In Another Castle: Unabashed Creativity

[shadow skill]

Take a look at the video at about 16:38 I have a hard time believing that he was not joking.

That's because... he... wasn't? I mean, Jaffe's a pretty self-aware dude; he pretty much knows he ripped off Devil May Cry in a paint-by-numbers style and changed things to suit his taste. Do you really think he cares if he ripped them off or not? Do you have any clue how much money he made by sucking the life from Dante and injecting it into Kratos? I wouldn't care... I'd be rich; but yeah, Jaffe knows what he did... hell even CAPCOM published his game in Japan. If you don't think he and Hideki Kamiya sat down over a drink and talked about it you're kidding yourself; I'd wager that Kamiya even gave him pointers.

Bah, now you have me discussing it again.

God of War ripped the pants off Devil May Cry... there done... well that didn't sound right but you get it.

Any other discussion or points you want to bring up, do it in the other thread you're referring to. =)

It's very relevant to this thread. You aren't even able to accurately judge what a copy is, yet you are going to complain that people need to support creativity in games. Your failure at sarcasm notwithstanding. So the fuck what if Capcom published the game in Japan? Square Enix published Modern Warfare 2 in Japan, it hardly means that if they make a game in the shooting genre that they are stealing from Infinity Ward. It's not as if DMC's ideas are its own original creations anyway.

Heavy Rain for example isn't even a new type of game, in fact it is a very old type of game called Adventure. The only big thing that Heavy Rain has done that might be "new" is do away with a set button mapping for interaction. This lets the developer communicate uncertainty at the interface level. The originality is at the lowest level, rather than at the higher levels like story or gameplay mechanics. It's an extremely small detail that causes this adventure game to play unlike any other game save Dragon's Layer (From all the info I have found on it, never played it myself.)

People have to actually be able to recognize creativity in a product before they can be creative with their money, but it is the people who look at games shallowly that moan the loudest about creativity and developers stealing ideas etc. It's so bad now that it can be difficult at times to even point out the real clones because of how much noise is put out there.

 

[shadow skill]

Every time I see God of War it just reminds me of a Barbarian in Diablo 2... aside of the Boss fights and finishing moves it is a perfect match considering the artwork, gameplay and moves.

Gamewise, they're night and day, but I'll be damned you're right. They could be brothers.

It is not really that "night and day". Just cause one of them is 3D and more of a Beat'em'Up and the other is a 2D Hack & Slash. Sure Diablo 2 can be played mightily different but especially the "Classic" Barbarian gameplay is very similar.

Both generally use two weapons, they have that kind of "circular movement" going on where they turn and hit multiple enemies with one attack (Whirlwind is really a must for most Barbs in D2), they jump about and have a lot of FX sparkling, especially around their weapons and they leech health from hitting/killing enemies.

So does that mean that Assassin's Creed's plot copies Xenogears? After all they share a shitload of similar concepts.

 

[SavingPrincess]

So does that mean that Assassin's Creed's plot copies Xenogears? After all they share a shitload of similar concepts.

Anyway... the points made by various people in this thread still stand regardless of your willingness to acknowledge them or not. You've said little in the way of actually explaining yourself and seem to only slag other's for their opinions... not really healthy for discussion purposes and kind of bothersome to be honest. I can honestly cite (and have on several occasions) the reasoning behind my claims, but have failed to see you do the same.

I'm afraid I can't really explain myself or the other concepts that people are talking about to you. If you believe that God of War and Dante's Inferno etc. are different enough to call me "shallow" in my assessment regardless or in my ability to judge what is a "copy" regardless of the fact the actual creator acknowledged it, then I suppose your opinion is stronger than my desire to refute it... so in the rules of the internet... you win? I guess?

I don't know why you're so quick to defend something that objectively speaking would be kind of apparent; but good on you for giving it the old college-try... it's obvious that you're very passionate about the way you feel about this subject, I'd just encourage you to actually tell people the reasons you are instead of blasting them for giving very concrete reasons why they feel the way they do.

Thanks!

 

[About To Crash]

If I was living on better than a University student's budget, I probably would buy Heavy Rain, but I can barely afford my food each month, so I'm inclined to keep that up. I have, however, been doing my best to amass a collection of games which are not all necessarily good, but creative and artistic. It took me far too long to acquire Psychonauts, and Ico continues to elude my funds and capture, but I'm doing what I can. Until last christmas I was still living vicariously through my friend's Wii. I finally got an Xbox 360, and I'm overjoyed, still. I'd like to vote with my wallet, but it feels eerily close to how I actually vote. I don't have enough of something (information, money) and so I can't responsibly vote.

I agree that we need to do what we can to help the artists creating games, because I have visions of the gaming future. Visions where professors drag their lectures on indicating the subtlety of the latest piece of interactive literature. Visions of today's gamers sitting around when we're old and watching the new generations creating stunning works of art. I want to see the world treat videogames as the highest of arts, because it holds so much more than many mediums can. I want gaming to become the new literature. Of course, there will always be cookie cutter crap, but there is everywhere, in every genre of every medium. But some day we'll look at the shelves of classics and remember why the good ones have lasted, and we'll be happy to have helped it along the way.

 

[shadow skill]

So does that mean that Assassin's Creed's plot copies Xenogears? After all they share a shitload of similar concepts.

Anyway... the points made by various people in this thread still stand regardless of your willingness to acknowledge them or not. You've said little in the way of actually explaining yourself and seem to only slag other's for their opinions... not really healthy for discussion purposes and kind of bothersome to be honest. I can honestly cite (and have on several occasions) the reasoning behind my claims, but have failed to see you do the same.

I'm afraid I can't really explain myself or the other concepts that people are talking about to you. If you believe that God of War and Dante's Inferno etc. are different enough to call me "shallow" in my assessment regardless or in my ability to judge what is a "copy" regardless of the fact the actual creator acknowledged it, then I suppose your opinion is stronger than my desire to refute it... so in the rules of the internet... you win? I guess?

I don't know why you're so quick to defend something that objectively speaking would be kind of apparent; but good on you for giving it the old college-try... it's obvious that you're very passionate about the way you feel about this subject, I'd just encourage you to actually tell people the reasons you are instead of blasting them for giving very concrete reasons why they feel the way they do.

Thanks!

Funny I don't see any explanation as to how David Jaffe is someone waiting in the wings, while Sid Meier is not but since you asked I'll do my best.

God of War really animates nothing like Devil May Cry. Both Dante's and Kratos' attacks have strikingly different properties different ranges of effectiveness and so forth. In Devil May Cry you generally have to move much faster since defensive play is not really rewarded at all. You can't really block and counter attacks so you always have to be moving. The best way to win is to simply overwhelm the enemies with Dante's relative speed. In God of War you can go about things much more patiently. The way players are expected to achieve victory are not the same.

Ninja Gaiden is even slower (The modern ones.) pretty much the only way to actually live in those games is to methodically plan your attacks while remaining mobile. However unlike DMC which is all about offense prepare to die if you do not block. Simply trying to pound on your enemies is not going to work. Put another way: If you ask yourself what to do in DMC the answer is always attack. If you ask yourself what to do in Ninja Gaiden you have two to three possible answers: 1. Can I set up something good if I block this? 2. Should I simply dodge? 3. Do I attack? That last one is particularly interesting because you are allowed to use the environment to your advantage in ways that you cannot really do in DMC because of the level design, or God of War because Kratos simply isn't flexible enough to pull those kinds of things off.

In NG you can run along walls and launch attacks. One of my favorite tactics in NG1 when dealing with a mob is to get near a wall and run vertically on it and hit one of my attack buttons bringing down whatever weapon I have equipped (Usually the Dragon Sword or Dragon's Claw and Tiger's fang.) it keeps most of the enemies from stabbing me in the ass while I put a guy down so I can focus on another enemy. Being able to do that forces me to be much more aware of the map than I have to be in God of War, or DMC. In these games my focus is squarely on the mob itself. NG also loves to pull an ambush especially NG1. Ask anybody about Black Spider ninjas. Neither DMC nor God of War do that very often if at all.

Moving on Bayonetta is the most DMC like in that it too rewards offense over a more patient kind of gameplay. However Bayonetta's main goal is not even to manage the mobs that try to stomp on your face, it is to build your magic gauge by avoiding attacks and constantly attacking. The point being that you can use various combo enders that summon giant fists or feet to score massive damage. Then there is the fact that with your default weapons your overall range of attack when not using your projectiles is shorter than the characters in the other games mentioned. You generally have to be much closer to your foes in Bayonetta than you would be in DMC which means of course that it is easier for the members of the mob trying to kill you to do just that. Getting hit at all screws up your magic gauge as well, it makes the game harder especially in the presence of stronger enemies. You don't even want to entertain the idea of getting hit to try and set something up. You absolutely always want to have as much meter as possible.

Dante's Inferno is a real clone of God of War because entire animations have been copied and not just animations that really have no other way of being done. The two that jump out at me are the jumping animation (Including when it slows down.) and the cross absolution animation where you plunge the cross into the horned demon's face. (Granted the positioning is a bit different.) More importantly Dante's Inferno can be played in exactly the same way as God of War. There is really nothing in the game that takes you out of God of War mode into Dante's Inferno mode. It doesn't help that the scythe seems to have the same distance properties as the Kratos' chain blades, not to mention suspiciously similar if not identical attack animations.


This is like the general whine about JRPGS. Every other week it seems someone is talking about how the genre doesn't innovate, or aren't real rpgs. Yet these same people seem to almost without fail equate Final Fantasy to JRPG when there are boatloads of good franchises out there like SMT, and Disgaea. The latest persona games stick out to me because of their setting and the integration of dating sim type mechanics. While probably not unique in Japan, from a western perspective those kinds of mechanics are somewhat novel although not entirely unique.

 

[SavingPrincess]

... all of that stuff you said.

Okay, I think we're on two completely separate pages. I'll try and keep this on-topic as much as possible.

If you are driving a Honda Civic in your neighborhood to your friends house, you are going to drive it very differently than you would if you were driving it in a competitive race at Laguna Seca. It really doesn't change the fact that you're driving a Honda Civic. I'm not even saying driving a "car" period, I'm specifically talking about a certain type of car, with all the buttons, dials and gauges in nearly the same place.

In other words... if you and your girlfriend are at home "making relations," you're going to do it in a much different way and style than if say, you were at your parents house sneaking around in the next room. She however, is still the same girl. Not just a girl... but the same girl.

In other words... if you're playing a game, where you walk into a room, the camera swings around and focuses on a door impeding your progress, that door glows a color to indicate that for some reason it's now locked, then a bunch of baddies pour in, and once you kill those baddies with various combo and aerial moves with your weapon(s) of choice, collect their glowing orbs once they're dead (red ones give you points to upgrade your moves/weapons, green give you health), then the camera swings back to that door, and the glowing magic lock disappears, then you break everything in the immediate area, find an item that you have to collect five of to increase your health bar, hop into the menu, spend your collected red orbs to unlock a new dash attack...

Okay what game am I playing? After describing those very specific gameplay elements, tell me what game I'm playing...

I realize that Kratos jumps a little differently than Devil May Cry's Dante. I get that Devil May Cry's Dante has a "Devil Trigger" gauge and Kratos has a "Magic" gauge. I acknowledge that the games have varying difficulties, different methodologies to fight those baddies, different weapons... but each and every one of them feels like you're driving the same Honda Civic, or copulating with the same girl... she just may be wearing different clothes at the time.

I'm fine with the concept of a "genre," but what Jaffe and the folks behind Dante's Inferno et. al. did went beyond "adhering to a genre" and went to the territory of "copying another game with a different coat of paint." I'd say Bayonetta in my mind offends the least in all of this, because Hideki Kamiya was the creator of both Devil May Cry and Bayonetta so you could argue that he's copying his own game which, although making him seem completely unoriginal, does not mean he's stealing from another person's body of work.

You could argue I suppose your jRPG point and say that people complain that jRPG's are all clones of themselves. I can honestly tell you, when I sit down to play Final Fantasy, I know I'm not playing Dragon Quest or Lufia or Breath of Fire or Star Ocean. All of those games feel completely different from one another, but still fall in the same genre; same with Sonic and Mario. When I played God of War for the first time, I literally thought to myself, "Wow, this feels near identical to Devil May Cry."

Unless you're conceding that Devil May Cry in and of itself created a "genre" based on the game mechanics it created, then I still have to vehemently disagree with you. I've played a LOT of games over my near 30 years on this rock; Devil May Cry while not nearly my favorite game ever, felt like something new. Not completely revolutionary mind you, but definitely something I'd never played before. God of War felt like I was playing Devil May Cry in ancient Greece.

I honestly, even after meticulously reading each and every point you brought up (and thanks for playing by the way) cannot fathom why you believe the games to be so drastically different that you can't concede the points I'm bringing up. I don't know why; save for some intrinsic sense of loyalty to the games mentioned, that you'd try so strenuously to refute the points I've raised. It doesn't make sense to me but it's obvious that you're passionate about it as you've obviously analyzed this argument down to the most minute detail; and I appreciate the more analytical tone that you put forth so let me thank you on that. I think we're just going to have to (as much as I loathe the statment) agree to disagree on this.

 

[SavingPrincess]

I agree that we need to do what we can to help the artists creating games, because I have visions of the gaming future. Visions where professors drag their lectures on indicating the subtlety of the latest piece of interactive literature. Visions of today's gamers sitting around when we're old and watching the new generations creating stunning works of art. I want to see the world treat videogames as the highest of arts, because it holds so much more than many mediums can. I want gaming to become the new literature. Of course, there will always be cookie cutter crap, but there is everywhere, in every genre of every medium. But some day we'll look at the shelves of classics and remember why the good ones have lasted, and we'll be happy to have helped it along the way.

I rather enjoy your vision of the future. I too believe that games can be elevated to that level. Good or not, we need games like Heavy Rain and The Sims to push us forward to that kind of respect. I do hope that some day people look at Final Fantasy VI in a similar way to classic pieces of literature. Maybe I'm being overzealous in that wish, but so be it.

(P.S. Here's to hoping to find in me the answer to the test that stumps them all. Cheers.)