2313: Reimagining

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I’m going to resist ranting on about how good Ys II was, even though I finished it this evening, and instead talk a little more generally about something that divides opinions somewhat among gamers: the idea of remakes.

The reason I bring this up now is that the first two Ys games have the dubious honour of being some of the most frequently remade and rereleased games of all time. Beginning life on the PC-88, they subsequently found themselves ported, remade and rejigged on platforms ranging from the Sega Master System to modern Windows PCs. And, from what I know of these different versions, they provide markedly different experiences, at least in terms of their aesthetic, but also to a lesser extent in terms of gameplay and narrative content, too.

The situation with Ys reminds me somewhat of the ’80s and early ’90s in gaming, when multiplatform releases were noticeably different from one another due to the wildly different capabilities different hardware had. The ZX Spectrum version of a game, for example, tended to be the “worst” in most cases thanks to that system’s slow processor, lack of RAM and poor graphics and sound capabilities, while the Commodore Amiga version tended to be the most impressive version thanks to being a 16-bit rather than 8-bit computer, plus all the dedicated graphics and sound hardware in that system that made it one of the most impressive computers on the market during that period.

Ultimately, the Windows PC came along and made all this sort of thing mostly irrelevant, which was probably for the best — at least from a development perspective, as developers no longer had to create ten or more completely different versions of their game — but I sort of miss the differences between platforms, since there’s really very little to choose between Xbox One and PS4 versions of games these days, while the PC version is usually the “best” if your hardware is up to the job and the port has been handled with actual PC gamers in mind. The margin of “best” is much smaller than it was back in that period, though; in most cases, it’s only the very worst type of insufferable frame-rate buff that will be able to highlight (and probably talk about at great length) the differences between PC and console versions.

But back to Ys and the concept of remakes in general. The version of Ys and Ys II that I played was the Chronicles+ version, which is — for now, anyway — the absolute latest version. This features lovely PS1-style pixel art, a glorious live-recorded soundtrack (plus the option for two of the older incarnations of the music, too), some really rather fabulous 2D lighting effects and an excellent, excellent localisation by Xseed Games. In comparison to the earlier versions, the script also fleshes out some of the character and world backstory, too, making for a much more “complete”-feeling experience. It is, in short, probably closest to what the fine folks at Falcom wanted to create when Ys was first put together.

Ys is an example of a remake done extremely well. It’s true to the original game, but acknowledges modern tastes. For example, it incorporates analogue control, which simply didn’t exist in the console space when Ys first came out. It also features modern trappings like cloud saving and achievements — the latter aspect of which was added by Xseed and adds an enjoyable “metagame” to the experience, encouraging you to seek out some secrets you might not have found otherwise.

Other solid remakes I’ve come across include Atelier Rorona Plus on PS3. This was a curious situation in that the original Atelier Rorona was a PS3 title too, and only a couple of years earlier than its Plus incarnation. Plus turned out to be the definitive way to enjoy Rorona’s adventure, though, thanks to improved character models, a better interface and an overall better game experience all round. It was a less radical reinvention than the various Ys remakes, but it was still significant and ultimately to the game’s benefit.

Where I find myself raising my eyebrows a bit are when it comes to “remakes” that are little more than ports. Sure, it’s nice to be able to play, say, a PS2 classic in 1080p at 60 frames per second, but sometimes I wonder what a true remake of these older games might be like with modern technology. That’s a lot more work than a port, of course, but I can dream — and it is possible to do something along these lines. Ultimately this type of remake is mostly valuable for those who perhaps missed out on a game on its original platform, so might as well play a technically superior version for (theoretically) the “best” experience with it; contrast with, say, the Ys remakes, though, which provide value even for those who are already veterans of the source material.

Anyway. Remakes can be good; really good, in fact. And I’m more than happy to support them when they’re of as high a quality as the two Ys games I’ve just played through. It’s got me thinking about remakes I’d really like to see, too — though perhaps that’s a subject for a separate post on another day.

1627: Further Enthusing on the Subject of Alchemy

Finally got around to finishing a playthrough of Atelier Rorona Plus today — thanks in part to picking up a copy of the Vita version, which allows you to transfer your save across from the PS3 version, and playing it in the coffee shop when I felt like a change of scenery during a fit of particularly bleak depression earlier in the day. My opinion of it hasn’t changed, but I thought I would enthuse about it once again for those who haven’t yet tasted of its joys.

Rorona Plus is an interesting game, and one with good pacing. Beginning with simple tasks for which the time limit you’re given is ample — leaving you with plenty of time to take on other tasks to build up your relationships and reputation in the town — the game gradually progresses in such a way that what is the same amount of in-game time starts to feel more and more claustrophobic. The things you’re tasked with making start taking longer to produce, and the journeys outside the workshop to gather ingredients and battle monsters take up longer stretches of time, too.

Fortunately, to counterbalance this, you have a number of additional systems open up as you progress — you’re able to “wholesale” items to the shops around town, allowing you to simply purchase useful “intermediate step” ingredients for more complex recipes rather than having to make them every time, and Rorona gets an assistant who can either be sent out to gather ingredients or craft items independently or Rorona. I must confess I didn’t make nearly enough use of these facilities in my first playthrough, but you live and learn; I now recognise that in order to get everything done to such a standard as to unlock the numerous alternative endings to the game, it’s necessary to make heavy use of them.

Herein lies the interesting thing about Rorona Plus: despite having the trappings of a conventional Japanese role-playing game, the meat of the gameplay is actually more about management and strategy. In order to see the most success, you’ll need to plan your time effectively, and set up systems in order to save time whenever possible. Some of these can be constructed yourself — a furnishing system added in the Plus version allows you to build various items that confer helpful benefits on Rorona and her party — while others, such as the aforementioned wholesale and assistant systems, unlock naturally as you progress in the game, though some can be unlocked sooner if you trigger certain events more quickly.

I’m looking forward to playing through the game again knowing what I know now — plus I believe some stuff can be carried over to another playthrough — and seeking out the other endings. Whether or not I’ll go for all of them remains to be seen — I’m keen to play the rest of the series, after all! — but I’ve had a blast so far, and I’m happy that there’s plenty more where that came from.

1614: Remastered

One thing I’m growing to quite dislike about the new generation of games consoles is the number of times it seems they’re going to try and sell us the same games we’ve already played under the pretense that it’ll somehow be a new experience to see them in slightly higher resolution and at a better framerate. (Pro-Tip: if you played them on PC — obviously impossible for exclusives, but for everything else, a viable option — then you have already had this “new” experience.) It’s already happened with Tomb Raider, it’s happening soon with The Last of Us, Halo and numerous others.

There’s a sound argument for these releases, of course: some people might be coming to video games with the new generation and thus may have never had the opportunity to play things from the PS3/360 era — so why shouldn’t they be able to play these games in their “definitive edition”, as Tomb Raider called it? In the case of Halo, the upcoming Master Chief Collection will bring together games from two generations of consoles on one platform and allow players to jump straight to favourite moments rather than having to play all the way through four games. (It also misses out the two games widely regarded to be among the strongest installments in the series — ODST and Reach — but never mind, eh.)

I do find myself resenting the idea of a game that didn’t come out all that long ago — The Last of Us — getting a “remastered” release, though. As I say, I understand the reasons for it, it just feels a little… I don’t know, cheap. Particularly given that most of the truly exciting, original titles for PS4 and Xbox One aren’t coming until next year at the earliest — this leaves 2014 as, as one of my soon-to-be-former colleagues put it, The Year of the Remaster.

Twist: At least, I thought I resented the idea of a remaster. Until I purchased a copy of Atelier Rorona Plus recently — a remake of a game that didn’t come out all that long ago that hasn’t even jumped generation: it’s being released on the same platform it was originally released on!

Atelier Rorona Plus is, as the name suggests, a rerelease of Atelier Rorona, the alchemy-themed RPG/strategy game from Gust that I started playing a while back then had to stop due to review commitments. But this is far from a straight remaster — there would be little point rereleasing it on the same platform otherwise. No, Atelier Rorona Plus instead rebuilds pretty much the whole game in a number of ways.

Visually, it’s had an overhaul. While the environments and 2D art are mostly the same, the 3D polygonal characters have been totally revamped to be more in line with their 2D counterparts — in the original, the polygonal characters looked far too young in comparison to the hand-drawn art and, while it wasn’t a dealbreaker by any means, it was a little distracting. The new character models look gorgeous, and bring the game much more in line with its more recent sequels.

But, notably, it’s not just the visuals that have had an overhaul. The gameplay has been tweaked and adjusted, too, with a whole ton of nice little features that make the whole experience more streamlined and smooth to play without sacrificing any of its depth. The battle system has been redone, the crafting system around which the game revolves has been revamped, the quest system is clearer, there’s less aimless running around… basically everything that needed fixing has, so far as I can make out, been fixed.

Now that’s how you do a remake. Full review coming soon as one of my last pieces on USgamer.

1598: Filling a Niche

While the “next-gen” consoles are struggling to provide compelling reasons for people to pick them up beyond their launch lineup and a couple of more recent stragglers, there’s never been a better time to be a fan of the more niche side of interactive entertainment — particularly the Japanese “otaku games” that I’m such a fan of.

This week alone there’s Hyperdimension Neptunia: Producing Perfection and Monster Monpiece (in Europe, anyway; North America has had the latter for a little while already). Later in the month there’s Atelier Rorona Plus, and prior to that we’ve had interesting, intriguing titles like Nippon Ichi’s surprisingly bleak The Witch and the Hundred Knight and Kadokawa Games’ excellent dungeon crawler Demon Gaze.

Hyperdimension Neptunia: Producing Perfection (Neptunia PP for short — stop giggling at the back) is a curious little game that I’ve been playing for the past couple of days. Ostensibly an “idol management” game — a genre we haven’t really had in the West before — it’s actually roughly equal parts stat-building life sim, relationship-building dating sim and visual novel. Unlike the rest of the Neptunia series to date, the game unfolds from the perspective of yourself as a participant narrator rather than an omniscient viewpoint which the characters occasionally break the “fourth wall” of. It’s a fitting shift in narrative tone and perspective, because the relationship between a Japanese pop idol and her producer is a close one, and this is one of the many things the game explores. Mostly I’m just happy for the opportunity to virtually date Noire, but the game itself, while simplistic and straightforward, is proving to be an enjoyable little statbuilder accompanied by a strange “live performance” minigame that I haven’t quite got my head around yet and an enjoyable, characteristically silly narrative starring the Neptunia gang.

Monster Monpiece, meanwhile, I’m yet to boot up but I’m looking forward to trying out. Notorious for its “First Crush Rub” system — I defy you to find a single article about it which doesn’t mention this aspect of the game — in which you essentially have to wank off your Vita while tweaking erogenous zones on pictures of moe girls in order to power them up (a process which, in a somewhat Ar Tonelico-ish twist, causes them to become somewhat more disrobed with each increase in strength), the game is actually, by all reports from people who have actually played it rather than getting outraged about what is, essentially, a fairly minor mechanic, rather good. (That was a clumsy sentence, I know. But you get the gist.)

Monster Monpiece is, at heart, a collectible card game. You’ll collect cards that depict various monster girls, and then throw your deck of up to 40 cards into battle against either AI opponents in the story or live online opponents via the Internet. Rather than a straightforward Magic: The Gathering-alike, the card battles unfold in a distinctive fashion, allowing you to summon your forces into several lanes, then pitting them against one another. Units advance along the “board” and clash if they run into each other, meaning you’ll have to engage your strategic brain and think a few moves ahead in order to succeed. Like I say, I’m yet to actually play it myself, but its mechanics sound interesting and enjoyable to engage with. Plus, you know, Vita wanking.

Atelier Rorona Plus, meanwhile, is a considerably enhanced version of Atelier Rorona: The Alchemist of Arland, an RPG-cum-crafting-strategy-game-type-thing by Gust that I started playing a while back but held off playing further upon hearing the Plus version was coming. The Plus version in question features considerably enhanced graphics — the in-game character models now look like their 2D counterparts rather than their little brothers and sisters — as well as tweaked, refined game mechanics based on the later installments of the series (which have, themselves, also had Plus overhauls, but were less in need of them). Again, I’m yet to play this new version, but it certainly looks lovely and I really enjoyed what I played of the original Atelier Rorona, and as such I’m very much looking forward to getting stuck in to this.

So there’s three games to get stuck into over the course of the next month — all of which are fairly lengthy affairs, particularly if you want to investigate all the narrative paths each of them offer. I know what I’m going to be doing for the next little while! Just as well, really, since I’m about to have a whole lot of time on my hands…