What's up with the negativity of my generation?

I am a child of the late 80's - 90's so in terms of gaming I do have seen and played a lot of games while living through all those gaming eras (the only one I'm missing is the Atari one). Now the thing that surprises me the most about the present time is not how the industry has changed, but the number of people in my generation that are acting weird and negative towards gaming. I even made a small assessment of my very own group of friends and from 25 or so that were avid gamers 10 years ago, only a handful of us carry the same enthusiasm for gaming at this point in time. None of them have retired from gaming, but their attitude is a mere shadow of what it used to be. Be aware that this is not about internet trolls or kids who complain about everything, that I can understand. The ones I am talking about are people that went through the golden era of gaming, enjoyed it to the fullest, but still came out as bitter gamers in the end.

Will this really be the case in 2057? You be the judge...

Yeah, you could say that 25 is a miserable amount of people for that kind of statistic and I thought that as well until I began finding all sorts of comments on the net coming from people that share my same range of age. Now let me show you a few examples things I have read or interpreted.

• Specific genre lovers that actually hate the genre now for no apparent reason other than "I used to love it, but not anymore". One instance of this is the people from my generation who played and loved Final Fantasy VII, yet they hate the idea of a remake, not because they don't want it, but because they are extremely pessimistic about it, up to the point that it annoys them to hear fans asking for it.

• People that developed a hate for consoles that goes far beyond what we know as the "pc master race" fanatics.

• Gamers that have closed themselves to only one type of game (not counting anybody younger than 25).

• People that have spent their entire lives playing single player games and now say that if a game doesn't have an online more then it is crap.

• People that say that there are no games to play, yet when somebody shows them games they invent excuse after excuse to keep their hate argument going.

• People lacking the sense of adventure. These are the ones who ditch a game for the simplest of reasons without really giving it a chance.

Those examples are just the tip of the iceberg of all the things I've found relating to this topic. You see, I know that time makes people change, but after these people spent a great part of their lives deeply immersed in gaming, it is hard to fathom that their attitude can shatter in just a couple of years. It's like having an ideology, it doesn't matter how much stuff you add or remove from it, the base remains the same unless something extreme happens.

Now the question is... Did something extreme actually happened? Has the industry changed so much that it destroyed the spirit of gaming that my generation used to have. On the other hand, could the daily grind of adulthood be the culprit? People from my generation often complain about the new schoolers been "entitled brats", but they don't see how much sand they move themselves. 

I know people from the times of Atari that are more passionate for gaming that most of the people of my age, so how old they are shouldn't be an issue, I know people that are working class gamers (as I am) and they see gaming as they always did so time shouldn't be an issue either. So, as I finish this blog entry, I once again wonder... What happened? It shouldn't be like this, so what in the world went wrong?

More importantly it would be awesome to know what do YOU think it happened? 

Elements Of An Superb J-RPG Experience

Some may call them a "dated formula" others would say "its too much reading", but if you make an Japanese style rpg with the correct set of elements, you have a great chance of turning skeptics into believers. Up until now the genre has been slowly making a comeback with a great variety of games (especially on the PS3 and PSVITA), but we still don't have that insane masterpiece that becomes a legendary game to remember. This is why today we are going to see which are the small details that would help create such a j-rpg experience. Of course a game doesn't necessarily needs to have every single one of the things you will see today, but at least some of them would do the trick.

You could find all sorts of stuff on the Star Ocean 2 world map like characters and
new towns that were not part of the main plot.

Scaled world maps that feel alive
Examples: Old Final Fantasy games, Star Ocean 2, Wild Arms series,"Tales of" series.

Nowadays this kind of approach to a world map has been reduced to menus or stretched to open world settings, but neither of those modern styles have been able to capture what an j-rpg world map used to be. For one thing, a scaled map is faster to navigate, but keeps a good balance between going between places and possible side events. This kind of style also makes it simpler for the developer to put extra stuff in there, just so it doesn't become a monotonous walk from town to town. This is the kind of world map where everything goes, be it extra dungeons, towns and places that are not part of the story, strange happenings while on the road, meeting new characters, following side stories. It is a rich part of the j-rpg genre that has been oversimplified in favor of shorter development cycles.

General Spiriel from Shinning Force 3 is still a fan favorite of the whole series.

Generals, admired warriors, mysterious but cool characters
Examples: General Spiriel (Shinning Force 3), Raven (Tales of Vesperia), Dias Flac (Star Ocean 2).

This is a staple of the whole genre and one of the reasons because of which j-rpg games became famous in the first place. It is obvious that some villains are considered the coolest characters in the genre, but that kind of thing is quite predictable. Where the cool character aspect really shines is when the player has somebody to admire, both because of his actions and might in battle. It is the kind of character that creates an atmosphere of confidence without looking too benevolent and it can be even better when games treat the topic of war and two great generals face each other in battle. This is what separates an rpg where "a couple kids save the world" from something more serious, engaging and overall more exciting.

Most people I know hate this at the beginning only to love it on the long run.

Fun inventory/equipment/skill systems
Examples: Materia system (Final Fantasy), Weapon modification (Parasite Eve), Dragon enhancements (Panzer Dragoon Saga)

This is one aspect of j-rpg games that not everybody loves, but if there is something that we have to accept, it is that once you learn to use one of this systems and figure out a way to use it to your advantage, it becomes natural and fun. These kinds of things do have a learning curve, so the very first moments will be kind of confusing until you get the hang of it. So after the initial annoying process there is a great chance that you will end up feeling empowered as you play with all sorts of items, equipment, skills and game rules. Here is where you get creative and start to make a strategy that doesn't always involve grinding and leveling.

You help this guy with his rock concert and he may join you.

Side Stories
Examples: Fort Condor (Final Fantasy VII), Getting Bowman (Star Ocean 2), Branching Paths (Vanguard Bandits). Getting various characters to join you (Chrono Cross), Finding characters before their time of death (Valkyrie Profile).

This aspect has been tried over and over again in the American Rpg genre, but they haven't gotten to a point where it doesn't feel generic in nature. Most people think that this can only be done in completely open environments, but Japanese Rpg games in the past managed to pull this off while keeping their story oriented focus. For example Star Ocean 2 had extra characters that you had to go out of your way to meet them, help them with their problems and get them to join (not to mention that the game had more than 50  different endings). Other games like Chrono Cross had really good side stories that you had to play in order to get secret characters to join you and Final Fantasy 7 had several activities that developed while following their very enjoyable side plots. So now that we know that, we can see why this was one of the things that made the genre to be so popular in the 90's.

This scene evoked really strong feelings of nostalgia, friendship and our hopes and dreams vs real life.

Good usage of mood and atmosphere 
Examples: Chrono Cross, Final Fantasy, Koudelka, Vagrant Story, Wild Arms, Baten Kaitos

This one is really important because it is the thing that keeps us glued to an rpg game in the first place. If the game is capable to cater and activate your own feelings and emotions while you play, then it has succeeded in instantly making you a fan.This is the kind of feeling we got from scenes like Cloud and Tifa talking about their "broken promises" and childhood memories, the relaxing "mystical" atmosphere that Chrono Cross had in all of their places, the kind of surreal mood that Baten Kaitos had with its mix of magic and technology and even the wild west vibe that Wild Arms is known for. All of these games had an extremely good mix of visuals, music, plot and characters that became something more than just reading dialogues, it became something that catered to our sensibilities and made us care about what was happening in the game.

With all things discussed, the bottom line is that Japanese Rpg games need to look back into the little details that made them big in the past and capitalize on them on our modern era. We can have the best graphics ever and the most detailed environments, but if they don't hit us where it counts we will lose interest. This is not your classic argument about turn based battles or any of that game aspects that many old school rpg gamers talk about. This is more about keeping the art in rpg games and move it up a notch with our current technology instead of relying on limitations and half baked ideas.

The Real Makings of A Bad Game

When we talk about a bad game we often mention some obvious things like bad controls, bad graphics and sound or even about broken game mechanics. It is a well known fact that judging a game can be something that is quite attached to your own taste for gaming, but there are some aspects that can be the definite tell tale signs of a poorly made game and today we are going to see some of them.

Sometimes it does feel like they did had a recycle key on their keyboard.

1) Excessive Recycling of resources
Let's start this one by stating that it is not possible to develop a game in which every thing is completely hand made and different and that is because of technical and financial reasons. The type of recycling that is considered bad and the one that gives the first sign that a game is not that good is when developers actually abuse of the material they use and have us gamers seen the same things over and over again. This includes different buildings with similar materials (in walls, floor, etc), repetitive characters/enemies (with a slight shameful change like color or name) flora and fauna on a game level (nobody wants to see countless patches of the same bush or animals repeated) and similar things like that. This type of recycling makes the game look generic, boring and uninspired. If they are going to recycle something they should at least not make it obvious.

Exceptions: Games that a growth based (mmorpg, online games) or puzzle games.  

Which one would you prefer?.

2) Generic Game Design
Game design is something that can be quite hard to do (a little harder than just scribbling a stage layout on a piece of paper), but if a game is announced and advertised as a AAA experience, it should NOT have a design that looks and feels generic in nature. Examples of this include the "corridors and small rooms" design in some first person shooters, redundant game content that has the player doing the same thing several times with no clear objective, story lines that are separated into pointless sequences and game material that is so simplistic that it becomes insulting to our intelligence. These kind of crappy design faults reflect very deep faults in the development process of the game like designers been forced to make dumbed down versions of otherwise good ideas, the team rushing the game to meet an unfair deadline or just plain laziness by everybody involved.

Exceptions: Dungeon crawler rpg games, growth based games, sandbox games

Final Fantasy VII is an example of a GOOD linear game. The place in this picture is Fort Condor and
it didn't have anything to do with the main storyline, but it was awesome and it showed how
a linear game can be fun when done well. 

3) Bad Linearity
This one was briefly referenced in the previous bad game characteristic, but it is in within itself a very bad thing on many levels. Nowadays there seems to be a war against linear games, but what most people are not realizing is that linearity itself is not bad. The really bad thing is linearity gone bad and that is a whole other concept that should not be generalized. Back in the 90's and before the advent of "open worlds" in gaming, most games were linear in nature and up to this day we have some legendary titles that are still considered to be masterpieces. Those games were a good kind of linear experience that was so well designed that it did not felt linear at all. On the other hand, there are AAA games that feel as if they were designed by an poor amateur at best. We have scenarios in which the players find themselves going from point A to point B without doing anything significant other than getting to the next cutscene or game worlds that try to lie to us gamers by trying to look big and well made while the sad truth is that we are running through the same stuff without any purpose at all. Bad linearity is not acceptable and gamers should make notice of this and let it be known, half baked ideas will not be tolerated.

Exceptions: Games with randomly generated material.

Wrapping it up
Basically, the bottom line is that a bad game is not necessarily bad because of technical aspects. A bad game is one that becomes boring because we are doing stuff that is not fun and we are doing it for no significant reason. Some games can get away with this because they are addicting and we don't mind grinding for hours just to get what we want, but the moment we feel like we are are just pressing buttons for nothing is the moment when our attentiveness towards the game begins to shrink and sooner than later we will find ourselves playing something else. Mediocrity in games is something that should never be accepted and it is up to us to stop it where ever it appears, let's just vote with our wallets and make sure that game companies get the idea.

Will Sony really bring a new PS2 era?

Right now, the PS4 is the industry leader everywhere in the world except for Japan, where the Wii U is still beating Sony's machine. At first, one of the initial promises that Sony had with the PS4 was that they were going to bring a new PS2-like era in gaming and that was one of the things that attracted many gamers to their side right at the beginning of this generation. Because of this, expectations have always been high with the platform and almost every PS4 owner is eagerly waiting for Sony to drop or at least mention their intention to drop some of the big bombs of that "new PS2 era" or at least something that resembles it. Up until now there are no signs of that happening in the near future and it is almost certain that many of the first adopters are starting to wonder if this is ever going to happen.


The first "PS2 era" aspect that hasn't happened with the PS4 is the inclusion of a definitive JRPG on the console. If we remember back at the PS2 days, one of the games that even came with the console's demo disc was Final Fantasy X and that was a very big deal at the time. Nowadays with the PS4 we have some rpg games on the way for the near future like Natural Doctrine and Hyper Dimension Neptunia VII, but both of them are basically dedicated for a niche within the JRPG niche, which are tactic rpgs and fan service rpgs. Up until this moment there are no indications of a role playing release of giant proportions like a Nino Kuni sequel or even the revival of slumbering franchises like Wild Arms, Suikoden, Shadow Hearts or any of those that had very good offerings for the PS2.


Another aspect that is not there yet is the appearance of a PS2 era heavy hitter. Jack and Daxter is still out of the picture since the last days of the PS2 lifespan, Dark Cloud are two words that wont even appear on a Ouija board, The Last Guardian is starting to become like the Sony's Shenmue (a game that pulls a sad sigh out of developers every time it is mentioned), Tekken ended up stranded on the Wii U, Twisted Metal has been missing in action for years and action adventure games like Maximo, Medievil and Ape Escape are not even close. To be fair, they don't necessarily have to make direct sequels or reboots. They can come with new things that cater to those experiences, it should not be that hard considering all they have to gain from it.


Last but not least, if we have something to acknowledge about the PS2 is that it was the powerhouse of horror. Not only did it snatched Resident Evil from Nintendo's hands and had the best Silent Hill games around, but also had Siren (which had a pretty good chapter based game on the PS3), Fatal Frame which seems to be the horror franchise nobody (except for Nintendo) wants any more, The Suffering, Haunting Grounds, Clock Tower,  Rule of Rose, Trapt, Manhunt, Run Like Hell and others. Right now the only horror titles roaming the PS4 are Outlast, The Evil Within and The Order 1886 which is the only horror exclusive.

Wrapping it up

Instead of all those things that would had made for a promise in the process of been fulfilled, we are getting sort of a "PS3 Plus" deal here with all those types of games heading to the older console instead of the PS4, which is a mistake if they really want to widen the gap between them and the competition. With the Wii U and Xbox One beginning to solidify their game libraries, Sony should keep firing shots at them by giving the players a definite reason to hang on to their platform and the best bet they have right now is to rally the troops with their long time fans by giving them something to really hype for, other than The Order 1886, Bloodborne and No Mans Sky. Still, is it needed to say to all those gamers out there to NOT become pessimistic as the promised new PS2 era can still happen, let's just hope that Sony realizes that they have more to gain than the risk involved in that kind of strategy.