Why Do Games Shift in Tone?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 มิ.ย. 2024
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Some game series make a big shift in tone. The developers become afraid that a game's design is getting too stale, or think that the audience's tastes are changing, or something else happens that makes them decide to switch things up. But what are those reasons, and does it work? Let's talk about 5 game series that have had drastic tone shifts and how it worked out for them.
Featuring:
Jak and Daxter
Advance Wars
Conker's Bad Fur Day
Fuse
Tetris Effect
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Okay
No
Screw that. I'm putting my money into something better, y'know, like things that aren't predatory mobile games.
@@kalmah456 it isn't a mobile game. It is a PC game and also on Xbox and PS5
@@kalmah456 the game isn't even on mobile
I'm struck by how many games achieve their tone shift by doing a literal tone-shift of adding grey to the games colours
Don't forget dipping the palette in mud!
They want to be “realistic”.
I like how all PS3 era games look like piss
Color blindness = realistic
In movies mexico is brown but in games reality is grey and brown
Jokes aside i feep like some games kinda do it right
The darkness gears of war and quake for exemple really feel like you are exploring a shithole of a place where you are not welcome
The "nothing made for 8 year olds ever sells well" part was extremely well done.
I think it's more that those games are made for everyone, regardless of age, if they like the genre. "Cute wholesome graphics" do not equal "made for kids". Not implying that's your opinion though.
It's one of the most common misconceptions when it comes to games. It's almost like the opposite of the stigma cartoons have about being for children. Sure, there are people who like the darker and grittier stuff (not to be confused with more realistic, although it's frequently claimed to be), but if you want mainstream, colourful is good.
Other than the bizarre inclusion of Borderlands.
@@azuarc I like to think that that was just included as a joke. I like absurd jokes, sometimes.
I laughed at that, because I'm literally watching this video while waiting for my Switch to finish downloading the update for Splatoon. xD
The weird thing about Jak and daxter is the fact that Jak 2 only came out only 2 years after the first. Like imagine being 7 years old and then when you turn 9 being told your not allowed to play the second game
I was 5 when the first came out, probably my favourite game to this day. When the second came out it was awesome, loved it even though it was darker. It's not like its hyper-violent or anything, the guns are colourful, no blood etc. It took me a very long time to beat at that age, but it was fun just walking around the city and playing on the hoverboard.
As someone who has barely played either I do find it funny that Jak's first words are a little declaration of plotting to commit revenge murrder
TRUE
Jak 2 was literally GTA for kids. I loved it!
@@papal1500 Same with The Simpsons Hit and Run.
It's worth mentioning that there was a time when Nintendo considered making Mario edgy to keep up with their aging audience and to match other games attitudes at the time like Sonic. Reggie countered that idea hard and insisted Mario stay consistent which was absolutely a good move. Imagine a world where Mario flips his hat backwards, skateboards around, and drops cringe one-liners.
Eh, a _slightly_ edgy Mario would be kinda funny.
Yo it'sa me! We gotta save-a the princess, but in style!
Like, imagine if a 3D mario game had the tone/vibe of Parappa or JetSet Radio or maybe it's some SMG4 fever dream where the bright and happy Mushroom Kingdom has some deranged Italian lunatic running around with a gun.
Seriously, I'd play something like this:
th-cam.com/video/T8vDfwWRLiA/w-d-xo.html
citation needed
That's the key move into making Mario into Gaming's Mickey Mouse. It was genius.
@@EvilStevilTheKenevilPEN15 I ***WANT*** A gremlin mario.
THAT should be the Waluigi game! Waluigi running around with a gun like it's untitled goose game.
Truly would have been the bad timeline.
It's funny how much pre-teens seem to like the "dark and gritty and brown" aestetic, while older teens and adults pretty much don't care about the games style, as long as it has substance.
I guess the pre-teens think these more "darker" materials make them look more grown up, where as actual grown ups, funnily enough, have grown out of this mindset.
generalization of a pretty large group.
"When I became an adult, I put away childish things, including the fear of appearing childish." - some quote from somewhere.
Well, I _know_ I'm weird, since by junior high I had figured out that one of the most chilidish things I could do was insist that I not be addressed by the diminutive, familiar form of my name (i.e., insist on "Robert" rather than "Bob" or "Jacqueline" rather than "Jacky.") But many, many people are _desperate_ to be taken as adults before the people around them acknowledge them as such and will dismiss _anything_ that doesn't say 'adult!' to their adolescent little minds.
The dismissal of things for such spurious reasons as 'not enough brown' naturally cements them as immature in the eyes of those watching, but this is frequently lost on the adherents of cargo-cult maturity.
The bizzare thing is that the developers carrying out these focus tests are adults. So, y'know, they should have gone through that emotional growth themselves and know better than to listen to these kids in the first place.
12 yo teens wanting to appear as adults when they're not.
the main lesson i'm taking away from this is: 1) never aim your game AT teens and 2) never TRUST what teens say because they'll always ask for grittier even though they may not even actually want it
Yeah, while Teens may appear to be the perfect intersection between lots of free time & disposable income, they are often extremely insecure & follow trends with a lifespan shorter than the time it will take to finish the game.
Never trust what anyone says. There is a saying that goes somewhat like this: "Listen to your customers complaints, but not their solution". Meaning that the complaints usually are valid, but they themselves don't have the appropriate knowledge to fix it either. ( If you apply this to an restaurant, I as a customer can taste that a meal is shit and give some pointers as to why, but don't have the knowlege and skill the cook has, to actually improve the meal )
@@5h4ndt Well said. People's feelings are usually a somewhat valid reflection of a situation - but that doesn't make them qualified to solve the problems. You need someone with expertise to address the problem highlighted by public reception.
Tone shifts are quite a hassle even if they work, because the fanbase will be forever split between those who gelled with the former or latter, and the conflicts that arise between them... whoo boy. The forum wars I've seen. As such I always dread tone shifts more than I anticipate what they can bring to the games themselves, because the things around the games tend to become drastically un-fun for, if you're unlucky, the entire lifespan of the IP.
And it can be even worse in other media. Like a certain popular science fiction franchise. Every try being a SW fan who unironically likes the sequels, at all?
Windwaker certainly caused some chasm in the zelda fanbase. The game was great but while i completely understand how the shift to full on celshaded cartoon made working with wind effects, a key factor of the game, way easier and stylish, i still cant get a feel for toonlink.
@@EGRJ Oh God you poor soul. I have oddly enough never been a Stsr Wars super-fan, I never really engaged with the EU so the twists and turns the movies take don't really affect me personally but lord, the infighting in that fandom... I do not know how you bear it.
@@nekoimouto4639 That's actually a pretty neat counterpoint, I think, because I feel like they did a good job of like... creating two separate lines, Toon Zelda and Realistic!Zelda, that kind of allowed for semi-peaceful co-existence solely due to both camps being able to get what they wanted. Though then again, it can't be disputed that tensions were high at the time, and Realistic!Zelda certainly won out in the end.
*laughs in Xenoblade 2*
Angry eyes Kirby is specifically a running gag trope with the covers of Kirby games in the US. On Japanese covers he is almost always happy like he is in the game. Also the hidden lore of Kirby has always been horrifying. Huge disconnect with the initial tone of the games and the actual canon lore.
Bro since the first kirby it has always been messed up, like kirby went on a masacre for no real reason, but he got a good dance party at the end.
@@ixmaz2925 iirc first game his rampage was bc Dedede stole his food. And to be fair, Dedede's minions do attack Kirby regardless of you trying to be a pacifist.
@@EvanFarshadow i saw it as dede just wouldnt share the over abundance of his food so kirby robinhooded it but now i cant tell if hes just eating it and dreamland is getting his bread crumbs lol
@@shitemastermike xD
@@ixmaz2925 Literally every game from Adventure onward has him deal with an eldritch abomination of some sort, and at this point, it's getting REALLY predictable. Like, oh new kirby game, wonder which eldritch being is the final boss THIS time.
It's not a mainline kirby if you don't kill god at the end.
Shout out to Jak 2 for nailing a super tone shift super hard. It's easy to poke fun at that era's obsession with everything having to be dark and gritty and "mature", and it's easy to poke fun at Jak 2 for also needing to go in a dark and gritty and "mature" direction. Except they nailed it. It's not a reboot. It's all an organic continuation of everything set up in Jak 1, where they didn't throw everything away to just mindlessly chase the trend. It changed, but Jak 1 still happened and they kept the things that were good and still worked here. Like Daxter still being a wise-cracker, but now juxtaposing with new Jak better. Leave it to Naughty Dog to be the ones to nail it.
As a kid, seeing the other kids pretend to be more mature than they really are was really offputting to me and showed of true immaturity. Jak 2 to me was so boring. Jak 1 grew to be one of my favorite games after just playing it now and then at a friends eventually having to get it myself, but jak 2 i had the same experience, except i would not be getting that game it bored me so greatly.
love the game!
It does everything right perhaps other than taking advice from a focus group only made up of one demographic. It gels with what came before, builds a coherent and believable bridge from A to B, and everything about the tone and setting gels from characters and story down to gameplay mechanics and level design. It’s very well thought out.
Jak 2 understood how to have edge without being edgy. It always keeps at least one foot in whimsy and never forgets that its target audience is still kids.
The biggest jump is Jak's personality, but it works because Jak didn't have a personality in the first game. Jak 3 is by all rights even darker but feels less edgy because Jak himself is losing his edge despite the situation being worse than ever.
Also the games were just fun. That always helps a lot.
jak are ya feelin ok? speak to me for once!
The Tetris effect actually refers to when you play so much Tetris your brain starts to essentially hallucinate Tetris. It's not the focused zone state you claimed
Yeah, that's mostly just referred to as "being in the zone". Also happens with athletes. The Tetris Effect is more about being "in the zone" while not actually playing the game, so things you see in real life makes you think like you're playing it.
I had that a lot with MMOs when I was younger. I’d still be playing those games whenever I closed my eyes.
I am in this post and I don't like it
I have this with strategy games a lot. My brain builds mental maps as in actual shapes (solids or hyper solids usually) that describe the tactical options. Which is why I can still tell how much damage infantry in advanced wars can do to eachother regardless of hp and terrain. Along with other things like being able to "feel" safe locations for units through a similar effect.
My brain refines these models by running them at other times in order to "smooth out" the details. Which can be frustrating while trying to sleep.
@@solsystem1342 ya this I can't really play to much puzzley games like tetris with out having literal claustrophobic nightmares where my brain trys to fit blocks into places they can't fit and making other very hard puzzles of the like
Very stressful dreams I hate them lol
the first game in the Conker series is actually Conker's Pocket Tales, for the game boy color, released in 1999. It's nothing like Bad Fur Day in terms of tone.
Yeah, the tone shift was during _Bad Fur Day's_ development, but the initial tone is in a published game.
One example of those weird cases when the side project follows the original plan and somehow gets finished and published as is despite the main game having deviated heavily along the way. Kinda like what happened with the GBA, DS, and J2ME versions of Rayman Raving Rabbids, which ended up being different takes on a platformer despite the console/PC game being turned into a mini game collection, and also having some discarded early ideas implemented.
@@axelprino i read that as "Rayman Raving Rabies"😭
I dont think there's ever been as dramatic a shift in tone as between those two games. Holy crap.
Lemme guess. Gray and drab but nothing edgy?
Just in general: if people's go to games are call of duty and madden, don't ever listen to them about anything
The whole idea of people thinking a game with great art style and fun characters being for "little kids" is one of the most annoying biases a small group of people have, and frankly they're missing out on so many great games because they're not "grown up" or "realistic" enough
I used to be like that--I'd only play the most gritty, realistic games on the market--so I missed out on so many games; I even passed on 'Borderlands 2' because it wasn't 'real' enough. Now it's one of my favourite games and helped me try other games like 'Ori and the Will of the Wisps' and 'Gris'.
Remember kids, games are supposed to be *fun*.
@@treysandbothe3748 Genuinely curious, what changed for you? What made it possible for you to open yourself to different types of games?
@@treysandbothe3748 I'd also like to know how you decided to try them out. I personally never cared much for graphics or realism except when the entire experience hinges on it.
@@treysandbothe3748 ori is a really pretty game, never played it much but got it on the gamepass and enjoyed my time with it
@@pondoflillies I got bored. There's only so many ways you can shoot terrorists before you've done everything.
This is where I realized that Jak and Daxter is a different thing from Ratchet and Clank.
I am... Depressed by this comment. Lmao. Not because that offends me, I'm just sad my favorite platformers have so much less recognition than games of the n64/ps1 era
@@jaceybella1267 tbf I'm old and basically jumped from Sega Genesis to the tail end of Gamecube 😜
So 1989-1996, then all the way up to 2005-06?
I always called their games Ratchet and Daxter lmfaoooo
I constantly mix up Jak and Daxter with Blinx: The Time Sweeper. They look friggin' IDENTICAL.
There have been lots of cases of The Legend of Zelda nearly having a tonal shift before the project gets cancelled. The fact that Nintendo isn't afraid to lend the IP to other developers means that the series has a lot of potential for spinoffs with different tones. Cadence of Hyrule does some cool things with the universe without derailing, for example.
Twilight Princess was the furthest they went. It’s darker and edgier, and it features a more “realistic” art style. It wasn’t quite as extreme as other examples, but it definitely followed the trend of mid to late 2000’s grit and edge to a degree
@@thedapperdolphin1590 TP was definitely a HARD left turn from the cel-shaded cutesy nature of WW.
You could almost think they were two entirely different series.
well, they didnt lend the ip to many people so i wouldnt call them "not afraid"
Art style, yes.
Content, heck no.
WW has some pretty dark and gritty moments, despite the cel shaded, cutesy graphics.
@@SuperPaperPokemon That's true, but at the time most everyone stopped at the cute graphics and didn't delve any deeper.
TP decided to wear its darker, edgier story right out in the open from the very first scene.
I'm honestly impressed that Shadow the Hedgehog or Sonic 06 weren't used as low-hanging fruit examples.
Always appreciate when you go outside the box for more obscure video games to spotlight
The Sonic series kinda messed up with the tone change when it switched to modern during the Dreamcast days.
Glad Colord fixed it.
I wouldn't call jak or advanced wars "obscure"
To be fair, Shadow is more enjoyable than Sonic 06.
@@ChristianFrates1997
You're pretty enjoyable yourself haha 🥵
@@ikagura sonic 1 2 and 3 have literally nothing in common with sonic colors. it fixed nothing and actually made a horrible problem even worse.
I don't know if it counts as a tone shift, but I like the changes to the franchise that Sonic Adventure brought. Instead of a platformer against a villain in relatively abstract levels, we got a somewhat modern world where the cast can go on their own adventures while still being connected. Despite some entries getting overly edgy or bungling the concept, it still stands out to me and gave Sonic an identity beyond "fast platformer mascot".
No thanks, it was trash
I never played them but story-wise i liked how connected Sonic and the gang were to that modern world for a few extra games until later on. It felt nice seeing Sonic stay in one world over every entry being him on a whole other planet or universe or sum. Idk how to explain it but it gave me Sonic X vibes with the continuity and i enjoyed bits of that show as a kid.
@@ikagura one piece sweep?
it only worked for the first two 3d games
oh for sure, sonic never had anything like the open your heart trailer before (the comics got darker but not big movie blockbuster) and the games 3rd or so push to 3D really cemented what sonic was capable of in 3D
I noticed you put Final Fantasy X-2 in the ending there, which has me think of a category of Tone Shifts you missed - ones brought about by the games themselves. When a game's storyline has a massive event, that shakes up the entire lore and world, but the game itself is still continuing. Call FFX-2 whatever you want, but you cannot tell me that it didn't make good use of the space left behind by Sin.
I adore X-2. I haven't paid much attention to the story (or actually finished it in years) but I don't think of it so much as a full game as an epilogue. It's a significant shift in tone, but in a very refreshing way. Sure, it's got a story, but that's not why you're here.
The plot is just there to give you an excuse to roam the world you've saved. To see what everyone is doing with the lives you've given them. I've spent hundreds of hours saving this world from its cycle of routine apocalypse, so now it's done, you're damn right I'm gonna go see how the rebuilding efforts are going, check in on the friends I made, and play games at the fair. You saved this world, now live in it a bit.
@@carlbutcher2268 heck, we both forgot to mention that that's how you gain percentage, which is how you get better endings! It's like "Live a little" is the message it's trying to teach!
@@carlbutcher2268 It also helps that it had one of the best FF combat systems.
How many years I wonder til we get a fresh Jak and Dax reboot
when the fans make it.. at this point the first game is on pc and has mods soo.
The funny thing about the Fuse situation with Insomniac is how that translates to the reveal of their next game, Sunset Overdrive
The earliest trailer I remember seeing featured gritty soldier action bring interrupted by a cool dude with colorful weapons and gadgets.
At the time I wasn't aware of the dev situation with Fuse, but man. It really puts it in context!
You know I never thought of that before and you are completely right. Sunset Overdrive probably was a strong reaction to how poorly their choices with Fuse performed. And I at least can say one thing, with out playing either of those games, I definitely remember Sunset Overdrive a whole lot more then I did Fuse, which probably says something.
@@Timmir00 while I've never played Sunset Overdrive (don't own an Xbox) I've never even *heard* of Fuse.
I still think Overstike was inspired by fun team TV shows like Leverage and Warehouse 13. Naya and Jacob are very similar to Sophie and Hardison from the former, and Izzy is a lot like Claudia from the latter.
So Sunset Overdrive is good?
@@ArshadZahid_nohandleideas full disclosure, I've not yet played it. It was an Xbox exclusive and I only had a Playstation at the time (though it's been on my list to play for a while now, just haven't gotten around to it).
I can't speak to the games quality, I hear it's fun, but they definitely go all in on a colorful and eye catching experience rather than anything serious
Just a minor correction. Around the 17:00 mark, you describe a flow state as the "Tetris effect;" this is not what the Tetris effect is. The Tetris effect is when you start seeing Tetris patterns outside of the game (e.g., when arranging furniture or stacking groceries)
The "Tetris Effect" trope is pretty much fan-designated, though?
@@malcovich_games, yes, afaik. I haven't done a deep dive into its origins, but I imagine the term started with fans.
@@church7089 True, and I suppose the Tetris Effect devs took it and made it mean zen instead...
@@malcovich_games, that would probably be news to them, given the devs reference the classic definition of the effect in the Tetris effect trailer: "th-cam.com/video/Mr8fVT_Ds4Q/w-d-xo.html"
I miss the Jak and Daxter series, the characters, the dialogue, and the setting just had such verve I seriously would've been down for almost anything (going with the precursors to space to do ancient mystical stuff, being more of a wastelander with spargus).
This video left one question, why there are so many parents letting their children play GTA?
Because most parents don’t care about what their kids are playing, so they just let them play stuff like cod and gta, which isn’t really a bad thing, as most kids won’t repeat in real life what they do in the games. The only real harm in letting kids play these types of games are the online interaction they’ll have with other people, which is how you find these 9 year olds cussing out like a sailor when they die once in a shooting game
@@neixom I'd say it's a bad thing, because there's a reason an M is on the cover.
There are accidental tone shifts. Mario 64 was probably going to be as cheery and lively as all of its successors, but Nintendo didn't have the time and had to release a "hollow", eerie castle, where Mario and a few ghosts are the only characters we generally see.
Personally I like the game because of that.
Mario should stay cute
@@ikagura Don't get me wrong, I loved Banjo Kazooie as a kid and still consider it a great game. But Mario 64 is more "straight to the point", the lack of interaction makes the game way more gameplay-focused, which I prefer.
But it's not like that's a dealbreaker when playing other Mario games to me, just unnecessary for the type of immersion I'm personally looking for.
On the other hand, imagining BK without all the charismatic features is an equally hard thing to do at this point, too ingrained in my brain.
@@ikagura I wouldn’t mind if mainline Mario games started shared similar tones to some of the Mario RPGs
@@ikagura Mario should be whatever it wants.
Yeah, I remember seeing Overstrike and thought it looked like a fun, arcadey shooter. Fuse, on the other hand, looked like the definition of generic. I remember back during the marketing after switching to Fuse where they talked about how you had powers to pop enemies out of cover to shoot them...and repeated that point, over and over again. It was like they were trying to represent "you can dislodge enemies from cover" like some kind of revolutionary game mechanic, and it was literally the only thing they could seem to find to say about the game. It went from having a quirky, playfully over the top take on super agent teams to, well, essentially having no discernable character whatsoever. It was an action game that looked boring.
Funny how that game took the opposite route of Borderlands. Initially BL was supposed to be a more serious and generic shooter but they changed the tone and it became of the best games of that generation.
overstrike still kinda hurts.
if only they had just more faith in their own vision, instead of chasing a trend that at the time was already over done.
Personally, I'm glad that even though you showed clips of it, you didn't really touch on dmc Devil May Cry as an example. The complications surrounding its development and the reasons for the choices made that ended up in the final product are enough for, well... An hour and a half documentary. Specifically the two-part retrospective by Foxcade. It's a fantastic retrospective and really goes into detail, and not properly explaining Ninja Theory's situation would be an injustice, even if they weren't doing themselves any favors anyways... Which is why it wasn't a good point of discussion; the screen time required to talk about it would have sucked the discussion into itself. However, I appreciate clips from the game being included because it still absolutely belongs here regardless.
Edit: Clarity
I still remember the tone shift dissonance when The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker was first announced for the Gamecube.
Zelda fans at the time immediately compared its colorful and cartoony style to Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, two of the darker and more mature games in the series, and gave tons of complaints boiling down to "Zelda is ruined".
1 decade later and fans finally realized that changing a game's tone doesn't have to ruin it. Wind Waker is now a classic just like Ocarina of Time.
It's certainly amusing to think about how people responded. I guess it just didn't occur to people that Windwaker was visually future proofed, and would always look as good.
@@jaceybella1267 I think the cel-shading was part of the problem, as it made fans think the series was going in the same direction Bomberman was going with at the time with Bomberman Jetters.
We have the gift of hindsight to see how silly that sounds like now.
Zelda has almost always been colorful.
Zelda complaints have for the larger part of the franchise's history been very harsh when games first come out, then mellowing out and turning much more positive once the next game to complain about comes out.
Actually, debacles like this apply both ways! After the cool-off, fans realized that Wind Waker's style was a great mix-up, and wanted more games in that style. So, when Nintendo decided that Twilight Princess was going to be the most realistic Zelda game, fans got super mad about it AGAIN. Then rinse and repeat until Breath of the Wild, where people finally knew better.
When talking about tone-shift, I can't help but think about Zelda and how vastly different in tone the two main GameCube titles are. Wind Waker is unapologetically cartoony in its visuals, while Twilight Princess goes for a more moody and realistic look. In terms of gameplay, they are both pretty standard 3D Zelda's following in the footsteps of Ocarina of Time; in terms of story, both have a nice mix of silly and serious moments. The main difference really is found in the visual stylings.
I think it's great that each ended up being favorites of many series fans
Yo, someone should mod the games to have each other's maps
@@kylespevak6781 I’d love to see stuff like the twilight realm or all the temples in wind waker’s style I bet they’d look so cool
I think one topic that should be brought up is the correlation between tone shifts and reboots, because more often than not, one will lead to or be caused by another
"So, you want a realistic, down-to-earth show that's completely off the wall and swarming with magic robots?"
I think it'd be cool for you to do a video on music design in games. What makes a game's music interesting and memorable, what games really lean into motifs and repeating themes to give a sense of emotional context. You could even talk about secret music or music that's difficult to "find", like how in Subnautica there's a track (A damn good track at that) that can only be heard while your submarine is on fire and your life is in danger. Why Megalovania is so memorable because of how it relates to the game, stuff like that.
Just a suggestion! As a music nerd I think it'd be cool.
I remember the first time I got to play Tetris Effect, it was after I had gotten really into Tetris on Puyo Puyo Tetris with my friends on the switch. My dad got PSVR, and had me sit down to try Tetris Effect. I was unsure of how to feel about it at first, it felt very minimal and slow. But as I got into that trance like Tetris state, I totally understood Tetris Effect. The music picking up as you play, the surroundings lighting up but still allowing you to zone out and focus on the game itself, the butterflies in my stomach the first time I was able to perform a Decahexatris. It was a truly magical experience, and it's one of those games where I wish I could wipe it from my memory and experience it for the first time all over again!
0:43
Don't you mean "Suddenly your Happy, Cheery Kirby is Full-Blown Lovecraftian Horrors Kirby?"
Because there's a fairly consistent pattern of Kirby having legit Eldritch Abominations at endgame.
How it started: Someone took Kirby's food.
How it's ending: Kirby defeating his 8th primordial eldritch god this week. ( two more and he gets a free sub)
Sincerely, Every Kirby game.
And this is good
I'm baffled that adults continuously forget what being a teenager is like and take what they say so seriously.
What you mean?
@@ikagura The teen focus groups wanting something that doesn't look like "it's for my younger brother", and the studios dumb enough to listen to the edgelord brats.
@@ikagura Teenagers tend to be ignorant regarding what adults think yet always act they know as much as adults.
So, teens tend to go with “edgy” and “gritty” themed stuff and completely scoff at anything that doesn’t have any “matured” element while adults mostly don’t care instead of looking for more legitimate merits like production quality and consistency.
In other words, teen standard is pretty shallow, simple-minded and care quite little about quality, mass appeal potential and long-term success of the media.
Tone shift with the aim of certain demographic really pique my interest on the whole thing about do you cater to your main audience/fans or try to gain new player? the thing is, many games fail while trying to do both.
Additional problem: crossover demographics.
A good example would be Spyro the Dragon. Back in the day, Spyro the Dragon was a lighthearted collectathon game. But when The Legend of Spyro came out, the tone went from lighthearted to grimdark and borderline disturbing.
A game that went from "Collect gems and free dragons" to "Driven to suicide, apocalypse and unethical despair"
I'm generally ok with tone shifts, but when they try to get too self serious or edgy, I start to lose interest quick. A lot of series in the 00's fell off my radar for trying to be gritty enough for the "desperate to be adult" crowd
My favourite example must be SimCity Societies which turned slightly towards absurdism; Like yeah of course now you can build a Totalitarian Society if you want to, why not!🥴🥴
I feel like a good tone shift can only be done with respect to the universe and the fans in mind.
One of the reasons Pokemon Black and White is viewed so well nowadays is because the game actually addressed the ethical questions of capturing semi-sentient superpowered monsters to fight each other.
As a Gen 1 kid this isn't even a question. 4 generations and a couple of movies later, and your rival N's arguments about Pokemon being better off without humans start to make sense.
Best part is that N never comes off as preachy; he's one of the best antagonists of the franchise because he's an actual good guy doing what he thinks is right for the world, while all we care about is becoming Champion.
@@SoulHero7 And then you never actually get around to accepting the progressive side of the argument and you uphold the status quo loud and proud as you run off into the sunset. Yeah im 100% of the opinion that when the world turns Vegan and when it has been normalized that people will look back at this kind of media like we do now with Racist, Sexist and ableist media from the last 70 years💀💀
@@aturchomicz821 I'm curious to know what your point of view is on this subject.
Agreed, most are trash
I find it weird how there was no mention of Final Fantasy 9 which changed the tone to resemble the early games without changing completely what was achieved previously. Hated for that at the time, well remembered and loved right now.
Classic FF is the best
I'd say my favorite departure from a series' tone was Majora's Mask, though I might be a bit biased since it's my favorite game. Still, while it admittedly feels very similar to Link's Awakening in a lot of ways (both follow up a universally-acclaimed Zelda game while adopting a much more ominous tone and putting more focus on characters), it's kinda notorious for how much its darkly surreal atmosphere and bleak tone set it apart from the rest of the series. I don't know exactly why they went the direction they did, but I wouldn't be surprised if its extremely tight schedule and a scare where the devs got a false nuclear strike alarm during a wedding had something to do with it.
The Jak series pulled off its tone shift really well. I heard that Sonic Team was inspired by Jak 2's tonal shift and made Shadow the Hedgehog. If that's true, it would be interesting to examine how one got its shift right while the other totally failed at it. The obvious issue would be that Shadow the Hedgehog's story isn't as interesting as Jak 2's, coupled with the fact that its gameplay physics are a step back from Sonic Adventure 2.
I heard Shadow happened because kids in Japan wanted Sonic to have a gun, so they compromised and gave Shadow one instead.
It baffles me that some game devs STILL think that mature = desaturated grey and brown color palette, especially when some of the more remarkable mature games I can think of have a pretty colorful palette.
Oh Jeez I thought this was 8-bit Music Theory and I was 3 minutes in still wondering when we were gonna start talking about music and how tonal shifts affect the player experience
Always lovely to see a new video of yours go up.
I'd argue that Tetris 99 is a bigger tone shift than Effect. They've added Battle Royale stuff in addition of hinderance mechanics from other competitive puzzle games. We've seen Tetris competitiions before, but the concept really exploded with 99 ;)
it seems like the cutting difference is that games that shifted tone because the developers wanted it to (mgr: revengence, god of war) tend to fair a hell of a lot better than games that shifted tone because a ceo or focus group demanded it. Tone is one of those aesthetic decisions that has to be done with intent,. Telling a bunch of developers to make, say, bomberman, edgy and dark, essentially forces the team to try and bash a square peg into a circular hole. Conker got away with it because, despite the tone shift being a clearly risky move, the team believed in it working.
DmC might be seen as a counter example to this, and it does make the mistake of seemingly mocking and throwing away the tone of a beloved series, but in a vacuum a lot of people who gave it a chance seem to regard that game as pretty good, if not great.
This video felt more like a few unconnected case studies within the topic than anything comprehensive or structured. Closer to the Good Design, Bad Design videos, but without the contrasts. So the question in the title reads more like, "Why do _these_ game series make a tone shift?" than something more applicable to games outside the ones mentioned. Like there's no lesson to be learned, just a few examples.
Glad to see I wasn't the only who felt this way.
I feel like Rayman is a series defined by its tone shifts. The 1st game is a bright and colourful 2D platformer (that's hard as balls for some reason!). The 2nd is a dark fantasy 3D platformer, colourful characters in a grey and gloomy world with oppression and diaspora abound (they also made it much less difficult). The 3rd game dials it back to a more light hearted world, but most of the fantasy elements are replaced techy looking power ups. Then the rabbids happened... Then it got rebooted as a 2D platformer again!
When you're always shifting tone from game to game, the brand can't establish a true identity. What SHOULD Rayman be?
What it's been seen as recently, in the 2D reboots
I'll always respect the hell out of Jak 2 for going the direction it did, and still ending up an excellent experience. From the outside, it *may* seem like a cynical attempt at chasing trends, but it's an experience that had so much care and attention to detail put into its world, story, level design, and gameplay. It's tone is more than just "egdy 2000's", there's nuance to how it presents itself, and what it's trying to be. There truly isn't any game quite like Jak 2
I think that the Ace Attorney series needs a tone shift, and it had one but it was removed later on.
I'm talking about the fourth game Apollo Justice, it didn't change much but I loved the new protagonist, music and the atmosphere in general. It's sad that Capcom made Shu Takumi do dome changes to the game and that in the sequels the tone is back to the origins.
Now it doesn't seem like we are getting new games.
What do you mean? We just got releases of the Ace attorney spinoffs
@Dragonzaka You mean the Great Ace Attorney? I know people liked that game but it's recent because it was finally released translated in english and it's kinda like a separeted series (a spinoff if you will).
My point was more about that they left behind how Apollo Justice was its own thing, because they prefered to reverse back to the feels of the original trilogy.
I think it'd be cool to revisit this topic with more gradual examples.
Some games change tone in a way that's subtle between installments but if you were to compare the first game to the final game it looks worlds different.
That edit fade with tetris effect was amazing man, if that was you good job. Amazing.
Something I thought of: how many games out there have a story mode that - while completing them will in fact progress a story - are essentially just a challenge mode? The base game, but with a specific goal or gimmick for each level? Smash Bros Ultimate and PPT (afaik, it’s been a while) are the best examples I can think of. Splatoon (mainly Octo Expansion, maybe Splatoon 3) is close, but I remember it being very unique compared to regular multiplayer.
I don’t know if there’s enough of these kinds of games to cover anything, or even if this is something worth covering. Hopefully you find it at least an interesting tidbit or pattern.
(btw, thanks for the videos, as always!)
I'm surprised he didn't mention Borderlands. It's basically the anti-Fuse in its development; started serious and dark then became colorful and goofy. Except this time it actually worked.
The nice thing about Final Fantasy's fifteen universes plus whatever the hell is going on on the side is that the tone is shifting pretty much constantly. Modern-themed world of metal, Mako, and dark skies not working for you? Just make a more peaceful looking world where the threat only exists because of a Garland paradox! Done with that? Try a post-postapocalyptic world full of beautiful oceans, cities that look like real-world tourist attractions, and lots of underwater football! If there isn't a Final Fantasy world with a tone you like, just give it a few years and there probably will be.
Playing FFX-2 music at the end of a video about tone shifts is absolutely brilliant. Well played, sir.
The Spyro tone shift was a weird one for me. I played all the PS1 era and some of the GBA era games, but then as collectathons fell out of favor and they essentially rebranded I just didn't vibe with it.
Yea the whole reason i even wanted the first Skylanders game was because it was the most recent thing that had Spyro in it. Even with his big change in design, character and role i just loved him too much to care. I've yet to play the remaster of his original games but i love that they at least did him right again for that.
This was a good video, as usual. However, I was disappointed to miss the DMC re-do. Someday I suppose.
The Resident Evil series had two tone shifts, at least in their main series:
- The first three was a heir to Alone in the Dark, inspired also by movie directors like George Romero, Lucio Fulcci and other works of classic splatter films. All with fixed cameras.
- The next three became an action game with lots of body horror, 4 was a good reinvention but 6 went full Michael Bay. Cameras over the shoulder.
- And 7 went back to its roots: isolation, gore, body horror, filth, while paying a good homage to The Evil Dead series. I haven't played Village but it looks cool with their classic monster movie like influences. All in first person (optional third with Village's new update).
I especially love the remake of RE1 first released on GameCube. It looks and feels like a proper horror game but doesn't punish the player for actually using available resources like the original version did on the PlayStation. RE4 strikes a good balance between horror and action, though, and its humour is great.
I liked battalion wars 1 and 2, they were pretty fun. The story was pretty fun where it makes it very obvious theirs always more to what’s happening behind the scenes.
Strategizing what to do in real time and sometimes under an time limit was interesting. And every class besides the planes were (imo) good with how each was their for certain niche combat styles.
And getting to play the iron legion in the 2nd game was pretty cool.
My favorite tone shift has to be in the Megaman franchise when they introduced the spinoff series, Megaman X. The original series never went too deep into the consequences of Dr. Wily's villainy. It all seemed disconnected from the rest of the world, but then X series introduced a world where Wily's plans gradually began having apocalyptic consequences which then led to the Zero series where humanity was pushed close to extinction.
Your throwaway line about the multiplayer on the Xbox Conker remake was such an understatement. It was a fantastic multiplayer experience. I easily sank 100hr into it back in the day.
One time I remember that happening was with Patapon, the first two games were pretty cute and silly, but then the third game tried to be all badass, and while it was still a bit silly, it also tried to be much more serious at times. Along with the fact that a lot of core mechanics were changed, and that the main focus of the game seemed to be on the multiplayer side, it isn't surprising to find out that the players either love or hate patapon 3.
I don't care what its critics say, I loved Days of Ruin. Granted it was my first Advance Wars game, but I appreciate pretty much everything it was. I can appreciate the general playful attitude of earlier Advance Wars as well, it wasn't all about "edgy violence brown grey yeah" it was more about the actual gameplay for me. It's sad that the game is so good yet is only ever known as "The edgy one that killed the franchise" instead of being remembered as the great TBS game it actually was.
Dual Strike's balance was thrown
Days of Ruin is awesome. I was hesitant when I first bought it because of the darker tone, but the big thing for me was the characters being heavily fleshed out; it felt like I was playing Advance Wars 1 all over again, but with more dark humor instead of sitcom gags. The gameplay style and balance is also really nice (Caulder and Isabella notwithstanding); units aren't as harshly delineated between direct and indirect, with antitanks countering at 1 range and battleships attacking after moving, and the CO unit system feels more interesting than the normal global effects. My favourite thing, however, is the level system discouraging using weakened units as shields (as you'll give the enemy levels) and encouraging joining or repairing them (as they'll retain their own levels). It's the perfect way to incentivise in gameplay what is already thematically appropriate.
I thought most people liked Days of Ruin
I'd love to mention two CoD games that made really huge tone shift after their classic WW2 era.
Call of Duty back in the day was a historical WW2 game series, with themes of heroism and brotherhood, and the music is an uplifting, heroic music, while fighting along with fellow soldiers to victory against the German empire.
Infinity Ward, after they were done with WW2, things are so much different. They now went to the modern era, hence titled Modern Warfare. Instead of Germany, Russian Ultranationalists and Middle Eastern OpFors are the bad guys. Rather than having the optimistic feel in the earlier games, CoD 4: Modern Warfare feels pessimistic, and the world was getting close to a global crisis.
After MW, Treyarch went back to WW2, and the direction to that era is a also a far cry from the WW2 classics. Gone are the themes of heroism and camaraderie, and the glorious and uplifting orchestra. We were given with one of the most haunting songs in the CoD series, the BGM in gunfights are more heart-pounding, especially in th Eastern Front campaign, never had I heard brutal rock music in a WW2 game, until World at War. And yeah, we were also given with a poor fellow marine getting his throat slit by a Japanese in the first US mission, and some Russians massacred by Germans in the first Soviet campaign.
"I need to be more adult and edgy so old fans will still play me 😭😭"
- old sagas in a nutshell
Jak 2 and 3 were awesome games that I'll always love but also In my opinion I loved the feel and look of JakandDaxter. It's probably the nostalgic feeling I get from it since it's one of the first games I've ever played but I still like it very much now that I re-played it and I would lose my mind if Naughty Dog gose back to that concept and world if they even do go back to the JakandDaxter series.
(Edit: the Jak 1 theme song is peak and you can't change my mind 🔥🗿)
Tetris Effect is one of my favorite games in the series, it's just so pretty and mesmerizing to drop blocks over and over while dolphins swim in the background, or windmills turn with your movements, or drums and hawaiian chants cheer you on, it's an enchanting experience and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a meditative and simultaneously calming and invigorating experience
The Saints Row games are a series that comes to mind for me. The first game was a fairly serious gangster game, the 2nd game started getting whacky with its side content, the third game brought in a more lighthearted tone, and the fourth game was balls to the walls crazy.
One thing I remember most about Advance Wars: Dark Conflict was the extremely different localizations it received in the USA vs the EU and AU. In a trend similar to what you'd see in future nintendo localizations, the USA version was full of "personality" which didn't always fit, and the EU/AU version was more straightforward but more dry.
I personally favour the EU/AU localization, because it's not tripping over it's own feet to add in buffyspeak and comedy to a game which already didn't take itself as seriously as the art implies. Game's already campy, it didn't need More, and adding More just undermined the camp.
Imagine telling Solid Snake that naming himself after a movie character is silly and we're going to call him bob instead.
The USA Advance Wars DC does that to a character who wants to name herself after a flower. It is extremely thematically important for the narrative that she takes the floral name, as the nature of these flowers and their relationship to the character in question are a major plot beat, but the USA version is actually like "No. That's silly".
This doesn't mean the EU localization is always better. For games like Splatoon, the USA style works better than the EU one. But I can see why people argue about this stuff. This is also an argument about tone, and tone shifts.
No Zelda mention? That's kind of weird, with the series changing it's tone so often is line one of the prime examples.
literally zelda 2 is a great example
Didn't know the reason Jak 2 existed was focus groups. I feel slightly annoyed knowing this but I liked Jak 2 so whatever. I'm just sad about Dead or Alive trying to move past high kicks and jiggle physics on one hand while overcharging for nurse outfits and bunny costumes in the other hand.
A good example of tone shift on gaming, i think would be *Digimon*
They used to make games friendly for kids, just like the Anime was aimed to, but at one point, with sales doing poorly, they knew their audience was kind of stale niche, and competing in a children market was never gonna work out in amarket ruled by Pokemon (and Yokai-Watch back then) even if they never intended to compete with it, and that their most loyal consumers were growing and adult.
So they decided to now aim for a more mature audience, characters stopped being kids and became young adults, they decided to let new digimons go a bit wilder with designs, specially in the sex appeal market, and all and all... it worked, the games create a new identity that could hardly be compared to the likes of Pokemon (regardless who was better), now they are more compared to the like of SMT (at least in the Cyber Sleuth games), and the new games manage to appeal to a more general casual audience, giving them better sales and satisfying both old and new players.
Another fantastic video from Design Doc. Man, I still remember when Bomberman X was announced and released. We were all baffled that they thought THAT was a good idea.
I think the oddest tone shift was Prince of Persia between SoT and WW, then the pivot back to a middle ground for subsequent entries. It's a situation where you can understand what the devs were thinking, but that awkward middle child in its grunge rock phase hasn't aged that well.
That FFX-2 track for the outro 👌
The only tone change i can think of is kind of a cop out, "Luigi's Mansion". The tone shifted so much that they explored a whole new genre with it's own unique base mechanics.
Because the audience grows up while the franchises go on
So you have to make a choice :
-You either stick to the same tone the franchise has had this whole time cause your fanbase is dedicated,you can play on their nostalgia even if they've grown up,or cause it simply just works (pokemon)
-you have a tone switch and try to give the franchise a more adult,darker or even edgier tone (within reason) cause the fanbase grew up or you need to adapt to the times (Jake and daxter)
Tetris Effect is pretty great. If you're newer, it's not very hard at all, you can comfortably beat the whole game on the regular difficulty. Zone works as a get out of jail free card by making every line you clear move to the bottom of the screen, which means swiss cheese garbage can be combo'd effortlessly. Great for new players. Meanwhile expert players can still crank it up to max gravity and use zone to clear literally every single line on screen to the point the game can't come up with names for it anymore.
Also, the backgrounds are nice and chill, and the soundtrack is pretty amazing. I've got a handful of the best tracks in my typical playlist just because they're that good. Also it's not mentioned in this video, but moving your pieces, dropping them, and rotating them all have a little sound effect. Which makes that flow state feel perfectly in sync with the music. It's like DOOM 2016 adaptive soundtrack, but for putting down blocks instead of cutting demons in half.
Final fantasy XIII and its sequels... It started with a classic FF adventure, then turned to an ok time-travel adventure, and ended with a sad story about the apocalypse... That was one heck of a change in direction 🙃 One I personally didn't like 😅
(The first one was pretty cool though 👍)
The 2000’s saw tone shifts in movies and games to become grittier. However, the 2010’s eventually shifted to the opposite of the spectrum for many things, especially when they’re more “nerdy”. It’s apparently not cool to be sincere or serious in a fantasy or
Sci fi setting. You have to quip and be self-aware about it.
Game of Thrones though
*mid-late 2010's
I'd rather have 2010's cute over 00's edge.
Yeah, it went from everything serious to nothing being serious. What became of subtelty?
So, I'm a pretty huge Advance Wars Days of Ruin fanboy (In fact, my channel is, well... almost exclusively dedicated to the game nowadays lol), and I've always thought that the reason for the tone shift was because Advance Wars sold way better overseas than in Japan, and in 2008, all the big, popular, blockbuster, AAA games were dark, gritty slugfests like God of War, Call of Duty, and Gears of War. And so they did it to appeal more to the American audience, which also explains why it took ages for it to actually release in Japan (Though data mining confirms the USA and Europe releases do have finished and functional Japanese localizations present, but dummied out. You can activate it with an Action Replay code, though).
But yeah, DoR is really considered a dark horse in the franchise. The PvP scene for the original trilogy is way more popular than that of Days of Ruin (And yes, there are PvP scenes for both games! Look up "Advance Wars By Web" and "TinyWars") and the fact that it was the final game in the franchise for a long time garnered it a mild reputation for having "killed the franchise" with its tone shift. But one thing we can all agree on: The music in DoR *SLAPS*
Just because of the end of the video with the quick visual and music, I just wanted to say that I enjoyed X-2, I thought it was quirky and fun
The battle system and soundtrack really leaned into the tone shift too. I don't care if it was FF: Charlie's Angels. Doing a fashion show while being able to freely change class in the middle of combat is fun.
15:19 I say it's better to appeal to everyone/younger people than it is to make "mature" gritty games . Because games that appeal to both adults and kids last longer they get you when you're young then you stop playing during your teens because of your edgy phase then you return for nostalgia and still enjoy it when your a adult
I think Conker's tone shift was also in response to the N64's "family friendly" image when compared to PS1. It was released late in the system's life cycle as it had already gotten walloped in the console wars. Rare just said "screw it" and ran with it.
Conker‘s Bad Fur Day wasn‘t the first Conker game. Conker‘s Pocket Tales, the tie in GB / GBC was released prior. (actually it’s two distinct games on the same cartridge). The game has the pre Bad Fur Day cute Conker as seen in Diddy Kong Racing, as well.
I'm sorry but 1:19 with the wig flying onto the guys head pls that sent me 😭😭🤣🤣🤣
Have I learned something today? Yes.
And that is, I need to try Tetris Effect.
It's great
I’ve never heard of the Wars series but some of the old gameplay looks like Rampart on NES. I LOVED that game as a kid, I was very good at it. I was an expert tactician at 7! 😂
I found a Loony Toons themed Tetris at an arcade bar a couple years back. Different vibes for sure.
My dad rented a Mickey Mouse themed Tetris game for the N64 back in the day, too. I don't totally remember it, but I remember having fun playing it.
The Darkness to The Darkness 2 had an interesting tone shift. It went from nihilistic depressing atmosphere, to comic book, violent mafia story atmosphere. Still violent, but a different shade of it. I don't think there's anything like that kind of subtle change, especially since it's technically just as violent, if not more so in certain parts
was kinda hoping they would talk about the tone shift that final fantasy took from medieval fantasy to future fantasy or shadow the hedgehog but still an interesting video
_Final Fantasy_ has always been all over the place, with _FF1's_ WarMech being the obvious poster child for the tech side always a part of the series, and even when _FFIX_ smeared the fantasy all over the foreground again, the basic story turned out to be sci-fi.
what about Doom? The original two were kind of classic and then Doom 3 had a HUGE tone shift. Then came the remake in 2016 with a grounded feel of Mars and Hell and yet another tone change in Doom Eternal with zacky plot and floating guns and an arcade feel to it
Man, I was so hyped for Overstrike. Fuse was such a confusing move.
You show a fair bit of Team Fortress 2 - and that game underwent a tone shift itself, from being a realistic military shooter back when it was just a mod of Half-Life to being the cartoony game it is now.
Late 90s-2008 was just peak edginess especially when WWE, GTA and music influence the shift
ffx and ffx2. now theres a tone shift
Only example that immediately comes to mind:
Metal Gear Solid 4 felt like such a departure from the last 3. I can't really explain it, though. Each game has its share of brooding on the misery of war, but 4 starting out on an active battlefield, rather than an infiltration mission felt really weird to me.
Couple that with the controls being traded for modern shooters, which I wasn't used to, and the game felt like quite a shift to me.
4 had different writers so it makes sense
It might be worth doing a video on the related topic of Mechanics Shifts through series. There's obvious examples of changes or "improvements" in long-running series typically, like Resident Evil moving past tank controls to a more stand behind-the-shoulder shooter, and then to first person, but some more obscure stuff and the logic behind them could be fun (both for better and worse).
My personal contribution to the discussion would be the Ar Tonelico series, which start off with solid and fun turn-based combat in the first game, to even more involved, complex, and rewarding turn-based combat in the second, to... extremely watered-down, frankly disappointing free-action hacking (a la the Tales of series, but way worse) in the third. I'm fairly certain the developers felt the shift to full 3D opened up opportunities to capitalize on the success of games like Tales of Symphonia and other popular RPGs at the time, but... the change took away a lot of elements that had made the previous games unique while making the experience much more dull to play through.
Sometimes, change is good. Other times, change turns into "Bomberman: Act Zero".
I still don't know what they were thinking with that.
Matt McMuscles has your answer there (Wha Happun: Bomberman Zero if you're looking to search), but the short answer is it was a victim of the "appeal to the west" period that Japanese developers were angling at. It's the same thing that happened to Bionic Commando, for example. Basically they saw a lot of grimy crime and military genre games and wanted to get a slice of the western sales pie by taking on the outward tone without understanding the actual appeal.
@@kevingriffith6011 Oh yeah, I saw that! Somehow forgot about it.
Bomberman should stay cute
It was a boon that Jak 1 was such a run of the mill platformer, even if it plays really well. Thanks to that groundwork, 2 and 3 just felt good to run and jump around in, a degree of freedom I don't think would have been built from the ground up for the "not GTA".