Sunday, August 20, 2023
What Is In The Box?
One
of the latest and perhaps most contentious recent development in the
sphere of visual novels is the rise of gatcha mechanics as one of the
prominent elements in the design space. Leaning heavily into the
mobile market, they involve spending currency for acquisition of a
selection of random characters and items from a set pool with
rarities attached to them. For such a seemingly simple mechanic it
warps everything around it to help it function properly and this
is doubly true for its inflence on visual novels since they both share a focus on
characters. The gacha demand a continual stream of content and a story
without an end with a desirable cast and it does not care about the
form all of that takes so long as it feeds the player back towards the gatcha. This might sound like a wholly negative influence but it does
allow for the flexibility and inventiveness of visual novels to come
to the forefront. The success of gacha from a monetary perspective
means it is likely here to stay and, while a discussion of the moral
and financial impact is beyond the scope of this article, it is
something you should hold at the back of your mind because as they
say, money speaks. Let’s be mesmerised by the pretty lights and see
what gacha brings to the table.
The Never Ending Story
In
order to continue to keep player interested gacha mechanics must have
a constant stream of new characters to
tempt the player into trying to acquire them. As a character
without some sort of complimentary narrative holds little appeal on
anything other than an aesthetic level, the demand falls on the
visual novel to provide stories for all these new characters. The
result is a kind of never ending narrative constructed of smaller
sections focused around the current gacha characters before they are
put aside for the next batch. This is not to say that there is no
overarching story or constant characters, in fact many such games
rely on the intrigue of their plots and likeability of the central
cast to keep players hooked from one section to another and not just
drift away once they have the character they wanted. Instead there is
a form of plot stretching that occurs where narrative elements are
drawn out for as long as possible and this is often accompanied by
the introduction to more villains after the previous lot have been
defeated or moving on to a new land in pursuit of some related
threat. These choices are a means of reducing the workload, which
would be immense undertaking due to the constant need for new ideas,
through the use of a manageable framework of concepts established
early on and adhered to so there is a clear direction.
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| Best girl? |
From looking at
Fate Grand Order we can see the method and implementation of these
ideas. It broadly has two super-sections in the form of the original
story arc and the Lost Belts which each follow their own overarching
repeated plot structures and this enables
new parts to be produced quickly. Variety is still present within
their sub-sections as they are given licence to alter the formula to
meet their needs, so they feel familiar but not to the point of openly
breaking the believability of events. The problematic impacts of this
repetition are easily visible in the original story arc where it is
clear the developers had no idea how to properly work around the
shortcomings of the gacha's demands and the result is each sub-section’s content being
thinly spread out and an uneven character representation. With more
experience this would be resolved by the time of the Lost Belts, but
even there you can still sometimes feel the stretch this form of
narrative design demands. While repeated structures are not unique to
gacha style games, they do rely on it in a manner that few other
mechanical elements demand.
Desirability At The Cost Of Humanity
For
a player to want to acquire a character from the gacha mechanics they
must find them desirable both in terms of aesthetics and, often more
importantly, the likeability of their personality. This leads to a
unique design problem for visual novels where any character who will
be part of the gacha cannot have any of the more meaningful negative
aspects of humanity, such as avarice or cowardice, and if they do it
is a toned down version which is treated as little more than a cute
trait. Couple these issues with the fact that villains can also be
part of the gacha and there are few spaces where the other side of
human nature can be explored. On the flip-side, having the heroes and
villains closer leads to a more even feeling narrative with there
being no simple ‘bad guy’ and instead just two sides who want
what is best but have different ways to achieve this end. However,
even can also be one note and since all these characters lean
towards certain traits there is a monotony to their predictable
actions and they lack any real sense that they are living people like
the player.
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| Heroes has an... interesting story... |
Fire Emblem Heroes is a good example of this design
conflict due to the presence of lots of already pre-established
characters from the franchise and the addition of a few new ones. The
cast members from the main line games are shadows of their former
selves with all their human flaws smoothed off out of fear that they
might alienate potential players. These characters offer nothing of
value to the narrative and exist purely to look pretty and play off
people’s nostalgia. As for the new characters, they fair noticeably
better as they are not bound by the need to appeal to existing fans
and they can express a humanity not present elsewhere, making them the
heart and soul of the game. On rare occasions there are characters
who are allowed negative traits in the gacha mechanic such as with
Columbus from Fate Grand Order. However, even he is not allowed to
remain that way for long as in all his appearances after his
introduction he has had his negative aspects pushed into the
background or skirted around, causing his lose much of his identity.
Flexibility Beyond The Original Scope
The
ever present demand for more visual novel content to support the
gacha mechanics has the interesting side effect of allowing for a
variety of tones and subject matters that would seem out of place in a
normal visual novel. These generally takes the form of events or side
chapters that have only a tangential relationship with the main
narrative and include things such a seasonal episodes or stories
focused around side characters and world building which would
otherwise not be covered. They exist to fill the gaps in between the
major content releases and their nature as extras changes the
player’s expectations towards them and results in the players accepting them as they are rather
than expecting them add to the greater whole. From this freedom is born a
flexibility not present in non gacha games to the same extent or with
the willingness to step outside the original scope of the game and
push the overall narrative into new and exiting places.
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| Never trust the sea. |
Perhaps the
most interesting example of what can be achieved with this extra
content is Arknights. It has the suite of seasonal events that have
become standard in the gacha sphere with the usual parade of
swimsuits when summer comes around and these basic type of events
serve their purpose as pallet cleansers. However, what is more
interesting is the way Arknights utilises its events to expand the boarders of its world as it brings in everything from lovecraftian ideas to 20th
century space sci-fi elements in order to complement the strong core
narrative. It is one of the games most willing to push the envelope
on what kind of interesting genres it can bring into itself in order
to further the world building and it has made it one its selling
points. Without the space and freedom provided by the gacha mechanics'
constant demands for content these elements would not have been
possible since they rely on the nature of the game’s content
delivery schedule to be accepted by players.
Limitations Are Where Visual Novels Are Most At Home
Many
games that use gacha mechanics exist within the mobile phone space
and their pairing with visual novels often comes down to a need to
account for the lower power of many of these machines. Above all else
visual novels are excellent at making a lot out of a little and
creating a compelling story from what might seem on the surface seen like a
limited tool set. They are also better suited to the pick up and play
style of game that is expected in the mobile sphere due to their
ability to quickly load, present their narrative and finish just as
quickly while also allowing for a longer form where needed. The
narrative of many games with gacha mechanics tends towards a node
based structure with an equal mix of visual novel and gameplay and
they are often disguised as points on a map or some other in universe
concept. This presentation helps set up what the player should expect
from the length of each section and gives the visual novel element a
known limitation to work with to ensure it adheres to the required
length. As phones become more powerful there will be a move away from
using visual novels as the means to telling a story and onto more
traditionally ‘cinematic’ or rpg styles of presentation. The
first steps in this process can be seen in games like Genshin Impact
which lean heavily into other game styles for their narrative, but
even then there are trace elements of the influence of visual novels
to be found in the way the hangout events are constructed. Then there
is the matter of screen size and how a visual novel can be a clearer
method of presentation, with its simpler shapes, lack of unnecessary
movement and dialogue focus, than other styles which would lack
clarity as they are compressed into a smaller space and are more
indistinct as a result.
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| Node based structure is design space born of the pick up/put down nature of mobile gaming. |
Conclusion
Gacha
mechanics have had a fascinating influence on the uses and forms of
the visual novel. Their demand for a never ending story to feed the
new character treadmill causes a strange mixture of short term
character focus and repetitive long term narratives that create and
distinct contrast with one another. Alongside this is the need for
all the gacha characters to be desirable and avoid the darker
elements of humanity which has the effect of making the heroes and
villains relatable, but also lacking in the flaws we all have,
resulting in a somewhat tragic villain leaning method of
storytelling. However, the flexibility offered through the demand for
content not caring about the nature of this content allows for a
wider field of narrative genres to be explored to enrich what is lost
through the other limitations. The very choice to use visual novels
at all with gacha mechanics is a result of hardware and screen size
limitations that make it an excellent fit from the technology. While
introducing a gacha into your own game might be too much of a
herculean task for most developers, it is nonetheless interesting to
see how adaptive and innovative visual novels can be when put under
pressure.
