Do some developers concentrate too much on flash and not enough on substance?

by Kevin Harper

Do some developers concentrate too much on flash and not enough on substance?

The world of technology has changed dramatically since the days of the first RPGs. From 386s to Pentium III, Sound Blaster to surround sound, 2D sprites to OpenGL, the 'fantasy' of the RPG has become much closer to realty than ever before, and is getting closer every day.

To say nowadays that developers are concentrating more on flash than on substance in a game is a loaded question. It is a very hot topic for debate, but I feel that many people are not looking at past video games properly.

Simply because the graphics on the old NES are barely 2D, pixilated, and cheesy does not mean that, for that time, those graphics were not top-notch. I remember when I first popped in Super Mario Bros. or The Legend of Zelda. I thought those were the best graphics I had seen on anything. Of course they weren't very 'realistic' but the game was so much fun that graphics did not matter. And besides, had we seen anything like Final Fantasy X at that time? Of course not. We had nothing to compare it to.

Because we were not so overwhelmed with graphics and voice acting in our RPGs, we had a lot of time to concentrate on what was going on between characters, and so did the developers. Granted, such developers as Squaresoft always pushed the limit just a little bit further with each game, but since the popularity of such games as Final Fantasy had not spread wider than the "in crowd", they could take liberties. If it didn't sell there wasn't a whole lot at stake. In fact, the original Final Fantasy was the last attempt of a failing Hironobu Sakaguchi and his development team 'Squaresoft'. They relied solely on the driving factor of the story rather than the graphics, for one look at Final Fantasy I and one can see that visuals are not the games' strongest point. Instead, it was a game with (for that time) a very developed story with multiple characters, spells, items, and also LOTS OF FUN.

Each subsequent installment in the Final Fantasy series seemed to be insurmountable. Insurmountable, that is, until Final Fantasy VIII. Squaresoft hyped Final Fantasy VIII even more than VII. It billed "nearly an hour of stunning motion-captured CG cinemas seamlessly integrated into gameplay" and "Realistic, detailed characters and background graphics enhanced by a breathtaking musical score". And, with due respect, Final Fantasy VIII was a graphical leap forwards. With life-like characters, like-like (somewhat) movements, and great FMV sequences, the game was a visual feast. But the setback was that Squaresoft was so concerned with the visuals that it seemed that they completely forgot about the plot. Shallow characters, uncreative scenarios, random plot holes filled with even more random plot hole fillers, the game soon fell apart. And the gamers noticed...

Other developers like "id software", the creators of 'Doom' and 'Quake' are another example. Having created a game with mediocre graphics but with an addictive amount of fun factor involved (Wolfenstein 3D), it looked like they couldn't go wrong. With 'Doom' being another smash hit, 2 for 0 wasn't bad. But with the release of Quake, Quake II, and Quake III arena, all sense of involvement or story (if there ever really was any) hit rock bottom. Instead, each game was a graphical powerhouse, often crashing computers because people's computers could not handle the detail.

Such game developers as Shigeru Miyamoto at Nintendo realize that what comes first in a game is the fun factor. Nintendo games, save those developed by 'Rare', are never on the cutting edge of the graphic realm, although they are always wonderful. A few that come to mind are 'Super Mario Kart', 'Yoshi's Island', 'A Link to the Past'... Nintendo has made its name (and fortune) on the Mario games and the Zelda games. Each series has its clunkers, but Nintendo's level of excellence, thanks in large part to Shigeru Miyamoto, is perhaps the highest in consistency. Nintendo's faults lie elsewhere, such as target audience and censorship rules, but at the core of it, they make great games that are FUN.

The Market for the Video Game industry has changed very much since the Turbo Graphic 16. The VG industry raked in over $1 billion in sales last year alone. In the increasingly competitive spot for "THE Game", developers panhandle more and more to the stuff we see on the shelf, in commercials, or in pictures. The visuals. There are the virtuous few who resist the temptation to "sell out" and let word-of-mouth endorsements carry the product rather than its appeal to the eyes alone. It is a different world and for future of Video Games, it seems to be business as usual.