Hey have you watched Game Center CX?

Game Center CX is a Japanese TV show where comedian and game fanatic Shinya "Kachou" Arino ("Kachou" = "Chief") challenges himself to complete various retro games in a single (~14-hour) day. It's an hour-long program that edits together footage of Arino's playthrough with his goofy commentary and back-and-forth with the production crew, as well as occasional variety segments where the Chief does anything from visit a local arcade to showcase old Game-and-Watches to sing fan-written lyrics to chip-tunes. It's kind of like a let's play that doesn't suck. Arino challenges everything from major classics like Super Mario Bros. and Ocarina of Time to more obscure games like Atomic Runner and Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom, of course hitting plenty of Japan-exclusives like quiz games, WaiWai World, Tom Sawyer no Bouken, and dozens more. There are over 150 episodes to date and the show is still running. Sometimes the Chief finishes in the allotted day, sometimes he doesn't, but it's almost always a grueling ordeal. 

Game Center is super-popular in Japan and has been running since 2003, and like everything that's popular over there, it has its dedicated following over here as well. It was brought to my attention through Retro Game Challenge (my runner-up GOTY 2013), which in its original Japanese incarnation is actually Game Center CX: The Game. There was actually a sequel, Game Center CX 2, that never made it out over here, as XSEED (the NA publisher) stated that Retro Game Challenge was far more expensive than the average licensing/localizing effort and did not turn nearly the expected results. 

Anyway I recommend checking out the show, it's a lot of fun. I have a lot of trouble watching video games (I have always despised let's plays) because it tends to be boring and occupy a bizarre space (essentially, I don't get why bother), but I'm enjoying this quite a bit. Here are some links to episodes I've recently enjoyed:

The Wings of Madoola - a Sunsoft action-RPG for NES that sees the Chief quite frustrated by a continue mechanic

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xygcdq

Dragon Ball - the action/adventure Dragon Ball game for NES that is randomly unfair

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xyf3rz

Yuuyu's Quiz de GoGo! - a stupid quiz game but it's funny to watch the team struggle

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xyf64g

Game game game of the Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaar Awards!!!!!!!!!!!! Part 2

Continued from yesterday. You can see the rules in that post - remember, the top three are picks of games I played for the first time in 2013, not games that were released in 2013.

Game game game of the Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaar Awards!!!!!!!!!!!! 2013 Ed.

Special Baby Retard Category: Best Game released in 2013

You folks asked for it, so here it is: my vote for best game that was released in 2013. The reason I would never bother orienting a peer-to-teen choice awards contest around this idea alone is that I don't actually play enough games that come out in any given year to choose anything even remotely representative of "best of that year". I played maybe 20 of the, I dunno, 500+ (mainstream) releases of 2013. I'm not gonna judge a game I haven't played, no matter how much I've read about it. That's why... well, I'm not going to criticize the big boys. I'm sure they know what they're doing and they have their integrity and we all respect that. Anyway, the second runner-up to Best Game Released in 2013 WOULD HAVE TO BE:

#3: Killer Is Dead, Xbox 360, Grasshopper Manufacture, 2013

It's action. Reaction. Random interaction. Now who's afraid of a little abstraction?

Not I. And neither should be you. I like a nice formal narrative. Okay, does it really count as formalism versus bland David Lynch symbolism when a guy's secret twin brother appears in his dream and slices his breakfast of a single fried egg perfectly in two? No, but that's exactly what makes it funny! There's a fine line Suda walks here between depth and mockery, and that's what makes for great satire. Killer works as a compelling mystery of its own, carefully exploring the facets of Mondo Zappa's buried psyche, and also takes every opportunity to send up the video game industry's self-seriousness about sexuality while being incredibly sexist (see the Gigolo segments), existentialism while being incredibly preposterous (see the Alice-meets-lobster boss), and even bromance while being incredibly... bromantic (see the hilarious Gears of War mission). I must admit I wasn't left wanting for more of Killer Is Dead's combat, but it was fun while it lasted and tough enough that there was mastery on offer. [I also have to comment that my combat fatigue is probably more a testament to having played too many of this type of action game in the past year or two... Killer Is Dead is more unique than Platinum fare, but doesn't transcend the crowd like Arkham Asylum or No More Heroes 2] Considering that the game is nice and short (praise short!), looks like a impressionist painting, and has a soundtrack ranging from thrash to hip-hop to classical remixes (by Akira Yamaoka of course), it certainly justifies further plays to investigate the themes.

#2 DmC: Devil may Cry, Xbox 360, Ninja Theory, 2013

S-Stutter!!!!

Certainly this is one of the combat action games of the generation. This is combat that derives its depth from clever reactivity, the ability of the player to quickly analyze a split-second situation and be prepared with which tools can be deployed to handle it. Those tools are what make DmC particularly rewarding - like the original Devil May Cry, this isn't a game where you'll be stressing to remember which combo string does what and spending hours mastering the input timing to pull it off (a la Bayonetta or BlazBlue) - DmC is based around simple inputs with wildly varying results. If you want to play a game where you fight demons with swords and guns, it is hard to pick one that will make you feel more powerful and graceful than this. The chains (uh, physical chains that is, not combo chains) that pull Dante or enemies across the battlefield add such speed, dynamism, and - yes - chaos to the battles that you'll never feel you're repeating the same conflicts, and the bit of platforming they provide between fights strings the adventure along all the more fluidly. I may not have been a huge fan of the story, but few players will have time to worry about that amidst the endless combat variations. In fact, this is kinda the opposite of Killer Is Dead - where there the story inspires replays that the gameplay is just good enough to support, here the story is successfully kept out of the way enough not to ruin a first play-through which is sure to inspire more gameplay-based reruns. The stages are loaded with unique enemy combinations and scenarios that'll draw you back for score- (and collection-) based runs.

#1: Bit.Trip Runner 2: The Legend Runs On, XBLA, Gaijin Games, 2013

It's actually called Bit.Trip Presents... Runner 2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien. For those worried about copyright infringement. If that's how that works.

I actually like my name better than the real one. Can we do anything about that? Tim? Name change? Tim's giving me a no. Runner 2 is the type of sequel that does exactly what the Bit.Trip series wasn't all about. Bit.Trip told a succinct and fluid story through gameplay, music, imagery, and a tiny handful of abstract cutscenes. Gaijin didn't have time for a typical video game sequel that reiterated gameplay concepts with better graphics, more songs, multiple playable characters, a world map, and dancing. They had an artistic vision to uphold. But people loved Bit.Trip Runner and they didn't give a shit about Artistic Vision: The Game, so Runner 2 is exactly that typical sequel I described. Thing is, as far below the genius of the original saga as it is, it's still an absolute blast. It is everything an arcade-style rhythm platformer could hope to be, overflowing with charm, style, gorgeous visuals, toe-tappin' tunes, a great sense of humor (if you like pickles), and one HELL of an addictive structure. I couldn't stop playing for days, and the game is cleverly crafted arcade greatness that always allows room for improvement while still providing multiple levels of satisfaction for skilled runs.

This is the epitome of a fun video game - one that is memorable and delightful even for unskilled players, and a sensory treat that demands mastery.

AND FINALLY: GOTYE 2013

Yes ladies and gentlemen, the moment has arrived. It is time to unveil my three very favorite games I played in the last year that every single one of you should go out and play right this very instant. The second runner-up, bronze-medalist, almost as good as the other ones Game of the Year 2013 IS:

#3: Mark of the Ninja, XBLA, Klei, 2012

Playing to terrify guards is one of the most challenging and satisfying strategies

Mark of the Ninja is a game that knows what it wants to be. It's a ninja game and it's a stealth game and it's a platformer. It's not a stealth-platformer starring a ninja. It's a ninja game and it's a stealth game and it's a platformer. To clarify the seemingly arbitrary semantic distinction I'm making here: over the course of the game, Klei cranks up all of its design elements independently and allows the player to choose how to approach each situation using distinctive gameplay methods. Your "tools" aren't just a set of interchangeable maguffins like night-vision goggles and lazer trip wires, they're gameplay styles like "slow and strategic, using items" or "fast as possible using precisely timed jumps". This gives the game an almost Sonic-the-Hedgehog-high-path-low-path feel, where knowledge, skill mastery, and choices can be applied to result in a totally different gameplay payoff. It's amazing how naturally Klei pulled this off without ever making the game feel like a series of discrete choices. Partly that owes to the stealth framework, wherein a mistake gives the player a chance to adapt (as in Sonic when a player falls to a lower path) rather than immediately sending them back to an earlier checkpoint. There's so much variable gameplay here, especially once the extra playable characters (costumes) are thrown into the mix. This game demonstrates that there are still new ways to do the classic platformer (without just throwing in puzzles, fuck you "indie" gaming). [it wasn't my #1 platformer just cuz I wanted to make it clear it was one of my absolute favorite games of the year, transcending genre, and that everyone should play it].

#2: Retro Game Challenge, Nintendo DS, indieszero, 2009/2007(JP)

This is such a great total experience that was completely undersold by everyone who pitched it as an anthology of faux-classics or a nostalgia trip. Retro Game Challenge is the story of two Japanese kids (one of whom happens to be a young Shinya Arino) growing up in the late '80s indulging in video game culture. The beauty of the game doesn't come from the neo-retro "8-bit" games (which are a dime a dozen these days anyway), it comes from the fictionalized experience of anticipating a new game, finally getting your hands on it, sitting down and going nuts trying to master it, reading magazines with fan letters and hints, and going through the entire cycle again with the next game. It's meta as hell, but it's a game about the experience of being a gamer, set in an idealized time we imagine as more optimistic and which many of us associate with our youth. Still, I think this experience would resonate with anyone who's ever been excited about games. The fact that you actually get to dig into eight cool original titles (that are just as fun as those they're based upon) is really just a bonus. 

#1: Ys: The Oath in Felghana, PC/Steam, Falcom 2012/2005(JP)

Oath is actually a remake of the SNES/Genesis/Turbo16 Ys III

This game made me so happy. I don't know how else to put it. I just felt extreme, unadulterated happiness every time I sat down to play it. Okay, that made it sound a little creepy. But there's a child-like sweetness to Oath in Felghana, a romantic simplicity to the classic story of innocence lost that pairs wonderfully with the gung-ho "cool" metal and hardcore action that characterizes the game's underworld. I think I can best explain it using the soundtrack. The game goes from the track on the left when you first arrive in town to the track on the right when you're in a dungeon. That's the span.

    

It's just... a perfectly straightforward, honest video game. It's a fairy tale, not an epic, a stylized adventure that serves theme over story or character. If there is action, there are fucking wailing guitars. If there is sensitive stuff, there are sad violins. The dialogue and cut-scenes are just enough to carry a through-line, the rest is entirely mood.

The essentially-one-button action follows that fuck-it-just-get-to-the-point mentality. Just because it's button-mashing doesn't mean it's easy or mindless - your character is so fragile and everything moves so quickly that you'll need to learn enemy patterns and probably die (or at least restart dungeons - no healing items here) a lot of times to perfect your skills. Once you get it down you'll feel like a steamroller completely crushing everything in your path - until, of course, you hit the shmup-style bosses with their strict patterned mechanics. Will you have to match your magic charge attacks to a color-changing boss' periods of vulnerability while dodging his attacks specifically designed to capitalize on that element's weakness? Or perhaps you'll be up against a trio of spirits who adapt their aggression as you pick them off? There's even a side-perspective 2D fight that had me thinking of Castlevania. The boss fights are the game's absolute highlights, calling back to the style of classic Treasure and Konami action. 

Ys: The Oath in Felghana is my game of the year because it captures what is for me the absolute essence of a video game experience. It immediately puts all the cards on the table and develops challenges from established mechanics, putting me into a continuous state of adaptation. Each situation is a puzzle in and of itself, fun to learn because of the enjoyable core action and a different kind of fun once perfected because of the uniqueness of the setting. The fighting is contextualized with a concise, purposeful story about the consequences of action and responsibility and adorned with a sweeping, roaring soundtrack and minutely detailed graphics that bring the game's inhabitants to life. The action doesn't have to be the greatest ever conceived nor the tale the greatest ever told for the experience as a whole to be what every action/adventure should aspire to parallel. 

What I'm Playing, Mid-May '13

In this feature, we commemorate games I have for the first time started and finished in the last few highly variable time units.

I intended to do this in the last week of April as a month-summary, but I'm now half a month behind, have finished some of the games I started then, and don't exactly remember the difference between April 31st and May 1st. So, as ever, this is really just "what I've started/finished since the last time I did this feature". Oh shit! It's Monday the 13th! What is this, bizarro world?

Special Recognition for Starting and Finishing:

Retro Game Challenge (DS)

I've already talked quite a bit about this one, so there shouldn't be much need for introductions. As per usual, this wasn't a 100% completion - I made it through the challenges, but that didn't entail visiting every last nook and cranny of Challenge. This is a fantastic game, especially considering how completely off-guard I was caught. Challenge set out to make games that feel classic, not old, like homages, not knock-offs. This is a path laden with pitfalls, as many wannabe-retro games overstep their bounds in trying to "upgrade" classics, in the process destroying what originally made the games worthwhile. RGC doesn't do anything that would feel out of place in the '80s, and while that leaves its games vulnerable to the same flaws that ran rampant back in the day, it allows us to evaluate them from that baseline. They don't demand comparison to every other game in 2013.

Crimson Shroud (3DS eShop)

Shroud is an awesome little mini-RPG from Yasumi Matsuno that throws back to pen-and-paper, dice-and-figurine tabletop role-playing. This nostalgia angle was meaningless to me, but I got a lot of mileage out of the superbly balanced turn-based combat. As a matter of fact, this is one of very few turn-based game of which I could say that I would return for the combat alone. Every character has a huge variety of abilities, every ability has a unique function, there's a combo mechanic to reward macro-strategy, and battles are lengthy standalone affairs. The entire seven-hour game probably only had about 20 enemy encounters. Maybe less. And there's no stupid experience points, thank god!

The rigid character-figurines have a certain charm in the way they hop, spin, and topple, providing a coherence to the art-style similar to Paper Mario. In a lesser game, I'd be perfectly content with this faithfully executed vision, but Shroud sits so close to greatness that this presentation comes across more like a lack of ambition and (obviously) budget-cutting strategy. With character concepts this solid (pardon me for loving the look of Vagrant Story and Final Fantasy XII) and battles so expertly crafted, a few flashy attack and spell animations to keep my eyes dazzled would threaten to elevate Crimson Shroud to the sublime. In some sense it's neat to see what my brain comes up with in the absence of visual stimuli, but more often than not I simply zone out and the game becomes nothing but number-crunching. It'd be a neat experiment elsewhere, but come on - we only get a Yasumi Matsuno game every seven years, and the least they could do is take it to the maxxx.

Games Started:

Red Dead Redemption (Xbox 360)

This is a Rockstar Game through and through, chocked full of pointless subplots, cynical worldviews, tedious gameplays, nonexistent difficulty, garbage interfaces, and terrible never-played-a-game-before controls. It's also drop-[red]-dead gorgeous, perhaps the most stunning realistic-graphics game I've ever seen. It's sad to see such a crappy game overlaid on what had the potential to be the best realization of the Wild West this side of ever, but I've yet to count it out completely. The gunplay is fun and there are some promising hints of adventure elements - hunting wildlife to collect pelts, side quests (versus typical open-world side missions, which lock you into an objective and don't let you don anything else til it's been completed), an economy - so I can't discard it out of hand. Let's remember that I somehow made it through Max Payne 3, and this is the same third-person-shooting in a far superior architecture. And heck, I'm a sucker for poker minigames.

Mark of the Ninja (XBLA)

This is the last one I'm writing and boy are my arms tired. Mark is off to a good start by emphasizing platforming over stealth - realizing that stealth is a modifier to existing gameplay, not an interesting driving challenge in and of itself. Mark is all about navigation, requiring ninja-like dexterity to pull off stealth tactics.

Just Cause 2 (Xbox 360)

I dunno I bought this because it was on sale for $10 and I've only heard good things and it's supposed to be about open world exploding and so were Red Faction: Guerilla and Prototype, which I really liked, but so far it blows. Why are the controls so bad. Why is the jump so sluggish and awkward. I dunno. It could turn around. My hopes have at this point jumped off a cliff.

Games Finished:

Zeno Clash (XBLA)

I started Zeno Clash what seems like an age ago, back when I was writing about FPBs (first-person brawlers) on my personal website. The brawling is mechanically solid and diverse, offering fair competition to top FPBs like Red Steel 2, but it's the art and story that stick around in your head once the credits roll. The setting is bizarrely gorgeous, conjuring a sort of prehistory-gone-wrong: what if mammals weren't the only ones to evolve into humanoids? The atmosphere is overwhelming, supported by freaky instrumental music and grotesque visual details like a beached whale with teeth on the outside of its mouth. The only gripe I have about the audio-visual presentation is that it could use a few more musical tracks. While the main 'creepy' background piano piece is beautifully unsettling, repeating it for 2/3 of the game detracts from its effect.

Something that should be a complaint but somehow isn't is the HORRENDOUS voice acting. It's so weird and bad, like none of the readers can speak English or understand their lines (this is possible - the game was developed by a Chilean indie team). A great deal of the voices are also supplemented by a handful of electronic effects. My sole complaint here is the same as for the music - for such a short game with only a dozen or so characters, should I really be hearing the same voice actor playing so many parts (in the same voice, no less)?

More on Zeno Clash later though. Very clever game. Grab it now if you haven't already - it's on Steam too.

Learning to love traditional JRPGs - a true Retro Game Challenge

One of my newest video game friends, Retro Game Challenge, has taught me a lesson I didn't expect to learn. This lesson is that maybe I can like traditional turn-based JRPG?

One of my favorite Japanese turn-based RPGs is Star Prince

Challenge is structured as a literary anthology of eight fictional '80s-styled games, each deriving heavily from a real-world classic. See this post for more discussion of the overarching narrative that explains why you're playing them. The games are presented one at a time, each with four challenges that must be completed  before the next game is revealed. Each unlocked game can be revisited at will, as the challenges usually do not include seeing the ending. The eight retro games, in order of play, are:

Cosmic Gate (based on Galaga, ex. challenge: get 200,000 pts)

Robot Ninja Haggleman (based on Ninja JaJaMaru-Kun, ex. challenge: beat level 4 without dying)

Rally King (based on R.C. Pro-Am (I think), ex. challenge: complete course 2 in 5th place or higher)

Star Prince (based on Star Force/Star Soldier, ex. challenge: beat the boss of level 2)

Rally King SP (modified "special edition" of Rally King)

Robot Ninja Haggleman 2 (very similar to RNH, with larger levels and harder enemies)

Guadia Quest (based on Dragon Warrior, ex. challenge: reach level 10 with all characters)

Robot Ninja Haggleman 3 (based on Castlevania II/Ninja Gaiden, ex. challenge: kill 100 enemies)

These capture the most popular genres of NES-era gaming, as well as some of their key evolutions. Star Prince introduces scrolling to shoot-'em-ups, Haggleman 3 adds linear progression (instead of looping) to platforming, and Rally King SP adds nothing at all to Rally King. As I discussed in the previous feature, being forced to play each game for a certain amount of time (long enough to complete the challenges) makes the new games feel like exactly that: new games. Even players coming into Challenge without existing knowledge of what's to come will be primed on the "upcoming" releases by the fake in-game Famitsu/Nintendo Power pastiche, creating a sense of anticipation.

To this end, the game I most avidly awaited was of course the last to be unlocked, Haggleman 3. The first two Hagglemans are too basic for my taste; as arcade-style platformers, they share more in common with Son-Son or Mario Bros. than what we now consider the defining work of the genre, Super Mario Bros. Plus I fucking love adventure platformers like Castlevania II and Wonder Boy III. Unfortunately, what I do not love is traditional turn-based RPGs like Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, and Ultima III. I've tried to weather a number of these games and simply don't have the patience for it, nor do I derive much pleasure from incessant turn-based battling. But Retro Game Challenge gave me no choice: if I wanted to play Haggleman 3, I was going to have to stomach at least a few hours of Guadia Quest. 

What's shocking is that this dangling carrot was all I needed to become engaged in Guadia Quest, to the extent that I didn't even put it down after unlocking Haggleman 3. Up til that point, I had been playing Challenge as a curiosity, not because I particularly needed a refresher on retro gaming - I already play NES games on a near-daily basis. I wasn't expecting to come away with any greater understanding or appreciation of these game-types - after all, I hold games from the '80s in equally high esteem as those from the '10s. So it came as something of a surprise that an archetype I had already felt decided upon would take on new life in this form. But has Guadia Quest really changed my feelings on early JRPGs? Does enjoying this one mean  I'll suddenly be able to plumb new depths of Breath of Fire and Phantasy Star?

One of the coolest parts of Retro Game Challenge is that it includes full manuals for these fictional "classics"

I suppose first we need to ask how much Guadia Quest actually has in common with the classics - how well it would fit were it released in 1988, as Challenge posits it was. I'm not gonna run through the JRPG trope list in detail - let's just quickly summarize. These games feature quests to save the world, over-worlds full of random battles, towns as shelter/restocking/healing/save points, maze-like enemy-filled boss-topped dungeons as levels, turn-based battles, rigid immutable class systems and character growth, and Java+++ scripting language. Guadia Quest happily ticks all those boxes. Fixed-strength encounters communicate to the player what party level they should be at to conquer each location, experience and gold is scaled to battle difficulty such that tougher victories are better rewarded, and there's even a very light monster capturing system. Save-anywhere is a convenient feature NOT found in most of the classics, though save states are so common these days that it doesn't feel unusual to a retro-player in 2013. The difficulty curve is steep, with frequent death leading to multiple replays of each section. The player's party is made up of a warrior-type (high attack, no magic), a paladin (moderate attack and healing/defensive spells), and a black mage (low attack/defense, powerful offsensive spells), which is about the most basic assortment known to man. Implied die rolls decide whether each attack hits, criticals, or misses. 

"A", "B", and "Z". Boy this guy was creative with his character names. Mine were "You", "Womp", and "Yaky"

If Guadia Quest makes significant modifications to the JRPG formula, I don't know the formula well enough to notice. So it's not the gameplay itself that made the difference. It has to be something about the circumstances that led me to like this RPG yet reject Phantasy Star IV - and that's intentionally "like", not "tolerate". I think it's one particular sequence of challenges that changed the way I approached the game. The first is to reach Level 10 with each party member, a simple task of grinding as familiar to a gamer as the neckbeard on their chinny chin chin. This facilitates a sort of aimless, goalless wandering, where it doesn't really matter where you go or what you see, because you're always getting closer to your goal. There is some freedom of choice in that the player can try to survive a handful of high-level encounters or safely power through dozens of easier ones, but the goal remains abstract. It doesn't really matter which way you go.

The following challenge requires the player to obtain 1000 gold. As each battle comes with a monetary reward, this at first seems the exact same as the previous objective. But this treasure-hunt in fact highlights the adventurous nature of the genre, reminding me more of Dark Souls than Final Fantasy V. The need for greater rewards than victory-pennies (I think that was a kenning!) centers the experience around defying immediate danger in order to make it as far as possible on individual expeditions, always trying to make one more step on failing legs rather than giving up your progress by using a town portal. La-Mulana was another adventure that kindled this same spirit; the notion that powering up cannot in and of itself be an end. The difference between this type of play and run-of-the-mill grinding is that each quest for treasure has its own binary metric of success: you either find the gold, or you don't. There's no in-between, no reward for making it halfway. It brings life, purpose, and risk to each step forward. "Can I make it across the room without running into a random battle?" "Is it worth setting myself back 500 gold to get better equipment to survive deeper into the dungeons?" Like Dark Souls, there's a weight to failure - continue to screw up, and you're going to be sinking more and more gold into revival and healing items, which pulls you further and further from your goal. There's also an exhaustibility to rewards - you can't collect the same treasure chest twice, so you have to forge on to new territory.

I'm honestly not sure how well this immediacy will be preserved when I inevitably retry a classic I had previously dismissed (probably gonna be Phantasy Star III). True, it's simply a matter of mindset and didn't involve any real change to gameplay, but I was also being externally motivated to think that way. If I had a blog, you might be able to follow how well this experiment goes. Unfortunately, I don't :(

The theater is dead, but frame stories aren't

Super Mario Bros 3. Mario Party 2. Papers Mario. Black Knight Sword. Nin2-Jump. Battleblock Theater. What do all these esteemed games have in common? I dunno. What do you? Well, the second word of that last title should give a hint. Or, shit, you probably read the headline by this point.

Battleblock Theater is the latest in a long-running pseudo-series (i.e. not-a-series) of 2D games set on a stage. Not "stage" as a synonym for "level", rather a raised platform in an auditorium. Take a looksy.

Note the silhouetted audience...

...and the puppets...

...and the curtains and shadows

The obvious implication of this imagery is that the game we're playing is a stage show, performed by actors (e.g. David Duchovny) or puppets (e.g. Fozzy Bear). This explains why, for instance, SMB3 lets the player sneak behind the scenery, and why Black Knight Sword scrolls the backdrops instead of the camera. Occasionally the setting has some slight effect on gameplay , as when the gallery throws junk at Paper Mario, but for the most part it's just a look. A snazzy look, but one that begs the question: what's the point? Is there some thematic solidarity between these titles? Are the recent ones referencing classics like SMB3?

These theatrical games call to mind a narrative technique as ancient as pizza: the "framing story". The notion that the world we are experiencing is a game within a game, the secondary level of scope being that of the theater patrons. Literature loves this shit: Hamlet, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Catcher in the Rye - these all employ framing stories to a varying degree, utilizing parallels between the inner and outer narrative to add thematic complexity. Where these game examples appear to fall short is in making little to no attempt to tell the secondary frame story - the one outside the stage-play. Why the characters are performing their story, rather than living it, is left to guess-work by the player. I can't see how any of these games would change if the extra scenery was stripped away and they were set in the "real" world (the All-Stars version of SMB3 does exactly this, to no observable effect).

As a matter of fact, Battleblock Theater is the only one (to my knowledge) that provides any extra-theater play, and even then remains extremely confusing with its usage of drama. The game is set on an island where the protagonists are forced to participate in a gladiator-like series of platforming challenges for the amusement of a cataudience. But the preceding story, before they get to the island, is also told as a puppet show. How does this make any sense? It's simply an example of how little thought goes into the whole theater thing - it really is just there because it's "unique" (though, as we can see in this post, it's far from it).

The truth of it is that a game set on a stage isn't much of a framing story. Not because of the failure of the aforementioned examples to thoroughly execute, but because of the combination of media. A game within a game should be exactly that: two different games. Not a stage-play and a game. It could be argued that this is done through playable flashbacks in games like The Witcher 2 and Splinter Cell: Conviction, but those are just basic discontinuous narratives. As for mini-games, such as the Game Boy in Super Mario RPG or arcade cabinet in StarCraft II... I guess those are games within games, in a spiral array, but come on. That's a completely trivial example. It's the same situation as the theater setting: yes, technically it's a frame, but with so much dissonance between the two levels that it may as well not be. 

I'm currently working through Retro Game Challenge, one of the better framing games I've played - which wasn't something I expected to call it. The overarching narrative places the player as a kid from the present who is sent back in time to play a bunch of 'classic' video games as they are released (classic in quotes because these are fictional games based on real ones). While some players may glance over this entire story thread and view the game simply as an anthology similar to Namco Museum or Mega Man Anniversary Collection, they won't get much from the experience. The frame story, playing as the kid who plays the games, is intended to provide the experience of growing up in the '80s, living through the release of these classics. There are manuals to read, Nintendo-Power-esque magazines to browse, and a friend who provides rumors about secrets and upcoming titles. This is a genuine interactive narrative - the gaming experience is as important as the games themselves. 

This strongest aspect of the frame story is that the games-within-the-game have a fixed release schedule. I imagine some players of Challenge will be disappointed to find that they need to play through each of the eight games before the next becomes available. I know that discovery initially left me annoyed. When you realize that this is NOT a collection, but a story about the evolution of games and gamers, it becomes clear how much sense that linearity makes. We all want the next big game to come out, we all wish we could be playing the next Zelda or Vanillaware game today. But until then, we make the most of what we have, pushing us to discover the depth in old games. Which re-emphasizes the purpose of the 'classic' games in the game: to demonstrate the value of the old, and how much it affects our perception of what's new!

That is how a framing story is done. Not by putting a bunch of curtains and hecklers in the foreground.