indigozeal

There's a manga version of Yume Nikki now. Well, it was released as far back as July, but it's news to me, let's put it that way. This seems to be a trend - I'm delighted to discover that Ib is getting a variety of merchandise, and RPG Maker stars The Witch's House, Houchou-san no Uwasa, and Ao Oni all have manga now. (Amazon Japan, as a matter of fact, sent me a targeted ad for the Ao Oni manga a while ago, even though, save for the 999 novels, I haven't ordered anything remotely like it. That's creepier than anything in the game, for my money - Ao Oni has now gained sentience and come looking for me.)

I like this turn of events in general, as it allows people to give the creator of a free game money. I see, though, that the Yume Nikki manga has words, which is all wrong for an adaptation of such a silent, abstract game. Then I got to thinking how Yume Nikki would be great as a Fantasia-esque collection of animated shorts, scored by the 24 Effects CD.

Which got me in turn to thinking about games whose stories might work nicely in other media:

- I'm sure that the number of players required would be prohibitive, but it'd be interesting to try to run one of 999's nonary games via a Dungeons & Dragons-type setting. You'd probably need more than one dungeonmaster for when folks got split up, but 999's story-heaviness and emphasis on group dynamics and decision-making would seem to fit D&D quite well. I also wonder if certain elements of a nonary game could be adapted for a Clue-type boardgame - try to divide players or have them team up at certain points so you can get through a gate and access more of the board, etc.

- Ib might not make for a bad live-action film, were it handled correctly. No schmaltziness, no big, splashy special effects (save for the "town" at the end) - something like Paperhouse that lives in imagination but is removed and subdued enough where there's room for darkness, too.

- It's not like Baten Kaitos doesn't have a good deal of concept art, but so much of its character lies in the lavish beauty of its settings. (I wasn't disappointed when I bought the game's artbook, but I wish it had more on the creation of its physical world.) I'd love to see something like a series of rich landscapes set in various corners of the Baten Kaitos world, with each tableau telling its own little story - something in the vein of what artist Naohisa Inoue did to illusstrate her world of Iblard.

- I know that half of Daventry is taken from old fairy tales anyhow, but the whole King's Quest collection seems like it would make a great kids' book series.

- The score to the first Silent Hill is great driving music; you're really reliving the experience as you go down the road. While not all parts of the game's narrative are conducive to an audio-only presentation, scenes like meeting Dahlia and the confrontation in the Good ending make me wonder if, with a little narration from Harry, the game couldn't be a quite effective audio drama.

- A note on an adaptation that's already happened: Clock Tower: Ghost Head is way better as an audio drama. It's far more effective with the heroine narrating her own psychological break, and the narrative that in the game is fractured and unsatisfying here actually works to the story's advantage - Yuu is, after all, being pulled through a series of Grand Guignol events that she only half-understands.

- On the other end of the spectrum: From its open-coated abulousness to the juvenile grimdark storyline to the awful dialogue to MY WHIP IS MADE OF BLOOD, you can't tell me that '90's comics aren't the natural habitat of the Castlevania: Lords of Shadow series. (Countdown Vampires, meanwhile, actually has a '90's comic book already, but it's too essentially good-natured and, though it talks a good game, ultimately disinterested in attitude to fit the genre.)
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OneWordReviews is a terrific idea that's been coopted by numbskulls (fan verdict on GTA: San Andreas: "black") and is a bit imperfect in execution - your one word has to be selected from a preapproved list, and there's a nebulous lag time for suggested additions that dampens creativity. But you can go surprisingly far in describing certain games; for example:

Castlevania: Curse of Darkness, leather-pant-y. Well, that doesn't sound like an adjective, does it. How about "chair-intensive."
Lufia II, reductionist.
Glory of Heracles, pointless.
Braid, self-impressed.
Lumines, time-consuming.
Lunar: Harmony of Silver Star, second-string.
Secret of Evermore, buggy.
Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, obtuse.
Weird Dreams, hallucinogenic.
Deadly Premonition, neighborly.
No More Heroes, Suda.
Illbleed, squelchy. (But supergreatfriend came up with that one.)
Castlevania: Judgment, gimpy.
...I'm sorry.
King's Quest II, enchanting.
Golden Axe II, cardboard.
Gauntlet, endless.
Clock Tower, phenomenal.
Angelique, "feminine."
Marble Madness, inertial.
The Dark Spire, oldest-school.
7 Days a Skeptic, depressing.
Children of Mana, ultrarepetitive.
Ultima IX, anticlimactic. That, or "unfortunate."
Ultima IV, enlightening.
The Binding of Isaac...I think the crowd has it right.
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Elite Beat Agents is in every other aspect a portrait of a perfect difficulty curve, but beating the last song on Hard (or whatever difficulty Chieftain represents) is freakin' impossible.

The NES port of Ultima: Exodus has significant grind problems and those 3-D dungeons that turn me off. Also: no real ending.

That Lamia fight in The Battle of Olympus is not only brutally unforgiving in the precision jumping it demands but is real offputting coming as it does near the very start of the game.

Castlevania III still has some of that typical Castlevania platforming while flying enemies are ducking & weaving at you, but that's a pretty weak complaint, as they're aggravating but not insurmountable. (Everyone in the thread from which I swiped this topic who picked CV3 mentions the stage where you have to climb up the falling blocks. That stage was neat! I liked that stage!)

Phantasy Star II: Chara balance could've been a little better, or at least character choice a little more crucial. Also, doing a no-Visiphone run would probably illustrate this, but having save points be so far between in Dezoris, particularly in the endgame, was perhaps not such a good idea.

I know Final Fantasy IV came at just the time the molds were being broken - heck, it broke a lot of them itself - but Rosa is a fairly insufferable Mean Girl of a damsel in distress. Also, I think I've fallen out of love with it a good deal. Time to try out the GBA version?

SFC Clock Tower has a heroine who's modeled on the lead in Phenomena and has her come across a refrigerator overrun witih insects and can't do anything but stick a can of bug spray in her hand.

Various Lunars: TSS has a muddy palette, no cohesion in its art design, and looks downright 8-bit at times; EB has stupid WD pop-culture/body-function jokes in particularly unfortunate places, like the climax of the Zophar fight; the three characters into whom Xenobia was split in SSS didn't have enough dimension (characterwise) to support the change; EBR has, as Akari Funato said, sucky drawing in its cinemas and a Ghaleon death scene with minute yet mood-breaking changes that make it inferior to the original; Strolling School has a mundane battle system; MSL's Blade isn't remotely necessary, the balance is tipped from "feel-good childhood memories" to "sugar-high kawaii escapades," and while it somehow didn't strike me when I initially saw it, that fingerpainting scene is really, really beyond the pale. Bonus Vheen Hikuusen complaint: the Guildmistress comes off as overridingly smug. (Though I've complained about this before.)

I imagine without a hint book that the instadeaths in King's Quest III that come from mistiming your absences in regard to Manannan's arrivals and departures could be really buzzkilling.

Deadly Premonition: I keep mentioning it, but man, that ending.

Super Mario Bros. 3 is too long to have no saving.

I can't really gainsay a single one of its accolades, but Chrono Trigger is kinda overpraised nowadays. Also, that "Marle & Lucca MST3K the other characters" ending is kind of an empty, missed opportunity. (My love for Chrono Trigger is like my hate for Phantasy Star III - dimmed by time. Perhaps I should rekindle the spark.)

The arcade Golden Axe is kinda short and lacks that fun pit stage. The lightning effects in the Sega Genesis Golden Axe aren't as rad as they are in the arcades, and the eagle's eye doesn't move. You also don't get the gutpunch opening of seeing Alex struck down firsthand.

Again has no replay value, and the Roger character is ill-considered.

In a similar vein, ever since someone pointed out that Brainless Randy in Illbleed's Killerman is an inadvertent-or-not parody of the mentally challenged, I've felt guilty about watching the segment and a little guilty about enjoying the game as a whole.

That tunnel maze in Myst is boring and aggravating.

If you are playing a Hunter in The Lord of the Rings Online, then everything - everything - is going to be your fault.

...I guess it is time-consuming to bomb every wall for heart containers in The Legend of Zelda?

If the shoulder buttons on your DS are worn down, you can't play Dialhex.

Big Bang Mini wears down your DS shoulder buttons.
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There's a meme going around that asks those tagged to name one movie they like for each letter of the alphabet. I tried it that way, but my responses were all depressingly unoriginal - I make terrible choices when it comes to non-mainstream film. Here, then, is the meme done with games instead of movies:

A - Y'know, for all my talk about the Neo flavor of Angelique, I've never played an Ange game. I suppose it would be cheating to list Trace Memory as Another Code, and I've still got T about which to worry, anyway. No dice here.
B - The Battle of Olympus. Upon its release, people saw the main character's resemblance to Zelda II-Link and wrote the game off as a ripoff of a Zelda no one really liked anyway. Too bad; it's an utterly beautiful game that out-Zeldas Zelda, or certain values of Zelda. It's really tough (but, save for an early battle which requires some wickedly precise jumping, fair), it has great mazes (the Labyrinth is a labyrinth, folks), beautifully detailed graphics with a lovely, colorful palette and some giant sprites, and a few utterly awe-inspiring sound effects - that's what a Harp of Apollo should sound like.
Also, I inhaled Greek mythology as a kid, and the game made an unprecedentedly (er, yeah) comprehensive use of its milieu. Every fantasy title has Medusa - how often in the pre-God of War days did you see the Graeae or Talos? The world map includes not only Hades (Tartarus here, thank you) and Crete and its Labyrinth but Peloponnesus, Phrygia, Arcadia... Wonderful title. Highly recommended, even today.
C - I feel like such a sheep nowadays for filling this in with Chrono Trigger. Its adherents are becoming Whedonesque in their obsession. I have it in the original box from when I bought it in 1994; does that boost my cred?
Maybe I should just choose the LSD-inspired Centipede instead. Or Castlevania III. Or Clock Tower. One of those last two, definitely.
D - The sleek, ever-stylish, just-the-right-length puzzler Dialhex.
E - Elite Beat Agents. (I recently saw several copies in the Wal-Mart bargain bin - $10 and change, with a DS carrying case and extra stylii. In fact, I'm pretty sure the packs were left over from last Christmas - no, I mean Christmas 200*7*. Gaming public, this is no way to treat an instant classic.)
F - As an RPG fan, I am contractually obligated to nominate a Final Fantasy game for this spot. I choose IV, even though it's starting to seem a bit creaky in my recollection. Maybe I need to refresh my memory with the GBA You Got Served or DS Encephalitis editions.
G - Gradius III or Galaxian? I like my action games totally mindless, and space shooters fit the bill the best. It's been so long since I've played the former, though - my cart's packed away.
H - Hmmmm. I think every kid with a computer in the early '90's picked up the Hugo games from their supermarket, though I'd today hold off saying I still liked them until a replay. I have somewhat fond memories of the second game, with its mystery theme and female protagonist and pretty outdoor graphics, and of playing game counselor with a parent-child team named "Bob and Rob" with one of the puzzles on Prodigy. I recall even then, though, frowning at some questionable game design choices - the banana puzzle, the goddamn matches and the bridge.
I - Ah.
J - Er.
K - King's Quest III, a wonderful blend of vintage Sierra fairytale text-parser adventuring and a deliciously maudlin metaphor for every child's perceived indentured servitude to their parents.
L - A Lunar, but which? Silver Star, with its uneven production values and storytelling? The masterwork Eternal Blue, which does not focus on my favorite characters? The remake Silver Star Story, which goes with a more simplistic story and dumps the grand series orchestrals for Casio synth? I think I'll go with Lunar: Strolling School.
M - The Manhole, a kid's predecessor to Myst by Cyan that celebrates exploration for its own sake.
N - Cheating - Nei's Adventure, the Phantasy Star II prelude.
O - Nothing. Wish I had Orbital, though.
P - The stunningly bleak Phantasy Star II.
Q - Qix has an original premise (and the fantasy version is quite charming) but a steep difficulty curve. Q-Bert has damnable sound effects and nothing else. That takes care of games that start with Q, I think.
R - I'll say Resident Evil, despite the fact that I thoroughly suck at it (I took 12 Acid Shots or whatever to kill Yawn on the first go) and still haven't finished it. Forget the infamous - and, we forget, sparse - voice acting; it's a dreadfully scary game in its stillness.
S - I suppose I should be listing the English version of Subarashiki Kono Sekai to fill up the "W" slot, but have you heard Sho's English voice? It takes an unhinged punk who loves math and turns him into a nerd who does; it completely misses the point of the joke.
I actually began to think during play that I'd made the wrong decision in choosing the original Japanese cart, as the sheer amount of text in the game would make even the most devoted kanjihead go cross-eyed, and the English translation is, for once, actually pretty faithful. I'd go nuts if I had to put up with those voices, though, so I think I made the right choice.
T - I'd like to list Trilby's Notes here, but, as impressive as the game is technically and artistically and as much as I like the main character, it's a bit too schlocky for me to take to heart. I'd ideally be listing 5 Days a Stranger, rougher and with a clumsy script but closer to the thrilling-spooky-mystery-adventure mold and therefore my liking. No Trilby, though, is going to push FFIV out of its slot, encephalitis or no.
How about the Trilby series, good and bad? (6 Days a Sacrifice is pretty bad, though, and 7 Days a Skeptic disgusting in both its gore and its wallow in misery. We don't even have Zwobot around anymore to lighten it up.)
U - Ultima: Exodus. Quest of the Avatar is a landmark, but it doesn't have NPCs who ask you to buy their book or tell you to go to bed because it's too late to be up playing Ultima.
V - Wha?
W - Huh?
X - In the NES era, there were frequent advertisements during weekday afternoon TV for a game called Xexyz. I never played it, but I'll note that it seems to be the only game in history marketed largely through spelling.
Y - Not.
Z - Yeah, I'll put Zelda II, even though Olympus is the better game. The side-scrolling take on the series is interesting, I like the starkness of the journey, and the palace music has been stuck in my head for years. The final maze is utterly inexcusable, though. (I remember snapping the cartridge housing in half and throwing it in the trash bin after losing for the umpteenth time to the final boss. A half-hour later, I went back to retrieve it from the garbage and was playing it again. That's the mark of a good game, I guess - and I did end up beating it that time.)