It must be recognized that what could be seen before the videos were removed due to copyright looks wonderful
It is clear that at Warner, they will do whatever it takes to ensure that the Harry Potter saga does not die. It’s a sign of these times: no intellectual property should reach its natural end and be left there quietly for memory’s sake. After a few years in which J.K. Rowling’s books became more politically positioned than entertaining, it seems that someone has decided that the author’s transphobic opinions are not so important (spoiler: they are) and that it is now time to launch a series on HBO Max, video games, and whatever else they can think of, unlocking our wallets with an “Alohomora.”
As proof, the latest from Unbroken Studios is ‘Quidditch Champions,’ a new game based on the famous fictional sport that originated in ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone,’ with scoring rules that are, generously speaking, erratic. That didn’t stop EA from releasing ‘Quidditch World Cup’ in 2003, which, although it marked the childhood of many, was as entertaining as it was forgettable.
Now, Warner wants to capitalize on the universe it has acquired through its deep pockets and surprise trailers. That’s why it was surprising that leaked gameplay from the closed beta surfaced ahead of time. You see, ‘Quidditch Champions’ will be an online multiplayer game where players can fully customize their characters, choose their positions on the team, and aim to be a FIFA for all of us who would never go near a football but know perfectly well what a Snitch is.
After the success of ‘Hogwarts Legacy,’ it was clear that more of the Wizarding World was on its way, knocking on the door. And it must be acknowledged that what could be seen before the videos were taken down due to copyright issues looked fantastic (figuratively speaking, don’t expect ‘Tears of the Kingdom’ on a flying broomstick). Well, not everyone thinks the same: there are rumors that in the previous game, they removed Quidditch to avoid cannibalizing the results of this one, and some even accuse it of being a mere copy of ‘Rocket League.’ We’ll have to wait to learn more, but to be honest, as impressive as it may look… it seems a bit like a money grab.
It’s possible that if J.K. Rowling knew that Quidditch would become such a big thing, she would have given it a different name or reconsidered its mechanics. But the truth is that the name came about by jotting down different words that started with ‘Q’ on a piece of paper… and not long after, people were founding clubs to play it in real life. Oh! If you want to join one, don’t search for the word “Quidditch” anymore: due to the author’s inflammatory statements, they now call it “Quadball.” And you can’t use Avada Kedavra on the opposing team either: that wouldn’t make for a realistic game experience.
Let’s take a look at the 3 best (and 3 worst) things that has brought us, as everyone knows it, the new Zelda. And after that each one takes the side that they like the most.
Tears of the Kingdom has been with us for a week now, and if you’ve been watching Twitter, people are doing real stunts. Don’t feel pressured to build a rocket if you don’t feel like it: if you think you’re the host of ‘Bricomania’ just by attaching a motor to a board, don’t let anyone take away your enthusiasm. The sequel to ‘Breath of the wild’ is receiving categorical deuces from the entire gaming community and, indeed, it is a tremendous game, a masterpiece, a before and after in the industry… Or maybe it’s not so bad? Let’s take a look at the 3 best (and 3 worst) things that has brought us, as everyone knows it, “the new Zelda”… And then let everyone take the side they like the most.
Undoubtedly, it is a wonderful addition. If in ‘Breath of the wild’ it was already a masterful move to change Link’s classic instruments for different magics and powers, in ‘Tears of the Kingdom‘ it is improved to the extreme. If you have the ability to build and enough patience, your ride through Hyrule in a truck, your automatic killing machine or your jet plane will make the experience much more fun. But then again, by thinking of the game vertically instead of the horizontality of the previous installment, being able to easily climb and escape from almost anywhere is a great addition, just as much as rolling things backwards. No one thought Nintendo was going to pull it off, but they have.
Not as free as it seems
This Zelda is sold as the game where you can do whatever you want, whenever you want and however you want… And for the most part it is, but not exactly. Before going here and there you’ll have to go through several gofer quests, assorted tutorials or, even worse, the impossibility of taking down some monsters with ideas of your own: even if you have a wit to take down some of them, the game forces you to do it its way, and it goes against everything it pretends to stand for. It happens only sometimes, but it’s undeniably annoying.
Three maps
Quelling accusations that this was a glorified DLC, Hyrule now grows above and below: the secrets hidden in the clouds and underground are a great addition that enlarges the map to unsuspected limits. If in ‘Breath of the wild’ it was already difficult to get from one side of the country to the other, now, with three times as much place to cover, it’s surprise after surprise. And the best part: you’re always seeing things and places, you always know where you want to go next, you never run out of ideas to keep jogging. Great.
Not so many new features
Yes, it’s back to Hyrule in style. Yes, every plan of the map has been retouched and new places have been opened. And yet… The walk (or ride) around the map feels too much like ‘Breath of the wild‘: although the powers give, playably, a new life to the game, it doesn’t really innovate in the same way that ‘Majora’s Mask’ did with ‘Ocarina of time‘. It’s essentially the same game, with enemies being killed in the same way and similar mechanics. It never ends up feeling like something completely new, but rather like coming home for Christmas and seeing that your parents have done a complete overhaul. It’s not the same, but the structure is.
There is always something to do
Unlike in the previous installment, where the map sometimes seemed to be completely empty, in ‘Tears of the Kingdom’ there is always a sanctuary to reach, a gadget to build, an enemy to kill, a side mission to finish, a piece of map to explore… It is, indeed, a world where you will always find things to do and getting bored is, literally, impossible. It is absolute perfection as far as open world games are concerned, and ‘GTA VI’ has a very difficult time overcoming its variety of tests and, above all, the feeling of a world that is always alive and in motion.
The. Falls. Continuous.
With the addition of the islands in the sky also comes another one that we didn’t see coming: Link’s clumsiness, who falls over and over again to the ground… And unless he sinks into the water or uses the parasail in time, he’ll have no choice but to crash to the ground. Later in the game we get a medallion that will help us, but until then it’s all falls, deaths, crushing and pain. Couldn’t we also have a little rope tied to our ankle so we can easily get back to where we were, please?
Pac-man was a bombshell since its release, on May 22, 1980, which came to unseat Space Invaders in the world of arcade games. Logically, a sequel had to arrive soon, right? Well, it wasn’t that easy.
As much as we now argue between open worlds full of secrets with our favoritism for ‘GTA‘ or ‘Zelda‘, talk about FPS and indie games as if two hundred new titles are released every week, we must remember that forty years ago the world of video games belonged to a yellow ball eating pills and being chased by ghosts: ‘Pac-man’ was a bomb since its release, on May 22, 1980 that came to unseat ‘Space Invaders’ in the world of arcades. Logically a sequel had to come soon, didn’t it? Well, it wasn’t that easy.
Traditional video game returns with renewed energy
Waka waka waka waka
A book could be written with all the shameless plagiarism of the classic Pac-Man (‘Lock’n’chase’, ‘Piranha’, ‘Gobble a ghost’ or ‘Jelly monsters’, among hundreds of others). In fact, it is one of the first cases in which the intellectual property of video gameswent to trial, with Namco winning several of them. In this scenario in which there was no month without a ‘Pac-man’ substitute, it is easier to understand all the trouble the developer went through to get a sequel that didn’t taste, simply, like another cheap copy.
Paradoxically, the story of ‘Ms. Pac-man’ begins with a plagiarism by Namco. Pac-man‘ begins with a plagiarism by Namco, but not of Pac-Man, but of ‘Missile Command’, a game that six MIT students (through their company, General Computer Corp, or GCC) were able to improve by reverse engineering: ‘Super Missile Attack’ was a success… until Atari sued them for 15 million dollars.
If now 15 million is a barbarity, imagine in 1981. Luckily for GCC, Atari was able to accept that they could do more good than harm, dropped the lawsuit and made them work for them by paying them $50,000 a month for two years in exchange for them to stop making expansions of Atari’s intellectual properties and instead make new games for the company. The first thing they did? Effectively, the ‘Pac-man’ expansion. Well, sort of: ‘Crazy Otto’, from which they created three of the most sought-after arcade games of all time.
If not this one, it will be Otto
Crazy Otto’ was basically ‘Pac-man’ but with new levels (and differentiation between mazes), sound and music, flashier graphics, faster speed and better enemy AI. First, Namco rejected it because they had specifically agreed that they could not use the IPs as they pleased, but then they started to think: What if it was a sequel to ‘Pac-man’ changing the walking gentleman (Otto) for the already mascot of the company?
Namco (well, Midway, its US distributor) bought the rights from GCC and decided that, this time, it would be called ‘Super Pac-man’, to make it clear that it was the return of the king of video games. However, there were some sequences between the screens of ‘Crazy Otto’ introducing his female counterpart and it gave them a little idea, which, added to the fact that ‘Pac-man’ introduced millions of women in a world dominated by men in the arcade, how could they not create the female version of Pac-Man? They modified the original icon by adding eyes with eyelashes, a bow, a mole and red hair. That was it. Pac-Woman was born.
Well, Pac-Woman was short-lived, because they quickly changed her name to a more sonorous – and confusing – ‘Miss Pac-man’. In less than 24 hours, a filmmaker realized that on one of the screens, a stork was giving the couple a baby, and that could lead to thoughts of illegitimate pac-children. Not the plan. The character was renamed ‘Mrs. Pac-man’ and, finally, ‘Ms. Pac-man’. Pac-man’. Almost nothing. Then they received the notes from Japan sent by Masaya Nakamura, president of Namco: “Remove her hair immediately”.
Feminist icon?
The game appeared at the beginning of 1982 and was ported to all the consoles of an era, demonstrating, once again, that the ‘Pac-man’ saga was here to stay. Although the change of the character was minimal, it was the starting signal for a whole world of characters that has lasted until our days and a fireproof saga that has even appeared in ‘Super Smash Bros’ and ‘Mario Kart 8’, through aMiibo.
Only in 1982 four more official games were released (‘Super Pac-man’, ‘Pac-man Plus’, ‘Pac-man & Ms. Pac-man’ and ‘Baby Pac-man’) before its fame faded away completely in 1987 (with a late revival years later, of course, like all 80’s nostalgia). We may not see it as much as we once did, but it will always go down in history as the first serious attempt by video games to reach out to a female audience. Luckily, things have changed radically… Or so we want to believe as we watch those arcades full of yellow balls in suggestive poses and doing waka-waka.
The titles that were programmed for CD-i are considered some of the worst ever. And yet, there are still people who try to resurrect them by any means.
There are three letters that make all video game fans sweat and laugh at the same time: CD-i. The strange Philips format that allowed 744 MB of data to be stored in 1990 promised to revolutionize everything years before PlayStation: games were now on disc, opening a door full of opportunities that Nintendo couldn’t say no to. Sadly: the titles that were programmed for CD-i are considered some of the worst in history. And yet, there are still people who try to resurrect them any way they can.
Most of the video games that came out for the hybrid between console and multimedia station from Philips did not go beyond mere curiosity: versions of ‘Sink the Fleet’ and ‘Connect 4’ were mixed in the catalog with children’s games or chess, licenses such as ‘Sesame Street’ or ‘Golgo 13’ and three very strange Nintendo adaptations: ‘Hotel Mario’, ‘Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon’ and ‘Link: The faces of evil’.
One of the supposed advantages of this new format was that it allowed the inclusion of animated scenes in a more or less natural way: the two Zelda games that were released became especially notable (and laughable) because of them, the histrionic voice actors and the strange style of their designs. Obviously, none of these ended up being canon and have become more of a point of no return for Nintendo, who understood that they couldn’t just give away their franchises to anyone.
Because of this catastrophic result, the release of the third game in the series for CD-i, ‘Zelda’s Adventure’, only took place in Europe, where critics shamelessly trashed it: not only was it unplayable because it could take up to ten seconds to change screens and its CGI characters were impossible to control. Moreover, during gameplay, the cutscenes were recorded by real people instead of using animation, and the plot was bizarre to say the least. In it, Link had been kidnapped by Ganon in the kingdom of Tolemac and Zelda had to gather the seven celestial symbols to rescue him.
Dusting off the Game Boy
And the thing is, despite the video cutscenes, the game had a lot more to do with ‘The legend of Zelda’ or ‘Link’s awakening’ than the other Philips console versions. There were dungeons, similar level design and even the characters looked more stylish. However, not many were able to try it: in 1996, when the game was released, CD-i was already being paid off and Philips had accepted the failure, so it had the few sales you can imagine.
But now it has a second life in the hands of John Lay, a game developer who has de-maked ‘Zelda’s Adventure’ as a Game Boy game… improving it dramatically in the process and making it surprisingly fluid: by going backwards, it has gone forwards. The game is available on itch.io and shares the style of ‘Link’s Awakening’.
Ah, you can also buy the cartridge in case you feel like dusting off your old Game Boy and discovering the true power of the CD-i, the one that nobody wanted to check out in the early 90’s (with good reason). What better way to prepare for ‘Tears of the kingdom’?
This new installment of the Square saga is giving people something to talk about because it promises to be a game for adults in which we will find drugs, scenes of torture, sex, prostitution, and hate crimes.
There’s a month and a half to go until the release of ‘Final Fantasy XVI’ and, apart from repeating the cycle of every Final Fantasy (fans saying that the previous one was the good one and this one isn’t), this new instalment of Square’s saga is really getting people talking because it promises to be a game for adults in which we’ll find drugs, torture scenes, sex, prostitution and hate crimes. It’s like a crossover between Final Fantasy and ‘GTA‘. However, there is one country that has gone beyond “for adults”: it has erased it from existence.
According to ESRB, the US rating system, the voices saying it’s too edgy aren’t lying: there will be moaning in a hotel room, dialogue like “I’d be happy to show you… if you can afford it”, half-exposed asses and breasts, and words like “fuck” and “shit”. OK, yes, we don’t think it’s anything to shout about either, but it was enough to give it an M rating, i.e. recommending that children under 17 stay away from it. PEGI, for its part, has also rated it for 18+.
Of course, the essentials of the game are still there: orcs, magic, swords, fireballs, that sort of thing. After all, it’s still ‘Final Fantasy‘, even if there are suddenly scenes written by a fifteen year old. However, in Saudi Arabia, the company in charge of rating the game has refused to do so and, consequently, the game will not be released and will remain unreleased in the country.
The reason is that Square has steadfastly refused to censor the game and make the necessary modifications to make it look good, so the hardcore fans out there may already be preparing “alternative ways” to get it. Wink, wink. The ratings body hasn’t said exactly what it is that’s been bothering them, but rumour has it that it’s a homosexual couple. Frankly, good for Square. There’s money to be made that isn’t worth stooping for.
This is not the first game to be censored in Saudi Arabia, which has a long tradition of banning experiences for the most bizarre reasons. For example, ‘The last of us II’ had a homosexual couple, ‘Dead rising 2’ had gambling and nudity, ‘God of war’ had religious and sexual content and ‘Spec Ops: The Line’ had a fictional representation of Dubai. There are many others, including ‘Roblox‘ or ‘Injustice: Gods Among Us’, and ‘Final Fantasy XVI’ is just one more on the list.
Not least because Saudi Arabian laws apparently don’t follow censorship enforcement and games end up appearing in shops without anything happening, so fans of Japanese RPGs in the country will probably be able to get their hands on it anyway. The censorship issue is a curious one: for example, no games were banned in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2021, except for one, with the idea of protecting the younger generation from a bad influence. You’re thinking of ‘Manhunt 2’ or ‘Carmageddon’, right? Well, it was PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. What you have to see.
Yes, of course I don’t mind if you sell me the game halfway. No, of course, an unpublished story, a map and a dress. Of course I want to pay even more. Just missing.
Imagine that tomorrow you go to buy bread and the baker, who has always given you the classic loaf, this time gives you a crust without crumb and tells you that this is a new sales strategy: if you want the crumb you have to pay for it separately. It’s not necessary to enjoy the food, right? Well, that’s basically what we gamers have assumed with DLC. Yeah, of course I don’t mind if you sell me the game half-assed. No, sure, an unreleased story, a map and a dress. Of course I want to pay even more. That’s all it would take.
It’s said that the game that started the DLC ban (even though PC gamers already knew what it was like to have half-baked games with Expansion Packs) was ‘Total Annihilation’ in 1997 with free updates and new maps. Obviously, that wasn’t going to last forever. Soon, even the Nintendo DS would have downloadable levels for ‘Professor Layton’ or ‘Picross’. And now we live in a world where we are perfectly aware that paying 60 euros for a game is really just the beginning.
That video game companies see us as mere cows to be milked for all our milk is clear. That we have accepted as a positive symptom systems to do it to us as the Season Pass is like to ask ourselves things. Mainly, why all this content is not directly in the game? For example, ‘Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’ on Switch. Yes, of course I appreciate having 48 additional tracks to those I already had on Wii U: what I do not know is why they were not already included as standard.
At least Mario and his friends get quality content. Imagine being a big fan of ‘Oblivion’ and ending up paying for the famous horse armor (which cost two and a half euros, no less), or being the best at playing ‘Madden 2010’ and paying to get a new difficulty level. If you are one of those who pay money to get new skins, don’t you remember that in ‘Street Fighter III: Third Strike’ they made you take out your wallet to be able to… change the color of your character’s clothes? If they do this kind of thing it’s because it works: no matter how much fans complain, the people responsible for ‘Asura’s Wrath’ will probably end up making gold with the idea of taking out the end of the game separately after giving them 7 euros. True Ending’, they called it. It takes a lot of guts.
Not just DLC
Downloadable content and Season Passes have become part of our lives so quickly that it seems we gamers even thank the companies for squeezing as much money out of us as they can. Yes, sure, a DLC for ‘Horizon’ or ‘The Witcher 3’ in which new areas of the map open up to us and the story gets bigger is not the same as a pack of lamps for ‘The Sims 3’, but the feeling is the same.
But on the other hand, if we jump through the hoops of microtransactions in mobile games, we can swallow in everything. “Pay to not wait”, “Pay to get more lives”, “Pay to spin the roulette”, “Pay to get new weapons”. Pay, like this, in general. Until we have reached the zen coexistence of ‘Marvel Snap’, in which leaving money is really only a possibility for the very eager, we have had to eat thousands of ‘Candy Crush’. Even Duolingo is sold as a game with microtransactions! Want to learn Italian? Then you have to pay the cashier.
The early access, the betas that you can play after you checkout, the skins and clothing packs… Game developers seem to have forgotten about creating complete experiences: why, if we are going to pay for them later? Let’s not forget that titles like ‘Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War’ have so much DLC that it is literally a bottomless pit that also differentiates between people who can afford the best weapon and those who cannot. Pay to be the best.
True, it feels good to be able to test a game before its official release, and to know that when you finish it there will be more adventures – even to be able to differentiate yourself from the rest in online mode with a costume you’ve paid for, or to use a card not yet released to the rest that destabilizes the game! And yet, there is something deeply wrong with all this, as if we were aware that not so long ago this would be considered selling an incomplete game or cheating. It’s the world of gaming today. Get your wallet out. We’ll talk later.
Although ‘Wario Ware’ keeps going from time to time to the comfort of all of us who enjoy two-second minigames, there is another one that was lost in the limbo of the sagas: What happened to ‘Wario Land’
Neither Franklin from ‘GTA V’, nor Kid Icarus, nor Bayonetta, nor anything like that: the most unlikely hero in video games eats garlic for breakfast, farts, is overweight and likes money more than a politician. Wario is the second most important antagonist in the ‘Super Mario Bros’ saga and the only one to have had not one, but two sagas of his own. And although ‘Wario Ware’ continues every so often to the delight of all of us who enjoy two-second mini-games, there is another one that got lost in the limbo of the sagas: What became of ‘Wario Land’?
The first appearance of Wario, with a physical appearance that some say comes from Spike, the character from ‘Wrecking Crew’ who in Japan was known as Blackie (not anymore, whatever), was as the final bad guy of the wonderful ‘Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins’, one of the best games in the history of Game Boy 30 years ago. But the funny thing is that first came the name (a joke between Mario’s own name and the Japanese word “warui”, that is, “bad”) and then everything else. First came the puns, as it should be.
The funny thing is that in the guide of that cartridge his relationship with the hero of the red cap even had an inside story: Mario and Wario were childhood friends who parted ways. It’s also true that it was indicated that his favorite food was pancakes instead of garlic, so it may not have been too well thought out. The third part of ‘Mario Land’ wanted to break away from everything and, to do so, completely forgot about the plumber to focus on the novel powers of this character who wanted to get rich at all costs.
Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3′ is possibly the most fun of this strange trilogy for Game Boy: where Mario jumped and ran, Wario used powers and investigated every place in search of a secret location, giving a new layer to the screens. A myth had been born… That was on the verge of dying the following year. And it was the biggest failure in the history of the Big N: does the Virtual Boy ring any bells?
Virtual boy
The story is well known: with PlayStation and Sega Saturn about to come out, Nintendo couldn’t afford to get stuck with the SNES. It needed something more, and the Nintendo 64 wasn’t ready yet. Unfortunately (seen in perspective), Gunpei Yokoi had a little toy called Virtual Boy that, who knows, could be a hit: it allowed you to play in three dimensions… in exchange for wearing strange glasses that were impossible to hold and being willing to see only in red.
As you can imagine, it was no match for Sony and Sega: although Nintendo spent 25 million on promoting it, it only sold 770,000 units and by the end of its life it had released 22 games (8 exclusive to Japan and 3 to the United States). And among the list of ignonimia was, exactly: ‘Virtual Boy Wario Land’, which in spite of everything was considered the best title of the console. The shock was not big enough for the Game Boy Color in 1998 not to celebrate the first real sequel of the saga: ‘Wario Land II’, which had the novelty of not being able to die… because what matters is to keep going at all costs.
Wario must rescue his treasure in a long, fun and unique game, one of the pillars of the Japanese company’s invention to not yet retire its portable. In 2000, ‘Wario Land 3’ laid the foundations of the franchise and ‘Wario Land 4’ brought them to Game Boy Advance, with the novelty that now the character could “die” (or faint, at least). Surprisingly, its visual style is overwhelming and, undoubtedly, the best of the portable saga. From here, the turbulence begins.
Minigames and platforms
Wario became Nintendo’s default rogue character. If they needed someone to star in stupid mini-games, he was there with the fabulous ‘Wario Ware’ franchise. He raced go-karts, played golf and tennis, rolled dice on a giant board, beat everyone up in ‘Super Smash Bros Melee’. And, although we don’t like to admit it, it lost some of its identity along the way.
The next platformer tried to pick up where ‘Super Mario Land’ (for handheld) and ‘Super Mario World’ (for home console) left off: ‘Wario World’ was released for GameCube in 2003 and sold only about 390,000 units worldwide. By comparison, ‘Super Mario Sunshine’ snuck in 6.28 million and ‘Luigi’s mansion’ about 3.33. Sadly, it was no longer innovative nor did they know what to do with the character in three dimensions, resembling more of a beat-em-up than a platformer. Nintendo put the saga aside to let it breathe for four years.
In 2007 and 2008, Wario gave it all again with a last desperate attempt: on Nintendo DS, with the somewhat discouraged ‘Wario: Master of disguise’, which didn’t work at any level with a very strange story, and on Nintendo Wii with the incredible ‘Wario Land: Shake It! which had a beautiful hand-drawn art style, as if it were a cartoon: more than 2000 frames formed the actions of the character, whose plot was again focused on earning a lot of money, a return to what always worked of the same that came too late. If you can, try it! It’s hilarious despite making the entire gameplay system rely on moving the Wii Remote. That’s what it was fifteen years ago.
‘Shake It!’ sold a million or so copies worldwide, but it wasn’t enough to bring the platforming saga back to the forefront, thus condemning Wario to being locked away in ‘Wario Ware’ and being a deluxe sidekick in any Mario sports game. It looks like we won’t be seeing him jumping and getting powers again for a good period of time, though with Nintendo you never know: what if it gave him another chance on the Switch? Hey, he can’t complain either: he’s more than Waluigi ever had.
Legacy games have been with us for a decade, turning board games into a kind of video game in which each decision matters and each game is different from the previous one.
You know how to play a board game, even if it’s Parcheesi or Goose, right? You pick up your chips, roll the dice, move, throw cards, play against your friends or family and, in the end, one of you wins (unless it’s cooperative). The game goes back in the box and the next time everything is repeated in an impossible groundhog day… Or maybe not. Legacy games have been with us for a decade now, turning board games into a sort of video games in which every decision matters and every game is different from the previous one.
In 1998, a board game specialist named Rob Daviau joined Hasbro as a writer of Trivial Pursuit (yes, that job exists) and Taboo questions. A year later he was designing his own games, albeit as simple as ‘Monopoly Looney Tunes’ or ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’. One day, while devising new versions of ‘Risk’ he thought of a sort of inside joke about the latter: Why do the ‘Cluedo’ killers keep getting invited back again and again?
Or to put it another way: the players don’t start from scratch, but the game does. If video games can save the game and always keep going until the end, why couldn’t it happen in board games? He soon thought of a complex system of envelopes, surprises, increasing rules and a game that would evolve according to the player’s decisions, which he called “legacy”. And the first one he wanted to try was, paradoxically, ‘Cluedo’. It did not go ahead because Hasbro forbade it.
It was 2008 and he himself tells what happened: “They looked at me like I was crazy, so I thought ‘Well, maybe it’s a crazy idea’ and I put it aside”. However, the concept stayed in the heads of his superiors, and soon after they sent him to make a perpetual version of ‘Risk’ in which players had to do things unthinkable until then: scratch the board, break cards or write on them knowing that they would never use them again after the campaign, as if it were a game of ‘Dungeons & Dragons‘. In 2011, ‘Risk Legacy’ was released after a year and a half of development. It was a smash hit in the gamers’ field, although for Hasbro it was nothing more than a side note.
Pandemic (but without masks)
After leaving Hasbro, his next legacy game was not long in coming, and this one would change the market forever. Pandemic Legacy: Season 1′ is the usual ‘Pandemic’ but with changes after each month. It starts being easy to overcome and little by little it starts to get more complicated with variations of the virus impossible to cure, zombie infections, easier to get infected and cities that are marked for life. Twelve (or 24) games, depending on your skill and luck, will lead you to victory… or disaster.
It was easy for Daviau to choose ‘Pandemic’. When the creators proposed it to him by e-mail, his answer was, at size 150, “YES”. Pandemic Legacy’ is a much more complex game than the original and the decisions you have to make (save one city at the risk of being far away from another when the virus explodes?) will make you sweat. A must-have after which came the madness: everyone wanted their legacy.
From ‘Ultimate Werewolf’ to ‘Machi Koro’, ‘Vampire: The Masquerade’ or the ‘Jurassic Park‘ saga itself, there have been few games that could resist a good legacy version. Obviously, it doesn’t always work well, and some, like Daviau’s own ‘SeaFall’, didn’t quite make the grade. Fortunately, if you are interested in this variation with which you can finally feel that board games have entered a new dynamic, pay attention, because we are going to recommend you the best ones.
Don’t let them pass you by
If you know anything about the world, no matter how little, you know that ‘Gloomhaven’ is a sacred cow. A sacred cow with a box that literally weighs ten kilos, but that contains an exciting campaign that will bring you back to the best role-playing with an easy to understand game style (depending on the attention you are willing to pay) and that assures you dozens of adventures. If you want something even more accessible but equally fabulous, you have ‘Gloomhaven: Maw of the Lion’. You’re welcome.
Another marvel is ‘Clank! Legacy’, in which every game will change and literally every decision will be vital to get to the end. In addition, it has a much more complex story than ‘Pandemic Legacy’ and is more familiar than ‘Gloomhaven‘, making it a perfect start to the adventure.
And what about those with small children? Well, they can also give theirs with a zombie adventure between kids: ‘Zombie kidz evolution’ and ‘Zombie teenz evolution’ will keep the progress from one game to another. Like a role-playing campaign, but without the need for infinite character sheets. This is the future of board games, after all, or did you think it was all going to be ‘Monopoly‘ and ‘Catan’?
A game full of nods to original adventures, full of thousands of details that lead us to explore our new environment and do it in the most natural and fun way: gliding with the wind.
The developers of the award-winning game Alto’s Odyssey have done it again. In just a few days we will have with us the impressive Laya’s Horizon. A game with which we can glide along the slopes of a curious island with only our cape. With a really complete gameplay, not complex, but simple in its conception, we are facing a really attractive title that will soon be part of the Netflix catalog.
Now, with the film about to be released in theaters in Japan, there is a character who has changed his name… Luckily
He may not be the most beloved character in the entire ‘Super Mario Bros‘ saga, but he was there from the beginning. Literally. Foreman Spike, Mario’s enemy in ‘Wrecking Crew‘ (which came out a few months before the first of the platformers) has only appeared in three games before making the jump to the Mario brothers’ movie. But now, with the film about to be released in theaters in Japan, the character has changed his name… Luckily.
Spike’s gaming life consists only of ‘Wrecking crew’, ‘Wrecking crew 98’, a sequel for SNES that never left Japan, and ‘Mobile Golf’, a game of the sport in question for Game Boy Advance starring Mario in which he was an unlockable character and that, indeed, did not leave Japan either. Perhaps that’s why, after not appearing in 21 years, his supporting role in‘Super Mario Bros: The Movie‘ has given a lot to talk about.
Among other things, because it disproves a common theory, which is that he simply became Waluigi. It is a theory that makes sense: the mustache and the nose are practically the same. This role posed another problem more important than fan theories for Nintendo: the character, who has been called Blackie in Japan since 1985, will now be renamed Spike, according to a tweet posted by Nintendo, very concise but leaving no room for doubt.
“The name in ‘Super Mario Bros: The Movie,’ which will be released on April 28, 2023, will also be ‘Spike.'” Nintendo has not provided any explanation on the matter but it doesn’t take a sharp eye to figure out that ‘Blackie’ may have racist overtones. Rather than a move to equalize marketing across countries, it seems like an attempt to watch their backs. It is no less true that the character remained forgotten in the collective memory, so it does not seem that it will cause more than a few complaints.
Of course, we will have to see what happens with the enemies that are already called Spike, born in ‘Super Mario Bros 3’ and that have already lasted until today. At the same time, the ‘Super Mario Bros’ movie has already grossed almost 900 million worldwide and does not seem to be willing to slow down the accelerator. Come on, whatever name it has, we have Nintendo for a while. Ya-hoo!
