History of Video Games - Part 13
Gotta Catch 'Em All!
Catch Up on the Series
1 - Pressing Start / 2 - The New Industry / 3 - Have You Played Atari Today?
4 - The Great Video Game Crash of 1983 / 5 - Leave Luck to Heaven
6 - Now You’re Playing With Power / 7 - 8-Bit Magic
8 - Let’s Make Lots of Money / 9 - War Drums / 10 - Nintendo vs. Sega
11 - The Revolution Will Be Televised / 12 - The Dawn of a New Era
The Movie Fan
Hideo Kojima was born on August 24, 1963, and quickly grew fond of film. His family began a tradition of sitting down and watching movies, forcing their children to watch the entire film before going to bed. This grew to a love for film and Kojima was able t get his hands on a Super 8 and filmed small films when his family went on vacation. Unfortunately for Kojima, his father died when he turned 13, and it affected his family, and they dealt with some hardships. Despite this, he got into university to enter film production. However, everything changed for him when he played The Portopia Serial Murder Case and Super Mario Bros. when he got his hands on a Nintendo Famicom. Like that, the movie fan decided to become a video game developer.
Kojima would join Konami and agreed to be part of their MSX computer division. His debut came in the game Penguin Adventure, working in the planning stages. Kojima was disappointed to work on the MSX, as he preferred the Famicom regarding tech specs and performance. However, faith would interfere as he was asked to take over a project that had entered development hell - Metal Gear. The game was planned to be a military action game, but the team had been dealing with hardware limitations for the MSX2. This would mark his true debut on the gaming stage. He transformed Metal Gear into a stealth-based title and created the character of Solid Snake. Snake would be tasked to stop a nuclear walking tank in the base of Outer Heaven. Kojima based the game heavily on the 1963 film The Great Escape. This would becom a special staple of Kojima, his games would have movie-like plots and a cinematic feel.
Eventually, Kojima worked on several more games after Metal Gear's success and became Konami's go-to developer. Snatcher is a cyberpunk adventure game that would be an early example of the visual novel genre, with an influence from Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. He released a sequel to Metal Gear in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. A cult classic of his would-be Policenauts, another graphic adventure visual novel game about a former astronaut, not a detective investigating the death of his ex-wife. While all of these games would prove successful in some way or another, it would be his next big project for the PlayStation that would catapult Kojima into a legend, help establish gaming as a potential avenue for cinematic storytelling, and write his name into the industry’s history.
Metal Gear Solid would prove to be the launching point of Hideo Kojima going from talented developer to legendary status. Releasing in what would be one of the most significant years in the industry, 1998, Metal Gear Solid saw the return of Solid Snake as he looked to neutralize an island in Alaska called Shadow Moses, which houses the Metal Gear Rex mecha. You’ll bump into some of the era's most memorable characters and encounters, all with a cinematic movie plotline and adventure. The boss fight against Psycho Mantis is still talked about to this day, as you fight mind games that include making you think the game has corrupted or messed with your memory card. The game was an instant success and became a must-have for the PlayStation. Along with the previous year’s Final Fantasy VII, it showcased what would become a staple of PlayStation, focusing on cinematic narrative-led video games rivaling movies. Metal Gear Solid is still in the conversations of the top ten greatest games, making Kojima an internationally known developer like Shigeru Miyamoto.
The Golden Age of the Nintendo 64
The Nintendo 64 was not Nintendo’s most successful console. The system experienced a dropoff compared to Super Nintendo in all regions - although the dropoff in North America wasn’t as dire. The system would still sell respectability and be able to deliver another console with childhood memories - like mine, as the N64 was my childhood gaming console. The middle of the console would’ve its golden age as the combo of Nintendo, Rare, Star Wars games, and some Western third parties were able to break through. Rare got out games like Banjo-Kazooie, Diddy Kong Racing, Perfect Dark, and Jet Force Gemini. Nintendo meanwhile released Star Fox 64, Kirby 64, Mario Party, and, in Japan, Animal Forest (the start of the Animal Crossing franchise). But it would be one game in 1998 that impacted the industry in a major way.
The Legend of Zelda series had become the second most important franchise for the big N. With the jump into 3D, it was only natural that fans would be excited for the next game, and they got it. In 1998, Ocarina of Time would launch as the first 3D title in the series and forever change gaming. Once again, with Shigeru Miyamoto under the helm, along with newcomer and future series manager Eiji Aonuma - Ocarina of Time saw Link travel through time and ride his horse through the world of Hyrule to battle through dungeons and rescue Princess Zelda from Ganondorf, a new reincarnation of Ganon who would become the new staple of the series. The game revolutionized targeting and using camera controls for 3D open-world spaces as you traveled through an open-world Hyrule and its different geographical areas. Not only did the game provide a boost for N64 sales, but it went on to get the most tremendous critical acclaim any video game at the time had ever received.
With a whopping 99 Metacritic (and once it was at 100), an award later on as the game of the 20th century, and it has consistently been on the greatest games of all-time lists, mainly at the top spot. Today, it has received more criticism as it has begun to age in mechanics, but it is the Citizen Kane of video games in many ways. When you take it to a vote with all different types of gamers, Ocarina of Time will be favored to come out on top. If Shigeru Miyamoto is the all-time greatest video game developer, this is his magnum opus.
The Nature Lover
Satoshi Tajiri grew up as a child during the economic miracle of Japan. He collected bugs and became in love with nature. He then fell in love with video games and founded the company Game Freak - partially named after his favorite film, the 1932 Freaks. At first, the company was a video game magazine publication, with aspiring manga artist Ken Sugimori brought on board. The company did shut down eventually (for now), and Tajiri met Tsunekazu Ishihara and Shigesato Itoi. All of them had worked in different media such as movies, marketing, card games, and publishing in some form or another. At the same time, Game Freak was slowly coming back as they were looking to now get involved in video games. They partnered with Namco to release Mendel Palace, meeting composer Junichi Masuda along the way. Game Freak was now in the video game development bossiness.
Shigesato Itoi founded Ape Inc., a company that would famously make the Mother series. Ape liked to host sessions for young developer to pitch ideas to Nintendo and Itoi was able to get Tajiri into one. Tajiri had been considering a game concept around capturing monsters with different rarities, basing them on the Kaiju genre. At first called Capsule Monsters, it would eventually become Pocket Monsters. The team was particlary interested in using Nintendo’s new Game Boy handheld system to do it. The pitch was brought to hardline Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi, who answered with "This is it. This is the idea I've been waiting for."
"This is it. This is the idea I've been waiting for." - Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi after hearing the pitch for Pocket Monsters
The game became an ambitious project and was temporarily suspended. It seemed Pocket Monsters may join the list of cancelled games. However, later on the now mature team got back to the project just as the Game Boy’s sales were showing signs of slowing down. The team didn’t let the ambitious scale hold them back and worked hard to get the game they wanted out. This time, they added RPG-like mechanics and added monster battles to go along with capturing and trading. The concept of the monsters evolving to bigger and better creatures came along. Through the process, Tajiri was able to use some ideas from his mentor - none other than Shigeru Miyamoto. The team added Japanese artist Atsuko Nishida to help Sugimori and created the series’ prominent creature - Pikachu. In order for the games to promote trading it was decided to split it up as Pokemon: Red Version and Pokemon: Green Version. In 1996, the games released with almost no hype or expectations in Japan.
The games were successful enough to warrant looking into expanding the series. The team began to license the series to include a varied amount of other products. Over time a Pokemon anime, card game, and merchandise would pop up. The game was becoming a Japanese phenomenon and becoming the most popular media franchise for Japanese kids. This success caught the eye of some in Nintendo of America, but there was a fear that the game was “too Japanese” to find success in the states. What really drove the series to come stateside was actually the anime. Anime had started to become popular in the west and 4Kids Entertainment wanted the Pokemon anime as they saw it as a winner with kids. Eventually Nintendo and Game Freak began to put together deals to make it happen. On September 7, 1998, Pokemon the anime began to air. Three weeks later the games Pokemon: Red Version and Pokemon: Blue Version launched. In November of the same year, Nintendo launched the upgraded Game Boy Color and to start 1999, Wizards of the Coast of Magic the Gathering fame released the American editions of the Pokemon Trading Card Game. The recipe for one of pop culture’s biggest phenomenons had being put together.
Poke-Mania
Pokemon took over pop culture throughout 1999 and 2000. Don’t get me wrong, Pokemon is still a huge deal today - but there was nothing like the original Pokemon boom. I specifically remember this because I was in the thick of it. It started with the popularity of the games and the Game Boy Color hitting its stride. I remember getting Pokemon: Blue Version with a teal Game Boy Color for my 1999 Christmas. Squirtle was my starter and is still my guy. I would then show off my new Pokemon cards to friends in school and the neighborhood. During the weekend I would watch the Pokemon anime. If you could find news on the magazine or internet, it was all about the rumors of a new set of Pokemon supposedly planned.
Pokemon got so huge at this point, taking over the free time of children that it made the cover of Time Magazine and a special Halloween edition of The New Yorker. The final peak point was the release of Pokemon: The First Movie, which became a movie event at my Elementary school and you were considered “cool” if you got to watch it, especially if you had one of the special Promo cards they gave out. In today’s value it did over 300 million at the box office - not bad for an anime movie when the medium was still fighting for success in the states. Of course this was during the final days of the moral panic and some called Pokemon “demonic” or bad for kids - luckily those statements didn’t last. Pokemon ended the 20th century as the biggest thing for kids, perfectly encapsulating the video game industry’s reach into the mainstream.
While this original Pokemon boom would reach a stagnation after the release of Pokemon: Gold Version and Pokemon: Silver Version, it was the start of the highest grossing media franchise in history. Nintendo didn’t fully own Pokemon, but it’s a franchise that tied to them - joining the countless other massive characters and IP they own in the gaming world.
New Guys
Sega was ready for to jump back in the arena after the failure that was Sega Saturn. Saturn was able to get some cult classics during this time, including major third party titles like Resident Evil and Tomb Raider - but the Sega brand was damaged either way. But they had a new weapon to unleash that would change the industry and begin the leap to new graphics and the first steps into online multiplayer. Meanwhile, the world’s richest company, Microsoft, decided they wanted to be part of the fun. The next console generation was on its way.
Be Nice to All
One hell of a write up here. This is a great series.