For some reason, I really get a kick out of games that get creative with their title screens. Most games get by just fine with a huge logo over a blank background, screened-back art assets, or panning around game backgrounds. I guess it’s just that extra bit of effort that helps make an impression every time I start into the game.

Starting most recently, I got Freedom Wars off the last PSN flash sale (and it is awesome, I’m actually preparing a +/- comic about it) and its title screen depicts your player character (or “Sinner”) sitting in their prison cell, facing the wall-sized monitor opposite their bed, and with their Accessory (a dystopia-appointed android parole officer, basically) staring blankly at them. From the second the game loads, you are being watched. Aside from that, it’s also kind of interesting in that it probably wouldn’t work as well if the game supported multiple save files since there’s no guaranteeing your avatar wouldn’t be sitting there- and the cell is the only place you can hard save your game. It’s one of a handful of ways the game coaches you into a regimen and reinforces the whole “trapped in a 1984-ish superjail” thing the game is based around.

(Also the game’s pretty awesome. I recommend it next time it goes cheap again.)

(The “Press Start” only appears on first install)

Armored Core in general has an interesting storytelling style that I didn’t get the first time I attempted the series, like at all. I thought it was just a largely-plotless series of missions, but there’s actually a fair amount of depth if you dig around the menus (and/or poke around Wikia and TVTropes to see fans’ takes on things.) Actually, FROM seems to like this in general, given how much of Dark Souls’ universe is only revealed through reading all the item lore and connecting the dots in your head. Anyway, one of the central elements of the AC games is that the story is told more or less completely impersonally. Communication is handled with aliases, icons, and emails with voice accompaniment. Fittingly, then, Armored Core V starts with an AC boot-up sequence rather than a conventional loading and title screen, synching up your messages and data over the familiar “Main system” computer voice. I especially like how it begins with “Good Morning” displayed in multiple languages before selecting and speaking the player’s.

(Possibly foreshadowing a future Little Thing- I also dig that the track that plays over the bootup screen is called “Computers are Talking.”)

In both of these, the title screen is kind of used to add extra immersion to the experience. It’s just a little thing that I notice, and appreciate- that the game can grab you immediately and drag you into it without the use of an attract-mode/introductory sequence.

(Honorable Mention- Devil Survivor 2 on the original DS’s title screen had a little play bar beneath the title screen that matched the time of the music playing in the background, with it fading to attract mode once the track finished playing; I always thought that was kind of cool since it tied back into the Nicaeia death video site that figures heavily into the plot. Also after the Game Over sequence plays, it cuts to a blank white screen simply saying 403 Forbidden. Am I alone in finding that kind of creepy?)