More Anime-bait please

You know by now that I'm an eclectic gamer- I pick up any and everything and don't allow the concept known as 'Genre's to stop me unless they truly are reprehensible- such as the survival game genre. (That concept has only ever thrived as an addendum towards other more complete genre ideas and I will die on that hill.) But recently I have to admit to being blown away by a few of the action games that we have been gifted as of late- a couple in particular, that speak to the scale of big budgets that we except to be realised. It isn't often I have to sit back to take in the insanity of the spectacle, and you can kind of start longing for that sensation after a while. When you don't get it from the grandest TV or the most exciting movie- I guess that's just another way that gaming leapfrog's traditional entertainment.

Black Myth Wukong has been on everyone's lips who gave it the good old shot, and I think that might be because of the blockbuster energy that the game just exudes- not in the tired 'game large for the sake of being big' Ubisoft trite; nor the 'we literally hold our consumers hostage with our entrenched multiplayer systems then brag about the player retention' Activision method; but rather the 'everyone shut up and listen- this game is the one' kind of way. And we've had actually a few games like that this year, funnily enough. It's not perfect and it doesn't do everything, but that it does set out to do it performs exceptionally at- but what take the cake for me with Wukong is the presentation.

From the very first cutscene you know right away that the name of the game is 'taking the action to the limits of extreme' in a manner you only really get out of the most bombastic anime. Wukong and Erlang, themselves inspirations for some of the most iconic anime rivalries out there, literally fly through the air propelled by the the force of their colliding staves- like a Wuxia movie, only with stunts that are animated and therefore don't feel stiff and on wires. The gigantic scale of the Heavenly Kings leering down on the battle are just the cherry atop the cake. And you know what- that isn't even the best that the game has to offer.

Action games that can transfer the energy and excitement into both their gameplay and their storytelling are far and few between- and off the top of my head I can only really think of Devil May Cry from 3 onwards as a definitive comparison. In those hands you get the kind of set-piece moments that hang around in your nogging for months even years after in fond reminiscence- and that is by no means an easy feat to achieve. Particularly in gaming- big set pieces can be so very difficult to make land as well as they did on the paper when first conceived- and maybe it's the years worth of those pretenders and attempters that made me so very unprepared for moments that would send me back to the giggling glee of childhood just like Black Myth is stuffed with.

Another contender has been my time with Final Fantasy XVI which, true to it's recent processors, is full of eye-popping spectacle moments that regularly blow you away as you sit back in sheer awe. This is actually nothing new for Square Enix or Final Fantasy, it seems this style of cinematic excitement has been their go-to since at least the days of Final Fantasy XII if not before. In fact, some describe the style of Final Fantasy as a bit desensitising in their more hyperactive throes- and to that I will say: there were moments during Final Fantasy XIII where I literally did not know what I was looking at one screen. Cluttered designs are no stranger to the halls of the Enix.

But XVI manages to bridge the gap between spectacle and gameplay which we don't always see teased. Even more so than Final Fantasy XV before it. Give us a big Kaiju fight and we'll remember it- let us partake in a Kajiu fight and we will love every second of it! There's something novel and cool about taking control of giant country-side destroying mega-forms for a brief amount of time to really stand-out through an otherwise jam packed adventure story. And even beyond that we get to face up against the very forms of godlike power themselves- playing against the man-versus-goliath visual often. There's even some great main story boss fights against aggressive and spectacular monsters with the kind of attack sets that make you just want to zone out and appreciate the intensity of it all.

I like to call these 'Anime Bait' moments, because they do tend to cater to the standards of excessive maximalism when it comes to action set pieces that Anime champions. A design standard of 'if I can imagine the coolest still frame moments for a conflict, then all I need to do is transition to those moments as smoothly as possible to get cinematic signatures'- and it proposes the kind of thrill-based eccentricity only really successfully catered to by animation. We're talking set-pieces that are all about embodying something primal, from pure crackling energy to effortless weightless grace to dying beauty and birthing monstrosity: these are the moments that memories are made of.

And I want more of them. Yes I do, I love this times. More than any action movie, no matter how expensive the budget- these are the kinds of visuals that speak "big budget blockbuster" to me. The only case in which such features don't tick off my 'possible embezzlement' alarms. 'Anime-bait' may sound vapid, and some times it can totally be, but even in their most infantile and blunt- the best anime astound in the understanding and manipulation of visual art- much more so than any other genre in the medium. Matching that in the 3D realm is that step beyond the pale that video games can trail, and modern AAA games lacking that can of visual excellence just don't sell it to me anymore. So for the next $70 'premium' title I see on the shelves, those are the kind of visuals I'm going to be on the hunt for. Like a true Anime weeb.