Launch games have an otherworldy atmosphere to them that isn’t often continued in later, more developed titles. The promise and mystique of a new system is fully exploited to make the game more enticing, and once the novelty is gone, developers go straight to doing things how ever they want to.

Here, I’m talking about Fantavision, an early PS2 game that has the player blowing up colored fireworks systematically. It’s a decent action-puzzle game, and at the price of $2.99, I didn’t bat an eye. Once you get the hang of it, it’s fun as anything that costs ten times that.

The little touches in it are weird. First of all, all the menu options are spelled out phonetically, using the full range of phonetic symbolage. It adds a little foreign-language mystique.

Second, there’s cute 1950s-style cutscenes between levels. It looks like a kid calling up his friend to brag about his score. Then both kids slam down the phones and pick up their controllers and get back to business. The game also opens with a similar cutscene of a family sitting down to play. The kids look very clueless with their Dual Shocks. It’s still amazingly cute.

It reminds me of Wipeout. Sony’s systems have always had such a technical edge, and Sony plays this up in the beginning. Wipeout followed suit by being a lot like F-Zero but with more realistic physics and full 3-D. Also, futuristic emblems for the racers and stuff like that. That’s the stuff Sony launch titles are made of.

It seems that launch titles really reflect the personality of the system. At least the personality that the manufacturer wants it to have. Mario 64 for the N64. Lumines for the PSP. Feel the Magic for the DS. Panzer Dragoon for the Saturn. Momma, Can I Mow the Lawn? for the Gizmondo. (lol)

Your mileage may vary, of course, depending on your own interpretation of the system’s aesthetic and experience with its marketing. But there is always a game that defines a system early on.

At a certain point, the library gets saturated and no one clear vision really emerges. But the early days have a certain charm of vague promises and expectation that doesn’t continue, and is therefore special.
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