61 Frames Per Second : keiji inafune

The Ten Greatest Ice Levels in Gaming History, part 3

John Constantine — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:10:00 GMT

Donkey Kong Country – Snow Barrel Blast

Donkey Kong Country isn’t the most fondly remembered SNES game out there. It was marketed to hell and back in 1994, its pre-rendered characters shoved down millions of gamers’ gullets as a final grasp at technological relevance before the dawn of 3D gaming’s rule. At heart, it’s a simplistic and fun platformer whose visuals have aged poorly. But certain stages in DKC still impress fourteen years later, thanks to a combination of inspired graphical presentation and deft sound arrangement. Snow Barrel Blast is the best DKC has to offer. An ice level that seems simple enough when Donkey and Diddy Kong emerge from an igloo at the start but soars when the sky starts to darken and the level goes from sunny winter landscape to brooding driving snow storm. It’s purely aesthetic, not informing the game’s basic platforming at all. But its beauty makes it the one thing memorable about DKC besides the hype. – JC

Super Mario Bros. 2 – World 4

Traditionally speaking, ice is the bane of platforming. As soon as you see blue ground, slightly shaded to a reflective sheen, you know that the rules you’ve been operating under up to that point are going straight out the window. You will slip, you will slide, and, so, you will miss many, many jumps. World 4 in Super Mario Bros. 2 turns icy surfaces into an exercise in speed and timing, setting up a first level that’s less about jumping across tiered platforms than it is about running as fast as possible and expertly sliding beneath/over oncoming enemies. It’s the speediest stuff in any of the original Mario trilogy. World 4 gets downright weird by the second stage: yeah, those are whales in between the ice-platforms and snowy outcroppings of rock. Why are there whales? Why not! Go spit some eggs, or something. – JC

Super Ghouls ‘N Ghosts – Ice Forest

Though it came out at the same time as Actraiser, as one of the first fantasy epics for the fledging SNES, Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts could hardly be more different in tone. Where Actraiser is an existential epic, SG'n'G is a macabre romp; it plays as if Tim Burton and Danny Elfman designed a platformer and let the Marquis de Sade balance the difficulty. Stage 5, the Ice Forest, is a glimmering nightmare full of wolves, frozen ghost knights and spore-spitting snowdrops. In its lurid way, it's awfully pretty, but if you stand around admiring the ambiance, you will soon find yourself without your pants. – PS

Metroid Prime – Phendrana Drifts

Come on, you knew it was coming. Ice in Metroid recalls Samus’ arsenal more immediately than the series’ sprawling environments, but it also defines the most evocative and beautiful space in Prime’s Tallon IV. The Phendrana Drifts has a quality rare in Miss Aran’s adventures: it’s a tranquil place, almost soothing in its stillness. As the camera pans when you first arrive, and Kenji Yamamoto’s eerie, still score begins to play, the ice flows, icicle laden cliffs, and crumbling Chozo architecture come off as a place that’s safe to explore, free of bloodthirsty space jellyfish or insectoid pirates. It isn’t until Ridley’s shadow glides over Phendrana’s surface that you feel a literal chill and remember: Tallon IV isn’t a safe place. The frozen water kills and the ice blocks your way. Best to get bounty huntin’ before your suit freezes up. – JC

Part 1
Part 2

Previous Top Tens:

Ten Reasons Why Secret of Mana Sucks
The Five Greatest Enhanced Remakes - And Five That Weren't So Great
The Ten Greatest Classic Mega Man Levels
The Ten Videogames That Should Have Been Controversial
The Ten Greatest Opening Levels in Gaming History
The Ten Most Adventurous Sequels in Gaming History
The Ten Greatest Fire Levels in Gaming History

The Ten Greatest Ice Levels in Gaming History, part 2

John Constantine — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:05:00 GMT

Lost Planet – The Whole Game

Lost Planet, Keiji Inafune’s attempt to make Halo for Japan, is one of this console generation’s most underappreciated games. The shooting is tight, the levels are impeccably designed, the automated-grappling-hook platforming is neat, and the Starship Troopers-bug baddies are some of the cooler looking HD threats out there. Sure, it has some clunky parts, but the good far outweighs the bad. What’s more, the entire game is all about snow and ice. The initial stages, wandering the frozen wastes of E.D.N. III, are still jaw dropping. It isn’t even the swirling snow or the ice-bound cities; it’s the sound, the crunch, of stomping through snow drifts. My teeth grit just thinking about it. The snowy setting is also behind Lost Planet’s health system. Your health is constantly draining because of the cold, so you’re forced to constantly collect the body heat of felled foes. That is cooler than crawling inside a Taun-Taun. – JC

Actraiser – Northwall

Let other developers go the way of stock level design. Quintet was always too good for that, giving their levels in Actraiser a pre-human quality that went far beyond the usual D&D boilerplate. That sense of a vast natural world haunted by gods and demons was perfectly captured in the two Acts that take place in the frozen land of Northwall. In the first, you enter a pristine wasteland to clear it for your subjects. Despite the substantial amount of combat that takes place therein, the austerity of the snowy background and the chilly beauty of Yuzo Koshiro's score gives the whole scene a sense of peace.

Things are different in Act 2, which finds you scaling a collosal frozen tree to rid your now-colonized land of monsters. This climactic moment finds all the forces of the arctic landscape rallied against you, with Koshiro's appropriately frantic music spurring you ever upward to destiny. – Peter Smith

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow – The Lost Village

Castlevania is a series about place, but its range is often limited by the requirements of its title. Each game has its unique spaces, but they’re inevitably tied to Dracula’s castle and the Transylvanian countryside surrounding it, which is why franchise entries that mix things up are the most memorable. Of all the ‘Vanias to release after Symphony of the Night’s complete genre realignment, the Soma Cruz adventures are the most distinct, their near-future setting lending much needed modernity to the usual gothic ramparts and libraries. And given Soma’s snowy appearance, it’s not surprising that his second outing, Dawn of Sorrow, is home to one of gaming’s best ice levels. The first screen of The Lost Village plain makes you want to put on a coat. Snow falls lazily on a rickety wooden fence, dense forest obscures an enormous moon, and the only sound is wind. The real star is the central room, a multi-screen series of German-styled village buildings stacked on one another, frozen and abandoned. Unforgettable moment: landing a jump on a broken-down VW bus and seeing the snow slump off onto the ground. – JC

Part 1
Part 3

Previous Top Tens:

Ten Reasons Why Secret of Mana Sucks
The Five Greatest Enhanced Remakes - And Five That Weren't So Great
The Ten Greatest Classic Mega Man Levels
The Ten Videogames That Should Have Been Controversial
The Ten Greatest Opening Levels in Gaming History
The Ten Most Adventurous Sequels in Gaming History
The Ten Greatest Fire Levels in Gaming History

The Ten Greatest Ice Levels in Gaming History, part 1

John Constantine — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Autumn may only be a few weeks old, but, as it is with all seasons, you can feel its successor growing during the increasingly long nights. It’s getting cold and the chill has got us thinking about cool things, here at 61 Frames Per Second. As a result, we’re doing two things. One, we’re quoting Batman and Robin far more than we should. Two, we’re thinking about ice levels. Ice levels, like fire levels, refers to a theme more than a specific element. An ice level is more than ice. It’s freezing water, driving snow, strong wind, and grey skies. It’s gaming that makes you want to wrap up in a giant bearskin rug. Naked. Or not, to each their own. Here, we present to you, the top ten greatest ice levels in gaming history. – John Constantine

Chrono Trigger – Death Peak

*Spoilers. Big Ones.*

The snow-capped peak is not an uncommon locale in role-playing games. You’ve been there before: there’s a giant monster, typically abominable, waiting for you at the summit, and the journey to him is guaranteed to entail solving an ice block puzzle or three. You are also guaranteed to find some convenient Ice Armor or even, if you’re lucky, a Fire Sword. Chrono Trigger’s Death Peak, the lone natural environment in the Lavos-ruined 2300 AD, is different. It is, ostensibly, optional. Like everything else in Trigger’s end game following the silent hero’s death, you can skip the mountain entirely, though ascending it is fundamental in reaching the plot’s true conclusion. Death Peak is the physical embodiment of everything at stake in Trigger’s conflict, a frozen place inhabited by stray creatures, cold, and Lavos’ offspring, growing fat on decay, waiting to leave the dead planet to claim others as their own. Its challenge is both environmental and emblematic: your surviving heroes must push against snow and wind, against nature, to both save the world and also their fallen friend. No boss waits at the pinnacle, just a dreary sky and a chance to use the Chrono Trigger itself. When Crono is resurrected, the wind and snow cease, the sun emerges from the clouds and is eclipsed. If you choose to see it, it is the turning point in the game, the moment hope overcomes despair. – JC

Metal Gear Solid (1 and 4) – Shadow Moses

Most of the levels here made the list because they do two things: they are artful and the ice defines how you play through them. Shadow Moses, that forlorn little island north of Alaska where so many bad, Metal Gear-y things happened, fulfills both those criteria and then goes a step farther. Shadow Moses, and the very first post-opening-credits play sequence in MGS, defines the entire series. It sets the overdramatic tone, it bookends the franchise narrative, and it quickly establishes the stealth gameplay. It isn’t a real stunner now, but finding out that enemies would notice footprints left in the snow was exciting stuff in 1998. The return trip to Shadow Moses in Metal Gear Solid 4 is less exciting for its gameplay – it comes in MGS4’s limited-play back half – and more just artful. Approaching the base from outside, literally navigating through a white-out blizzard, provides a visually stunning moment in a game full of them. When I saw that giant bi-pedal robot lumbering through the snow, only barely visible through the torrent, I damn near threw my controller at the screen. – JC

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 – Ice Cap Zone

Okay, okay. I've never much cared for Sonic, but I will admit that its cartoony, distinctly '90s environment design is distinctive, and Ice Cap Zone probably deserves a place on this list. It's cool how you snowboard in, and it's cool how half the level breaks around you in big chaotic shards of crystal, even if the gameplay remains duller than toast. And the much-beloved music is pretty catchy, although it evokes a night of strip-mall dance clubbing more than an arctic wonderland... Okay, Sonic fans? Okay? You win this round, you hear? Now stop sending me those horrible pictures! – PS

Part 2
Part 3

Previous Top Tens:

Ten Reasons Why Secret of Mana Sucks
The Five Greatest Enhanced Remakes - And Five That Weren't So Great
The Ten Greatest Classic Mega Man Levels
The Ten Videogames That Should Have Been Controversial
The Ten Greatest Opening Levels in Gaming History
The Ten Most Adventurous Sequels in Gaming History
The Ten Greatest Fire Levels in Gaming History

New Mega Man 9 Trailer: I'm Drowning in My Childhood

Nadia Oxford — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:18:00 GMT

Don't throw me a lifejacket, though. I'm quite happy here.

On its way to gearing up for E3, IGN posted a fresh new Mega Man 9 trailer. For starters, the trailer finally confirms that Mega Man 9 is in fact destined for PSN and XBLA as well as WiiWare. Game news outlets and even series creator Keiji Inafune have been back and forth about this. In a recent interview with GamesRadar, Inafune said "We haven’t announced a XBLA or PSN title yet. Do the fans want them?"

I guess he was playing around, that sly dog. I revere him.

The trailer includes a good deal of gameplay footage. Lots of pits, spikes, and those disappearing-reappearing blocks that used to haunt your childhood nightmares. I know a certain robot dog who will be fitted with his jet upgrade as soon as possible.

What's really thrilling to see make a return are the big colourful animal robots that would block your progress in Mega Man 2 and beyond. A circus elephant with a big red ball will be joining the mechanimal stable, which includes notables like Hot Dog from Mega Man 2, those damnable orange cats from Mega Man 3 and of course, Dragon. You know what game Dragon is from, right? He made you crap your Alf underwear when he first appeared. Don't deny it.

Little bits of the opening story are available in the trailer as well. Looks like Mega Man's dealing with a good ol' fashioned robot rebellion with just the slightest twist of intrigue: Dr Light has been framed for the latest party. Otherwise, as far as I can tell, there's no mysterious new heroes, no angst, no batty Biblical references. Good.

Other characters might be playable, though. Did you happen to spot Roll clinging onto the RushJet for dear life? It's funny because housekeeper robots are supposed to stay in the kitchen! Ha ha!

The Ten Greatest Classic Mega Man Levels, Part 3

Peter Smith — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:32:00 GMT

Shadow Man

As Pete said, Mega Man III started to strain the series' robot-masters-as-industrial-tool conceit. Silly as Top Man is, I have even more trouble getting my head around Shadow Man and his lair sitting at the bottom of a waterfall of lava. What was the civic-planning meeting like for this one? "Finally, we have used the remaining funds in 200X's robot-master budget to build a crazy-sweet ninja robot who lives in a rad fortress at the bottom of a lava flow. He will be protected by robot frogs and parachuting heads." "Madness! Why would you do such a thing?" "Because, sir. It is awesome." Know what? He's right. — JC

Bubble Man

A big part of the classicness of any given Mega Man stage is the music. Bubble Man's got one of the greatest tunes in the series, an unforgettable bit of melodic pop that builds quickly to a dazzling chorus of harmonized square waves and Van-Halen-esque arpeggios, all over an appropriately watery triangle-wave bassline. But let's not forget the stage itself, which follows our hero from a huge waterfall, down into a cramped subaquatic tunnel (some kind of refinery?) stuffed with giant robot lantern fish, then back out into the open air for a showdown with the local kingpin. As in so many classic Mega Man levels, there's a beautiful sense of the elemental here — the breeze, the cold metal, the spray of the sea. — PS

Crystal Man

You'd think Capcom's increasing ability to push the NES hardware would've made stages in the later Mega Man games even more memorable than their simpler precursors. Unfortunately, this usually wasn't the case. Many levels in Mega Man II and III gave you just enough detail to fire your imagination, and not enough to stifle it; the increased detail of IV through VI actually made the stages seem less like real places and more like digital constructions. Sometimes the most evocative background of all is just a sinister and inviting black. Still, the fancier graphics of later games did allow the occasional surrealist delight, like Crystal Man's stage, a jagged landscape of shimmering gems and glass-tube-enclosed machinery. For a brief and gorgeous section, the blue background switches to glowing hot pink like an animated bar sign. — PS

Dr. Wily's Castle, Part 1

This is the finest stage in the entire Mega Man franchise, spin-offs included. Mega Man II has four scenes of explicit narrative, and outside of the introduction's brief narration, they are wordless, used only to provide spatial context. What is remarkable about the first stage of Wily's castle is how it conveys scale and design independent of the cutscene that precedes it, how its propulsive music perfectly illustrates exhaustion, finality, and resolve. It is an assault, the scaling of a mountain using literally every tool at your disposal. The level concludes with actually breaching the fortress' walls and finding a chasm, the crossing of which requires precisely timed jumps across miniscule platforms. The castle's guardian, a screen-filling robotic dragon, destroys your footing in its pursuit. The stage, the music, the opponents reveal everything about this world and its stakes: you are fighting a madman on his terms and survival is not guaranteed. Remarkable. — JC

Click here for Part 1.
Click here for Part 2.

What'd we miss? Tell us in the comments. For the record, we like Flame Man's arabesque oil well and Tomahawk Man's cod-western badlands too, but nothing from MMVI makes the top ten in fairness. MMVII and MMVIII are beneath discussion.

Previous Top Tens:
The Ten Videogames That Should Have Been Controversial
The Ten Greatest Opening Levels in Gaming History
The Ten Most Adventurous Sequels
The Ten Greatest Fire Levels

The Ten Greatest Classic Mega Man Levels, Part 2

Peter Smith — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:31:00 GMT

Metal Man

More than your average Mega Man stage, Metal Man's feels collosal. Who knows why — maybe it's the giant screws and gears in the foreground, or the dense, heavily animated background (technically quite impressive) of pistons and cogs. Or maybe it's that Metal Man's stage actually has somewhat less variety than most of Mega Man II's stages, thereby suggesting a larger size. Whatever the reason, the scope seems massive. The stage itself is relatively short, but it feels like just a small part of a vast, rusted-out fortress of industry. — PS

Toad Man

For all of Mega Man IV 's missteps (downgraded music, overemphasized story, increasingly nonsensical characters), it's not without its highlights. Toad Man's stage bombards you with intimidating elements from the start, buffeting seemingly easy jumps with heavy wind and pouring rain. As you descend deeper into the sewers of 200X, waterfalls crush, overflows lead to bottomless pits, and robotic vermin (rats, slugs, snails) take full advantage of your decreased mobility. The stage is emblematic of the series' descent into comic absurdity, but it's flawlessly laid out and challenging. — JC

Spark Man Revisited

Mega Man II is an undisputed classic, but for a NES game, it's pretty damn easy, a fault that Mega Man III hastens to correct. By the time you get around to the "dark" versions of conquered stages, III is offering you no quarter. When you walk into Spark Man's second stage, you're at the bottom of a room with no ladder to the top; as you go to summon Rush Coil, just imagine Keiji Inafune giving you the finger. Spark Man 2 is also a long haul, with some truly nasty spike placement and two bosses to tackle; for an added touch of creepiness, it's also got a damaged background texture that suggests the whole place has been bombed out. Ominous stuff. — PS

Click here for Part 1.
Click here for Part 3.

The Ten Greatest Classic Mega Man Levels, Part 1

Peter Smith — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:30:00 GMT

Capcom, I don't really know how to say this. It's a little awkward, but damn it, it's the truth. We've known each other a long time, and you've always been a good friend to me, but this year, things have gotten more serious. With Street Fighter IV, HD Remix, Commando 3, 1942: Joint Strike and two versions of Bionic Commando, it's like you've gone out of your way lately to show me what I mean to you, and now that you've announced Mega Man 9, it's time for me to return the favor. Capcom, I. . . I love you.

Jesus, I don't know what came over me there. But with Mega Man 9 just unveiled in all its eight-bit glory, my old-school-gaming glands are all swollen and red, and I think it's squeezing out the blood flow to my brain. The early Mega Man games are masterpieces of their era, and they feature some of the most unforgettable stages on the NES — a series of giant constructions that, high-tech though they may be, maintain a playground-like innocence. World-building obsessives that we are, we couldn't let this glorious day go by without commemorating the ten greatest classic Mega Man levels of all time. — Peter Smith

Elec Man

Keiji Inafune's first attempt at Mega Man was promising but ultimately half-baked. The play was there but the world itself was still confused, its six core stages shuffling back and forth between "gamey" abstraction and eerie pastoral. Elec Man's tower was one of the series' first real successes, an ascent that felt like a true structure and not a background for a sprite to jump about, a dangerous place pulsing with energy that could obliterate our diminutive hero using the very power that fueled his mechanical innards. — John Constantine

Top Man

The whole premise of Mega Man was that each of the Robot Masters you were fighting had been conceived for an industrial purpose and therefore ruled over an area appropriate to his capabilities. (Guts Man is a construction robot, right, so he's in this construction zone... or something.) This whole idea kind of fell apart as the robots got weirder. By all rights, Top Man should probably have been in a giant robot toy store or something, and God knows that's how the series' increasingly corny later installments would've played it. Luckily, Inafune and co. were still capable of a curveball or two when Mega Man III came out, which must be why Top Man's stage isn't a toy store at all, but some kind of bizarre jungle/greenhouse/space station. With giant robot cats. Most fans would agree it's better that way. — PS

Gemini Man

As important as the future metropolises of classic Mega Man are the natural landscapes. Gemini Man's stage shows a world where even the harshest environments have been hollowed out, bent to the will of humanity, and overrun with intelligent machines that can work and survive where our fragile bodies can't last. Enemy placement is logical, functional in this arctic wasteland; drones spill fire digging into the frozen surface, giant penguins produce an adapted work force, robotic-tadpole pods shifting to maintain delicate structural integrity deep in the ice. The whole place is cold and sharp, beautiful and forbidden. I'd never survive there, but Mega Man can. — JC

Click here for Part 2.
Click here for Part 3.

Don’t Call It Retro: Mega Man 9 and Design Resurrection

John Constantine — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 18:00:00 GMT

As 61 Frames Per Second’s newest team member Nadia pointed out earlier today, Mega Man 9 is a reality. Revitalizations of long-dormant franchises have been a mainstay in the gaming business since the Playstation 1-era, trading on nostalgia and brand recognition to push new designs. But the past few years have seen a growing trend of proper numerical sequels releasing a decade or more after their predecessors. Games like WayForward and Konami’s Contra 4 and Taito’s Legend of Kage 2 are not only sequels in name; play in these games is built on the same archaic fundamentals as their ancestors. Both Kage 2 and Contra 4’s only real advancements are slight visual upgrades and mechanical tweaks (both games, being designed for the Nintendo DS, introduce skills that necessitate play on both the system’s screens.) Mega Man 9, however, is unique. It is being made using the exact same tools and in the same style as it was twenty years ago.

The decision to build Mega Man 9 as an NES game is not mere retro pandering. Series creator Keiji Inafune has said numerous times that he’s kept making (and remaking) 2D Mega Man games (alongside teams like Inticreates, the team helming 9’s development) because it’s important to continue refining and rediscovering what made a simple design successful in the first place. With the freedom offered by digital distribution venues like WiiWare, creators like Inafune no longer need to ensure their games will be modern enough to succeed on store shelves. They can also utilize outmoded hardware, like the NES, to make their games.

In an editorial some months back, Play’s Dave Halverson waxed philosophical about digital distribution’s potential to revitalize not only old game types, but old hardware itself. New Genesis games, new Turbo-Grafx games. I scoffed at the time, but Mega Man 9 is serving me a big bowl of crow to eat.

Mega Man 9 Goes Back To Your Roots. Way Back.

Nadia Oxford — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:00:00 GMT

If you grew up playing the Nintendo Entertainment System, then you also grew up with a persistent blue scamp named Mega Man. The adventures of the little boy robot and his red dog take us back to long hours spent in chilled suburban basements, stuffing our gobs with pizza while eluding Dr Wily's robots.

The Mega Man series has given birth to no less than six spin-off series over the past twenty years, taking us far away from those days of greasy control pads and cherry Kool-Aid. The last entry in the original series (as in, numerical sequels without any extra letters attatched to "Mega Man") was Mega Man 8, released over a decade ago. It was no surprise when recent whispers about Mega Man 9 were dismissed as rumour.

But lo, the August issue of Nintendo Power talks to series creator Keiji Inafune about the phantom game, which is a phantom no more. The original Mega Man is back. Literally. Mega Man 9 will feature NES-style graphics and will be available for download on Xbox Live, Playstation Network and as a Wii Ware title.

These are not "NES-style graphics" as in neon-shaded highlights slapped over old sprites that throb obsencely to pumping music. Looking at the screenshots in Nintendo Power will hit you so hard with memories of Mega Man 2, your teeth will rattle.

The simplicity is a pretty big jump back from the lush graphics of Mega Man 8. I mean, nostalgia is awesome, but dayumn.

Still, maybe this is what the gaming world needs. A budget-priced download that will doubtlessly provide at least a few hours of uncomplicated hardcore platforming. I know I'm due for my fix.

Oh, and what's a Mega Man title without its harem of Robot Masters? Mega Man 9's stable reportedly includes: Magma Man, Galaxy Man, Jewel Man, Concrete Man, Hornet Man, Plug Man(!!!!), Tornado Man and Splash Woman(???) .

I don't know what to say about Splash Woman. I guess I wanted to see a female robot master when I was eight years old, but I'm kind of over the gender inequality now. It's a good trade-off for blowing up evil robots.

And the less I speculate about Plug Man, the better.