Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked

  • Reading time:3 mins read

by [name redacted]

Expanded from my weekly column at Next Generation, and posted on the game’s release date.

Samurai Champloo is the latest hit by Cowboy Bebop creator Shinichiro Watanabe, who might well be described as the Sergio Leone or Quentin Tarantino of the anime world. killer7 developer Grasshopper Manufacture has what might be described as strong aspirations to be the Quentin Tarantino of the videogame world. So this is a sort of clever pairing.

A Japanese trend I’ve begun to notice lately is the subcontracting of lucrative licenses to the most prestigious niche or up-and-coming developers – the likes of Treasure, Dimps, Cavia, Yuke’s. These are damned good developers, each with specific skill sets, specific views toward what makes a good videogame, and a substantial cult following. The trend is not unlike Hollywood’s recent predilection toward matching big blockbusters to the Cannes elite, resulting in movies like Batman Begins and the Spider-Man series.

Over here, any parallels are more the exception than the rule. The closest you really get are the likes of Neversoft, which sprang out of nowhere with Tony Hawk and – despite its success – has managed to keep relatively small and self-contained, seemingly more interested in exploring its ideas about design than in growth for the sake of growth. Treyarch is another good example. Maybe some past incarnations of Shiny or Raven or BioWare would count, though in their current forms they’re a little too… important.

Worlds

  • Reading time:2 mins read

Occurs to me that the thing The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly has definitely in common with Fellowship of the Ring (more than the other two Rings movies), and indeed with things like Lang’s Metropolis and The Third Man and Nosferatu — basically every movie I find magical and involving — is that the movie’s world is in a sense the main character. There are other characers in the movie, with their own agendas that we follow. The main conflict or relationship, though, is between those characters and the world they’re in — which in most cases is their own world; they just don’t see all of the aspects of it that we do, because they live there. The characters exist to bounce off the scenery, to ignore it, to walk us through it, to give us contrast with it..

This also describes The Legend of Zelda. And Silent Hill. And Phantasy Star II. And Dragon Warrior. And just about every videogame I find magical and involving. Hell, Riven is nothing but environment.

In a certain meta way, it also decribes more postmodern fare like Charlie Kaufman and Treasure. In MGS3, Kojima does both at the same time! Resident Evil 4 tries to as well, though it’s a little more clunky in execution.

A thread here.

One Fist Too Many

  • Reading time:2 mins read

It feels like the “Harmonica” character was inserted into Once Upon a Time in the West after-the-fact. He’s sure unnecessary. He makes the movie longer than it need be, attracts time away from the main plot for no good or interesting reason, and generally clutters the situation. I think he wasn’t supposed to be there; that Cheyenne was the only male protagonist, and that half of Cheyenne was split away to form “Harmonica” (who, note, is an Indian — yet the other guy is named Cheyenne).

Assuming this is the case — well, why? I’ve an idea it has to do with Ennio Morricone. You see, by this point he was no longer writing the music at the last moment. I understand that, after the success of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, where he wrote a number of themes beforehand, he began to work more closely with Leone, working out the music before the movie was set, such that Leone would have something to guide him, conceptually.

From how he’s used, it feels like “Harmonica” was an experiment in tying the music more closely to the material. In other words, he’s an artistic gimmick. He plays harmonica (poorly), which gives an excuse for a harmonica theme to dominate the soundtrack, blurring lines that really don’t need to be blurred.

I feel that’s enough Leone for me, for now.

Western Deconstruction

  • Reading time:2 mins read

Structure of the first half of Leone’s The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly:

  1. Title sequence
  2. Showdown #1; The Ugly identified
  3. Showdown #2 (and aftermath); The Bad identified
  4. Showdown #3 (and aftermath); The Good (such as he is) identified
  5. Back to The Bad; he beats a woman, showing how bad he is
  6. Back to The Ugly; the strange gunshop scene, where he displays his strange character traits
  7. (in the restored version) Added scene setting up the logic for the following scene; helps to space things out and show a little more of Tuco’s character
  8. Back to the Good, via Tuco; Blondie shows how sensitive he is, with the gun-cleaning scene; the outside world interferes for the first time, saving Blondie and setting the rest of the movie in motion
  9. (in the restored version) Back to The Bad; Angel Eyes’ eye-opening scene, where he is exposed to the effect of the war; some logic, to help explain why Angel Eyes returns when he does
  10. Back to the Ugly, then the Good; the squabble resolves. Blondie is again saved when the outside world (the stagecoach) again interferes, thus giving a greater goal for the movie and setting the third leg in motion.
  11. (in the restored version) Added scene setting up the logic for the following scene; helps to space things out and show a little more of Tuco’s character
  12. Tuco and Blondie at the mission; Tuco’s eye-opening scene, where he is exposed to the effect of the war; Tuco’s character is fully established, making Blondie more sympathetic to him
  13. Tuco and Blondie get caught up in the prison camp, to finally intersect with Angel Eyes
  14. etc.

I’ll fill the rest in later. It’s all downhill from here. Very… clean.

The removed scenes mostly help with the plot. Only one (aside from the boot thing, which is lovely) strikes me as important to the tone of the movie; that’s the early scene with Angel Eyes. The others are all nice to have, and make the movie feel fuller. More complete. I can see why they were cut, though, if cuts had to be made.

Bishounen have the best firearms

  • Reading time:3 mins read

All is well. I cracked my way into the parental menu. I’m my own daddy now! I just watched A Fistfull of Dollars. Interesting how all of the elements are pretty much in place, yet Leone has not yet figured out how to mix them well enough to turn out something like he did two films later. Still not bad. The movie, on its own, comes off as far above average for the genre. It just doesn’t transcend it, making the genre irrelevent.

Speaking of such things: I just got around to playing Devil May Cry.

Jesus. I had avoided this game since long before its release, because I was annoyed with how vapid and trendy it looked — and because of the way people reacted to the game. I guess I never really learned my lesson from Kojima. Yes, the game is supremely stupid and shallow — yet consciously so. It is so over-the-top that it comes off as a lot of fun.

Also now I see just how inspired Koji Igarashi was by this game. Everything from the not-falling-over-edges-unless-you-want-to mechanic to the odd stopping-in-mid-jump-for-a-combo detail, to the zooming-into-the-character’s-back-when-he-opens-a-door effect, to the way you hold the right trigger to duck and weave and strafe around. There are the over-the-top round titles. There’s the atmosphere. There’s the jumping (although Dante has no need for a double jump; instead, he has a variable and really high normal jump, plus a wall jump — not unlike Leon’s ability to whip railings to pull himself even higher).

Thing is — Devil May Cry is so much better a game. At least, so far. It’s linear, as Lament of Innocence should have been (and I think originally was supposed to have been). There are a few invisible walls, yet mostly you can not only jump all over the scenery but you can smash it up. It doesn’t take itself seriously in the least, unlike Igarashi’s game — which is goofy, yes, though as decoration on top of a concept which struggles and does not entirely succeed to do something marginally meaningful.

So. Now I understand some of what I have heard.

I still defend some of Igarashi’s intent with Lament of Innocence, and a bit of what he accomplished. He did get a decent start down. Just, hmm. The game is even more of an unfinished doodle than I realized.

I would say that I expect his next game to be far better — yet his next game is Nanobreaker. And. Well. I have yet to write about that. It didn’t impress me a whole lot. Of the recent set of slash-slash-slash combo games, it strikes me as one of the duller. Granted, all that was available for play at E3 was some kind of a time attack mode. So I don’t know how the main game is supposed to work. Yet, I don’t know about this.

Ah well. I need to play more of both games.

Perhaps this ties in with my ICO vs. Silent Hill 2 thing. I think that Riven, Super Mario Bros., and Bionic Commando might, too. And a few other things.

This might get kind of messy.

I will know, later.