This email came a week or two ago…
hi there! there is something i want to say…
i can’t help but think there is a contradiction within your last 2 articles
you said that people love 2D super mario bros because it offers tons of content in brief burst yet in the next post you talk about final fantasy 1 and say it’s all about growth… isn’t that growth achieved by losing tons and tons of time? isn’t that the reason why people (myself included) think the game is a “grindfest”? doesn’t growth happens in every single rpg? i mean… that’s what make RPG,RPG’S in the first place…
i love a game like disgaea because growth happen quite quickly (especialy if you toggle all the animation off making the game even quicker) but i can’t stand NES (well old rpg in general) rpg because they fell terribly slow (combat takes forever… monster don’t give enough experience… menus are clunky…)
i also can’t help but think you are strumming a little too hard on 3D mario… i personaly don’t care if people like 2D mario or 3D mario but i find it logical that if there wasn’t a good amount of people who like 3D mario, galaxy 2 wouldn’t be happening
Galaxy 2 is being made in case there was a backlash against NSMB Wii and because the Nintendo developers want to make it (they love making star-finder Mario games).
The reason why I am hard on Star Finder Mario is because it stopped new Platform Mario games to be made for decades. Also, the conventional wisdom is all wrong on Star Finder Mario.
If you look at current NSMB Wii reviews, you will find them all over the place. But many sites, such as IGN, are treating Platform Mario games as if they are not AAA games. They live in a world of console segregation. 2d games, in their eyes, belong only on handhelds or on digital downloads. In their eyes, 2d games are automatically inferior to their 3d counterparts. In the IGN review, it is said that even though NSMB Wii may be the best 2d Mario game made, it is still not 3d Mario, therefore, points are taken off. That’s bullshit. NSMB Wii may have multiplayer, but it is not online, therefore, points are taken off. But Mario Galaxy, which really didn’t have much of a multiplayer, didn’t have online, yet it was Game of the Year.
There are double standards concerning the Star Finder Mario games. I am knocking Star Finder Mario games because I believe the quality of Platform Mario far exceeds them, as the sales certainly exceeds them, and because the ‘hardcore’ have placed Star Finder Mario on a pedestal where it does not belong. Star Finder Mario games are not half as great as people think they are.
There is a perfect correlation that Nintendo hardware with only 3d Mario performs poorly. DS had Super Mario 64 on it and that didn’t make it surpass the PSP. You can even include the Wii in this as it was still not ‘healthy’. NES, SNES, and the Gameboys all had Platform Mario. Once the DS had it, its sales shot up. When the game came out in America, a week after the DS Lite came out, DS sales shot up.
I am tired of people treating 2d games as ‘second class games’. I, myself, am tired of being treated like a second class consumer because I like those games. Since I like those type of games, I am told I am only supposed to play them on handhelds or through digital downloads? Well **** them!
About Final Fantasy: the game is a simplified RPG. If you want a truly long game, play an old school Ultima. Final Fantasy isn’t long at all. Within one hour, I was able to pick out my party, name them, equip them, talk to everyone in the city and the castle, talk to the king, roam the countryside, slay imps and mad ponies in swamps and forests, enter a haunted temple, open doors, loot treasure, confront the lord of that temple, battle him, slay him, rescue the princess, bring her back to the castle, have the king congratulate me, have him build me a bridge, and when I walk across the bridge the credits and title screen start rolling.
In many modern RPGs, the first hour I am still in cinematics and damned tutorials.
Final Fantasy 1 certainly is a challenging game. When I battled Astos, he slew my fighter with one hit with *rub* (naturally, I reset the game and the next time *rub* appeared on my fighter, it was *ineffective*). When my characters get poisoned (which is often), my party order annoyingly changes. In the part with the Earth Cave, the Healer and Item stores have been destroyed so you cannot resurrect your guys or buy any needed items (like softening characters turned to stone) unless you take a long boat ride. So yes, the game is challenging.
Zelda 1 and 2 also were challenging. Yet, they created new gamers out of them as well.
I have long wondered why I like the older games. Then, it hit me. The older games are far more centered on math. Math is their gameplay.
PONG and Breakout are about the physics of a bouncing ball. Space War and Asteroids are about the physics of objects in space. Platform Mario is about speed and gravity. Classic RPGs are entirely tied to their mathematical battles. When you decide whether to buy a new sword, you do mathematical equations in your head wondering how much higher your attack rate will go. In battle, you must calculate your attacks in order to end the battle as fast as possible. Even in FPS games, people like finding the right angle, or the arc and bounce of a grenade.
Math is very pleasurable.
Remember that gaming began with dice and cards which were all based around math. I believe I lost interest more due to games trying to appeal on a non-math basis. For example, a later Final Fantasy game would not be about getting that new sword or new spell which would improve your attacks. A later Final Fantasy game would be about “story” and “character” with orchestras playing in the background. None of that is pleasurable to me. The mathematical elements of the gameplay are still there, but they have largely been diluted. The game feels so empty yet so bloated with form and style- all of which signify nothing.
Look at World of Warcraft. People play that game for YEARS. Why? What could possibly compel someone to keep playing that game? It is the math. The player will draw up his or her character to show off his or her ‘weapons’ and ‘armor’. In WoW, players measure their weapons and armor and mathematically tally it up (well, the game does the math for them). But still, it is a game ultimately of numbers. Of attack rate. Of regeneration rate. Of defense rate. Of cooldown times.
Wii Sports is a math heavy game. People love the physics of the game. They love how if they wave their hand at this angle, the ball goes that angle. That is the meat and soul of the game. Wii Sports is a distant cousin, in that vein, to earlier games.
Wii Fit is also physics, of course, but of your own body.
When people look at these so-called “simple” games, they are only “simple” because they are not appealing to emotions as they are appealing to math. What I mean by this, the game is not trying to impress you with characters, with bad soap operas, with long winded introductions, or other flashes.
The “fun” of Platform Mario is just how mathematical it all is. Players debate about how “floaty” is the jump, of whether Mario slides too much or too little when he stops, but this is all because the physics of the game IS the game. Mario making cute noises is not the game. It is the math.
In Star Finder Mario games, there is certainly math. But it is a very different kind. You are going through a 3d realm which likely hits a different part of the brain. You have to spatially map, in your mind, where you are going and how you are going to get there. Platform Mario requires no spatial mapping in the mind.
This is, perhaps, why people say they like the Star Finder Mario games because of the *atmosphere* or the *music* or the *epic feeling*. None of that means a damn to me. I find video game stories and atmosphere to be sophomoric at best. What I like is the math. I like the angles. I like the physics. I like the numbers. I like the dice.
It may sound boring, but I didn’t realize I liked that until it was taken away. I actually enjoy attacking air in Final Fantasy 1 because I miscalculated on putting too many guys on one enemy. All the things you might say are a “grind” are things I enjoy.
You know what is a “grind” to me? Cinematics. Story. Characters who don’t shut up. It is all boring and substance-less.
People might be surprised that math is fun. But guys who watch football, who keep track of players’ “numbers” and percentages, who play ‘Fantasy Football’, all of that is math.
When I think of RPG or platformer or strategy games, I think MATH. I love Asteroids for its physics. If Asteroids did not have those physics, it would fail as a game.
Video games are unique because they hit the brain where we do math. Television doesn’t do that. Movies don’t do that. Music doesn’t do that (unless you’re a musician). Books don’t do that.
People have assumed to make video games more appealing to a broad audience is to water down the ‘mathematical gameplay’ and ‘appeal to emotions’ such as many cinematics, angsty characters, plot twists, and other things you find in other entertainment. We are witnessing that now. The only real difference between games of today and games of twenty years ago is that the games of today focus heavily on these non-mathematical elements to create interest.
But what is the reality? I think it is totally backwards! I think video games NEED that mathematical gameplay and watering it down or diluting it is the reason why everyone says games are becoming weaker and weaker despite more gorgeous graphics and more glorious sound.
Brain Age didn’t have ANY of that. It had pure math in it. And people bought it because it was fun. What is Sodoku but math?
Look at Tetris. Is that a game that appeals to your emotions? Is that a game that needs cinematics, characters, or a soap opera? No! Tetris is almost purely mathematical.
Blizzard games are highly mathematical. The guys at Blizzard are board game fanatics. Even in Warcraft 3, you will see dice rolls for everything from hits to bounty. Look at World of Warcraft. It is very much a game that revels in its mathematics of weapon upgrades to items being sold at the auction house.
Video games are the only entertainment that creates mathematical pleasure in the mind. I can think of nothing else that comes close.
Games like Final Fantasy 1, Wii Sports, and NSMB Wii are all the same to me: their gameplay is entirely mathematical. Games like modern Final Fantasy games and Mario Galaxy feel so diluted in firing mathematics in my head.
Richard Garriot said there are only two types of games: games based on mathematics or games based on society. All these “stories” and “cut scenes” in modern gaming is nothing more than trying to simulate a “society” inside the game. Some people respond to that.
Most people are content to play mathematical type games with other people, thus hitting both ends.
Why else did people play Pong? What could possibly be entertaining about that game? It was the bouncing ball and the mathematics of it.
Perhaps it would be more appropriate for me to say that I get bored unless games hit the mathematical part of my mind. Games just seem long when they do not. For example, I could play Asteroids for hours, but I get annoyed and bored with, say, Zelda: Windwaker. Those cutscenes don’t do it for me.
Now that I think about it, Zelda Wii gives me hope because Motion Plus could give a mathematical precision to the game. I am more interested in different ways I can swing my sword and shoot my bow rather than the “story” of the game. If I want good storytelling, I’ll read a freaking book or watch a movie. Only games can provide me a mathematical pleasure where every other entertainment medium cannot.