Links updated – Telebunny.net and Insert Disk 2 added, book rant included!

One of my favourite writers in the games journo biz has migrated toa new site – GameSpite.net has now moved across to its new location at Telebunny.net. But don’t worry – all the old content has been migrated and the journal is still being produced. Which reminds me, I need to grab the full back-catalogue of books, as well as 1UP Presents and SCROLL.

I’ve also updated Guru Meditation to point to the new and delightfully-titled Insert Disk 2. Same content as before, but now on its own dedicated installation.

The spiel on the above publications also reminds me that I’m keen to track down some other books on old games that have been/are being published by Pixel Nation, Pix’N’Love Publishing (though the latter seems to have received at least one damning review following their French language The History of Sonic the Hedgehog release last month) and of course Udon is always busy bringing out some great artbooks – I’m personally looking at snapping up The History of Sonic the Hedgehog, Marvel vs Capcom: Official Complete Works, SF20: The Art of Street Fighter, Darkstalkers Graphic File, Okami Official Complete Works and Valkyria Chronicles.

Man, that’s a lot of artbooks!!

Dragon Quest 10 is online-only… huh?

So, DQ10 is online-only.

Yes, I’m late to the party, but thought I’d post about it anyways. I’m not the world’s longest-serving DQ fan, but I respect its history and that it, in many ways, embodies the spirit of JRPGs of old without making everyone beautiful, androgynous and full of clich&eaccute;d angst.

I don’t think I’d be as fussed if the game was going online as a side-story to the main series, kind of like Phantasy Star Online/Phantasy Star Universe or FFXI/FFXIV. MMOs and Diablo-clone MMOs have their place, but they don’t interest me all that much, as I prefer single-player JRPGs, particularly when they have blue skies and are jolly. Or are simply fun. The only exception to that was the original PSO releases (especially the GCN port with 4-player local coop), which was great fun back in the day.

For me, moving DQ10 as an online-only game seems… silly. I’d rather a shinier coat of paint and an interesting storyline. It also limits the accessibility of the game if you go back and play it once the servers get pulled.

Mind, the problem is that JRPGs (with a few exceptions) have languished over the current generation as Japan has shifted development priorities owing to cost and the changes in Japanese gaming demographics. Economic rationalism has also encouraged developers to play it safe rather than get too carried away or ambitious. So, while some of the JRPGs have been fun, the quantity/quality from the last couple of generations hasn’t been matched. At least in my opinion, but I’m old and stuck in my ways. So, my opinion should of course be take with a grain of salt. After all, I’m still whinging about Grandia getting passed up on the Saturn.

Still, there is some hope – Valkyria Chronicles married some superb characterisation and story-telling that echoed Kodama-inspired epics like Skies of Arcadia and Phantasy Star 4 in the guise of a strategy RPG, Monolith has reminded the world of what made JRPGs great to begin with in their amazing Xenoblade Chronicles, and Ni No Kuni looks so sumptuous that I dare to dream that it will bring a 90s-Miyazaki/Takahata soul to the world of JRPGs. In a perfect world, it will also be bilingual as part of the English localisation, much in line with Valkyria Chronicles and Xenoblade Chronicles.

Should the time come for DQ11, I can only hope it brings back the single-player focus with all the soul its renowned for. Including the Toriyama-requisite of spiky hair.

Am I a gaming aesthete?

Jeremy Parish recently wrote about the gaming aesthete, and the post captured something I’ve been trying to articulate for a while now. For whatever reason, I seem to prefer games with a particular aesthetic quality and loathe titles that go against my irrational sense of preference. Amusingly, a portion of my taste can be summed up in UK:R’s watershed Blue Skies in Gaming campaign – out with the poo-brown, grey, boring colour schemes, and in with colour, life and vibrancy.

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No more silly gangs, testosterone, “extreme”/”hardcore” drab colour schemes and other such douchebaggery. The content doesn’t have to be sunshine, lollypops and pixies, but it should be allowed to have colourful vistas and degrees of depth to its aesthetic execution.

The problem is that with the rise and rise of US development in the gaming sector (underpinned by the dramatic fall from grace we’ve seen from Japan in the last 10 years, and the EU in the 5-7 years prior to that), it’s all very vogue and chic to be an (extreme) macho douchebag mirroring something out of a Michael Bay movie (with optional 1-dimensional arse-kicking but well-endowed female sidekick), or drawl like an (extreme) urban gangster or be an (extreme) racing game with unnecessary (but extreme) back story. You then play this on your (e)x(treme)box or your slick black PS3 (with optional extreme metallic blue/red/moose controller to complement the silly Spider-man font), with trophies/achievements to add to your signature on your underground/alternative message board where you compare how awesome you are.

And with a couple of exceptions, it just doesn’t appeal to me. I prefer the classical Japanese or European approach to gaming, which allows colour and not so much testosterone to overrun the landscape. The problem is that both of these communities are not the stalwarts they once were. In the 8-bit micro and 16-bit computer days, I played more games from the EU than I can count – some were stupid bouts of pixellated testosterone, but the underlying mechanics and aesthetics were fresh and interesting. But with the move to larger teams and bigger budgets, the old models failed to adapt to the changing scenery and unfortunately a lot of talent was lost or quelled as part of larger corporate mergers.

Jump across the pond to Japan, and the quality of their arcade and console games in the 80s and 90s were unmatched and arguably the hive of some of the industry’s core creative content. Sega, Nintendo, Namco, Hudson, SNK, Capcom, Konami, Taito, Square, Enix… amazing studios that produced stunning games. But something happened between the DC/PS2/GCN/Xbox and the current generation, and the Japanese sector imploded – larger teams were required to fuel larger budgets and suddenly the shrinking local console market demanded more conservatism in game design. This meant the baby was thrown out with the bath water to accommodate the Western market (which meant the unique “Japaneseness” that made the games so appealing in the first place was often lost), or developers focused on placating niche local audiences with an abundance of moe and fan service (which are fine in moderation, but stifling when they’re pandering). To offset development costs and the changing Japanese market, the situation was further compound with the dramatic shift of development resources to handheld platforms (which I guess is fine if you prefer mobile gaming, but I prefer to play on a console). Thus you have a variety of factors that have essentially quashed Japan’s ability to compete with the West, in particular the US and Canada.

So that leaves me in an unusual position borne entirely from my own particular tastes in gaming, where I have to look a bit further than Japan for my gaming kicks. For the first time in a while I’ve been playing Western-developed games – The Darkness (developed by Starbreeze in Sweden), Mirror’s Edge (DICE, also in Sweden), Enslaved (Ninja Theory, UK) and Batman: Arkham Asylum (Rocksteady, UK)… but what’s interesting is that these have all been developed in the EU (sorry to the UK studios for lumping you in there!), which is a trend I hadn’t consciously realised until thinking about my gaming habits for this generation of consoles. This doesn’t mean I’ve neglected Japan, as I’ve also enjoyed Ninja Gaiden Sigma (Tecmo), Valkyria Chronicles (Sega WOW), Street Fighter 4 (Capcom), Yakuza 3 (Amusement Vision/Sega) and New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Nintendo EAD). What’s interesting looking at this shortlist is that some games contain some of the elements I normally don’t like about current-gen games, but they’ve done so in a way that emphasises the often intangible aesthetics that appeal to me.

In short, my gaming preferences are confused and contradictory at times, but share a commonality that points to the resultant aesthetic which entices me to play the game in question.

It also means I’m more likely to play Wonderboy in Monster World on the Sega Mega Drive than Resistance 3 or GTA4.

I think that last point sums up the entirety of this post quite succinctly. Figures 😛