Mini Game Article

I loves me my minigames! As always: be a love and click on the article?

Mini games are to RPGs like an appetizer is to a meal. It rounds out the experience and sets a tone for the game. As games become more complicated, mini games have followed suit. And like with full games, mini games have to follow a set of rules that will ensure that they are great. So how to make a great mini-game?

Do: Create a mini game that is seamless into the purpose of the entire game as a whole.

Kingdom Hearts II featured one of the worst mini games: the singing component in Atlantis. In the original Kingdom Hearts, Atlantis was one of the best designed worlds, with it’s three dimensional levels, creepy atmosphere (sunken ship... eerie) and fantastic enemies. This time around, your heroes take a break from, you know, SAVING THE UNIVERSE, to... sing. It just makes no sense story wise, and it interrupted the flow of this action based game. Mini games should be a true partner of the game, not just something tacked on.

Don’t: Make the mini-game a required part of the game.

Build it, and they will come. Let the gamer play the mini game if she or he wishes, but don’t halt the main game to divert to the mini game. Keeping your friends happy in GTAIV was a great example of what not to do. How many times were you happily causing mayhem in the streets of Liberty City, only to have Roman give you a call ... “COUSIN! Let’s go play some darts.”. Um... kinda busy dodging a 5 star wanted signal, dude, catch ya later. And this happened over and over again, there really was no way to turn it off.

One exception to this rule is to introduce the mini-game. Often, you are introduced to the mini game through a story event that you cannot avoid. Nothing wrong with that, but don’t keep at me, or make it necessary component if I don’t want to play your mini-game more than the first time it pops up.

Do: Give up the goods! Ensure that any mini-game or side quest is worth the time invested.

Whatever I get from a mini game should have some decent reward. Sometimes just playing the mini game itself is a reward because it’s well done and it’s fun. But sometimes I just want stuff. Invention or item creation is a “mini game” where your output is usually quite large (usually the best items in the game are from creating them) but the invention aspect itself is usually a bit on the dull side.

Sometimes the opposite occurs, great game, very low output. And sadly sometimes you get the mini game gone bad. No discernable reward and a boring game to boot. An example of a mini game gone bad was the foot racing game in Final Fantasy XII; you got... potions. Um... I have enough money, excuse me, gil, to buy my allotment of 99 potions. I will pass on this race-thingie, thank you.

Don’t: Be monotonous:

Fetch quests: we are looking at you. Go here, get that. Um... no thanks. These are sadly in almost every JRPG. In Lost Odyssey, there was a fetch mini game, you wandered around wasting time collecting flowers. Then you waggled a thumbstick while “participating” in a ceremony. The result? Instead of being moved and saddened by a tragic event, you just wanted it to be over. The mini game’s dullness came between myself and the story, and in an RPG, where the story is supposed to be king, this is a gaming travesty.

I found the Fable II Pub Games were both monotonous and didn’t give up enough prizes to keep me entertained. Keep pressing buttons in a souped up slot machine. Play some solitaire forever for the chance to make some cash for a game that isn’t out yet. And you really had to spend time on it to get anything at all. All it did was make me miss the lights of Vegas. The game should be a tad looser, that is pay out more often, in order to keep me engaged.

Do: Be creative and fun.
Mini games of today were considered entire games of yesteryear. The can be complex or simple, short or long. But the point is that mini games should be as fun to play as a full game, just in a more casual way. It’s not the star of the show, but the mini game should be a break in the game, something different to play.

So: keeping all this in mind, what are some of the best mini games?

Honourable Mention: Marvel Ultimate Alliance: Pitfall. Yes, it breaks some of my rules. But it fit in with the game, it was silly, it was a total throwback. It didn’t take long and it made us all realize how far we have come in gaming. Bloody crocodiles.

#3 Star Ocean: Till the End of Time: Invention. Lots of RPGs have an invention mini game. Get a special cauldron, or ability, take ingredients, combine them in new and interesting ways, for new and interesting things. A bit dull. Why the invention scheme in Star Ocean gets a nod is because they took it to a new level. You had to find inventors, every time you invented something it was always a crapshoot as to whether or not you were going to make something, or even what you were going to make. When you do invent things, the thing you build went into the market, and you got cash. Unfortunately, in order to recruit most of the inventors, you had to go on glorified fetch quests. But the point is they took what everyone else is doing, and they made it an entertaining part of the game, not just a chore that had to be done.

#2 Final Fantasy X: Blitzball. Blitzball is a type of water polo. In this iteration, you recruit, train form a team and play for some fantastic prizes. It could be it’s own game. Either you love it or you hate it, but I loved it and spent WAY too many hours (yes, hours) playing this bloody mini game. Let us not speak of what they did to blitzball in FFX-2. Wait what am I talking about, that never happened. I said it never happened.

But my number one choice for best mini game is:

#1 Dark Cloud 2: SPHEDA! Spheda is a brilliant little mini putt game. You finish the level by killing all the monsters, then you have the opportunity to play a game of Spheda. You have a red ball, you have either a red or blue vertical disk. Red ball goes in blue disk, blue ball in red disk. Whenever your ball hits something it changes colour from red to blue and back again, so sometimes you have to bank the ball off something in order to get the proper colour. In fact you often you will have to bank your ball around corners and the like, because you only have a certain number of shots. The levels are dynamic, so each time you play it’s different. I would pay for this game all on it’s own AND the prizes that you got were stellar. It’s a total winner. Dark Cloud 2 also had a wonderfully complex fishing system where you could eat, race, or breed your caught fish and it also had a great camera/invention system. Dark Cloud 2 wins hands down for amazing mini games.

So: what do you think? What is your favorite mini game?