The endangered genre of beat 'em ups OR Lost Branches: God Hand

Let's talk for a moment about Double Dragon.  I recently heard that developer Wayforward Technologies has a new remake coming down the pipeline called "Double Dragon Neon."  I'm sure it will be pretty neat, as Wayforward has a pretty good track record with old-school style game design, but I still feel kind of "eh" about the whole thing.  The whole "Hey look it's the 80's!  Remember these guys?" style, only further drives home the point that the beat 'em genre, once a thriving part of the video game landscape, is now a fundamentally nostalgic concept.

I was born in 1982, so while I played the Atari 2600 a couple times when I was extremely little, my formative years as a gamer took place in the 8 and 16-bit eras.  It was back in this time that Double Dragon was a stand-out franchise that everybody who played games was familiar with.  The NES version was an essential part of any discerning 7 year old's collection and I freaking loved it.  It was for me, and so many other kids my age, my introduction to beat 'em ups, and man, beat 'em ups where the thing to play.

The game sparked vigorous debate about whether or not video games would encourage America's children to wear cutoffs and have awesome karate fights in abandoned warehouses.  I think now we all know the answer.  If you don't, then meet me at the abandoned warehouse and bring your cutoffs.

You just couldn't get away from them.  Leaving aside Double Dragon and its sequels, there were Konami's TMNT and Simpsons arcade games, which were essential to any proper 90's childhood.  Of course you also had Capcom's standard-setting Final Fight, and Sega's standard-raising Streets of Rage series.  On top of that there were games that showed clever signs of evolution, like the inimitable River City Ransom, and Capcom's branching-path laden Dungeons and Dragons arcade games.  However, as with shooting games, the 32 bit era saw the genre go into a sort of torpor.  In both cases (despite arguably the finest possible examples of each being put out on the Sega Saturn in the forms of Guardian Heroes and Radiant Silvergun) they became things of the past, only to resurface with the understanding that they were calling back to a past glory instead of renewing it, and so it has remained to this day.  While companies like Cave have managed to bring about a sort of renaissance of shooters, we only see flashes of what beat 'em ups might have become in games like Odin Sphere, or the Scott Pilgrim game.

And there you have it.  Its just a sad thing.  Oh well.  Maybe one day some group of exceptional, gifted game designers will come up with a game that brilliantly marries the concept of beat 'em ups with modern day game design in a way no one had thought of...

JK.  More like Final Fight: Streetarded.

...Oh wait, that actually happened.  Its called God Hand, and nobody bought it.

Seldom has box art ever so fully captured the essence of the game contained therein.

Made by Resident Evil mastermind Shinji Mikami, along with Capcom's way-too-brilliant-to-survive Clover Studios team, (You remember them?  They're the ones that made a better Zelda game that any of them since Wind Waker) God Hand was a unique jewel of a game, which could have resurrected the genre if only people had understood it.

Not pictured: Dying for your sins.

God Hand tells the amusing tale of Gene, a wandering tough guy who's attempt at heroism costs him an arm.  However, as luck would have it, Gene is entrusted with a replacement in the form of the titular "God Hand." Sure, there's more to it, but what matters is that this grants him the power to blaze a trail of whoop-ass across a ridiculous Fist-of-the-Northstar-on-methamphetamines universe, fighting thugs, amazonesses, a gorilla, a pair of muscular gay stereotypes, a lovable giant demon named Elvis, a hair-metal guitarist, some tiny poisonous chihuahuas, et cetera et cetera until ultimately having a showdown with the owner of the "Devil Hand" in order to save everybody's day.

God Hand's world is wacky and endearing.  I will admit however, that its gameplay takes a minute to get used to, which is probably why many reviewers and gamers so tragically misjudged it.  Nowadays, when you buy a game (and it isn't by From Software) you generally do not expect to die on the first level.  Modern game design dictates that you start off very gently, with tutorials at every turn, gradually ramping up as you go.  God Hand certainly ramps up, but its idea of a tutorial is basically throwing you in the pool until you can swim.    

Thanks for pressing start!  Okay... go!

The game uses a behind the back 3rd person view more usually (ever since Mikami's own Resident Evil 4) associated with shooters.  This can take some time to get used to, but once you adapt it lends a new sense of immersion to this style of game.  Where the design really shines is when you start customizing your set of moves to create your ideal beatdown.  Instead of having the same basic moveset for the whole game and gradually gaining supers of some sort, you can actually purchase a variety of alternate punches, kicks, throws etc. and set them to the various attack buttons.  This creates a set of radically different potential approaches to gameplay, and makes the game's core fighting element feel deep and strategic while still just plain fun.  God Hand is not a perfect game, but it is definitely one that should be played and understood.  A used copy isn't terribly hard to find, and it recently became available for digital download on Playstation 3.

So where do we go from here?  Their are some promising titles coming down the pipeline.  Vanillaware's upcoming Dragon's Crown (Link may be slightly NSFW due to huge magic gozangas) looks stunning and (intentionally) hearkens back to Capcom's aforementioned Dungeons and Dragons entries, and there's also Code of Princess, (Link may be slightly NSFW due to huge royal gozangas) which looks fantastic, and  is a spiritual successor to Guardian Heroes developed by the original's creators.

What do you think about beat 'em ups?  Any favorites I didn't mention?  Not enough use of parentheses?  Let me know.  Keep on rocking in the skull world.

Lost Branches: The Human Entertainment Cinematic Adventures (part 2)

In our second Lost Branches installment we will discuss Human Entertainment's other Super Famicom cinematic adventure, Clock Tower.

Today, Survival Horror is an established genre with widespread popular appeal.  The breakout success of Capcom's Resident Evil franchise turned horror games into a hot commodity in both the east and the west, and in the modern video game landscape we can see dozens of games that show its imprint.  However, the history of survival horror does not begin with Resident Evil.

It is hard to point to one game that truly invented the genre.  For example, the early Resident Evil's owe a lot of their presentation to Alone in the Dark.  This PC horror game introduced many hallmarks of the Resident Evil experience, it had impressive (for the time) 3D modeling for its characters, and used fixed camera angles on static pre-rendered backgrounds to present more impressive visuals than the hardware could normally present while creating the illusion of a three-dimensional environment.  Its stiff controls and puzzle solving gameplay elements (all of which took place in a mansion) made it the first game I thought of when I first played Resident Evil on Playstation One.

Impressive at the time.  Also too scary for me to play.

Another game one can also look to the Famicom classic "Sweet Home."  Released coinciding with Juzo Itami's 1989 film, Sweet Home (which I realize I am going to need to give it's own article) was also created by Capcom and involves battles and puzzle-solving in a scary mansion environment.  The noteworthy cinematic moments, grotesque monsters and emphasis on inventory management with limited healing items all call to mind the original Resident Evil experience.  Also, Resident Evil's "door opening" loading sequences are first seen in Sweet Home.

However, what do we mean when we say horror?  In film, the genre encompasses many different and distinct visions.  Night of the Living Dead is very different from Jacob's Ladder, Poltergeist is very different from the Thing, but all of these are horror experiences.  In the world of video games, George Romero is well represented in Resident Evil and especially in Dead Rising, Ridley Scott can be heard echoing in Dead Space, the Silent Hill games (at least the real ones, being 1,2,3 and 4) have a distinct aftertaste of Davids Cronenberg and Lynch.  One of the things that makes Clock Tower so different, is that it is more evocative of the woefully underrepresented Dario Argento.



At this point my more informed readers may point out to me that Clock Tower spawned a remake as well as three home console sequels, as well as a spiritual successor in the form of Capcom's flawed but fabulous Haunting Ground.  What makes this a "Lost Branch"?  Simply put, the original Clock Tower is in a class by itself, and despite its imperfections I would have to say it is the most original, well-realized and well executed of them all.


SPOILERS AHEAD FOR BOTH CLOCK TOWER AND DARIO ARGENTO'S PHENOMENA


The resemblance to Argento's work, specifically the film "Phenomena", can be seen in a variety of superficial ways.  The game's protogonist, "Jennifer Simpson" is a dead ringer for Jennifer Connelly, the estate where the game takes place looks very much like the school where much of Phenomena takes place, and the game's signature villain, "Scissorman", bears a striking resemblance to the deformed child revealed in the film's climax.  However, the similarity that really matters is more conceptual.  Instead of conserving ammo as you battle against zombies/space monsters/horrifying manifestations of your frustrated sexuality, you spend most of the game silently searching the mansion for help while knowing that around any corner, Scissorman could be waiting to attack you.  It is at these moments where the game really shines.

This was actually supposed to be a surprise party but nobody showed up. 

Scissorman always shows up in style.  At certain points, both fixed and random, you will encounter a specially created event where he appears.  In other words, you don't just walk into a room and spot him.  You might notice a strange shadow beneath a curtain and examine it only to suddenly have him leap out at you, or you might just happen to walk in on him brutally slaying one of your friends, which to be fair is kind of rude on your part.  When you think of this, keep in mind that Clock Tower is presented entirely in 2D graphics.  What this means is that everything you see had to be drawn out and edited frame by frame.  What makes this so impressive is that the game is littered with these special one-time events, and only a few of them will even necessarily happen in a single playthrough.

Marco!

Once Scissorman gets on your case, you have to make a run for it.  The memorable and entirely style-appropriate main theme will play as long as he is still on your trail.  Just as the game has special events coded just for his appearance, there are also special hiding places you can use when trying to evade him.  I remember one of the game's nastiest surprises involved a fake-out when I had escaped to a loft area.  The music stopped playing and I had just breathed a sigh of relief when suddenly Scissorman came tearing through the ceiling, leaving a gouged out hole in his wake.  In addition to the Scissorman events, there are a number of scares waiting to punish your curiosity.  Make sure you open the fridge.

Hint: what you find is pretty much the opposite of this picture.

The gameplay is a kind of hybrid between the point-and-click adventure game style and a more action oriented 2D game.  Instead of a lifebar, you have a panic meter represented by a picture of your character.  She is shown with a color background which goes from blue gradually to red.  The higher the panic level, the less able she will be to fend off Scissorman when cornered.  It can seem a little nondescript at times, and it can be a bit slow-moving.  It is frustrating that running instead of walking can increase the panic level.  However, the slow pacing combined with the usually silent, eerie environment really helps increase the suspense and tension experienced by the player.  Special action events are handled by using one button which is designated as the "panic button."  While this is not used to as great effect as it maybe could have been, it does allow for some very exciting moments that couldn't really be handled any other way.  This is somewhat predictive of future games use of "Quick Time Events" and Resident Evil 4's genius use of one context-sensitive button for various instant actions.  While the game is not particularly long, it is similar to SOS in that your free exploration can lead to several different conclusions.  While the endings ultimately can be divided into surviving or not surviving, they are thoughtfully done and it's fun to try to see them all.

So what of the sequels?  After being re-released on Playstation One, Clock Tower was given a direct sequel. The game, Clock Tower 2 (released simply as "Clock Tower" in the US), picks up where the story of the original left off, which is neat, but much like the sequel to SOS, the game is hampered by the fact that its early 3D presentation just couldn't match old fashioned 2D artistry.  Also, the experience suffers for trying to cover so much more ground (literally and figuratively) than the original.  Having the mansion be the only location made it a kind of "character."  The same goes for the Playstation One spinoff that followed.  Clock Tower 3 was an enjoyable game that did a good job of refining the cat-and-mouse gameplay, but the fantastical plot took things into a different sort of territory from the subtler, slow-paced, moody original.  The game that is most evocative of the original experience would have to be the superbly scary Haunting Ground, but the game was not a big-seller, and stands out as a unique callback to the earlier games' sense of cat-and-mouse suspense.

Much like SOS, the thing that keeps a game like Clock Tower from having a truly fitting sequel is its presentation and its economy of gameplay elements.  Its true you play pretty much the whole game in one building, pursued only by one primary antagonist, and the story is a pretty straightforward tale of somebody having Satan's baby, but the simplicity of those elements make the game a lot easier to get into.  These elements become more special because there aren't many of them.  Modern graphics could do a great job of rendering a big scary place to play in, but it would be hard to make the same game in it.  A short, simple, scary little adventure.  Kind of like Sharron Angle's run for senate.

Well, okay, not THAT scary.

Bonus:
Kotaku has started releasing translated episodes of Japan's delightful "Game Center CX"!  Under the new name "Retro Game Master", the show chronicles long-time gamer Shinya Arino and his friends as they are tasked with making their way various classic games.  Follow this link to see their great episode about Clock Tower!  Its a good way to see the highlights of the game from start to finish without having to play through it yourself.

Lost Branches: The Human Entertainment Cinematic Adventures (part 1)

When I was little, the way you would hear about video games was different.  You might discover a game by it appearing at your local rental place, or seeing it in EGM, Nintendo Power or GamePro.  Also, as a kid back then, I recall hearing rumors about games that were supposedly out there or coming out.  Of course most of it was just kids trying to impress eachother, other games like Chester Field or Bio Force Ape turned out to be real, but never actually made available.  The dawn of the information age has brought with it many fascinating revelations to the gamers of my generation.  Not only do we have a wider variety of reputable sources at our disposal than ever before, but we now have access to a sort of Burgess shale for the history of video games.  Through wikipedia and various other databases, you can discover the DNA of various modern games by exploring the histories of the team members who created them, and in many cases earlier works that demonstrated the ideas that would one day come to fruition.

Pictured: where you found the hottest new games circa 1990.

For example, let's take From Software's out-of-nowhere hit "Demon's Souls."  My personal favorite for the year it came out, Demon's Souls was many gamers first exposure to From Software's works of dark fantasy.  In fact the game had a rich ancestry, composed primarily of the King's Field and Shadow Tower series.  While the earlier games are quite enjoyable in their atmosphere and stubborn difficulty, playing them and then playing Demon's Souls is basically witnessing the evolution of a concept into its highest form.

However, one of the fascinating things about the Burgess shale is pondering the many evolutionary branches that simply died off.  The same can be said of viewing the history of video games through the bird's eye view that the internet, and emulation, provide us.  This article (and ones like it that I hope to write in the future) will explore one such branch.

Human Entertainment (1983-1999) was a Japanese video game company.  Their most successful franchises were Fire Pro Wrestling and Formation Soccer.  They also created a pair of Super Famicom releases that were both way ahead of their time in terms of cinematic presentation, and the creation of a tense, frightening gameplay experience.  The games in question are Clock Tower (also called Clock Tower: The First Fear) and Septentrion (released in the US as "SOS.").  While both of these games partly suggest what we would see in the future, they are all the more interesting for the characteristics that didn't seem to get carried forward.

SOS is an action/survival adventure that takes place on a ship that has just been capsized by a powerful wave.  The game wears its cinematic aspirations on its sleeve, opening with the words "A Syuji Yoshida film" as it pans slowly along the ocean floor, accompanied by a mournful melody, until it happens upon the wreckage of a luxury liner.  It should be noted that this game was released in 1994, before Titanic mania swept over the world, so imagine something that has more in common with "The Poseidon Adventure."  You pick from four characters, each of whom has a different story and a different set of goals besides just escape.  Once you have selected your character, you watch a brief (mercifully skippable) introduction.  Once you take control, you have an hour in which to find your way to the boiler room of the ship, from which you can get to the outside.

Though the graphics are not particularly groundbreaking for their time, they are very well implemented, and they look good.  The character sprites have a good deal of variety that gives the characters a distinct look, and there are little touches such as seeing how furniture has crashed into the ceiling in rooms that have been turned upside-down, or the layered scrolling of pipes and machinery in the game's climactic boiler room event, giving the area a tremendous sense of scale.  The Super Famicom's signature "Mode 7" Scaling is used to great effect to simulate the semi-random rolling and dipping of the ship as it begins its descent.  The effect is not just cosmetic, it plays an important part in the gameplay:  what is a cieling one minute could be a path to your escape the next depending on how the ship is oriented.

Pictured: Trouble

A few key events of the game occur at fixed points as your hour counts down.  The ship will capsize, then eventually there will be an explosion in the hull.  After this event, parts of the ship will fill with water.  Again, the open design of this game makes it something you can potentially use to your advantage, making high places reachable as the water rises.  Injury (long falls, being burned, etc.) causes you to lose 5 minutes, which is not too bad at first, but can really be trouble as you near the game's end.

The greater challenge of the game is that your goal is not simply to get yourself out of the ship (which will get you a bad ending) but to escort as many other survivors as you can to the exit along with you.  Certain survivors will have a special significance to your character's story, others will have certain needs you have to meet before they can or will accompany you, which calls to mind the gameplay we would eventually see in the Dead Rising series.  The character you chose and the survivors you save will determine which of several possible endings you receive.

In my opinion, the game's greatest feature, and the aspect that ties the entire experience together, is it's soundtrack.  While the script was not given a particularly good translation, the music and sound design really pull you into the experience.  The score has an air of grandeur and tension, tragedy and adventure that really takes the events of the game beyond the system's humble abilities.  The main theme is stirring and gives a real sense of tension as you navigate the ruined luxury around you, also the music smartly disappears in certain places (like an overturned theater room) leaving only the eerie sound of dripping water.  The theme that plays in the boiler room during the game's final moments is simply perfect, and gives the game a tense and emotional finale.



The game had a Japan-only sequel for the Playstation One called "Septentrion: Out of the Blue."  Unfortunately, what I can dig up about it does not hold much promise.  Its look and sound certainly do not have any of the original's charm, and are more of an example of the less-than-glorious offerings of those early polygon days.  Also, the ship was apparently named the "Kingweenzer." Other than that, I suppose the Disaster Report series carries a somewhat similar idea, but simply not as focused.

It is bad news when the best looking screenshot for your game is the title screen.

Not pictured: a gaming classic.

So how did this branch die?  Why did a unique game like this not create its own sort of subgenre?  I can think of a couple reasons.

1.) Timing
Any gamer from that time can tell you that in the mid-to-late 90s, polygons were all the rage.  Many speculated that 2D game design would ultimately go extinct, which thankfully it didn't.  But it was definitely a time where graphics ruled over concept.  Its as easy to see as the embarrassment someone like me feels looking back on what an amazing game "Battle Arena Toshinden" seemed like when it came out.  To make it work then, a sequel would have needed impressive 3D graphics, and play mechanics the translated well into having 360 degrees of movement.  Sadly this was not the case on either front in the game's sequel.  Technology and game design would not reach a sufficient level of evolution until games like the first Devil May Cry conclusively proved you could make action and platforming work in 3D with the same kind of responsiveness and flow that it had in 2D.  One can only imagine the kind of remake today's technology could produce.

2.) Really, Timing.
Imagine trying to pitch this game now with all of its key elements intact.  Is it a horror game?  Not exactly.  Is it an adventure game?  Not by today's definition.  Is it an action game?  Kind of.  There are no enemies, there is no combat.  It has nothing to do with zombies.  The game really hits one primary, serious note, and remains there.  Leaving that aside, it is a game that can last a maximum of one hour, start to finish.  That is an integral part of what makes it good and gives it its sense of immediacy, but like many other good games that met with mixed reception, it would be criticized as being "too short."  To survive its poorly-done sequel, the game really would have needed a more established history.  If the original had come out earlier, say on the NES or PC, and had a decent sequel under its belt, the franchise might have survived.

How comes it, indeed.

On a hopeful note, as a new era of indie developers is clearly dawning, and the advent of downloadable gaming has created a larger range acceptable pricing/development costs than has ever been seen, as well as a sort of classic gaming renaissance.  Maybe right now some dedicated programmer with a gleam in his eye will feel inspired to give this game the spiritual successor it so richly deserves.  If so, I hope they ask me to do the music.

You can easily find a rom of this game online, and copies of the US version sell for pretty reasonable prices on ebay.  I strongly encourage those with a historical interest in video games to take this strange little gem for a spin.  It is always worth playing a game that was clearly a labor of love.