Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy Review

[This review was already posted by an associate on Destructoid, give or take a few edits.  It was written by me.  It's not plagiarizing if it's my own work.]

Being an action gamer who lives for the thrill and feeds off of swordplay and punch-ups, a game like Theatrhythm Final Fantasy doesn’t sound like the kind of game you’d expect me to play.  But even we action gamers need a break from mercilessly slaughtering hundreds of soldiers and fighting tournament-holding crime lords..  Sometimes we want to sit down to a friendly game with a simple design.  It is for that reason I bought Theathrhythm Final Fantasy for the Nintendo 3DS.

I’m not what you’d call a “fan” of the Final Fantasy series.  The only games I’ve played in the series are the Final Fantasy 4 DS remake to a fairly lengthy point, and I beat Final Fantasy 6 on the SNES.  Aside from that, my knowledge of the Final Fantasy games has come from the internet.  Though I may not be big on the games themselves, I’ve always admired Final Fantasy’s music and art design, which has all only gotten more varied over the years.

Consider that a disclaimer.  Despite what the advertizing of this game is playing up, nostalgia did not affect me when playing it.  It never does.  I don’t have any kind of childhood memory to relive.  I am telling you as a neutral gamer.

Theatrhythm Final Fantasy is a retelling, of sorts, of the crossover PSP game series Dissidia Final Fantasy.  However, unlike Dissidia and its many expository cutscenes, Theatrhythm’s story is hard to follow and almost nonexistent.  From what I can gather from the text-scrolling prologue at the very beginning of Theatrhythm, the gods of harmony and discord, Cosmos and Chaos, are in conflict.  Apparently, Chaos has shifted the balance of good and evil, which now needs to be repaired by gathering some kind of power called rhythmia.  Now the warriors of each of the numbered Final Fantasy games up to 13 must go to each other’s worlds and gather rhythmia with the power of music.

That is truly the extent of the story and I assure you I left nothing out.  There’s a prologue and epilogue of scrolling text at the beginning end of each world in the game’s main mode.  While the prologues give a brief and helpful synopsis of each game’s setting, the epilogues seem to be dialogue from a random character in the game the epilogue belongs to.  No indication is given as to who speaks the epilogue, and there’s no voice acting, meaning it’s all up to speculation by fans of the source material.  I find this strange, as I expect a more casual-oriented game like this one wouldn’t want to keep new players this much in the dark.

Why can't we just take Setzer's airship? 

If you know me, you’d expect me to be up in arms about the lack of a story, but I’m more forgiving in the case of Theatrhythm than other games I’ve played that lacked story.  At least Theatrhythm doesn’t try to pretend it has more of a story than it really does, as was the case with Cave Story and Chrono Trigger.  It doesn’t try to convince you you’re playing a complex, intricate Final Fantasy story.  You’re just playing a music game.

I made up my own with what I was given anyway, for coherency’s sake.  The story I made was one in which the Final Fantasy heroes divided into 3 groups to take on the first 12 game worlds, then gathered the 3 best of them into one last group alongside Lightning to finish with Final Fantasy 13.  And when my story features Zidane, Tidus, Shantotto, and Vaan fighting Anima, it’s already something memorable.

Each of the 13 games represented in Theatrhythm has 3 tracks, and an opening and closing number, with another 12 songs being unlocked by hoarding rhythmia after beating the game.  Each of the 3-track combinations is separated into 3 different types of stages: battle, field, and event.

All 3 types follow the same mechanic of tapping and swiping the touch screen in rhythm to the music and in accordance to icons on the top screen, similarly to Elite Beat Agents.  However, each stage has its own style of play and objective that makes it very distinct from the others.

Field stages use field music from the Final Fantasy games, and have you tapping to notes that scroll from left to right as your character walks down a path.  Regularly in a field stage, you’ll have to move your stylus up and down while keeping it pressed on the screen to travel along a path of notes.  Each time you mess up in a field stage, your character trips, loses health, and possibly switches out with another character in your party.  The farther your character walks in a field stage, the more likely it is they’ll get an item for their trouble.

In event stages, you tap to the music as an icon travels around the screen in front of a (rather good) music video depicting whatever Final Fantasy game the music is from (It’s nothing but FMVs starting with Final Fantasy 7 though).  The gimmick in the event stages is that the icon you need to tap to changes direction and speed frequently, requiring you to pay attention to dramatic shifts.

Last is my favorite, the battle stages.  Rather than one path, there are four different paths notes can come from.  It doesn’t require you to tap any differently from the other stages, but it really requires you to pay attention to the entire screen as well as to the beat of the music.  Each time you tap a note correctly, you strike a blow to an opposing monster, and each time you mess up, the monster strikes a blow to you.  Kill enough monsters and you may reach a boss.  If you kill the boss before the song ends, you’ll get a special reward.

By hitting enough notes in a string of shiny ones, you summon a  spirit in the battle stages and chocobo in field stages.

From those descriptions, you might think there isn’t a whole lot to Theatrhythm’s gameplay, but that changes when you take the game’s RPG elements into consideration.  Whenever you clear a song, you gain experience for the four characters in your party and level up.  This matters a lot, because stats affect your success.  For example, having more agility lets you travel farther in field stages, and strength deals more damage in battle stages.

Magic is brought into play with the special abilities you can equip to characters using limited ability points, much like Kingdom Hearts.  Some abilities are passive, while others, like offensive spells, are activated after chaining a certain number of notes by not messing up.  Some abilities even activate by missing a certain number of notes, as something of a crutch skill.

Your party can also be equipped with a classic Final Fantasy item.  Some deal damage to enemies after their health gets low, others let the party summon a special chocobo without fail, and some give the party leader an ability after winning a stage with the item equipped.

All these RPG elements and gameplay mechanics make the game more complex than the average rhythm game, and it’s especially favorable for my situation.  I wanted a break from all the fast-paced story-heavy action games I play all the time, and I got a game that wasn’t any of those things (save for the fast-paced part, starting at expert difficulty), but still delivered an experience familiar to me.  I was playing a music game, yet I was using my reflexes and sense of timing to have guys with swords fight monsters.  It’s a combination of two genres that mixes well.

He's watching you.

I greatly question the item system’s specifics though.  Because only one item can be used at a time, and more than one item is often collected at the end of a stage, there’s a lot of stockpiling that makes me wonder why I can’t equip more.  Also, I don’t understand the point of having an item that gives a character an ability at the completion of a stage.  Why couldn’t they just give them the ability immediately?  If finishing a stage is all it takes, a player can just complete one on the easiest difficulty, but if they’re only doing so for the ability they’ll get from their item, it’s a waste of their time.

But that’s not what you’re here for.  This is a music game, so of course you expect only the finest soundtrack on the 3DS.  If that’s what you were expecting, then you clearly know Final Fantasy’s music.  It seems as though the song selection for the game was decided by vote, as the arguably most popular tracks from each game are represented, such as the infamous One Winged Angel and Battle With the Four Fiends.  Not everyone will be satisfied, however.

Because they could only choose three tracks for each game (and a handful of unlockable ones), it’s likely some of your favorites won’t be in it, if you’re a Final Fantasy fan.  Thankfully, Square Enix has released downloadable songs for a dollar each so that they can release the songs they couldn’t fit into the cart.

I’m not sure I should approve of paying a full dollar for these songs, and especially not since it includes tax, but if you have a dollar or two remaining after a separate E-Shop transaction, it’s a good way to get rid of it.

I got over a dozen of the DLC tracks myself and made some observations: that some of the DLC tracks use backgrounds exclusive to DLC songs, with the others using ones already in the game, and that there are no new monsters in the DLC battle stages.

I waited for months to get this DLC track.

There’s a final boss stage you’re forced into after getting 10,000 rhythmia, but it’s an anticlimax in which you fight Chaos to an easy and dull song before seeing the more amusing credits.  The final battle can’t be replayed either, which you’d think would be a given when everything else can be.  What really puzzles me is that once you beat the final boss, you unlock another, far longer, far harder, and far more epic song that would have much better served as a final boss battle theme.  Why didn’t they use something like that?

The original Nintendo DS didn’t have the best speakers and were best listened to with headphones on, but for Theatrhythm, they aren’t necessary.  It’s quite remarkable how clear and loud the music comes out of the 3DS speakers.  There’s no sound compression I can hear when playing.  It all sounds like the magnificent orchestra that performed it, save for the first 3 FF games, which are NES chiptunes.  I don’t understand why the NES games in the series are presented as 8-bit chiptunes when it seems everything from the Super Nintendo games onwards sounds like a remastered track.  It’s not that I don’t like the NES music (there are no losers in the song selection), but it feels inconsistent and unnecessary.  I suppose it gives some more variety, but the soundtrack would have been varied enough anyway if they had simply used a more modern version of the NES music.

The game’s art matches the music’s quality.  As a stylized representation of the game’s portability, all the characters are drawn in a cutesy, keychain-like way.  That doesn’t mean much for the playable characters, as they all have the same face, but it does mean a lot for the creatures.

It was delightful to see the badass bosses of Final Fantasy given adorable chibi forms.  Even the most grotesque and strange of the Final Fantasy creatures have been transmogrified into adorable, huggable, cartoonish caricatures.  Somehow, despite this, they’re still somewhat intimidating; keeping their menacing features, out-sizing the little playable characters, and animating like they have loose marionette joints.  The game’s visual style makes it look like a parody of Final Fantasy that should give anyone who knows the source material a lighthearted feeling.

Awwwwwww.

Backgrounds have also had effort put into them.  Every song has its own colorful venue, but while the battle stage backgrounds faithfully recreate the game they’re trying to emulate, and they have small background effects to keep them from being static, they keep all the action in one place.  It’s the field stages that really show off the backgrounds, as characters walk by many landmarks from the song’s respective game, making the worlds of Final Fantasy feel more alive.

I only wish those backgrounds could look more expansive.  Disappointingly, the 3D effect for the game feels ultimately wasted.  In Theatrhythm, the 3DS’ titular feature only uses 3D to make the note field pop out to separate itself from the rest of the game, and make menus look a bit neater.  Playing in 3D does make it easier to focus on the notes, but there are many missed opportunities.  Why couldn’t they have the background in the field stages have depth relative to the character’s position, or have the FMV sequences in the event scenes be in 3D?  It’s called the 3DS.  If a company is going to use 3D, they should use it all the way!

Maybe they ran out of storage space for better 3D with all the stuff they crammed in the cartridge.  Rhythm games have never been known for their wealth of content and longevity, but Theatrhythm appears to actively try and avoid that.  There are many unlockables to obtain for the game’s music player, theatre, and street pass functionality, each of which you slowly obtain with every 500 rhythmia you gather.  The theatre allows you to see the animated backdrops of the event stages without having to play them, and the music player not only allows you to listen to the wonderful soundtrack, but also lets you to plug your headphones into it, and continue to listen while the 3DS is in sleep mode.  It feels somewhat arbitrary to have to unlock things you hear and see regularly in the game, but the headphone functionality does give you something to play for.

Outside of series (story) mode and challenge (quick play) mode, there is also the Chaos Shrine to keep players occupied.  In the Chaos Shrine, you randomly play 2 different stages taken from the game (some of which you can only find in the shrine): a field and battle stage.  Aside from randomized songs and monsters, the catch to the Chaos Shrine is that although the songs are the same, the rhythm in which you tap to it varies, making it more unpredictable and fresh.  The Chaos Shrine serves as little more than a small diversion from the primary modes, and I tend to play it when I feel like using it as a randomizer.  However, it isn’t that great at being one.  The Chaos Shrine seems to choose tracks from a pre-determined pool of songs, and that pool does not include every single song the game has available at the start.  That means you can expect to play the same song in dozens of the Chaos Shrine’s rooms.  That’s a pretty lazy shortcoming on the developer’s part.

Just whose line is it anyway?

 Through the game’s street pass functionality, players exchange personalized profile cards.  On the front is one of 4 backdrops of your choosing, a character of your choosing (starting with the first 13 playable ones, with others unlocked later), a personal message you type yourself, and a title composed of 3 pre-written segments (also unlocked) consisting of an adverb, adjective, and noun, in that order.  The back of the card shows some records, your current party, and your most played song.  If you want, you can also attach your favorite song combination from the Chaos Shrine to share with others.  The street pass in Theatrhythm is only a slightly more advanced form of the built-in 3DS street pass, which was already enjoyable itself.  I always like features that allow for personalization, and with the expansive number of title combinations and characters, it’s unlikely for people to have identical cards.  It’s a fun diversion, but not one you’ll be often returning to.

Probably the biggest replay factor Theatrhythm has going for it is the collectacards and crystal shards.  The collectacards are exactly what they sound like: cards you collect by completing stages and beating certain monsters.  There’s a large album of them: one card for every character and enemy in the game.  Collecting a card more than once levels up your card, eventually to holographic and then platinum.  Once a card is holographic, in addition to changing the card’s design, you’re given the ability to view the card’s character’s animations.  Each card also has a brief bio for each character on the back, but that’s just throwing a bone to those unfamiliar with the source material.  The card descriptions do make them feel more like real collectable cards though.

Since I love the game’s character art, it’s great to have a picture book where I can look at it all anytime.  You can even get cards for creatures or characters you have yet to see (bonus bosses like Shinryu and Ultima Weapon), making you want to play the game in the hopes that you may eventually come across them.

Outside of the collectacards are the game’s second gotta-catch-em-all feature, the crystal shards.  You can collect these shards of varying color by collecting rhythmia and killing certain bosses in the Chaos Shrine.  If you get 8 of one color, you unlock a corresponding character.  There’s at least one of such characters for each of the 13 games, and they’re usually the ones with a close relationship to the initial character, such as Yuna and Locke.  Shards are rare though, so finding them requires a lot of playing, mostly in the Chaos Shrine.

With all the unlockables it offers, Theatrhythm gives players incentive to go back.  It’s one of those games with simple mechanics that are best enjoyed in bursts, though you may be surprised at how much time passes in one session.  I played for over an hour straight before, but it felt like only 15 minutes or so.  That is the kind of captivation and time consumption games like this succeed in.

What we have with Theatrhythm is a collection of Final Fantasy’s best music, that can even double as a music player, with a fun game built around it.  Even if you’re not a Final Fantasy fan, Theatrhythm is worth playing.  After all, many people who have expressed negativity for the Final Fantasy series have cited poor combat, random encounters, and, for later games, bad stories.  Since Theatrhythm has none of those complaint points, the same people could say that Theatrhythm is a game that takes the worst parts out of Final Fantasy and emphasizes the best.

It should be noted, however, that some of the songs are cut so that they're a little over two minutes.

Theatrhythm has some missed opportunities that could have pushed the game from being “really fun” to “great”, but regardless, no seasoned gamer should miss out on this wonderful game.  I give Theatrhythm Final Fantasy a 7.5 out of 10.

Now that Final Fantasy has shown how a decade's worth of soundtracks can be put to extra use, the same needs to be done with Kingdom Hearts and...

KOF Finales: 94

(For those who are just dropping into my blog, this is one in a series of posts I'll be doing that will go over the finale of each King of Fighters game.  It's supplementary material for a series of articles for those who want to catch up on the KOF plot while I go over every game in the main series.)

After you’ve beaten all the other teams, a lovely woman named Mature tells you that you’ve won this year’s King of Fighters tournament, and that the host would like to personally meet you.

The guy must use 100 dollar bills to light his fireplace, because he can afford to have you travel by chopper to his giant personal aircraft carrier, the Black Noah.  Once inside, you meet the sponsor face to face.

A museum and an aircraft carrier?  This place has everything!

He reveals himself to be Rugal Bernstein, an absurdly rich and powerful arms dealer who loves to fight others.  He tells you those statues around the room are all fighters he’s defeated and cast into liquid metal to make into trophies, much to the horror of your team.  You can probably guess where this is headed.

Do we still get the tour?

But since the statues will get in the way there, he instead takes you to his special arena, though it’s more a control room than a place for fighting, but that’s part of King of Fighter’s charm.  It doesn’t go for what’s practical.  It goes for what’s fun and what’s cool.

You may notice his pet panther in the background, in case his badass villainy wasn't apparent enough.

The final stage really shows off how grand Rugal lives.  The room has an overlooking view of his aircraft carrier (with a few planes on it), pictures of himself on the walls, and a holographic display I assume is an interface on a large table in the middle.  For an extra grandiose look, you can also see intricate carvings on the table, golden masks on the walls to the side of it, and outside there are two giant carvings of eagle heads sticking out from the sides of where the room is.  Combine that with the monitors and switchboards placed throughout, and you have one of the fanciest looking control rooms I’ve ever seen.  Rugal travels in style, and thanks to SNK's strong attention to art detail, that's excellently conveyed.

Too bad Rugal himself doesn’t look as good.  He looks better in his other appearances in the series, but starting out, his cutscene artwork and character sprite is awful, even if the concept of his design is actually quite good.  He looks like he’s always wincing in the cutscenes, and in battle, he lacks so much detail, his face looks like a muddy mess of pixels.  The fact that he's missing his right eye is one of his defining traits, but you could never tell here.

This is probably due to 94's messy psuedo-realistic art style.

You’ve got bigger things to worry about though.  When it comes to broken, inhumanly perfect AI, there are none that can match Rugal Bernstein.  He is notorious for being one of, if not the, hardest fighting game bosses ever made.  I try not to give him that credit in KOF 94 though, because it’s for all the wrong reasons.

Get used to those words, because you're going to be seeing them a whole hell of a lot.

Starting out, Rugal doesn’t use any special attacks.  He only uses basic punch and kick moves.  The fact that he can still brutally whomp you without his more powerful attacks is a testament to his omnipotent AI.  After about 10 continues, an expert-level player may get lucky enough to deplete his health after losing two teammates.  When that happens, Rugal gets serious.  The room starts flashing red, and the music gets intense.

After flinging his (presumably weighted) longcoat off and coming back at full health, Rugal becomes much faster and uses all his special moves: a projectile that travels along the ground called the Repukken, an undodgeable blast called the Kaiser Wave, and most notoriously, his overhead kick slash, the genocide cutter.  The repukken and kaiser wave are moves taken from Fatal Fury's Geese Howard and Wolfgang Krauser, respectively, so he may have some sort of connection to them.  They are all crime bosses, after all.
Rugal also has a powerful super move in which he slams you against the wall for massive damage, but it's pretty uncommon to see him use it, to be honest.  He doesn't need to anyway.

The genocide cutter is Rugal’s equivalent to the shoryuken.  If you get near him, he’ll use it in an instant and do a ton of damage.  Your next idea would be to just approach him with caution, but since he spams his repukken, you’re going to want to jump.  But you can’t block in midair, and if you jump toward him, you’ll get a face full of his sharpened foot.

"ジェノサイダ カッタ!"

He will never miss, I can assure you.  His perfect AI will always hit you.  The very microsecond you get within a single pixel of his genocide cutter’s attack range, you’ll be flying through the air.  It’s like a kid high on sugar is keeping one of his fingers expectantly on a “genocide cutter” button while a super soldier made specifically to master the game controls everything else Rugal does.

But that’s not even the worst part!  The worst part is that this fight continues exactly where the last one left off.  Any team members or health you lost stays lost for this second fight!  That is downright sadistic!  What a cheap and cheating way to mug quarters off of anyone who already spent a fortune getting this far!

That probably tops anything else he's done.

After you finally decide to cheat and beat Rugal, he gives you one last surprise.

What I don't get is how the self-destruct sequence is remote-activated.  If it is, what were all the flashing red lights earlier indicating?  I guess it was the carrier’s way of saying “WARNING!: Rugal has removed his jacket!  Shit has gotten real!”

The image of a battered Rugal is actually another thing that bothers me about this game.  There’s quite a bit of blood in KOF 94.  With all the different fantastical elements, outlandish character designs, and overall lightheated tone of the series, the blood feels very out of place.  It’s a good thing later games downplayed or otherwise removed it.  Gritty realism is not KOF’s style.

Luckily, your team is able to escape the exploding Black Noah.  Don't ask me how they're able to escape before Rugal twitches his thumb to press the button.  Maybe his flashing red lights finally got to him and distracted him with an epileptic fit....But how can that be if he's missing an eye?....  Who knows...

........ What happened to the crew?  Did the Black Noah even have one?

And that’s how KOF 94 ends.  It's a simpler, not-too complicated finale, but a good way to kick off a franchise.  Rugal’s moustache-stroking villainy makes him a fun opponent to fight against, the detailed Black Noah control room is a great set piece to have a fight in, and the music is a nice score for an action scene.  If it weren’t for all the technical problems with the game itself holding it back, this could have made for a decent finale.  As it stands, it just set a bar for the ones to come after it.

Epic Gaming Moments: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

On the whole, Skyward Sword wasn’t a very impressive Zelda game to me.  It was decent, but compared to its predecessors, couldn’t match the Ocarina of Times and Wind Wakers of the bunch.  Nintendo tried a lot of new things and many of them just didn’t work.

But there is one quality carried over from the other games in the series, and that’s the boss battles.  The villain Ghirahim in particular made the game worth playing.  Today’s epic gaming moment shows you exactly what I mean.  I warn you however, that there are some spoilers.

It starts out in a wide open stone room that just screams “Somebody fight in here, please!”

There, Ghirahim is looking at the wall before noticing you.

He talks about how the carvings on the wall suggest that there’s another portal of time somewhere in the world he can use to go back to the past and bring his ultra-powerful master back.

The other one is in the sealed temple your friends take refuge in, but you can’t open it yet.  Ghirahim doesn’t know that, but believes you do.

Sadly, your main character is, and always will be, mute.  Ghirahim seems to forget that, however, and thinks you’re hiding it from him.  He’s in the mood, so he decides to just beat the answer out of you and see if you’ve improved from the last encounter.  This time, the gloves (and cape) are off.

Being Ghirahim, he, of course, needs to play out the whole scene and goes on a long, bragging speech about how awesome his body is and how you and he are connected by the thread of fate; he just loves to hear himself talk.  I can relate.

Though long, the opening here is great.  Ghirahim is really fun to watch move about and be melodramatic, and him taking off his loose articles of clothing builds tension and anticipation for a harder challenge.  This is all helped by excellent cinematography that zooms in at just the right times, and knows when to use what shots.

The joke's on you.  This game is rated E 10+.

Ghirahim starts things off by simply walking up to you, unarmed, holding out one hand with 2 fingers.  If you try to swipe at him in random directions, he will catch the blade between his fingers!  At that point, he’ll hold onto it and keep blocking it unless you swing it upward out of his fingers.  If you don’t, he’ll disarm you and take the sword!  At that point all you can do is run, because without your sword, you’re helpless.  Eventually he’ll get bored and toss the sword aside for you to run over and pick it up (or you can shield bash it out of his hand).  Starting out, Ghirahim is toying with you!

Humiliation.

Or not….

You see, he did the exact same stunt in the previous encounter early on in the game.  In that encounter, you learned you had to slash in a specific way.  Anyone with good memory likely won’t fall for it the second time, and since it isn’t any different and the player has had experience time, it serves only as a memory test and warm-up.

It isn’t until he pulls out his weapon when things get serious.  This time, he’s dual wielding.

Because he has 2 swords, you have to swipe in a more specific direction when he blocks, and have to process that in your brain a bit quicker.  In addition to that, you have to avoid his diving and charge strikes, and keep track of where he is, because he just loves to teleport.

When you’re at a far distance, Ghirahim uses a slew of his flying diamond darts.  He makes them orbit himself (or you) and then fly at you in a conveniently straight line or circle that you can slash or spin attack back at him, with the right timing.

It isn’t a particularly difficult fight, but it is a fun one.  What makes it so entertaining is how nonchalant Ghirahim fights with his bevy of attacks, while you’re doing full over the shoulder swings in a fighting stance.  He casually walks toward you, sometimes defending with his 2 swords up in specific positions.  If his swords aren’t up, swinging at him will have one of his swords block it in that direction in the time span of a millisecond with only a flick of his wrist and a sharp clang.  He circles you and only has to snap his fingers for the diamond darts to appear and snap them again to send them your way.  You just know he’s showing off at that point.

He runs at you for a slash and jumps in the air to strike as well, but even then it doesn’t look like he’s giving it his all.  The speed at which he does these things, helped by subtle animation, make it look like he’s playing around.

Just to top things off is a battle remix of his catchy leitmotif.  It sounds like something that should be played at a fancy ball, which fits with the way Ghirahim casually walks around, and the pipe organ can make anything better.  To match the faster tempo of this dance of death, Ghirahim’s battle theme has had castanets added since last time as well.

Before the fight, Ghirahim said he was fighting for real, but, although he upped his game, it doesn’t seem like it.  Judging by his goofy, playful smile in the introduction, I say he was just blowing hot air.  He seems to be having fun, and in this epic gaming moment, so am I…..

Of course, when you win, he stops having fun.

Lol, you mad bro?

A Massively Effective Slap in the Face

Immersion.  When I think of the word “immersion”, I see myself being lost in a game’s world.  I focus on the screen and ignore everything else, unaware of how much time is passing in the real world.  I become the character and never truly stop playing even after I’ve pressed the pause button.  I’ve known about what immersion is for a while, but something happened that made me realize just how effective it is as a tool; a tool not just for having fun with a game, but discovering more about ourselves.

The game was Mass Effect.  One of the first 360 games I ever decided to give a try, and it was incredible.  It had action, drama, a rich universe, and a villain voiced by the same actor who gave Kakuzu his excellently villainous voice in Naruto.

That presentation was backed up by flowing gameplay that never stopped, even during exposition.  Mass Effect constantly kept me involved with its dialogue choices and moral choice system, making me really feel like my hero onscreen (helped by the character being customized to look a lot like me).

You know how it is...

In my first playthrough I did what came naturally, making choices I would make in the situations given, like any normal gamer would do.  Overall I was practically a saint, always taking peaceful solutions and racking up paragon points.  I only got a few renegade points for relatively harmless acts and misinterpretations on the part of either me or the game.

After beating the game, I felt I didn’t do enough sidequests, so I made a new game to explore outside of the main story more.  However, I already played as myself, so I decided to role play as someone else entirely for different results.

Thus began the adventures of commander Jerk Shepard: Asshole Extraordinaire.  Jerk killed people when he could, punched reporters, insulted his crew, cut off the council, and always chose the aggressive option when available.  It was funny for a while, sadistically laughing at people’s reactions to Jerk being one of the most unlikable bastards in the galaxy (and when you’re a Specter, they can’t do a thing about it).  But then one particular incident happened, and I did not laugh at all.

Conrad Verner.  Most people who have played Mass Effect likely already know where I’m going with this, but for those who haven’t, Conrad is basically Commander Shepard’s fanboy, and greatly idolizes him.  Conrad told Jerk that he thought he could be a Specter too, since Jerk was the first human specter and gave him hope.

If this were my original playthrough, I would’ve sternly, but calmly told him of the dangers that comes with being a specter, patted him on the shoulder, told him to train, and maybe would’ve signed an autograph (had any such options been given).

Jerk Sheppard had a different way of telling him how hard being a Specter is.  Jerk aimed a gun at Conrad’s face, saying “This is what it feels like having a gun to your head!  I go through this every day!”  He went on to say that Conrad didn’t have what it took and, after Conrad started whimpering, also said that the guy was pathetic.

After that debacle, Conrad practically cried, saying that he thought Jerk was a hero, and that heroes aren’t supposed to act that way, before running away.

It is at that point I stopped, controller still in hand, and thought.  “Wow… I’m an &^$%#*#.”  It was a genuine emotional response.

Mass Effect was so immersive, and the graphics and voice acting were so convincing, for a brief moment, I couldn’t help but feel like what I had done wasn’t just in a game.  I really felt like I had just ruined someone’s hopes and dreams.  Like I had ruined myself as that man’s role model, and made him feel like dirt at the same time.  I saw a bit of myself in Conrad.  I can’t imagine how crushed I would be if one of my heroes threatened or insulted me.

A similar feeling happened later in the game.  Emily Wong, a journalist character who is not so well-liked, asked Jerk to plant a bug for her to do a story on poor working conditions.  Had this been my initial playthrough, I’m not sure what I would have done.

On one hand, being a journalism major, it’s in my nature to help other journalists, and a story like that could do some good.  On the other hand, her methods may have been shady.  I don’t know how much the law has changed in the future of Mass Effect, but when I come from, bugging is an invasion of privacy.

But what did Jerk decide on?  He said he’d do it, then went back and lied by saying he placed the bug.  When Wong said she didn’t get a signal, Jerk insisted that they must have found it, but still accepted payment for placing it.  Then Wong, depressed, went back to talk to her editor about another story subject.

Ignoring that Jerk never went ANYWHERE outside of Wong’s sight before saying he planted it, that was a dick move on many levels.

Firstly, lying is wrong, especially in this case.  It’s an excuse to get out of Jerk’s own laziness.  Secondly, he accepted payment for nothing.  That is stealing!  Lastly, that poor journalist is going to be pressed for a story now.  I know what it’s like for a story I’m looking forward to or was working on to be shot down because of a lack of cooperation.  Like Conrad, I saw a bit of myself in the way Emily Wong walked away from Jerk.  That was Mass Effects way of saying “You are no less evil than Saren!”  Sure, Jerk had punched her earlier, but in that case, the audacity of it was actually pretty funny.  In this case, it was more relatable.

Therein lies the brilliance of Mass Effect.  It is so immersive, it makes it difficult to lie to yourself.  “To thine own self be true.”  As much as you try to repress choosing the choices you would ordinarily, you won’t be able to escape its full emotional potential.  Even before the Conrad scene, I hesitated to choose some of the options before reminding myself “wait… I’m Jerk Shepard.”  I had to consciously play against who I really am, which tells me that I’m a good person at heart.  That is immersion, and one of the big reasons Mass Effect is one of my favorite games of the generation.

The aforementioned Conrad scene is at the 4:50 mark.

Top 10 Game Openings

Gamers don’t seem to appreciate the opening sequences you get before the “press start” screen comes up.  They’re practically the first impression you get from a game, assuming you don’t skip to the title.  It’s the pre-title openings that really get you in the right mindset for whatever you’re about to experience for maximum fun, be it getting you ready for epic wars in an RTS or magic and adventure in a fantasy RPG.  Game openings have taken many forms as diverse as the games they represent, but I’ve found that there are 10 in my collection that stick out particularly well.  This is the Shonen Otaku’s top 10 pre-title game openings.  The only qualifications are that they need to play before you press a button to play the game and they must display the game’s title at some point, be it the beginning or the very end to transition to the title screen.  Considering, in my experience, the quality of an opening is indicative of the effort put into a game, each of these games are ones I recommend.

Honorable mention: King of Fighters 11:

A short, but sweet, rocking guitar riff.

10. The King of Fighters 96

I know most people really like the opening for King of Fighters 98, but the opening for 96 stuck with me better and gave me more accurate expectations of what was in the game.  Its use of still images has enough movement to never look bland, and through a number of clever transitions, it’s able to display every single fighter in the game (besides the bosses) in a small time span.  I also like the way the music starts at the same time the 96 logo centers and the spokesman says “in 1996” before it goes into faster-paced build-up music that ends with a confrontation between Iori and Kyo, indicative of the rivalry between the two.  As a whole, it’s more appealing to look at than the openings for KOF 94 and 95, which is another indication that unlike those 2 games, 96 one will probably be GOOD.  Nothing gets me more in the mood for one of my favorite fighting games ever than one of the greatest openings ever.

9. Banjo-Kazooie

A pre-title opening with a single musical track is a given, but Banjo-Kazooie is unique in that it actually has the onscreen characters playing the song themselves, which is something rarely seen in any game.  It uses a number of different, unconventional instruments like banjos, xylophones, and flutes to make a fast-paced hoedown song you can really tap your foot to.  The upbeat tone of the opening perfectly matches the whimsical, yet bizarre feeling of the game itself, which is exactly what any good opening should do.  I also like all the stuff that happens while they’re still playing, like Tootie being chased by a bull and Banjo kicking away Mumbo’s xylophone, just for extra silliness.  The Banjo-Kazooie theme has become iconic in the eyes of 90s gamers, and this is the opening that started it all.

8. Tatsunoko vs. Capcom; either one.

For number 8, I’m including both versions of the opening to Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, for Cross Generation of Heroes and Ultimate All-Stars.  The opening to Cross Generation of Heroes looks excellent with all the different characters on both sides confronting each other with stellar animation from Tatsunoko, while the opening to Ultimate All-Stars is just a bunch of still artwork of the characters mixed with fancy effects and clips from the game and the original opening.  I should really like Cross Generation of Hero’s opening more, since it looks far better, but I liked Ultimate All-Star’s opening just as well because it SOUNDS far better.  I like the English opening of the song more than the Japanese version.  I think it has a better singer and a better beat to it.  Plus it has Viewtiful Joe in it!  HOLY SHIIIIIII-

Thankfully, no matter which version you like more, they’re both viewable in Ultimate All-Stars (which was released in America).  You just need to unlock Cross Generation of Hero’s.

7. Bleach: Dark Souls

I may not be much of a fan of Bleach, but Dark Souls was a good fighting game and I admire the effort that goes into the openings for the Bleach games.  All 3 Bleach DS games had their own opening number made specifically for the game, and are accompanied by various high quality still-images taken from the series and game itself (most in turn taken from another Bleach game) with different transitions and editing techniques to make them come alive.  This opening in particular stuck to me with the images it uses to set the context.

The first batch of images convey the point in time in which the story takes place, with Aizen and his followers walking away and Byakuya in bed, and then it briefly establishes a few of the fighters, like Rangiku passed out, Ichigo’s bankai, and Urahara in front of the shop with his assistants.  Then, on the last few notes of the song, it quickly glances over every single one of the playable fighters (and adds more as you unlock them).  I can think of no better way to open a Bleach DS fighting game, and it helps that the song is great and comes out of the DS’ speaker clearly and cleanly.

6. Sonic Unleashed

This is the only entry on this list that isn’t simply a cinematic with a single track of musical accompaniment for audio.  No matter what anybody thought of the game as a whole (I personally liked it), nobody denied that Sonic Unleashed had an extremely kick-ass opening cutscene.  With the highest production values, the scene features Sonic attacking a robot-infested spaceship with his super speed, weaving, dodging, and striking with awe-inspiring grace.  Things heat up even more when he goes Super Sonic and chases after Eggman, who pleads for his life before trapping Sonic again, draining his power, morphing him into a beastly monster, and splitting the earth apart!  Then, in a coup de’ grace, Eggman shoots Sonic and the emeralds out the airlock with what seems to be a victory for the villain.  That is an epic action sequence if I ever saw one.  Mike Pollock’s eccentric acting is just the icing on the cake.

5. Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes

Capcom graces this list a second time with its stylish, beautiful, and flashy opening to Sengoku Basara 3’s English release: Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes.  The only difference in the two versions’ opening is the music track, and I can safely say the Samurai Heroes’ version is far superior, with T.M. Revolution’s Naked Arms rocking out to the images of sword-slashing, hurricane-punching, and arrow-shooting in front of active and colorful backgrounds that show off each character’s abilities.

T.M. Revolution has been making theme songs for Japanese stuff for a while, including both seasons of the Sengoku Basara anime, and the anime version of Soul Eater, but here’s the kicker: This version of Naked Arms is in English.

Considering it’s impossible to understand the lyrics without having them on paper, I think it’s safe to say that Takanori Nishikawa’s English sucks, but I don’t hold that against him.  Even if the lyrics are incomprehensible, the music itself is awesome, as are the visuals, and that’s what’s important.  Rock on T.M.!

4. Clash of Ninja 2

I’m a little embarrassed this is so high on the list, to be honest.  Not because I’m afraid to say I like Naruto (to a degree) of course, but with all the fancy pre-rendered graphics and vocal tracks that dominate this list, this one seems rather inferior… Or at least it SHOULD.  There’s something about this opening that seems to encompass everything that an opening to a fighting game should have.  It shows all of the fighters in action with some very well-chosen clips from the already well-animated anime series, and has some great editing to make it look even more like the game’s going to be fun.  Take, for example, how it briefly shows the faces of a fighter before showing them in action (or vice-versa), reflective of the pre and post-battle relaxed demeanors the characters take when delivering dialogue, or how the majority of the moments shown are represented in the game’s story mode.  Take all that in with a poignant guitar-heavy track that’s both simplistic and provocative, and you get a damn good AMV-styled opening to a good shonen fighter.

3. Super Smash Brothers Melee

This is the most spectacular Nintendo-heavy musical number ever put in a game.  It’s difficult for me to put into words just how awesome this opening is.  All the visuals that showcase all the ever-shifting Nintendo characters onscreen flow seamlessly together with the music to create its own pseudo-mini-backstories, showing a number of the fighters in their different universes establishing who they are, all with the use of clever transitions and camera angles you’d expect from only the highest-budget movies.  There is little for me to say other than it is something that needs to be seen to be believed.

2. Jump Ultimate Stars

That last one was hard to put into words, but this one outright defies description.  Just watch it.  Not only is the video pre-rendered in amazing detail on the Nintendo DS, but it makes itself look like the most cosmically epic manga-based THING ever made!  And it is!  It’s like shonen incarnate!

Up to this point we’ve had a lot of different openings and a lot of different songs to accompany them.  We’ve seen samurai, ninjas, Nintendo characters, and the near-entirety of Shonen Jump.  So what could possibly top all of that?  What game opening could possibly be better than the likes of Sengoku Basara and Super Smash Brothers Melee?  It’d have to be something huge.  Something transcendent.  Something…. Perfect.  There is only one game series in this world that is truly perfect, and I think we all know what that is.

1. Viewtiful Joe: Red Hot Rumble

But of course.  A great game based off of the greatest anime ever made based off of the greatest game series ever made happens to have the greatest game opening of all time.

Flawless.  That’s what it is.  Absolutely flawless.  Every single thing about this opening is pure unfiltered perfection.  You can make a list of all the things perfect with this opening.

1. It has top-notch animation by the geniuses at Group TAC with footage made exclusively for the game.
2. It introduces every fighter and shows them off in true Viewtiful Joe fashion.
3. It sets the mood (trust me. Red Hot Rumble is the most fast-paced, chaotic multiplayer action game I have ever played).
4. It sets context.  Blue’s directing as well as fighting, Sprocket is ordering Biankies and Flaties around, evidence shows it’s all for a movie, and Rachel looking at the props from the anime is foreshadowing, to name a few.
5. It’s all to the iconic anime music track, Mounting the V-Watch.
6. IT’S VIEWTIFUL JOE!!!  There is no argument, there is no competition, and there is no CHANCE for the greatest game and anime series ever made to not take first place in every list any aspect of it qualifies for.

No matter what the comparison, Viewtiful Joe wins.  That’s as simply as I can put it.

Be sure to give your opinions in the comments as well as links to some of your own favorite game openings.