs on me...can I take this boss down? What about the Hunter on the other side of the hall?...oh crap! It saw me!".

Hesitation would ensue in the fight causing you to possibly waste more ammo than you intended or lose too much health at which point you start cursing at yourself for not bringing the right equipment with you and wonder if you should head back to the previous item box or keep continuing until you find more stuff or another.

This all goes back to a very basic concept that has been lost on the newer generation. Punishment. In old games if you lost a life you went back to the last save point or *gasp* the beginning of the level! Nowadays there's no consequence what-so-ever. You die and you just start over at the beginning of the room or right where you left off. There's no challenge at all. Hell, in some games now you can't even get killed! It'd be too hard on the gamer's inexperienced mind. With the challenge gone from gaming I pretty much have almost lost interest in the industry. 

There's a point for challenge, even if it was designed to waste your quarters in arcade machines. It makes you actually have to give some effort, work for your victory. That moment when you finally do overcome the trial, make it through without dying and say that "Yes! I did it!" is like no other. You have satisfaction and relief of having completed a goal you've been working towards. 

That's what the old inventories help amplify. With this

I don't have that sense of glory. I have a sense of "okay, what's next? I can literally take on the world." It doesn't even pretend to make you worry. You just look at that and know that you're set and nothing can really do crap against you. And if you run out of something an enemy's just going to give you more when you kill it so you're never in danger of actually wasting anything.

Now you may think I can't stand 4. That I despise it beyond belief. And from a certain light yeah...I do. But I love playing it and any Resident Evil game. They're all fun as hell, but I do consider it the absolute worst main game in the series. It killed the series for me. It changed the gameplay, turned Leon into an annoying ass (that sarcastic attitude is completely unbearable and at least the older games TRIED to take themselves seriously), and has nothing to do with anything else. Because of it the series turned into just some shooter that tries to please the general audience that couldn't give a crap about any of the games before it and praise it to no end for some bizarre reason.

When I play Resident Evil, I play it to play as someone acting as a detective in a maze that they must find interlocking areas in and backtrack through to find items that unlock newer areas with a finite amount of ammo and health lying around along with notes to add to the story. I don't play it to play "Leon's random adventure in Spain" or "Chris's African Safari" (though in that one things that actually mattered at least happened). 

And it really pisses me off seeing the beta of 4. Everyone always goes on about how 5's beta is this great masterpiece that it's a shame that they didn't do. But to me that's 4. Almost always the betas of the games look better, but 5's was pretty much the same story pretty much. With 4 though it was an entirely different thing that actually looked like it'd have been legitimately creepy and taken actual effort. Not to mention that it'd have dealt with Umbrella's origins probably with Progenitor, had better looking Plagas that clearly would have had something to do with the rest of the series, and was meant to be the final game in the series.

That, to anyone who asks, is why I can not stand Resident Evil 4 and consider it the worst main game in the series.