BEAUTY IN THE ABSENCE OF SMILES: GEN DESIGN'S PHILOSOPHY OF EMOTION

RAHM JETHANI - Editor-in-Chief, 2nd Year, English & Japanese

Alternatively: The Magnificent yet Conflicting Language of Video Games

SPOILER WARNING FOR ALL TEAM ICO/GEN DESIGN GAMES! ((ICO, SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS, AND THE LAST GUARDIAN)

The projects made by video game auteur Fumito Ueda are as magical and fantastical as they are profound explorations upon the video game art form. His emphasis on linking feelings to game mechanics have quietly gone on to massively impact titans of gaming, with notable examples being The Last of Us and Dark Souls. In addition to their influence over the industry, each of Ueda’s games have been awarded incredible praise and favoritism by many. With this being said, Ueda’s accomplishments are stunningly impressive given the fact that his studio, gen DESIGN (formally known as Team Ico), have only created three games.

Each gen DESIGN game is focused on emotional bonds between two characters. In Ico, the bond is between the titular character and his companion Yorda. Shadow of the Colossus’s bond was presented as the main character’s relationship with the dead girl Mono, but many players instead felt a deeper kinship with the main character’s horse, Agro. This sentiment inspired Ueda to design his next game around the bond between a human and a beast called Trico, which resulted in The Last Guardian. All of these games weave their emotional connections into gameplay. A prime example can be seen in Ico, where in order to lead Yorda around, the player needs to physically hold down a button to hold her hand. Shadow of the Colossus and The Last Guardian also deploy similar gameplay techniques in order to emphasize the feeling of emotional intimacy between the characters.

These gameplay choices led to poetic role reversals, feelings of true companionship, and reciprocal gameplay that reinforced character dynamics. Due to intense minimalism and steadfast removal of sentimentality, every element of these games points towards the same philosophy: fostering the emotional connection between the player and their companion. Despite Ueda’s philosophy though, many of the most commonly cited “emotional” games have an exact opposite approach to game design, due to heavy influence from cinema. Most AI companions in video games are either invincible, or hopelessly inadequate. And in nearly every single case, the companion character is completely removed from player management, which fundamentally breaks the emotion-gameplay fusion shown to be so effective. There seems to be, initially, no reason why this trend is now the expectation, especially in the face of games like gen DESIGN’s.

Video games are, more than any other art form, built around interaction. If a player hits a button, they want to receive a fast, consistent, and responsive output. Therefore, it makes sense that many of the most acclaimed games heavily consider immediacy, convenience, and agency. These games often have the ability to skip cutscenes, bind controls, and maintain a stable framerate. Our modern console generation’s main selling point is having almost non-existent load times, just so we can play just that much quicker. Because of gaming’s emphasis on these features, it conditions players to attribute frustration or boredom in gameplay to just “bad game design.” All of gen DESIGN’s games do, to some extent, throw modern conventions away. While cohesive to the story each game tells, there are long sections of intense slowness, unreliability, and jank. These factors have the potential to rub people the wrong way, and have especially done so with the release of The Last Guardian. It was met with a lot of criticism because the emotion-gameplay fusion often disregarded player convenience. The bond between the player character and Trico was defined by its inconsistency, which while accurate to the experience of having an animal, doesn’t make for fun or engaging gameplay. However, the demand for every game to prioritize responsiveness and immediacy has a high potential to do more harm than good. To only care about these aspects means to limit other avenues interactivity can appear. We risk severing the creativity that games can intrinsically use to induce emotional responses from us.

In order to understand the potential Ueda’s philosophy has, it’s necessary to highlight some key point from each game, and discuss why they work so well in both an emotional and gameplay sense. There will be massive spoilers here, so be warned if you decide to continue.

The reductive summary of Ico’s gameplay loop is that it’s a seven hour escort mission, with the crux of the gameplay being the aforementioned mechanic of holding down a button to hold Yorda’s hand. Throughout the game, it’s clear that you, as Ico, have more strengths. You can fight, climb, jump farther, and solve puzzles better. The game puts you in the role of Yorda’s protector by tying the main failstate to her capture by the enemies. As a result, Ico makes players always prioritize the safety of Yorda over themselves. That’s why a pivotal emotional instance comes around three fourths through the game, when you’re about to escape the castle you’ve been trapped in for hours. The whole goal has been to get out, and so in the moment you’re about to escape across the last bridge, the designers use your subconscious attachment to Yorda to create a meaningful scene. The bridge begins to separate halfway through your escape, and you can either leave Yorda in order to escape, or jump back to her despite it meaning prolonged captivity. Without a second thought, nearly every single player makes the latter decision, and in this instant, Yorda grabs Ico’s hand in order to save him. This role reversal is simple, but it’s also quite poetic by using the core gameplay to show Yorda’s reciprocal feelings for Ico, bringing the efforts of the player full circle.

Moving to Shadow of the Colossus, the main character Wander spends the entire gameplay loop killing majestic beasts in the hope of reviving the dead girl Mono. The game focuses on the conflicting feeling of sacrifice, with most of the Colossi being peaceful and only attacking in self defense. Furthermore, when each creature is killed, the music that plays isn’t triumphant or victorious at all. Instead, you hear a slow, mournful, almost dirge-like song. The weight of Wander’s actions is meant to haunt you each time you take an innocent life. The whole point of Shadow of the Colossus is to make you, the player, feel morally terrible. And the worst part is that you don’t get to choose when to stop. You don’t get to definitively understand why Wander kills so much for Mono. You don’t even get to interact with Mono at all, aside from one purposely-vague dream cutscene. It makes the player wonder if the bond between Wander and Mono is even worth killing for, and it forces the emotional responsibility of these already-made decisions onto you. Shadow of the Colossus is a tragedy in every sense, culminating in the ending sequence of Wander sacrificing his humanity and life in order to revive Mono. Even though she comes back to life, the player is never allowed to interact with her due to Wander’s moral and now-physical monstrosity. As was the case in Ico, Shadow of the Colossus’s gameplay directly feeds into the emotional responses of the player, and this would continue in The Last Guardian

The Last Guardian, in many areas, is a mirror to Ico’s gameplay. But unlike Ico, you are now a helpless boy, assisted by the powerful, mobile, and gigantic beast Trico. However, the relationship between you is much more reciprocal than in Ico. While Trico excels in movement and combat, the boy is much more skilled at exploration, puzzle solving, caring for Trico, and directing its actions. An obstacle that comes very early in the game are stained-glass eye murals, which petrify Trico with terror. You are responsible for finding ways to destroy the glass in order to continue. Likewise, you’re also faced with obstacles that Trico must help with, such as fighting enemies. As a result, puzzles are designed around the dynamics between the boy and Trico. One emotional setpiece that stands out in this game involves the boy having to push enemies off a ledge while they are blocking the path forward with glass-eye shields. However, just as you get close, you’re ambushed by more enemies and can’t escape. At this point, you know that you’re screwed, because the rules of The Last Guardian say that you can’t win against enemies, and that Trico is paralyzed by the stained-glass eyes. But then, just as you’re about to game-over, Trico leaps through the shields, destroying them and defeating the enemies. This breakingof-the-rules scene reflects the growing bond between the boy and Trico, where Trico pushes past its own fear in order to save you. This, and other moments similar to it, emphasize the closeness between the boy and the beast, and shows the game’s merit as a follow-up to the other gen DESIGN games.

Even though the gaming medium prioritizes player agency, especially in the modern era, Fumito Ueda’s projects unwaveringly prioritize artistic expression in a way only video games can do. While this conflicting ideology does sometimes lead to poor reception and inconsistency, it has the potential to allow games to deeply explore themes in beautiful, gameplay-related ways that no game has come close to replicating. There is no denying that right now, no one is as creative or influential with gaming as gen DESIGN is, and this special company should be celebrated more for just how much they have achieved.