One of my recent posts on the last great age of 2D gaming put me in a mood to revisit the tragically poorly served classic Link’s Awakening. I’m still savoring this playthrough, so a full review will have to wait.
In the meantime, here’s an intriguing tidbit from retro gaming history brought to my attention by a fellow retrogamer friend.
Folks in the classic gaming scene may be aware of Zelda 4’s origins as a planned Game Boy port of Zelda 3, but not even I knew about its hidden predecessor The Frog for Whom the Bell Tolls.
Watch this video to learn the full secret history behind Link’s Awakening:
And read Combat Frame XSeed: Classified Intel to learn the secret history of my hit mecha thriller series
Brian,
I have a number of rather naive questions for the gamers who comment on the blog and respond to the former.
1) Is it economically feasible to offer a 2D game presently?
2) What are the technological obstacles? e.g. computers are too powerful?
3) What are the cultural/ideological obstacles to once again offering 2D games? e.g. the cult of hyperrealism?
4) Finally, would gamers, both casual and hardcore, even buy or play such games presently?
Thanks!
xavier
If you’re talking about video games generally, there are still quite a few 2D games, both in terms of graphics and in terms of gameplay. Some are throwbacks are continuing series (ex. Super Mario Maker/Ghosts and Goblins: Resurrection), others are new IPs (often indie games.) You also see a fair amount of 2D games on handhelds, since even if they can technically handle complex 3D graphics you often can’t get much appreciation of the graphics on the smaller screen anyway.
Certainly casual gamers appreciate 2D games. There’s never been a 2D Mario that didn’t do well.
If we’re talking AAA games, that’s another matter. All those are going to be 3D, third person, open world “mud” games. The cult of hyperrealism is part of this; if you do a 2D platformer you can still have hyperrealistic graphics but the player won’t have the camera control to really appreciate them. But the bigger problem is that large games have become very formulaic and risk adverse. It’s the same reason why “stealth” games are very rarely stealth games at the core, but the standard AAA framework with some shallow stealth elements put over them and some bandaids to make the elements work when they weren’t part of the design (like the ubiquitous ability to see through walls.) There isn’t a “cult of subpar stealth mechanics;” it’s just something that happens because of how AAA games are designed to be the same.
So if you mean “hardcore gamer” as someone who plays AAA games or is really involved in the console wars, that type of gamer might avoid 2D games. But if you mean someone who is invested in gaming generally and has played a variety of games over a long period of time, that type of gamer wouldn’t have any objection to 2D games.
The industry psyop during the 32-bit generation went in hard on trying to kill 2D, so it many modern gamers are allergic to proper challenge and their expectations for 2D games are skewed. I’ve talked to indie developers about how they have to make games easier because most modern gamers simply will not understand how to surmount challenges. Their expectations are all off.
However, there is absolutely an audience for 2D. There always was, even when the industry attempted to destroy it. See the success of new games like Shovel Knight or the recent revivals like Streets of Rage 4 and Sonic Mania. The audience is still there. They just need to be catered to.
But as Mr. Harrier said above, the cult of realism has damaged a lot of gamer expectations. The example in the post of The Frog For Whom the Bell Tolls could never be made today simply because of how “unrealistic” and “cartoony” it is. AAA devs would scoff at the lack of mocap, serious orchestral scores, or actual artstyle.
This is the true reason Nintendo is still so successful, and what a lot of gamers don’t want to admit. They are the only ones who still do out of the box ideas that feel fresh. Their upcoming 3D Kirby game alone shows that.
Thankfully, indie developers are really picking up the slack in putting out interesting ideas again: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1473900/Zealot/
The other day I got a rare treat few have experienced in over 20 years: the chance to play a new Super Nintendo game.
“New” in this case means 2017. But keep in mind, that’s the first SNES release in 21 years. It’s also the same year Nier Automata came out.
The game in question was Unholy Night. Its origin from a somewhat shady Kickstarter campaign only adds to the charm. Supposedly, it was made by a band of ex-SNK devs, but no one seems able to verify it. Despite the buzz, the game failed to crowdfund, only to be bailed out at the eleventh hour by a third party publisher.
In support of JD’s point, contemporary gamers panned Unholy Night, which is not incidentally a 2D fighting game in the style of high 90s Capcom favorites like SF II Turbo and Vampire Savior. To be sure, the game has its warts, like atypically small sprites. But it’s fun. And challenging to beat. A buddy and I tried for almost an hour but never managed to beat the final boss. No wonder the interactive movie fans who call themselves gamers these days hate it.
Very technical technicality, a few games kept releasing on the SNES until 1999 or so, most famously the sixth Fire Emblem game, Thracia 776 (September 1st 1999). Of course, nearly all of those were Japan-only, but I thought it an interesting piece of trivia.
Correction, Thracia 776 is the fifth Fire Emblem game, not the sixth.
That’s the Super Famicom, not the SNES.
Nintendo will be launching a 2D game as their major holiday release, going on sale in about two weeks–Metroid Dread. We’ll have to see how it does.
Thanks everyone for your helpful insights.
Some follow up question:
How relevant are AAA game developers? From what I gather from @Grummz, they face many challenges, increasing disinterest from both kinds of gamers, high costs and risk adverse.
How to explain the dislike for challenging games where you have to sweat and persist to advance to the next level? I’m a super casual player, and I’ve always presumed you have to work at mastering the mechanics. So I don’t understand the current mindset.
Thanks again for your great comments!
xavier
I’ll answer your questions about difficulty as best I can from the perspective of a Millennial. May Brian forgive the incoming essay.
Half of the problem pertains to level design, since Americans can hardly sit still and have terrible attention spans. Any levels—or “maps,” as we call them in 3D games—that require slow, methodical navigation; navigation through any sort of structure that isn’t a narrow hallway, especially without an objective marker on the player’s compass; or scavenges for items that don’t flash and glitter are going to elicit forums-worth of complaints from Americans.
The other half relates to the tuning of the actual gameplay. Games these days have so much content to show off that beating a game is no longer a privilege, but a necessity for the player to get his money’s worth—which requires a delicate balancing act between difficulty and playability. There exists a mod for the original Halo PC port called SPV3, for example, that takes players out of their comfort zones on the higher difficulties. This is because the official Halo games (largely) allow players to pick whatever weapons they want and to adapt their tactics appropriately, whereas SPV3 makes ammunition scarce for many weapons and forces players to use whatever they can scavenge. The average Halo veteran might perceive this as “bad balancing” based on prior expectations.
On the flip side, an RPG called The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was notorious for keeping the game perpetually difficult by leveling enemies with the player. As the player gains in-game experience and obtains more powerful weapons, the natural expectation is that the combat becomes easier. Not only do more powerful enemy types spawn, no matter which parts of the world the player visits, however, the player continues to gain levels after maxing out his combat skills—even though the enemy NPCs never max out their own.
Meanwhile, a 2D indie game called Getting Over It requires players to navigate steep obstacles with a sledgehammer as a man who is confined to a cauldron. During the game, the developer confesses that, whevener he adds an obstacle that seems too difficult to surmount, he struggles to decide whether or not this is because the obstacle is artificially hard or if he simply lacks the necessary skill.
“Artificial” difficulty brings me to my penultimate point: reality vs game logic. Mainstream shooting games might balance their weapons by giving a medium caliber machine a low “base” damage, such that it requires more shots to kill someone, as well as bad accuracy, whereas a 9 mm handgun might receive a higher base damage and laser-like accuracy. This will naturally offput people who shoot actual firearms and will tell you that, in reality, it’s usually the other way around.
Lastly, AAA developers have forgotten the myriad of ways to balance games beyond weapons. “Difficulty” in the AAA world usually equates to, “I do less damage to you, and you do more damage to me,” and literally nothing else. In the old days, games like FEAR would alter the intelligence of enemy NPCs. A horror mod for a different game would use difficulty modes to increase the scare factor; normal mode might have you round a brick barrier to the entrace of a mechanic’s car garage and have you encounter a slowly lumbering creepy thing, whereas hard mode would have you approach the same garage and get ambushed by a big, beefy zombie that would burst through the barrier. Lasty, in yet another horror mod called Paranoia 2, the player can drop his gun if he falls from too great a height—and potentially never find it!
Dcal
Many thanks for the detailed explanation. This very helpful. So it’s a balance between programmer’s skills and objectives and players’ expectations according to game type.
Got it,
Your explanation parallels Bradford’s recent post about game design for the MMORPG games and the normie factor.
Thanks again!
xavier
In my mind the biggest problem is the embrace of the “mud” genre. This is the “third person game in an open world with a linear plot, cinematic focus, leveling and crafting, etc.” genre that’s been all over the place. This has been the “default” genre for at least a decade. It is hard for game developers to even consider other genres, and they view things with cosmetic differences as vastly different.
I really started thinking about this when considering the 2014 version of Thief. Anyone who has played both the classic trilogy and the 2014 version will tell you that the 2014 game completely missed what made the first three games work (even though the 3rd one was hamstrung by being forced to be released on consoles, it still got the core right.) A big place you see this is in sound design. Thief 1-3 have immaculate sound design, and that is great because without it the game just doesn’t work. You play as a thief who must evade guards (since even the average joe guard has a good chance of killing you in a one on one fight and you are completely screwed if you get corned by three or more enemies.) Since you play a normal, though highly trained, human you don’t have any special senses to determine where guards are and if you can see guards they will often be able to see you. Thus much of the game is about carefully listening to determine where guards are. At the same time, guards can use sound to determine where YOU are and so the game needs to give good feedback about how loud you are (and these two things interact; if you listen at a closed door to a guard’s patrol and you hear loud clanging noises as he walks over metal, you know that you’ll have a hard time remaining silent if you follow him in that room.)
In Thief (2014) sound design is even worse than average, and it’s usually pretty bad. Sometimes guards in the same room are inaudible and sometimes you can hear guards halfway across the level with several walls in between you and them. The game actually gives you an ability to “visually detect” noises instead, meaning that instead of actually playing sounds in a useful way it just highlights when enemies are near. Similarly since the AI feedback of guards is not as advanced as the first 3 games, you get an indicator to tell you when they’ve discovered you or not. These are all band-aids to make stealth technically playable, but they were necessary because they did not design the game from the start as a stealth game.
If you listen to interviews it’s clear that they had no idea what they were doing. The biggest argument was apparently about whether to make the game first or third person, even though you can make a perfectly fine stealth game in third person. (The only reason going third person in Thief 3 hurt things was because they tied actions to third-person model animations, which made you feel less in control. The Thief 2014 team tied even MORE actions to animations, despite being in first person and thus making most animations unnecessary.) Bigger issues to match the earlier Thief games would be things like “immerse the player, only give the player information that the character would,” “encourage players to find multiple ways through every obstacle” and “be very fair about what is possible; do not use context sensitive actions but rather have the player be able to do the same things in every situation.” They blatantly violated all of those.
In interviews it is also enlightening to see the designers defend their decisions to include things like quest markers, a mini-map, special powers, etc. by saying “We let you turn those off, at which point you get the same experience as before.” The most obvious question is if those things prevent you from having an actual Thief experience, why aren’t they off by default? But the bigger problem is that the game has been designed around those features. You can turn off the ability to “visually detect sound” but if you do, it doesn’t make it so that the sound design is suddenly great and you can use your ears properly. You just now have NO way to detect guards and you will lose due to factors outside of your control. Similarly, you can turn off quest markers, just as how the first three games had no quest markers. But the first three games would also give you partial in-universe maps to refer to, signs to indicate what part of the building you are in, conversations from guards to give hints as to where important items are, etc. Turning off the markers doesn’t suddenly make those clues appear in Thief (2014). You are just left with a game where you need to find things that could be anywhere, and now you have no indication whatsoever where they might be, so have fun searching every inch of every level (which I suppose isn’t impossible, since another issue is that the levels are far smaller and less open ended than previous games.)
Anyway, long story short this is how modern developers produce games. They don’t start from the ground up and consider how to design each aspect of the game to best reflect the demands of this particular game. They instead modify their approach from a previous game. If it’s a shooter, they might say “How can we slightly alter Uncharted to make a new game?” They assume that they can make minor changes at the end to make the game play differently, but at that point it’s too late. They will have to put on band-aids to make the game functional at all, and if they let you take off those band-aids all you are left with is a broken game. Thus even when designers try to make something different, their approach is so poor that it ends up feeling the same.