I find it interesting how Suda’s career has nearly the same trajectory as an aging punk rock band. It starts out transgressive and confrontational but almost always becomes consumed by capital inevitably. I mean, I love Suda and I’m always going to be interested by the games his company develops but I can’t help but think of the Johnny Rotten butter commercial when I think of Suda at this point:
I think he was probably a creative supervisor or whatever. He tended to oversee projects (executive producer) without directly leading them between No More Heroes and Travis Strikes Again. There was an interview around when Let it Die was releasing where he described his role as mainly checking that the character of the game was on track and occasionally chipping in as a writer.
I think the Grasshopper team doesn’t get enough credit for being a cool developer regardless of auteurman Suda. TSA felt (to me) like Suda had something to say but mainly because it was an ‘aging industry figure looks back on what he has wrought’ kinda deal.
my impression of Grasshopper is that part of what they have done is accidental and partly on purpose, but that the total failure of their earlier (better/more interesting) work had pushed them in the direction they went in for a few years.
but yeah, doesn’t help that games always get pinned on one individual.
I mean that tracks pretty solidly
this Shinji Mikami doc actually does get into a bit of the post-NMH era with Suda
Dicey Dungeons doesn’t waste any time in taking you to the woodshed
I’ve been hankering to try this since hearing about it. I like the dice people. I want to see more of their society.
Wait, Lady Butterfly wasn’t early on?
I’m pretty sure I beat her before I beat Genichiro.
she’s potentially early on – unlike dark souls, where the pacing and balance goes slack after the big midway point, sekiro is if anything the opposite, where it’s possible to have a pretty sloppy time of the early game and avoid learning to play it the way it wants you to, especially if you happen not to prioritize some of the bosses that seem better at teaching the mechanics (like the centipede and lady butterfly)
I’m fairly hooked. Some of the (often changing) mechanics will fuck your brain. Feels real nice when you get a good set up going. There can be a real flow of optimization.
It’s kind of interesting and clever what Sekiro does there.
You get the key item letting you make progress in the main path early in Hirata Estate, before fighting the first boss. But, it doesn’t look like a key item, it looks like a combat tool without necessarily a progression use. As I recall, if aiming for the regular ending, the rest of Hirata Estate is a totally optional path whose reward is the additional resurrection.
Because you can’t resurrect twice on the same boss phase and it takes time to charge, that’s in fact a low-value powerup, certainly nothing worth the long early-game struggle to obtain. But nothing proves the rest of Hirata Estate is optional, especially since From has never sent players down an optional path so early before, so almost every player plows ahead at least until they get stuck on a difficult part (and when they do they sometimes complain the game is unfair, which they would probably not say if it was clear it was optional).
Also, if you do beat Lady Butterfly in the early game after heroic efforts, you’re actually happy to get the second resurrection, it sounds like a fantastic reward. You gradually realize it doesn’t make too much difference later.
Overall it’s a real labyrinth of player expectation management on multiple levels. From hasn’t stopped experimenting with game layouts and pathing, they’re still trying weird new tricks. What all this is ultimately in service of, I’m not sure though, in the grand scheme of things it might be a failed experiment.
Valuing punishment, sadism, and frustration as experiential goals lets them be so much more experimental or expressive in these structures.
Weird driving game Wreckless: The Yakuza Missions (A.K.A. Double S.T.E.A.L) for Xbox
and it’s significantly less punishing / broken, but Japanese-exclusive sequel, Double S.T.E.A.L: The Second Clash
I think I would heartily recommend the latter, but while the former is definitely also graphically impressive it has significant physics and game design problems which make it a slog to play through much of.
The sequel improves on a lot of it, and just has a lot of the polish the former lacked, and honestly its a crime that it wasn’t ever released in the west, presumably due to being a 720p-capable game launching right up against the Xbox 360.
I really need to figure out what “S.T.E.A.L” is supposed to stand for…
Getting my $3 worth out of Warlock of Firetop Mountain. Plays kind of like Crimson Shroud.
That game had the Calibur effect one me and I gotta delete a “w” every time I write “reckless”
And I never even played the damn thing
I remember “Xbots” online love that game cuz it has some super fancy reflection tech or some shit like that
Stealing
To
Eat
A
Lot
Finally got round to starting Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin. I’m not very far in but this game has huge ‘ps2 gem’ energy. The voice acting has this grain to it that makes it sound like 2003. Gotta go hunt before I can attend to my paddy but I think I love it.
i am considering to start playing Paradise Killers on the Switch. does it have the same kind of Suda51 vibes that Silver Case has?
There’s definitely some influence there. The characters generally have a much more cheery vibe but the overall aesthetics, especially in the music and sound design are very Silver Case.