Basic Info: Bad Genome
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| I gots me a picture for this. |
•{ How long have you been a videogamer? }•
I'm 31 now and have been playing games for as long as I can remember, so... a long time. Some of my earliest memories are of playing Skiing and Combat on the Atari 2600. It's tough to say what my all time favorite system is, but gun to my head, I guess I'd say the SNES if only because I have a lot of nostalgia for that era of gaming. And Final Fantasy 6 is objectively the best SNES game!
Chrono Trigger is exactly 1/32 as good as FF6, which is still pretty amazing. I never really delved into Super Mario RPG all that much. I really disliked FF7 at first blush and refused to play it until a few years after it came out, but in retrospect it's actually very traditional. Obviously it changed the series by taking it in a more cinematic direction, but it still managed to feel like Final Fantasy. It's not my favorite by any means and i think it's pretty badly overrated, but I do like it. I think FF8 was actually where the series started to go wobbly with a more realistic art style and an emo protagonist and all that. FF9 was a nice departure from that, but it was only temporary. Every Final Fantasy since then seems strongly influenced by FF8.
The state of JRPGs, like the state of Japanese development in general, is a really mixed bag. On the one hand, there are more JRPGs available across a wider variety of platforms than ever: home consoles and handhelds and mobile and even PC. So that's good. On the other, the heavy hitters definitely aren't what they used to be, at least in the west. Final Fantasy has struggled mightily this generation, and Square doesn't even seem interested in bringing Dragon Quest out of Japan anymore. Mid-tier series like Star Ocean and Mana and Suikoden and Breath of Fire are all dead concerns save for crummy mobile cash grabs. Japanese developers seem very shaken by the rise of western developers on consoles this past generation, and their response has been to either (a) make a cynical attempt to "westernize" their games, thus stripping them of all appeal or (b) turn increasingly inward by making all these very, very Japanese games starring moe girls and have zero global appeal. It's looking increasingly dire for the future if they can't get back to just making games that don't try to be western or Japanese, but just try to be good games period. That's what the best and most successful Japanese games (FF, Metal Gear, Resident Evil) have always done.
We've been doing an annual "name your all time favorite games" thing at VGChartz for a while, so here's mine from last year: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=4882205 Obviously not much has changed in a year, although I'd definitely add Hotline Miami pretty high up there. Maybe even at the very top spot. That game is incredible.
•{ You seem to have a pattern of SNES JRPG style, then action/good graphics 'shooters', and then Story games with various styles. Am I right? }•
I'm not really sure if there's a pattern, but I guess that's accurate enough. The evolution of the JRPG by leaps and bounds during the SNES era was an exciting thing to behold, and a lot of those games really shaped my views of what games can and should be in terms of music, aesthetics, and narrative.
•{What games are you interested in now? Do any of them fit the JRPG style or understanding?}•
I'm interested in lots of different games, including a few JRPGs here and there but not so many these days. There was a time when I used to play almost nothing but JRPGs, but good ones that get localized are increasingly rare. In recent years I've really developed a taste for crazy Japanese action games like Earth Defense Force and Dynasty Warriors. But JRPGs - specifically Final Fantasy IV - shaped my expectations for games in such a profound way that I'll always see things through that lens. For me, it was the first game where there was a truly compelling story instead of just a throwaway plot to explain the action ("save your girlfriend from the gang!"). I'd never really thought of games as a narrative medium before that. It was also the first game with music that truly moved me, as up until then video game music was either just annoying bleeps and bloops or, at best, a bunch of catchy jingles. So I suppose any time I play a game and appreciate its writing or music, it's thanks in large part to Sakaguchi and Uematsu.
I love Dead Rising. Inafune did an incredible job of cramming all this schlocky humor and arcadey beat 'em up sensibilities into it. Its candy colored take on the zombie apocalypse is easily my favorite. Hard to believe that it took someone until 2006 to say, "Hey, you know what? Dawn of the Dead should be a video game."
And since you mention it, it definitely has a similar appeal to me as EDF. Both are very, for lack of a better term, "gamey". They are very comfortable being fun, cheesy video games and don't try to "transcend the medium" by being bad movies, and that makes them very refreshing in this generation. It's a shame what Capcom is doing to the series in Dead Rising 3, but oh well. I'm grateful for the first two amazing games.
By gamey, I just mean games that revel in being video games: silly, ridiculous, fun. As opposed to all these overly cinematic affairs this generation where the gameplay boils down to "press A for Awesome".
I mean, I'm playing video games here! If I want to watch a movie, I'll watch a movie. Maybe it's more a matter of most movie-like games not being done well, though. Heavy Rain was alright, and Telltale's Walking Dead was completely amazing. But most cinematic games feel like they're made by people who aren't really sure what they want to make and who are maybe even a little embarrassed that they work in gaming rather than in Hollywood. Whereas if you look at Dead Rising, it seems to celebrate video games with all its goofiness and references to other Capcom properties.
It was also very clunky in a lot of regards, such as its save system. I don't know why, but I generally really enjoy games that are a little on the janky side. Dead Rising, EDF, Yakuza, Deadly Premonition... if I had to guess, I'd say it contributes to the sense of it being a video game. Like in EDF where you can fall 100 feet out of an exploding helicopter and just land on your feet and take no damage, or the way that Yakuza uses animations that look like the guy is reaching into his pocket and giving you a coin or something but it's actually a baseball bat. Things like that are silly, but it's also works so why get bogged down in needless complication and pointless details? I mean, extremely detailed games like The Last of Us are really impressive, but maybe pedantic devotion to "realism" is part of the reason why games are so ridiculously expensive to make now.
