Ninja Warrior, and what I feel it can teach me about systems.
So I’m mad at the people behind Ninja Warrior.
You’re probably going to want me to give you some background here so I will.
Ninja Warrior - called Sasuke in Japan - is, as Wikipedia puts it, “a Japanese sports entertainment show.” Basically, 100 competitors come from all over Japan (and the world) to ‘compete’ in a series of obstacle courses. I say ‘compete’ loosely here, since their only adversary is the course itself, not each other: on the contrary, the group of the most skilled competitors - dubbed the “Ninja Warrior All-Stars” - have become good friends, and hang out and train together occasionally (even though they might live halfway across the country from one another, which might not sound as significant to Americans in our hugenormous country but I assure you this is still a big deal).
The courses come in four stages of increasing difficulty: about 80-90% of the competitors are eliminated in the first stage, about half of the remaining 20-10% in the second stage, and nearly all of the remainder eliminated in the third stage - perhaps one or maybe two people will make it to the final stage. The show has been going on twice a year since 1997, and only two people have ever completed the Final Stage. Intimidating - but not impossible.
In fall 2006, one Ninja Warrior All-Star, Makoto Nagano, actually completed the Final Stage, becoming the second person to do so (the last one was Kazuhiko Akiyama in October 1999). Nagano makes the run look incredibly easy, but that’s because the man has been competing for years, and spends a preposterous amount of his time training for the event: with that kind of skill and deduction, he should be able to beat it - and yet, if you look at his run, it’s obvious it takes a lot out of him, that it’s still an immense challenge - he is, if you will allow me the term, so badass that he can successfully make it all look that easy.
Since Nagano’s win, however, the Ninja Warrior staff redesigned not just individual obstacles within each course (as they have done each competition), but the entire run of each course. And frankly, I think they screwed the pooch on it. Yes, a fan’s opinion. But I think they’ve made a series of systemic mistakes on it that lessen my enjoyment of the series.
From the Wikipedia article, regarding the first stage:
“. . . the first stage was thoroughly redesigned to be much more difficult and prevent large numbers of people from moving on. In fact, a recent G4 special inside the making of the Sasuke competition revealed that the redesign of the first stage for the 18th competition was done with the intention of seeing all 100 challengers fail it. This did not happen, however, and that has only spurred the production team on to make this and all stages to follow even harder . . . That goal was almost met in the 19th competition, where much to everyone’s surprise, only two competitors cleared the first stage . . . . Executive producer Ushio Higuchi said in interviews later that even he was surprised at the results, anticipating that around 10 to 12 people would survive in spite of the production team’s attempts at making the first stage unbeatable.”
That’s the thing. Unbeatable. The first stage shouldn’t be fucking UNBEATABLE. In fact, I don’t think anything in the course should be labeled as such. I don’t think any designer should look at any game (or competition, or whatever) and think “let’s make this unbeatable.” That’s broken thinking. Hard, sure. Taxing, demanding, yes. Toeing the line of frustration, certainly. But not unbeatable. The spectators should look at it and think “my god, how could you do that?!” But those who know what they’re doing, those who’ve got the skill to truly be a contender - the path should be clear to them. It should tax them, it should challenge them, it should be a test of all their might - as it was for Makoto Nagano - but it should not be UNBEATABLE.
Sure, sure. “Annie, you’re overreacting, that’s just a word, the translation could have been off.” I grant you that. It is just a word, and words are malleable. This was the thing, though. I’ll outline to you what I’ve felt the stages tested in earlier editions, why it took them a while to find their stride, and why their previous forms were so excellent (and then, of course, I’ll tear down the other ones) [NOTE: these are also each described in greater detail in the Wikipedia article, which is insanely in-depth]:
First Stage. This should be very basic - shaking the tree, so to speak. Basic physical strength is tested here, but it’s more about dexterity, and the base ability of the player to plan out what they’re going to be doing. Early competitions made this run more like Most Extreme Elimination Challenge! in that it was too gimmicky, and didn’t really test the competitors all that much: obstacles like the Sextuple Step (sequence of slanted wall jumps) are perfect starters, because they require dexterity and that the people involved plan where their feet go - sounds easy, but nervous ones speed through and stumble and BANG, they’re out - which is good, because this one also keeps you from getting really hurt should you screw up on something so basic further on. Other standby obstacles like the Log Roll do more to shake the tree, and test grip as well as the player’s planning. Obstacles like the Jump Hang (where you jump from a trampoline to catch a slanted, horizontal net) have been an excellent test for even the most seasoned competitors, because it requires strategy far more than brute force - if you put weight, not momentum, into the jump on the trampoline, you’ll get height instead of length, and you’ll fall short of the net you’re supposed to catch. And the net itself is a suitable obstacle, not because it’s hard to cross (unless you go underneath instead of over, in which case you have to be very careful not to even brush the water beneath you) but because it’s a timesink… approach it incorrectly, and you’ll lose valuable seconds. The Warped Wall (a sort of half-pipe of a wall you run up and haul yourself over) is the penultimate endpoint of the first stage - there’s a damn good reason it’s been in nearly every iteration of the First Stage, and always at the end. You can’t brute force the thing (well, not unless you have the height of someone like Paul Terek, who’s 6′3″, and most Japanese contestants don’t have that - and even Terek knows not to tackle the obstacle that way) - you need to know not just to run up the thing, but to sort of lunge and grab at a certain juncture. From there on it’s strength - but getting there to begin with needs that basic planning. Again - even All-Stars can fail here. That’s as it should be, if they’re rushing, if they took too long on things like the Jump Hang, or if they’re not thinking about it. Once they get it, though, they usually don’t fail here again (unless they’re getting older, like Kasumi Yamada, or have deteriorating eyesight like Kazuhiko Akiyama - but those are exceptions, not the rule).
Stage Two.This stage is far more demanding of dexterity, and speed - you need to be quick to get through this stage, and know how to tackle certain obstacles (although there’s far less thinking demanded here than just pure speed). The thinking comes in recognizing what obstacles are the biggest timesinks, and how to approach them: do you put the sticky spray on your hands and feet for the Spider Climb, or do you take your chances without? The only thing that emphasizes anything other than speed here is the final section, the Wall Lift (where competitors have to lift a series of 3 walls, weighing 30, 40, and 50 kg) - this is a base test of strength, but also a gating mechanism for speed - if you’re pressed for time, you have to be strong to get through these before your time is up… and even if you’re not, struggling with them will probably torpedo your chances at the third stage anyway - which makes sense because the plain fact is if you can’t handle the weight of those walls, the structure of the Third Stage would not be something you could complete. You don’t walk before you crawl, etc.
Stage Three. This one isn’t timed for a good freakin’ reason - it’s the most intense test of upper-body strength I’ve ever seen. This stage, however, isn’t just about brute strength, although it definitely seems that way at first. The first obstacle is one of the trickier ones in the course, and determines the player’s success in the entire stage. Sure, they can rest as long as they want at points in the stage, and after that first go: but resting or no, they have a finite amount of strength, and if they don’t tackle that first obstacle in the right way, it’ll sap up all their energy. Little bits of finesse hang in the obstacles: where you grab on the Curtain Cling (too high and there’s not enough slack, too low and the pleats aren’t firm enough), how you hold your arms on the Cliff Hanger (more than a 90-degree-angle means trouble), and how you position your hands on the Pipe Slider (having to jump from a horizontal bar on a track across three feet of open air to the finish platform - swing your body too little, and you’ll miss - too much, and you’ll start to slide backwards). Strength is the base requirement to get through the stage, but like everything else you can’t brute-force it, and like pretty much everything else, luck has not a damn thing to do with one’s success or failure.
Final Stage. Use first the Spider Climb, then a Rope Climb to ascend 70 feet in 30 seconds. Speed, yes; strength, yes; but most of all, your form has to be AIR TIGHT to get through this. There’s a reason only two people have finished: it requires a perfection of form, strength, and speed that few can aspire to. But it’s not unbeatable. You can look at when people have failed and know why - they were great at the Spider Climb but they weren’t using their legs properly for the Rope Climb, they went up that rope like nobody’s business but they had an awkward start on the Spider Climb. This one has some degree of luck in it, but more timing and practice than anything else. The only time losing felt cheap was when Nagano lost in 2003 by 3/10 of a second - his hand missed hitting the finish button by a foot. That seemed an issue of semantics - they make it to the top in time, they put their arm through the opening at the top of the tower - that should be the end. The buzzer is a formality. But yeah.
The new stages, however, screw up this mechanic backwards and forwards. The first stage has a harder Spider Walk in it than the second stage did - it doesn’t account for disparate heights of the competitors (taller ones have to jump harder and higher, and there’s no room to get distance - plus the more people go, the more scraped the sides of the walls that one is supposed to jump into become, making it unfair for later contestants). The Pole Maze doesn’t account for weight, as slender contestants have to struggle far more to get the obstacle to work than heavier contestants do. The Flying Chute seems awkwardly designed and something having nothing to do with skill but instead luck - depending on if previous contestants have made the slide slicker with sweat, on what the contestant is wearing, etc. The course is also set up in a twisting, switch-back fashion, different from the straight shots of the previous designs - less room to maneuver, more wasted time turning, more wasted momentum. In a phrase: the new first stage doesn’t seem to take SKILL into account as much as dumb luck, and it seems set up for good contestants to fail for stupid reasons. You can’t predict the course, and it seems like you have to wrestle with it and hope instead of approaching it intelligently.
I can hardly talk about the Second Stage, since in the 19th (latest) competition, nobody was able to pass it. The Salmon Bridge obstacle took out both remaining competitors: one wherein you have to swing a horizontal bar up to different pegs (oh, hell, describing it does me no good: look at around 4:21 on this video to see what I mean)… something requiring brute strength and little finesse… where if you screw up and get the bar on two different levels by accident (a very real possibility), you’re entirely screwed, and there’s no way around it. There have been technical issues within reasonable obstacles before - the first Rolling Log had no rails to keep it from falling off the track, and the lack of slowing drops sometimes rammed the rider into the ending ledge at too high a speed - and the Devil’s Swing in the third stage could get stuck on a bar and largely prevent the competitor from continuing - these issues were fixed. The problem here seems that the obstacle itself is simply too hard. There are seven steps on that bar - that they put in an obstacle requiring brute strength in a level - oops, course - designed for speed and expect things to work, they are indeed aiming for something that is “unbeatable” - and disappointingly so.
Anyhow. I’ll cease my whining shortly. To me, this isn’t just about a fan’s disappointment at seeing a good show lose so much of its savor, and the Ninja Warrior All-Stars (all awesome guys) fail. It’s about watching a system get better and better designed, to see talented people approach the challenges and figure out logical ways around them (with skill, not twinks or cheats) - to see success and feel it’s been justly earned… or failure and to know how it came about, why, and how to fix it, failure that does what it’s supposed to and teach us a lesson about how to do it better next time.
And then to see that whole system get a big fat wallop right in the nuts.
It’s the patch that kills the fun of the game, the expansion that ruins your character build, the sequel that changes the whole theme of the series. It’s the hunter nerf, it’s the Warrior Within, it’s the Devil May Cry 2, it’s the latest Eve patch (well, maybe not THAT bad…)(and yes, I went there). It’s any time there’s a solid concept, a really nicely finessed idea, and someone comes along who entirely misses the point and screws everything up as a result. Things in Ninja Warrior fit together before: now they seem disparate, unhinged.
Furthermore, it’s that which is “unbeatable”: frustrating and not demanding, unreasonable instead of challenging. Where the fun vanishes and it becomes a grind, where skill vanishes and dumb luck takes precedence. A little luck, okay, sure - but I don’t feel like one should ever have to count on it. Where you feel like you’re struggling against the system, instead of working with it - where the problem lies anywhere but on you.
I don’t like the new courses in Ninja Warrior (yes, that should be obvious by now) and I hope they fix them real frickin’ quick. But - if there’s anything that can be gained from my frustration and yelling at the TV and ranting in this blog - it’s how their systems worked, and why they don’t now: and how I can watch out for such failings in the things that I make.
And I suppose that’s comfort enough for now.
Tags: game systems, Ninja Warrior
December 9th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Wow, you’re quick. Blog goes up, blog gets content.
Well done, well done.
As far as your post, I think you’ve hit on a classic schism between Eastern and Western game design, there. Personally I’m with you. I’d rather see something that felt “fair” — since “unbeatable” rarely feels good.