Persona 5 Follow-Up—Combat Systems

I finally had time to take a bite into both Persona 5, and Persona 3 FES, that released quite a while back. But now I can say that I'm finally familiar with the Persona series! Enough so that I'm comfortable enough to talk about it.

Something that really stood out to me after playing Persona's 3-5 (and Shin Megami Tensei IV, to brag a little) were the subtle changes in combat between each game.

The systems overall are a feat to begin with, as with each iteration, combat was vicious and unforgiving, rewarding a player for strategy and well though out moves, and punishing them for being hasty. If one takes the time to wait on an enemy, sneak up behind it, and ambush it, they may finish the battle before the opponent even has time to react.

On the other hand, there are far two many times that you miss your initiating blow, and the opponent pummels you, and sends you to the grave faster then you could ever react. And oh boy, is that frustrating.

But this mechanic helps to immerse the player, giving them the idea that the shadow-filled dungeons they must traverse comprise of actual danger.

Lets start with Persona 3, and talk about the nuances that make it unique. The most stand-out quality of this installment compared to later games is the amount of independence one has from their team members. Members equip themselves, more or less, and make their own moves in combat (with intelligent characters making smart moves, and the less gifted AI throwing the matches far too often). Team members can wander dungeons on their own, have their own battles, and keep their stats to themselves, unless asked.

Persona 5 reflects the amount of balance and polish they have but on the battle system since then. Instead of a confusing, inverted wheel for a user-interface, they assign each button on the controller to an option.

 It looks beautiful, and most importantly, it is functional. The game still rewards and punishes based on the efficiency of your strategy, but if you die, you can start from a 'safe room,' or from the beginning of the level. Phew! The sense of danger may take a slight dip when a player realizes that they're going to have to attempt the same boss multiple times, but the frustration level goes down immensely when your game data is perfectly safe, and not lost to the void.

Storytelling Techniques (aka I'm still obsessed w/Yoko Taro)

The title says it all... I'm in love with this man.

My affinity for Yoko Taro, the eccentric, imaginative, and emotional creator of the Nier and Drakengard series, is driven by an appreciation for his outright subversion of happy endings and unhealthy Japanese cliches. I came across an interesting panel from GDC 2014, in which Taro gives us some insight on the method to his madness.

A timeline on the left, with the reasons and peaks laid out on the right.

He begins by explaining the ways in which he can create emotions from events. He starts with an emotional peak, "a girl dies." While this is sad on its own, he notes, the event could have more weight if there were reasons for us to care about this girl.

As the diagram below shows, Taro insists that we stack the reasons in an orderly fashion along the timeline.

He calls this method "Backwards Scriptwriting," and characterizes it by the method of writing the scenes before the forming of the overarching story. in tandem with this method, he utilizes "Photo-thinking," a process where he pictures the visual 'scene' of the emotional peak, and concentrates his thought on things that are exclusively a part of the emotional peak.

By combining these two methods, one can create the foundation for a larger story. He mentions how messy this process can be, as you layer reason after reason and peak after peak.

I think that Taro's method of scripting is brilliant in its uniqueness. In the beginning of the panel, he remissness about the many story/screenwriting books that he read, and how he didn't understand them. At all.

Video games are a difficult industry in terms of writing. They are enormous team efforts with skeletal budgets, and very few have a dedicated "story" person.

Taro's method of scripting is incredibly useful for those who are more visually creative, and less accustomed to intensive, formulaic writing. Because of the difficult medium of video games and their obtuse pacing, a more free-form style of writing is probably beneficial overall.

If you want to make interesting video games, go check out Yoko Taro's panel, "Making Weird Games for Weird People." Not only is it informative; Taro is a serious charmer.

Games to Check Out: Persona 5

Oh boy, here it is!

At long last, Atlus's long awaited sixth installment to the Persona series, known for its complex social system and the mechanic of conversing with your enemies—mid-battle.

In addition to the interesting battle-convo mechanic, the games are highly stylized, thematic, and have killer soundtracks.

Just a reminder here...

So how does this newest installment hold up?

After many many push-backs, I'd say YES!

The intro scene is enough to give you chills, and the beginning of the story sets up a compelling device—a betrayal.

From the start, you are on the constant lookout for the teammate that portrayed you. But at first, you are just a delinquent transfer student slowly making your way as a junior in high school.

These games have mechanics that I would love to see more often in American games. I feel like I can't think of any American RPGs that use a mechanic of friend making, except for Fallout, with its companion system. Even then, the connections that you make within the game lend to the theme of connections overall.

As I play through the game more, I'll follow-up on what went right and what went wrong with this game!

Endings

I hope you don't mind if I just let my mind wander for this post.

I recently played a game called Drakengard.


Drakengard was an interesting experience for me, as its the only game where I've seen endings get progressively worse as the game progresses.

The first ending of the game leaves something to be the desired, as your sister is murdered by the high priestess of a cult that is bringing about the destruction of the world. 

No matter how much you work, no matter how many soldiers you kill or bonus weapons you receive, there is no ending in which your sister is spared.

It makes me wonder— How does this detail affect the story of Drakengard?  How does it affect the theme of Drakengard overall?

I finished another game recently: Nier. Nier is the predecessor to Nier: Automata that came out earlier last month.

As the game progresses, and endings begin to be unlocked, a real theme of perspective arises. A player quickly realizes that a lack of information has led them to make mistakes throughout their journey.

Secretly, this article has just been about Yoko Taro, the director of both Nier, Drakengard, and Nier: Automata. Staples of Yoko Taro's work include subverting stereotypical Japanese tropes, rejecting "happy endings," and including characters with glaring flaws or abnormalities.

Every game that Yoko Taro puts out is fresh, cerebral, and interesting. If you're looking for a new story with rich characters, be on the lookout for his work.

SINoALICE is Taro's upcoming game for iPhone, though if you want to play it, you will have to go through the hassle of logging into the Japanese iTunes. Lets all hope for localization!

5 Ways That Pokemon Sun and Moon Streamlined Design

Pokemon is kind of an interesting game to analyze design-wise.  As a long running series, around 20 years old at this point, it finds itself stuck in a rut of people wanting more of the same game. Therefore, more games get released that are essentially re-skins of older games.

Sun and Moon, on the other hand, made a myriad of subtle game design changes that might have at some point been considered taboo.

1. Goodbye Grid!
This is an idea that hasn't really been touched upon since the GameCube Pokemon games, like Pokemon Gale of Darkness, that boasted the feature. I remember being a young girl and wanting to play Gale of Darkness incredibly bad for this reason, so bad that I emailed Game Freak and begged them to release the game on PS2 (I never got a reply, and the game didn't make it off Nintendo consoles.)

My theory is that the limitation of the handheld systems is what kept developers from releasing this feature earlier. Pokemon Sun and Moon is a big game, and if you're playing on an older 3DS system, there are some pretty noticeable frame drops, though these occur mostly in battles and not as much on the over-world.

The oblong islands of Alola are best traveled without the grid system, that's for sure.

2. Egg Encouragement
This one is a little dumb, but bear with me.

See that spot where she's riding the Tauros?

If this little fenced in area was on purpose, it's definitely the most subtle addition to the Pokemon standard. This little addition allows players to hatch their eggs fresh out of the nursery, cutting out the hassle of running in the most efficient loops for steps, or taping down buttons and stepping away from the games. Excellent!

3. Transparent IV's
While nothing new in the Pokemon series, IV's play a large part in Pokemon's expansive meta-game. Now that you can train or view your Pokemon's hidden stat values at any time, any player can become a powerhouse without having to use predictive algorithms.

4. Death of the HM Slave
This is probably the most noticeable change for long-time players of the game. HMs, or 'Hidden Machines,' represent items that teach Pokemon moves on the field. In older games, one would have a Pokemon that was specifically for clearing paths and crossing oceans using HMs.

Now that all of these moves are accessible from rental Pokemon that you can call to your location, your entire team can be focused for combat. Pretty neat!

5. Time Kill Islands
Upon completing the game, players find themselves with much more of an agenda then before. Pokemon isn't necessarily known for its post-game, which is surprising considering that there's no feasible way to "Catch 'em all" without playing a little bit after defeating a game's respective final boss.

Instead of beating the game and systematically collected the Pokemon that you missed along the way, the game provides you with many small tasks that one can rotate through in addition to catching the remaining 'mons.

The 'Time Kill Islands' refers to the Poke Pelago, where PC Pokemon farm berries, look for treasures, and train IV's (a feature that is incredibly useful on its own).

VR Industry: The Goods and the Bads

The VR industry is kind of like the Wild West of innovative gaming right now. With systems like PS4, Oculus, and the Vive, VR is slowly becoming more and more accessible for the developers and the general public.

Lets start out with the positives that come out of the VR industry.

The Possibilities!:

• Oh wow. Its real.

By this, I mean, VR is entirely what you don't want to expect it to be. Someone who has never experienced VR will try to not get their hopes up about the level of reality, but the realism is astounding. You can get your hopes up. 

The best personal example was when I was playing the Lab, sitting on a hillside in Iceland, throwing sticks for a robot dog. Somehow, VR makes you staunchly aware of how little stimuli it really takes to fabricate a surrounding in our minds. Scary.

• Its versatility 

While VR is primarily focused on gaming, it proves itself useful in a wide variety of settings. In a classroom or lab, VR allows one to interact with game objects to represent real world objects. They can then manipulate these objects in a more abstract way to help improve understanding. 

Some find VR useful in a more literal sense. For work-spaces or workouts, the idea of simulating a more pleasant surrounding environment is appealing.

Now for a quick look at—

The Limitations...:

• The price point

VR is expensive. The biggest limitation of the system will continually be related to the price of the system itself and the equipment required to run it all. 

• The power required

I think that I have a pretty beastly computer, but to run VR on it would push it to its absolute limits. I previously lived with a VR developer, and it took his Mega Computer a substantial amount of power to render and test games.

• The set-up

Getting the Vive to run in our tiny apartment living room was an event. When he pitched the idea to me, I think he phrased it as "Do you want to gut the living room for a Vive?"

Two tripods, a mess of cables, and enormous PC, and a three month-old kitten was excessive, and difficult. Even with not a spared expense (equipment wise) we would still run into bugs and game that would not work at all.

"Too Many Variables" - Dokapon Kingdom

If you think that Mario Party ruins friendships...

I was going to start this blog off with something more simple, like a top ten list, but why don't we start things off with a bang.

Dokapon Kingdom is a hybrid role-playing-game/board game published in 2008 by Atlus in America. After being met with a small but positive reception, it was left mostly forgotten until 2014, when Game Grumps posted a small video series of them attempting the game (foul language warning). Dokapon has become increasingly popular in the niche of the streaming world, with players broadcasting themselves on Twitch spinning, fighting, and doing the king's bidding.

Also, this game goes for about $175 dollars on Amazon now.

Players move around a game board with a spinner labeled 0-6, and the amount rolled MUST be moved. The combat is a high-stress system of rock paper scissors, where one must read their opponent, or risk falling behind. The winner is determined by their net worth, meaning that a player must maintain control of cities, who's mayors are so lax that they can relinquish ownership of their city on a moments notice. Millions of dollars of in game currency pass forcibly between hands

If you want a fast example of what makes this game unappealing to a larger audience, the Grumps exemplify it well. Let's start with the bad first:

Cons:
While Dokapon has a lot of good and bad aspects, it opened my eyes to the world of player control. 

Dokapon has so many variables that it makes as question the validity of its random number generators. The amount that you move, the items you receive, the monsters you fight (or don't fight)... Nothing in Dokapon is guaranteed. The items in inventory have a life expectancy of a few weeks, as they are lost on death, eaten by bugs, stolen by other players, stolen by non-player characters. Some items are hard to obtain and required for late game play, meaning the entire in-game lives of players are consumed by the need to

The list of liabilities goes on and on. And with the King absent-mindedly giving away your cities or money (yes, he'll go into your wallet and pull cash out for the other players), the main opponent of the game is really the game itself.

"I like knowing my odds going in," says a friend of mine, as he forlornly looks at the screen. One lands on an empty space to fight monsters, but with twelve individual random encounters, a fight is certainly not guaranteed. You could be abducted by aliens or drop dead.No exaggeration.

And with the game taking, I would guess, at least 75 hours (if you're playing with two humans and no computers on storymode), it requires a commitment that most are not willing to uphold.

Pros:
The random elements of this game take away any semblance of control from a player, but also creates a unique game feel.  Dokapon is all about the long game, meaning that unlike Mario Party, creating enemies early on will lead to a rowdy player's eventual demise. Its almost like an unspoken code of arms among friends slowly develops, giving betrayal all the more weight.

Finally, the random elements of the game allow it to bloom into something new every time. What I mean by that is, the game unfolds differently each time. Each play-through will create new strategies, new goals, and countless stories that you and friends will retell for days.

Conclusion:
The game is fun, but severely limits itself in that it is almost unplayable alone. From many sources including myself, the computer players are said to be unbeatable. So if you're planning on tackling this monster of a game, make sure to have a least one real friend to accompany you along the way.

If you've read this far, you know by now that I am undoubtedly biased about this game. Yes, its far from perfect, but I love this game. It holds with it an air of mystery that is lost in many games today, with guides and Wikipedia pages only clicks away. Many elements of Dokapon remain a mystery to all.