During this week’s assignment I was thinking about how even the seemingly simplistic games of the early arcade and NES/SNES era have hidden complexity within how they use resources to drive the experience. For example, I was looking at Final Fantasy for my personal assignment and noticed that while HP may be the central resource, as in Dragon Warrior (the example we looked at in class), EXP is needed in order to attain more. This being said, without sufficient HP, you can’t possible hope to attain enough EXP in order to level up and be granted more HP. Perhaps they are co-dependent.
After this, I thought about current era games, and wondered whether they were really as advanced as I had previously thought. Take Final Fantasy 13 for example. Over 20 years later and we’re still using the same basic stats. Sure, there are more mechanics, but the basics of the numbers behind it all haven’t really changed that much since the active time gauge was introduced back in Final Fantasy 4. Some might say this is simply a failing of the franchise, refusing the claim that an entity in a changing environment must either evolve or die, but is that all there is to it?
Let’s look at another fairly new game, Skyrim. I’ve certainly played enough of Skyrim to know how most of the numbers work, and I’ve got to say, I’m drawing a lot of parallels with the original Final Fantasy, which at least has the excuse of being over 20 years old. The only real differences I can see in terms of resources are that evasion is no longer a factor, being that Skyrim is not a turn-based environment, and most importantly, HP is no longer king. Sure, HP is important, but with the aforementioned turn-based system abolished, health loss is no longer an assured thing. A good player can go a long time without sustaining any damage, therefore making HP a less important resource than the new champion, EXP. Without EXP you can’t level, and without levelling you can’t pick perks, which are the real deciding factors as to what type of character you develop. Even a low HP character can suit up in full armour and dual-wield enchanted short swords if they wanted to, but all those perks that they sunk into their magic trees dictate that in terms of damage, they’re better off sticking to their fireballs.
Now that we have the main difference out of the way, let’s look at all of the ways that the games are almost identical. While hidden, damage is still regulated by characters stats, which some races naturally differ in. Lots of money still means better gear, which translates into higher damages values and greater reduction of incoming damage with armour. Even with unlimited bag space, your character is still bound by how much weight they can carry, meaning packrats like me are constantly dropping things that either sell for less or we have duplicates of in order to accommodate the shiny new weapon we just found. Higher stats and better gear still lead to greater longevity, which, despite what I said earlier, is still a large factor in one’s success. It’s not a huge leap to see how Skyrim is simply an evolution of these baser mechanics.
Maybe the mould for RPGs was just set far too early in the timeline of videogames. A different example would be the evolution of an action series, such as Ninja Gaiden. In its original form, the game was a sidescroller that used points, health, mana, lives, continues, time and power-ups as its resources. The current Ninja Gaiden uses health, mana, weapon upgrades, power-ups and money as its resources. In terms of resources, the game actually got LESS complex, even given the option to collect money and buy items to help you throughout the game.
I’d like to end with an example of a series that began during the NES days and has persisted until now while actually becoming more complex: The Legend of Zelda. First, let’s examine the original. It had a ton of items that were used as resources and were necessary to progress through the game. In comparing that to the most recent game, Skyward Sword, we see that most, if not all, of the items in the first game persist today. The primary difference is Skyward Sword’s new crafting system wherein the player can upgrade several of their main items using a large list of collectible resources found throughout the game world is completely new to the series, and a welcome addition at that.
In conclusion, I need to play something fresh to take my mind off the fact that, at a numerical level, games haven’t seemed to change much since they began to get popular in the early 80s.
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