In Pursuit of Magical MacGuffins: A small list of complaints about 'Trine'

I really wanted to like this game. Seriously I did. Whoops, I should probably mention what game I'm referring to before launching into a discussion on it. The game in question is I really wanted to like this game. Seriously I did. Whoops, I should probably mention what game I'm referring to before launching into a discussion on it. The game in question is 'Trine', a digitally distributed puzzle/platforming/action adventure game available on Playstation Network (PSN), X-Box Live Arcade (XBLA) and Steam (and probably a few other PC distribution platforms). Note that we're not discussing the more recently released 'Trine 2' as I haven't gotten around to that one yet. Yes, in spite of the upcoming slew of petty complaints about 'Trine' I'm probably still going to give 'Trine 2' a go at some point.

So for a game that bills itself as a puzzle/platformer* 'Trine' only really manages the puzzle part particularly well. Ah, let's back up a bit. The premise of the game is that a rogue, wizard and warrior all simultaneously touched a magical MacGuffin that bound them together. The player progresses by switching off between the different characters as the situation dictates. The wizard can conjure up various objects (boxes, bridges, etc.), the rogue can use a grappling hook and shoot arrows and the warrior has a shield and a sword. So the reason that I say that puzzle part works well is that the wizards object conjuring mechanic works. That's pretty much it. A very simple mechanic with a lot of creative applications. The reason that the platforming part doesn't work so well is that the rogue's grappling hook is a finicky load of garbage that is incredibly picky about what surfaces it will latch onto (it only hooks onto 'wooden' surfaces but the range at which it will do so seems almost completely random). The grappling hook also has this annoying habit of not retracting quickly enough or at all so what was intended to be a graceful Tarzan imitation over a pit of spikes ends up dragging your sorry ass over every last sharp object on the screen. Also the jumping for the characters feels incredibly floaty if that makes sense with characters frequently overshooting the target ledge. You might say, well get better at platforming. To which I would reply when jumping from one narrow ledge to another there isn't really anything to get better at.

The second problem that I ran into in the game was one of leveling up and progression. Namely that I had no idea whether or not I was doing well for myself. You collect XP in the form of objects and drops from enemies but as I progressed I noticed that a lot of the collectable XP was very much out of reach to the various shape toys that my wizard had at his disposal making me wonder if there was stuff that I had missed on previous levels. In short I would have liked a little more of an indication from the game about my level of progress.

When outlining this article I had several subject headings that I wanted to talk about with the last of them being 'Combat' to which my statement would be: “It's repetitive”. Sort of going back to the XP idea for a second, combat getting more difficult is usually sign that the player has under-leveled their character(s) in a given game and that they should level their character(s) or buy new equipment. Well in 'Trine' all I ran into during my playtime was various flavors of skeletons who as long as I didn't attempt to attack them with my face posed exactly zero threat. About the only challenge with the combat was when the bow wielding skeletons had the high ground. This only being a challenge because the rogue's bow was, like her grappling hook, utter garbage. Hard to aim, slow to fire and not particularly damaging. Fantastic.

And here's me being nice to the game in closing. It looks really nice. It is easily among the prettiest indie games I ever played. A very richly colored world with, aside from it's enemies, a well thought out aesthetic. There are a few games that stylistically come close to 'Trine' in 'Outland', 'Bastion' and 'Limbo' some of which I may even talk about some other time. Anyhow see you all next week.

*For those who are confused about this designation shame on you. This genre is basically the sidescrolling style of a old style Super Mario game combined with puzzles in need of solving in order to progress.

The time has come to talk of many things: of tiers and games and of communities

So originally I was planning on talking this week about 'BlazBlue' having been cut from the Evolution 2012 (largest fighting game tournament in the world) lineup after having been a reasonably successful entrant into the Evolution 2011 lineup. However after reading the takes of several others on this issue I realized that I was coming at the topic from a slightly incorrect perspective and with (apparently) incomplete information. That said I'd still like to weigh in a bit on the topic of what other authors covered along with why I think 'BlazBlue' has generally been among the less successful fighting games (success is relative). But first I'd like to discuss tier lists.

So while I'd like to jump right in with a discussion of tier lists it first helps to understand the idea of a matchup. The idea in fighting games behind a matchup is which character, assuming two fictitious players of high and perfectly equal skill, wins more often between two specific characters. This is usually represented as 5-5 (an even matchup), 6-4 (a matchup that decently favors the first character), etc. Before going any further it is worth noting that almost every matchup and/or tier list is subjective, i.e. people compiling their views on a character's relative strengths and weaknesses, strong matchups and weak matchups. So once you have all the matchup information it becomes relatively simple to compile a tier list. Let's create a couple of faux examples:

Character:	A	B	C	D	E
A		6	6	6	6
B	4		6	6	6
C	4	4		6	6
D	4	4	4
E	4	4	4	4

So in this hypothetical tier structure it's pretty clear to see why 'A' is the top character as they have favorable matchups with every other character. Similarly 'B' is the second best character as they enjoy favorable matchups with every character except 'A'. That said most games don't work out this way. Let's look at a list with a little more variety:

Char.:	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	Total:
A		5	5	5	6	7	8	9	45
B	5		6	6	6	6	6	6	41
C	5	4		5	6	6	6	6	38
D	5	4	5		5	6	6	6	37
E	4	4	4	5		6	6	6	35
F	3	4	4	4	4		6	6	31
G	2	4	4	4	4	4		6	28
H	1	4	4	4	4	4	4		25

OK, so maybe this tier list isn't that much more representative of an actual game than the first one (too few characters for starters) but it is useful to illustrate a different way to tier characters. In this list 'A' is the top character in the game despite having fewer favorable matchups than 'B'. In this case 'A' is on top because in the mathups that they do win they absolutely steamroll most of them*. It is worth pointing out that many tier lists will include fractional numbers in their matchups in an effort to get a more realistic appraisal of the matchup (i.e. 5.5-4.5 would be a slightly favorable matchup for the first character).

So at this point, assuming that you haven't dozed off, you may be wondering why I chose to bring up all this talk of tier lists in an article that started off talking about 'BlazBlue'. Well...actually before I get to that I'd like to address one of the main issues that another author brought up with regards to why 'BlazBlue' got axed from the Evo linup namely the lack of community support. Hell, let's consider this me calling out the 'BlazBlue' community. This is a community that for a variety of reasons seems perfectly content to let the game die as far as offline play goes as long as they can keep being kings of online play. There's a guy in my area who has offered up his own money as prize money at free to enter tournaments in order to get more people out of their houses to play 'Blazblue'. Number of entrants? Well the most that I've seen show up for one of these events was 16. That's fewer than twenty people who can be assed to leave their houses at the prospect of winning free money and I live in a state that if forum registration information is to be believed has a fairly large playerbase for this game. That's sad.

So bringing this semi-back to the tier discussion one of my thoughts on this was that the reason that 'BlazBlue' doesn't enjoy broader support is that it made a terrible first impression. In hindsight while 'BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger' (BB:CT)was a fun as hell game it was also a broken piece of junk. The final tier list for that game (which I can no longer seem to find) would make my second example look fair and balanced. It was a game that managed to have some terribly lopsided matchups with a roster of only twelve characters. That's actually a pretty impressive level of failure as I can think of games that have upwards of three times as many characters** with none of the lopsided matchups found in 'BB:CT'. So when people first played the game they where treated to a game with, if all one cared about was winning, 3-4 viable characters and that's it. With that level of imbalance it is unsurprising to me that many of the “pros” who had played 'Guilty Gear' (an older and much beloved title also by Arc System Works) where fairly quick to dismiss the game. It is also equally unsurprising that none of those “pros” have really given any subsequent versions of the game a shot. Sure the later versions of the game have fixed many/most of the issues that plagued that first one but it seems like it's too little too late. You only get one chance to make a first impression and you could say that 'BB:CT' blew it. See you all next week.

*Most fighting game tier aficionados start considering matchups becoming towards the realistically unwinnable end of the spectrum at around 7-3 and up.

**This may not sound like a big deal on the surface but if you think about it it really is. Each new character added to a system adds an amount of new matchups to the equation equal to the number of characters already there, i.e. if your game's roster has twelve character and you add two new characters then you've added 25 new pieces of matchup information to your tiers. In theory the more characters in a game the more difficult it is to maintain balance. Also while true balance should never be the goal having the characters clustered around a similar power level usually leads to a more enjoyable game in my experience.

It's time for another good idea, bad idea...

So I've recently been revisiting some of the television programming of my childhood with one of the selections being 'Animaniacs' (look it up; watch it). One of the segments in that show was 'It's time for another good idea, bad idea' in which the good idea was in fact a good idea and the bad idea was farcical and idiotic. An example being:

Good Idea: Having breakfast served to you in bed.

Bad Idea: Having tennis balls served to you in bed.

Obviously option #1 results in (hopefully) tasty food and the latter (likely) results in a hospital visit. So today I thought we'd look at a couple of examples from recent or soon to be released games that more or less embody the spirit of being bombarded with tennis balls instead of getting breakfast.

Good idea: Releasing a handheld port of a game.

This is usually a pretty good idea as it allows for people to take your game anywhere and it exposes your game to a different market. This is pretty simple. Unless it's done in a completely half-assed manner (see also: many console to PC ports) having a game available on multiple platforms is a good thing.

Bad idea: Releasing a handheld port of a game that has more features than the console version.

This isn't necessarily a bad idea so much as it is a dick move as it really does nothing other than piss off customers who bought the (usually) initial console release of the game. The recent offender here is the PSP Vita port of 'Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3'. It has a replay mode while the console version does not. It's also worth noting that almost every fighting game released this console generation has a replay feature of some sort. It also has a hit box viewer. While you may have no idea what that latter feature is referring to let's leave it at it being a feature that is tactically very useful to have in a fighting games training mode and that it's also a feature that Japanese developers seem absolutely loathe to include in their products. Urge to kill rising...and moving on.

Good idea: Releasing a handheld port of a game.

We've already covered why this is a good idea and that hasn't changed in the two paragraphs since it was last mentioned.

Bad idea: Delaying the console release of the game such that it releases concurrently with the handheld version.

This is a bad idea as it both pisses off customers and kills interest in your game. Here the offender is surprisingly not 'UMvC3' or even a Capcom product but rather 'BlazBlue: Continuum Shift EXTEND' (BB:CSE) by Arc Systems Works. Now I used to be really big into this series but it's publishing schedule has of late left much to be desired. I'm fine going without a new version of a game, updated version of a game or whatever for decent periods of time. What I'm not OK with is largely arbitrary delays in releasing the game for different regions of the world (Europeans you have my sympathy as you have it way worse than Americans). In this case the console version of 'BB:CSE' which was released in Japan/Asia in mid-December won't see a US release until February 14^th. Why the delay? Well there is some time to localize content (translating stuff from Japanese to English). That is unless one is a clever clog and does that sort of thing concurrently with the rest of development in which case there's really no excuse for a multiple month delay to release the game in different regions. The rationale here is that the PSP Vita isn't being released in the US until mid-February and the 'BB:CSE' people thought that for some reason a dual console and handheld release would be a good idea. Why? Beats me. As in I have no clue why you'd actively try to screw over your console market in order to release the game at the same time on a platform that is likely going to bomb*. It really makes one wonder what some people are thinking. Anyhow, see you all next week.

*I truly think that the PSP Vita is going to tank in the US for the following reasons:

1. It's price point is ridiculous ($250-300 depending on which version you get, i.e. more than every console).
2. It uses exclusive memory cards with an even more ridiculous price point than the handheld itself. Seriously, these things are more expensive on a per GB basis than any other storage that I'm aware of.
3. It doesn't have Pokemon games, i.e. it isn't a Nintendo Gameboy variant.

Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Arrrgh

OK, so far we've been relatively nice to 'Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3'. Unfortunately that's going to change. Sadly this was avoidable as a few changes that didn't need to happen happened and a few changes that needed to happen didn't. There are probably going to be a few items on this topic but for today we're going to limit ourselves to rehashing the song and dance crap that goes on after a match online and the new (horrible) character select screen.

So the few long time readers (hahaha) of this blog an article I published a few months ago complaining about the stuff that goes on after every single ranked match. Namely:

1. A (pointless) cut scene of the winning character;
2. The game goes to a Winner/Loser screen and saves;
3. A wholly uninformative (and useless) player card;
4. “Updating player data”, whatever the hell that entails;
5. “Player Points acquired”, w00t, oh wait these points are worthless;
6. Saving...again;

So after all that tedium it is my pleasure to report that absolutely nothing has changed with regards to this. Actually one thing might have changed though this might just be my frustration with this whole process exaggerating things but it feels like the “Updating Player Data” phase might be taking slighting longer in 'Ultimate' than it did in vanilla 'MvC3'. The best part? You can't skip any of this. You can't disable any of it in menus (i.e. if you're like me and couldn't care less about player points). You can't speed this process up at all. The funny thing? All of this is minimized (i.e. skippable) or nonexistent with offline play. Thanks Capcom. A+ job on listening to peoples issues with your product and correcting them.

Now we get to change for changes sake with the character select screen. For reference here's the previous version:

It's compact, it's efficient and if you ignore the crappy music it's perfectly fine.

And here's the new one:

Larger, uglier character portraits and it retains the crappy music.

Blech. It's not so much that the new select screen is worse (which it is) but rather that it's another one of those situations (the new already discussed HUD being another example) where one really questions Capcoms priorities and resource allocation, i.e. why fix what ain't broke when there's still stuff that is broke? A good question to ask and one that I'm left wondering as to what the hell they where thinking. See you all next week.

Happy Holidays

So there's no article this week as the author feels that during the holidays one should not be spending ones time reading articles about video games.  Rather one should be spending this time of year with ones family or catching up on ones backlog of video games while ignoring ones family.  See you all next year.

Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of the Worst Fighting Game Mechanic Ever

Wait. Stop. Before you read any further I'd like you to go to the link below and spend a little time getting your ass handed to you at rock-paper-scissors (RPS). First I'd like you to go with the 'Novice' setting and play a few rounds. Then I'd like you to reload the game but this time go with the 'Veteran' setting.

Rock-Paper-Scissors Game

So you're back. Having now likely gotten beaten soundly at rock-paper-scissors. At this point you're likely asking what was the point of that exercise? The point my friends was to use it as an illustration of how lopsided and poorly implemented what is, in my opinion, not only the worst mechanic in 'Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3' but what is also, in my opinion, in the running for worst mechanic is fighting game history in the Team Aerial Combo aka TAC. The TAC mechanic is essentially a skewed game of rock-paper-scissors in which the player initiating it has all of the advantages. Hmmm, I'm not explaining this very well. Let's get some of the technical mumbo-jumbo out of the way:

• TACs are useable in most aerial combos;
• The player initiating the TAC can chose between up, down or sideways (left and right are interchangeable);
• A successful TAC tags in the next character on the players team to continue the combo;
• Upwards TAC grants a damage bonus;
• Downwards TAC gives a full bar of super meter;
• Sideways TAC steals a bar of super meter;
• A TAC can be countered only by matching the directional input the player initiating it selected (i.e. up counters up, down counters down, left or right counters left or right) AND only if the direction is input correctly within 15 frames (~ ¼ of a second);
• If you (somehow) counter a TAC the person initiating it takes a miniscule amount of damage and the combo is broken.

So looking at all of that it should be clear that this mechanic is essentially RPS but worse in that there is only one condition for each situation where you can “win” and two where you can lose whereas in an actual game of rock-paper-scissors you have options where you can win or tie (i.e. not lose). Additionally the window for countering the TACs is incredibly tight such that doing so is, in my experience, more a matter of luck than of skill. Essentially TACs are a RPS mechanic where the attacker has the deck stacked significantly in their favor. So why is this a bad thing? Well there are three reasons that stand out in my mind:

1. TACs add a (significant) random element to the game.
2. They deter players from learning actual combos (you can keep these exchanges going long enough to kill or come damn close to killing most of the characters in the game).
3. The make online play an incredibly poor facsimile of how the game actually plays.

If you've seen them in action items #1 and #2 should be pretty obvious but what's that about #3. Well #3 is the reason I had you play the RPS game linked to above twice. I would say that countering a TAC offline against a human being sitting in the same room as you would be akin to beating the computer on the 'Novice' setting after its studied you for ten rounds. Now countering a TAC online would be more like coming up with a win against the 'Veteran' level computer after its studied you for twenty rounds, i.e. a lucky guess. The reason that you don't (usually) see players going for TACs constantly against offline competition is because of the (slim) chance that they'll get countered and that they'd usually rather go with something that's guaranteed. Online, eh, not so much. Given even the most minimal amounts of latency online (lag screws up the timing for countering) TACs go from a minimal risk with a high reward to no risk with a high reward as they are practically guaranteed combo extension and bonuses and that my friends makes for a terrible mechanic. See you all next week.

Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Minor Improvements

Ok, so a couple of weeks ago when I said that 'Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3' made only one positive change I might have been a bit off. It's actually three. That's the final revised number. Seriously. So you inquisitively and enthusiastically ask what are positive fixes numbers two and three? Well if fixing the matchmaking was positive change number one then positive change number two would be the new connectivity indicator that has been added before a match is confirmed. Previously when you did a ranked match you set your preferences (I recommend 'Same' and 'Same'), hit the OK button and then started praying to whatever deities you believe in for a playable match. Now not so much. Now you get to see a rough estimate of your opponents connection to you before you greenlight playing them.

Names redacted to protect the innocent.

This change is a major boon to online warriors though I'm tempted to dock Capcom points for this positive change as it really is something that should have been in the game from the word 'go' and not something that gets added later after people spend nine months complaining about crappy online play. The ability to screen out people with bad connections is huge plus even if there's a small chance that people will use it to screen their opponents in general (i.e. fishing for easier matches).

For positive change number three we have another feature that should have shipped with the original game and that was omitted due what one can only speculate was a mixture of laziness and indifference in 'Spectator Mode' for player matches/rooms. This is another feature that perplexed people for its absence from 'vanilla' and it seems to be reasonably functional in its 'Ultimate' incarnation. The fact that it works makes the main reason that Capcom gave for not having it in 'vanilla' seem especially hollow (they said it would lag the game too much). Nice try. Well that's it for the positive changes see you all next week.