You know, I’ve never thought of myself as a
“crusader”.
I’m pretty easygoing -- if not apathetic -- when
it comes to the big subjects. Politics,
religion, stuff like that -- it doesn’t really make me hot under the collar, so
it’s not as if I’m going to get into a screaming match with someone with a
different opinion from me. Really, the
only thing I try and campaign for is better fiction. We want more, and we deserve more -- but we need the wits and savvy to understand
what makes stories good in the first place.
I’m not asking for much, I hope.
But these days?
It feels like I’m campaigning and crusading against nostalgia-bait
products more than anything else.
(Relatively speaking, given my tirades against grim and gritty fare…and
before that, nearly everything Squeenix has put out semi-recently.) People deserve good stories, and no matter
the opinion on Joe Plumbers or sheeple or lowest common denominators, I’d like
to think that when offered a genuinely good
story, they’ll know what they’ve always wanted.
What they -- and we -- don’t need are retreads of the past, again and
again and again. We need something
new. Something different. Something that at least has the potential to
be good.
So why is it that I’ve been having more fun with
stuff from the past?
The likely answer to that question is “because I’m
a hypocrite”. Then again, if I’m a
hypocrite, then I guess a lot of gamers are as well. I remember a time when people laughed at the
Wii U, when its proposed third-party offerings were games that had (at the
time) come out roughly a year ago. Then
you look at the PS4 and Xbone, and you see all the “remasters” of games that
came out as early as a year prior, if that.
And just what’s getting remastered?
I mean, okay -- I get the idea behind a remaster of The Last of Us, because it’s the darling of the people and critics
alike. But Tomb Raider? Sleeping Dogs? Borderlands?
Darksiders 2? Really? Like...really?
I thought the point of bringing back those old
titles was to offer them up to people who wouldn’t have had access to them
before. So in the case of something like
a revival of Grim Fandango, a
decades-old game with lots of love behind it, I understand. I can get behind that. But then you get to stuff like a remaster of God of War 3 -- and ONLY God of War 3, despite the existence of God of War Saga and its FIVE PACKED-IN
GAMES -- and it’s just like, “This is embarrassing, guys.” Or “You have no idea how to move forward from
here, do you?” Or “You don’t have the
money for a bank-busting sequel, so you’re restocking the war chest by
releasing a slightly-different version of the same game.”
It’s almost as if the problem of funding
big-budget AAA games could have been avoided if publishers and developers
didn’t bet everything on huge releases, which in turn would have let them avoid
skeezy nickel-and-diming business strategies that aim to hurt and hypnotize
consumers. But you didn’t hear that from
me.
I’ve said before (in bold print, no less!) that the past is not sacrosanct, and I stand
by that. Yet here we are, in a world
that revived Transformers, Ninja Turtles,
Jurassic Park, RoboCop, Godzilla, Terminator, and even Jem and the Holograms because…I don’t know, I guess names are more
important than content or quality. And
sure, bringing back those titles with modern-age wizardry can let a fleet of
creators and craftsmen pay respect to stories of old by bringing them into
their ideal forms. But these days, I
feel like that’s not a given. Either
these new products (or if you prefer, the teams behind them) missed the point
of the originals, or they simply didn’t feel like taking those points and
lessons to heart and added in their own interpretations. They only paid respect by tactlessly cramming
in references. (I’m surprised RoboCop fans the world over didn’t shed
tears at the sound of the line “I wouldn’t buy that for a dollar.”)
In terms of video games -- the industry of which
is getting too close to Hollywood shenanigans for comfort -- it’s not much
better of a situation. Tomb Raider’s already taken its fair share
of heat over trivializing tombs, but for me?
It was, and always will be DmC that
takes the cake. The gameplay was the
best part, but even that was a slow and clumsy mess that didn’t begin to
understand the value of style. And the
story was so bad, it was flat-out insulting. Plot holes open up in the first five minutes,
there’s maybe one likable character throughout, and it had the self-awareness
of a dead goat…so naturally, it got a remastered edition. After
it limped its way toward a fifth of Capcom’s
projected sales.
And then this happened.
I guess Capcom decided to double-dip. I mean, why bet the farm on one Devil May Cry game when you can double
the odds with two? So instead of letting
people grab a cheap copy of either one of those games from their local store or
any old bargain bin, lure them into a bigger purchase with the promise of a
slightly-different edition! It’s
genius! And clearly, it means that “the
past” starts as early as a couple of years ago -- if that -- and everything
else is fair game for a new iteration or installment, except when it isn’t!
It’s easy to get super-butthurt over remakes and
reboots and remasters. But lately, I
find myself wondering something: if I’m so opposed to them, then why am I
practically in love with DMC4’s slightly-different
edition?
I shouldn’t be in love with it. As of writing, the most substantial thing
I’ve done is play through a story that wrapped up in 2008. I haven’t even tried using Lady or Trish, and
barely touched Vergil (but BOY does he seem strong). I haven’t looked at some of the files, and
haven’t decked anyone out in new costumes.
I only played on the normal difficulty, and haven’t done much with the
Bloody Palace, despite it being the prime reward for clearing the story. I shouldn’t have any attachment to the
game. But really, maybe that’s the
secret. I DON’T have any attachment to
the game.
Confession time: there’s an argument to be made
that I never played the original DMC4. At the time, I just played piggyback on my
brother’s file because he unlocked everything (or most of the stuff, at least),
starting with the completion of the story.
I would have done the same, but there was an issue: he changed his
controls to get the most out of Nero’s combos, and my muscle memory couldn’t
deal. So I played exclusively as Dante,
and abandoned more than half of the story to play as the son of Sparda -- in
his specific missions, and in the Bloody Palace. But I couldn’t play consistently, or even
well; I think I limped my way to the fortieth floor of the Palace (at best),
while dear old big bro took Nero into the eighties.
I probably spent more time watching the cutscenes
than trying to learn how to play -- as Nero, as Dante, or as someone with even
a shred of skill. In a way, that kind of
absolves me of guilt, doesn’t it? I’m
not just saying one game is better than the other because I’m blinded by
nostalgia; I’m saying it because I’ve finished two games, looked past their
chronological contexts, and can argue pretty strongly that one of them is significantly better than the
other. (And I will soon enough, so look
forward to that.) On the other hand, I
have to wonder if I’ve substituted one mindset for another. What if I’m buying into the mindset that “the
things from the past are always better than things from the present” that’s
threatened to grip every industry?
I ask that because of the other game I started semi-recently.
Coming off of hot garbage like The Lightning Saga
-- and Type-0 in addition -- Final Fantasy 9 is an absolute
godsend. I’ve barely cracked it open,
but I’ve already found plenty to love within the first couple of hours of
play. It’s more than just a game full of
fun, energy, spirit, and warmth; it’s a game that stands as a reminder of what
games used to be. Really, the same could
be said of DMC4. They have different routes to the end goal,
but I feel more from them than I have plenty of games in years. I barely summoned the will to give Batman: Arkham Knight a try, because even
now the Bloody Palace is calling out to me.
Or if not that, then stealing everything that isn’t nailed down or on
fire with Zidane and crew.
So doesn’t that make me a huge-ass hypocrite? “Grrr, stuff from the past is stupid! Give me new stuff! Innovate!
That is, except when it’s something that appeals to my sense of nostalgia or particular set of tastes! Then you can do whatever you want!” And in this case, “whatever you want” means
either throwing a slightly-different edition of a game in my face, or making me
willingly flip the bird to the present by dropping a game literally from three
generations ago into my lap. I don’t want to retreat to the warmth and safety
of the past, but those two games are making me eat my words, my foot, my hat,
and several other organs roasted by shame alone.
If you’re reading this, I’ll assume you’ve seen
some of my other posts before -- which means you know that I’m one of the first
to point out the faults in some modern-day fare. “Too many guns!” “No levity!”
“It’s a boring power trip!” Stuff
like that and more -- and I won’t stop mentioning it until it stops happening
at large. The entertainment of today has
some major problems that not a lot of people seem eager to fix (largely because
they’re subjective problems, and
they’re problems that can paradoxically make plenty of money).
So going back to the past means dodging all of
those shenanigans with ease. Modern FF games full of nonsensical drama? Here’s FF9
to let you go on an adventure! Devs
proving they have no idea what the hell they’re doing with stuff like DmC?
No problem! No you can play DMC4 and get in deep with that amazing
combat! And so on, and so forth. Into the folds of the security blanket I
go.
Here’s the thing, though: even if I have concerns
about what I’m enjoying these days -- no matter my stance and opinions -- it’s
not as if I’ve gone off the deep end. It
doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game where you can only like things from the
past, or only like things from the present; that’s especially the case when it
seems like one media outlet after another is begging people to get sucked into
the nostalgia pits. It’s possible to
honor the past without being completely dependent on it, whether it’s for sales
or for simple enjoyment.
After all, there are just some things from “the
good old days” that really are better than their predecessors, so it’s only
natural that they get the respect they deserve.
And no matter my arguments, I won’t turn away from a good story because
of some drive to go on an anti-nostalgia crusade -- even if I don’t technically
have any real nostalgia for DMC4, and
this is legitimately the first time I’ve ever played FF9, but whatever.
Semantics.
But again, it’s not as if I’ve turned my back on
the present or the future. As the
Eternal Optimist, I consider it my duty to look at the bright side of things --
and even now, I’m not about to cast away modern gaming. If I did, then that would mean ignoring
newer, better iterations of all the oldies; Zelda
games and Street Fighter games
may be built on the same decades-old core concepts, but their latest versions
have offered up evolutions that have made them into unique beasts. Bloodborne
is the game that finally justifies the presence of the PS4, while Splatoon is the game that justifies the
shooter genre (even while skewering it on a white-hot spike).
And then there’s The Witcher 3.
So I guess that’s pretty much where I stand. Am I a hypocrite? Maybe.
Maybe not. Frankly, it might not
be up to me to decide -- because doing so would definitely make me a hypocrite.
Then again, it’s not as if there’s much to worry about. I haven’t gone (further) off the deep end, so
the most I can do is what I’ve always done: play the games, and give an honest
opinion.
Look forward to that at some point in the
future. Because it’s not as if I can
fling my posts back into the past.
Although…wouldn’t that be a pretty awesome superpower? The ability to send figurative time capsules
to your past self? Imagine the
applications -- or if not that, the inherent potential for evil!
I feel like there’s a JoJo villain who already has that power, though. So maybe he’d make a good reference point
and/or warning against reckless space-time shenanigans.
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