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TEEN: Battle With Me: Pokémon XD Gale of Darkness

Intro
  • Snuggle Tier List

    What I tell you three times is true.
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    Fic Copyright 2019 @Snuggle Tier List. Some Rights Reserved. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
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    Additional copyright information is provided in the spoilers below:
    As per the Bulbagarden Forum's Terms and Rules, this author has granted the providers of the Bulbagarden Forums "with a non-exclusive, permanent, irrevocable, unlimited license to use, publish, or re-publish your Content in connection with the Service. You retain copyright over the Content." (emphasis added by me, the work's author) Thus, I believe I, the author of my work, have legal standing to license my work to other parties via Creative Commons.
    If you have any questions or concerns regarding this work's copyright, please start a conversation with the user @Snuggle Tier List. Due to safety concerns raised by staff operating under the authority of the Bulbagarden Forums, I intend to share as little personal information as possible about my location. Nevertheless, if you have legal cause to learn more about me (for instance, learn my address so I can be properly served by a court), please contact @Snuggle Tier List through a direct message via the Bulbagarden Forums. This requires registration with the Bulbagarden Forums, which you may do by clicking "Register" at the top of the page and confirming an email address.

    TEEN Content Warning: Sparse strong language for emphasis. Discusses political themes both surrounding and within Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness. Includes discussion of hospitalizing mental health issues experienced by the author.

    Spoiler Warning: This is an analysis of Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness. By it's nature, it contains spoilers for both Pokémon XD and its predecessor Pokémon: Colosseum. In addition, even though this is a sequential playthrough, parts of the game may be discussed before they happen for the sake of analysis. No knowledge of Pokémon XD is required to read this playthrough; however, if you have not played either Pokémon: Colosseum or Pokémon XD and would like to go into those games blind, do not read this analysis.


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    "They [ideologies] work most effectively when we are not aware that how we formulate and construct a statement about the world is underpinned by ideological premises; when our formations seem to be simply descriptive statements about how things are (i.e., must be), or of what we can 'take-for-granted.'"
    —Stuart Hall, "The Whites of Their Eyes"​



    Remember that Pokémon game where a news executive tells you to meet a whistleblower, and you do it?

    The whistleblower's name is Hordel. He contacts you through the region's leading news broadcaster, who you've been working with for a good half of the game at this point. So far, you've rescued reporters trying to uncover major criminal coverups, defended their headquarters from a literal raid due to a data leak that certain people really didn't want them reporting on, agreed to a missing persons request that was reported directly to one of the broadcaster's executives (when your ambiguously sentient pet goes missing, heck the police), and even participated in one of their environmentalist-focused reality TV shows.

    Younger self, what were you playing?

    Welcome to Battle With Me: Pokémon XD. I'm MC Snuggles, and I'm here to revisit my childhood. Like, really revisit my childhood. I'm going to be giving one of my favorite childhood games the deepest critical cut I can manage, in a pseudo-Let's Play style inspired by NYU Game Center Professor and freelance game designer Robert Yang's Level With Me series. Only I'm going to be completely disregarding any charade of objectivity and explain how Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness impacted me personally. I'll be drawing on patchwork knowledge of, well, everything: animations and cinematography, music and game feel, narrative and level design, industry politics and art style. Strap your interdisciplinary hat on, 'cause I'm dissecting all this game's got.

    For transparency's sake/to prove I know what I'm talking about, I will be using citations to support statements of fact. You can view citations by clicking the carrots (this symbol: ^). I've made an effort to archive as many as my sources as possible using the Wayback Machine; however, some sites resist archiving. If any of my sources are broken, appears wrong, or are simply irrelevant, please comment! Your help is appreciated!
    I have no idea.

    I plan to take this playthrough as far as I can. However, there's a certain endgame location which I seriously doubt I can complete. Regardless, I will be playing to 100% completion the best I can.

    In addition, updates are dependant on how fast I play the game and perform research. I will not be rushing, as I want my gameplay to be at least somewhat representative of a typical play experience/want to avoid the low quality of "crunch gameplay/writing". My informal target is bi-weekly updates; content will be posted as soon as it's publishing quality.
    Click up there!
    index.php
    July 7th, 2019: Today's news update was meaty enough to warrant its own post. Check it out if you haven't already; it's quite the tale. But long story short, CH7 is in the works and planned for release sometime this week. Huzzah!

    --------------------------------

    June 29th, 2019: It's very hot.

    As I've previously mentioned in these here updates, my recording setup is stuck in an attic with a skylight. There is no screen for the skylight. Which, because of the heat, has been quarantined for most of the past week. I've gotten little-to-none progress; if this keeps up, I might need to restructure my updates. I don't have plans to call a hiatus, but I'm considering shortening my chapters to accommodate.

    I've also set up a new subseries I can lean on: Reader FAHT CHEHKS! The first should be posted momentarily; I'm not sure if other rumors will come up during discussion, but if you know of any, let me know. It might take some time before I can fully assess a rumor, but as I go further and further into the plot I'll be able to test more internet rumors. Expect to see Reader FAHT CHEHKs interspersed with traditional analysis.

    --------------------------------

    June 20th, 2019: I'm still finding grammah errors in my earlier posts. In case you're wondering why the "Last Edited" data keeps shifting, that's why.

    Otherwise, business as usual. I'm starting to settle into the groove of things, at least on the backend. I'm sticking to my plans better, I've had a nice string of cloudy days that've let me play longer sessions, though stopping every minute to take screenshots/adjust my draft is a pain. But there's a burning fire in me to show the good parts of Pokémon: XD, and as I progress I'm able to zoom the microscope out. Lower my wordcount, not describe every single NPC's dialogue. This analysis has been rougher than I've expected, but I'm finally on top the hill. I wrote half of CH6 in a day., and I'm framing screenshots now.

    Break time over. Back to video games! Poor me.

    --------------------------------

    June 12th, 2018: Editing is finished and a draft of CH5 is in production! Sorry for the delay; I've had an unusually demanding couple of weeks (three birthdays, a wedding, and mounds of paperwork). I'm not completely out of the real life-o-sphere yet, but I've got a solid plan for CH5 that shouldn't require another draining research deep dive.

    That said, I should temper expectations somewhat. My current play environment is an attic cubby with no AC, heavy insulation, and a skylight with no screen. And summer has hit. I can't currently play XD without sweating to death, so I'm limiting my play sessions to cool evenings and nights. This will absolutely slow the pace of updates until I get a permanent solution, which would be much easier if I owned this cubby. Instead, I have to consider a landlord before I start getting all DIY, which between some lingering real life whack-a-mole time sinks makes stabilizing my playspace harder than it sounds. I can still write during the day (I do my writing on my phone), but getting screenshots is holding this analysis up.

    I've made a vow to myself to complete everything I start, and so I will be spending my fanfic time on
    Battle With Me: Pokémon XD. Unfortunately, there will be delays due to temperature. If I find myself unable to write at the moment, you can probably find me bumming around the Written Word as a means to stay attached to the community. Humorous PMs where you nag me about the next chapter are appreciated.

    --------------------------------

    June 4th, 2019: Been a while since I've posted some news. And I'm afraid it's not so good.

    Real life for me has been getting extremely complicated and time consuming. It's looking like this too shall pass, but I need to make sure I keep food and shelter before I spend time writing anything non-commercial. I'm not calling hiatus as I still have free time, but I can't keep the current pace of updates up.

    Instead, I'm going to do some polishing. I noticed quite a few blatant grammah errors rereading my fan-nonfic. Plus, my writing system's getting a little disorganized behind the scenes; my local copies don't match text with published copies, for example. Thus, I think now's the time to do some housekeeping.

    I'm going to be making edits to my currently-published chapters to remove blatant unintended grammah errors. Spelling, missing words, etc. I won't be editing the fic beyond that; while I see flaws beyond basic grammah, I prefer not to edit my fic's content. It's a personal vow to avoid "publish now, fix later" mentality. Unfortunately, I've had to take hours off my sleep cycle to keep this fic going, and the blemishes show. It's to the point I feel an emergency after-publication edit is justified, and it happens to coincide with my personal life intruding on my free time. Until I weather what's looking to be a tempory storm, I'm going to halt publishing new chapters and instead spell check old ones.

    Hopefully, this strategy will keep real life from derailing this project. I already have an admittedly-paltry draft of CH5 in the works, but expect a delay while I tidy house. I'll have an update about a week from now detailing my progress. Check this space!

    --------------------------------

    May 22nd, 2019: Another update to copyright notice, this time to make my intro post more readable and satisfy the lawyers. Got this formatting via a review by @unrepentantAuthor on another of my fics.

    As for CH3: it's pretty deep into production. Due to attachment limits, I'm going to be splitting it into two posts. The first post will focus on the opening cutscene, while the second post will focus on the first bit of gameplay. There's a clever bit of player instruction hidden within an at-max 3-turn battle, plus I want to stuff in my first music analysis. Research has been slower than expected due to some dead ends, but I still think I can pull it off in time for the next Writer's Workshop weekly announcement. Fingers crossed!

    --------------------------------

    May 13th, 2019: Small update to copyright notice, most readers probably don't care. But the lawyers do, so I gotta pay attention to this stuff.

    I'm also doing a revamp of my older fics so they all have consistent styling. I've finished KAIJUMON's, but Snuggle's Grand Poetry Grab Bag will take a while. I'm placing the revamps near the top of my priorities list due to copyright issues; once those are done, CH2 is likely to be posted soon after. Time estimate on CH2 is a couple days, revamp included.

    Also, writing Battle With Me: Pokémon XD CH2 might have been the most surreal experience I've ever had as a writer. My research revealed...subtext. Much, much subtext. It's, uh...wow. I'm gonna take the time to
    really get the facts right here, because researching CH2 was like falling down the rabbit hole, except Wonderland is stitched from all your childhood memories. And the rapture. It's complicated. This paragraph needs to end.

    --------------------------------

    May 8th, 2019: CH1 is up, with all images hosted on Bulbagarden's servers! Long story short, I'm using BulbaBlogs as my "image host" after getting permission from that section's moderators. Thank you @Zachie and @Lillie for making this hodge-podge "fic" possible.

    As a consequence, I'm going to be avoiding too-frequent Battle With Me updates so as to avoid spamming BulbaBlogs. I'll be watching the section over the next couple of days to see how quickly my "blog" falls off the front page. Ideally, I'll wait until my boring contentless blig falls to at least the second page, so actual bloggers don't get buried underneath my image repository. And I still don't have a rough draft for CH2 yet anyways, so the next chapter might take a bit. But regardless, Battle With Me is futureproofed the best I can manage. Writing should be
    much smoother, at least.

    --------------------------------

    May 7th, 2019: CH1 is complete and ready to be posted! And then I discovered Bulbaforum only allows ten attachments per post.

    Ironically, I had exactly ten screenshots of actual gameplay. What put me over the limit was company logos I had touched up so they'd be readable no matter the background color (forum themes, yo). I'm looking into third-party image hosts and carefully considering reformatting. But getting third parties involved doesn't sit right with me after Photobucket's image cap started whiping away fora images across the 'tubes, and I made an effort to only use gameplay images,when absolutely necessary. I'm brainstorming ideas; I might have to get creative (.gif time?)

    In the meantimes, I do have one image I can share with you. If you look at the top if this thread, you'll see a title card. The border around the title card is the same border I'll be using to frame screenshots. I have everything setup so native-resolution screenshots can be displayed professionally and quickly, which means future chapters will be faster to format. Expect more frequent updates once CH1 is sorted.

    --------------------------------

    May 4th, 2019: Let it be known that I, MC Snuggles, got the name of the game I'm playing wrong. The title is
    Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, not Pokémon XD: Gales of Darkness. It's almost like this fic wasn't quite ready for publication or something.

    Also, April 38th is not a real date. I may have panicked a little. Expect more housekeeping; while I'm normally feel dishonest editing an already-published fic, I'm making an exception for Battle With Me due to the surprise rushed production and nonfiction subject matter. If you spot any errors, please let me know; I don't feel comfortable spreading misinformation.

    In more positive news, I have a rough draft of CH1 completed! I'm currently getting all the attachments ready for a final draft, which includes a much larger amount of company logos than I was anticipating. And many of them have text over transparent backgrounds, which means manually inserting backgrounds for me! But CH1 should represent the last of my industry politics talk, which means future chapters will be easier to research and format. Here's hoping this here rocky start smooths itself out.

    --------------------------------

    April 38th 28th, 2019: OH GOD I ACCIDENTALLY HIT POST THREAD THIS WASN'T MEANT TO BE PUBLISHED YET BUT I GUESS WERE DOING IT!

    So, uh, yeah. I had the intro and prologue written in .txt files and I was testing to make sure the BBCode was formatted correctly, but my finger slipped and I posted the thread. So I guess this is going up! It wasn't supposed to be a final draft, I'm still bugswatting errors, but it should at least be readable. I don't have a Chapter 1 ready, but I guess we're in "write or die" mode now. What could possibly go wrong?
    Latest News Update: July 7th, 2019


    Special Thanks:
    @Nitro Indigo
    @Lillie
    @Zachie
    @InfiniteBakuphoon
    And everyone that comments or reviews!
     
    Last edited:
    Prologue: How Does This Game Exist?


  • Prologue: How Does This Game Exist?


    Before we start playing, let's put this game in context. Pokémon XD: Cross-Eyes of Darkness is a sorta-sequel to Pokémon Colosseum, both for the Gamecube. These games were in turn spiritual successors to the Pokémon Stadium series on the Nintendo 64. Which means it's time for faht chehking!

    According to internet, the Pokémon models from Stadium were the same ones used in Colosseum.^^^ So I downloaded some model rips to see for myself.^ Now, I don't have the full set, but from my admittedly small sample, well, see for yourself.

    Articuno Compare.png

    Golduck Compare.png

    Model source: Models Resource (models rendered via Blender in identical lighting)

    Yup! They're the same. FAHT CHEHKED!

    Anyways, so these models. The development studio that made Colosseum and XD, Genius Sonority, is not the same studio that made the Stadium games. So...how did Genius Sonority get these models? Well, buckle up, kids, we're about to wade into game industry politics.

    As far as I can tell, some of Genius Sonority's head staff, at the time of Pokémon Stadium, were working on a different franchise, and boy, was it a big one. Dragon Quest, or Dragon Warrior for the US market.^ If you don't live in Japan, you can't appreciate how big a name Dragon Quest is. Long story short, if there's a JRPG trope, it probably came from Dragon Quest. The first Dragon Quest game is credited with being the first console RPG.^ Dragon Quest III was so popular, an urban legend sprang up that the Japanese government passed a law preventing Dragon Quest from being released on workdays, because too many people would skip school and work.^ Dragon Quest V had you battling and recruiting monsters, in 1992.^ Seriously, it's heck'n ridiculous.

    Genius Sonority didn't work on Dragon Quest, but some of their lead staff had. While I can't verify exact numbers due to localization issues (we'll get to that), I can confirm at least five people that would later work leading roles at Genius Sonority originally worked at a studio called Heartbeat.^

    index.php

    Image source: Heartbeat

    Heartbeat didn't create Dragon Quest, but they did develop Dragon Quest VI,^^^ VII,^^^ and remakes of III and IV.^ Heartbeat's most successful game, as far as I can tell, was Dragon Quest VII. IGN at the time called it "one of the longest, deepest, and most enjoyable RPGs around",^ for whatever that's worth. Metacritc is oddly low, at 78,^ but it seems localization had problems. Looks like their publisher, Enix, hecked them over.^ But in Japan, the game sold over 3,700,000 copies.^ A Japanese magazine voted it the 9th best video game of all time, according to Wikipedia.^ Full disclosure: I can't find as much info as I'd like on Genius Sonority or Heartbeat, mostly due to the language barrier. Genius Sonority's website isn't even in English.^ I'm giving sources when I can, but don't expect full-scale journalism here. Point is, Heartbeat could make games.

    This is where everything goes to hell.

    From what I can tell, Heartbeat was struggling financially, at least according to them. I found a 2002 Heartbeat press release, claiming that they "[could] no longer ensure their financial independence" because of "the raise of development costs".^ I've heard this one before, so I looked up the sales numbers for the last game Heartbeat worked on, the remake of Dragon Quest IV. IV's remake sold over 1,000,000 copies,^^ which was less than Dragon Quest VII but still a million copies. While I couldn't find an earnings report or anything like that (Heartbeat being a private company that wouldn't need to share data with shareholders), I did find a talk by Mark Cerny, video game industry analyst. He estimates that an average game budget around 2000 was about $10 million.^ Compare that to an average $40 retail price for games at the time.^ 1,000,000 copies at, we'll say $20 each to account for sales and discounts:

    1,000,000 x $20 = $20,000,000

    That's double the average budget. That gives Heartbeat $10,000,000 in profit, assuming no massive mismanagement. So forgive me if I call bullpoop.

    Oh, and that localization? Hackers found a complete English translation in the game files, but Enix still chose not the release the game in the US.^ And to rub salt in the wound, Enix reported that Dragon Quest IV was getting a localization, which meant major outlets like IGN were hyping it up to fans.^ They even advertised "Dragon Warrior IV" on the back of the Dragon Quest VII English manual.^

    Oddly enough, in an interview with Enix rep Justin Lucas, Enix acknowledges the English translation, the advertising, the good sales, all of it.^ He claims that Heartbeat took a mass sabbatical and so was closing up shop. He says Enix didn't "sack them", and that it was entirely Heartbeat's decision to dissolve their studio. Now, why Heartbeat would want to close up shop when they're making millions, he doesn't explain.

    I'm not entirely sure what the heck happened. However, because of all this, Heartbeat closes up shop, while Enix comes off unscathed. So I'm placing the burden of proof on Enix. Best guess, Heartbeat wasn't seeing any of that $10,000,000 profit. Something in their contract with Enix meant they weren't getting the funds they needed, even though Enix was making boatloads of cash. So now a lot of talented people are unemployed. And we still haven't gotten to Pokémon.

    Okay, we're getting there. Enter Heartbeat lead developer Manabu Yamana. Now out of a job, he founds a game development company called, wait for it, Genius Sonority!^

    index.php

    Image source: Wikipedia

    ...But Genius Sonority didn't have money, so he went to Nintendo. Nintendo invested 100 million yen in Genius Sonority,^ or just over $800,000 US.^ Reportedly, Creatures Inc., a Pokémon Company affiliate, was a party to the Genius Sonority funding deal,^ which would give them access to Pokémon Stadium's models. Who's idea it was to make a Gamecube Pokémon game, I don't know for sure, but it's safe to say some kind of Pokémon game was expected.

    As an aside, the lack of an official English localization for Heartbeat's Dragon Quest IV remake meant I couldn't properly compare staff between Heartbeat and Genius Sonority. Best I could find was a Youtube video of Dragon Warrior VII's end credits that lists some of Genius Sonority's staff:^^

    • Director Manabu Yamana as VII's "Director of Programming",
    • "Scenario Writer" Kazunori Orio as "Scenario",
    • "Programming Director" Masayuki Kawamoto as "Programming",
    • co-"Battle Unit Programmer" Makoto Hirashima as "Programming",
    • and "Music Director" Tsukasa Tawada as "Sound Designer"

    Five people ain't much, but these ex-Heartbeat staff seemed to have gravitated towards leading roles, which would've given them more creative control than most new hires. But not every lead at Genius Sonority came from Heartbeat. Thus, while Heartbeat's shadow is an important influence, I wouldn't go so far as to call Genius Sonority "Heartbeat 2.0".

    Spoiler alert! Genius Sonority goes down. XD was a flop compared to Colosseum.^^ XD's follow up, Pokémon: Battle Revolution for the Wii, had similar sales numbers and was a critical flop.^^ XD and Battle Revolution still sold over 1,000,000 copies each, but so did Dragon Quest IV, and, uh...you can see where this is going.

    Genius Sonority didn't close, but it seems they've downsized drastically.^ I can't verify exact numbers as I don't speak Japanese, but Bulbapedia says they had only 17 employees as of 2014^. I found a list of games on Genius Sonority's website which I can barely make out,^ though it seems to roughly match up with the list on Wikipedia.^ Hey, there's XD!

    XD_JP_boxart.png

    Image source: Bulbapedia

    XD in English, on Japanese box art. They knew what they were doing. Anyways, Genius Sonority made this heck'n poop:^^

    Typing_EN_boxart.png

    Image source: Bulbapedia

    So that should give you an idea of where they've ended up. The child in me died today.

    So this explains why Genius Sonority made a Pokémon game and got access to Stadium's assets. But it doesn't explain Hordel the whistleblower. I can't find much in the way of interviews with Genius Sonority staff, or rather, I can't read any of them.^ I found a partial translation of an interview with, uh, "Genius Sonority".^ Who at Genius Sonority? Ah, heck it. Translation courtesy of Source Gaming:

    "I wanted to create a world that was a little different, a little more grown up than the Pokémon world we’ve known up until now...it might be a little different from the image we have of the Pokémon universe you have now."^
    —Genius Sonority which is apparently a hive mind​

    Okay, looking at Colosseum's credits,^ I'm guessing this quote is from either Manabu Yamana, credited as director, or Kazunori Orio, credited as "Scenario Writer", whose title sounds to me like "Head Writer". Might be a translation hiccup. Anyways, the quote. For the record, this was referring to Pokémon Colosseum. Or at least, I'm assuming it was; the source interview is surrounded by Colosseum concept art.^ But it also refers to the world of Colosseum, which is shared with XD. So I'll consider it pertinent.

    As for the quote itself, I kinda agree? He's talking about the Pokémon universe, and there's a lot of dark poop in Pokémon.^^ I guess if you limit yourself to the games, Colosseum and XD are a bit darker than usual, but the core series Pokémon games at the time had you preventing an environmental apocalypse, so it's not too much a shift. But darker doesn't necessarily mean more mature. No, when I think of Colosseum and XD...

    ...I'm sorry, I need to address this. This is an XD analysis, as in, not Colosseum. In my opinion, and please don't kill me for this, Colosseum's not that deep. It's not a bad game, but it's not ripe for analysis like XD is. Colosseum's more narrative driven than the baseline Pokémon games, as in you're not battling random strangers 70% of the time. But your character's a blank slate, you're saddled with a walking exposition dump with the personality of whatever the plot wants, the antagonists flip-flop between needing more personality (everyone other than Miror B) and needing more screen time (Miror B). There was some cool set pieces, there's this part where you go undercover into a bad guy town and have to avoid getting outed as a spy, but there just wasn't anyone to care about. It was a cool world concept, but it's a linear RPG, you can't just live in the world, you gotta follow the plot, and there just isn't anything engaging about the plot. No philosophy to test, no characters to explore, none of that. There's still merit to the game, I can see why people would be fans, but almost all the good parts of Colosseum can be found in XD. Literally; a good 70% of Colosseum's assets can be found in XD, from the 3D models to the music. Plus, the vast majority of mechanics, the battle system, the out-of-battle exploration: same mechanics across games. XD is Colosseum with a tanker full of needed polish, which makes Colosseum hard to go back to. The amount of asset recycling is borderline suspicious, but I already have like a jillion citations and I really need to move this analysis along.

    Maybe it's the nostalgia talking. I had XD as a kid, and didn't play Colosseum until I was an adult. Then again, I didn't know Colosseum existed until I was an adult. XD doesn't let on that it's a sequel; it features a new protagonist, gets rid of the exposition companion, and recaps the plot of Colosseum within side conversations in bits and pieces. Keep in mind, Colosseum's plot wasn't exactly complex, so when sprinkled into dialogue, it feels more like world-building, like giving brief historical context to the events of the game. Characters that were involved in the events of Colosseum share their experiences, either during personality-building side conversations or when trying to predict what the villains' plans are. If anything, not playing Colosseum makes XD even better.

    I'll get back to this, but right now, we're talking about Genius Sonority. So, if the quote I found is to be believed, then the team was actively trying to make a "grown up" Pokémon game. What "grown up" means, humanity's still debating that. I'd argue XD is indeed grown up, it knows where to be realistic and where to be escapist, but I'm not sure me and Genius Sonority are on the same page. Looking at their past work, they never strove for highbrow art. They weren't in it to convey a message, they were in it to make games. Which makes XD's political undertones an outlier in an otherwise consistent portfolio.

    So how did this game get made? Thanks to too much research, I have an educated guess. And to illustrate this, here's a rather famous quote from Junichi Masuda of Game Freak:

    "It’s the type of place, the Pokémon world, where problems we face on Earth just wouldn’t happen. There wouldn’t be global warming, water shortages, or anything like that. It’s a world where the people in it really want to work together with each other. Their value system is such where they would prefer to work together and eliminate these problems rather than feud."
    —Junichi Masuda (core series producer)^

    The fact that Junichi cites "no global warming" as integral to Pokémon's appeal is as direct a pro-environmentalism statement as possible. And I could see that falling under the umbrella of pro-science in general. I'm not sure the intent gets across all the time, but I could see a writer looking to make a "mature" Pokémon game tapping into this franchise subtext. Playing off the appeal of your license seems a good business move, at least. If your game's got Pokémon in the title, your audience is going to expect a certain type of game, of appeal.

    Then again, I'm not sure how many people play Pokémon for the narrative. A good chunk of Pokémon's appeal is social; trading Pokémon, showing off your collection. But in order to trade Pokémon, you and your friends need to link your games. Literally. Back in the olden days, they had a heck'n cable you'd plug into you and your friend's Game Boy. It was crazy, but it worked, and it only worked because it was for a portable console. And XD is a single player home console Pokémon game on a system that didn't have built-in internet.

    The Gamecube is not portable. It's a heck'n brick. You could club someone to death with it. That poop ain't going in your backpack. But perhaps most importantly, it needs to be plugged into an electrical socket and television. Which meant any social elements inherent in Pokémon as a commercial product doesn't work without leveraging that social aspect, where you and your friends all bring your portables to play together. And the Gamecube could've facilitated that! It has its own cable that could plug into a controller port and link with a Game Boy Advance,^ and there were couch co-op games on the system that expected each player to own a GBA-to-Gamecube link cable (plus a GBA for each player). The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures.^^^ Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles.^^ And in theory, the Colosseum subseries could've gone that route. Keep in mind, this is the generation 2 v. 2 Multi Battles were introduced to the franchise. That's potentially four players in one Pokémon battle.

    But as you might expect, the cost of one Gamecube plus four link cables plus four Game Boy Advances plus four Gen III Pokémon games is decimating for any potential couch co-op. It's great to push GBA sales, not so great for the wallet. I stumbled across a backlash article expressing straight anger at Four Swords Adventures for the business practice,^ and as a kid whose parents weren't poor but certainly weren't loaded, I can relate. Any content requiring a GBA-to-Gamecube link cable was to me permanently locked away, because I didn't have that heck'n cable. Which makes me eternally grateful Pokémon XD sacrificed the social aspect for narrative, to the point you don't even unlock Gamecube-with-GBA trading until after the credits roll (with one major catch we'll get into soon). The designers saw the pitfalls of embracing Pokémon's social aspects, and I think this decision has been vindicated by history.

    Which leads me back to the Nintendo deal. Pokémon XD: Gale Of Darkness should not have been a Pokémon game. Colosseum should not have been a Pokémon game. Genius Sonority should not have been working on Pokémon. Don't get me wrong, Genius Sonority had talent, but it was clearly off-brand. They were best suited for a single player, narrative driven RPG, and people just don't expect that from Pokémon. That doesn't mean these are bad games; far from it. They just weren't what people expected.

    At the same time, the concessions these games did make to the Pokémon brand didn't exactly help. When I say "the Pokémon brand", I don't mean the Pokémon world. I mean it in the marketing sense, the cold, clinical, corporate side of Pokémon. The "let's make one game and split it into two because you dumb poops are gonna buy it anyway" side of Pokémon. The "this game's a Pokémon game, so marketing's saying to add trades" side of Pokémon. I don't want to get too specific before we jump in, as it's quite possible my memory's failing me. But we'll get into that when we boot the game up.

    Next time: we actually play the game! Fancy that!

    While writing this prologue, I wanted to cite a paper mentioned during educational video series Crash Course's lesson on Pokémon:



    Their research cited wasn't linked in the description, so all I had to go off of were three names: Laven, Gelman, and Galotti. So I type this into Google Scholar and found...a single page .pdf?

    Apparently, Crash Course wasn't citing a study. They were citing Beth Lavin, Rochel Gelman, and Kathleen M. Galotti's When children, not adults, are the experts. Explorations of the Pokémon phenomenon (link to .pdf). This was a poster presented at a June 2001 meeting of the American Psychological Society, according to the bibliography of Factors associated with the early emergence of intense interests within conceptual domains (link to .pdf), an actual research paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Cognitive Development. And according to the poster itself, the researchers used a sample size of "11 child-parents pairs", which represents 0.0000003507% of Pokémon Red/Green/Blue's 31,370,000 sales. Which makes this poster pretty much useless.

    I'm not sure what it is about Pokémon, but I cannot find a single reputable academic study focusing solely on Pokémon. Granted, I only have anecdotal experience with "Pokémon academia", but I'm also a crazy Pokémon fan who reads research papers for fun. For instance: Can Pikachu die? Online fan conspiracy theories and the Pokémon gaming universe (link to .pdf), published in the Journal of Fandom Studies. Here's a quote:

    "I would argue that the conspiracy theories listed above are examples of fan fiction, stories written by fans who have an intimate knowledge of the original text but feel it somewhat lacking in depth, detail or characterization. The lists of different theories, attempts at explaining game glitches, exploring narrative history or providing more detailed backstories for characters, represent an ongoing process of making and remaking the Pokémon story world."
    —Actual published study in peer-reviewed journal​

    I don't mean to bash on academia — this entire analysis is inspired by NYU Game Center's Robert Yang, whose blog is a favorite of mine — but something about Pokémon resists science. All the research I could find on Pokémon stutters due to small sample sizes, unreproducible results, lack of falsifiability, or other basic scientific errors. I have no explanation. Pokémon academia is cursed.
     
    Last edited:
    CH1: What Could Have Been


  • EP1: What Could Have Been


    In the Prologue, I talked a great deal about XD's developers and their history. What I didn't talk about was their publisher.

    index.php

    Image source: Wikipedia

    And the party to the publishing deal...^

    index.php

    Image source: Wikipedia

    From what we know so far, Nintendo would've likely been in charge of marketing this exclusive game only their console can play (and not losing that 100 million yen they invested),^ and Creatures, Inc. would be in charge of giving Genius Sonority access to other development studio's assets.^ One company provides assets, one company develops game, one company publishes game. Clear roles for everybody.

    On closer inspection, it seems things were not so simple.

    A quick look at XD's credits gives names outside of Genius Sonority in what normally would be developer's roles.^ In particular, Tsunekazu Ishikhara, President and CEO of The Pokémon Company,^ and Satoro Iwata, the late (and great) president and CEO of Nintendo^^ are credited as XD's "Executive Producers", with Manabu Yamana taking the title of "Director". Which means we have a new player in the field!

    The Pokémon Company
    Yes, their logo is just "The Pokémon Company".

    The Pokémon Company is the marketing arm of the Pokémon franchise.^ I have a lot of respect for Satoro Iwata, but The Pokémon Company's involvement signals Gale of Darkness was considered part of the wider Pokémon brand. I'll make it clear as crystal: I think Tsunekazu Ishikhara's involvement made Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness a worse game. He is not at fault for every flaw, but because his name was put on XD's credits, I will tie design decisions made by The Pokémon Company to him. You stamp your name on it, you're responsible for it.

    But before we get into that, there's a few more secrets hidden in XD's credits. Namely, the credits include a list of "Pokémon Advisors" from...Game Freak?^^

    index.php

    Image source: Wikipedia

    For those unaware, Game Freak is the developer behind the "core" Pokémon games. Boot up any of the big Pokémon releases, you'll see some variation of their logo. It'd make sense they'd have an advisory role; Gale of Darkness uses the same battle system as the core series games at the time. But it does mean we have four different companies working on one game.

    To make things more confusing, we have an additional director within Genius Sonority! Yoshiaki Iwasawa, or "Director of Development",^ a person who only warranted a "Special Thanks" mention for Colosseum.^ A quick google turns up a sporadic list of games he's worked on, but no source seems to be completely reliable unless I want to watch credit sequences again (I don't). Whatever the case, we have new blood within Genius Sonority in what seems to me to be a redundant leadership position.

    For what it's worth, Genius Sonority hasn't demoted their creative leads — Tsukasa Tawada's credited as "Music Director", Kazunori Orio's credited as "Scenario Written By", etc. But it does seem Nintendo and The Pokémon Company had more design input than I initially gave them credit. Plus, there's a new director doing...something at Genius Sonority. Plus, we have advisors from Game Freak added to the mix. Development is starting to look a little haphazard.

    So, what does the box say?

    XD_EN_boxart.jpg

    Image source: Bulbapedia



    index.php

    Both Nintendo and The Pokémon Company. No credit to Genius Sonority, Creatures Inc., or Game Freak. And yes, I did check the back of the box, but all scans I could find of the North American release were too shamefully low quality to spread around. But the back does have the Nintendo Seal of Approval™, which knowing my guardians is how they based their entire purchasing decision. Ah, sweet parental ignorance.


    ★ ★ ★​


    I'm tired. I want to stop talking industry politics for just a little while. I want to take you back to one of the few innocent times of my life. I can't remember the specific year because I've blocked most of my childhood memories as a self-defense mechanism (they probably weren't important probably), but I do remember one Christmas day when I got a bunch of stuff I didn't care about, plus some video games.

    When I first ripped off the packaging, I did not know a full console Pokémon RPG existed. I remember owning Pokémon Snap and renting Pokémon Stadium from Blockbuster (I miss you, physical game rentals), and I had played through my Poké-gateway drug Pokémon Silver and eventually Pokémon Sapphire on portables, but a console Pokémon RPG? In my hands? And not only that, but my introductory mascot Lugia was in a starring role!

    My guardians had a VHS tape of Pokémon: The Movie: 2000 they'd use to not interact with me, so to me, Lugia might have been the coolest Pokémon ever. Keep in mind, back in ye olden days of Gen III, there wasn't yet a giant list of legendary or mythical or whatever those super-rare Pokémon are called. Lugia had the trio of birds under their command, and that represented a significant chunk of the legends. And, come to think of it, I wasn't even aware of Jirachi or Celebi or even Ho-oh at the time (my friends weren't into Pokémon, because I had no friends). Lugia was my boi, and that box art was the coolest thing in the heck'n world.

    I think it's time. Let's play.


    ★ ★ ★​


    Nintendo Splash.png

    Pokemon Company Splash.png

    Genius Sonority Splash.png

    All screenshots taken at native resolution and framed. Note that aspect ratio isn't consistent across the Gamecube library or even individual Gamecube games; my screenshots so far are 480x600, but certain scenes may change aspect ratio (hence the frame).

    Oh, nostalgia. But more importantly, these splash screens are the final bit of context to our "who's responsible for this?" puzzle. Genius Sonority finally gets its due credit, and both Nintendo and The Pokémon Company stamps themselves within the product. I had no idea what these screens meant as a kid, and to be quite honest, I don't think I'll ever fully understand. I've dug as deep as I could, but the internal workings of Genius Sonority still elude me, leaving me with only educated guesses. I was lucky enough for Santa to never taint my innocence with Genius Sonority's later titles, which meant their logo here would remain untarnished and mysterious. As the franchise moved on, it felt like this 3D Pokémon RPG had been forgotten, with the core series's "wow" factor depleting over time partly because XD did all these cool new features first.

    And to add to the mystique: I didn't even know Pokémon: Colosseum existed until high school. For the longest time, Gale of Darkness was the only console Pokémon RPG I knew. And when I did learn it was a sequel, my curiosity only seemed to increase. And here I am today, once again looking at the title screen.

    Title Screen.png

    Well, they weren't kidding about darkness. Or a gale, for that matter. Swirling clouds and thunder, all while an orchestra plays a generic adventure theme/doom march:



    Having played through this game before, I think they're trying too hard. I personally think XD deals with more mature subject matter than your typical Pokémon game, but it isn't "darker" in the content ratings sense. For instance, if I go into Vs Mode...

    Vs Mode Hub.png

    A quick fade and the color pallette brightens. Oh, and that orchestra? Not anymore!



    Yes, the song is called "Rumba of Love". It's a long story.

    There's another reason I'm in Vs Mode. And that's because I want to show how crap this entire section is. And, now that I know Nintendo and The Pokémon Company were unusually involved in this game's development, I think I know why.

    First, let's check out Quick Battle.

    Quick Battle.png

    I didn't choose my Pokémon. You don't get to choose your Pokémon. All battles are double battles. All teams have exactly two Pokémon. You don't even get to choose the arena. Closest you get is relative levels of Pokémon, but since your opponent matches your level, battles play our more-or-less the same no matter what you pick. And the randomly assigned Pokémon come from a curated list, which ensures a mostly-balanced battle but a depressingly small amount of combinations. If you keep reshuffling your team, you'll see repeats within five entries at most.

    This is the only Battle mode you can play without a Gamecube-to-GBA link cable.

    Now, let's check out Group Battle!

    Group Battle Hub.png
    Group Battle Rules Depth.png

    Group Battle is multiplayer only. Out of all these options — battle type, stage select, level limits, team total level limits, turn timers, whether certain moves are allowed, who wins if all Pokémon faint, whether particular moves work under certain conditions, whether heck'n Deoxys gets camouflage — none of them allow an AI opponent. In fact, player two isn't even allowed to use a Gamecube controller; they have to have a Game Boy Advance with a third-generation core series cart inserted and a Gamecube-to-GBA cable inserted into controller port 2. And, if you're looking to do a four-player Multi Battle, every player besides player one has to have their own GBA, their own core series game, their own link cable. Outside of microtransaction economies, this might be the most expensive multiplayer mode I've seen in a game.

    But most importantly, having researched this game's development to the best of my ability, I believe it was all deliberate.

    Let's go back to the main menu and start ourselves a new game.

    Character Creation.png

    I am immediately naming my character. I did not get to choose their gender, which had been a core series staple since Pokémon: Crystal^. But most interestingly, I did not and will not get to choose a save slot. XD has the exact same save system of the core series games, which means you and your sis can't battle teams you raised on the same disk.

    For the record, I do believe the male protagonist requirement would've rested with Genius Sonority. However, save slots are and were a common feature of long RPGs, and especially for a game aimed at a younger audience, they're vitally important. That way, no single kid "owns" the game; kids with siblings could take turns without anyone missing anything or anyone wiping away progress. And since Pokémon: XD doesn't allow trading until after the credits roll, it's not like multiple save slots would unbalance the game. Each slot could unlock trading separately, with only post-credits save slots allowed to trade. Why this basic feature isn't implemented...I need a minute.


    ★ ★ ★​


    When I was a kid, I used to sneak a GBA under the covers whenever it was time for bed. It was gaming without distractions, and so every game was made funner. But I must have turned the volume up too loud one night, because my sister snuck into my room and pulled my blanket off of me.

    My sister, also being a young kid, wasn't all that concerned with ratting me out. As it turns out, we ended up starting a new game of Pokémon: Sapphire together. And while I can't remember the exact wording, I absolutely remember her comment:

    "You can play as a girl?"

    Pokémon was one of the first mainstream gaming franchises to let you play as a boy or a girl. And considering your character is designed to be an avatar for yourself, having that option doubled its potential playerbase. And from a purely self-interest level, the more people playing Pokémon, the more people trading Pokémon. If there had been a female protagonist option and multiple save slots, my experience playing Gale of Darkness would've been radically different. An entire section of the game would've been unlocked. Or at the absolute bare minimum, if group battle had the option to battle against bots, I could've at least used the massive amount of rules to create my own style of Pokémon battling.

    I think it's time for a preachy philosopher's quote:

    "...faced with this world of faithful and complicated objects, the child can only identify himself as an owner, as user, never as creator; he does not invent the world, he uses it..."
    —Roland Barthes, "Toys"​

    Never been a big fan of the source essay, but boy, does that excerpt apply to XD. And looking back at all the other games from my childhood, I was a creator of a lot of things. Around this time, Timesplitters 2's mapmaker was tricking me into learning programming! But XD, as my first impression of console Pokémon RPGs, showed me Pokémon doesn't want you breaking its world. And now, I write fan fiction, because fuck it, Pokémon is mine.


    ★ ★ ★​


    One last thing before we start a game proper. What's in the options menu?

    Options Menu.png

    Nothing! No difficulty settings, no ability to enter cheats, nothing. Imagine cheats codes that let you start with any Pokémon you choose. Imagine the replay value such a simple cheat could've given. Let alone "wacky" cheats that could've fundamentally changed how you play the game. Steal Pokémon from any trainer. God mode. One hitpoint for all. Turn time limits. All Pokémon shiny. No EXP points. Pokémon start with zero loyalty. Teach TMs to anyone. All attacks guaranteed hits. Forced battle types. The lost potential of this options menu is, to me, the biggest black stain against Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness's legacy.

    And now, knowing the context under which this game was created, I think I know why. Pokémon doesn't have cheats because Pokémon has a very delicate trading ecosystem. The Pokémon Company, being the literal Pokémon Company, has a vested interest in protecting that ecosystem. And it seems XD was considered part of that ecosystem. Plus, I'm sure Nintendo didn't mind Group Battle pushing sales of their hardware.

    The cold, clinical Pokémon brand left Genius Sonority with little choice than to make a tightly controlled narrative RPG, with any "extras" neutered. And despite (or perhaps because of) these decisions, Pokémon XD undersold its predecessor, putting Genius Sonority on the path to the chopping block. Genius Sonority shouldn't have been making a Pokémon game, because the Pokémon brand set them up to fail.

    ...so who wants to play Pokémon?

    Next time: We start a new game and stop talking industry politics! Hooray!
     
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    CH2: "Dragon Junior"




  • CH2: "Dragon Junior"


    MATURE Content Warning: My research for a simple fact check uncovers extremely dark, perversive action by localization. I'm talking "doomsday cults" here. That is not a joke. A portion of this chapter gets very dark and very political, and it's timed like a sucker punch. Thus, I've formatted this chapter so all mature content is contained within an entirely skippable spoiler tag. The tag is labeled "MATURE CONTENT"; you do not need to read it if you feel uncomfortable with mature themes.

    We're 6,000 words in and still haven't started story mode. Might as well get on with it.

    ...after a quick* FAHT CHEHK!

    While getting distracted doing research, I found an unverified claim on XD's Tv Tropes page about our protagonist's default name. Apparently, the Japanese first-choice name is meaningful in some way, but the page self-contradicts itself: either his name is a reference to "sacrificial lights placed on an alter to the gods“, or "generic Japanese dragon symbolism", depending on which troper you put stock in.^ Depending on if any of this is true, this may give the English preset name some symbolism.

    So, what exactly is our protagonist's pre-localization name, and does it carry any meaning? If only I had a screenshot of the XD's Japanese character naming screen OH WAIT I DO

    118704

    And now, with the aid of Wikipedia,^^^^^^ plus a second opinion via Jisho search,^^^^^^ I will attempt to butcher translate this name myself! The Snuggles Translation™ of XD's Japanese "canon" name is:

    リ — pronounced "ri"^
    ユ — pronounced "yu"^
    ウ — pronounced "u"^
    ト — pronounced "to"^

    All together now!

    リユウト — pronounced "Ri-yu-u-to"​

    But wait, there's more! This name was written in Katakana, AKA "Japanese westerner/computer alphabet". The government-endorsed Japanese alphabet, Kanji, is huuuuuuuuuuge, with a universal government-issued secondary school benchmark (the jōyō kanji) requiring knowledge of 2,136 letters.^^ This sucks, so you'll often see the much smaller Katakana or Hiragana alphabets used to phonetically imitate Kanji.^ This lets younger audiences who aren't literate in Kanji read text boxes, with the added bonus of XD's Japanese custom name entry screen being less than a jillion pages long. More specifically, it means when you press the X button when typing in a name, you swap between alphabets:

    118705

    118706

    118707

    It also means we can match the phonetic pronunciation of Katakana with the phonetic pronunciation of Kanji. Thus, "リユウト" can be converted into the "official" Japanese alphabet, which uses single letters for what English would call a word. And thus, we can find out リユウト's "words", AKA its literal translation. All I need to do is sift through 2,136 letters.

    ...this might take a bit.


    ★ ★ ★​


    After scouring the Kanji alphabet, I have made a discovery! リユウ, aka "Ri-yu-u", is 竜 in Kanji! And 竜 means "dragon"!^^ Alternate pronunciations include "ryū", which roughly lines up with our Katakana pronunciation.

    Unfortunately, I hit a snag with ト. Wikipedia and Jisho give conflicting answers. ト lines up with either 68 and 73 different Kanji, depending on which source you use.^^ I'm leaning towards Wikipedia as their citations are more transparent and up-to-date, but I could be wrong. Keep that in mind as we go forward.

    For the sake of your time, I'm not going to dissect every possible Kanji interpretation. Nearly all are obviously wrong anyways. So I'm going to just flat-out state what I think is the most plausible Kanji name:

    竜徒, when written in official Kanji
    リユウト, when written in less formal Katakana
    Ryūto, when pronounced
    "Dragon Junior", when translated literally^^^

    Out of all the options, "Dragon Junior" seemed obvious. You're a kid with a team of monsters; "monster" doesn't appear on the secondary school benchmark,^^ so dragon seems like the closest synonym. Plus, Tv Tropes says names starting in Ryu are a trope of Japanese media, for whatever that's worth.^ Also, dragons are cool.

    But there's a snag. Based on the preset names used in the English localization, I think "ryūto" was translated as "ryūtō", which changes its meaning to:

    竜刀, when written in official Kanji
    リユウト, when written in less formal Katakana
    Ryūtō, when pronounced
    "Dragon Sword", when translated literally^^^^

    "Dragon Sword", while I think it's incorrect, is notable for matching both internet rumor and a Shinto myth. Quick crash course: Shintoism is the official unofficial traditional religion of Japan.^^ From what I can tell, its canon is less centralized than Abrahamic religions (AKA Catholicism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc). The most authoritative collection of Shinto beliefs I can find are at minimum over a century old and thus my westerner knowledge will have gaps.^^^^. But from the facts available to me, I think I could find enough information to "close enough" recite the story of one Shinto mythological artifact: the Kusanagi.

    The Kusanagi, sword of Susanoo, first detailed in the historical ("historical") text Kojiki^^, was taken from the body of the dragon Orochi,^^^. The Kusanagi is one of the Three Sacred Treasures, AKA the most holy existing artifacts in Shinto. It is kept in a sealed package whose contents are never seen in public or even accessible to historians,^^^^^ making it difficult to determine if the Kusanagi even exists. But, uh, don't go shouting "your religious beliefs are a lie!". Please.

    Pop quiz! Do you know who else has a divine sword used to slay "the dragon"? Archangel Michael, the Abrahamic God's top general.^

    index.php

    Based on the biblical roots of the other English names (David and Goliath, Adam and Eve), I think localization took some major creative liberties. Instead of "Ryūto“, they heard "Ryūtō". Instead of "Dragon Junior", they localized "Dragon Sword". And instead of Susanoo slaying Orochi, they used Michael slaying Satan.

    For those not caught up on your theology, Revelation 12:7-9 refers to "the dragon" Satan (actual wording) being cast out of Heaven by Archangel Michael's hand.^ However, the idea of a holy sword doesn't appear in King James's text. Instead, it seems to have first appeared in the 1674 poem Paradise Lost, Book 6, lines 320-322.^^ Yes, even the Bible gets fan fiction.

    I am not a fan of this localization.

    The Book of Revelation and especially Paradise Lost are extremely touchy subjects for me. Long story short, there's these sects of Abrahamic religions collectively known as Millennialism, and at their worst they are highly prolific doomsday cults attempting to instigate the rapture.^^^^ Their entire theology is based on six lines of scripture, Revelation 20:1-6^, with the entire rest of the King James Bible ignored or misquoted in favor of biblical fan fiction. And the fact that a Pokémon game chose to lean on Paradise Lost when giving their character a canon English name is an attack against humanity's continued existence, let alone Pokemon's core values. Localization took someone else's art and butchered it.

    Or maybe not. I want to stress I'm an amateur translater who doesn't speak Japanese and doesn't live in Japan. It's possible I made an error, and if so, then "Dragon Sword" may be the actual literal translation. Or perhaps the three biblical heroes in name entry were just coincidence. Stranger things have happened.

    Regardless, I do feel whatever symbolism may or may not be there is at best too cloudy to decipher. There's so many possible meanings, any translation may not convey the original writer's intent. So, uh, faht chehked, I guess. And since we've come so far, why don't we do some localization ourselves?

    For my playthrough, I'm going to name my character by creating a Snuggles Localization™ of 竜徒, aka リユウト, aka Ryūto, aka "Dragon Junior". Partly for the fun of it, but also to show just how difficult, subjective, and important localization is. I promised an XD deep dive; we're diving deep.

    First, we know from the limited jōyō kanji that "dragon" may have been used in place of "monster". But a name that literally means "monster" doesn't strike me as protagonist-y. We could go with something that means "beast tamer", but then we'd lose out on the "kid hero" aspect. Plus, dragons are cool. Dragon's staying in.

    The literal "dragon junior" isn't a plausible name. We can probably rephrase it as "young dragon" without losing any of its meaning. But we still need to make it a plausible name.

    XD takes place in a region inspired by the American Southwest, in particular Arizona.^ That means we can draw from US Social Security Administration data to find a common baby name.^ Pokémon XD was released in late 2005,^ so let's find the most popular baby name of 2005 that references young dragons. Social Security doesn't display names by year in an ordered list, so I used third-party site Behind The Name's list of most popular baby names in 2005,^ fact-checking via Social Security's own website just to be sure.

    So, who's our winner?

    118708

    Translaten' from the bottom, now we're here. While Drake's an uncommon name, it's not unseen in pop culture.^^ And at the time of XD's release, Drake was the 247th most popular baby name in America. For reference, that's two places behind Derrick and five places above Simon.^^ Not common, but nowhere near "your parents suck" level.

    So, after quite the journey, we finally have a name for our playthrough. But before we kick things off proper, there's one last point I want to emphasize: Genius Sonority took time to think about their protagonist's name. Considering that, at the time, Game Freak's protagonists were finally breaking past "named after a color", Genius Sonority's writers were well ahead of the curve. Granted, this is no masterpiece of symbolism, but combine their above-par name with their hive mind's quote about a more "mature" Pokémon world, and I think Genius Sonority's writers want to be taken seriously. They put time and effort into little details, and it'd be a shame if those details were dismissed. For some reason, they cared about this silly little Pokémon RPG. They considered it art. And as a Pokémon fan, I think that deserves respect.

    Next time: we start a new game, I swear!

    118709
     
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    CH3: Everything Is Fine (Part 1)


  • CH3: Everything Is Fine


    Hey-o! As my way of worming around Bulbagarden's attachment limits, I'm separating this chapter into two posts. The second post should be up within minutes.

    Anyways, I was going to spend this chapter analyzing the player avatar's as presented on the character naming screen, but these really persuasive people with pitchforks convinced me to start the damn game already. Here goes!

    Intro Ship Lense Flare.png

    Oh, a boat. I'm sure everything will be fine. Nice lens flare effect, really reminds me of Titanic. That ship did okay, right?

    Serious note; while this game's models are literally ripped from the N64, the particle effects are amazing. I actually have a tiny bit of experience with particle effects in the Unity game engine, but I wouldn't be able to craft a rainbow sun flare like this. I'll touch more on this later when we get into particle effects-heavy battle animations, but for now, know that Genius Sonority has ways of making sub-par models look good. They don't always use them, but they have ways.

    Heli Raid.png


    Oh, look. An air raid. Nothing to be concerned about. Everything is fine.


    Probably A Seagull.png


    Props to the cinematographer for this shot. The scale of our soon-to-be-revealed legendary couldn't be more imposing. Let's see how the crew reacts, shall we?


    Crew Crapping Pants.png


    It appears they have emptied their bowels. This is not the correct course of action.


    Scouter Dude.png
    Lugia Eye Flash.png

    And within a minute, our box art has appeared! And it's tied to a plot-important cutscene! It's like the purple bird on the cover is what people bought the game for.

    Huh. Their eyes flashed red when the pilot's headgear flashed red. No implied meaning there. I'm sure everything is fine.

    Lugia Lifting Ship.png


    Oh, look. Lugia is telepathically lifting the ship out of the water after receiving eye flash fever. Everything is fine.


    Not A Dutch Angle.png


    Everything is fine.


    Well This Sucks.png

    "Hey, uh, captain-"
    "I don't know, either."
    "Oh."

    ...and fade to black! Cutscene over. Let's review, shall we?

    • A large ship is stolen by a villainous organization.
    • Our villainous organization is capable of executing a coordinated operation.
    • They have access to skilled pilots and helicopters.
    • They have mind-controlled a legendary Pokémon.
    • They are willing to strand civilians in the ocean.
    • They can make a beautiful sunset disappear by their mere presence (I watched this cutscene a dozen times for this playthrough, and I didn't notice this until reviewing my screenshots).

    And all this information was given visually, without any voice acting or text boxes, in about 57-seconds of cutscene.

    For those of you unaware, the golden rule of exposition is "Show, Don't Tell". You're usually able to deftly cram lots of information if you show something happening, rather than make characters talk about whatever. That isn't an ironclad rule, but this opening cutscene demonstrates exactly why the rule exists. We, the audience, have been made aware of a serious threat. They are shown ruthless and efficient. And we have several plot threads hooking us in; Lugia's mind control, and the stolen ship. And all of this in under a minute.

    This is possible thanks to XD's pseudo-anime art style. Knock the graphics all you want, but at the end of the day, the artists knew how to handle limited resources. Cartoony eyes and exaggerated proportions show emotion far better than more realistic graphics could. Hence, when we get that wonderful shot of the crew crapping their pants, or their mutual glance as they're stranded in the ocean, we wordlessly know what they're feeling. And both shots combined take under five seconds. I talk about XD being a narrative-focused game; the art style and cinematography is very much part of that.

    Unfortinately, there's one major flaw to discuss. The biggest plot hook introduced by this cutscene is left hanging until the game's last moments. You will not see Lugia again until immediately before the final boss, and when you do, they're a speedbump compared to said boss. Lugia's presence will be teased, but since Lugia's already revealed to the player (they're on the box!), the teasing accomplishes nothing. Lugia is XD's box art hook, and the writers severely underutilized them.

    On the flip side, the characterization given to our obligatory villainous organization is leagues ahead of anything Game Freak's put out, at least at the time of XD's release. And this is just our first encounter. We'll be talking about their continued characterization soon and often.

    But this is just a cutscene. We're playing a game. "Show, Don't Tell" < "Play, Don't Show". We're making good time, but if we don't give the player something to-

    Opening Battle.png

    -and it seems we're immediately dumped into a battle! Less than a minute after confirming our name and we have full control, plus a good deal of exposition under our belts. I'm not going to argue Gale of Darkness is the greatest story ever told, but this opening is fantastic storytelling.

    CONTINUED IN NEXT POST
     
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    CH3: Everything Is Fine (Part 2)


  • CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST

    index.php

    We've been dumped into a Pokémon battle with no context. We got a lot to unpack.

    First, we're playing as us! There's our character model behind Salamence.

    Drake And Salamence.png

    According to the UI, we're commanding a level 50 Salamence. It's a big ol' dragon, and we're fighting in front of a cheering crowd. We ain't no nobodies...right?

    I'm a quitter. What's this GIVE IN?

    Tutorial GIVE IN.png

    And it turns out this battle is an unguided tutorial! We can skip if we wish, or fool around with the battle interface on our own. And since Pokémon's battle system is simple on its face, it isn't overwhelming. There's never more than four choices on screen, which plays into a psychological theory popularly known as either "choice overload" or "choice paralysis".^^

    Long story short, choice paralysis is what happens when there's too many options available, and you gotta pick one. It sucks. Since we don't have time machines, we'll never know if our choice was the best option out of a jillion, which stems both indecision and regret. But this particular battle has been specifically set up to avert this. Besides GIVE IN, both POKéMON (which lets us review our party Pokémon) and BAG (which lets us use special items, such as healing potions) can be explored but not used. And that's because this battle's designer gave us no items and only one Pokémon. In the end, our only option is to FIGHT...

    Tutorial Salamence Moveset.png

    ...which gives us four options to choose from. And our cursor just so happens to default on the best one: Earthquake.

    Tutorial Supereffective Earthquake.png

    A subtle trick, but this doesn't 100% guarantee a new player will select Earthquake. So I did some testing.

    I deliberately battled as poorly as possible, and it took 3 turns before our opponent's Metagross KOs our Salamence. Metagross spammed the same move (Sludge Bomb) over and over; according to Bulbapedia, this is the only move our opponent has.^ But we get first move, which gives us three moves before our time runs out. It's a hidden timer mechanic; question is, what are the odds we lose the tutorial?

    Thanks to the power of starting a new game (did I mention the intro cutscene's under a minute?), I tested a couple different approaches a new player might take to this battle. Here are some of the ways it could play out:

    • They take the subconscious hint and use Earthquake. At the end of turn one, Metagross is below half health. Player decides "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" and uses Earthquake again. Metagross faints. Battle over; player wins.
    • They use Earthquake, but decide to experiment afterwards. They use either Brick Break or Dragon Claw and find themselves dealing significantly less damage. They could theoretically still win the battle if they spam the same move again and damage RNG is kind, but this isn't guaranteed. Dragon Dance, meanwhile, does no damage at all; while our Attack stat is increased, it's not enough to make anything but Earthquake a winning move. They can still get a guaranteed win if they return to Earthquake.
    • The player doesn't take the bait. They use Brick Break or Dragon Claw, they deal significantly less damage than Metagross, indicating they need to change their strategy. If they then use an attack other than Earthquake, they're a dead kid walking. If they use Dragon Dance, they can still win if they then use Earthquake (the Attack boost gives Earthquake just enough juice to clinch it).
    • The player doesn't take the bait. They use Dragon Dance right out the gate. Salamence's attack is boosted; in my testing, Earthquake became very close to being a one-hit KO, letting me finish the battle with any damage-dealing attack.

    And then there's this:

    Tutorial Early Faint.png

    This tutorial battle uses all the mechanics of "real" battles. That includes critical hits, which made Salamence above faint on turn 2. There's also the 30% chance of poison from Metagross's Sludge Bomb^^, which will start slowly ticking away Salamence's health. I encountered this twice during these tests: when poisoned on turn 2, Salamence hung on with a slither of health. If poisoned turn 1, Salamence fainted on turn 2. Unless player spammed Earthquake, battle over; player loses.

    Regardless of the battle result, the plot moves forward the same way besides a few lines of altered text boxes. But depending on how the battle went, they may have encountered any of the following core Pokémon mechanics:

    • Super effective moves v. not very effective moves v. standard effective moves
    • Status-changing moves
    • Critical hits
    • Status effects, particularly poison

    They're also roughly familiar with the battle UI, depending on how many options they explored. The cursor defaults to FIGHT, encouraging them to, well, fight. And I doubt many players would intentionally select GIVE IN. But they might've explored the BAG or POKéMON, depending on their personality.

    All in all, it's a good action opening, albeit risky. Within Pokémon's battle mechanics, there's a lot of ways this tutorial could play out, and I do think the devs could've tweaked the odds in the player's favor some more. Extend the battle a turn, give them more time to experiment. For instance, the move Dragon Dance comes off as useless, since the player doesn't have time to compare pre-buffed Salamence with no-buff Salamence. This could easily lead a player into thinking stat buffs are useless, encouraging the belief "no damage, it's useless". I remember kid me shunning all non-damage dealing moves, especially those that altered stats. I was a dumb kid.

    But something's off. We have been dropped into a battle with no context whatsoever. And that GIVE IN screen told us we're learning the basics of Pokémon battling, even though we seem to already be an experienced trainer. What's going on?

    And the music. Oh, the music.


    We got a nice high-tempo techno-y beat going. Full disclosure: I used to be a drummer before moving into an apartment and trying my hand at synthesizers, and I can break down a beat pretty well. And I can tell from the first four notes that not everything's as it seems.

    For those unfamiliar with a drum kit, those four notes are what's called a straight four using a bass drum. The bass drum's the biggest drum, the one in the center of a drum kit:

    Bass_drum.jpg

    Image source: Wikipedia

    A straight four means four notes evenly timed, one after the other. You use it to show how fast the song's tempo is. Faster tempo, faster (and thus more intense) song. Textbook demonstration: Foo Fighter's "The Pretender", where a beautiful guitar and soft vocals gets a wake-up call around the 0:32 mark:


    Granted, "The Pretender" doesn't jumpstart with a bass drum specifically, but you get the idea. A straight four played on a drum conveys energy, especially when played at a high tempo. And that's exactly how the tutorial battle jumpstarts its own battle theme. Gets the adrenaline pumping, contrasts against the more melancholy orchestra the intro cutscene ended with.

    Except it's not played on a drum, is it? It sounds like a bass drum, but my ears are telling me it's too distorted, like it's being played through an amplifier somehow. It's synthetic. A synthesizer. It's fake.

    Almost all the instruments in this battle theme sound fake. The almost-guitars, the almost-organ, the almost-drums. I think the only real instrument is the bass guitar shred. There's some obvious synthesizers, but there's a lot that eerily straddles the line. This doesn't make it bad; in fact, I think it's spot-on. It's a high-energy battle theme for a fake battle.

    First Battle Victory.png

    Sim Trainer? Why is the screen fading to black?

    I'm sure everything is fine.

    Exiting Tutorial SIM.png

    Next time: we leave the matrix and get schooled!
     
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    CH4: In Which I Spend The Entire Chapter In The Starting Room


  • CH4: In Which I Spend The Entire Chapter In The Starting Room


    So far, my opinion of Genius Sonority has been fairly positive. The parts of the game most likely within their control haven't been flawless, but my revisit has shown they've done a surprisingly good job. My rose-colored glasses have stayed intact.

    For this chapter, the glasses crack. Not completely. But they won't be the same.

    To properly explain this, I'd like to dive into some basic game design before we're welcomed to the Pokémon real world. XD's first hour, I believe, appeals to a completely different audience than the intro cutscene, tutorial, and even the box art and title screen. And this can be quantified via a game design taxonony.

    A game design taxonomy is an method of sorting players into groups. If used well, a taxonomy lets you gauge what your playerbase wants and why. For instance, if you find most of your playerbase enjoys exploring the environment, you could devote studio resourses to creating open-ended environments.

    XD, as I've argued so far, is narrative-driven. Pokémon to catch are found within trainer battles, meaning you can "catch 'em all!" by advancing the rather linear plot. Trading is unlocked after the main game. The actual battling is some of the most refined of the "core mechanic" Pokémon games (you'll see why shortly), but there's only so much you can do within Pokémon's four-moves-per-Pokémon system. Eventually, battles will start to play out the same, and with the collecting and trading aspects of Pokémon diminished, the narrative has to step up. Which is where the taxonomy comes in; by identifying what players your game's attracting, you can fine-tune your game's design for the best possible experience (or, if that'd compromise your designer's vision, redesign your game's image to attract different players).

    To be clear, I do believe XD has the best narrative of any Pokémon game. Or rather, it has the best narrative to suit a particular type of player's tastes. To quote the hive mind:

    "I wanted to create a world that was a little different, a little more grown up than the Pokémon world we’ve known up until now...it might be a little different from the image we have of the Pokémon universe you have now."^
    —Genius Sonority which is apparently a hive mind​

    Whether you think this is a good idea or not depends on personal taste. To me, I'd love a Pokémon game that's less romanticized adventure and more grounded in reality. Problem is, the most popular game design taxonomies don't group players by narrative preference, even though (and this should be obvious) different people like different narratives. After an extensive review of the most popular game design taxonomies out there,^^^^^^^^ I don't believe modern game designers have the research to determine what narratives appeal to what players.

    You probably see where I'm going with this. Humor me as I appease the skeptics.

    Take the game design taxonomy frontrunner, Bartle's Taxonomy.^ Published in 1996, it inspired The Bartle Test, which has been taken over 880,000 times as of July 2015 on just one website.^ The source I'm using eventually took the quiz down, hence the slightly out-of-date statistic. You can still find the quiz online,^ you can still find it cited in research papers,^ you can still find it explained in educational videos.^^ Yet Bartle's Taximony wasn't originally intended to apply to any games besides MUDs (primitive text-based MMORPGs).^ According to the paper, there are four types of players:

    • Achievers: "interested in doing things to the game"
    • Explorers: "interested in having the game surprise them"
    • Socializers: "interested in interacting with other players"
    • Killers: "interested in doing things to people" (actual wording from Bartle's original paper)^

    While an enterprising MUD designer might have use for these categories, Bartle never tested how applicable these categories are to the general population. The Bartle Test (not designed by Bartle)^ ranks each category relative to each other, but it doesn't allow "none of the above" or "not applicable" answers (emphasis mine):

    "The Bartle Test is an online binary-choice questionnaire that players of virtual worlds can take to discover what player type they are. As such, it offers potentially very useful information to designers...Answers to [the Bartle Test's] questions could provide solid figures that would help designers visualize the make-up of the user base they have or they want."
    —Richard A. Bartle, "Designing Virtual Worlds"^

    "Binary choice", in theory, can indeed offer useful information or provide solid figures. But if neither of the answers represent your testees, you're going to get garbage data. They have to pick something; if both options are bad, they're forced to pick a bad option that doesn't represent themselves. For instance:

    Which is more enjoyable to you?
    ▢ Killing a big monster
    ▢ Bragging about it to your friends
    —Question 1 of The Bartle Test^

    My honest answer: none of the above. But the test forces me to pick something, even though I find neither enjoyable. My binary answer doesn't capture my dislike the way, say, a scale of one-to-five would. Hence, the designers are left with misleading data. Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

    So the Bartle Test's a flop. What are the alternatives? The first professional taximony experiment where testees could rate categories on a point scale isn't published until 2004, and of the twelve categories tested, only two ("Background and Setting" and "Use of Humor") could vaguely fall under the umbrella of narrative.

    In researching this chapter, I reviewed nine published papers available through Google Scholar.^^^^^^^^^ I found these papers by first searching "video game taxonomy", reading through the most credible papers I could find, and then investigating references that appeared in multiple papers. Even including papers published after XD's release, I still couldn't find a general taxonomy that tested how relevant certain narrative groupings are. There's no way Genius Sonority could've quantifiably tested narrative. The tools didn't and still don't exist.

    XD's narrative so far has been moderately dark with a dash of "best in the business" wish fulfillment. Prepare for a swerve.


    ★ ★ ★​


    Let's take it from the top. The black screen fades into a high-tech looking room displayed from a slightly angled top-down camera. We're talking to a personal-coach looking dude:

    Leaving SIM.png

    The dialogue implies we have an "aptitude for battling", even if we lose the tutorial. The dialogue ends without the player being given a goal or objective. We're now in full control of our character; the Control Stick, C-Stick, and D-Pad all move our character. There's no jump or sprint, using the sticks lets us move in a full 360° ala later core Pokémon games, and our base speed is rather fast. Drake's got 'dem running shoes.

    Testing all the buttons on our Gamecube controller, we find we can open a menu with either START, Y, or X:

    Menu Screenshot.png

    And out of curiosity, what Pokémon are in the party?

    Eevee!.png

    An adorable level 10 Eevee. Which is not an awesome Level 50 Salamence. While our tutor insists we're quite the battler, we're not as awesome as the tutorial led us to believe. It seems that Drake will indeed start from the bottom.

    From a gameplay standpoint, this makes sense. Handing the player high-level Pokémon right from the start robs them of a large majority of potential content. Evolutions is the obvious angle, but there's also a wide variety of low-power moves that are only viable at lower levels. No Level 50 Pokémon can feasibly use Bullet Seed, Confusion, Sonicboom, etc. Low-level battles have a different dynamic than high-level battles, and so starting from the bottom gives XD more potential variety.

    From a narrative standpoint, we've switched genres entirely. We've gone from high drama to slice of life in the blink of an eye. This isn't necessarily bad — grounding your world by showing everyday life can give perspective when the plot ratchets up, and I personally have a soft spot for "start from the bottom" plots — but the sheer abruptness of this transition feels like a slap in the face. I had a dragon! Did you not read CH2? I literally have "dragon" in my name! Dragons are cool! Where's my dragon, damnit?

    For the record, this could've easily been solved with a simple text box before the tutorial started:

    "All right, [player name]! I'll give you a big one! Booting up SIM!"

    There. Now the player's expectations have been calibrated. The coolness factor has diminished slightly (your don't actually have a Salamence), but your avatar still demonstrates they have skills. Maybe the devs could've secretly rigged the tutorial more in our favor, add a throwaway line that implies we've been practicing nonstop. But enough criticism for now. Let's press some buttons.

    As you might expect fron an RPG, the A button talks/interacts/examines/etc. Apart from walking around and opening your menu, these are the only controls in this exploration segment. If you blindly pressed buttons, you'd have the gist of things within the minute.

    Except not.

    Talk to the engineer. He'll spout some flavor text about how hard it is to do his job. Talk to him again, he repeats his dialogue. A rule has been established; talking to people more than once just repeats dialogue. Makes sense for an RPG, right?

    Talk to the coach once. He'll give you some praise. Then, talk to him again:

    Train Using Battle SIM.png

    Why, what is this?

    SIM Training List.png

    XD has already broken its unspoken rules. Talk to the engineer multiple times, and you'll have a justified reason to not talk to the coach more than once. Which means you're going to miss out on twelve learn-by-doing tutorials that are actually interesting, informative, and (dare I say it) fun battle scenarios.

    I won't go into each of these tutorials in detail, as they're all set up similarly to the intro battle. All the standard rules of Pokémon battles apply, with only the Pokémon, battle type, and occasionally the items changing. Besides a title and a one-to-two sentence summary, you go into each battle completely blind, only getting hints if you lose the tutorial. And it is very possible to lose these tutorials.

    For instance, take "Move Types And Pokémon Types":

    Pokemon Moves Tutorial.png

    Extremely simple setup. No items, one Pokémon, two moves. Neither move is super effective, while your opponent's only move (Brick Break) will make Rattata faint after two turns. We have first move regardless of what we pick. According to our POKéMON screen's summary of Rattata, Quick Attack has a power rating of 40, while Thunderbolt has a power rating of 95. Therefore, Thunderbolt should do much more damage than Quick Attack, right?

    Not so fast. For one thing, Rattata has a high Attack (boosting Quick Attack's damage) but very low Special Attack (lowering Thunderbolt's damage):

    SIM Rattata's Stats.png

    But even then, Quick Attack is doing significantly more damage than Thunderbolt. In fact, the only way to reliably win the battle (assuming no critical hits) is to use Quick Attack twice in a row. And that's because:

    Pokemon Moves Coach's Advice.png

    Or, as Bulbapedia calls it, Same Type Attack Bonus (STAB).^ What a cool bonus! And its been in the Pokémon games since Gen 1 without ever being explained. Or at least, not until XD.

    These tutorials teach actual tactics. They explain the more obscure mechanics of Pokémon and show you how to use them yourself. They are designed to break Pokémon gaming complacency, where you just use the one most powerful move on your overleveled Pokémon. And in doing that, they encourage a much funner way to play, where you have multiple tactics available each with their advantages and disadvantages.

    And to access them, you have to overcome a poorly-designed starting room. XD, you're going to be an interesting one, aren't you?

    Next time: all about dat level design!
     
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    CH5: Herpity Derp


  • CH5: Herpity Derp

    Today, we're shifting gears. I'm going to be focusing exclusively on level design. More specifically, I'm going to be breaking down the design of our starting level: the Pokémon HQ Lab (the place we're at now).

    HQ Lab Exterior.png

    Exterior view if the Pokémon HQ Lab. Image source: Bulbapedia

    But before we even pick up the controller, we need to determine what makes a good Pokémon level. We aren't worrying about battles yet; we're entirely focused on the exploration phase. Surely it can't matter too much, right? We're just walking around via the control stick and occasionally talking/interacting with the A button. The game's playerbase isn't that stupid.

    Unfortunately, they are. And that's because they're dumb kids who might never have played a 3D RPG before. For some, this might be their first Pokémon game. For some, this might be their first video game, period. As has been helpfully uncovered in conjunction with commenters, a special edition Pokémon: XD/Gamecube bundle was sold on store shelves.^ While released late into the console's life cycle, that also meant a wonderfully cheap $99.99 US price tag. If you're a parent in a lower income bracket looking to get your kid their first console, XD may very well have been their first game. I don't have sales figures for that specific variant of the Gamecube, but the mere fact it exists means we have to consider first-time players — and, since this is Pokémon, returning series vets.

    With this in mind, let's set two simple ground rules:

    • Completely green players should be informed how they can interact with the world.
    • Series vets shouldn't have their intelligence insulted.

    I shouldn't need to tell you these rules often butt heads with each other. But Genius Sonority's hands off approach lets them avoid nagging tutorials, while (in theory) letting new players learn through experimentation. The trick is to give those new players a good environment to experiment. Or rather, a good level to experiment.

    Replaying this game, it seems the Pokémon HQ Lab is a decent testing environment. Not great, not bad, but not quite good.

    I'll break it down further. If we're teaching-by-doing, then we can expect the player to be using some form of the scientific method. For those unfamiliar, the scientific method is the most basic form of "logical thinking"; I learned it multiple times while going through public schooling, so I feel pretty confident boiling it down:
    1. Observation. The player receives information about the environment. This can be done explicitly ("press A to interact!") or implicitly; for instance, highlighting interactive objects or making them visually stand out.
    2. Hypothesis. The player processes the information and forms, well, a hypothesis. For instance, the A button is the biggest button on the controller; there must be some use for it.
    3. Experiment. The player tests their hypothesis. For instance, they might wander the room pressing A on everything, trying to determine what's interactive.

    And repeat. The player observes their experiment's results, uses those results to form new hypotheses, performs more experiments, and so on. It's a simple model, but it helps us track what typical players are thinking.

    Unfortunately, we've already stumbled across our first scientific "false positive"; the engineer and the coach's dialogue. If the player's hypothesis is "what would happen if I talk to the same person twice?", observing the engineer leads them to conclude "they just spout the same dialogue over and over". This isn't true, but it's a tested belief the player has no reason to doubt. After all, if an NPC had more to say, why do the text boxes stop? We've regained movement of our character; clearly, the game's expecting us to move on, right?

    We don't have to walk far before encountering our next dilemma. How do you open the door?

    Training Room Opened Door.png

    This one stumped kid me (I was a dumb kid). Genius Sonority, to its credit, helpfully placed mats under the door to distinguish doors from the scenery. But stand on the mat and press A, and the door stays shut. And that's because you open doors by ramming them with your face.

    Granted, this is how you open doors in the at-the-time 2D Pokémon games. However, those games used tilemaped movement via D-Pad; assuming you're not using the D-Pad to move (why would you do that?), your movement will be far more responsive. And thus, far less accidentally-bumping-into-walls-y. You're less likely to "overshoot" than in the core series, which Genius Sonority kinda-not-really addressed by placing mats under these doors.

    I will give them credit; the camera operator knows what he's doing (I checked his name in the credits, he is indeed a singular he, and I'll definitely be talking about him later). Unless the door was locked, the only interior doors in the core series were clearly-defined elevator doors and floormats indicating exits. Entering a building from the back was a secret; for instance, the back stairway in Celadon Condominiums:
    Celadon_Mansion_1F_FRLG.png

    Image source: Bulbapedia

    Opening a door from behind is an entirely new concept for series vets. I don't blame kid me for not rubbing my avatar's junk against the doorframe. But I was a dumb kid, and it seems the slight camera tilt clearly shows the literally-has-arrows mat under the door. I bet the average player won't have much trouble with the door.

    What they might have trouble with is the elevator.

    Entering Tube Elevator.png

    Yes, that test-tube looking thing is actually an elevator. A singular glass panel slides open, player walks inside, they're taken to another floor. So this level has standard doors with slots in the middle and elevator doors with no slots. Just like the opposite of real life! And who needs helpful floor mats, am I right?

    In due credit, it seems Genius Sonority knows and exploits their alien elevator design. By obscuring the elevator, we're left with exploring the two other rooms in this screen. And exploring both is a good idea for new players.

    Screen A.png

    Image source: Bulbapedia

    (Side note: these Bulbapedia pics misplace some NPCs. Don't hold them in high regard.)

    Let's break this down, room by room. Lower left: a "trainer's school" style whiteboard, where the basic battling mechanics are explicitly stated. Talking to an NPC in the room encourages us to "look at" (translation: press A on) the whiteboard, and it works!

    Whiteboard Topics.png

    Nothing earth-shattering here, but it's entirely skippable and placed at the start of the game. For those ten people that like tutorials as reading assignments, here you go. But more importantly, this whiteboard teaches us that certain objects in the environment can be interacted with. Useful knowledge indeed.

    Upper left: the plot! But I'm going off-the-rails here. We'll ignore the plot for now and come back to it later; this chapter's about level design, not gosh-stinking-darn narrative, darn it!

    Or is it?

    There is an upside to this drop-the-player-in no-context level design. In case the full-body no-headset VR and pneumatic tube elevator didn 't clue you in, we are in a fantastic environment. Some of the most basic conventions of modern life (in this case, how doors work) don't apply. And while adapting to this environment has been a clumsy affair, I do feel like I'm in another world. The serious game designer might call this "environmental storytelling",^ where the level design itself is part of the narrative; in this case, worldbuilding. This will not be an isolated incident.

    I'll summarize the plot cutscene because it's necessary but boring. Nostalgia glasses off, the dialogue here is stiff. As in "writing 'Hahaha' in a text box" stiff.

    HAHAHA in a Text Box.png

    Yeah. The effect doesn't exactly translate. Anyways, after witnessing some back-and-forth dialogue about stuff we don't care about from characters we don't care about, we learn our avatar's family lives at the lab. Our mother, Lily, wants us to find our younger sister, who is playing hide-and-seek. Meanwhile, the lab director, Professor Krane, left us a gift in our room because reasons. No characters are developed in any emotionally-resonant way (I guess Lily is a professional scientist?), and our objectives are hide-and-seek and picking up a present. Riveting.

    Oh, and there's this:

    Fake Choice Number 1.png

    Try answering "NO". You get stuck in an infinite loop until you say "YES". It's an illusion of choice, and just like a magician botching a trick, it calls attention to how artificial the illusion is. At the very least, allow the player to say no, exit the conversation, and explore the lab before returning to say "YES". Then the player realises on their own time they need to say "YES" if they want to get anywhere. It's still an illusion, but at least the "YES"/"NO" has some consequence.

    So far, things aren't looking good for XD's narrative. There is, however, one character detail I'd like to point out. And it's found in flavor text, delivered by an old man wandering the hallway immediately outside SIM training:

    Father Comment.png

    And then this no-name NPC backpedals, apologizes for mentioning our father, and the conversation ends. So apparently our father is MIA, possibly KIA, and a taboo subject. That's a detail that might inform our family's characterization, don't you think? Our mother at the very least losing a source of income?

    LILY: "DRAKE, I think you already know, but several research projects are in their critical phases in this LAB. That's why your mother can't afford to take any time off right this instant."

    Not only does this make our mother a more sympathetic character, but her stiff dialogue loosens up via subtext. Father's gone, mother needs to work overtime and she needs to explain why she can't be around. We are the load-bearing sibling; we have to step up and become self-sufficient early so we can help our family. It's a family dynamic that plants the seeds for our avatar's later independent adventures. And all this subtext would be missed if you didn't talk to a random NPC in the hallway. I can't criticize XD for having half-baked themes (yet), but this opening's presentation is plain baffling.

    Now, before we use our super-secret elevator know-how, there's one more door to explore. It's on the far end of the upper-left plot office, and it leads to our first new screen!

    Screen B.png

    image source: Bulbapedia

    Based on the mats with literal arrows, I'm assuming this screen is the intended path for bumbling-around players. For now, we can safely ignore the NPCs in the upper-right office and lower-left living quarters. But walk into the upper-left lounge and the camera zooms in on the TV:

    TV Report Missing Ship.png

    And the opening cutscene finally gets referenced! It seems we're currently an unaware bystander of a much cooler story happening in the background. I'm sure that's what players want out of a Pokémon adventure, right?

    Snark aside, this room is a major storytelling misstep. While I understand anyone with basic knowledge of storytelling knows the villainous organization will eventually appear, "eventually" isn't "now". "Eventually" means hide-and-seek, and hide-and-seek < airlifting ships by mind-controlling legendary monsters.

    And we need to talk about the music.



    Herp, de derp, de derp, de derp, de derpity derpity durp!

    This is the type of song that isn't trying. And that's probably the point; it's trying to project a carefree feel. Trying to not try, if you will. Childish instrument selection (high-pitched piano, that flute you learned in 3rd grade music class, fart-noise brass), random riffs that don't really connect ala a jam session, the simplest drum beats that struggle to follow the greater composition because it's all so loose it barely has structure. This song is about not having a care in the world, because everything's swell and no one has problems. You know, maturity.

    Oh, almost forgot. Remember those two sailors stuck in the ocean? According to the news, nothing's been found of the ship despite extensive search and rescue.

    They're dead.

    ...Herp, de derp, de derp, de derp, de derpity derpity durp!


    ★ ★ ★​


    XD has a slow start. I can't defend this; the designers screwed up in three major ways:
    1. They gave the player busywork objectives that have nothing to do with the greater plot.
    2. They failed to reliably communicate their characters' roles and personalities.
    3. They failed to tie the player to the much cooler overarching plot.

    This will eventually change:

    270px-XD_Michael.png

    Image source: Bulbapedia.

    That's a bionic arm you'll get about an hour in. That's both cool and plot important, as we'll find out eventually. Which is why your absolute first busywork objective should've been "retrieve bionic arm". It's in a case downstairs, it's a project of the lab, I'm sure the devs could've made some excuse. Testing the ergonomics or something.

    Second, we need to be developing characters. And I think tying a major NPC to the stolen ship can kill two birds with one stone. Move the lounge to the open area below the SIM training room, so the player immediately learns their place in the world as soon as they're done training. But instead of making the ship-napping unrelated to anything, use it to develop a character. The ship's said to have primarily been carrying Pokémon; perhaps a Pokémon belonging to your mother was aboard that ship, and she's putting on a tough act while actually distraught? Then, you doing her favors while you're wearing your cool bionic arm has some emotional weight. Slip in an accidental mention of father by Old Man Loose Lips and you have strong foundations to start exploring the world.

    And screw this music. The Pokémon HQ Lab has an alternate theme that kicks in once the plot ratchets up:



    Maybe use your happy-go-lucky music for a second, but once the player enters the lounge and personal stakes are revealed, use the alternate theme. Perhaps pair it with a sad song as characters mull over the ship's possibilities, before realising the player walked in the room and put on stiff upper lips. Place Professor Krane and Lily in the room, so you have a moment to witness your mother not acting for the children. The plot can then be mostly the same, but with more coolness factor and greater emotional gravity.

    You know what? In an RPG, everything is level design.

    Next time: we rush through this opening so I don't have to talk about it anymore!
     
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    CH6: I Get Feels (Part 1)


  • CH6: I Get Feels

    Heads up: this chapter's another two parter! Look out for a post coming right after this one.

    Between this chapter and the last, I set up an experiment. I saved the game like this:

    Save Test.png

    The doors above and to the right are open, while the door on the lower left is shut. Meanwhile, my character is facing the wall with the tiniest tilt upwards.

    Let's load that saved game, shall we?

    Save Test.png

    It seems the game has saved my exact position and rotation in 3D space, as well as which specific doors I've opened. Now, if I may quote one of my commenters because I'm lazy and outsource research:

    Fun fact I found about the GameCube's memory cards: the 59-block size is equivalent to about 512 KB of space. Divided by 59 blocks, this equals 8.6779661, which is very close to a common computer block size of 8 KB, so essentially: 1 GameCube block = 8 KB. That means that 43 blocks, multiplied by 8 KB, equals a roughly 344 KB save file size for Pokémon XD.

    Now, that may not seem too unrealistic at first. That is, until you look at the save file space reserved for Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire on the GBA, which is 128 KB, or almost one-third of XD's save file size. But wait... it gets even better! Ruby and Sapphire's save file itself is actually half of that — or 64 KB — because there are two save files stored in that 128 KB reserved space: a main and a backup (in case, say, the power shuts off in the middle of a save for some reason, or if you simply have bad luck one day). So ultimately, depending on whether or not XD's save system has a similar backup feature (which, if I had to guess based the little information I found on the subject, it doesn't seem to), that means that XD's save files are anywhere between 2.7x and 5.4x (!!!) as large as the closest equivalent Pokémon game. You have to wonder what Genius Sonority was doing with all of that space...

    Full disclosure: I haven't independently tested InfiniteBakuphoon's claims. Regardless, I have done some research, and Pokémon: XD's file size is unusually large amongst the Gamecube library. Prohibitly large, even. Gamecube memory cards came in three sizes: 59-block, 251-block, and 1019-block.^^ That means the smallest memory card can't hold more than one XD save at a time. While you could blame this on Nintendo releasing a prohibitively small memory card, I found a circa 2004 list of popular Gamecube titles and their save file requirements.^ While I couldn't independently verify every title, I can confirm it's accurate for Mario Party 6, Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, and Pokémon: Colosseum. They also line up with my childhood memories, which happen to be stored on my childhood memory cards:


    Childhood Memories.png


    Yes, these are the memory cards from my childhood. Apparently, you could get a 251-block card for $17 US and change. And yes, that card with the banged-up end still works. I made waaaay too many Timesplitters 2 maps.

    However, as evidenced by that price sticker, 251-block cards were sold as accessories.^ I couldn't confirm this via the google, but kid me distinctly remembers the 59-block card coming with the family Gamecube. I'm sure there were different packages that offered different card sizes, but I was stuck with the cheapo card until I got an upgrade. It sucked, which is why I upgraded (read: begged my parents). And never removed the sticker, apparently.

    Back on topic. The median save block size for a Gamecube game seems to sit somewhere in the single digits. A single "fresh" save game of Pokémon XD: Gales of Darkness takes 43 blocks. And if my little experiment tells me anything, it's that those 43 blocks aren't the result of shoddy programming. Rather, by virtue of making a 3D Pokémon adventure, Genius Sonority had much more information they needed to store.

    Let me get technical, then I'll dumb it down. When it comes to the pre-3D Pokémon games, saving a player's coordinates was relatively easy. Players walked along tiles and could only face four directions; save an index number of the screen they're on (Littleroot Town might be 1, Route 101 might be 2, etc), and then save the X and Y coordinates of whatever tile they're standing on. Maybe save their rotational value if you're feeling fancy; there's only four possibilities, you can hypothetically save it using only two bits of data (00 for north, 01 for east, 11 for south, 10 for west).

    If I've lost you with tech talk, don't worry; the specifics don't matter much. The point is that saving position and rotation is easier when you're not programming for an analog stick. For rotation alone, if they're using the full 360° of the analog stick, then that's 360 different ways the player can face. That's ninety times the amount of data they'd need to track, at least for this one variable.

    I also feel compelled to point out Pokémon: XD is a big game. There are a lot of triggers the player may or may not have activated, regardless of story progression. And once you reach a certain point in the game, there are multiple new mechanics that require tracking the player's steps. There are tricks to reduce file size; for instance, saving player's approximate rotation and position (rounding rotation to the nearest 5th degree, rounding the player's coordinates to I-don't-know-how-XD-handles-coordinates). But considering just how many variables need to be tracked per Pokémon (current health, stats, nature, friendship, status effect, etc), I have a hard time expecting a smaller file.

    You may notice I've yet to play the game this chapter. That's because we're in a slow burn without the burn, and I'm procrastinating. I should probably start playing now. I didn't need to type this sentence. I did it anyways. I should probably start playing now.

    For those just tuning in, I've been pessimistic about XD's opening to the point of sarcasm. There are seeds being planted for a greater plot, but we got some time before we get there. I mean, it's CH6 and I'm on the second screen of the game. My pace ain't been brisk.

    However, I see what XD's trying to do. Our current busywork tasks are the developers trying to ground us in the world. They're trying to give a picture of everyday life, so we have perspective when the plot kicks up. I do think they could've given this perspective much better, but I'm willing to bite the bullet and play along.

    To recap, our objectives are to pick up a present from our room and find our younger sister, Jovi. As far as we know, she's just wandered off somewhere while our avatar's mother Lily was busy working; apparently, we're the mature sibling, so we're reluctantly expected to handle sister-sitting. Remember: Old Man Loose Lips informed us father is a taboo subject, so we can't expect him to be pitching in anytime soon. We might be a kid, but we're the trustworthy sibling. Not 100% independent, but more than your average ambiguously-aged avatar of ambiguous japanese/european descent.

    And as it so happens, the elevator next to the TV room leads to our room.

    HQ Lab Bedrooms.png

    Our room's all the way on the left. There's a few NPCs to talk to, none of which say anything noteworthy. Let's pick up our present.

    Entering Our Room.png

    Hey, that's not fair! Daaaaad-oh. And Mom's busy with work. We might be playing as a kid, but playing through this as an adult is giving me...

    ...feels? I'm getting feels? I sympathize with my avatar, and maybe even his mother and sister? Like, this is an unfair situation they've found themselves in; the mother's working all the time, the older brother needs to grow up fast, and early signs point to an unusually immature younger sister. This isn't a plot point or anything, but the missing father seems to have really been thought through. I mean, Genius Sonority shouldn't have made Old Man Loose Lips skippable info, but having talked to that one NPC has transformed how I view these opening moments. I bet the subtext would be lost on younger players or those trained to ignore Pokémon NPCs, but as an adult, I'm picking up the small hints I never would've noticed.

    I wonder if it's too subtle. The awkward family dynamic's definitely in play, but I also have future plot knowledge. I know our avatar's destined for greater things at a young age, he helps his mother keep tabs on the younger sister, I can infer from his SIM training that he's striving to have more power (or rather, control more power). He seems to be just as aware of the family dynamic as his mother, and he's doing his best to pitch in and maybe pursue a career of his own. But I only know this because of course we become the hero, it's our Pokémon adventure (eventually), this is how tropes work. But a younger player not that familiar with storytelling conventions? I know kid me didn't pick up on this; I wonder if others-

    Oooh Shiny!.png

    Our present! Ooh, shiny! Thank you for implying we should interact with shiny objects, text box!

    And it's a P★DA! It's a ★, but in a PDA! You know, those things people use to send messages and won't become immediately outdated when smartphones arrive? Do you younger folks in the audience even know what a PDA is? When I was a kid, Pokémon was in black and white! Get off my lawn!

    Though, to its credit, the P★DA's disc design still looks high-tech:

    PDA Main Manu.png

    This here screen is the P★DA's "main menu". It functions like the Trainer Card screen in Game Freak's games, while also giving access to two (eventually four) subfeatures. E-mail is just NPCs sending us text boxes with no back-and-forth, which might be the least intrusive means of remote plot exposition. But the real standout is the Strategy Memo.

    Strategy Memo, in brief, is a super-Pokédex. While you don't get flavor text for each Pokémon (and knowing how unreliable Game Freak's Pokédex is, that might be a good thing), you do get full data on every Pokémon you've seen in battle. And by full data, I mean type, abilities, cries, height and weight, a 3D portrait you can freely rotate and zoom as they perform their idle animation, a full type effectiveness chart showing which move types are super effective/not very effective/immune, and my personal favorite: a 3D height comparison to your avatar.

    Eevee Height Comparison.png

    I have a feeling the numerical height and weight are lies, but I don't need numbers ripped from Game Freak's perpetually-confused Pokédex when I can just compare Pokémon to my avatar. If you ever wanted to measure up Tyranitar to a puny human, now you can. Pokémon finally have a definitive sense of scale thanks to this throw-it-in feature. It might be the closest Pokémon looked to being "real" until Pokémon GO. My childhood imagination loved it. I still love it.

    Oh, and the conspicuous red and white box in our room is a chest. Interact with it, and you obtain there potions. Pokémon first aid sprays, not magic potions. I think it's a holdover from Pokemon's RPG roots, as healing potions were well established in the genre and naming your healing item anything else would've caused confusion. I'm sure someone who cares can provide more information. I don't.

    So having looted our room, that's objective #1 complete. And our e-mail's telling us our Jovi was last seen playing hide-and-seek with some dude named Adon upstairs. I actually talked to Adon on the way down; he's dressed somewhat kiddish and talks like he's ten, but he's the size of a full-grown man. As far as I remember, this never gets explained. Okay then.

    However, before we progress the plot, let's finishing exploring the lab. Walk down on the doorless door mat, and you find yourself outside:

    Exiting Dorm.png

    For the record, I really like the broad-strokes design of this building. Not because it's pretty or anything, but because it makes sense. This side door leads to a more residential wing with bedrooms and break rooms, while the main entrance leads to workstations and offices. You can cut through the two wings through the door in the director's office, but considering it leads to a bedroom office I'm guessing it's not encouraged. Would come in handy if there's a fire or something. And again, it seems Genius Sonority has thought through their world, making the level feel like it could actually function as a lab. Great for immersion, but they really needed to put some arrows on the elevators. If new players can get confused, then so can new hires. Though this cylinder elevator style is common throughout the region, so eh.

    As usual, it seems every NPC wants to talk boring basic Pokémon facts or our missing sister. I found a chest behind the building with Poké-poison antidotes. This screen's boring; moving on.

    HQ Lab Reception.png

    And the room on the right has our first working PCs and Pokémon Healing Machines. But more importantly, we have some loose lipped scientists...

    We're in the midst of developing a system to purify SHADOW POKéMON. "Purify" is the term we use to describe the process in which a SHADOW POKéMON's closed heart is made to open back up again to its natural state. You see, five years ago, criminals used artificial means to close the hearts of POKéMON, turning them into fighting machines. We're developing this system to save such afflicted POKéMON. We call this system the PURIFY CHAMBER. It's not necessary in today's peaceful times, but one never knows what will happen.

    Hi, DRAKE! The PURIFY CHAMBER is almost ready. But I don't get it. There's no need to purify POKéMON now. I wonder why PROF. KRANE and LILY are in such a hurry to get the PURIFY CHAMBER finished?

    Canvassing the NPCs just dumped a pile of exposition on our lap. Let's go through this point by point.
    1. "Close their hearts"? LOLOLOLOLOLOL oh you're serious. Are you, uh, sure you're a professional scientist? Because I'm pretty sure that's not how hearts wor-oooooh it's a euphemism for brainwashing. Forgot, game's rated E. Carry on.
    2. Remember that boring cutscene in the plot office? Lily danced around the projects "the lab" was working on. And Professor Krane was in the room, and he didn't say zip. Perhaps they know more than they're letting on...and we're stuck doing busywork...AAAAAAA
    3. The receptionist is not impressed.

    Receptionist Sleeps.png

    Apparently, the lab doesn't get a lot of visitors. Though they do offer tours; wake the receptionist up, and they immediately start babbling brochure speak, before recognizing our face and calming down. Leave the screen and come back, and the receptionist's asleep again. That's the level of dialogue kid me remembers, probably because all the other dialogue is bland as tofu.

    The lab needs more NPCs like this. I skipped over them for the sake of brevity, but every NPC has either nothing important to say or bland tell-don't-show delivery. More NPCs need to be like the receptionist; not explicitly stating exposition, but still delivering it through small moments. Less NPCs asking where my sister is, more people working or gossiping. You know, like normal human beings. Perhaps an NPC says something embarrassing and asks you not to mention it again, or one of the scientists says they're hard at work yet clearly isn't doing anything. As it stands, the dialogue so far has been mostly information we already know or isn't important, delivered as dryly as possible. The Pokémon HQ Lab needs more Receptionist Sleeps and Old Man Loose Lips.

    And that's the last screen of the Pokémon HQ Lab! The elevator in the back leads us to the starting screen. Which means it's finally time to get on with the plot. Let's talk to...Adon.

    Oh, boy.

    CONTINUED IN NEXT POST
     
    CH6: I Get Feels (Part 2)


  • CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST

    Adon.png

    Hello, Adon. I, uh, heard you're playing hide and seek? I mean, you're clearly the size of a full grown adult. In fact, the scientists in the break room seem a little smaller that you. But that's fine. No implications there.

    So, uh, do you know where my sister is?

    World Map Reveal.png

    Hey, a world map! Thanks, dude! You, uh, take care now. Have fun. Don't, uh, nevermind.

    Okay, that was needlessly awkward. Even kid me was bright enough to realize something's up, and I was a dumb kid. Adon's able to handle conversation, so I don't think he's low-functioning autistic or clinically retarded. But he is awfully slow on the upkeep, doesn't have a job, and plays with children half his age. There's clearly something going on that isn't being acknowledged.

    And honestly? If Adon was confirmed "slow", I wouldn't have a problem with the representation. Again, Old Man Loose Lips informed us our avatar's family has no father. Adon is, in part, keeping the younger sibling entertained while our Mother works. In fact, once our adventuring kicks into high gear, Adon is the one who keeps our sister Jovi occupied. This family dynamic only works because Adon's volunteering his time, and some acknowledgement of a disability would A) kill the creepy "hangs out with underage girls" vibe, and B) make Adon a more sympathetic character. He isn't plot important in any direct way, but he is the reason our kid hero gets to be a hero.

    Anyways, our sister Jovi has left the premises entirely to go explore some doctor's manor. Which means it's time to head outside, take any path away from the lab to access the world map, and choose a destination-

    Challenge to Real Battle.png

    Uh, this was not the flavorless flavor text you had earlier. I mean, I guess-

    First Real Battle Overview.png

    Well, okay then! I guess we're battling! And we have a new battle theme!



    Hey, this theme isn't as bad as I remember! I mean, the lead guitar riff is kinda weak, but the percussion's surprisingly tight and lively. More organized and complex than any jam session. The production's solid, no instrument is drowned out. And it has a higher tempo than I remember, or at least, the rapid start-stop drum beat gives the illusion of a higher tempo.

    I dunno, though. This is clearly trying to be both high-energy and laid-back, like a joyride in a supercar. And I've heard this done better:



    Who says metal can't be fun? I think XD's trying to go that route, but the guitar's just too slow. I think the composition would've been better if the percussion was simplified, still start-and-stop, but not so prominent. Then, let the lead guitar loose. Make the lead guitar the song. A ramp-up intro, a fast-and-furious rhythm, a few solos interspersed to add variety, maybe get creative and give a different instrument a solo. Still loose and fun, but fast and high-energy. As it stands, XD's casual battle theme is above RPG par, but also overshadowed by songs doing exactly the same thing.

    Anyways, the battle. Show me that screenshot again?

    First Real Battle Overview.png

    Well, that's different. GIVE UP is gone; it's been replaced by CALL, which is pretty vague. Considering our opponent's half our level, I think we have time to experiment. What's CALL?

    Calling Eevee.png

    Oh, uh, apparently we just yell at our Pokémon. Eevee's accuracy rose. Not all that important right now, but I guess it might be useful?

    Okay, yes, CALL does more than raise accuracy. For one, it awakens sleeping Pokémon. Yes, you can yell at your Pokémon to wake the fudge up. And secondly, once we start encountering Shadow Pokémon, calling a Shadow Pokémon at the right time can help them snap back to their senses. I'll get more into it once we cross that bridge; for now, we got a Sentret to curb-stomp.

    Sentret Fainted.png

    Yeah, no contest. We're definitely still in training wheels mode. But it's a nice change of pace from the lukewarm opening level, and we are gaining very real experience points. The adventure's technically on, it's just starting slow. Hard to fault the designer now there's a lose condition in play. And behind the curtain, this was an optional battle I agreed to.

    Anyways, we have a sister to retrieve. To the world map!

    Kaminko Manor World Map.png

    "Eccentric scientist" Dr. Kaminko? And our sister was last seen heading there, alone?

    I'm sure everything is fine. Anyways, the music:



    This, no sarcasm, is the worst song so far. And that's not because it sounds bad, or doesn't fit the current tone. It's because it's boring. It has no personality.

    For all the music I've talked about in the past, I've identified an intended emotional response. The title screen orchestra was ominous and powerful. The SIM battle theme was high-energy and synthetic. The Pokémon HQ Lab was carefree happy-go-lucky. The casual battle theme was carefree but high energy. And the world map? We have a horn section, a cymbal that's barely utilized, and a snare drum. Or rather, the most generic adventure-sounding instruments possible.

    I think this theme warrants special attention, because while it's only heard in short bursts (hence the short loop), it's something players hear every time they travel between destinations. And rough estimate, that's going to be upwards of a hundred listens over the course of the entire game, probably by a wide margin. This theme may be short, it only has time for a few bars of music, but it's placed in the most prominent position of any of XD's songs. The title theme was the first opportunity to establish this game's tone, and while it missed, it at least had personality. The world map theme? You could slap this on any RPG.

    Let me explain in detail. First off, the horns. I think horns were a good choice; they invoke bigness, fantasy, adventure. Think of medieval trumpets introducing a king, or that Frank Sinatra-style big band music. A horn section announces the presence of something with a lot of weight to it, because having access to a horn section literally requires weighty pull. Orchestras don't come cheap.

    The problem is the sheet music. The horn section, being far weightier than the single snare drum, are clearly the lead instrument. But the arrangement, the actual sequence of notes they play, means nothing. It's not building up, it's not particularly fast or slow, there's little variation in volume. There is no contrast, no variation; the horns are just there, playing notes. And without that contrast, the horns are just horns. They convey bigness and nothing else.

    As for the snare drum? Again, I used to be a drummer, and I can say from personal experience the snare is the most versatile drum on the kit. What separates the snare drum from all the others are strings of metal balls along the bottom of the drum (the "snares"). This gives it a distinctive rattly sound which can be manipulated in a lot of ways.

    But a lone snare drum not attached to a kit? That's a marching band drum. Like these:

    Marching_snares.jpg

    Image source: Wikipedia

    I think this song's snare drum is trying to evoke the military snare drum. You know, those drum beats that keep everyone stepping in rhythm. Snare drums are still used for military ceremonies, because snare drums stir up the martial side of people. And if I may reuse an example:



    "The Pretender“ is a song about the world being a lie, the singer being angry, and they're doing something. It is aggressive, it is martial. And it kicks off with a snare drum.

    But there's a catch. The reason I'm referencing "The Pretender" again isn't just the snare. It's the contrast. The snare comes out of nowhere, smacking you in the face as electric guitars start blaring and the tempo shifts into high gear. And that arrangement fits with the song; the first few moments are quiet, subdued. They are pretend. Once the snare drum hits and the martial stir starts, no one's pretending anymore. The arrangement of notes fits with the song's central theme, while XD's world map theme has no theme, no personality.

    Which leads me to the one central question of this entire analysis: what is Gale of Darkness's theme? What is its personality, its style? Is it really just "generic kid's adventure", or is there something more? We got a lot of game ahead of us; I want to find it.

    Next time: more localization crap! I don't like it, either! Just give me my bionic arm, please!
     
    Reader FAHT CHEHK #1: Father's Eevee


  • Reader FAHT CHEHK #1:
    Father's Eevee

    Ello! So I made a promise to a reader that I'd investigate a rumor they heard, and me being me, I went overboard. I wound up with enough material for a mini-chapter, so I'm making this a thing! Time to FAHT CHEHK!


    RUMOR:

    I almost forgot! In TamashiiHiroka's review of this game, she says that it lacks themes. Someone in the comments said that the theme is continuing your father's legacy, since the Eevee apparently belonged to him.


    METHODOLOGY:

    Replay opening and record all dialogue from any NPC that mentions Eevee. Take the elevator and canvass the lab before entering the plot office in hopes of triggering new dialogue. Re-canvass the lab again after learning sister's location.


    RESULTS:

    Some interesting discoveries, very little of which has anything to do with the rumor. Let's start with the absolute first mention of Eevee in the plot: the battle couch's dialogue.

    BATTLE COACH (Win): All right, DRAKE. This will do for today! Yes, sir! That was a well-played battle! DRAKE, your battle skills have improved by an amazing amount. I mean, it was impressive the way you handled that big Pokémon with aplomb. You took command of it as if it were the same as your EEVEE. Don't you think it's time you considered raising other POKéMON besides your EEVEE?

    BATTLE COACH (Lose): All right, DRAKE. This will do for today! Hm...Nice try, DRAKE. You came up just a little short. Did you find it a little disconcerting to be without your trusty EEVEE? Still, your aptitude for battling is very acute. If you keep up your training, you will get tougher for sure!


    I'm not picking up any hints here. Let's try Old Man Loose Lips:

    OLD MAN LOOSE LIPS: Hello, DRAKE. Are you done with training for now? You must be tired. But seeing you like this...my, DRAKE, you've grown up to be a fine young lad! DRAKE, if only your father were here to see how much you've grown...Oh! Sorry! I promised that I wouldn't mention that! Please, pay it no heed!

    So we have a mention of Eevee, followed by a mention of our father, yet no connecting tissue. Time to start canvassing.

    By avoiding the plot office, I found two NPCs change their dialogue. The grandmother-looking NPC in the bedroom corridor changes from "I don't know where Jovi is" to "Why isn't Jovi with you?“, which doesn't matter much. And Adon's flavor text changes, and it's adorable:

    ADON: Sshh, DRAKE. Don't blow my cover. JOVI will find me. I've been playing hide-and-seek with my KECLEON. I guess I've been hiding here for around two hours now. I must be a genius at hide-and-seek!

    Oh, dramatic irony. I also found an additional dialogue flag: talk to the man in the leftmost room of the reception area, and he'll mention he's working on "a special machine for catching POKéMON" Similarly, the scientists in the rightmost room don't mention the Purify Chamber in their flavor text, only mentioning a "project"...until the guy sitting in the chair gives an exposition dump, including our first mention of Shadow Pokémon. Then all the scientists incorporate the Purify Chamber into their dialogue. The man in the leftmost room even mentions his machine is "related" to the Purify Chamber. The missed opportunity for a collective facepalm when the Purify Chamber gets mentioned pretty adequately sums up the Pokémon HQ Lab's shortcomings ("...what, did I say something?").

    I also tested this with an NPC in the top floor bedroom office who mentions the Purify Chamber ("What big project? Why, it's the PURIFY CHAMBER, of course. Didn't you know?"), but he doesn't seem to trigger the "learned about Purify Chamber" flag. I'll keep this flag in mind for future chapters, but so far we haven't found anything related to Eevee or our father. Though if I may comment on the results so far; if only someone tweaked the HQ Lab's dialogue slightly, it might have had at least some personality.

    Oh, and this door's locked "from the inside", but it's actually only locked until you enter the plot office:

    Lying Lock of Liers.png

    As for dialogue that changes after you learn about Jovi's location? Again, nothing related to Eevee. I talked to every NPC and the only flavor text that changes is Professor Krane dryly commenting on the P★DA and the bedroom hallway grandma mentioning Jovi was asking about the place, which is the exact same info Adon gave us, thank you for wasting our time Bedroom Hallway Grandma. I also replayed the optional battle that becomes available, but "Supertrainer Aferd" makes no mention of Eevee in any of his text.

    However, I did accidentally stumble across a short cutscene triggered by not entering the break room before talking to Adon:

    Surprise Plot Rails.png

    We are now forcibly warped in front of the TV to watch the news reel. The scientist doesn't add any important dialogue, but it's interesting how blunt Genius Sonority can get if you don't stumble into their exposition.


    CONCLUSION:

    While it's a little early in the plot to scream FAHT CHEHKED!, I doubt any more information's coming up soon. Thus, I'm going to file this one under Unlikely for now. I'll make sure to re-canvass the HQ Lab every so often in case new information presents itself. As it stands, it seems this faht was whisked out of thin air.
     
    CH7: Chobin's Number One Chapter


  • CH7: Chobin's Number One Chapter

    My previous chapter, I ended with a simple question: what was XD's theme? And I've been thinking about that a lot, and I have a theory.

    Throughout this slow start, there's one thing I could not criticize. Gale of Darkness's world has been thought through. The HQ Lab was laid out in a way that (in-universe) makes sense. Our avatar's family dynamic makes sense. And if I may quote the hive mind one more time:

    "I wanted to create a world that was a little different, a little more grown up than the Pokémon world we’ve known up until now...it might be a little different from the image we have of the Pokémon universe you have now."^
    —Genius Sonority which is apparently a hive mind​

    I think Genius Sonority wanted to make a world first, a game second. I don't have much proof besides the game itself, but it's the only explanation I have that's survived gameplay. And while I'm totally down for that approach, I don't think it jives with linear RPGs.

    Don't get me wrong, I think it can work. But you need to ace everything. The dialogue, the music, the level design; they are part of your world. And right now, as much as I can immerse myself in the world, I don't want to. I'm stuck doing mundane tasks instead of interacting with, you know, Pokémon. That IP you're using? Forget the failed edgy "Gale of Darkness" in the title, the drought of Pokémon so far has been the most mind-numbing experience yet. I spent thirty minutes game time in the lab and all I got was training SIMs and one optional curb-stomp battle. Genius Sonority has made a world, but without that flawless execution, they haven't made an enjoyable world. A better world.

    So far.

    If I didn't have future plot knowledge, I'd be tempted to quit right here and now. But let's ride this storm of mediocrity out just a little while longer. I promise, there's a bionic arm light at the end of the tunnel.


    ★ ★ ★​


    So we're at the world map. We pick our destination, and a little cutscene plays of us travelling. And it's, uh, well...

    They See Me Rollin.png

    We're riding a motorized scooter. Of all the transportation options a kid could have (skateboard, bicycle, etc), we get this.

    It's not even a futuristic scooter, something made by the lab. Why not give me a skateboard or bicycle, give it a futuristic look, and attach a motor? Electric skateboards are fast and cool,^^, and take the pedals away from an electric bicycle and you have a motorcycle. Seriously, just a motorcycle that resembles a futuristic bicycle. It's a polite nod towards the "Pokémon protagonists ride bicycles" trope while distinguishing your protagonist as having the faster, more high-tech, just plain cooler alternative. Or go with a scooter, I guess.

    Anyways, brief animation of our avatar travelling, and we arrive at Dr. Kaminko's...

    Kaminko Manor Reveal.png

    Uhh...yeah...and here's the music:



    I don't think you need an in-depth analysis for this piece. It speaks for itself.

    We spawn just inside the mansion's front gate. The courtyard appears empty, excluding a stone Groudon statue. The only entrance appears to be the double doors in the manor's front. There's frequent lightning. Everything looks fine.

    But, as a critic, I have to set aside my nostalgia and point out one major flaw. We are here to locate our sister Jovi. But as the player, we haven't actually met Jovi. We have some character development by proxy — NPC flavor text implies Jovi is young, immature, but also close to the main character. But putting myself in the shoes of a new player (and recalling my first childhood playthrough), I'm not particularly invested in this rescue mission. We don't know if Jovi is a sympathetic character or not, and this place looks dangerous. But the plot rails beckon; time to go inside.

    Who Goes There.png

    Oh, this is going to be interesting.

    Chobin Profile.png

    CHOBIN: Wait! Who goes there?! You must be a burglar! CHOBIN will put you straight! Don't you move! CHOBIN is the name! And CHOBIN is the number-one assistant to DR. KAMINKO! CHOBIN is the only assistant, so CHOBIN has to be the number-one assistant!

    And we're whisked away into a battle! And we're still in tutorial mode (if we didn't find that optional battle earlier, this would've been our first "real" battle). It goes as you'd expect:

    Chobin Lost.png

    CHOBIN: You've made CHOBIN angry now! Even though CHOBIN lost, you're still not getting past CHOBIN! (shocked emote) Huh? Closer inspection reveals that the subject is a child. Ergo, the subject is not a burglar! Ahaha! CHOBIN wishes you spoke up right away. You're DRAKE? CHOBIN apologizes for jumping to the wrong conclusion.

    I've been in this level approximately one minute and already it has more personality and action than the HQ Lab. Aside from the music and initial atmosphere dissolving upon Chobin's arrival, Chobin himself is just an adorable character. His short dialogue and hilariois non-seethrough glasses shows he's clearly incompetent, but since he's already leaked information about the inner workings of Dr. Kaminko's lab ("Chobin is the only assistant"), he clearly isn't much if a threat. And the third-person pronouns just scream "socially awkward". This, right here, is how you make an NPC worth talking to. An outfit, a paragraph or two of quirky dialogue, plus a battle if appropriate to add some gameplay variety. Chobin's only Pokémon is a Level 5 Sunkern, by the way. Sunkern is the weakest Pokémon in Pokémon behind Magikarp.

    I think things are finally on the up, peoples! As long as our sister isn't completely nonsensical-

    Jovi Introduction.png

    -and our sister comes running out of the house being completely nonsensical. Just as I was...it's okay, she's exiting the story soon. Keep calm, MC Snuggles. This is what the pills are for.

    Let's break this down in detail:

    JOVI: Oh! Big brother! What are you doing here? Oh! JOVI gets it! Big brother, you got lost, didn't you?

    First things first: why is Jovi referring to herself in third person? With Chobin, it was incompetent quirkyness that fit with his established incompetency. But Jovi isn't showing any signs of incompetency. She's a mischevious child that trashes our room, runs off without permission, and twists the story so she's rescuing us. She isn't incompetent, so what's the point of her third person pronouns?

    I can actually answer that question. Well, make an educated guess. I'm having to rely on Wikipedia once again due to the language barrier (Wikipedia does cite a study, but it's in Japanese and I couldn't find an English translation),^^ but long story short it seems referring to oneself in third person is "cute" in Japanese. And this seems to line up with anecdotal internet reports, as well.^^ Which means Jovi referring to herself as Jovi is intended to be cutesy, because Japan.

    I think now's a good time to discuss the currently playing background music.



    Herpity depy 2.0. There's even an xylophone. Yeah, Jovi's intended to be cute. Problem is, unlike bumbling assistant Chobin, Jovi is incredibly annoying.

    Jovi is immature. Fine, she's a kid. Problem is, everything we know about Jovi so far is that she's obnoxious and self-centered, AKA not cute. Remember this?

    index.php

    And then she abandons Adon in the middle of a game without telling him or her parents to investigate a creepy and potentially dangerous manor. In effect, she's the root cause for this entire slow open. And when you finally find her, she insists she is the one rescuing you! No apology, nothing! You even get a YES/NO dialogue box where you can contest her rescue claim, only for her to flat-out dismiss your answer:

    JOVI: Uh-uh-uh! There's no hiding stuff from JOVI! Because JOVI knows!

    And the worst part? It all makes perfect sense. Dad is missing, Mom is busy with work. Of course Jovi's going to be immature. Problem is, as a mute protagonist, we can't give her the verbal smackdown she needs. And so Jovi will continue to be annoying until...actually, she never stops being annoying, but she's only around for about the first hour of gameplay, at least. Unfortunately, the first hour is where players are experiencing first impressions, and Jovi does not leave a good first impression. Not just as a character, but on the game itself.

    Ugh. Remember how I was talking before that our avatar is the responsible sibling? That theory's sliding down the toilet. No responsible caregiver would allow Jovi to exist. Her first reaction on seeing you should've been "oh, crap! Brother's here!" Instead, she's walking all over us, and our avatar looks like a walking doormat. Not exactly an avatar I want to identify with. Jovi's cutesy-ness isn't fooling me; shut up and go home so I can start the real plot, darnit! I want my bionic arm!

    Naturally, Jovi runs back inside the manor because she's annoying and wants to delay as much as possible, but Chobin seems to be on the same page as us:

    CHOBIN: DRAKE, you are that girl's older brother? Sometimes, she comes here. She wanders around everywhere. CHOBIN finds it hard keeping an eye on her so that she does not bother the DOCTOR.

    And Chobin gracefully invites us inside to "look at Dr. Kaminko's inventions", so into the manor we go! And Jovi's run off, so at least we'll get some more Chobin. Thank you, Chobin. You are the light in the darkness.

    Unfortunately, Bulbapedia doesn't have a layout image of the manor, so I'll have to describe it instead. Luckily, only two rooms are currently accessible: an entryway with a TV and a bunch of dilapidated-looking machinery complete with randomly flickering car gauges, and an office to the left with bookshelves and a desk. The whole place is more rough around the edges than the cutting-edge Pokémon HQ Lab, with a little more greasy brown in the color pallette instead of shiny-steal white. There's the sense this "lab" was cobbled together with whatever Dr. Kaminko could steal from his local scrapyard.

    And in case Chobin hasn't made it perfectly clear, the background music wants you to know Dr. Kaminko's manor is held together by duct tape:



    Glass jugs, metallic bangs, fart synths, and 3rd-grade music class wind. I'm assuming all these are actually synthesized, but this just goes to show more expensive ≠ more expressive. And also...herpity derp? But not in a bad way?

    Kaminko's Lab is the second location you visit. It, like the HQ Lab, is a laboratory. But that's where the similarities end. The Pokémon HQ Lab is a professional workplace with about a dozen NPCs. Dr. Kaminko's Lab has Chobin. The Pokémon HQ Lab is on the cutting edge of R&D while complying with any and all safety regulations. Dr. Kaminko's Lab looks like it could explode at any minute. It's a perfect foot in the door for worldbuilding purposes, while also highlighting the two locations' unique traits. While I'm bitter I'm not wearing a robot arm and our sister isn't getting any comeuppance, I'm starting to see why this slow open approach was chosen. The execution has been a rollercoaster ride of quality, but I have a feeling Chobin's about to give us some highs.

    There's a fair bit of dialogue as we enter the manor. First up, Chobin explains why Dr. Kaminko's inventions are number one in the world.

    CHOBIN: DR. KAMINKO's inventions, it needs to be said, are number one in the world! CHOBIN is full of admiration! Oh? Why does CHOBIN know that they are number one worldwide? That needs explaining? In the whole wide world, no one but DR. KAMINKO would invent such inventions! Therefore, they are number one without question!

    ...I don't know how to respond to this. Chobin, that's...excellent dialogue that should've been at the Pokémon HQ Lab, but all the NPCs had the personality of cardboard! Thank you, Chobin, for bringing us out of the dark ages. What else you got?

    CHOBIN: Uh-oh! That girl is at DR. KAMINKO's side again! CHOBIN hopes she is causing no disturbance.

    And he's riffing into our sister, as she deserves. Chobin, I'm not sure how you were written into the same game as the Pokémon HQ Lab, but I savor every sentence.

    VCR.png

    Oh my god, a VCR. This game was released in 2005; VCRs were outdated even at the time. This is intentional. This really is a mad scientist's laboratory.

    Wonderful Framing.png

    I think my head just exploded.

    The uncomfortable close-up. The useless invention. And Chobin's so proud of all of it. He's like a puppy presenting you a stick he's found on the sidewalk. Chobin so clearly doesn't understand the world he lives in, but he's so adorably harmless you can't help but smile. Chobin is better than my nostalgia remembers him, and I cannot communicate how wide I'm smiling.

    Chobin gives us an open invitation to view Chobin's home videos "at any time", which lets us discover many of Dr. Kaminko's wonderful inventions. Such as:

    • The Power-Draining Light Bulb!
    • The Discount Calendar!
    • The Haunted Radio!
    • The Poké Pole! (it's a pole)

    My god! Dr. Kaminko is clearly the most vile of villains! Quick, we must rescue Jovi! To the room immediately to our left!

    Jovi, of course, is bugging Dr. Kaminko. We talk to Jovi, who continues to dodge responsibility and insist we're the ones who got lost. She offers to help guide us home. Whatever, let's go find the plot.

    Jovi Joined The Party.png

    On the one hand, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

    On the other hand, this "party" mechanic is actually a repurposed holdover from Pokémom: Colosseum. It's being repurposed in Gale of Darkness to allow NPCs to briefly follow you. Thankfully, we won't be saddled with Jovi for long.

    On the other other hand, this party mechanic will never be used for the obvious: Multi Battles. Despite having legacy code that could allow some extra gameplay variety, Genius Sonority never capitalizes. This will be a more long-term problem I'll probably complain about eventually, but we're really close to getting a robot arm. Let's get on with it.

    Jovi's finally following us out the manor. We can get a couple bonus conversations where she annoys Chobin and Kaminko if we talk to them again, because somehow Jovi's a bigger troll than Dr. Kaminko. But enough of this; it's time to head home.

    Next time: robot arm! Also, the plot!
     
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