After finishing NiGHTS on Saturn I thought I’d check out the latest version of the game.
I’ve gotten A ranks on everything except Elliot’s canyon level…one day…but yeah, it’s been interesting to say the least. What stood out for me is how different it feels playing the game with analogue controls on something other than the Saturn’s 3D controller. At first I thought the flying physics were broken, but it’s just that the turning circle of modern sticks - optimised for fine-tuned reticule aiming - are much smaller, so it’s faster to do a sweeping motion around the outside moving your thumb at the same speed.
The Saturn’s 3D controller’s analogue stick is more like a giant 3DS Slide pad in many ways, and that way of doing analogue suits NiGHTS’s emphasis on performing sweeping and tight arcs and loops in mid-air much more than modern analogue sticks, whose design has clearly been influenced by the right stick’s importance in fine-tune camera control and aiming. It makes me wish a 3DS NiGHTS conversion with the original Saturn graphics happened to be honest!
Otherwise it’s a surprisingly faithful port even if the visuals have clearly had to be redone. The Saturn mode just loads in the old assets but the lighting and effectswork is still all new. I had no idea that this is a port of the PS2 version which might explain the resources thrown at it (see above - that’s a lot of artists for a port!) even if they outsourced it to Sega Shanghai probably to reduce costs. The same team ported it to more recent systems.
Not a fan of them scrubbing the original credits from the game though - including in the main menu credits which have the PC/XBLA/PSN port credits and publishing staff…
Wish I picked up Mario Maker 2 instead of Fire Emblem now. I’ve read extremely good things about the single player level designs which is good to hear.
So I skipped Fire Emblem on launch because it seemed like a bloated game with questionable map design quality. But after a few weeks of post-launch impressions I thought I’d give it a try.
I still came away pretty disappointed though. I put in 7 hours, and while I wasn’t taking my time I still barely did anything of actual substance in that time. I’m sure it probably gets better but the game really lacks focus and feels heavily Project Managed in structure and execution. It’s almost like the antithesis of what made the older games work - Intelligent Systems always used to focus on making true of the promise that ‘less is more’, sticking to the Super Famicom and GBA despite a desire for them to go big budget with the series (same with Famicom Wars).
You spend more time outside of story battles than in them. Basically, it’s part-raising game and part SRPG. The game takes place on a calendar system, where you’ll partake in a story map at the end of each month. Before then you spend time exploring the (very large) monastery doing fodder quests and talking to people, running instructor classes, playing skirmish maps and doing a lot of micro management with stats.
The problem is a lot of this really does come across as extra fluff which not only unbalances the game (I’m playing on Hard mode with Classic permadeath and it’s been a cakewalk ever since I arrived at the monastery) but it almost makes the game feel like it’s now offering 100 things at once. All of which are quite time consuming to do (I spent an hour in the monastery one in-game month), while it also stresses their significance so you can’t really skip them either without missing out on the proper experience.
There are other signs the game lacks the focus the series had. For example, chest keys can now just be bought at the market before every battle. Recruiting units no longer takes place in the core strategy game, instead you recruit new units in the monastery by talking to them. Whether they join you depends on your professor character’s attributes. In previous games, recruiting units had the designers ask you to engage in risky endeavours mid-battle (eg you might have to talk to them before they die or escape, or save their friends), and you’d actually see said units in battle, so you’re recruiting because they are also good.
The game just feels all over the place, and ultimately it’s translating elements that were in the series before into busywork. Whether you see that busywork as necessary or unnecessary probably depends on whether you’d appreciate long gaps between story levels or not, but I can safely say that it isn’t for me.
Three Houses very much feels like a ‘bigger and bigger’ type of big console release. It’s cool to see the series go to new places but something has been lost. Having the game run on Koei Tecmo’s engine is of questionable benefit as well. While the developers have been able to recreate these large battlefields with battalions of support units - just as Fire Emblem Warriors did - it’s a shame moving the cursor and directing units has become so sluggish.
Funnily enough I was thinking about doing this instead of ordering a copy of Three Houses, but Shiny New Game got the better of me.
I think I’ll hold off until I play Fire Emblem 4 first though, I read that Thracia 776 is a complementary story to it? It’s amazing that Intelligent Systems released a top selling Super Famicom game in 2000 though!
Played through FE7 last year. Incredible game. I love every aspect about it, even the menus are extremely well designed and are just a joy to navigate. Brilliant level design as well, I remember a lot of the layouts despite only playing through the game once which says a lot.
The older Fire Emblem games having a ranking system after the end of the game says a lot about how carefully designed they were I think.
Every little facet of the game has been so carefully considered, right down to the little arrows on the side of menus which can scroll up and down (when you tap each direction there’s a pleasing animation).
The new Fire Emblem actually reminded me of Iwata’s GDC 2011 talk where he was concerned about the loss of craftsmanship as projects become bigger and bigger: https://youtu.be/fiwAdqVi39Y?t=3037 (should timeskip).
“As projects become bigger and more complicated, often the option of working over and over again to polish a game to make it the highest quality it can be is disppearing. This is not a cricitism of the talent of people developing games but rather the circumstances in which their operate.”
“No matter how much money and manpower is available, no matter how much talent is involved, the needed flexibility may not be available when unexpected developments arrive. Small details can get lost even in huge projects”.
He also talked about his time at HAL and early at NIntendo, and how everyone was a generalist because team sizes weren’t so big such that people hadn’t specialised into a single role, and couldn’t comprehend what everyone else was doing in the project.
Three Houses feels like it had become what Nintendo had warned about, it covers many, many mechanics but they all don’t feed into each other in an elegant way, the balancing is all over the place, the visuals and user interface lack polish.
Three Houses is also made by a gigantic team of around 600 people (excluding the audio staff, musicians, publishing and localisation staff): Fire Emblem: Three Houses/credits | Nintendo | Fandom Just look at that list!
It also reminds me of what IGA said at GDC in 2007 when it was extolling the virtues of the at-the-time underappreciated 2D game development which allowed his games to continue existing, he stressed that he would be able to assign whole areas of the map design to one person whereas if they were making a 3D game that one person would only work on a tiny portion of the map, or even just the inside of a house.
I trust your critique - you have some the best taste in games I’ve seen, but I’ll still need to give 3 Houses a try someday to see if I agree.
It’s getting a ton of great accolades from the general public (not that I always agree with them). I’m interested in checking it out after I complete FE7 (someday!).
I do agree that FE7 is uncompromising in its tight design. Not every game can be like that though since such tightness can get stale after a while.
Modern gamers crave nonlinearity and a more “loose” approach to game design. Look at BotW. It’s not nearly as focused or tight as the old 2D Zelda games, but its “looseness” is part of the appeal.
You should definitely try it! A new direction for the series isn’t worth skipping after all. I am interested in reading your thoughts about it considering how you felt about Xenoblade X.
I picked up Superhot on the Switch this week after its surprise release and while I appreciate the creativity of the core concept I’m surprised such a short game has managed to outstay its welcome so quickly because its 2-3 hour length on paper sounds great.
The main concept - where time only moves when you physically move - is a great one. It lets you pull off the most accurate and calculated shots with your weapon, and be at the right place at the right time. Whenever you finish a level the game plays back what you did at full speed, without any pauses, making you look like a badass.
It’s just unfortunate that the designers do very little to expand upon this core concept it throughout the game, other than offer new locations for shootouts to happen, a couple of weapons and a body-swap ability which doesn’t really change much. One of the later levels lets you pick up fire extinguishers as melee weapons but they operate exactly like every other object in the game - you can just throw them or whack someone over the head with them.
The port is great, though. Surprising to see a 60fps Unity engine game on the Switch with 3D graphics, and with minimal input lag.
. I’m really taking my time with it.