Flower, Sun, and Rain - What is a game with both pleasure and pain?

Forgetting our small grievances with games is something we as players do often; it's easily done when we find the rest of the game so enjoyable. Flower, Sun, and Rain, however, is a game whose many flaws are not only numerous and glaring, but might also be intentional.

This should be no surprise to anyone who's ever played a game developed by the ever-eccentric Suda 51. His games often straddle a line between uniquely interesting and needlessly frustrating. Flower, Sun, and Rain doesn't stray too far from most his other games, either; There is hardly any "playing" to speak of, and the majority of your interaction with it comes from walking to a destination, and solving puzzles.

My inherent problem with it isn't with the adventure game mechanics it employs (it would be difficult the convey the story otherwise), it's that it doesn't do it well. All of the puzzles are literally reduced to numbers by your suitcase, Catherine, which at first will illicit one of two reactions from the player - either, that this game will be too easy because any answer can be deduced with enough guessing, or that it's creative to have the player learn to distill every clue they get into numbers in some way.

The answer, for me, lies somewhere in between. Of course, if you get a puzzle in which the answer is only one number (the game gives the number of digits for each solution), you're going to guess, but even still I found the puzzles had only two difficulties: Too easy (almost each and every answer is found in a page of the in-game guidebook), and too hard (ones that require you to make unreasonable leaps of logic and offer no clues as to what frame of mind you should even be in). For those that are worried about the game being too hard, though, most of the harder puzzles are optional (they give you extras and unlockables), so if you're only looking to breeze through the story, it's likely that you won't need a FAQ.


But whether or not the story is worth playing through (and ultimately whether or not you should buy the game), depends on both how much you're willing to put up with both the flaws in the game and the nature of the game's story. As you run around, getting from one puzzle to the next (which, because the game's Groundhog Day premise, involves a lot of backtracking early on and a long fits of running through desolate areas later on), the game will try as hard as possible to get you to stop playing, and I don't think this was unintentional.

For example, the game makes frequent mention of how dumb it thinks your character, Sumio Mondo (and you by proxy), not only when you fail to solve puzzles, but also when you don't apparently "get" what's going on (which, to their defense, was often the case for me).

It's also self-aware in a very direct way; aside from some obvious "this is a game" metaphors in dialogue, a few characters knowingly acknowledge the existence of the player, as well as some inconsistencies with the game ("Our 3-D models look nothing like our character art!"). The
characters are all pretty oddball caricatures of video game template characters in a very off-putting way, spouting nonsense then preaching to you about how you shouldn't be helping them. All of these things lead to a vibe of "Why are you playing this game? Go do something else!", which, in hindsight, seems to fit Suda's profile quite well.

All of these off-putting details, on top of some irksome mechanical things (exhaustive menu backtracking, the fact that it's impossible to walk straight for too long, which means that you have to pay attention to what you're doing on long stretches of walking), are made further frustrating by the fact that the game hints at some bigger mysteries, but never delivers. It has some interesting scenes here and there, but even when it goes off the deep end, the ending doesn't really amount to anything. This could have perhaps been another intentional quirk, but it doesn't make it any less maddening to know that all of your patience was met with little reward.

With as many problems as there are with the game, it's hard to recommend it to anyone who isn't already a huge fan of both adventure games and Suda 51, which is why it's odd say that despite all the stuff it had me put up with, I ultimately enjoyed it. It has something of mischievous charm; I gritted my teeth through my frustration, but was eager to continue the game time and again. I became particularly attached to Sumio, not only because of his role as my avatar, but because his reactions to situations were pretty spot-on with mine.

Though the game has a purposefully confusing ending, the moments in which the mystery is being unraveled are all done with a perfect balance between revealing too much and avoiding progress, and for the most part, the individual days on the island are all very distinct scenarios, if a bit formulaic. It's best to play the game in short bursts rather than longer stretches so that you don't become too frustrated with either the story or the game itself.

If you choose to endure the game's many problems you'll likely be upset by the ending, but, as an experiment in storytelling game design almost from beginning to end, Flower, Sun and Rain may be a case where the ride is more important than the destination.

Audio Story - His Room.

I decided to do something with a more narrative focus. Some thoughts about games are still strewn about, but for the most part, this is pure fiction.

A boy sits alone in his room, the events of the day still lingering in his head. At the time, he wasn't too sure of the outcome, but now the outcome seems nothing but absolute.

For the most part, arguments do anything but solve problems. For him, it stopped him from correcting one. This particular argument was about whether or not he could be part of a club at school. Or if the club could exist at all.

He looks around his room, observing and noting all of the things he's accumulated over the years. Where they once bestowed upon him a sense of pride and accomplishment, now they did nothing but depress him further. He see his toys, his cases of things, the objects that have defined him throughout his life, and he sighs.

He had tried on several occasions to get a "Gaming Club" started at his school, but there had not been much progress. His biggest roadblock was that for any club to get started at all, it had to have a teacher sponsoring it. So of course, no one would indulge him. He had tried almost every member of the faculty, and was met with nothing short of complete apathy.

He looks down at the floor, where all of this controllers are. He holds one of them up, looking it over in careful detail. Its every facet is familiar to him; the smooth texture, the flat, squishy buttons. He plays around with the joysticks, their rough textures now soft from his chronic touch. Holding it in his hands as he normally would now, the feel seems perfect. How do they not understand?

What bothered him most wasn't that no one would sponsor his club, it was the fact that most teachers with clubs didn't care about them anyway. While the students built models of planes and cars, the teacher would be grading papers or other teacher work, never getting involved, as if the club was something they had to live with, not something they were a part of. Why could no one just do that for him?

He wanders around his room now, pacing back and forth, looking for something that he knows isn't there. Stopping at the shelves full of hundreds of plastic cases, he begins to think that what he's looking for might actually be hidden among them. As he runs his finger through the plastic blocks, he gives up and sits back down. What can make them understand?

His current issue, though, was proving to be a larger roadblock than the last. After he'd convinced a teacher to have the club take place in her room (on the condition that she was under no circumstances going to have it interrupt her work), the board in charge of clubs and such still wouldn't validate it. What struck him as odd was that the "board" was made up of student council members, which were essentially his peers. This made the fact that they wouldn't just let him have a video game club even more frustrating. Shouldn't they empathize with him?

He continues to stare it his shelves. All of his games, movies, and music lie there, together. The cases all look the same, and from where he's sitting, it's hard to tell them all apart. They all are one thing: entertainment. The cases don't fight each other, they don't look down on one another, because they're all working towards the same goal. Why can't people be more like cases?

The member of the board who most passionately opposed him told him he did so because there was "no point to a game club", and then continued to point out that a club must have some sort of "educational value" to students, and that video games had no potential to have any. The movie club had a "strict regiment" that analyzed and expanded on the roles of the respective films being watched and discussed in class, and often had discussions about a movie's impact on culture. A game club would be "nothing but a bunch idiots drinking Mountain Dew and using the school's televisions to play Halo or something."

He begins to think about what he should've said to him. He sees himself being able to readily argue about the cultural significance of games today, how much more mentally stimulating than movies games can be, and how games can teach while also being fun. He goes on to say how he could design a course that would both chronicle the history of interactive entertainment and show his fellow members how powerful a form of expression video games can be, to creators and players alike. With members that are willing to cooperate and learn from each other, their club would be just as valuable as any other, and if they gave him enough time, he could show them that he wasn't lying, either.

None of this ever really happened, of course. Instead, after the board member mentioned that his club would be a waste of time for everyone involved, the boy proceeded to berate his opponent's club, which inevitably lead to a shouting match. The end result was that the teacher involved revoked her sponsorship of the club, saying that the shouting match proved the board member's point; if the leader of the club was this prone to fits of immaturity, then there was no way the club would work out. Furious, the boy stormed home.

He is now furious with himself. He sits in his room, full of frustration that he had let the board member get to him. It was exactly what he wanted him to do. Now he couldn't get a game club organized, so he would never be able to show everyone the value of his hobby; people would continue to treat his hobby in contempt, dismissing it as the pastime of idiots.

Arguments never solve anything.

The "Fan Tax".

After seeing that Sony is basically charging extra money to early PSP Go buyers, I was a bit dejected about actually buying one. I'd been meaning to get a PSP for a while, and now that this new one has the promise of easily downloadable software, it seemed like the right time to jump in. Now, though, I still want to buy it, but if I go ahead and plop down the $250 for it, then I'll just be proving the theory that fans will always pay extra for products that could be sold for less.

The fault, however, doesn't necessarily lie with Sony (although they're not exactly the hero); they're only charging extra for it because they know they can, because people are probably going to buy it. So why is it that fans are always so readily willing (and somehow able) to spend so much cash on things that they know are superfluous?

The biggest offender we seem to have in the game industry is the special edition. Affix whatever "limited" or "collector" tag you like, it's hard to argue that they're anything more than a marketing ploy. Companies will ask focus groups for what sorts of swag they'd be willing to pay for in addition to the game, figure out how to mass produce those things, then charge as much money as most people are willing to pay. It stinks of exploitation, sure, but as mentioned before, we as consumers are at fault, because we've let the market come to this. But before I revile the buyers any longer, I think it's important to note the trends of which the not-so-savvy buyers are the biggest contributors, so that there's no question of what it is I'm trying to fix.

Brand Attachment: This is probably the reason there are even special editions at all. Companies (and fans) usually won't sink so much money into something that doesn't seem to deserve it. The most ridiculous and shameful extras usually come from the biggest and most well-known franchises, because they're obviously the ones that are going to sell, but special editions also show us when a company really wants to push a new IP; we all remember when EA was pushing Mirror's Edge and Dead Space with outlandish versions of those games. They had huge faith in those games, and the results, while not disappointing, were a little under EA's expectations.

The kicker here is that they don't even have to be any good. Even the most expensive and ridiculous things don't even have to be mass produced. They just have to exist. This is because when they're announced, they tend to pop up on all of the various news sites, people do write-ups about whether or not they're going to get it, and all in all do exactly what the publisher wants them to do: promote the game for what is basically free. Even if it's for the wrong reasons, this gets word out about the game, and gets fans excited (if for only the extras themselves), which leads me to my second point.

All-too-eager Fans: No less important than pimping brands are the fans who'll eat these things up. Gamers have shown themselves to be very capable of spending their money on the things that companies are willing provide. There hardly ever seems to be a price cap. People will complain about the excessive price of a collectible, sure, but rarely will that affect the sales of a collectible; If you're not going to buy it, someone else will undoubtedly will.

And when you look at it that way, it's a pretty lopsided seller's market. Collectibles are usually in low quantities because the manufacturer doesn't really want to have a surplus or lost money, so they tout the product as a rarity, which inevitably drives people to want to buy it so that they won't miss out on it. We've seen times when the production lines far outweigh demand (i.e. the Halo 3 Legendary Edition), but for the most part, demand outweighs supply. And of course, if a company sells all of their inventory, that's a big percentage gain for them.

So when this happens all the time, it infuses a "get it now, before it's gone!" mentality in any fan of a franchise. Even when there is plenty of a product to go around, buyers often feel as if their time to own something is short, and that if they don't act quickly, something important may be lost forever. This is what incurs the buying frenzy on all things collectible, be it video games or otherwise.

The Triple Take: This one is pretty simple. When you buy a game at full retail price, the retailer gets a cut, the console manufacturer gets a cut, and the people who brought you that game get a cut, and out of that cut, the publisher and developer each get a cut. This is a pretty segmented deal, and the best way for all sides to make money is to charge more for the product.

But they can't just inexplicably up the price, because that would lead to outrage. So by adding some extra trinkets to sweeten deal, they can justifiably charge more for a game, and because you can control what consumers are getting extra, you can come up with all sorts of ways to get back more money from your investment. Shady indeed, but from a business standpoint, one can certainly see a why somewhere.

We can see the infrastructure of exploitation here, but if you know anything about business at all, none of this is new to you. So then, what is the problem? Several points are in favor of this practice, in fact. There's nothing wrong wrong with promoting a brand, especially a new one; these enhanced offerings can put new IP's in the same breath as established franchises, and can feed the existing frenzy of "AAA" titles.

Additionally, not everyone uses collectibles to abuse a big name; Atlus is famous for always providing free stuff with their games, included with a game's initial run. This is nothing but good promotion. Atlus wants you to buy the game, and if you're sucker for soundtracks and plush toys, chances are you've at least been tempted to buy a game for the extra swag when you otherwise would've ignored it.

Besides, the people buying these sorts of things don't seem to be bothered at all. When looking at these products in sheer numbers, getting something extra with a game doesn't come around as often as you'd think. Fans want as many of these things as they can get their hands on. They want something to strengthen their bond to the product they're buying, to assure themselves of their fandom, and to be able to say "I am better than the average fan". I don't say that with a negative inflection, because with as brief as the impact of the average game is nowadays (how many people will be talking about Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood or BlazBlue a year or two from now?), it's understandable that fans want a sense of attachment to their favorite titles.

No amount of longing for possessiveness to our favorite games can account for credulity, however. The reason that we should be cautious towards these sorts of things is that it leaves a bad impression. For most of people do buy these things, that's fine, because to them, this sort of loyalty is what separates the "hardcore*" from the "casual*" crowds, and they wouldn't have it any other way.

But from the perspective of the people who campaign for video games as something more than a collector's hobby, the fact that fans will so blindly get behind these sorts of things makes it seem like "gamers*" are an easy marketing group, to be exploited by collector's editions and swag again and again, because they honestly don't know better.

And sure, other industries do this (movies, music, etc.), but they're not trying to prove themselves. People already know that those things are important to our culture. Most people don't care to take games as seriously, so we have to show them that not only are the games we covet are as important as any album or movie, but that their fans aren't to be taken lightly, either.

I don't mean to be cruel or cynical towards special editions, but instead I'm asking that when you see an amped-up version of a game you're already buying or an inflatable whatever, that you be more careful with your dollar instead of yelling "DO WANT*" and buying recklessly. Whether you care about it or not, you're both voting and expressing how you want people to see you every time you spend that dollar, so use it wisely.

*Asterisk denotes hatred for term.

Backlog Trackback #4 - Both Creeping and Crawling.

Taking a mostly understood concept and adding a spin to it is commonplace - working on making something that is already good could be called the industry standard. However, there's a good lot to be said of making that spin really unique. In the case of both of these games, that unique twist accounts for a lot of its charm.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault On Dark Athena: There were too many factors against the original game (Escape From Butcher Bay, which also happens to be included here) for anyone to be not be surprised by how good it was. What made that game so great was that it changed up the emphasis of the game constantly (segments where you were fetch-questing for prisoners and closterphobic stealth-action segments segeued into each other quite well), and all of it was fun to play. It was a good game while also adding back story to the movie on which it was based (and let's face it, that wasn't too good.)

But now that there's a good game in the franchise, expectations are bound to arise for the sequel. The smart thing that developers Starbreeze/Tigon Studios did was bank on the success of the first one to the extent that that this new release had a remake of Butcher Bay in it, which of course ended up being the most interesting part of the product.

Beyond the graphical makeover, though, Dark Athena presents something of an expansion pack. It's much shorter than Butcher Bay, yes, but that might be because it feels like a more streamlined version of it; the story moves along much more quickly, there's very little fetch-questing, and while there's still a huge element of stealth, in Dark Athena, gunning your way through a given room instead of using trial-and-error tactics may actually give you a win.

When both games are put together in one package, though, it's really a win for both. Butcher Bay gets to be played by more people with new hi-res textures, and Dark Athena gets to be played by more people who want to see the upgraded Butcher Bay. There's a multiplayer component as well, and you'll find some people playing it, but it ulitmately isn't something we haven't seen before, and it doesn't dampen the value of the product whatsoever. For those who've played the original, the upgraded graphics and Dark Athena will probably be enough to warrant another playthrough, and for those who haven't, it's a fantastic place to dive in.

Deadly Creatures: The boxart may be the worst thing about Deadly Creatures. The lifeless picture that looks to be straight out of a National Geographic story masks a pretty decent game. Although the game itself is pretty straightforward (level, objective, boss, repeat), it has a number of hooks that wind up being novel until the end of the game (even if it is around 6 hours long). For one, developer Rainbow Studios does some pretty cool things with the "you're playing as insects" concept. The spider, for example, has some pretty nice platforming sections that involve hopping around areas using its webbing.

The other interesting thing is the story. The content itself isn't too interesting, but the it's told from the perspective of both a spider and scorpion, and most of the good parts have nothing to do with what you're doing, as you're spectating the story of two men (voiced by Dennis Hopper and Billy Bob Thorton, no less!) who're looking for a buried treasure in the middle of desert. It's pretty slow at the outset, but I was pretty motivated to keep playing about an hour in.

All the interesting story concepts in the world couldn't save its repititive design, however. There isn't much exploration to be had other than to find your way to the next objective (indicated by an arrow, but helps only when there's no pathfinding to be done), the boss fights aren't too unique, and while delivered in an new way, the story doesn't really amount to anything interesting. There's some pretty graphic finishers as the scorpion, but most of the fighting is button-mashing. Playing as insects was a pretty unique spin on an established forumla, but the game never really goes anywhere with it that seems to be worth the deviation.

My Missing Fear.

While browsing through Jasmine's collection, I started getting really nostalgic for Pokémon, of all things (from looking at her DS). I started thinking about how much fun I had with the original Red/Blue versions, and I was going to do a write-up about how great those games were. But as I dove deeper into my memories of those games, I started getting into some less than great memories. In fact, I found that one of my biggest fears had come from these games.

It was the Fall of 1999, and my brother and I had gotten our respective versions of Pokémon (him Blue, I red), and we were knee-deep in catching 'em all. We also had a number of cousins over for the weekend. All of us were playing different games, when one of them noticed my red cartridge and said, "Hey, do you know how to get 99 Master Balls?"

"What? How?"

He then told me the legendary process that involved talking to a trainer at Viridian City, then flying to Cinnabar Island, and using Surf in a certain area that would allow you to duplicate the sixth item in your inventory. What I didn't know was that this involved an encounter with Missing No., who was a glitchy block-shaped "Pokémon" that was essentially the block of memory where the player's name was stored.

The first time I saw him, I was a little freaked out by it, but didn't pay it much attention, and continued happily with my seedily gotten Master Balls in tow. It was only after my brother suggested that we catch Missing No. instead of just run from him that things started going wrong.

The problem was that if you caught the wrong version of it (there was a level 80 version, and a level 0 version), it essentially broke your game. My cousins told us this, and that was what made so afraid. My brother did indeed proceed to catch the right one (the level 80 version), and then leveled it up, and, to his dissapointment, turned it into a Kangaskhan, but I was still stuggling with the concept of losing all of my save data, even though it hadn't even happened. So as much as my brother badgered me to do it, I refused to catch my own.

That night, I had nightmare that involved You-know-who coming out of the Game Boy and erasing all of my memory, after which I woke up and started crying quietly like the seven-year-old I was. I went to school the next morning, but I was still haunted by that horrible, blocky strip of data that threatened to erase me. After a couple of days I forgot all about it, though.

The only other time I remembered it was when Advance Wars: Dual Strike came out. That game also had a glitch in it that lead to a blocky, mixed up figure (though the glitch itself did nothing other than give you a generic commanding officer who was a reassembled version of the character Andy). When I figured out how to do it and was shown the blocky figure, I almost dropped my DS out of fear (I had the sense to close it instead). I turned the DS off, and didn't touch if for the rest of the day.

To this day, misshapen graphics and glitches still freak me out a little when I see them (like in Castle Crashers), although it also sort of makes me laugh a little at how scared I was (am) of it.

So, has a video game ever scared you for an unintentional reason (i.e. not like Resident Evil scared you)? If so, how did you deal with it?