Dreamcast Retrospective Day 5: Shenmue

Ah, Shenmue.  Dear Shenmue.

It is a game that simultaneously represents the Dreamcast’s highest highs, its greatest dreams, and its most significant achievements, but also its lowest lows and most obvious, most disappointing failings.

Shenmue was indescribably ambitious.

Its tale was epic.  Its scope was vast.  It featured detail and immersion the likes of which never before had been seen in gaming.

Shenmue, unfortunately, also came before the period in game development history where it had quite been figured out how to make such large, open worlds consistently interesting. 

Shenmue’s was, quite simply, ahead of its time.  This is to be admired, to a point.

The game still provides an experience unlike any other.  It is more or less an RPG, with a large world to freely explore, an epic quest to delve into, tons of people to talk to, and numerous side activities to keep you occupied.  You could actually go to an arcade within the game world, play arcade games on the virtual arcade machines, spend your virtual time doing this as the clock would continually advance all the while, and spend your virtual money that you had earned in your virtual job in order to play.

How much more immersion do you want?

Say what you will about the kind of activities that are actually fun inside of a video game world, Shenmue was nothing if not comprehensive. 

Shenmue was even the originator of many trends that are still present in gaming today.  It could be argued that the notorious quick time event, for one, was brought into popularity by Shenmue, for better or worse.  Dragon’s Lair was of course the true originator of the quick time event, but Shenmue brought it into the modern age. 

To this day, Shenmue remains one of the few examples where it really worked during gameplay.  It allowed the game to immerse the player in action sequences and combat sequences that otherwise would not have been possible within the mechanical framework of the game.

Understandably, as well-worn as this mechanic is these days, it doesn’t hold up quite as stunningly when you play it today.  But at the time this was a fairly interesting concept that worked in the game’s favor.

The game was also one of the earliest examples of the sprawling, hyper-detailed, realistic, open-world settings that are pretty much everywhere in gaming today.  Everything from Grand Theft Auto to Burnout Paradise must consider Shenmue as one of its forefathers. 

I still look back fondly on the world of Shenmue, for I feel it provides an experience unique in gaming even to this day.  Shenmue is essentially an RPG.  This is a game built primarily around talking to other people and living out the story of the main character. 

And an interesting story it was.

But unlike most RPGs, combat was not the primary focus.  It was far from neglected, but it was also not the reason the game exists.  Story, puzzles, and dialog were the primary things the game focused on.  What you got was a fairly, dare I say, realistic RPG.

Shenmue told a tale that was actually, at least to a point, believable.  I could believe that this character was out there, somewhere, doing these things to find the killer and avenge his father’s death.  Ryo didn’t do anything out of character or so over the top that it was clearly in the realm of fantasy.

Ryo felt like a real, human character, doing whatever was in his power to do what he thought needed to be done. 

Sure it wasn’t the most action-packed game.  Sure the pace plodded at points.  But the realistic tinge given to the proceedings by those very “faults” gave it an entirely separate attraction. 

Wandering around this highly realistic Japanese, and later Chinese, city, talking to people, solving puzzles, and advancing the plot in a realistic manner at a realistic pace is something you really don’t get to do in games all that often. 

The fantastical nature of video gaming sometimes has a tendency to sap away some of the potential base-level human connection with the characters that Ryo, with all of his faults and relationship issues and self-doubts, offers in spades. 

It has long been said that games can’t do emotion.  They are all essentially in the same realm as action movies and are incapable of drama or provoking sadness, so the saying goes.  I’m not about to claim that Shenmue actually did break this barrier and achieve this impossible status, but I do think that it’s one of the better examples out there of a game that has come rather close. 

Sadly, the ambition that made the game so memorable also brought its downfall.

It was truly a game before its time and gamers just did not see the appeal.  Only the first game ever made it to U.S. shores on the Dreamcast (which did not stop me from acquiring a European copy that I am quite proud of at great expense, one of my only endeavors in importing).

The project was too ambitious, too expensive, and unfortunately not nearly popular enough to justify continuing. 

There should be no claims that the original Shenmue was perfect.  Clearly it was not.

Review scores of the day indicated that the game was highly divisive even at the time.  Some thought it was the highly-detailed second coming of the RPG genre, others thought it was a gorgeous but incredibly boring waste of time.

Frankly I can see both sides of the argument.

To me there still remains something special about Shenmue, despite its faults.  I haven’t touched the original Shenmue in seven to eight years, but despite the time that has passed, I can still recall areas of the game vividly in my mind.  I can still see and hear the characters I spoke to during the course of my adventure. 

For some reason, this game managed to stick with me in a way that a lot of other games don’t.  Perhaps it was the wonderful system it played on, perhaps it was the detailed graphics, or perhaps it was the gripping, realistic  tale it told.

But the bottom line is, in the many years since its release, with the shelves jammed full of more realistic open world games than you can count, I still haven’t played anything quite like Shenmue.  I guess this isn’t all that surprising considering how poorly it sold, but it truly is a shame. 

I really do think there was something special about Shenmue.  Clearly it wasn’t something for everyone.  Its sales numbers should tell you that.  But the tone and the relative realism of the whole affair is something I would have liked to have seen capitalized on and brought into the modern age. 

Most importantly, I just wanted to see the story told to completion, but alas, it appears poor Ryo will forever be trapped in an eternal cliffhanger, never to find the vengeance he so desperately seeks.

Like the Dreamcast itself, Shenmue was terrifically ambitious and ahead of its time, yet sadly cut down prematurely due to these very qualities.  Neither would get to display their true potential. 

Both, I suppose, like many beloved things, I cherish as much for their faults as for their successes.  It is the combination of both that made them the unique experience I so loved.  

Dreamcast Retrospective Day 4: Power Stone

It is truly remarkable how many times I have seen fighting games attempt to utilize the element of 3D space and completely miss the point.

The element that the third dimension brings to a fighting game is that of being able to move around on more than two planes.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it?

3D movement in a fighting game should bring interaction with the environment, increased evasive abilities, greater defensive options, and in general a better sense of space. 

But yet time and time again, I see 3D fighting games totally miss the mark. 

I applaud Street Fighter IV for using 3D graphics but sticking to a 2D plane.  Far better that than do what so many other games have done and move into the 3D realm while not truly taking advantage of any of its strengths. 

For examples, look to nearly any 3D fighting game in existence.  So few of them have done it right that you can use just about any of them as demonstration of the point.

Dead or Alive almost gets it (a point which somewhat surprises me considering its utter failure to generate my interest in any other area of its design or gameplay).  Its large, open stages, decent level of environmental interactivity, and multi-level playing fields are aspects to be commended that other fighters perhaps should borrow from.  In terms of the game’s fighting mechanics themselves, however, 3D space plays very little part.  Quite simply, being able to move in multiple directions is not useful in a gameplay sense.

Far be it from me to claim to be a Virtua Fighter expert, but this game as well seems lacking in this department, though it’s a moot point considering its sheer depth in other areas.  As much depth as Virtua Fighter possesses, I was never able to glean much benefit from being able to move on a multi-dimensional plane in that series.  The movement is too slow and the evasive capabilities not geared toward that sort of evasion. 

Plenty other examples exist, but those two examples alone should show you that some of the biggest names on the market have somewhat managed to evade the point of having 3D space in your game in the first place.  Need we really delve into topics such as Mortal Kombat’s abysmal 3D incarnations to further belabor the point? 

I think not.

One modern fighting title that has gotten it right is Soulcalibur.  It has managed to develop its fighting mechanics in such a way that 3D space is vital to the strategy of a good Soulcalibur player.  Unlike any other fighting game, Soulcalibur manages to weave 3D space into the very fabric of the fighting mechanics themselves so that it feels as if it truly has a reason to take place in more than two dimensions. '

Well, unlike any other fighter save one, that is. 

Power Stone is an under-appreciated Dreamcast gem.  I cast no blame with the under-appreciated” label, for I am one of the under-appreciators.  I never played it nearly as much as I would have liked. 

Power Stone truly showed what was possible with a fighting game in 3D space.  No longer were the fighters tethered to one another with some invisible magic rope tied around their wastes, keeping them ever in close, face-to-face combat with no freedom to break away and move around. 

In Power Stone, you could roam around wherever the hell you wanted to.  You were encouraged to run around freely, interact with the environment, pick up items, throw things at the other player, and just generally wreak havoc.  Power Stone tapped into the true potential of an open space on a chaotic brawl like no other game.

It combined that wonderful hook with a wacky cast of characters, a great cartoony art style, and a general sense of over-the-top-ness that was really enjoyable.

Any fan of Super Smash Bros that has not played Power Stone is truly missing out.  Power Stone is very much in the same vein of quick, chaotic brawler, yet there’s a little more to Power Stone.  It is still simple, still accessible, but the 3D realm adds much to the proceedings. 

As if all that weren’t enough, there was also the additional task, on top of the fighting itself, of collecting the aforementioned Power Stones, which would randomly appear throughout the levels.  You see, in the Power Stone universe, every character has a super powered version of themselves they are able to transform into.
Obviously, you want this to happen for your character.  Equally obviously, you want to deny this happening for the other character. 

In order to make the transformation happen, you had to collect the shiny crystal things that would appear all around the levels, either by themselves or after breaking things.  This forced you to run around and be on the move, taking advantage of the 3D space, more than you otherwise might have had to. 

This frantic mixture of environmental interaction, object collection, and wacky, chaotic brawler is really like no other fighter I’ve played.  It was truly intense (not to mention sometimes truly difficult in the more-robust-than-you-would-think single player game). 

It was a tiny bit platformer, a large bit Smash Bros, a little bit action game, and a little bit Power Rangers.
Power Stone 2 bumped the number of simultaneous players to four while greatly increasing the environmental interaction, making it a bit more complex and appealing, but also immeasurably more chaotic.  It’s not for the faint of heart.

Anyone who enjoys fighting games, who enjoys action games, who enjoys a little bit of chaos, or who even has a passing interest in crazy games like Smash Bros really should seek out Power Stone and give it a shot. 
It’s still a fantastic game to play with a group of friends. 

Power Stone was a key part of the Dreamcast library.  It was addictive, chaotic, and easily accessible, while providing those all-important multiplayer titles that kept gamers pulling out their Dreamcasts when friends were over. 

It also, perhaps inadvertently, hinted at what truly could be done with the fighting genre in an open, 3D space and provided a unique fighting experience that’s still unmatched on some levels by anything other than its own sequel. 

So, Capcom, you seem to be on a fighting game bent as of late.  You’ve brought back Marvel vs. Capcom.  You’ve resurrected Street Fighter.  How’s about bringing us a Power Stone 3, hmm? 

I’d certainly be the first in line for it. 

Dreamcast Retrospective Day 3: Hydro Thunder

Now this is my kind of racing game.

Screw Gran Turismo.  Get Forza out of my face.  I want a bunch of stupidly fast boats speeding recklessly through totally insane courses that have no basis in reality whatsoever and are way, way cooler because of it.

Hydro Thunder may have been ported to other consoles later on, but I still strongly associate it with my beloved Dreamcast.  Not only were its graphics closer to the arcade version than any other port, but the release date for this little racing gem was none other than 9/9/99.  

This game was one of the cherished few that I brought home with me on launch day and played the crap out of, because that’s what you do with launch games on a new system.  

And this was a game deserving of my time.

Like Crazy Taxi, this is a game born out of a true arcade heritage.  In fact, the first time I played Hydro Thunder wasn’t even on the Dreamcast, it was on a true, honest-to-god arcade machine at a real, existing, miraculously-still-surviving arcade.  It had a big plastic seat that you sat down in, speakers placed right behind your ears for maximum immersion, a large grippy steering wheel, and a spiffy throttle thingy that was a lot of fun to use.

This is why I lament the loss of arcades.  Sure plastic peripherals seem to be all the rage nowadays, and I admit I’d rather play Guitar Hero than Guitar Freaks, but there’s nothing quite like experiencing a game like Hydro Thunder in a true arcade cabinet with the sound cranked up and a big ol’ piece of tape over one of the broken “Insert Coin” slots.

All the more impressive, then, that the Dreamcast version of Hydro Thunder so wonderfully captured the feeling of its bigger arcade counterpart.

This was a fairly no-frills game, but you don’t need any frills with a game like this.  There was no needless career mode to stretch out the game pointlessly.  There was no abundance of modes that are not actually any fun.

There’s just a bunch of tracks and a bunch of boats.  You race on the tracks and unlock more tracks and boats until it gets too hard and you have to keep trying over and over again until you finally do unlock everything but then you keep going back because it’s so damn fun.

Throw in a multiplayer mode and you’re set.  

There were some truly wild courses in this game.  Sure you had your typical tropical island and icy courses.  But what other racing game lets you race through the Greek Isles, plow through some Chinese city in mid-festival, speed through the canals of Venice, venture through a post-apocalyptic flooded New York, and navigate down the Nile and into an Egyptian tomb, all in the same game?

The graphics were absolutely stunning at the time and really helped justify my purchase of a Dreamcast.  It was a real showcase game for the system’s abilities.  Sure it doesn’t look all that stunning today, but what game of this era does?  I think it at least manages not to look like utter crap, which considering how some games from the era look these days is pretty impressive.

While the graphics may be a bit of a rough ride, the gameplay holds up just fine.  The sheer thrill of racing from checkpoint to checkpoint, always just on the verge of running out of time, finding elusive secret paths, and collecting boost meter extensions along the way to keep yourself going as insanely fast as possible by mashing that boost button at every possible opportunity just doesn’t get old.  

I’ve dabbled in Nintendo’s Wave Race series before and, while I usually enjoy them, they’ve never been more than a passing fancy.  Their highfalutin wave physics are fun and all, but, go figure, racing at high speeds on actual waves is really freakin’ hard.

Give me something like Hydro Thunder any day.  It remains one of my favorite arcade-style racing games. 

Sadly, this is a genre not seen in its pure form very often these days.  With even Burnout going open world and games everywhere, the racing genre included, getting more and more complex, the simple thrill of this genre is surprisingly hard to find.  Kart racing games are the only reliable source of this kind of fun anymore and, while they’re plenty fun in their own way, they’re just not the same.  

I actually haven’t played any of the other “Thunder” racing titles, but maybe I should seek them out just to see if they still hold up since there are so few modern equivalents.

It really is a shame Hydro Thunder hasn’t gotten a proper modern sequel.  It really could be fantastic.  

As it stands, though, Hydro Thunder remains a standout Dreamcast launch title that remains fun to this day.  I’m still glad that I chose it to go along with my Dreamcast on the Day of Nines all those years ago.

Dreamcast Retrospective Day 2: Grandia II

I have long had what you might call a love/hate relationship with JRPGs.

On the one hand, I am inevitably drawn to them over and over again.  On the other hand, they almost always end up boring me to tears. 

This struggle has played out many times over my game playing years.  Unfortunately these sorts of RPGs play simultaneously to the things I love most and despise above all else about video games. 

Only one JRPG has managed to overcome the tall odds, balance all of its elements correctly, and wind up on my list of completed games. 

That game is Grandia II.

I’m not even going to pretend that Grandia II was some fantastic game that blows every other JRPG out of the water.

It really wasn’t. 

What it comes down to, though, is that it had enough of its ducks in a row that it managed to remain charming, interesting, and, most importantly, fun to play over the entire experience.

JRPGs appeal to the part of me that likes an epic story.  They appeal to the part of me that likes to travel to distant lands, to explore uncharted territory, and to explore unseen worlds in a way not possible in any other medium.

The stories hook me with their grand scale.  The presentation hooks me with its high production values.  The worlds hook me with their vast size, dwarfing that of most other genres.

Then I actually play them and get tired of navigating menus for 6o hours.

I know one of the purported benefits of the genre is its supposed value for the dollar, the epic length of the adventurous tales these games tell, but there’s something to be said for quality over quantity. 

In many areas, Grandia II hits only slightly above par.  The story, for instance.  I don’t even remember much about it, to be honest, save for that it was serviceable, a little unoriginal, some of the characters were bland, and it featured a few of the same story elements that I despised many years later in Tales of Symphonia.  It wasn’t nearly as poorly told as the Tales game, but it wasn’t mind-blowing either. 

But it got the job done, moved the game along, and hooked me enough that I wanted to keep playing the game and see what was next.  It also featured a nice, healthy dose of charming, which helped. 

The graphics were nice for their time, full of color and fantasy.  The music was probably all right, but it’s not a soundtrack I find myself repeating over and over again in iTunes years later.

No, where Grandia II really excelled was in its battle system.  This is where a game in the repetitive JRPG genre really lives or dies, and this game nailed it better than any other game I have ever played.  It was the perfect mix of fast-paced action and strategy.  Never getting either too overwhelming or too repetitive.  You were always on your toes and always having a good time, not matter how many battles you had fought.

The game had other nice touches as well, such as the fact that you could see all the enemies on the screen and either avoid them or choose to do battle.  This is common these days, but it was relatively rare at the time.  The curse of annoying random battles has kept me from finishing many an RPG (including another big Dreamcast name, Skies of Arcadia) because they take control from the player and get in the way of exploration, which, to me, is the reason I’m playing the games in the first place, not the battle system.

With Grandia II, I got the best of both worlds: a battle system that was worth playing the game for coupled with a lack of random battles.

I was a happy gamer.

That Grandia II was such a terrific experience for me is actually a bit painful in a way.  You see, unlike some other JRPG series, Grandia has relatively few installments.  Essentially there are only three major entries that I am aware of.  The first is on the original PlayStation and, being a sucker for production values, I doubt it could hook me these days.  The third is on PlayStation 2 and, according to all reports I’ve heard, the story kind of sucks, taking away a lot of my incentive to play it. 

So, since it does not appear my Grandia II experience will be rivaled anytime soon, I’ll just cherish the memories I have of it.  It remains to this day one of my favorite RPGs. 

I place it on a very high pedestal and feel proud to call it the only JRPG I’ve ever truly finished.  The battle system is unmatched and the rest of the game is decidedly entertaining, even where unoriginal.

It absolutely deserves a spot as one of the great titles in the Dreamcast’s library.

Dreamcast Retrospective Day 1: Jet Grind Radio

9/9/09 will mark the tenth anniversary of the beloved but short-lived Dreamcast, which entered our hearts on 9/9/99.  As a tribute to this special console, Zestful Contemplation will be running nine days of nostalgia-tinted coverage of Sega’s last console.  Enjoy.

Remember when cell shading was revolutionary?

Remember when nobody had seen it before?  When a little game called Jet Grind Radio burst out of nowhere and showed gamers a brand new art style, unlike anything seen before?  

Remember how wickedly cool it was?  Remember how you marveled at how much like a 3D cartoon it looked?  

Remember when the technique wasn’t only reserved for crappy licensed children’s games and could actually be considered a desirable art style?

The prominence of cell shading today is all thanks to Jet Grind Radio.  

The glory days of cell shading may not have lasted long, as the style quickly faded into the realm of novelty except in exceedingly rare circumstances, but Jet Grind Radio showed us the style done right.

I don’t honestly remember whether Jet Grind Radio was technically the first cell shaded game on the market.  It’s certainly the first one that I remember and I believe it was, but that’s not really what important.  It’s not even worth looking up.

Why?

Because what’s really important is that Jet Grind Radio is the first cell shaded game that mattered.

More importantly, it was one of the few 3D games of its day to display a truly unique art style.  With the PlayStation 2 came enough polygonal fidelity that it was actually possible to differentiate one blocky, multidimensional game from another.  No one confuses Okami for Metal Gear Solid 3.  

But Jet Grind Radio was one of the earliest examples that 3D games could truly innovate artistically; that they could bring something unique to the table.

These days artistic style is all the rage.  Throwing more and more polygons has become so difficult and so expensive that developers are finally starting to focus on what really matters: the art style.  From Braid to Shadow of the Colossus to Prince of Persia to Valkyria Chronicles, games are trying harder than ever to differentiate themselves from one another artistically.

For me, though, Jet Grind Radio was the first time that I was really convinced that my beloved medium of games could really do anything interesting artistically, though I admittedly might not have been able to put it quite as nicely at the time.

It didn’t hurt that the gameplay was just as unique as the art style.  Large, open environments to wander around in provided a thrilling mixture of exploration, platforming, action, and even a little puzzle solving.  

Anyone who ever got truly hooked into the game could tell you how much replay value it had, too.  There was tons of stuff to collect and unlock and always another reason to pick the game back up and give it another go.

That was one damn hard game, though.

I have no shame in admitting that some of my most fond memories of the game come not from playing it myself, but from watching a close friend play and show off his far superior skill.  We spent a ton of time together playing this game and it wasn’t even multiplayer.  We just enjoyed watching each other explore the worlds.  

Though it was usually him playing.  He was better, what can I say?

Ok, fine, we used the occasional cheat code.

I said the game was hard.

Our love for the game spilled over to the much-ignored Xbox sequel (and in fact we’ve probably logged more time into that one than the original), but there’s something special about number one.

The soundtrack is like that of no other game I’ve heard before or since (save for the sequel).  The gameplay still remains unique, even in the current gaming landscape full of open worlds begging to be charted and exploration to be had on every disc.  There’s just something different about this one and the blend of disparate elements it offers.  It’s more than the sum of its parts.

Incidentally, Jet Grind Radio featured perhaps the only implementation of a quick time event style gameplay element that I actually genuinely enjoyed (so much so, in fact, that I lamented the more streamlined gameplay of the sequel that cut out the feature in favor of more speed).  Painting that stylish graffiti with button taps and circular motions was far more enveloping than simply holding down a button to paint, especially when you had a gaggle of bumbling cops quickly approaching.

Jet Grind Radio got me to truly like a button-matching gameplay segment.

I told you the game was special.