I was very excited for
Star Fox Zero. As a fairweather fan of the series, it was nice to see Nintendo finally coming around and developing a brand-new, fully on-rails
Star Fox that many fans have been clambering for since
64 came out nearly two decades past. To top things off, venerable action studio Platinum Games would be involved in some capacity, so what could possibly go wrong?
Well--to be frank, that's a conversation for another day. The critical response to Star Fox Zero is something I could only describe as a quiet, but sufficiently wet, fart. The typical Nintendo crowd attempted to herald the game as a deep action title, but its flaws were far too immense and their numbers too few. With a short, irritating campaign, levels that ground the action to a halt, limited branches (possibly the hardest thing to screw up, yet here we are), annoying collectibles and a completely forgettable final boss, Star Fox Zero was simply not a good game. Be it executive meddling or Platinum having too much on their hands, not a single thing came to fruition with the game.
Among the criticism, however, one odd complaint stood out. Something so trivial, so mind-bogglingly pretentious, that it not only took me out of trying to criticize the game for myself, but somehow burrowed into my head
like that gun from Turok 2--and like the cerebral bore, my brain turned into mush instantly. I've been trying to come to grips with
why this has been bothering me so much, and now I think I can put it to rest.
In Giant Bomb's review for the game, professional dunce Dan Ryckert posited that "
this limited style of gameplay feels dated in 2016." Of all the legitimate criticisms of
Star Fox Zero, this one stood out as it's something I've heard quite a bit recently. From the legendary
Final Fantasy VII to even venerable titles like
Deus Ex or even
Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne, discussion on many games that are beyond a few years old almost always tends toward "but how does it hold up?" While I tend to avoid getting into conversations with lesser minds, this stuff is just so fascinating to read that I sometimes find myself reading through opinions just to see where my peers went so very wrong. To see this line of thinking in a professional review was already pretty shocking, but what really got me was the postulation that
this style of gameplay, as stated in the review, is somehow inherently less valuable because of its arcade roots and short, though replayable, run time. Keep in mind, this is the same website and same reviewer who gave the remastered version of
God of War III not only a
full-sized review, but also gave it a four-star rating. Despite this, Giant Bomb can't seem to escape its navel-gazing question of utter and absolute relevance, as in the same review we get "However, I can see how the game could be seen as a bit lackluster if you’re coming from a lot of time with more recent games like the aforementioned Bayonetta 2. Elements of God of War III seem dated now, especially the reliance on constant QTE prompts." I forgot Bayonetta 2 completely lacked quick-time events--oh wait! And don't get me started on this madness of "
Ghost in the Shell doesn't hold up." Why are you like that, guys?
If there's anything I can give
Star Fox Zero credit for, it's the immense replay value the game offers.
64 was already replayable enough, what with its vast combinations of branches and high skill ceiling to necessitate being rewarded with the medals in each level, and while I feel many of the collectibles in
Zero are annoying, there's no denying there's just more to do if quantity is your thing. To say the entire game, the entire
genre, is dated and "can't work because it's
current year" is not only vapid and thoughtless, I would posit that it could lead to a destruction of creativity--a very niche type of creativity, but hear me out. This might be a big leap and it's definitely a slipper-slope argument, but it's one that actually bothers me.
Before I do that, allow me a jarring segue that hopefully pays off. In 2011, publisher NewSouth Books took on a radical, and highly controversial, move to publish a new version of the
Great American Novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn which replaced a certain highly-recurring racial epithet with the word "slave." There are several problems with this, so I'll try to break them down in a concise and easily-digestible format for your stupid brain.
1: The word isn't just aimed at slaves.
Perhaps the most controversial reason behind the change is that hillfolk who use the offending word aren't referring simply to their own slaves or other people's slaves. This may come as a surprise given my beautiful and eloquent nature, but I am in fact a Southern man. I was born in a backwoods Texas town and still live here, and I can assure you with no pretense that my first reasoning isn't just hearsay or conjecture. The racial epithet in question is still very much in use today and I can also assure you that slavery is quite illegal in the United States. Said word isn't just a title like the NewSouth crew seem to believe, it's a blanket descriptor for black people. The stupid decision to replace the word with "slave" assumes that the bigoted speaker is directly referring to everyone of this race as a slave, which even I as a complete idiot in the field of history know
is absolutely not true. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and while I know NewSouth probably didn't think about the implications at the time, that lack of foresight is what leads me to believe this is one of the most stupidly offensive and indefensible edits in the history of literature.
2: NewSouth assumes Mark Twain's sensibilities
As a creator, I can't imagine the horror of having my work (which some of you may see in the future) fiddled with by future generations. And I'm a complete nobody--imagine how Mark Twain, one of the most influential, intelligent, and guarded writers of
all time must have felt when considering having his work tampered with. Twain, or Samuel Clemens, demanded that his own autobiography not be published until
a full century after his death. Do you think a man who cares so much about the integrity of his life would be very happy with his finest achievement being tampered with? I'd argue not. Oh yeah, and there's this matter as described by BBC News:
Yeah, I don't think Mr. Clemens would be very thrilled by NewSouth's defilement of his work.
3: Censoring the word is erasing history
When you hear the "N-word," what is your first response? Well, on the internet that answer might be mixed, but for most people it's a skin-crawling word with centuries of violent history. NewSouth's edition of Huck Finn destroys the context of that time in American history, and by extension encourages the readers this edition is aimed at to themselves try to cover up the muddy waters of the past. You know that thing about those who don't know history? Yeah, please don't make a conscious effort to create that kind of world.
4: The precedent
One of the most horrifying possibilities of this edition of Huckleberry Finn is the precedent that publishers can latch on to a high-profile work of literature and change it to suit modern sensibilities. This is the most outlandish of my claims and the one that I might lose people on, but it's something I genuinely worry about moving forward. Twain created a novel about the rejection of racial and societal prejudices with Huck's adventures, but he doesn't magically know all the answers to solving society's woes. Nobody in the past magically stopped using racial slurs because it was "bad." Culture moved beyond that because they learned how to over time, and I would argue that Huck Finn is a tentpole of that growing conscience.
Luckily, the literary community completely rejected this travesty of attempted murder, but the book still exists. It will never go away. The damage cannot be undone. Forever, for all of mankind's history, the NewSouth edition of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn will still exist for the select group of people at whom this book is aimed.
In as many words, this loathsome fool funneled the entire destructive process into the blithering argument of "but it's [current year]!" The unconscionable decision to censor one of the greatest novels of all time comes from the exact same place as the earlier argument. While I would agree that this exact same type of novel probably shouldn't be written by a modern author, at least with the same vocabulary and premise, it's more because there's nobody alive who could accurately dictate the topic and tone of Clemens while writing Huck Finn, though I'd also argue that you don't need to. Culture today has its own share of woes that deserve criticism and discussion much in the same way as race in the nineteenth century (and certainly the topic of race is still very relevant today, although not quite in the same discussion), but the topic there would be in how to approach the situation. If I were to, say, write a novel about the existential dread of living in a small, worthless Southern town, I would be disingenuous to not have characters use racial epithets because that's simply how the world appears. If you write around taboo rather than challenging it, that taboo will remain unchallenged for all time. It doesn't suddenly "hold up" or "age," it merely reflects the time in which it was written. Of course, the topic would have to be approached delicately, but that's a discussion for another time.
To compare one of the greatest works of art with a video game about anthropomorphic animals fighting in space is a completely moronic endeavor, but again, this is coming from the slippery-slope concern I mentioned earlier. This type of argument is getting more prevalent and luckily it's largely confined to the world of video games, but I'll just say outright that I believe this exact criticism is dangerous in the hands of critics who have a large following. It's hypocritical and probably ignorant of me to "tell others how to do their job," but I can't get over how disgusted I am with the possibility that the audience for critics with such a negative attitude to only absorb the negative aspects of criticism.
It seems that these days people have conflated criticism with just overall negativity; in fact, after a quick Google search the first definition to criticism is "the expression of disapproval of someone or something based on perceived faults or mistakes." The actual first definition, and the one which I and many others attach to the concept of criticism, is actually the second result from Google: "the analysis and judgment of the merits and faults of a literary or artistic work." The internet fosters negativity and most of the people who seek criticism only care about the negative aspects of something. The analytical criticism is typically drowned out by general negativity and anger, rather than promoting critical thinking. Critical thought is criticism, but criticism is becoming merely "the expression of disapproval of someone or something based on perceived faults or mistakes."
I'm not going to pretend that's all it is, but for the most part the negative aspects are what people really pay attention to. When Star Fox Zero came out, people flocked to the negativity, even when it was false or contradictory. The gamepad makes aiming difficult? Are you out of your mind? Yeah, when it's forced it's annoying, but that simple argument (which, to me, is no different than gyro aiming for games like Splatoon or the Wii U Zelda titles) completely droned out the actual aspects that needed work, such as the branching paths or slow, stupid helicopter levels. Criticism is not inherently a tool for destruction, but is rather a tool for those who are capable of critical thought to assist in the creative endeavors of others. For example, if I were to tell Nintendo "completely remove the helicopter stuff from the next Star Fox," it's because I think it would make for a better experience.
The same reviewer has a glowing review of Uncharted 4, but the only time I ever saw mention of that game's critical reception was when people on the internet got angry that their "masterpiece" got a lower score than they wanted. The critical, analytical review is becoming obsolete. Reviews themselves are more "buyer's guides" than an examination of something's merits and only reinforces that video games and movies are dumb products for your stupid face to shovel in without a thought or care in the world. Just keep stuffing your idiot mouth you gormless fool, don't think about it and don't contribute anything. Read my review and buy this video game for $60. Or don't! Who even cares anymore?
When I read that Star Fox Zero review, my first thought wasn't on whether or not I was going to buy the game. Of course I was going to buy it. Who cares about what a buyer's guide says? I'm not worried about someone else's opinion, but I am interested in their thoughts or analysis on the topic. My initial takeaway, and one which has more or less haunted me in the months after Star Fox Zero came out, was the argument that "the gameplay style feels dated in whatever current year who cares."
Like I said, I've seen that question now pushed in nearly every discussion of games from I'd say the middle of the seventh generation--the same era I'd guess many people gained an interest in video games as a whole. It's when video games got mainstream and ubiquitous, when independent developers had enough tools to create their own projects and big publishers started to get worried about their narrow profit margins. It's also when idiots started getting very concerned with what "art" was in video games and when the same independent developers began pushing out pretentious arthouse titles that years ago would be met with mockery and derision.
To me, the biggest artistic expression in video game history is Silent Hill 2. I know many people would say that Metal Gear Solid 2 is when the nature of video games began to really change, but for me I don't think they really came into their own until a few months later with this title. Developed by a small team and published by Konami, this sequel to a PS1 horror title challenged story-telling in games to its utmost level. The player is tasked with finding the protagonist's dead wife in the town of Silent Hill, but the answers aren't as clear-cut and simple as they might seem. The final boss and ending change drastically based on actions the player can take through the course of the title, some actions being extremely nuanced: examining a knife subliminally gives the character the desire to commit suicide, which, if done enough, can cause the character to commit suicide in the ending. Interacting with certain NPCs, examining certain items too many times, even visiting certain locations too often might alter the game to one of several endings, all of which are just as likely to be canon as the last. The mature, dark, engrossing story of an everyman desperate to take control of his life is one which anyone can relate to, and I don't believe a game has come close to capturing the pure artistry of Silent Hill 2. No amount of a character walking around and muttering about their lives, telling the players how to feel can ever match the sheer horror of coming back to the first monster encounter and finding it covered in police tape.
Show, don't tell.
Of course, the aforementioned game review website also had an editor who once asked "if we should leave old video games like [Silent Hill 2] behind" when discussing the failed HD port of Silent Hill 2 and 3. I would be remiss if I didn't mention this individual gave Gone Home a five-star review. If I could spit at someone over the internet those opinions would be the catalyst for it.
If you want to navel-gaze about art and what video games really mean or whatever, how about stop approaching video games as a product? Just stop doing it. Stop worrying about "graphics aging" or "the controls holding up" or "what kind of gameplay genre does or doesn't work in current year." If it was that important, critics would have criticized the controls then rather than writing them off. Sure, PC games not defaulting to mouse look was pretty silly back in the olden days, but there are ways around that stuff now. You might not like have to rebind keys, but it's good to know why some features in games are ubiquitous.
In my review of Salt and Sanctuary (don't look it up, it's a trash review), I mentioned that because that game shares many common ancestors with Dark Souls, in particular games like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and Super Metroid, the omission of a map is simply egregious. Salt and Sanctuary is trying its hardest to emulate Dark Souls in every way it possibly can, but in doing so forgot that Dark Souls in a 2D plane is simply a Metroidvania style of game; that is, it's an immensely vertical 2D platformer with dozens of shortcuts, alternate paths, secrets, and hidden areas. Since the player can't look around in a 3D space like a player can in Dark Souls, the path forward is even more obfuscated and frustrating to navigate--especially if your sense of direction is as bad as mine. Now, you can use the "current year" argument or whatever here, but only because there's a massive amount of very explicit evidence that I, the reviewer, am presenting: the common ancestry between certain games implies Salt and Sanctuary should have never run into this problem. Two centuries of games in the same genre should have tipped Ska Studios off to what the general norm for the genre was in terms of in-game resources for the player to look at, while the reasoning behind this design should be obvious. If you've gone back to play Metroid or Metroid II: Return of Samus you'd know that both of those games are nightmares to navigate because of the lack of a map, and the inclusion of one in Super Metroid was more of necessity and general quality of life improvements than simply dumbing down the exploration of the game. I didn't put this criticism together just to spitefully tear down the game, I did so in the vain attempt that if Ska ever heard this criticism they would make a conscious effort to patch some sort of map system into the game. Clearly, I failed.
If I wanted to, I could shorten that down to "it's 2016, where's the map?" I would never do that, however, because I want everyone to be on the same page as me. Life experiences and standards are different from person to person, which is why I'm so infuriated by the aforementioned Star Fox Zero review handwaving all of the complaints away with the statement that "overall progression of industry standards" is part of why it's a bad game. Although I generally understand the sentiment, I have no idea what the reviewer means by this as industry standard can mean literally anything. Some people may believe that the industry standard should be "third-person shooter with a dedicated crouch button and a ubiquitous control scheme" for every title, which is why those types of shooters became so prevalent with the seventh generation. I simply don't know what industry standards refer to in this case, and instead of elaborating on that the reviewer then goes on to make his statement about games of this genre in the current year. As far as I'm concerned, the review itself is a failure as it leaves me with more frustration at the reviewer than it did in enlightening me on an aspect of the game.
I've been building up to this for the entire post and I really didn't intend to keep stringing you along like this, but please take a moment to consider this scenario. Imagine you are the biggest Star Fox fan in the world. No, you're not thinking big enough. You love Star Fox so much you've wanted nothing more than to get into game development to create that specific style of rail shooter, and with game development tools more readily available than they've ever been, you finally have a chance to see your vision come true. Star Fox Zero comes out to middling reviews, and you believe it's now your time to shine. If Nintendo can blunder a Star Fox sequel with issues such as poor branching paths, terrible gimmicks and frustrating levels, you believe you can pick up the slack by putting together what you believe will be the best rail shooter of all time. You're going to release it at maybe fifteen bucks and it's going to expand on everything you love about the genre while having its own identity. You've been waiting for this opportunity for years, and it's finally time to put your vision to work.
Suddenly a loud, obnoxious, soda-guzzling, wrestling-loving manchild comes along to shatter your hopes and dreams forever. It's not Star Fox Zero, you see. It's not just one bad example of a rail shooter. You can't fix the problem because, as this reviewer notes, it leaves him "wondering what place Fox McCloud has in today's gaming landscape." It's you. It's you, your vision, the genre of game you're invested in, and it's now permanently dated because it's 2016. Why is it dated? Industry standards. That's it. Just industry standards. And because of this idiotic fixation on standards, of things "holding up" or "aging poorly," the gaming audience at large is now more concerned with the future of the medium rather than the present.
Of course, I don't believe anyone who really cares enough about their passion would allow this to bother them. As far as I'm concerned, this posturing is just a phase. The gaming press at large is a relic fighting to stay relevant with the ease of access to opinions on the internet, and because there are no specific credentials to games criticism the bar for entry is lower than it's ever been--especially for those with a following on Youtube. Pewdiepie shouting at a game can move more units than actual criticism will ever again, and the press at large is starting to feel it. Just in the past few years several game news websites have permanently shut their doors, all of which ranged in quality from pretty decent to just pure clickbait. Am I worried too much? No, not really. What concerns me are the dedicated audience, the tens of thousands of faithful readers who allow these big websites to do their thinking for them--I'm sure you know more than a handful of people whose entire political and entertainment opinions come exclusively from a website like Gawker (rest in shit, assholes).
I'll leave you with this: Don't concern yourself with asking whether or not something holds up. Just put it out of your head. Ask yourself instead whether or not you wish you'd come to something sooner. Last year, GameFAQs hosted a "best game of all time" tournament. I had no interest in participating, especially when rumors of a bot rigging the pole for Undertale came to light, but a Tumblr user put together a script that allowed anyone to take that list and create a fairly legitimate personal ranking. Try as I might I can't find the link so you can try it yourself, but I wanted to bring attention to a few of my top ten on the list:
1: Xenogears
4: Demon's Souls
5 (tied with Metal Gear Solid and Bayonetta 2): Red Dead Redemption
While there are several games I could point out on the list, I wanted to bring attention to these three in my top ten in particular--not because of their particular merits, but rather because of when I actually played these titles. The first time I played Red Dead Redemption was in 2013, three years after the game released. Although I played Demon's Souls when it first released, I didn't really get invested and went all in on the game in 2013 as well, after I exhausted Dark Souls of all the content I thought I could possibly squeeze out of it (Dark Souls, according to the list, is my second favorite if you were wondering) and fell utterly in love with the world building and level design. The big surprise for me, though, was the top spot.
I didn't play Xenogears until 2014. While I've always been a big JRPG guy, Xenogears was always the game that eluded me. Unbelievably expensive, nigh-impossible to emulate and surrounded by rumors of the budget collapsing before completion of the second disc, Xenogears was a game I was both horrified to play and completely convinced one I would never get my hands on. After some struggling and finally getting my hands on a PS3, I played the game all the way from beginning to end through the PSN Classic release--in fact, I played through the entire second disc in one sitting. The characters, setting, premise, and themes therein somehow converged into what I realized was the perfect video game for me. It challenged me to think while delivering on some of the most interesting visuals I've ever seen in a video game. Yeah, Xenogears and Dark Souls pushed my previous favorite game, Silent Hill 2, to the number three spot on this giant list. And had I not been willing to push past the "it's dated, it doesn't hold up," idiocy so prevalent in game discussion, I would never have been exposed to the most touching, most awesome game I've ever had the privilege to experience. All this sixteen years after the game's initial release.
Stand tall, and shake the heavens.
I encourage you to not fall into the trap of concerning yourself over a video game aging, because I can assure you it's not a question that crops up in most other mediums. We still listen to Mozart, and some people even find ways to stomach KISS. I don't know how, but nobody ever sits around and postulates whether or not AC/DC "holds up" or not. AFI doesn't fidget and gaze at their navels over whether or not Citizen Kane is actually going to hold up in a few years' time, and aside from idiots at NewSouth people still read works like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, War and Peace, As I Lay Dying and Lord of the Rings today. Nobody outside of video games worries whether or not their field of interest has aged poorly or whether or not it holds up. Nobody questions if Jurassic Park holds up because guess what? Nobody cares! Quality will always be quality.
If that doesn't convince you, then let me put it into the ultra-negative terms you probably came here for. That super up-to-date favorite video game of yours, the one you're holding onto as some pinnacle of human engineering? It'll be "outdated" in "industry standards" next year. Uncharted 4 will be, to some people, laughed at as a relic before you know it (which some are already doing with Uncharted 2, the rubes). The latest Call of Duty is going to be a fossil in a year. If you're really that concerned with a video game aging, then I assure you every single one of your favorites will as well. Good luck with all that. I think I might go play Star Fox 64 again.
