#the concept of extremely short disconnected episodes based on video games does not seem like it would be very profitable at all

[thogwithablog]

My thoughts on the Armored Core episode of Secret Level

(Spoilers below)

It was alright. There were things I liked and things I didn't. The protagonist seemed very generic, along with his imaginary girlfriend. The music also seemed generic. The dialogue was pretty cheesy (especially the gratuitous use of "fuck"). It was too short to establish any kind of narrative. It felt more like a trailer or an advertisement than an episode of a TV show (The excessive ambiguity. Basically the entire thing being an action scene. Keanu "Chungus" Reeves. What are they even trying to do with this show, anyway?)

The action scenes and mech animations were good though. I especially liked the scene where John Core goons to the feeling of the drugs entering his system as he is being stabbed by a copious number of needles. They definitely got the "eroticism of the machine" part down, despite its brevity. In general, I liked the overall "aesthetic" it had, too.

However, I still think the AC6 story trailer did it way better.

[undeadimpulsereviews]

The Problem with the Horror Genre (Editorial)

Warning: There will be spoilers for many different things throughout this. I will be supplying as much as I can find to get my point across so if you don’t want to be spoiled then I’d steer clear.

Before we jump into things I want to state something about this and the future stuff to come regarding these pieces. Everything I’m writing, especially with this piece, is pretty much all opinion based. I’ll try to pull as much facts as I can to back up anything I feel needs clarification. Though, ultimately, this is just something I wish to talk about. My views may be extreme to some but, they are just that, they are my views. Agree or disagree, I just want to get the ideas out there.With that said let us begin.

When I look at genres and sub-genres there is always at least one that sticks out like a sore thumb. Thanks to studios like Disney and Marvel, Superheroes have risen in popularity. For video games, the platformer and first person shooter still holds a place in peoples hearts; and both anime and manga have the Shounen style story down to a fine line. Though for each of these mediums and more there is one genre that struggles year after year.

Horror is the elephant in the room; if each genre of visual and written media was a type of music genre, then Horror is coming close to being the Disco among them all. When I look at horror, all I see is an entity that is slowly dying; yet, it tries to stay relevant for as long as it possibly can. Though over the years, horror just doesn’t hit home. Now I’ve said before that I am not a fan of the horror genre, and there are many reasons for this. These reasons are why I think the genre ultimately fails in the end. Though I can’t clump together every piece of horror media. For every five failures, the genre does manage to provide some spine chilling content. However, the spread is too great. 

Lets look back to Marvel for a moment. Not everyone is going to like every hero film they provide, but even if you don’t care for the Marvel film there is a level of praise those movies deserve. They have the formula down and it shows. This is not the same for Horror; after years of making films or games under this genre, the formula just becomes more psychotic. It’s harder to follow and ultimately ends in something boring. However, this is different for each type of medium. In my opinion I think that Movies have the best chance of providing a horrifying experience. Past this though, it starts to get difficult. Video Games used to be one of the best mediums for conveying horror, but now it’s fallen far. Sitting at the bottom of the spectrum is Anime and Manga. Anime does horror a little better than manga, but each have their short comings. So why is it that Horror is such a hard concept to grasp? Lets start from the basics.

Horror: An intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust. Something that inspires feelings of dread or dismay.

This is one definition I pulled on what horror is. Though everyone has their own special interpretation. For me the best definition is something or someone that brings about a feeling of fear. When I go to the movies to see the newest Halloween, or re-play a game like Until Dawn; One of the main things I’m looking for is a series of good well placed and thought out scares. However, this is one definition among a society of many. Each person has their own take on horror, but should we really call it horror? Take anime and manga for example; a good amount of stuff, that falls within the realm of horror, latches on to two key words in the basic definition. Shock and disgust.

Take, for instance, Ajin. For those who don’t know, briefly speaking, Ajin is a horror manga series that was adapted into an anime a little later in it’s life. It’s about an entity of demi-humans, or Ajin, that have special abilities from normal human beings. Thes beings live among normal humans and believe they themselves are in fact normal humans.

There are many moments in the manga where the Ajin are experimented on by the Japanese government. While not showing everything, they show and elude to enough in an attempt to produce shock value. Yet, the rest of the manga just feels average. The monsters aren’t frightening and the events that take place feel out of place in terms of it’s genre. This is one of the biggest problems when it comes to horror for both Anime and Manga. While video games and movies have a level of disgusting or shocking scenes; there is still an attempt made to frighten the viewer.

One of the biggest growing contenders of this is any series involving Magical Girls. Japan has been fascinated with making more mature stories involving magical girls. One of the best example of this comes from the series Madoka Magica.

This series is one where you would never want to judge the book by it’s cover. It may seem like the cutesy little girls tale, but there is a lot the show is hiding. I myself have never watch Madoka, but I know it’s grown into quite the craze over the years. So much so that many mangaka and studio would want to try their hands at this. However, each one of these starts to lose the flair that Madoka presented. One of the things that made Madoka work was it’s art. The mature themes are never shown to the audience unless they watch the show or read the story. It works, much like how Gakkou Gurashi could make a Zombie story interesting with it’s first chapter.

The idea can work, but it should be done sparingly. Though Japan doesn’t follow that logic. There are more manga under this sub-genre than ever before, and each one goes to far in what it’s trying to do. They throw the horror in the viewers face from the beginning; as if they’re screaming “Hey, this is a horror story involving schoolgirls/magical girls! It’s a dark story that you don’t see every day!” Though at this point it’s become old news.

What happened? What did magical girls do to come to this? The cover alone already doesn’t make me want to read this and it’s among a massive amount of manga that follow this trend. Though if I said this I’d be judging this solely on one image. So I looked into things regarding some of these series and just like Ajin it’s filled with disgusting scenes. Though I wouldn’t call it disgusting to the point that it’s horrifying. Instead, for me, I was so disgusted at what was present that I lost all interest to ever read anything that involves horror and magical girls. The girl is bullied by pretty much everybody at school and then goes home to an abusive family member. There is needless rape, and violence that goes beyond the definition of bullying. Then the main character gets magic powers out of pity from a character that looks like it belongs in Mob Psycho (nothing against Mob Psycho).

What is that? It’s looks so disconnected from everything else I’ve seen in the series. I haven’t even seen the first episode and yet there is nothing that makes me want to start. Long story short, this “girl” gives the main character a magic gun that she can use to make people disappear; or actually teleport to a place where they will die outright. That was so much to take in and now I wish I never did. What is appealing about this? Why do series like this go silently, but then you have an anime about a man who kills goblins as one of the biggest controversies currently for anime.

Ranting aside, The point I’m trying to get across is that I don’t see how anime can show shocking or disgusting scenes and have it considered as horror. I look at these like I look at videos of surgical procedures. It’s not frightening or horrifying; it’s just gross. So why consider it horror, and this is a serious question for people who genuinely enjoy these stories. What makes Ajin, Magical Girl Site or Franken Fran horror?  At their core most of the attempts of horror comes from the disgusting and I just can’t understand what makes them fall under the genre. Enough about that however, there is still a lot to cover.

The Bleeding Line Between Horror and Thriller

Keeping in the trend of anime and manga, another big problem stems off of understanding just what is horror. When I see horror or thriller with anime I tend to see that there isn’t a clear divide among them. Take for instance the Hellsing series.

For me I’d say that Hellsing is a Thriller; it has dark themes, but that doesn’t make it an instant horror. Though, for those who don’t know what Hellsing is, the story is all about the Vampire Alucard and the Hellsing organization. They must take down monsters, and ultimately fight a a Nazi regime. There is a level of outlandish and over the top content that I wonder, how could anyone consider this Horror? The only truly dark scene is later in the series when it’s implied that Alucard was raped in his childhood; maybe even countless times. Past this it’s just a lot of over the top violence that would prove to much for a shounen series. Another series that falls victim to this is the Parasyte series.

You could probably make a better argument as to why Parasyte is horror, but from what I’ve seen of the series I would at the least also put this as a thriller. This view goes both ways and it sometimes effects anime more than manga. The manga for Parasyte and Tokyo Ghoul look like horror manga at face value, but the anime, to me, don’t share that feeling. There are moments in many anime that can truly be horrifying, but the big picture doesn’t convey this. Movies struggle from this sometimes but, again, I mainly see it in anime. Though, this isn’t a dig at the anime or manga industry. What does the other side have to answer for?

How much is too much? 

Video games and movies aren’t safe yet. One of the biggest problems with modern horror is how much and how varied it all is. What do I mean by this? Well the easiest examples I can use are the Saw movie series, and the Five Nights at Freddies game series.

Saw is one of the most well known horror movies among films like Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street. When the first film came out it was pretty different from other horror films. Instead of an ax murderer chasing someone through the woods, or a masked man hunting down people in a little town on Halloween night; Saw is a movie about a man who killed people he saw as “evil.” People who he believed deserved to be punished, no matter how psychotic that may have sounded. The first movie released back in 2004; since then there have been a total of seven more films. The catch being that each film is pretty much the same thing with a different cast. A man kidnaps people, he talks to them through a puppet and puts them through traps and trials as a sort of test.  Even horror films that are regarded as classics have way to many movies in their franchise. Hollywood is running out of ideas and instead they decide to use any semblance of life in the current existing ideas rather than look for new life. Friday the 13th went to Space, but ultimately it’s still a slasher film about Jason Voorhees 

Both movies and video games take the skeleton of what was previously established and just slightly alter it’s shape and design. Movies do it a lot more than video games; however, games have started this trend recently not just for horror, but for all genres. Though, that’s another story for another time. The biggest offender of this with Video games, in the horror genre, is the Five Nights at Freddy’s Series.

When the first Five Nights came out I wasn’t interested in playing the game myself, but I could sit here and say that the game has potential as a horror title. It had a nice atmosphere and ideas that aren’t normally explored. Out of all the things that can produce fear, animatronics at a knock off Chuckie Cheese was not something that really came to mind but that was an interesting aspect. After the first game however, the rest of the series started to take a terrible downward spiral. Each game is pretty much the exact same as the last, save for a few that tried to take a slightly different spin on things. Sit in a chair and watch cameras to make sure the animatronics don’t come to kill you. Your capabilities are limited and you need to survive for a certain amount of time. Second game is the same but there are new machines with new tricks, the third game is the same but only one machine really matters, the fourth game is the same ideas but instead you’re a child who needs to peek out doors and in the closet. This cycle goes on for a total of six games in the main line. The only game that changed the formula was a spin-off, turn based RPG. Though that game doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. The gameplay has minor alterations, the characters change appearance and new animatronics are introduced over the course of the games, and the story just starts to feel like background material. It’s all just jump scares that try to scare through appearance instead of gameplay and atmosphere.

Nothing about Five Nights is scary anymore. We’ve been through it six times and it’s common knowledge that these machines will jump at us when we fail. Not to mention that, when the player fails, in some cases there is a long pause between the failure and the jump scare. Don’t make me wait, I lost. Making the player wait destroys the atmosphere. Gameplay aside, it’s the visuals that really start to destroy this game. How do you top unsettling machines with a mind of their own? Add more teeth, add more heads randomly placed around the body, make them look broken and demonic. That will put the fear in the player; except it won’t, I don’t look at the picture of Freddy above and think this is the thing of nightmares. I see someones head canon fan art that I could find on Deviantart or Pixiv. It’s like the people who make gross creepy fan art for Sonic the Hedgehog found new anthropomorphic animals to do whatever they want with. The whole thing that made the idea of animatronics frightening was the movements and the lifelessness. Plus, the skin of the characters makes for a scarier experience. I don’t want to see the frame of the machine. Seeing this...

Isn’t frightening, it’s the equivalent of Freddie Kruger chasing you through the dreamscape if Freddie was an average man in a mo-cap suit. The reason Five Nights is the worst offender of the recycling idea is because the creator said countless times that “this one will be the last game,” “After this no more Five Nights at Freddy’s.” Each time a big fat lie. There’s a movie in the making for crying out loud. The Slender movie was a flop so how will this fair?

I get it; Hollywood and game designers alike are running out of ideas. Disney is remaking all their films and Capcom can’t seem to find a way to stop porting Resident Evil 4 on every platform. However, the saying is if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it; these things have been in pieces for years now. The warranty may be up, it’s time to “FIX THIS!” Now, I’ve said a lot on the subject and there is still a ton of things I could talk about on the horror genre, but not enough to dedicate a segment on them. So I have one more reason I believe horror has fallen over the years and it all stems from the atmosphere.

There’s a build up, but no pay off.

So for some mediums, getting a certain level of atmosphere is hard. Manga I believe has the hardest time. It’s always been simpler to build tension in the visual format than the written. Though even anime, movies, and video games have struggled to reach an understanding of the levels of atmosphere. How much is to much and when should the build up reach the cap. If I had to rank them, omitting manga, I’d say that video games are still at the top barely, while anime struggles with this idea the most. Now this is all opinion of course; fear effects everyone differently but, in my experience, not many anime can reach a good level of tension. There was one that managed to produce a very horrifying atmosphere for me, but we’ll get to that a little later. First, why is it that anime can’t grasp the aspect of tension building and atmosphere. I believe it’s because the horror genre, especially for anime, is too predictable. A long while back, when I was experimenting with what to watch when it came to anime; I tried my hand at the show Another.

I didn’t get far into Another; the build up wasn’t that great out the gate, but I wanted to give it a chance. My viewing of the show ended at the episode with the first death. Throughout the anime every person is telling the main character to steer clear of the girl with the eye-patch. She’s bad news and only misfortune will follow. However, the boy didn’t listen of course. Scene after scene past with nothing happening, until a girl from the boys school is leaving and her attitude changes after she catches a glimpse of the other girl. At this point I knew, I sat there tired and done. I watched as this girl ran down the hall and all I had to say was one sentence. “She’s gonna die,” I sat there repeating these words over and over; until she fell down the stair and was impaled on an umbrella.

I couldn’t continue the show after this; when nothing happens the camera tries to focus on things that seem unsettling, like dolls in a dark antique store. Then when things “pick up” the scene takes to long to get to the payoff. You’ve tried to build up the tension; don’t hold the final product in front of my face. Teasing the audience with the end product only proves to destroy all progress made to get to this point. It’s not that hard of a concept in my opinion; it should be just like building to the climax. Though, instead of reaching one huge climax, it’s more like carefully structured peaks that don’t keep the viewer waiting to long.

For me, the best example of this doesn’t even stem from a horror series. Around the same time as mentioned before I also tried to watch an anime named Kino’s Journey, or Kino no Tabi. In one episode the main character finds there self in a town with a few mysteries surrounding it. At the center of the town there is a huge tower that is being built by the civilians that live there. This tower has been worked on for over two hundred years. When the main character asks them why they build the tower they don’t know themselves. 

As the episode goes on, and more interactions are had between the cast, tension begins to grow and it feels like the people of the town aren’t as hospitable as they once seemed. There is so much unknown about the situation that is presented that the viewer feels that something could happen at any moment. Though, the episode reaches it’s end with the tower cracking and falling to the ground. The people of the town resolve to build the tower again and the journey continues. While the tension never truly reaches a huge climax, it still manages to feel unsettling. Kino’s Journey is not a horror series, but I’ve felt more tension in it’s atmosphere then I’ve every felt in a horror series I’ve watched or read.

Though, anime has always had a tricky experience with Horror, and I know that anime and manga isn’t always made with everyone in mind. It’s Japanese in origin and I can understand that something scary to me may not be scary to a Japanese viewer, or vice versa. However, games and movies don’t always have that cultural luxury. Movies also can be extremely predictable, especially the classics. Yet, movies don’t just suffer from being predictable; movies, surprisingly, struggle with realism.

Now I know that realism shouldn’t be a factor is horror movies, but that all depends on the movie. If we’re talking about a movie like the exorcist, then realism needs the be there to a point. It can be loose because we’re dealing with the supernatural, but facts still need to be present to some degree. Movies that don’t have anything supernatural to them, however, need a lot more if they want to succeed. The best example of this is the Purge series.

When this movie first came out I would have said that the idea of a president creating a day for everyone to do as they please without laws was overly far-fetched. Now I can’t really say much with the current society we live in; however, I will say that the idea that people would just go out and murder their neighbors for no good reason is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Why do all these people have the weapons to go around killing? How did this seem like a good idea? What are everyone’s motives in all of this? The story of this series is so shaky and full of holes that it's popularity baffles me. 

As far as predictable goes; there are many horror movies, from terrible to the classics, that have their predictable moments. There was one, and I’m sorry the name escapes me, where a girl is being haunted by someone in her family that died by unknown means at the moment in the film. Most of the movie is filled with terribly place jump scares, but the worst of them all was one where it was a bright day and the main female character was walking along until she comes to an opening in the woods. Instead of walking on, she is pulled into the woods for whatever reason. There is nothing really calling to her and she sees nothing from what I remember, but she’s drawn to one spot in the opening where she finds and unborn fetus in the ground. The fetus is perfectly in tact and the scene just kind of hangs in this back and forth until the fetus opens it’s still developing eye and a huge piano note rings in the background. I sat there knowing the jump scare was coming. I still jumped, because of the loud startling sound, but it was clear as day something was coming.

Where is the tension? I can’t feel frightened when the atmosphere either makes no sense, even in the context provided, or when the movie paints out every scare on a giant canvas for all to see. Horror is meant to make me scream, jump and even, for the most extreme, cry in fear. It’s no longer like that, horror has become one of the most sad and boring genres alive. When you find the one game, movie, etc, that breaks the mold and truly embodies what we know as horror; it deserves to be placed on a pedestal. I believe that video games has the best chance of doing this but even good horror games are scarce.

Predictability  and realism aren’t the big issue when it comes to games. Instead, it all bubbles down to the payoff. Games have an easier time of building tension and atmosphere than most mediums in my opinion. It’s the payoff that it fails to grasp. This has become more of an issue in recent years with indie horror games. Games like Agony, We Happy Few, Call of Cthulhu. Do they hit the mark? What is the payoff and how long did it take to reach that goal. Was the build up paced in such a fashion that the game didn’t drag on? This is what games struggle with the most in the horror genre and the best example of this is Layers of Fear.

The game has it’s moment where tension can build, but there is never any pay off. The game focuses to much on trying to build a compelling story about an artist who slowly, and I mean SLOWLY, spirals into a state where he pushes his loved ones away and hurts his family in an attempt to reach his goals. Most of the game is the player walking around the characters estate while they interact with the things around them. Every so often the player will find something that progresses the story and gives some insight into what exactly has happened or what is currently unfolding. That’s all this game is, it doesn’t even attempt to jump scare the player. It attempts to horrify the player through the atmosphere alone. The only problem being that it never delivers. This style of game has become a frequent trend, known as the walking simulator. The whole game is walking from point a, to point b, to point c, and so on. Never reaching any payoff that feels satisfying. The most tense scenes, if you can call them that, are scenes that play on where you are facing. Say for instance you look at a painting; the next moment you look away to an empty wall. Look back and the painting is now disgusting and decaying. So frightening, I need a moment to collect myself. This is boring, I didn’t buy a game to literally watch paint dry; but, with Layers of Fear, I can do just that. Plus, can someone tell me why every indie horror game feels the need to take assets from the public access art gallery?

Scooby-Doo had more realistic art pieces in their haunted houses. Why does every indie horror game need to have some form of “horrific” art hanging in every room five inches from the other. These are humans we’re talking about, not Hannibal Lecter. Sure maybe the main character in Layers of Fear painted the pictures but no one in their right mind would ever say “yea lets hang these demonic painting in our living room; that sounds very welcoming. Nothing says family like a father eating his child”.

If I wanted to experience a poorly delivered and paced story about a painter who is currently undergoing his mid-life crisis. To the point that he possibly abused and neglected his family and may or may not have killed the family dog in a drunken rage. Then sure I might play Layers of Fear, or I might just go on Garry’s Mod and download some hastily made horror map that does the same exact thing for free. I don’t want my horror games to be some attempt at an artistic and complex story on human flaws. I want to be scared. 

This shouldn’t be difficult and in fact, many games still can manage to bring fear into their games. Take for instance Friday the 13th and Dead by Daylight.

Now I’ve said my piece on both of these games a while back, but if there is one thing I need to give both of these games credit for is the ability to scare. In both games it’s one versus the group. One killer is controlled by a player and this adds a level of unknown danger. They are powerful and can appear when you least expect it. Over time when you’ve play the games enough the fear factor will probably die down, but the initial tension hits hard because it’s instant. Both games waste no time putting the player in a terrible situation. You’re placed in a random location and it’s as if the game is telling the player, “Alright, someone is hunting you; good luck, and try not to die.” Sure both games have their problems through bugs or other factors but, when you look at the games from a design stand point, they work really well.

Another two games that really know how to build tension and produce payoffs are Until Dawn and Dead Space 2.

One of the most memorable moments for me with Dead Space 2 was near the beginning of the game. You’re going down a dark corridor and you’ve already been presented with the enemies that are hunting you down. You may be armed, but there is no guarantee that you can survive even with your weapons. You keep moving and yet nothing jumps at you. At any moment a necromorph could come and try to kill you. You enter a room with the only light source being a flickering T.V. The music starts to ramp up and as it reaches the it’s height... a balloon pops. While the payoff may not seem amazing, the timing and pacing was done really well in my opinion that, even with your guard up, there is a level of unexpectedness that hangs in the air. You know there are enemies out there, but the space station is their oyster. You are almost always at a disadvantage, even with some of the more advanced weaponry. It’s a jump scare, sure, but even jump scares can pay off to provide breaks in tension without them being terrible immersion breaking game overs.

Until Dawn was a more recent example of how to build tension and deliver upon the atmosphere. The game was a play on the old classic horror films we all know. Though the player is the camper, or the unsuspecting victim. Though instead of presenting the player with a villain from the start, the game never truly reveals what the greater evil is. Also, the game plays heavily on player choice and the idea that each thing you do may end up being the death of a character really hits hard. You’re not just afraid of what may attack you, but also afraid of how your choices may spiral into terrible outcome after terrible outcome. Plus, even when the player succeeds or fails the payoff is still rewarding. The tension isn’t just tossed to the side if the problem was avoided. It’s used and then we start again. Tension rises and a new dilemma is presented. If you want a horror game that can truly capture the genre then Until Dawn is definitely one of the best contenders.