Enslaved As It Should Have Been

[Dectilon]

I'm with you on the first paragraph. That's a genuinely good idea. The rest... needs some work. It's a good start though, I'll give you that.

It may have been mentioned already, but there is actually a pretty nice softball adaptation of journey to the west called Sayuki for PS1. It's basically a Final Fantasy Tactics-game using the basics of the epic. The characters are softened quite a bit though.

 

[AceAngel]

I just noticed something, some people in here said the following lines more or less:

"Yahtzee's game idea wasn't that good. Perhaps he didn't explain it well enough, or it was short, but I really didn't 'feel' it at all. It sounds like I will enjoy Enslaved: Odyssey to the West more."

It's funny how people who didn't even play the game, are commenting if Yahtzee's idea is better or not...bloody buffoons.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

I think it's more based on the old TV show Monkey than the original story since both had females as the ones enslaving Monkey.

 

[Falseprophet]

Weird. I can't think of any game that involves taking advantage of a robotic playable character in order to mess with the timeline like Yahtzee was talking about.

In fact, I can't really think of too many games that you play as a robot. Clank I guess? Glitch from Metal Arms? There could be some cool stuff done with that. And most lead characters don't have any personality or fleshy vulnerability anyways, so there's no loss!

It was a lot more common in the 80s, most likely because i) the whole decade was on a sci-fi kick thanks to Star Wars, both the movies and Ronald Reagan's crazy lasers in space ideas, and ii) it was easier to make appealing looking robot characters with the crude and boxy graphics at the time. So we had Robotron 2084, Vectorman, Ninja Warriors, the really bad Commodore 64 Transformers game, Alien Storm, some of the Phantasy Star games, and Mega Man.

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

How does Yahtzee manage to come up with better ideas in a few minutes of thinking for free than "professional" game designers can come up with years of effort and multi-million dollar budgets?

I think it's more based on the old TV show Monkey than the original story since both had females as the ones enslaving Monkey.

Not even. Yes, Tripitaka was played by a woman in the classic Monkey TV series. No, he was still a man, just an effeminate-looking one. And no, he did not wear a midriff-baring top.

 

[LadyRhian]

Personally, I think Yahtzee's game sounds better than Enslaved, and while I haven't read the original "Journey to the West", I have read a fair bit about Sun Wukong- The Monkey King born out of a stone monkey exposed to the rays of heaven. And personally, my favorite non-close adaptation had to be Gensomaden Saiyuki with all four main characters re-imagined as hot guys and Tripitaka as a "can take care of himself with the Sutra he guards" Buddhist priest known as a Sanzo or Sanzou Priest. He also has a short temper and wields the 500 pound comedy paper fan (His favorite phrase being "Do you want to DIE?"), but I quite shamelessly enjoyed it.

 

[Zeromaeus]

Why don't they make a game out of Popeye?

They did. It ended being called Donkey Kong.

On topic, I like Yahtzee's idea more than Enslaved. Mostly because I like robots, jet-packs and outer space. He hit all of those key areas. Sub areas include puzzles, planetary exploration and JTTW (which I actually have read (somewhat) and do like). He hit those too. Too bad this is the online equivalent to me and my friends hanging around pitching ideas to each other and nothing will ever come of it despite how obviously better it was than the slop being fed to us by the industry.
Nothing much to say other than that...
Ninja Theory sucks...
DmC will probably be utter shite...

 

[Latinidiot]

I like this idea. I also like Enslaved, and I am willing to overlook its 'adapting' some chinese story wrongly.

 

[thenamelessloser]

Well, I like the idea of Yahtzee's Journey to the West video game adaptation... but I'm the kind of person who after reading the Iliad was thinking it would make an awesome anime...

Further on that note Iliad could also be a Dynasty Warriors style game... Imagine, being Achilles, Ajax, Hector, Diomedes etc, and taking on hundreds of Achaeans or Trojans.

You can even have an action adventure sequel based on the Odyssey.

I can't believe no fucking video game company has done this.... >_>

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

" I would put money on them only knowing of it through the TV show."

Was that a Dragon Ball reference?

 

[CVLawes]

I'd play that!

 

[hctib_elttil]

idea theft by EA in 5....

 

[Aurgelmir]

Extra Punctuation: Enslaved As It Should Have Been

Yahtzee wonders why Ninja Theory based Enslaved on the Chinese novel Journey to the West if it was just going to add killer robots.

Read Full Article

What about the dragonballs?
You forgot all about them dragonballs!


Because Dragonball was (and sort of is) intended to be a re-writing of Journey to the West.



The one question I am always left with when I play a game that I feel has its quality lowered due to poor use of the source material is this:

Would I enjoy the game more if it was just called Enslaved, and Monkey was named Charles, and Tipitaka was named Kimberly?

I mean the game isn't to bad, its not awesome either, but it isn't Journey to the West.

All in all I thought hte game to be decent, but StarCraft2 and Divinity2 are better, so I havent gotten around to beating it

 

[Vect]

Erm...Well, there's a Journey To The West arcade side-scrolling Beat'em Up in some arcades in Asia. Oh, and there's a SRPG with the characters... Oh and there's Dragonball, but that's something else entirely.

Though what Mr. Yahtzee described sounds like a kickass WALL-E spin-off. Sorta.

 

[Crazy-Insomniac]

I don't understand why all this knit picking about it not being close to the chinese proverb/poem/story thing. I've never seen it promoted in any advertising. The few times I've seen it in a news article (I had to actively look for it) it said it was inspired. People being inspired from an event or story doesn't mean it will be an adaption. You can be inspired from a dog choking on a toothpick and make a game about vampires. It may be something interesting to tell an interviewer about but it doesn't have to mean anything else.

 

[Jeffro Tull]

I have a question.
Why do you seem to have a problem with men who are strong looking strong? Seriously you bring it up in almost every review.
You can't have climbing trees, lifting heavy things and fighting giant robots as regular parts of your life style without gaining some serious muscle mass.

This seems especially ironic to me seen as how you so openly object to wimpy looking teen aged boys swinging giant buster swords in JRPGs.

Perhaps he is growing tired of how this industry is over saturated with images of either muscle bound men or wimpy looking teen aged boys swinging buster swords. I mean that is pretty much the option you have to choose from in protagonists in order to get your game made now a days. What about other body types, you know the ones you see on a regular basis in reality?

 

[WaderiAAA]

I have a question.
Why do you seem to have a problem with men who are strong looking strong? Seriously you bring it up in almost every review.
You can't have climbing trees, lifting heavy things and fighting giant robots as regular parts of your life style without gaining some serious muscle mass.

This seems especially ironic to me seen as how you so openly object to wimpy looking teen aged boys swinging giant buster swords in JRPGs.

Let me break it to you, someone who is actually as strong as those characters are supposed to be would still not be as big as many of the videogame heroes. They would probably look more like the olympic weightlifters in the 105kg class - like this guy:

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-08/18/content_9481161.htm

Monkey looks more the size of a bodybuilder - who aren't actually strong because they train in to increase the mass of their muscles rather than the strength.

In short, the body size of the characters Yatzee would call "manly" is far more realistic than both the skinny teenagers and the ultra-large macho men.

 

[SimpleReally]

FYI there is a game based on Journey to the west already released on PS1. It's a tactical RPG in the same style as final fantasy tactics. They took some liberties with the IP and the final product was not too bad.

 

[DiaSol]

i would play that game, i have actually read Journey to the west and its really very good, and the game you describe sounds really very good as a pitch to a game development studio or even a film studio, i mean this re-imagining seems very much like the film re-imagining of Odyssey to 2001: A Space Odyssey doesnt it?

 

[Ashoten]

You had me up till the part about your own idea for a Journey to the west game. Robot misbehaves robot get smashed by security bot-end of story. Alternatively Robot misbehaves, maintenance guy notices this and erases his brains and does a total reboot-end of story. Additionally Robot gains sentience and then his own robot brains burn out from stress-end of story.
You'd have to come up with some creative writing to convince me otherwise.

see- I robot, Short Circuit, and all of Star Wars