i love main menus

stryxo returns after 4 months to talk about main menus, title screens, and console interfaces. why did he choose this topic? unknown. What is known, is that WE, ARE SO BACK.

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#stryxo #mainmenu #gaming















If you’ve watched my channel before you’ll know that I’ve talked about game interfaces and how they can effect the overall experience of a game. While obviously not the most important thing about a game, it’s something you’re likely to notice if it’s bad. Which is why instead of talking about something that’s bad, which I feel like i’ve done quite a bit, i’d rather talk about things I love.

Now, what’s the first thing you see when you open a game? Not the game turning your monitor on and off for some reason, and not all the company logos, or a trailer for new content, I’m talking about main menus, itt’s a game’s first impression on you. In the same way a handshake can tell you a lot about a person, a good main menu can tell you so much about a game and what it has in store for you. The tone, the setting, a good main menu conveys all of that through, usually, a simple background and a choice of music. A lot of people don’t think twice about main menus like this, usually because their first thoughts upon opening a game are “why is this so loud”, “where do i turn off motion blur?”, and “where are the subtitles”.

While main menus are primarily judged at first glance from a utilitarian perspective, that being how well they can get you from point A, the title screen, to point B, the game, or even point C, any of the settings I just listed, it usually isn’t until well past their hayday that they’re judged on the elements that seemed obvious at first glance. Sound effects, tone, theming, music, when done incorrectly, on either a utilitarian or artistic front, that handshake can feel more like a punch to the face.

Let’s start somewhere by talking about Kingdom Hearts, a franchise that can sometimes feel like a punch in the face. For a series that tells stories about disney characters, and final fantasy characters, and original characters, focusing on something like the main menu definitely seems…pointless. Most people that would talk about kingdom hearts would bring up it’s convoluted story line, how it came to exist in the first place, or how you should definitely play it considering the pc ports aren’t stuck in Epic Games exclusivity hell anymore.

I genuinely believe that Kingdom Hearts 1 has one of the greatest main menus ever created. It certainly doesn’t look as flashy as many other main menus, but what it does best is provide you with a feeling. Artwork of Sora staring out into the sea, a beautiful piano rendition of dearly beloved, and the sound of waves gently crashing amongst a shore. This game’s handshake is introducing you to the first location in the game, the waves and Sora holding a stick while looking out into the sea, it’s Destiny Islands, a sort of idyllic tropical paradise where Sora lives and has been growing up. It’s a common RPG trope, the humble beginnings, starting out in a small location or hometown that gets you used to what you’ll be experiencing through the rest of the game, but on a smaller scale. Fallout: New Vegas does this idea really well with the town of Goodsprings, and yes I understand these are very different games.

This main menu design, and the song Dearly Beloved, is a constant throughout the franchise, which also leads to a dedicated fan having a favorite. I could probably ask 10 different kingdom hearts fans what their favorite main menu is and they’d all tell me a different game, or even a different collection of games or collection of remakes. It is statistically possible that there is someone out there who is a super fan of the original Gameboy Advanced Chain of memories main menu theme that’s willing to fight someone who’s favorite is the Re:Chain of Memories version, which is the 3D remake of the game.

I’m off topic, what I think really matters here is that, I’ve never played Kingdom Hearts, I’ve been waiting for the ports to come to steam, and yet these main menus MEAN something to me. I feel this, I feel these main menus, with 0 hours in the game, and limited knowledge of the franchise.

To some people, any of these main menus could be considered too simple to be impressive. There’s no animated themed background like Black Ops 1, or Halo 3, and the menu doesn’t do anything special. Like how The Darkness’ casts a shadow on the writhing tentacles in the background, has the tentacles practically jumpscare you when you select a new option. Or how the Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay has this sick cube that rotates and rebuilds itself depending on what options you press. Also yes this is the best quality footage I could find of this, the other video has a huge frapse watermark and I might just be the first