Note: This email exchange with MTV News reporter Stephen Totilo originally ran on N'Gai Croal's Level Up and MTV's Multiplayer blog,
in two separate installments, from March 24th-April 2nd 2008. We
now present it here in its entirety, under a single permalink, for
easier printing, emailing and archival purposes.
***
Patapon, developed by Pyramid and published by Sony Computer Entertainment
When you last tuned in to our monthly feature, it
was only appropriate that sparks were flying fast and furious as we
sparred with MTV News reporter Stephen Totilo over the racing game
Burnout Paradise in Vs. Mode (also featured on his blog Multiplayer).
Right now, it's too early to tell whether tensions will similarly rise
as we discuss the strange, sublime Patapon, a "side-scrolling
rhythm-based real-time strategy game for the PSP," as we describe it
below. Why? For the simple reason that both sides very much enjoyed the
game. But rest assured, we'll look for honest points of contention as
this installment of the series goes on.
In today's, Round one, we raise three points for
discussion: the power of indirect control; the importance of feel; and
the thrill of iconic design. For Totilo's part, he addresses the topic
of gamer guilt and considers the difference between games that you
control and games that you orchestrate. Read on.
***
To: Stephen Totilo
Fr: N'Gai Croal
Date: March 21, 2008
RE: Pon-Pata-Pon-Pata
Stephen,
What is the best way to prepare for an exchange about a game that we played nearly three months ago? The game in question is Patapon--Sony
Computer Entertainment's side-scrolling rhythm-based real-time strategy
game for the PSP--and for three weeks or so spanning December and
January, you and I were both obsessed with it. (Perhaps this is a
holiday thing; the year before, I'd been similarly taken with Metal
Gear Solid: Portable Ops, breaking out my PSP at every possible
opportunity to recruit soldiers via Wi-Fi with Gotta Catch 'Em All
dedication.) So apart from a few marathon Rock Band sessions here and
there, all I was doing was playing Patapon. I suppose its possible that
had I spent the holidays at home in Brooklyn rather with friends in San
Francisco or L.A., I might have indulged in my backlog of console
games, but I rather doubt it. Patapon got its hooks into me deeply
enough that I'd have continued to forsake my 360, PS3 or Wii with nary
a trace of guilt.
That was then. Today, I don't really think too much about Patapon,
other than this residual obligation of Vs. Mode and a bit of guilt over
never having done the Q&A I planned with the game's creators. How
is it possible that a game that so thoroughly consumed me for 21 days
and change--that burned through me like a fever--now appears to have
barely left a trace, other than a vaguely physical disquiet, an almost
muscle memory of when it held my thumbs in grip of an obsession?
That's why I'm wondering how I should prepare for this post, seeing
as I didn't take notes during my original playthrough. Should I start
over from the beginning? Resume where I left off, frustrated both at my
inability to unlock the "stews" that power up my Patapon as well as the
difficulty of the final boss? Or just search my memory and trust that
whatever I remember three months after the fact will in fact be the
most salient topics of discussion?
I'll take door #3, and throw out three subjects for us to consider.
1. The Power of Indirect Control
Patapon was one of those games that I didn't bother spending much
hands on time with at the couple of press events where it was available
for play. Not because I wasn't interested; the moment Sony's 2007 E3
press conference was over, I sought out the PR team to inquire about
two games: Echochrome and Patapon, so intrigued was I by both games'
unique art direction and gameplay. But there are certain games that I
feel would almost be a waste of time for me to play during a limited
session; that I'd rather wait for a preview build or the finished game
so that I can really delve into the mechanics. Patapon was one of those
games.
When I did finally play it, I wondered whether I'd like the indirect
nature of the controls: the fact that while I gave my Patapons their,
um, marching orders by way of the various drum patterns, it's not the
same kind of precision that you have in a platformer or a shooter. And
while it was occasionally frustrating, in the sense of, "Damn, I wish I
could have moved them to exactly that spot," I quickly got
accustomed to it, and it became part of the game's charm. Truth be
told, it was also necessary, much like the games drumbeat controls,
because they add just the right amount of complexity to what is at its
core a very simple game.
2. The Importance of Feel
Part of what got me thinking of indirect controls and feel was my
experience playing flOw on the PSP. In the original PS3 version, the
controls are inverted, and there seems to be a barely perceptible delay
between your gesture and your creature's response. The end result is
that you sort of end up feeling that you are the creature moving in
fluid rather than controlling some pixels on a screen--the controls
give the game its feel. On the PSP, the controls aren't inverted,
making it more of a direct control game, and it threw me off
completely. It didn't feel like flOw at all, and not in a good way,
either. It was only when I was killing time in my hotel during South by
Southwest that I realized that the delay was in the PSP version, and it
started to feel more like the original. But I'd much rather play it on
the PS3, where it feels just right.
With Patapon, once I mastered the controls, they faded into the
background in an interesting way. I stopped thinking about the buttons,
and that was good, because thinking about what buttons to press was a
sure-fire way to lose the beat. instead, I looked at the screen,
listened to the rhythm of the music, tapped out the desired beat, and
watched my Patapons respond. (Should we even be describing Patapon as a
rhythm game, or is it in fact a call-and-response game?) Actually, I
didn't so much watch my Patapons respond, because I was already busy
planning my next move--Pon-Pon-Pata-Pon? Chaka-Chaka-Pata-Pon?
Pon-Pata-Pon-Pata?--while admiring my previous handiwork.
All games exist in the empty space between your thumbs, your eyes
and your mind, but for some reason it feels even more so in Patapon. I tried to locate my role in the experience--was
I the Pantheistic God of the Patapons; an Actor playing the part of the
flag bearer; or simply my self, the Player--and I found that I was
generally myself. I wasn't playing a role inside the experience so much
as I was guiding my Patapons to victory from without. Yet at the same
time, I felt thoroughly immersed. And I think the reason that occurs
has to do with...
3. The Thrill of Iconic Design
There's a mistaken belief that permeates much of the industry, which
is that "realistic" graphics will enable videogames to break on through
to truly mainstream audiences. But when we consider the success of
Bejewelled, Peggle, Guitar Hero, Rock Band and Wii Sports, it's clearly
not the case. As graphics technology improves, the exploration of
non-photorealistic rendering techniques should go hand in hand with the
quest for verisimilitude. Unfortunately, too many developers and
publishers would rather focus on the latter, even on the PSP, a
platform whose titles could use a complete design rethink. Thank
goodness Sony, at least, is motivated to do so, with games like Loco
Roco and the forthcoming Echochrome. Just because it's roughly the
power of a PS2 in a handheld doesn't mean that we should be playing PS2
games on the go.
Back to Patapon: its art direction cleverly evokes a tribal,
hunter-gatherer-warrior vibe in a charming, graceful manner without
ever verging into offensive stereotype, which it could have easily
done. In our Portal exchange, I wrote about the importance of games
that leave room for the player to imagine, and not only do Patapon's
iconic visuals do this very nicely, the same can be said of its other
design elements. The way that the Patapons greeted my return from
combat with a campfire celebration for every victory, and with their
silent absence when I lost. The overworld menu, which steadily opened
up leftward as I progressed through the game, subtly reinforcing the
side-scrolling nature of the game. The various battle cries and
ululations of the Patapons. It all felt unique, of a piece, and--as I
reflect on how much of it I've actually retained--indelible.
It's not perfect, however, which I'll get into more in my next post.
But I'm curious as to how much of the Patapon experience has stayed
with you. Did you like grinding your way to progress like the Clipse on a Virgina street corner, or did you wish you could sell your troops back for the Ka-ching you needed to obtain better warriors?
Cheers,
N'Gai
***
To: N'Gai Croal
Fr: Stephen Totilo
Date: March 23, 2008
RE: Guilt-Free Gaming
N'Gai,
If I reviewed games for a living and had to include in my reviews
numerically scored classifications of elements like graphics and sound,
I would include one category that would ideally get a low number. That
category would be the ability of the game to instill guilt.
And on that criterion, Patapon would score as well as any game I
have ever played. I recall it fondly. I recall it, unlike so many other
games, without guilt.
Guilt? Yes, N'Gai, I was raised Catholic. But I don't think that is
why games so often make me feel guilty. Sometimes a game gives guilt
because it keeps me indoors when I should be outside (justified guilt).
Sometimes I get game guilt because I choose to play a game on a
Thursday night rather than perform some more socially approved act,
like going to an after-work party (unjustified guilt). Sometimes the
guilt I get is caught from the game, a contagious byproduct of the
inferiority complex exhibited in games that are trying to be like
movies or TV or some other non-game form and are falling short. Such a
game makes me feel that if I truly wanted, say, a compelling narrative
experience I should have just rented a Hollywood classic or cracked
open a book. And sometimes the gaming guilt I feel--surely you've felt
this way too--is due to the surrendering hours of my life to some
level-grind or unforgiving save system or some other junk game design
element that hides a lack of true nutritional value.
I don't feel guilt over the beautiful things in life, nor over stuff
that's fun in a way--how does one distinguish these things?--that's not
worth feeling guilty about. Forgive the tautology. Here are some
examples:
- Super Mario Galaxy, refreshingly fun and original in design at every minute I've played of it so far--no guilt there.
- Tetris, as pure and perfect a play experience as ever has been
made, just a shade harder to put down than it is to pick-up--minimal
guilt there.
- Devil May Cry 4, enjoyed much of it and finished it a week ago,
thought some of it was pretty cool, but now I feel a bit guilty about
it. I feel like some of my time was wasted by uninteresting puzzles and
repeated levels (beware the backtracking).
- I feel guilt over Dragon Quest VIII, sensing it was a mistake to
spend hours on gameplay and story that did not entertain me, challenge
me or surprise me.
- I felt some guilt--not a ton, but some--as I neared the end of
Pursuit Force 2: Extreme Justice,, subconsciously calculating that two
full games of Pursuit Force gameplay more than exceeded my personal
bi-annual quota for that sort of thing. Wasn't there something better I
could have doing in life than Missions 10-15 or whatever? Some sonnet I
could have been reading? Some new episode of Frontline that I could
have watched?
There are many possible triggers for my gaming guilt. Patapon pulls none of them.
You asked how I remember the game? I recall it fondly. I recall it
guilt-free. I recall it the way I wish I recalled more video games: as
something altogether fun, captivating, distinctly beautiful,
unencumbered by significant flaws. I recall it as a very specific
entity, a game that is related to others but sprouted its own new
branch. I recall it as the rare game I spent 19 hours playing to
completion that didn't feel like it was wasting my time. Like I said, I
recall it guilt-free.
How many games do we not have to apologize for when recommending
them to others? How often do we have to say not to mind the character
design or the dialogue or the music or the controls or something else?
How many did we in some way suffer? Is the high tolerance for
imperfection not unique to gamers, at least to the extent we have to
suck it up and try not to be bothered by the bad parts--or, if you're
like me, feel guilty that we spent time with things so full of bad
parts?
There's just one thing I didn't like in Patapon, one thing to
possibly feel bad about even though I never did. That was the need,
occasionally, to grind, to send my army of little soldiers through one
mission multiple times to earn enough money and materials to forge a
warrior who could propel my forces through their next trial in victory.
But even this aggravation was ameliorated by Patapon's best quality,
its rhythms. To grind a level in Patapon is to re-play a favorite song,
to re-indulge in a four-minute experience of specific rhythm and flow.
A grind in other games is often the repetition of chore; grind in
Patapon is a return to a pleasant ditty.
Let me tell you my favorite memory of playing Patapon. I was on the
subway, my troops marching to the right, throwing spears and slashing
swords against their enemies of war. I kept them fighting by tapping
out a rhythm that I could hear in my headphones. I tapped it
consistently and repeatedly enough that they became super-charged with
"fever." A complex, lovely mix of drums and whistles swirled as I
stamped my fingers. I kept tapping the rhythm. They kept fighting. And
my subway screeched into my home station. Without breaking the rhythm
of my button taps, I stood up. I took my eyes off the game and I walked
onto the subway platform. I looked down on the game again, but for just
a few seconds, maybe two loops of the four-note Patapon rhythm, my
little troops were fighting without me seeing them. I had given them
charge, swept them up with music. They acted away from me.
The subway moment demonstrated how special this game is. Like you
pointed out, we players of Patapon are not characters in the game. We
are outside orchestrators. We are ourselves. To extend that idea, I
believe that we use the game both to order artificial intelligence but
to entertain ourselves. In my brief moment of playing but not watching
Patapon, that moment on the threshold between subway and subway
platform, I was indulging in both aspects, giving the game's characters
commands to do something without me, and giving myself some audio
enjoyment by keeping a riff going. One means: two ends. An unusual
video game experience. What did it mean? I think it means that playing
Patapon isn't really like playing many other games. You're not so much
a puppeteer, deriving pleasure in how the strings you pull affect
something else. Instead, you are a composer of a soundtrack or you are
a preacher or you are a weather pattern above a civilization. You
create mood that compels reaction.
Consider a version of Super Mario Galaxy in which you don't tell
Mario when to backflip, when to shoot stars, when to dive underwater,
and so forth. Or a version of The Sims in which you don't have to
manage appetite, bladder, romance and professional aspiration. Imagine
versions of these games in which your only influence is your
orchestration of the soundtrack. Playing happy music makes good things
happen. Playing dissonant, poorly constructed music lets things go
awry. These would be games of emotion and mood, evocative and less
direct. This is how I remember Patapon working, all operating on a more
removed level than even the standard god-game. And this is why I don't
feel guilt over it: It let me set a mood, enjoy the reaction and in the
process drum some lovely music. The game satisfied three senses--touch,
sight and hearing--beautifully.
For three months it has been over. It's an album I don't feel the
need to go back and play again. Not yet. But I recall it like a god,
complete book or movie. It used my time well when I was with it, and
left me with a good impression.
So I wonder, N'Gai, what do you make of its music? What do you make
of the experience of rhythm as control? Does Patapon present a lesson
of how to extend rhythm game as a control device for any and all other
gameplay genres? I know you're about to tell me what's wrong with
Patapon. Let's hear it. But also, tell me, now that you've played a
rhythm RTS, would you play a rhythm-Sims? A rhythm-Madden? Any other
game in which "all" you do is make the music that compels the players
on the stage.
Oh, and do you ever feel any of that gamer guilt?
Stephen
Next: Gamer guilt? More like gamer rage, we say. Plus further exploration into what kind of rhythm game Patapon really is.
***
In Round 1 of our Vs. Mode exchange with MTV News reporter Stephen Totilo (also featured on his blog Multiplayer)
on Patapon, the Level Up staff struck first with our championing of the
value of indirect control, feel and iconic design. Totilo largely
sidestepped our talking points, preferring to focus on gamer guilt and
control versus orchestration in games. For our second and final round,
things get a bit more personal. We belligerently extol our superior
taste in games; attack Patapon's leveling grind; and vociferously
dispute Totilo's metaphoric interpretation of the PSP title's gameplay.
Totilo, for his part, responds with a deceptively polite evisceration
of our anti-grinding position--before charging that the last two Vs.
Modes have been too chummy. Is he correct, or just dead wrong, as
usual? Only you, Dear Reader, can make that call. Read on.
***
To: Stephen Totilo
Fr: N'Gai Croal
Date: March 30, 2008
RE: Simple Input, Complex Output
Stephen,
I don't know about you, but my taste in games is so impeccable that
I never have to apologize for recommending them. Seriously, though,
when I suggest a game to someone, it's either because a) the
recommendee is a non-gamer who needs both accessibility and a strong
hook to pull them in (Rock Band); b) the game is exemplary (Rez); c)
there's something specific about the game that I think they should
check out (the circuit courses in The Club); or d) I know that the game
will suit their particular tastes (insert fanboy-specific genre here).
That doesn't mean they'll like it--there's a certain creative
director of high-octane racing games who will never forgive my
recommendation of Every Extend Extra and Everyday Shooter--but I make
no apologies for their lack of discernment. (Just kidding…or am I?)
Similarly, people suggest games to me all the time, but I don't always
take them up on it. I can remember someone insisting that I play a Legend of Zelda game--any
Legend of Zelda game--before deciding that he'd himself had enough of
the franchise. Maybe if I wait long enough, all recommendations become
invalid.
Your point about imperfections in games is worth considering,
though. At what point do we decide whether an imperfection is a bug or
a feature--or personal taste? The shooting and targeting controls in
the PS2-era Grand Theft Auto games? Bug. Organizing spreadsheets
Managing your party, items and spells in Final Fantasy XII? Feature.
Getting together with 100 of your closest friends for a raid in World
of Warcraft? Personal taste--and not my own.
Many games--even some of the best--simulate certain things well and
others not so well. They simulate some aspects plausibly and others
abstractly or not at all. Is it better or worse, for instance, that the
old GTA games had floating, spinning pickups for weapons, health and
money, while Grand Theft Auto IV will integrate them into the world
more plausibly? The gap between simulation and reality--or between
simulation and shared fantasy--is where the individual's ability to
suspend disbelief and give himself or herself over to the simulation
comes into play.
Back to Patapon: is the grind an imperfection? I say yes. It seems
like an easy way to pad out a game that otherwise, as designed, isn't
very long. Now, it's true that I could go back to any open area to mine
it for the resources I needed, but it was still grinding nonetheless.
And I'm not as forgiving as you on this point because while the songs
are pleasant and memorable, they weren't so good that I would let it
slide. Here's how commenter Ginger Yellow described it in response to Round 1 of our exchange:
The grinding is a real pain. It takes a game that should be a
joy, and turns into a chore at times. It wouldn't be so bad if
stone/ore etc. drops were more frequent, or if the tunes in the mini
games changed. I still love the game, I always groan when I come up
against an overpowered boss because I know I'm going to have to spend
the next few hours replaying the same levels.
A much better solution would have been to let me "sell" my warriors
back to recover part or all of the ka-ching that I spent on them so
that I could use spend it on a better warrior. But in fairness to the
designers--and to return to the suspension of disbelief point I just
raised--they seem to want to make a point about the value of your
individual troops. Each class of warrior can only contain so many
troops; when you get the ingredients to make a better soldier, you
first have to clear a slot in its respective class. And when you clear
that slot, the Patapon warrior in it dies, in a manner suggesting that
the air was removed from its body. (Not to mention that with the death
of your warrior goes all the ka-ching and experience points you put
into it.) I don't want to oversell its emotional effectiveness, because
I certainly cleared slots when I needed to, but doing so was always a
bit sad, and I was generally reluctant to do so, as if I were facing an
unpleasant task.
So which came first, the annoying design choice or the emotional
engineering to support it? Which values should I favor, the gameplay
values or the narrative values? At the end of the day, Patapon is a
game, so if the designers are going to make a choice that leads to
something as contentious-yet-omnipresent as grinding, they need to
better support that choice so that players focus on something else
besides the grind, besides the end that will justify those tedious
means. More tunes and better tunes, as Ginger Yellow suggests, would
have helped.
You asked me what I think of rhythm as control. I'm surprised that
you've yet to mention Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, a game that you made me
play a few years back. That game was a rhythm-platformer, so it was
necessarily more freeform than Patapon. Donkey Kong Jungle Beat was
exceedingly well-executed, but I prefer Patapon because I feel as
though its RTS gameplay better suits rhythm controls than does a
platformer. As to rhythm-Sims or Rhythm-Madden, I don't think that it's
an accident that both Patapon and Donkey Kong Jungle Beat are
side-scrollers. I'm not sure that this control mechanism would work as
well on a traditional 3-D game.
I disagree with your characterization of Patapon, when you write of
the player's role "[Y]ou are a composer of a soundtrack or you are a
preacher or you are a weather pattern above a civilization. You create
mood that compels reaction." Well, actually, the preacher part is
right, so I'll say that you got one out of three correct. Most rhythm
games are variations of Simon Says, in which you're matching a pattern
that the game sets out for you. In the battles in Patapon, you
are Simon. It's a call-and-response game: you tap out a beat, and your
Patapon army obeys in both song and action. This is what the creators
of The Bourne Conspiracy game call "simple input, complex output," and I think it may be one of the keys to making videogames more accessible to a wider range of potential players.
As gamers, we learn to love inputs of medium to high complexity. But
that shuts out anyone who isn't willing to devote the time to learn
complex inputs. SingStar, Guitar Hero, Wii Sports, Rock Band--all of
these games have radically simplified the inputs, but the output is
complex, whether it's hitting a note or knocking down a set of bowling
pins. My editor stopped by my office on Friday as I was playing Rock
Band; he'd heard about it, but never played it. Forty-five minutes
later--having played guitar, drums and vocals on easy for Boston's
"More Than A Feeling" and Hole's "Celebrity Skin"--he was making plans
to buy a PS3 and the Rock Band bundle. Patapon is more abstract than
that, so it might take a bit more work to get someone like my editor to
step up to the plate. But that said, the controls are accessible enough
that he could get into it. It's something more developers and
publishers will have to consider moving forward.
I'm going to conclude our exchange with one last complaint about
Patapon. The trailer suggested that there were going to be all kinds of
large-scale weapons at my disposal, like catapults and rolling forts.
It turned out that there was only one mission that I encountered where
there was a catapult. I wanted more. I wanted massive machines that I
could unleash on my enemies. I wanted to capture giant beasts and turn
them to my side. I wanted to be able to have the tempo of my call
affect the tempo of my Patapon army's response--or better yet, the
tempo of the entire battle. We've talked before about how some games
are a rough draft for the sequel, while others spring forth fully
perfected. Patapon is an original idea, terrifically-executed, with on
sizable flaw (the grind), a few imperfections, and large swaths of its
possibility space that have yet to be explored. Here's hoping that they
get a chance to tackle all of this and more in another game.
Cheers,
N'Gai
***
To: N'Gai Croal
Fr: Stephen Totilo
Date: April 1, 2008
RE: In Defense Of The Grind
N'Gai,
I've news for you: you're not "concluding our exchange." I am. And
first up, I'm going to answer all the questions you asked me. Okay.
Done.
Now I am free to contend with your criticism of Patapon,
particularly of the game's grinding. I felt the same pain you and your
reader Ginger Yellow felt. The grind in Patapon did occasionally get me
down. I'm certain I silently cursed the game's designers for requiring
me to repeatedly grind through a few of the game's levels in order to
gain the resources needed to improve my army.
Let's consider what a "grind" in a video game is, why we hate them
and what it would take not to hate. When we curse a grind, we're
cursing a game for forcing repetitive gameplay, to block advancement
without this repetition. But aren't all games, by their very nature,
rife with repetition? Isn't Super Mario Bros. just a lot of repeated
hops. Isn't Halo just a few specific styles of engagement repeated and
remixed for hours on end? Sure. The grind, however, earns scorn because
it forces too much repetition. It crosses a line. It registers an
excess. The repetition often becomes too much and turns into a grind
once the game has forced the gamer to go backward, to perpetrate the
game's initially un-offensively repetitive gameplay in levels they've
already run through. Gameplay repetition is changed to gameplay
grinding. And that's when it's time to get angry.
Except: it's all subjective, isn't it? Where is that line between
fun repetition and grinding? Why don't God of War games get accused of
forcing a grind? Because they don't? Oh, surely, they do. They require
collecting orbs to get powers, some of which you need to advance. Does
God of War get off because they just don't do it forcefully enough that
it's bothersome?
I sense that you and Ginger Yellow may actually know these things
about grinds. You may know that they're not all bad. Perhaps it's
because you know people who happily grind away in World of Warcraft
with no complaint. Either nine million people are deluding themselves
or grinding isn't all bad. Perhaps the hint to your ultimate softness
on grinds can be glimpsed in your mutual desire for more musical
variation during the game's grinds--a request that suggests grinding
would be more fun for you two not if the gameplay was more interesting
but if said grind was accompanied by a more interesting soundtrack;
simple inputs with more interesting outputs.
So admit it. Secretly you love grinds in games.
No?
Overstatement?
I'm picking on you and G. Yellow not because I think you don't know
what you want, but because I think it's useful to identify both what it
is that annoys gamers about grinds and what gamers believe would make
grinding more tolerable. If a grind is really defined by and reviled
for its requirement of overly repetitive gameplay, I think all of us
hardcore gamers need face the fact that our thresholds for repetitive
gameplay are already higher than the average person's. Shock: what we don't
see as grinds are probably considered to be grinds by more casual
gamers. So if you or I or Ginger Yellow think Patapon is a grind, what
do you think casual gamers make of Zelda or Half-Life? Maybe they think
it's ridiculous that you have to kill this guy and this guy and this
guy and this guy and this guy with the same three swords or guns. Maybe
they think that's a grind. And maybe, like you and Ginger on Patapon,
these casual players they think the grind would be made tolerable with
a better soundtrack. Or fewer tedious actions. Less repetition? More
gameplay variety? Prettier graphical distractions?
(Let's pause a second: Are casual gamers more tolerant of a
grind with a better soundtrack? By asking that, did I just describe
Guitar Hero/Rock Band in a backwards way?)
Can grinds in gaming be ground out? I doubt it. Games can't be made
to exclude repetition. So we're really just talking about degrees. How
much is too much? How much repetitive gameplay should be required vs.
being left optional? The better soundtrack solution is one viable
remedy because it distracts a gamer from the tedium of doing the same
thing again and again. Another distraction, seen in World of Warcraft
is the presence of friends, often working on that same chain gang grind
that you are. Brain Age suggests another solution to the grind
"problem," two solutions in fact:
- Encouraging short sessions, so that what would be maddening if
played eight hours straight is pleasant when spread across 365 days.
- Convincing the player, like a good exercise coach, that high-volume repetition is healthy.
The grind will make you a better person. Imagine!
I've heard some Final Fantasy fans claim that they consider that
series' lavish cut scenes as rewards for tolerating the game's grinding
gameplay. That's a "solution" to the grind problem I can't endorse. I
doubt you would either.
Let's re-consider whether these grinds we hate can really be excised
or if we'd be perfectly happy gamers if they were just accompanied with
more pleasantness. You suggested that the grind issue in Patapon could
have been remedied if the player could sell back soldiers. Maybe. But I
prefer your other ideas--the more varied music; the matching of more of
Patapon's hypnotic tap-tap-tap gameplay to levels with vehicles and
trainable beasts.
So let's not hate the grind. Let's consider that it might be a
necessary part of games. Or, if not, let's drill down on a more
fundamental level. If we're going to point fingers at Patapon, then
let's point fingers at Rock Band world tour and Devil May Cry and a
whole lot of other games too--anything that requires lots of repeated
gameplay to progress. Have we tolerated repetition too long? Is that
what we all need to apologize for? Or is that the very core of gaming?
Is everything a grind, just prettied up to varying degrees of success?
N'Gai, let's get on with a new Vs Mode soon. These letters are
always good for getting the wheels turning. But next time, let's talk
about a game we really don't agree on. Burnout and Patapon have made
things too cordial, no?
-Stephen
Loading Menu