As video games have proven over the years, there are many ways for developers to make their games to attract players and ensure that their titles are high-quality. When it comes to games with story and deep gameplay mechanics, there tend to be a few approaches to how things should “start off.” There’s technically no wrong answer, as we’ve seen successful games with various methods of storytelling and beyond. However, Masahiro Sakurai made a new video for his YouTube channel where he made his thoughts very clear: You should do something big and climactic first!
This isn’t the first time that “Daddy Sakurai” has made such a claim. He’s often noted that he doesn’t like it when video games do things like long prologue sections or massive tutorials before letting the players do anything meaningful in the games themselves. Sakurai feels that players should be able to turn on the title, then be within the game’s world and enjoy it as quickly as possible.
He gives two key examples featuring iconic gaming characters. The first example is Final Fantasy VII, featuring Cloud Strife bounding off of a train to join the rest of the Avalanche group so that they can attack a Mako Reactor. He states that in other games, they might’ve shown how Cloud got in touch with Avalanche and the lead-up to the reactor strike. Instead, they go right for the throat, and that allows the gamers to invest immediately because they’re doing a big mission from the start.
Then, Masahiro Sakurai swerves and gives an example from one of his own games: Kid Icarus Uprising. He shows how the game starts, with Pit going right into a battle, with him and Lady Palutena discussing everything as the battle commences. They even show off one of the main antagonists, Medusa, to make it clear who the villain is from the start. Everything the player needs to know is covered in that first section, which meant that they were invested from the get-go and didn’t need to have their “hands held” to try and understand everything and THEN apply it. It’s the little things that can have the most effect.
Now, to be fair, there are plenty of games that have more of a “slow burn” approach, and they work fine. Yet, you can’t deny that there’s an appeal to Sakurai’s idea of doing “the climax first” because it immediately makes you wonder what’s going to happen next to build off what you’ve seen.
