#104: Far Cry Primal: Back to Basics

I have long bemoaned the “standard Ubisoft open-world game” that we've seen in most of the Assassin's Creed games, Watch_Dogs, and even The Crew. Far Cry is no exception to this pervasiveness, with Far Cry 3 and Far Cry 4 acting as prime examples. Too often, the vast number of petty tasks and collectibles fight for attention against whatever story these games are desperately trying to tell. On top of that, the sheer length and frequency of these beasts, left me with genre exhaustion. That's when I heard about Far Cry: Primal.

To me, the idea of Far Cry (which has traditionally been about first-person, mildly-stealthy shooters) quite literally going back to the Stone Age was very intriguing. I thought that it would make for a great Blood Dragon-esque $15 stand-alone. Then I learned that it was going to be a $60 game, and suddenly got very nervous. The idea of another full-fledged Ubisoft open-world game so soon was just not appealing to me. Since I remain part of the problem, I went ahead and -- despite my misgivings -- bought it anyway. As I played, my fears of another tired, drab, paint-by-numbers Far Cry experience were allayed. While there's no doubt that Far Cry: Primal is a tried and true Far Cry game, it demonstrates that there is merit to Ubisoft's signature open-world that has been overlooked until now.

The story of Far Cry: Primal almost hearkens back to the days where the plot to a video game was merely an excuse to go through the levels. The player character is a warrior from a tribe from 10,000 BCE. His clan is at war with the other two tribes in the region, a Northern cannibal clan that utilizes poison, and a group in the South that specializes in the use of fire. As the leader, the player character needs to strengthen his tribe and himself so that he can take out the leaders of the other two clans and claim the land of Oros, and its resources, for his people. In terms of the main story, that's it. Once the beginning tutorial sections are complete, the world opens up. At that point, by completing only a few mandatory missions, the player could, if they choose, almost immediately take out the other leaders and complete the main story. That said, doing so is extremely difficult, and most players won't be able to beat them with the equipment and skills they start out with. They must first grow stronger, and get to the point where they can comfortably defeat these chieftains. By participating in the open-world, players can acquire the experience, resources, and friends necessary to completing their ultimate objective.

Naturally, as a Far Cry game, the moment the world opens up, the map and UI reveal a ton of optional quests and objectives. By completing them, players earn experience and skill points. By spending skill points, they acquire new perks and skills and grow that much more capable. Though aside from the first few skill trees, most are locked from the start.

Among the many quests and events in the world are fellow tribesman who have been separated from the main group. Each of these tribesman specialize in a specific area, like hunting and craftsmanship. Once the player finds them and solves whatever problem they have, these specialists will relocate to the player's village. At that point, they will train the player in their talents, unlocking their skill tree in the upgrade menu.

More than skills, they also teach the player how to craft tools and weapons. Of course, knowing how to build them is one thing, but having the materials to do so is another. Building these items requires the player to scavenge and hunt for items like wood, stone, clay, and animal hides.

Those who have play previous Far Cry games are probably not surprised by this. Ubisoft has been using variants on these same mechanics for several years now. What separates Far Cry: Primal from the rest of their catalog is not the mechanics themselves. Rather, it is how they interact with each other and come together.

In other Ubisoft games, every element of the game is fighting for an ounce of attention. The story, the side quests, and the collectibles are all wholly distinct entities. None of them come together and they all demand that the player takes time away from the other elements to devote to them. As much as I praised it, Assassin's Creed: Unity had that problem in spades. There were so many objectives on the map that it was often hard to spot the architecture underneath the symbols.

This isn't the case in Far Cry: Primal. Rather than compete with the other elements, the story frames them. By presenting these two bosses as the ultimate end-game opponents, Primal immediately encourages players to acquire the skills to defeat them. Since these skills and are locked behind the specialists and reconstruction of the village, the first instinct will be to gather resources and recruit these experts. It is by allowing the story to exist largely in the background for most of the game, as this looming challenge to undertake, that the open world and the tasks within it are actually given their chance to shine.

More importantly, every element comes back together with the others at some point. By recruiting each expert, players unlock skills to purchase and items to craft. Unlocking new skill trees gives an incentive to travel the world and earn experience, and crafting gives a similar incentive to gather materials. The items and skills acquired then enable the player to tackle tougher challenger, until they are finally able to take down both rival tribes and end the game. Instead of fighting for the player's attention, each element of the game reinforces the desire and need for the player to engage with the other elements. This sense of design cohesion makes Far Cry: Primal a much stronger game than the previous two entries in the franchise.

The importance of all these elements coming together only occurred to me about 10 hours into my playthrough. At this point, I had finally worked up the courage to journey North and defeat the cannibal leader. That’s when I realized that this boss fight was the first genuine piece of main story content I had encountered since the beginning of the game.

If this was some other Ubisoft game, like Watch_Dogs, I would have been livid. Even though the side content exists for players to experience it, spending that much time without making forward progress would feel like a waste to me. That’s why in most of these open world games, I usually skip most of the side content, choosing to mainline the campaign. If I do optional objectives, it’s almost always in service of making my trek through the very next story beat easier, usually by revealing part of the map.

But I wasn’t angry. In fact, I looked back on those 8 or so hours of wandering Oros fondly. Everything I did felt like it had some purpose in preparing me for this, one of my 2 ultimate foes. And not only did I enjoy my time doing all of these tasks, but I was more engaged with them then I ever was in previous Ubisoft games. Before, I was actively avoiding the Shangri La hallucinations and stoner missions in Far Cry 4, or those accursed Eagle Feathers in Assassin’s Creed 2. Here, I was looking, actually looking, for animals to hunt, people to recruit, and things to do. This might not sounds like a big deal, but it’s more than I’ve gotten out most of the needless, pointless crap that litters so much square mileage of Far Cry: Primal’s ancestors.

I don't expect, or even necessarily desire, for Ubisoft to do what they did in Far Cry: Primal very often. Having an overarching story that frames the gameplay more than it stands out on its own works well in the context of primitive man fighting over resources in the Stone Age, but not so much other eras with more complicated themes and people. Having said that, Far Cry: Primal feels much more like a coherent whole than many other Ubisoft games. My final playtime was roughly 19.5 hours according to my save file, but that time was more fruitful and interesting than many of the 40-50 hours experiences I have had in the likes of Assassin's Creed, Watch_Dogs, and other Far Crys. Ironically, this caveman game is the most developed Ubisoft open world I've seen in a long time.

#92: Dark Souls: The Use of Estus

From Software is very skilled at what they do. Coming off of my Demon's Souls playthrough not too long ago, I continued on into its spiritual sequel: Dark Souls. While Demon's Souls allowed players to gather and grind for healing items, Dark Souls uses a new system to manage health. The first NPC that players interact with will give them an item called the Estus Flask. This flask has a finite number of charges, and consuming one of these charges heals the player. When resting at a bonfire, a safe haven where players can recover their health and manage their inventory, this flask will be recharged.

What I found was that this one change had a profound effect on the game's design. The most obvious of these changes is that the ability to mend wounds becomes limited. In Demon's Souls, there were several varieties of healing grass, and players could hold up to 99 tufts of each type. Personally, I recall constantly have at least 40 or 50 tufts of whatever grasses I was able to obtain at any given point during my playthrough. Towards the end, I had so much that I couldn’t pick up any more. In fact, grass was so plentiful that I had 99 tufts both on my person, and in the excess-item stash.This is definitely not the case in Dark Souls. Resting at a bonfire will only fill the Estus Flask up to 5 charges. It is possible to upgrade bonfires so that this limit is raised up to a maximum of 20. Doing so requires the use of “Humanity”, an uncommon resource that, like souls, is lost on death. The act of “kindling” a bonfire is rare for this reason. During my playthrough, I only upgraded most bonfires enough to hold 10 charges in the Estus Flask.

The difference in these limits strongly manifested itself in my playstyle. If a fight left me with even a small scratch during my adventures in Demon's Souls, I would immediately consume a tuft of healing grass (or several, depending on how wounded I was) before moving on. With 99 tufts in my back pocket, there was nothing stopping me from making use of one or two.

In Dark Souls, this same decision became a much more tactical choice. When I finished a battle with only minor damage, it would be smarter to keep going without using the Estus Flask to heal, because that healing will be more useful later on. Once I figured out where a stage's boss was and how to get to them, it was imperative to take as little damage as I could so I could save Estus Flask charges for the boss fight, where I would need them the most. Even without the looming threat of an impending boss, running out of healing while exploring a stage was a big enough threat that there is always a natural reluctance to avoid using it when I didn’t have to.

If a single run of a level in Dark Souls was going badly enough, me being badly injured surprisingly early on and heavily imbibing of the Estus Flask, a choice needed to be made. I would often seriously consider whether it was wise to keep going, or to just return to the bonfire and try again. While bonfires do recharge the Estus Flask and mend any lingering wounds, resting at them also respawns every single enemy at full strength. In other words, trekking back to the bonfire and restoring my lost Estus is also resigning myself to starting an area over again almost from scratch. Through the Estus Flask, Dark Souls moved away from the war of attrition that Demon's Souls sometimes wandered into. Instead, every area is a test of not just character build and player skill, but also of the ability to manage resources.

The Estus Flask also lessened Dark Souls’s need for grinding, especially in comparison to its predecessor. Despite having large quantities of healing grass in the original Demon's Souls, repeated attempts to clear areas and fight bosses could and would deplete reserves. This meant that it would eventually be necessary to revisit old areas and grind for additional grass to replenish the player's supplies. In the early game, I frequently found myself returning to the Boletarian Palace in between boss attempts, once my grass count had fallen below 20, to gather more. Consequently, this meant that the time between boss attempts would sometimes be a little too long.

The Estus Flask fixes this problem. Since one can no longer grind for restoratives, there exists no incentive nor need to do so. For this reason, the downtime between boss encounters is reduced only to the time it takes for one to get from the nearest bonfire to the boss chamber. Even though my overall playthrough of Dark Souls was longer than that of my Demon's Souls playthrough, this reduced time between boss attempts gave the illusion of an accelerated pace. I could fight a boss as many times as necessary to defeat it without having to stop and grind for healing items, which is a boon in the Souls franchise.

Including the Estus Flask could be seen as a minor, seemingly meaningless addition. In truth, it is one of the biggest, most vital changes that came with the transition from Demon’s Souls to Dark Souls. This one change transformed the dungeoneering from a gradual and methodical war of attrition between the enemy forces and the player’s healing reserves to a test of how well they can management resources. When it comes time to brave the stronger enemies and boss encounters, it also accelerates the pace of repeated attempts. This kind of attention to detail is why people love the Souls games more than anything else. Each new design decision is carefully considered before it is implemented and the final product is all the strong for it.  

#90: Demon's Souls: Why Do So Many Like It?

Given how many people have asked me to try it, I find it surprising that it took me so long to play a Souls game. With an abundance of free time, I found myself enjoying my time with it. As I sit here, ruminating upon my new-found experiences with Demon's Souls, a question crossed my mind: Why exactly is Demon's Souls, and the Souls-series by extension, so popular and successful?

That might seem like a silly question to most, yet it makes no sense for Demon’s Souls to get so popular when one thinks about it. At the time of its release, the game had fierce competition from all sides. Batman: Arkham Asylum, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, and Assassin's Creed 2 all came out in the holiday season of 2009, right when Demon's Souls first appeared on North American shores. These games are all remembered as some of the best in the console generation, especially for the PlayStation 3. A new IP with limited marketing from a fairly unknown developer, this stiff competition would make it theoretically difficult for Demon's Souls to gain footing in the hearts and minds of gamers.

Along those lines, Demon’s Souls’s unconventional design could have been considered a major obstacle in its success. Even now, it can be tough to tell non-Souls players why they work so well. Explaining this appeal when Demon’s Souls was new and not quite as popular would still have been even more so. This can be best demonstrated by the various claims that Demon's Souls is great because it is "hard". The punishing nature of its combat can make it seem “hard”, yet that is not truly the case. I will go into more detail later, but the game is only as punishing as it needs to be, and no more. Given the fact that so many people were introduced to the franchise on other such inaccurate explanations, it is logical to assume that they would avoid the franchise for fear of difficulty, as I did for a long time.

But Demon's Souls did not fall into the shadows of obscurity as one might expect. On the contrary, it grew as From Software continued iterating and reiterating on the core mechanics, transforming the ideas behind it into the very successful franchise we know today. That raises the question of why exactly this series became so popular and successful when so many other, more readily accessible games did not?

The most obvious reason is that its metric for success was significantly lower than that of most other games. There are many classic stories of publishers whose sales predictions for their games were "optimistic" at best. From the expected 7 million copies sold of Resident Evil 6 to the 5-6 million units projected for the Tomb Raider reboot, gamers have become familiar with excessively high hopes from laughably naive publishers. Though both examples come years after Demon's Souls's release, they represent the mentality of the modern AAA gaming space.

By all accounts, Demon's Souls was subject to much more realistic and manageable sales goals. Almost one year after the game came out, in September 2010, it was announced that the first entry in the Souls series soul-ed over 500,000 units. In the eyes of the various publishers responsible for each territory, this figure “nearly quadrupled sales expectations”. For From Software, who developed the product, it was enough to keep working on similar games. Under a different development house these numbers could have easily been interpreted as a failure, so part of the success and popularity of Demon's Souls could be partially attributed to From Software’s more conservative measurement of “success”.

That said, a lowered bar for success is not enough to achieve it. Like any game, Demon's Souls lives and dies by its design. Even now, years after the initial release, the game represents a genuine effort to cater to an underserved niche. The same design elements that would intuitively lead to its demise could actually be credited for Demon’s Soul’s popularity. There exist many people who dislike various aspects of modern game design. These people may not necessarily enjoy having an objective marker telling them exactly how far away they are from where they are supposed to go. Linearity of both game and level design might not satisfy their urge to explore and discover. Combat in many games may require too much of a focus on reflex and speed. It is for these people from whom Demon's Souls was designed. That, in turn, is the largest contributor to its success.

The world of Demon's Souls is deliberately designed to counter many of the expectations in more modern game design. No objective marker is present. In order to figure out where to go and what to do next, players must pay attention to both the visual and audio cues throughout the environment. Guidance does exist, but it is not as readily apparent as it may be in other games. One has to use their own logic and intuition in order to not only figure out what they need to do, but how to do it.

All of the various hidden weapons, armor and trinkets also serve to encourage exploration. Entire essays could be written exclusively on the placement of items in Demon’s Souls. Not only are they just far enough off the beaten path that players will naturally want to wander around areas to look for them, but they are placed in areas where one could logically be expected to find them. For example, players can find the Graverobber’s Ring, which shields its bearer from the vision of evil spirits, on the body of a corpse in an old jail cell. Though the game never draws attention to it, this one item tells the story of a man who used the ring to protect himself from the vengeful spirits of the graves he defiled. Yet, he ultimately could not outrun the law, and died once the chaos that started the game broke out. Almost all of the items in the game tell such stories. Attentive players looking to explore will find themselves enjoying the act of piecing together Boletaria’s history in this manner.

As I mentioned earlier, while combat in Demon's Souls is routinely described as "hard," the truth is not quite as simple. It is a learning process, where players have to figure out how to defeat the foes standing in their way, and even the ones charging at them with reckless abandon. It is less about placing an arbitrary challenge before the player and more about rewarding them for properly analyzing the enemy and capitalizing on moments in their animations where they are made vulnerable. The damage players take is only as high as it is to draw attention to their own mistakes, that they might correct them. Because these windows of opportunity tend to be fairly large, precision timing is not as important. The emphasis is on recognizing both the chances enemies give to attack and those the player gives for foes to do the same. Tactics are at the forefront.

By using these principles in its game design, among others, Demon's Souls caters to audiences that many other games simply don't or won't. I posit that these oft-forgotten gamers are very loyal to both Demon's Souls and the Souls games because it is one of the few franchises that satisfy their specific needs. Of course no one would argue that modern game design conventions are bad. But the same design philosophies that appeal to the largest subset of all gamers are not the ones that scratch the same proverbial itches that Demon's Souls will. So while Demon's Souls is meant for a specific niche, my guess is that this niche is both wide enough and so generally unappeased by other franchises that they took what they could get and ran with it.

Even if it were the case that the target audience was better served, the mechanics and design of Demon's Souls strongly encourage the creation of a community. The lack of hand-holding in the game almost forces players to collaborate and share their accumulated knowledge with others. Even without the aid of dedicated websites, the note system, where players can leave messages for others to take advice from, and the bloodstains that show where and how others died, both make it easy for people to aid one another indirectly. With these in-game tools, players are more likely to offer their knowledge to others that they have never, and will never, meet.

Even outside of the game’s systems, this spirit of cooperation exists in fans of Demon’s Souls. The moniker of a "wiki game," that expects one to look online for item information, character builds, and strategy, is often criticized. While I can definitely acknowledge that it is not a design that everyone will like, those that do will form healthy communities around them. As someone who invested 250+ hours into The Binding of Isaac, I know all too well how fun it can be to just talk and share advice with others. During my playthrough of Demon's Souls, the friends I knew who had played it previously were all too happy to offer tips whenever I asked. The community, and the loyalty born from it, are not accidents. They are logical consequences of the way the game was designed.

Seen in this light, what initially seemed like a freak accident could also be interpreted as an inevitable result of many interlocking circumstances. Given that Demon's Souls had such low expectations, served an undervalued niche, and encouraged this niche to work together and build a community, of course it would catch on with such fervor. It is counter-intuitive, yet the logic is there. As for me, now that I have acquired a taste for Souls, I plan to delve deeper into the Dark.

#89: What Drakengard 3 Teaches Us About Lampshade Hanging

The longer I play video games, and the more I continue to look at them critically, the more I begin to see ideas and concepts that crop up repeatedly. Though they come and go, most reappear often enough that they can almost always be worth discussing. After playing through Drakengard 3, a sequel to one the craziest, darkest games I played as a teenager, I noticed that there was one otherwise minor element that only grew irritating because it occurred several times over the course of the game.

Drakengard 3 seemed to love having its cast of characters acknowledge its own problematic game design in their dialogue. The practice, known as lampshade hanging, is about as old as fiction itself. In all other forms of media, from books to TV and movies, it is commonly used to point out and diffuse narrative tension by pointing out imperfections in the logic and/or internal mechanics of a story. However, the differences between gaming and other forms of media make this practice less tolerable.

Chief among them is the inherent difference between a passive medium and an interactive one. When watching a movie or a TV show, the audience is not actively participating in the events of the narrative. Rather, the characters on screen are dealing with problems, with viewers merely acting as outside observers. Therefore, whenever some event enters the story that requires the hanging of a lampshade, it is the characters in the story that are affected, not those watching it unfold from the comfort of their living room.

In an active medium like games, this is no longer the case. Video games have their players actively take part in the events in question, changing the dynamic at play. Whenever a sufficiently “immersion-breaking” mechanic appears, then it is the player who will ultimately need to deal with it. This is the difference between Spider-man getting amnesia and losing his combat prowess in a comic book versus doing the same in a video game. In a comic book, the reader, as an outside entity, can look forward to seeing how he and any accompanying characters deal with this problem. Players of a video game attempting that same trope will need to be the ones who handle getting through this problem as the amnesiac superhero. This does not necessarily have to be bad, as it could serve as a good excuse to use the game's systems in new, refreshing, and interesting way.

Drakengard 3 shows an example of what happens when this goes wrong. Over the course of the adventure, protagonist Zero will encounter floating platforms that she will need to traverse in order to progress to the next area, in a game where most of the time is spent killing enemies in a Devil May Cry-style beat'em up. After the first few occasions, she and her companions begin to point out these sections by stating things like “I'm not a fan of all this precision jumping.” and “More jumping? Whose is the asshole who designed this place.” While it seems to be another of the many gags the game uses to balance out the otherwise dark nature of its plot, the act of highlighting how dumb and annoying the floating platforms are is meant to add humor, much like Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon attempted to do with its tutorial. What both of these examples fail to realize is that although they acknowledge the inferiority of these mechanics, as a player, one still has to go through the sections in order to progress. Seen in that respect, the gag quickly goes from funny to irritating.

Yet, this is not the only reason why lampshade hanging is a more tenuous prospect in video games. When a developer feels that need to point out that one of their mechanics is “bad,” or at least annoying, it implies that they are aware of how irksome said mechanics are. Otherwise, they would not have been able to bring it to the player's attention. On its own, that fact may be insignificant. It is the conclusions that one can draw from that statement, and the questions it raises, that make it so damning. If the developers have this knowledge, then why would they not alter these mechanics so that they are not as bothersome as they are? Alternatively, why include them at all? Plausible and rational answers to these inquiries do exist, but to raise the question in a player's mind is unwise, because it seeds doubt in the designers'a ability, eroding the willing suspension of disbelief. Again, this is only true because of the interactive nature of video games. Other mediums don’t require any work or input on the part of their audience.

The same precision jumping example from before can just as easily be used to represent this point, but Drakengard 3 has other examples that illustrate it just as well. In one of the missions towards the middle of the game, the player, as Zero, is attacked by a Cerberus mini-boss. Once that enemy is defeated, and Zero attempts to move on to the next section of the level, the door remains sealed and another Cerberus enemy appears. One of Zero's allies reacts by saying, “I fear they've discovered Lady Zero's weakness, a dislike for repeating the same task over and over again.” This is meant to point out how silly it is to participate in the same battle two times in a row against the same exact mini-boss. Despite this, it made me question the game designer's reason for making the choice to have two back-to-back Cerberus fights. Was the whole point to just set up that one punchline? Were they also attempting to pad out the section with some filler content? The fact that characters point out this little problem make it obvious that it was not an accident, so what was the point?

Now, I do not mean to insinuate that Drakengard 3 is a bad game. Instead, it is emblematic of a tendency games have when trying to inject a little levity. In these circumstances, it is extremely tempting for designers to intentionally include ill-fitting mechanics that are common to its contemporaries, then point them out for a laugh. Tempting as it may be, this is a mistake. Attempting to make jokes in this manner will often serve merely to bother the player, rather than make them laugh.

#88: The Banner Saga: Building on an Idea

Every once in a while, I play a game that challenges some basic notions of game design. Usually, these do not turn out to be very good, as these notions exist for a reason. On the other hand, they sometimes open up new possibilities for what game developers can do. The Banner Saga is an example of the latter. A hybrid of the Oregon Trail and classic RPGs, The Banner Saga takes place in a setting heavily inspired by classic Nordic myths. What I want to focus on is a single choice that the developers made regarding the combat. This choice informed the rest of the combat mechanics, and restructured the game in a way that I have certainly never seen before.

In The Banner Saga, the developers made the decision that Health and Damage output would be governed by the same stat. Each fighter has two major stats: Strength and Armor. When attacking another unit, one can either chip away at their Armor, or deliver damage to their Strength. The exact amount of Strength damage is equal to the aggressor's Strength, minus the Armor of the assaulted party. If Strength reaches 0, then the unit will be incapacitated, unable to participate any further in the battle. In other words, whenever somebody is attacked, not only are they that much closer to defeat, but their offensive capability is reduced. This one change to the usual RPG dynamic has a noticeable impact on the rest of combat.

The first of these changes is that players are encouraged to avoid outright killing targets in favor of crippling them and moving on to the next one. While fighting, player and enemy turns are interleaved. Players can determine the order in which their units act, but after every ally action, the enemy moves one of their units, followed by the next ally unit, and so on and so forth. Enemies with low Strength are less likely to be to do any significant damage, especially when friendlies still have Armor. As a result, leaving a weak foe alive means that units with more Strength will take longer to act, since the game still needs to cycle through the weakened enemies first. This extra breathing room makes it much easier to focus on other units, until it is finally time to start cleaning house and removing opposition. I used this very thought process myself on many large enemies, including the game's final boss. By leaving his subordinates low on Strength, I could keep him at bay long enough to finish him before he had the chance to take out too many of my own forces.

The other behavioral shift I noticed during my time with The Banner Saga is that I played a noticeably more defensive game than I typically do. Whenever a party member of mine had taken Strength damage, I always winced because I knew that the fight would be made that much more difficult with their reduced damage output. Because of this, I found myself often grouping my forces together, concentrating all of their attacks on a single unit at a time, keeping them out of range of other units. This allowed my party to maintain their strong offensive capabilities for most of a fight. Though this strategy might be seen as slower and less skillful in other tactical RPGs, The Banner Saga makes it one of the fastest and most effective tactics. Enemies do have AoE attacks, but the risk of spreading units apart too much is always there. Unless some degree of caution is taken, units can crippled just with a few well aimed Strength attacks. Given that the plot is about a group of people trying to stay alive against all odds, this appears to be intentional and a nice way to immerse players into the atmosphere of the game.

\The Banner Saga takes a lot from well known tactical RPGs. However, the choice to take health and damage output, and merge them into the same statistic is one that I have personally never seen before. Of course, there are many other ways in which the game stands out, making its worth known, but this is the one that stood out to me as something that other designers might be able to gain inspiration from. I would definitely recommend taking a look at The Banner Saga is you are looking for something different in your strategy RPGs.

#87: Pillars of Eternity: New Solutions to Old Problems

On numerous occasions, I have cited a dislike of most of the old Infinity Engine RPGs. In particular, Baldur's Gate and its sequel were not very enjoyable. If not for my prior experience with their contemporaries, like Planescape: Torment and the early Fallout games, it would have been extremely tempting to swear myself off of the genre entirely. However, the recent renaissance of cRPGs, from Shadowrun Returns and Wasteland 2 to the upcoming Torment: Tides of Numeria, has brought a new perspective. Recently, Obsidian released Pillars of Eternity, which used those classics as inspiration. In doing so, it highlights many of their problems and proposes some interesting solutions to solving them.

The most obvious improvements Pillars of Eternity made to the systems of its predecessors are in the UI. None of them are major changes, but they all fix some of the more legendary problems that Baldur's Gate and its sequel were notorious for. For example, almost anyone who played those games will recoil in horror if one tells them that “you must gather your party before venturing forth.” Because of how slow characters moved, players could spend upwards to several minutes getting every single member of their group to the exit so that they can transition to the next area. Though that may not seem like a lot of time, when compounded over the sheer number of area changes, it is possible to spend hours in in-game time just waiting for the party to get into position. Should enemies still remain on the map, it will even be necessary to manually guide the party to the exit, else they will accidentally walk straight into battles, further slowing process down. The sheer tediousness of this exercise was, at my most charitable, mind-numbing to the extreme.

Pillars of Eternity fixes this issue in two ways. Although it stills used the memetic phrase, the game will automatically begin the process of bringing every party member to the point of transition the moment the player attempts to move to the next location, saving them from tediously selecting each member and moving them manually. On top of that, there is a “fast-movement” mode players can enable to accelerate the flow of time, minimizing the real-world wait for the party to gather. Though this is far from the only example of such improvements, it serves as a good demonstration of how Pillars of Eternity opted to do more than just reiterate old mechanics without considering how they may be improved.

Another major difference between Baldur's Gate and Pillars of Eternity was in the fighting. Back in the old days, Baldur's Gate utilized a Real Time with Pause combat system. This meant that characters theoretically acted in real time, requiring players to pause the action in order to coordinate tactics, but upon closer inspection reveals this is not entirely true. Though allies and enemies will only act with the passage of time, in truth the game utilizes turn-based mechanics under the hood. During long, protracted fights, I began to notice that my party and the opposition were repeated launching spells and attacks in the same order, no unit acting while another was in the middle of their own move. Baldur's Gate 2 makes this even more obvious by giving players the option to auto-pause the game after each round of combat.

In terms of play, this uncomfortable blend of turn-based play and real time combat offers the worse of both worlds. Turn-based mechanics work because they allow players to take their time and make meaningful, tactical decisions. Without the threat of enemies attacking, it is possible to better consider all possible options before the enemy gets their turn. On the other hand, real time systems focus on the moment-to-moment action. These systems are often built to test quick-thinking and reflex, the goal being to make smart decisions and act on them swiftly. Tactics are important, but they not as strongly emphasized.

With the way Baldur's Gate combined the aspects of these two design philosophies, players have the slow speed of a turn-based game with the need to reflexively, quickly pause after every single action in order to avoid giving away any advantage. Many time in the game, I found that if I did not pause after an enemy attack, my cleric might either launch a low-damage attack, or worst, do nothing at all. When several characters require immediate healing, this often spelled the difference between success and failure.

Pillars of Eternity fixes this in two ways. Instead of a rigid turn/round system, the game relies on cooldowns between attacks. Characters with lighter equipment and/or greater speed will be able to act faster and more frequently than their slower counterparts. Not only does this make party and equipment setups more interesting, but it solves the problem where players are using real time thinking and reflexes on a fundamentally turn-based system. An extremely robust array of auto-pause options also serves to benefit this system. By enabling them, players can force the game to pause on specific events like one character finishing an ability, getting low on health, or even something as simple as the start of a battle. As a result, players can rely on the game handling that aspect on its own, meaning they can focus on the action without having a thumb over the Space Bar at all times.

The balance of short-term versus long-term resource management is also different between the two games. As is the case with most RPGs, Baldur's Gate gives each character a set number of hit points. Once those hit points reach zero, they are killed unless a resurrection spell brings them back to life. In order to recover from damage, players could either use healing magic, or allocate time to resting in a place where no enemies are lurking. Theoretically, this meant that players could spend as much time as they wanted in the wilderness, before heading back into town. So long as they continuously found safe locations, or cleared out areas, any health could simply be recovered by resting. The only potential long-term consequences to doing so are inventory space and party member death. Because of this, battles were either be a total blowout or extreme tough, without any middle ground. Whenever one of those tough battles is finished, resting also became the only logical option so that the party can recover.

Pillars of Eternity uses a different system. Each party member has two pools which get used in battle. Like any other game, each character has health, with represents long-term damage. However, Endurance is another statistic that comes into play. Acting as a shield of sorts, Endurance will soak up most, but not all, of the damage during a fight and is restored at the end of a battle. Should it ever reach zero, the character is knocked out, unable to participate in the fight any longer. Should their health instead drop to zero, they are permanently killed off. This allowed Obsidian to balance each fight so that it will pose a good challenge to a reasonably-leveled party, while also limiting the overall impact of any single engagement on the player's long-term survivability.

Health is completely restored on rest, just like in Baldur's Gate. However, this is balanced by the fact that resting outside of an inn costs a camping set. At any given time, only six camping sets can be in the player's inventory, meaning that their supply will always be limited. The difficulty is in balancing the desire to travel around and complete quests with the necessity to conserve supplies and visit town in order to restock. After fighting a series of battles, finding that the party is tired, health running low, the game always tempts the player to see if they willing to go for one more battle without rest in order to best conserve their inventory. Unlike Baldur's Gate, the decision of when to rest and when not to rest becomes just as much of a tactical choice then anything other combat-related decision.

Pillars of Eternity is not just a loving tribute to Baldur's Gate. Rather, it is a modern take on the game design principles inherent to the old school cRPGs of that era. Given this lens, it is easy to see how Obsidian was able to improve upon those old systems and create something new from them. I am happy this genre is making a comeback. With all that has been learned in the time since the era of Baldur's Gate, there is huge potential for this genre to develop more than it ever could have in its heyday.

#83: Resident Evil 5: Old Dogs, Older Tricks

Apparently, spoopy “horror” games are slowly becoming more and more of an area-of-expertise for me. If you were to ask me about these kinds of games even one year ago, I would only be able to talk about them through second-hand experiences. Now, I have gained a limited amount of experience. Thanks to my co-op partner, I was “convinced” to continue this education by playing Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition. For your mild entertainment, I amused this option. While playing it, I found that in many respects, it felt like it was trapped in the past of its genre. This week, I will discuss why this is the case.

But first, a bit of information about the game. Released in early 2009, Resident Evil 5 came out to high expectations after its predecessor became so popular in the previous generation. Taking place in Somewhere, Africa, the game follows protagonist Chris Redfield and his current partner, Sheva Alomar, as they work together to investigate a mysterious incident on the continent while looking for Chris's old comrade, Jill Valentine, who was previously assumed dead. The two have to work together to find out what is going on, solving puzzles and fighting zom... infected along the way. The Gold Version, which is what I used for the purpose of this article, was released a year later and included all of the DLC for the game.

The story for RE5 was just a thoughtless overuse of old, established horror cliches. The villain just felt like a cardboard cutout of the villain from every super-hero comic book published before 1980. The game even acknowledges this when Chris mocks him for it during the final boss. One who has even a passing familiarity with fiction involving mutagenic bio-weapons is likely already knowledgeable of the stock excuses for such silly plans, and Resident Evil 5 uses almost all of them. Even on that level, Resident Evil 5 relies too heavily on tropes without distinguishing itself.

Having said that, the gameplay that the story exists to mildly justify is pretty interesting. With the help of either an AI partner or another human being, players use limited resources to either fight or flee from zom... infected. Since each protagonist has only 9 inventory slots, space is limited. This makes it so that even in the event where players find excess resources, they must be careful when choosing what to allocate space to. Though this limited inventory does feel like a holdover from the days when Resident Evil could be considered a survival horror game, it does work to force players to use good aim and tactics to conserve resources.

Unfortunately, the other parts of the gameplay have flaws on their own. Gunplay, as an example, works similarly to Deadly Premonition's. When aiming at enemies, players must stand still, unable to move. Again, in the context of a survival horror game, this would be an interesting decision. Players would need to be more conscious of the fight or flight dynamics, since standing one's ground exists entirely in opposition to running away from or through a group of enemies. However, in the more action-oriented environment of Resident Evil 5, it feels somewhat out of place. That said, this lack of movement does make it easier to aim in this game as opposed to other games out there. Despite the added benefit, I feel that the game would have been better served removing this restriction. When later sections turn fighting into an awkward third-person shooter, it demonstrates just how awkward the game really is.

On top of that, there are a couple of other old conventions that just feel either poorly tacked on or silly in context. The less egregious of these two elements are the Quicktime Events, which is saying something. The player who assumes the role of Chris has their own prompts, as does the one who plays Sheva. Sometimes they will have the same prompts, but this is not always the case. Failure to complete any one of the button inputs will result in an automatic instant-death, with the need to retry the event from the beginning. These are, almost without exception, never fun. Honestly, I do not understand why Quicktime Events have gotten very popular, especially when losing results in game over. Since the game came out in 2009, before the practice started to lose favor, I can somewhat understand why they were included. After all, it was still a fairly popular mechanic back in that era. In the modern context, it just does not work, and this is great example of why that is the case.

The other tired trope Resident Evil 5 heavily utilized was frequent instant death. Many of the larger enemies in the game have attacks that will automatically kill either player, no matter how much health they have, and without the possibility of the other player resuscitating them. Fighting these enemies becomes a major annoyance as a result, especially since the irreversible end of either player results in a game over. Certain environmental obstacles also have this effect. One particular example from the middle of the game comes to mind. As games of this ilk are wont to do, Resident Evil 5 includes a light-bending puzzle. With the help of reflective mirrors, the player team is required to point a beam of light towards a trigger mechanism in order to proceed. Unfortunately, the light is also a death ray that will kill either player on touch, resetting the entire puzzle. When this fact can only be discovered by falling victim to it, annoyance and frustration is guaranteed. Like in the above instance, most of the other instant death traps in Resident Evil 5 feel cheap.

Resident Evil 5 is not a bad game. It just does not do anything to really stand out among its contemporaries, even from the period in which the game was published. As a co-op game, it is functional, serving as a good excuse to get together with a friend and have some good time. On the whole, its overuse of old mechanics and stories from the grand list of scary movie/game cliches demonstrates a sheer lack of creativity from the designers.

#76: Assassin's Creed: Rogue: A Change in Perspective

All the Shin Megami Tensei games on my queue have been completed, for now. I think it is time to get back to basics with a true Press Start to Discuss column. Fortunately for me, Ubisoft has seen fit to continue their pattern of yearly Assassin's Creed releases. I do not know exactly what it is about that franchise, but it strikes the right balance between interesting game mechanics and noticeable flaws that it makes for extremely fascinating discussion, in my opinion. There are always lessons, both good and bad, to be learned from them. Now that Assassin's Creed: Rogue has been released, this week will be dedicated to analyzing it in my signature style. But before we begin, I would like to make clear that I am assume some level of general knowledge regarding the Assassin's Creed franchise. Further, this article will remain spoiler-free, since the game is still very new. Having said that:

One of the central premise of Assassin's Creed: Rogue is that it twists the typical dynamic of the franchise, where players typically take the role of a notable Assassin against the Templar Order. Rather, in this instance, the player character is someone who is trained as an Assassin. However, this character, Shay Patrick Cormack, later abandoned the Assassin Brotherhood after a series of traumatic events, joining the ranks of the Templars. Though parts of the game feels like any other Assassin's Creed adventure, particularly Black Flag, there are a number of ways mechanics are altered such that the player can feel what it is like to be a Templar, going against trained Assassins (aka Player Characters). It is these mechanical twists that I wish to discuss, because they provide the basis for how Rogue differentiates itself.

One of the first, and most obvious, way in which it does that is through the ambushes that are found throughout the open world. When exploring many of the major settlements in the game, like New York, players may begin to hear whispers from somewhere nearby. This is an indicator that an enemy is lying in wait for an ambush. Turning on Eagle Vision during this time will display a compass similar to the one from previous Assassin's Creed games' multiplayer modes. The compass points to the direction of the would-be predator. Getting closer to the enemy will result in the compass's arrow getting wider, and likewise in the reverse direction. Given this knowledge, the player must choose between staying away or trying getting the drop on their wannabe assassin. Failure to do either of these things will result in a successful ambush, and the loss in a great deal of health. Ultimately, this mechanic helps players understand just what it is like for Templars to walk around, constantly in fear of an assassin ambush. Traveling around openly becomes more difficult, and players need to be vigilant and aware of their surroundings.

The second inversion of mechanics exists in the sea-faring mechanics, which came right from Assassin's Creed: Black Flag largely unchanged. As was the case in Black Flag, performing illegal actions at sea will increase the player's notoriety, GTA-style. However, instead of bounty hunters going on the offensive, it will be Assassin vessels that pursue the player. Rather than engage in ship-to-ship combat, Assassin ships will ram into the player's ship, The Morgan, and attempt to board it. Though these enemies are just the same types of foes the player would fight on the high seas, they are given the distinct advantage. This is because the player is robbed of the initiative they would normally be afforded in a boarding section, unable to fire guns and pick foes off before the boarding process. Furthermore, the enemy stuns the player's crew during the attack with smoke, delaying the counterattack. The end result is a greatly increased chance for loss of crew members, heightening the danger of attacking ships in the open. As a whole, this offers a taste for what it is like to be on the other side of the boarding process.

Another interesting way that Rogue shifts perspectives on old mechanics is the Assassin Intercept side-missions. In previous Assassin's Creed games, starting with Assassin's Creed 2, there were a number of pigeon coops scattered throughout the open world. The courier pigeons within had messages which the player could use to activate optional assassination side-quests. Rogue changes this paradigm slightly. Since the protagonist is a Templar, not an Assassin, he has no reason to hunt down these targets. However, he has much reason to keep them alive. When he comes across a courier pigeon, he can capture it and steal the message written on it. At that point, the Assassination Intercept begins. Once the would-be target is located, Shay has a certain amount of time to kill all of the Assassins going after him/her before they begin their attack. If he fails, he will need to resort to defending the target as they are bombarded by all the remaining Assassins. Again, this is interesting because it takes an old mechanic and allows the player to experience it from a new viewpoint.

Even the assassinations play out differently than they usually do. In most Assassin's Creed games, the player will take a target unaware. In story, the intended victim is not aware that they are currently being pursued until the player reveals themselves. That way, the onus is on the player to plan out their approach so that they kill the given target and advance the plot. Rogue tends not to do this. More often than not, the Assassins that the protagonist goes after are well aware that they are about to be attacked soon. As a result, these encounters feel more like boss battles than anything. Each target has an ambush waiting for Shay, dependent on their expertise. It is up to Shay to overcome these ambushes, completing his objective.

And that ultimately ties into why Assassin's Creed: Rogue is so fascinating. The designers were not content to just allow players to go through the motions, just for the other faction. Rather, the mechanics are tailored to the concept of an Assassin going "rogue" and joining the Templars. It explores how the same tasks are different when taken from the another perspective. Even though the controls and overall framework are still the same as they were in Black Flag, the differences are enough such that the feel of Rogue is wholly unique in the context of the franchise. It is one of the more interesting explorations of alternate viewpoints that I have seen. While it will not attract new fans to the franchise, Assassin's Creed: Rogue does well to offer a fresh take on old concepts.