Yes, this is another Meeple Rant of sorts between multiple games, but worry not, this won't be anywhere near as big as the OoT/Okami/Darksiders one (gonna try to fit it into one post, but might need two.)
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INTRO There comes a time when developers have a successful game or franchise. The success leads to variety of things, be it lots of merchandise, sequels, and of course, sometimes spin offs. Often, these spin offs delve from the genre the game is, and/or deal with a character who had a smaller role in the media that preceded, and the idea of the spin-off is to learn more about this character. Often, the character chosen is someone who either is very popular, or has a lot of character to work with to make an interesting story. Sometimes these spin offs are great and ambitious.
Take for example, Yoshi's Island, also known as "Super Mario World 2." Yoshi was nothing more than a glorified power up in the previous game, and now he has his own platformer dealing with Yoshi specific elements. The game was well received, and arguably better than its predecessor, and comes off as a fine example of how to make a spin off.
Sometimes, however, you have to question what the logic behind the spin off in question is. Going back to Yoshi’s Island, Yoshi was cute and lovable in Super Mario World, so it made sense to make a game based off him, and run with that. If one equates “cute and lovable” to quality of a spin-off (IOWs, Yoshi = Cute, so Spin-off on Yoshi = Good!), than an “Angsty, Emo, Brooding Bad Ass” style spin off must be one of the stupidest ideas of a game ever. This is flawed logic of course, but it does bring us to our two games we’ll be discussing:
From this point, I'll be using a variety of short-hands to reference both games, naturally. These two games are spin-offs of big popular games (or franchises in Shadow's case) based around a dark brooding character from the game as the central figure, with a darker storyline than the original, focusing on gun combat. If you think the games sound shockingly similar conceptually right now, you have no idea how deep the similarities between these two (conceptually) can go, but I’ll spare you! Furthermore, what makes this most interesting is how the two games are contemporaries of one another. I don't mean in that "Final Fantasy 6 and Chrono Trigger" sense where they are both "same generation, same general time frame"; I mean these two games both were released within 2 months of one another (Shadow is November ’05, DoC is January ’06), which suggests that both companies had the SAME IDEA AT THE SAME TIME, pretty much.
BACKGROUND NONSENSE AND MISCELLANEOUS GARBAGEFinal Fantasy 7 is a game that needs no introduction, nor do I need to go into depth about it and the impact it had in general, so I'll just leave it at that. As a series, Sonic the Hedgehog is the same, but specifically, I do need to touch up on one entry of the game, that being Shadow's first game,
Sonic Adventure 2. While there are mixed views regarding this game, and how it holds up compared to its predecessor, the general agreement is that, at very least, SA2's best parts are its Hedgehog stages. The parts of the game where you play as Sonic or Shadow are regarded by many as some of the best stages 3D Sonic Games have had to offer, and it’s very clearly this game that Shadow's own game is deriving itself from. If there's something to be praised from this game, it’s those stages, and by extension, anything that tries to use its core gameplay is probably in a good standing.
So a spin off involving characters from those two games seems like a good idea, right? I mean, there's every reason to want to see these games in action, taking well established casts and what not, but give limelight to a new character, right? Well, no, there are actually plenty of reasons to worry about everything, and it’s before both of these games came out.
I point you in the direction of two titles, the first is
Sonic Heroes, and the second is movie
Advent Children: Final Fantasy 7. To most people, Heroes was a bad game and basically the start of the huge downwards spiral of the Sonic series that bottomed out at Sonic 2006 (and that is one deep trench!) that the series only FINALLY has recovered from when
Sonic Colors came out. It’s a game that basically took only a fraction of what was liked about SA2 and gave us a half-assed follow up. I could go into details about everything wrong with Heroes, but that's a complaint for another time. Advent Children, to be fair, is not as widely hated...actually the reviews are quite mixed. Though, it seems to me, most people tend to agree that if you enjoy the movie, it’s purely on that "turn brain off and enjoy the explosions" level, as anyone who tries to make sense of the plot and connect it with FF7 beyond "Cloud's in it" and such tends to hate it. So what's wrong with AC then? That plot is exactly it; while it wasn't deep and didn't go into the depths they could have to totally spit on what FF7 established, in terms of world building, characterization, etc., it did show hints that the writers did not actually know what they were dealing with, but rather, were writing based on how they remembered FF7, and coming up with flimsy excuses for explosions. Classic example is writing Cloud as an antisocial jackass who does nothing but angst, and his only redeeming quality is being a badass action hero. Again, I could go on with what's wrong with this, but it mostly establishes just what kind of fears that Advent Children sewed.
In both
Sonic Heroes and Advent Children, we see our Protagonists of the two games we'll be discussing, Shadow the Hedgehog, and Vincent Valentine, playing a large role. While it’s true in SH, Shadow's role didn't exactly increase, given he was already prominent in SA2 as a Shonen Rival for Sonic, just him appearing in Sonic Heroes more just solidifies that Shadow is a character whose "here to stay" and not a one game wonder, as well as further establishes him as an Anti-Hero instead of an Antagonist, so Sonic Heroes purpose is significant in that regard. Advent Children, meanwhile, features Vincent more than any of the primary FF7 cast with the exception of Cloud (still the protagonist) and Tifa (female lead.) Heck, I think Vincent does more in this sub-2 hour movie than he does in the 40~ hours of FF7. Which just further highlights the "getting both characters more exposure and possibly raise their popularity!" factor. Which brings us to the next scenario: The actual characters in question before their own games. Well, let’s analyze them one at a time.
Shadow was introduced in SA2, as I said. Here, he mostly plays the role as "Dark rival for Sonic." The first question one must ask is "Why create Shadow? Why not just use Metal Sonic or something for an Eggman Aligned Hedgehog?" Whatever answer you come up with, it doesn't matter; Shadow exists so the Dark side of the storyline can have gameplay mimicking Sonic. Here, Shadow is established as being Sonic's equal...and I don't mean "he's better until the end where Sonic beats him" like most Shonen Rivals. Shadow is displayed as being Sonic's equal the entire game. Shadow impresses Sonic early on with Chaos Control, but that's more just a plot device to explain where Sonic learned he could do that with a Chaos Emerald for a later Deus Ex Machina. The fights between the two end in draws, even. Shadow is given Rocket Shoes as an excuse for why he can run as fast as Sonic...silly, but it keeps Sonic as the "Fastest thing alive", but allows Shadow an excuse for keeping up with him by saying "he cheats." Shadow's plot in this game is sort of the crux of the story, in that he's directly from the era where all these weapons, monsters, orbital lasers, etc. come from, and is sort of a spotlight stealer in that regard. It’s pretty much for this reason I feel Shadow is often the "poster boy" for "everything wrong with Sonic games" when people like to blame it on the new cast members (personally, I blame Big the Cat but that's just me.)
Sonic Heroes, he's brought back with Amnesia, and then just plays the role as being the "Speed" character on Team Dark, mostly to be Sonic's opposite in personality (so while Sonic's all upbeat and optimistic, Shadow is an emo, angsty jackass.) Really, Shadow is a character that probably earned his haters for a reason, but at the same time, he's really popular because, well, Shonen Rivals like that tend to get a lot of fans. There's a ton of teenage boys who find the whole "Emo Anti-Hero" thing appealing, and that's a large part of the demographic playing these games, so there you go.
When you look at everything surrounding Shadow, it really didn't surprise me that they were making a game with him. The devs like him, he's got a lot of popularity when he first came out, and he plays similar to the popular titular hero, so there you go. There are questions to be asked with the game, of course, which I'll get to later!
As far as Vincent...well, unlike Shadow, he was NOT a significant character in his game of origin. He was an optional character whose entire plot was basically "he knew Sephiroth's mother before she went AWoL, and hates Sephiroth's father because Hojo is a dick", he sleeps in coffins, and that plot I mentioned above is all displayed in one scene. Vincent doesn't do anything once he's introduced and recruited beyond a token "hey I exist!" line, even at points of the game where you'd think he'd speak up (like...any scene with Hojo, which the game tries to convince us is his rival.) Gameplay wise...well, he was something at least unique, if only because of his limits, and having a lot of ranged weapons with high magic, blah blah, its FF7, character differences only go so far. Either way, Vincent doesn't talk much, has little purpose in the game, plot-wise, and little personality, and basically exists just to find a convenient way to introduce Lucrecia, Sephiroth's real mother. In Advent Children, he's suddenly this major gun toting badass...which in fairness does not contradict what we did learn of him, but it still stands out that he does more in that movie than he does in FF7, and playing a bigger role than most of the FF7 cast (including Sephiroth) is pretty telling.
...so while making a game centered around Shadow had at least some logic to it, Vincent is a huge "
" Ok, he has some fans, but I was never under the impression he was that much more popular than any other character in the game. The only excuse I can think of is "let’s explore that Lucrecia subplot" which ok, that's fair, but here in lies the problem. The nature of exploring a game like this suggests that the game should be a prequel, centered around Vincent when he was a Turk, and we see the events straight up. Instead, they made a sequel, and I like many people had a huge "just what nonsense are they thinking of next?"
I'll get into this further, but anyway, this is the first big difference I feel Shadow and DoC have conceptually. Shadow is dealing with a character who, in both his appearances, is a prominent character, and in at least one of them, was a central figure, so focusing an entire game on him feels like a sensible extension, not to mention he is actually fairly popular, especially back then from my understanding. It was also coming out when Shadow's games were still sort of newish, so “promote this new character!” made sense. Vincent, however, was about as minor a character you can get in an RPG without being a Joke or Cameo, from a game released nearly 10 years prior his own, begging the question "Why Vincent?"
So thus, we get to actually looking at the two games! As we can see, they both stem from aspects that indeed had hope, but in between their own games and the games their stemming of, there was a black mark and every reason to fear their existence The fact remains, however, these two games are conceptually very similar, and you'll probably see the similarities as I go on. The question is, however, does the fact that they have so many conceptual similarities imply they're equivalent in worth? Well, LETS FIND OUT!
First and foremost, let’s look at the box art of the two games. I feel this is a good thing to start with because, trailers aside, this is the first thing you see about the game! That and its completely arbitrary filler to talk about and I'm being inspired by a certain Comic Reviewer in this regard.
Shadow's Box art is...pretty stock and generic, truth be told. I wouldn't say "bad" but it’s not exactly interesting. The thing that catches your eye, I suppose, is the fact that he's holding a gun. This is a pretty big deal because in previous games, Shadow fought like Sonic. Here, they're showing him as being something he wasn't, and it establishes a new gameplay mechanic this game has that the Sonic games did not have; the fact that Shadow can use Guns. Beyond that, it’s just our protagonist, standing in a typical action pose, behind a large explosion. It’s what you expect to see in a game like that. It sort of blends in, and basically tries to sell itself entirely on "This game is about Shadow the Hedgehog, YOU KNOW YOU WANT IT!" I would say Shadow's not big enough to sell games on his own except that the game sold 1.7 million units across its 3 consoles, so maybe I'm just horribly wrong (well, that and its tied in with a classic series that sells, I'm sure that has a slight bit to do with it!)
DoC's Box art is...uhh...very reminiscent of another game. Before I say that game, it’s worth noting that a lot of people labeled the game "Vincent May Cry" when it was first revealed because "Action game about Vincent" and there were obvious visual similarities with the Devil May Cry series. True, this is just a joke...
...apparently the developers were thinking the same thing, as "Close up of Vincent's face that tells us nothing about the game" isn't any different from "Close up of Dante's face that doesn't tell us anything about a game." But hey, being similar to DMC series isn't a bad thing right? Except that this is DMC2's box-art it’s similar to, and well, as most people know, DMC2 is the "bad" game of that series, so right there the game is taking off on the wrong foot. Ok, to be fair, VMC's box art isn't quite as bad, because it’s not misleading like DMC2's, as DMC2 gives this "Dante is a villain" impression while VMC just gives more of a "Vincent is a dark, lonely guy." Also, the title of the game "Dirge of Cerberus" is a huge "Who of what?" scenario. The name means absolutely nothing if you don't play the game, and even if you do, it’s just a play on words that means nothing, as Dirge is just a sad song, and Cerberus happens to be the name of Vincent's gun but Vincent also has 3 forms so blah blah blah it’s a stupid name that tries to sound badass. Contrast this to Shadow's game where it’s just a case of "Exactly what it says on the tin"; a game about the titular character.
Yes, the box-arts usually aren't indicative of the games as a whole, but regardless, I feel it should at least have some sort of appeal. Shadow's box-art is generic, but hey, at least it has an anthropomorphic Hedgehog wielding a gun, which is something stand out. DoC's just a picture of the protagonist’s face with some fire behind him. To be fair, both are more interesting than your average Call of Duty or Battlefield box-art...but that's not saying much!
GAMEPLAYBoth games are different kind of action games. To be more precise, Shadow's deals more with platforming, moving fast and odd ball gimmicks, while Vincent's is more just shoot things dead with an RPG Paint job. No, I don't mean it’s an ARPG or anything, but rather, it incorporates a few general "RPG Elements" like leveling up and what not, but many of these have been applied to non-RPGs, and the real "it pretends it’s an RPG" factor is how it has numerical damage values (instead of just showing the guy fall over dead after a few shots, or giving non-bosses health bars) and uses terms like "Critical Hits" for head-shots and such. This isn't so much a bad thing as much as it’s showing the awareness of how alienating this game is to fans of FF7, and their attempts to make it more familiar.
This brings me up to my first point regarding the two games: Alienating from the home game. As I eluded to before, a game being based around Shadow isn't completely new to the Sonic fanbase, if you've been keeping up with games, as he did play prominent roles before, but Vincent is this C-list character (in terms of plot relevance) that is completely skip-able, suddenly taking center stage in his own game. What's that got to do with gameplay? Well, it displays just how familiar the gameplay is going to be. So you have to ask yourself what kind of people are going to play these games? Fans of Sonic games (most notably SA2) for Emo the Hedgehog, and fans of FF7 for VMC. So naturally, you'd want to do familiar things for those players.
In Shadow's case, the game clearly treats itself like a game of the series it’s from. It has all the standard conventions of a 3D Sonic game for the time. Homing Attack, Boost Pads, a Ring system (tweaked a bit, but still the same idea), what have you. There are new conventions like Weapons and Vehicles but nonetheless, you can still play the game just as you would SA2, where Shadow originates from. With that familiarity aspect, it allows fans of the series to more readily grasp new ideas, as the older ones are unchanged. It establishes itself as its own game and not a sonic game, but doesn't deviate from the source material too much...which is what I feel a spin-off should do, at least on its first attempt.
Vincent's case, the original game was a turn based RPG, this game is a full-fledged action-shooter game. There couldn't really be a larger deviation in gameplay style. Now while ARPGs have existed in the past, good ones even, this game does not come across as an ARPG, just an action game. Stats only mean so much, everything is about your ability to target and shoot, react to attacks, what have you. This is not a bad thing by nature, but it goes back to what I said about alienating the fans. It’s asking fans of an RPG to suddenly be good at something that was completely unlike what they've been playing. True, some people play multiple genres (I myself am one such person!), and can do an easy transition, but what of those people expecting an FF7 style game but getting something that has almost nothing to do with it? To further illustrate what I mean, let’s look at DoC's follow up (for lack of a better term), Crisis Core. Crisis Core, like DoC, is action oriented, but it actually has plenty of RPG elements. Suck at dodging enemy attacks? That’s cool, the game lets you boost your defense, HP, and pack a lot of healing, and you can compensate, just like a turn based RPG. Furthermore, it actually keeps some of FF7's basic conventions like Materia, to keep that familiarity aspect despite the core gameplay deviating from the original. It comes off as different, but not completely alien to the fans, so the transition is much smoother. This is DoC's problem; it’s the first spin off of FF7 and it has almost nothing to do with FF7 on gameplay.
Now, the alienating of fans wouldn't be so bad if DoC did a good job with the gameplay style it presented. The issue is, the game shows it was made by people who really never dealt with the genre. It’s not exactly fast paced (which I feel is significant for action games to be engaging), dodging I felt was kind of iffy and many a times the game assumes you'll just take damage and heal through it using your limited inventory (Rouge the Crimson comes to mind.) It comes off as a bland 3rd Person Shooter, or alternatively, a cheap rip off of Resident Evil 4 (a game I have a fair amount of respect for.) Shadow, meanwhile, just did the gun thing far simpler. You pick up a gun on the ground, shoot it, and hope it hits. Game has a bit of an auto targeting system if enemies are on the screen, but also, as I said before, beyond a few specific puzzles, you can often ignore the gun thing and just kill things with Homing Attacks if you want too (ideal? No, but do-able.) The Vehicle riding is far less prominent as a gimmick factor, and it can be skipped entirely in a variety of levels. Again as I said before, Shadow plays similar to how he does in SA2, but with a few more gimmick factors, and being gimmicks, the gameplay doesn't rely too heavily on them. Contrast this to Vincent's game where the whole "guns and action" thing is basically 90% of the gameplay, and its deviating pretty much entirely from the game it’s derived from.
When you look at other spin-offs in series, again, you tend to notice they are at least reminiscent of the series they’re from. Shadow’s definitely is reminiscent of a sonic game, Vincent’s, gameplay-wise, is not. To further show what I mean, again, look at Yoshi’s Island (yeah, I’ll be using that as “example of how to do a Spin-off RIGHT.”) It’s a platformer, just like Mario games, so same genre. You can kill things by jumping on them, just like Mario, and Yoshi has his trademark Tongue attack, and can spit large things out of his mouth as a projectile, just like he could in SMW. From here, they added in a few new features, like Eggs as a primary form of offense, small sense of flight, and a few other gimmicky features like Vehicle Transformations. It was a new and different game, but still held true to some of the features that people were used to. Shadow definitely feels similar in this regard, as I said, Sonic conventions and mindset are all there, but with added “ok, Shadow needs cool stuff” factor. DoC is almost nothing like FF7, other than the paint job of things like “hey, Materia determines your SPECIAL ATTACK!” Contrast this to Crisis Core where Materia was a key feature in Zack’s development, just like FF7 Proper’s core cast, so yeah, despite both using Materia, DoC used it more as a way to pretend its following FF7 gameplay conventions, while CC actually used it in a way that reflects how they were actually used.
Back to general gameplay , both games do have a Super Power Up aspect that gives you temporary awesome boosts to do stuff with. Granted, how they are handled is different in everyway. Vincent’s power up comes off as more of a trump card to bail you out of bad scenarios. Meanwhile, Shadow’s variation is more a reward for doing certain things, and to keep the game more dynamic. Neither is necessarily better than the other, conceptually anyway, and both are clearly put in to reflect the character. In Vincent’s case, one of his trademarks is “Transforms into a monster”, so it’s kind of a necessary component, and Limit Breaks being limited access moves in FF7, making it a “trump card” style power up ala Devil Trigger just makes sense. In Shadow’s case, he’s always using those Chaos powers in plot scenes, so for once, they gave him the ability to actually use them in game, to further deviate him from being a cheap rip off of Sonic. True, I didn’t say anything good or bad about either game here, but it is worth noting that both games have these “Super Power Up!” states, to further establish how conceptually similar these games. Feel free to ignore this entire paragraph if you want!
Both games also have a rating system. In Shadow’s case, it’s something that has been a standard in Sonic games since SA1, so it’s kind of to be expected. It encourages you to replay the stage such that you can do better and get an A Rank, and there’s a mode dedicated specifically to replaying these stages. Again, this is nothing new to the series, and is kind of just an assumed factor for the game. In DoC, the rating system determines your EXP (which in turn can be transferred into cash), which suggests that the better player you are, the stronger you will get. This is a weird philosophy all things considered, as it means that those who are good will have that much easier a time of the time on top of the skill difference than those that suck. I guess the logic is that it rewards players who care about after game stuff by giving them better stuff for the mission mode. Now I did not find VMC’s rankings to mean a whole lot, nor did I pay attention to them much, so I guess it is all theoretical in the sense of “better you are, better your character’s stats are, thus easier game!” but I haven’t done like any missions so for all I know, they’re significant here; having not played them, I will not make any direct statements towards them one way or another in this regard.
Though I haven’t played missions in DoC, I have at least experienced them by watching friends and I can safely say that they are varied in their requirements. That’s a good thing since it means for more dynamic gameplay after you play the main story, and it is something to do other than the same 10 maps or so repeatedly. StH, on the other hand, has varied requirements in the main game, which lead to different routes. The game wants you to replay it 10 times, which is something I will get to later. The missions are varied enough though often at least one of the missions is “kill x number of guys on the opposing side!” Granted, just about all “Normal” missions, if there is one, are “Reach the Goal!”, which is to say, it is what happens when you play the game like a typical 3D Sonic Game. Now, some of the missions would be awful in a game like this if Shadow didn’t implement the Warping Check Point features that let you go back to any part of the stage, which means the usual “you can’t backtrack in Sonic games” factor goes away. Again, this plays into one of good adjustments made to help secure the more “This is an action game feel.”
You know…at this point, I feel there’s no reason to go into depth about the gameplay. The main point I mostly wanted to make here was already made, that being that Shadow doesn’t alienate its fans, as it’s more a 3D Style Sonic game with a few new gimmicks, notably multi-arching story (and missions to go with it), Guns and the vehicles, so at least fans of the previous games can adjust pretty well. VMC, even if it did a good job at its core game, it still begs the question of why make a 3rd Person Action Shooter Game based on a Turn-based RPG series? Furthermore, unless it was outsourced and I missed it, it was clearly made by a company that didn’t have much experience in it, leading to appropriate questionable reactions to it. I can understand wanting to do something different with the series, but cutting out pretty much all of the RPG elements barring a very select few minor ones, when appealing to a fanbase that regards the series as an RPG is not a smart thing to do. To be fair, I know a lot of people were making fun of the “Guns!!!” thing in Shadow, but that sounded more like playful teasing than people being skeptical…though maybe I’m wrong and perhaps people were afraid the entire gameplay would be based around that, rather than being a Sonic game…which is a fair thing to be worried about. Often, developers get too bogged in their gimmicks they overuse them to make sure they’re not wasted, and while I am not convinced that happened with Shadow’s game (Guns and Vehicles are clearly a secondary to the core gameplay, for all that they do play a significant role), it is something that’s an understandable fear. Vincent’s case, it’s just flat out a completely different genre in every way. I suppose you could say “They wanted to try and make a new game type, not just RPGs!” and slapping “Final Fantasy 7” on the front would raise the marketing value of the game, which is fair, but also illustrates how much Square-enix relies on namesake to sell a game.
...oh, right, there is one more thing I should talk about! That being replayability. DoC is a much longer game than Shadow, making it harder to replay. To be fair though, DoC has a lot more "aftergame" content so it can sell its longevity on that more, and encourages a replay in the style of "make your character better for mission mode!" It also has higher difficulty modes so you can genuinely challenge yourself. Mission mode aside, these are standards of the Action Game genre, and it even lets you replay missions. However, from my little experience it appears the game shoves you back at the mission exactly as you were when you started it (unlike DMC where you start the Mission exactly as the character you are now, kind of in an NG+ style), and I honestly how no clue how this affects later missions, in regards to finding missed items, money, etc. Shadow lets you replay missions but it seems they mostly exist for ranking and letting you try the alternative paths more convenient. That's cool and all, but Shadow has one distinct replayability factor that actually ends up hurting more than helps:
Multiple endings. See, if the endings were care-worthy, that'd be one thing, though even that wouldn't be enough. All the endings are basically Shadow comes to a conclusion of who he is, tells whoever was the final boss of that path what it is, then yells "This is who I am!", roll credits. I think there's a grand total of one ending that actually ends in a way that isn't him yelling "THIS IS WHO I AM!" and go figure, its the one that you can basically hear him cutting himself. But that's not gameplay related...
What IS however is the fact that the game requires you to get ALL 10 ENDINGS, which means literally replaying the game 10 times. There are multiple stages you can go to, so you may want to see them all, but that still requires 5 playthroughs, which is still a big excessive. You can't even go to Mission Select -> Beat Respective Last Level different way to access other final boss. I'm sorry, but going through Westopolis 10 times gets dull even if you just blitz through it ASAP, you'll A Rank Normal Missions in no time. If this was a pure ending thing, I wouldn't mind it so much because hey, Youtube...except the LAST STAGE OF THE GAME is after getting all 10 endings, followed by the FRUE FINAL BOSS!!! which is a big epic showdown. Contrast to DoC which has a similar styled "Super Upgraded Form vs. Final Boss", but there you always get it if you beat every mission, as you'd expect of any normal game. Sonic games have required multiple kinds of playing to get a "best ending", but usually it tried to just be "play game as all characters" and move on. Here, you're literally playing the same character doing a lot of the same stages over and over again, just changing how you beat certain ones to get a specific ending. This gets dull, tedious, and is something the game didn't need at all. The formula of "play through game, get final level!" was adopted for a reason, and that's because "It works." Shadow didn't seem to get that...
Cont. on next post!
