Article/EDGE Shadow of Destiny

#### Text

> Ever since Biohazard lurched onto the Playstation four years ago, the 3D adventure has been dominated by blood, Silent Hill, Dino Crisis, D2 – all were constructed around hideous beasts, vulnerable humans and massive firearms, usually combining the three to stage scenes of viscera-heavy battles. Perhaps it took a new console – a console designed specifically to be placed beneath the family TV – to shake game designers out of their obsession with shock and violence, and to drive them to try something totally new. Which is why Shadow of Destiny will be aiming straight for Playstation 2 this winter.
>
>
> But hold on for a second. A family adventure? That sounds like a nightmare. How could such a monstrosity work? Well according to Junko Kawano, the director of the game (and the only female game director at Konami), it works just like any other big adventure of the last four years, with just one ingredient missing. “As in Biohazard or Silent Hill, you control the lead character in a 3D environment which you can explore freely.” She explains. “You use the analogue pad to look in any direction you want, and all the actions are performed through pressure on just one button. Now, the most original point is there are no battles. Most of the game is based around puzzling situations which the player has to solve. And to do this, the hero must time travel.”
>
>
> Yes, time travel – that’s the other interesting innovation. Shadow of Destiny is perhaps the first game in history that begins with Game Over, its hero stabbed in the back before you even press a button. The only way forward is, well, backwards. And that’s the idea. “So a man named Eike is killed. Someone stabs him from behind, and he doesn’t know why,” begins Kawano, who came up with the initial concept two years ago while working on a Playstation game entitled TwinBee RPG. “Eike’s soul arrives in a strange place where a mysterious man, a kind of fortune teller, tells him that it will be possible for him to go back through time and prevent his death from happening. Eike is then transported back to Earth 30 minutes before his murder.” So it’s a case of game on, again.
>
>
> But this is only the beginning. Each time Eike manages to evade a death sentence another looms up to take its place and eventually the player must travel to four different time periods – 1500, 1900, 1980, and 2000 – to unravel the mystery of Eike’s identity and prevent his untimely demise once and for all. In some respects, then, it’s a puzzle game – a sort of reverse whodunnit, at each stage the player simply has to figure out how to prevent Eike’s death. Unlike Biohazard et al, it’s not really about spending hours exploring and admiring the environments. Gozo kitao, the game’s producer and the general manager of KCET (who previously worked on Silent Hill), chips in: “It’s important to note that the player doesn’t have much when he’s walking around each town. He has to prevent the death of his character from happening, so he will have to focus on this issue. Believe me, he will have to use the time wisely!”
>
>
> Instead of creating a series of sprawling environments, then, the Shadow of Destiny team has set the whole game in one condensed town packed with features and filled with rooms for the player to investigate. According to Kawano, this fictitious location was inspired by German towns and the team spent months researching European history to get the details correct. From what Edge has seen, the attention to detail is indeed impression with period architecture and fashions recreated perfectly for each era.
>
>
> They havne’t approached the whole time travel issue lightly, either. “The problem with time travel is that it creates paradozes,” Kawano points out. “For example, introducing technologies too advanced for a specific period would provoke very strong reactions. Using a lighter in 1500 would terrify people – they would think the fire was coming from your hand! You see? And of course, if you change something in the past it will have direct consequences on the future.”
>
>
> “Conversations are also affected. Going back to the same period several times, you may meet the same character over and over again, but he will always greet you as though he’s meeting you for the first tiem. However, your character would remember him and so what Eike says will change accordingly. So, you see, it’s hard for us to get all the paradoxes working correctly.” Kitao-san agrees. “Yes, it is hard, very hard.” But no one ever said trying something new would be easy.
>
>
> It comes as little surprise then, to learn that the team has been watching films based around time travel – specifically the Back to the Future series. (It’s been interesting to understand how this theme has been approached previously,” says Kawano.) Books on the subject have also been studied. This appears to be a very cerebral project – something gamers aren’t really use to with console titles. But then it appears the team’s gameplay influecnes may come from the PC rather than Playstation or N64. “I am totally immersed in Ultima Online,” Kawano admits. “I love this game and spend many hours on it every night! Yes, I really ought to get some sleep.”
>
>
> “For me it is Age of Empires 2,” says Kitao-san. No wonder they’ve broken all those Resident Evil rules so decisively.
>
>
> As for the grahpics engine, apparently Shadow will be regularly throwing 70-80000 polygons around the screen, 30000 for the backgrounds and 6 to 7000 for the characters – of which there will often be eight on screen at once. The team is also working on special effects, trying to exploit some of the unique abilities of the Playstation 2 untapped by the disappointing launch titles. “At the moment, very few are included. We’re focusing on the scenery and the event movies, trying out several shoots to get the best angle,” says Kitao-san. “However, we will eventually add light filtered through windows, flames for fire, realtime shadows, etc. In the winter environment the character will walk out into the snow and leave footprints, the cold will make his breath visible as condensation, and so on.
>
>
> Again, though, any thought of a Shenmue style world where everything happens in realtime and the seasons are tied to an internal clock should be cast aside. Shadow of Destiny seems to be a series of controlled set pieces, each with the same specific task: save Eike from his preordained death. “The moment of day or night and the weather are fixed according to the time in the game,” confirms Kitao-san. “Plus, as the game requires the player to ack quickly in solving each situation, he will not have time to notice changes in the light or weather. You cannot wait for night to come or for the rain to stop. Eike will have to act immediately to prevent his death from occurring.”
>
>
> This may sound like too much pressure, but Konami seems to have created a kind of in-built continues feature which sits easily within the game’s unique structure. “There will be numerous ways for Eike to die, so the player has to work out how to prevent this from happening.” Recaps Kawano. “Each time he dies though, he will return to the strange place featured at the beginning of the game where the fortune teller will give him one more chance, and a vital clue. Then the player will start again just before the moment of death and must react according to the hint provided.” Indeed, just after the stabbing that begins the game, the fortune teller advises Eike to stuff something metallic up the back of his shirt to deflect the blow when he returns to Earth. The first quest, then, perhaps centers on looking for a stainless-steel tea tray…
>
>
> So no violence, and a second chance every time you die? Sounds like a breeze. But of course it isn’t. this is a puzzle-based adventure with the emphasis placed on thinking rather than simply surviving. Also, as in, say, Resident Evil 2, the gaming structure is rather open – there are multiple endings (one big one,and several lesser achievements) so there’s significant replay appeal. And even without that, Kitao-san and Kawano promise a playing time of “several dozen hours”.
>
>
> With the dawn of the PS2 era, it may be necessary for gamers to reprogram their approach to interactive entertainment. The inclusion of a DVD player with the machine is bound to attract millions of people who have never considered buying a console before – developers must learn how to reach this new audience. Kitao-san certainly agrees: “The PS2 launch was a success because of the DVD video compatibility. Now the machine is in many homes where people were not especially attracted to video games. Now they can be tempted to play them. I’m very conscious they would not buy standard gamer titles – it is important then to develop titles for this new but very wide target audience. Shadow of Destiny could be seen as a light user title since it has no violence and no hard or complicated action sequences.”
>
>
>
> Could this be a sign of things to come? With PS2 aiming at a genuinely new audience, an audience that perhaps bought the machine as a DVD player first and a games machine second, will more games follow the rules of films rather than those of videogames? Games that offer dense plotting, very specific set pieces, decent characterization and interesting, involving storylines? After the hideous experiments of the early 90s, could the interactive movie finally be about to come of age? The developers of Shadow of Destiny certainly think so. On this evidence they may be right.
>
>