Ich hab mir heute den Spaß gemacht, die Liste der beliebtesten Spiele, gewählt von den Nutzern des japanischen Nintendo-Kanals, abzuschreiben. Alle Spiele, die man auf der Wii gespielt hat, einschließlich der Virtual Console Downloads, können dort von ihren Besitzern auf einer fließenden Skala von überhaupt nicht empfehlenswert bis sehr empfehlenswert bewertet werden. Kriegt ein Spiel genügend solcher Bewertungen und fallen sie hoch genug aus, werden Auszeichnungen von Bronze bis Platin vergeben.

Diese können sich im Lauf der Zeit auch wieder ändern, der frühere Platingewinner 428 hat heute „nur“ noch eine Goldauszeichnung. Derzeit hat auch nur ein Spiel diese oberste Auszeichnung verdient, nämlich das RPG Xenoblade von Monolithsoft.

Alle Gold-, Silber- und Bronzegewinner in der jeweiligen umgekehrten Reihenfolge ihres Erscheinens:

1. Der Nintendo-Kanal selbst ist also auch eine Bronze-Auszeichnung wert… [↩]

Lang ist es her, dass Stefan Raab mit seinen anarchischen Sendungen „Vivasion“ und „Ma’ Kuck’n“ einer der Lichtblicke im Programm des damals viel kritisierten neuen deutschen Musiksenders Viva war. Der dank Moderatoren wie Raab aber den Konkurrenten MTV doch das Fürchten lehren konnte, ihn zwang, ein eigenes lokales Programm aufzubauen, um konkurrenzfähig zu bleiben. Zwar hat MTV den ehemaligen Rivalen Viva mittlerweile geschluckt, doch nicht ohne vorher stark von ihm geprägt worden zu sein. Schon vor dem Kauf der Viva-Senderfamilie hatte MTV einige Talente wie Markus Kavka von dort abgeworben.

Stefan Raab hat mittlerweile ein Zuhause bei Pro7 gefunden und produziert eine Großzahl der Aushängeschilder „seines“ Senders. Und auch wenn Raab wie alle Stars mit Mainstream-Erfolg heute sehr viel braver ist als zu seinen frühen Viva-Zeiten, so ist er sich doch inhaltlich treu geblieben. Viele seiner Rivalitäten gehen noch auf seine Zeit bei Viva zurück, wo er seicht produzierte Dance-Produktionen wie Fun Factory oder DJ Bobo genauso veräppelte wie einheimische Gangsterrapper wie Moses Pelham, von dem er sich dafür auch schon mal eine blutige Nase holte. Die Kelly-Family waren stets ein leichtes Ziel für alle Komiker und Raab machte keine Ausnahme, was heute in eine freundschaftlich sportliche Rivalität mit Joey Kelly übergegangen ist. Und man mag es heute kaum glauben, aber Dieter Bohlen wurde (ebenso wie Jürgen Drews und andere deutsche Musikgrößen) von Raab regelrecht vorgeführt, und Raab trotzdem regelmäßig von Bohlen wieder in seine Villa eingeladen.

Bohlen produzierte zwar nach wie vor erfolgreich immer dieselbe Musik und es ging ihm finanziell bestens, aber ohne eigene Band oder eigene TV-Sendung war seine Medienpräsenz eher begrenzt. Die bestand zu der Zeit vornehmlich im Breitwalzen der Scheidung von Verona Feldbusch, heute Poth, die damit ihre eine Weile sehr erfolgreiche Karriere begründen konnte. Für die meisten Deutschen war Bohlen aber eher eine Witzfigur, musikalisch überschätzt und ohne viel aktive eigene Fans. Genau dieses Image zeigte auch Raab bei seinen Besuchen bei seinem Freund, den er freundlich (aber gnadenlos) veralberte.

Mittlerweile ist Bohlen dank „Deutschland sucht den SuperStar“ wieder voll da. Dazwischen gab es noch ein Comeback mit Modern-Talking-Kollegen Thomas Anders, aber noch mehr Aufmerksamkeit beschert ihm der Jury-Posten in mittlerweile mehreren Casting-Sendungen auf RTL, wo er eine ähnliche Rolle einnimmt wie Raab auf Pro7. Beide repräsentieren ihren Sender, beide setzen auf Lästerhumor und beide haben es mit ihren Sendungen in die Königsklasse der TV-Unterhaltung geschafft, die Samstagabend-Show. Dass Bohlen den Witz auf Kosten seines Gegenüber sucht, könnte er sich auch von Raab abgekuckt haben, schießt aber mit seiner späten Rache an Unbeteiligten etwas übers Ziel hinaus. Zwar werden beide regelmäßig wegen ihrer derben Scherze kritisiert (und zuweilen auch verklagt), doch ist Raab doch noch etwas sympathischer in seiner Rolle des netten Lästerers. Bohlen hingegen legt auf das Attribut „nett“ kaum großen Wert.

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Auch dieses Jahr findet wieder die Nippon Connection statt, das japanische Filmfestival in Frankfurt. Da ich trotz wenig Zeit doch gerne zu allen gesehenen Filmen was loswerden möchte, habe ich mich entschlossen, das in jeweils einem prägnanten Satz zu machen.

In The Rise and Fall of the Unparalleled Band machen sich Möchtegernverbrecher des Träumens schuldig, schlagen dabei aber einer nach dem anderen den Solopfad ein. ★★★★★

In DumBeast wird nach dem vermissten Autor eines gleichnamigen Buchs gesucht, mit dem dieser die kollektive Anime-TV-Jugend der Japaner als Roman verarbeitet und damit den Unmut seiner auch im echten Leben überzeichneten Protagonisten auf sich gezogen hat. ★★★★★

Der Ausnahmeanimationsfilm Midori-ko erzählt mit 10 Jahren Arbeit in 56 Minuten, wie man auch ohne Fleisch zu essen Mama werden kann. ★★★★☆

Mit der Doku The Duckling reinigt Nachwuchsregisseurin Sayaka ONO tränenreich ihre Seele und die ganze Familie spielt mit. ★★★★☆

MILOCRORZE vereint drei Geschichten, drei Genres und drei Stile zu einem passenden Ganzen, mit überraschenden Sprüngen und raffinierter Inszenierung. ★★★★★

Übermüdet bin ich zu später Stunde während Sketches of Kaitan City ständig eingenickt, aber die wach wahrgenommen Teile waren gut genug, mich auf Verdacht 4/5 Sterne abreißen zu lassen. ★★★★☆

Arrietty ist der schönste Film, den ich seit langem gesehen habe, und hat meine Liebe zum traditionellen Trickfilm wiederbelebt. ★★★★★

In Permanent Nobara scheitern starke Frauen an schwachen Männern, das aber voller Liebe, Lebensfreude und schwarzem Humor. ★★★★★

Das dialoglastige Beziehungsdrama Love Addiction setzt auf authentisch wirkenden Stil, Improvisation und überzeugt in seinen besten Momenten sogar als Satire. ★★★★☆

Wig ist eine nette Mainstreamkomödie, die aber auf vielen Ebenen funktioniert und das Hirn sogar mehr belohnt als die Lachmuskeln. ★★★★☆

Helldriver ist wie eine trashige Splatterversion von Dororo, wenn dessen Titelfigur selbst die Heldin gewesen wäre. ★★★★☆

The Last Story begins...

Hironobu Sakaguchi has an eye for talent, he understands what kind of game-play works and who can make things work. It didn’t seem that way when he produced one commercial failure after the other during the early Square days. But when he made Final Fantasy, one of the first original Japanese role-playing games, he finally found his genre: As he himself commented he’s much better at telling a story then at making an action game.

Inside this story heavy genre he still tried different things, leaning both towards the action side of the spectrum with the Final Fantasy spin-off Mana series and the Nintendo co-produced Super Mario RPG, and towards the strategy side with Front Mission and Final Fantasy Tactics. Some of the risks he took payed off big, like betting on the CD medium and polygon 3D graphics, which gained his already successful Final Fantasy series worldwide recognition. His attempts at an expensive Final Fantasy CGI movie and a Final Fantasy version of the fresh MMORPG genre were perceived as flops though and Sakaguchi took responsibility for these commercial failures and left the company he made what it is today, right around the time it merged with its biggest rival, Enix.

His newly founded company Mistwalker is made up of only a few people and most of the colleagues he had worked with before stayed at Square, Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu being the biggest exception. Most of the development side of Mistwalker games is left to other companies who work under Sakaguchi’s guidance. The first two of which were high profile titles funded by Microsoft who probably hoped Sakaguchi could recreate the success of Final Fantasy on their new Xbox360 console. That didn’t quite work out and so the following titles ended up being more low budget games for Nintendo DS, which also allowed Mistwalker to be more experimental with these titles and explore the more niche RPG sub-genres. They were mostly strategy RPGs and a few action ones as well.

The experiences gained with these smaller bridge titles show in Mistwalker’s latest (and maybe last) traditional RPG The Last Story, which fuses these two genres masterfully while retaining the typical RPG framework. While Sakaguchi didn’t feel confident to make a good action game he always knew how to spice up turned based RPGs with some action elements, like the timing based bonus damage he introduced in Mario RPG and reused in Final Fantasy VIII and Lost Odyssey. Another example being the seamless battles inside the same exploration maps typical of action game which made the turn based grinding in Chrono Trigger much less distracting. The Last Story takes quite a few steps more into this direction though, more on which below.

Elza and Quark talking in old school strategy RPG presentation style, used in select dialogues

With Mistwalker Sakaguchi seemed to mostly draw upon his previous work. Blue Dragon owes a lot to Chrono Trigger, his collaboration with his JRPG rival Yūji Horii. The immortal hero storyline in Lost Odyssey owes a lot to the critically acclaimed Glory of Heracles games, which started off the career of Playstation era Final Fantasy scenario writer Kazushige Nojima. Nojima was just one of many game creators washing up at Square during the SNES days, who then contributed to some of the biggest hits of the following Playstation era. Another one was Yasumi Matsuno and many of his colleagues from Quest. The Last Story owes a lot to Final Fantasy Tactics, which was a Final Fantasy version of Quest’s strategy RPG masterpiece Tactics Ogre, re-imagined by most of its original team, but produced by Sakaguchi at Square.

This is (not) a Matsuno game

Physical weapons can be endowed with the element of a spell casted

When The Last Story was announced for Wii the developer Sakaguchi collaborated with this time wasn’t revealed right away and only referred to by his initial Mr. M on the Mistwalker blog. There had been rumors that Matsuno had been working on a Wii title ever since he quit work on Final Fantasy XII before it was finished and made a promotion interview for Nintendo’s Wii where he stressed the possibilities Wii offered for creating new intuitive ways to control a player character. Obviously many fans (including myself) were hoping Mr. M from the Mistwalker blog might be Matsuno. But it was later revealed that Mr. M was in fact Takuya Matsumoto (who had worked with Mistwalker before as director of Blue Dragon) and The Last Story, for all its innovative game-play, completely ignores the Wii specific control methods.

But nevertheless this game is so very reminiscent of Final Fantasy XII and the whole Matsuno style it begs the question if Mistwalker didn’t try to make a Matsuno game, even without his personal involvement maybe. The cryptic M-san abbreviation only lends to stir likewise rumors. As in Final Fantasy XII the environments are rich renderings of medieval places with too many characters walking around to all have their own dialogue. Instead there are some that can be talked to indicated by an A above their head, and some who can be overheard when walking by or addressing the player character when they spot him. As in FFXII the battles are seamless and occur in the same environments which the characters walk, talk and live in. As in FFXII lines indicate character targeting their enemy for attack. It’s pretty clear where Mistwalker got their inspiration from with The Last Story.

Taking aim, and checking the enemy's weak spot as well

But they manage to best Matsuno at his own style and to bring a lot of the kind of strategic game-play his previous games offered to a more traditional RPG with fully rendered game world. It’s of course to be expected that they would expand on what FFXII did right and remedy the problems. One problem being that the battles were mostly automatic and boring exercises at watching rather than playing. The programmable Gambits only demonstrated how formulaic most of Final Fantasy battle strategy was without living up to the potential of what it added to them, positioning the characters in a 3D play-field. In The Last Story on the other hand, attacks are still activated automatically but the terrain and obstacles in it are much more important. Hiding behind corners, making use of difference in height, projectile attacks, surrounding enemies, all these concepts from Matsuno’s Tactics games are incorporated by real time actions lent from stealth games like Metal Gear Solid and other action oriented titles.

When Matsuno himself took the step to real time controls with Vagrant Story he reduced the amount of party members to one and the number of foes battled simultaneously to three. These limitations were also due to the switch from sprites to polygon models and the Playstation hardware not being powerful enough to render more characters in real time. In Final Fantasy XII the party had three simultaneous player characters (mostly because that was the number now typical for the series) and hordes of enemies to battle at any one time. Still a far cry from the five or more characters per team in Matsuno’s strategy games and in the game Matsuno was actually working on recently, a remake of his Tactics Ogre for PSP, one of the main innovations is increasing the party size even more to allow for more dynamic battles. The Last Story takes the same route and has around five simultaneous party members on average, sometimes more, sometimes less, and often thrice as many enemies, with back ups joining the fight mid battle.

Use Wind to pause the game and dash to the left magic circle to heal all your allies or to the right one to break the enemies' defense with fire

The big hurdle is of course how to strategically control this many characters in real time. As in FFXII the characters act independently based on AI with optional menu controls. But the game also gives the main character many ways to work with his fellow party members and the effects of the spells they cast. He gains the ability to draw enemies towards himself when he triggers his Gathering stance. This way he can keep them away from magic casting allies or lead them to magic circles, i.e. the areas where spells are at work. He can also revive fallen allies by touching them in Gathering mode, use his Wind ability to quickly move along the battle field, and interrupt enemy spells or widen the effect of ally spells, by moving onto their magic circles with this dash ability. Usage of this special skills is limited by meters building during battle and each character has five lives per battle which limits the times they can be revived. Another cue from the action genre, so instead of stocking up on heal items and keeping one’s magic points up the player has to keep track of what his allies are doing, to help them and make best use of their spells as well.

Gathering can also be used in combination with hiding behind parts of the surroundings to disorient foes and ambush them for extra damage. There’s a wealth of possible actions most of which map to one single button respectively that does the same thing regardless of context. For example C will activate Gathering, no matter if you’re attacking or defending by holding B. So it’s easy to remember these techniques without the controls getting convoluted. Few of them require precise timing and for all the action game-play it boils down to choosing the right action for the right moment and occupying places which work to one’s advantage. If the battle gets hectic there’s abilities like Wind which pause the real time action and allow to look around the field to get an overview. Before a battle starts there’s often a top-down view on the surroundings complete with enemy formations and strategy discussion with the other party members. Since the party is a team of fellow mercenaries interesting and atmospheric dialogue abounds before and during the battles, with members providing hints or asking for help.

Bumping into people

But the surroundings aren’t just important during battles. In previous RPGs there were frequent awkward situations where you couldn’t advance your character on screen because someone or something was in the way. Maybe the obstacle was just overlapping your way by a few pixels but still movement was obstructed. Or a clueless non player character wandering around randomly just didn’t try the one direction where they could go out of the way. In The Last Story you can bump into people, even knocking them over. Normally you won’t want to do that of course so for the first time you will find yourself avoiding NPCs when walking around the streets. If you still bump into one, on purpose or accidentally, many will react to that, scold you, get angry or sometimes even cheer for you one once they realize who you are. The latter type are mostly kids who admire the hero for being so cool or girls having a crush on him.

Look where you're going! Or where you're running from...

This collision detection feature becomes crucial during run and chase sequences. Bumping into people will slow you down and you may even knock your head against a hanging sign. You can also look behind you by holding B which changes the camera perspective, which of course also increases the possibility to bump into people which only come into view when you’re right next to them.

Taking a look around

When you press and hold Z the game changes to a first person perspective which is used to aim a projectile weapon or simply look around the vicinity. Sometimes a Z icon will appear to alarm you of things to spot. It’s like an instinct that makes you aware of things your were going to pass by. If you find spots with a box around them you notice things in a distance or items/bonuses lying around. These can then be interacted with, triggering scenes or strategic choices in battle, where you can give commands to the other party members. This way NPCs, treasures, passages and even whole story chapters can be discovered. The chapters are mostly predetermined events but the order in which they can be found isn’t wholly linear. Much of the narrative is a result of traditional RPG exploration and listening to NPCs. There’s side quests revolving around procuring materials and trading resources, buying for cheap and selling when prices have risen.

The town is cozy and small but quite detailed

The scope of the world in The Last Story is limited to only a few places, the story taking place mostly on Ruri Island and the sea surrounding it. But this means that the town below the castle, even though it’s not that big, is rendered in realistic detail and many little episodes and events can be discovered. The game as a whole is a bit on the short side, looking high budget but keeping the cost down by concentrating on fewer locales which do offer at least the same amount of richness as in FFXII, but being fewer in number. Instead of a journey over the whole globe it’s a more personal story, revolving around two island nations.

You’re (not) free

Many RPGs today allow a wealth of customization, letting the player choose what to learn and how to combine abilities. The Last Story on the other hand goes for the story governed style Sakaguchi already used in his defining Final Fantasy entry, FFIV. As in that classic, who is in your party and its size, what abilities each character learns, all this is defined by the story and the role of the characters in it. There’s some customization involved in what equipment you use but this is simply pre-battle strategy, for which there’s some room to express your personal style. More important are the strategic decisions during battle, which you’ll have to do in real time. Freedom in performance is used as a tool to put pressure on you, allowing you to shape the details rather than the greater narrative.

But like mentioned above, The Last Story isn’t quite as linear as Final Fantasy IV was. There are always optional events in any RPG and The Last Story has those as well, but whole chapters being skippable or in need of discovering, the game lets you choose your own pace as well as what aspects of your player character your interested in and want to see developed and illuminated. You play Elza, member of a band of mercenaries, who come to Ruri Island on one of their journeys. They get hired to work as body guards for the royal family, backing up the knights of the court. The Gathering ability Elza acquired on his way to Ruri Island draws the attention of Count Arganan to him, who is interested in utilizing this force from a foreign land for his political agenda.

The castle's throne room

When war breaks out Elza is asked to become the savior of Ruri Island and he even gets a chance to become a true knight instead of a lowly mercenary,^{1 Fußnotenauszug: In this way The Last Story is a shusse-mono (career story), the most popular genre of mass literature during the late middle ages, end of Muromachi to Tokugawa period. In the fantasy themed otogi-zōshi for commoners, which compare to Western fairytales, usually a person of low descent acquires great riches by making a career, gaining almost aristocratic or samurai status. This was a very appealin...} a dream he has shared with his other fellow mercenaries and their leader Quark. A dream that is at odds with the one he soon starts to share with Princess Kanan: She knows that knights are used for unjust wars and would rather not see her lover Elza become a knight.

The story includes many more motives from JRPG lore and especially Sakaguchi’s works: the locked up princess seeking freedom, having to follow orders the hero doesn’t agree with, taking to the seas to travel to foreign countries, being trialed in court, escaping from prison, acquiring legendary power, magic disappearing from the world, nature on the brink of destruction… If you played RPGs before there aren’t many new concepts that haven’t been done already. But The Last Story manages to combine these motives in new ways, staying unpredictable without giving up on the mature approach to the setting it also borrows from Matsuno’s style.

We hate predictable

Party members take guard near wherever you need to go next, although here it's kind of obvious...

It manages to do this by keeping everything fast paced and throwing out the filler. You can relax in the city at times and do little side-quests, but the main story is very tight and dramatic. Also since the story is played rather than just watched, the stage of the story, i. e. the play-fields are essential to keeping everything unpredictable. Locales, as well as the layouts of the rooms and places you traverse, change all the time to keep both the narrative and the action fresh. This is especially, but not only, apparent during battles. Every single battle is unique and meaningful, both in dialogue and in strategy. And since the strategy depends largely on the terrain, it’s easy to visualize what is kept abstract in many other RPGs.

Battlefields might be tight passages or wide open areas, elevated platforms to hurl foes down from or wet ponds. Obstacles abound, to hide behind, roll over or even smash. The terrain has to be considered to plan your movement as well as to find opportunities to use the environment against the opponent. Party members also change all the time, people join and leave from fight to fight, the party splitting up in dungeons with branching paths or getting support from the court knights stationed at different parts of Ruri Island when it’s under attack. The player has to keep adapting to ever changing situations and won’t be finding themselves doing the same things over and over again. Sometimes you’ll have to remember an ability you didn’t use in a while, but the other party members will remind you in helpful real time dialogue. There are no unnecessary battles unless you choose to grind at enemy summoning spots or by going back to already cleared dungeons. The frequency of battle isn’t constantly high either, often you will expect to have to fight in certain situations but they end up being events without enemy confrontation.

Battles are a part of the story, too

Magician's have to give up their hiding to cast their spells, which makes them float into the air

With FFXII already some ideas of Matsuno’s strategy RPGs were applied to traditional RPGs, but the high battle rate and experience building style remained untouched. The Last Story is more thorough in bringing Final Fantasy Tactics type of game-play to the traditional RPG framework, giving up on repetitive simple battles and making every battle count by meaningfully incorporating them into the story. The battles being seamless, the player always in control over the movement of his avatar, this gives battle and exploration a common style. It doesn’t matter if you’re in a city or in a cave, if you’re listening to NPCs or fighting lizards, most of the basic controls are the same in all situations. You can even shoot banana peels to make NPCs trip and fall, same as enemies by freezing the ground beneath them.

The only thing interrupting this common interactive story telling mode are of course the cut scenes, but even these can be fiddled with. You can adjust the camera slightly or fast forward a scene, no matter if you’ve seen it before or not. Instead of just skipping whole scenes you still have to watch them at high speed, so game and story cannot be divorced from each other. Every bit of game-play is enacted story, every automatic event retains a minimum of interaction.^{2 Except for the few pre-rendered cut scenes which really can only skipped entirely.}

Onlinemultiplayer

Choosing your character, battlefield and team preference in the Versus Lobby

When you have cleared the game or just want to take a break from the story you can also use the multi-player mode to battle with people all over the world. Up to six players can duke it out in versus, battle royal style or in teams of two, or join to fight some of the in-game bosses again. You can freely choose your character in these, from all of the party members and in versus even guest allies and human(oid) bosses are selectable. Playing as a magician or boss is really fun as you play as Elza for most of the main game. Everything’s in real time and lag was not an issue, playing from Germany over the Japanese servers. Finding people to play with is quick too, as is lobby navigation.

Choosing what to say

To communicate with other players four pages of preselectable voice messages are available. Some of these are also mapped to direction keys and events to quickly access even during battle. All the messages can be selected from large lists of expressions by all the in-game characters, grouped by situation to use it in. If you don’t want to bother finding the best ones for you, two pages are preselected with all purpose lines automatically expressing things like saying “hallo”, “thanks” or “heal me”.

The battle system translates really well to multiplayer, with some adjustments: resurrecting fallen allies is available to all characters in boss battle mode, not just Elza. Gathering is disabled, but everyone has their own Wind-like technique and projectile attacks. Aiming Wind doesn’t interrupt the game flow (and movement of the other players)  but needs to be done in real time. The surroundings can still be used strategically and the selectable fields offer variety even though they’re few in number.

The Last Story?

The Last Story...

If this game indeed turns out to be the last game Sakaguchi ever makes, there couldn’t be a better one to remain as his legacy. This game, for all purposes, succeeds brilliantly at what it does and there’s no real criticism to address. It’s quite perfect and finally brings all three schools of RPG together, retaining their best parts. Even the graphics, though technically limited by the Wii platform, are impressive both in style and in detail rendered on screen. You couldn’t claim that the game-play is limited in any way by horsepower either, considering the way all the design choices fall into place to create an experience that is never annoying and always rewarding. The difficulty starts out pretty low to ease the player into the many complex yet accessible game-play systems, but towards the end the challenge rises considerably, making the clever battles all the more rewarding.

As with previous Mistwalker titles, since it lacks the brand recognition of Final Fantasy and isn’t published by major RPG publisher Square Enix, sales didn’t live up to Sakaguchi’s earlier success titles but the game-play is as good, and in many places even better, than Square Enix’ recent efforts, like Final Fantasy XIII or Dissidia. To put it simply, The Last Story turned out to be the game I expected Final Fantasy XII to be. If Matsuno’s team gets another shot at doing a mainline Final Fantasy game I hope they will closely look at what The Last Story achieved and try to outdo their prodigal imitators. And maybe the higher ups at Square Enix will have more trust in the possibility of making a strategic game that is accessible to casual gamers even without being dumbed down.

1. In this way The Last Story is a shusse-mono (career story), the most popular genre of mass literature during the late middle ages, end of Muromachi to Tokugawa period. In the fantasy themed otogi-zōshi for commoners, which compare to Western fairytales, usually a person of low descent acquires great riches by making a career, gaining almost aristocratic or samurai status. This was a very appealing dream in times of rigid class systems and it’s interesting how The Last Story goes back to this genre which in a way started popular fantasy in Japan. The motives in these stories draw upon the older aristocratic literature tradition constituting high culture, in fact most of the otogi-zōshi stories originate from the court environment but were retold for the common people later. So court nobles and samurai in a way set the standard for the common people, which is (critically) reflected in The Last Story by Elza and his friends wanting to become knights. [↩]
2. Except for the few pre-rendered cut scenes which really can only skipped entirely. [↩]

Luis (von Luis und Laserpower) hat mir gestern per Mail den kompletten Soundtrack zu meinem Browserspiel Breaxxor geschickt. Letztes Jahr hatte ich ihm das Spiel gezeigt und ein paar Fragen zu Soundbearbeitungs- und Kompositionstools, woraufhin er spontan anbot, mit UPPERCUT.CONTINUE den Soundtrack zu schreiben. Das zweite Mitglied dieses Genremix-Projekts ist Maik von Copy and Paste This Art. Die beiden haben in der Vergangenheit schon öfter zusammengearbeitet und sich mit diversen Projekten einen Namen in der Musikszene aufgebaut.

Somit ist zumindest der Soundtrack des Spiels jetzt fertig, 6 Stücke untermalen die gut 20 Stages. Spielt doch mal rein und lasst den wirklich gelungenen Retrosound auf euch wirken. Passend zum Gameplay, das euch alle paar Stages mit einem neuen Track belohnt. Wer den ganzen Soundtrack danach noch in optimaler Qualität hören will (für das Spiel habe ich aus Performancegründen die Qualität der Streams etwas tief ansetzen müssen), wird auch auf der oben verlinkten Soundcloud von UPPERCUT.CONTINUE fündig.

In dieser Interpretation des Films Pans Labyrinth (El laberinto del fauno) von Guillermo del Toro beziehe ich mich auf viele Details des Films, weswegen ich dazu rate, vor dem Lesen zuerst den Film anzusehen. Dies dient sowohl dem Verständnis des Artikels wie auch einem unvoreingenommenen Filmgenuss.

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Interactivity, as the word activity implies, is what distinguishes games from passively received media. Non-linearity, which means giving players different choices in paths to follow, is what promises more freedom in comparison to linear narratives. Many approaches to other narrative media can be applied to games as well but both of these features of games have to be carefully considered when dealing with game stories. In regard to choice there are several aspects as to how it affects the nature of the story.

What kind of choices are present in computer games?

There’s action choices and dialog choices. Action choices might take the form of what part of the game world to interact with and what events to trigger by doing so. Or as part of an event there could be a multiple choice menu giving a set of action descriptions from which the player can choose one. This kind of action choice is almost identical to dialog choices, which can also be viewed as a special type of action, namely speaking. By means of microphone-based voice detection or certain words and phrases being mapped to button presses like other actions are, dialog choices have the potential to take the same form of free interaction (without menus) as more standardized actions but this potential is only beginning to be realized in adventure games like Hey you, Pikachu! (1998, 2000) or raising simulations like Wonder Project J (1994).

Are choices in computer games really free? Can the choice be escaped?

Of course the player can only make meaningful choices in regards to the narrative when the writer of this narrative has foreseen that the player might want to make this choice or planned to allow the player to make it. Thus the freedom is necessarily limited by what is feasible in including in the narrative without making production time and man power explode. It is further limited by what the game creator wants to allow to the player.

Also, if the player doesn’t want to choose they could just press the button to confirm whatever choice is preselected. Devil Survivor (2008) by Atlus is a rare case of a game that avoids this by not preselecting any option at all. The player has to press a direction button first before an option becomes selected and thus confirmable and the player can enter the ordered list from top or bottom, so the order doesn’t favor either one option by making it more quickly selectable than all others.

Initiating the predetermined^{1 Section added 22.01.2011}

As mentioned above, apart from forced choices that take the form of menus where a selection has to be made to go back to the uninterrupted gameplay there’s also choices in free interaction screens, what parts of the game world to interact with and when. This can be treasures to be procured or information gained by talking to NPCs or observing certain parts of the world. In terms of dialog a considerable amount of in-game text is acquired this way, the player has to seek out the people who can tell them what they need to know about the setting of the narrative. Some of these interactions are necessary to progress in the game but many of them are optional and only enhance the gameplay experience. The player is in this way free to dictate pace and level of detail of the narrative to some degree.

In-game dialog is largely predetermined and little of it dynamically changing with players’ choices. The options the player has are often reduced to who and when to talk to, but even here there is room to create better player involvement. In early games talking to a NPC would always result in the same text said over and over again. If the narrative progressed beyond a certain point dialog for this NPC might also change but at any one point in the game conversation would be severely limited. This is not a problem per se, in the same way as a reader of a novel is allowed to browse back to a previous page and reread dialog or a movie viewer to rewind and rewatch a scene, this makes sure the player can ask for crucial information again they might have missed the first time.

But by splitting long dialog parts into several smaller bits where the player has to repeatedly talk to a NPC to get all the information, sympathy and interest towards a certain NPC can be expressed, creating another layer of choice. In recent games most NPCs have several things to say and the player will get new dialog at least for three or so tries, the actual amount varying by game and character. To get all out of a NPC the player actively has to initiate conversation again and again, and although they can’t control what to say themselves^{2 Most of the time the protagonist is mute (see Playing the role: Defined characters versus blank slate avatars) in this kind of conversation, regardless of his status in other situations.} the choice how often to initiate conversation is meaningful.

Prince of Persia (2009) is an example where this choice of when and how much to talk is utilized very effectively. There’s only one character to talk to but since she is always by the protagonist’s side dialog can be initiated almost anytime, by pressing a dedicated button and without interrupting the action game play. While dialog text is displayed and voice overs are heard the player can go on interacting with and advancing in the game world. Dialog depends on the surroundings, is informative in regards of the game world but also characterizes the two characters having the conversation. Both length of dialog bits and their amount is high, giving interested players lots to listen to but without forcing them to do so. It’s an unintrusive way of mixing text and action.

The opposite example would be when a NPC conversation is unexpectedly long, interrupting the game flow until it’s over. Sometimes this kind of NPC (like Maechen in Final Fantasy X) might warn the player that their tale is a long one and ask them if they really want to hear it. It might be so long that the NPC will ask the player midway through if they should go on with their tale. The choice is the same as in the above cases, is the player patient and interested enough to listen to everything. But the way the choice is accentuated is different. In the above cases the player actively has to keep the conversation going, in this case they have to actively decide to turn it down or stop it.

How is the narrative affected by these choices?

Some choices only flag minor events, changing small details in an otherwise fixed narrative. In this case the non-linearity, i. e. the branching paths, are short lived, keeping the overall plot manageable for the writer. Other choices more immediately and drastically affect story development, with longer chains of events only available depending on what choices the player makes. Structurally this distinction is purely based on quantity or length and amount of branching paths. But for the player to experience the non-linearity as freedom high amounts and longer deviations are preferable. They are also what makes the plot increasingly harder to manage in terms of consistency. Traditional narrative concepts as derived from other media and playful freedom are thus two opposing poles in governing what form the game narrative should take.

Giving the player moral choices

One of the first systematical approaches to shape and guide player choice dates back to even before computer games. Dungeons & Dragons, the first pen and paper role-playing game, used a two axis moral alignment system to define how the character the player creates should act when faced with moral choices in the narrative conceived by the group of game master (the main narrator) and role players (the narrators or actors of one individual character in the story). One axis reflected the notion of good and evil, the other of lawfully governed order or random chaos. D&D already acknowledged that the ideas of good and evil were dependent on the society in which the character lived and the second axis reflected concepts like duty/reliability opposed to whim/fancy. A lawfully evil character would maraud and abuse without fail, whereas a chaotically good character might save the damsel in distress only if he was in the mood for it.

In computer games both this alignment system and the idea of moral choice were adapted, many recent Western games like Fable stress the freedom to play an either good or evil character, however in many cases little affecting the core narrative. This is actually true of older Japanese examples like Shin Megami Tensei as well which uses an law-chaos moral alignment axis. But when moral choice is given to the player another question arises. Are these choices judged, meaning that the game encourages one choice over the other, maybe even penalizing the opposite one?

An example for a judged moral choice

In Zelda: Link’s Awakening (1993) for Gameboy instead of using a menu to select what to buy in the local shop players can pick up goods and carry them to the cashier to select them for purchase. If the player tries to carry it straight to the door and leave without paying the shop owner will scold them and disallow leaving. But the shop owner randomly looks the other way creating the opportunity to leave without paying. The creator actively leaves room for the player to decide to steal and also does this by utilizing standardized actions like item pick up and walking, making it feel much more intuitive and player initiated than a menu option which more explicitly alarms the player to both possibility and importance of the choice. In fact this is a brilliant inclusion of moral choice in game play.

It is also heavily judgmental, since on return to the shop the player will be killed by the shop owner (which in terms of the game’s rules is less gruesome than it sounds because the player has unlimited lives) and branded Thief which substitutes the name they inputted at the beginning. The player will then be reminded by every non-player character (or NPC for short) addressing him by his (now changed) name of his action and also denied the perfect play-through and its ending available to players who beat the game without dying. The choice is thus an example for a small scale alteration of the narrative affecting only some details, although sticking out by being so over the top.

And although it is judgmental the fact that this option is even there in a game appealing to all age groups including children is a refreshing taste of Eden’s apple in the most effective way this kind of experience can be created in games. Stealing is also an action that’s hard to escape consensus on its moral status, no matter what society. Although the penalty considered appropriate will vary. In the case of the Zelda Gameboy title the penalty happens to be the most drastic one imaginable.

The moral dilemma

In Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together (1995) for Super Famicom the player has to make choices in a war situation, fighting for the freedom of his ethnic group. When the populace of a village enslaved by the leading ethnic group is freed but unwilling to go to battle to fight for their ethnicity’s cause, the leader of the army the player’s character is a member of commands him to kill all villagers and blame the other side, as to better persuade other civilians to make the “right” choice in the future, the right one being the one favored by the leaders of their army.

Depending on if the player carries out this order or opposes it they choose one of two very long branching paths, heavily affecting two out of four chapters in the game narrative. The law path, where the player followed this order, determines both next chapters, the chaos path initiated by opposing the order allows for another branching changing the alignment to neutral. While common moral notions would seem to judge the law path as evil and the chaos one as good the dialog reflects that utilitarian and political interpretations, in other words adult considerations, justify this path. The chaotic player on the other hand, while having a clear conscious, is considered childish and unable to join the grown ups in their ability to make the “right” decisions.

Again, the choice and its consequences are extreme, but the empowering sense of freedom is also very evident for exactly this reason, affirming or shaking the moral ideas the player might have had before.

Playing the role: Defined characters versus blank slate avatars

Most choices in games are not really moral ones though and some are even considered right or wrong in a non-moral sense.^{3 Fußnotenauszug: In Computer Games have Words, Too: Dialogue Conventions in Final Fantasy VII Greg M. Smith assesses game text by comparing it to previous text narrative media, where he naturally has to deal with the opposing poles of linear narrative and playful freedom mentioned above. Unfortunately he misses many peculiarities of the new narrative medium, too quickly applying concepts that don’t quite fit...} In Final Fantasy VI (1994) a girl named Terra was controlled by an evil empire to carry out their orders using her magical talent. Freed from the slave crown controlling her she is helped by a group of people who are members of the Returners and oppose the evil empire. Terra is characterized as scared and feeling guilty over using her magic for evil. When she and her new found friends reach the base of the Returners they ask for her help in fighting the evil empire. The player is given the choice to either answer their request or politely turn it down.

This seems like one of the many non-choices present in games where only one will really advance the game plot and the player has to come back to it to make the “correct” choice this time. But in fact this choice can only be made once, and by the game’s evaluation turning down the request is even the better option, rewarding the player with some extra items to procure from Returner members trying to still convince her and new dialog by each of them expressing their understanding for her reluctance to join their fight. In fact, by interpreting Terra’s motives correctly the player can make a decision that better fits with her character as established by previous events.^{4 Fußnotenauszug: So instead of making a moral decision (if it were a moral one then joining the Returners should always beat remaining passive) the player has to stay consistent with the story, another aspect Smith correctly identifies when dealing with FFVI‘s sequel but incorrectly applies. He writes: Often it offers two separate possible responses, only one of which is truly enticing or plausible. When giv...} She does join them afterwards anyway, and the players taking the more obvious but misleading choice miss a part of the narrative that actually makes sense in the context of the story.

There’s really two approaches to role playing, either acting the role given to the player or the player being able to define their role themselves. The latter approach is hampered by the difficulty in granting the player enough freedom to really do this. The easiest way to somehow pull it off is to characterize the player character as little as possible and not involve him in the details of the story too much, leaving the actual characterization to the player’s imagination. In most cases such a player character will have no dialog at all and is referred to as a mute hero for that reason. Player freedom is pushed out of the scope of game play and into their imagination in this case, similar to linear narratives, like reader imposed characteristics on a character in a book for example.

Even if the hero is not mute, this type is very different from a strongly defined character like Terra, where the player has to act her role. Cloud in Final Fantasy VII (1997) is a mixture of defined and mute character and by giving him frequent dialog choices the player can bring some of their own personality to the narrative.

Relationships between characters

Most decisions in Final Fantasy VII lead up to a dating event and they involve distribution of information (being openly sincere or holding back information), trying to impress or alienate others, in general how to interact with fellow party members. This raises or lowers sympathy for Cloud in these fellow party members and determines who he will go out on a date with later.^{5 See Fergusson, FF7 ‘date’ mechanics, 1999~2009.} In other games like the Star Ocean series (first game released in 1996) it might affect how well the characters interact in battle and allow for useful actions triggered by strong emotional reactions based on deep relationships.  Or simply open up or block paths to certain events, the most extreme being who to marry and have a child with, which will become the next player character, something first tried out in Phantasy Star III (1990). As opposed to the above example with Terra all options are equally valid since the rude choices fit his previous characterization but deviating from his rudeness can always be interpreted as affection for a certain character or more generally speaking growing into a more caring individual, thus allowing for player controlled character development inside the boundary of the fixed broader narrative which after the dating event cannot really be altered anymore, only parts of it missed.

This again is an example of small scale freedom by giving a high amount of very short branching paths. The earlier Shin Megami Tensei and Star Ocean games also follow this pattern of letting the player shape minor details, which add up to one big event with multiple versions, but instead of midway through the game as in FFVII‘s dating event this event is the final one, the ending. SMT uses it to show how the player’s alignment changes the world he helped rebuild, Star Ocean shows how character relationships end up depending on the player’s behavior during the game.^{6 See Welch, Ending/Relationships FAQ, and Feral, Star Ocean 2nd Story ending compendium, both 1999.}

Bad or premature endings

One way of giving the player freedom without convoluting the narrative are dead ends. The player can frequently make decisions but one is clearly wrong, resulting in an undesirable ending. The player then has to go back to before this decision and take the “correct” path this time to go on with the canonical narrative. Not all of these premature endings are disappointing or straight out bad, in Chrono Trigger the game can be beat early at any time in the narrative, with the resulting ending focusing on the events the player was experiencing right before they beat the game, often hinting at the events that would have followed if they hadn’t prematurely ended the game.^{7 See Pringle, Chrono Trigger Endings, 2007~2009}

Also, inside of the big narrative there are many little narratives dealing with a specific character. If that character is allowed to die by the rules of the game, their part of the narrative will also end prematurely and all of their personal story will be missed in the rest of the game. This is only the case for certain characters in most games^{8 Cid and Shadow in FFVI being prime examples. Shadow can be saved if the player decides to wait for their ally in face of great danger, Cid can be saved by feeding him with healthy fish when he’s lying on his sick bed. If the player fails to take these chances they will die, complete with dramatic scenes reflecting their loss.} but in many strategy RPGs like the above mentioned Tactics Ogre any character but the one representing the player can die without ending the game as a whole.^{9 Fußnotenauszug: The Fire Emblem series, which started this genre of strategy RPGs, is also the one most representative of this mortal game characters concept. In Fire Emblem: Genealogy of Holy-War the series also incorporated the opposite concept of lovers having children. Like in the above mentioned Phantasy Star III (1990) and after it also in Dragon Quest V (1992) characters in this FE game could fall in love ...}

Dynamically shaping the narrative

Little choices adding up later are the most frequent type and there’s also fake-choices that don’t affect anything and only draw the player’s attention to their own behavior but the most powerful ones are still those that have immediate and lasting consequences, like the ones in the above mentioned Tactics Ogre. This game relies heavily on explicit menu choices that are less frequent in number and less intuitive than free input actions which the player doesn’t even notice they are choices at first, but TO manages to also include little choices into the equation by basing alignment and sympathy towards the player character also on battle performance. Basically each time a character is killed or saved from death this adds up and affects the ending,^{10 See the section dealing with the chaos frame in TO at the end of this article over at http://luct.tacticsogre.com/.} as in some other games mentioned above. But even though these are small scale details because of the subject matter (death) and the increasing difficulty having to fight without a potentially valuable ally they have a more lasting effect than other small scale choices, because they are more strongly interwoven into game play, linking it more strongly to the narrative. Player triggered dialog by choice of party members gets a lot of variation out of the seemingly formalized game play.

A good balance of small scale and large scale choices, appropriate usage of obvious menu options and naturally played out action events and a complex statistical evaluation of alignment and relationships between characters, as well as linking game play and player strength to events in the narrative, with each one of these techniques utilized further layers of free narration are brought to the game. When skillfully applied and combined they can even enhance the narrative rather than hinder its natural development.

1. Section added 22.01.2011 [↩]
2. Most of the time the protagonist is mute (see Playing the role: Defined characters versus blank slate avatars) in this kind of conversation, regardless of his status in other situations. [↩]
3. In Computer Games have Words, Too: Dialogue Conventions in Final Fantasy VII Greg M. Smith assesses game text by comparing it to previous text narrative media, where he naturally has to deal with the opposing poles of linear narrative and playful freedom mentioned above. Unfortunately he misses many peculiarities of the new narrative medium, too quickly applying concepts that don’t quite fit his subject. The points he raises on character moral alignment hold true when he discusses the characters other than the protagonist because they match the conventions he is used to from film, but when he discusses the multiple choice options he doesn’t seem to notice that the examples he gives aren’t actually moral choices, which are in fact mostly absent from the game he discusses. He writes:

   One significant way that this moral evaluation differs between games and film is that we occasionally have options to choose conversational responses in Final Fantasy VII. By choosing to deny vehemently a romantic attraction to Tifa (the “no way” response), we take a different kind of ownership of the character’s moral stance. If we are allied with a film character who then does an action we morally disapprove of, we can more easily detach ourselves from this allegiance. After all, the character has made the choice, not us. But when we choose for Cloud to behave gallantly or badly, we are complicit in a more complicated involvement. Final Fantasy VII does not allow totally free choice in these “interactive” dialogue situations.

   If the player has romantic feelings for Tifa they want to reflect in their choices or decide to either admit or deny something for their player character isn’t a moral decision in any way. There can’t be moral consensus on what individual to have feelings for. So it escapes the notion of morality altogether. Regarding decisions on how to make Cloud behave, again this is etiquette rather than morals and the significance of these choices lies in shaping relationships, more on which I write in section Relationships between characters. [↩]

4. So instead of making a moral decision (if it were a moral one then joining the Returners should always beat remaining passive) the player has to stay consistent with the story, another aspect Smith correctly identifies when dealing with FFVI‘s sequel but incorrectly applies. He writes:

   Often it offers two separate possible responses, only one of which is truly enticing or plausible. When given the choice of making sweet feminine Aeris a flower seller or the town drunk, only one choice maintains any kind of narrative consistency.

   In fact, the choice being present (though inconsequential) hints at Cloud’s memory being fuzzy, foreshadowing a majot plot detail, Cloud being amnesiac and impersonating his dead friend without even being aware of it. The player doesn’t notice it yet but whatever they choose it will end up being consistent with the narrative.

   Smith also talks about non-choices that make the player drop out of the narrative, but ironically in this case to stay consistent they have to make the decision that is easily mistaken for a non-choice or drop out. The examples of drop outs Smith gives are from a different game but also in fact viable choices. He writes:

   Frequently we are given a choice between doing something that advances the plot or doing nothing (“No thanks,” “I don’t care”), providing the appearance of choice while allowing the game to continue its story arc. To make such a “non-choice” is to drop outside the game.

   Again, Smith seems to be too quick to assume that a bias formed in encountering previous games will apply in his examples as well. Although he previously acknowledges how protagonist Cloud is characterized in the game, being a non-caring mercenary, he dismisses this choices as drop outs even though they allow the player to act the role staying true to previous characterization. This is where the notion of consistency, which he me misused earlier, actually applies. The “non-drop out” choices would be the player trying to change Cloud’s previously established characteristics, a process that will be advanced by the plot even if the player doesn’t take these earlier chances to advance it. He goes on stating this about decision making in games:

   Final Fantasy VII loads the dice to induce us to make the right choice. We inhabit the characters’ behavior more fully partly because we choose that behavior, even when that choice is rigged. One of the many ideas implicit in the concept of “interactivity” is this more complex notion of moral judgment that is no longer as externalizable as it is in film.

   I very much agree with Smith stating that judgment isn’t as externalizable anymore as it is in film, but as I pointed out above not all or even most of this judgment is of the moral kind. Instead the notion of the “right” decision refers to consistency, if the player is supposed to act out a defined character, or to what the player feels to be the right choice in developing their player character, if they have the opportunity to shape the character.

   Also the choices aren’t rigged as they do affect the narrative or illuminate details of it, a fact Smith ignores completely. [↩]

5. See Fergusson, FF7 ‘date’ mechanics, 1999~2009. [↩]
6. See Welch, Ending/Relationships FAQ, and Feral, Star Ocean 2nd Story ending compendium, both 1999. [↩]
7. See Pringle, Chrono Trigger Endings, 2007~2009 [↩]
8. Cid and Shadow in FFVI being prime examples. Shadow can be saved if the player decides to wait for their ally in face of great danger, Cid can be saved by feeding him with healthy fish when he’s lying on his sick bed. If the player fails to take these chances they will die, complete with dramatic scenes reflecting their loss. [↩]
9. The Fire Emblem series, which started this genre of strategy RPGs, is also the one most representative of this mortal game characters concept. In Fire Emblem: Genealogy of Holy-War the series also incorporated the opposite concept of lovers having children. Like in the above mentioned Phantasy Star III (1990) and after it also in Dragon Quest V (1992) characters in this FE game could fall in love and have children, only this time it wasn’t limited to just the main character anymore. [↩]
10. See the section dealing with the chaos frame in TO at the end of this article over at http://luct.tacticsogre.com/. [↩]

Das neue Mistwalker-Spiel für Nintendo Wii hat mit zweimal 10 und zweimal 9 sehr gute Wertungen von der Famitsū erhalten. Ich habe mal schnell die Meinungen der vier Reviewer übersetzt:

10: Das Kampfsystem sieht auf den ersten Blick kompliziert aus, ist aber tatsächlich selbst für Gelegenheitsspieler leicht zugänglich. Und es bietet dennoch viel strategischen Tiefgang. Alle Figuren sind ziemlich geschwätzig und so kommt die rechte Stimmung auf, mit Gefährten gemeinsam ein Abenteuer zu bestreiten. Da man die Farben der Ausrüstung ändern und viele Accessoires tragen kann, kommt auch die modische Seite nicht zu kurz, was ebenfalls für Laune sorgt.

10: Den Machern ist ein RPG gelungen, das Spieltiefe und komplexe Strategien bietet und dennoch einfach zu spielen ist. Dank vorteilhaften Einflussmöglichkeiten wie “Gathering” und “Wind” suchen die Kämpfe ihresgleichen. Daumen hoch für die anschaulich illustrierten Tutorials. Die Figuren sind ständig am Reden und man baut so zu seinen Gefährten eine enge Beziehung auf, was mir gut gefallen hat.

9: Die Kampfaktionen wie Gathering und der Magiekreis sind abwechslungreich und unterhaltsam. Dank erklärender Filme ist alles sehr zugänglich. Mit entsprechendem Geschick gibt es findige Stratgien zu entdecken, mit der die Endgegner leicht zu besiegen sind. Die Story ist orthodox, aber dank der dramatischen Ereignisse will man stets wissen, wie es weitergeht. Auch der Soundtrack weiß an entscheidenden Stellen zu beeindrucken.

9: Ein orthodoxes RPG, das dennoch spaßige Action und strategischen Tiefgang eines Taktikspiels vereint, das macht die Kämpfe erfrischend neuartig. Nach und nach eröffnen sich dem Spieler immer mehr kreative Möglichkeiten wie das Anlocken von Gegnern mit Gathering oder das Ausweiten der Wirksamkeit von magischen Effekten. Was mir auch gefallen hat, war die frei wählbare Perspektive an vielen Orten in Städten und Dungeons, die man so sehr schön erforschen konnte.

Quelle: http://jpgames-forum.de/final-fantasy-future-de-foren/news-rund-um-japanische-videospiele/10757-the-last-story-famitsu-artikel-und-wertung/

When I was checking out different HTML5 demos I found this nice sphere demo by Emil Korngold. It inspired me to write my own little 3D-sphere demo and I spent the last two days making this easy to pick up puzzle game. It borrows a bit of Korngold’s code and also some of my own Breaxxor so I could finish it quickly.

Basically you control a magnet, rotate it, move it around, and if you’re playing on Wii also in and out of the screen. Blue attracts red and the other way around. If two balls of the same color touch, one changes its color. Your magnet balls never change so you can use them to color the free moving balls.

Each round you’re given a target to be met within the time limit. Color enough balls correctly and score points. With each round the time limit grows shorter and the points you get increase.

Click to play!

Fantasy describes all things not real so in actuality there really isn’t a video game that couldn’t aptly be called fantasy but most often we associate medieval settings mixed with magical abilities and creatures with this term, the Dungeon & Dragons kind of fantasy. Even before the first video games were invented these new story telling party rules (called role playing games or RPGs for short) established both a new kind of game as well as a new motive for playing. Adaptations of these pen and paper RPGs to the video game medium constitute the most popular kind of fantasy games but they’ve been known to have entries to almost every genre.

Zelda 1 (1986)

Around the time fantasy RPGs became popular on Nintendo’s console Famicom (or NES as it is called outside Japan) Nintendo developed their own take on the medieval sword wielding hero called The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Fantasy. The story, simple as it may seem, was a straight port of the Mario myth into the new setting, a male placeholder fighting a villain to free a damsel in distress. The Zelda from the title was another princess to be only seen after the hero conquers a number of levels (or dungeons as they are called in fantasy games). Yet the Mario games always had their hero’s name in their title whereas in The Legend of Zelda it’s the kidnapped woman who represents the series in name, even in those sequels were she isn’t even part of the game’s narrative.

Zelda 2 (1987)

The only Zelda game that has the hero Link’s name in it was the first sequel, The Adventure of Link, which is also the black sheep in the series, an excellent game in it’s own right but not sharing most of the typical Zelda play mechanics to which the series returned for all further sequels. In this second Zelda game the player gets to see the princess from the very beginning but like Sleeping Beauty she fell into an eternal slumber remaining passive until Link seals away the evil left behind by his archenemy Ganon. In the previous game Link defeated Ganon but Ganon’s followers threaten to revive their lord by means of a blood sacrifice of his slayer Link. Link has to fight a phantom version of himself to make the seal complete, a metaphor hinting at the threat of Ganon’s revival referring to the possibility of Link becoming the next villain.

It must be noted that even at his oldest each Link of each Zelda game is a youth at most, Zelda always around the same age as the hero and Ganondorf, Ganon’s human form, always a grown up. His monstrous form Ganon, a horned boar, which in some installments is the only one to make a showing is always considerably larger than Link, keeping with the small versus big, child versus grown up antagonism.

Zelda 3 (1991)

The next The Legend of Zelda only came out on Nintendo’s second generation of game hardware, on the Super Famicom. It was called the Triforce of the Gods^{1 For the localized version Nintendo of America came up with a pun to sneak Link’s name into the title, calling it A Link to the Past} (A Link to the Past outside Japan) and remakes the original Zelda vision on a grander scale, also introducing more complex interaction with both non-player characters (NPCs) in towns as you commonly find them in RPGs and the inanimate surroundings which stressed its action play mechanics. The player controlled hero gets to meet an awake and talking Zelda right at the beginning of the game, before her eventual final kidnapping, but she keeps on informing him telepathically about the state of the game world and his play objectives. She still is a woman who needs to be rescued but she already provides the hero with the wisdom he needs to take the actions necessary to beat the game. For the first time she is a partner instead of just a prize to look forward to.

Zelda 4 (1993)

The Legend for Zelda on Gameboy, Nintendo’s low tech but cheap and children friendly handheld, marked the first entry into the series to paradoxically not actually have Zelda in the game but there were more to follow. It’s more experimental both in gameplay and narrative than the usual Zelda games but still remains true to the core mechanics introduced in Zelda 1 and 3. In the Dream Island^{2 Yume wo miru shima can both mean The Dreaming Island or The Dreamt About Island, NoA avoided this ambiguity by coining the rather clever title Link’s Awakening.} (Link’s Awakening outside Japan) the usual hero-villain roles are put upside down, since the island Link is trapped on is just a dream, to escape he must end the dream and effectively destroy the island. The demons on the other hand who usually seek to destroy (or at least conquer) the world try to stop Link from doing what would usually be their job.^{3 AYASHIGE Shōtarō discusses this role reversal aspect of the game’s story in detail on his site GAMIAN (Japanese).} Like Zelda Ganon is absent from the game world and Link is the only original Zelda character to make a showing.

But even Link isn’t really called Link, unless the player chooses this name. As opposed to the Mario games, where even in their RPG variety his name is always fixed the player could freely choose the hero’s name from the very first game. And whereas the usual Zelda cast is missing from the “story as coma” island many of the characters of the Mario universe including Mario himself are parodied in some of Zelda 4‘s NPCs. Instead of a kidnapped princess Zelda the female lead Marin, who is the the daughter of the Mario look-a-like Tarin, helps Link both with her knowledge of the island and her singing voice which awakens a walrus obstructing Link’s path. This forecloses the song Link plays at the end of the game to wake the wind fish and in effect himself from the dream he’s trapped in.

Music has played a crucial role in all Zelda games from the very beginning, Link uses instruments (most of the time a kind of flute) to magically warp from one place to another or cast other kinds of spell-like effects. But in this game it also becomes pivotal in the game’s plot which surely takes its inspiration from Nintendo’s modern day SF-RPG Mother (1989) for the earlier Famicom, in which music even becomes a weapon to defeat the final boss. Another notable innovation in Zelda 4 is helping out the NPCs by trading items with them, to advance in the story and to get a powerful bonus weapon if you complete this partially optional side quest. The Zelda games try to provide a kind of moral guidance and 4 even gives the player the choice to make Link steal from the shop owner, only to harshly penalize him if they return to the shop later.

Zelda 5 (1998)

The next Zelda game for the N64 is another title reinventing the original game, this time in 3D. For Mario, which first made the switch to this new way of creating game environments, the change was very drastic and the difference in gameplay quite radical. But with Zelda the new technology enabled Nintendo’s game designers headed by MIYAMOTO Shigeru to finally make the Zelda game they always envisioned. AONUMA Eiji joins the Zelda team around this time and will become the developer representing 3D-generation Zelda together with MIYAMOTO. Apart from the more realistic environments and the new ways to interact with them The Ocarina of Time also allows the player to play the notes on the flute themselves. Instead of just triggering preprogrammed melodies they have to learn them note by note and input them in sequence to create magical effects.^{4 Fußnotenauszug: Music games have become one of the major genres in video game culture, utilizing all kinds of new interaction interfaces like instrument shaped controllers, dance mats and karaoke style microphones. This trend started in Japanese arcades with Konami’s music games like Guitar Freaks (1999) or Dance Dance Revolution (1998), before it was taken up by Western developers like Activision who late...}

The more detailed graphics also raise the issue of Link’s age and appearance: in earlier pixel art representation he could be rather young or close to adulthood, it wasn’t very clear from the presentation and thus not much of a consideration to the player. But in 3D the age is quite evident and the developers had a very interesting idea to make him both a child and an almost adult youth. In Zelda 3 Link could travel in between a light and dark version of Hyrule by means of portals and a mirror. In Zelda 5 he can travel between past and future, the past being his carefree childhood and the future his early adulthood under Ganondorf’s reign.

Zelda also sets a new record of time spent in freedom, escaping Ganon until the very end and actively helping Link, disguised as a kind of male ninja knight called Sheik. Even the player doesn’t learn this before Ganondorf does and promptly captures her. To acquire complete domination of the fantasy world Hyrule, Ganondorf needs all three Triforces, each representing a virtue of the three main protagonists. Link has the Triforce of courage, Zelda the one of wisdom and Ganondorf himself the one of power. He kidnaps Zelda as a bait for Link to get all three. When Link finally confronts him and defeats his human form, he and Zelda have to flee from the castle which Ganondorf occupied. Zelda is much more active in this game, staying independent even during Ganondorf’s reign in Link’s adult world, helping Link with much more than her wisdom, but in the end she doesn’t participate in the last battle, even when Ganondorf comes back as the hellish beast Ganon.

Zelda 6 (2000)

The N64 sequel Majora’s Mask again takes Link to a world outside Hyrule, without Zelda and Ganondorf. He becomes a mask merchant, transforming into different characters and even making spiritual clones of his different guises to occupy spots that serve as step switches to open passages. In previous games Link could only activate those switches himself or put inanimate objects on them as weights to keep the switches triggered. Now the line separating inanimate and animate objects becomes blurred, although in actuality all things appearing in video games, including the characters, are really just objects given life by computer generated animation. Zelda 6 reflects this fact in aspects of the play mechanics like this one.

With Zelda missing, Link’s fairy cursor and tool tip provider introduced in Zelda 5 becomes the female lead so to speak, providing him with the wisdom and knowledge to perform the actions necessary to advance in the game. In Zelda 5 she was called Navi, like a navigator, in 6 her successor is called Tatl, who is more cheeky and less reliable than Navi. One could even go as far to call her a bit ill-spirited but she also has more character for that reason.

Ico (2001)

The next Zelda game isn’t really a Nintendo game. On Playstation 2 UEDA Fumito created his own interpretation of the Zelda myth, which really is the European medieval setting as Japanese fantasy that constitutes so many fantasy game narratives. His Zelda is called Yorda, a clever allusion to Zelda’s name. When written in Japanese syllable writing both names are made up of three characters; Zelda reads ゼルダ (ze ru da) and Yorda reads ヨルダ(yo ru da). Except for the first character the names are identical. The one character differing starts with a Z in the original name. The last letter of the alphabet and a rather rarely used one at that. UEDA’s Yorda has the initial Y which is the second to last letter and even rarer than Z. Yorda takes the Zelda myth back to its base, to the European medieval influences which is the origin of all fantasy literature.

The hero is called Ico, marking him as an iconic character rather than a real person. Like Link he is everybody, an avatar for the player in the truest sense of the word. Ico is born with horns and banished from his village at a young age. The village’s clerics lead him to the witch’s castle where he’ll be locked up. They open their way with a huge sword, a phallic key to a large room full of stone coffins and imprison Ico in one of them. Like in Zelda 5, where pulling the master sword makes Link an adult man, the phallic sword is a symbol of male adulthood, used to inseminate the castle’s womb with Ico.

When he pushes against his tomb, making it fall out of the wall where it is shelved with many more coffins, he is reborn as the child trapped in the witch’s castle. To get out of the castle he has to rescue Yorda from a cage in which she is kept like a bird. They can only progress through the castle together; Yorda needs to be protected from the shadows, who like Ico were imprisoned in the castle’s womb but mean Yorda ill, unable to escape from the witch’s castle themselves. Ico needs Yorda to pass the inanimate stone statue authorities, who will only make way if a female authority is holding the boy hero’s hand. She is his phallus^{5 Her authority as princess being her phallus or symbol of power.} in the grown up world and he her phallus knight in the hero fantasy.^{6 I had read Anti-Oedipus by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari shortly before I played Ico in 2003, also reading up on Freud in the process, making the phallic imagery all the more obvious even during my playthrough.}

But Ico also has to leave Yorda alone many times to go to places she can’t, calling her to follow him or running back to her when she’s in danger. Yorda is as passive as princesses get, yet she is along for the ride for almost the whole playtime. The player gets his prize early, but since Yorda can’t do anything herself she is reduced to being a burden. Fighting is not a big part of the game but Yorda’s presence will always lure the shadows to her and Ico frequently has to drive them away with a stick before the shadows drag her inside the black hole appearing in the castle’s floors, taking her with them back to where they came from. The shadows’ birth remains incomplete and they don’t want Yorda to escape either.

The annoying and repetitive fights interrupt the exploring and puzzle solving which are also an important part of Zelda play mechanics but Ico puts the focus almost completely on these. In Zelda battle and exploration are pretty evenly balanced, whereas in Ico there’s only one boss battle. When the witch prevents his and Yorda’s escape and takes Yorda away from him he has to find a new phallus. With the huge sword the men from his village used to open the tomb he can make the obstacle statues move himself and can take on the witch to claim Yorda and his right to leave the castle. He loses both of his horns, the first one when he fails to escape with Yorda and falls down a bridge, the second during the battle with the witch. Ico‘s developers traveled Europe and visited authentic local castles to research their setting and maybe they found out about losing one’s horns being a metaphor for coming of age, based on the German idiom, which goes back to the middle ages.

Zelda 7 (2002)

As The Legend of Zelda influenced UEDA his game also made an impression on the following Zelda sequels. The development of involving Zelda more in both narrative and action is continued in Baton of the Wind (Wind Waker outside Japan) on Gamecube, which starts Zelda’s celshading subseries. Instead of the hyperrealistic aesthetics of Ico, which tries to hide its nature as a game as best as possible, striving for maturity in style, Zelda 7 aims to look like an interactive cartoon. The boy becoming the hero of the newest legend of Zelda is first shown as a normal kid, wearing normal clothes and doing normal, non-heroic things. As an initiation into adulthood he, like all boys his age, is given the green tunic the legendary hero is said to have worn, before Hyrule was swallowed by the sea, leaving only a few islands.

He will soon have to live up to this legacy as his little sister is kidnapped by a large bird who was looking for Tetra, who is princess Zelda turned pirate. Since it’s partially Tetra’s fault she helps Link to rescue his sister, making her a valuable ally from the beginning. In her pirate role she’s emancipated completely from the etiquette of a princess and with her ship she also first enables Link to leave his island and travel the world. She still gets kidnapped eventually, she does regain her memory of being a princess, but she also joins Link in the final fight versus Ganondorf. To defeat Ganondorf, traditionally a combination of master sword and light arrows has to be utilized, usually both by the hero. In Zelda 7 Tetra equips the bow to hit Ganondorf when Link creates the necessary opening by distracting him with sword attacks.

Defeating Ganondorf doesn’t restore Hyrule though. The king of Hyrule, turned boat with a lion head, has accompanied Link on his journey from island to island, guiding him like the fairies in previous 3D-Zeldas. He explains to his princess and her boy protector that it wasn’t just Ganondorf’s fault that Hyrule was lost. It cannot and should not be restored, instead they should find their own Hyrule somewhere in the world. The game thus ends with Tetra and Link starting on a new journey to find their future.

Shadow of the Colossus (2005)

The next Zelda on Gamecube and Wii, Twilight Princess returned to the more realistic designs of the N64-installments and was inevitably compared to Ico‘s sequel Wander and the Colossi (Shadow of the Colossus outside Japan). Wander tries to revive the corpse of an adult woman fighting huge stone statues, reinterpreting the setting of Ico, where the male hero was accompanied by an alive, but psychologically empty^{7 Fußnotenauszug: This emptyness is reflected in a comment by the witch who says Yorda is a mere empty vessel now. It also expresses itself in her passiveness and in the fact that she isn’t characterized in dialogue. Ico and Yorda each have their own language and can’t understand what the other says. There are subtitles for the made up foreign language voice overs but only the lines spoken by Ico (and ...} woman who allowed him to peacefully pass the authority statues. In the sequel Wander’s anger of a woman’s death makes him take on much fiercer versions of these authorities and he defeats all of them, reviving the woman and becoming a baby again himself, taken care of by the woman. Wander’s actions are reactionary, reverting him to a new born. The woman either dead, or alive and a mother figure.

Zelda 8 (2006)

Link riding his steed Epona in Twilight Princess reminded a lot of people of Wander riding on his horse Agro, as did some of the architecture, but in actuality UEDA was inspired by Nintendo in the first place, Epona making her first appearance in Zelda 5 for N64. The Twilight Princess is also an original character, serving as a second female lead even eclipsing Zelda, very active and powerful, she is the newest walking in-game tutorial accompanying Link, following the fairies Navi and Tatl and the lion head king boat of previous 3D-Zeldas. And she is even deeper as a character than her predecessors. Gameplaywise she doesn’t act as a supporting partner as Tetra did in Zelda 7 but this concept of cooperative single player is further developed in the celshading sequels of Zelda 7 on Nintendo DS.

Zelda 9 (2007)

The Phantom Hourglass continues where Wind Waker left off, Tetra and Link are on their journey to find their new home. The game isn’t about them finding it though, Tetra gets turned to stone right at the beginning taking her completely out of the action for most of the game. Instead Link again has to save the princess. But this time with completely new controls. The pen is mightier than the sword, as they say and in Phantom Hourglass the touchpen is your sword. In story heavy games the player spends a lot of time reading but writing was hard to incorporate into gameplay before the DS. You still only scribble a few notes on the map, mark spots and draw symbols, but this Zelda takes the first step into new gameplay fields that more actively involve the player in the game world, having them interact in new ways and broadening the definition of what games can be.

Zelda 10 (2009)

The stone statues as authorities are reinterpreted in Phantom Hourglass as phantom guardians who Link has to sneak around in stealth gameplay, another Zelda play mechanic developed since Zelda 3.^{8 Fußnotenauszug: The knight enemies in Zelda 3 didn’t just move around randomly (like most previous enemies) or outright hunt Link but walked along certain paths. If Link entered their field of vision they would start hunting and attacking him. The general idea must have been inspired by Konami’s Metal Gear (1987) for MSX which put more emphasis on avoiding enemies instead of just fighting every one o...} He cannot defeat the phantoms until the very end when he acquires a sword strong enough, if they spot him it will usually end in him getting caught and having to start the floor over. In the sequel and third toon Zelda, Whistle of the Earth (Spirit Tracks outside Japan), Zelda is turned non-corporal spirit and can take over the body^{9 This is reminiscent of Glory of Heracles IV (1994) which also had protagonists robbed of their bodies who only could physically participate in the game world by taking over other people’s bodies.} of a weakened phantom to become a mighty ally for Link. The player then controls both their avatar Link and his partner Zelda turned phantom knight, who they can direct along paths they draw, making her interact with the objects and enemies on her way. This makes for some of the most intuitive and deep multiple player character gameplay available today.^{10 Drawing paths for objects like Link’s boomerang which they followed was utilized in Phantom Hourglass already but Winning Eleven Play Maker 2008 by Konami on Wii first applied this method on multiple player characters, in this case a soccer team. Spirit Tracks was released after this soccer game but the general idea was already introduced in its prequel.}

The Hyrule Tetra and Link must have discovered after Phantom Hourglass is the most modern yet, with magical steam trains substituting the boats from the two predecessors. Traveling the sea was much cause for criticism in Wind Waker, since it took too much time and there wasn’t enough to do to keep the player occupied. In Phantom Hourglass traveling is sped up by the touch controlled path drawing, and the game gives the player more things to interact with and take care off until they reach their destination. In Spirit Tracks the paths the player can draw for the train can of course only follow the tracks that are already there but since the enemy trains also run on the same tracks the player constantly has to plan ahead when to change their course. This is made easier by the fact that the player can change track switches at any time and go other ways than what they drew, the drawn path being simply a preselection of switches that can still spontaneously be altered.

One cannot deny the almost religious character of the Zelda series’ mythology. The spirit tracks provided by divine creation, they’re predetermined paths chosen by very high authorities, putting the player on rails and allowing them only little choice of their own. But this choice still makes all the difference in performance, how much Link travels, where he travels, what he does on his way, it’s completely up to the player. They can rush through the narrative or look for side quests, take the short cuts or go for lazy strolls, follow the rules or only obey them as not to anger their passengers, when they transport one.

Having a fantasy setting with modern elements like these must have seemed ridiculous too many purists but Spirit Tracks tries to give kids an alternative fantasy to the sword wielding ones. It’s a bit of a running gag in the game that instead of a kenshi (swordsman) Link becomes a kikanshi (locomotive driver). Although the words sound similar in Japanese, one must seem decidedly cooler than the other to most players. By turning trains into a divine institution it’s as if the shin in the Japanese bullet train shinkansen, which actually just means new (train line), is associated with the word god^{11 For another example of this homophone based wordplay see my article on Megami Tensei.}, which is also pronounced shin. Suddenly modern technology is elevated to the same mythical level as the idea of the swordsman, which almost only exists in fantasy anymore. This fantasy isn’t losing sight of reality though; at the end Zelda asks Link what he wants to become after their adventure is over and the player is free to choose either kenshi or kikanshi.

Spirit Tracks is also the story of Princess Zelda losing her body to a demonic chancellor who utilizes her divine powers to summon a fiend that would consume all of Hyrule. When she gets her body back at the end she again equips herself with the bow and light arrows and joins Link in his battle with the last boss, as she did in the first toon Zelda. But this time the player can freely position her and make her shoot at the unprotected backside of the fiend Link has to distract with his sword blows. Wind Waker used scripted action choreographies triggered by good timed sword blows, which was very visually appealing but less interactive than previous Zelda battles. Spirit Tracks manages to make this already great battle even more interesting by allowing the player to control both Zelda and Link at the same time and making the battle fully interactive.

1. For the localized version Nintendo of America came up with a pun to sneak Link’s name into the title, calling it A Link to the Past [↩]
2. Yume wo miru shima can both mean The Dreaming Island or The Dreamt About Island, NoA avoided this ambiguity by coining the rather clever title Link’s Awakening. [↩]
3. AYASHIGE Shōtarō discusses this role reversal aspect of the game’s story in detail on his site GAMIAN (Japanese). [↩]

4. Music games have become one of the major genres in video game culture, utilizing all kinds of new interaction interfaces like instrument shaped controllers, dance mats and karaoke style microphones. This trend started in Japanese arcades with Konami’s music games like Guitar Freaks (1999) or Dance Dance Revolution (1998), before it was taken up by Western developers like Activision who later created Guitar Hero (2005) or SCEE (Sony Europe) who popularized home karaoke with SingStar (2004).

   But even before these elaborate musical controllers games like Ocarina of Time tried to create a similar experience with tradtional controllers. It might have been influenced by NanaOn-sha’s dedicated music game Parappa the Rapper (1996) for Playstation. But a more obvious influence would be the Glory of Heracles series for Famicom and Super Famicom by Data East, which featured harp playing courses and concerts as part of its role-paying gameplay. As with Zelda 5‘s ocarina the harp was played by pressing certain buttons on the controller. [↩]

5. Her authority as princess being her phallus or symbol of power. [↩]
6. I had read Anti-Oedipus by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari shortly before I played Ico in 2003, also reading up on Freud in the process, making the phallic imagery all the more obvious even during my playthrough. [↩]

7. This emptyness is reflected in a comment by the witch who says Yorda is a mere empty vessel now. It also expresses itself in her passiveness and in the fact that she isn’t characterized in dialogue.

   Ico and Yorda each have their own language and can’t understand what the other says. There are subtitles for the made up foreign language voice overs but only the lines spoken by Ico (and the witch) are decipherable to the player, Yorda’s lines use also made up foreign symbols.

   Upon beating the game the player is given the choice to start it from the beginning, with altered puzzles. This is reminiscent of the original Legend of Zelda‘s second playthrough which also had a new overworld and dungeon-levels. In Ico‘s case this second playthrough had decipherable subtitles for Yorda as well so the language gap between Ico and Yorda, which the first playthrough conveyed to the player by keeping the meaning of Yorda’s words secret, is closed.

   Female author MIYABE Miyuki was inspired to write a novel adaptation of the game in which she told the story in great detail from Yorda’s perspective, including the events that lead up to the castle becoming empty and her getting encaged. In this way MIYABE creates psychological depth for the female lead character that the male developed game lacked. [↩]

8. The knight enemies in Zelda 3 didn’t just move around randomly (like most previous enemies) or outright hunt Link but walked along certain paths. If Link entered their field of vision they would start hunting and attacking him. The general idea must have been inspired by Konami’s Metal Gear (1987) for MSX which put more emphasis on avoiding enemies instead of just fighting every one of them.

   The stealth gameplay became more defined in Zelda 5 where failing to avoid guards in certain areas would result in Link getting thrown out of the area and be forced to start over. In these areas Link cannot advance by fighting. The same kind of gameplay is also found in Glory of Heracles III (1992) for Super Famicom, which seems to have inspired both the ocarina playing (see the above footnote about music games) and stealth elements in Zelda 5. [↩]

9. This is reminiscent of Glory of Heracles IV (1994) which also had protagonists robbed of their bodies who only could physically participate in the game world by taking over other people’s bodies. [↩]
10. Drawing paths for objects like Link’s boomerang which they followed was utilized in Phantom Hourglass already but Winning Eleven Play Maker 2008 by Konami on Wii first applied this method on multiple player characters, in this case a soccer team. Spirit Tracks was released after this soccer game but the general idea was already introduced in its prequel. [↩]
11. For another example of this homophone based wordplay see my article on Megami Tensei. [↩]