Description
Sonic Mania is Sega’s first full foray into the Classic Sonic archetype since 1994, in celebration of Sonic’s 25th Anniversary in 2016. Developed by a group of what can only be described as ‘ascended fan developers’, the game aimed to recapture what made the Sonic series popular back in the 1990s, returning back to a 2D, 16-bit-esque visual design akin to the most recent classic Sonic title, Sonic 3 & Knuckles.

In this game, you control either Sonic, Tails, or (not Ugandan) Knuckles, jumping, running and speeding through 12 differently designed zones, each character and each zone boasting their own personalities in order to stop Dr. Eggman from enslaving little critters and taking over the world.

This game released to worldwide fanfare, and eventually, worldwide renown. It was praised for being a step in the right direction for the Sonic series, being the first Sonic game to score above 8/10 from many reviewers in 11 years, but what exactly made it incredible in the eyes of many? We’ll attempt to examine the game through the Lens of Game Design, to distill what the developers did right in this game.

Disclaimer: Most of the lenses applied to Mania also applies to most of the other 2D Sonic titles, as Mania was meant to portray, emulate and exemplify what made the 2D titles popular and fun as compared to the recent 3D titles. As such, the elements described by the lenses may not be unique to the series as a whole, but they still show what the Sonic series does best.

The Elemental Tetrad

Mechanics
The game is simple – get to the end of the stage. You can jump, fly or climb through the stages to help you advance through the stages, but ultimately, how you get to the end is up to you. The obstacles in each stage will differ, and each stage will offer new skills to master, but none of that changes the goal. Run to the end of the stage to win. It’s a simple mechanic that always encourages the player to press on, due to its sheer simplicity; no matter what, you’ll manage to get to the end somehow.

Story
The story, as all games in the past, is kept simple and is only expressed and seen through non-verbal cutscenes. However, it is still easily understandable from the visual and audio cues.
The story involves the villain finding an omnipotent jewel, meaning it’s the hero’s job to stop the villain from using said jewel to rule the world. It’s simple, it’s cliched, but it gets the job done and gives the player motivation to carry on through the game.

Aesthetics
Mania attempts to recapture the beauty of classic games by drawing everything in a pixelated form, as if to emulate the technical limitations of the Sega Genesis. However, it also improves on the pixelated graphics by refining everything, to make it look brighter, deeper, and more contrasted, painting everything in a more vivid colour to breathe new life into the series and the reused environments from old zones. This, combined with retro-styled music using chiptunes, immerses players in a game that oozes with blasts to the past.

Technology
Though meant to emulate games of the past, Mania still takes advantage of the 8th generation consoles by allowing for more colours, higher fidelity sound, more audio channels, and most importantly, 60 FPS gameplay. All of this helps to make the game feel new and modern, despite its retro aesthetic.

The Lens of Emotion (#1)

The aim of the lead developer, Christian Whitehead, was to bring Sonic back to its roots and show the world that Classic Sonic could still work in the modern times. In order to honour the roots of the series, as well as to pay homage to the longtime fans of the series, Whitehead and his team decided to evoke as much nostalgia as they could, through the use of fanservice.

The trailer above was the first sight of a proper 16-bit Sonic title in 22 years, and was met with (literally) thunderous applause from the moment it was revealed. Despite the year-long delay of the game, people still anxiously awaited its release, and when it did release, fans of the series were rewarded from the getgo.

The first cutscene of Mania vs. the first Zone of S3&K

The moment the game is started, fans will constantly be bombarded with waves upon waves of nostalgia: the starting cutscene takes place in Angel Island Zone, appearing almost exactly as it did in 1994’s S3&K, followed immediately by the classic Green Hill Zone as the game’s first stage. As players progress through the stage, they will continue to venture through old stages interspersed between new stages, in order to keep the whole experience both nostalgic and yet fresh.

That is just the visual design – the gameplay itself runs almost exactly as it did 22 years ago. The developers attempted to replicate the physics of the Classic games, and managed to almost perfectly emulate the way the Classic games used to play. This only further immersed the players in the retro-ness of the game, allowing them to feel as if they were playing a game on their Sega Genesis way back when. They attempted to evoke one of the hardest emotions to evoke effectively from players, without milking it completely dry, and played it to their advantage.

What exactly about the gameplay, though, made it fun, and made people want to come back for more?

The Lens of Simplicity & Complexity (#48)

As explained earlier, the mechanics of the game are simple. When it boils down to it, you only have a few moves – for Sonic, you either run or jump, and sometimes Drop Dash. You only need these 3 moves to finish the entire game. However, how you finish it using these 3 moves is what matters; do you jump in at full speed? Do you slow down a little so you can control your jump and landing point? Do you jump lower of higher to get the least airtime, so you can conserve your horizontal momentum?

These are just several questions that you intrinsically ask each time you push the jump button. It’s a simple action, with simple responses, but the possibilities are endless. Each jump you make could lead you to a secret area, if you know how and where to jump. Each jump could lead you to destroying a chain of enemies, if you know where and when to hold forward. Furthermore, each intricate action is rewarded with more speed, and greater heights to carry you through the stage even further; an example of this would be the video viewed in the first lecture of Sonic The Hedgehog 2, where the first stage can be cleared in just 15 seconds, if your movements had computer-like precision.

The Lens of Triangularity (#40)

The Sonic series has always had one general rule of thumb – the higher, the better. What this means is that each stage usually has a higher route and a lower route. While the lower route is usually easier to enter, the higher route usually has simpler roads, less enemies, less obstacles, and is generally easier to traverse. Take this map of Green Hill Zone from 2 games, for instance:

GHZ Map from STH1 and Mania

As can be seen, the higher routes usually have a lot more empty space, while the lower routes results in much more jumping required to get to the end. Of course, this tradeoff doesn’t come without requirements. Higher routes usually require sufficient speed and precision jumping in order to jump on the enemies required to get to the platform. Furthermore, these enemies often don’t respawn, meaning you only get one chance to take the higher route. This is a test of skill that rewards players for making riskier plays with a quicker path and less obstacles, and is one of the staples of the Sonic series that Mania demonstrated well with its level design.

The Lens of Surprise (#4)

The final lens we’ll use to examine the game is tied with the earlier point of nostalgia being the emotion Whitehead and his team aimed to evoke through Mania. Throughout the development cycle of the game, only 2 zones were announced publicly, with the other 12 zones being unknown to everyone until release day. This meant that on the day of release, fans were pleasantly surprised by every ounce of fanservice left in the game for them to savour, from minor incidences to major gameplay elements.

In fact, one way that Mania used surprise to its advantage to milk nostalgia for all its worth is in one of the bosses. In the second Zone of the game, players don’t fight an ordinary boss.

This is the boss of the Zone.

This boss hails back to a game that a number of American fans would have played – Puyo Puyo, or in this case, Dr Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine. It was an unexpected gameplay change that struck a chord with every Genesis fan due to its elegance and, despite its odd place, how fitting it was in the game, as a throwback game.

Of course, other small nuances also served as a completely different surprise to keep players guessing as to what was coming next. Each Zone has 2 Acts, and oftentimes, Act 2 of a Zone would introduce a new gameplay element that was never present in the series before. These elements spice up the game at each point, and serve to refine each Zone’s personality, ensuring that each Zone is distinct and unique from each other.

Mania was a masterpiece that was the result of passionate game designers who believed in their franchise, and most importantly, the aim of their game. They utilised as much as they could from the old games, refined each element carefully, and polished everything into a neat little package as what was heralded as the ultimate homage to the Sega Genesis days of gaming. With this, Sonic Mania serves as a prime example of how to do a classic platformer right in today’s modern era.

Beginning in 1997 with the release of the first installment, Fallout is a series of action role-playing games originally developed by Black Isle Studios for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. After the release of Fallout 2, the main series took a decade long break when Black Isle closed after getting bought out by Interplay Entertainment. Bethesda studios released Fallout 3 on October 28, 2008 for both PC and consoles. Fallout 3 was a highly acclaimed game, receiving many awards and gaining the series a lot of attention.

In 2015, Bethesda release the latest installment in the franchise. Fallout 4 is an open-world game set in a post-apocalyptic United States. In the world of the narrative, your family enters an underground nuclear bomb shelter in 2077, and you alone emerge into the post-war wasteland in 2287. Your spouse is dead, and your main goal is to find your son who was stolen from the vault as a baby.

Game Trailer:

Gameplay Demo from E3 2015:

I — The Lens of Elemental Tetrad

Aesthetics:

From Pip-Boy menu to the radioactive craters, Fallout 4 has post-war aesthetic that it unfalteringly adheres to. The series creates a world that does not vary much between the games. The Fallout games unify even its most inconsequential assets right down to Washo detergent. Any long time player of the series would be able to list off the fictional branding within the Wasteland.

Technology:

Fallout 4’s graphics paired with its open world gameplay was at the top of the industry at the time of its release. Starting with Fallout 3, the series uses realistic 3D models to depict the Wasteland, and interactions between the player and NPCs are mostly realtime. One of Bethesda’s main goals between each of the studio’s releases is a complete graphics overhaul. Fallout 4 was no exception, and the studio pushed out another environment full of props and enemies ready to be explored.

Mechanics:

Fallout 4 mechanics are pretty basic as far as current games go. The player has the option between first and third person, and the camera and player movement is controlled by the joysticks or a keypad and mouse, actions are handled using the trigger or mouse click, and so on. The really defining mechanic of the series is V.A.T.S., a targeting system which allows even inept players to take out enemy targets.

Screenshot: View of an active V.A.T.S. mechanic.

After some amount of recharge, a player can use V.A.T.S. to queue specific shots at specific body parts of nearby targets. This system is a call back to the turn-based combat of the first two installments of the series.

Story:

Storywise, the Fallout games tend to follow some variation of the same the narrative: the player emerges from a vault shelter into the Wasteland for the first time and with no knowledge of the current state of the world, and he or she must seek out some other person. Fallout 4, like the others in the series, has its nuances, but after several games of a similar plot, the story comes second to just exploring the world and completing side quests.

Enhancements and harmony?

The two major areas that Fallout 4 could be enhanced in is in story and in mechanics. The names and faces change with each new title, but because of the strong aesthetics across the series, each new game feels more and more like a remake of the last, just with improvements to the technology. Along a similar thought, adding a new mechanic to the game has the potential to refresh the story. Fallout 4 attempted this through it’s settlement building system, where the player could create and operate their own settlements at various sites throughout the map. Unfortunately, the feature ended up having the feeling of post-apocalyptic Sims, and did not greatly affect the rest of the gameplay. Because the settlements mechanic lacked integration, the game felt unbalanced at times. A player could spend hours of the game creating a massive settlement with all the best artillery, and still not have made any progress in the actual storyline of the game.

II — The Lens of Time

• The time it takes to complete Fallout 4 is completely at the hands of the player. If the player finds pleasure in a particular type of quest within the game, he or she is more likely to continue playing and exploring the open-world map.
• Fallout 4 has the potential to frustrate players by its scale and the length of time it takes to complete quests. The player can go through only the main quest line, but they will experience greater difficulty as the game progresses because many of the perks are buried in the dozens of side quests.
• If a timing system were to be installed, the player’s freedom to explore the Wasteland would be lost. Fallout 4 is a modern take on a choose your own adventure story, and with that there is no easy way to cap the amount of time quests should take.

III — The Lens of Goals

• At its root, the goal of the player is to find their son and change the society of the game to fit their ideology by aligning with one of the game’s four factions.
• The goal is reiterated many times by the NPCs and dialogue options of the player.
• The goal is met as the player moves through the Wasteland and learns more about its inhabitants.
• Achieving these goals is secondary to the enjoyment of actually experiencing the game. The more creatively a player can change the course of a game, the more rewarding completing the goals are.
• There are plenty of short term goals a player can achieve by accepting side quests. Completing side quests ultimately makes achieving the main goal more fulfilling.
• The player is in control over how many of the narrative’s goals they complete, and whether or not they complete them for good or for evil.

IV — The Lens of Physical Interface

• The player can examine almost any asset in the game. While not all of these assets are destructible, there is still a huge level of interaction between the player and the environment.
• This interaction is done entirely through a keyboard or console controller, so the player’s experience of the game relies entirely on the audio and visuals of the game.
• The best physical mapping of the game is through a console controller, which shakes and vibrates alongside the world of the game.
• If the player uses a gun, the trigger on the controller is an accurate mapping, but the player can use any number of weapons. If the player chooses to use a bat or fists as weapons, the physical interface becomes much less direct.

V — The Lens of the Weirdest Thing

• Fallout is known for its weirdness. It is the most endearing quality of the game, and the reason fans remain so loyal. These nonsensical moments and hidden scenes are scattered throughout the map where only players who leave the main story to seek their own adventure may find them.
  

  Screenshot: Fallout 4 easter egg.

• The weird moments may confuse the player, but they never break the rules the game has laid.
• Easter eggs in Fallout are usually allusions to pop culture.
• Fallout 4 uses its weirder moments to break up the sameness of the Wasteland and it’s quests.

*Contains spoilers!

Earthbound is a single-player JRPG released in Japan on 27 August, 1994 and released in the United States on June 5, 1995. Also known as Mother 2, it was co-developed by Ape Inc. and HAL Laboratory and published for the SNES. Notably, one of the developers of the game was the late Mr Iwata. Although Earthbound did not perform well sales-wise overseas due to a somewhat satirical marketing campaign and a mismatch of market expectations, it managed to acquire a significant cult following due to its unorthodox writing and quirky gameplay. Eventually, word of the game spread out and Earthbound began receiving critical acclaim.

Earthbound tells the story of a party of four children – Ness, Paula, Jess and Poo – travelling on an adventure to try to defeat the evil alien Giygas (who has spiralled Earth into chaos).

Lens of Elemental Tetrad

Aesthetics

It must be said that Earthbound’s visuals, even for its time, is average at best (comparing to releases in the same era such as FF6, Chrono Trigger, etc). However, Earthbound does extremely well in being able to portray a great amount of character and flair even with the simple and childish pixel art style.

A diverse bunch of characters.

Like many JRPGs, Earthbound contains a wide array of soundtracks but it also breaks free from the norm with some “weird” ones befitting its surrealistic story. All in all, the music is another one of Earthbound’s great features which is masterfully melded with the story and art.

Mechanics

Earthbound is part of the JRPG genre and thus, plays similarly:

• Traveling in an overworld.
• Dialog with NPCs/objects.
• Going into a ‘battle scene’ when entering combat.
• Turn-based battling

But, it provides a few twists to commonplace mechanics. In battles, ‘health’ of a character is represented by a scrolling number wheel. Rather than instantly depleting health when taking damage, the number wheel scrolls down gradually – giving players a chance to rush to heal up his character before dying. Having fast fingers may help you turn around a fight!

HP and PP are represented as scrolling numbers, like a slot machine.

Story

The crowning factor of Earthbound’s success. Many have praised the unconventional writing in Earthbound and having played it myself, I very much agree. Earthbound’s narrative is both comedic and bizarre in nature. Yet, this is not a boon in the game’s design.

Very helpful, miss.

It provides a surreal adventure which tickles the bones of those tired of the standard adventure trope but also brings it all together with a strong unifying theme – bonds between people. Every character feels a part of this world, from the unhelpful receptionist bored behind the desk to the policemen punishing Ness for trespassing. (Earthbound is also unafraid of breaking the fourth wall as well.)

I’m already playing Earthbound, y’know.

Lens of problem solving

The story of Earthbound takes Ness and his friends across many scenarios which can be considered puzzles. Combat is still a thing, but acts as a means to an end – solving the puzzles. In simpler puzzles, NPCs may send the party on an errand and one must figure out where to go and what to do based on the instructions given. In more complex ones, you may have to find and piece together clues to solve a code or figure out which sequence of NPCs to talk to in order to get the required item.

A puzzle requiring you to step the buttons in the right order.

Lens of surprise

Do not be fooled by Earthbound’s child-like appearance. While it seems marketed for kids to play, under the layer of flowers and sunshine lie some adult themes such as depression, abuse, corruption, cults, xenophobia, innuendos, etc – a parodical, tongue-in-cheek representation of modern society (at that time, maybe even now). This juxtaposition from the common expectation provides a interesting twist to the game and fits well with the imminent doom from Giygas, as if letting us be aware of the evils of the world we have today. Perhaps, there is a hidden lesson to be learnt here.

We know what they look like, let’s not talk about it.

Besides having big twists in the story, one would also never expect a creature coming out of a Lovecraftian horror book to appear at the end of such the colourful and quirky game we played for the past 30 hours.

Giygas.

Lens of character

The adventure takes our four heroes on a sprawling journey through many settings, littered with encounters with characters of all types, aliens and dinosaurs included, each with their own unique personalities. Many of these characters are inbuilt into the story in different manners, making each obstacle faced by our heroes special in their own way. In some cases, species have funny traits. For example, the tribe of Tendas who are extremely shy and the Mr Saturns who speak in extremely disjointed english (accompanied by a bonkers dialogue font!). In my opinion, these minor oddities really build up the characters of the NPCs and make the game as a whole feel that much more alive (and strange).

Mr Saturns and their weird talk.

Lens of emotion

Bonds have always been emphasized throughout the adventure in Earthbound – bonds between family (and dog), bonds between friends, forging new bonds with strangers. Rather than a mystical book or a shining light, the save spots in Earthbound are telephones where you talk to your father (who is unseen in the game, presumably a mimicry of the work-centric culture in Japan) for a bit before saving. Ness would also become ‘homesick’ (a negative status effect in battle) if he has not called home in a while. As a result, when I played through it, there was a small sense of melancholy as I empathised with Ness being away from his family for such a long time.

Thanks, dad.

Even after the world is saved and the game is over, new dialogue would be written for many of the NPC’s, particularly those whom you have bonded with along the journey. For me, it served as a bitter-sweet conclusion to the game as I had only a little time left before I had to part ways with the characters which grew on me as well as the adventure I took playing the game.

:'(

Conclusion

Earthbound is a great game than lasted throughout the ages, inspiring many popular games such as Undertale, Lisa, Off, as well as tons of fan games. It is absurd, strange and crazy – and that’s awesome.

Bravely Default: Where the Fairy Flies

Description
Bravely Default: Where the Fairy Flies, titled Bravely Default: Flying Fairy in Japan, is a Nintendo 3DS Role-Playing game originally exclusively released in Japan. It is considered by the publishers to be a spiritual successor to Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light, having the same initials as Final Fantasy with Flying Fairy and its job system has been compared to that of Final Fantasy V.
In this game, you control Tiz, a young boy who just lost his brother in an accident. He meets Agnes, who is on her way on purifying crystals to prevent the very same accident from happening again. Together, they embark on a journey, meet new friends, forms a party of 4 and saves the world…. Or what they were led to believe.

The story follows the archetype of the current Square Enix games, revolving around the central theme of crystals. While it is not terribly unoriginal, its execution is what makes it stand out from the other 3DS games. It is delivered mainly through voiced dialogue which helps in bringing the character alive and the choice of music is apt in expressing the mood of the situation during the tide of battle (The soundtrack becomes a indicator of how long your special move lasts).. The cues are also well placed, from new encounters, intense battle to sad partings.

When this music plays, you will automatically know it’s a boss fight

Lens of the Hero’s Journey

Screenshot: One of the many light-hearted banters ingame

Bravely Default follows the standard fantasy archetype where, based on Vogler’s synopsis of the Hero’s Journey, it contains clichés like but not limited to

• Ordinary World- Tiz was living the normal village life
• The Call to Adventure- A disaster strikes, breaking his everyday life
• Tests, Allies, Enemies- Tiz faces challenges, makes allies and explores the world
• The Road Back- Tiz completes his mission but it isn’t truly over yet.

What starts off as a stereotypical story, slowly evolved into more than just any other fantasy story. The party of 4 began as one-dimensional characters but as the story progresses, their characters were fleshed out and developed beyond their initial archetype.

The game also contains

• Mini-dialogues that gives more insight to the everyday lives of the party and their relationships, making you feel more connected to them emotionally.
• Side-quests with a unique way of storytelling, they were even able to flesh out the side characters, giving a different perspective than when the main party first encountered them. Villains are not simply enemies to defeat and have their own worries and motives

Bravely Default slowly transforms its story from the standard good-vs-evil to a point where there is no clear line between good and evil. This lens meshes very well with the next lens that I will talk about.

Lens of Interest Curve

Through the usage of the structure provided by the Hero’s Journey, the interest of the player is sustained very well (at least, in the first few chapters). Being on a journey, the party will

• Encounter towns
• Meet new characters including the villain
• Solve problems along the way of the main quest
• Explore dungeons and defeat the villain
• Achieve a milestone of the main goal and unlock new powers, all in one chapter.

The story presents itself in arcs and the interest slowly builds up with the suspense creeping up, with the villain’s occasional appearances, leading up to the final boss fight. In between chapters, they take detours to rest or power up, providing a respite of tensions. After every chapter, it is a whole new chapter but with a growing backstory of the main ‘evil’ organization making its moves in response to the party’s movements. This rollercoaster ride helps in retaining the player’s attention by giving both periods of rest and peak, with a grand finale to top things off.

However, Bravely Default overuses this formula in its later chapters. It suffers from what most Japanese RPGs have a problem in. A grinding process. In the second half of the game, the plot comes to a standstill and the player is forced to repeat similar events multiple times. A rollercoaster ride is fun but when rode too many times, it turns displeasing. Still, to its credit, Bravely Default stuck true to its world-building and even the repetitions have variations (or easter eggs) to help the player tide it over

Lens of Simplicity and Complexity

Partly what contributed to Bravely Default’s success is its job system. Each character (in your party of four) has access to the same 24 jobs, each with a slight inclination to certain jobs but not limited to. At any point of time, only 2 jobs can be equipped at the same time, one as a main, the other as a secondary.

Screenshot: A overview of the job White Mage in the job selection wheel

A job itself is simple and focused on achieving a specific role, say White Mage is specialized for healing, Black Mage is specialized for offensive magic. As the player can freely mix-and-match the jobs, he is given the tools to come up with different strategies according to the natural synergies of the classes, rather than being force-fed them like a traditional RPG (where the heroes comes in a set class).

The battle system is also straightforward, with the typical actions and elements you can find in an RPG. An interesting feature would be its Brave and Default systems. By Defaulting, you skip your turn while defending, gaining a Brave Point. By Braving, you spend Brave points to gain an extra turn. You can also go into a deficit, when you use your future turns in one go, allowing one to strategize. Do I bide my time or do I go all-out, risking vulnerability if I fail to defeat the enemy.

Screenshot: Brave in action

This is where the emergent complexity kicks in.

• Different combinations of the jobs to explore allow one to experience many styles of gameplay. Within the jobs are a separate different combination of passive skills to equip as well. There are the general builds and there are niche ones like an ultra-defensive White Mage+Knight or an all-or-nothing Dark Knight+Monk.
• Jobs (and their respective skills) are earned on a gradual curve, thus the player is not overwhelmed with the whole 24 jobs in one go. The more I play, the more the game unlocks new possibilities for me, encouraging me to play even further.
• The Brave and Default system is easy to understand and the game introduces more layers of complexity when enemies begin to use and abuse the same system. They become smarter, being able to take advantage of your usual strategies, forcing you to rethink and try different fighting styles.

Lens of Freedom

The version of Bravely Default I played was the updated version, where additional system controls were open to the player. Normally in traditional RPGs (like Final Fantasy or Pokemon), when the player wants to avoid or induce battles, they can only do so through special items that influence the encounter rate. Bravely Default allows you to adjust that rate directly without the silly process of buying those items (begone Repels and Honeys!). This freedom to purely enjoy the story or when to grind for the upcoming boss fight (which is made unskippable), is what I feel most games should have innately without a paywall.

Although the story is linear, and progression is one direction at the start, like its spiritual successor, Final Fantasy, the ability (or rather desire) to backtrack is unlocked past a certain point of the game, with fast travel.

Lens of Surprise

Last but not least, what captivated me was the plot twists of this game. Bravely Default comes with multiple surprises on various levels.

• Villains are not just your stereotypical pure evil villains. Their backstories and motivations are only revealed when you venture out of the main quest line
• Details of previous disasters or past events show up, providing an insight as to the current events happening
• Open Secret. The biggest plot twist was already shown right at the start without the player noticing it.

Saying any more would mean spoilers. :p

With references to Donkey Kong (see above) and Super Mario Bros, we know that Braid was inspired by the legends of platformer games and also utilises the timeless mechanics of jumping on platforms and monsters. Like those games, you also have to “rescue” a princess from a castle. Combined with an intriguing new mechanic, the ability to control time, Braid became an legend of its own in the overly saturated platformer genre and was also recognised as a wonderfully made puzzle game. When it was released in 2008, many industry people said it brought the indie game industry to new heights by sparking people’s interest in indie games.

But that’s not all about it. The true reason why this tiny indie game is immensely famous is because of its seemingly simple story with a huge twist at the end of the game which conflicts with all your preconceived notions of what the aim of the game is. Its developer, Jonathan Blow, who studied both English and Computer Science, combines art, literature and game design in unprecedented ways. Eventually, you can’t shake off the feeling that you are being played by the game instead.

Original Game Demo (Trailer)

Speed run: Will have spoilers!!

Lens of Elemental Tetrad
Mechanics
The platformer mechanics like walking, jumping on platforms, triggering a switch to move a platform, avoiding dangerous projectiles are timeless. The ability to jump on monsters to kill them is also a classic mechanic from Mario Bros that many people are likely to be familiar with. Braid then adds a mechanic which is the ability to reverse time and fast forward time. Not all objects are affected by time, thus the player has to make use of this time mechanic to collect the jigsaw puzzle pieces. In world 3, walking left will reverse time, walking right will fast forward time. In world 4, every time you reverse time, it will create a doppelgänger shadow that does what you did in the past. With mechanics that are kept simple, Braid manages to come up with many genius yet varied puzzles for players to solve.

Another impressive part of the mechanics is that they have “dynamical meaning”, a term coined by developer of Braid. This means that the mechanics will communicate emotionally to you, like how tutorials are incorporated seamlessly into the first few levels of every world. You are not told explicitly what to do. Additionally, the mechanics of the last level helps to tell the story, which we will talk about later.

Aesthetic
Braid uses a timeless 2D art style that does not distract you from the puzzles and yet is still pleasing to the eyes. The rugged 2D graphics gives it a more indie feel, plus the tinge of nostalgia that the art brings also helps to set the atmosphere for the story, a story of nostalgia and regret.

Technology
There is no breakthrough technology used with a 2D side-scrolling platformer but this is great because it does not complicate the mechanics. Braid was first released on Xbox and then ported over to PC. The time forwarding and reversing is natural on a Xbox controller because it uses the L1 and R1 buttons.

It implements some basic “game” physics for its puzzles. Jumping off a slope will give you a slight increase in speed and jumping on monsters 2-3 times will increase your jump height and this technology is part of the puzzles.

Story
On the surface, the story seems to be just about a guy regretting his mistakes and thus the princess left him and he needs to save the princess from a castle. He is also trying to relive his memories with the princess along the way. However, the vague narrative text seems to hint something more than that. The text uses many metaphors and often provides more insight into humanity. It even makes reference to the Manhattan project that created the atomic bomb. The player has to analyse the texts to make sense of the story, opening the story to different interpretations.

The story was meant to be distinctly separate from the game puzzles as the developer felt that he did not want to force any player to read the long narrative text. He felt it might also distract them from the actual puzzle solving. However, I personally prefer a story that is strongly tied to the puzzles, rather than solving all the puzzles in the world, only to be met with a dinosaur at the end that says that the princess is not in this particular castle.

The story in this game is mainly delivered through narrative text but is wonderfully complemented with the mechanics, nostalgic aesthetics and the relative simple technology used. The time mechanics emphasises on the fact that the past affects the future while the main character is trying to reverse his past mistakes.The mechanics of the last level in particular brings a huge twist to the story which makes this story shocking and also memorable…

Lens of surprise
There is no surprise that Braid is full of surprises as a puzzle game. Firstly, surprise is first delivered through discovering the solution to puzzles.The solution could be surprisingly simple. Secondly, there are tons of hidden things to discover in the game. There are hidden jigsaw puzzles pieces to be collected and pieced together to form pictures and they unlock the last level. There are hidden levels where you can collect stars instead. These will form a constellation once they are all collected and unlock the epilogue and the true ending. The epilogue, in my opinion, is the biggest surprise, giving unexpected insights into our main character and explains the metaphors in the story.

Lens of Challenge
Braid has mechanics which is easy to learn but difficult to master, this helps it to come up with both very easy puzzles (which are often tutorials at the start of each world to introduce a new slant to the time mechanic) and also very difficult puzzles near the end of each world. These difficult puzzles can be skipped as those jigsaw puzzle pieces need not be collected unless player is aiming for 100% completion. This allows beginners to progress through the game and improve their skills along the way first. They are allowed to come back to solve these difficult puzzles later. Thus Braid successfully caters to players of varying abilities. Alternating between easy and difficult puzzles is related to the lens of flow which we will mention later.

Lens of Parallelism
The same mechanics (different slant or variation to the main time mechanic) is used across levels in the same world. Easy levels are placed at the start of the world and the difficulty gradually increase towards the end of the world. This allows players to get used to a specific kind of mechanic and hone their skills. The final level will then test all these mechanics introduced previously, as if it is a “graduation exam”. This is also related to the lens of flow…

Lens of flow
The game manages to fluctuate between relaxation and tension by ultilising parallelism (see lens of parallelism) and levels of varying difficulties (see lens of challenge). Thus this creates a flow for players to increasingly feel enjoyment.

Thus, this is a game that is impossible not to learn from as a game designer even 10 years later in 2018. Though painfully crafted puzzle games might not appeal to a wide audience, Braid combines an amazing narrative with a unique time mechanic twist to our classic platformer genre.

Official website: http://www.okami-game.com/

Game Description

Okami is an action adventure game developed by Clover Studio and published by Capcom. It was initially released on April 20, 2006 for the Playstation 2, but has since received multiple ports featuring updated controls and graphics for the Wii, Playstation 3, PC, Playstation 4 and Xbox One. It was highly acclaimed, receiving over 30 different awards including Game of The Year, Best Overall Story, Most Innovative Design and Best PS2 Adventure Game.

The game is set in the context of classical Japanese history and uses elements found in Japanese folklore to tell the story of how the land was saved from darkness by the Shinto sun goddess Amaterasu, who takes the form of a white wolf. This doubles as a pun on the title of the game, as both 大神, or great god, and 狼, or wolf, are read as Okami.

The Lens of the Elemental Tetrad

Aesthetics

Okami’s world is set in a beautiful, cel-shaded environment with a water colour style that was designed to resemble traditional Japanese ink wash paintings. As Amaterasu runs, flowers spring forth in her wake, brushstrokes that symbolise the wind flow past occasionally, and the very aesthetic of the painting ties in to Okami’s most unique mechanic.

Mechanics:

Okami contains a mix of action, platforming and puzzle gameplay. Like many others of the genre, Amaterasu can run, jump and fight in real time. She has health points that when depleted, results in a game over, an inventory to store items and currency, and stats that she can level up.

In addition, Okami’s most unique mechanic and Amaterasu’s signature ability is to be able to use her tail, the Celestial Brush, to draw patterns on the canvas that is the screen. This lets her use 13 different techniques to solve puzzles, manipulate the environment and defeat enemies. The patterns players need to draw are easy to execute, consisting primarily of swirls, lines and circles. Amaterasu only starts with one of these techniques, and players are allowed to slowly get used to her different abilities as she learns them throughout the game. By using the proper technique, players are able to cause the Sun to rise, restore broken objects, slow down time or call upon the elements to smite their enemy, amongst others. Given the power and versatility of the ability, Amaterasu is limited by a slowly regenerating resource of ink to discourage players from carelessly using the brush, as running out of ink cripples Amaterasu all around.

Story:

100 years prior to the game’s present day, a great white wolf, Shiranui, and a swordsman, Nagi, sealed away the eight headed serpent demon Orochi. In the present day, Susano, Nagi’s descendant, unwittingly sets Orochi free. Orochi curses the lands, and drains the life from Nippon. Amaterasu, the goddess of the Sun and the reincarnation of Shiranui, is called forth to remove the curse and to restore the land to its normal state. Amaterasu, along  with her companion Issun, set out to regain the powers of her Celestial Brush and gather Praise from the people of the land, eventually going back in time to stop Orochi at his peak and defeating the symbol of Darkness, Yami. Throughout the story, Okami takes elements from Japanese mythology, such as having Kaguya, from the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, and the Celestial Brush Gods representing the 12 animals of the Asian Zodiac.

Technology:

The cel-shaded artstyle and simple aesthetics is relatively less graphically intensive as compared to many other games of its time, and helps it age very well even into the present day. One of the challenges I found that Okami faces is its controls and how to make drawing using the Celestial Brush effective for the player. When I played on its original release on the PS2, I found having to use the analog sticks a little awkward at times. Even though the patterns have been made simple to make it easier for the player, I found the ports on the Wii, which uses motion controls on the Wii remote to serve as the brush, and on the PC, which uses the mouse, to be much more natural and more comfortable for drawing.

The lens of character transformation:

At the start of the game, Amaterasu is little more than an intelligent wolf. With nothing but her basic attacks and her only Celestial Brush technique being Sunrise, many of the villagers throughout the land are sceptical of her status as a goddess. However, throughout the game, as Amaterasu helps out the people of the land and regains her powers, not only is she a more adept combatant, she is also seen by the people in a new light, and becomes a goddess that people can truly put their faith in. At the end of the game, as Yami strikes down Amaterasu, isolates her from her companions and siphons all her power, it is the prayers and the belief of all the people that Amaterasu has changed the life of along the way that allowed her to rise once again and vanquish Yami for good.

The lens of freedom:

The player can, at any point outside of menus and cutscenes, bring up the canvas to use the celestial brush. Instead of having them relegated to specific zones, players are free to experiment with the various Celestial Brush techniques at any point and see how they interact with the environment and with the enemies. Certain techniques, such as Bloom or Galestorm, can have different effects on different targets.

The lens of problem solving:

Being partially a puzzle game, Okami has its fair share of problem solving to be done. This mostly takes the form of sidequests where Amaterasu helps the people of Nippon and helping Amaterasu traverse the environment. While not extremely challenging, especially with Issun giving Amaterasu and the player advice on how to solve them, I found the slower pace of puzzle segments to be a refreshing change from the combat segments.

The lens of help:

Both the main quests and sidequests in Okami involve performing miracles and helping the people throughout the land. While this does have inherent gameplay benefits, as Praise is needed to increase Amaterasu’s stats, I found being able to make a change to these character’s lives, and convince them that Amaterasu isn’t merely a friendly wolf but a benevolent goddess watching over them to be very satisfactory. The final moments of the game, where the prayers from the people of the land that you’ve helped throughout your journey saves Amaterasu from certain doom at the hand of Yami, is also one of my personal highlights of the game.

The Total War series started in June 2000 with SHOGUN: Total War and its newest installment will come out autumn this year with Total War: Three Kingdoms (I’m extremely hyped for this by the way). It was a revolutionary computer game as although there were already quite a few Real Time Strategy games in the market, nothing could compare to the scale of battles in the Total War series.

Total War games mostly follow the same pattern. The campaign allows you to choose between several factions, lords or races and then thrusts you straight onto a campaign map of a chaotic warring region, and your goal is usually to conquer a certain number of lands and provinces by wrestling them out of the hands of rebels or other factions in a turn-based game of strategy. You must thus use military power, diplomacy, cunning, subterfuge and many other ways to outplay your enemies and make use of your allies.

When it comes to battle, what differentiated this game from normal RTS games was that you command a unit of troops instead of single individuals and try to out maneuver your opponents. On the surface, it would look like a simple rock-paper-scissors way of fighting; Cavalry beats archers, archers beat spearmen, spearmen beat horses. But the wide variety of units and abilities present even in the first installment of the series makes battles infinitely interesting and brings about unlimited possibilities in dynamics.

Screenshot: Troops charging head on

Screenshot: Soldiers slugging it out

In this review, I will be talking about one of my favorite in the series, Medieval II: Total War which was released in 2006. In this game, the year is 1080 and it focuses on medieval warfare, religion and politics in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Each Total War game is based on a historical time and a specific area. In Shogun, it was in Japan, with samurais and ninjas. In Medieval II, there were heavy plated knight cavalry, crusaders, kings, princes and princesses. The objectives in this installment were more interesting than the previous few, where each faction had different goals, usually in line with some historical events such as the Battle of Agincourt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Agincourt

Screenshot: Historical Battle mode, Battle of Agincourt

The Lens of Meaningful Choices #39

The first thing new comers will tell you when they first try this game is that they are at a loss of what to do first. The campaign in Medieval II starts you off with a few towns and few units and yet, the choices you must make seemed overwhelming and significant. Right from the start, the player must think: Should I train troops? What troops should I train? Should I move my princess towards forging relations with my neighbors? Or should I let my diplomat handle those? What should I build? Should I take over that rebel settlement to the north? Should I raise taxes? Should I let my priest stay in this town or move somewhere else to spread our religion?

Screenshot: The starting lands of the Holy Roman Empire

There are a lot more choices and they are all significant and meaningful in your strategy. Each action you take in the campaign determines how your kingdom fares. The player decides whether to forgo short term gains for possible long-term benefits. Each action also affects all other factions attitude towards you and may spell your doom if everyone in the region hates you.

That is what makes Total War games fun, and in Medieval II, the number of choices players must make are even more than the previous games, which made gameplay a lot more dynamic and diverse. One example is the Pope system, where you must choose whether to obey the pope demands or to risk the pope commanding a crusade against you.

Screenshot: The Pope and Cardinals window

While there are a few dominant strategies to allow you to win the game with slightly more ease, there is enough randomness in the game and it’s AI to keep players on their feet. Cavalry is strong in the game, you can have an army stocked with full plated cavalry, but you might just run into an enemy with so many heavy spearmen that your horses will only charge against what seems like brick walls. Furthermore, there is a hidden pride from the Total War community to complete your campaign with some form of limitations imposed on yourself. Such as using no cavalry, or to role play as an evil oppressor and lead by fear instead of respect of the people.

The Lens of Goals #32

However, no matter which way you choose to play it, the goal of the game is clear and simple: Complete dominance no matter what. The goal of the game was made clear right from the start, to win the campaign, you must defeat your enemies and conquer a certain number of lands. It is this clear and simple goal that brought about replay value, as there are many ways to attain your goal, and your campaign will never be the same twice.

Along the way, smaller goals known as missions appear to guide players towards the goals. The missions could be to conquer a certain castle or to form a certain alliance with a faction. These goals not only guides players, they reward players for completing them with more resources for their conquest.

Screenshot: Mission Success

Even so, players can still decide whether to do these missions and that will eventually depend on the player’s strategy. Players can choose to complete the mission and ally with another, or if they feel that they are strong enough, they can reject the mission, create their own goal of eliminating the faction and take over their resources. Even at the end of the game, players can choose to set their own goals to take over the rest of the lands to gain an achievement.

The Lens of Visible Progress #55

After hundreds of choices, tens of missions and a scary number of bloodied battlefields, one of the best rewards of the game is to see your faction grow and paint the map with your own color. The progress is not fast by any means, but to see your several hours of effort transform one tiny province into entire continents of land you own makes everything worth it.

Screenshot: The Holy Roman Empire expands

Not only the land, but hours of fighting and training later, you would end up with an army of the highest training, best equipment and invaluable experience to help fight your way to becoming the ultimate conqueror as your war machine pushes through your enemies like a hot knife through butter (Although at higher difficulties, your enemy would have built up a similar army).

Of course, like any kingdom, the more progress you make, the more problems arise. A large kingdom may be too spread out, so players will now have to deal with lack of authoritarian presence, unhappy citizens, civil unrest and a large border to defend. Progress in this game brings about new challenges and can keep a player hooked for hours trying to keep their kingdom afloat and expand at the same time.

Screenshot: Unhappy citizens riot

The Lens of Balance #53

The factions in this game are NOT balanced. I think that is the only reason why after completing the game so many times, players come back for more by choosing other factions. By playing as the English, you start of with a decent amount of land, your bowmen are incredibly deadly and can go head to head with the toughest roman squads you encounter. You are surrounded by rebel settlements which you can take easily and occupy.

Screenshot: Start of England campaign, you can expand to York, Bruges and Rennes easily

After winning as the English, you might find yourself with a different footing if you chose to try out another faction. As Scotland, the roles are reversed. You start of with one land at the very north of the game map. Directly south blocking your way from the rest of the land, is the great English empire.

Screenshot: Start of Scotland campaign, you only can get to Iverness as England will take York

Each faction has different traits, starting areas and enemies. The land around each faction is also different such that your strategies must adapt. It is this lack of balance between factions that makes things interesting. Each Total War game have designed their balance such that I feel like I’m playing a totally different game when trying out other factions.

Conclusion

10/10 on steam, overwhelmingly positive. This game may be arguably one of the best Total War games ever released. Although the graphics are a little dated, but the gameplay and mechanics are marvelous. Personally, I own the latest Total War: Warhammer II and am excitedly waiting for Three Kingdoms. But I have played Medieval II the most. Besides, when I’m stuck in school and my laptop can’t handle the newer games, I ride with my crusaders to once again dominate the world of Medieval II: Total War.

Metal Slug 3

Description:
Metal Slug 3 is a run and gun video game developed by SNK. It was originally released in 2000 for Neo-Geo MVS arcade platform as the sequel to Metal Slug 2 and Metal Slug X. It is the last of the series of Metal Slug to be produced under the name of SNK. Many new features such as new weapons and vehicles, introducing branching paths are added to this game. Many fans think this is the highest quality in the series. Its difficulty in the series is also regarded the highest.

video link: https://www.youtube.com/embed/dLz8DEds8N4?rel=0

Lens #7: The Lens of the Elemental Tetrad

Mechanics:
Metal Slug 3 is a 2D side-scrolling shooter game. Its main mechanics is very simple: just kill all the enemies by all means! (but sometimes enemies are friends to help you..) Other things about mechanics are as follow (rules and procedures)

• play single or only 2 people play together
• Goals: clear or escape everything that may kill you and then defeat the boss
• Actions: roles can shoot, jump, ran, crouch, get into a vehicle, and get weapons
• one role can only have one single life
• there are many weapons to intensify fire
• choose different path to enter the next scene
• kill the Boss with your weapon and enter the next level

Story:

At first player’s aim is to diminish the rebellion army orchestrated by General Morden but at last player will find the Morden is fake and actually it is an alien. So player will fight against the alien with the rebellion army in the last level. Cause the structure of the whole story is not linear (player can choose different paths), so the player will have different experience at each path. Enemies can be everything from everywhere, soldiers on the ground, crabs in the water, zombies marching on the land, flowers jumping from cliff, aliens flying in the sky etc. Player can also drive various vehicles (animals) to fight and run.

Aesthetics:

Music: Under different circumstances, players may hear different background music. The music of the Metal Slug 3 was developed by Noise Factory and it is also a selling point. Sometimes the music will give players a mood tension, but after the battle the role may sit on the ground and sigh and the background music will be more pleasant. There were many other sound effects that helped tell the story too.

Influence: The players will be surrounded by all kinds of enemies and bullets so it is full of elements of thriller and have a great visual impact on every one. This game will make you immersed in the war and feel just like a lonely hero. Even if a little careless control, you may lose your life and a coin so it has also made a great fortune for the arcade games’ owner.

Story: the story of the game is not very complicated but very interesting, first you fight against rebellion army but at last you fight with them against aliens. What the branching path bring to the players is also very impressive, that means, players will find everything may be evil.

Appearance: the appearance of the Metal Slug 3 is very sophisticated and advanced at that time. Maybe dark metal color and orrange are the theme color of the game. This will give players a deep impression and a feeling of combat. Even in today, the screen of this game is also a classic style of war games.

Technology: 

• Some tracking bullets
• Intellegent marching enemies