ruination of a good character
Just as we finish reminiscing about the great 16-bit era, we notice news of the updating of one the best loved characters of that era.
Hudsonsoft has one of the richest gaming heritages from the early 1990s (giving such well known characters like PC Kid). Their best known character was without a doubt Bomberman. However to view the gaming output of Hudson in recent years, it is fair to say that Bomberman has kept them alive, culminating in the pinnacle of the series with the 10 player Saturn version.
But times, and tastes change and Hudson seemed to be struggling to keep up with the 3D PlayStation generation. How to claw this market-share back? If you are to wholeheartedly follow the advice of the marketing sector, then Hudson follow the crowd and recreate their iconic characters in a post-modern angst ridden setting. But Bomberman? He's just a cute looking cartoon - point taken, but really do they need to resort to such desperate tactics? (The picture above being a case in point - taken from the preview art of the game)
But this panic driven posturing isn't restricted to this company; SEGA seemed to have similar jitters when releasing Shadow the Hedgehog to a confused public last year.
So what causes this? It is heartening to read of the internal struggles and scepticism that Yuji Naka had to face to get Sonic universally accepted inside SEGA. This is often the case with many groundbreaking original IP. Unfortunately as the average gaming budget increases, such risk taking is going to become more and more a rarity (with rare exceptions - Katamari and Shadow of Colossus being two examples that spring to mind).
Forenoon Filings shall keeping a close eye on the development and release of titles such as Loco Roco, Every Extend Extra to counterbalance this trend.
This entry was posted
on Saturday, February 18, 2006 at 9:17 pm.
