Good Game, Wrong Genre

It's a topic I've been thinking about for quite a while, and with nothing else to really write about tonight, I figure it's as good a time as any to air this out there.  Much like my thoughts on how almost anything can be made into a TCG-Based game, I try and think of other genres certain games could be made into and be better off for it.  It's not always that easy, of course, and it's not like every game can be switched to something else without losing a lot of what makes it 'good' (MGS as a FPS rather than a TP Stealth game, for example), but some things just.....well, once you start thinking of them in 'this' genre mold, it's hard to think of why the game creators didn't see it your way.

The above pictured game is clearly Dissidia:  Final Fantasy (actually, Duodecim, but details, details) which, as you may or may not know, is some sort of weird Fighting Game/RPG hybrid with a higher emphasis on the Fighting game portion.  While you might not think it (I certainly didn't) it -does- actually work, and Dissidia provided me many hours of amusement; the fact that I still haven't picked up the sequel (er, Prequel) is more a technicality than anything.  Still, even though the fighting game thing works, I look at it, look at the setup, the structure, and yearn for a Tactics-style game.  (Like Final Fantasy Tactics.  Clearly.  Funnily enough, this isn't at all influenced by my upcoming playthrough.)

How could a Tactics game starring every main character and villain from Final Fantasy 1-13 not succeed?  With some exceptions, they're all set up with turn-based styles in mind -anyway-, and Cloud has even been in a Tactics-stlyed game already!  Granted, it...wasn't the best cameo, but it was a cameo nonetheless, and one they assuredly learned from....well....no, no they probably didn't.  But they could've and we're playing a game of 'should of could of' so just go with it.  If you look at it, it just makes sense, and in a Tactics environment there could be more characters pulled, surely.

They already have the generic foes in place (which, again, could become more varied in a Tactics setting), the Manikins, who are simply crystallized forms of the heroes and villains, and the overarching goal is in place and ripe for 'dramatic turns and twists' and the likes as one would expect from such a game.  Dissidia already has a focus on Equipment like a more classic RPG as well, so that mechanic wouldn't need too much tweaking.  I guess you do love a bit of what made Dissidia good, in that you don't get to fly around and slam folks against a wall (Invisible or no) over and over again, but I think the overall experience would be much better in the different genre.  At least....better than it'll be as a rhythm game.

There's other games I could use in an example for this (Honestly, the recent announcement of Warriors Orochi 3, which is what it'll be called in America should it head over has me wishing for, again, a tactics version of the game or at least a Romance of the Three Kingdoms-style War Game version) but Dissidia is the one I hold up chiefly.  It could honestly work and work well and I always hold onto the hope that Squeenix will see this, and release a Dissidia game with a good cast of characters from each game in the series, with possibly cameos from other games.  I guess we'll have to see, but I'm not going to hold me breath; Squeenix make a good decision?

HA!

My Dream Game, Part 2

It's kind of funny to me that I write my post about trying to parse out my dream game, which holds a lot of decoration and similar aspects, and the very next day, we get an announcement (or, at least, I noticed it) saying that Home (which has the decoration aspect I highly enjoy) is going to expand to have a more game-like feel to it.  Not that I suggest my dream game would be Home, nor that Home could possibly expand into something that I would describe with the term, "Dream", just that elements I'm drawing from is striving to become even more than what it is currently.  I'm, er...easy amused.  (I had a way better reasoning out going on in my head.)

I've still been thinking about it, clearly, and I figured the best way to go about trying to explain it would be to break down each part and do it like that, since flailing around and saying this and that didn't really work when I read it over again.  So I'm going to focus more on the smaller details this time, the personal decorating aspect before moving out and up to the grander levels of it all.  Which is why I brought up Home, since for all the games I've tried that let you personalize spaces (which, I think is basically Home and Phantasy Star Portable 2, possibly a few other things), Home is the one that honestly grants you the most freedom.  You get to place up to 40 items (I believe) and you get to place them wherever the hell you please.  Set up a ramp on a table by hovering a flat item over the edge of the table and placing it, which hands it over to gravity and drops it as it would drop.  Provided the floor doesn't allow it to slip, it'll stay there like a ramp and, last I checked, you could then even use it as one.

Wall items don't work quite as well, as they were introduced after spaces had been pushed out, so the system (for now) seems to be (certain) spaces have pre-determined Wall spots that you can cycle through when you want to put up a poster or a picture frame or what have you.  The rotation of the item is up to you, so you could, theoretically, get a Deer Head ornament and put it on the wall upside down, so even though it's a little restrictive, it still allows for a nice touch of freedom.  But that's still not what I would like, as I would prefer a 'Snapping' method, where you could place an item against a wall and, well, "Snap" it in place.  Or even to another item that you place or that adds flavor to the space.  (A chandelier for instance.)

The alternative provided in Phantasy Star Portable 2, which will quickly explain why I prefer Home's method to it, is by offering about a couple dozen different rooms with predetermined grid areas where you can place things.  Each (most?) room has four wall spots, and then the better part of the floor is divided into a grid, where most items take up four squares.  Additionally, you have a set amount of Decoration Points which is a fairly near hidden number.  You enter Decoration mode to display the grid, and then walk to the area you want, select it, and put down the item, rotating it to face North, West, South or East at your preference.  It's serviceable and does allow for a goodly bit of personalization, but it's too Sims 1 for my tastes, and we've moved beyond that, clearly.

Ideally, each house that you can decorate (and, prior to that, build) would have a realistic amount of rooms (something that Home fails to do, unfortunately, opting to create big 'spaces' instead of actually 'Homes') that you can decorate individually with the amount of control as you would have with a Home room, given the provisions I made additionally.  This way you can create a theme to go throughout the whole house (which would, again ideally raise the overall appeal or value of the place when you're courting outsiders to move in) or, well, just do whatever you want.  Creative freedom above all else!

Your own home would adhere to the very same rules of course, and through upgrading it, you'd be able to personally select what the additional rooms are made of, the sizes and shapes of the rooms, etc.  And, of course, the items you place could be either copied from somewhere else (perhaps 'purchased' via a point system that you fill by killing monsters and/or gaining experience through sidequests?) or just bought straight from a store in a different city.  (Or, eventually from a store opened up in your very own city.)  Additionally, trophies earned through various points of the game (maybe to reflect on the 'meta' trophies you get by playing the game:  Literal trophies if PS, Achievements elsewhere, etc.) that you could put down wherever to show off.  After all, if you killed the Thief King, displaying his bloodied cloak (or whatever the 'trophy' for that would be) is a necessity, of course.

Hopefully this rambling is coming across better than it is when I reread it.  I'm just trying to make the game in my head seem like something tangible rather than a bunch of randomized ideas floating around.  If nothing else, it gives you an idea that I really like games that let you personalize spaces.

My Dream Game

As gamers, we're all faced with the very real possibility at one point or another that no game will ever be tailor-made for you, that no game will ever have everything you want it to have, mostly because with everything we've played, the variety would simply be too much to code and program.  Or it would face some other sort of limitation, surely, even when we play a game we enjoy, we get certain feelings, "If I could change anything I would..." and then we list off one or a few different things we'd add, take away, or alter to more perfectly fit this image we have in our heads.  It'll never happen, of course, but yet we still dream of this dream game that we could create.

Take a little bit of this game/series, a little bit of that game/series, mash it all together and come up with something fresh that, hopefully won't end up causing people to dredge up the Homage vs. Rip-Off argument ala Darksiders.  Because, of course, if you do it right, your game will only be called (Game)-Like, (All isometric dungeon crawlers are apparently Diablo-like, despite not needing you to click five thousand times to get from Point A to Point B to open a chest), all run-and-gun military shooters are Call of Duty-Like, etc. etc.  Regardless, the genre isn't what's important to the dream game, but rather what you want it to do and want it to have.

Obviously, I've been thinking a lot lately about what my 'dream' game would be, and clearly I don't have the finer details parsed out (for reasons that will become almost immediately clear), I do know, at least, mostly what I want from it, and I want to put that out there, if just to sort of cement it in my mind or maybe even reason it out a little more.

If you know me (which, if you're reading this, you likely do by now), you know that I enjoy the prospects of building and....for a lack of a better word, 'decorating', and often bring it up as something to get excited about.  Indeed, as you'll notice above (and, well, further above), are two very real, existing methods of 'building' in games:  The nearest being the GeoRama system from White Knight Chronicles (cribbed straight from the Dark Cloud games, of course) and the one at the top being Monteriggioni from Assassin's Creed 2, the village that housed the Villa de Auditore, from which you could 'restore' the village building-by-building.  While the GeoRama system is closer to what I enjoy (rather, I'd prefer something more to the Sims where I can actually just design and build, I can make the concession for a wide variety of buildings pre-made or building parts), I do like the 'Hub' part of Assassin's Creed 2's village, and in fact would go so far as to say that that whole experience was my favorite part about the game.

My dream game would give you this location where you (your character, rather, fully customizable of course) lives, surrounded by blank, flat land, ripe for construction.  This is not the only place you go to, but it's the most important, as it's a literal blank slate.  Why it's that way is really of no concern, but it's not some sort of apocalypse, and the land hadn't been populated before and wiped out; there's other towns and cities that you'll be able to visit.  But this one rather large section of the world, large enough to make a city, is just blank, to be shaped however you want.

Not alone, of course, and I'm not even willing to say shaping the land is your main goal, as, honestly despite the inherent "not sure if want" factor Open-World games take on, I would want it to be Open-World.  In a perfect world, perfect dream, it would be about as open as any of The Elder Scrolls games, but well, again we may have to be at least semi-realistic here.  I'd like it if you could take or draw your building elements (buildings, trees, etc.) from the rest of the world, since it would honestly give you a good reason to explore the land.  Not to mention you'll need people to not only build this town/village/citiy/what have you (and upgrade your house), but to live in it as well.  (I would like to imagine you could decide whether you want to hire people to build, or use slave labor 'recruit' monsters to work, ala Rune Factory.

Combat would be relatively simple enough; I don't know if it's because it's what I'm playing now, or if I just prefer it, but Phantasy Star Portable's style (picking up weapons from all sorts of varieties and assigning them to your person, able to switch to any one at any given moment) seems like a perfect fit for what I'd want, since versatility, obviously, is key to the experience.  A nice, wide variety of weapons would be nice, with varying levels of 'unique' design, as one of the many house upgrades would ideally be an armory/trophy room (again, ala Assassin's Creed 2 Villa) so you could show them off to....well, I guess yourself.  Would be rather hard to put something this large-scale on Multi-player, but it would be nice if there was some sort of synch option to 'share' your City.

It's hard to really articulate what I want here, because 1) It's not exactly possible in the form I'm thinking of, since it's honestly, still too grand a scale than what we can handle yet (thus making some of it sound too dreamy and silly) and 2) Because, well, putting out what would be your 'perfect' anything is hard, since wants/desires shift, so what you want today, what's perfect today, might not be tomorrow.  But for my 'dream' game here, Large-Scale is almost an understatement since the goal would be that you could not only design/build/manage your own citiy (populate it however you want, decide the prominent flora/fauna, decorate the houses, etc.) but be able to visit the pre-existing cities in the game and be able to explore them to any degree.

Then, on top of that, everything needs to feel 'alive'.  You'll need sidequests and a story for those who don't really care to build to such a degree that it's the 'fun' part of the game, so that's where your bit of Elder Scrolls games kicks in which means more locales to explore, loot to be found, etc.  It is, in fact, just too much game.  And I don't feel I've even adequately explained what's in my head, but hopefully, I've impressed enough of it, because I'm entering the portion where it's almost seeming redundant now.