Big game, tiny screen?

I have a problem with the handheld market today. Whether it’s the result of the big boy consoles requiring larger budgets and longer development time, or simply because companies want to make a quick buck, there seem to be more and more games coming out for the handhelds when they should be out on the home consoles.

Remember what handhelds used to be? Something that all handhelds had in common was the fact that you could just pick up and play at any given moment, and turn it off whenever need be. Puzzle games like Tetris, for example, make for great handheld games. Games with no ultimate goal like Animal Crossing: Wild Worlds make for great downtime. Even games like Pokemon still work because although they have an ultimate goal, they’re still simple in nature, and can be picked up or put down at any time.

The games I’m talking about are the shooters. The full fledged RPGs with 20 hours worth of cutscenes. The “remakes” of games past that are really nothing more than ports because of their simple graphical prowess. Why are these games being put on the handhelds? I’m all for a few quick bucks in order to help keep the company running, but why not make more games like the aforementioned titles? I rarely play handheld games unless I’m on the go somewhere. And when I say 'on-the-go', I don't just mean to the supermarket.  I mean more like vacation or lengthy periods of travel. But when I’m playing a 30-hour story, I like to finish said 30-hour story. And I prefer to do it on a big screen tv, laying on a comfortable couch, surrounded by speakers, arms relaxed, fingers at the ready for the full cinematic experience. Not hunched over in a chair, squinting to see the finer pixelated detail of a two-inch screen with piss-poor speakers.

Handhelds are a rarity for me to come across. There’s plenty of series that I really enjoy that seem to want to release games for the handhelds, like Zelda, Resident Evil or Final Fantasy, but I’m really not interested in playing them because the quality receives a massive downgrade, and the story and character development suffers when you’re developing a mainstream title for a screen that can fit comfortably under your tongue. And now especially with the upcoming 3DS, plenty of companies are wanting to jump on that bandwagon with the new 3D technology. Granted, I’m not saying I want them to spend 5+ years developing the best possible graphics for the big screen (FFXIII…..), but I would still prefer even a bad experience on the bigger consoles. Because then I'll at least still have good vision and no back problems from having to hunch over and squint for a 30-hour title.

But maybe that’s just me.

A Sequel Means More

I wanted to blog about this some months ago, but instead I masked it with a much more politely vague post about what makes for a good concert. However, recent details of the ‘Distant Worlds II: More Music from Final Fantasy’ concert have surfaced and all but changed my viewpoint on staying polite about it.

What I speak of is that a few months ago, I went to the Wolftrap theatre for a live performance of Final Fantasy music, entitled Distant Worlds II: More Music From Final Fantasy, orchestrated by Nobuo Uematsu and conducted by Arnie Roth. Needless to say, it was an incredible concert. But that’s no surprise, I knew it would be incredible. I went to the first Distant Worlds concert in March ’08 at the Chicago Rosemont Theatre. However, there was one clear difference between Distant Worlds I and Distant Worlds II. 

At the first concert, they couldn’t have done a better job. They gave equal treatment to the entire series, playing music from Final Fantasy I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, and even the black sheep XI. Each title got at least one song, even if I, II and III were lumped into a medley. Seeing Liberi Fatali, To Zanarkand, and One Winged Angel performed live, there’s really nothing else like it, and I highly recommend everyone go to a symphonic video game concert of any kind at some point in their lives.

My complaint in question was that Distant Worlds II, advertised as a sequel to the first concert, was hardly a sequel at all. This new concert was just a rehash of 90% of the original concert, and only added a mere five new songs had been added. Now, as disappointed as I was that only five new songs were present, I was actually angry to find out that a total of 11 songs were actually added to the concert lineup, but they left six of them out. I don’t know about anyone else, but I really would have killed to here Dancing Mad, or the English premier of Suteki Da Ne performed live. And one, elusive song, Kiss Me Goodbye isn’t even yet available in .mp3 format, so I can’t even hear a decent quality of that song as only the low quality version of it on youtube. On top of that, I found out it was like this at every concert other than Stockholm. Stockholm is the only place that all 11 new songs were played. I was also disheartened to find out that special guest Susan Calloway was supposed to be there to perform the vocal themes of Final Fantasy IX, X, XI and XII. Though I’m more understanding on that issue considering there could have been scheduling conflicts.

As enjoyable as the concert still was, this news was very unsettling for quite some time considering I’m a huge fan of not only the series itself, but the music of the series in particular, and I felt I was cheated out of a concert. Instead of Distant World II, I got Distant Worlds 1.3, I found out recently that they’re “for the first time ever” performing all of these songs at the Chicago Rosemont theatre in the coming months. In addition to that, there have been three new songs have been added to the lineup recently, and another premier on its way in the coming months. That will make four new songs that I will have now missed out on because they weren’t a part of the concert I originally paid for.

My question is this. Why? Why is it that the good people of Stockholm are treated to the concert that we all deserve, a properly constructed sequel with eleven new songs added to the lineup, but everyone else only gets some of it? If you ask me, it’s a poor marketing strategy. This isn’t James Cameron’s Avatar, where if we want the extra 18 minutes of bonus footage, we just rebuy the collector’s edition at our local retail store. This is an orchestra. We can’t just shell out between $50 and $150 bucks, not to mention travel all around the country, nay, all around the world to different venues just to see a few additional songs. All this does is make the majority of the fanbase miss out on the makings of a potentially great addition to the franchise. Even though the orchestra was obviously stellar, I expect a little more out of a sequel than just the original title with a little extra bonus content.