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Question of the Day: Valkyrie Profile and the Need for Voiced Dialogue

My backlog is becoming untenable. There are games, games that I started months ago, sitting in a pile that appears to be growing of its own volition. Where the hell did that copy of Pro Evolution Soccer even come from and why is it sitting in the “to play” pile? No one in my home even likes soccer!

The worst of the lot is Persona 4. Rather than hide myself away like some horrid realization of gamer stereotype, refusing to venture into the sun until the game is complete, I’ve been working through Persona since early December, taking it a bit at a time. It’s starting to drive me crazy. A few days ago, I fired it up for the first time since mid-February and was treated to one of its scarce animated cutscenes. Turns out that bear suit made a dude! Yeah, not a dude wearing a bear suit. The bear suit formed a dude inside of it. More startling than spontaneous dude generation was hearing the characters’ voices. I had forgotten they could talk you see. This is because, with very rare exceptions, I always turn off the voice acting in RPGs. Why? Because the voice acting is almost always terrible. Dragon Quest VIII’s British cast and Final Fantasy XII’s gang of breathy stoics are exceptions to the rule. Most of the time, you have to deal with screeching whiners who insist on naming every single thing they do and I’ll have none of it. Honestly though, I wonder why voice is considered a necessity in modern design.

Posted Mar 19 2009, 07:00 PM by John Constantine with | with 3 comment(s)

Filed under: legend of zelda, twilight princess, square-enix, dragon quest, persona, atlus, final fantasy xii, question of the day, persona 4, dragon quest viii, valkyrie profile, eiji aonumal john Constantine, covenant of the plume

Whatcha Playing: On the Road Again

Wherein travelling inevitably leads to thinking about Zelda, the nature of game linearity and unskippable passive sequences in games.

Five men in their late 20s are heading south on route 80 through New Jersey in a white Dodge Caravan. They listen to loud music and discuss plans for the weekend ahead of them. Before too long, they pass signs for a town called Hibernia. As they are a group raised on far, far too many videogames, the fanciful name of what is likely a small, simple town full of good, honest folk quickly transforms it into a land of adventure, intrigue and obnoxious obligation.

“Ho stranger! You have stopped for gasoline in Hibernia? I would love to give you some, but first you must travel beyond the woods and acquire a ruffled dragoon feather. I need them to make gasoline!”

“Hey! Hey! Have you tried pressing Z to look at signs? Press A to read signs! Hey!”

“You must equip a sword and a shield before you can leave the car. Who would leave the car without a sword and a shield?”

Yes, even something as an innocuous as a roadtrip leads to making fun of Zelda, and by proxy, every other videogame that makes you engage in a string of needless bullshit before letting you actually play. After we got the jokes out of our systems, we did start talking about how, when the itch arises, we all love going back and replaying past Zeldas, but have almost no desire to replay any of the 3D games any time soon. Everyone in the van has affection for Ocarina and Wind Waker – Opinions on Majora’s Mask vary. Personally, I find it to be a freaking chore to play, no matter how creative. Twilight Princess, we agreed, feels like actually doing chores when you play it. – but the prospect of wading through a never ending stream of unskippable conversations makes returning to these games unsavory. The constant handholding is bad enough, even without taking five minutes to listen to some owl made of triangles rant about a mountain, finally getting through the diatribe, and accidentally asking him to repeat himself.

The conversation was oddly prescient.

Posted Dec 08 2008, 08:15 PM by John Constantine with | with 2 comment(s)

Filed under: john constantine, whatcha playing, the legend of zelda, final fantasy, ocarina of time, wind waker, twilight princess, hironobu sakaguchi, final fantasy iv, final fantasy iv ds, final fantasy III, final fantasy iii ds, majora’s mask

Miyamoto Says Something Was "Missing" From Zelda: Twilight Princess. We Know It, Too.

I really enjoyed The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. To me, it played like a much bigger, much more detailed version of Ocarina of Time, which is A-OK in my book. I also got to ride a horsey.

But in the most recent installment of a long-running interview with MTV Multiplayer, Shigeru Miyamoto acknowledges that perhaps Twilight Princess could have been...fresher.

Whatever your stance on the current status of the Zelda franchise, you can't really argue that it's a bad thing when its creator decides it's high time to innovate.

I like reading message board threads about the steps Nintendo should take to freshen up Zelda because nobody agrees on anything. Since I already know people are going to fire arrows on me for merely sharing my suggestions, I thought I'd belt out a few.

First, I'd love to see some cel-shaded graphics again, but not Wind Waker Link. The original Legend of Zelda and The Adventure of Link included some great instruction booklet character art that jogged our imaginations while we played as jagged snot-green sprites; I would love to see a return to that traditional art style. It inspired so many of us when our imaginations were still supple.

Posted Oct 29 2008, 05:33 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 4 comment(s)

Filed under: the legend of zelda, ocarina of time, twilight princess, nadia oxford, link to the past, link’s awakening, adventure of link, ganon

Chiptune Friday: A Test of Island Courage!

As a lifelong coast-dweller, I am well aware of the fact that hurricane season is upon us. With this in mind, I feel that it's the right time to bring out my favorite island-hopping adventure game, StarTropics from Nintendo. Here's the happy little ditty that plays in Chapter 6: Reunion when your young adventurer finally finds his missing archeologist uncle, Dr. J:

Posted Jul 25 2008, 01:15 PM by Derrick Sanskrit with | with 3 comment(s)

Filed under: nintendo, derrick sanskrit, nes, chiptune friday, twilight princess, punch out, startropics

The Ten Greatest Fire Levels in Gaming History, Part 3

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker — Dragon Roost Cavern

Generally speaking, I have as much disdain for the 3D Zelda games as I have love for their 2D predecessors. With some exceptions, they're tedious slogs of fetch questing, hand holding, and unskippable, unbearably patronizing prattle. ("You got a key! You can use it to open a door!") This subject tends to be a bone of contention between me and my esteemed colleague here at 61FPS, but one thing I have to concede to him is that the dungeon design in these games is usually pretty swell. For all of Wind Waker's faults, it has the virtue of being visually gorgeous, which is why its fire dungeon, Dragon Roost Cavern, beats out the dreary Fire Temple from Ocarina of Time. (Don't even get me started on Twilight Princess.) The dungeon's architecture and mood are admirably cohesive, too — you can almost feel the breezy air outside the volcano give way to a brutal dry heat within. And the boss is — no argument here — spectacular. You win this round, 3D Zelda. . . grumble, grumble. . . — PS

Posted May 29 2008, 06:32 PM by Peter Smith with | with 8 comment(s)

Filed under: john constantine, peter smith, final fantasy, top ten, silent hill, list, zelda, final fantasy vi, axelay, ocarina of time, thunderforce iii, gradius ii, wind waker, twilight princess, the ten greatest fire levels in gaming history

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.