Topic: How important is innovation?

[PFG9000]

I've been reading through the informative Gradius article on Hardcore Gaming 101 (http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/gradius/gradius.htm) lately, and I noticed it judges every installment based on what new mechanics it brings to the series.  A common complaint against most games in the article is that they're not innovative over the past titles.  I've also seen this with lots of other long-running game series. 

Lots of fans bashed the Igavanias because they didn't do much new.  One of my favorite Silent Hills is SH: Origins, a title that received a lousy reception because it was mostly a retread of past SH's.  But I don't see why that has to be a bad thing.  I like Igavanias, and I would love to see more of them.  I love the atmosphere of foggy Silent Hill, and Origins polished it up and gave me more of it.  I don't care that Gradius 4 is covering mostly old territory; I love Gradius, and I can't get enough of it, so gimme more of the same, please!

There's lots of great movies, songs, and books out there that don't do anything new.  Heck, movies haven't really done anything terribly innovative in the past 50 years, and look at all the brilliant films that have come out in that time!  Why does something have to be new to be enjoyable?  If you like x, wouldn't it stand to reason that you'll like more of x, maybe with a refined presentation, or a new setting? 

So how important is it to you that a new installment in a series do something different?  And why, or why not?

[Abnormal Freak]

One of the aspects I like most about the old Castlevanias is they tried new things and had different artists and programmers with each new installment, but the core gameplay was essentially the same. So I like innovation in my games and things that are new and creative and most importantly fun, but if you have something good going, there's little reason to veer from it.

I just beat Yoshi's Story for the first time. It's pretty innovative and I've never played any other game like it. Trouble is I don't particularly enjoy the game. It's difficult to follow up Yoshi's Island, sure (it's my favorite game), but even putting aside that this is a sort of sequel to that, it just feels too weird and "out there" to me. N64 sidescrollers—the small handful that there are—all feel and play pretty weird, but I'll take the quirkiness and sometimes awkward controls of Mischief Makers and Goemon's Great Adventure over the more awkward and weird Yoshi's Story any day.

So innovation can definitely be a bad thing at times. You don't want a series to stagnate, but you don't wanna do something so different and unusual that it barely resembles what came before. I think that Yoshi's Island DS could have been a better game had they stayed with the formula set up in the first game rather than introducing new characters with different play abilities, which feels too much like Donkey Kong 64 in having to revisit stages and areas with the later-unlocked characters just to collect and achieve everything.

Really hoping the new 3DS and Wii U Yoshi titles will be really good, particularly the former since it's an actual Island entry.

[TheouAegis]

The irony of innovation is some of the most popular games in history werent' innovative. Final Fantasy just rehashed elements from various games and ripped off Dragon Quest and fared better in the US in spite of it. Mega Man hasn't changed very much over the years (until Zero) and held on to its popularity. Mario hasn't changed much at all -- Luigi's been doing all the changing. The Shining series was popular without any innovation at all -- people are willing to pay hundreds of dollars for Shining Force III even though it's no different play-wise than its predecessors. Some of the most innovative games aren't even that popular: Tales of Phantasia (yeah yeah, it came out at the end of the SNES's lifetime, whatever) and Front Mission 4 (then they said "piss off innovation!" and made the series a FPS... oi), and Umihara Kawase. The problem with most innovative games is they either come about at the end of a system's lifetime or are too rough around the edges because all resources were spent on innovating instead of developing. Innovative games typically must rely on sequels to tweak and perfect the innovative elements (which is what Front Mission 5 did for 4).

I say give innovation a chance, but don't blow off something that's innovative until a sequel is made.

[Kale]

Innovation is nice but not needed.

If you do a good job of using old techniques. That's more welcomed in my book.

[Donvermicelli]

I think a great example is Castlevania AOS and DOS, while you could argue that AOS was a gba rehash of SOTN in my eyes it was more than that.
The newly created soul system was really fun and had you actually farm them not because it was mandatory but because you wanted to find out what more you could do.
It gave a massive re playability factor to AOS for me because A: it had multiple endings and B: there were so many different ways to play with Soma.

Then DOS came along, it reused the soul system that seemed to be really popular but tried to innovate to attract a broader audience; the used an anime art style in favor of the old gothic art that in the end didn't seem to sit to well with people, they introduced a host of 'human' characters to develop a story, this was in my eyes a good thing, it was diffirent but didn't detract from the old feeling. then the worst two things I saw in DOS were: the 'retarded' intro, it was SOO cliche and forced that it just didn't sit too well with me. (the enemies that appeared) and the pretty much recycling of everything in AOS. the enemies were practically the same so it felt like you were playing AOS again just with a diffirent cast this time around and that made the game boring really quickly, you knew how to deal with enemies and the difficulty went down the drain.

in short: innovation is a must, but innovate with consideration and don't stick your fingers in your ears and close your eyes and proceed to run ahead going: "lalalalalala... I am innovating so I am awesome this has to work!"

[X]

I think innovation is important so long as it does not overshadow what the game has already been established as. The core of said game (Castlevania as an example) must be at the forefront with innovation merely complimenting it. Not overpowering nor replacing it.

[Ratty]

"Innovation" is a misleading word because everything comes from something else, it's just a matter of how direct the inspiration is.

You can trace the origins of both the cRPG and jRPG back to Richard Garriot and others like him developing games at the start of the 80s. But they were just simplifying a system we wouldn't have without Gary Gygax and the others who initially developed Dungeons and Dragons. And Gygax himself was working from a combination of tabletop wargaming rules and the proto-typical LARPs he played with his friend and his friend's older brother as a child. And on and on back.
Same thing with Diablo being hailed as innovative when it was just a refinement of the Roguelike formula with a pinch of Gauntlet. Even things that are "innovative" aren't necessarily "new" just "new to you".

So really new gameplay mechanics and ways to approach the story or visuals in a game are refreshing. And there is a place for art/experimentation games but just like with artfilms that place will never be with a general audience. Because most people don't want to be challenged by a game or movie, they just want to enjoy it and relax after a hard day at work. So imo the focus for most games should be on refining what already works and just making an enjoyable or thought provoking experience for the players, rather than an annoying or obtuse but unique one.

And for cripes sake if you're gonna switch up the gameplay in a sequel a lot just make a new IP. Castlevania is one of the only examples I can think of where most of the fanbase seems to be happy with the two dominant playstyles of the series.

PS-
Related
INNOVATION- GAMING'S SNAKE OIL (Jimquisition)

[TheouAegis]

Actually Shining has that kind of fanbase.

There are those who love the Shining In The Darkness/Shining Holy Ark style, and then there are those who love the Shining Force style. Both games weren't innovative at all. Shining Wisdom I think was a flop and anything Sega backed after Camelot left them was just garbage. (Although I was willing to give Shining Soul a chance.)

Koei did it right, though. Take Three Kingdoms or Nobunaga's Ambition, change the style of gameplay and give it a whole new name so everyone knows what to expect. You see a Koei game with "Warriors" in the title and you know it's a strategic beat'em-up; otherwise it's probably a strategy game you'll get your ass kicked at.

[Pfil]

I'm 100% with the original post, +1 for you! 

Of course that if I like X I will want more from that.
Give me that, and just that.

I'd love to see more games by Iga too