Lost Vikings

Ah, the Lost Vikings.  One of my all-time favorite games.  It is a puzzle platformer, released in 1992.  I recently found out that an officially emulated version has been available for download on Battle.net for some time.  Needless to say, I got it in a hurry, and have been playing it since.  Many of you might only know the Lost Vikings from Heroes of the Storm, but they actually hail from an old SNES game, one of Blizzard's first.  (I believe they were called something different then.)  Here's a retro-review.

The overall design of the game is absolutely fantastic.  For those of you who have never played, here's a quick rundown:  You control 3 vikings, Olaf, Eric and Baleog who are (you guessed it) lost after being abducted by aliens and thrown in a timewarp.  You can switch control between any of the vikings at any time.  Each character has a couple of unique abilities and personalities.

Olaf - The roundest viking, Olaf is observant and honest.  He wields a shield, which can block attacks when held forward, or, when held above his head, serve as a platform or parachute.

Eric - A slimmer viking, Eric is focused and straightforward.  He runs faster than the rest and is the only one able to jump.  He can also headbutt certain walls to break them down.

Baleog - This muscular viking is cynical and a bit aloof.  With his bow and unlimited arrows, he can shoot enemies, hit switches, and interact with distant objects (cut chains, knock down coconuts, etc).  He also has a sword for close-range combat.

Every level requires unique combinations of these abilities to complete.  This evolves the game from a simple platformer to a puzzle platformer, that will challenge your brain and your skills.  If any viking dies (and they will), you have to restart the level.

Graphically, the game is interesting.  The character animations are great.  There are a ton of different death animations, from being squashed or spiked to drowning in quicksand.  This at least takes a bit of sting out of the constant dying you will be doing in this game.  Each viking has its own personality, and their animations reflect this.  The way the walk and act speaks to their unique character.  The distant background is always black.  A fairly common technique back in '92, this really makes the foreground stand out, but is a bit strange.  I would have preferred at least something.  The levels, however, are beautiful, dotted with unique props to really sell the time period you're in.  The ancient Egyptian tomb has random sarcophagi and treasure chests scattered about, for example.  Overall, good, but not great graphics.

Story-wise, Lost Vikings is simple but hilarious.  The plot is intentionally predictable and cliche.  The game begins with the 3 vikings mentioning how much they love their village and never want to leave.  Cue alien abduction.  The plot never really evolves past there, and it doesn't need to.  The real shining moments are the dialogue.  At the beginning and end of every level, the vikings discuss their predicament with witty banter, full of pop references and 4-wall-obliterating self-reference.  Occasionally laugh-out-loud, these lost warriors' discussions range in topic from the Wizard of Oz (which they admit they shouldn't know of) to explicitly referring to the stage they're on as "a difficult level."  When you die repeatedly, they will berate the player and/or bemoan their incompetence, adding a chuckle to lessen the frustration of constant death.

The lost vikings has great music.  Nothing you'd want to play on your headphones while jogging, but fits the levels nicely.  Most importantly, the tracks never grate on you, as you retry a level for the umpteenth time.

If you haven't noticed, I've mentioned several times how often you can expect to die and be forced to replay a level.  This is where my only gripe with the game arises.  I prefer puzzle and puzzle-like games to primarily challenge my critical thinking skills.  Lost vikings does challenge them, but after about half way through, the difficulty of surviving dangers far outstrips the difficulty of solving puzzles.  Meanwhile, the puzzles never really get more intense than what you're introduced to in the first few levels.  This is what I dislike about many modern puzzle games, like Angry Birds.  Once I have figured out how to beat a puzzle, I quickly lose interest if I have to retry it many times because the solution is difficult to perform.  I would much prefer more puzzle, less platformer.

But overall, Lost Vikings is a gem, and I'm really enjoying going through it again.  Perhaps when I'm done, I'll find a way to play the sequel, Norse by Norsewest.

amiibo Part 2

Despite many of the complaints I have with the Super Smash Bros. line of amiibo, I have purchased several.  They are of fairly high quality, and likely the only Smash Bros. figure line we'll see in our lifetimes.  There are other "meta-Nintendo" lines, most notably Jakks Pacific's World of Nintendo line, but I appreciate that these amiibo are specific to Smash Bros.  The particular versions of the costumes, as well as the poses, are lifted directly from Smash Bros., with the Smash Bros. symbol as their base.  The problem, exclusively in America, has been in getting them.

I have been fairly lucky with my amiibo hunts.  I, apparently, like popular characters, because only a few of the ones I've wanted are considered "rare".  The few rare ones I did want, I suppose I was in the right place at the right time; I was able to easily pre-order them in my local Toys R Us.  There are more coming out I desire, however, so, hopefully, my luck will not run out.  I have several theories as to why they are so hard to collect here in the US.  Here are some of them.

Nintendo is a family company.  They are not accustomed to, nor interested in, pandering to collectors.  They are targeting younger audiences by flooding shelves with the characters most popular with kids (Mario, Kirby, Yoshi, etc) while ignoring some of the great characters from their more mature games.  Their sales numbers might back this up.  Mario always sells well, while the few Fire Emblem figures ever made might not have.  I hope the data from American amiibo sales do not reinforce this idea.  After all, if you ship less Marths, you'll sell less Marths.

Nintendo of Japan is proud.  Nintendo of Japan, like many, many older Japanese game companies are either completely mystified by Western tastes, or more likely, look down on them.  This pride lead them to foresee American amiibo shoppers as unsophisticated - simply wanting flagship mascots of children's games.  While it is true, Americans love Mario and the gang, the amiibo debacle has also re-proven that Western gamers have complex taste in games.  This pride could also be blamable for the breakdown in communications.  Nintendo of America has said almost nothing regarding the shortages, and I believe, a big reason is that they know very little of Nintendo of Japan's plans or ideas.

Nintendo is inexperienced in merchandise.  First, I will admit that there has been, literally, thousands of Nintendo-related toys released over the decades.  What I am referring to, specifically, is Nintendo's lack of experience in handling the manufacture, shipping and marketing of figures.  They have always licensed their merchandises out to other manufacturers, but with amiibo, they have taken on much of the responsibility.  And, frankly, they don't know enough yet to satisfy the myriad of consumer types around the world they have.  They completely missed the mark when predicting sales in the US, made too few of some characters and too many of others, and have shipped them in batches so small, they only exacerbate rather than relieve the situation.  Even retailers are frustrated with Nintendo, hurting relationships a more experienced company would already have cemented.

Nintendo is gun shy.  As this is their first real foray into collectibles, they likely erred on the side of caution, preferring to under-produce than over.  Figures not selling and sitting on shelves would have been costly for them, as well as edged out future shelf space for the next series of amiibo.

Nintendo is, maybe, an evil genius.  The amiibo situation greatly resembles the original Wii shopping madness.  Is Nintendo under-shipping to drive up demand?  For the case of the Wii, it worked quite well.  People were going crazy over it and, I believe, people that never would have otherwise bought one did for two reasons.  One, people who would have otherwise never heard about a console release learned of the Wii from news reports about its scarcity.  Two, people who were on the fence about buying one, when confronted with the chance to acquire one from the insanely low supply, felt pressured to get it now, or miss out forever.  Perhaps Nintendo was trying to recreate this fever with amiibo.

Hopefully, collectors who missed out on their favorite characters will get a chance in the future.  But with more and more amiibo being announced every month, I doubt it.

amiibo Part 1

Me and my fellow Smash Bros. fan friends were very excited for Nintendo's new toys-to-life series, called amiibo.  The initial line of amiibo are based on Super Smash Bros. for WiiU/3DS, a brilliant move, as Smash Bros features characters from throughout Nintendo's considerable history.  The initial prototypes looked great.  The promised gameplay sounded fantastic.

But, upon release, my friends and I were in for disappointment.  The first thing I noticed was the released versions were not as brilliant as the prototypes.  Now, as an action figure collector, I am very used to this, with regard to paint quality and sculpt accuracy.  The difference that bothered me, however, was the stands.  The prototypes boasted small, round, and clear tubes to hold aloft the flying or jumping characters.  The actual stands were much thicker, square and all sorts of different translucent colors.  I understand the thickening of the stands; these are family toys and stands the size of the prototypes would likely snap in a 4-year-old's hands.  But why show such a drastically different stand?  Did you actually believe you could have produced them that way?  I suppose, since this is one of Nintendo's first forays into figures, that can be forgiven ... lack of experience.  Far worse than the size however, was the decision to make them colored.  Clear plastic is perfect for stands, it minimizes their appearance, adding to the illusion the figure is gliding or hovering.  By making them brightly colored, they draw attention, rather than hide it.  For the Link figure, in particular, they chose to have a pee-yellow colored stand drip from between his legs down to the base.  It really looks like a power stream of urine.

The look of these figures is only half their appeal.  You can tap them on your console and bring them to life in the game.  But, as amiibos were getting into people's hands, me and my friends hopes were dashed again, as their functionality was strange, unfun and obscured.  Firstly, you could not play as your amiibo.  You could only spar with it, fight alongside it, or watch it fight alone.  Not a huge deal-breaker, but putting time and effort into strengthening a character would be best enjoyed by playing as it, as any RPG can tell you.  They also claimed the figure would learn from the events of the battles it was in, specifically.  That you could teach it moves and counter-moves by showing them it.  It is very unclear if this is the case.  There is no way to tell how or what your amiibo has learned, or if there is any more to the "learning" system than the amount of time it has fought.  You can only gauge its strength by its level, 1-50.

By level 50, the amiibo is very, very intelligent.  This excited me and my friends; something challenging to strive for.  But, we were, again, quickly disappointed.  As it get higher in levels, it also get stat bumps, making it stronger, faster and tougher than the version of that character the player can play as.  This isn't good design - its SNK Boss Syndrome.  Making something harder by giving it unfair advantages isn't fun to overcome; it feels cheap.  I wanted to be defeated by my amiibo's honed technique, strategy and skill.  Not its ridiculous stats.

All of these problems only arise if you can actually get an amiibo.  There have been horrendous stock issues regarding amiibo since the first day of their release.  These isssues have largely been restricted to the US.  Nintendo has been notoriously tight-lipped as to why, but in Part 2, I'll give you my guesses.

Game Length

Game length (as in, the length of time to beat or complete a game) is always discussed under the assumption that longer is better; that more hours to beat is stricly superior than less, in every way.  I would like to challenge that assumption, with maybe some caveats.

What are the benefits of game length?  Primarily (and obviously) it means more game to play.  More to do, overcome and enjoy.  Makes sense as an upside.  And, since games cost money, more gameplay means more value for your hard-earned dollar.  Again, makes sense.  Why would I prefer a shorter game, denying me play time and lowering the value of my purchase?

I like to beat games.  If they have a single player narrative campaign, I like to see the beginning, middle and end; I enjoy the complete story.  The longer a game is, the harder that is to accomplish.  With a normal work and social life, it can be quite difficult to find the time to play a game long enough to see the credits roll.

When you multiply finding time to beat games by how many great titles come out each week, you see the inherent problem with long games.  If you commit to beating one, you lose out on beating others.  I'd rather beat two shorter games a month than only get halfway through an epic single player story.  If I love a game so much that I want to play more, I could always replay it from the beginning.

The problem with a replay, however, is the lack of new or novel content.  You've seen it all before.  That's why I love games that don't have one linear story.  Games with random variation, for example, are new every time you replay them.  Some games use clever "chunking" of the game to allow the player to decide how long he or she will play it.  Street Fighter IV, for example, takes only an hour to beat with one character.  But if you want more gameplay out of that disc, you can pick up another character and go after the boss.  If you really wanted to play the heck out of it, you could challenge yourself to beating it with every one!  

This also applies to "session length".  Many longer games also require you play, in one sitting, for long periods, or risk losing the progress you just made.  Games with Save Point systems, for example, require you play at least long enough to reach the next Save Point.  Street Fighter allows you to bang out a 90-second match, if that's all the time you have.  Quick side-quests are another way to allow a player to play a game, enact meaningful progress, then get right back to their busy lives.

Could this be why social games, with their incredibly short session times, finally cracked the code to get through to casual gamers?

Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

I recently beat Majora's Mask 3D on 3DS.  This game was the one glaring hole in my Zelda collection.  I have beaten every other main series game since Ocarina of Time.  (I do intend on going back for the previous ones, someday.)  Majora's Mask always felt like a sidestroy - a weird Zelda game that didn't quite "count", so it never really grabbed me when I was younger.  But, after hearing rave reviews for years, followed by a remastered release on a handheld, I figured it was time to see what the big deal was.  I was disappointed.

There is a lot of great, tried-and-true Zelda gameplay in Majora's Mask, but I feel like it is mostly dampened by that infernal 3-day clock.  For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, Majora's Mask has a novel gimmick - the entire game takes place over only three days in the game world, which equals only a few hours in the real world.  At the end of the those three days, catastrophe strikes and you get a game over.  That is, unless you use the Ocarina of Time to travel back to the beginning of the 72 hour period.  You bring back with you plot devices, spells, tools, etc, so you can advance to new areas you could otherwise not have reached.  But, and here's the sticking point for me, if you don't acquire that tool or spell or whatever before time is up, you have to start all over questing for that item.

I believe requiring a player to replay an exact game experience is just bad design.  A huge part of why games such as the Zelda series are so fun is the sense of exploration.  Seeing new things, solving new puzzles, killing new enemies.  A puzzle you've already solved becomes a chore.  Who wants to travel to a magical kingdom to do chores?  New content is the key to engaging players, not simply "more of the same".

The clock does lend a sense of urgency to your tasks, but I don't believe it is a worthwhile trade-off for repetitious gameplay.  There are a ton of exciting things to explore in Majora's Mask, but they are only novel the first time.  No other Zelda game forces players to re-live challenges, at least not as a core gameplay mechanic.  No other Zelda game felt a mechanic to add pressure to the player's actions was necessary, and they were right.  The Zelda formula works without it - you rarely die, and when you do, it's a short run to be right back where you were.  That little bit of time spent catching up is enough punishment to make a player play carefully; you don't need the threat of having to re-do an entire dungeon!

The time-travel system does lend itself to some brilliant questing mechanics, solving challenges with brain-twisting temporal puzzles.  But, for the most part, they don't engage the clock system this way.  Most of the quests that require time travel are about memorizing a complex series of events through trial-and-error, then going back and trying again, until you finally do all the correct actions in the correct order.  Often (for the more complex quests) this can mean doing the beginning of the quest 4 or 5 times!  Again, the repetition is not a worthwhile trade-off for a novel quest mechanic.

Don't get me wrong, Majora's Mask still has a lot of excellent points.  The dungeons are a little harder than the other games (and that's great) but still filled with classic, fun Zelda puzzles and enemies.  The fantastic dialogue, multiplied by the "mask system" means there is a lot of funny, touching and interesting "conversations" Link has.  (Quotes because, like all Zeldas, he never speaks.)  There's a lot of great challenges, exploration and narratives in Majora's Mask, but the ticking away of the clock chips away at the overall experience.

Welcome to Video Game Base!

Hello and welcome to Video Game Base!  My goal for this blog is to share news, foster discussion and maybe rant a little bit ... all about video games!  I have been a gamer since a child, playing ancient games on the Amiga PC back in the early 90's.  I like all types of video games, but some of my favorite genres are RPG (especially JRPG), strategy, and puzzle games.  I really enjoy playing games with friends on the couch, but expect news, reviews and editorials on all manner of games and ways to play them.  I'd love for this blog to be interactive, so feel free to comment, share, and/or discuss.