I miss tactical, turn-based gaming.

Call me old-school, call me a clumsy, all-around terrible gamer if you want, I just miss turn-based fighting in old-school video games. Looking back to 1986, when one of my favourite gaming series was released, you find games with covers like this:

Note: not as many dragons as you'd think.

But with graphics like this:

Half the size of the castle? That's me.

But here's the thing. I didn't care about the graphics. The graphics were, and still are when I break these games out, the last thing on my mind. First and foremost, I care about the story and their playability. Now, I'm not saying the original Dragon Warrior was an amazing fantastical masterpiece, but it did spawn my second favourite game of all time, Dragon Warrior IV.

Blow in me. Do it.

This game had it all, great characters, compelling story, long enough play time. The only thing it didn't have was fantastic graphics.

Although that's up for debate.
I almost believe those are real mountains.

But at the time this game was released, these graphics were state-of-the-art. And that was great. The limited technology available to game designers also affected how fighting could happen in games.

Hot damn I almost believe I'm there fighting.

But here's what I love about that style of fighting. It isn't that it's easy, although it's nice to just sit back and press a button to fight sometimes. I just enjoy the way it plays without detracting from the story. It also lets all the hard work done by artists who create monsters to not go to waste; it's a lot more difficult to see a monster when you're all over the place trying to kill it, rather than calmly fighting based on turns, which gives you a really good look at whatever it is you're fighting.

I've also come to see that a lot of these first-person games that have been coming out recently all look the same, play the same, and have similar stories (or lack of, in the case of all those shooting games). Now, there are, of course some exceptions to this, games that have done really well, or should be doing really well, such as Skyrim and Dishonored. These are games with fantastic stories and immersive worlds. The first-person view adds to the immersion without taking away from gameplay. But games like Final Fantasy, or Dragon Quest, or any other games that began as turn-based should remain that way. It's a formula that's worked well for them over these years.

Black Ops.

Modern Warfare. A different game, apparently.

I don't know, maybe I'm old. Maybe I just can't see the allure of the live-action, first-person games like the rest of the world can. If that's the case, I hope someone can explain it to me so I can understand it too.

Or maybe it's that game designers, particularly those tasked with story are simply getting lazy, or reusing the same old formula again and again because it worked. All I know is, we're seeing a degradation of fantastic story, or great games are being overshadowed by the same game being released over and over again (what are we at now, Call of Duty 54?). I understand that games like Call of Duty can appeal to more people than say, an epic about slaying dragons using magic. But does that really mean one has to be taken more seriously than the other? Yes, I understand that money is on the line and the Call of Duty franchise generates A LOT. And I'm not saying that enjoying war games like it makes you any less of a gamer than someone who's logged 40+ hours into a, RPG. That certainly isn't true, both people enjoy playing games and most likely do so frequently. They are just different types of gamers. But why, are we ignoring a whole slew of types of gamers to favour just one? Why can't I just sit back after a long day and press A, or X, or Circle, or whatever to fight? And if I'm up for a more challenging or immersive game, I'll grab something different like Dishonored or Dark Souls, or whatever's on hand.

The world of gaming has indeed changed. There are times when I'm very happy about it. Like when Dragon Warrior IV was remade for the DS with slightly better graphics.

Thank you, Nintendo, for bringing my childhood back to me.

But then I question, when a game that is strikingly similar to to its predecessor(s) is released, why we even bothered to make the leap into the future in the first place. Have we really come to value graphics over the game itself?

Now, I'm not claiming to be an expert, or even a hardcore gamer. I honestly haven't touched many games since I did my research paper on them and wound up ripping most of my favourite titles apart. All I'm saying is I long for the good old days, where we had no graphics to rely on to make sales, so we had to rely on a good story with solid characters instead of using the same game over and over again and just dressing it differently.

Well, that's my angry rant for the day.

Cheers.

They should make villains less adorable/good-looking. Seriously.

It is totally not almost four in the morning and I am totally not still playing Zelda. Okay, now that we've gotten that blatant lie out of the way, I shall turn my attention to the pressing matter at hand: Villains, and why I don't feel like beating them up.


First and foremost, why do the dudes look like girls? Is it so I squeal and yell that he's totally my type OMGROLFWAFFLES? Cos I definitely will. Lord Ghirahim, resident Demon Lord of the newest installment of the Zelda franchise, is the most adorable little cross-dressing demon man I have ever seen. (Allow me my fangirl moment, damn you). With that very disturbing thought out there, let's get to the point. I honestly felt really bad about smashing his pretty little face repeatedly with my sword. Even being a woman, I felt like a savage woman beater... beating up a girly man.

I've made it my personal rule not to beat up men with makeup.

Except for him, he's fair game.

Now, don't get me wrong, female villains rock. But don't just give her magical powers while I've got massive Rambo muscles and a sword to cut her up good with. No, no no no no. She needs a kick-ass sword too. Maybe a cool bad-ass catch-phrase too. It's ingrained in all our heads not to go around beating women, so forgive for not wanting to go charging in with my sword while she shoots little sparkle dust at me, regardless of how powerful the spells actually are. At least give me the illusion she's fighting back by giving her a sword, or kick-ass club to hold.

Now THAT'S a woman after my own heart, right there.

Another thing I want to get out there is, stop giving them compelling backstories. Yes, I want to know more about them, where they've come from, why they're evil... but why do they always have to have such tragic pasts that make me feel sorry for them. The last thing I want when walking into a boss battle is to have sympathy or worse, even liking the villain I'm about the lay a smackdown on. (I'd like to refer to Loki right now, even though he's not a video game villain, just because the movie did just that, and it's the first thing I thought of.) The villain Count Bleck, from Super Paper Mario (oh god girliest game ever, but awesome still) is one of those. Of course, being the girly kid's game it is, he redeems himself in the end, so I guess this was a bad example.

After compelling backstories, the next problem is making the villains too likeable. If they're too funny, I won't want to kill them. If they're doing it for a lost love, I'll feel bad about it after vomiting at the cliché. If they're adorable, not going to want to hurt it.

 Look at that little loving-life grin. I feel bad every time. Sort of.

You want me to be itching to kick some villain ass? Make them annoying, but not so annoying as to stop me wanting to play the game.

Yeah, we all know we wanted to kill her instead of Ganondorf.

Or better yet, have the villain be as vindictive, sneering and condescending as possible. I think it's an instinct everyone's born with that they see a self-satisfied smirk on someone's face and they want to smack it off their face with their Master Sword. That's why Ganondorf was always such a good villain, he'd be condescending, making us go through round after round of light-ball ping-pong before considering you enough of a threat to let the fight get real. By that time, you're just itching to get your sword into him on even grounds to prove yourself. That's what you need in a villain. That self-confident, condescending asshole players can't wait to stick it to.

If all else fails, make all villains look like this.

Of course, you could go in another direction, with the emo, self-deprecating, why-won't-anyone-love-me-style villain. It gets to a point where they whine so much, you can't wait to just put them out of their misery.

You know who you are, pretty boy.

So what I think the world of video game villains needs, is a sort of mash-up. Someone who has a reason for being so evil, even if that reason is just being born that way, someone who's got story, but not so much that it takes over the game and makes me sympathize for the villain. Someone with flare, but not so much that players become attached. Someone who looks down on other characters with loathsome disdain. And best of all, someone so completely insane you couldn't imagine letting them live to see another day out of fear of what they might do. Well what do you know, Kefka's good for something after all, scaring you into wanting him dead. (Greatest villain of all time!)

He'll murder me in my sleep if I don't give him picture space.

So, to recap, what we need to do is stop making me like the villains I'm about to murder. Make them someone I enjoy killing. Not someone I enjoy watching and interacting with. That's what the whole point of games is, you get to the end, and kill the bad guy. I want to like doing it. Not feel bad about doing it. I want to look forward to the boss battle, I want to be so amped up about sticking my sword/photon/laser gun into his/her chest that I run in like a fool. THAT'S what video games seem to have lost in a sea of artsy graphics and story. I just want that feeling back.

Here's some fuel for nightmares before you go.

Cheers!