#It would probably be good to have some playable black people in a region based on the Jazz age anyways

[ironunderstands]

Genuinely I think headcanon edits are extremely fun, I just think people should stop trying to fight against the original art style like their life depends on it. Some great ideas get absolutely ruined when this happens. Like at least personally, I think drawing a semi-realistic nose on a cartoony face just won’t look good or make sense no matter how nice that nose looks disconnected from the whole drawing because it doesn’t suit the proportions of the original art.

Like be confident, make your own fanart! Your style is great, and trying to glue it to a different one does not do it justice at all! I understand drawing is hard, trust me I’m ass at it, but like, yall have talent, stop weighing yourselves down by the limitations of the original piece. Fuck it, redraw the face entirely, you can do better, I know you can :)

[jmsebastian]

Great Adaptation Expectations - Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage

Some things just demand to be adapted into video games, and Kentaro Miura’s dark fantasy manga series Berserk stands pretty much atop that list. Released in 1999 and developed by Yuke’s in cooperation with Miura, Sword of the Berserk: Guts’ Rage is a third-person action game for the Sega Dreamcast that attempted to scratch that initial gamification itch, and ride the success following the first anime adaptation of the series, which premiered two years prior.

Before discussing the details, it’s important to note that Sword of the Berserk suffers the same fate that so many licensed games do. It isn’t very good. Some of that comes down to the era in which it was made. There are a few frustrations that plague it that are typical of an era in which 3D action games were relatively new. That isn’t to say there aren’t things to enjoy about the game. If nothing else, it did help solidify why the approach to how action games played needed to be adjusted. Unfortunately, that means Sword of the Berserk itself, is something of a missed opportunity. On the plus side, it’s not a very long game, so its shortcomings don’t have enough time to grossly overstay their welcome, and any suffering along the way is mercifully brief.

The first obvious issue is the lack of camera control. Going back to play any 3rd person action game without a controllable camera can feel extremely limiting. It’s become such a staple that it feels more unnatural not to have it than it probably did to have it when it was first introduced. Of course, there are certainly examples of very good games that lack it. You can’t control the camera in Onimusha or Devil May Cry, but you don’t tend to notice that limitation as much since the camera is placed in thought ways that reveal the relevant visual information to the player.

Sword of the Berserk’s camera lacks that thoughtfulness. It tries to be dynamic, moving along with your character, but the concern seems to be more on framing Guts in a particular way rather than assisting the player. Given that this is an adaptation of a beautifully drawn manga series, it’s hard to fault the developers for trying to capture some of that magic in their game (which they largely accomplish in the cutscenes), however, it ends up compromising its playability to a fairly extreme degree at times.

You also have the issue of moving toward the camera a lot, meaning you’ll often find yourself running headfirst into danger you can’t see until it’s too late. There’s even an escape sequence near the end of the game reminiscent of Sonic Adventure 2’s opening sequence. You have to run around and jump over obstacles with little warning before you’re right up against them. Without rings to help you cling to life, this is extremely frustrating. One mistake means you die, and in a game with limited checkpoints and continues, it can quickly become the hardest and most frustrating part of the entire experience.

Rollin' around at the speed of sound/Got places to go, gotta follow my rainbow/Can't stick around, have to keep movin' on/Guess what lies ahead, only one way to find out!

Another part of what makes the camera so difficult is that it doesn’t have a lot of room to maneuver, even if the developers might have wanted to. You spend most of your time inside a castle, fighting through narrow corridors and cramped courtyards. In those confined spaces, the camera can’t really move wherever it wants because chances are, level geometry would get in the way. There are few examples of where this does actually happen, such as when you travel below the castle’s cemetery, and an obelisk sitting in the middle of the room complete obscures any figures that move behind it.

Aside from restricting the camera, the level design has the consequence of hampering what the game’s mechanics are centered around entirely, the combat. The whole point of a Berserk game is to play as Guts and swing the laughably huge Dragon Slayer sword around. There are several levels in this game where that is literally impossible. One level in particular, where you run through the castle town has several passageways where you’ll clank your sword against stone trying to land a hit on guards that hinder your progress. The developers seemed to realize this would be a problem, so they put in the option to sheath the Dragon Slayer and fight with your fists. I can say that this is not the most adequate solution. Even playing on the easy difficulty, punching guards out is a dubious proposition. Your damage output is drastically reduced and since the guards can snipe you with arrows from some distance with crossbows, you may well die before even getting the chance.

Let me just, uh, erm, hmm.

On some level, you have to respect the commitment to realism, as you obviously could not swing a sword the size of the Dragon Slayer in most places that human being typically occupy. However, the ability to swing said hunk of iron in the first place is fantastical, and thus, I think it would have been more than a fair compromise to let the sword simply clip through level geometry in an effort to make the combat more fluid and satisfying. Thankfully, the boss fights, which are the main draw of the game’s combat, are usually placed in much more open areas to avoid this issue.

Ultimately, I get the feeling that the game’s design took something of a back seat to the story that Kentaro Miura wanted to tell, and as such, there’s relatively little actual game to be played at all. Of the roughly four hours it takes to get through, most of that time is spent in cutscenes, making Sword of the Berserk more of an animated film than a game. Honestly, this does not really bother me. If you got the game because you were already a fan of Berserk, then what you’re getting is Berserk. What’s especially great about it is that the story told is unique to the game. It’s a side-quest, as it were, to the Millennium Falcon arc, where Guts has decided to keep the traumatized Casca close to him as he continues his quest to defeat Griffith. In this side story, Guts meets some traveling performers and decides to go watch their performance in a nearby town. He ends up walking into the middle of a conflict between the regions lord and people afflicted with a curse, called the Mandragora.

What’s more, is that the story is told quite well. For its time, the Dreamcast was a very capable platform for 3D graphics. Even twenty years later, the cutscenes are enjoyable to watch on their own if you’re willing to overlook a few flaws. Sure, the characters models are a bit blocky and they move a bit like action figures, but robotic movement is a problem that still plagues 3D animation if the 2016 Berserk or 2019 Ultraman anime is anything to go by. There’s still incredible attention to detail. The faces, in particular, have a lot of expression to them and help bring moments to life in a way that seems hard to believe at times.

You can really see the despair on his face.

It helps, too, that the voice acting is of very high quality. With well-known talents like Cam Clarke and Earl Boen, there was a clear emphasis on treating the game’s story seriously. This is extremely important since the story makes up pretty much the whole reason you’d be playing this game in the first place. There are some issues with the localization here and there (the name Guts is treated as a nickname rather than a given name in a few scenes), but the line delivery and interaction between characters really sell the scenes, even if the lines themselves are a bit clunky or cliched. When you compare the cutscenes in Sword of the Berserk to those in say, Tenchu: Stealth Assassins, released just a year earlier, you can’t help but appreciate the skill in direction and experience of the actors when stellar voice-acting in games was not a given.

You could argue that this story could have been served better through manga or traditional animation, but it’s hard to fault Yuke’s for wanting to make a Berserk game, or Miura for wanting to branch out and test the waters on new methods of conveying his story. Berserk’s popularity in Japan meant that a game based on the series was going to be made at some point, and creating a self-contained side story that can be begun and ended within that game makes perfect sense. It also helps make the game approachable by those who aren’t familiar with the series at all. In 1999, Berserk certainly wasn’t considered such a pinnacle of dark fantasy in the West as it is today, so someone picking the game off the shelf in the US would very likely have no frame of reference for the story at all. Thanks to the introduction of new characters like Rita, the player can learn what they need to know through the lens of those characters, making the reliance on that prior knowledge a lot less necessary.

Now that Berserk’s influence has become so far reaching, it seems unlikely that anyone would come to the Dreamcast game without some working knowledge of the series. While it’s hard to consider it a can’t miss part of the Berserk experience (save for the wonderful musical contributions of Susumu Hirasawa), there’s enough there for anyone willing to put up with some clunky design. At the very least, it’s worth watching a playthrough online for the story alone if the act of playing the game itself doesn’t manage to replicate the feeling of becoming the Black Swordsman himself.

[postgamecontent]

NES Switch Online - The Launch Games

While Nintendo’s new paid online service isn’t making everyone happy by any means, I personally generally appreciate what the company is doing with its retro catalogue this time around, if not necessarily the speed at which it’s doing it. The NES Switch Online app, along with whatever similar apps come down the road, could finally give us a sort of Netflix for classic games. The biggest issue, as I see it, is the way Nintendo plans to distribute the games, with 20 NES games available at launch and a few added every month thereafter. It’s going to take a while to even build up to the Virtual Console libraries found on the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, let alone the salad days of the Wii Virtual Console. 

Still, this does provide a means for people to discover and play games they may not have tried before. If you subscribe to Switch Online, you’re getting all of these games no matter what. With the slow pace of releases, you might be inclined to spend a little time with each one that comes. Or you might just ignore the whole thing, I don’t know. Anyway, I thought what I would do is to give a little run-down of each game that comes to this app, with a new write-up corresponding to each month’s releases. These aren’t going to be in-depth by any means, but hey, it’s something to read, right?

1. Donkey Kong

Well, it’s the NES version of Donkey Kong. Seemingly obligatory, but it very well may be the least necessary of the whole lot so far. It’s not so much that it’s a bad game of Donkey Kong, but with the more complete arcade version available on Switch through Arcade Archives and the fact that this NES version is so utterly commonplace among Nintendo’s many retro re-issues, it’s hard to get excited about it. Turn-based multiplayer means the online play isn’t worth a lot here.

One Good Thing: It’s short and sweet.

One Bad Thing: That missing stage rankles.

2. Mario Bros. 

Compared to Donkey Kong, this is a better port of a worse game, but Mario Bros. can still offer a good bit of fun for one or two players. It’s another common re-issue that has its arcade version already available on the Switch, but the online play and the fact that the NES port isn’t missing anything big the way Donkey Kong is means that if you want to play Mario Bros., this is a perfectly good way to do it.

One Good Thing: Mario’s controls are a bit more forgiving in the NES version.

One Bad Thing: It gets repetitive quickly.

3. Baseball

I’m sure Baseball has its fans, but I can’t say I’m one of them. There are better baseball games on the NES, and I suspect we’ll see some of them eventually added to this app. It can be fun with a second player if you’re in the right mood, but it’s not very enjoyable in single player at all thanks to the merciless CPU. I suppose it’s good that Nintendo dropped a bunch of the “black box” releases into the launch line-up, though, so that they won’t be taking up valuable slots in the monthly releases from here on out.

One Good Thing: It captures the basic feel of the sport.

One Bad Thing: The CPU opponent is a bit too strong.

4. Tennis

This has aged a little better than Baseball, but it’s still about as basic a take on the sport as you can get. It’s another example of a game that can be a little fun with a second player, but isn’t all that great if you have to match up against the nasty CPU opponent. It’s a slightly rarer sight in Nintendo’s retro re-release initiatives than some games, so I guess it’s nice to see it here in that sense.

One Good Thing: This isn’t too far from today’s tennis games.

One Bad Thing: It can be tricky to gauge elevation and distance.

5. Excite Bike

Excite Bike is a game that I didn’t think much of back in the day, but have come to appreciate quite a bit. There’s not a lot to it in terms of content, but it feels good to learn and make use of the game’s mechanics. It mostly comes down to regulating engine heat and making sure you hit the ground running after each jump, but it’s all nice and satisfying once it clicks.

One Good Thing: The controls are fantastic.

One Bad Thing: The course-builder just doesn’t live up to its potential.

6. Balloon Fight

A shameless clone of Joust? Yes, but a very well-made one. Balloon Fight is an enjoyable arcade-style experience and even offers a nice two-player mode to play with a friend. The Balloon Trip mode gives you something different to do with the skills you learn in the main game, giving you something to come back for. Balloon Fight is a pretty common sight in Nintendo’s retro initiatives, so there’s a good chance you already own this somewhere. Nevertheless, it’s worth playing, so it’s worth including here.

One Good Thing: Balloon Trip makes for a great score attack experience.

One Bad Thing: There isn’t enough meat on the bones to fully satisfy.

7. Ice Climber

Extremely common and not that great of a game, Ice Climber is not the strongest reason to fire up this app, to say the least. I can see what the game is going for, but it just feels clunky and rough in a way that few Nintendo games do. Oh well, it’s here, and that means it won’t be taking up a slot later. Unlike, say, Urban Champion. Now that’s going to be a terrible month.

One Good Thing: There are a lot of cute details in the graphics.

One Bad Thing: The collision detection on ledges is hard to read.

8. Soccer

Interestingly, every region got the same line-up of games this time around. Soccer probably wouldn’t have made the cut for the American service if that weren’t the case, but I’m sure it has its fans in most other regions. This is again a case of an okay sports game that got greatly outclassed by future releases on the system. Some fun with a second player, but not much more than that. Still, it’s not something we see in every bundle of Nintendo classics, so welcome aboard, I guess.

One Good Thing: It covers the basics well enough.

One Bad Thing: It doesn’t really capture the feel of soccer.

9. Super Mario. Bros

A genuinely great game that I’d reckon every Nintendo fan has already bought numerous times. It had to be here, and I’m glad it’s here. Now I can stop trying to put up with Vs. Super Mario Bros.’s nonsense every time I want to scratch my Super Mario Bros. itch while playing my Switch. You’ve played it before, but let’s be real: you’re probably going to play it again.

One Good Thing: Plenty to enjoy at a fast pace or slow crawl.

One Bad Thing: The castle mazes.

10. The Legend of Zelda

I’m actually a little surprised that Nintendo put this one into the launch line-up. The Legend of Zelda is another one of those games everyone has bought and played many times, but it definitely qualifies as a big gun that could carry a month if it had to. I still really like this game a lot. It’s tough, and if I didn’t already know where almost everything is I might not be as forgiving of its vague nature, but I never have a bad time replaying it.

One Good Thing: The dungeon designs are great.

One Bad Thing: The hints can be pretty opaque.

11. Gradius

Gradius is an excellent shoot-em-up, and although the NES wasn’t going to be able to do an arcade-perfect port on its best day, this version is more than good enough to do the original justice. It’s a good pick for a third-party title for the launch of this app. It hails from fairly early in the system’s life, but quite playable today. Also frequently re-released, but worth a spin regardless.

One Good Thing: Having a full set of power-ups feels awesome.

One Bad Thing: It’s really hard to get back on track after dying.

12. Ghosts ‘n Goblins

This port, on the other hand, could probably have been better. Micronics did some lousy work on the NES in general, and I suppose by that developer’s standards Ghost ‘n Goblins turned out alright. It doesn’t look great, but the gameplay is more or less what it should be. It’s another common re-release, but people seem to enjoy banging their heads against it. A nice starting point for Capcom releases in this app, if nothing else.

One Good Thing: The variety of stages keeps things fresh.

One Bad Thing: The qualifications for seeing the true ending.

13. Pro Wrestling

A bit of a rarity as retro re-releases go, Pro Wrestling was a Disk System game in Japan that was converted to the cartridge format for international release. While it’s part of the “black box” series of early NES releases, it actually came out years after most of those games in Japan, and it really shows. The gameplay has enough depth to be enjoyable in single-player, and it’s terrific fun with a friend. A nice choice for the starting line-up.

One Good Thing: The character designs are outstanding.

One Bad Thing: Some of the moves are useless.

14. Ice Hockey

Ice Hockey always seems to get left out of Nintendo’s retro re-releases. It might be due to the relatively niche appeal of the sport, or it could be because it was a Disk System game in Japan. It’s too bad, because it’s probably the best hockey game on the NES. Not that that is a particularly difficult achievement or anything, mind you. Hockey is one of those sports that works very well when you simplify it down to basic rules, however, which is probably why hockey video games got better earlier than those of most other sports. Love, love, love that Nintendo included this right from the start.

One Good Thing: You can customize your team, if only a little.

One Bad Thing: Goalies can’t do anything on their own.

15. Double Dragon

This is a weird port of Double Dragon, but it’s a good game in its own right. The slower pace and odd inclusion of added platforming segments make it feel quite distinct from the arcade version. This version is notable for not allowing two-player simultaneous play in the main gameplay mode, which kind of contradicts the title, and the experience point system for unlocking your full set of moves doesn’t work out the way it was probably intended. You do get that weird pseudo-fighting game where you can face off against a buddy, at least. A good choice for a third-party title for the app’s launch.

One Good Thing: Billy’s full move set offers a lot of depth.

One Bad Thing: No two-player mode.

16. Super Mario Bros. 3

This is another one I’m surprised Nintendo didn’t hang onto for a rainy month. But I’m happy the company got it out there right away, as it’s something most players likely already own and have played many times. Even those who have little fondness for the NES generally admit to an appreciation for Super Mario Bros. 3. It plays as well as any Mario game from recent years, so it’s easy to see why it’s held in such regard. I’ll certainly be playing it again. And again. And again.

One Good Thing: It’s full of ideas to an embarrassing extent.

One Bad Thing: Special suits are too scarce to fully enjoy.

17. Tecmo Bowl

Much as Soccer is to Americans, Tecmo Bowl is to the rest of the world. It probably wouldn’t be included in the European and Japanese line-ups if they weren’t all using the same games, since American football is very much localized to North America. Unlike Soccer, however, Tecmo Bowl is still a pretty fantastic representation of the sport. There are better games, even within this series, but licensing makes a lot of them tricky to re-release. This is another common pick, but it’s one that few people would complain about, I think.

One Good Thing: The method of choosing your plays is brilliant.

One Bad Thing: If you don’t know the rules of football, good luck.

18. River City Ransom

With Double Dragon already here, Nintendo definitely could have sat on this one for a bit if it had wanted to. I find it interesting that a game that was definitely considered niche in its day outside of Japan has become a de facto part of just about every collection of NES games, but River City Ransom deserves that recognition. This is probably the most fun you can have with a second player simultaneously in the initial selection of titles. It’s one of most enjoyable multiplayer games on the system, period.

One Good Thing: The RPG and action elements balance well here.

One Bad Thing: There are some technical issues when things get busy.

19. Dr. Mario

Dr. Mario is here. Dr. Mario is always here. Well, what can you do? Tetris involves licensing, so if you want something that was reasonably popular along the same lines, you’re going to end up with Dr. Mario. It’s a little bland compared to some other falling-block puzzle games, but it will occupy your time if you need it to, and its head-to-head versus mode is certainly a blast. 

One Good Thing: The music is excellent.

One Bad Thing: It lacks the tension of many other puzzle games.

20. Yoshi

On the other hand, compared to Yoshi, Dr. Mario is absolutely amazing. Yoshi is part of that elite group of Nintendo’s NES releases that seem to get re-released every time even though not many people care about them or enjoy them. I don’t care much about Yoshi, and I do not enjoy it. At least it won’t be taking up a future release slot.

One Good Thing: The graphics are cute.

One Bad Thing: It’s crushingly boring.

Looking at these 20 games, I think Nintendo made some generally good picks. I would have liked to have seen an RPG make it in, but that’s not really in Nintendo’s hands, I suppose. There are enough big games here that the company could get away with shoving in a bunch of simple or mediocre games that would have been a harder sell as part of the monthly drops. It definitely could have been better, but it surely could have been worse, as well. I’ll be back tomorrow to look at the just-released October batch of games, and from there on, I’ll try to get these out day-and-date with each new drop.