Megaman 8 Reflections
recently I've been revisiting Megaman 8, which somewhat atypically is a childhood favorite of mine, as I played only a few games in my early childhood. I played it quite young, around 5 or 6, and it left a deep impression on me. it's always nice to revisit something from one's childhood as an adult and find new appreciation through an adult lens. sometimes we talk about "nostalgia goggles," but truly, I believe we have discernment for memorable experiences from a young age. we may have a different perspective and interests than that is typical for adults, but it takes more than a memory to make something beloved. after all, there's plenty of media from our childhoods we don't miss. but I digress! what I've found with Megaman 8 is a lush, resonant experience that balances friction and tension smartly.
part 1: difficulty, or tension?
is Amnesia: the Dark Descent a hard game? if you've played it or already know how it works you might not think so. but while people are playing it, it feels hard. in Amnesia, you have a sanity meter that wavers unpredictably as you explore its horror scenarios. it enhances the sense of being on the razor's edge, of an unknown threat lingering at the edge. however, in a strict mechanical sense, the sanity meter doesn't do anything: there are no game rules that respond to them. but you, as the audience, respond to it anyway. it contributes to the the emotional experience of playing it, impacting the overall narrative. it adds tension. the game might not strictly be hard, yet nonetheless feels tense and challenging.
in my Ys I Reflections article, I discuss how sometimes when we talk about enjoying games because they're difficult, we might actually be enjoying them because they're involving. the two certainly overlap, but involvement describes the specific process where a game engages you as an active, alert participant. it's the opposite of being on "autopilot."
Megaman 8 highlights for me another dimension of this relationship, where sometimes when we say we enjoy games for being difficult, we might actually enjoy them for their sense of tension. tension is when you experience a sensation of urgency, that something is at stake, typically accompanied by rushes of adrenaline that peak and resolve into catharsis as you play.
I have 1 HP left and so does the boss, can I dodge their next attack and get that last hit in?
in this way, tension is an essential building block of game design. tension is a narrative element in and of itself, naturally emerging as drama arises, climaxes and resolves. it makes playing a game feel exciting and meaningful. it can arise from any element of a game, be it mechanical, textual or presentational. tension, like friction, has a subjective element where each person has a different threshold of enjoyment of it. even low-stress games like Stardew Valley and Kirby have elements of tension, but they are much less pronounced than games like Amnesia or Megaman 8.
friction, tension and involvement are co-complementing. they are all also closely related to difficulty, which might be said to be an experience that emerges from the combination of these factors through any number of exact mechanisms. though still subjective, we can examine friction, tension and involvement with more specificity than we can difficulty, as fundamental elements of the emotional experience of playing games.
part 2: a well-oiled robot
jumping is a mechanic with a natural tension, as you anticipate falling and hope you'll land where you meant. when you miss your mark, it creates friction. when you introduce elements of precision and consequence, that sense of friction heightens, reinforcing the tension and involvement of jumping. each failure drives you to try again, strengthening the sense of tension. it's easy to understand why platformers have had such lasting appeal, as they achieve these fundamentals in a programmatically simple and intuitive way.
in the early (though not earliest) years of platformers on the NES and Master System, they were known for being quite punishing, the Megaman series notably among them. these games had such a level of friction through their precision and timing-based challenges that, despite being beloved classics, it was a prohibitive experience for many players. thus, in the SNES/MegaDrive/etc. era onwards, developers sought to increase their accessibility while retaining and enhancing the core of what made them enjoyable. increased audiovisual and memory capabilities also empowered developers to develop the mood and scenario of a game more intricately, adding a new dimension of appeal to help retain interest and enjoyment through those peaks of friction.
Megaman 8 does all these things. it's generally understood to be one of the easier Megaman games (though that certainly doesn't make it "easy"), and yet still manages to have great tension. the game gives you precise challenges with abundant tools and powerups to solve them with. it gives you narrow resources (hp/lives/ammo), yet plentiful drops to refill them and generous checkpoints. its systems naturally create situations with a strong sense of tension, that you are well-equipped to deal with and otherwise recuperate from afterwards. its swift peaks and resolutions complement a fast action game well.
it's easy for even a brief session or a game over to feel like a full experience this way, as you'll have experienced a number of complete narrative arcs in even a short time, full of hardship and triumph and a promise of improved re-attempts, which you get to return to easily.
as mentioned above, a challenging game can effectively raise one's threshold for friction by creating a game you enjoy the moment-to-moment of playing. this can be through elements like texture just as it can be through mood and presentation. if you create a game space one takes joy in merely inhabiting, it matters less how much you're progressing. one might even come to relish in failure, as it means lengthening the time they get to spend immersed in it.
this dynamic can co-complement a challenging game loop with frequent retries. your mastery is honed while you immerse yourself further in the audiovisual-kinetic experience, appreciating the texture and details and reflecting on the narrative and scenario. this lends to a natural dynamic of deep exploration in both mechanics and scenario at once.
part 3: the utopian dream
Megaman 8 is full of some of the most lovely art and music I've had the opportunity to experience in a game. but it isn't just the craft of it, it's just as much the subjects they depict, the mood and scenario they create.
it presents a bright, colorful and futuristic world, one flourishing with abundance where the distinction between technology and nature has become ambiguous. it's a vision of a utopian world, both a future we should eagerly strive for and one we should be mindful of the inherent dangers of which bad actors might drive. (which feels particularly topical now that we're starting to actually have robots! (and enough said about the bad actors))
playing the game reminded me how scarce this sense of optimism has become, reflecting a society that is now largely anxious of the future and insecure in the present. I was affected so heavily by this futuristic vision as a kid that I truly believed this was the future, or even a present I hadn't seen yet. it informed my expectations for the world, that life should be beautiful, abundant and forward-looking. it made me reflect on what formative experiences kids might be having with the art of today--not better or worse, but certainly different, and thus shaping their consciousness differently than my own too. have they come to take a cynical future as a given? how has this prepared them for the world compared to me?
if there's something I want to pass on to the next generations, it's that a better world is not just possible but at out fingertips, being born in so many small ways through our actions every day. but it's hard to build a future when you don't have a vision of what you want to build. it seems like these days we all know what we don't like about the world, but we don't all have a clear picture of what we do want it to look like. the dream of utopianism died in the 20th century with the last of the classical socialists (such as Walt Disney) and their legacy on popular culture. while much of it lacked as much in practical substance as the landscapes of Megaman 8, these small things can still have a profound effect on our temperament towards life's possibilities.
part 4: conclusion
I'm quite thankful I chose to revisit Megaman 8. from it I got both a valuable lesson in tension and a reminder of what I strive for in life. I have renewed appreciation for the way familiar art can put us back in touch with past selves and headspaces, serving as reflective and grounding experiences. it has reminded me that my comfort zone has plenty to offer, that there's plenty of deep exploration left to enrich myself within the familiar. and it has reminded me just how refreshing an arcade-style game can be.