Time for a New Stage in Fighting Game History

Fighting games need to grow up.

They’ve had their moment in the spotlight. We’ve seen all there is to see of their current paradigm. I get it already, developers. Every female character is going to wear a slutty outfit. Schoolgirls in short skirts are fair game. Boobs are awesome. Violence is equally awesome. Long strings of complex commands completely unexplained by the game are the norm. Single player exists because it has to and is deserving of little to no focus.

I’m not saying the current state of fighting games is bad, I’m saying it’s time to move on. 

JRPGs get a lot of crap for being stuck in the past. Everything about them is stagnant. From character designs to save systems to menus to combat, all aspects of modern JRPGs could have come from a decade ago with almost no change.

The only reason fighting games aren’t getting the same level of shit for the same problem is that they’re not as popular. 

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The Pitfalls of Tradition: The Decline of the JRPG

The origins of the fledgling medium of interactive gaming lie steeped in tradition. Close ties to technological development have inspired great change in a short span of years, but most games even today are still rooted in a core of rules and concepts formed many years ago.

When you consider that video games are, essentially, highly evolved forms of old-world entertainment, such as card and board games, this is understandable. Modern interactive games might be technologically wondrous, but they’re still based on rules and systems like any other traditional game. As such, it’s easy to understand the temptation to stick with what works and resist change simply for the sake of it.

This traditionalism has, in many ways, served the industry well. Years of honing concepts, evolving ideas, and developing genres has led to a steady trend upward in quality across nearly every facet of game development. It’s this evolution from early ideas, this adherence to what works, that has allowed video games to come so far in such a short time.

It is vital to point out that the key concept here is evolution, not stagnation.

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First Impressions: Arc Rise Fantasia

First impressions are important. They let you know what you’re in for. They’re even more vital when you’ve just blown $60 on a game and you need to know whether or not to mourn the loss of your poor cash. In the First Impressions series of articles, I’ll spend an hour with a new game and document my experience. One hour is hardly enough to fully judge a game, but to partially judge it? It’ll do just fine.

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Not all beginnings are easily deciphered. Some experiences exude a mysterious aura that leaves one’s thoughts clouded. Not all things show their true selves immediately upon first viewing. Not every facet of an experience is always displayed at first glance, leaving more to be discovered with the passage of time.

Final Fantasy XIII, for instance, hides the fact that it apparently becomes a competently constructed game if only you sink 30 hours into it first. Limbo, without uttering so much as a word, captivates you while leaving you totally on your own to figure out what kind of experience you’re actually in for. 

Other beginnings are more obvious. The first time a character uttered a single sentence in Arc Rise Fantasia I knew exactly what I was in for. Every cutscene, battle, town, and dialog afterward simply reinforced my initial impression. This isn’t a game that will perplex your poor brain as you desperately struggle with the quandary of whether to spend more time with it or not. I can guarantee that within five minutes of picking up a controller you’ll know whether this game is for you.

By the second sentence of dialog, I, for instance, had discovered that I was not one of the small percentage of gamers who could tolerate Arc Rise Fantasia. 

This game seems to be made for a mysterious type of gamer who may or may not actually exist. It is carefully constructed to be of maximum appeal to those whose enjoyment of a game is directly proportional to the number of terrible cliches it contains. A game consisting of nothing but a series of these cliches must, by way of logical conclusion, be aiming to sell itself to those who love a nice trite line of dialog and favor predictability above all else.

At the least, one has to credit Arc Rise Fantasia for not limiting its mastery of cliches simply to overdone plot constructions or familiar gameplay elements. It extends its reach to a far more, shall we say, “meta” level; all the way to the quality of the experience itself.

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Final Fantasy XIII Progress Report: A Primary Concern

Final Fantasy XIII has a lot of problems. This should come as no surprise to anyone.

The Internet overfloweth with reports of this title’s many misfortunes. From a cast of characters filled with one too many jackasses to a difficulty curve overly fond of the comforting right angles of the good old brick wall to a level designer seemingly infatuated with tubes, Final Fantasy XIII is, shall we say, less than perfect.

My final verdict on the game will have to wait, and it will have to wait quite a while because this is a long, difficult game.

But I have discovered something recently. As per my usual habits, I had gotten distracted from my Final Fantasy-ing for a few days, having briefly put it aside to play some Super Street Fighter IV online, play around with some Rabbids that arrived from GameFly, and even do a couple of things that didn’t involve holding a controller.

I picked it back up today after deciding that, with so many terrific games coming out right around now, I needed to get Final Fantasy XIII out of the way so I could move onto something else with a clear conscience.

So, in an effort to clear my calendar (and just to get it out of the way) I put Final Fantasy XIII back in my PS3 and got back to the grind.

That’s when it occurred to me. I now know what my biggest issue with this game is, and it isn’t any of the things I thought it would be.

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JRPG Madness

And once again I am forced to abandon a JRPG.

Surprise!

Goodbye, Lost Odyssey, you were kind of fun while you lasted.

I have a rather sordid history with this genre, I will admit. Countless JRPGs have passed through my consoles and only a scant few have ever had the privilege of showing me their credits sequences.

Something about them keeps drawing me back in time and time again, yet invariably before the credits have rolled I am repulsed by some element or another of outdated gameplay or frustrating game design.

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