Gaming, East, West and Opinions!

Admittance: I am a fan of "repetitive" games! Of course, I don't see them that way!

Examples include the Dynasty Warriors series, Fighting games, old-school arcade games which focus more on the acquisition of score, rather than seeing some clear cut ending, JRPGs that use tested and true mechanics that have been prevalent since the days of the NES, and Beat 'em ups, which can be summed up with "Walk right, and KILL!"

You will constantly hear these types of games shoved through the grinder by game reviews/journalist. The whine of repetition, or a lack of gameplay, or the games being too easy, or too hard. They act as if these genres have offered the same thing for YEARS, and have never evolved...

And after that, they go and heap praise on the latest Western RPG made in the vein of Oblivion/Morrowind, the latest iteration of a sports game series, or the latest First/Third person shooter featuring a buzz cut/ bandanna wearing Caucasian male of murky morality.

Conflict within Disinterest

Whenever I get a new Game Informer, or read such obviously bias opinions in gaming magazines, I have to wonder... WHY do they pick the reviewers they do? I don't WANT to hear a Warriors series review from some whiner who can't see more than "Mash X until you've conquered China!" These are not the kind of people who can tell me of the pros and cons of this iteration of a series. The are the kind of people, that are only telling me, in so many words "This series isn't meant for me, and I don't want to play it."

As an example, I don't play football. I don't watch football. Would I be a good person to review the latest Madden? Not at ALL. I wouldn't appreciate any of the finer details about the game. I couldn't tell you how the feeling of the game has changed from previous years. I couldn't weigh in on anything beyond the bullet list of features that the publisher sent me in their media kit. My opinion wouldn't be worth you money and/or time, in the slightest.

There are enough fans out there now-a-days, that I should never have to read the opinions of anyone who "doesn't get it". You make a disservice not only to the readers, but also to the games developers and publishers, when displaying such a lack of care and interest towards a product.

Double Redundancy Redundancy!!

So, we established that these disinterested folks don't really care, right? Well, such people often do things by the book, in very predictable ways.

One of the first items in their war chest, is to complain about "stale gameplay" or that the game is "repetitive".

I've hated this one for years. Ever since the days when people would complain about being able to beat Street Fighter II (or any other fighter) by just doing jumping roundhouse kicks over and over. If you CAN beat a game just by doing one or 2 moves, sure, it might be a failing of the A.I, but also, you're doing it wrong! Game was made for you to try and strategize, to react aganist what the CPU does, not to find a strong tactic, and just spam it.

Most games that are said to have "stale gameplay" offer a myriad of features. They offer you the ability to shift enemy positions, set up traps, and to find and use chokepoints, or other positional strategies.

Depth of gameplay should never be backed on stupid things like how many buttons the controller uses. It should be based on what you can do, how often you can do it, and if shifting through those options is fun, and flows well.

For example, I love brawlers that give me loads of options. Throws from the back and front, grapples, combos with different uses, ground attacks, multiple jump attacks, charge button moves... and all of this is usually done with 2 or 3 buttons. However, these games give me the feeling that I can pretty much attack and react from every angle imaginable; like I'm never detached from the gameplay.

I personally find this more invigorating than most first/third person shooters (Not to be confused with what I'd call Shooters, like Contra or R-Type!). I hate playing shooters where there is no strategy to your shooting. Hitting enemies in the hands, arms, shoulders, legs, and knees... these should all bring different effects. Yet it seems like, STILL, we get FPS's with barely any difference in effects derived from hit location. The only "Sure Kill" place for a gunshot on a human body isn't JUST the head, y'know!

-Ahem- So, yeah. It's a matter of perspective! Only a person who knows a genre well should be able to judge this. Anything can look dry and mundane, depending on the perspective.

Character Define 101

One last thing I'll comment on: Character design! I hear over and over about how trite JRPG characters are. Everyone rants and raves about belts, zippers, flamboyant hair, etc...

...But you know what? I'd prefer a "generic" JRPG character design to almost anything that you see in Gears, Fallout, etc. And don't get me started on the characters of Fable!

Anime cliché, to me, works better than the clichés of FPSs and WRPGs. My personal reasons?

One: at LEAST Japanese games have such strong visual styles, that the can fall back on the style of the artist, to bring varied visual emotion to the character. Just because you've seen an angry Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball) character, doesn't mean you've seen an angry character by, say, Harada (Disgaea series).

Two: Japan's clichés are iconic, and seem more timeless. I've grown up alongside do-gooder heroes that are clumsy, shy girls with gentle hearts, and dastardly villans who actually believe their actions are justifiable. These are classic stroytelling archetypes, that have multiple, well developed dimensions.

I've seen the "Lone marine" stereotype for a long while, too, but... first of all, it seems way too much like the same main traits (Big and burly, foul-mouthed) are replicated through 60% of the cast for these games. While each character in a JRPG is pretty much their own seperate personality. It just doesn't seem like a timeless archetype, it just seems like an overuse of a specific one.

Once again, you can see, I shouldn't be judging such things! Marcus Phoenix, or Commander Shepard, were not made to appeal to me. Just like the heroes of a Rune Factory game, or Spectral Force, were not made to appeal to the fans of the GTA series.

And End to the Epic

So, to sum it all up, I think it's a big shame to watch all western magazines rate japanese games as if they are mediocre, based on backwards methodology that doesn't apply to their subjects. I've always thought reviews should be used to focus and grow audiences of products, rather than to limit and fracture them.

We should all understand that creative products are made by people. These people deserve to be treated fairly, reguardless of if you like the products or not.

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Next update, I'll have something to share on Project Arena. Expect that post on Tuesday!

Announcing "Project: Arena" - A Personal Challenge

Character Concept: Hero Girl by ~SAB-CA on deviantART

So, I drew this picture over a year ago, as a game character concept. I also made a pixel portrait of her, which is what you see me using as my avatar on this here blog.

Well, now, I finally want to put her to use! With this post, I announce my intent to make as much of an arena fighting game as I possibly can! (Guardian Heroes Style!) There's only one problem... I'm not really a programmer!

So what does this mean? It means I plan to make the sprites, animation, U.I., Opening cinematic... everything I personally can do, as a sprite artist, and artist in general.

I'll start off, by trying to define a sprite style for the characters I plan to have, starting with the girl at the top. I'll post those here, on this blog, under the Tag "Project: Arena".

Initial assests to look out for are 2 stages, and 4 characters. Get THAT out of the way, first, and we'll see what comes from that! Gotta set some realistic goals to start with!

So look forward to seeing my attempt as making a game! If either I, someone close to me, figure out programming, everyone might get a chance to actually PLAY this thing, too!

Sprite Portrait: Hero Girl by ~SAB-CA on deviantART

G.I. Joe - A REAL Hollywood Remake

Ok, I had a nice detailed writeup for this, and... somehow, it was all deleted. Even my DRAFT got deleted. So now, lucky bloggers, you get a big synopsys of my thoughts, rather than a detail writeup! Some of you impatient readers probably prefer it that way, so this ones for you!

What I liked:

The Actors were well chosen, especially the Baroness! (Who I think looks better with dark hair!)

Marlon Wayans did a great job. He didn't fall back on his families classic brand of comedy, and this made for a plesant suprise.

The theaters of combat were awesome. Very fitting to the old cartoon!

What I disliked:

Cursing in movies targeted to kids, especially with toy lines, is just stupid. Hollywood needs to learn some vocab without "G.D" in it. Leave out the "sh*t" while you're at it, too. It's getting really stupid.

Hollywood doesn't seem to be able to understand that mouthless mask are cool! Giving Optimus Prime a mouth in Transformers... and now putting a mouth on Snake Eye's Mask/Helmet! Cobra Commander's helmet design was boring and forgettable. Destro's was... all right.

The movie lacked fanservice. Not the pervy kind! Would have loved a few classic theme remixes, and a P.S.A! No "...and knowing is half the battle!" Segment? GAH!

My Overall Feelings

I liked the movie... but just not as a G.I. Joe Product. It continues the trends of Hollywood, when viewed as a remake.

Here is the point I think they miss: Traditional works are remembered because THEIR qualities are timeless. Present what made the original great, but "display them in a higher resolution", if you will, and don't try to shine and shape them into matching modern day takes on these ideals.

All you end up making, when you do that, is an ultimately forgettable homage.

Pixel Art - Like Legos. But more AWESOME

So, I ranted about the underappreciated style of black and white illustration, and started to touch on my love for pixel art. So now, I think I'll complete my thoughts on it!

Pixel Art is the art of using small blocks, that are generally the smallest visual element of a video image, in order to make images. This was a lot easier to do, when our screens had resolutions that were only a few hundred blocks wide and tall.

But now, we have screens that are almost 2000 dots wide, and almost as tall. QUITE the increase, when you're drawing dot-by-dot, eh?

Thus, this art style isn't used nearly as often anymore. You have to redraw every animation you want in pixel art. Why would anyone go through so much work, when they can just make the character in 3D, create some animations, and use the animations across any characters of similar size and proportion?

My reasoning? There's a lot more heart in pixel art. You KNOW that every odd dot in pixel work was personally put there, to convey something. Every little grin, every eye wink, every flop of hair. When it's done well, it's like watching a classic Disney movie! They really animated SO MUCH in their traditional films. If you compare their movie animation, to every day televised animation, it was like the difference of watching 1 leaf blowing in the wind, versus watching a whole field of petals, each and every one with it's own dynamic, fresh movement.

SNKP's newest game, King of Fighters XII, is one of the first "Next Gen" games to try and make Pixel Art work on modern consoles. The game has a lot of rough spots, and doesn't have all the characters and animations of it's predecessors. However, if you look at the pieces that ARE there, they have an insane amount of care put into them.



It's the first new 2D game in years that I didn't have to look at, and pick out were the "Adobe Flash" looking motions looked awkward. Don't get me wrong, games like Odin Sphere and Castle Crashers are fantastic looking 2D works. But I always found the "flash" look to bring an unfitting "3D" like smoothness to 2D, that just doesn't look as pleasing as pure pixel work animations.

I've done 2D pixel animations, and I've done 3D modeling and animation as well. To me, the goal of 3D, in my eyes, is to live up to the quality that 2D has already established for YEARS. (The opposite of all who wish 3D just to be used for realism, eh?) 3D games are still trying to replicate the depth of animation, character interaction, cloth movement, and unique color and personality, that we saw in 16 and 24 bit (Neo Geo!) video games. Street Fighter IV is probably the best I've seen, when it comes to capturing the animation personality and variety. And the Dragon Ball series of fighters, plus Namco's recent games like Eternal Sonata, and Tales of Vesperia, are probably the closest at getting the colors, mood, and finer points of 2D animation accurate.

But that's still "Catch up". We still don't have 3D side scrolling shooters that are as awesome as the Metal Slug shooters. We still don't have 3D fighters that have as many character interactions, little unique animations, and individual personality as KoF 98.

Thus, I think there's still a reason for Pixel work to exist. I don't think 3D will ever replace solid 2D. Top 2D artist and top 3D artist should each have their place. The gaming industry seems not to agree, but I hope we see that change. KoF XII is a rough start, but at least we now have something to suggest "SEE, it can be done!"

The next step could come from SNKP. It could come from independent game developers who are inspired by their work. It could come from ME! (^_^) I just want to see it happen!

High Contrast Illustration

The Image above is a sample one of my own. It is of Hattori Hanzo, from the Samurai Shodown game series. It was entirely drawn in pencil, and probably took me as much time to do as most color works.

But people don't seem as attracted to B&W! I always have found this a shame. I love the values and contrast of Black and White works. In some ways, I find them more attractive than color works. It's the perfect way to display works that are bold, and are meant to get your attention.

This is a good reason why, every once in a while, I like to turn by the classic movie channels, and watch a a few minutes of older movies. The way they employ "Halo" lighting, to make characters stand out from the background, and the ways lighting is used to add mood to a scene... it's just very impressive to see how much can be conveyed, with such a limited set of values.

And, for that matter... that's also something I love about manga! Some of the panels in works like Gunsmith Cats, for car chases and gun battles, are as lively to me as anything I've seen in animation.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that I enjoy lots of art styles that depend on their inherit limits. Pencil and pen work, manga screentoning, and pixel work. On the artist side, they all force you to think more creatively than if you had colors, or, in the case of pixel work, higher resolutions.

On the viewer side, they force you to use your imaginations more. A light shade of grey could be a light red, blue, or yellow to the viewer, and this enables them to see characters and settings in the ways they want to. And with pixel art, we can suggest the eyes and mouth, but a lot of the finer points are "filled in" by the viewer. Game characters in pixels very rarely have finely detailed lips, but a few dots can suggest this. When you think of Mario in the old Nintendo games, do you remember him as a bunch of messy squares, or as a rounded, short man with a mustache?

I hope I can continue to show my love for "limited" forms of artwork here. I see a lot of people who don't "get it" when it comes to these things. This is my way, to try and enlighten those people.

INTRODUCTION!!

HELLO WORLD!

Anyone who ever tried programming knows what I'm alluding to!

Anyway, SAB CA here! I hope some people who KNOW of STUDIO ARTIC BANANNA find me here! (And if not, I need to find YOU!)

For those of you who do NOT know, SAB is the name of an art studio run by myself (SAB CA) and my friend (SAB JOE, who might appear here, if I can figure out how to do that...)

Over the years, we've been a presence at our local anime con (Animazement!), and we've done everything from hosting Artist 101 panels, to running our own Artist Alley table.

So what do I hope to accomplish with the blog? WELL....

I hope to connect with previous fans. SAB has gone dormant at times before, and I always want to 100% abolish that happening! With the proper support, we wouldn't ever have to "focus on other things", this WOULD be THE thing, y'know?

I hope to make NEW fans! I know there are people out there who love what we love. (I saw a bunch of you at animazement 2009!) and I'd like to stay in contact with these people! Life is so much cooler when you're connected to people who GET you.

I hope to reach out with my products! We've made shirts, poster prints, bags, bookmark, etc, all over the years. I wanna see people wearing, and using these things! I wanna see the same for my friends, too! It'd just be so cool, to see a catch phrase you came up with, being worn by someone, or even just repeated by them. (We get a taste of that at Animazement!)

I bet people who follow this blog, will also be big dreamers. I've seen fanartist in the back of gaming magazines become comic artist. I've seen people I've liked the art of over the years, get the recognition they always deserved. I'm always happy to see this happen, so hey, lets connect here, and make this happen for all of us!