On retro throwbacks

Double Dragon is one of those classic game franchises that a generation grew up. Not just on the NES, but in arcades and whole slew of home computers as well, including the likes of Atari 520ST. With time other franchises came along and did things better than Double Dragon, namely Final Fight and Streets of Rage, not to forget all the belt-scrolling-action games Konami put out. There is a huge legacy for Double Dragon, which has been tapped on an occasion after the disaster that was the 1990’s. These range from extremely poor to absolutely incredible. In hindsight, Double Dragon Neon is a terrible game, only beaten by that Korean Double Dragon II title nobody ever played. The best game in the franchise, and one of the best games on GameBoy Advance no less, is Double Dragon Advance. That game didn’t just aim to push the game to its possible peaks without compromising much with what the series had already built up, but also expanded what the series could be. Every game that have upheld the Double Dragon name since then have been utter trash in comparison. Oh yes, this’ll be one of those more personal posts again.

So you can imagine my excitement when I heard that ArcSys was going to release Double Dragon IV early next year. What possibilities had opened up. ArcSys could do even better than what Million did in 2003.

Of course, if I had not just taken triangle pills to kill down my fever and chugged down a bottle or two, I would have remembered that ArcSys has been milking the Kunio-kun franchise as a retro dot graphics throwback for number of years now. Even the opening text announcing the 30th year anniversary looks lazy and thrown in there by a six years old.

These throwbakcs work once in a blue moon when there has been sufficient time between releases. Hell, people flocked New Super Mario Bros. because it was a new 2D Mario game decades and New Super Mario Bros. Wii outsold Super Mario Galaxy just by the fact Nintendo brought back the Koopalings. However, the main reason why these two titles succeeded was because consumers fucking love 2D Mario boatloads more than 3D Mario. The same happened with Mega Man 9 and 10. Mega Man 9 saw some success because it was the original Mega Man back in action in a title that was based on a survey… that the hardcore fans had filled out. No wonder the game played into perceived tropes the series has instead to the ones it actually has. Mega Man 10  didn’t just have worse design overall, but at that point these dot graphics games were dime in a dozen. Hell, most indie titles seem to go for faux-old school look or use Minecraft‘s voxels.

The Kunio-kun warm ups were fun little games, I can’t argue against that. Nevertheless they still feel disappointing in how they look and play, because the cutesy dot graphics don’t carry the impact the game should have. It’s playing on the nostalgia of the consumers while ignoring to advance the game franchise further. Even the silliness the new Kunio-kun titles had worked for their favour, because those games were inherently silly… after the first arcade title, at least. Nevertheless they had an air of seriousness about them and each new title in the franchise tried to push a little bit farther.

Double Dragon Advance is still a retro throwback on its own rights, utilising pretty much the same overall visual design, just upgraded to be more detailed and fluid than the original games, whatever system you want to pick Double Dragon from. Perhaps this has been deemed to sell less than using the same fucking sprites they made thirty years ago. Who am I to judge a business decision that’ll make a company more money? Well, everything really, as it’s my damn money I want to spend that hard-earned cash for something else than just another rehash of 8-bit sprites with a new overlay.

Even 2D Mario saw declining sales with New Super Mario Bros. U and New Super Luigi  U, partly because nobody owns a Wii U, but mostly because the New Super Mario Bros. had run its course. There was nothing new in the games and the production values were laughable compared to its 3D sisters. If the same care would have been put in the 2D games, given the same orchestral treatment and not the WAH WAH music, Nintendo wouldn’t bat an eye at a suggestion of a new 2D Mario game. At the surface, it would seem the same thing happened with the new Kunio-kun titles, except the nostalgic cashgrab element they had going on. As mentioned, Mega Man met the same faith.

I don’t expect anything major from Double Dragon IV and no way in Hell I’m willing to put money down on it. Personally, I’m sick and tired of 8-bit graphics on old franchises. I would have expected game developers to want increase the potential of their games with new hardware and find ways to breathe new life franchises of bygone years. All I’m getting now is sprites from thirty years ago with terrible remixes. Somebody tell ArcSys to hire Vertexguy to remix their music rather than using shitty synth.

Perhaps the current hardware and retroware worship has made developers lazy, and kids and nostalgia blinded forty years old still eat up these titles. Just gimme new entries in these old franchises that aim to be their own thing with the aim of pushing the envelope.

Nintendo has no idea what they’re doing

As Wii U’s EU release date is closing in, I decided to check out Iwata Asks if they offered some good info for me to think about. I haven’t really thought of Wii U as there’s nothing to think of. However, the latest Iwata Asks made my blood boil for a moment. This time they were discussing New Super Mario Bros. U (drop the New prefix Nintendo) and this just shows that these people have no idea what the hell they’re doing.

“Iwata; A Super Mario action game is also like a puzzle game.”

DOES THIS LOOK LIKE A PUZZLE GAME? For the sake of everything you hold holy, how the hell is Iwata regarding Super Mario Bros. a puzzle game? Things couldn’t get any worse really.

“Iwamoto: Last time, there was a Free-for-All Mode for lightly playing the regular courses. We decided at the start that we wanted to put in something similar to that. We tried connecting certain courses and playing them through, but it wasn’t very fun.

Iwata: The gameplay was uneventful without surprise.”

It’s your job to design the stages so that they’ll pose a challenge. Gimmicks and different modes do not make good game play. Even less, surprises do not make good gameplay. Iwata obsession to surprises only compares to his obsession with 3D. Iwata doesn’t even understand what makes Super Mario Bros. gameplay and thus calls it uneventful and lacking in surprise. The next thing they want to add is racing because hey, everybody likes racing in 2D Mario, right?

Iwamoto: Yeah. There were a lot of opinions to the effect that simply playing the courses you had played in the story mode was lacking something. Then we tried adding rules, so that the screen keeps scrolling and the more coins you get the faster it goes. It’s slow at the start, but it gradually gets faster and more difficult. That fit Super Mario gameplay.

Nintendo, make that Adventure Island game if you want to make one so badly. You still have the money to buy the license. Not for long thou, this kind of game development will only cost you money with no revenue. NSMBU will sell as much as 3DS Mario games, and those were a sad case of utter failure. This kind of forced movement and mode concentration clearly has taken their attention away from what’s important; content.

“Iwata; So while New Super Mario Bros. U is an action game, you can also enjoy puzzle and racing game elements.”

Nobody will ever buy a Mario game for its puzzle elements unless it’s a straight up puzzle game. It’s like saying that people buy Street Fighter for the story, Metal Gear for the fighting, Puyo Puyo for the action or Muv-Luv for the gameplay. It’s stupid, and from Nintendo’s part it’s both unprofessional and selfish. And Nintendo still wonders why Super Mario Bros. 3 is the one game that everyone will always regard as the shining example for a perfect game. Even in this Iwata Asks they talk about how SMB3 influences them, and yet they admit of doing nothing with it. Just copying the world map.

This makes me sad. I wish I still had some honest to God rage in me, but CAPCOM drained all that from me. They’re talking about modes but not of Worlds, of content. They’re congratulating themselves for making a game that nobody wants. They’re not adding any value on the pre-existing template. Rather, they’re taking away building blocks that made Super Mario Bros. games a success. Literally, blocks. Think back to SMB3 and how things were blocks. Music blocks and all that. They weren’t just tools, they were there to jump on, to break, to bounce off and to kick to enemies. Now Nintendo’s thinking that SMB games are nothing short of obstacle courses you need to run trough. Even with this they’re making the games easier. Having a Big Mario with Fire Flower at the end of the stage was a big deal in the first three Mario games. Now, you have so many lives and powerups that it doesn’t matter. The game’s broken at a fundamental level. The lack of challenge combined with the abundance of lives and powerups just break the game’s challenge completely. SMB3 didn’t allow you to go back to past levels, it always forced you to advance and conserve your power-ups. Not so any more.

I also need to ask this; why did they break the controls? All Mario games prior Super Mario 64 had tight and responsive controls. After we got 3D Mario, all SMB games have had that same unresponsive, feathery floaty controls that barely constitute as working. Why did they force 3D floatiness into 2D Mario? Why they made the controls less precise when people enjoyed those? I don’t feel that I’m in control any more with modern Mario games. They’re going and going and it feels like I can’t make precise jumps or runs. Then I play some SMB1 and find myself making pixel perfect executions.

How much has Nintendo screwed up that I’m fearing for 2D Mario’s future?