More Games Should be Weird

Hear me out here. The gaming industry is a colorful, wild array of magical, mysterious things. However, I think as the years have gone by, games have become more… safe. The idea of mass market appeal has overtaken creativity and pure fun, and weirdness.

Have you heard of Destrega? Have you heard of Brightis? What about Ehrgeiz? That’s not even getting into the forgotten JRPGs like Threads of Fate or Guardian’s Crusade. I could list a dozen of these examples from the 90s and early 2000s, but they all have one thing in common. They’re a bit more obscure than things you might know more vividly, like the Final Fantasy franchise, Resident Evil, or things like Streets of Rage.

Even some highly popular (if weird) games could be considered obscure. The Clock Tower franchise is a great horror series, but it was eclipsed in the 90s by Resident Evil and Silent Hill. Brightis, in particular, is an action RPG only released in Japan that would easily appeal to fans of FromSoftware’s work.

I came across Brightis (and other obscure games) from watching a small Irish YouTuber known as Sean Seanson. His content involves deep dives into games from the PlayStation 1 era, particularly games you might not have heard of, or wouldn’t have seen in the West.

Destrega (for example) is an obscure fighting game that reminds me a lot of Power Stone, but is a magic-focused fighting game created by the team who would go on later to pioneer the Dynasty Warriors franchise.

Threads of Fate was a one-off game from Squaresoft that I had played as a kid but forgot about until watching one of Sean’s videos. Throughout his content, he showcases lots of weird, wild, and just plain fun and goofy games that you may or may not have heard of.

However, the one thing I caught myself thinking about while I watched Sean’s content is that, as fun, weird, and interesting as a lot of the games from that era are, they’d never be made today.

I look at Final Fantasy XVI as an example. As a long-time fan of the series, I find that while it looks good and the story is interesting, the gameplay feels less like a Final Fantasy game and more like a mass-market Action RPG. Even Final Fantasy XV had some weird elements to it, with fishing, cooking, and the mixable magic.

We’ve gotten to a point where we chase graphical fidelity so much that sometimes good quality games get ignored. I’ve been working on a review for Suikoden I and II HD Remaster recently (at the time of writing), and the two Suikoden games from the PS1 era are an example of great storylines and gameplay that would have been lost to time had Konami not seen fit to remaster them.

I’m happy to have come across Sean’s work. Watching both his Japan-only PS1 videos and the Obscure and Forgotten PS1 videos has introduced me to interesting experiences I never would have known about. Additionally, Sean is documenting and preserving knowledge of games that aren’t in circulation anymore and likely have no chance of a remaster.

Many of these games are from studios that are no longer in business, or they come from studios that have grown to move on to other projects. The odds of Koei Tecmo going back to revisit Destrega (of all things) are incredibly low, and the same goes for Threads of Fate with Square Enix.

Videos like Sean’s are a reminder of many games that have been forgotten, games we might have seen on Blockbuster shelves (I’m showing my age) that might not have sold super well but provided a lot of nostalgic fun. Regardless, it’s sad to see that as the years pass, it is mostly Indie developers who are picking up the torch and running with weird ideas.

Sure, Yoko Taro is still kicking around, and Katamari Damacy games are made every now and then, but AAA-developed weird or goofy games are becoming far less common. I know that a lot of people love the blockbuster, big-budget games, and there is definitely a place for them. However, very few development teams are comfortable trying experimental projects now due to shareholders.

Profit is king in the AAA market. Square Enix even considered Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth as “performing less than expected” despite it getting critical acclaim, selling at the top of various charts during its release, and surpassing its predecessor on Metacritic. This is a remake of a beloved RPG and not a “niche, weird game,” of course, but if even a blockbuster isn’t safe from being criticized by shareholders for nebulous “poor performance,” then what hope do more obscure and niche titles have?

I suppose my point is that many of us in the previous generation(s) built a love of gaming from weird, niche, and obscure titles. Sure, there were the Final Fantasies and the Kingdom Hearts games in our library, but there were also games like Alundra, Jumping Flash, Lost Odyssey (in the 360 era), and other beloved titles that may not even be known by modern gamers.

Not only do we need to preserve these titles as best we can, but we need to try and figure out where we go from here. What sort of games do we want our kids to fall in love with? What sort of dreams do we want to instill in them to ensure that the love of gaming continues on? Sean’s work helps preserve the weird, niche, and wild, but it’s up to all of us to try and figure out where we go from here.