The recent Konami meltdown seriously has me bummed super hardcore. the signs have been there for like... the past 5 years. actually, I did a write-up for my tumblr. allow me to Copy-pasta.
"okay, so in my half-awake stupor, I have to comment on this one, about how unsurprising it is, and how it plays into Konami’s current plans as a whole.
Guillermo Del Toro has now had his second shot at making a video game shot down in horrible flames thanks to this. I’m personally not a horror fan, but i have so many friends who are, and one in particular who I grew up with and is very loyal to this franchise, and PT was the most excited he had been for just… a video game in general in a looooooooooong ass time.
Silent Hills’ canning is just another step in Konami’s systematic downsizing of their video game development division. I actually noticed this around the time they liquidated all assets of Hudson soft until all that was left was an office of about 12 people making ‘social’ games. At some point, the top brass in that company lost ALL their love for any video game development. I think the only reason they stayed the course so long was because they had a guy who’s name alone could sell games under their employ.
I’m actually happy for Kojima. he will be laughing ALL the way to the bank. there are companies who will pay him the big bucks to do projects for him. he could even sucker his fans into giving him millions for a dream project via Kickstarter if he really wanted to! He’s been wanting to do something that isn’t Metal Gear for a long time. I’m personally hoping for a spiritual sucessor to Snatcher/Policenauts where the protagonist looks like Dolph Lundgren and it has a plot that parallels inception or something.
And… that just leave Konami. Konami, the little Jukebox refurbishing and rental place. Konami the pioneers of the early arcades with stuff like Vangaurd and Juno First. Konami, who defined some of the platforms their games found their home on (MSX, NES, PC Engine, Genesis, SNES, Sharp X68000, PSX) Konami who took their ****-off castlevania and Metal Gear money and dumped it upon Kazuki Takahashi so they could start a cardboard merch and anime division. Konami the health and fitness/Real Estate agency… Console gaming dried up hardcore in japan. Nobody ever wants to play a console game there and wants their content on their flip/smart phone. anything that isn’t a woeful attempt to cash in on western audiences or a mobile game must be PURGED for profit.
Pro Evolution Soccer still exists because Europeans eat it up. Metal Gear still exists because americans eat it up. Everything else needs to have more of that western appeal if it’s gonna live on a console! Bomberman Act Zero! (made to appeal to edgelords or something I don’t even) Castlevania: Lords of Shadow! (developed by a spanish developer, made to be more generically… Lord of the Rings? ) that stupid ass game where you’d lose your limbs! in this push for west or bust (which they’ve clearly seen the writing on the wall as ‘bust’), they have forgotten some of the most important things about Konami games that they HAD up until about… 2008? 2009?
Konami IP all OOZE personality. It’s not just that they are mechanically solid games or that the graphics are nice or that soundtracks are rockin’ (All those things help!) It’s that Konami games all just have something about them that is so absurdly goofy and lovable. it’s references to other game sor just something so out of place or distinctly video game-y. sometimes these sorts of things were turned up to eleven, such as in the Ganbare Goemon series or Parodius. sometimes it was a lil’ more toned down things like Symphony of the Night having weapons that shot out gradius shields or finding a hot dog in a wall and the game trying to explain how in the hell Dracula’s castle in the late 1700′s just shat out a frankfurter that a vampire is stuffing down his throat for sustenance, or the konami code blowing you the **** up in Gradius 3, or Gillian Seed calling a sex hotline in Snatcher and the game actually having this whole very awkward exchange. Almost every example of a Konami game I like has an example of something silly like this happening.
Hell, I remember the first time I opened up a rise of destiny booster for Yugioh (kinda disappointing set, but I remember the Creator at least being interesting to play with for the time, even if it’s after the great boon of chaos.) and I saw
This staring me in the face. (Yugioh has a TON of konami game references in their cards. there’s a huge set of Gradius/Life Force bosses, Getsu Fuuma and Ryu Koki from Getsu Fu-maden, a set of Goemon character cards, a card based on Nanobreaker, Koitsu from Parodius…)
I’ve wanted a new Parodius/Wai Wai game ever since Konami bought hudson back in like… 2006, was it? (C’mon, bonk flying through space spinning around in the air to shoot rock projectiles with dinosaur options would be pretty hilarious.) but… it can’t be helped. Konami is looking to double down on the health and fitness centers since they’re looking to put them out in america. I think the last 3DS game they put out was Yugioh Zexal; Duel Carnival as a digital release only for eShop. I can’t think of anything else they put on the platform other than Lords of SHadow: Mirror of Fate and the 3D Classics remake of Twinbee… which strangely enough is the first time they ever released Twinbee outside of Japan.
Anyhow, I’m sad to see them shrivel into nothingness like this, but… I suppose not everything can go on forever."
Yyyyeah... Jim Sterling did a great episode of Jimquisition on the subject, and I also mailed RFN on it, so maybe they'll chat it up, but... I just feel really down from the recent turn of events. Konami has made SO many important games, and it's really, REALLY hard to watch this all unfold as they double down on their health and fitness business.
I suppose if they do indeed bow out, their legacy will live on in many forms of media from the various VRC6 compositions that are out there on youtube to the myriad games that try to emulate what it is that Konami games do so well.
Hell, La Mulana in it's original, non-remade form was basically a giant Konami MSX game throwback, complete with a Parodius and Snatcher Mini-game, a whole area based on Knightmare II: The Maze of Gallious, and the software for the MSX laptop you have in that game being populated almost entirely by Konami games. The Software that increased your whip's attack power was Vampire Killer (The MSX Version of Castlevania)!
Maybe Nintendo can get the rights to Twinbee's likeness so we can put Capsule-J back into Kirby games? I dunno... this sucks, even if they stopped giving a **** 5+ years ago. :C
Topic: Am I the only one who has the blues over Konami? (Read 11731 times)
