The problems with Ace Attorney

Okay. Let's do this.

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I want to preface this by saying I'm still a fan of Ace Attorney, and am really glad it's doing well. It's got great characters, an enjoyable plot, and a fun logic system. I'm about to talk a lot of crap about the series, however, so just keep this in mind... I love Ace Attorney, and still highly recommend all the games.

That being said. Over the course of the last 2 years or so I've finally worked my way through what's generally considered "The Big 3" visual novels, at least in western countries. Ace Attorney, Zero Escape, and Danganronpa. They're all brilliant games, and I enjoyed my time with each. However, after careful consideration, I have to come to a conclusion. Ace Attorney is definitely the weakest link.

I say this because after playing Danganronpa and Zero Escape, I've noticed things they do that were really clever, and then I look back at Ace Attorney, and it just feels... devoid of said elements. Oftentimes it's just a lot of small things, but those small things really, really add up over time. There's no better way to show this than by side-by-siding these games, so let's get right into it!

Yes this is the 2^nd article in a row where I compare AA to Danganronpa #noshame

So let's start with the gameplay differences, the more direct comparison. I've already outlined how Ace Attorney and Danganronpa do things differently. Let's talk about what Danganronpa just flat does better.

Primarily what Danganronpa does better is in the logical puzzles and challenges it lays out for the player. Ace Attorney's logic makes sense and is very well paced if you're following the order of deduction. However, if you get one too many steps ahead you're not able to skip to that, and must slog through the deductions you already solved.

This kills pacing completely. When the entire pace depends on your deduction skills, breaking away from it has the unfortunate effect of breaking the pace itself. You get brought to a screeching halt and have to bring the other characters up to speed, when realistically, you could just tell them.

Danganronpa is a lot more careful in its execution of working through arguments. The gameplay is the same, but it frames it in a much better way. This isn't a courtroom, where a logical argument will shut everyone up. You need to punch through the emotions and biases of the other characters, piece by piece, to get to the truth of the matter. You'll take part in minigames where characters won't listen to reason until you throw it right in their face. You'll have to frame answers in a manner that everyone can get.

It's not a matter of finding something that feels off, it's the matter of convincing everyone else it is off. You can push trials forward in Ace Attorney through vague ideas of not feeling right, which will often result in the characters hemming and hawing when you know exactly what's up. The other characters in Danagnronpa are active blocks at all times, so even if you know the answer there's a good, solid reason that feels right as to why you can't just out and say it.

Surrounding all this is the tone of the games. Now, Ace Attorney's tone isn't bad per se. It's a well established fact that it's a larger than life and goofy version of court, one with shouting and dramatic reveals. My question is, well, why?

Look, I get the tone doesn't need to be established, and I understand that consistency is what makes a world tick, not why it's that way. But after playing the other 2 games, Ace Attorney feels rather... empty in its tone. There's just no reason for it, and the craziness is just a thing that kinda.. exists in this world.

The other 2 games justify their tones quite nicely, on the other hand. Danganronpa's trials are tense and very volatile, much like Ace Attorney, but this is justified because, y'know. Murder school. There's a good reason for everyone to be shouting, a good reason for crazy theories to fly left and right, and a very good reason for things to be tense every step of the way.

Zero Escape's tone isn't quite as directly comparable, but for what it is it's done well. The atmosphere is oppressive and claustrophobic. Suspicion runs deep. Everything has this sense of danger and mistrust, and the deadly games played are the only reason the game needs. All the fear and suspicion flows naturally from that. The game knows damn well that it doesn't need to say why everyone's acting this way, because the backdrop has set that from square one. That's where Ace Attorney fails. The backdrop is a law procedural, and it just... is wacky, I guess.

Alright, there's one more point I want to bring up. Bringing continuity between games. This is by no means an aspect that Ace Attorney has failed at. It's more that it just gives it no thought. What I mean when I say that is a character or object from a previous game being brought into the new one. This can be a cool story point, or a fun callback, but it can just as easily be a lazy last minute addition.

I'm going to bring forward that by a lack of looking closely at the why, in and out of universe, Ace Attorney sometimes falls into this trap. Let's take Edgeworth's introduction in the last case. Why is he here? He's never been mentioned or important in this game before. This situation doesn't call for Edgeworth specifically. So why is he here? Outside of the game universe, it's not like Edgeworth achieves anything thematically or similar. There's nothing he does that another prosecutor couldn't do. So why does this situation call for this character from its mythology?

Massive Virtue's Last Reward Spoilers in next paragraphConversely, let's take a look at why Junpei was brought back for the sequel to 999. He, as a character, has a very clear motive: Akane. It was such a big deal for him in the last game, and it's not a surprise it'd continue to be a motivation here. Outside forces gave him this opportunity here, so it's not like it's random chance either. The thing is that here is that there's a clear and pointed reason for bringing a previous character back in Zero Escape, whereas Ace Attorney lacks that clarity much of the time when it does things like this.

It's not as though this is the worst thing in the world, and I'm not trying to say any of this stuff ruins Ace Attorney, not even close. Like I said, it's still great. And it's not like Zero Escape or Danganronpa are immune from their flaws, either. Zero Escape trips up in bringing back Clover from 999, and Danganronpa's character blocking approach backfires sometimes (I.E everything Yasuhiro "contributes" to the discussion).

What I am trying to bring up here is that Ace Attorney could learn a lot from these games. It's still got a strong base, great characters, awesome music, and fun trials. I just wish that it was all a little tighter.

Danganronpa Vs. Ace Attorney: How to make meaningful changes

Pleaedon'tkillmeIlikebothgames

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Man, I really cannot get enough of Danganronpa, can I? If you follow me on Twitter (Wink wink nudge nudge) you'll know I've been obsessed with it ever since I started playing. I obsess with a reason, however. Now why is it that all the visual novels I play involving murder trials are so good?

Yes, ladies and gents, today I'm going to be examining and comparing Ace Attorney and Danganronpa, though not to say which one is better(not today anyway). That in mind, let's take a closer look at these, shall we?

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When it comes to these 2 games, comparisons may seem odd at first. One's a high school death game, the other's a law procedural. Though they share investigations and "trials, really even a passing glance at both would never have you making direct comparisons. Those who have played both also know just how different they actually are. So why even compare them?

Mainly because of the underlying gameplay loop, I feel. They both follow the same basic formula of the Setup-Investigation-Trial loop that repeats for 4-6 cases in each game. Each game takes the time to set up its own world, and more importantly, own tone.

Ace Attorney strives for a somewhat clinical tone in its story. Yeah, it's wacky and ridiculous a lot of the time, but when it comes to the cases you're rather... detached, in a word. You often don't have much emotional stake in them, and when you do it's usually a very special case indeed. It has at least a semblance of an orderly trial, with cross examinations and evidence presenting going back and forth. What happens in between is often, ah, insane, but fundamentally it is still a law procedural.

As for the other game in the ring, Danganronpa is the exact opposite, purely chaotic. There isn't any set procedure or process to go through. Cross examinations become debates with many participants. Your own life is on the line, alongside everyone else's. You interact with everyone constantly, and any one person could be a killer or victim. This is no law procedural, it's a psychotic death game.

Let's take a closer look at some individual elements, shall we?

Gameplay

Again, both games do share fundamental bases with the gameplay, being logic puzzles. They both give you a mystery, a bunch of clues, and tell you to work it out through deductive reasoning and step by step logic.

Ace Attorney takes this premise and puts it into a courtroom, perhaps the most fitting environment for such a gameplay idea. All the actual logic you need to employ is step by step and every cross examination has a single key contradiction in it. If you're not cross examining people you're using other gameplay mechanics, yes, but you're always looking for one single flaw, and matching the right piece of evidence with it. The actual gameplay actions you take are all simple button presses, with most of the actual difficulty mainly coming from the logic puzzles you need to mentally work through. 

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The gameplay of Danganronpa is a lot different, despite similar concepts. Danganronpa has you needing to actually physically aim your evidence at the weak points in arguments, desperately sorting through letters to form words, taking part in actual confrontations against others, and more. On top of all this, there are time limits that you need to stay under all the while. Another key difference compared to Ace Attorney is that you've never got a pile of evidence to sort through, and you'll only be given a few truth bullets (evidence) per round of debating.

(I'd put a Danganronpa screenshot here but I literally cannot find one without spoilers)

Danganronpa and Ace Attorney each have you solving logic puzzles in very different ways. The time limit in Danganronpa forces you to think fast with the few options you have, while a lack of time limit in Ace Attorney is offset by you having all of your evidence to use all the time. It's a slow and caculated approach, helped by simple button presses, where in Danganronpa the heated debates where everyone's lives are at stake are much better represented with you needing to get more physically involved. Speaking of...

Premise
You can't talk about comparing these games without talking about the premise. They're such a fundamental part of what gives them their identity and the basic idea is so tightly interwoven with every singe part of the game.

Ace Attorney is a law procedural, obviously. Everything's related to the courtroom. You invesigate and file away evidence, as the police mark things down and the prosecutors prepare witnesses. Everything has a way you need to go about it, a way to question witnesses, and a way you need to ensure a proper, well-run investigation.

Danganronpa is a lot more messy. You know every single murder victim and you know every single murderer, throwing the possibility of a clinical assessment of every case out of the window. It's a tense and emotional setup, and every single person involved with the case is a potential murderer. These are high school kids, and this isn't their job. Every investigation is sloppy and fast, with you having a personal stake (I.E living) in every trial.

The premise does a lot for the tone and motions of each story. Say in Danganronpa, each trial will have a lot of accusations throughout, since everyone wants a culprit found for the sake of their own lives. Ace Attorney stays realistic(ish) to trial format, and you're only allowed to make formal accusations when the time and evidence is right.

It manifests in the little things as well. The manner of the number of people on the stand at once makes Danganronpa more chaotic and Ace Attorney more confined. There's the threat of legal oversight on your actions in Ace Attorney, while anything goes in Danganronpa. Ace Attorney also stays static in trial format while Danganronpa whittles the cast down, slowly making the trials smaller.

Characters
Ok, so I think by this point we've got a general idea of how a core idea behind a game does not a similar game make. Logic is executed on and used in very different ways in a court and a murder school. For the last part of this examination, let's see how characters impact the core ideas and mechanics behind the game.

So Ace Attorney's characters are firmly rooted in the law procedural, once again. There are a lot of characters but for the reoccurring ones, the most important thing to note is that they do this for a living. It's their job, it's what they do every day. Every trial is met with a certain amount of familiarity and confidence. All the lawyers are usually divorced from the case emotionally, and approach it as such. Ace Attorney is mostly made up of an adult cast, as well. Things can get quite crazy overall, but there's always this veneer of professionalism and respect everyone shows. All this is a textbook law procedural, like I keep saying. The characters are shaped and molded to fit this approach.

I don't even know what you'd call Danganronpa on the other hand. Maybe a murder mystery death game? Is that even a genre?

Anyway, the characters in Danganronpa are all high school kids who really, really don't want to be stuck in this death trap. For the purposes of comparing it to Ace Attorney, this is what that change does:

- This is an abnormal situation for them
- They have no experience doing this
- There is no expectation of professionalism

It's not like the characters know what they're supposed to be doing or how. Every investigation and trial is filled with some level of bumbling around and mistakes. As a result, the pacing is a lot more inconsistent, speeding up and slowing down at will depending on how the characters are acting. Ace Attorney stays consistent due to the nature of the characters, Danganronpa adds to the tension by making everything inconsistent, in no small part due to the characters.

We also see how points 1 and 3 seep into every aspect of this game. People are panicking and unsure of what to do. Remember the last time you were in a situation foreign to you and you had no idea what to do? The abnormality to the characters informs how they present themselves and how you need to interpret them. Everyone has something to hide in Danganronpa, while it's really only ever the guilty parties that are maliciously hiding info.

It's truly interesting to see how 2 very different series can have 2 very different tones despite the core gameplay ideas being pretty much the same. I'd say it's a great example of how your idea for a story, or gameplay mechanic doesn't have to limit you in any what whatsoever.

Mega Evolution Vs. Z-Moves

So Pokemon Sun and Moon are pretty good, right? General consensus seems to be that the games were pretty fun at worst, and a fantastic experience at best. But there is one thing in particular that has me giggling with glee, because I, along with a minority of people, totally called one thing years ago.

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Mega Evolution sucked, didn't it?

Ok, ok, I get it, I was far from the only one and really there were quite a few people who didn't like mega evolution when it was first introduced. But I think it was one key element from Sun and Moon to make people really see what was up with mega evolutions. Z-moves. What was it about Z-moves that made them so much better, and why are they getting compared to mega evolution so much?

Z-moves and mega evolution were both what I call "tacked on" additions. Despite that negative connotation, when I say that I mean a new element to the gameplay that has, in a sense, been stapled onto the side of the game. It's a bit tricky to explain, but you get that sense with a lot of sequels. The coin mechanics in New Super Mario Bros. 2, for example, don't change the core mechanics or add a core mechanic. They can still change a game in positive ways and are a useful tool, but as we can see in comparing X/Y to Sun/Moon, they can also go very wrong.

So what's the big deal with mega evolutions anyway? They're flashy, they're cool, and they provide a neat addition to certain Pokemon. What went wrong was in the overrarching implications of Mega Evolution. I could list a lot of things that I take issue with, like how their stats are too much and how it turns into a "win" button as you play the game, but those aren't issues with the core idea.

The core issue with mega evolution is that it's limited to certain Pokemon. This runs in opposition to one of the best parts of Pokemon, which is the Pokemon themselves. Right back to Red and Blue, the coolest part of the games for many was crafting a team that felt your own. You had 150 choices for your 6 team slots, and most players did not have the same teams or even similar ones. Of course there were optimal teams, but with a little elbow grease, grinding, or strategy almost any team could beat the game. It was truly your own adventure and always has been.

Mega Evolution sadly goes back on this feeling. For one, you get the obvious overpowered argument, and yes, it does mess with the balance of the game. However, Pokemon has always really powerful Pokemon, so to be quite honest that's not the issue here. What is the issue is that the defacto new addition to the series is limited to select Pokemon.

It limits team variety, plain and simple. It runs in opposition to what Pokemon is all about, in that it's always enabled more Pokemon to be viable from generation to generation. Through the simple act of making more Pokemon they could expand team variety. Alongside other things such as refining the battle mechanics to be more balanced and introducing alternative ways to use Pokemon besides battles, the series has generally moved in a direction enabling the usage of most Pokemon in one way or another.

Sadly, mega evolution moves backward. The fact that the cool new feature that's hyped up in all the trailers is limited to Pokemon really puts a damper on team quality. There are a few dozen Pokemon that can mega evolve, and that is it. You need one of these few Pokemon on your team in order to experience the feature, and that just means every team, even yours, is likely to have one of this small group forced upon you in this game.

This just kills team creativity in a huge way, and I don't think I need to explain why that's a problem. The core tenant of the series "gotta catch em' all!" has been undermined in the main quest. You cannot use "all" the Pokemon and still get the full experience. A more accurate motto for X and Y would be "Gotta catch em' all but make sure you use one of these few dozen!"

I do see the intent behind this idea, and why in concept I'm not opposed to having some way to power up weaker Pokemon. Sun and Moon definitely proved why it's not a bad idea.

The gimmick in S&M is super powerful moves, otherwise known as Z-moves. It gives you the ability to charge up and superpower any move once per battle, as long as the Pokemon is holding a Z-crystal. And this is miles better than Mega Evolution.

It should be quite obvious based on what I said earlier. Z-moves take what mega evolution was trying to do and finds a way to apply it to every single Pokemon. Your starter, legendary Pokemon, even a Magikarp can use Z-moves. It takes the idea of powering up a Pokemon and spreads it everywhere, rather than limiting it to a handful. It does the exact opposite of Megas and continues the series tradition of expanding who among the roster you can use.

So, why exactly does this matter? One game messes something up and another sequel gets it right, news at 7. What's cool about this is how closely linked these 2 mechanics are, in their implementation and in their effects, and in this we can clearly see how one went right, and one went wrong. Beyond the basic ideas being miles apart in their quality, it's the little details that make the difference here.

How about the frequency of use? You can use Z-moves once per battle, making it a careful puzzle as to when they're most needed. Mega evolution, on the other hand, lasts the entire battle, meaning the purpose it ends up serving is just a strong new Pokemon.

The held item requirement? Z-moves can be used by every Pokemon, some who really benefit by held items, so you need to consider what you're giving up by letting them use Z-moves. Mega Evolution basically results in legendary Pokemon stats, which, I mean... don't really need held items at that point. It's a no-brainer.

So what about giving weak Pokemon a chance to shine? Z-moves do that inherently, on a broad scale. Mega Evolution, while having the potential to fine tune specific Pokemon, wastes it on legendaries and Pokemon that were already plenty powerful. Why did Mewtwo, Salamence, and Rayquazza need more power?

I think you get the point by now. Obviously I'm ranting a bit, but it is so great to see the Pokemon developers realize that Mega Evolution was a bad idea. They took the core benefits it could provide and reworked it into a system that helps every single Pokemon. If that's not game design iteration in action, I don't know what is. I have high hopes for what comes next in the franchise.

Fire Emblem Awakening, Story, and Context

I never gave Fire Emblem Awakening a fair shake when I first played it, really. I played it, I enjoyed it, I talked about it, and then I moved on to other stuff. I'm fairly certain it's one of the last games I played before I really got into looking at games critically. And that's something I regret. When I played Awakening in 2014, I determined it was a great game. I was so, so wrong.

It's a fucking masterpiece, and I do not say that lightly. Awakening gets everything so, so right, and it goes above and beyond even that. You've got a complex battle system where paring up and relationships factor into it, where the weapons triangle and ranged attacks make for hugely strategic thinking, alongside having to manage levels, gear, and classes outside of combat. The gameplay is amazing, and the story, well, that's what we're here to talk about today. I think it'd be best to show this with the most impact story beat in the entire game, and you already know what I mean if you've played it. Let's talk about chapter 12.

Spoilers if you somehow haven't played this game yet. I'm also going to assume you know what happens, otherwise you'll be very confused.
So I think it's important to preface this by making special note of how this part of the story doesn't really revolve around themes or making the player think or anything like that. While that might seem like an odd thing to note, it's actually quite an anomaly in games writing to have a story purely ride on the quality of its plot. That's something I want to get into at a later date, but suffice to say games often have issues with making a plot that feels good because the player can by the very nature of the medium influence the pacing, thereby making it easier and less risky to ride on themes and making the player think. The point is it's already notable from the start to take a plot approach to it.

Of course, I say chapter 12 but really you can't ignore chapter 11 in this equation. Chapter 11 up to the end is much like any other chapter, with standard gameplay. The standout difference is the hostage situation around it, but hell, you even had a similar situation beforehand in chapter _. And even if you ignore that you've made it through assassination plots and overwhelming odds time and time again before this. The precedent of this game's tone has been set: serious, but not grave, a war story where the nation is at stake but your individual lives are not at the whim of the plot.

And then it all just... breaks. It's business as usual in the 11^th chapter up until you've cleared out all the enemies, and then Gangrel decides to raise the stakes by having arrows drawn at her. This is actually a big deal in the overall narrative, because it's the first time such an action has been taken. There are a lot of firsts to the story in 11, actually, and it's what I consider the big shift in the game. Before this you're presented with scenarios with the ideals of success and victory, and every challenge is meant to be overcome. This is the first time in the game where your agency and success is ripped out of your hands.

Speaking of choice, let's talk about your lack thereof. Right before Emmeryn takes it out of your hands, you're given a menu and 2 choices: hand the Emblem over or Emmeryn dies. Of course it doesn't matter what you chose, as I mentioned, because she takes matters into her own hands and sacrifices herself. Now I wanna be frank here, because I usually despise when games do this false choice stuff, where the devs obviously wanted you to feel like you're having an influence on the story but didn't want to actually change it, as that's just lazy most of the time and a bad use of the medium. Tropes and tools aren't bad, though.

See, I usually get annoyed when games do this because it's a very cheap tool, where you're often given a menu that essentially boils down to "Yes" and "Yes but I'm not happy" or something similar. It's fake choice that's just going to frustrate players when they find out that their choice never mattered. BUT it is possible to do a fake choice correctly, and by golly Awakening sure knows how to.

 Narratively there's really only one clear way to use the fake choice, and that's to have the point of the choice be your lack of choice. The player has no agency in this scene but it's all for a good, sensible story reason. Emmeryn is the type of person who'd sacrifice herself. Chrom can't do anything because the enemy has the upper hand, and he'd never willingly sacrifice his sister. It's important to make sure there are no contrivances when it comes to scenes like these, because when you take agency away you cannot have the player feel cheated in any way. This is really just a complicated way to say the game has good writing, but it really, really does.

How many shooting games have you played where the enemy took a hostage and suddenly you're unable to shoot them, despite shots being instant and in gameplay before your accuracy was perfect? It's stupid and frustrating when gameplay mechanics clash with the story. Now compare to Fire Emblem.

Could you shoot the archers down? No, you don't have enough to kill the dozens of them surrounding Emmeryn.

Flying units? No, the game has already established that those units take increased damage from archer shots, it's far too risky. Your army is mostly ground bound, anyway, so they would have no backup.

It's little details like that that show how thought and care has gone into how the story is presented alongside the gameplay, and that even the smallest things like a binary meaningless choice from a menu is used to great effect. It's a pretty sad and disempowering moment when you realize Emmeryn would have done this no matter what, that despite all your battlefield prowess you were doomed to fail this mission from the start.

And speaking of which, let's touch on Emmeryn's actual sacrifice too. Now obviously the idea of a character sacrificing their life for the sake of the others is nothing new, you've seen it done dozens of times by now, surely. It's all in the execution, however, and the little details are important nowadays to really sell such a scene.

Perhaps not minor, but in this case motivation is important, and it's important precisely because the motivation in universe is smart as all hell. It's not just forcing the power of the Fire Emblem out of Gangrel's hands, but forcing his army against him in the process. This is continuing Emmeryn's characterization, mainly for the player. She's always been presented as a wise and intelligent leader that had a good read on her allies and enemies. The problem with this can often be the fact that the player has to control the game, and qualities like this can get pushed to the sides. Another issue the story thus far has presented is that her kingdom is pretty much at a point where she only ever has one option to take at most times. These 2 are obviously good story and gameplay design, but it leaves her characterization and importance in a fairly awkward spot, since there isn't really a good way to show this that gels well with these practices.

So really it's a great story beat to have her qualities like these emphasized at the moment of her death, and to have that death be a sacrifice. Putting down one's own life is a great way to show wisdom, bravery, leadership, and similar stuff in a single instant. Put simply, it is in many ways the biggest and most dramatic way you can show a lot of serious character traits for a character already well established, and one you want to/need to kill off.

It's not like Fire Emblem is doing anything new with this, but it's doing it very well. With this action we see how much Emmeryn cares for her kingdom. We also see her caring for family, not wanting them to bargain for her life. Her independence and quick thinking is taken from an implied skill to being shown off. And she is also seen as incredibly smart, as her sacrifice motivates her allies, keeps power away from her enemies, and crushes the spirit of their army in one move.

So we've got the game batting a nice score with the story so far, and it's just getting started. Let's move over to gameplay and chapter 12.

Chapter 12 is a bit odd, since it's not very plot focused compared to previous events. It's just one battle, with the only important plot being the framing of said battle. Up until now, Awakening has been riding on the quality of its story. Now, it needs to make its gameplay mean something.

What's most impact about this chapter is how the gameplay doesn't change, or rather, how it cannot change. Everything around you is different. The mood is somber. The setup screen has no music, and the only sound filling your ears is the gentle patter of rain pouring down all upon you. There's nothing heroic here, no smart planning to be made, no tactical enjoyment to be found, no relaxing or tense music. Yet, the physical, gameplay process you go through to begin a battle will not change.

Nothing in the battle changes, either. You guide your units, attack the enemy, and nothing has realistically changed. And yet, everything has changed. Nobody really wants to fight. You're caught behind enemy lines, forced to carve your way out. The enemy is unwilling to fight after such a horrid display by their own leader and such bravery by the enemy, yet they must under threat of death. And you of course have this music playing, which is such a deviation from the heroic music you fought to beforehand. You can't even call it battle music, it's more of a reflective and emotionally out of control piece. It is flat out one of the most brilliant musical pieces I have ever heard.

I can't say how any one player will react to all this. Perhaps you're angry. Maybe you're in tears. You could be trying to avoid a fight. You could resign yourself to it. Maybe you're just numb to the proceedings and aren't even sure what to think. It's not my place to assume how a single person will react to this, but the one thing I can confidently say is that this will not make you feel heroic. It runs in opposition to the grand battles of before, the feeling of overcoming the odds and an evil. Nothing has changed in what you do, but really, everything has changed.

At the end of the day, Fire Emblem Awakening doesn't take any grand strides in video game storytelling, not really. However, the fact of the matter is that good writing by itself is rare in this industry, let alone good writing that interacts with the gameplay well. It's one of the best signs to me that a good story is something that is very important to the fabric of a great game. It doesn't have to be complex (A sad fight in the rain isn't a high level concept). It doesn't have to be long. It doesn't even have to change the gameplay. At the end of the day, what this one chapter from Awakening shows us is that story can make a good game truly great.

Khezu: An Exercise in Bad Game Design

No, this article isn't only for those into Monster Hunter, don't let that scare you away. I'm not here to tear into my personal issues with this game I can't stop playing, though that would be supremely satisfying. No, we're talking game design, ladies and gentlemen.

Now, for the uninitiated, here's a quick rundown. In Monster Hunter, you fight various monsters of various shapes and sizes to get their parts and then make equipment out of them. Generally, the way of getting better is learning the monster “tells”, or how they move before taking certain actions, so you know what's coming. That's what's really important here. The general loop is that you need to fight monsters over and over for certain parts, and in doing so you learn the tells and get very good at fighting them (Ingenious game design, I might add).

And if you want an example of a game going totally off the rails and producing a substandard gameplay scenario, the Khezu is it. This monster has everything. Bland design. Terrible tells. God awful design choices around it.

And I also might be angry because it came back AGAIN in Generations dear god why

Let us start with the design, and already everything is so, so wrong. See, most monsters have an immediately enlightening design. If you look at the Rathian, for example, she has a big, spiky tail, huge wings, and looks like a stereotypical dragon in a lot of ways. Unsurprisingly, she has many tail attacks, flies around a lot, and breaths fire. The design gives you a hint of what it can do right out of the gate, playing into learning the moveset. That's great design.

The Khezu does not do that. Let's just take a quick look at some of its more unique features:

1. It has a head that can extend very far for some medium ranged attacks.
2. It can generate electricity from its body and mouth.
3. It can climb on walls to escape.
4. It has a very hard tail that you can't really attack for the most part.
5. One of the louder roars in the game.

I ask you, where is any of this communicated on this monster's design? The head doesn't have anything that looks extendable. Nothing about it looks even remotely related to electricity. You're not going to see the bottom of its feet, which do look like they could climb on walls. Moot point if you can't see them, though. The tail looks exactly like the rest of the body. And how am I supposed to guess that the roar is going to be crazy loud?

None of this really matters after the initial encounter, yes. Once you know the attacks, the design communicating potential attacks isn't needed. But it shows sloppiness and a lack of caring, stuff that really does carry over to the rest of this monster.

See, my issues with Khezu are mainly in the fight itself, AKA the “Screw you, blademasters” fight. Let us start with a seemingly innocuous thing, the fact that the Khezu climbs on walls. Seems harmless, right? Yeah, no. What this actually does is make it impossible to attack if you're using a melee weapon (May I remind you, 11 out of the 14 weapons are melee). Waiting is not fun in games. Think we can all agree on that. What this does if force most hunters to run around dodging slow electricity balls for a minute, with no chance to counterattack or do anything of substance. It is boring, unfun, and just not well thought out.

Second on my list of grievances is the Khezu's favourite attack, surrounding itself in electricity. The issue here is the tell. Khezu sparks with electricity for about a second then surrounds itself in electricity, which does sound like a reasonable windup. The issue is that this, again, screws any and all melee weapon users. For many weapons, if you're currently right beside Khezu, there's simply not enough time to actually get away once the tell begins. Sheathing your weapon in this game to run faster takes a full second, which means you're very likely to get hit.

And when it comes to gameplay, making about 3 quarters of your weapons a bad choice against one monster is simply not good design. Making one or two univiable is actually a good idea in many circumstances. It can force people away from their comfort picks so they actually try something new, therefore seeing more of the game. But you limit, rather than expand, if you make most of your weapons a subpar choice. Even in the intention was to get people to try out gunner weapons, it's still a bad choice because you need a whole new set of armour to use gunner weapons. You're making people decide between a terrible hunt or grinding for a whole new set of armour, not an attractive one to be sure.

And yes, there are ways to get around this monster in more recent games. Using adept style in Generations lets you dodge through the electricity, and does mitigate a lot of my issues. It's still bad design if you're pigeonholed into a very specific gameplay style just because you use blademaster weapons.

There's also just a lot of baffling design choices made for seemingly no good reason. Why does the Khezu have no battle music? Is it supposed to be for immersion, since it can't “see” you, only “smell” you? Immersion here comes at the cost of a lifeless and silent fight. I thought my game was glitched when I first fought it, a player shouldn't think that!

In the same vein of bad design, what parts am I supposed to break? If you don't know, you can attack and break certain parts of a monster to get more crafting materials. But the Khezu is all a grey blob, with no standout parts. Using the Rathian from before, the tail and wings are very prominent, and look breakable. Lo and behold, the tail can be cut off, and the wings cracked. Can the back of the Khezu be broken? The head? The tail? There are no stand out indicators here. 

So it is with bafflement that I look at Khezu. Look at the monsters in this series, and they have varied designs, fun fights, and all show evidence of thought and effort put into them. Then there's Khezu, who looks so out of place with the sloppy design, lopsided fight, and baffling design choices. Regardless, I will continue to use this monster as a great example of bad design in a good game, and how even the best developers aren't foolproof.