Game development is costly and intensive work. You don't get anything for free - it all has to be made by someone, somewhere, with limited time and limited budget. So as much as I love to see new things, I have a really abiding appreciation for games that make the most out of their assets. Asset reuse can be really offputting in certain egregious circumstances, but it can also be really compelling and elegant as well. I thought it might be cool to talk about that and give some credit to games that rely on really efficient game design.
Sekiro was one of my favorite games from last gen and is loaded with frugal design decisions that don't at all detract from the experience. You fight almost every miniboss twice and some even more than that. They have different names and slightly different appearances but they are mechanically identical. Because Sekiro is a demanding game that takes practice, this means you get two chances to prove yourself against these enemies. You have your first encounter where you learn their patterns and the methods to defeat them and then you have the subsequent encounter where you can really put what you learned to the test.
I really love this about Sekiro. Sometimes I'd get stuck on a miniboss for a long time and throw myself at them over and over and over trying to find the best (or cheapest) way to beat them. But then when I encounter their equal later, I get to use everything I learned the first time to dispatch them much more effectively.
In addition to this, Sekiro is eager to re-use map spaces and arenas for different types of encounters. You might fight two different story-critical bosses in the same place. You might pass through an area multiple times only to find a new boss has spawned there later in the game. There are some areas that are very self-contained or cordoned off, but there are others that you play in repeatedly in slightly different world states. I think it speaks to how creatively these locations and these enemies are used that despite their repeated appearances it never felt stale to me.
I only played Nier: Automata for the first time earlier this year when looking for something new to play in quarantine. I resisted it for a long time. I don't usually play games like this. A big part of why I finally chose to play it was so that I could say, definitively, it was not as good as people said. I ended up being wrong about that. I really loved the game and I particularly love it from the perspective of this topic.
Automata features 26 "endings" - one for each letter of the alphabet, that can be triggered by performing various actions in multiple points of the story. Most of these are gag endings, like having a robot eat a fish or going the wrong way in the first level and being never seen again. But the narrative structure of the proper campaigns, which feature multiple playable characters, is fascinating. You play the same map and interact with a lot of the same characters in a lot of the same locations. You fight some bosses multiple times. But the vantage point from which you see them is so different and so unique. You don't feel as though you are playing the same game you already did, you feel like you are playing a different side of the game you did not see before.
Nier Automata has an austere world map with only a few different environments. You run through it over and over again and take the terrain for granted by the end as it becomes something you've seen and explored repeatedly. But while the world around you stays the same, your perspective changes so much that it almost does not feel like the same world at all. The same world just looks different with new eyes.
Automata is a great example of building a stage and allowing multiple different stories to play out on top of it. It is very efficient, wasteless game design.
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I am sure there are lots of examples of games that make the most of their assets. Even if it's not part of the game's design ethos like the ones I mentioned, there are individual enemies or levels that would fit criteria like this. Sometimes something hits different the second time around, you know? Do you have any favorites of something like this?
To add some flavor to the topic I suppose you could also discuss asset reuse you really didn't like, but I'd prefer to keep it positive. However to throw something into that pile, I really didn't care for the Honeyhive and Gold Leaf Galaxies being mirrored and rethemed versions of each other in Super Mario Galaxy. It's not a concept I dislike - in fact it's obviously something I am open to given this topic - but I don't think either level is interesting enough in layout or identity to justify their relationship as such.
Sekiro was one of my favorite games from last gen and is loaded with frugal design decisions that don't at all detract from the experience. You fight almost every miniboss twice and some even more than that. They have different names and slightly different appearances but they are mechanically identical. Because Sekiro is a demanding game that takes practice, this means you get two chances to prove yourself against these enemies. You have your first encounter where you learn their patterns and the methods to defeat them and then you have the subsequent encounter where you can really put what you learned to the test.
I really love this about Sekiro. Sometimes I'd get stuck on a miniboss for a long time and throw myself at them over and over and over trying to find the best (or cheapest) way to beat them. But then when I encounter their equal later, I get to use everything I learned the first time to dispatch them much more effectively.
In addition to this, Sekiro is eager to re-use map spaces and arenas for different types of encounters. You might fight two different story-critical bosses in the same place. You might pass through an area multiple times only to find a new boss has spawned there later in the game. There are some areas that are very self-contained or cordoned off, but there are others that you play in repeatedly in slightly different world states. I think it speaks to how creatively these locations and these enemies are used that despite their repeated appearances it never felt stale to me.
I only played Nier: Automata for the first time earlier this year when looking for something new to play in quarantine. I resisted it for a long time. I don't usually play games like this. A big part of why I finally chose to play it was so that I could say, definitively, it was not as good as people said. I ended up being wrong about that. I really loved the game and I particularly love it from the perspective of this topic.
Automata features 26 "endings" - one for each letter of the alphabet, that can be triggered by performing various actions in multiple points of the story. Most of these are gag endings, like having a robot eat a fish or going the wrong way in the first level and being never seen again. But the narrative structure of the proper campaigns, which feature multiple playable characters, is fascinating. You play the same map and interact with a lot of the same characters in a lot of the same locations. You fight some bosses multiple times. But the vantage point from which you see them is so different and so unique. You don't feel as though you are playing the same game you already did, you feel like you are playing a different side of the game you did not see before.
Nier Automata has an austere world map with only a few different environments. You run through it over and over again and take the terrain for granted by the end as it becomes something you've seen and explored repeatedly. But while the world around you stays the same, your perspective changes so much that it almost does not feel like the same world at all. The same world just looks different with new eyes.
Automata is a great example of building a stage and allowing multiple different stories to play out on top of it. It is very efficient, wasteless game design.
---------------
I am sure there are lots of examples of games that make the most of their assets. Even if it's not part of the game's design ethos like the ones I mentioned, there are individual enemies or levels that would fit criteria like this. Sometimes something hits different the second time around, you know? Do you have any favorites of something like this?
To add some flavor to the topic I suppose you could also discuss asset reuse you really didn't like, but I'd prefer to keep it positive. However to throw something into that pile, I really didn't care for the Honeyhive and Gold Leaf Galaxies being mirrored and rethemed versions of each other in Super Mario Galaxy. It's not a concept I dislike - in fact it's obviously something I am open to given this topic - but I don't think either level is interesting enough in layout or identity to justify their relationship as such.
