Outside Your Heaven

Most of the things you feel are coded as "for...

2012-05-11T20:51:42.513-07:00

Most of the things you feel are coded as "for children" I see as simply being good character design. Just ask Scott McCloud.

I have no doubt Nintendo wanted to appeal to children with the game, but it comes at absolutely no expense to an adult being able to engage with the experience, anymore than it does in a Pixar or Miyazaki film.

And... censored? Really? Would you say The Incredibles is "censored" because it isn't Watchmen?

I fundamentally agree that maturity isn't atta...

2012-05-11T18:10:34.008-07:00

I fundamentally agree that maturity isn't attained by implementing a specific style or by a character saying 'fuck'. You have to analyse the content of the game itself and the rhetoric of its creators.

Wind Waker's setting is post-apocalyptic, but it is censored. The sea is a massive black-out of the unpleasant world beneath. To whose benefit is it that the unpleasantness is censored? It's the younger market, right, because contrast that to the images of Ocarina of Time (evocatively, the dichotomy of the bustling vibrant town-square as young Link and dead zombie-infested town-square as adult Link) or Majora's Mask, it's naive to think that it was to the benefit of players who grew up on those games and images and who wouldn't be able to play in an uncensored setting.

The characters, especially at the beginning, are in a language that a young child can relate to: the doting Grandma that looks after him. For an adult or older child, language like 'girlfriend', 'wife' or 'daughter' is relatable, but for a young child, it's 'sister'; in this game, Link sets off on his quest to rescue his sister.

At the time, rhetoric from Nintendo was that not all players are accessing all of the content of the game they are purchasing; the solution to this 'problem' was to shorten the length and decrease the difficulty to enable all players to enjoy all of the content. Wind Waker is relatively short in content and low in difficulty, which panders to a younger market and implements Nintendo's rhetoric. It was simplified:
"One of my other ideas in Wind Waker was more simplified control for the game, which was tied to the graphic style and the theme of that game as well" - Aonuma

The cel-shading graphical style is more attractive to a younger market. The execution exaggerated the cute and colourful appeal of the style. The obvious facial animations are easier for children to read Link's reactions.

I remember reading that the idea for the train and tracks in the Spirit Tracks was fleeced from a five-year old children's book. If that was the source of material for that game, what was the source of material for its predecessors?

Nintendo self-admitted that Wind Waker's direction was wrong for the series in releasing, Twilight Princess, which is the polar opposite of Wind Waker. I don't think that Nintendo would have made that decision if it was just the "vocal minority".

I hope that I did or do not give the impression that I dislike Wind Waker. I think that it is a good game.

I challenge the idea that Wind Waker's style w...

2012-05-11T08:09:36.091-07:00

I challenge the idea that Wind Waker's style was largely a ploy to reach a younger market, as I do the perception that it was more "simplified" game design-wise.

I don't find it to be simplified, and the idea that 'colorful' = 'for kids' is a perception of Western journalists and loud-mouth gamers, who have become pathological about their own - very Western - notion of what constitutes "adult" gaming, which, to me, feels itself rather childish, as it basically boils down to a dark, washed out color scheme accompanied by some combination of blood, sex, and foul language. That's a *child's* idea of adulthood, and it has crippled the Western game's industry, forever trapping it in a false notion of what it means to be an adult. Wind Waker has no such hang ups, which makes it actually more adult in my view.

The Western gaming press/culture's notion of adulthood is so utterly distorted, I cannot take its perception seriously when assessing the causes for Wind Waker's failure Stateside. People who say it was too childish are not a majority. They are a vocal minority with a maturity complex.

As always, interesting points, Matthew. I think th...

2012-05-11T03:48:17.933-07:00

As always, interesting points, Matthew. I think that you need to couch any discussion of the Zelda franchise in a discussion of Nintendo's tech or direction.

Wind Waker was a statement-of-intent to capture a market of younger gamers as dictated by Nintendo's plan for the Gamecube's success. As beautiful the animation and sailing were, it was designed and plotted to be a kid's game, very simplified. After Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, it was a regression for the series.

Twilight Princess was similar in a statement-of-intent: Nintendo understood the failures of the Gamecube and its games' market and recognized that a franchise like Zelda should be used to retain a market of older gamers. Hence, the game was on the opposite end of the simple-complex spectrum from Wind Waker.

I think that Ocarina of Time was the best game in the series; Miyamoto was at his peak. Majora's Mask was the perfect sequel: it quickly distinguished itself from its predecessor (largely, by its three-day plot/mechanic) and Koizumi crafted a game that didn't directly compete with Ocarina of Time (largely, with the transformations). Wind Waker and Twilight Princess are opposite extremes and I prefer the game that assumes I'm a veteran of the franchise, Twilight Princess.

I read Aonuma's musings on various Iwata Asks interviews and I don't know that if anyone else gets the impression that he is someone stuck in a lucrative and prestigious job that he has no idea how to do. This does not surprise me:

"He threw in a werewolf because he didn't have any better ideas"

I guess that he's a social and fun-loving guy that everyone loves around the office, but completely inept for the job he is supposed to perform. It's a position difficult to receive bad feedback. The franchise receives universal praise from media and fans and has a lot of goodwill banked over a couple of decades. The only time that the franchise received bad feedback from a majority was Wind Waker and its style. And as I said, that was a company directive and not a decision of the designers or Aonuma; therefore, he couldn't be faulted. I haven't played Skyward Sword, but I think that the sooner Koizumi takes control of the franchise, the better.

Also, the franchise is now out-of-cycle with Nintendo's tech. Twilight Princess was a Gamecube game ported to the Wii with motion controls tacked on. Skyward Sword was released on very old tech (I'm sure that this was a factor in the decision to change the graphical style). Where will the next Zelda fit-in to the cycle of the WiiU?

I don't believe in "evil" as a motiv...

2012-05-07T12:12:04.042-07:00

I don't believe in "evil" as a motivation for anything, in fiction or in real life.

The personalization of the political - or perhaps ...

2012-05-05T13:46:40.422-07:00

The personalization of the political - or perhaps even the infantilization of the personal - is always a deeply disappointing turn for a story to take. Blizzard have repeatedly made this mistake with their ongoing story for World of Warcraft; character after established character suddenly 'turns evil' or is somehow revealed to always have been evil, not because they have much of a reason to, nor even because they had some personal score to settle, but because, against all contextual sense, they've just GONE INSANE and FLIPPED and now DUDE THEY ARE EVIL. Your essay went a long way towards explaining the dissatisfaction I have felt whenever I heard about the storyline of MGS4 (I haven't played it, but was given an incredulous rundown one week after launch by a friend more generously endowed than me with Playstation Threes).

I just happened to stumble across this analogy of ...

2012-05-05T11:32:02.236-07:00

I just happened to stumble across this analogy of what you thought the phrase meant. In the end what the phrase (according to me) means is that you cannot change the world. People will fight change to the very bitter end. Instead of changing the world to suit the better need of people and life, itself, it is easier to, in shadow and secrecy, slowly change the inner structure of any given political faction. Even if just to rally against something, even if they are the beneficiary, people will fight change, just to spite the system or it's will. To let the world be could be seen as a motivator to either let those who have wrought the hell they stand in now deal with it and suffer their own consequences, or change not the face, but the brain behind any political movement. Or rather that, in the end, people will destroy each other willfully, whether it's in the name of peace or war, and trying to stop that will be fruitless no matter what you do. So, help the few, and let the world be. Could be just the way I see things. Please, if you read this, feel free to contact me to discuss this further. burymeinblack0204@gmail.com

If you follow my piece till the end, you'll se...

2012-04-23T12:38:44.192-07:00

If you follow my piece till the end, you'll see that I basically agree with you.

My problem with MGS4 is that it abandons the PMC/war economy stuff in the second half and fails to connect it to the series' existing vision of American power (a myth-manufacturing oligarchy), instead inventing a new, far less compelling and timely one (computers controlled by a single madman).

The Patriots are a better, more accurate romantic expression of American power. And all I'm really saying is that by retconning them the series shot itself in the foot as an allegory, though Peace Walker deserves credit for doing a much better job running a sprint on a broken foot than MGS4 does.

It's true that fleshing out the backstory remo...

2012-04-23T12:07:04.427-07:00

It's true that fleshing out the backstory removed much of the ambiguity in the Metal Gear mythos. But at the point of MGS2, The Patriots and Big Boss weren't really even given enough structure for a player to imagine their motives-- they were basically plot devices.

What really puzzles me is saying the Anti-Americanism is mostly missing from MGS4 and Peace Walker. As you say, MGS2's Patriots are the fictional analogue of the politics of the time. But isn't MGS4's rampant techno-Blackwater PMC future and fighting against insurgents in the Middle East (still!) a bleak extrapolation of American policy of that time? In Peace Walker, the United States is a shadowy lesser of two evils at best, and a realpolitik-fueled proxy instigator at worst. Metal Gear continues to do what it has always done: retell real historical events through the lens of an over-the-top superhuman commando soap opera.

There is not so much a decline as an increase in specificity. MGS1 was preachy about nuclear disarmament hypocrisy. MGS4 and Peace Walker are tweaked fictional variations on the theme of actual unsavory things the United States has done.

MGS4 has a lot of redeeming aspects gameplay-wise,...

2012-04-22T21:49:53.019-07:00

MGS4 has a lot of redeeming aspects gameplay-wise, and the war economy aspect of the story itself is pretty decent, in a glib Paul Verhoeven sort of way. It's just a shame it disappears up its own ass in the second half.

They don't hate me. They hate the fantasy that...

2012-04-22T21:45:31.011-07:00

They don't hate me. They hate the fantasy that America is the savior of the world and the guiding light of civilization. I hate that too.

You're praising them for hating you. How does ...

2012-04-22T21:05:30.459-07:00

You're praising them for hating you. How does that make sense?

That's a great insight on the series. As muc...

2012-04-22T20:58:28.411-07:00

That's a great insight on the series.

As much as I like playing MGS4, I can't get myself to disagree with you when you say about the dumb things they've done with it's storyline.

Sounds like you get my angle just fine.

2012-04-22T19:40:35.331-07:00

Sounds like you get my angle just fine.

I don't get your angle here. How could you ...

2012-04-22T16:25:44.536-07:00
I don't get your angle here. How could you like that something is anti-American?

This is a fantastic essay that perfectly articulat...

2012-04-11T11:08:58.957-07:00
This is a fantastic essay that perfectly articulates my own feelings about why MGS1-3 are politically interesting, and my complete disappointment over MGS4's utter lack of follow-through on their ideas.

I find it interesting that as MGS as a series became more popular in the US -- not to mention more dependent on financial success here -- its satire of American politics has become conspicuously less specific. The cynical part of me can't help but wonder if Kojima is now afraid of biting the hand that feeds him...

I love reading your thoughts on Metal Gear. It'...

2012-04-10T23:49:30.178-07:00
I love reading your thoughts on Metal Gear. It's really interesting to get this perspective on American politics and ideology from a foreign perspective, and it makes me wonder where Kojima and his writers fall on the Japanese political scale, and where this fits in their ideology and consciousness. I've been just reading up on the anime Guilty Crown (by the same writer as Code Geass) and while by all accounts the writing is quite terrible, both center around fairly strident anti-americanism, depicting Japan as a nation occupied by western forces. It's not the same anti-americanism as Kojima, but it makes me wonder about the larger ideas going on that are reflected occasionally in the pop culture that makes it over here.

Glad to see someone else who thinks MM outclasses ...

2012-03-28T13:34:50.589-07:00
Glad to see someone else who thinks MM outclasses OOT in every way.

WW on the other hand felt like an unfinished product. While it has the best characterization of Ganon and the best music in the series, the lack of any challenging enemies, really new equipment and omitting of features like fishing and what not seemed like a bonehead move. In terms of the high water adventure scenario, they seemed to drop the ball as well. Take for example the Ghost ship, it seemed like a perfect point to create a riveting mini-dungeon yet it didn't even come close. And let's not forget the terrible Triforce hunt...why that couldn't be mix of deep sea scalvging, NPC interaction, good old trading, questing and other stuff I will never know.

TP on the other hand had some interesting ideas with the horse-back fighting, magnetized iron boot puzzles, the spinner, ball and chain,etc. Though it too seemed to drop the ball in providing some interesting side missions or expansion on game mechanics (i.e. the Wolf form literally does not change from the first time you acquire it to the end of the game.)

Story wise I agree it dropped the ball (though Midna has been the best companion so far. I also liked Tetra but she was criminally underused)

SS was neat in its challenge and seems like a fusion between WW/TP. However it's sequence of events also seem to be lacking. The narrative thread that is supposed to link all the missions and quests you undergo is almost ridiculously thin at some points.

Actually there will be no game like this one. Its ...

2012-03-18T22:37:48.143-07:00
Actually there will be no game like this one.
Its copyrights where sold to final fantasy owner.
I loved this game so much :(

A truly fantastic podcast/interview thingy. Thanks...

2012-03-05T05:44:39.348-08:00
A truly fantastic podcast/interview thingy. Thanks!

I will respond the factual bit: Aonuma *did* apol...

2012-02-28T17:59:08.490-08:00
I will respond the factual bit:

Aonuma *did* apologize for the wolf being something they weren't entirely happy with, and something they put in because they couldn't think of something better. I was there, at the talk. If you like the wolf that's fine, but that doesn't change what he said.

Matthew, you can't tell your reader a game doe...

2012-02-28T16:31:10.756-08:00
Matthew, you can't tell your reader a game doesn't register in memory compared to an other game as though it were an objective fact. In my memory, it registers faintly less than 'Ocarina', but then I was eleven years old when I played that game the first time. 'Twilight' is some-what less deep than the two N64 games, but a game need not be original to be deep, and I don't play games, read books or watch movies in search only of 'balls-out experiments', but of great works of those media, boundlessly original or not.

A 'werewolf' wasn't thrown into 'Twilight' any more than a gnome, a merman and Pinocchio were thrown into 'Majora'. As long as there is twilight, Link must have a bestial form. Ganondorf's biceps, you will recall, are under thick clothing and not visible in 'Twilight'. They DO bulge quite a bit in 'Ocarina', though. In my humblest of opinions, this is not a factor in the greatness of either game.

No man able to tie his shoes would say that 'Majora' is remotely similar to 'Colossus', although I will graciously assume you had not actually played the juvenile, hyperficial train-wreck that is 'Skyward Sword' at the time you wrote those egregious final remarks.

(Cont'd from last post.) I've never reall...

2012-02-14T22:13:05.058-08:00
(Cont'd from last post.) I've never really played Majora's Mask or The Wind Waker. Twilight Princess was the first game since Ocarina where I really decided to bother playing a Zelda game all the way to the end. I've always regretted that for some time now, and it sounds, if nothing else, like I really should give Majora a go. I have a funny, by which I mean fairly pathetic, history with that game. I either received it as a birthday or Christmas present, and I was really looking forward to playing it. I don't think ever in my life have I anticipated something so much, only to have it wind up taking up space in my basement, and later the garage, without me ever really touching it. Christ, it's almost like that episode of The Simpsons where Homer chucks his copy of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery into the fireplace after realizing that it doesn't actually give tips on how to *win* the lottery! Okay, maybe it wasn't *that* bad, but it kind of feels that way to me.

I was really looking forward to Majora's Mask and was very happy to receive it as a present. My brother asked me if he could play it first. I acted like a sport and let him. And then I watched him play it. Simply put, if I remember correctly, it was a game where you're constantly on a timer. I *hate* timed games. If the game has no patience for me, I generally have no patience for it. Especially if it's something like Zelda, and I wanna explore. It's not like I decided then and there that I simply wouldn't play it at all, but every time I'd consider giving the game a try, the proverbial voice in my back of my head would remind me of how timed games often equalled some of the most miserable gaming experiences I've ever had. Back on the shelf it would go and I'd play something else. "I'll play it later," I'd tell myself. It's been over a decade later, and I've never even touched the game. The person who gave me that present may as well have thrown their money out the window. I hate myself a bit for that. I don't even know where it, or my N64, is at this point. I have Majora and Ocarina on VC now. I'm replaying Ocarina, and I intend to finally play Majora. Oh, yeah, and eventually Wind Waker, which I'm not even sure why I didn't really play that one. I mean, I started it, but never got very far. Maybe I was just sick of Zelda in general at that point, I don't know.

It figures that the two main console Zelda games I decide to pass on turn out to be the games that, years later, I read in an article to be masterpieces, while the ones I did decide to play, and actually finish, turn out to more-or-less be ephemeral. But I have to ask, would you be willing to offer a full review/analysis of Majora's Mask? I have read reviews of the game claiming it to be an underrated gem, but none that I know of so far have actually compared it to, say, Watchmen (I assume you mean the comic, not the movie). I still intend to eventually give the game an honest try, but I suck at picking up on subtleties and your handing it this level of praise has more than piqued my interest.

For me, Zelda first became uninteresting with Ocar...

2012-02-14T22:11:32.210-08:00
For me, Zelda first became uninteresting with Ocarina of Time. It's not that I don't like the game, but it can be very irritating, and I have difficulty understanding why it's considered to be the crown jewel in the Zelda franchise; the game that Nintendo simply has to recreate time and time again. When it begins, it's too cutesy. I feel like I'm in the Smurf Village. I realize that the previous Zelda titles weren't exactly what one would call "mature," but in '98 this game felt especially childish even when compared to the previous titles (save for perhaps the CD-i games, but I never played those). That fairy Navi mostly speaks when it's annoying and rarely when it's necessary. Whenever I'd hear her shout "Hey!," I usually wanted to strangle her. She constantly interrupts the game usually to tell me some mundane information that I could usually have figured out on my own. Much of the early parts of the game are taken up with irritating text which explains every single aspect of the game mechanics and story in excruciating minutiae, and I often feel like too much of the "gameplay" is made up of boring side-chores (i.e. "Help me find my cuccos!"). It gets better as it goes, and for what it's worth, when I actually completed the game over a decade ago, I did feel a certain admiration for the overall product, but as far as pure Zelda formula goes, I feel they never really improved that much on A Link to the Past.

In A Link to the Past, they waste virtually no time. Right out of the gate, you have to infiltrate the castle, get your sword and shield, and you're off on what actually feels like an exciting adventure, as opposed to an extended series of errands put forth by overly chatty characters. It's far more streamlined, but still epic. When I reach the conclusion, it really feels like an accomplishment, not so much for myself, but for the people who made the game. It also says something that I replayed and completed Link to the Past several times in the '90s, yet I've only finished Ocarina once (though I'm currently replaying it). Ocarina is a good game overall, great in some ways, but I generally find the early parts boring as hell and annoying, and this exactly how I'd describe Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword. Cont'd...

Thanks, and don't forget the team. They did al...

2012-02-06T15:50:25.767-08:00
Thanks, and don't forget the team. They did all the hard work and were all creatively involved in coming up with mechanics, sounds, doing research, etc. The sound design, for example, I had almost nothing to do with, and that's one of the biggest things people cite as creating impact.