#69: SEES and the Investigation Team: A Tale of Tone and Scale

One of my favorite JRPG franchises has to be the Persona sub-franchise in the Shin Megami Tensei series. Although I have played through all of the games in the franchise, Persona 3 and 4 are the ones that really captured my heart. I was talking with a friend about the two games, and we disagreed on which of them had a better cast of characters. They preferred the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad (SEES) that made up the main cast of the third entry in the series. However, I connected more with the Investigation Team of the fourth game. This lead me to think a bit more about why I have this preference, which will be the subject of this post.

One of the biggest reasons I think for my preference is the difference in scope between the two stories. In the third entry of the series, the stakes are raised fairly quickly. In the first half of the game, players are introduced to monsters called shadows, which cause havoc during this extra hour in the day in which normal, non-Persona-users are sleeping in coffins. Both the player and the main characters are told that unless the shadows are stopped, they will destroy the world. Although the plot and its twists and turns stop this from becoming another standard save-the-world story, it is hard for audiences to really comprehend the stakes for which they play. When players are out participating in story events, it is very difficult to fully understand that if they fail, then X amount of nameless, faceless people will suffer for it. Not to say that players are stupid, but rather that the human mind is not really equipped to process such high risks, when so many people are on the line (doubly so when it is a work of fiction, and not a real event).

This is in fairly stark contrast with Persona 4, where the risks involved with failure are much easier to understand. The plot to that game is not a tale about saving the world. Rather, it is a story about a serial killer in a small town. Despite the supernatural elements to the plot (since it is a Persona game and players will need to use personae to fight in some capacity), the story is actually very grounded and on a much smaller scale than its predecessor's. Every victim and potential victim of the serial murders has a face, name, and personality which players are introduced to before they become the next target. It is much easier for me to comprehend that “If I fail, my classmate Yukiko will die” then “If I fail, innocent people will die.” This is not to say that larger scope stories are invalid, but rather that the smaller scale of Persona 4 let me really understand why my characters were out doing the things they do. That difference in understanding helped me relate a lot more to that cast as a result, especially since the majority of the cast joined the team because I saved them.

Another reason that the cast of Persona 4 appeals to me more is that the personal issues that each of the cast members are dealing with are much more relatable to me than those of Persona 3's cast. In the third game, most of the main characters have very dark personal histories. Out of all nine of them, six of them are dealing with trauma related to the death of a loved one as major parts to their story arc. Two of the other three are dealing with major issues involving their parents and the last one is a robot who is coming to grips with her growing sense of humanity. Again, all of these are valid and worthwhile backstories to explore, but the sheer darkness of it all makes it very, very hard for me to personally relate to them. These are issues that people do deal with, but not so much so that it becomes a dominating force in the way they live their lives like the cast of Persona 3. It often feels like there is a barrier between me and the cast as a result.

On the other hand, the kind of issues the members of the Investigation Team in Persona 4 go through are more resonate to me. Every single member of the group has something about themselves that they do not like and refuse to admit. In order to save them, players have to defeat their shadow selves and convince each cast member to accept whatever baggage is dragging them down. Many of these issues are much smaller ones that most people can understand and empathize with. One person secretly resents moving from the city to a small town with comparatively less to do. Two best friends have to confront that deep down, they are jealous of each other. Another party member is insecure about his favorite hobby because, to others, it is not very “manly.” These are all issues that people deal with on a day-to-day basis. I can understand these kinds of pains because I personally feel them more often than I would care to admit. Although I have only had loved ones die a small number of times in my life, these other issues are some that I and most people confront regularly. This creates much more empathy and understanding of the cast of Persona 4 than it does for Persona 3.

Lastly, I suspect that a contributing factor to the popularity of the Investigation Team over that of SEES is that Persona 4 was a lot easier to play than Persona 3 was. Transitioning from Persona 3 to 4, Atlus added two major additions to the combat system. The first was the “Guard” command, which replaced passing turns from Persona 3 and allowed players to reduce that damage from powerful skills that bosses used. The second was “Direct Command”, which allowed players to take control of other party members, besides the protagonist, in battle instead of leaving it to the AI. While I am sure this was a contributing factor for many people in increasing the likeability of the Investigation Team, this was not the case for me. When I played Persona 3, I played the PSP version of the game, which brought in the above improvements from Persona 4. Despite not playing a major part in affecting my enjoyment of both groups, I am sure it was a contributing factor for many others, so I opted to mention it here for completion's sake.

When it comes down to it, Persona 3 and 4 are actually quite different games in terms of tone, scope, and style of writing, despite being nearly identical in the gameplay aspects. This makes them useful for a case study in how writing can affect the overall takeaway of the player from a game. Of course, I have to stress that this is extremely subjective and I fully expect people to disagree with my preferences. Further, both games are solid and worth playing if you are a fan of JRPGs. I might have been a little critical of Persona 3's storytelling, but it is a very well-written and fun to play game. And who knows? You might be like my friend and prefer SEES to the Investigation Team. Regardless, make sure to reflect on how the differences between the two games make you feel differently about them, despite them being very similar.

#68: Kingdoms of Amalur vs. Skyrim: The Intimidation Factor

Like many people out there in the gaming space, I like to try to play games to completion. Though I do that with fewer and fewer games as I grow older, those games that particularly interest me still fuel that urge to do everything I can before moving on. Because of this, I am all too familiar with some of the frustrations that come from such a playstyle. Open-world RPGs can be either great or horrible for people like myself. On one hand, we always have something to do, because those kinds of games will almost always have a quest or two hidden away for players to find. However, completions like me are never able to completely move on from them, because those kinds of games will almost always have a quest or two hidden away for players to find. Despite this problem, this genre can be implemented in ways that can either exacerbate this feeling or lessen it in people.

Two open-world RPGs in particular are the subjects of this weeks article: Kingdoms of Amalur, which I recently got finished playing, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, one of the most successful games in the Elder Scrolls franchise. I want to talk about these two games in particular for a very special reason. Both games have tons of content. So much so that players could spend hundreds of hours playing either game and still never be able to complete it all. However, when I think of trying to do everything in Kingdoms of Amalur, I can't help but be intimidated by the thought. Not because any one piece of content is particularly overwhelming, but because I feel that it will take so much time, become so boring, and progress will be so slow that I just lose any desire to keep playing the game. At the same time, the thought of exploring the land of Skyrim, despite all the criticisms I have levied at that game over its lifespan, fills me with delight. Just writing about it now makes me want to go back, reload my save, and keep exploring the land to look for all the things I undoubtedly missed. At this realization, I sat down and thought for a bit as to why that might be.

The first explanation I came to for this is that Kingdoms of Amalur makes the sheer wealth of content available much more obvious than Skyrim does. When traveling through a given area in Kingdoms of Amalur, players will often come across bright yellow question marks on the map. Each of those symbols represents a quest which the players can stop to complete. This means that a player can gauge exactly how many quests are in given area by just filling out the map and counting how many yellow question marks show up. This is in fairly stark contrast to Skyrim. In the latest installment to the Elder Scrolls series, players are not explicitly told where or how to find quests. Players need to talk with people in towns or settlements in order to obtain quests. While sometimes NPCs in the game world will come up and petition the player character for assistance, the player themselves will generally be the one who has to begin interactions in order to discover new content.

Though these two systems lead to the same end, in which the player discovers quests and content to do, they accomplish different things in the mind of the player. In the case of Kingdoms of Amalur, all the content is made readily apparent to the player. In Skyrim, the exact amount of content is obfuscated. So when I go into an new area in Kingdoms of Amalur, I think to myself that this could be a potential 6-7 hours sitting right here just doing missions completely unrelated to anything else in the game. Entering a new town in Skryim, I can complete whatever errands I need to run and talk to a few villagers to find some quests I need to do. Without the constant reminder that there is a new thing to do in the city, it is easier for me to trick myself into thinking that I have “completed” all the quests in town, when in truth I have barely scratched the surface. Nonetheless, I walk away with a feeling like I accomplished much. In Kingdoms of Amalur, when I finish a quest, I feel like it is just a drop in bucket because I can see another 3-4 quests just in this one grassy plane. It is a subtle shift in the way it makes players think, but a key one that affects the perception of the whole game.

Another contributing factor to the difference in feeling of intimidation in one of these games, but not the other is that contrast in how combat works in each of them. In Kingdoms of Amalur, the combat is very visceral. There is a surprising amount of depth to it. Players need to stay aware of their surroundings in order to dodge enemy attacks, while trying to create an opening to stagger the enemy. If they are not careful, then they themselves will be knocked down and on the defensive. Each weapon type has its own combo chain, with strength and speed unique to that type of weapon. Though not difficult, timing and planning are quite important, and even enemies of equal level can wear down the unprepared (especially when there are mages in the enemy formation). On the flip side, Skyrim's combat is quite bare bones. It is quite trivial to button mash one's way through most encounters the game will throw at the player. Magic and stealth characters can use spells and backstab to change things up, but the mechanics are fairly simple and do not need much knowledge to fully grasp.

Let me preface my next statement by saying that I enjoy the combat in Kingdoms of Amalur. In fact, the combat was one of the most enjoyable parts of the game. However, that kind of combat against dozens and dozens of encounters has a way of gradually draining the player's mental stamina and enthusiasm for playing. As fun and fairly easy as it is, the sheer number of enemies the game throws at the player are not quite compatible with the type of combat. Also, the foes in Kingdoms of Amalur are quite durable, so taking them down can be fairly time consuming. While Skyrim also tends to have a lot of enemies come the player's way, the simpler mechanics lend themselves to that more readily. Enemies tend to fall fast and easy. It is not as mentally draining to play through waves of enemies in Skyrim than it in Kingdoms of Amalur, so playing through it is more bearable, despite its combat being worse overall. As a result, it is much easier to play hours and hours of Skyrim than in is to do the same in Kingdoms of Amalur. I can also play the latter for an hour or two before I feel the need to save and shut it off.

I find it interesting to compare and contrast similar games, because there is much to learn from such analysis. Both games are likely in many ways, but the way they implement their systems can leave completely different impressions of the audience. What is even more interesting is that I know there will be people who disagree for many different reasons. I am sad that Kingdoms of Amalur did not do so well, because I think they could do so much better if given a second chance. Hopefully, people will be able to learn from what went wrong with the game in time. Until then, there will be guys like me out there to over-analyze games like it in the vain hopes that others will listen.

#67: To Heavy Rain and Beyond: David Cage's Problems

(Spoiler Alert for Beyond: Two Souls. I wanted to keep this post spoiler-free. However, as I was typing it I realized that my points are stronger in the presence of clear examples from the game.)

As those of you who follow me on Twitter know, I purchased and played through Beyond: Two Souls: Starring Ellen Page and Willam Dafoe, developed by David Cage and Quantic Dream, when it came out a while back. Despite the similarities between Beyond and Quantic Dream's previous opus, Heavy Rain, Beyond has been much more negatively received than its predecessor. On Metacritic, for example, Two Souls received a 71 on Metacritic, whereas Heavy Rain received an 87. That is a grand total of a 16 point difference between the games, which is fairly significant. What is it about Beyond that makes people dislike it so much more? This week, I propose a possible answer.

One of the biggest reasons I feel that Beyond received a more lukewarm reception was that, unlike Heavy Rain, came out amongst stiff competition in the space of the “interactive fiction” genre. At the time of Heavy Rain's release, Quantic Dream was the only company who made games of that type. Aside from Heavy Rain, the only notable “interactive fiction” game was Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit, also developed by the same company. Fast forward to the time of Beyond: Two Soul's release, and this is now no longer the case. Now, there are quite a few competitors in this space. Chief among them is Telltale Games, famous for both the spectacular release of The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us. To The Moon is another great example, developed by Firebird Games in the indie space. Though these games lack the budget of the works of Quantic Dream, they command very strong followings in their own right.

Fans of the genre previously had only one place to go to get their fix. As a direct result, they were less likely to criticize games from David Cage. Since there are more points of comparison for “interactive fiction” than there were even 5 years ago, we see more of the flaws in games of that genre than we used to. Cage no longer has the defense of being the only developer in the field. He needs to do much more to impress audiences. Beyond really does not do much to move the goal post at all. In fact, it is much worse in many respects. Therefore, it is natural to expect it to have a lower score than its predecessors.

Another reason that Beyond might not have been as well received as well as other Quantic Dream games is that the control scheme is a much more ambiguous than in those games. Presumably in order to to avoid the common criticism that David Cage's games are nothing more than a series of Quick Time Events, the systems used during action sequences have been revised. Instead of displaying the button prompts on screen, the game uses a new mechanic. All action sequences are handled using the right analog stick. When the action goes into slow-motion, players are supposed to move the stick in the same direction Ellen Page as Jodie Holmes is whatever action she is performing in. The problem with this is twofold. First, many movements can be ambiguous with regards to which direction they are going towards. Since the game expects players to perform them with relative haste, this leads to unnecessary failures. The other issue is that the game has an annoying tendency to have action sequences in dimly or poorly lit areas.

As a result, it is often hard to see exactly what Ellen Page as Jodie Holmes is doing, let alone which direction she is doing it in. Compared to the discreet button prompts present in Heavy Rain, Beyond makes it much more difficult to correctly input the proper commands. As an example, there is a scene that takes place “early on” in the game (I'll explain later) where Ellen Page as Jodie Holmes is on the run from the CIA. She is on a train and seen by police officers, creating a chase scene. When she makes it off the train, she has to jump over and/or duck under tree branches as she is running into a forest in order to avoid capture. As Ellen Page approaches a branch, the game slows-down, indicating that it is time to move the right stick. Unfortunately, it is very hard to make out if Ellen Page is ducking or preparing to jump in the darkness of the night. This gives players a 50/50 chance of guessing whether to move the right stick up or down. It results in confusion, irritation, and anger on the player's part, which are not the emotions David Cage wants to instill in audiences.

The final problem that Beyond: Two Souls had was its completely disjointed narrative. For the unaware, the game's story is not told in chronological order. Instead, the game flashes forward and backward in time. One moment, players can be playing as child Jodie. Then, the very next scene can involve Jodie as a homeless, young adult. This happens up until the last 2-3 scenes, where the finale suddenly presents itself in a linear fashion. The effect is that otherwise tense or dramatic scenes are undermined by either a lack of narrative context or knowledge of what occurs in scenes that chronologically take place later on.

A case of the first can be easily demonstrated by a sequence of two scenes from the middle of the game. In the first scene, Ellen Page as Jodie Holmes is drafted into the CIA by high-level government officials, thanks to her powers. The man who takes her is extremely cold and unfeeling towards her, and she leaves in tears. The very next scene has her in an apartment, preparing for a date with the very same man, which she has apparently fallen in love with. It is up to the player to prepare food, get washed and dressed, and clean up the apartment in time for the date. All the while, the player has no idea what happened in the time between these two scenes to so radically change the relationship between Ellen Page as Jodie Holmes and CIA Jerkwad. While it is plausible that they have grown close in the time between, the relationship feels like a hallow one without the prerequisite context. Any emotional connections the scene could invoke is undermined by that.

However, the reverse of this phenomenon is also true. Sometimes, knowledge of what goes on in Ellen Page as Jodie Holmes's future undermines all the tension a given scene has in the present. For example, one scene in the game involves Ellen Page as Jodie Holmes escaping a burning building, rescuing her fellow homeless friends along the way. There are a few different ways this scene can play out, but all of them end with her on the ground, unconscious and possibly bleeding out. In most works of fiction, this would be a tense moment where we do not know if the protagonist survives. However, Beyond: Two Souls has the problem where players know that Ellen Page as Jodie Holmes survives because they just finished playing scene which chronologically takes place after the current one. Since we know Ellen Page as Jodie Holmes is alive in a future scene, she cannot die in the scene the player is watching, making the tense buildup utterly pointless. Ultimately, the story's structure undermines the vast majority of it in very similar ways.

On some level, I respect David Cage and Quantic Dream. Those guys are doing something truly unique in the video game industry. Few developers do make games like the ones he makes. However, in light of what we see from other developers and obvious flaws in his own design, Cage is not good enough to justify all the copious resources and talent put his games. His largest problem seems to be that no one is willing to tell him when his scripts need work. Though he clearly subscribes to auteur theory, he is not skilled enough of a writer to be a auteur. Maybe in future projects, Cage will find an editor to improve the overall product. However, I wonder in Quantic Dream might start to crack after another few releases. It will be interesting to watch either way.

Disclosure Alert: Alpha Protocol: Episode 32: DisclosureCast

Not much of note happens in this episode. We couldn't stop at Episode 31 because the cutscenes kept playing and there wasn't a good save point. Even when the cutscenes were over, we just kept talking and the result is that we ended up with enough material for an entire episode.

This is actually a very interesting conversation with Mina. I feel the need to point out that if Mina liked us at the end of the game, that she'd come in person to have this chat. (That would also be the point at which you can have sex with her to get XP and level up.) We'd also have the choice of asking her to find a safehouse to hide if we didn't want her to go back to Alpha Protocol. Since she hates our guts, this conversation is played over the monitor and Mina stays there regardless.

You can also use this point to uncover that Mina is the one who cut you loose, like we did here. If you fail to get enough dossier entries and connect the dots, then it becomes a bit of a loose thread. Although, by this point I don't think a detail like that matters. By now, Thorton has enough of an interest in stopping Halbech that Saudi Arabia is a passing concern.

In another nod to how old this recording is, we were discussing the revelations with Edward Snowden at the time. It had just hit the news and was a major topic. Without delving too much into politics, government spying and overreach have been massive topics for the past decade or so. As a result, it makes sense for a modern day spy game to have some commentary on the matter. This just happened to be an interesting thought in light of what was going on at the time.

"We might be able to finish this by the time I start class next month." In retrospect, that comment is one of the funniest things I said in this block of episodes. Such optimism. Such blind, stupid optimism.

So yeah, spoilers. We plan to do the finale without a guest. Sorry about that, but it's thematically appropriate!

I'm not going to comment much on the conversation we had with Shamus. Honestly, I think it stands for itself without requiring further input in text form. All I'll say is that it was a delight to bring Shamus on for the recording. In another season, sometime before Half-Life 3 comes out, he'll be willing to join us again sometime. For now, you may be interested in his other musings about Alpha Protocol: here and here.

Disclosure Alert: Alpha Protocol: Episode 31: Revenge of the Trolled

What follows is perhaps the saddest thing I've been a part of since that time when we went months without producing a single video.


Let the record show that I DID tell Aldowyn to "Pick Suave, and then pick Suave again." #AldowynIsDumb

I think both this scene and the Surkov escort mission are the only two point in the entire game where your actions can lead to game over (aside from the normal HP=0). I kind of wish they'd just make you live with the consequences of failing of save Madison or stop the bombs. However, I know that would cause tons of problems in and of itself. I'm sure Obsidian had this very same debate when creating this scenario and I'd love to have been a fly on the wall for it.

I want to make it clear that I've only shot Madison on accident once in the 3-4 times I made this choice.

To elaborate on the trick to killing Marburg easily: You need to have Shadow Operative and Chain Shot. Use Shadow Operative and then use Chain Shot while you are invisible and land all your shots on Marburg. If you do it right, Marburg will be completely still until he takes another dose of damage. It's actually pretty pathetic.

With regards to an "RPG where 'Attack' is always an option in dialog." I believe in our talks after recording the episode, we fleshed out that idea a bit more. It could be a check of your weapon skill versus the skill of the NPC. If you have a higher skill, then you win and kill them. Else, you fail and suffer the consequences. I wonder if any of you RPG fans have any thoughts on that?

Finally, considering that Deng came up in discussion and the author himself was featured in the episode, this post would be incomplete without linking Shamus's Stolen Pixels comic regarding that boss fight.