#tetsuya mizuguchi

[grrlmusic]

Sounds & Visions: Enhance At 10 Boxed Set by Cook & Becker

[y2klostandfound]

Tetsuya Mizuguchi promote Space Channel 5 for SEGA Dreamcast (Dreamcast Express Vol.4)

[g00melo5-art-blog]

[gamemories]

[alexandriaisburning]

035: Every Extend [Extra] [Extreme]

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Developed in three months as a student project, Every Extend is almost an “anti-shooter”, playing with the conventions of the shoot-em-up genre. You can’t shoot, and your goal is to destroy yourself intentionally. Detonating yourself sets off a chain of explosions with nearby enemies. A detonation uses up a life, but with careful timing you can chain multiple waves of enemies together, earning enough points for an extra life--or extend. Colliding with enemies or bullets inflicts a time penalty, Respawning is delayed until after the chain resolves, so timing a detonation to capture the most enemies is critical to both earning extends and making use of the limited timer.

Finding the exact timing to maximize your chain gives it a powerful tension, asking you to constantly wait on pulling the trigger until the last possible second. It’s a catchy hook, and alongside its abstract, geometric graphics and electronic soundtrack, has a simple and immediate appeal. That abstract art style might call to mind Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s REZ, which it turns out was a big inspiration for developer Kanta “Omega'' Matsuhisa. Not long after Every Extend’s release it would catch the eye of Q Entertainment, Mizuguchi’s then current company, who would hire Matsuhisa to develop a commercial version with them. 

Every Extend Extra elaborates on the original with Mizuguchi’s signature of electronic music and reactive sound. The original’s vertical SHMUP style format has been altered to match the widescreen format of the PSP, and each stage now has its own unique aesthetic, with an accompanying licensed track. Sound effects are now synchronized to the beat, altering in pitch with each successive chain, giving chains an even more satisfying crescendo. Boss fights have become more complex, with elaborate bullet patterns and multiple phases. The original appeal and rhythm is kept intact, effortlessly mixing in new aesthetic layers and boss mechanics. 

E3 also contains an Original Mode, which claims to be a version of the original game, but it’s mostly a port of the original’s stages into the new engine, missing the original aesthetics and aspect ratio. 

Every Extend eventually received an HD version in the form of Every Extend Extra Extreme, but with many alterations that turn it into essentially another game. The pace has increased drastically, with the desire to play to the more powerful Xbox 360 hardware resulting in a huge increase in the number of enemies. To deal with the limited amount of viable spawn points, a new shield mechanic has been introduced, preventing you from getting hit for a few seconds after respawning. With so many enemies on screen you’re almost guaranteed a large chain, but you’re at a large risk after the shield runs out, urging you to detonate faster. A new rhythm mechanic awards bigger explosions for detonating on the beat, further deemphasizing positioning. It also lacks the variety of aesthetics that E3 has, opting for a more uniform look for all its stages. 

The manic energy of the greater enemy count and extended explosion chains does have its own appeal, but it gets far away from the considered approach of E2 and E3, and feels more in line with the flashy popcorn appeal of other arcade shooters on the Xbox 360. As if they realized that, E4 has an extra mode named The Revenge, which turns the game into a regular twin stick shooter a la Geometry Wars. It’s really no more than a novelty, without any of the deeper mechanics that give those twin stick shooters their long term appeal. 

The final addition to E4 is the Wiz Ur Muzik mode, which syncs up with your personal music collection, though bizarrely it doesn’t use the 360’s built in file management capabilities. Instead you go into a “capture mode” then play the music by switching to the built in media player in the guide menu, which will automatically be captured by the game. It’s a truly bizarre way to introduce this feature, especially when plenty of other smaller downloadable titles managed to integrate music playback more seamlessly. Exactly what changes with your music isn’t very perceptible, so the experience doesn’t feel much different than turning off the in-game music and playing your own on another device. 

E4 is kind of a weird package that doesn’t capture the original appeal, and it’s kind of a shame that it’s the only way to play Every Extend on a modern system, thanks to Xbox 360 backwards compatibility.

Currently, you can purchase a digital version via the Xbox online store and download it to any Xbox from the 360 onward, and a physical version is also available via the Qubed compilation of Q Entertainment games, which also includes Rez HD and Lumines Live. This will likely be the only way to purchase it after next year, which will see the shutdown of the Xbox 360 digital store in July 2024.

The original freeware Every Extend can be found on the Internet Archive, while Every Extend Extra doesn’t seem to have received a digital release, leaving your only official option to purchase a PSP UMD. ISOs of E3 are, of course, easily available. 

[god-pure]

Rez Infinite • 2016

[easternmind]

The absence of a photo mode was as an invitation for me to get creative in capturing some moments of spontaneous beauty from the Humanity Demo.

[thefreecheese]

The Free Cheese Episode 553: Tetris Effect: Connected

This week on The Free Cheese, I’m yours forever. We’re revisiting our Game of the Game of the Year, only this time we’re together. Our fourth and final Wii Sports Killer for Season 12 enters the conversation as we discuss the new additions to Tetris Effect Connected, breakdown its individual modes, and reminisce on other games that made us feel something.

[tneql]

Tetris Effect is the most profound video game experience you'll ever have in your life.

My first article in a decade; discussing why Tetsuya Mizuguchi and Enhance's Tetris Effect is the greatest video game ever made.

[sheepalmighty]

Some more of that Chai joins Vandelay for half a day AU. Or just a picture of a kinda OOC Kale chilling if you wanna gloss over those comics. I'm still not sure if the colours are too garish or not.

These were mostly done with the premise of treating Kale's office like the hideout. I also really like how mundane, or familiar, the interactions between Chai and Kale can be in the game so I wanted to draw some stuff exploring more like that. But also, there's the ulterior motive of shipping so I included an out of context scene because I can't bother drawing the rest of it (though it seems like a huge jump in their relationship as a result. I think they're so big headed that they get stuck in a feedback loop of stroking the other's ego if an excuse comes up to do so)

[joniivee]

Ulala my beloved

[y2klostandfound]

Tetsuya Mizuguchi in Tokyo Game Show 1999 on Revista Oficial Dreamcast Issue 1 (Spain)(1-2000)

[sixteen-bit]

Rez Infinite Session (Tetsuya Mizuguchi x Ken Ishii)

[miloscat]

[Review] Child of Eden (PS3)

The cooler Rez.

After United Game Artists (the studio behind Rez) was dissolved into Sonic Team, Tetsuya Mizuguchi left Sega and founded Q Entertainment. They made other games with his signature flashy light show style, like Lumines and Every Extend, but in 2011 they followed up his original "synaesthetic" game with another rail shooter, Child of Eden. If you ask me it's a more successful expression of Rez's aims, and a more engaging shooter as well.

In addition to Rez's eight-target homing shot (which can now get multiple locks on stronger enemies like Kachi's shot in Sin & Punishment 2), there's a new rapid-fire shot which is specifically for destroying projectiles and damaging certain enemies. A strong use of colour coding helps with gameplay readability, so it's clear when there are hazards to shoot down or targets to lock on to, and responding with the right choice of weapon is satisfying. There's also a score multiplier system that turns CoE into a true rhythm hybrid game, as you're rewarded with a score combo when you get full target locks that are released to the beat of the backing track.

You will want to get good scores as this grants you stars which are necessary to unlock new levels. Again there are only five, plus a unique bonus marathon challenge unlocked after you clear them; I couldn't get more than a third of the way through this but it's a nice extra that hearkens back to Rez's more abstracted visual style. Luckily the unlock stars are cumulative, so you don't have to perfect stages to open up later ones, simply play them through a few times. This felt like a chore at first but I did get into improving my score as I flew through the rich virtual environments.

While the setting is similar to Rez (a cyberspace world vaguely under attack, an avatar character to save) the levels have memorably stronger theming, such as evolution or technology, and the bump in console generation certainly helps to make more fleshed-out and visually impressive worlds and setpieces. I also found the music landed better with more of a pop and vocal tinge, especially given the story.

You see, Child of Eden is something of a tie-in to Mizuguchi's house-pop band Genki Rockets, who needless to say handled the soundtrack. Their virtual frontwoman Lumi, played in their shows and this game by Rei Yasuda, is the central character, an AI recreation of a woman born in the far-future year of 2019. Lumi has a constant presence in the game as a live-action integrated FMV character, appearing on menu screens, in gameplay, and in the intro movie as a white-dress-clad personality-less object of innocence soon imperilled.

I'm not keen on the damsel-in-distress imagery, and I thought the concept would have landed better if she had been rendered in the cool sketchy "Take On Me" rotoscope style as seen in the unlockable music videos (well, you can only watch partial clips of them in the gallery, for some strange reason...). Either way, she provides a central figure to hang the game around which works well enough, especially because the implied player character has reduced presence as the game is presented from the first person perspective.

While I was underwhelmed by Rez, I found Child of Eden genuinely impressive; it actually is what I was hoping that Rez would be. It's a shame that it's now a lot less accessible than Rez. I suppose it's also worth mentioning that just as Rez Infinite has its VR support, Child of Eden is compatible with the flash-in-the-pan 3DTV technology, as well as having optional Playstation Move motion controls, which seems like it would work pretty well (the 360 version instead has Kinect support, which probably doesn't work as well). I still found it plenty immersive without the gimmicks, playing on a 2D telly with a stock Dualshock 3. Good stuff.

[alexandriaisburning]

+005: Tetris Forever is marketing disguised as a documentary

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The latest in Digital Eclipse’s game/documentary hybrids, Tetris Forever presents a view of history that omits so much it’s nearly historical revisionism. Ironically, for a documentary about a Soviet export, Tetris Forever is more concerned with its capitalist success than anything else. 

Multiple chapters are spent on the saga of Henk Rogers’ acquisition of the rights to the game, the business deals that led to its financial success, and the total ownership that the Tetris Company finally achieved.

Rogers talks about buying out the remains of the Soviet ministry of computer technology, shutting down a successful Tetris clone keychain, taking ownership of Bombliss from designer--and Pokemon founder--Tsunekazu Ishihara, and it's presented as if they were inspirational stories, not ruthless business decisions. He even adds that he paid Ishihara 100 Yen per unit, “because it was the right thing to do”, even though he legally didn’t need to.

Tetris Forever’s narrative is not the story of Tetris, but the Tetris Company. It’s a story of great men doing great things, mythmaking for people who have very literally already bought in. You can see it in the collection’s roster of games, which only includes titles developed by Bullet Proof Software, games that Rogers had a hand in directly, and are outright owned by the Tetris Company.

For as much as they hype up the Game Boy as a key to the Tetris’ worldwide success, its absence leaves a gaping hole in what’s supposed to be a historical collection. Even if it's already well known to many, its absence makes it hard to take Tetris Forever seriously as a historical archive. 

Alongside Tengen Tetris, which they fought a protracted legal battle to bury, and NES Tetris, which has exploded in popularity recently with a number of world records, a growing competitive scene and a recreation in Tetris Effect, there’s several milestone releases that are not only not playable, but not given little focus in the documentary. 

The greatest of these omissions is easily SEGA Tetris. While Tetris dominated the console space in the West, SEGA’s arcade entry was highly influential in Japan, becoming the de facto representative of the series there, spinning off into competitive entries, and becoming the groundwork for several fan games of the time, and eventually Tetris the Grand Master. 

Together with TGM, SEGA Tetris would play a huge part in defining the “feel” of Tetris. Mechanics like lock delay, ghost pieces and wall kicks were created here, in arcades, then rolled into the official Tetris Guideline, the blueprint of what a modern Tetris game should look like. Rogers himself has said as much in other interviews. 

In leaving out those entries, Tetris Forever buries a slew of other stories. The stories of how a collaboration between ex-Street Fighter devs and Japanese comedians would change the series forever, how feedback from an office lady led to a game defining mechanic, and how the game would make an international name for itself years after its release due to streaming. 

Instead SEGA Tetris is limited to a single paragraph, a short video of Tetsuya Mizuguchi talking about watching it in arcades, and a summary basically saying “it’s influential” TGM and Arika are given even less, with the only comment being that TGM is known for its speed. It’s about the same level of attention as they give to the times they made Tetris cabinets that were REALLY BIG. 

And where are the stories of the NES game champions? THe ridiculous limitations that make the NES version uniquely difficulty to play, the absurd techniques that players developed to get around the physical limitations of the controller they play with? 

Where are the showcases of speedruns and high level competition? Why aren’t there interviews with the devs of different titles, like the experimental N64 entries from H2O Entertainment, or the composer of the CDI Tetris? Digital Eclipse had a chance to showcase the diversity of people and ideas that have touched Tetris, but all of that is barely mentioned, if at all. 

Licensing was surely a factor here, but as Tetris Forever points out, the Tetris Company has fought many battles over rights. Why stop when it's time to tell your story? 

Instead what we get itls historical revisionism by exclusion. A story canonizing what we already know, and leaving out the contributions of the many hands that have touched the game in the decades since its success. 

Tetris Forever would have you believe that's Tetris’ success is the story of Alexi Pajitnov discovering a diamond, and Henk Rogers convincing everyone it was valuable. But a gem's value isn't in its raw material but the refining process--something I'm sure the son of a gem merchant like Rogers would know.

Tetris’ refinements have come as a result of decades of community contributions. From fans making works in both official and unofficial capacities. Tetris is the story of a conversation between a game and its players. It's a cultural phenomenon built by many hands. 

Perhaps, comrades, that's the real legacy of what they once called THE SOVIET MIND GAME.

[icology]

Archipel Documentaries, well known for their works on some of the most important japanese creatives, has released the trailer for their documentary on Kenji Eno, marking the 10th anniversary of his passing. Amongst other important creators like Hideo Kojima and Tetsuya Mizuguchi, Ueda also participated and shared his memories about the beloved developer and musician. Eno was the founder of Warp, the videogame company under whom Ueda got his first job in the gaming industry and helped develop D and Enemy Zero. Though his time there was short (he worked at Warp for about a year and a half), it was surely one of the experiences that helped to solidify his interest for videogames and how the medium was the one that suited his artistic expression the most.

You can watch the trailer for the documentary down below: