The director behind ICO and Shadow of the Colossus believes the days of creating new and innovative gameplay mechanics “has already passed”.
In an interview with To a T and Karamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi earlier this year, Fumito Ueda praised To a T, commending Takahashi for “not relying on unique gameplay mechanics”.
Talking to Denfaminicogamer, Ueda said he called up Takahashi when To a T was revealed, wanting to know if the unusual game involved any new or complicated mechanics to play. When Takahashi revealed it did not, he responded with a simple: “That’s great!”
Reminded of this exchange during his interview with Takahashi, Ueda joked “ah, these are the words of a professional”, but then expanded on the comment, explaining that what he meant was that contemporary games felt over-concerned with gameplay (thanks, Automaton).
“While I don’t know why I replied with ‘that’s great’ back then, I was most likely thinking – the age of gameplay mechanics had already passed,” Ueda said. “I guess this is not the age to release new devices or offer new mechanics with each and every new game.
“Even if there’s nothing novel about the mechanics, you can push the game further with a certain vibe or artwork, he added. “Personal preferences aside, what I’m saying is – I think it would be better to give already existing game mechanics more definition.”
Ueda believes this is why he enjoyed To a T so much; rather than innovating or inventing complex control schemes and mechanics, it instead concentrated on its visuals and story to tell a tale about what it’s like to live with a disability.
Interestingly, our Donlan took away a different take. “Over the five or six hours it takes to play To a T, I’ve had a series of revelations that in turn built to one giant revelation: I have had the wrong idea about pretty much everything here,” Donlan wrote when he gave To a T a try.
“As a result, I’ve never played a game where I spent so much of the time simply trying to work out what it’s doing. What’s the intent, To a T? What do you want to be? It turns out I wouldn’t truly understand any of this until the final credits had rolled. In fact, I’m still thinking about a lot of it.”