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.
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