Basic Fact of Life: If it's a Final Fantasy and it has Full Motion Video, there are dozens, even hundreds, of AMVs featuring it. If it weren't for Kingdom Hearts, the FF series would easily have the most AMVs made for it out there on Youtube and AMV.org and personal sites and wherever else you can find an AMV.
Addendum to that Fact: None of them are worth watching.
Okay, yes, that's a little extreme, but it's close enough to the truth--after watching every Final Fantasy AMV I could stomach for the FFs I've played through, I'd say that 3%, maybe less, of them are worth actually sitting through. The rest range from predictable to lame to messy crap. Lord, if I have to sit through one more Final Fantasy 8 AMV about the horribly-written romance between Squall and Rinoa to annoying, sappy love music...
Anyway, of the few FF AMVs out there worth the watching, I've only found 1 thus far that was worthy of a rant. But it's a damn nice one--an old classic back from nearly a decade ago, made by a talented AMV-maker known as AnimePROPHECY.
Final Fantasy 9: Porcelain: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0ZlkegegC4
Poetry in Motion: Visual quality's good throughout. Final Fantasy 9's FMVs were visually stunning in a fairly time-transcending way, so even though they come from a Playstation 1 game, all you need is a decent-quality representation of FF9's cut scenes to have a really lovely AMV to watch.
The visual artistry on the part of AnimePROPHECY here is simple, but effectively so. Many quick fades from one scene to another are used, but they correspond perfectly to the song's pitch and changes, becoming impressive just from their placement. The song is elegantly simple, so these simple tricks, coordinated elegantly, match it quite well. There are also occasionally some fades not from one scene to the next, but from one scene into a blank screen, then to the next scene, again arranged to perfectly compliment the song's rhythm. The beginning of the AMV's an excellent example of this, although it continues on to the very end just as well.
That's most all there is to find for cinematic tricks that AnimePROPHECY uses, but that's really all there should be--the visuals of Final Fantasy 9 really do grab attention and speak for themselves; adding any more complex visual artistry to the mix than simple fades would distract from the natural visuals that the game provides to the AMV, and be overall detrimental to the AMV because of it. The aim of the visual aspect of this AMV is to show the game in all its beauty and wonder, and that's exactly what the AMV achieves.
I Gotta Have More Cowbell: This AMV uses the song Porcelain by Moby. I would normally say in an AMV like this that the song is the greatest strength to it, as it's the focal point that the rest of the AMV is arranged around, and it works damn well in that capacity, but honestly, the other aspects of the AMV are also so strong and attention-grabbing that the music, though the heart and soul of this AMV, is no more or less important than its video component nor its purpose and meaning.
The scene selection to accompany the song's lyrics is quite good. Examples: the line starting at 1:22 talks of a "kaleidoscopic mind," to a scene of characters falling through rushing, circular lights and colors, looking quite like a kaleidoscope, with the camera going for a close-up on the reflection of them all in Zidane's eye--kind of like seeing his mind reflecting the kaleidoscope of colors, the line at 1:44 saying that "this is goodbye" to the scene of Zidane seeing off Dagger and his friends at the end of the game, and the line at 2:53 which talks about waking and "going out of my mind" to an opening, mad-looking eye, a twisted landscape, and crazy main villain Kuja.
However, the lyrics to this song are, ultimately, really not too important to it--the song's focus and memorable trait is its melody, the lovely, upbeat yet ethereal quality of its tune. And the AMV definitely reflects this quality, and uses it to its utmost. The FMVs of Final Fantasy 9, loaded with bright mysticism, colorful magic, awesome events, and eye-catching settings, often perfectly match to the song's tone of wonder, beauty, and the magical unknown, often matching the scene shown to the slightest shifts of instrument and tone in the song. The most easily notable example is how perfectly the scene changes are timed to the music's shifts, but that's really only the beginning of the synchronization of video to the song's mood. It's honestly very difficult for me to put into words, this intangible coordination of soothing wonder between song and video, but it really is there, as I'm sure you can see.
Guy, You Explain: This is another AMV whose purpose is simple, like the last one I did, Fallout 3: Mad World--to summarize and glorify the game, to bare its heart to you and show you or make you remember how great it is.
Does it succeed? Oh yes. The beauty of the Final Fantasy 9 fantasy world and its epic plot are portrayed wonderfully in its cinemas, and the merging of Moby's Porcelain sums it up perfectly, covering the captivating events, grand sense of adventure, soft and poignant love story between Dagger and Zidane, great characters, and general majesty of Final Fantasy 9 with the same grandiose, yet so very subtle beauty that makes the game such a great RPG. This AMV's goal is to invoke within its audience the moving emotion and wonder that the game should be remembered with, and to that end, AnimePROPHECY succeeds brilliantly.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
General RPGs' Minigames 7: Torneko's Weapon Shop Employment
It has been a long time since I did a Minigames Rant, folks. And I was okay with that. I was okay with that, because it meant that I had not encountered or remembered any particularly terrible minigame in an RPG since that latest Minigame Rant. And the fewer notable minigames in my life, the happier I am. But alas, all good things must end.
So I was playing Dragon Quest 4, finally. I've kinda had it on the back-burner for a year or two now, but other games just kept distracting me, as each of them had the attention-grabbing virtue known as not-being-a-Dragon-Quest-game. But I finally did get around to it.
So. Chapter 3 of Dragon Quest 4. You're in control of an aspiring merchant, Torneko, who works in a local weapon store, with the hopes of opening his own and becoming a legend in the business. Well hey, that's fairly different, right? There's some creative potential there. You find yourself, against all odds, becoming ever so slightly interested in a Dragon Quest game. So you send Torneko over to his job, and get ready to make some cash.
And that's basically where the fun stops, clutches its heart, and collapses, never to rise again. For the next 5 or 10 minutes, however long the working day is in the game, you stand behind a desk, and when a customer comes in, you either sell them a weapon they ask for, or you buy a weapon they're selling. Then they leave, and you sit there until the next one comes in and does the same thing. Occasionally the customer will realize they don't have the money or inventory space for the item they want, and leave without making a purchase. If this process does not sound very interesting to you, then congratulations, you have more game development sense than DQ4's makers.
And even though the very concept of this minigame is boring and annoying, it isn't even as interesting as it should have been. Customers will make a note that they can't use the item they're about the buy if they're not the right job class or something, but as far as I can tell, that actually makes absolutely no difference--as far as I can tell, you don't get penalized if you're pushy and sell it to them anyway, nor do you get rewarded if you don't try to sell them the item, so there's really no thought or skill involved with this beyond hitting the "Yes" option over and over. And you can try to haggle the price, sort of, but the process for doing so usually involves you refusing to sell the item for its marked price, the customer assuming you're joking, and then the customer attempting to buy it again for that price. You have to repeat the cycle for half a dozen times before the customer offers to pay a tiny, tiny bit more for it, making it a waste of time--not to mention that you run the risk of having the customer just leave after all. So what tiny variations are available to you just make this game a greater waste of time than ever.
So after turning all sense of self-awareness off for 10 minutes so you can properly appreciate "Wait for People and then Hit the A Button: The Minigame," the day ends and Torneko's boss comes up to pay him his commission on what's been sold. And how much is that reward? For a full day, it's usually around 100 Gold. Now, there are a few RPGs out there in which 100 (insert appropriate currency here) is a significant chunk of change. Dragon Age Origins, for example--100 Gold Sovereigns would be a tremendous reward for a minigame, or really anything else. But in most RPGs, 100 Gold is more or less nothing. And Dragon Quest 4 is in this majority.
Reeling at the fact that Torneko makes the worst commission in the history of mankind, I hopped online to see whether there was something I was missing to all this, whether there was some secret reward beyond the pocket change required to buy a small handful of bottom-tier healing items. And hey, turns out there is--the customers seeking to sell a weapon will, on rare occasions, have a Cautery sword for sale, which is massively more powerful than every other weapon available to Torneko for the rest of the chapter. You can apparently have the store buy the Cautery Sword, then leave and come back to buy it yourself--as long as you can manage to get the hell out of the place before another customer walks in, wants it, and you get stuck telling them No three dozen times before they finally get the hint and leave. So hey, there's SOME reason to keep doing this, at least, so I figured I'd stick it out and get that sword.
Here's an idea of the time this will take to do.
First of all, of any given customer that walks in, I'm gonna say there's only a 1/4 chance that he/she will want to sell instead of buy. Once you've got a seller, there are 6 possible weapons they can choose from to sell, 3 that are in the store and 3 that the store doesn't normally carry, of which the Cautery Sword is one. But the chances of them selling any of the 3 that the store doesn't carry is only about...1/3, I'd say. Rough guess. And of those 3, based on how often I saw each come up as an option, I'd say there's only a 1/4 chance, at best, that it'll be the Cautery Sword they've got. Again, rough estimate.
So. 1/4 x 1/3 x 1/4 = roughly 0.02083, with the 3 repeating after that. So at any given time, the chances that the next customer to walk into the shop will sell the Cautery sword is about 2%. I don't know the actual values in the game, so maybe the odds are actually better, but based on how long I was sitting there bored out of my mind, I'd say this is a fairly accurate number. So chances are that you're going to be bored by this nonsense for a good, long time if you're playing it for the only reason there is to play it at all.
I really don't know what the hell they were thinking when they made this thing. I mean, minigames are stupid wastes of time in general, but this is just incredible in how terrible it is. I mean, just plain wow. This minigame is so mind-numbingly dull...I don't know if I can even properly describe it. It's like Enix wanted to give you a break from the normal boredom that comes of playing Dragon Quest so that you could do something MORE boring. "They might not be bored enough after 2 chapters of no character development, a vague plot, bland music, and endless, boring random encounters--let's give them a REAL treat and crank up the monotony!" the developers said. This minigame is so terrible and dull that it makes me actually wish I were back at my REAL retail job. The act of brushing your teeth is a more exciting venture than playing this minigame. It's so boring, I'm surprised it didn't come from Suikoden 4--and THAT game is so dull that it feels like someone took enough Novocaine to numb an elephant and injected it straight into your brain's pleasure center. Ugh.
So I was playing Dragon Quest 4, finally. I've kinda had it on the back-burner for a year or two now, but other games just kept distracting me, as each of them had the attention-grabbing virtue known as not-being-a-Dragon-Quest-game. But I finally did get around to it.
So. Chapter 3 of Dragon Quest 4. You're in control of an aspiring merchant, Torneko, who works in a local weapon store, with the hopes of opening his own and becoming a legend in the business. Well hey, that's fairly different, right? There's some creative potential there. You find yourself, against all odds, becoming ever so slightly interested in a Dragon Quest game. So you send Torneko over to his job, and get ready to make some cash.
And that's basically where the fun stops, clutches its heart, and collapses, never to rise again. For the next 5 or 10 minutes, however long the working day is in the game, you stand behind a desk, and when a customer comes in, you either sell them a weapon they ask for, or you buy a weapon they're selling. Then they leave, and you sit there until the next one comes in and does the same thing. Occasionally the customer will realize they don't have the money or inventory space for the item they want, and leave without making a purchase. If this process does not sound very interesting to you, then congratulations, you have more game development sense than DQ4's makers.
And even though the very concept of this minigame is boring and annoying, it isn't even as interesting as it should have been. Customers will make a note that they can't use the item they're about the buy if they're not the right job class or something, but as far as I can tell, that actually makes absolutely no difference--as far as I can tell, you don't get penalized if you're pushy and sell it to them anyway, nor do you get rewarded if you don't try to sell them the item, so there's really no thought or skill involved with this beyond hitting the "Yes" option over and over. And you can try to haggle the price, sort of, but the process for doing so usually involves you refusing to sell the item for its marked price, the customer assuming you're joking, and then the customer attempting to buy it again for that price. You have to repeat the cycle for half a dozen times before the customer offers to pay a tiny, tiny bit more for it, making it a waste of time--not to mention that you run the risk of having the customer just leave after all. So what tiny variations are available to you just make this game a greater waste of time than ever.
So after turning all sense of self-awareness off for 10 minutes so you can properly appreciate "Wait for People and then Hit the A Button: The Minigame," the day ends and Torneko's boss comes up to pay him his commission on what's been sold. And how much is that reward? For a full day, it's usually around 100 Gold. Now, there are a few RPGs out there in which 100 (insert appropriate currency here) is a significant chunk of change. Dragon Age Origins, for example--100 Gold Sovereigns would be a tremendous reward for a minigame, or really anything else. But in most RPGs, 100 Gold is more or less nothing. And Dragon Quest 4 is in this majority.
Reeling at the fact that Torneko makes the worst commission in the history of mankind, I hopped online to see whether there was something I was missing to all this, whether there was some secret reward beyond the pocket change required to buy a small handful of bottom-tier healing items. And hey, turns out there is--the customers seeking to sell a weapon will, on rare occasions, have a Cautery sword for sale, which is massively more powerful than every other weapon available to Torneko for the rest of the chapter. You can apparently have the store buy the Cautery Sword, then leave and come back to buy it yourself--as long as you can manage to get the hell out of the place before another customer walks in, wants it, and you get stuck telling them No three dozen times before they finally get the hint and leave. So hey, there's SOME reason to keep doing this, at least, so I figured I'd stick it out and get that sword.
Here's an idea of the time this will take to do.
First of all, of any given customer that walks in, I'm gonna say there's only a 1/4 chance that he/she will want to sell instead of buy. Once you've got a seller, there are 6 possible weapons they can choose from to sell, 3 that are in the store and 3 that the store doesn't normally carry, of which the Cautery Sword is one. But the chances of them selling any of the 3 that the store doesn't carry is only about...1/3, I'd say. Rough guess. And of those 3, based on how often I saw each come up as an option, I'd say there's only a 1/4 chance, at best, that it'll be the Cautery Sword they've got. Again, rough estimate.
So. 1/4 x 1/3 x 1/4 = roughly 0.02083, with the 3 repeating after that. So at any given time, the chances that the next customer to walk into the shop will sell the Cautery sword is about 2%. I don't know the actual values in the game, so maybe the odds are actually better, but based on how long I was sitting there bored out of my mind, I'd say this is a fairly accurate number. So chances are that you're going to be bored by this nonsense for a good, long time if you're playing it for the only reason there is to play it at all.
I really don't know what the hell they were thinking when they made this thing. I mean, minigames are stupid wastes of time in general, but this is just incredible in how terrible it is. I mean, just plain wow. This minigame is so mind-numbingly dull...I don't know if I can even properly describe it. It's like Enix wanted to give you a break from the normal boredom that comes of playing Dragon Quest so that you could do something MORE boring. "They might not be bored enough after 2 chapters of no character development, a vague plot, bland music, and endless, boring random encounters--let's give them a REAL treat and crank up the monotony!" the developers said. This minigame is so terrible and dull that it makes me actually wish I were back at my REAL retail job. The act of brushing your teeth is a more exciting venture than playing this minigame. It's so boring, I'm surprised it didn't come from Suikoden 4--and THAT game is so dull that it feels like someone took enough Novocaine to numb an elephant and injected it straight into your brain's pleasure center. Ugh.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
The Shin Megami Tensei Series's Demon Fusion
Although not present in all of its games, the Shin Megami Tensei series typically contains a merchant-type service in each game with which you can sacrifice two or more of the creatures following you at that moment in order to create a significantly more powerful entity to help you. These new monsters often have techniques and defenses that will help you to stay a step ahead of, or at least to keep up with, the game's challenges, which is important in an SMT game, let me tell you. Besides the fact that it opens up options for party-member creatures that probably can't be recruited just yet otherwise, Demon Fusion is also handy in that the demons you make will often have slightly boosted stats over what the same monster would have if you just recruited it in combat (or, in the SMT Persona games, get an experience boost that may raise its level), may have some kind of bonus item to give you, and will inherit some of the skills of the monsters you sacrifice for it.
This latter component, however, is the reason that I FUCKING HATE DEMON FUSION WITH ALL THE BITTER, BLACKENED LUMP OF ANIMOSITY THAT IS MY SOUL. You see, it's like this. Before each Fusion actually occurs, you get to see a preview of the monster that will be created. You can see which creature it is, the stats, and the skills, both the inherent ones and the one's it's getting from its parents of sorts. The inherited skills are mostly randomized--unless there's a skill in the parents' set that can't be used by this type of creature, or a skill that can ONLY be used by that sacrificed creature, then any and all of the predecessors' skills are up for grabs via random selection. If you don't see the skill(s) you want, you just nix the Fusion, then try it again.
And again. And again and again and again...simulating this process in text will be boring, so let us instead say: (And Again) x N, where N = any positive whole number less than or equal to 500.
It's not so terrible in the beginning. In the early stages of the games, the monsters you fuse don't have all that many really noteworthy skills to pass on (in fact, they don't even have that many skills, period, so there's less for the random process to choose from), so the most you'll probably want is for the new monster to have one or two varied elemental attack spells. That's not a real problem; you might even get an acceptable spell for the new creature on your first try. It'll surely take you no more than 10 attempts. No problem.
It's later in the games where this process becomes more annoying than the stupidest minigame you've ever played. You'll be sacrificing 2 or more creatures that each have probably 5 - 8 different skills for the inheriting process to randomly choose from, and you'll almost certainly have at least 2 you'll adamantly want your new beast to inherit. I think that the best way to properly describe exactly what makes this whole thing horrible is to run through how it usually goes for me.
BEGINNING: "Oooh! Look at that awesome demonI can create! It's got great resistances, and its only weakness is Fire...but one of the monsters I'm sacrificing has Null Fire, so that'll fix that and make it an ideal front-lines tank! Let's see...I'd also like to see Sacrificial Monster 1's all-healing spell and Resist Physical skills on the new one, and Monster 2's got the same all-healing spell and the ultimate Wind spell, which would be handy. The new monster's going to inherit 3 skills. I know I HAVE to have Null Fire, and I'll be happy with any combination of the other 3 skills I like for the others."
AFTER SETTING THE FUSION UP, SEEING WHAT WILL RESULT, CANCELING IT, AND TRYING AGAIN 50 TIMES: "Okay, this is getting tedious. Damn that randomizer! Fine, I won't be greedy. I'll just insist on having Null Fire and 1 of the other 3 skills I wanted. But of them, Resist Physical and the Wind spell are better, so it'll have to be 1 of them; I'll just give up on the healing spell. And whatever the last slot's filled with will just have to work for me."
AFTER 50 MORE TRIES: "Oh my GOD, how is it possible that random chance wouldn't EVER give me a skill combination I want? Fuck it, I am NOT compromising on this; I want Null Fire AND Resist Physical or the Wind spell. Sooner or later it has got to happen."
AFTER 75 MORE TRIES: "N...No...gotta...gotta stay strong...no compromises...it's gotta happen some time..."
AFTER 50 MORE TRIES: "FINE! I'll accept the healing spell for the second must-have skill. Just so long as Null Fire's with it. That betters my chances for something acceptable, right?"
AFTER 75 MORE TRIES: "Oh Jesus I give up. Just Null Fire. I'll just give up on anything else I want. Just the one damn skill. Anything to get on with things."
AFTER 50 MORE TRIES: "GRRAAAGGHH! Why won't Null Fire even come UP any more? Can this game HEAR me?"
And finally, after a few more tries during which I am screaming, slamming my fist down on my desk, and generally carrying on, I'll get a Fusion possibility that has the Null Fire in it, and I'll tearfully just accept this meager, disappointing offering, now a broken and disturbed man.
What is the POINT of this idiocy? What are they THINKING by randomizing the thing? By letting the gamer know what skills are inherited ahead of time, the SMT makers are basically encouraging the gamer to set the Fusion up over and over again to get at least SOME skill they want, so if the intention of randomizing it is to leave whether you get good skills or not entirely up to chance, the makers have failed, because the gamer has the opportunity to make sure that at least some of the skills they want are certain to be there. Why not just make a Demon Fusion process where you pick and choose a skill or two that you want to keep? I don't even care if they'd have to lessen the number of inherited skills possible down to just 1 or 2; that's really all the preferred skills I'm ever getting anyway, and it'd still save me all the time it takes to get them otherwise.
And yeah, you can try to say that it could be worse, that the creators could just not show you anything ahead of time and let you get whatever skills the game decides AFTER the Fusion, when it's too late to change anything, but I actually think that would STILL be less annoying. At least in that circumstance, you're limited by your money and monsters in the game as to how many times you can redo the Demon Fusion to get the abilities you want out of it. You would have to just accept it and move on; you wouldn't have the choice of setting up and canceling out of the Fusion 1000 times to get it just like you want it. Sure, it would still be a pain in the ass and make things more difficult...but it wouldn't be so aggravatingly monotonous. How can these games be created with such attentive care to detail in all the other aspects of game play, but keep recycling this poorly-conceived nightmare over and over?
This latter component, however, is the reason that I FUCKING HATE DEMON FUSION WITH ALL THE BITTER, BLACKENED LUMP OF ANIMOSITY THAT IS MY SOUL. You see, it's like this. Before each Fusion actually occurs, you get to see a preview of the monster that will be created. You can see which creature it is, the stats, and the skills, both the inherent ones and the one's it's getting from its parents of sorts. The inherited skills are mostly randomized--unless there's a skill in the parents' set that can't be used by this type of creature, or a skill that can ONLY be used by that sacrificed creature, then any and all of the predecessors' skills are up for grabs via random selection. If you don't see the skill(s) you want, you just nix the Fusion, then try it again.
And again. And again and again and again...simulating this process in text will be boring, so let us instead say: (And Again) x N, where N = any positive whole number less than or equal to 500.
It's not so terrible in the beginning. In the early stages of the games, the monsters you fuse don't have all that many really noteworthy skills to pass on (in fact, they don't even have that many skills, period, so there's less for the random process to choose from), so the most you'll probably want is for the new monster to have one or two varied elemental attack spells. That's not a real problem; you might even get an acceptable spell for the new creature on your first try. It'll surely take you no more than 10 attempts. No problem.
It's later in the games where this process becomes more annoying than the stupidest minigame you've ever played. You'll be sacrificing 2 or more creatures that each have probably 5 - 8 different skills for the inheriting process to randomly choose from, and you'll almost certainly have at least 2 you'll adamantly want your new beast to inherit. I think that the best way to properly describe exactly what makes this whole thing horrible is to run through how it usually goes for me.
BEGINNING: "Oooh! Look at that awesome demonI can create! It's got great resistances, and its only weakness is Fire...but one of the monsters I'm sacrificing has Null Fire, so that'll fix that and make it an ideal front-lines tank! Let's see...I'd also like to see Sacrificial Monster 1's all-healing spell and Resist Physical skills on the new one, and Monster 2's got the same all-healing spell and the ultimate Wind spell, which would be handy. The new monster's going to inherit 3 skills. I know I HAVE to have Null Fire, and I'll be happy with any combination of the other 3 skills I like for the others."
AFTER SETTING THE FUSION UP, SEEING WHAT WILL RESULT, CANCELING IT, AND TRYING AGAIN 50 TIMES: "Okay, this is getting tedious. Damn that randomizer! Fine, I won't be greedy. I'll just insist on having Null Fire and 1 of the other 3 skills I wanted. But of them, Resist Physical and the Wind spell are better, so it'll have to be 1 of them; I'll just give up on the healing spell. And whatever the last slot's filled with will just have to work for me."
AFTER 50 MORE TRIES: "Oh my GOD, how is it possible that random chance wouldn't EVER give me a skill combination I want? Fuck it, I am NOT compromising on this; I want Null Fire AND Resist Physical or the Wind spell. Sooner or later it has got to happen."
AFTER 75 MORE TRIES: "N...No...gotta...gotta stay strong...no compromises...it's gotta happen some time..."
AFTER 50 MORE TRIES: "FINE! I'll accept the healing spell for the second must-have skill. Just so long as Null Fire's with it. That betters my chances for something acceptable, right?"
AFTER 75 MORE TRIES: "Oh Jesus I give up. Just Null Fire. I'll just give up on anything else I want. Just the one damn skill. Anything to get on with things."
AFTER 50 MORE TRIES: "GRRAAAGGHH! Why won't Null Fire even come UP any more? Can this game HEAR me?"
And finally, after a few more tries during which I am screaming, slamming my fist down on my desk, and generally carrying on, I'll get a Fusion possibility that has the Null Fire in it, and I'll tearfully just accept this meager, disappointing offering, now a broken and disturbed man.
What is the POINT of this idiocy? What are they THINKING by randomizing the thing? By letting the gamer know what skills are inherited ahead of time, the SMT makers are basically encouraging the gamer to set the Fusion up over and over again to get at least SOME skill they want, so if the intention of randomizing it is to leave whether you get good skills or not entirely up to chance, the makers have failed, because the gamer has the opportunity to make sure that at least some of the skills they want are certain to be there. Why not just make a Demon Fusion process where you pick and choose a skill or two that you want to keep? I don't even care if they'd have to lessen the number of inherited skills possible down to just 1 or 2; that's really all the preferred skills I'm ever getting anyway, and it'd still save me all the time it takes to get them otherwise.
And yeah, you can try to say that it could be worse, that the creators could just not show you anything ahead of time and let you get whatever skills the game decides AFTER the Fusion, when it's too late to change anything, but I actually think that would STILL be less annoying. At least in that circumstance, you're limited by your money and monsters in the game as to how many times you can redo the Demon Fusion to get the abilities you want out of it. You would have to just accept it and move on; you wouldn't have the choice of setting up and canceling out of the Fusion 1000 times to get it just like you want it. Sure, it would still be a pain in the ass and make things more difficult...but it wouldn't be so aggravatingly monotonous. How can these games be created with such attentive care to detail in all the other aspects of game play, but keep recycling this poorly-conceived nightmare over and over?
Thursday, April 22, 2010
General RPGs' Opening Sequences
Thanks to Ecclesiastes again for another good idea for a rant.
Opening sequences. They're not a new concept--the idea of having an opening that shows the premise and characters of your work through various scenes spliced together to the main theme was a standard for television shows decades before even the concept of video games had been thought up. These original music videos were used by sitcoms, dramas, soaps, and especially cartoons without fail, and often still are.
RPGs' opening sequences usually occur immediately before the title screen, after the title screen's been up for a minute or so without any buttons being pressed, or once you begin a new game. Some games will have even have more than one--like, one that happens before the title screen, and one that occurs after the title screen's been up for a bit. The purpose of the opening sequence is, as near as I can figure, to get you excited and interested in the game you're about to play, and to give you a taste of the game's themes, scope, ideas, setting, and/or characters. Most opening sequences hit on most or all of these points in one way or another. For example, take the opening sequence to Tales of the Abyss, which is a pretty good specimen of the average opening sequence. The opening is a montage of anime scenes portraying specific events from the game (which, incidentally, are usually not actually portrayed in anime FMV cinemas when they're actually happening in-game) that grab your attention, containing both scenes of action and scenes of mysticism and so on, all to a rather fast-paced main theme. The idea is clearly to grab your attention immediately. The scenes show several of the game's places and suspenseful moments (providing a taste of its scope, ideas, and setting), and has a part which shows each of the main characters one by one, thus giving you a quick orientation to them.
The concept of an opening sequence is a good one. It's entertaining, and it can be a good, effective way to get a player into the right mood for the game, which can be important. I mean, sure, if you're playing a game from the Tales of series, you probably don't need to be told that it's going to be a very colorful, anime-ish adventure, so setting the mood might not be so essential, but with a game like, say, Breath of Fire 5, setting the mood is significantly important, especially if the audience is at all familiar with previous games in the series. Breath of Fires 1 - 4 were all decidedly fantasy games with a world-spanning scope and the feeling of a save-the-world adventure.* Breath of Fire 5's opening sequence, though, is gritty and at times somewhat aggressive, showing a grimy urban underground and emphasizing a personal struggle, while showcasing the artistic style and setting, which are all major factors in the game. It helps you get into the feel of the game before you start playing, and in this case, it's helpful, because a player might otherwise feel a little disjointed at playing something very obviously not the fantasy epic they're accustomed to with RPGs.
Of course, there are some common annoyances with opening sequences, too. For one, the JPop. The terrible, terrible JPop. Now it's not like I don't occasionally (actually, "rarely" is closer) like a pop song from Japan. Hell, I'd say JPop has as good a chance of producing a quality song as any genre of this hemisphere. But I can't recall the last time I saw an opening sequence set to a JPop tune that wasn't just utterly horrible to listen to. Opening sequence JPop tunes only seem to come in one variety: Whiny and Disjointed, Interspersed with Screeching. Y'know, if the rest of the game's going to have tunes that actually fit in appropriately to the scenes they play in and don't have keening vocals "singing" one of the most annoying languages ever spoken, I don't see why the opening song, which should be, y'know, trying to create an accurate feel of the game, has to be radically different. Take Grandia 3's terrible opening sequence--the song to it is generic and pointless JPop. It doesn't get you ready for an adventure in any way, it doesn't stand out or fit the game's feel at all, and frankly, it's not particularly nice to listen to. I guess you could say that it actually IS relevant given that the game itself is generic, boring crap, but I somehow doubt that was what SquareEnix was going for.**
Worse than the vocal stylings of a talent-deficient teenager whose highest aspiration is to be one of a virtual sea of Japanese pop idols for whom the phrase "5 minutes of fame" is unrealistically optimistic by a good 4 minutes, though, is some of the visual content of some opening sequences. First of all, there are some out there that just plain spoil too much of the game. The problem with showing scenes from the game in an opening sequence, you see, is that one will usually take some of the game's best and most gripping parts to show, which tend to be plot-important enough that showing any part of them gives stuff away that would have otherwise been surprising and interesting! Giving away your better plot twists and moments of tension before the game has even begun is NOT an effective strategy for preparing your audience to maintain an interest for a plot that takes 50 hours to tell.
Another problem is the rare opening sequence that actually just has no relevance to the game. I mean, Suikoden Tierkreis's opening sequence doesn't suggest an RPG adventure that involves danger and combat and mysticism so much as it suggests a long nature walk with an abundant amount of photo ops of anime characters standing and looking out to the horizon in a thoughtful way. When the whole point, as near as I can figure it, of an opening sequence is to give a sample of what's to come and get you interested in the game's events, showing a bunch of stuff--BORING stuff--that just doesn't really have much or anything to do with the game just defeats the purpose of having it.
A personal irritation with these things that I often have is also how often opening sequences reuse Full Motion Videos from the game itself. FMVs, be they 3D or anime or whatever, are meant to be the attention-grabbers in an RPG, the moments that are so important that they have to be shown in cinema form--something to look forward to, essentially. So I kind of feel like I'm getting cheated a little when a lot/all of the opening sequence's cinematic footage is taken from the FMVs you'll already see. I mean, not only does it invite the problem of spoiling the plot that I mentioned above, but it also lessens my interest--I'll be slightly less interested in the FMVs in the game that I've already seen a decent glimpse of, and after I've seen them, I'll be less interested in the opening sequence because it's just little pieces of larger cinemas. I just feel that it's better, and gives the audience a little extra, to make the FMV of your opening sequence portray stuff that doesn't already occur in FMV during the game. You take the FMV opening sequence Square added to their Chrono Trigger rerelease for the Playstation 1--it's got lots of anime cinema in it to watch that's neat, showing various situations and scenes from the game, but the actual in-game FMVs aren't included, giving us more to watch instead of just recycling the same FMVs multiple times.
Opening sequences are more important than they're often given credit for. A good one, like the original opening sequence of Chrono Trigger, which had exciting music, good direction, and set the game's tone perfectly, can get the player in just the right mood to appreciate the game all the more--hell, a good enough opening sequence might actually buy a bad game some time before the player starts to realize that the game's not all that the exciting beginning promised. It worked admirably with Chrono Cross's 2 opening sequences, particularly FMV one--that one is so effective as a preparer for adventure that watching it STILL gets me excited and ready to play the game it's showing, even though I HAVE played it and KNOW that it is actually awful. Conversely, a bad one can just drag a game down, an irritating strike against the game before it's even begun. A little effort and good directing sense on this matter can go a long way for an RPG.
* Even though one, arguably two, of them ended up not having world-saving as their main purpose.
** Then again, who knows...considering SquareEnix's business plan and overall level of game quality from around the time of Grandia 3 up to the present moment, it very well could be that they DID intend to make a crappy opening sequence to recognize and reflect the game's poor quality. Just another in a long line of "Fuck Yous" to their loyal fanbase.
Opening sequences. They're not a new concept--the idea of having an opening that shows the premise and characters of your work through various scenes spliced together to the main theme was a standard for television shows decades before even the concept of video games had been thought up. These original music videos were used by sitcoms, dramas, soaps, and especially cartoons without fail, and often still are.
RPGs' opening sequences usually occur immediately before the title screen, after the title screen's been up for a minute or so without any buttons being pressed, or once you begin a new game. Some games will have even have more than one--like, one that happens before the title screen, and one that occurs after the title screen's been up for a bit. The purpose of the opening sequence is, as near as I can figure, to get you excited and interested in the game you're about to play, and to give you a taste of the game's themes, scope, ideas, setting, and/or characters. Most opening sequences hit on most or all of these points in one way or another. For example, take the opening sequence to Tales of the Abyss, which is a pretty good specimen of the average opening sequence. The opening is a montage of anime scenes portraying specific events from the game (which, incidentally, are usually not actually portrayed in anime FMV cinemas when they're actually happening in-game) that grab your attention, containing both scenes of action and scenes of mysticism and so on, all to a rather fast-paced main theme. The idea is clearly to grab your attention immediately. The scenes show several of the game's places and suspenseful moments (providing a taste of its scope, ideas, and setting), and has a part which shows each of the main characters one by one, thus giving you a quick orientation to them.
The concept of an opening sequence is a good one. It's entertaining, and it can be a good, effective way to get a player into the right mood for the game, which can be important. I mean, sure, if you're playing a game from the Tales of series, you probably don't need to be told that it's going to be a very colorful, anime-ish adventure, so setting the mood might not be so essential, but with a game like, say, Breath of Fire 5, setting the mood is significantly important, especially if the audience is at all familiar with previous games in the series. Breath of Fires 1 - 4 were all decidedly fantasy games with a world-spanning scope and the feeling of a save-the-world adventure.* Breath of Fire 5's opening sequence, though, is gritty and at times somewhat aggressive, showing a grimy urban underground and emphasizing a personal struggle, while showcasing the artistic style and setting, which are all major factors in the game. It helps you get into the feel of the game before you start playing, and in this case, it's helpful, because a player might otherwise feel a little disjointed at playing something very obviously not the fantasy epic they're accustomed to with RPGs.
Of course, there are some common annoyances with opening sequences, too. For one, the JPop. The terrible, terrible JPop. Now it's not like I don't occasionally (actually, "rarely" is closer) like a pop song from Japan. Hell, I'd say JPop has as good a chance of producing a quality song as any genre of this hemisphere. But I can't recall the last time I saw an opening sequence set to a JPop tune that wasn't just utterly horrible to listen to. Opening sequence JPop tunes only seem to come in one variety: Whiny and Disjointed, Interspersed with Screeching. Y'know, if the rest of the game's going to have tunes that actually fit in appropriately to the scenes they play in and don't have keening vocals "singing" one of the most annoying languages ever spoken, I don't see why the opening song, which should be, y'know, trying to create an accurate feel of the game, has to be radically different. Take Grandia 3's terrible opening sequence--the song to it is generic and pointless JPop. It doesn't get you ready for an adventure in any way, it doesn't stand out or fit the game's feel at all, and frankly, it's not particularly nice to listen to. I guess you could say that it actually IS relevant given that the game itself is generic, boring crap, but I somehow doubt that was what SquareEnix was going for.**
Worse than the vocal stylings of a talent-deficient teenager whose highest aspiration is to be one of a virtual sea of Japanese pop idols for whom the phrase "5 minutes of fame" is unrealistically optimistic by a good 4 minutes, though, is some of the visual content of some opening sequences. First of all, there are some out there that just plain spoil too much of the game. The problem with showing scenes from the game in an opening sequence, you see, is that one will usually take some of the game's best and most gripping parts to show, which tend to be plot-important enough that showing any part of them gives stuff away that would have otherwise been surprising and interesting! Giving away your better plot twists and moments of tension before the game has even begun is NOT an effective strategy for preparing your audience to maintain an interest for a plot that takes 50 hours to tell.
Another problem is the rare opening sequence that actually just has no relevance to the game. I mean, Suikoden Tierkreis's opening sequence doesn't suggest an RPG adventure that involves danger and combat and mysticism so much as it suggests a long nature walk with an abundant amount of photo ops of anime characters standing and looking out to the horizon in a thoughtful way. When the whole point, as near as I can figure it, of an opening sequence is to give a sample of what's to come and get you interested in the game's events, showing a bunch of stuff--BORING stuff--that just doesn't really have much or anything to do with the game just defeats the purpose of having it.
A personal irritation with these things that I often have is also how often opening sequences reuse Full Motion Videos from the game itself. FMVs, be they 3D or anime or whatever, are meant to be the attention-grabbers in an RPG, the moments that are so important that they have to be shown in cinema form--something to look forward to, essentially. So I kind of feel like I'm getting cheated a little when a lot/all of the opening sequence's cinematic footage is taken from the FMVs you'll already see. I mean, not only does it invite the problem of spoiling the plot that I mentioned above, but it also lessens my interest--I'll be slightly less interested in the FMVs in the game that I've already seen a decent glimpse of, and after I've seen them, I'll be less interested in the opening sequence because it's just little pieces of larger cinemas. I just feel that it's better, and gives the audience a little extra, to make the FMV of your opening sequence portray stuff that doesn't already occur in FMV during the game. You take the FMV opening sequence Square added to their Chrono Trigger rerelease for the Playstation 1--it's got lots of anime cinema in it to watch that's neat, showing various situations and scenes from the game, but the actual in-game FMVs aren't included, giving us more to watch instead of just recycling the same FMVs multiple times.
Opening sequences are more important than they're often given credit for. A good one, like the original opening sequence of Chrono Trigger, which had exciting music, good direction, and set the game's tone perfectly, can get the player in just the right mood to appreciate the game all the more--hell, a good enough opening sequence might actually buy a bad game some time before the player starts to realize that the game's not all that the exciting beginning promised. It worked admirably with Chrono Cross's 2 opening sequences, particularly FMV one--that one is so effective as a preparer for adventure that watching it STILL gets me excited and ready to play the game it's showing, even though I HAVE played it and KNOW that it is actually awful. Conversely, a bad one can just drag a game down, an irritating strike against the game before it's even begun. A little effort and good directing sense on this matter can go a long way for an RPG.
* Even though one, arguably two, of them ended up not having world-saving as their main purpose.
** Then again, who knows...considering SquareEnix's business plan and overall level of game quality from around the time of Grandia 3 up to the present moment, it very well could be that they DID intend to make a crappy opening sequence to recognize and reflect the game's poor quality. Just another in a long line of "Fuck Yous" to their loyal fanbase.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Fallout 3 AMV: Mad World
2012 Update: As time has gone on, I've come to think much less of this AMV. By all means I still consider it very good, but if I were to encounter it for the first time today, it wouldn't get its own rant. I'd include it in my General RPG AMV rants, sure, but it just doesn't merit as much praise or focus as I've given it here. I'll still keep it up, of course--it wont' be the first rant I've felt less in tune with over time, after all, but it's still a part of my history here, and it's not like it's totally off or anything. Just take this one with a grain of salt. And now, as it was:
Yeah, that's right--ANOTHER Fallout 3 AMV rant. I make no apologies. It's a good game and these are good AMVs.
Now I'll grant you, in comparison to the other Fallout 3 AMVs I've posted, this one isn't quite as blatantly awesome. But it's still darned good, and very impressive in its own right when you realize that this AMV was made before the game was even released. That means that somebody, in this case a Youtuber named Squiggy3210 (or Zorskel, on his other channel), put together an AMV using nothing but stock footage of preview videos that managed to be good enough to catch my attention (and I tend to be borderline unreasonable with how picky I am about these things). Certainly worth a look, wouldn't you say?
(Unless you don't like blood and guts and such--I've said this a couple times now, but it bears repeating that Fallout 3's general gameplay is not for the weak of stomach, faint of heart, or low of age).
Fallout 3: Mad World: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afOWtUjHXHg
Poetry in Motion: Quality-wise, this AMV's certainly fine. Certain parts are definitely in higher definition than others, but I wouldn't say any of the clips in this video are anything less than satisfactory for how well you can see them.
As far as visual tricks go, there's not much to note here. The camera work is good sometimes, like when it gives a wide shot at 2:35, which emphasizes the scene's conjunction with the lyrics "mad world." Still, from what I understand, all of the clips of this were taken from preview footage, so that's more a case of picking the right scene for that moment than the AMV maker's setting it up himself. As far as Zorskel goes, not a lot of effects were put in--just some basic fades for transitions from one scene to the next, really. Still, even if some effects might have improved it, the AMV's good without them, and with a more mellow and slow song like this one, visual bells and whistles might have actually been distracting. The scenes often change accordingly with the music's tone and changes, so it seems reasonable to say that Zorskel did put some thought into the arrangement and timing, at least, and it does work.
I Gotta Have More Cowbell: The song is the real strength of this work. This AMV's visuals are more there as a backup to the song and its general mood than a completely equal share of it. The song for this AMV is Mad World, a song by British band Tears for Fears. This version of Mad World is the one from the movie Donnie Darko, performed by Gary Jules and Michael Andrews.
Now, I admit that I'm biased in that I'm fond of this song anyway, but I think that Mad World really fits Fallout 3's setting quite well, and this AMV shows that. Previous Fallout 3 AMVs I've covered are more active and even upbeat, having messages of warning against letting a world like Fallout 3 come to pass, and emphasizing the battle between vice and virtue in Fallout 3's wasteland. Fallout 3 Mad World, however, looks at a different, but also significant aspect of the game: the moody, regretful tone of the Fallout universe, the feeling created from simply stopping a moment in your journeys through the wasteland and looking around at it.
The song captures this lonely sadness in and of itself well, but the AMV enhances this mood and its association to the Fallout world by often tying the lyrics to the scenes being shown. The opening is very nicely done, backing up to view a part of the Capital Wasteland until you get to its explorer getting ready to go through it. Parts like the segment that starts at 0:13 match the song very nicely, showing the tired people of the wasteland and its decimated, decaying locations to the lyrics describing them as "familiar faces," "worn out places," and "worn out faces." The part at 0:27's decent, showing traveling through the Capital Wasteland as being an example of "going nowhere." The part at 0:47 is, of course, a perfect fit for "no tomorrow," being scenes of a nuclear explosion from the game. 1:55 shows the Lone Wanderer's first encounter with Sarah Lyons and her paladins, a meeting in the game in which the Brotherhood of Steel combat veterans wonder who the hell this newcomer is who's just waltzed into a combat zone, to the lyrics "no one knew me."* The real highlight of the AMV's matching scenes to the song, though, are the parts for the chorus at 1:17 and 2:34, where you're shown examples of standard chaotic settings of the post-apocalyptic world, along with a scene of the horrible violence that occurs in it regularly, perfectly emphasizing what a "mad world" it is. The second chorus is particularly good, as it goes on to be the end of the song, which the AMV handles very well, giving a wide view of the world to the "enlargen your world," and finishing the final "mad world" with the game title and the iconic Fallout 3 scene of the Lone Wanderer walking down the road with Dogmeat.
Of course, it's not perfect. There are times in the AMV where the lyrics and feel of the song just don't match up to the the visuals. 0:33, for example, shows you a scene of a gunfight with a couple super mutants, while the song, as quiet as ever, talks about tears filling up glasses and no expression and so on, which...well, there's not a lot of connection there between the audio and visual, unless I'm missing one hell of a metaphor. There are a few other moments where the connection between video and music are shaky at best, though I think that one's probably the worst. The AMV overall is of good quality and worth viewing, which is why I'm doing a rant on it at all, but it wouldn't be honest not to make mention that it's not perfect.
I'm running this monkey farm now, Frankenstein! And I wanna know what the fuck you're doing with my time!: As I said, I rather like the part of Fallout that this AMV emphasizes, the strange, displaced sense of both familiarity and the alien in a destroyed world that was once ours. Most AMVs about Fallout 3 emphasize its violent, twisted world and the small wars of vice and virtue that occur within it, and power to them--that stuff is a huge part of it. But few AMVs are willing to step back and look at the calm, exhausted displacement of the Fallout world that rests beneath it all, the sadness behind the chaos and madness that you can see, hear, even feel in the game when you stop for a moment and just take in its surroundings. Fallout 3: Mad World does a good job of that, and few AMVs try to.
This work also has a second notable function--while it may seem less important now that Fallout 3 is well over a year old, this AMV was made 2 weeks before the game was released, and was intended to further spark people's interest in the upcoming game (as is made obvious by the end of the video). I'd certainly say it does this well, too. While there were obviously fast and attention-getting trailers and such for the game, speaking for myself, a well-made AMV that shows a more contemplative side to the game and promises some heart and soul to it to go along with all the action and adventure and whatnot is easily as likely, if not more, to get me interested in the upcoming product.
This is a good AMV that gives the viewer another perspective to its featured game that most other AMV creators don't consider, and accomplishes its task of garnering interest from its viewers quite adequately. It's not perfect by a long-shot, mind--the AMV was made before there were clips to use beyond those released for trailers and such, and it does show. It could be greatly improved by Zorskel with an update to its video selections--now that Fallout 3's been out for a while, there are craploads of in-game videos of it all over Youtube and beyond, so chances are he could find some decent new clips to put in at certain parts where the video loses relevance to the song. Still, as it stands, it's still remarkably good, and worth the watching.
* Interestingly enough, since this AMV was made before Fallout 3 was out and thus before its story's events and details could have been known, Zorskel couldn't have actually KNOWN that this scene would match so well to the lyrics right then. It has to just be a very handy coincidence that he happened to put that scene there. Intentional or not, though, it DOES make for a nice addition.
Yeah, that's right--ANOTHER Fallout 3 AMV rant. I make no apologies. It's a good game and these are good AMVs.
Now I'll grant you, in comparison to the other Fallout 3 AMVs I've posted, this one isn't quite as blatantly awesome. But it's still darned good, and very impressive in its own right when you realize that this AMV was made before the game was even released. That means that somebody, in this case a Youtuber named Squiggy3210 (or Zorskel, on his other channel), put together an AMV using nothing but stock footage of preview videos that managed to be good enough to catch my attention (and I tend to be borderline unreasonable with how picky I am about these things). Certainly worth a look, wouldn't you say?
(Unless you don't like blood and guts and such--I've said this a couple times now, but it bears repeating that Fallout 3's general gameplay is not for the weak of stomach, faint of heart, or low of age).
Fallout 3: Mad World: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afOWtUjHXHg
Poetry in Motion: Quality-wise, this AMV's certainly fine. Certain parts are definitely in higher definition than others, but I wouldn't say any of the clips in this video are anything less than satisfactory for how well you can see them.
As far as visual tricks go, there's not much to note here. The camera work is good sometimes, like when it gives a wide shot at 2:35, which emphasizes the scene's conjunction with the lyrics "mad world." Still, from what I understand, all of the clips of this were taken from preview footage, so that's more a case of picking the right scene for that moment than the AMV maker's setting it up himself. As far as Zorskel goes, not a lot of effects were put in--just some basic fades for transitions from one scene to the next, really. Still, even if some effects might have improved it, the AMV's good without them, and with a more mellow and slow song like this one, visual bells and whistles might have actually been distracting. The scenes often change accordingly with the music's tone and changes, so it seems reasonable to say that Zorskel did put some thought into the arrangement and timing, at least, and it does work.
I Gotta Have More Cowbell: The song is the real strength of this work. This AMV's visuals are more there as a backup to the song and its general mood than a completely equal share of it. The song for this AMV is Mad World, a song by British band Tears for Fears. This version of Mad World is the one from the movie Donnie Darko, performed by Gary Jules and Michael Andrews.
Now, I admit that I'm biased in that I'm fond of this song anyway, but I think that Mad World really fits Fallout 3's setting quite well, and this AMV shows that. Previous Fallout 3 AMVs I've covered are more active and even upbeat, having messages of warning against letting a world like Fallout 3 come to pass, and emphasizing the battle between vice and virtue in Fallout 3's wasteland. Fallout 3 Mad World, however, looks at a different, but also significant aspect of the game: the moody, regretful tone of the Fallout universe, the feeling created from simply stopping a moment in your journeys through the wasteland and looking around at it.
The song captures this lonely sadness in and of itself well, but the AMV enhances this mood and its association to the Fallout world by often tying the lyrics to the scenes being shown. The opening is very nicely done, backing up to view a part of the Capital Wasteland until you get to its explorer getting ready to go through it. Parts like the segment that starts at 0:13 match the song very nicely, showing the tired people of the wasteland and its decimated, decaying locations to the lyrics describing them as "familiar faces," "worn out places," and "worn out faces." The part at 0:27's decent, showing traveling through the Capital Wasteland as being an example of "going nowhere." The part at 0:47 is, of course, a perfect fit for "no tomorrow," being scenes of a nuclear explosion from the game. 1:55 shows the Lone Wanderer's first encounter with Sarah Lyons and her paladins, a meeting in the game in which the Brotherhood of Steel combat veterans wonder who the hell this newcomer is who's just waltzed into a combat zone, to the lyrics "no one knew me."* The real highlight of the AMV's matching scenes to the song, though, are the parts for the chorus at 1:17 and 2:34, where you're shown examples of standard chaotic settings of the post-apocalyptic world, along with a scene of the horrible violence that occurs in it regularly, perfectly emphasizing what a "mad world" it is. The second chorus is particularly good, as it goes on to be the end of the song, which the AMV handles very well, giving a wide view of the world to the "enlargen your world," and finishing the final "mad world" with the game title and the iconic Fallout 3 scene of the Lone Wanderer walking down the road with Dogmeat.
Of course, it's not perfect. There are times in the AMV where the lyrics and feel of the song just don't match up to the the visuals. 0:33, for example, shows you a scene of a gunfight with a couple super mutants, while the song, as quiet as ever, talks about tears filling up glasses and no expression and so on, which...well, there's not a lot of connection there between the audio and visual, unless I'm missing one hell of a metaphor. There are a few other moments where the connection between video and music are shaky at best, though I think that one's probably the worst. The AMV overall is of good quality and worth viewing, which is why I'm doing a rant on it at all, but it wouldn't be honest not to make mention that it's not perfect.
I'm running this monkey farm now, Frankenstein! And I wanna know what the fuck you're doing with my time!: As I said, I rather like the part of Fallout that this AMV emphasizes, the strange, displaced sense of both familiarity and the alien in a destroyed world that was once ours. Most AMVs about Fallout 3 emphasize its violent, twisted world and the small wars of vice and virtue that occur within it, and power to them--that stuff is a huge part of it. But few AMVs are willing to step back and look at the calm, exhausted displacement of the Fallout world that rests beneath it all, the sadness behind the chaos and madness that you can see, hear, even feel in the game when you stop for a moment and just take in its surroundings. Fallout 3: Mad World does a good job of that, and few AMVs try to.
This work also has a second notable function--while it may seem less important now that Fallout 3 is well over a year old, this AMV was made 2 weeks before the game was released, and was intended to further spark people's interest in the upcoming game (as is made obvious by the end of the video). I'd certainly say it does this well, too. While there were obviously fast and attention-getting trailers and such for the game, speaking for myself, a well-made AMV that shows a more contemplative side to the game and promises some heart and soul to it to go along with all the action and adventure and whatnot is easily as likely, if not more, to get me interested in the upcoming product.
This is a good AMV that gives the viewer another perspective to its featured game that most other AMV creators don't consider, and accomplishes its task of garnering interest from its viewers quite adequately. It's not perfect by a long-shot, mind--the AMV was made before there were clips to use beyond those released for trailers and such, and it does show. It could be greatly improved by Zorskel with an update to its video selections--now that Fallout 3's been out for a while, there are craploads of in-game videos of it all over Youtube and beyond, so chances are he could find some decent new clips to put in at certain parts where the video loses relevance to the song. Still, as it stands, it's still remarkably good, and worth the watching.
* Interestingly enough, since this AMV was made before Fallout 3 was out and thus before its story's events and details could have been known, Zorskel couldn't have actually KNOWN that this scene would match so well to the lyrics right then. It has to just be a very handy coincidence that he happened to put that scene there. Intentional or not, though, it DOES make for a nice addition.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Shadow Hearts 1's Doll House
Every now and then, you get an RPG setting that really just pulls you in and conveys a mood perfectly, instilling an intended atmosphere within you seamlessly, getting you into what's going on with above average skill and subtlety. In my old rant about Skies of Arcadia Legends's City of Valua, the visuals of the environment, the background music, and what you encounter all work together to put together a particularly strong environment of the worst of urban life.
You get superior environments like this every now and then in RPGs. Sometimes they portray human settlements, as Valua does, and Final Fantasy 7's Midgar. Most often, you find yourself in a dungeon, forest, temple, cave, or some other dangerous place where you explore an area made exceptionally well to pull you into the environment--Grandia 1 does this in practically every explorable area in its game.
There's only one time, though, that I can recall experiencing an RPG where a strong environment like what I'm speaking of is created which just scares the pants off you: Shadow Hearts 1's Doll House.
While Shadow Hearts 2's Doll House has its moments of mild creepiness (and SH3's Doll House, as par for the game, is dull and boring), it's SH1's Doll House that has the dark, spooky look inside and out, lighted or in the dark, of a house whose history makes it better left abandoned. It's SH1's Doll House that has the heavy, moody music that sets the tone without going too far. And it's SH1's Doll House that has the creepy history of a little girl and her doll told through pictures and diary entries, all leading to the final place of the house, a silent, utterly scary room where a doll sits on a rocking horse, watching you with its lifeless face...a lifeless face that may move just out of the corner of the main character's eye when he's not paying attention. SH1's Doll House is as spooky, as creepy, as downright freak-you-out scary an area, particularly its final room, as any environment you'll find in a Survival Horror game like the Resident Evils. I was seriously impressed with it--when I was done holding my breath in fright.
You get superior environments like this every now and then in RPGs. Sometimes they portray human settlements, as Valua does, and Final Fantasy 7's Midgar. Most often, you find yourself in a dungeon, forest, temple, cave, or some other dangerous place where you explore an area made exceptionally well to pull you into the environment--Grandia 1 does this in practically every explorable area in its game.
There's only one time, though, that I can recall experiencing an RPG where a strong environment like what I'm speaking of is created which just scares the pants off you: Shadow Hearts 1's Doll House.
While Shadow Hearts 2's Doll House has its moments of mild creepiness (and SH3's Doll House, as par for the game, is dull and boring), it's SH1's Doll House that has the dark, spooky look inside and out, lighted or in the dark, of a house whose history makes it better left abandoned. It's SH1's Doll House that has the heavy, moody music that sets the tone without going too far. And it's SH1's Doll House that has the creepy history of a little girl and her doll told through pictures and diary entries, all leading to the final place of the house, a silent, utterly scary room where a doll sits on a rocking horse, watching you with its lifeless face...a lifeless face that may move just out of the corner of the main character's eye when he's not paying attention. SH1's Doll House is as spooky, as creepy, as downright freak-you-out scary an area, particularly its final room, as any environment you'll find in a Survival Horror game like the Resident Evils. I was seriously impressed with it--when I was done holding my breath in fright.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Tales of the Abyss's Ion: The Damsel in Distress Who's a Boy
Remember that rant on Wild Arms 3's Virginia I did? About how she perfectly fulfills a male character's role, without once sacrificing even a hint of her identity as a woman? Today's rant is like that, only for a male character and a female's role.
Ah, the Damsel in Distress. One of the oldest and most traditional plot tools for story-telling, the Damsel in Distress is a classic way to create the excitement of a dangerous situation, express the heroism and manly male manliness of the hero as he mannishly saves the damsel in a masculine manner, and, perhaps most importantly, reinforce the notion that anyone with a vagina is weak, helpless, and probably stupid. It's a writing device as common in RPGs as it is in anything else, although there is a small variation with RPGs: normally, the plight a damsel becomes involved in may or may not be of the villain's doing (sure, she COULD be kidnapped, but there's a good chance she just stupidly tripped and fell into a damn hole or something, too), but with RPGs, women who need to be saved from something are at least 80% of the time kidnapped by the villain, or otherwise at said villain's mercy. It's practically video game tradition.
You don't really see any real role-reversal in this situation, either. While there ARE a few times when a male character is in a bind and needs saving, these events are a one-time thing for the guys--and just how often do you see major male characters get captured away from the party, and NOT initiate and at least halfway, if not just totally, complete a successful escape attempt? On the rare occasions when they don't just get out all on their own, they're either saved so far into the escape attempt that the rescue's nearly superfluous anyway (like Chrono Trigger--yeah, I know you CAN have Crono saved at the last minute by Lucca, but you can also have him escape all by himself, and most players' actions are going to trigger the latter), or the folks saving the male character are escaping the same prison at the time anyway, making it just a part of the joint escape rather than an honest rescue.
Ion of Tales of the Abyss, however, is a notable exception to this rule. Ion, leader of TotA's world's major (actually, one and only) religion, is a boy. He is young-ish, like 14 years old, and even for a kid, he ain't exactly manly, but he definitely is a male.
Ion finds himself in a bind a lot. A LOT. Really, it seems like every time you turn around, Ion's gone and gotten himself caught by an enemy general. If he's not being held captive, you're dragging him along with your party, trying to keep an eye on him so that the next random person he says "Hi" to doesn't kidnap him. He's seriously right up there with Final Fantasy 8's Rinoa and Tales of Legendia's Shirley for how often he needs rescue and asylum--he might even be in the same league as Shana from Legend of Dragoon.
Still, there's also a certain set of personality traits that Damsels in Distress almost always seem to have. Just getting caught a couple times doesn't necessarily make gamers see you as a DiD. Take Knights of the Old Republic 1, for instance--there's a couple instances in that game where Bastila's held against her will by enemies and needs to be saved, but I've yet to meet a KotOR player who'd call her a Damsel in Distress. The distinction comes from the fact that Bastila is a short-tempered, demanding, strong-willed person who also kicks ass as a lightsaber-wielding Jedi Knight. She also insists after you save her that she had the situation well in hand and that you nearly messed everything up, although how true her claim is is kind of left open to debate. But ultimately, it doesn't matter how many times circumstances might dictate she need rescuing--Bastila's personality and combat abilities preclude any possibility of calling her a Damsel in Distress.
Ion, however, fits the bill perfectly on this account, too. He's kind, innocent, and eternally optimistic, always seeing the good in people even when others cannot. He's never lacking for an encouraging remark, always determined to emotionally help all around him, and as soft and sweet as a syrup-drenched marshmallow. And while this detail wouldn't necessarily disqualify him for DiD status were it not true, it doesn't hurt that his voice is about as far from being masculine as you can get without actually becoming Shirley Temple.
So he's got the personality, and there seems to be a neon sign taped to his back that says "KIDNAP ME." That IS typically enough for a character to be seen as a Damsel in Distress, but those characters actually are girls. We need one last DiD staple for Ion to fit into: plot role.
DiDs' roles in a game's plot usually fall under 2 categories: political importance and mystical anime holy powers. Basically, there has to be SOME reason for the hero and company to go to all this trouble for the damsel, because even heroes' good will only goes so far. Political importance is probably the oldest role for a damsel (how many game plots, even RPG plots, have boiled down to "Go save the Princess?" Princess Zelda from the Legend of Zelda Series and Princess Peach from Mario games are pretty much the ultimate Damsels in Distress for all gaming history), but a recent favorite with the RPG genre is the mystical anime divine nonsense stuff--basically, the hero HAS to cart around this female dead weight because she's the only person in the world who can commune with the gods or realign the sparkly magical spirit energies or whatever.
So how does Ion fit in here? Pretty well, as he's both. Half the time, the Tales of the Abyss heroes are babysitting the little guy because he happens to be the most important religious figure on the planet. The other half, it's because he's the only one who can unlock the mystical seals on magical lift pillars of the forgotten age yadda yadda yadda. And hey, as if he wasn't already 10 for 10 on the Damsel in Distress Checklist, using his powers drains his energy and makes him faint.
Ion's a Damsel in Distress, no matter how you look at it. Not only that, but he's essentially the PERFECT Damsel in Distress--he really does pretty much fit every criteria for the role that I, or likely anyone else, can think of. So how does it work out? Very well. There's really no point in the game where this situation feels unnatural or off at all, and Ion even manages to be one of the very few Damsels in Distress that's actually an appealing character--even if he's saccharine, he's still very likable, which is something most DiDs don't manage (Grandia 3's Alfina, Wild Arms 4's Yulie), and his personality fits into the dynamic of the party very well, rather than superfluously intruding on it like some DiDs do (ToL's Shirley, Lunar 2's Lucia) or destroying it altogether (TLoD's Shana, FF8's Rinoa). Ion perfectly fulfills the role of Damsel in Distress, while remaining unquestionably a guy--a shy, young, nice little guy, but a guy--AND far surpassing nearly every other RPG character with the same role by simply being a good fit with the group and a LIKABLE human being. Like Wild Arms 3's Virginia, a girl playing a male hero's role to complete perfection, Ion being the ideal example of the role he plays is an example of gender equality in writing--that it should be the character, not the gender, that determines their role in a game. All it takes is good writing.
Ah, the Damsel in Distress. One of the oldest and most traditional plot tools for story-telling, the Damsel in Distress is a classic way to create the excitement of a dangerous situation, express the heroism and manly male manliness of the hero as he mannishly saves the damsel in a masculine manner, and, perhaps most importantly, reinforce the notion that anyone with a vagina is weak, helpless, and probably stupid. It's a writing device as common in RPGs as it is in anything else, although there is a small variation with RPGs: normally, the plight a damsel becomes involved in may or may not be of the villain's doing (sure, she COULD be kidnapped, but there's a good chance she just stupidly tripped and fell into a damn hole or something, too), but with RPGs, women who need to be saved from something are at least 80% of the time kidnapped by the villain, or otherwise at said villain's mercy. It's practically video game tradition.
You don't really see any real role-reversal in this situation, either. While there ARE a few times when a male character is in a bind and needs saving, these events are a one-time thing for the guys--and just how often do you see major male characters get captured away from the party, and NOT initiate and at least halfway, if not just totally, complete a successful escape attempt? On the rare occasions when they don't just get out all on their own, they're either saved so far into the escape attempt that the rescue's nearly superfluous anyway (like Chrono Trigger--yeah, I know you CAN have Crono saved at the last minute by Lucca, but you can also have him escape all by himself, and most players' actions are going to trigger the latter), or the folks saving the male character are escaping the same prison at the time anyway, making it just a part of the joint escape rather than an honest rescue.
Ion of Tales of the Abyss, however, is a notable exception to this rule. Ion, leader of TotA's world's major (actually, one and only) religion, is a boy. He is young-ish, like 14 years old, and even for a kid, he ain't exactly manly, but he definitely is a male.
Ion finds himself in a bind a lot. A LOT. Really, it seems like every time you turn around, Ion's gone and gotten himself caught by an enemy general. If he's not being held captive, you're dragging him along with your party, trying to keep an eye on him so that the next random person he says "Hi" to doesn't kidnap him. He's seriously right up there with Final Fantasy 8's Rinoa and Tales of Legendia's Shirley for how often he needs rescue and asylum--he might even be in the same league as Shana from Legend of Dragoon.
Still, there's also a certain set of personality traits that Damsels in Distress almost always seem to have. Just getting caught a couple times doesn't necessarily make gamers see you as a DiD. Take Knights of the Old Republic 1, for instance--there's a couple instances in that game where Bastila's held against her will by enemies and needs to be saved, but I've yet to meet a KotOR player who'd call her a Damsel in Distress. The distinction comes from the fact that Bastila is a short-tempered, demanding, strong-willed person who also kicks ass as a lightsaber-wielding Jedi Knight. She also insists after you save her that she had the situation well in hand and that you nearly messed everything up, although how true her claim is is kind of left open to debate. But ultimately, it doesn't matter how many times circumstances might dictate she need rescuing--Bastila's personality and combat abilities preclude any possibility of calling her a Damsel in Distress.
Ion, however, fits the bill perfectly on this account, too. He's kind, innocent, and eternally optimistic, always seeing the good in people even when others cannot. He's never lacking for an encouraging remark, always determined to emotionally help all around him, and as soft and sweet as a syrup-drenched marshmallow. And while this detail wouldn't necessarily disqualify him for DiD status were it not true, it doesn't hurt that his voice is about as far from being masculine as you can get without actually becoming Shirley Temple.
So he's got the personality, and there seems to be a neon sign taped to his back that says "KIDNAP ME." That IS typically enough for a character to be seen as a Damsel in Distress, but those characters actually are girls. We need one last DiD staple for Ion to fit into: plot role.
DiDs' roles in a game's plot usually fall under 2 categories: political importance and mystical anime holy powers. Basically, there has to be SOME reason for the hero and company to go to all this trouble for the damsel, because even heroes' good will only goes so far. Political importance is probably the oldest role for a damsel (how many game plots, even RPG plots, have boiled down to "Go save the Princess?" Princess Zelda from the Legend of Zelda Series and Princess Peach from Mario games are pretty much the ultimate Damsels in Distress for all gaming history), but a recent favorite with the RPG genre is the mystical anime divine nonsense stuff--basically, the hero HAS to cart around this female dead weight because she's the only person in the world who can commune with the gods or realign the sparkly magical spirit energies or whatever.
So how does Ion fit in here? Pretty well, as he's both. Half the time, the Tales of the Abyss heroes are babysitting the little guy because he happens to be the most important religious figure on the planet. The other half, it's because he's the only one who can unlock the mystical seals on magical lift pillars of the forgotten age yadda yadda yadda. And hey, as if he wasn't already 10 for 10 on the Damsel in Distress Checklist, using his powers drains his energy and makes him faint.
Ion's a Damsel in Distress, no matter how you look at it. Not only that, but he's essentially the PERFECT Damsel in Distress--he really does pretty much fit every criteria for the role that I, or likely anyone else, can think of. So how does it work out? Very well. There's really no point in the game where this situation feels unnatural or off at all, and Ion even manages to be one of the very few Damsels in Distress that's actually an appealing character--even if he's saccharine, he's still very likable, which is something most DiDs don't manage (Grandia 3's Alfina, Wild Arms 4's Yulie), and his personality fits into the dynamic of the party very well, rather than superfluously intruding on it like some DiDs do (ToL's Shirley, Lunar 2's Lucia) or destroying it altogether (TLoD's Shana, FF8's Rinoa). Ion perfectly fulfills the role of Damsel in Distress, while remaining unquestionably a guy--a shy, young, nice little guy, but a guy--AND far surpassing nearly every other RPG character with the same role by simply being a good fit with the group and a LIKABLE human being. Like Wild Arms 3's Virginia, a girl playing a male hero's role to complete perfection, Ion being the ideal example of the role he plays is an example of gender equality in writing--that it should be the character, not the gender, that determines their role in a game. All it takes is good writing.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Evolution Worlds's Characters
Mag: Mag is about as dim-witted and annoyingly enthusiastic as you'd expect from a protagonist. I was going to say that he has an excuse since he's obviously no older than 11 while your typical feeble-minded main character is in his late teens or early 20s, but I just looked it up, and Mag is apparently actually 16. I guess I was thrown off by the fact that he stands no higher than a regular-sized adult's waistline, and most of that height is from having a head of unusual proportions even for anime. Maybe that's the problem--his freakin' head's so titanic that the rest of him can barely manage to hold it up, let alone grow higher.
Linear: Once she actually starts speaking and receiving tiny tidbits of character development, it is made very apparent that Linear is a complete moron. When main villain Yurka, a guy that Linear has known for an entire 3 days and over the course of those days only actually met thrice for about 5 minutes at a time, comes out of nowhere and accosts Mag, who took Linear in years ago and has been her constant companion, friend, caretaker, and protector since meeting her, and starts being nasty and threatening, Linear's first impulse on seeing them not getting along is to jump in and take Yurka's side. How dare Mag get upset about somebody he doesn't know speaking threateningly to him! Way to have a handle on the ideas of friendship and gratitude, Linear. Then Yurka convinces her that she's just a burden to Mag and should come with Yurka to stop being so much trouble for Mag, which would be maybe a little more convincing an argument if Yurka's intentions for Linear weren't to have her help him revive an ancient mech suit of destruction with which he can eradicate humanity. Somehow it doesn't occur to her that Mag might actually consider her co-piloting a robot suit that destroys everything he knows and loves to be more of a burden than just letting her freeload at his place.
Actually, she reminds me of Tales of Symphonia's Genis, the dipshit for whom choosing between the friend he's known for about 2 hours and the friends and family he's grown up with and loved for all his life, all of whom said new friend intends to kill or sacrifice, is a major moral conflict. Same general idea, really, just somewhat (not much) less absurd and idiotic with Linear's scenario.
Gre: Gre is Mag's butler. His loyalty is an awfully odd thing--Mag's family is just shy of bankrupt so Gre can't be getting paid, and Mag is an idiot who screws up almost everything he touches and continually manages to drive the family into greater debt. My only explanation for why Gre has stuck around is that the family went bankrupt before he got a final paycheck, so he's just desperately hoping that Mag will accidentally strike it rich one day and Gre can finally collect years of back-pay and move on with his life. That, or the family has one massive life insurance policy on Mag, and Gre's sending him into these dangerous ruins armed only with a mechanical hand and his malfunctioning wits with the hopes that he'll have an accident and Gre, as the closest thing to an inheritor that the family has after Mag's gone, will finally get his freedom and a chunk of change to go with it.
Chain: Remember Rebecca from Wild Arms 5? The girl whose entire character development was centered around romantic feelings that she never acted on or had closure for? Chain is like that, only the romantic feelings that comprise her entire personal stake in the plot aren't just never acted on--they're barely even mentioned.
Pepper: Pepper is a flighty, flirty, attractive woman. That's about it. Oh, and there's this one special ability she has where she restores Mag's HP by shoving her melons into his face. I don't care how old the game says he is, how much he clearly enjoys it, or how low his health is--he's still a squat, baby-faced midget, and I still pointed at the screen and yelled "BAD TOUCH! BAD TOUCH!" when I saw it.
Carcano: Carcano is a hardened criminal, a bandit accustomed to museum heists and armed, violent train robbery. Yet as soon as Mag beats the crap out of him in battle, he suddenly becomes the most good-natured, smiley buddy to the kid that can be imagined. Oh RPGs, you and your ridiculous "If you can prove you're wiser than me by beating my face to a raw fleshy pulp, I'll do whatever you want forever" policy.
Yurka: "Dude, I have known you for 2 days, and during that time you've stolen the shit I worked my ass off to acquire for a museum, turned my semi-adopted sister-figure and/or girlfriend against me, and tried to murder me every time you've seen me. Now that I've finally whupped your ass for good, you can't even have the dignity to die like you lived and stick to your convictions? NOW you're gonna spew this bullshit about wanting to be my friend? Fuck you, asshole, I don't think so!" --What Mag SHOULD have said to Yurka during Yurka's dying moments.*
* To compound just how annoying and dumb Mag is, this is more or less what Mag actually did say at the time: "Of course we can be friends, Yurka! We'll always be friends, and we always were! We were just too busy with me smashing you in the face with a hammer the size of 3 men and you attempting to incinerate me with a beam of fire to notice our great friendship! BFF forever, girlfriend-stealing guy I met yesterday with aspirations to enact Armageddon on humanity!" I am barely exaggerating.
Linear: Once she actually starts speaking and receiving tiny tidbits of character development, it is made very apparent that Linear is a complete moron. When main villain Yurka, a guy that Linear has known for an entire 3 days and over the course of those days only actually met thrice for about 5 minutes at a time, comes out of nowhere and accosts Mag, who took Linear in years ago and has been her constant companion, friend, caretaker, and protector since meeting her, and starts being nasty and threatening, Linear's first impulse on seeing them not getting along is to jump in and take Yurka's side. How dare Mag get upset about somebody he doesn't know speaking threateningly to him! Way to have a handle on the ideas of friendship and gratitude, Linear. Then Yurka convinces her that she's just a burden to Mag and should come with Yurka to stop being so much trouble for Mag, which would be maybe a little more convincing an argument if Yurka's intentions for Linear weren't to have her help him revive an ancient mech suit of destruction with which he can eradicate humanity. Somehow it doesn't occur to her that Mag might actually consider her co-piloting a robot suit that destroys everything he knows and loves to be more of a burden than just letting her freeload at his place.
Actually, she reminds me of Tales of Symphonia's Genis, the dipshit for whom choosing between the friend he's known for about 2 hours and the friends and family he's grown up with and loved for all his life, all of whom said new friend intends to kill or sacrifice, is a major moral conflict. Same general idea, really, just somewhat (not much) less absurd and idiotic with Linear's scenario.
Gre: Gre is Mag's butler. His loyalty is an awfully odd thing--Mag's family is just shy of bankrupt so Gre can't be getting paid, and Mag is an idiot who screws up almost everything he touches and continually manages to drive the family into greater debt. My only explanation for why Gre has stuck around is that the family went bankrupt before he got a final paycheck, so he's just desperately hoping that Mag will accidentally strike it rich one day and Gre can finally collect years of back-pay and move on with his life. That, or the family has one massive life insurance policy on Mag, and Gre's sending him into these dangerous ruins armed only with a mechanical hand and his malfunctioning wits with the hopes that he'll have an accident and Gre, as the closest thing to an inheritor that the family has after Mag's gone, will finally get his freedom and a chunk of change to go with it.
Chain: Remember Rebecca from Wild Arms 5? The girl whose entire character development was centered around romantic feelings that she never acted on or had closure for? Chain is like that, only the romantic feelings that comprise her entire personal stake in the plot aren't just never acted on--they're barely even mentioned.
Pepper: Pepper is a flighty, flirty, attractive woman. That's about it. Oh, and there's this one special ability she has where she restores Mag's HP by shoving her melons into his face. I don't care how old the game says he is, how much he clearly enjoys it, or how low his health is--he's still a squat, baby-faced midget, and I still pointed at the screen and yelled "BAD TOUCH! BAD TOUCH!" when I saw it.
Carcano: Carcano is a hardened criminal, a bandit accustomed to museum heists and armed, violent train robbery. Yet as soon as Mag beats the crap out of him in battle, he suddenly becomes the most good-natured, smiley buddy to the kid that can be imagined. Oh RPGs, you and your ridiculous "If you can prove you're wiser than me by beating my face to a raw fleshy pulp, I'll do whatever you want forever" policy.
Yurka: "Dude, I have known you for 2 days, and during that time you've stolen the shit I worked my ass off to acquire for a museum, turned my semi-adopted sister-figure and/or girlfriend against me, and tried to murder me every time you've seen me. Now that I've finally whupped your ass for good, you can't even have the dignity to die like you lived and stick to your convictions? NOW you're gonna spew this bullshit about wanting to be my friend? Fuck you, asshole, I don't think so!" --What Mag SHOULD have said to Yurka during Yurka's dying moments.*
* To compound just how annoying and dumb Mag is, this is more or less what Mag actually did say at the time: "Of course we can be friends, Yurka! We'll always be friends, and we always were! We were just too busy with me smashing you in the face with a hammer the size of 3 men and you attempting to incinerate me with a beam of fire to notice our great friendship! BFF forever, girlfriend-stealing guy I met yesterday with aspirations to enact Armageddon on humanity!" I am barely exaggerating.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 1 + 2 AMV: Sera's Holding Out for a Hero
Before starting the rant proper, let me just say that I've written a lot of this while in the grips of a rather overbearing fever, so...cut me some slack if my prose isn't up to its usual standards here.
Whenever I finish playing an RPG, I have a certain process of stuff I do before I move on to the next one. Among other things, I check to see if there are any desktop wallpapers out there about the game that I'd like, I listen to any remixes that OCR or VG Mix have for the game, I check to see if there are any videos available for download of the game's FMVs if I happened to like any (and incidentally, do any of you know a good site for this beyond Blue Laguna and Youtube? I can't find quite a lot of stuff that I'd like to have), and I look on Youtube and AMV.org for any and all AMVs that have been made for the game. Since I typically play RPGs at least a year after their release, and usually much later than that, there's usually a fair bit to sort through.
When I finished the Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga series last year and began this little post-game rite, I wasn't expecting to find many AMVs for the obscure mini-series, and certainly none that would particularly interest me. I was half right--there are very few AMVs for the SMTDDS games out there. But I was also half wrong--an AMV-making individual going by Veccachan did manage to get my attention.
Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 1 + 2: Sera's Holding Out for a Hero: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bCVcyJgpVc
Poetry in Motion: Visuals are admittedly the weak link to this AMV. There are parts of the AMV that look a bit blurry, and while the rest is fairly decent, it's not what I'd call sharp quality. Also, there's a discolored band right in the middle of the screen at the scenes beginning at 0:27 and 1:46 (which is particularly distracting; anyone not familiar with that scene of the game is going to have additional trouble getting an idea of what's happening), which just ain't good. There's also not much in the way of visual artistry on the part of the AMV's maker; the fades and camera work and so on are just the FMVs' own, with the only touch added by Veccachan beyond scene arrangement being pixel-blurs* for a few scene changes.
So yeah. Really can't say much for the visual aspect of this AMV. I can look past it to an extent, because I strongly suspect that an (unfortunately) obscure mini-series like SMT: Digital Devil Saga probably doesn't have dozens of fans lining up to throw high-quality FMVs up onto the web, so the AMV's maker probably didn't have many/any quality alternatives for the games' FMVs. Hell, it's actually surprising to me that she got'em at all. Nonetheless, it IS a bit of a strike against the AMV.
I Gotta Have More Cowbell: As is the case with most AMVs I really like, this one combines the games' visuals and events with the music to convey its message. This AMV uses the song "Holding Out for a Hero," originally an 80s tune sung by Bonnie Tyler. The version this AMV uses, however, is a more recent version sung done by Jennifer Saunders, featured in the largely pointless movie Shrek 2.
The musical component to this AMV is where it really shines and earns its place in my collection. That's actually a surprise from my perspective, because I frankly find this song really annoying in every version I've ever heard, with this variation annoying me the most. But what can I say? Every single moment of this AMV matches up almost flawlessly to the tone, beat, and lyrics of the song. Remember the last AMV rant I did, the Fallout 3 Land of Confusion one, where I extolled how well-constructed its timing and scene selection was, where everything fit into the song and its words excellently? Well, while lacking perhaps some of the spirit of the last AMV, SMTDDS 1 + 2 Sera's Holding Out for a Hero does it even BETTER. It's like SMTDDS 1 + 2's Full Motion Video was made specifically to fit this song. I sincerely doubt one could possibly match an RPG's FMV scenes to this tune in a better way than here. Hell, the paid professionals who orchestrated the part of Shrek 2 featuring this song didn't even do half as good a job!
Alright, some examples of what I mean. At 0:28, the song talks about the "white knight" hero the rest of the song will refer to, and the AMV gives us a zoom-in shot focusing on Serph, the SMTDDS 1 + 2 protagonist who's the "hero" the song sings about. 0:34 talks about tossing and turning late at night, and shows Sera (the damsel in distress for whom Serph is a hero) curled up asleep. At 0:43, the tone of the song changes from quiet and piano-driven, which was shown well in the AMV by simple and quiet scenes, to a more fast-paced style, which the AMV's scenes match with flashy events and action-oriented FMVs, while focusing still on Serph to keep the focus on him being the hero sung about. At 1:15, the tone becomes more tense, and the scene once again matches the song's change. It hits a crescendo at 1:21, with a scene of a demon emerging, and then immediately has the emphasized beats at 1:22 and 1:23 almost perfectly synchronized with the striking moments in the visual part. The part at 1:43, when the song talks about "rising with the heat," is matched well twice over, as you see a scene of one character changing into a demon, which kind of works with that lyric, and as the character doing this is actually named Heat. The tone of the music at 1:55 once again is reflected by the scene shown, with the music's tone suggesting marching into something unknown or epic, and the scene showing the part of SMTDDS2 in which Serph and Sera's souls are flying into the heart of the sun. At 2:13, the lyrics talk about "someone, somewhere watching me," as the AMV shows Schroedinger, the mysterious cat entity that watches Serph's progress throughout the game. 2:21 has the lyrics talking about a "storm" while focusing on a character named Gale. The part at 2:28 is particularly well done--the rising tension in the music is mirrored by the running attack of the character Heat, ending with Heat gouging his claw into Serph as the lyrics hit a climax of "there's a fire in my blood" (which is also another double-meaning scene for the AMV, given that Heat, known for his fire affinity, is putting his fist through Serph quite bloodily, hence the "fire" in "blood"). And it goes on like this--more or less every part of the song has a scene to it to match its tone and direction, and often even its lyrics. Heck, the AMV even manages to find the perfect scene and timing for the part of this Holding Out for a Hero where it gets momentarily and weirdly quiet and sweet, at 3:38. While I haven't seen any other AMVs using this song yet, I would imagine that moment in the song must be particularly confounding to an AMV-maker, as it just seems completely and totally separate both from the song itself and likely from whatever intended message an AMV to that song would have.
But what does it all mean, Basil?: The theme of the AMV is pretty simple to grasp (maybe "blatantly obvious" would be more accurate): to emphasize Serph as a hero, and more specifically, a hero to Sera. In this, the AMV does its job quite competently, focusing on Serph during his action-related FMVs from the game most of the time, and including several scenes that emphasize his heroism with regards to Sera. Nice theme, explored and portrayed pretty well.
This AMV does not have the spiritually gripping power as the As the Warlock Said AMV I looked at for Shadow Hearts 1 + 2 did, the very effective portrayal of a strong and relevant message that the Fallout 3 If You Tolerate This Your Children Will be Next AMV, or the insightful symbolism and summation of the game that the Fallout 3 Land of Confusion AMV did. It's got a decent basis and message, but not as epic or significant as the AMVs I've ranted on in the past. Nonetheless, I feel it definitely deserves attention and praise for how exceptionally well-made it is. Disregarding the lesser visual quality, this AMV's video component is nigh-flawlessly matched to the music's lyrics, tone, and message from start to finish. You don't have to have played the SMT Digital Devil Saga series to recognize the perfect timing this AMV has, and those that have played the games can appreciate the several clever extras that Veccachan has put into the video (the little things like matching the lyrics about heat and fire to the character Heat, and such). Skill and craftsmanship go a long way in the process of making a truly noteworthy RPG AMV, and Veccachan definitely demonstrates that with Sera's Holding Out for a Hero.
* This is probably not the technical term for them. Have I mentioned that I don't actually know the technical aspects of film and such? Because I don't. Hell, the little research I've done for some of these AMV rants alone has increased my knowledge of cinematography by at least 300%, and I still don't know jack shit.
Whenever I finish playing an RPG, I have a certain process of stuff I do before I move on to the next one. Among other things, I check to see if there are any desktop wallpapers out there about the game that I'd like, I listen to any remixes that OCR or VG Mix have for the game, I check to see if there are any videos available for download of the game's FMVs if I happened to like any (and incidentally, do any of you know a good site for this beyond Blue Laguna and Youtube? I can't find quite a lot of stuff that I'd like to have), and I look on Youtube and AMV.org for any and all AMVs that have been made for the game. Since I typically play RPGs at least a year after their release, and usually much later than that, there's usually a fair bit to sort through.
When I finished the Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga series last year and began this little post-game rite, I wasn't expecting to find many AMVs for the obscure mini-series, and certainly none that would particularly interest me. I was half right--there are very few AMVs for the SMTDDS games out there. But I was also half wrong--an AMV-making individual going by Veccachan did manage to get my attention.
Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 1 + 2: Sera's Holding Out for a Hero: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bCVcyJgpVc
Poetry in Motion: Visuals are admittedly the weak link to this AMV. There are parts of the AMV that look a bit blurry, and while the rest is fairly decent, it's not what I'd call sharp quality. Also, there's a discolored band right in the middle of the screen at the scenes beginning at 0:27 and 1:46 (which is particularly distracting; anyone not familiar with that scene of the game is going to have additional trouble getting an idea of what's happening), which just ain't good. There's also not much in the way of visual artistry on the part of the AMV's maker; the fades and camera work and so on are just the FMVs' own, with the only touch added by Veccachan beyond scene arrangement being pixel-blurs* for a few scene changes.
So yeah. Really can't say much for the visual aspect of this AMV. I can look past it to an extent, because I strongly suspect that an (unfortunately) obscure mini-series like SMT: Digital Devil Saga probably doesn't have dozens of fans lining up to throw high-quality FMVs up onto the web, so the AMV's maker probably didn't have many/any quality alternatives for the games' FMVs. Hell, it's actually surprising to me that she got'em at all. Nonetheless, it IS a bit of a strike against the AMV.
I Gotta Have More Cowbell: As is the case with most AMVs I really like, this one combines the games' visuals and events with the music to convey its message. This AMV uses the song "Holding Out for a Hero," originally an 80s tune sung by Bonnie Tyler. The version this AMV uses, however, is a more recent version sung done by Jennifer Saunders, featured in the largely pointless movie Shrek 2.
The musical component to this AMV is where it really shines and earns its place in my collection. That's actually a surprise from my perspective, because I frankly find this song really annoying in every version I've ever heard, with this variation annoying me the most. But what can I say? Every single moment of this AMV matches up almost flawlessly to the tone, beat, and lyrics of the song. Remember the last AMV rant I did, the Fallout 3 Land of Confusion one, where I extolled how well-constructed its timing and scene selection was, where everything fit into the song and its words excellently? Well, while lacking perhaps some of the spirit of the last AMV, SMTDDS 1 + 2 Sera's Holding Out for a Hero does it even BETTER. It's like SMTDDS 1 + 2's Full Motion Video was made specifically to fit this song. I sincerely doubt one could possibly match an RPG's FMV scenes to this tune in a better way than here. Hell, the paid professionals who orchestrated the part of Shrek 2 featuring this song didn't even do half as good a job!
Alright, some examples of what I mean. At 0:28, the song talks about the "white knight" hero the rest of the song will refer to, and the AMV gives us a zoom-in shot focusing on Serph, the SMTDDS 1 + 2 protagonist who's the "hero" the song sings about. 0:34 talks about tossing and turning late at night, and shows Sera (the damsel in distress for whom Serph is a hero) curled up asleep. At 0:43, the tone of the song changes from quiet and piano-driven, which was shown well in the AMV by simple and quiet scenes, to a more fast-paced style, which the AMV's scenes match with flashy events and action-oriented FMVs, while focusing still on Serph to keep the focus on him being the hero sung about. At 1:15, the tone becomes more tense, and the scene once again matches the song's change. It hits a crescendo at 1:21, with a scene of a demon emerging, and then immediately has the emphasized beats at 1:22 and 1:23 almost perfectly synchronized with the striking moments in the visual part. The part at 1:43, when the song talks about "rising with the heat," is matched well twice over, as you see a scene of one character changing into a demon, which kind of works with that lyric, and as the character doing this is actually named Heat. The tone of the music at 1:55 once again is reflected by the scene shown, with the music's tone suggesting marching into something unknown or epic, and the scene showing the part of SMTDDS2 in which Serph and Sera's souls are flying into the heart of the sun. At 2:13, the lyrics talk about "someone, somewhere watching me," as the AMV shows Schroedinger, the mysterious cat entity that watches Serph's progress throughout the game. 2:21 has the lyrics talking about a "storm" while focusing on a character named Gale. The part at 2:28 is particularly well done--the rising tension in the music is mirrored by the running attack of the character Heat, ending with Heat gouging his claw into Serph as the lyrics hit a climax of "there's a fire in my blood" (which is also another double-meaning scene for the AMV, given that Heat, known for his fire affinity, is putting his fist through Serph quite bloodily, hence the "fire" in "blood"). And it goes on like this--more or less every part of the song has a scene to it to match its tone and direction, and often even its lyrics. Heck, the AMV even manages to find the perfect scene and timing for the part of this Holding Out for a Hero where it gets momentarily and weirdly quiet and sweet, at 3:38. While I haven't seen any other AMVs using this song yet, I would imagine that moment in the song must be particularly confounding to an AMV-maker, as it just seems completely and totally separate both from the song itself and likely from whatever intended message an AMV to that song would have.
But what does it all mean, Basil?: The theme of the AMV is pretty simple to grasp (maybe "blatantly obvious" would be more accurate): to emphasize Serph as a hero, and more specifically, a hero to Sera. In this, the AMV does its job quite competently, focusing on Serph during his action-related FMVs from the game most of the time, and including several scenes that emphasize his heroism with regards to Sera. Nice theme, explored and portrayed pretty well.
This AMV does not have the spiritually gripping power as the As the Warlock Said AMV I looked at for Shadow Hearts 1 + 2 did, the very effective portrayal of a strong and relevant message that the Fallout 3 If You Tolerate This Your Children Will be Next AMV, or the insightful symbolism and summation of the game that the Fallout 3 Land of Confusion AMV did. It's got a decent basis and message, but not as epic or significant as the AMVs I've ranted on in the past. Nonetheless, I feel it definitely deserves attention and praise for how exceptionally well-made it is. Disregarding the lesser visual quality, this AMV's video component is nigh-flawlessly matched to the music's lyrics, tone, and message from start to finish. You don't have to have played the SMT Digital Devil Saga series to recognize the perfect timing this AMV has, and those that have played the games can appreciate the several clever extras that Veccachan has put into the video (the little things like matching the lyrics about heat and fire to the character Heat, and such). Skill and craftsmanship go a long way in the process of making a truly noteworthy RPG AMV, and Veccachan definitely demonstrates that with Sera's Holding Out for a Hero.
* This is probably not the technical term for them. Have I mentioned that I don't actually know the technical aspects of film and such? Because I don't. Hell, the little research I've done for some of these AMV rants alone has increased my knowledge of cinematography by at least 300%, and I still don't know jack shit.
Friday, February 12, 2010
General RPGs' Voice Acting
Thanks a hell of a lot to Ecclesiastes for his idea for this rant.
In the past, I resisted the idea of voice acting in RPGs. Well, not really resisted it, persay--more like I opposed the notion that it should be considered a significant factor in their quality. I thought that it was going to always be unimportant in enjoying a game for the reasons that I do find important: its plot and characters, the creativity and skill of the writing behind them. I insisted that a voice actor was unimportant to a character's portrayal and development, and that it would always solely be, as it had in the past, the character's dialog and actions that developed him, her, or it.
Now, I wasn't entirely off--the above two aspects of a character are still the greatest defining parts of that character in an RPG. And, as a plethora of RPGs from the NES, Genesis, SNES, Gameboy/Gameboy Advance, and even PS1, PS2, Game Cube, and PC prove, you can have fantastic characters without any voice acting at all.
Plus, further in my defense, the time period during which I formed this opinion on RPG voice acting was back in the days of Playstation 1 and N64. Back then, RPGs' strides into voice acting were both small (due to, I imagine, budget and space constraints, voiced parts of the game were usually restricted to a few important scenes and FMVs) and, well, just not very good. There were occasions where I liked the voices and the acting okay in the game--Lunar 2 and Grandia 1 come to mind--but "adequate" was about the highest praise you could give to that era's voice actors, and they usually didn't even warrant that much of a compliment. The situation wasn't helped by the fact that the RPG genre was still working out some last but very stubborn and noticeable vestiges of bad translation. The speech between Belmont and Dracula in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night may not be acted well to begin with, for example, but the fact that half of it doesn't really make much sense (even if it's memorable) worsens the problem.
So you clearly don't NEED voice acting to get a great character, and I think I had fair reason to think voice acting wasn't a big deal when it came onto the scene. But I've since had to relent in the face of many modern RPGs, and reform my opinion. Voice acting CAN make a significant difference to a character's quality and appeal. I still stand by the idea that it isn't a factor that can make or break a character, mind--Final Fantasy 10's Yuna sounds like she was voiced by an illiterate who hadn't slept in at least 2 days, but anyone who frequents these rants will know that I think very highly of her character. Conversely, I thought that Fran in Final Fantasy 12 had quite a competent voice actress, who affected an accent that was noticeable and distinguished the character, but did not distract from or become an obstacle to her dialogue...yet that doesn't stop me from seeing Fran as yet another boring automaton lacking any strong personality trait, like most of the other characters in FF12.
But if a voice actor, no matter how good or bad, can't change whether or not someone is actually a decent character or not, they CAN, at least, enhance that character's personality and quality through their performance. Makai Kingdom's Zetta's power-driven egomania is clear from his actions and dialogue, but his voice actor really drives that personality home with loud, commanding tones and challenging, boasting bursts of laughter. Tales of the Abyss makes it clear time and time again through his dialogue just what a snarky bastard Jade Curtiss is, but his voice acting just seals the deal entirely, enhancing every dry, witty line he says. And Kreia from Knights of the Old Republic 2...man, she would be a fascinating character without a single spoken word to match her dialogue, but the actress behind Kreia reaches vocal acting perfection with the role, flawlessly enhancing fantastic lines with an emphasis on Kreia's mix of age, wisdom, cunning, and darkness.
Now, I've gone over the subject, offered up an opinion about its importance, and thrown in a few examples here and there to illustrate my thoughts. It's usually at this point in the rant that I would state how the RPG industry should improve on this matter, and why.
Thing is, I can't really do that. With regards to voice acting, RPG companies have been more or less consistently going in the right direction from the Playstation 2 generation onward. Major RPGs generally include voice acting to a significant degree nowadays, making most or even nearly all their main dialogue voice acted. The voice acting quality is generally improved, too--games are more and more often hiring experienced professionals to do their voice acting, and even those RPG voice actors who don't have a long history of voice work seem to be being encouraged to do a better job, because it's uncommon to hear a character now whose voice actor isn't at the very least competent.* And it helps a good bit that the translations for the acted dialogue are, as a rule, much better than they used to be.
Game companies continue to put an emphasis on voice acting and take it seriously, and the effort shows in the good results it yields. Western RPGs like Mass Effect 1, Fallout 3, and Dragon Age Origins all have the kind of excellent voice acting which betters the characters and story-telling that you would expect--but more and more often, Japanese RPGs with entire casts of talented voice actors are popping up and rivaling the Western RPGs' voice acting quality on their own home turf. Japanese developer Nippon Ichi gets just the right voices to portray its games' characters just as often as Western developer Bioware does, it seems, and the localization team for Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 and 4 might have made their Japanese RPG that actually takes place in Japan seem more accessible and natural in its voice acting to the average American than even Fallout 3 was.
Voice acting may not be critical, but it is important. Luckily, RPG companies, with few exceptions,** have come to recognize this, and continue a trend of improving quality--and I'm pleased to see it happening.
* Uncommon, but not unknown--Suikoden Tierkreis is a recent game that I'm playing through now, and there are several characters who just aren't voiced well, most notably the protagonist. Non-named Suikoden heroes typically have an accepted "canon" name that fans dub them with (Riou in Suikoden 2, Faroush in Suikoden 5 (what a stupid name), etc), but Suikoden Tierkreis seems to have fans split between the names "Sieg" and "MotorMouth," and I throw my lot in with the latter. I swear the actor is racing against the text being printed on the screen as he blurts out his lines, and he's winning that race by a long shot. Still, my point on the general quality of voice acting improving stands; Suikoden Tierkreis is one of the only non-SquareEnix RPGs I've played in the last 5 years or so to have noticeably bad voice acting.
** Unfortunately, one of those exceptions is a rather prominent one: SquareEnix. I'm not sure what the deal is, but SquareEnix just seems to be 2 steps behind everyone else in the field of voice acting. From the very beginning, they were behind the ball--sure, they stuck some voice acting into Xenogears, but look at the Playstation 1 installments of their iconic Final Fantasy series. Of Final Fantasies 7, 8, 9, and Tactics, not a single one had any voice acting whatsoever, not to mention the same being true of Chrono Cross and Parasite Eve 1. They finally got with the program with FF10, and put in a crapload of voice acting there, but all of it ranged from Average to Just Outright Bad. Who DIDN'T want to slap Tidus and Yuna in the face several times after listening to that godforsaken laugh scene? Then came Grandia 3--listening to Alfina in that game is like letting molten candy seep into your ears right to your brain, where it cools into crystals that tear your mind to shreds. And what about Final Fantasy 12? I can see FF10 having a bad time with voice acting when it's the first major venture into spoken lines SquareEnix took, but with the exception of Balthier and somewhat Fran, the only distinguishing characteristic to any of FF12's voice acting is the occasion obnoxious whine of Vaan. And what about the bland and lackluster vocal talents of Valkyrie Profile 2? These are recent games; it's not like they don't have examples of games with consistently excellent voice acting, like Tales of Legendia or Makai Kingdom. SquareEnix just seems shockingly backwards on this matter.***
*** Though, to be fair, they're not ALWAYS a miss--the Kingdom Hearts series's voice acting is good enough, and Star Ocean 3's was decent. But in general SquareEnix seems pretty out of it.
In the past, I resisted the idea of voice acting in RPGs. Well, not really resisted it, persay--more like I opposed the notion that it should be considered a significant factor in their quality. I thought that it was going to always be unimportant in enjoying a game for the reasons that I do find important: its plot and characters, the creativity and skill of the writing behind them. I insisted that a voice actor was unimportant to a character's portrayal and development, and that it would always solely be, as it had in the past, the character's dialog and actions that developed him, her, or it.
Now, I wasn't entirely off--the above two aspects of a character are still the greatest defining parts of that character in an RPG. And, as a plethora of RPGs from the NES, Genesis, SNES, Gameboy/Gameboy Advance, and even PS1, PS2, Game Cube, and PC prove, you can have fantastic characters without any voice acting at all.
Plus, further in my defense, the time period during which I formed this opinion on RPG voice acting was back in the days of Playstation 1 and N64. Back then, RPGs' strides into voice acting were both small (due to, I imagine, budget and space constraints, voiced parts of the game were usually restricted to a few important scenes and FMVs) and, well, just not very good. There were occasions where I liked the voices and the acting okay in the game--Lunar 2 and Grandia 1 come to mind--but "adequate" was about the highest praise you could give to that era's voice actors, and they usually didn't even warrant that much of a compliment. The situation wasn't helped by the fact that the RPG genre was still working out some last but very stubborn and noticeable vestiges of bad translation. The speech between Belmont and Dracula in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night may not be acted well to begin with, for example, but the fact that half of it doesn't really make much sense (even if it's memorable) worsens the problem.
So you clearly don't NEED voice acting to get a great character, and I think I had fair reason to think voice acting wasn't a big deal when it came onto the scene. But I've since had to relent in the face of many modern RPGs, and reform my opinion. Voice acting CAN make a significant difference to a character's quality and appeal. I still stand by the idea that it isn't a factor that can make or break a character, mind--Final Fantasy 10's Yuna sounds like she was voiced by an illiterate who hadn't slept in at least 2 days, but anyone who frequents these rants will know that I think very highly of her character. Conversely, I thought that Fran in Final Fantasy 12 had quite a competent voice actress, who affected an accent that was noticeable and distinguished the character, but did not distract from or become an obstacle to her dialogue...yet that doesn't stop me from seeing Fran as yet another boring automaton lacking any strong personality trait, like most of the other characters in FF12.
But if a voice actor, no matter how good or bad, can't change whether or not someone is actually a decent character or not, they CAN, at least, enhance that character's personality and quality through their performance. Makai Kingdom's Zetta's power-driven egomania is clear from his actions and dialogue, but his voice actor really drives that personality home with loud, commanding tones and challenging, boasting bursts of laughter. Tales of the Abyss makes it clear time and time again through his dialogue just what a snarky bastard Jade Curtiss is, but his voice acting just seals the deal entirely, enhancing every dry, witty line he says. And Kreia from Knights of the Old Republic 2...man, she would be a fascinating character without a single spoken word to match her dialogue, but the actress behind Kreia reaches vocal acting perfection with the role, flawlessly enhancing fantastic lines with an emphasis on Kreia's mix of age, wisdom, cunning, and darkness.
Now, I've gone over the subject, offered up an opinion about its importance, and thrown in a few examples here and there to illustrate my thoughts. It's usually at this point in the rant that I would state how the RPG industry should improve on this matter, and why.
Thing is, I can't really do that. With regards to voice acting, RPG companies have been more or less consistently going in the right direction from the Playstation 2 generation onward. Major RPGs generally include voice acting to a significant degree nowadays, making most or even nearly all their main dialogue voice acted. The voice acting quality is generally improved, too--games are more and more often hiring experienced professionals to do their voice acting, and even those RPG voice actors who don't have a long history of voice work seem to be being encouraged to do a better job, because it's uncommon to hear a character now whose voice actor isn't at the very least competent.* And it helps a good bit that the translations for the acted dialogue are, as a rule, much better than they used to be.
Game companies continue to put an emphasis on voice acting and take it seriously, and the effort shows in the good results it yields. Western RPGs like Mass Effect 1, Fallout 3, and Dragon Age Origins all have the kind of excellent voice acting which betters the characters and story-telling that you would expect--but more and more often, Japanese RPGs with entire casts of talented voice actors are popping up and rivaling the Western RPGs' voice acting quality on their own home turf. Japanese developer Nippon Ichi gets just the right voices to portray its games' characters just as often as Western developer Bioware does, it seems, and the localization team for Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 and 4 might have made their Japanese RPG that actually takes place in Japan seem more accessible and natural in its voice acting to the average American than even Fallout 3 was.
Voice acting may not be critical, but it is important. Luckily, RPG companies, with few exceptions,** have come to recognize this, and continue a trend of improving quality--and I'm pleased to see it happening.
* Uncommon, but not unknown--Suikoden Tierkreis is a recent game that I'm playing through now, and there are several characters who just aren't voiced well, most notably the protagonist. Non-named Suikoden heroes typically have an accepted "canon" name that fans dub them with (Riou in Suikoden 2, Faroush in Suikoden 5 (what a stupid name), etc), but Suikoden Tierkreis seems to have fans split between the names "Sieg" and "MotorMouth," and I throw my lot in with the latter. I swear the actor is racing against the text being printed on the screen as he blurts out his lines, and he's winning that race by a long shot. Still, my point on the general quality of voice acting improving stands; Suikoden Tierkreis is one of the only non-SquareEnix RPGs I've played in the last 5 years or so to have noticeably bad voice acting.
** Unfortunately, one of those exceptions is a rather prominent one: SquareEnix. I'm not sure what the deal is, but SquareEnix just seems to be 2 steps behind everyone else in the field of voice acting. From the very beginning, they were behind the ball--sure, they stuck some voice acting into Xenogears, but look at the Playstation 1 installments of their iconic Final Fantasy series. Of Final Fantasies 7, 8, 9, and Tactics, not a single one had any voice acting whatsoever, not to mention the same being true of Chrono Cross and Parasite Eve 1. They finally got with the program with FF10, and put in a crapload of voice acting there, but all of it ranged from Average to Just Outright Bad. Who DIDN'T want to slap Tidus and Yuna in the face several times after listening to that godforsaken laugh scene? Then came Grandia 3--listening to Alfina in that game is like letting molten candy seep into your ears right to your brain, where it cools into crystals that tear your mind to shreds. And what about Final Fantasy 12? I can see FF10 having a bad time with voice acting when it's the first major venture into spoken lines SquareEnix took, but with the exception of Balthier and somewhat Fran, the only distinguishing characteristic to any of FF12's voice acting is the occasion obnoxious whine of Vaan. And what about the bland and lackluster vocal talents of Valkyrie Profile 2? These are recent games; it's not like they don't have examples of games with consistently excellent voice acting, like Tales of Legendia or Makai Kingdom. SquareEnix just seems shockingly backwards on this matter.***
*** Though, to be fair, they're not ALWAYS a miss--the Kingdom Hearts series's voice acting is good enough, and Star Ocean 3's was decent. But in general SquareEnix seems pretty out of it.
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