As amazing as this might sound to some people, one of my first ever exposures to video games in general was through the Game Boy Color. I had seen Game Boys around, I'd played on the original PlayStation a few times and I faintly remember playing The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis and the Hercules tie-in game on PC, but the first video game system I ever owned was the Game Boy Color. On that system, I distinctly remember playing three games regularly in my early childhood: Pokémon Yellow (which I still possess a working copy of, if you can believe that!), Sabrina: The Animated Series: Zapped! (which I mostly played because my sister was awful at it and she kept getting me to play it for it...although I will admit that I ended up taking a liking to it and ended up playing it a lot myself even once I'd got to the point when I was able to beat it in one sitting!) and Rayman.
With the benefit of hindsight, the companies that made of games have gone on to become some of my favorite companies in the gaming scene. Game Freak still holds a place in my heart for the Pokémon games (which I've not played since the release of Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen, although I fully intend to rectify that when I can), I was recently stunned to learn that the developers of Sabrina: The Animated Series: Zapped! are the same developers who would go on to create the Shantae games (WayForward Technologies, if you're curious), all three of which are games that I discovered very recently and hold in very high regard, and Ubisoft Montpellier, while still part of Ubisoft, has been very good at avoiding a lot of the behavior that Ubisoft in general has become known for in recent times and is also the provider of some excellent games that seem to result in Ubisoft Montpellier being the only part of Ubisoft that has a focus on producing high quality games over...well, whatever Ubisoft is focusing on today.
Yet we're going to have to throw that praise for Ubisoft Montpellier out of the window for now, because the division of Ubisoft that created the Game Boy Color port of Rayman is actually Ubisoft Milan. Like with the Montpellier branch of Ubisoft, Rayman was the first game of the company (although they only ported the game), but, unlike Ubisoft Montpellier, there's not really been a killer game unique to the Milan branch. It has developed (or, at least, co-developed) various Tom Clancy games, the PS2 and Microsoft Windows versions of Rayman M (Ubisoft Montpellier being in charge of the Gamecube and Xbox versions of the game) and most of the Just Dance games, alongside working on a few Assassin's Creed games (not Assassin's Creed: Unity, though), but there's been no game that the company has done on its own which has been an attempt to start up a franchise.
Now, to be fair, this is not necessarily a bad sign: many companies out there are known for making games in other series and nothing else, but have done such good jobs with them that it's hard to fault them for their hard work. However, you would be forgiven for suspecting that Ubisoft Milan is not the part of Ubisoft where making a new IP is a high priority.
Anyway, let's get started with this review!
One of the things that I do have to stress from the start is that, for a game on the Game Boy Color and adapting the art style of a VERY colourful game on a far more powerful console, Rayman actually looks pretty good. It's not a flawless representation of the artwork in the console version of the game, but you can recognise the first three stages and the fifth stage of the console version of the game in various stages in the Game Boy Color version of the game with little difficulty. Stages four and six don't make appearances in the Game Boy Color version, but that's still more than I was expecting to see in the Game Boy Color version.
So, art direction is fine. The difficulty is easier than on the console version of the game (which, if you've ever played the console version of the game, is probably a huge relief to learn!), but that doesn't mean the game is easy: some of the later levels can be difficult enough that you'll be sure to burn through at least a few lives before you get to the end of the game. This isn't covering the bonus level (which is unlocked if you find all of the electoons, but isn't part of the main game), which is pretty fiendish in the difficulty department.
The controls are mostly fairly self-explanatory and aren't difficult to get the hang of. The game is a lot nicer than the console version in terms of what powers it starts you off with (you don't have to learn how to grab ledges and punch like you do in the console version, but you don't learn how to run like you do in the console version either), so the game isn't as difficult when starting off by comparison.
If you know what you're doing with the game, chances are good that you'll be able to beat it in three to four hours. Luckily, the game has a password system, so, if you don't know the game very well or don't have the time to go through the game in one sitting, you've got that as an option. I'm honestly not entirely sure why a password system was used when a save option was available in games around the time the game came out (Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue (or Pokémon Green, if you lived in Japan) had save features, although I will acknowledge that the Pokémon games are far simple than Rayman is), but that's a minor complaint, especially considering that you can now play the game on systems where you can save the game yourself (emulators on computers and the Nintendo eStore spring to mind).
The music of the game is...well, it's OK, I guess. It doesn't have the charm of the console version, but it's still OK.
As a side note, there are creatures and obstacles in the Game Boy Color version of the game that have not appeared in any other Rayman game to date. This is worth noting because some of them are actually quite interesting: in particular, there are rings which are capable of actually harming you if you just into them and there are giant amps which can propel you into the air. I'm really surprised that these have never appeared in a future Rayman game, as I think both of them would be able to provide some really interesting ideas for puzzles if utilised in a Rayman game now.
I think there's ultimately one question that needs to be asked: is this a valid alternative to the console version of the game now? After all, you can get the console version on everything the Game Boy Color version is available on, so is there a reason to get this aside from nostalgia? Honestly...no. I don't think the Game Boy Color version of the game is BAD (indeed, in many ways, it's quite good!) but, in this day and age, it's more a curiosity than anything else. That's not to say it isn't worth checking out if you're interested in it, but now, I'd say there's not a lot of point in hunting it down instead of the console version.
Sunday 17 May 2015
Monday 11 May 2015
Musings & Other Ramblings: Do We Have Too Many Superhero Films Now?
So, I was doing my local radio show a while back and the presenter before me was talking about how much he enjoyed Avengers: Age of Ultron. I went on air and, while I was there, I had a bit of a ramble asking whether there were too many superhero films coming out now. While there, I went "Maybe I should make this into a blog post..." and did my show.
But I thought it was actually a very good idea for a discussion, so...yeah, I'm doing it now!
So, for those of you who have somehow missed this trend, let's give a quick recap of when superhero films started to be a big thing. Superhero films have actually been around since the comic industry has been around, technically, as some of the first superhero films were film serials (basically, short TV programmes). One of the first, Mandrake the Magician, actually came out in 1939, but Batman, Captain America and Superman had their own serials made in 1943, 1944 and 1948, respectively. However, as Sunday serials went into decline on TV and the comic books industry having to respond to accusations of their graphic crime and horror stories encouraging juvenile delinquency (during which prosecutors entered evidence involving a cover having a decapitated head that was claimed to have been published, but, in truth, had actually been edited already to remove some of the elements that had been shown on the version in the court), the idea of comic book films became less popular, with only Adventures of Superman (a TV show that had episodes compiled together for theatrical release) and Batman (which was basically like the first three Pokémon films in that it was basically a feature length episode of the show, with a larger budget to match) making any major impact. There was a Japanese superhero film in 1966 called Ogon Bat based on the 1930s superhero of the same name, but there wasn't really any major superhero stuff of note between 1952 and 1978.
What changed that? Superman.
Well, technically, it was Star Wars that encouraged the return of superhero films, as it was the surge of interest coming from that which encouraged studios to take a chance on superhero films again. However, Superman was the first really high profile superhero movie (despite having gone into production prior to the release of Star Wars: in fact, the film started being filmed about two months before Star Wars came out, only taking so long to be released because it was being filmed alongside Superman II, with the latter only being put on hold when it was about 75% of the way through filming) and certainly laid down the groundwork for what we would recognize as a superhero film today: taking itself as seriously as it could while still recognizing that it's not based on reality and can, as such, bend the rules a bit on what is realistic for the sake of telling an enjoyable story. While one could argue that superhero films have moved beyond what Superman did nowadays, it certainly was the superhero film that proved that superheroes could be big screen stars and later encouraged films to be made like Flash Gordon, Robocop, Swamp Thing, Conan the Barbarian and Supergirl throughout the 80s and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Phantom, Steel, Batman & Robin and Tank Girl throughout the 90s.
While most would point towards Batman & Robin (released in 1997) as the film which originally killed off the superhero genre, the honest truth is that the market was being over-saturated by superhero films and the failure of Batman & Robin happened to be the point when the general public finally had enough of them. That said, it wasn't the end of superhero films at all: in 1997 and 1998, two films were released based on comics by Marvel which would go on to spawn franchises, Men in Black (yep, that's really based on a comic!) and Blade, to say nothing of some lesser known superhero films like Steel, Spawn and Mystery Men (the first two from 1997, the last from 1999). That said, it can certainly be said that Batman & Robin highlighted many of the big problems that had started to form around superhero films at the time: they had become overly camp and impossible to be taken seriously, relying on effects to cover up the quality of the writing of the movies, which had gone NOTICEABLY downhill since the time of Superman.
However, there were really two films that brought the superhero film back to life (if you consider it to have died in the first place): X-Men (from 2000) and Spider-Man (from 2002), although you could argue that M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable (from 2000) also had a hand in reviving the superhero movie and certainly could be regarded as the precursor to the trend started by Batman Begins in some regards (although, if you want to be completely accurate, the first superhero film which deserves the honor of being the first dark, gritty and violent superhero film is actually 1994's The Crow). Probably predictably, the successes of these two (or three, if you're counting Unbreakable as a superhero film) films caused a new boom of superhero films, some of which were good (Hellboy springs to mind) and some of which...weren't (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Catwoman spring to mind). It wasn't really a revival of superhero films per se, but superhero films certainly weren't impossible to track down between the release of X-Men and The Dark Knight (indeed, I remember seeing the first Fantastic Four film in cinemas, which was WAY before I started to be really interested in comic book stuff!).
However, it was probably in 2008 that superhero films had their first major surprise for people in a LONG time (even considering Nolan's Batman films proving that superhero films could be dark and gritty and still be fantastic films which didn't require you to know anything about comics to enjoy them!), for it was in 2008 that Marvel started what would become the Marvel Cinematic Universe with the release of Iron Man. This might not sound like a big deal now, but remember, in 2008, the idea of a shared universe for superhero movies was something that NOBODY had tried before: superheroes were assumed to live in their own planes of existence separate from each other in their own movies and the idea of them teaming up together for films was something reserved only for fanfic writers. Nobody had thought of getting Spider-Man to team up with the Fantastic Four or the X-Men in a film together simply because nobody had any idea whether it would work or not (although, in fairness, there was also the logistics behind it all which meant it was unlikely to happen anyway: different companies own different rights to different Marvel properties, which made making them team up difficult at best and outright impossible at worst, and DC had basically only had success with Superman and Batman up until then, both at different enough times to make getting them to team up a very dumb idea). After the success of Iron Man...well, most of you reading this probably know what happened next. We had The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America in the lead up to 2012's Marvel's The Avengers (or Avengers Assemble if you live in the UK and Ireland) as phase 1 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, then Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers: Age of Ultron making up phase 2 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (with Ant-Man in July being the film closing off phase 2).
Now, some of you will have noticed the strong emphasis on Marvel's successes and will be thinking "Wait, what about DC?"
Well...there have been three failed attempts to create a DC Cinematic Universe, the first of which, surprisingly, dates back to 1998 (so yeah, DC technically were the first company trying to make a shared cinematic universe!). In the 90s, a plan was made to bring Superman back to the big screen in a film called Superman Lives and, as part of it, Michael Keaton was going to be brought in as Batman so that an attempt at starting up a shared cinematic universe could be made. The film spent a LONG time going back on forth on stuff before finally being cancelled, which is probably for the better, in all honesty: the plot for it, from what I've seen of it, looks like the film would have been even worse than Batman & Robin!
Also, Nicholas Cage was cast as Superman in this film and Will Smith was approached to be Superman when he dropped out. Let that sentence speak for itself...
Anyway, in the early 2000s, the idea continued on, with J. J. Abrams being hired to write a screenplay for a film named Batman vs. Superman. This film was later cancelled in order for Warner Bros. to focus on doing individual Superman and Batman films, which was definitely the right decision if you think about it, but, having glanced through the plot summery for this film, I have to say that I'm actually disappointed that this film wasn't made, because the plot is actually pretty interesting and makes their return, despite a long period of time when both weren't on the big screen, actually make some degree of sense.
Also, funny side note: one of the people who was approached to be Superman for this film? Christian Bale. Yep: Christian Bale could have been Superman as well as Batman (as he was being considered for the lead role of an adaption of Batman: Year One at the time as well)!
It would take until 2011 for the next attempt to make a shared cinematic universe to happen, and it started in the place that most wouldn't have expected it to, for it wasn't a Batman film or a Superman film that was going to be the starting point of a DC Cinematic Universe, but it was going to be through the success of Green Lantern that the next film, The Flash, would start off a shared cinematic universe. The failure of Green Lantern ended that plan very quickly, but, speaking as someone who found the film decent (not great, but not awful!), I have to say that it actually would have made some sense for Green Lantern to have started off the DC Cinematic Universe had it been successful. While the scale of the film arguably would have made later films feel less grand by comparison, the arrival of Parallax could have been used to explain why many human characters got superpowers, as they could have been involved in trying to create methods on Earth to counter a later attack by beings like Parallax, and would have explained the arrival of alien heroes like Superman and Martian Manhunter to Earth, as they could have come to Earth intending to help protect it from Parallax's attack only to arrive after the conflict had ended. There was potentially a very good idea there that, unfortunately, was never to become reality.
The current attempt at creating a DC Cinematic Universe was through 2013's Man of Steel, which is currently still going ahead. Now, I've still not watched Man of Steel, so I can't comment on the quality of it, but what I've seen of the upcoming plans for the DC Cinematic Universe indicates that DC is making a mad rush to ensure that it can catch up with Marvel, as it's making the next film be a crossover with Superman and Batman (who isn't the same Batman from Nolan's Batman films) and will feature Wonder Woman, Cyborg and Aquaman in the film, none of whom have had any live action appearances in films before now. I will be polite enough to reserve judgement for now, but I'll be honest, I don't see this attempt to start off a DC Cinematic Universe resulting in anything except for a bunch of films ranging from decent to awful in quality, because I can't imagine this having had any major thought behind it beyond "Marvel have their own cinematic universe? Let's make our own cinematic universe!"
Think all of THAT is confusing to keep track of? Well, you've got even more to keep track of, because I've still got the X-Men, Fantastic Four and Spider-Man franchises (it's technically defunct now, but I've got to talk about it to help give context on it all) to talk about and I've not even mentioned the Valiant Cinematic Universe which got announced a few months back, let alone started to talk about other superhero films from other companies and completely original superheroes who never started from comic books...
OK, I think I've actually rambled enough! You may start to notice why I asked that question in the title now: are we now having too many superhero films coming out? Is history doomed to repeat itself and are superhero films going to die off due to overexposure?
Well, it's really tough to say. On the one hand, superhero films never really died in the first place. Sure, Batman & Robin caused such a backlash against superhero films that it took a bit for superhero films to really make a proper comeback, but, considering Men in Black and Blade were technically superhero films, it wouldn't be right to say that superhero films were dead after the release of Batman & Robin. That said, the fact of the matter is that there are A LOT of superhero films coming up in 2016 (2015 is actually pretty quiet: the only two films coming up at the minute that are going to be of much notice to most people are Ant-Man and the Fantastic Four reboot!). At the time of writing, here are the confirmed films from all of the franchises I've mentioned thus far for 2016:
Oh yeah, and, if you're think it's going to be better in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020, then here's the confirmed films for those years as well:
2017
But I thought it was actually a very good idea for a discussion, so...yeah, I'm doing it now!
So, for those of you who have somehow missed this trend, let's give a quick recap of when superhero films started to be a big thing. Superhero films have actually been around since the comic industry has been around, technically, as some of the first superhero films were film serials (basically, short TV programmes). One of the first, Mandrake the Magician, actually came out in 1939, but Batman, Captain America and Superman had their own serials made in 1943, 1944 and 1948, respectively. However, as Sunday serials went into decline on TV and the comic books industry having to respond to accusations of their graphic crime and horror stories encouraging juvenile delinquency (during which prosecutors entered evidence involving a cover having a decapitated head that was claimed to have been published, but, in truth, had actually been edited already to remove some of the elements that had been shown on the version in the court), the idea of comic book films became less popular, with only Adventures of Superman (a TV show that had episodes compiled together for theatrical release) and Batman (which was basically like the first three Pokémon films in that it was basically a feature length episode of the show, with a larger budget to match) making any major impact. There was a Japanese superhero film in 1966 called Ogon Bat based on the 1930s superhero of the same name, but there wasn't really any major superhero stuff of note between 1952 and 1978.
What changed that? Superman.
Well, technically, it was Star Wars that encouraged the return of superhero films, as it was the surge of interest coming from that which encouraged studios to take a chance on superhero films again. However, Superman was the first really high profile superhero movie (despite having gone into production prior to the release of Star Wars: in fact, the film started being filmed about two months before Star Wars came out, only taking so long to be released because it was being filmed alongside Superman II, with the latter only being put on hold when it was about 75% of the way through filming) and certainly laid down the groundwork for what we would recognize as a superhero film today: taking itself as seriously as it could while still recognizing that it's not based on reality and can, as such, bend the rules a bit on what is realistic for the sake of telling an enjoyable story. While one could argue that superhero films have moved beyond what Superman did nowadays, it certainly was the superhero film that proved that superheroes could be big screen stars and later encouraged films to be made like Flash Gordon, Robocop, Swamp Thing, Conan the Barbarian and Supergirl throughout the 80s and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Phantom, Steel, Batman & Robin and Tank Girl throughout the 90s.
While most would point towards Batman & Robin (released in 1997) as the film which originally killed off the superhero genre, the honest truth is that the market was being over-saturated by superhero films and the failure of Batman & Robin happened to be the point when the general public finally had enough of them. That said, it wasn't the end of superhero films at all: in 1997 and 1998, two films were released based on comics by Marvel which would go on to spawn franchises, Men in Black (yep, that's really based on a comic!) and Blade, to say nothing of some lesser known superhero films like Steel, Spawn and Mystery Men (the first two from 1997, the last from 1999). That said, it can certainly be said that Batman & Robin highlighted many of the big problems that had started to form around superhero films at the time: they had become overly camp and impossible to be taken seriously, relying on effects to cover up the quality of the writing of the movies, which had gone NOTICEABLY downhill since the time of Superman.
However, there were really two films that brought the superhero film back to life (if you consider it to have died in the first place): X-Men (from 2000) and Spider-Man (from 2002), although you could argue that M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable (from 2000) also had a hand in reviving the superhero movie and certainly could be regarded as the precursor to the trend started by Batman Begins in some regards (although, if you want to be completely accurate, the first superhero film which deserves the honor of being the first dark, gritty and violent superhero film is actually 1994's The Crow). Probably predictably, the successes of these two (or three, if you're counting Unbreakable as a superhero film) films caused a new boom of superhero films, some of which were good (Hellboy springs to mind) and some of which...weren't (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Catwoman spring to mind). It wasn't really a revival of superhero films per se, but superhero films certainly weren't impossible to track down between the release of X-Men and The Dark Knight (indeed, I remember seeing the first Fantastic Four film in cinemas, which was WAY before I started to be really interested in comic book stuff!).
However, it was probably in 2008 that superhero films had their first major surprise for people in a LONG time (even considering Nolan's Batman films proving that superhero films could be dark and gritty and still be fantastic films which didn't require you to know anything about comics to enjoy them!), for it was in 2008 that Marvel started what would become the Marvel Cinematic Universe with the release of Iron Man. This might not sound like a big deal now, but remember, in 2008, the idea of a shared universe for superhero movies was something that NOBODY had tried before: superheroes were assumed to live in their own planes of existence separate from each other in their own movies and the idea of them teaming up together for films was something reserved only for fanfic writers. Nobody had thought of getting Spider-Man to team up with the Fantastic Four or the X-Men in a film together simply because nobody had any idea whether it would work or not (although, in fairness, there was also the logistics behind it all which meant it was unlikely to happen anyway: different companies own different rights to different Marvel properties, which made making them team up difficult at best and outright impossible at worst, and DC had basically only had success with Superman and Batman up until then, both at different enough times to make getting them to team up a very dumb idea). After the success of Iron Man...well, most of you reading this probably know what happened next. We had The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America in the lead up to 2012's Marvel's The Avengers (or Avengers Assemble if you live in the UK and Ireland) as phase 1 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, then Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers: Age of Ultron making up phase 2 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (with Ant-Man in July being the film closing off phase 2).
Now, some of you will have noticed the strong emphasis on Marvel's successes and will be thinking "Wait, what about DC?"
Well...there have been three failed attempts to create a DC Cinematic Universe, the first of which, surprisingly, dates back to 1998 (so yeah, DC technically were the first company trying to make a shared cinematic universe!). In the 90s, a plan was made to bring Superman back to the big screen in a film called Superman Lives and, as part of it, Michael Keaton was going to be brought in as Batman so that an attempt at starting up a shared cinematic universe could be made. The film spent a LONG time going back on forth on stuff before finally being cancelled, which is probably for the better, in all honesty: the plot for it, from what I've seen of it, looks like the film would have been even worse than Batman & Robin!
Also, Nicholas Cage was cast as Superman in this film and Will Smith was approached to be Superman when he dropped out. Let that sentence speak for itself...
Anyway, in the early 2000s, the idea continued on, with J. J. Abrams being hired to write a screenplay for a film named Batman vs. Superman. This film was later cancelled in order for Warner Bros. to focus on doing individual Superman and Batman films, which was definitely the right decision if you think about it, but, having glanced through the plot summery for this film, I have to say that I'm actually disappointed that this film wasn't made, because the plot is actually pretty interesting and makes their return, despite a long period of time when both weren't on the big screen, actually make some degree of sense.
Also, funny side note: one of the people who was approached to be Superman for this film? Christian Bale. Yep: Christian Bale could have been Superman as well as Batman (as he was being considered for the lead role of an adaption of Batman: Year One at the time as well)!
It would take until 2011 for the next attempt to make a shared cinematic universe to happen, and it started in the place that most wouldn't have expected it to, for it wasn't a Batman film or a Superman film that was going to be the starting point of a DC Cinematic Universe, but it was going to be through the success of Green Lantern that the next film, The Flash, would start off a shared cinematic universe. The failure of Green Lantern ended that plan very quickly, but, speaking as someone who found the film decent (not great, but not awful!), I have to say that it actually would have made some sense for Green Lantern to have started off the DC Cinematic Universe had it been successful. While the scale of the film arguably would have made later films feel less grand by comparison, the arrival of Parallax could have been used to explain why many human characters got superpowers, as they could have been involved in trying to create methods on Earth to counter a later attack by beings like Parallax, and would have explained the arrival of alien heroes like Superman and Martian Manhunter to Earth, as they could have come to Earth intending to help protect it from Parallax's attack only to arrive after the conflict had ended. There was potentially a very good idea there that, unfortunately, was never to become reality.
The current attempt at creating a DC Cinematic Universe was through 2013's Man of Steel, which is currently still going ahead. Now, I've still not watched Man of Steel, so I can't comment on the quality of it, but what I've seen of the upcoming plans for the DC Cinematic Universe indicates that DC is making a mad rush to ensure that it can catch up with Marvel, as it's making the next film be a crossover with Superman and Batman (who isn't the same Batman from Nolan's Batman films) and will feature Wonder Woman, Cyborg and Aquaman in the film, none of whom have had any live action appearances in films before now. I will be polite enough to reserve judgement for now, but I'll be honest, I don't see this attempt to start off a DC Cinematic Universe resulting in anything except for a bunch of films ranging from decent to awful in quality, because I can't imagine this having had any major thought behind it beyond "Marvel have their own cinematic universe? Let's make our own cinematic universe!"
Think all of THAT is confusing to keep track of? Well, you've got even more to keep track of, because I've still got the X-Men, Fantastic Four and Spider-Man franchises (it's technically defunct now, but I've got to talk about it to help give context on it all) to talk about and I've not even mentioned the Valiant Cinematic Universe which got announced a few months back, let alone started to talk about other superhero films from other companies and completely original superheroes who never started from comic books...
OK, I think I've actually rambled enough! You may start to notice why I asked that question in the title now: are we now having too many superhero films coming out? Is history doomed to repeat itself and are superhero films going to die off due to overexposure?
Well, it's really tough to say. On the one hand, superhero films never really died in the first place. Sure, Batman & Robin caused such a backlash against superhero films that it took a bit for superhero films to really make a proper comeback, but, considering Men in Black and Blade were technically superhero films, it wouldn't be right to say that superhero films were dead after the release of Batman & Robin. That said, the fact of the matter is that there are A LOT of superhero films coming up in 2016 (2015 is actually pretty quiet: the only two films coming up at the minute that are going to be of much notice to most people are Ant-Man and the Fantastic Four reboot!). At the time of writing, here are the confirmed films from all of the franchises I've mentioned thus far for 2016:
- Deadpool (February 2016)
- Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice (March 2016)
- America: Civil War (May 2016)
- X-Men: Apocalypse (May 2016)
- Suicide Squad (August 2016)
- Gambit (October 2016)
- The Sinister Six (November 2016)
- Doctor Strange (November 2016)
Oh yeah, and, if you're think it's going to be better in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020, then here's the confirmed films for those years as well:
2017
- Untitled Wolverine film (March 2017)
- Guardians of the Galaxy (May 2017)
- Untitled Spider-Man film (June 2017)
- Wonder Woman (June 2017)
- Fantastic Four sequel (June 2017)
- Thor: Ragnarok (November 2017)
- Justice League Part One (November 2017)
- X-Force (no confirmed date, but likely late 2017)
- Female-led Spider-Man spin-off film (no confirmed date, but likely 2017)
- Venom Carnage (no confirmed date, but likely 2017)
2018
- The Flash (March 2018)
- Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (May 2018)
- Black Panther (July 2018)
- Aquaman (July 2018)
- Captain Marvel (November 2018)
2019
- Shazam (April 2019)
- Avengers: Infinity War Part 2 (May 2019)
- Justice League Part Two (June 2019)
- Inhumans (July 2019)
- Cyborg (April 2020)
- Green Lantern (June 2020)
That sound was your wallet screaming in terror.
The big question that I've not answered, however, lies in the title of this article: do we have too many superhero films now?
As odd as this might sound in light of the last bits of information I've provided, I don't think we do. Sure, we have A LOT of superhero films scheduled to come out and the list is still going to get longer, but, on the other hand, there are a lot of comic book properties out there and, if all of them were to be made for the big screen, it would take many decades, if not centuries, to cover all of them. I'm not even talking of obscure titles here or characters most people don't want to remember, like the New Guardians, Black Cat or the Fixer: we've got comic book characters like Supergirl, the Teen Titans, Nightwing and Martian Manhunter which haven't been given a look into yet, comic book characters like Daredevil, Elektra and Ghost Rider who are in need of a more faithful take on their source material on the big screen, characters like Hellboy and Blade who have been off of the big screen for long enough that a new take on them might be appreciated and characters like Spawn and the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen who...well, just need a film made about them that isn't as awful as their last outings were!
What IS indisputable, though, is that there's far too many of these films coming out over a small period of time and that, with so many of them either being sequels or have interconnected continuities with each other, it isn't entirely unreasonable to say that it's difficult for people new to everything to have to catch up with everything (I got introduced to the Marvel films before Avengers Assemble came out and even I'll admit that I found watching five films in a short period of time a bit daunting, so I can understand how apprehensive some people would be about watching eleven films in a small period of time, especially if you want to watch them all before seeing Ant-Man!) and people who aren't interested in superhero films will have a very valid reason for going "God, is that ANOTHER fucking superhero movie?" when the influx in them ramps up from next year. The over-saturation is a very valid concern, for it looks suspiciously similar to what happened between the late 70s and the late 90s in terms of what happened with the quantity of superhero films coming out (if anything, I'd argue it's worse now!) and, while there is a far greater appreciation for quality than there was back in that period of time, over-saturation of a quality product is still over-saturation, at the end of the day.
That all said, however, I do not think that the general public has completely tired of superhero films just yet and part of me is glad of that fact. It isn't exactly "cool" to be a geek these days (I think most people would still look at trading card games, role play games or tabletop wargames as being territory only for weird losers with no lives of their own...), but now, people are starting to get why geeks like the stuff they do thanks to stuff like Guardians of the Galaxy, The Dark Knight Rises, Big Hero 6, The LEGO Movie, Wreck-It Ralph and The Big Bang Theory being popular and involving stuff that is usually labelled as geeky and, as a result, there's more appreciation for just why these hobbies are so interesting. In a strange way, I almost feel proud to be a geek now, not because I'm now having the last laugh on those who looked down upon me for my hobbies in school, but because it's encouraging to see people finally starting to realise that all of the stories passed down about gamers, comic book fans, otaku and the like being strange people who are best avoided are just that: stories.
...Well, OK, maybe The Big Bang Theory isn't helping as much as it should do on that front, but points for effort, I guess, as it does encourage viewers to look up the stuff being talked about whenever they don't get the references and does show that geeks come in more shades than most works usually show!
I think, at the end of the day, the abundance of superhero movies is a valid concern to those not in the know about comic books, as there's only so many times you can see what looks like a person in a silly costume before it gets tiring to keep seeing it again and again, but, for comic book fans, this turn in the market is a nice change that they will continue to enjoy while it lasts. Do I expect the rivalry between the fans of all of the movie universes to ever die off? Not in the slightest: Marvel and DC, for instance, run on very different plans (even down to the receptions of their heroes by civilians in their respective universes) and those appeal to people for very different reasons. But those reasons don't stop the fact that, at the end of the day, the important thing isn't the rivalries, but it's the films that get made and the quality of them.
Whether DC understands that or not is up for debate, but that isn't important: so long as the films are enjoyable, I have no major issues with superhero films being popular! My wallet might disagree with me on that one, though...
The big question that I've not answered, however, lies in the title of this article: do we have too many superhero films now?
As odd as this might sound in light of the last bits of information I've provided, I don't think we do. Sure, we have A LOT of superhero films scheduled to come out and the list is still going to get longer, but, on the other hand, there are a lot of comic book properties out there and, if all of them were to be made for the big screen, it would take many decades, if not centuries, to cover all of them. I'm not even talking of obscure titles here or characters most people don't want to remember, like the New Guardians, Black Cat or the Fixer: we've got comic book characters like Supergirl, the Teen Titans, Nightwing and Martian Manhunter which haven't been given a look into yet, comic book characters like Daredevil, Elektra and Ghost Rider who are in need of a more faithful take on their source material on the big screen, characters like Hellboy and Blade who have been off of the big screen for long enough that a new take on them might be appreciated and characters like Spawn and the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen who...well, just need a film made about them that isn't as awful as their last outings were!
What IS indisputable, though, is that there's far too many of these films coming out over a small period of time and that, with so many of them either being sequels or have interconnected continuities with each other, it isn't entirely unreasonable to say that it's difficult for people new to everything to have to catch up with everything (I got introduced to the Marvel films before Avengers Assemble came out and even I'll admit that I found watching five films in a short period of time a bit daunting, so I can understand how apprehensive some people would be about watching eleven films in a small period of time, especially if you want to watch them all before seeing Ant-Man!) and people who aren't interested in superhero films will have a very valid reason for going "God, is that ANOTHER fucking superhero movie?" when the influx in them ramps up from next year. The over-saturation is a very valid concern, for it looks suspiciously similar to what happened between the late 70s and the late 90s in terms of what happened with the quantity of superhero films coming out (if anything, I'd argue it's worse now!) and, while there is a far greater appreciation for quality than there was back in that period of time, over-saturation of a quality product is still over-saturation, at the end of the day.
That all said, however, I do not think that the general public has completely tired of superhero films just yet and part of me is glad of that fact. It isn't exactly "cool" to be a geek these days (I think most people would still look at trading card games, role play games or tabletop wargames as being territory only for weird losers with no lives of their own...), but now, people are starting to get why geeks like the stuff they do thanks to stuff like Guardians of the Galaxy, The Dark Knight Rises, Big Hero 6, The LEGO Movie, Wreck-It Ralph and The Big Bang Theory being popular and involving stuff that is usually labelled as geeky and, as a result, there's more appreciation for just why these hobbies are so interesting. In a strange way, I almost feel proud to be a geek now, not because I'm now having the last laugh on those who looked down upon me for my hobbies in school, but because it's encouraging to see people finally starting to realise that all of the stories passed down about gamers, comic book fans, otaku and the like being strange people who are best avoided are just that: stories.
...Well, OK, maybe The Big Bang Theory isn't helping as much as it should do on that front, but points for effort, I guess, as it does encourage viewers to look up the stuff being talked about whenever they don't get the references and does show that geeks come in more shades than most works usually show!
I think, at the end of the day, the abundance of superhero movies is a valid concern to those not in the know about comic books, as there's only so many times you can see what looks like a person in a silly costume before it gets tiring to keep seeing it again and again, but, for comic book fans, this turn in the market is a nice change that they will continue to enjoy while it lasts. Do I expect the rivalry between the fans of all of the movie universes to ever die off? Not in the slightest: Marvel and DC, for instance, run on very different plans (even down to the receptions of their heroes by civilians in their respective universes) and those appeal to people for very different reasons. But those reasons don't stop the fact that, at the end of the day, the important thing isn't the rivalries, but it's the films that get made and the quality of them.
Whether DC understands that or not is up for debate, but that isn't important: so long as the films are enjoyable, I have no major issues with superhero films being popular! My wallet might disagree with me on that one, though...
Sunday 10 May 2015
Video Game Review: Kirby Fighters Deluxe
I'm going to be very honest, I first picked up Kirby Fighters Deluxe because I noticed a sale of Kirby games on the Nintendo eStore involving the first two Kirby's Dream Land and I figured I might as well pick this up as well (since, well, it would cost less than £10 to pick up all three games, which I didn't think was a bad offer!). I didn't know what the game was at all: I just thought "Kirby? AWW, IT'S SO CUTE! YES, PLEASE!" and picked it up right away.
...Yes, I find Kirby adorable. Don't judge me!
Anyway, I did some research and it turned out that Kirby Fighters Deluxe is an enhanced version of one of the modes available on Kirby: Triple Deluxe. Having not played the game the mode is originally from, all I can do is use the internet to check information on it and it turns out that there's a few extra features added to the mode, but there's a stage locked from stage selection and two classes (Beetle and Bell) locked from selection unless you have save data from Kirby: Triple Deluxe on your Nintendo 3DS. Since I don't have that, I can't comment on that content, so this review is of the game is of the base game (so, purchased without being able to access the extra content).
So, with that out of the way, let's get started!
One of the first things to notice about Kirby Fighters Deluxe is that it's basically a Super Smash Bros. clone. I've even played Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS to check how it plays in comparison to that and the controls are very similar to that game. This is likely to be a coincidence on the control scheme front (bear in mind, while Nintendo are a developer of games, they're a HUGE company, so not everyone is going to be working on the same games, and they're also a publisher of games, so there's third party companies releasing games on Nintendo systems which have no members connected to the first party Nintendo games being released), but the fact the game is basically Super Smash Bros. with a focus on Kirby is a minor point of criticism, as it's hardly the most original of games in that aspect.
In fairness, it WAS originally a bonus mode for another game, so I can't be too harsh because it was unlikely to have been the main focus of the game development time, and it's being sold for a fairly cheap price (full price on the Nintendo eStore at the time of writing is £6.29), so it's not like you're going to make a huge loss from purchasing the game. This doesn't, however, negate another criticism I have of the game: you can tell that the assets are basically from Kirby's Return to Dream Land (well, specifically, they're from Kirby: Triple Deluxe, but, if you've even seen gameplay from Kirby's Return to Dream Land, you'll notice the assets are basically the same for that game as they are here), so you get the feeling that the game, while not rushed per se, didn't have the same focus as some of Nintendo's other properties that were being released when this was did. I don't mean that this makes the game bad (the vast majority of first party Nintendo games are at least enjoyable games), just that you would be forgiven for thinking that this game was made more as a stop gap between Kirby games than as a proper Kirby game (which is not helped by the fact that the Kirby game before this one, Kirby's Dream Collection, was a compilation of six of the early Kirby games and the one after this one, Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, was released about a year after Kirby: Triple Deluxe in most countries!).
Whether this recycling of assets is a major problem or not does not, however, impact the fact that the game looks beautiful on the Nintendo 3DS. While you'll probably not notice most of the art direction due to focusing on fighting your opponents, it's certainly a very colorful looking game and it manages to avoid making the large color scheme look garish as well. It's very nicely done, so huge credit to everyone involved in the art direction for the game: you've done a wonderful job here!
Moving to the gameplay itself, you basically have three modes as part of the game: single player, local multiplayer (there's no online multiplayer for this game) and training (which is basically offline multiplayer). I'm not going to cover multiplayer, as I've not been able to play it (the joys of being the only person among your group of friends who regularly has his Nintendo 3DS on him...), but I can comment on the single player and training modes, so I'll do them separately.
In single player, you select which class of Kirby you wish to play as (which also includes alternative costumes, if you beat any of the difficulties with the appropriate class of Kirby for the new costume), select the difficulty of the game (you get a choice between easy, normal, hard and very hard) and go into it. Nothing too complicated here and, even in the base game, you get ten classes available to you (specifically, Sword, Cutter, Beam, Parasol, Hammer, Bomb, Whip, Archer, Fighter and Ninja), with Beetle and Bell available if you have save data from Kirby: Triple Deluxe on your Nintendo 3DS (and have StreetPass on: apparently, it doesn't detect the save data if you have StreetPass off). They all play fairly differently from each other, too, although not enough that you'll not be able to work out the basics of what each class on your first use of them.
The single player is basically a series of nine battles, seven against other classes of Kirby and two sort-of boss battles. For the standard battles, I do think that the difficulty of the Kirby battles seems a bit oddly decided (for example, the first battle is a one-on-one fight, while the second battle is a two-on-one battle, with YOU having the ally) and the fact that the game doesn't set up some of the battles properly is a bit concerning (there's clearly occasions where the game is MEANT to have teams going up against you, but makes the battle a free-for-all instead, which means that the CPU opponents will sometimes deliberately attack each other instead of you), but the overall single player for the game is still enjoyable and you'll probably be able to have a lot of fun with them if you like this style of game. Just be aware that, on higher difficulties, your opponents get ruthless, so I'd suggest you start on the highest difficult ONLY if you're know the controls for the game already. Don't jump into the highest difficulty blind to the actual controls to the game!
The two sort-of boss battle occur in stage 5 and stage 9. For stage 5, you face Kracko (the cloud with an eye, for those who don't know the names of various Kirby characters). I honestly think this boss battle is a bit too easy on lower difficulties, since you have a second Kirby alongside you which makes it possible for you to win the battle without fighting Kracko yourself, but the higher difficulties rectify this by not only making Kracko go through his moves far quicker, but also making him deal more damage to you. Even if you're an expert dodger, you're going to have to contribute to the fight on higher difficulties because the second Kirby will be beaten very quickly if you try to leave the boss fight to them on their own! For stage 9, you fight King Dedede...sort of. See, the boss fight starts out with you fighting waves of mini versions of him that mostly get defeated in one or two hits (which you have to face a larger number of on higher difficulties), then you finish by fighting two smaller versions of him (not the mini ones you fight in waves before that, but still recognizably smaller than him) and King Dedede himself. This last fight gets interesting in that, if you defeat the smaller versions before you defeat Dedede himself, he will grow to twice his size (paging Dr. Freud...) and get a far more powerful set of moves which, on higher difficulties, can be ruthless if you're not prepared to deal with them. I like both boss fights, but I will admit that it feels a bit disappointing that the final fight wasn't purely a one-on-one brawl against King Dedede himself, without the other versions of him being there to make things more difficult.
The training mode is basically an opportunity for you to play Kirby's multiplayer offline against the CPU. You can play against up to three opponents, with you selecting their difficulty and their class. You then can chose stuff like handicaps that you want to have in place. It's only once you do that that you have the option to decide teams, which I feel is a very poorly thought out method of making the option of teams available: I actually spent a good amount of time the first time I tried to set up a team game trying to find the option for multiplayer because I thought it was going to be on the main menu like with most games. You do have the option, however, of putting all three opponents on a team against you, which isn't done in the single player! You then select the stage you want to fight upon (one of which isn't available without access to saved data from Kirby: Triple Deluxe) and then battle. Aside from the layout for multiplayer team battles being a bit awkward to get used to, it's fairly good fun and certainly a good opportunity to practice if you want to play against friends!
The music and sound for the game is something I've not commented upon. Honestly, this is because I usually play the game with the volume off, but what I heard whenever I had the volume on was very good! I will admit to getting a bit nostalgic when I heard the music from the first stage in the single player matches, as it's a remix of the music from the first stage of Kirby's Dream Land, and the victory music whenever you win a match never failed to bring a smile to my face due to it being a remix of the victory music that's been ever present in the Kirby games.
The classes are all pretty well balanced against each other. I personally favored Sword and Hammer for my classes whenever I played and preferred to avoid Bomb, but, for the most part, I found every class to be very well balanced and enjoyable to use. A few classes could have been slightly better balanced (I think Hammer's attacks in general are a bit TOO powerful and I found Bomb a bit underpowered due to how difficult it is to make attacks actually hit your opponent short of placing the actual bomb on top of them), but all of the classes have their strengths and weaknesses which make playing them all fairly interesting!
What do I think the game could do better? Well, the only game mode that you have in terms of multiplayer options are stamina battles, where you have a life bar and, when that runs out, you are defeated. While you do have the ability to return as a ghost if defeated and, if you deal damage as a ghost while there's an opponent on the battlefield you can damage, you revive with some health, that's the only method of playing the game, which means that the game will get fairly repetitive very quickly due to the lack of options to customize games.
I also find the locking off of content purely to those who have access to Kirby: Triple Deluxe to be a somewhat aggravating decision, because it's basically locking off content that should be available to people from the start and also is a method of encouraging people who already have Kirby: Triple Deluxe to have to spend more money on what is basically part of a game they already own. While spending an extra £6.29 isn't too bad if you own Kirby: Triple Deluxe, the game still sells for £34.99 on the Nintendo eStore, which is a bit much if you're only buying it to get access to the two locked classes and the locked stage! I think a sensible idea would be to either make the two classes and stage available to those who own Kirby Fighters Deluxe on its own or, if Nintendo does want to stick with the locked content option, allow for a discount on the game to those who already own Kirby Fighters Deluxe and/or Dedede's Drum Dash Deluxe (which is another game that is a side game in Kirby: Triple Deluxe, but is not one that I've played).
Ultimately, if you and a bunch of friends meet up regularly for gaming and you all can't afford Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS to play against each other, this is a pretty respectable substitute for it if you're fans of Kirby and it's certainly a game that is fun enough to be worth a play on its own. It is flawed in that the lack of variety means it will wear thin fairly quickly and most people will probably be frustrated by the locked off content, but it's certainly a decent time killer!
...Yes, I find Kirby adorable. Don't judge me!
Anyway, I did some research and it turned out that Kirby Fighters Deluxe is an enhanced version of one of the modes available on Kirby: Triple Deluxe. Having not played the game the mode is originally from, all I can do is use the internet to check information on it and it turns out that there's a few extra features added to the mode, but there's a stage locked from stage selection and two classes (Beetle and Bell) locked from selection unless you have save data from Kirby: Triple Deluxe on your Nintendo 3DS. Since I don't have that, I can't comment on that content, so this review is of the game is of the base game (so, purchased without being able to access the extra content).
So, with that out of the way, let's get started!
One of the first things to notice about Kirby Fighters Deluxe is that it's basically a Super Smash Bros. clone. I've even played Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS to check how it plays in comparison to that and the controls are very similar to that game. This is likely to be a coincidence on the control scheme front (bear in mind, while Nintendo are a developer of games, they're a HUGE company, so not everyone is going to be working on the same games, and they're also a publisher of games, so there's third party companies releasing games on Nintendo systems which have no members connected to the first party Nintendo games being released), but the fact the game is basically Super Smash Bros. with a focus on Kirby is a minor point of criticism, as it's hardly the most original of games in that aspect.
In fairness, it WAS originally a bonus mode for another game, so I can't be too harsh because it was unlikely to have been the main focus of the game development time, and it's being sold for a fairly cheap price (full price on the Nintendo eStore at the time of writing is £6.29), so it's not like you're going to make a huge loss from purchasing the game. This doesn't, however, negate another criticism I have of the game: you can tell that the assets are basically from Kirby's Return to Dream Land (well, specifically, they're from Kirby: Triple Deluxe, but, if you've even seen gameplay from Kirby's Return to Dream Land, you'll notice the assets are basically the same for that game as they are here), so you get the feeling that the game, while not rushed per se, didn't have the same focus as some of Nintendo's other properties that were being released when this was did. I don't mean that this makes the game bad (the vast majority of first party Nintendo games are at least enjoyable games), just that you would be forgiven for thinking that this game was made more as a stop gap between Kirby games than as a proper Kirby game (which is not helped by the fact that the Kirby game before this one, Kirby's Dream Collection, was a compilation of six of the early Kirby games and the one after this one, Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, was released about a year after Kirby: Triple Deluxe in most countries!).
Whether this recycling of assets is a major problem or not does not, however, impact the fact that the game looks beautiful on the Nintendo 3DS. While you'll probably not notice most of the art direction due to focusing on fighting your opponents, it's certainly a very colorful looking game and it manages to avoid making the large color scheme look garish as well. It's very nicely done, so huge credit to everyone involved in the art direction for the game: you've done a wonderful job here!
Moving to the gameplay itself, you basically have three modes as part of the game: single player, local multiplayer (there's no online multiplayer for this game) and training (which is basically offline multiplayer). I'm not going to cover multiplayer, as I've not been able to play it (the joys of being the only person among your group of friends who regularly has his Nintendo 3DS on him...), but I can comment on the single player and training modes, so I'll do them separately.
In single player, you select which class of Kirby you wish to play as (which also includes alternative costumes, if you beat any of the difficulties with the appropriate class of Kirby for the new costume), select the difficulty of the game (you get a choice between easy, normal, hard and very hard) and go into it. Nothing too complicated here and, even in the base game, you get ten classes available to you (specifically, Sword, Cutter, Beam, Parasol, Hammer, Bomb, Whip, Archer, Fighter and Ninja), with Beetle and Bell available if you have save data from Kirby: Triple Deluxe on your Nintendo 3DS (and have StreetPass on: apparently, it doesn't detect the save data if you have StreetPass off). They all play fairly differently from each other, too, although not enough that you'll not be able to work out the basics of what each class on your first use of them.
The single player is basically a series of nine battles, seven against other classes of Kirby and two sort-of boss battles. For the standard battles, I do think that the difficulty of the Kirby battles seems a bit oddly decided (for example, the first battle is a one-on-one fight, while the second battle is a two-on-one battle, with YOU having the ally) and the fact that the game doesn't set up some of the battles properly is a bit concerning (there's clearly occasions where the game is MEANT to have teams going up against you, but makes the battle a free-for-all instead, which means that the CPU opponents will sometimes deliberately attack each other instead of you), but the overall single player for the game is still enjoyable and you'll probably be able to have a lot of fun with them if you like this style of game. Just be aware that, on higher difficulties, your opponents get ruthless, so I'd suggest you start on the highest difficult ONLY if you're know the controls for the game already. Don't jump into the highest difficulty blind to the actual controls to the game!
The two sort-of boss battle occur in stage 5 and stage 9. For stage 5, you face Kracko (the cloud with an eye, for those who don't know the names of various Kirby characters). I honestly think this boss battle is a bit too easy on lower difficulties, since you have a second Kirby alongside you which makes it possible for you to win the battle without fighting Kracko yourself, but the higher difficulties rectify this by not only making Kracko go through his moves far quicker, but also making him deal more damage to you. Even if you're an expert dodger, you're going to have to contribute to the fight on higher difficulties because the second Kirby will be beaten very quickly if you try to leave the boss fight to them on their own! For stage 9, you fight King Dedede...sort of. See, the boss fight starts out with you fighting waves of mini versions of him that mostly get defeated in one or two hits (which you have to face a larger number of on higher difficulties), then you finish by fighting two smaller versions of him (not the mini ones you fight in waves before that, but still recognizably smaller than him) and King Dedede himself. This last fight gets interesting in that, if you defeat the smaller versions before you defeat Dedede himself, he will grow to twice his size (paging Dr. Freud...) and get a far more powerful set of moves which, on higher difficulties, can be ruthless if you're not prepared to deal with them. I like both boss fights, but I will admit that it feels a bit disappointing that the final fight wasn't purely a one-on-one brawl against King Dedede himself, without the other versions of him being there to make things more difficult.
The training mode is basically an opportunity for you to play Kirby's multiplayer offline against the CPU. You can play against up to three opponents, with you selecting their difficulty and their class. You then can chose stuff like handicaps that you want to have in place. It's only once you do that that you have the option to decide teams, which I feel is a very poorly thought out method of making the option of teams available: I actually spent a good amount of time the first time I tried to set up a team game trying to find the option for multiplayer because I thought it was going to be on the main menu like with most games. You do have the option, however, of putting all three opponents on a team against you, which isn't done in the single player! You then select the stage you want to fight upon (one of which isn't available without access to saved data from Kirby: Triple Deluxe) and then battle. Aside from the layout for multiplayer team battles being a bit awkward to get used to, it's fairly good fun and certainly a good opportunity to practice if you want to play against friends!
The music and sound for the game is something I've not commented upon. Honestly, this is because I usually play the game with the volume off, but what I heard whenever I had the volume on was very good! I will admit to getting a bit nostalgic when I heard the music from the first stage in the single player matches, as it's a remix of the music from the first stage of Kirby's Dream Land, and the victory music whenever you win a match never failed to bring a smile to my face due to it being a remix of the victory music that's been ever present in the Kirby games.
The classes are all pretty well balanced against each other. I personally favored Sword and Hammer for my classes whenever I played and preferred to avoid Bomb, but, for the most part, I found every class to be very well balanced and enjoyable to use. A few classes could have been slightly better balanced (I think Hammer's attacks in general are a bit TOO powerful and I found Bomb a bit underpowered due to how difficult it is to make attacks actually hit your opponent short of placing the actual bomb on top of them), but all of the classes have their strengths and weaknesses which make playing them all fairly interesting!
What do I think the game could do better? Well, the only game mode that you have in terms of multiplayer options are stamina battles, where you have a life bar and, when that runs out, you are defeated. While you do have the ability to return as a ghost if defeated and, if you deal damage as a ghost while there's an opponent on the battlefield you can damage, you revive with some health, that's the only method of playing the game, which means that the game will get fairly repetitive very quickly due to the lack of options to customize games.
I also find the locking off of content purely to those who have access to Kirby: Triple Deluxe to be a somewhat aggravating decision, because it's basically locking off content that should be available to people from the start and also is a method of encouraging people who already have Kirby: Triple Deluxe to have to spend more money on what is basically part of a game they already own. While spending an extra £6.29 isn't too bad if you own Kirby: Triple Deluxe, the game still sells for £34.99 on the Nintendo eStore, which is a bit much if you're only buying it to get access to the two locked classes and the locked stage! I think a sensible idea would be to either make the two classes and stage available to those who own Kirby Fighters Deluxe on its own or, if Nintendo does want to stick with the locked content option, allow for a discount on the game to those who already own Kirby Fighters Deluxe and/or Dedede's Drum Dash Deluxe (which is another game that is a side game in Kirby: Triple Deluxe, but is not one that I've played).
Ultimately, if you and a bunch of friends meet up regularly for gaming and you all can't afford Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS to play against each other, this is a pretty respectable substitute for it if you're fans of Kirby and it's certainly a game that is fun enough to be worth a play on its own. It is flawed in that the lack of variety means it will wear thin fairly quickly and most people will probably be frustrated by the locked off content, but it's certainly a decent time killer!
Friday 8 May 2015
Musings & Other Ramblings: Why Aren't The Squats Back In 40k?
Wow, it feels odd to be able to write without having to check word counts now...
Anyway, this is a topic which is going to get VERY geeky very quickly, so I'm going to state this now: if you're not at all familiar with Warhammer 40,000, go look it up now. Don't worry, this article isn't going to go anywhere while you're away!
...No, seriously, this is a rare case where I'm saying this and am not trying to be funny: if I was to explain every little detail behind the game before moving on to giving my opinion on the topic at hand, you'd probably have an article longer than the complete works of Shakespeare (and about as interesting as a book on the various shades of paints as they dry, I imagine...).
So, for the benefit of those who have never heard of Warhammer 40,00 (since most of you probably ignored my advice!), here's a quick summing up of the background for you. Basically, it's the 41st millennium and mankind is on the edge of extinction, fighting an endless war against a variety of enemies ranging from the demonic, the traitorous, the alien and, occasionally, itself due to minor administrative errors and misunderstandings. Though mankind has conquered the vast majority of the Milky Way and formed the Imperium of Man as a result, it is losing thousands, if not millions, of men every day in the wars it fights to ensure its own survival from the enemies trying to annihilate it. Whether it be fighting the might of the Ork WAAAAAAGH! on Armageddon, the terrifying forces of Chaos of the 13th Black Crusade on Cadia, the approaching Tyranid swarm around the whole galaxy, the waking Necrons around the whole galaxy, the emergent Tau Empire, the sadistic Dark Eldar striking from within the darkest corners of the Webway or the survivors of the Eldar empire, mankind is fighting a desperate battle to survive, with the only reason it has even survived to the 41st millennium being the fact that it has vast armies of its own and the fact that their enemies often are attacking each other as much as they're attacking mankind.
Or, to put it another way, mankind is being fucked so hard that I don't think there's enough lube in the world to make it any less painful.
That said, if you're looking at that and going "That's awful! I want to root for mankind!"...well, mankind in the 41st millennium is basically what North Korea would be if it was as efficient as the Russian military. Xenophobic religious fanatics would be probably an understatement to sum up humanity in the 41st millennium.
Yeah, this is the kind of game where calling any side "good" is more a case of "which side is the least evil" than anything else!
Now, the Squats are one of the races that have a very odd history in the 40k history. At the time of writing (the game's 7th edition), the Squats are officially regarded as non-canon, alongside a few other older races that got dropped for VERY valid reasons (I remember faintly reading about one race which involved raping victims it found from the setting's early days...). However, they were one of the first races of the game (granted, under the name Space Dwarfs) and even made it to the game's 2nd edition. However, they were dropped from the game between then and 4th edition (which is when I first got into the game myself) and, since then, they've basically been removed from canon entirely: any older codex which mentioned them got editing to remove them from the game and the Squats are no longer officially sold by Games Workshop. The reason they were removed is because the designers of the game realized that they'd horribly failed to represent the race correctly in the game, making them a huge joke instead of a serious force like they'd originally intended, they couldn't think of any way to solve the problem and they had no desire to keep the race in canon any longer as a result.
Despite this, the Squats do have their own fanbase which is still very vocal in demanding the return of the Squats. Interestingly enough, there WAS a plan to try to reintroduce the Squats (albeit as a serious race) as the Demiurg, but that fell through due to them basically losing out on being a good race in their own right and not just being the return of the Squats.
Here's where we leave the discussion part of this and where we have to speculate on stuff. For a minute, let us pretend we're working at Games Workshop at the moment and we wanted to reintroduce the Squats. How would we do it?
Well, for a start, we would have to look at the background for the Squats to get an idea of what to look at to start off the development process. Already, a problem can be spotted: the Squats were written back when Warhammer 40,000 was more a black comedy than the ultra grim setting it is today, which means they clash NOTICEABLY with the background of the current edition of the game. This creates a problem: do we continue with the Squats as is (so, silliness still included, regardless of whether it fits in with the setting now or not) or do we try to rework the Squats from the ground up again to try to make them a serious race?
Well...both options are fraught with difficulty. Let's say we go with option A: how do we get the Squats to fit in with the setting while still being faithful to the old lore? That requires being able to make the comedy fit in with the setting, which is just not going to work due to the setting's very grim nature now. So option A is a no go. So option B is the only option, right?
On paper, yes. However, here's where we have to remember that most people who know the Squats know them for their ridiculousness and silliness, not their seriousness. To try to reintroduce the Squats as a serious race WILL anger a lot of people and result in a lot of older fans complaining bitterly about it. So option B, while more likely to succeed, is a no go as well.
Obviously, this puts us in a lose-lose situation, so that probably is where the idea dies. For the sake of this hypothetical situation, let's assume we do manage to find a solution to the background problem (maybe a middle ground between the two options?) and we get them into development. Again, this leads to a problem: what is the actual plan to reintroduce the army? Do we want them to have their own codex or do we want to make them like the Ratlings and Ogryns and just reintroduce them as a squad or two in another codex?
Both options have their advantages and drawbacks. The former makes a grand statement: the Squats are back, no questions asked! But it has to be good from the word "go": if it's not, then it just going to end up resulting in complaints from everyone. The old folks who remember them from the first time around and want them back, the people who have just heard about them thanks to the new codex...everyone. And a codex, while not impossible to get right (you just have to look at the recently released Skitarii codex to know that doing a completely new codex right is very possible!), is a very big project and, if it's got even slightly shaky starting ground, it's going to be off to a rough start. You've got to come up with all of the units (which isn't TOO difficult in this case: most of the old units probably can be brought over to a new codex and adding newer units isn't too tough once you know what is missing from the army to make it feel like a proper army), you've got to playtest them so you can be sure profiles and points values are right and you've got to be sure they add up to an army that people want to actually play as, so it's a big project just on the development side of things and, if you're on rocky ground to start with, then you're going to be dedicating a lot of time and effort to something that could very well end up not being released because it turns out to be awful!
The second option, then, looks more sensible, right? Well, yes, I'd say there's very little opportunity for things to go badly wrong there on paper...but then you have to consider just what codex to put them in and what unit of the Squats to bring in. The first question is actually not too difficult, as there's only really one codex which could fit them in comfortably: the Imperial Guard (now titled Astra Militarum, but I'm sticking with the title I grew up knowing for this article). However, it is the second question where things get a bit tricky: just about every unit that the Squats can offer to the Imperial Guard codex already has an appropriate counterpart and there's very little they can add to the Imperial Guard army as a result. The Ogryns add muscle to the Imperial Guard and pack a punch while the Ratlings add very accurate sniper fire and are hard to kill (via return fire, at least), so they add a fair bit to the Imperial Guard army, but there's nothing the Squats can really add beyond MAYBE motorbikes (which haven't been part of the Imperial Guard for a while). And, let's be honest, most people are not going to take a squad of Dwarf bike riders in their army because it's not a unit most will have any need for in their army: infantry armies need as much firepower as they can get, so players will fill up on large numbers of squads to ensure they have access to as many lasguns as they can get, while tank armies will want to minimize the potential dangers of friendly fire by not taking bikes and, instead, taking more tanks. A nice option it may be, but it has all the practicality of a chocolate fireguard in the middle of the Sahara.
So, again, lose-lose situation. But I'm a persistent fellow, so I'll assume that a solution is provided to that one. The final challenge is how to market the new Squat units: do you rely on their old legacy and hype them to hell and back as a result or downplay it to prevent those not in the know about them already from having to learn more about them? Both have their own appeals and dangers and both, if done poorly, could sink all of the hard work done up until that point. Lets say we go with the former option. Almost immediately, that locks those who aren't familiar with the Squats out of the interest pool, which means you're only appealing to the people who remember them from the first time around. Since that's not going to be a large number of hobbyists, that means the Squats is unlikely to earn enough to make the effort worth it. HOWEVER, it shows that you're confident in them, which reassures the old guard that you've done justice to the Squats, and, if you turn out to have done just that (which isn't guaranteed, but lets be optimistic and say you have), you've got a lot of old hobbyists really happy!
By contrast, lets say we go for the latter option. Almost immediately, it looks like you have no confidence in the new Squats, which looks like a huge warning sign to the old guard that you're trying to hide that you've goofed up. You also run the risk that you still lock out the younger hobbyists because you'll still have to talk about what the Squats are to explain why the old guard are getting angry. HOWEVER, if you do them right (which, again, isn't guaranteed, but lets be optimistic again), you're got something that the old guard will like and the newer hobbyists will like, you will earn enough to making back the costs of the development time and you'll have an interesting new addition to the current 40k galaxy.
Of course, both of those rely on you having got through the last two stages in a way which is going to be liked by everyone, of course! The Internet being what it is, you don't have to look far to find people stating their dislike of highly beloved stuff or like of highly loathed stuff, so you're going to hear from people saying you've screwed up the Squats no matter what you do. However, if you don't do the Squats right...well, you're going to want to set your firewalls to maximum for a bit!
So, that's why I think the Squats aren't likely to be coming back. Ultimately, the premise of dwarfs in space is one that is difficult to do in the current 40k galaxy, so bringing the Squats back would be very difficult, if not nigh on impossible. Does that mean bringing the Squats back is never going to happen? Well...it sounds like it at the minute, but I think most people thought hell would freeze over before Black Sabbath put out an album with Ozzy Osbourne after the band's original era ended and that happened (and I found the final album a bit disappointing, personally, but that's another discussion for another time!), so I'm not going to say it's never going to happen while there is still a way for it to happen.
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