Tag: omega quintet

1929: Another Episode

One thing I really like for reasons I can't quite explain is when one type of media uses conventions from another, and does so effectively.

I'm particularly enamoured with the idea of video games taking cues from TV shows and adopting an episodic structure. This is something that both Eastern and Western developers have been experimenting with over the last few years, and both have approached it in markedly different ways.

The Western approach involves a developer releasing a "season" of discrete, separate games (typically five or six) at semi-regular intervals, with the complete run telling an entire story, and the possibility existing for a "second season" should the first one prove popular enough. (So far, this has happened with the episodic Sam and Max and The Walking Dead games, both by Telltale Games.)

This is all very well and good — particularly as they're usually priced in such a way that buying the complete "season" is the same price as one regular-sized game, since individual episodes tend to just be a couple of hours long — but the biggest issue Western developers have had with this format is timeliness. It's rare to get episodes less than a month apart, and in some cases it's several months.

The most notoriously extreme case, of course, is Valve's Half-Life 2, which promised to follow up the original game's story with a series of three "episodes". A fair plan, the theory behind it being that releasing what was effectively Half-Life 3 in smaller episodes rather than as one big game would allow devoted fans to get their hands on the new game — or part of it, anyway — sooner than they would otherwise be able to. It didn't quite work out that way, of course: Half-Life 2 came out in 2004, Half-Life 2 Episode 1 followed two years later in 2006, and it was another year before Half-Life 2 Episode 2 appeared in 2007 and ended on a cliffhanger that now, in 2015, remains unresolved due to the continued absence of Half-Life 2 Episode 3.

This is a problem for the episodic format; the power of television series is that you can check in with them at regular, predictable intervals, and your time with the cast and characters becomes something of an "event" in your life, whether you're marathoning a show on Netflix or kicking it old-school and watching things as they're actually broadcast on TV. In order for that to work, the episodes need to be close together — typically a week apart. As Western-developed episodic games stand, however, their development cycles are such that releasing them a week apart simply wouldn't be possible unless they were all developed at the same time, in which case you might as well release them as one big game anyway.

So that's what a number of Japanese developers have done: take the episodic format (in many cases, complete with teaser, opening credits sequence, "monster of the week", cliffhanger and end credits) and stick a bunch of them together into a single game.

It's an effective approach in several ways. Narratively speaking, it allows the story to flow through a number of different distinct but interconnected arcs before reaching a conclusion that — hopefully — wraps them all together and resolves everything nicely. Mechanically, meanwhile, it provides a suitable structure for gradually introducing new concepts at set intervals so as not to overwhelm the player with overly complex systems right from the get-go.

I've played a number of Japanese games and visual novels that adopt this approach in recent years, with notable examples including School Days HQ, which quite simply was an interactive six-episode anime series, and My Girlfriend is the President, which even went so far as to conclude each episode with a "Next Time On…" teaser before immediately jumping in.

Two particularly effective examples from the very recent past and present are Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus and Omega Quintet, the latter of which I'm currently playing on PS4 and, as noted yesterday, am adoring.

Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus has an interesting structure. There are four main story arcs, each of which focuses on one of the four ninja schools involved in the overall narrative. These each tell a story by themselves and have their own distinct mood, themes and tone, but they also work together to help build up a full picture of the world in which Senran Kagura unfolds. Once you have cleared all four of the main stories, there's a final episode that wraps everything up neatly. In effect, the complete game works like one of those anime series that has an abrupt tonal shift partway through its run (either between seasons, as in the case of something like To Love-Ru, or in some cases right in the middle of a season, as seen in Sword Art Online), perhaps moving to focus on a different set of characters, a different storytelling format or simply a change of subject matter.

But it doesn't stop there. Shinovi Versus also features a short, five-level mini-story for each and every one of the playable characters in the game, with these effectively acting in the same manner as "OVAs" — short episodes, often distributed through means such as first print run mangas, preorders and the like, that don't have anything to do with the main story and are sometimes considered non-canonical. By the time you've finished these as well as the main story, you have a very thorough understanding of every single character involved in that narrative. It's an effective approach.

Omega Quintet, meanwhile, goes all-out anime in its approach, with pre-credits teasers, opening titles, self-contained narrative arcs that build up the overall story, gradual introduction and exploration of main characters an episode at a time, cliffhangers and end credits sequences. Yes, Omega Quintet is a game in which you'll see the "end credits" multiple times over the course of a single playthrough, and it's always satisfying to do so; the episodes are structured sensibly in both the narrative and mechanical senses I mentioned above and it works really well as a format. One more reason to like a game I'm already enamoured with.

I wonder if we will ever see Half-Life 2: Episode 3, though. It's become something of a joke by now, and we are, to be honest, getting to the stage where people who originally played Half-Life 2 "back in the day" probably don't care any more (I don't, though I'd play Episode 3 if it came out due to sheer curiosity) and a new generation of gamers might not even know what it is. It is the great Unfinished Symphony in gaming, and a warning to any other developers considering the episodic approach: take your cues from the Japanese way of doing it, and save yourself a whole lot of hassle.

1928: Verse Maidens

So, I've spent the majority of my evening playing Idea Factory and Compile Heart's first PlayStation 4 title Omega Quintet. And I'm absolutely in love with it.

Omega Quintet, lest you don't follow Japanese games with the same borderline obsessiveness as I do, is a role-playing game in which you take on the role of Takt, a rather sullen young man who occasionally has trouble with demonstrating the personality trait that he shares his name with. He has fairly good reason to be sullen, however; he lives in a dystopian future in which some sort of lurking unpleasantness called the Blare keeps showing up, driving people mad and turning animals into monsters. (Aside: In the Japanese original, it was called the Beep; I kind of wish they'd kept that name, particularly as the Japanese voices still use it!)

So far, so post-apocalyptic. It wouldn't be a post-apocalyptic JRPG without a band of plucky heroic types to save the day, however, so enter the Verse Maidens: young women who have the power to drive back the Blare with the power of their songs. Takt and his childhood friend Otoha get swept up in the world of the Verse Maidens as the "ever-17 Momoka" (who is actually 37, and starting to feel it) stumbles across them after exhausting herself clearing out a particularly nasty batch of Blare. Through a series of unfortunate circumstances, Otoha awakens to her potential power as a Verse Maiden, leading Momoka to reluctantly retire and make way for Otoha and two other young, inexperienced Verse Maidens called Kana and Nene.

Idea Factory and Compile Heart have proven themselves to be talented at satirical games with the Hyperdimension Neptunia series, which pokes fun at the video game industry and video games in general. Omega Quintet, meanwhile, tackles the Japanese idol industry, a subject that Idea Factory has previously explored in Hyperdimension Neptunia: Producing Perfection, and something we don't have an exact analogue to in the West. The closest equivalent we have is the phenomenon of "manufactured pop groups" like the boy bands of the '90s and the few examples of groups that have made successes of themselves following talent shows such as The X-Factor and its ilk, but neither of these go anywhere near as far as the Japanese idol industry.

Japanese idols have to contend not only with the most crazy, obsessive fans, but also with their management pretty much taking control of their entire life — including personal relationships, socialising and all the sorts of things that young girls should probably discover and explore for themselves in order to grow up as well-adjusted individuals. Omega Quintet reflects this through Takt gradually being trained up to become the Verse Maidens' manager and sternly told in no uncertain terms at regular intervals that he absolutely, positively must not do anything inappropriate with any of these girls, lest he tarnish their pure image and anger the fans — because Verse Maidens draw their power from their fanbase.

The character of Momoka is also used as a means of reflecting the falseness of the idols' lifestyles. We're initially introduced to Momoka as a young, beautiful, heroic woman whom everyone looks up to and depends upon, but as we see her exhausting herself on what turns out to be her last mission and subsequently revealing her true, rather abrasive personality, we come to understand that she's been playing a part — for twenty years, in her case. It will be interesting to see how the titular Quintet, once they assemble, will come to terms with this existence, and I suspect it will be an important part of the overall narrative.

Mechanically, Omega Quintet is fairly similar to other Compile Heart titles: there's a lot of standing around talking with some well-written, witty dialogue, punctuated with dungeon-crawling and snappy combat. Rather than repurposing the Neptunia combat system, however, Omega Quintet has its own rather deep and complex system that encourages you to be as flashy as you can while maintaining control of your characters' resources. There are some really interesting mechanics in there, such as characters being able to obtain bonus actions for their next turn by fulfilling particular conditions, and a Final Fantasy X-style "turn delay" mechanic allowing you to manipulate the turn order to your advantage. The protagonist also plays an interesting role by not directly participating in combat, instead offering passive support effects to the party and having a limited number of action points to be used throughout the fight either for follow-up "Pursuit" attacks after his current partner has performed an action, or stepping in to soak some of the incoming damage on his partner.

There's also a frighteningly deep-looking character customisation and advancement system that involves unlocking abilities on a "disc" that works a little like Final Fantasy X's Sphere Grid, choosing abilities carefully for a limited number of slots, weapon proficiencies, equipment, outfits with upgradeable durability and "amp" slots for bonus effects, formations, chain skills and all manner of other things. I'm only about 5 hours or so into the game so far and it's clear there's a lot of systems I haven't been introduced to yet; it looks like the complete picture will be quite complex, but the game has proven very accessible so far, gradually introducing concepts and giving you ample time to familiarise yourself with them in practical situations before throwing something new into the mix.

Oh, and the soundtrack is amazing. Which you'd sort of hope for a game ostensibly "about" music. And, as usual for the genre, it's the battle theme that presents one of the best examples, featuring a distinctly Final Fantasy XIII-esque feel with its use of solo violin over driving rhythms. So what better way to wrap up these first impressions with said piece? Here you go.