Indier Than You
Old RPG jokes never got old, as is showcased by how I never stop writing them.
I haven’t been having any fun with big budget games lately, something that has me questioning the validity of my favorite hobby. I mean, how often do I feel addicted to a game any more? It’s extremely rare for me to even think about most of the games I play once the power’s off, and that’s something that used to happen a lot. I have memories of being on long car trips thinking about ways to beat Kracko from Kirby’s Adventure, or figuring out when my playthrough of Final Fantasy IV went so terribly wrong (Here’s a hint, past self: If you skip every random battle because it ‘looks hard’, all of the bosses will STEAMROLL YOU). These games used to captivate my imagination, sticking with me when I was far away from them.
A handful of indie games have managed to restore my faith in games, though. After playing through Lone Survivor and Breath of Death VII, I found I was actually enjoying playing games again. A particularly humbling party wipe in Breath of Death VII had me analyzing what had gone wrong, thinking of new ways to tackle the fights while I was driving to work. The same thing happened in Lone Survivor, where one tough room filled with three enemies had me planning tactics during my shower. It was nice to actually have games that were good enough to occupy my thoughts when I was away from the controller again.
You’re probably thinking it’s just another old gamer complaining about the games of today, though. He’s just blinded by nostalgia for these old-styled games. I wonder if it’s that too, sometimes, but I don’t think it’s that simple. Then again, I think simplicity is probably the biggest contributing factor in why I’m enjoying these games so much.
These games are straight and to the point. There’s very little bumbling about while getting to the fun. There’s no giant cutscenes, no reams of text, nothing. Even so, Breathy of Death VII is almost always entertaining when it does decide to talk to you, and Lone Survivor has the most intricate minimalist story I’ve seen in a horror game in years. Both of them are credits to storytelling in their own way, but steer clear of the bloated, poorly voiced, and rambling stories of today’s blockbuster games.
And that fun I mentioned? These indie games take the combat styles I’ve always liked, but render them in a way that hones the stuff I like and tosses anything I don’t. Take RPGs, for example. At some point, developers felt like turn-based RPGs weren’t good enough any more. The combat grew more complex, but they still didn’t remove all of the grinding and random battles. Breath of Death VII threw most of that crap out the window.
Sure, you could grind, but the battle speed was through the roof. With no animations to worry about, every effect happens instantaneously. Each round lasts a few seconds if you hammer at the button fast enough, so battles can be won in a hurry. After the fight, you could continue to poke around the dungeon to find more monsters, or just select ‘Fight’ from a menu and you’d be right back in a battle. If you weren’t in a grinding mood, you’d still run into periodic random battles, but they’re spaced quite far apart. You can cross a huge distance before running into another. Also, each dungeon had a battle count, and after you’d emptied it, there were no more random battles, allowing you free reign to explore the dungeon.
And the level up system? The one that lets you customize your character as you see fit? That could have gotten out of hand too, but instead, it’s reduced to two choices, and you pick based on how you want the character to fight. Not only is this awesome, it also streamlines the process to keep the game moving.
There’s just so many good ideas about keeping games fun and engaging in these titles that I don’t feel much of a need to pick up any of the big name games for a while. With good people out there making great games on their own, I feel like there’s better places to be spending my money than on the next $60 mess that I’ll only play for an hour before shelving forever.
Joel
