Tetsuya Mizuguchi Profile: The real Child of Eden (II)

In the second part of this Tetsuya Mizuguchi profile, we have a look at his most relevant games published under Q Entertainment, including some of his external collaborations and his latest masterpiece Child of Eden.

– Lumines (PSP, 2004):

Mizuguchi’s decision to found Q Entertainment after leaving SEGA in 2003 gave him complete creative freedom for the first time in his career, but at the same time clipped his budgetary wings. With much less money in the pot and the necessity to be profitable, Mizuguchi turned to the portable market for his following projects. Coincidentally, for the first time in gaming history a handheld console was powerful enough to fully earn its multimedia stripes – the PlayStation Portable, with its widescreen LCD, VME Sound Core, Flash card compatibility and USB port, had been introduced to the world as the “Walkman of the 21st Century”. Too strong a temptation for Mizuguchi to resist, Lumines was his gift for the PSP, born out of a simple premise: blocks are dropped and cleared off the screen in groups of four following the rhythm of its electronic soundtrack. The game was a launch title for the Sony portable console, and a perfect one at that: it not only showed off the PSP’s technical strengths but also sent out a distinct ‘hip’ message, in tune with the modern and sleek design of the Sony console – portable gaming was not to be the realm of fat, cartoony plumbers anymore, and the cool teenagers who listened to Fantastic Plastic Machine wanted in.

Brick to the beat

While the gameplay in Lumines was not particularly radical (an amalgamation of the Tetris and Columns formulas), once again Mizuguchi’s original presentation lifted the whole experience: taking advantage of the PSP widescreen, the field of play increased widely, while the optical disk format allowed for a variety of top-notch quality songs (courtesy of Mondo Grosso, Eri Nobuchika and others from the Japanese electronica scene) to play along in the game. Like in Rez, any onscreen actions trigger sound effects such as buzzs or ticking clocks whilst blocks get wiped off to the BPM of the different songs, speeding up the gameplay in the more upbeat songs and slowing it down in the more chilled out tracks. Once again, this combination of gameplay and music is just as engrossing as in Rez, but with the added impact of portability and an ample variety of songs. Lumines plays just like an interactive walkman would do – you can dip in for a couple of your favourite songs on the bus or laze around in the sofa all Sunday afternoon with the shuffle option on. This universality has made the game Mizuguchi’s strongest IP, deserving of a PSP sequel with songs by folk like Chemical Bros, Beck and the amazing mess that is this Gwen Stefani song, as well as the joyous Heavenly Star, a song by Mizuguchi’s own virtual band Genki Rockets.

Uh huh, this her shit!

The series has carried on its success onto mobile phones (interestingly, no DS version has ever been released) and although versions for the PS2, Xbox 360 and PC are available, reception in home consoles has been slightly muted, most likely due to the game’s intrinsic portable nature – if nothing else, Lumines has become the Game Boy + Tetris combo for the iPod generation.

UNDER THE INFLUENCE RATE: Lumines is a pupil-dilation experience for all ages. It can even make your granny giddy – eat your heart out, Dr Kawashima. 5/5

The first Lumines for the PSP is now nearly 6 years old and new copies are rare, but since the game became popular with homebrew whiz kids, plenty are up for grabs on eBay. The PSP sequel Lumines II is more widely available and extremely cheap on Amazon. If you enjoy the first game, the second one offers more skins and songs, and it’s a steal at that price. Skip all home console releases, the PSP versions are the only way of the true samurai.

***

– Meteos (NDS, 2005):

Developed alongside Lumines, Meteos was a collaboration between Mizuguchi and another rogue designer, Masahiro Sakurai, who had recently left HAL Laboratories in search of professional freedom. The idea for Meteos once again is borrowed from an already existing and successful formula, in this case the mighty Nintendo puzzler Panel de Pon. But while the main objective is similar (stack three or more blocks of the same colour either horizontally or vertically) the execution is very different: while in Panel de Pon the stacked blocks just disappear, in Meteos they explode and get propelled into space (the upper screen of the DS), taking with them all blocks placed above. If the explosion is strong enough, they may reach the upper screen and vanish, but if it isn’t, the group of blocks will slowly fall back to its original position and it’s up to the player to stack another group of blocks in this time to provoke an even stronger burst that will lift the blocks into space for good.

Genki Rockets?

It is a slightly contrived set-up for a puzzle game (although it gives Mizuguchi ample rein to ponder about his favourite big topic of cosmology, supernovas, star fusion and so on), however it plays easier than it reads thanks to the touchscreen controls. If further proof was needed that Mizuguchi understands how to apply technology for the benefit of the gaming experience, try using the traditional pad and button controls instead of the stylus – the game suddenly becomes clunky and frustrating, especially if aiming for a high score. This is particularly relevant because, while all the other Mizuguchi games can be played with a hardcore “beat the high score” frame of mind, none of them make it as obvious as Meteos. It would be fair to say that it is Sakurai’s influence that makes Meteos the most complete game in Mizuguchi’s canon: there are four 1P gameplay modes, as well as a multiplayer and a Fusion mode, in which you can exchange the number of different Meteos (blocks) you have launched into space for rewards, a system Sakurai had incorporated to previous games of his like Kirby’s Air Ride. In fact, most of the menu layout, options and even music bear a striking resemblance to the Super Smash Bros series, which Sakurai has produced.

(Literally) high scores

It’s not until you get down to the nitty gritty of puzzling that you are able to join the dots back to Mizuguchi, with his trademark sleek presentation, bright colouring, interactive electro soundtrack and engrossing gameplay, albeit delivered in shorter bursts than in most of his other games. An average stage in Rez, Lumines or even Space Channel 5 can last a good ten minutes, while most of the play sessions in Meteos (save for the Delunge -endless- mode) are a matter of 2-3 minutes, making it not just an ideal portable game but also the perfect introduction for Mizuguchi novices.

UNDER THE INFLUENCE RATE: Electronica! Primary colour overload! Blocks flying into the stratosphere! Shiny alien forms! A total trip. 4/5.

Meteos was part of the first wave of titles released for the DS and as such is difficult to find in new condition. Amazon sell it for a ridiculous amount, but you can eBay it for far, far less. A Disney version of the game was released a couple of years after the original, removing all the charm and oddball appeal of Mizuguchi’s unique art direction and replacing it by Disney characters and settings. It does, however, fix one of the biggest problems of the original (the size of the play screen) by flipping gameplay to a horizontal view, akin to Puzzle League DS.  An Xbox 360 version, Meteos Wars, is available as a digital download.

***

– Ninety-Nine Nights (XBox 360, 2006):

This most strange of collaborations between Q Entertainment and South Korean studio Phantagram is a bit of an anomaly in Mizuguchi’s canon, slightly at odds with most of his output at Q Entertainment. A fantasy brawler with a distinct Medieval inspiration and characters straight out of Tolkien European mythology is not the obvious follow-up for the man who brought synesthesia to the gaming masses, but N3 is still, if not very much Mizuguchi’s child, at least a second generation descendant. The trademark interest in technology is patent in an excellent, first-generation 3D engine that handles hundreds of character movements at the same time and a seriously epic and immersive (albeit not interactive) soundtrack, courtesy of Turkish composer Pinar Toprak. While Phantagram handled most of the game’s development (with more than a passing resemblance to the Dynasty Warriors series, massively popular in South Korea), Mizuguchi’s touch can still be felt in the gameplay – Ninety-Nine Nights plays less like a thinking man’s hack ‘n’ slash and more like an interactive colouring notebook for the trigger-happy.

...but never outgunned!

The player splats through the enemy defenses like a butter-slicing knife with just a couple of button combinations, making the challenge less strategic and more acrobatic. Special attacks will obliterate half the characters onscreen within a second and even the most average of players will find their combo counter hitting ridiculous numbers well into thousands of kills in later stages of the game. In other words, and like in many other Mizuguchi titles, the goal is to think less and feel more, even if the overall result is just a tad repetitive and (gasp!) generic.

UNDER THE INFLUENCE RATE: Sadly, even Mizuguchi’s presence can’t lift Ninety-Nine Nights from its insipid origins. You will need a copious amount of sake for this one, and beware of the hangover. 2/5.

Amazon sell the game for a hefty amount, but eBay is your friend once again, seeming as it is not a rare game to find.

***

– Other Q Entertainment projects: Every Extend Extra (PSP, 2006) & Gunpey (PSP/NDS, 2006):

Due to much lower production costs and spurred by the success of Lumines, Q Entertainment quickly went on the lookout for portable ventures, and in 2006 it delivered two enhanced versions of previously existing games. Mizuguchi had no prior involvement with the original freeware game Every Extend or Gunpey, released for the ill-fated WonderSwan console, but his masterhand can be felt in both reworkings published by Q. Sadly, in both instances, the resulting experience does not meet the expectations as the original material just does not cut the mustard to begin with.

For what it’s worth, Gunpey is a puzzle game where you must align different line segments to create an unbroken line across the screen. It was released for the DS and PSP, but both versions have a very different presentation: while the Nintendo one opts for a surprisingly bland Cowboy Bebop-for-toddlers feel, with a selection of big-eyed and wild-haired characters to play as (clearly aiming for the younger market), the PSP version mirrors the aesthetics of Lumines, offering a selection of skins, rather than characters, that act effectively as stages. Once again, the player’s actions have both an audio and a visual consequence onscreen, however the pace of the game is unrelated to the music or sound effects and the actual gameplay is slightly imprecise (more so in the PSP version, which doesn’t benefit from touchscreen controls). While one can see what Miziguchi intended to do, Gunpey is a frustratingly slow-burn puzzler that does not have the addictive quality of Lumines or Tetris, and remains more of a curio than anything else.

Lumines... without the genius

Every Extend Extra, on the other hand, plays more closely to Mizuguchi’s heart, as the original game already shares a certain gusto for the abstract and electronica. Taking helm of a ship trapped in a matrix not entirely dissimilar to the one in Rez, the player must defeat enemies by blowing themselves up in their vicinity, prompting an explosive chain reaction that will grant them extra lives to carry on the kamikaze mission. As in other Miziguchi games, mastering the mechanism behind Every Extend Extra can result in some killer combos and some pretty hallucinogenic special effects displayed onscreen, and in that respect it fits like a glove with the rest of Q Entertainment’s output. Take away the psychedelic coating, however, and the game remains pretty much unaffected, something that cannot be said of true Mizuguchi oeuvres. If Lumines was his Ziggy Stardust, Every Extend Extra feels like Bowie’s cover of Let’s Spend The Night Together – unequivocally his, but ultimately unnecessary.

Gradius next, Mr. Mizuguchi

Both Gunpey/Gunpey DS and Every Extend Extra are available on Amazon for bargain prices (just a bit over £5) for Mizuguchi enthusiasts. If you are only (bi)curious, plump for EEE as it is the better game.

 ***

– Child of Eden (Xbox 360, 2011): 

After nearly five years after his last game release, there was a slight suspicion that Tetsuya Mizuguchi was struggling to come up with the goods and was suffering from a case of (game) writer’s block. Concerns were also raised about the profitability of Q Entertainment itself, in later years more interested in distributing questionable crap software than in developing new IPs. It took the current-generation HD consoles embracing the motion-control craze for Mizuguchi’s creative juices to start flowing again. Considering his love for new technology, one wonders why he had previously not dipped his toes in the gaming coup d’état that was the Wii, (hardware limitations or old SEGA allegiance pledges perhaps?) but Kinect and PSMove were what took him to come up with Child of Eden. A spiritual successor to Rez (in fact an unofficial prequel where we assist in the creation and birth of the Child of Eden Lumi, who we attempted to rescue from within “the system” in Rez), both games share very similar execution, art direction and cyber-musings; even some of the graphic and sound effects created by the player are the same.

RezMembrances

But what the game lacks in novelty factor it makes up in the controls department. While the PSMove version is yet to be released, the XBox 360 game is already out and is fully compatible with Kinect, and what a compatibility this is. It would be an understatement to say that this is the best Kinect game – it is without a doubt one of the best motion-controlled games ever released. The feeling of immersion is even stronger than in any other Mizuguchi game. Sweeping your hands to make flowers blossom in Eden‘s universe with the tip of your fingers while at the same time conducting the music of its world orchestra is a god-like experience akin to none in the gaming world.

Feel. Touch. Create

It is such a transforming experience that coming back to real life after a Kinect-ed Eden session can feel like the baddest of comedowns, but you wouldn’t have it any other way.  In fact, playing Child of Eden with standard controls, even for a game so out there by industry standards, feels very unimaginative – if high scores is what you are after, the game does play more accurately with a pad, but the whole affair goes from transcendental to pedestrian with a flick of a switch. Technology has finally caught up with Mizuguchi’s ideals of synesthesia, and Eden is the poster child of the new generation of gaming. Give those dreadful Wii Sports and Nintendogs clones a rest, Microsoft – Child of Eden is your Kinect killer app.

UNDER THE INFLUENCE RATE: Heart Games suggests playing Child of Eden on your own, after midnight, with no lights on and some substantial help *ahem*. Your mind will be forever blown. 5/5.

Child of Eden is available for the Xbox 360 for under £25 already, less than a month after launch. Sales have been sluggish,  despite good promotional efforts from Ubisoft. It is one of the most inspired pieces of software to be released this year and deserves as much word of mouth as possible. For a world free of yearly Call of Duties and Pro Evos, please support this game.