Month of Characters Follow up: What Makes a Good Character?

Following my month of characters, I thought I might give some context to the lists and discuss what makes a good character and how so many writers and designers end up screwing up potentially iconic characters.

            First, let's start with heroes.  There are two basic types of heroes in video gaming that are very common.  The first are heroes who we find admirable, personable, or otherwise likable.  They are our avatars, but they are not us.  They have their own character, their own arcs, and their own agenda.  What makes a good hero?  Well, for starters, they need vulnerability.  The story may suggest that the hero can never die, however a hero is only compelling if the illusion of failure is hinted at through fallacies and weaknesses that the hero possesses.  For example, a personable hero having specific emotional triggers, phobias, or personality flaws is very humanizing, as we can often recognize those within ourselves.  These are sometimes the hardest to pull off in video game characters convincingly, because while a tragic past is rather easy to concoct, it can be difficult to make a hero vulnerable and weak, but still admirable and strong. 

Kratos is just not a well designed character from a story standpoint.  He's angry before his tragedy, he's angry after his tragedy and his back story barely ever comes up.  As a character, he's just a ball of rage with no reason to be but to kill.

            Kratos from the God of War series is an excellent example of a hero who fails to be relatable.  While he does have a tragic past, his personality is all rage, sarcasm, cruelty, and disdain.  He never shows signs of human weakness during battle or even during much of the plot.  And when he does attempt to show some weakness, it feels contrived because the character has not been built to actually support that weakness.  It is being jammed in where it is not wanted.  On the flipside of that, we have Ness from the Earthbound/Mother series.  Despite being a largely silent protagonist, Ness has several humanizing factors to him through game design.  Over the course of the game, Ness can come down with a number of status ailments that make it clear that he is, in fact, still just a kid and not some immortal super being.  Ness can get homesick and need to call his mother for support.  Ness can get the flu or a cold and need medicine.  Ness can get sick from allergic reactions and need homeopathic healing.  These small touches show that Ness is in fact a kid and vulnerable to childhood maladies, both physical and psychological.  It provides a nice perspective, showing that for all the new age hippies or knife wielding thugs you can take down with your psychic powers, you do still need a cuddle from your mommy or a teddy bear to start the day.  Watching a character act human is so much more relatable than a tragic back story.  If you are going to give a character a tragic back story, have it directly relate to their character and their vulnerabilities.  Dante, in the original Devil May Cry on the Playstation 2, lost his mother to demons.  While a great deal of information is not given, it comes out that this was a momentous event for him that shook him, through the story.  He takes a job from a woman named Trish primarily because of her resemblance to his mother.  When she betrays him, it hits the devil hunter very hard and after she is killed, he sheds tears for her.  His past directly relates to his character development in the game and it shows that he is vulnerable to being deceived because of his past.

Despite his cocky attitude, Dante has a tragic backstory that actually affects how he decides to act in the game, causing him to both grow and show signs of vulnerability.  This makes him a far more well rounded character than Kratos or your average shooter character.

        The other type of character is a power fantasy character.  Largely, these characters are avatars for the human players, with little to no personality of their own, allowing players to feel strong by playing the role of these characters in the game.  While this can lead to some interesting political, religious, or philosophical commentary, too often it is used for somewhat...reprehensible dreams.  A power fantasy character done wrong is where the game is built around appealing to the most base instincts of the human psyche, things like the desire to fornicate, the desire for wealth or power, the desire to kill in order to feel strong.  Modern warfare shooters appeal to players by allowing them to fit the stereotypical soldier, a walking death machine who kills without remorse in the name of the greater good(in the narrative at least) without consequence.  God of War, while not strictly a power fulfillment game as Kratos isn't a blank slate, does allow players to have sex with random women without consequence, and actually rewards the act.  Sexual games in Japan are also catered towards this style of play, allowing gamers to take on a character they can put themselves into as they either woo or abuse women for their own enjoyment.  These kinds of games do, sadly, fill the power fantasy requirement of giving characters the ability to make themselves feel strong, virile, or well off, however the actions that give off these feelings are, in my opinion, tragically flawed and can at times promote unhealthy views towards different races, genders, or the world in general. 

Ninja Gaiden 3 is power fantasy done very poorly.  It outright forces you to do acts that are horrific, even if they are empowering, without any set of consequences...they even reward you for it.  The infamous scene of Ryu killing a begging soldier, being forced to kill a begging soldier, is a sign of how flawed the game approaches making players feel tough.

            So, how do you pull of power fantasy heroes?  Well, there are a few good ways to do this.  The first is to supplant some of the more base desires and hit the itch to explore.  Power fantasies aren't just about base instincts, they are about being able to do in a game what you cannot do in real life.  Crafting a world or an environment that fosters exploration and rewards it, not necessarily with money or items, but with sights and experiences they cannot see elsewhere really helps grant players a reward for their effort.  Dark Souls does this quite well.  Though the world may be bleak and lonely, it offers a unique experience where the very act of exploring allows players to see things they could never hope to see in the real world, be it giant monsters, or unforgettable sights, such as crawling through a huge tree to reach an acid lake at the bottom.  Another good way to do power fantasy characters is to make the hero generally a good guy.  This allows you to not only enjoy the world that's been crafted around you, but also it allows some of those baser instincts to be sated without some of the guilt.  Adol Christian, for example, is an explorer and a swordsman who frequently makes romantic acquaintances with beautiful women the world over.  However, Adol does not take advantage of their affections as he is a character who acts with honor.  Adol is silent, so the interactions of those around him give us context to this effect, making the players accept the lack of ability to take advantage of those around us.  Also, Adol is a skilled swordsman and the combat in the Ys games is fast and enjoyable, allowing players to feel good about defeating monsters and protecting the innocent, rather than killing other human beings for some vaguely defined hyper masculine idea of patriotism.  Above all else, power fantasy should be about freedom, though.  Freedom to explore, freedom to challenge conventions, freedom to do as you wish.  This may lead some players to running over hookers in Grand Theft Auto, but a good power fantasy game does show that your actions have negative consequences, such as increased notoriety score and the possibility of being arrested or killed, and that while it is possible for you to hurt others for your own enjoyment...it's not the wisest idea.  In this way, they can subtly guide the player to a more fulfilling experience.  Power fantasy characters use the world and our own human impulses to affect us, often without our realizing.

While often cited as a highly adult game, Grand Theft Auto actually does do power fantasy very well.  You can do horrific acts to people around you, but it comes with consequences, like being arrested or killed.  In contrast, if you act like a good citizen, the game actually will award you money for saving people.

            Now, for villains.  Once again, there are two main types of villains.  Tragic villains and despicable villains.  Before we go into that, however, let me just say that in many games, villains are much easier to make than heroes.  If you do not have a villain who looms over the party for much of the game, you merely have to create a character at the end who has ties to the characters or the game world, has a view that is horrific or unjust, and who has a good reason to fight the main characters.  Final Fantasy Legend is a good example of this, in my opinion.  There are six main villains.  The four who guard the main worlds, Ashura, and the Creator.  The four who guard the main worlds are using their power to oppress the peoples of their worlds and/or block the way up the tower, as the higher up characters get, the stronger they become and are therefore more of a threat to these villains.  We don't have much prior contact to them, but the facts that they act in a manner that is clearly evil, that they don't replace someone more interesting or who we've had an investment in, and that they have a reason to want to stop us justifies these actions.  Ashura and the Creator are very similar in this regard.  However, they make ingratiating offers of the player, showing that while they have views that may be unjust, they are not entirely unreasonable, feral, or evil for the sake of being evil.  This shows some depth and allows the players to feel as if they have made a real triumph in refusing the offers these two make.

Bowser is fine as a simple villain.  He opposes Mario and wants to rule the Mushroom Kingdom.  Simple and to the point.

            Now, that said, that kind of template only works for the most basic of villain.  Really interesting and memorable villains are those with nuance, who you develop an emotional attachment to, and who are iconic in their own right.  Tragic villains usually have a back story that is depressing or has altered their view points so that they are acting in a manner that seems evil, but which is justified to them.  Like characters with tragic back stories, for these villains to really succeed, you need to interweave their current actions with their past, otherwise they become stock villains.  Evoland is a game which charts the history of adventure and role playing games in a satirical fashion and the main villain, who comes out of nowhere, is revealed to have a tragic backstory of his race being hunted for some reason, despite never mentioning it, hinting at it, or showing and trace of bitterness or regret until the final battle.  This is the definition of a stock villain, and Evoland created him in that way to parody the RPG stock villains of past and future.  A tragic villain with some bite is one who knows that what they are doing may not be justifiable, but still believe it is best for them or those dear to them.  Kato from Shadow Hearts: Covenant is this kind of villain.  He carries himself with an air of melancholy and early on he and Yuri discuss the loss of his love.  This melancholy and reference to his tragic past carry on throughout the game through his interactions with his superiors, who he has contempt for, and his resurrection of his lost love, albeit without her memories.  In the end, Kato decides to try and alter fate for the sake of love.  While he recognizes all the people he can and likely will hurt through these actions, to him it is justified because of all that he has lost.  This is a really well defined villain that players feel for and grow attached to.  They are lucid, reasonable, likable even, and are not deluded about the course of actions they have chosen to take.  A good way to mess up writing a tragic villain, apart from a stock backstory that is only mentioned once for the sake of pathos, is to have them be unreasonable, petulant, and whiny about their tragedy.  I honestly believe that Luc, from the Suikoden series, is a rather poor villain because he not only does he have immense power, but he has fought on the side of justice before and has a stern, but loving teacher and girl friend.  He should be perfectly content with his life.  However, the source of his power, his "true rune" of wind, which grants him mastery over wind and eternal life, seems to cause him distress as he believes his destiny is not his own.  So, he seeks to free himself from this burden by destroying the true rune, in an experiment which could wipe out an entire country.  Really, this is like saying "Wah!  Wah!  My whole life, people have made choices for me, I never got to live MY life!"  The truth is, Luc HAS lived his life, has made choices, and even if it felt like his destiny was being controlled, it was still ultimately up to him.  We all have choices.  But this attitude makes him seem whiny and ungrateful.  A sharp contrast from his previous appearances.

Kato is an excellent tragic villain, having his tragic backstory shown in the original Shadow Hearts and explained fully in the sequel.  His back story affects his actions and he sees what he is doing as justified, even if he has to commit horrors to do it.

            Despicable villains can be a bit more fun than tragic villains, as they're not meant to be liked.  They are meant to be hated for their actions, which are still justified in their eyes.  Despicable villains do what makes them happy or what advances them without care for others, so they can be pretty shallow character wise.  However, their actions can speak great depths about the kind of person they are and give them some memorability.  Going back to Suikoden again, in Suikoden 2, Luca Blight is the main villain for most of the game.  He has his father poisoned and wages a bloody war across the country to spill as much blood as possible to empower the "beast" rune inscribed in his castle.  However, he really just likes killing.  Luca is a textbook case of an anti-social psychotic who gets enjoyment out of bloodshed.  Yet, he's not an impotent villain who just loves killing because it makes him feel big.  He's trained his whole life as a warrior and can hold his own, frequently taking part in the killing himself.  In fact, to bring Luca down it takes a squad of six soldiers against him, after he's been wounded, a barrage of arrows, and a final duel against the enemy commander while he is near death, bleeding out, and pumped full of holes.  This kind of villain is memorable because of how despicable he is.  Same for Kefka.  He's insane.  He wants power for his own sake, so that he can do as he pleases and takes great pleasure in causing suffering.  He's not afraid to fight on his own, but he's memorable for his quirky personality, something Luca was rather missing, and his unique visual appearance, resembling a harlequin.  Despicable villains can be well spoken or thoughtful as well, such as Grahf from Xenogears musing on the nature of human existence or on the darkness and evil which resides within us all, even though he freely kills his subordinates and wants to destroy all.  So, how do you destroy a good despicable villain?  Make their plan not make sense within the context of the world or for their character.  Barthandelus from Final Fantasy 13 is a good example.  Despite having a memorable look, his plan is very, very stupid.  He wants to reduce the entire world to nothing.  Now, you could argue that this is stupid, and I have, because he acts as a god, lives in luxury, and his children basically rule the world.  But, devil's advocate, let's say he's gone insane and wants to reduce the world to nothing.  Why doesn't he do it himself?  He is a god after all.  Why does he need to rely on proxies to do it for him?  And why does he think destroying the world will bring his creator/father back when there doesn't seem to be any evidence it will?  Why does he, if he wants himself to die to, fight and hound the players?  See, a despicable villain does not have to be terribly deep, but their plan needs to make sense from a certain perspective.  Luca likes killing, so he starts a war.  Simple.  Kefka wants power and is selfish, so he weasels his way into a position of power and then turns himself into a god of magic.  A bit contrived, but sensible.  Barthandelus wants to reduce the world to nothing, so he and his organization actively try and stop the people he manipulated into becoming the tools for the end of the world...wait, what?

Luca Blight is an excellent despicable villain who simply has a deep rooted need for slaughter.  He is absolutely reprehensible, but very memorable because, as he said, it took hundreds to bring him down, but he killed thousands with abject glee.

            Aside from a poorly realized master scheme, there are two final pratfalls to avoid when writing villains.  The first is comparison.  If you are going to have a really impressive villain in your game, one who follows the outlines set up above, you don't want to create something more impressive or more dangerous or more interesting than them.  This will leave the audience feeling cheated, as they invested time in believing your important villain was important, but then something bigger, cooler, and more evil comes along.  This is why you don't have a giant evil demon boss BEFORE you have your human trying to force people to act a certain way for the greater good.  The taste of the villain sours after you've had something bigger and more impressive.  Second is supplanting the main villain.  Especially with tragic villains, we, the audience, grow just as attached to the bastard we want taken down as we do to the heroes.  So, if we spend most of the game hating and fighting and preparing to fight one big villain, only to have him be replaced by a lamer, stupider, less powerful/intimidating villain, it will really sour the games taste.  Seymour Guado in Final Fantasy 10 should've been our final final boss, but he was replaced by Yu Yevon, who was barely alive to begin with.  Satan killed the Lord of Necromancers in Castlevania: Lords of Shadows because "Evil muahahahahaha!"  Look, I get that you want a twist, but you can do better.  Replacing an iconic villain like Vaz in Far Cry 3 will just make us call bull shit.  The only time when this can work is if you have a villain we are equally familiar with, either masquerading as a hero or hiding in the sidelines where we still know he exists but he's not the top priority, come out and one up our main villain.  The twist in the original Bioshock where Andrew Ryan is replaced is one of the more subtle and brilliant plot twists in modern gaming.  It can be done, but it takes finesse, proper scripting, and good pacing.  Not to be tried by amateurs and not to be used for shock value.  You will only piss off your audience if you throw in a twist just for the sake of having a twist.

Vaz is the face of evil in Far Cry 3...so why isn't he the final final boss?  Why waste such a good character?!

            And so, that's my follow up to the month of characters.  Aspiring designers, script writers, or storytellers, take notice.  I've given you the secret to making good heroes and villains on a silver platter.  It amazes me how, even to this day, poorly written characters just get a pass.  We, as gamers, demand better from our heroes and villains.  We want them to be memorable, but not for how bad they are.  So, I hope this has given a little bit of context to why I did the month of characters in May.

Ignorance is Idiocy. AKA, Use it or Lose it

Well, crap, it's been over a month since my last post.  Life has basically given me a swift kick to the nether regions in this absence, but, hey, I'm back with more insight into the wonderful world of video gaming.  Enjoy.

Ignorance is Idiocy.  AKA, Use it or Lose it

            In the current era of console and even PC gaming, there is little that holds more power than a sequel.  Sequels are signs of success and comfort for many gamers, as they bring back stories and game concepts that enraptured players from the start.  Sequels are not free money...however, they almost always have an audience, no matter how small.  They do not need to prove themselves in the same way that original property does.  A Bioshock sequel, no matter how poor, has a greater audience by far than an original property which uses the same concepts, even if it is superior.  However, in this era of sequels, there is a disturbing trend.

My thoughts exactly.

            Halo.  Call of Duty.  Far Cry.  All of these games are, in their own right, very well made and with a specific audience in mind.  They cater to gamers who enjoy war games and in sequels offer them more of the same.  They have proven themselves.  However, countless other games mimic and copy the successes of these titles, but without even a modicum of the same originality, polish, or passion.  In fact, as sequels keep going into larger and larger numbers, many gamers collectively grown because there is stagnation.  They do not bring back great gameplay or tell epic stories, it is merely more of the same.  A game such as Fracture or Turok copy from the Halo formula in hopes of cashing in on its success, but ultimately glut the market.  Ironically, however, this glut is not, in and of itself, the trend I was speaking of.  What I refer to is the tendency to ignore one's own property in favor of chasing after someone else's.

Damn right

            Let us return to my previous example.  The original Turok: Dinosaur Hunter was a Nintendo 64 game about a time traveling and dimension hopping Native American warrior, equipped with outlandish weaponry fighting aliens and dinosaurs with everything from probes that bored into enemy skulls to magic tribal arrows fired from a regular bow.  The newer version of Turok rips off countless things from Halo, such as regenerating health, guidance markers, character archetypes, etc. It makes Turok a space marine, removes his interesting character traits, and gives him samey, boring weapons.  It is essentially, a clone trying to cash in on a previous game's fans.  No different from the atrocious Golden Axe: Beast Rider game for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 or the mediocre Altered Beast game for the PS2.  They take the original game's concept and completely alter it to fall more in line with modern trends, hoping that name value alone will sell titles, ultimately creating a generic experience with a thin veneer of the original coating the property.

Believe it or not, this is the good one.  This is the FUN one.

            And that is really the biggest shame of all.  Turok: Dinosaur Hunter was not a smash hit, however it garnered a cult following and earned a sequel on the Nintendo 64.  However, many of the fans probably felt betrayed by this new game, which used name value only to try and sell its property.  This is one of the bigger problems in the game industry.  Ignorance.  Many companies either forget what made their titles superb and beloved in the first place in favor of following modern trends.  Or worse, game companies forget that they even own said properties and leave loyal fans who are willing to pay money out in the cold.

Say it ain't so!

            There are a number of examples for this.  So many it is actually quite depressing.  Capcom is perhaps the most egregious offender.  Capcom is often known as the house that Megaman built.  However, when Keiji Inafune left the company, so to did much of its love for the blue bomber.  Megaman has been around for over two decades, yet lies almost completely forgotten of late.  The main series, Megaman X, Megaman Zero, and the countless spin offs are things of the past.  New Megaman games are practically nonexistent past 2010.  There was talk of Megaman Legends receiving the third game which fans had craved for almost a decade, however it was canceled at the last moment.  Capcom is letting the franchise that built them die.

Capcom...with all due respect...are you out of your damn mind?!

            To be fair, if a franchise has outlived itself or grown stagnant or had a satisfactory conclusion, it may be fair to allow it to rest.  The Shadow Hearts series created a nice little timeline for itself and ended with a satisfying conclusion, having only  one spin off that was mostly inoffensive tacked on at the end.  However, Megaman fans still cry out for sequels.  And Capcom ignores them.  It is not only Megaman, however.  Breath of Fire, a staple RPG series from the SNES era into the Playstation 2 era has withered and disappeared, last seen as a poor PSP port of the third game in a series of five.  Other series get drowned before they have a chance to flourish.  The Okami series had room for sequels, but after just one it seems a lost cause to hope for more.  The same can be said of Viewtiful Joe.  This habit of abandoning the properties that make game companies money is baffling to me.  There are fans.  Megaman has fans.  Breath of Fire has fans.  Viewtiful Joe has fans.  Yet save for cameos, these series remain dormant.  To release a game with one of these names would guarantee at least a few thousand sales, if not tens or hundreds of thousands, which is more than many original properties can guarantee.  So, why not revive them?  Gargoyle's Quest was a series which only lasted for three games, but which disappeared after the SNES era.  Why not bring it back?  Fans remember.  And fans are loyal.  Not to companies, often enough.  Capcom has proven to be quite ruthless with on disc and frivolous DLC releases, lock out procedures, and policies meant to enrage their own customers, but fans are loyal to games.  If you make them, they will come.

It's been almost 18 years since Firebrand's last solo game.  Isn't it time for a comeback?

            However, like developers following modern trends, game companies seem bound and determined lately to forget what made them so successful to begin with.  While not as apparently blind as Capcom, Konami has let Castlevania rot, of late.  Castlevania has always been popular in its 2-d iterations, yet there has not been a 2-d release for years, unless you count the storyless, rehashed multiplayer fair that is Harmony of Despair.  Instead, the closest thing we get is a "reboot" called Castlevania: Lords of Shadows, which is more interested in stealing ideas from God of War and Shadow of the Colossus than rewarding the loyalty of fans.  True, it had unique ideas and was a fine game in its own right, but it is following the trend of cramming what sells into any game with fan recognition.  And this is a terrible idea.  Betraying fans means losing potential sales in the long run.  Sales in the long run are everything for game companies.  Short term sales are needed to keep it afloat at the moment, but to have any longevity, game companies need to think in the long term.

Remember when you made games like this, Konami?  Fun, colorful, insane games?

            Perhaps worse than sequels which betray the concept of the original, however, are sequels that only aim to tease the fans, rather than placate them.  Franchises often build up a large shared universe, with rules that must be followed.  Even the disconnected Final Fantasy series has many elements in common, such as the character Cid, summoned beasts like Bahamut, and monsters such as Tonberries, Behemoths, and Ahrimans.  However, trying to copy these elements into a bastardized version of a game may only enrage fans rather than placate them.  They ask the question "Why isn't this in the world or in the style that I know and love?"  And when that question is asked, the game is already lost, no matter how fine a product.  Suikoden Tierkreis is a fine example of this.  It is not a bad game on its own merits and stays true to some of the styles of the Suikoden series, however it is set in an alternate universe.  There are none of the alliances or relationships, none of the recurring characters or elements, and no continuing story from previous games.  This is almost like a slap in the face to fans of the series, who wait patiently for a new iteration to a favorite series of theirs only to be rewarded with something that looks similar, plays similar, but isn't what they want.  It is akin to trying to buy a Halo game but coming out with Turok.  All the elements are there, but it is still lacking.  This plays into ignorance of what made the game in the series enjoyable to begin with.

What don't I see here...ah, right, Tierkreis.  Take the hint, Konami.

            In that same vein, I must reluctantly point out that Square Enix has followed a similar pathway.  Final Fantasy has seldom been a sequelized property.  Each new game has additional numbers beside it, but each is its own story.  The games have evolved with the times, keeping a strong story, music, and gameplay that the fans have recognized.  However, Square, after its merger with Enix, ignored all that and started fresh.  Final Fantasy 11 and onwards have followed the gameplay of MMORPGs and while financial success has followed, it has been with even more bloated development costs, critical pandering, and the scorn of long time fans.  If you wanted to make a new game series, why not make a new game series, rather than enrage fans?  The point I wish to make to all game companies is to ignore your properties, either what made them good to begin with or to ignore them entirely, is rank stupidity. 

Go back in time ten years.  Would ANYONE have thought this was a Final Fantasy game back then?

            Many games have fans slavering for a sequel.  The Legacy of Kain series, which Square now owns, ended after five games with several plot lines unresolved and a canceled game to follow.  If fans were shown that they still matter with a collection or a finale, then it would doubtless be at the very least a modest success.  However, the time for sequels and franchises passes quickly.  Legacy of Kain as a series was released in the 1990s and held power into the early 2000s, but has been dormant a long time.  Many of the voice actors who provided the performances that made it so memorable are either dead or growing too old to wait for a sequel.  The same is true of any franchise.  There are still many who yearn for Megaman, for the old Final Fantasy games, for Gargoyle's Quest, Breath of Fire, and Suikoden.  However, these gamers are getting older.  They are doggedly staying loyal to old favorites or they are moving on with their lives.  If Capcom, Konami, and many others do not move soon, they risk losing the power their franchises once had.  In twenty years time, the name Megaman may be worth less than nothing, when in the 1980s, it sold games without a second thought.

Time is running out for this Legacy, sadly.

            Many game companies have horded rights to franchises or sequels through acquisitions.  Through mergers, seizures, and purchases, many of these companies have a large library of names that they simply ignore.  And some defunct companies, like Quintet, have great titles that are fondly remembered whose rights could be bought for a pittance.  However, if these rights are shelved and sat upon, waiting for their value to appreciate, then eventually...they will stop being worth anything at all.  An Action Comics #1 is worth a great deal these days...but only to those who are willing to pay for it.  If the companies wait too long, people will give up hope on a Megaman 3...or build one themselves.  And then where will Capcom be?  They will have lost fans and by extension, lost sales.  Worse, they will be hated by their fans for not being more faithful to them, the people who pay their bills.

Hording rights is like hording comics.  They're only worth a crap if someone actually wants to pay for them.  Wait too long and eventually...no one will care.

           In the world of game development, modern trends can be useful.  Showing what is possible and what is profitable, they can be a great way for smaller companies to follow the big boys while still making something that is theirs, something special and enjoyable.  However, ignoring past successes just to chase modern trends is utter folly.  When it comes to game franchises, names, and sequels, you need to either use it...or lose it.