Unnecessary Paternal Ties Syndrome, Love Hina Syndrome, Anime Girl Run Syndrome, now this...Maybe I ought to make a glossary for this blog’s special terms.
You know what I’m getting kind of sick of? Moments in RPGs when the heroes of the game just sit there and do nothing as a scene goes sour in front of them. I call it Voyeuristic Paralysis Syndrome. It strikes an entire group of heroes at once and renders them totally incapable of doing anything useful or heroic as events unfold around them even though this is exactly the kind of shit they’re supposed to stop. It could be sitting back and letting someone else do all the hero work during a disaster even though they themselves have the power to help, like that moment in Mega Man Star Force 2 when Sonia just sits back with the rest of Geo’s friends and lets him go save the town as Mega Man, even though she could transform into Harp Note (what a stupid hero name) and help him, like she had the sense to just a little while before. It could be just the heroes standing silent like morons in Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 as they watch someone deny their dark side, even though the heroes have seen several times already that this denial powers that dark side up and makes it into an annoying boss fight. All they’d have to do to avoid half the bosses in that game is to tell someone, “Please don’t say the words “You’re not me.”” By far the most memorable and iconic of Voyeuristic Paralysis Syndrome, though, are the moments in RPGs where a good guy’s getting beaten to a pulp and his friends just stand there like fucktards and watch without lifting a finger to help.
Example: Mass Effect 3. Assuming your Shepard isn’t a Renegade tool, and assuming that you’re a competent player, then there will be a point in the game wherein lame villain Kai Leng attempts to assassinate the Salarian Councilor, but is foiled by Shepard’s former comrade Thane. What ensues is a close-quarters combat between Kai Leng and Thane, in which Kai Leng is forever immortalized as the wannabe tough guy who could only barely keep up with a dude currently going through the last stages of a fatal, debilitating disease. The scene ends with Kai Leng managing to stab Thane with his laughably anachronistic sword, and running off like the weak little bitch-clown he is.
Throughout this entire scene, Commander Shepard and his allies just stand there watching. It is only after Shepard’s friend has been fatally stabbed that he thinks to step forward and shoot at Kai Leng.
This is what I’m talking about. Now, Shepard’s no ultra-assassin like Thane, nor a prancing little glee club ninja like Kai Leng, so yeah, he’s not going to be able to keep up with them at hand-to-hand combat, but it’s well-established that Shepard’s highly competent at unarmed fighting all the same, so it’s not like he’d get in Thane’s way or something. All Shepard would need to do in this scene is provide enough of an attacking threat to Kai Leng that the pretentious jackass would be distracted, forced to split his attention between Thane and Shepard, and this whole fight could easily have ended a lot differently. It’s already a close enough fight that it looks like Kai Leng wins more by luck than skill. The addition of Shepard to it would have made a significantly positive impact.
And there’s always the fact that Shepard and his companions have, y’know...guns. I’m somewhat mystified as to why Shepard doesn’t see fit to open fire on Kai Leng to help Thane out. Okay, yes, you can argue that with Thane and Kai Leng going at each other as fast and hard as they are, Shepard runs the risk of shooting Thane. Fair point. But Shepard’s not exactly unused to hitting moving targets, his companion EDI has advance combat programming that we could only assume contains a very functional targeting system, and his companion Liara has Biotic powers and could presumably use them to knock Kai Leng and Thane apart and down to the ground, at which point there’s no problem opening fire on the asshat without endangering Thane (Shepard himself may have Biotic powers, for that matter, depending on how the player chose to build him, although God forbid Bioware actually acknowledge any individualism in Shepard’s abilities during a cutscene). And lastly, there’s clearly a moment during the fight in which Thane and Kai Leng are standing reasonably distanced from one another for long enough that Shepard and company have no excuse not to start shooting.
Once again, though, instead of any of that logical stuff happening, Shepard and his pals just stand around and fucking watch as his buddy gets punked.
This problem of characters inexplicably just watching as their supposed friends get brutally murdered in front of them is not an RPG-only thing, not by a long shot (Hollywood has been particularly fond in the past 50+ years of the idea that women are incapable of assisting their rescuers in fighting for their own lives). But I have to say, the most shocking moments of it, in my mind, always come from RPGs. That’s probably due in part to the fact that in an RPG, the friends who are just standing there partaking of your punishment are usually all powerful warriors who have already proven their combat prowess in approximately 200 to 2000 random battles.
It’s probably also due in large part to that scene in Xenosaga 3 where KOS-MOS spends a good 5 minutes being thoroughly worked over by T-elos, a faster, stronger, combat-smarter android. Like, Jesus Christ, guys, it’s apparent from the start of that fight who’s gonna win it. You think maybe you guys should use those guns, or that sword, or that fucking large combat cyborg to help out somehow? I mean, they’re just standing there, minute after fucking minute, watching T-elos smash KOS-MOS into parts, and they don’t do ANYTHING. At least Shepard can lamely cling to the excuse that Thane’s fight with Kai Leng was a short one. KOS-MOS’s beatdown takes long enough that you could plan out and finish packing a basket for a reasonably decent-sized picnic before it ends.
What makes it even worse, if that’s even possible, is that later in the game the party encounters T-elos again, and THEN several party members (Shion, Jin, and Ziggy) DO try to attack her, and while she’s obviously way too much for them, they’re clearly shown to be able to distract her enough, to pose enough potential threat, that KOS-MOS could take advantage of it for her own attacks (and it could work vice-versa, too; KOS-MOS obviously has the capacity to fully engage T-elos’s attentions, which would leave the others free to capitalize on that. T-elos may prevent Ziggy from scoring a hit in the fight we do see, but if he had the opportunity to land one, one can assume it would be damaging). Where was this unified attack earlier in the game, when KOS-MOS was still underclassed and really needed the assistance? That sequence is so fucking ridiculous that I really think it’s why I now associate Voyeuristic Paralysis more with RPGs than any other media form.
Now I understand the storytelling imperative of this phenomenon. For purposes of the plot, the writers feel that it’s important for a character to be locked in a one-on-one struggle against an enemy, and for the result of that struggle to be uninfluenced by the other characters. The writers at Bioware wanted Thane to go out like a champ and they wanted to establish Kai Leng as a dangerous badass.* The writers (if such they can be called) for Xenosaga 3 wanted to establish T-elos’s supposed dominance over KOS-MOS and to remove KOS-MOS from the picture for a while, as well as create a transition into the lengthy part of the game where the party is stumbling around back in time inside Shion’s head.** And so on and so forth--each game’s writers who allow their characters to be overcome with Voyeuristic Paralysis are doing so because there’s something they want to accomplish with the scene that they feel is necessary for the game’s plot, and they feel that it can only be done by having a single particular character step up to the challenge. I understand the reasoning. But that just doesn’t excuse the fact that it makes no sense for a group of normally proactive heroes to just stand around and watch a situation play out. Some allowance can be made during occasions where the characters facing off have some personal rivalry, of course, but that’s only sometimes the case.
The thing that makes this whole issue really silly is the incredible ease with which it can be solved, which a huge number of RPGs are smart enough to utilize. It’s really, really simple. If you want your one character to fight, probably to the death, alone against an enemy, just make sure that character’s friends can’t help. Why does Galuf’s death in Final Fantasy 5 not seem as silly as Thane’s in Mass Effect 3? Simple--because Galuf’s allies are all down for the count, unable to contribute to his fatal battle to protect them. Why do I find KOS-MOS’s gratuitous beatdown in Xenosaga 3 so stupid, yet have no serious complaint about General Leo’s fatal, futile struggle against Kefka in Final Fantasy 6? Because when Leo’s getting stabbed, his numerous allies have all been knocked unconscious and/or killed already.*** All it would have taken for the Xenosaga gang to have a reason not to be helping KOS-MOS was some mild nerve gas, all it would have taken for Shepard’s non-involvement to make sense was a flash grenade, and it only gets easier for the many magic-involving RPGs out there, since you can just whip up some random paralysis spell/power whenever it’s convenient.
Is that incredibly cheap? Absolutely. But is it better than the nonsensical notion of having your cast break character and do absolutely nothing? Definitely. I’ll take conventional and cheap writing over illogical and stupid writing any day.
* That they only achieved half of these ambitions is irrelevant.
** That this is weird and makes no sense is irrelevant. Also, expected.
*** Although I do have to say that the actual act of them being taken down earlier was dumb, and sort of a case of Voyeuristic Paralysis itself, as they all just kinda watched themselves get blasted by the Magitek Armors. But, at the time of Leo’s last stand, there’s no one to help him.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Monday, March 18, 2013
Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood
Thanks a bunch to my friend Jolt, who handily kept and sent the conversation I had with him that became this rant, and to my friend Racewing, who, for reasons utterly unfathomable to me, is a Sonic the Hedgehog fan, and allowed me to double-check some of my perspectives against his knowledge. Kudos, sirs.
Hey, guys. Remember when I had good things to say about Bioware games? I miss those days.
Alright, so. It started kinda slow with Super Mario RPG for the SNES, but there’s been an increase over the last five years or so of RPGs being made about video game characters or series who are associated with other game genres. Mario keeps churning them out, Mega Man got in on it lately with the Mega Man Star Force series (if, that is, you really want to call that whiny pile of sad who stars in the game “Mega Man”), and apparently, someone at Bioware thought it’d be a neat idea to get Sonic the Hedgehog into the genre. I could have quite happily gone my entire life without Sonic invading my adopted genre, but this was back in 2008, when Bioware was still known for good quality and treating their work with some respect, so you’d think it’d be pretty okay, right?
I’m sure France had every reason to think the Maginot Line was impregnable, too.
So what’s wrong with Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood? Well, I could just say “everything,” and call it a day, but we all know I love hearing the sound of my own voice too much for that.* So let’s delve into detail, as is my wont.
We’ll start off with the light stuff: battle mechanics. Now, you know gameplay isn’t my concern, but for those that consider it important, SCTDB has some major issues, at least for me. I can’t speak for others--apparently several reviewers found the game very simple and easy, so maybe I just suck. But for me, the frustration level was high because the effectiveness of battle powers and characters was imbalanced quite often--and that’s when I could actually get those characters and powers to work right, since the game employs a somewhat poorly-executed timed-hit system. Like, there would be many times when some characters would be so unable to keep up that it reminded me of how badly skewed Sailor Moon: Another Story was, except that with the Sailor Moon RPG, once you hit a certain level, you’d go from just barely grazing a boss to utterly obliterating them with ease--there was no middle ground, but you could at least taste both extremes. With this Sonic game, some characters just never seem to be able to get out of extreme ineffectualness.
Additionally, I have no damn clue what anyone would do in the game if they didn’t recruit Cream, the secret character. Again, could just be me sucking, so take this with a grain of salt, but her healing powers only barely managed to sustain the party most of the time, and no one else in the game seems to have anything to speak of when it comes to healing. I think Tails has like one underpowered single-target healing skill, and that’s it. I think that it’s a mistake to make any one character in your cast indispensable, and if you’re gonna make that mistake, that character should NOT be the one whose recruitment can be missed!
One other thing about the gameplay factor is that the game didn’t seem to control all that well. I mean, it wasn’t unplayable or anything even close to that, but all the same it felt quite unpolished, even clunky. It’s not a big thing, obviously, but it’s still not a point in the game’s favor (particularly, I would think, from the perspective of an actual Sonic fan, since the rest of the Sonic series is pretty gameplay-dependant, to the best of my knowledge).
But anyway, enough about the unimportant gameplay bunk. Let’s talk about what matters: the characters and story. First of all, if you are not already a fairly knowledgeable fan of the Sonic the Hedgehog series, you are going to get left behind, and often. Now, I know the game is meant for Sonic fans, meant for the people who WILL know all these characters and be familiar with past events vaguely referenced and pre-established plot devices. But I still think it’s reasonable to say this is a strike against this game, because when you have a major shift in genre for your product, it means your audience changes, too. Sure, many of the fans of the Sonic series will and no doubt did follow this genre-switch from action platformers and the like to an RPG, but the change introduces an entire new potential demographic to win over, too--players who regularly and partially, or even entirely exclusively, play RPGs, for whom this game will be a first experience with Sonic’s franchise. The Knights of the Old Republic games required little knowledge of the Star Wars movies to understand and enjoy, for example. A good genre-changer should also be an adequate introduction to the series, and not just seem to assume that everyone is going to have a familiarity with a series that’s been adding to itself for almost 20 years now. Mind you, it’s a minor flaw in the long run, but still worth mentioning, I think. I’m fortunate enough to have picked up some minor familiarity with the basic characters of the Sonic universe, so I was familiar enough with Sonic, Tails, Amy, Rouge, Cream, Eggman, and Shadow that the lack of proper background given to them didn’t trip me up, although I had no idea who Big the Cat or Omega, that random red robot thing, were. But overall, I at least was not left completely clueless about what was going on, as could easily have been the case.
Whether you're a knowledgeable fan or a newbie, however, there's no denying that the characters involved in the game should have some reasonable character development of some sort, correct?
That did not happen.
Sonic remains Sonic the entire time, mostly (he's kinda watered down a bit, I think). The most character development you could say they give him is that you can, if you play your cards right, have him take part in one extremely brief, wholly uninteresting scene of romantic implications with Amy. Now frankly, if I were to pretend for one second that I care half as much about Sonic’s love life as I do about the fart I just released a minute ago, I'd probably be dissatisfied with this scene, since it's not romantically fulfilling at all, and it comes from more or less goddamn nowhere. Maybe there are implications that Sonic has an interest in her in previous games and other series installments (though from what little I’ve been told, there aren't really), but in this one, there's really no indication whatsoever that he returns her feelings in the game until this scene, and even the stuff you need to opt to have had him say to her in order during the game to access this scene is generally pretty platonically positive--it’s really not so much him being shown to like her as him just not being outright hurtful to her. So his 0 character development remains a 0 regardless.
Rouge seems to still be a licentious howler out for her own personal gain and little to nothing else, which stands out not only as a case of her being incredibly under-developed, but also a little unbelievable. I mean, from what little I know of the Sonic series backstory, she has been involved with so much ridiculously convoluted hero shit on every side of the equation that it seems insane to me that she would not at SOME point have developed SOME sort of motivation beyond "sneakily flirt my way into money." But whatever, I guess.
Amy has no intellectual or emotional existence beyond her infatuation with Sonic, a personality type that always annoys me--I hate it when writers decide some female character's ONLY distinguishing point of character focus has to be obsessive romantic interest.** I realize that this has probably been the case for the character of Amy prior to this game, but that doesn’t mean Bioware couldn’t have added to the character, so it’s not excused. This one-dimensional personality type keeps Amy from having any actual character, it RUINED Prier from La Pucelle Tactics, and it made Martha the most boring Companion to date in the present Doctor Who. God forbid a female should have more than one single solitary thought in her head, and God equally forbid that thought be something other than unhealthy emotional dependence on some guy.
As for the rest of the cast...the random red robot has no character development to speak of. Big certainly doesn’t. Knuckles only has any characterization if you count his occasionally giving some slight context to the echidna legends and history and so on, but if I didn’t count Fran’s encyclopedic knowledge in Final Fantasy 12 of all things magical that she displayed whenever it was convenient to the plot and the writers’ subpar abilities to perform their job as characterization, I’m sure shootin’ not gonna do it for Knuckles. The new character, Shade, has a backstory, but it's quite boring and about as cliche as could be imagined, your standard “Proud Warrior of a Tribe that was Abused a Bajillion Years Ago Who Has a Grudge But Eventually Realizes Her Obviously Evil and Obviously Manipulative Boss is Actually Evil, and Manipulating Her” package that you’ve seen dozens of better incarnations of previously. Cream’s practically a non-entity. Shadow is the same boring, shallow brooder that made him such a hit with vapid, sexually-frustrated furry fangirls in the first place, and since he is basically completely superfluous to the plot, I’m gonna have to assume that his presence in this game is solely to boost sales with that demographic.
I will say that Eggman and Tails have character development, sort of. Eggman is acting reformed and exploring how one can act like a mad scientist while working for the good guys. This is pretty much the highlight of the game, depressingly, even though it’s fairly obvious that it’s all a ruse. But aside from how obviously false it is, it’s done pretty well, I guess. Tails's character development is that he enjoys finally having a friend and equal in Eggman, since they're both the brainy ones of the team. This is actually a pretty decent idea, and given the folks that Tails is running around with, it’s not exactly far-fetched that he might feel intellectually lonely. I can appreciate this characterization.
Or rather, I could, if it were not pretty obvious that Eggman is putting on a charade...and if it were not 100% PURE FANTASY RIDICULOUSNESS that any of them, Tails especially given he's been with Sonic the longest, would actually even remotely buy Eggman's reformation, even if Eggman were putting on a performance so great as to make Kevin Spacy jealous. The guy has been trying to murder you all for over 2 decades, Tails, in games and comics and cartoons and anime and I don’t even know what else. GET A CLUE.
Anyways, that's the cast. It's not good. It's underdeveloped, half of the characters are frankly a bit dislikable (Shadow, Knuckles, Rouge, the random robot, Sonic himself), and the one redeeming area of the cast is built off the assumption that after 20 years of unrepentant evil and plans that relied on deceiving his foes, no one has figured out that maybe the main villain does not really mean it when he says he's good now.
The main villain of the series in general, I mean. The main villain of this actual game is just cliched as hell. Which is another sizeable problem right there.
So the cast is a dud, but what about the plot? A well-written story can be more than enough to carry a game to success, after all. Unfortunately, that is not the case here. The writing doesn’t seem to be terribly cohesive, first of all, although I’m willing to accept that my occasional difficulty in keeping track of the magical pseudo-science bullshit here and there could have been my lack of intimate knowledge of the Sonic series. But when things were straightened out in my mind, all this game ever seemed to amount to was generic "formerly cast out peoples of the distant past come back for vengeance for the hell of it" crap, complete with the obligatory "thought she was totally into this vengeance thing but now has doubts for vague reasons so she joins our side" character. There’s nothing new here, and certainly nothing interesting. Despite being so maddeningly predictable that it almost physically harmed me, as well as embarrassingly obviously rushed, Eggman's sequel-bait betrayal at the game's end was literally the only part of the entire game's plot that stood out at all--and I’m honestly not even sure why it does!
So yeah. In the end, anyone who’s not a Sonic fan has no reason to play Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood. The majority of the poorly-introduced cast is one-dimensional, what character development is there is either an extremely overused cliche or doesn’t make much sense and doesn’t last anyway, and the villain’s generic and boring. The gameplay isn’t done well, and the music is kinda crappy (didn’t really have a chance to mention that above, but there you go). And finally, the plot is a bit messy yet irritatingly simplistic, and completely unrewarding.
And you know what? I think that anyone who IS a Sonic fan also has no reason to play it. The characters that fans like seem clumsily handled by writers determined not to explore them at all, and whether or not you happen to like the universe in which it takes place, a cheap, bland story is still a cheap, bland story. Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood is a shoddy, careless product, and if I had to take a guess, I’d say Bioware developed it with SquareEnix-esque intentions, by which I mean, made in the hopes that Sonic fans have all the consumer discretion of a 4-year-old seeing Dora the Explorer's face pasted poorly onto a cheap Walmart backpack so shoddily made that even the 10-year-old kid in China was embarrassed as he stitched it.***
The really amusing thing to me is that according to Wikipedia, the developers at Bioware were big enthusiasts of the Sonic the Hedgehog universe. This slop is what FANS of the series came up with! Apparently, Sega would’ve done better to hand the project over to someone like me, someone who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the Sonic series, because even I could have and would have put more effort into making this a decent title than Bioware did.
* Okay, yes, typed text isn’t really the sound of my own voice technically, but how do you know I don’t read these things aloud to myself?
** An obsessive romantic interest that usually makes no sense, for that matter. Most of the time these characters are chasing after people who obviously have 0 interest in them (and even actively seek to avoid them), and/or are mean to them or just mean in general.
*** Of course, this game, and the Shadow the Hedgehog game, for that matter, were both commercial successes from what I gather, so apparently this kind of insulting assumption of a fanbase’s tasteless idiocy is, as with SquareEnix, a profitable one.
Hey, guys. Remember when I had good things to say about Bioware games? I miss those days.
Alright, so. It started kinda slow with Super Mario RPG for the SNES, but there’s been an increase over the last five years or so of RPGs being made about video game characters or series who are associated with other game genres. Mario keeps churning them out, Mega Man got in on it lately with the Mega Man Star Force series (if, that is, you really want to call that whiny pile of sad who stars in the game “Mega Man”), and apparently, someone at Bioware thought it’d be a neat idea to get Sonic the Hedgehog into the genre. I could have quite happily gone my entire life without Sonic invading my adopted genre, but this was back in 2008, when Bioware was still known for good quality and treating their work with some respect, so you’d think it’d be pretty okay, right?
I’m sure France had every reason to think the Maginot Line was impregnable, too.
So what’s wrong with Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood? Well, I could just say “everything,” and call it a day, but we all know I love hearing the sound of my own voice too much for that.* So let’s delve into detail, as is my wont.
We’ll start off with the light stuff: battle mechanics. Now, you know gameplay isn’t my concern, but for those that consider it important, SCTDB has some major issues, at least for me. I can’t speak for others--apparently several reviewers found the game very simple and easy, so maybe I just suck. But for me, the frustration level was high because the effectiveness of battle powers and characters was imbalanced quite often--and that’s when I could actually get those characters and powers to work right, since the game employs a somewhat poorly-executed timed-hit system. Like, there would be many times when some characters would be so unable to keep up that it reminded me of how badly skewed Sailor Moon: Another Story was, except that with the Sailor Moon RPG, once you hit a certain level, you’d go from just barely grazing a boss to utterly obliterating them with ease--there was no middle ground, but you could at least taste both extremes. With this Sonic game, some characters just never seem to be able to get out of extreme ineffectualness.
Additionally, I have no damn clue what anyone would do in the game if they didn’t recruit Cream, the secret character. Again, could just be me sucking, so take this with a grain of salt, but her healing powers only barely managed to sustain the party most of the time, and no one else in the game seems to have anything to speak of when it comes to healing. I think Tails has like one underpowered single-target healing skill, and that’s it. I think that it’s a mistake to make any one character in your cast indispensable, and if you’re gonna make that mistake, that character should NOT be the one whose recruitment can be missed!
One other thing about the gameplay factor is that the game didn’t seem to control all that well. I mean, it wasn’t unplayable or anything even close to that, but all the same it felt quite unpolished, even clunky. It’s not a big thing, obviously, but it’s still not a point in the game’s favor (particularly, I would think, from the perspective of an actual Sonic fan, since the rest of the Sonic series is pretty gameplay-dependant, to the best of my knowledge).
But anyway, enough about the unimportant gameplay bunk. Let’s talk about what matters: the characters and story. First of all, if you are not already a fairly knowledgeable fan of the Sonic the Hedgehog series, you are going to get left behind, and often. Now, I know the game is meant for Sonic fans, meant for the people who WILL know all these characters and be familiar with past events vaguely referenced and pre-established plot devices. But I still think it’s reasonable to say this is a strike against this game, because when you have a major shift in genre for your product, it means your audience changes, too. Sure, many of the fans of the Sonic series will and no doubt did follow this genre-switch from action platformers and the like to an RPG, but the change introduces an entire new potential demographic to win over, too--players who regularly and partially, or even entirely exclusively, play RPGs, for whom this game will be a first experience with Sonic’s franchise. The Knights of the Old Republic games required little knowledge of the Star Wars movies to understand and enjoy, for example. A good genre-changer should also be an adequate introduction to the series, and not just seem to assume that everyone is going to have a familiarity with a series that’s been adding to itself for almost 20 years now. Mind you, it’s a minor flaw in the long run, but still worth mentioning, I think. I’m fortunate enough to have picked up some minor familiarity with the basic characters of the Sonic universe, so I was familiar enough with Sonic, Tails, Amy, Rouge, Cream, Eggman, and Shadow that the lack of proper background given to them didn’t trip me up, although I had no idea who Big the Cat or Omega, that random red robot thing, were. But overall, I at least was not left completely clueless about what was going on, as could easily have been the case.
Whether you're a knowledgeable fan or a newbie, however, there's no denying that the characters involved in the game should have some reasonable character development of some sort, correct?
That did not happen.
Sonic remains Sonic the entire time, mostly (he's kinda watered down a bit, I think). The most character development you could say they give him is that you can, if you play your cards right, have him take part in one extremely brief, wholly uninteresting scene of romantic implications with Amy. Now frankly, if I were to pretend for one second that I care half as much about Sonic’s love life as I do about the fart I just released a minute ago, I'd probably be dissatisfied with this scene, since it's not romantically fulfilling at all, and it comes from more or less goddamn nowhere. Maybe there are implications that Sonic has an interest in her in previous games and other series installments (though from what little I’ve been told, there aren't really), but in this one, there's really no indication whatsoever that he returns her feelings in the game until this scene, and even the stuff you need to opt to have had him say to her in order during the game to access this scene is generally pretty platonically positive--it’s really not so much him being shown to like her as him just not being outright hurtful to her. So his 0 character development remains a 0 regardless.
Rouge seems to still be a licentious howler out for her own personal gain and little to nothing else, which stands out not only as a case of her being incredibly under-developed, but also a little unbelievable. I mean, from what little I know of the Sonic series backstory, she has been involved with so much ridiculously convoluted hero shit on every side of the equation that it seems insane to me that she would not at SOME point have developed SOME sort of motivation beyond "sneakily flirt my way into money." But whatever, I guess.
Amy has no intellectual or emotional existence beyond her infatuation with Sonic, a personality type that always annoys me--I hate it when writers decide some female character's ONLY distinguishing point of character focus has to be obsessive romantic interest.** I realize that this has probably been the case for the character of Amy prior to this game, but that doesn’t mean Bioware couldn’t have added to the character, so it’s not excused. This one-dimensional personality type keeps Amy from having any actual character, it RUINED Prier from La Pucelle Tactics, and it made Martha the most boring Companion to date in the present Doctor Who. God forbid a female should have more than one single solitary thought in her head, and God equally forbid that thought be something other than unhealthy emotional dependence on some guy.
As for the rest of the cast...the random red robot has no character development to speak of. Big certainly doesn’t. Knuckles only has any characterization if you count his occasionally giving some slight context to the echidna legends and history and so on, but if I didn’t count Fran’s encyclopedic knowledge in Final Fantasy 12 of all things magical that she displayed whenever it was convenient to the plot and the writers’ subpar abilities to perform their job as characterization, I’m sure shootin’ not gonna do it for Knuckles. The new character, Shade, has a backstory, but it's quite boring and about as cliche as could be imagined, your standard “Proud Warrior of a Tribe that was Abused a Bajillion Years Ago Who Has a Grudge But Eventually Realizes Her Obviously Evil and Obviously Manipulative Boss is Actually Evil, and Manipulating Her” package that you’ve seen dozens of better incarnations of previously. Cream’s practically a non-entity. Shadow is the same boring, shallow brooder that made him such a hit with vapid, sexually-frustrated furry fangirls in the first place, and since he is basically completely superfluous to the plot, I’m gonna have to assume that his presence in this game is solely to boost sales with that demographic.
I will say that Eggman and Tails have character development, sort of. Eggman is acting reformed and exploring how one can act like a mad scientist while working for the good guys. This is pretty much the highlight of the game, depressingly, even though it’s fairly obvious that it’s all a ruse. But aside from how obviously false it is, it’s done pretty well, I guess. Tails's character development is that he enjoys finally having a friend and equal in Eggman, since they're both the brainy ones of the team. This is actually a pretty decent idea, and given the folks that Tails is running around with, it’s not exactly far-fetched that he might feel intellectually lonely. I can appreciate this characterization.
Or rather, I could, if it were not pretty obvious that Eggman is putting on a charade...and if it were not 100% PURE FANTASY RIDICULOUSNESS that any of them, Tails especially given he's been with Sonic the longest, would actually even remotely buy Eggman's reformation, even if Eggman were putting on a performance so great as to make Kevin Spacy jealous. The guy has been trying to murder you all for over 2 decades, Tails, in games and comics and cartoons and anime and I don’t even know what else. GET A CLUE.
Anyways, that's the cast. It's not good. It's underdeveloped, half of the characters are frankly a bit dislikable (Shadow, Knuckles, Rouge, the random robot, Sonic himself), and the one redeeming area of the cast is built off the assumption that after 20 years of unrepentant evil and plans that relied on deceiving his foes, no one has figured out that maybe the main villain does not really mean it when he says he's good now.
The main villain of the series in general, I mean. The main villain of this actual game is just cliched as hell. Which is another sizeable problem right there.
So the cast is a dud, but what about the plot? A well-written story can be more than enough to carry a game to success, after all. Unfortunately, that is not the case here. The writing doesn’t seem to be terribly cohesive, first of all, although I’m willing to accept that my occasional difficulty in keeping track of the magical pseudo-science bullshit here and there could have been my lack of intimate knowledge of the Sonic series. But when things were straightened out in my mind, all this game ever seemed to amount to was generic "formerly cast out peoples of the distant past come back for vengeance for the hell of it" crap, complete with the obligatory "thought she was totally into this vengeance thing but now has doubts for vague reasons so she joins our side" character. There’s nothing new here, and certainly nothing interesting. Despite being so maddeningly predictable that it almost physically harmed me, as well as embarrassingly obviously rushed, Eggman's sequel-bait betrayal at the game's end was literally the only part of the entire game's plot that stood out at all--and I’m honestly not even sure why it does!
So yeah. In the end, anyone who’s not a Sonic fan has no reason to play Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood. The majority of the poorly-introduced cast is one-dimensional, what character development is there is either an extremely overused cliche or doesn’t make much sense and doesn’t last anyway, and the villain’s generic and boring. The gameplay isn’t done well, and the music is kinda crappy (didn’t really have a chance to mention that above, but there you go). And finally, the plot is a bit messy yet irritatingly simplistic, and completely unrewarding.
And you know what? I think that anyone who IS a Sonic fan also has no reason to play it. The characters that fans like seem clumsily handled by writers determined not to explore them at all, and whether or not you happen to like the universe in which it takes place, a cheap, bland story is still a cheap, bland story. Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood is a shoddy, careless product, and if I had to take a guess, I’d say Bioware developed it with SquareEnix-esque intentions, by which I mean, made in the hopes that Sonic fans have all the consumer discretion of a 4-year-old seeing Dora the Explorer's face pasted poorly onto a cheap Walmart backpack so shoddily made that even the 10-year-old kid in China was embarrassed as he stitched it.***
The really amusing thing to me is that according to Wikipedia, the developers at Bioware were big enthusiasts of the Sonic the Hedgehog universe. This slop is what FANS of the series came up with! Apparently, Sega would’ve done better to hand the project over to someone like me, someone who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the Sonic series, because even I could have and would have put more effort into making this a decent title than Bioware did.
* Okay, yes, typed text isn’t really the sound of my own voice technically, but how do you know I don’t read these things aloud to myself?
** An obsessive romantic interest that usually makes no sense, for that matter. Most of the time these characters are chasing after people who obviously have 0 interest in them (and even actively seek to avoid them), and/or are mean to them or just mean in general.
*** Of course, this game, and the Shadow the Hedgehog game, for that matter, were both commercial successes from what I gather, so apparently this kind of insulting assumption of a fanbase’s tasteless idiocy is, as with SquareEnix, a profitable one.
Friday, March 8, 2013
Mass Effect 3's Downloadable Content
This is the final version of this rant, which now reflects all 4 of the ME3 DLC packages.
Well, it’s finally time for a look at the add-ons for Mass Effect 3. Historically, Bioware’s done much, much better with its extra content for Mass Effect than it has for Dragon Age, but who knows if that’s going to hold up? Historically, Mass Effect games had great endings, but just look at the horrible mess that ME3 concludes with. And on that note, because I’m still pissed that there is no morally acceptable and satisfying ending to this game, I won’t be purchasing any of the DLCs below (besides From Ashes; that one came with the edition of the game I got), not until one of them provides an appropriate ending. My knowledge of the packages below shall come from Youtube. Why review them at all, you might ask, assuming your mind magically thinks up the exact same questions that mine does? Well, because I don’t assume that everyone ELSE is going to do the boycott-ME3-content-until-Bioware-fixes-its-mistakes thing, so this might still potentially have some meaning to someone else on which add-ons to purchase.
From Ashes: From Ashes adds a mission to Mass Effect 3 that contains a few opportunities to add a few resources to Shepard’s private army, and also adds a new character, Javik the Prothean, to the party. Although this one loses points for being a Day 1 DLC, Javik’s a decent addition to the cast. By himself, he’s only a so-so character, with character development that’s decent but never more than that, and the history and lore he shares of the long-lost Prothean culture is, surprisingly and unhappily, not actually all that interesting. However, he adds a lot to some of the game’s events, particularly during the mission to Thessia, and he’s a useful tool for some much-needed character development for Liara. He’s also fully integrated into the game--he’s no half-assed addition; he has as many dialogue interjections and personal scenes as any other party member. Of course, that’s not as impressive as it could be, given that he was released at the same time as the game, so they had the entire time of the game’s development to make sure he was integrated properly. Still, this DLC package is overall good.
Leviathan: This one’s just not very good. The plot somehow seems both too hurried, and yet meandering at the same time. Too hurried, as the search for Leviathan boils down to a few relatively short missions that desperately try to cram in a sense of meaning and emotional attachment to the introduced supporting character, Ann Bryson, and also tries to pack in an entire new perspective on ancient galactic history to boot. Meandering, as a large part of it is just following leads and learning little of actual value about Leviathan--all the actually important lore comes in at the end, when Shepard finally tracks down and meets Leviathan. Everything up until that point is just...humdrum. Not bad, I guess, but closer to bad than good. And the actual meeting with Leviathan is pretty lackluster, too. It lacks narrative power in its presentation, and all it really does is give a very tiny bit of supporting information to the poorly-conceived claptrap that the Catalyst spouts at the end of the game. I suppose it’s good that Bioware actually bothered to put something in the game that connects in some way to its awful conclusion, given that until this DLC everything about the ending was completely out of left field, but that’s about the best thing I can say about this. This DLC also adds a couple lines of dialogue to the ending, but nothing even remotely important. Finally, some of this DLC just doesn’t even make sense--like how ridiculous it is that Leviathan’s race would see the problem of the supposed lower races being betrayed and destroyed by the synthetic life that said lower races created and then...create a super-ultra synthetic life to fix the problem. Oh yeah, clearly THESE guys are the higher species.
“DURR, hay thar Godlike Bob, Ah dun heared that those self-aware machine-doohickeys that theym thar little folkses made have done gone plumb loco on their creators! Y’reckon we should aim ter fix that sitch-ee-aye-shun?”
“HURR, THAT SOUND GOOD THINKING, GODLIKE FRED. ME WILL CREATE GODLIKE SELF-AWARE MACHINE TO FIX PROBLEM OF MAKING SELF-AWARE MACHINES. ME AM SMART LEVIATHAN!”
Overall, the Leviathan add-on is, if considered very charitably, dead weight. It’s emotionally and intellectually lacking, it provides background to the ending’s foolishness without making it seem more valid at all, parts of it just don’t make any damn sense (so Leviathan says they controlled the lesser species but...couldn’t stop them from building those dangerous AIs. Does Leviathan understand what “control” means?), it ultimately makes no difference, and honestly, adding the angle of living Leviathans hiding and probably, given their god complexes, biding their time, adds a rather unwelcome new entity to a series that’s starting to feel crowded from all the ancient secrets of galaxy-shaking importance being stuffed into it. Even the tiny little satisfaction that I theorize a person could feel from ME3’s ending at having, at the very least, ended the Reaper threat is now stolen away by the knowledge that there’s already an entire other potential super-huge, super-powerful enemy out there. Definitely pass on this one; it’s not worth the time to play through it, and it sure as hell is not worth your money.
Omega: It seems at first like this DLC should be fairly decent. I mean, it’s an action-packed side story, which involves Aria, an NPC from ME2 whose presence in ME3 was not as strong as it should have been, introduces Nyreen, a new character who catches your attention (what with being the first female Turian we’ve seen in the series), and isn’t designed to try in vain to justify the horrible ending. But ultimately, the damn thing just falls flat on its face. First of all, the whole thing feels like it serves no real point whatsoever--the only lasting effect from it on the rest of the game are some War Assets, which ultimately change absolutely nothing, a few new gameplay tweaks (weapon mods, bonus powers, some extra money, etc) which of course are meaningless when just about everyone has by now beaten the game at least once and the game has more or less nothing to surprise them with in battle, a chess board in Shepard’s room that you can’t actually interact with at all, and your bank account suddenly being $15 smaller. Apparently it’s too much to hope that Bioware will see fit to use another DLC to make a minimally acceptable ending possible, but even for a self-contained add-on, those are some pretty paltry rewards, so if this is going to be worth the time and money, it’s going to have to be worth it within its own self-contained events.
The problem is that it’s not. The plot of it is just straightforward action garbage; there’s nothing to learn or think about that comes from it, no layer of meaning attached to it, no intellectual motivation whatsoever. You’ll find more of that in a James Bond movie than in the Omega DLC, and Bond films are usually the thing I point out as prime examples of mindless action fluff with no substance! Shepard goes to Omega, Shepard fights bad guys in Omega, Shepard finds out about a bad guy plan to breed super monster soldier things but has very little reaction to it, Shepard happens to stop this plan when he beats the bad guys, the bad guys are gone. The end. There’s nothing remotely unexpected, nor is there anything to add depth to this cookie-cutter “plot.”
And what about the character development? Disappointing is the most generous term I can think of for it. Aria’s character, who is vocally acted in a surprisingly subpar fashion, stays for all appearances completely static for the entire length of the DLC, except maybe at the end, when Shepard’s influence might cause her to be a little less of an evil bitch. I’d say this, at least, shows character development, but I can’t, because it really didn’t actually develop--up until that moment, Aria’s basically rebuffed every suggestion anyone’s made about maybe being less of a bad person, and she hasn’t been shown to have any interest beyond irritation for Shepard’s heroic ways, so this idea that he influenced her in some way comes out of nowhere. It’s not subtle, it’s just not there. Shepard certainly isn’t developed at all; he has so little to say or do in relation to the plot that it’s almost like he’s trying out the Silent Protagonist thing for kicks. The villain, Petrovsky, has very little in the way of introduction (I think Bioware wants to pretend that every single player has read their comics, from which Petrovsky originates), less in the way of personality, and less still than that in the way of development. And lastly, there’s Nyreen, the female Turian whose character is just as static as Aria’s (though thankfully far less proud, selfish, and proud of being selfish), and doesn’t change from the first time it’s properly shown until her completely arbitrary, unnecessary death, a death that shows just how sloppy and careless the Bioware writers are with their work. I suppose she works as a foil for Aria, but they’re so blatantly, clumsily opposites that the contrast just winds up making Bioware look like they’re trying way too hard. Plus, it makes the vague, half-assed explanation for why Nyreen and Aria were previously lovers questionable at best. And once she dies, she’s just GONE. Like, she dies, Aria gets really angry for just long enough to get caught in a trap,* and...that’s the end of any thoughts of Nyreen. The last battle ensues, Aria and Shepard fool around with Petrovsky, Aria makes a trite little speech, Shepard gets the useless chessboard in his cabin, and that’s that. No mention of Nyreen’s loss that I could see, no moment of Shepard or Aria mourning or even recollecting her, nothing. Bioware seemed to give more of a shit for the stupid scientist who died like 30 seconds into the Leviathan DLC than for Nyreen.
Anyway. So what’re we left with? Well, a large price tag. At 15 bucks, Omega costs more than the Leviathan DLC did, and, for that matter, more than any single DLC I can remember having encountered for an RPG so far. And you know what? It’s incredibly short! You can easily finish the whole thing in 4 hours, and that even accounts for thorough searching and battles that aren’t immediately won from being overpowered. I imagine most players will finish it in significantly less time. $15 for less than 5 hours of gameplay? Even considering a weak US dollar, that’s ridiculous! I mean, if this DLC had a worthwhile story to tell, that’d be one thing, but as I noted above, it does not. Bioware’s not just charging more (and its price choices were already sketchy to start with), it’s providing less at the same time!
I’ll admit that Omega’s got an edge over Leviathan for not trying to violently shove support for the game’s shitty ending in my face, but in the end, this DLC gets a major thumbs-down from me. Spend your 15 smackers on something worthwhile instead--games at GOG.com, a decent meal, My Little Pony dolls, an environmental charity, new socks, anything but Omega.
Citadel: Well...it’s hard to really know what to say here. The final ME3 DLC is...odd. It’s sort of separated into a miniature adventure, like you’d expect from a DLC, and then a bunch of small, just-for-fun stuff afterwards. So let’s look at it in parts.
First of all, the adventure itself is...well...I like it, but I’m not sure I should. The premise is weak, weaker even than ME3’s main premise involving the Crucible. The two villains...well, one’s an incredibly predictable double-cross, and the other is...eh, I’ll just spoil it for you. It’s Shepard’s unheard-of-until-this-second clone. It’s like someone at Bioware saw the awful, nonsensical, stinks-like-rotten-fish plot twist in Pluto Nash and thought it would be a good idea to steal it. The clone’s end is the tired old “rather fall to my death than grab your hand” affair, the other villain’s end is cheap and seems to depend very strongly on the player having formed some emotional attachment to her over the, what, 2 hours’ time that the player has known her? Additionally, the adventure part of the DLC is about as absurdly short as the Omega add-on was, for the same bloated, completely unreasonable price of $15.
Still...still, it’s good for what it is. Even if the clone thing is just outright stupid, it has just enough drive to get a slightly heartwarming message across about how much of what Shepard is was formed by his companions and friends. Even if the adventure feels rushed and contrived, the large amount of interaction between all the members of the party is really enjoyable, and it really cements their personality as a team. There’s a lot of humor, and it’s almost all good, while never seeming inappropriate to the situation. There’s some real good character and universe history and development you can experience through Anderson’s logs and the Citadel archive, which of course I really liked. It doesn’t have the ultra-important, epic mission feel that’s typical of the game’s missions, but that’s not actually all that bad a thing sometimes.
After the adventure’s done, there’s still a lot to do in the DLC: meeting up with party members, both past and present, to hang out (except for Legion, Mordin, and Thane, of course, but there are some nice bits for Mordin and Thane, too), stupid minigames, a pointless arena, NPCs to hear talk, and finally a party to which you can invite pretty much the whole crew. This post-mission content kind of ranges all over the place in terms of quality. Some scenes are just horribly stupid, like Zaeed’s and Javik’s, some are mostly boring and/or pointless, like Ashley’s and Garrus’s (if he’s not Shepard’s love interest), some are pretty decent, like Liara’s (if she’s not Shepard’s love interest) and EDI’s, and Thane’s (whether or not he was Shepard’s love interest) is really great. I have to give Bioware props on one account, though--they really did good by the love scenes overall. Okay, yes, Traynor’s scene is pretty lame, as is Ashley's (but that's to be expected), and Tali’s is...well...kind of stupid, I have to say, but the rest range from solidly good to just outright great bits of romance, and they all are touching at the DLC’s end (Thane in particular). Hell, Miranda and Jack got such good love interest scenes in the Citadel DLC that they actually almost seem like viable romantic options now...well, Jack does, at least. ME3 has been criticized, and very rightly so, for skimping too much on Shepard’s romantic interests, and Bioware did a good job making up for it here.
Actually, that seems to be largely what this DLC’s about, really--Bioware addressing fan feedback. This whole DLC is basically fanservice--but instead of the typical shitty, demeaning, mindless, subhuman kind of fanservice, which is mostly just a sagging heap of tits sitting sloppily atop a pillar of special effects and violence, this is fanservice of a good caliber, giving fans the things of substance that they want. Fans wanted more romance, they got it. Fans wanted better character interaction, more inclusion of Wrex and ME2’s largely forgotten cast, and they got that. The jokes of the DLC play on themes and jokes of the Bioware fan community--Shepard’s infamous “I should go,” Traynor’s toothbrush, the volus pizza delivery guy (“pizza delivery” is how the Bioware community refers to the package retrieval objectives in the Multiplayer mode of ME3), and so on. For the first time since this time last year, Bioware actually seems to be giving a flying fuck about their characters and their fans, instead of their own egos and what the marketing department thinks will sell.
In the end, I still won’t buy this DLC. Because in the end, after all the good times of it, the story of ME3 continues, and Shepard comes to a finale where he (Paragon Shepard, at least) cannot win without betraying his values. For all the listening to its fans that Bioware did in its creation of the Citadel DLC, it still didn’t listen to the most important, frequent, and widespread feedback--like a doctor who’s more interested in treating your foot pains than taking a look at the harpoon stuck in your chest. But this is the first (and last) DLC for ME3 that I would actually want to purchase. Citadel is fun and funny, it reminds you of two of the great draws of the Mass Effect series--its characters and its lore--and it feels like the satisfying send-off to this beloved cast that they deserve. God have mercy on my soul, I actually DO recommend this DLC, even at its exorbitant price of $15 (although if you feel you can wait it out until that price drops a long time from now, by all means go for it). The only reason not to is the one I’ve adopted, the principle of the matter of ME3’s ending.
And that’s it. According to Bioware, there will be no more ME3 add-ons. And yeah, any official statement of Bioware’s has better odds of being a blatant lie than actually coming true, but I’m gonna throw caution to the winds and work on the assumption that they’re actually being honest on this. How’d ME3 do as far as add-ons went? Well...not very well, honestly. The first DLC is pretty good, as I said, but the Leviathan package is just a lot of really, really poor writing trying to justify an even more poorly written ending, and it far outweighs the modestly positive From Ashes. And yeah, I clearly thought that the Citadel DLC was good overall, but the hackneyed, contrived basis for its main story brings it down a bit, and the Omega DLC is such overpriced, useless, meaningless garbage, that the scales are tipped significantly to the negative side when comparing them. On a whole, the good aspects of the ME3 DLCs can’t save the collection from its flaws, and overall the experience has not been a good one. I sure hope whatever game I play next with add-ons can do better.
Wow, I can’t believe the length of this rant. I swear to Isfa I’m never spending this much time on a DLC rant again. No one even reads these damn things! I have got to be out of my fucking mind.
* Although there doesn’t seem to be any reason (save general incompetence) for Bioware to have killed Nyreen off so quickly after introducing her, I really hope that the rationalization was not that her death would make Aria angry enough to fall for Petrovsky’s (highly stupid) trap. Because if there’s one thing this DLC has established by that point, it’s that Aria is ALREADY pissed off about this whole situation, and an enraged charge for those last few steps of the way would have been plenty believable without Nyreen’s death.
Well, it’s finally time for a look at the add-ons for Mass Effect 3. Historically, Bioware’s done much, much better with its extra content for Mass Effect than it has for Dragon Age, but who knows if that’s going to hold up? Historically, Mass Effect games had great endings, but just look at the horrible mess that ME3 concludes with. And on that note, because I’m still pissed that there is no morally acceptable and satisfying ending to this game, I won’t be purchasing any of the DLCs below (besides From Ashes; that one came with the edition of the game I got), not until one of them provides an appropriate ending. My knowledge of the packages below shall come from Youtube. Why review them at all, you might ask, assuming your mind magically thinks up the exact same questions that mine does? Well, because I don’t assume that everyone ELSE is going to do the boycott-ME3-content-until-Bioware-fixes-its-mistakes thing, so this might still potentially have some meaning to someone else on which add-ons to purchase.
From Ashes: From Ashes adds a mission to Mass Effect 3 that contains a few opportunities to add a few resources to Shepard’s private army, and also adds a new character, Javik the Prothean, to the party. Although this one loses points for being a Day 1 DLC, Javik’s a decent addition to the cast. By himself, he’s only a so-so character, with character development that’s decent but never more than that, and the history and lore he shares of the long-lost Prothean culture is, surprisingly and unhappily, not actually all that interesting. However, he adds a lot to some of the game’s events, particularly during the mission to Thessia, and he’s a useful tool for some much-needed character development for Liara. He’s also fully integrated into the game--he’s no half-assed addition; he has as many dialogue interjections and personal scenes as any other party member. Of course, that’s not as impressive as it could be, given that he was released at the same time as the game, so they had the entire time of the game’s development to make sure he was integrated properly. Still, this DLC package is overall good.
Leviathan: This one’s just not very good. The plot somehow seems both too hurried, and yet meandering at the same time. Too hurried, as the search for Leviathan boils down to a few relatively short missions that desperately try to cram in a sense of meaning and emotional attachment to the introduced supporting character, Ann Bryson, and also tries to pack in an entire new perspective on ancient galactic history to boot. Meandering, as a large part of it is just following leads and learning little of actual value about Leviathan--all the actually important lore comes in at the end, when Shepard finally tracks down and meets Leviathan. Everything up until that point is just...humdrum. Not bad, I guess, but closer to bad than good. And the actual meeting with Leviathan is pretty lackluster, too. It lacks narrative power in its presentation, and all it really does is give a very tiny bit of supporting information to the poorly-conceived claptrap that the Catalyst spouts at the end of the game. I suppose it’s good that Bioware actually bothered to put something in the game that connects in some way to its awful conclusion, given that until this DLC everything about the ending was completely out of left field, but that’s about the best thing I can say about this. This DLC also adds a couple lines of dialogue to the ending, but nothing even remotely important. Finally, some of this DLC just doesn’t even make sense--like how ridiculous it is that Leviathan’s race would see the problem of the supposed lower races being betrayed and destroyed by the synthetic life that said lower races created and then...create a super-ultra synthetic life to fix the problem. Oh yeah, clearly THESE guys are the higher species.
“DURR, hay thar Godlike Bob, Ah dun heared that those self-aware machine-doohickeys that theym thar little folkses made have done gone plumb loco on their creators! Y’reckon we should aim ter fix that sitch-ee-aye-shun?”
“HURR, THAT SOUND GOOD THINKING, GODLIKE FRED. ME WILL CREATE GODLIKE SELF-AWARE MACHINE TO FIX PROBLEM OF MAKING SELF-AWARE MACHINES. ME AM SMART LEVIATHAN!”
Overall, the Leviathan add-on is, if considered very charitably, dead weight. It’s emotionally and intellectually lacking, it provides background to the ending’s foolishness without making it seem more valid at all, parts of it just don’t make any damn sense (so Leviathan says they controlled the lesser species but...couldn’t stop them from building those dangerous AIs. Does Leviathan understand what “control” means?), it ultimately makes no difference, and honestly, adding the angle of living Leviathans hiding and probably, given their god complexes, biding their time, adds a rather unwelcome new entity to a series that’s starting to feel crowded from all the ancient secrets of galaxy-shaking importance being stuffed into it. Even the tiny little satisfaction that I theorize a person could feel from ME3’s ending at having, at the very least, ended the Reaper threat is now stolen away by the knowledge that there’s already an entire other potential super-huge, super-powerful enemy out there. Definitely pass on this one; it’s not worth the time to play through it, and it sure as hell is not worth your money.
Omega: It seems at first like this DLC should be fairly decent. I mean, it’s an action-packed side story, which involves Aria, an NPC from ME2 whose presence in ME3 was not as strong as it should have been, introduces Nyreen, a new character who catches your attention (what with being the first female Turian we’ve seen in the series), and isn’t designed to try in vain to justify the horrible ending. But ultimately, the damn thing just falls flat on its face. First of all, the whole thing feels like it serves no real point whatsoever--the only lasting effect from it on the rest of the game are some War Assets, which ultimately change absolutely nothing, a few new gameplay tweaks (weapon mods, bonus powers, some extra money, etc) which of course are meaningless when just about everyone has by now beaten the game at least once and the game has more or less nothing to surprise them with in battle, a chess board in Shepard’s room that you can’t actually interact with at all, and your bank account suddenly being $15 smaller. Apparently it’s too much to hope that Bioware will see fit to use another DLC to make a minimally acceptable ending possible, but even for a self-contained add-on, those are some pretty paltry rewards, so if this is going to be worth the time and money, it’s going to have to be worth it within its own self-contained events.
The problem is that it’s not. The plot of it is just straightforward action garbage; there’s nothing to learn or think about that comes from it, no layer of meaning attached to it, no intellectual motivation whatsoever. You’ll find more of that in a James Bond movie than in the Omega DLC, and Bond films are usually the thing I point out as prime examples of mindless action fluff with no substance! Shepard goes to Omega, Shepard fights bad guys in Omega, Shepard finds out about a bad guy plan to breed super monster soldier things but has very little reaction to it, Shepard happens to stop this plan when he beats the bad guys, the bad guys are gone. The end. There’s nothing remotely unexpected, nor is there anything to add depth to this cookie-cutter “plot.”
And what about the character development? Disappointing is the most generous term I can think of for it. Aria’s character, who is vocally acted in a surprisingly subpar fashion, stays for all appearances completely static for the entire length of the DLC, except maybe at the end, when Shepard’s influence might cause her to be a little less of an evil bitch. I’d say this, at least, shows character development, but I can’t, because it really didn’t actually develop--up until that moment, Aria’s basically rebuffed every suggestion anyone’s made about maybe being less of a bad person, and she hasn’t been shown to have any interest beyond irritation for Shepard’s heroic ways, so this idea that he influenced her in some way comes out of nowhere. It’s not subtle, it’s just not there. Shepard certainly isn’t developed at all; he has so little to say or do in relation to the plot that it’s almost like he’s trying out the Silent Protagonist thing for kicks. The villain, Petrovsky, has very little in the way of introduction (I think Bioware wants to pretend that every single player has read their comics, from which Petrovsky originates), less in the way of personality, and less still than that in the way of development. And lastly, there’s Nyreen, the female Turian whose character is just as static as Aria’s (though thankfully far less proud, selfish, and proud of being selfish), and doesn’t change from the first time it’s properly shown until her completely arbitrary, unnecessary death, a death that shows just how sloppy and careless the Bioware writers are with their work. I suppose she works as a foil for Aria, but they’re so blatantly, clumsily opposites that the contrast just winds up making Bioware look like they’re trying way too hard. Plus, it makes the vague, half-assed explanation for why Nyreen and Aria were previously lovers questionable at best. And once she dies, she’s just GONE. Like, she dies, Aria gets really angry for just long enough to get caught in a trap,* and...that’s the end of any thoughts of Nyreen. The last battle ensues, Aria and Shepard fool around with Petrovsky, Aria makes a trite little speech, Shepard gets the useless chessboard in his cabin, and that’s that. No mention of Nyreen’s loss that I could see, no moment of Shepard or Aria mourning or even recollecting her, nothing. Bioware seemed to give more of a shit for the stupid scientist who died like 30 seconds into the Leviathan DLC than for Nyreen.
Anyway. So what’re we left with? Well, a large price tag. At 15 bucks, Omega costs more than the Leviathan DLC did, and, for that matter, more than any single DLC I can remember having encountered for an RPG so far. And you know what? It’s incredibly short! You can easily finish the whole thing in 4 hours, and that even accounts for thorough searching and battles that aren’t immediately won from being overpowered. I imagine most players will finish it in significantly less time. $15 for less than 5 hours of gameplay? Even considering a weak US dollar, that’s ridiculous! I mean, if this DLC had a worthwhile story to tell, that’d be one thing, but as I noted above, it does not. Bioware’s not just charging more (and its price choices were already sketchy to start with), it’s providing less at the same time!
I’ll admit that Omega’s got an edge over Leviathan for not trying to violently shove support for the game’s shitty ending in my face, but in the end, this DLC gets a major thumbs-down from me. Spend your 15 smackers on something worthwhile instead--games at GOG.com, a decent meal, My Little Pony dolls, an environmental charity, new socks, anything but Omega.
Citadel: Well...it’s hard to really know what to say here. The final ME3 DLC is...odd. It’s sort of separated into a miniature adventure, like you’d expect from a DLC, and then a bunch of small, just-for-fun stuff afterwards. So let’s look at it in parts.
First of all, the adventure itself is...well...I like it, but I’m not sure I should. The premise is weak, weaker even than ME3’s main premise involving the Crucible. The two villains...well, one’s an incredibly predictable double-cross, and the other is...eh, I’ll just spoil it for you. It’s Shepard’s unheard-of-until-this-second clone. It’s like someone at Bioware saw the awful, nonsensical, stinks-like-rotten-fish plot twist in Pluto Nash and thought it would be a good idea to steal it. The clone’s end is the tired old “rather fall to my death than grab your hand” affair, the other villain’s end is cheap and seems to depend very strongly on the player having formed some emotional attachment to her over the, what, 2 hours’ time that the player has known her? Additionally, the adventure part of the DLC is about as absurdly short as the Omega add-on was, for the same bloated, completely unreasonable price of $15.
Still...still, it’s good for what it is. Even if the clone thing is just outright stupid, it has just enough drive to get a slightly heartwarming message across about how much of what Shepard is was formed by his companions and friends. Even if the adventure feels rushed and contrived, the large amount of interaction between all the members of the party is really enjoyable, and it really cements their personality as a team. There’s a lot of humor, and it’s almost all good, while never seeming inappropriate to the situation. There’s some real good character and universe history and development you can experience through Anderson’s logs and the Citadel archive, which of course I really liked. It doesn’t have the ultra-important, epic mission feel that’s typical of the game’s missions, but that’s not actually all that bad a thing sometimes.
After the adventure’s done, there’s still a lot to do in the DLC: meeting up with party members, both past and present, to hang out (except for Legion, Mordin, and Thane, of course, but there are some nice bits for Mordin and Thane, too), stupid minigames, a pointless arena, NPCs to hear talk, and finally a party to which you can invite pretty much the whole crew. This post-mission content kind of ranges all over the place in terms of quality. Some scenes are just horribly stupid, like Zaeed’s and Javik’s, some are mostly boring and/or pointless, like Ashley’s and Garrus’s (if he’s not Shepard’s love interest), some are pretty decent, like Liara’s (if she’s not Shepard’s love interest) and EDI’s, and Thane’s (whether or not he was Shepard’s love interest) is really great. I have to give Bioware props on one account, though--they really did good by the love scenes overall. Okay, yes, Traynor’s scene is pretty lame, as is Ashley's (but that's to be expected), and Tali’s is...well...kind of stupid, I have to say, but the rest range from solidly good to just outright great bits of romance, and they all are touching at the DLC’s end (Thane in particular). Hell, Miranda and Jack got such good love interest scenes in the Citadel DLC that they actually almost seem like viable romantic options now...well, Jack does, at least. ME3 has been criticized, and very rightly so, for skimping too much on Shepard’s romantic interests, and Bioware did a good job making up for it here.
Actually, that seems to be largely what this DLC’s about, really--Bioware addressing fan feedback. This whole DLC is basically fanservice--but instead of the typical shitty, demeaning, mindless, subhuman kind of fanservice, which is mostly just a sagging heap of tits sitting sloppily atop a pillar of special effects and violence, this is fanservice of a good caliber, giving fans the things of substance that they want. Fans wanted more romance, they got it. Fans wanted better character interaction, more inclusion of Wrex and ME2’s largely forgotten cast, and they got that. The jokes of the DLC play on themes and jokes of the Bioware fan community--Shepard’s infamous “I should go,” Traynor’s toothbrush, the volus pizza delivery guy (“pizza delivery” is how the Bioware community refers to the package retrieval objectives in the Multiplayer mode of ME3), and so on. For the first time since this time last year, Bioware actually seems to be giving a flying fuck about their characters and their fans, instead of their own egos and what the marketing department thinks will sell.
In the end, I still won’t buy this DLC. Because in the end, after all the good times of it, the story of ME3 continues, and Shepard comes to a finale where he (Paragon Shepard, at least) cannot win without betraying his values. For all the listening to its fans that Bioware did in its creation of the Citadel DLC, it still didn’t listen to the most important, frequent, and widespread feedback--like a doctor who’s more interested in treating your foot pains than taking a look at the harpoon stuck in your chest. But this is the first (and last) DLC for ME3 that I would actually want to purchase. Citadel is fun and funny, it reminds you of two of the great draws of the Mass Effect series--its characters and its lore--and it feels like the satisfying send-off to this beloved cast that they deserve. God have mercy on my soul, I actually DO recommend this DLC, even at its exorbitant price of $15 (although if you feel you can wait it out until that price drops a long time from now, by all means go for it). The only reason not to is the one I’ve adopted, the principle of the matter of ME3’s ending.
And that’s it. According to Bioware, there will be no more ME3 add-ons. And yeah, any official statement of Bioware’s has better odds of being a blatant lie than actually coming true, but I’m gonna throw caution to the winds and work on the assumption that they’re actually being honest on this. How’d ME3 do as far as add-ons went? Well...not very well, honestly. The first DLC is pretty good, as I said, but the Leviathan package is just a lot of really, really poor writing trying to justify an even more poorly written ending, and it far outweighs the modestly positive From Ashes. And yeah, I clearly thought that the Citadel DLC was good overall, but the hackneyed, contrived basis for its main story brings it down a bit, and the Omega DLC is such overpriced, useless, meaningless garbage, that the scales are tipped significantly to the negative side when comparing them. On a whole, the good aspects of the ME3 DLCs can’t save the collection from its flaws, and overall the experience has not been a good one. I sure hope whatever game I play next with add-ons can do better.
Wow, I can’t believe the length of this rant. I swear to Isfa I’m never spending this much time on a DLC rant again. No one even reads these damn things! I have got to be out of my fucking mind.
* Although there doesn’t seem to be any reason (save general incompetence) for Bioware to have killed Nyreen off so quickly after introducing her, I really hope that the rationalization was not that her death would make Aria angry enough to fall for Petrovsky’s (highly stupid) trap. Because if there’s one thing this DLC has established by that point, it’s that Aria is ALREADY pissed off about this whole situation, and an enraged charge for those last few steps of the way would have been plenty believable without Nyreen’s death.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
General RPGs' AMVs 7
Time for another foray into my personal quirk (well, one of them), a fascination with AMVs.
Starting today, incidentally, I’m gonna highlight one AMV per AMV rant in bold. This bolded AMV will be the one I consider the best of the bunch for that rant. Why do this? I dunno. Probably cuz I’m bored, I guess.
As always, if you find any of these videos pleasing, be decent enough to hit the Thumbs Up button, and/or even better yet, leave a positive comment. The world has more than enough terrible, clumsy, careless AMVs, and we must cherishingly encourage and gently cradle those few, precious fans capable of creating something worthwhile.
CHRONO
Chrono Cross: Path, by Lycan Lord: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y2qCja3Cew&list=WL7252ED8AF15FA0F7
The music used is Path, by Apocalyptica. Appropriately choosing a violin-heavy song for a violin-heavy game, Lycan Lord takes this song’s inconstant but elegant fire and chaos and matches it with technical grace and intuitive emotion through the scenes of Chrono Cross. Lycan Lord makes the most out of Path and creates a far better tribute to Chrono Cross than the game actually deserves.
FINAL FANTASY
Final Fantasy 8: I Found Away, by YuniX2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VP3ABap5Xs&list=WL7252ED8AF15FA0F7
The music used is I Found Away, by Alkaline Trio. This isn’t YuniX2’s first time on this blog (you may recall the excellent FF10 AMV of hers that got its own rant last year), nor shall it be her last. She just seems to have this great, innate understanding of how to meld the lyrics and emotion and meaning to the actions and visuals and meaning of game scenes and characters, and seal them together into a whole using simple but creative and cool editing and connections of movement and shape between scenes. You watch this video, and it makes sense, it has purpose, it connects all its parts, and it flows naturally from one part to the next. This video is as good as an AMV can get without outright deserving its very own spotlight rant.
Final Fantasy 8: No Light, No Light, by EmeraldLatias: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFfPeIKHmYg
The music used is No Light, No Light, by Florence and the Machine. I hope this is as good as I think it is, but if I’m to be honest, I fear my impartiality with AMVs is not at full strength when it comes to Florence and the Machine. It’s rare that a singer/band/musical group comes along that I can actually consider a musical artist, and rarer still that I also actually enjoy their work (my tastes are a bit...picky, when it comes to music. Like, picky even considering my usual demanding nature, which, as you probably know by now, is really saying something). Regardless of my automatic favor of the song, though, I’m pretty sure this is a darned good AMV. The editing is effective, the scenes match the tone of the music well, and the lyrics and events of the video component are well-coordinated, using FF8’s footage effectively for the song’s purposes. Solid work.
Final Fantasy 10: What If, by Thececfinal: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW74wAx4nB0&list=WL7252ED8AF15FA0F7
The music used is What If, by Kate Winslet. I generally try to avoid acknowledging the existence of Final Fantasy 10-2 in any significant way, and this usually means I ignore any AMV that features scenes from it, but the this one’s really good, and the FF10-2 scenes are really only used to underscore the aspects of the FF10 footage that work with the music, so I make an exception here. Anyway, very good all around on this one--the video matches the song’s tune well, the lyrics are overall a great fit for Yuna and Tidus (though it sometimes seems almost like the video is jumping from the lyrics applying to Yuna and Tidus, and then like Yuna and Tidus are applying to the lyrics, if that makes any sense (probably doesn’t)). The effects are simple but good; I quite like the black-and-white effect for the part where the singer is remembering near the beginning. This is just a well-made AMV, simple as that.
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA
The Legend of Zelda Series: New Divide, by RokuRee14: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SeD0gaLh0E&list=WL7252ED8AF15FA0F7
The music used is New Divide, by Linkin Park. Like it or hate it, there’s no denying that Linkin Park’s music is by and large perfect fuel for AMVs, and as such, I hear it dozens and dozens of times every time I do an AMV check-up, so I’m kind of biased about AMVs that use it--it’s so easy to do a halfway decent job with it that an AMV has to use it especially effectively for me to take any notice. But I gotta say, this AMV here does a bang-up job, matching lyrics to scenes, tune to atmosphere, and generally meshing the audio and visual into one unit. There are a couple of scenes that I think really work in this one, like showing Link holding the Master Sword when the song mentions Fate having found him, and showing the time shift, the crossing of divided times, in TLoZ: Ocarina of Time when the song first mentions its namesake, the “new divide.” There’s some good visual editing on this one, too, although I’d say there’s a point where it’s a little excessive later in the song. Overall, I’d say this one’s a definite winner.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: Knight of Immortal Fire, by Kh0r0n: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2Fb3PpHfM8
The music used is Knight of Immortal Fire, by Luca Turilli. Short of extravagant special effects, it doesn’t get much better for AMV editing than this video. Kh0r0n does a darn near flawless job at coordinating the action of every video clip to the actions and feel of the music, and the end result is a totally epic show of the rich and varied world, events, and game play of TLoZSS. If this doesn’t give you a rush of excitement and desire to play the game, then I don’t know what possibly could.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: Not Strong Enough, by AbsolLugia and Zelda3018: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM9MIC7GKko
The music used is Strong Enough, by Apoctalyptica. This one’s pretty heavy on the special effects, but most of the time they’re used very well. I mean, the beginning part is a little heavy-handed, but overall pretty neat, particularly when the color begins to seep in. The scene changes are timed very well and have some definite skill to them, the golden tint to the video is a really nice effect (it’s always tricky, tinting your video without having it become unnecessarily distracting), and the central window rectangle effect thing that starts at 1:14 is quite cool and matches itself to the song splendidly. On the other hand, the little wispy wind things that start at 1:41 ARE distracting and seem completely arbitrary, along with the subsequent stardusty effect and the opening color circle things. This video would be SO much better without any of that crap; all it does is distract. Still, the timing and scene selection is just great, the effects for the first half of it, at least, really compliment it, and overall it comes off as very cool.
SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3: Memories of..., by WizardofCeles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IenxyCnamEk
The music used is a cover of Fix You, by Coldplay. The cover itself is done by a fan known as Number3NeverForget. This is a simple, quiet, but emotional AMV that uses the gentle music to compliment the game footage, which gives a brief detail of SMTP3 protagonist Minato’s relationship with his friends, and the incredible impact he has upon them, leaving them forever altered for the better by his actions, leadership, and friendship. The AMV takes the idea of fixing someone, which is from the original version of the song, and applies it to Minato, showing how he’s left them better than he found them. It’s sweet and touching, and the effects that WizardofCeles employs in the video are used well.
Starting today, incidentally, I’m gonna highlight one AMV per AMV rant in bold. This bolded AMV will be the one I consider the best of the bunch for that rant. Why do this? I dunno. Probably cuz I’m bored, I guess.
As always, if you find any of these videos pleasing, be decent enough to hit the Thumbs Up button, and/or even better yet, leave a positive comment. The world has more than enough terrible, clumsy, careless AMVs, and we must cherishingly encourage and gently cradle those few, precious fans capable of creating something worthwhile.
CHRONO
Chrono Cross: Path, by Lycan Lord: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y2qCja3Cew&list=WL7252ED8AF15FA0F7
The music used is Path, by Apocalyptica. Appropriately choosing a violin-heavy song for a violin-heavy game, Lycan Lord takes this song’s inconstant but elegant fire and chaos and matches it with technical grace and intuitive emotion through the scenes of Chrono Cross. Lycan Lord makes the most out of Path and creates a far better tribute to Chrono Cross than the game actually deserves.
FINAL FANTASY
Final Fantasy 8: I Found Away, by YuniX2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VP3ABap5Xs&list=WL7252ED8AF15FA0F7
The music used is I Found Away, by Alkaline Trio. This isn’t YuniX2’s first time on this blog (you may recall the excellent FF10 AMV of hers that got its own rant last year), nor shall it be her last. She just seems to have this great, innate understanding of how to meld the lyrics and emotion and meaning to the actions and visuals and meaning of game scenes and characters, and seal them together into a whole using simple but creative and cool editing and connections of movement and shape between scenes. You watch this video, and it makes sense, it has purpose, it connects all its parts, and it flows naturally from one part to the next. This video is as good as an AMV can get without outright deserving its very own spotlight rant.
Final Fantasy 8: No Light, No Light, by EmeraldLatias: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFfPeIKHmYg
The music used is No Light, No Light, by Florence and the Machine. I hope this is as good as I think it is, but if I’m to be honest, I fear my impartiality with AMVs is not at full strength when it comes to Florence and the Machine. It’s rare that a singer/band/musical group comes along that I can actually consider a musical artist, and rarer still that I also actually enjoy their work (my tastes are a bit...picky, when it comes to music. Like, picky even considering my usual demanding nature, which, as you probably know by now, is really saying something). Regardless of my automatic favor of the song, though, I’m pretty sure this is a darned good AMV. The editing is effective, the scenes match the tone of the music well, and the lyrics and events of the video component are well-coordinated, using FF8’s footage effectively for the song’s purposes. Solid work.
Final Fantasy 10: What If, by Thececfinal: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW74wAx4nB0&list=WL7252ED8AF15FA0F7
The music used is What If, by Kate Winslet. I generally try to avoid acknowledging the existence of Final Fantasy 10-2 in any significant way, and this usually means I ignore any AMV that features scenes from it, but the this one’s really good, and the FF10-2 scenes are really only used to underscore the aspects of the FF10 footage that work with the music, so I make an exception here. Anyway, very good all around on this one--the video matches the song’s tune well, the lyrics are overall a great fit for Yuna and Tidus (though it sometimes seems almost like the video is jumping from the lyrics applying to Yuna and Tidus, and then like Yuna and Tidus are applying to the lyrics, if that makes any sense (probably doesn’t)). The effects are simple but good; I quite like the black-and-white effect for the part where the singer is remembering near the beginning. This is just a well-made AMV, simple as that.
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA
The Legend of Zelda Series: New Divide, by RokuRee14: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SeD0gaLh0E&list=WL7252ED8AF15FA0F7
The music used is New Divide, by Linkin Park. Like it or hate it, there’s no denying that Linkin Park’s music is by and large perfect fuel for AMVs, and as such, I hear it dozens and dozens of times every time I do an AMV check-up, so I’m kind of biased about AMVs that use it--it’s so easy to do a halfway decent job with it that an AMV has to use it especially effectively for me to take any notice. But I gotta say, this AMV here does a bang-up job, matching lyrics to scenes, tune to atmosphere, and generally meshing the audio and visual into one unit. There are a couple of scenes that I think really work in this one, like showing Link holding the Master Sword when the song mentions Fate having found him, and showing the time shift, the crossing of divided times, in TLoZ: Ocarina of Time when the song first mentions its namesake, the “new divide.” There’s some good visual editing on this one, too, although I’d say there’s a point where it’s a little excessive later in the song. Overall, I’d say this one’s a definite winner.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: Knight of Immortal Fire, by Kh0r0n: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2Fb3PpHfM8
The music used is Knight of Immortal Fire, by Luca Turilli. Short of extravagant special effects, it doesn’t get much better for AMV editing than this video. Kh0r0n does a darn near flawless job at coordinating the action of every video clip to the actions and feel of the music, and the end result is a totally epic show of the rich and varied world, events, and game play of TLoZSS. If this doesn’t give you a rush of excitement and desire to play the game, then I don’t know what possibly could.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: Not Strong Enough, by AbsolLugia and Zelda3018: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM9MIC7GKko
The music used is Strong Enough, by Apoctalyptica. This one’s pretty heavy on the special effects, but most of the time they’re used very well. I mean, the beginning part is a little heavy-handed, but overall pretty neat, particularly when the color begins to seep in. The scene changes are timed very well and have some definite skill to them, the golden tint to the video is a really nice effect (it’s always tricky, tinting your video without having it become unnecessarily distracting), and the central window rectangle effect thing that starts at 1:14 is quite cool and matches itself to the song splendidly. On the other hand, the little wispy wind things that start at 1:41 ARE distracting and seem completely arbitrary, along with the subsequent stardusty effect and the opening color circle things. This video would be SO much better without any of that crap; all it does is distract. Still, the timing and scene selection is just great, the effects for the first half of it, at least, really compliment it, and overall it comes off as very cool.
SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3: Memories of..., by WizardofCeles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IenxyCnamEk
The music used is a cover of Fix You, by Coldplay. The cover itself is done by a fan known as Number3NeverForget. This is a simple, quiet, but emotional AMV that uses the gentle music to compliment the game footage, which gives a brief detail of SMTP3 protagonist Minato’s relationship with his friends, and the incredible impact he has upon them, leaving them forever altered for the better by his actions, leadership, and friendship. The AMV takes the idea of fixing someone, which is from the original version of the song, and applies it to Minato, showing how he’s left them better than he found them. It’s sweet and touching, and the effects that WizardofCeles employs in the video are used well.
Monday, February 18, 2013
Xenosaga 3's MOMO's Last Line of Dialogue
Warning: This rant references some rather disturbing things. Just a heads-up.
Gee, I think it’s that time again--time to rag on something stupid about Xenosaga. Let’s see...so many options. Maybe I could talk about how essential it is to the core plot for Shion’s suffering to be some of the greatest in the universe, yet for most of the series she never comes off as even mildly troubled, let alone tortured. Perhaps my thoughts on what a nonsensical plot turd the entire back-in-time-only-sort-of-not-really arc of Xenosaga 3’s story was! There’s always the character, chaos--the absurdity that no one in the party ever, ever properly questions his abilities or participation, the incredibly poor writing of having the entirety of his character revealed at the showdown with the last boss of the last game, the largely nonsensical and contrived nature of that revelation, and the lousy, inferior turn his personality took after Xenosaga 1.
Oh, no, wait, I know! How about that one moment in the ending when MOMO says, “Will you be sure to say “Hello” to Albedo for me?”
“Wait, The RPGenius!” you say, in that smooth, strong voice of yours that echoes with charismatic power.* “Do you mean to tell me that you’re going to take an entire rant’s worth of exception to a single line of dialogue?”
Of course I am. What part of “nitpicky RPG nerd” is confusing you guys? Besides, this really is kind of a big deal.
See, it’s like this. By the ending of Xenosaga 3, along with hundreds of other things that are weird and make little to no sense, the fan-favorite redhead in the cast, Jr., has absorbed the consciousness of his genetic clone-twin thing, Albedo, into himself, and now Albedo’s spirit or whatever is sleeping inside him. Jr. is going to join Shion, Allen, and several secondary characters in an attempt to find Lost Jerusalem (AKA Earth), a search which is going to take a very long time, if they ever find it at all. MOMO, on the other hand, is going to stay with her mom and Ziggy, and attempt to get civilization back on track after its galactic communications and travel network got slagged by the finale’s events. This is most definitely the last time MOMO and Jr. will see each other for a very, very long time, possibly forever.
So one problem I have with this line of MOMO’s is that, well, this is literally the last thing she ever says to Jr. face to face. Now, I think the jury’s semi-sorta out on whether Jr. and MOMO are in cute little puppy love (although I think the majority of players would say they are), but one way or another, they’re very close to one another, definitely closer than pretty much any other two party members are. So what the hell kind of final farewell is that? No expression of remorse or hope or anything, no wish for a safe journey or pledge to see each other again or anything like you might actually expect people who care about each other to say. Just “Hey, say hi to that dude in your head for me.” This line is what we get in place of an actual goodbye. There is so little understanding of the rudimentary basics of human interaction in Xenosaga that I swear it must have been written by fucking aliens or something.
This first concern, however, is a small complaint. My real problem with this line is WHAT IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST PLAYING BAGPIPE IN PAJAMAS IS WRONG WITH THE PEOPLE AT MONOLITH SOFT!?
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. What? WHAT? Did I just see MOMO pass on a cheerful pleasantry to ALBEDO? FUCKING ALBEDO?
Allow me to refresh your memories of something, Monolith. Let me remind you of a scene from your own game. Because apparently you guys forgot, I guess! Or maybe the writers for Xenosaga 3 never actually played Xenosaga 1! I don’t know! But I do know that whoever wrote this “Say hello to Albedo” line sure as hell didn’t know about this scene!
(Warning: The following scene from Xenosaga 1 will freak your shit right out, after it deeply disturbs you. Like, even if you’ve seen it before).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95mwIi8lVHQ
Oh, yeah, sure, Monolith! You bet! MOMO got to star in Albedo’s pedophilic snuff rape porno, then watch as the dude tore off his own head and stomped his boot through it...but there’s just no way that would have any lasting effect on her, or anything! It’s totally believable that she’d want to pass along some upbeat greetings to him! I mean, don’t all child victims of terrifying, emotionally-abusive kidnappings who somehow manage to survive their ordeal send their tormentors greeting cards each Christmas?
Normally, this is the point where I further delve into my reasoning, maybe explain why an opposing viewpoint’s defending arguments don’t hold water with me. But you know what? No. Not today. This is the end of the rant, right here. Because I just don’t have to do any of that this time. There’s no defense to be had here. Monolith Soft has a child (not that this would be better for an adult character, I should note) who went through 5 and a half minutes of freakish hell a mere couple years before extending friendly salutations to the sick fuck that, but for the incompetent twats writing MOMO’s character, should have scarred her psyche permanently and beyond recognition. Whoever came up with this line is one of the most incompetent, careless morons to ever write for an RPG.
* Sometimes I like to imagine that my readers are Keith David, voice of Goliath from Gargoyles. Yes, all of you are him right now. Deal with it.
Gee, I think it’s that time again--time to rag on something stupid about Xenosaga. Let’s see...so many options. Maybe I could talk about how essential it is to the core plot for Shion’s suffering to be some of the greatest in the universe, yet for most of the series she never comes off as even mildly troubled, let alone tortured. Perhaps my thoughts on what a nonsensical plot turd the entire back-in-time-only-sort-of-not-really arc of Xenosaga 3’s story was! There’s always the character, chaos--the absurdity that no one in the party ever, ever properly questions his abilities or participation, the incredibly poor writing of having the entirety of his character revealed at the showdown with the last boss of the last game, the largely nonsensical and contrived nature of that revelation, and the lousy, inferior turn his personality took after Xenosaga 1.
Oh, no, wait, I know! How about that one moment in the ending when MOMO says, “Will you be sure to say “Hello” to Albedo for me?”
“Wait, The RPGenius!” you say, in that smooth, strong voice of yours that echoes with charismatic power.* “Do you mean to tell me that you’re going to take an entire rant’s worth of exception to a single line of dialogue?”
Of course I am. What part of “nitpicky RPG nerd” is confusing you guys? Besides, this really is kind of a big deal.
See, it’s like this. By the ending of Xenosaga 3, along with hundreds of other things that are weird and make little to no sense, the fan-favorite redhead in the cast, Jr., has absorbed the consciousness of his genetic clone-twin thing, Albedo, into himself, and now Albedo’s spirit or whatever is sleeping inside him. Jr. is going to join Shion, Allen, and several secondary characters in an attempt to find Lost Jerusalem (AKA Earth), a search which is going to take a very long time, if they ever find it at all. MOMO, on the other hand, is going to stay with her mom and Ziggy, and attempt to get civilization back on track after its galactic communications and travel network got slagged by the finale’s events. This is most definitely the last time MOMO and Jr. will see each other for a very, very long time, possibly forever.
So one problem I have with this line of MOMO’s is that, well, this is literally the last thing she ever says to Jr. face to face. Now, I think the jury’s semi-sorta out on whether Jr. and MOMO are in cute little puppy love (although I think the majority of players would say they are), but one way or another, they’re very close to one another, definitely closer than pretty much any other two party members are. So what the hell kind of final farewell is that? No expression of remorse or hope or anything, no wish for a safe journey or pledge to see each other again or anything like you might actually expect people who care about each other to say. Just “Hey, say hi to that dude in your head for me.” This line is what we get in place of an actual goodbye. There is so little understanding of the rudimentary basics of human interaction in Xenosaga that I swear it must have been written by fucking aliens or something.
This first concern, however, is a small complaint. My real problem with this line is WHAT IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST PLAYING BAGPIPE IN PAJAMAS IS WRONG WITH THE PEOPLE AT MONOLITH SOFT!?
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. What? WHAT? Did I just see MOMO pass on a cheerful pleasantry to ALBEDO? FUCKING ALBEDO?
Allow me to refresh your memories of something, Monolith. Let me remind you of a scene from your own game. Because apparently you guys forgot, I guess! Or maybe the writers for Xenosaga 3 never actually played Xenosaga 1! I don’t know! But I do know that whoever wrote this “Say hello to Albedo” line sure as hell didn’t know about this scene!
(Warning: The following scene from Xenosaga 1 will freak your shit right out, after it deeply disturbs you. Like, even if you’ve seen it before).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95mwIi8lVHQ
Oh, yeah, sure, Monolith! You bet! MOMO got to star in Albedo’s pedophilic snuff rape porno, then watch as the dude tore off his own head and stomped his boot through it...but there’s just no way that would have any lasting effect on her, or anything! It’s totally believable that she’d want to pass along some upbeat greetings to him! I mean, don’t all child victims of terrifying, emotionally-abusive kidnappings who somehow manage to survive their ordeal send their tormentors greeting cards each Christmas?
Normally, this is the point where I further delve into my reasoning, maybe explain why an opposing viewpoint’s defending arguments don’t hold water with me. But you know what? No. Not today. This is the end of the rant, right here. Because I just don’t have to do any of that this time. There’s no defense to be had here. Monolith Soft has a child (not that this would be better for an adult character, I should note) who went through 5 and a half minutes of freakish hell a mere couple years before extending friendly salutations to the sick fuck that, but for the incompetent twats writing MOMO’s character, should have scarred her psyche permanently and beyond recognition. Whoever came up with this line is one of the most incompetent, careless morons to ever write for an RPG.
* Sometimes I like to imagine that my readers are Keith David, voice of Goliath from Gargoyles. Yes, all of you are him right now. Deal with it.
Monday, January 28, 2013
General RPGs' Anime Girl Run Syndrome
This is gonna be another of those rants that’s railing against something that came from (and is much more prevalent in) anime, only a part of RPGs because so many of them are stylistically tied to anime. But a stupid thing is a stupid thing, regardless of whether it’s intrinsic or adopted, so I hold RPGs no less accountable.
What the fucking HELL is up with the way some women run in Japanese RPGs? You know what I’m talking about. It’s when the chick is...I’m not even sure you could call the leg motions “running” actually, it’s more like jogging most of the time, even in instances where running is clearly supposed to be what’s happening. She’s jogging along, and for some utterly inexplicable reason, instead of pumping her arms back and forth like any normal human being does while moving quickly to facilitate oxygen intake and dispersal and whatnot, or even just generally keeping her arms still as some people do, she’s waving her arms back and forth, alternating with each step. I realize that my ability to verbally describe this is limited, so I’ve got a visual aid:
I call this Anime Girl Run Syndrome.
Now, that there is a light case of Anime Girl Run Syndrome, the one which I just described and showed, presenting with only the mildest of stupid symptoms. A more severe case will have the lady’s elbows firmly locked against her sides, and often splay her waving arms in an upwards diagonal direction, bringing her uselessly flapping hands to semi-circle her shoulders. In addition to these bizarre upper-body contortions, severe Anime Girl Run Syndrome will cause the female’s hips to sway unnaturally with each step, such that they appear to actually be working against one another, and causing constant near-collisions between her knees, which are avoided only through some unfathomable dark magicks. A further symptom of this terrible malady will be an almost violent bouncing of the woman’s upper body with each step, such that I suspect her spine may be getting damaged from the vibrations, which of course also means that her breasts are just hopping all over the place, defying several basic laws of physics and anatomy with the tenacious will of a Mexican jumping bean. I think this is meant to have a mildly arousing effect on the audience, but honestly it’s only ever seemed amusing to me, since the wild in-out-in-out flailing of the arms means that the chick is in the perpetual act of very nearly pummelling her own bust. It actually almost seems like a natural response when one considers that her boobs are behaving more like they’ve been possessed by a supernatural entity than as an extension of her body, but I doubt that’s the intent.
Or maybe it is. Japanese culture can be weird.
Anyway, the whole thing looks like someone looked at Turk’s White Person Dance in Scrubs (seen here at about 0:23) and decided to make it into a mode of travel.
Why the rip-roarin’ hell do people insert this idiotic concept into RPGs? Or use it at all? Next to trying to skip to your loo while wearing skis, this is the least effective form of movement imaginable to me. I certainly have never heard of or seen anyone run anything like this in real life, save when they’re actively trying to mimic the fictional characters who do, which obviously doesn’t count. And even if people really did waste their time with this ridiculous jog, they’d never do so at times when they’re actually trying to cover as much distance in as short a time as possible. RPG characters (and anime ones, too, for that matter), on the other hand, are quite often clearly supposed to be in a hurry when they run places, what with the many emergencies and life-or-death situations they find themselves in, so it just looks that much more dumb and inefficient. And it gets even sillier when they get really dedicated to the “running” concept. The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road RPG has Dorothy suffer from Anime Girl Run Syndrome, but when she runs, she’s really booking it, leaning forward and motoring those legs like a track star. But, even as she does that, she steadfastly refuses not to have her arms flap back and forth with each step she takes, so the end result of this is that she’s just flying down the road, full-speed, with her arms limply slapping back and forth like someone’s attached a pair of dead, de-boned trout to her sides.
Now, my sister, who I recently realized I basically never credit for the massive part she plays in this rant blog so expect more mentions of her from now on, is a pretty smart cookie, and she theorizes that this bizarre run’s origins in Japanese culture might be a result of the kimono. Given the long-sleeved, enwrapping, and drape-y nature of a female’s kimono, it might be that this Anime Girl Run is the natural result of a woman trying to run while wearing one--or even just some iconic animator’s imagination of how that might look. After all, if a kimono is done up right, she and I think (neither of us has ever worn one) that one’s knees are quite restricted to a very small movement range, which would explain some of the hip-sway and near-knee-knocking. This also would affect one’s balance, necessitating holding the arms out at the sides to maintain it. And if you can’t step forward properly because of this restricted leg space, it might be easier to move quickly with more of a hopping gait, which would account for the exaggerated upper body bouncing. Seems a plausible enough theory to me.
That, or it’s just to accentuate boob bounces.
However, even if it does have this semi-sensible origin, it’s pointless to have a lady do the Anime Girl Run when not wearing specially-restrictive garments, and it looks silly as hell. I’m also not thrilled about the way it seems fanservice-y at times, and how utterly ineffective and pointedly non-threateningly feminine it makes female characters seem...kind of like how old cartoons and TV shows would consistently throw their women into the kitchen, because a man cooking food himself and a woman with any ambitions aside from housewife? PSHAW, STUFF AND NONSENSE, I SAY!* Maybe that’s just my imagination (I have, after all, seen a male character with Anime Girl Run Syndrome before),** but I flatter myself to think I have some fairly good instincts on such matters. One way or another, though, it’s strange, it’s silly, and it’s dumb. Anime can keep this Anime Girl Run Syndrome nonsense if it really wants it, but I wish RPGs could have the sense to ditch it.
* I would be very much obliged if you read this part to yourself in the voice of a plump-ish, English retired military gentleman straight from an Agatha Christie story. Bonus points of he’s indignantly sputtering around his mutton chops.
** Suikoden 4’s main character Lazlo, if you’re wondering. It’s not exactly the same as Anime Girl Run Syndrome, but whatever freaky shit he’s doing when he runs is closer to it than any other mode of travel I can think of.
What the fucking HELL is up with the way some women run in Japanese RPGs? You know what I’m talking about. It’s when the chick is...I’m not even sure you could call the leg motions “running” actually, it’s more like jogging most of the time, even in instances where running is clearly supposed to be what’s happening. She’s jogging along, and for some utterly inexplicable reason, instead of pumping her arms back and forth like any normal human being does while moving quickly to facilitate oxygen intake and dispersal and whatnot, or even just generally keeping her arms still as some people do, she’s waving her arms back and forth, alternating with each step. I realize that my ability to verbally describe this is limited, so I’ve got a visual aid:
I call this Anime Girl Run Syndrome.
Now, that there is a light case of Anime Girl Run Syndrome, the one which I just described and showed, presenting with only the mildest of stupid symptoms. A more severe case will have the lady’s elbows firmly locked against her sides, and often splay her waving arms in an upwards diagonal direction, bringing her uselessly flapping hands to semi-circle her shoulders. In addition to these bizarre upper-body contortions, severe Anime Girl Run Syndrome will cause the female’s hips to sway unnaturally with each step, such that they appear to actually be working against one another, and causing constant near-collisions between her knees, which are avoided only through some unfathomable dark magicks. A further symptom of this terrible malady will be an almost violent bouncing of the woman’s upper body with each step, such that I suspect her spine may be getting damaged from the vibrations, which of course also means that her breasts are just hopping all over the place, defying several basic laws of physics and anatomy with the tenacious will of a Mexican jumping bean. I think this is meant to have a mildly arousing effect on the audience, but honestly it’s only ever seemed amusing to me, since the wild in-out-in-out flailing of the arms means that the chick is in the perpetual act of very nearly pummelling her own bust. It actually almost seems like a natural response when one considers that her boobs are behaving more like they’ve been possessed by a supernatural entity than as an extension of her body, but I doubt that’s the intent.
Or maybe it is. Japanese culture can be weird.
Anyway, the whole thing looks like someone looked at Turk’s White Person Dance in Scrubs (seen here at about 0:23) and decided to make it into a mode of travel.
Why the rip-roarin’ hell do people insert this idiotic concept into RPGs? Or use it at all? Next to trying to skip to your loo while wearing skis, this is the least effective form of movement imaginable to me. I certainly have never heard of or seen anyone run anything like this in real life, save when they’re actively trying to mimic the fictional characters who do, which obviously doesn’t count. And even if people really did waste their time with this ridiculous jog, they’d never do so at times when they’re actually trying to cover as much distance in as short a time as possible. RPG characters (and anime ones, too, for that matter), on the other hand, are quite often clearly supposed to be in a hurry when they run places, what with the many emergencies and life-or-death situations they find themselves in, so it just looks that much more dumb and inefficient. And it gets even sillier when they get really dedicated to the “running” concept. The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road RPG has Dorothy suffer from Anime Girl Run Syndrome, but when she runs, she’s really booking it, leaning forward and motoring those legs like a track star. But, even as she does that, she steadfastly refuses not to have her arms flap back and forth with each step she takes, so the end result of this is that she’s just flying down the road, full-speed, with her arms limply slapping back and forth like someone’s attached a pair of dead, de-boned trout to her sides.
Now, my sister, who I recently realized I basically never credit for the massive part she plays in this rant blog so expect more mentions of her from now on, is a pretty smart cookie, and she theorizes that this bizarre run’s origins in Japanese culture might be a result of the kimono. Given the long-sleeved, enwrapping, and drape-y nature of a female’s kimono, it might be that this Anime Girl Run is the natural result of a woman trying to run while wearing one--or even just some iconic animator’s imagination of how that might look. After all, if a kimono is done up right, she and I think (neither of us has ever worn one) that one’s knees are quite restricted to a very small movement range, which would explain some of the hip-sway and near-knee-knocking. This also would affect one’s balance, necessitating holding the arms out at the sides to maintain it. And if you can’t step forward properly because of this restricted leg space, it might be easier to move quickly with more of a hopping gait, which would account for the exaggerated upper body bouncing. Seems a plausible enough theory to me.
That, or it’s just to accentuate boob bounces.
However, even if it does have this semi-sensible origin, it’s pointless to have a lady do the Anime Girl Run when not wearing specially-restrictive garments, and it looks silly as hell. I’m also not thrilled about the way it seems fanservice-y at times, and how utterly ineffective and pointedly non-threateningly feminine it makes female characters seem...kind of like how old cartoons and TV shows would consistently throw their women into the kitchen, because a man cooking food himself and a woman with any ambitions aside from housewife? PSHAW, STUFF AND NONSENSE, I SAY!* Maybe that’s just my imagination (I have, after all, seen a male character with Anime Girl Run Syndrome before),** but I flatter myself to think I have some fairly good instincts on such matters. One way or another, though, it’s strange, it’s silly, and it’s dumb. Anime can keep this Anime Girl Run Syndrome nonsense if it really wants it, but I wish RPGs could have the sense to ditch it.
* I would be very much obliged if you read this part to yourself in the voice of a plump-ish, English retired military gentleman straight from an Agatha Christie story. Bonus points of he’s indignantly sputtering around his mutton chops.
** Suikoden 4’s main character Lazlo, if you’re wondering. It’s not exactly the same as Anime Girl Run Syndrome, but whatever freaky shit he’s doing when he runs is closer to it than any other mode of travel I can think of.
Friday, January 18, 2013
Borderlands 1's Downloadable Content
Well, I finally caved in and tried out Borderlands. It’s alright.
Let’s talk about its Downloadable Content!
(Shortest intro of my life, I think).
The Zombie Island of Doctor Ned: I did enjoy this one. It’s got a lot of fun references and parodies within it, and a load of comedy that’s guaranteed to elicit a chuckle from the player at the very least. As a humor DLC, The Zombie Island of Doctor Ned is a winner. That said, this DLC was originally $10 on release, which I find awfully expensive for it. I bought my copy of Borderlands 1 recently on Steam, and thus I basically only had to pay that much for all 4 DLC packages, so it’s not a problem for me, but I’d have to say that $10 is extremely steep for this. Yes, it’s enjoyable, probably the funniest humor-based DLC I’ve seen to date (granted, though, it’s only the third of its kind that I’ve encountered), but 10 bucks? That’s awfully pricey for some jokes, to me, and there’s not much else this DLC has to offer. I guess it’s alright gameplay-wise, but I don’t consider that to be all that important, as you know, and even if I did, “alright” is not high enough praise for that cost. So ultimately, I’d say I got my money’s worth at (basically) $2.50, but unless earlier customers were really hard up for some laughs, I’d say they overpaid.
Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot: I found this one to be a complete waste of time. There’s basically nothing to this DLC--it unlocks an arena area, in which you can fight. There’s only one quest, and while its reward is substantial, it has no story to it whatsoever. Mad Moxxi herself is at best barely worth notice. Adding an item storage option is a nice touch, but still wholly insubstantial. Not only was this add-on most definitely not worth the $10 it originally sold for, I frankly think that the $2.50 that I paid for it (when all is said and done) is still far too much for it. Thumbs down to the Underdome.
The Secret Armory of General Knoxx: This one was okay. I guess. There’s not much story to it, really, just rescuing an ex-Atlas Corporation assassin and then helping her cause some damage to said company. There was potential for stronger story development than what we get from this, what with it being the first real, significant, outright interaction with and confrontation of one of the major corporations in the Borderlands universe (the main game’s plot doesn’t leave much allowance for more than skirmishes, all things considered), and also potential for better development of characters, too. It’s amusing enough at times, I admit, such as when listening to General Knoxx having to deal with his superior officer and the brief antics of Mr. Shank, but occasional amusement is all there is to find, which ain’t enough for me. I will also give it props for being a very sizable DLC package--the large areas and lengthy quests contained within this add-on will likely keep you occupied for a good several hours, and I do appreciate that. But it’s nonetheless still being occupied mostly with busywork and pure gameplay, not with anything of substance--but then, most of the main game is like that, too, so maybe I shouldn’t judge it too harshly. So in the end, as I said, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx is okay. Not worth the original price of $10, but I don’t feel cheated at having paid more or less $2.50 for it, at least.
Claptrap’s New Robot Revolution: By the time I got to this one, I gotta be honest, the charm of Borderlands 1 was wearing seriously thin for me. I know, I know, everyone is crazy about all things Borderlands, but you know me, I play RPGs for the plot and characters, and it’s only so long that the minimal style of storytelling in Borderlands 1 will hold my attention. Still, I’ll try to be objective. This add-on is, well, basically more of the same. Its story is mildly amusing, though not compelling, and its villain is entertaining, if fairly generic for his archetype. As with the last DLC, I feel like there was a lot of wasted potential here, since another major corporate force of the Borderlands universe, the Hyperion corporation, which was the other of the 2 major corporate players in the main game’s story, had a distinct presence throughout this DLC, yet provided next to no insights to anything beyond the task at hand. I suppose that’s just not Borderlands 1’s style, but it comes across nonetheless as wasted opportunity to me. A better glimpse into the larger setting of this series would have been an ideal way to instill new interest in me (much in the same way that the scope and potential of the Star Wars universe or Mass Effect series initially hooked my attention); as it stands, I am, as I mentioned earlier, losing interest. And unfortunately, I feel like on the gameplay front, which is obviously what Borderlands 1 is more concerned with over anything else, Claptrap’s New Robot Revolution still is a little lacking. The majority of “new” enemies are just old ones with slightly different looks to them, and most of the actually unique new enemies are very simplistic. The final boss fight is good, but overall, this lacks the enemy innovations that The Zombie Island of Doctor Ned and The Secret Fortress of General Knoxx strove to introduce.
Anyway, this DLC isn’t bad, really, because the humor of it does definitely work, and I can’t hold the weak plot against it too much when said plot is, firstly, obviously more tongue-in-cheek than anything else, and secondly, not really any worse than the storytelling of any other part of the game. It’s definitely not worth the original price tag of $10, but having it constitute a quarter of the $10 add-on bundle I got it in is mostly fair, I figure.
So how does Borderlands 1 hold up, DLC-wise? Eh. Not great. None of these packages were worth the original price of $10, and one of them I can’t even justify being a quarter of the 10 bucks I paid for them all. The other three are just the same problem repeating itself that I have with Borderlands 1’s main game--a few jokes that are fairly funny, with very little realization of ideas and plot points that could have been interesting and even immersive. It takes a subtle but masterful touch to make an understated narrative style work, even on a comical level, and Borderlands 1’s DLCs are just as unable to achieve that storytelling functionality as the main game was. I’ve seen games with a worse overall set of DLC (Dragon Age 2’s add-ons and what we have of Mass Effect 3’s downloadable contents, for example), but this is still ultimately a bit of a low point in my DLC experience.
Let’s talk about its Downloadable Content!
(Shortest intro of my life, I think).
The Zombie Island of Doctor Ned: I did enjoy this one. It’s got a lot of fun references and parodies within it, and a load of comedy that’s guaranteed to elicit a chuckle from the player at the very least. As a humor DLC, The Zombie Island of Doctor Ned is a winner. That said, this DLC was originally $10 on release, which I find awfully expensive for it. I bought my copy of Borderlands 1 recently on Steam, and thus I basically only had to pay that much for all 4 DLC packages, so it’s not a problem for me, but I’d have to say that $10 is extremely steep for this. Yes, it’s enjoyable, probably the funniest humor-based DLC I’ve seen to date (granted, though, it’s only the third of its kind that I’ve encountered), but 10 bucks? That’s awfully pricey for some jokes, to me, and there’s not much else this DLC has to offer. I guess it’s alright gameplay-wise, but I don’t consider that to be all that important, as you know, and even if I did, “alright” is not high enough praise for that cost. So ultimately, I’d say I got my money’s worth at (basically) $2.50, but unless earlier customers were really hard up for some laughs, I’d say they overpaid.
Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot: I found this one to be a complete waste of time. There’s basically nothing to this DLC--it unlocks an arena area, in which you can fight. There’s only one quest, and while its reward is substantial, it has no story to it whatsoever. Mad Moxxi herself is at best barely worth notice. Adding an item storage option is a nice touch, but still wholly insubstantial. Not only was this add-on most definitely not worth the $10 it originally sold for, I frankly think that the $2.50 that I paid for it (when all is said and done) is still far too much for it. Thumbs down to the Underdome.
The Secret Armory of General Knoxx: This one was okay. I guess. There’s not much story to it, really, just rescuing an ex-Atlas Corporation assassin and then helping her cause some damage to said company. There was potential for stronger story development than what we get from this, what with it being the first real, significant, outright interaction with and confrontation of one of the major corporations in the Borderlands universe (the main game’s plot doesn’t leave much allowance for more than skirmishes, all things considered), and also potential for better development of characters, too. It’s amusing enough at times, I admit, such as when listening to General Knoxx having to deal with his superior officer and the brief antics of Mr. Shank, but occasional amusement is all there is to find, which ain’t enough for me. I will also give it props for being a very sizable DLC package--the large areas and lengthy quests contained within this add-on will likely keep you occupied for a good several hours, and I do appreciate that. But it’s nonetheless still being occupied mostly with busywork and pure gameplay, not with anything of substance--but then, most of the main game is like that, too, so maybe I shouldn’t judge it too harshly. So in the end, as I said, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx is okay. Not worth the original price of $10, but I don’t feel cheated at having paid more or less $2.50 for it, at least.
Claptrap’s New Robot Revolution: By the time I got to this one, I gotta be honest, the charm of Borderlands 1 was wearing seriously thin for me. I know, I know, everyone is crazy about all things Borderlands, but you know me, I play RPGs for the plot and characters, and it’s only so long that the minimal style of storytelling in Borderlands 1 will hold my attention. Still, I’ll try to be objective. This add-on is, well, basically more of the same. Its story is mildly amusing, though not compelling, and its villain is entertaining, if fairly generic for his archetype. As with the last DLC, I feel like there was a lot of wasted potential here, since another major corporate force of the Borderlands universe, the Hyperion corporation, which was the other of the 2 major corporate players in the main game’s story, had a distinct presence throughout this DLC, yet provided next to no insights to anything beyond the task at hand. I suppose that’s just not Borderlands 1’s style, but it comes across nonetheless as wasted opportunity to me. A better glimpse into the larger setting of this series would have been an ideal way to instill new interest in me (much in the same way that the scope and potential of the Star Wars universe or Mass Effect series initially hooked my attention); as it stands, I am, as I mentioned earlier, losing interest. And unfortunately, I feel like on the gameplay front, which is obviously what Borderlands 1 is more concerned with over anything else, Claptrap’s New Robot Revolution still is a little lacking. The majority of “new” enemies are just old ones with slightly different looks to them, and most of the actually unique new enemies are very simplistic. The final boss fight is good, but overall, this lacks the enemy innovations that The Zombie Island of Doctor Ned and The Secret Fortress of General Knoxx strove to introduce.
Anyway, this DLC isn’t bad, really, because the humor of it does definitely work, and I can’t hold the weak plot against it too much when said plot is, firstly, obviously more tongue-in-cheek than anything else, and secondly, not really any worse than the storytelling of any other part of the game. It’s definitely not worth the original price tag of $10, but having it constitute a quarter of the $10 add-on bundle I got it in is mostly fair, I figure.
So how does Borderlands 1 hold up, DLC-wise? Eh. Not great. None of these packages were worth the original price of $10, and one of them I can’t even justify being a quarter of the 10 bucks I paid for them all. The other three are just the same problem repeating itself that I have with Borderlands 1’s main game--a few jokes that are fairly funny, with very little realization of ideas and plot points that could have been interesting and even immersive. It takes a subtle but masterful touch to make an understated narrative style work, even on a comical level, and Borderlands 1’s DLCs are just as unable to achieve that storytelling functionality as the main game was. I’ve seen games with a worse overall set of DLC (Dragon Age 2’s add-ons and what we have of Mass Effect 3’s downloadable contents, for example), but this is still ultimately a bit of a low point in my DLC experience.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
The Xenosaga Series's Allen and Shion Romance
(Many thanks to my friend Jolt for his part in making this rant possible, and my sister for bouncing my ideas right back in my face and forcing me to get my shit together with my arguments.)
Oh gosh, I should do a rant about one of the problems with Xenosaga 3’s story decisions. Let me see. How about making half the main cast overall unimportant to the game’s events? Or continuing the decision of Xenosaga 1 and especially 2 to give Ziggy no significant relevance to the story? Maybe the fact that an entire game’s worth of events happened between Xenosaga 2 and 3, and is only related to the player through vague references and an in-game glossary? Perhaps the lack of background and depth for almost all of its villains, whether major or minor?
Oh, I know what I’ll rant about! Allen and Shion. Good God alive, Allen and Shion.
Okay. Before we begin, let me just get this out of the way, to be fair and honest. I personally have advocated, since Xenosaga 1, the idea of Shion and KOSMOS being involved romantically. I think there’s some real romantic potential there, and I swear, it cannot possibly just be my imagination that the games themselves hint at it. KOSMOS is extraordinarily protective of Shion far beyond the scope of her programming; keeping Shion safe can be considered the ultimate priority for KOSMOS, and she will, and does, break the laws of her own construction to make that happen. Shion’s interactions with KOSMOS seem to personally focus Shion in a way that doesn’t happen with her interactions with anyone else, and she’ll allow KOSMOS in without a thought even when she shuts everyone else out. Hell, there’s a scene where KOSMOS even seems to say she loves Shion, in as much capacity as she can--when Shion asks why KOSMOS watches over her in ways far beyond her programming, KOSMOS’s response is basically that protecting Shion is her highest priority, not as a part of her programming per say, but as a direct, interrupting value that comes from her core, able to supercede every other behavioral directive. Shion interprets this as essentially meaning that KOSMOS’s very heart wants to protect her, and it seems like a pretty legit understanding to me (though I am, granted, hardly knowledgeable about the way proposed AI behavior programming and such would work). To me, that is, all things considered, basically a statement of love, right there. Then there’s all the implications of the previous lives thing, the way KOSMOS acts once she’s regained her lost soul...frankly, if the game had just outright acknowledged that KOSMOS and Shion loved each other at some point, and left it at that, it would have been one of the few aspects of Xenosaga’s plot that was understandable and concluded well.
But although I personally believe that there’s a connection of love between them, I DO try to stay objective, both when I’m playing a game and when I’m ranting. I try never to let what I want override my ability to recognize what is, you know? It seems to me like the entire series is implying that KOSMOS and Shion are in love, but I concede that you can argue, probably effectively, that every instance of proof for this idea has some other intention, some other meaning. So what I’m about to say is, honestly, me being objective, not letting my personal biases get in the way of the issue.
Allen x Shion is a fucking joke.
Alright, another note I’d like to make before I continue. I don’t dislike Allen. And I don’t begrudge him his interest in Shion (although I sure as hell don’t understand it; good lord is she a pill). I think Allen is an okay guy. Mildly annoying at times, but in his cowardly way he’s dedicated, he’s got a good heart, and...well, that’s about it actually, since his character is rather flat, but he’s alright.
No, the reasons I dislike the whole Allen and Shion thing that Xenosaga 3 decides to make canon are as follows.
First: He’s an emotionally gutless coward for literally more than 99% of the series. I don’t hold his physical cowardice against him, as I said--he’s not a fighter, and he gets involved in some highly dangerous situations against his will, so him comically wailing like Shaggy from Scooby Doo is tolerable to me. But I’m talking emotional cowardice here. He does not do ANYTHING to make his feelings known to Shion for the entire three games until the second-to-last confrontation of Xenosaga 3. That’s over the course of YEARS! And over a hundred hours for the player. Closer to 200. It takes him until the end of the damn game, the right-before-the-final-boss confrontation, to confess that he loves Shion!
Now, I think he does do this confession scene pretty heroically. It’s one of your standard anime-tastic “I’ll stand up for her even though I’m powerless cuz TRUE LOVE HAS INFINITE HP!!!” scenes, where he just keeps getting up and taking more punishment for Shion’s sake, despite having no chance in hell of doing anything. Cliche, but it works for him.
Although now that I think about it, I’m not sure he actually SAYS he loves her in this scene...but it is, for the first time with him, implied enough to more or less be a confession of love.
Anyway. Should I really be rooting for someone who cannot express their feelings to the object of their affection for years, during events of such magnitude as those of the Xenosaga series? It ain’t like the situation in this scene is the first time the Xenosaga gang has gotten involved in something dangerous in his presence! Shion could easily have died any time during the entire series, and more than once very nearly did. He couldn’t find it within himself to tell her at any time during these tumultuous times how he felt? His love for her isn’t strong enough to overcome basic bashfulness during a prolonged period of time in which every time he sees her could be the last time, and yet I’m supposed to accept his feelings as legitimate.
Hell, not to belabor the point, but as I mentioned above, fucking KOSMOS is more honest about her feelings than Allen is, and she’s a fucking robot--a ROBOTIC robot, not the touchy-feely variety. Even if you take that scene between her and Shion not to imply romantic love, it’s STILL a scene in which KOSMOS is being as honest about what she feels as she is literally capable of, which is more than Allen can manage up until the last second.
Now, my sister has argued with me on this point, saying that an unrequited love can still be powerful and real, and I suppose I can understand where she’s coming from on this. I mean, one of the greatest cartoons ever conceived, Hey Arnold!, has a believable and touching case of this with Helga’s feelings for Arnold, which she doesn’t reveal to him for almost the entire series. Of course, Helga is 9 years old, while our boy Allen is a grown fucking man, but we’ll put that aside. So this first point of Allen’s emotional cowardice is, I guess, not a death knell for the Allen x Shion idea, even if I do still think it deserves some consideration.
But the thing is, Hey Arnold! really sold the watcher on Helga’s love for Arnold. I mean, we see many occasions that give us an understanding of why she loves him, from how her feelings started, to her consistent monologues about it, to how well they mesh when Helga puts down her defenses, to how clear it is that Arnold’s influence makes Helga into the better person that she often yearns to be. If you’re gonna aim for the unrequited love angle, you gotta make it believable...and that brings us to our second point.
Second: Why the hell does Allen love her to start with? Now I understand love is all about emotion, but even emotion has its own form of rhyme and reason, and to sustain as powerful and involved an emotion as the love that Xenosaga clearly wants to imply Allen has for Shion, one needs to have some level of connection with the person that one is in love with.
Where is that with Allen, exactly? What is it that draws Allen to Shion? What is it about her that he loves so much? She’s more or less never shown to be considerate of him. Most of her interactions in the games are just bossing him around or getting exasperated with him, and on the occasions where she’s not being mildly hostile, she’s always distant. You could theorize that he’s attracted to her intellect or professional abilities, but we never see an indication that Allen has a particular pride or interest in such things (I mean, he’s great at his science-y job, but it’s never shown that he has more than a typical interest in it). So basically, it’s never shown that they connect well or that there’s a reason to think they connect well. It’s shown that he has no real idea of the pain she carries inside of her until the rest of the cast is aware, and that’s really her only substantial character depth, so what part of her is it that he loves? There’s not a lot to her personality otherwise. I mean, she does put her life on the line for stuff and do the usual hero-ing it up that an RPG character has to, but Allen’s feelings are shown to have been established before any of that stuff started, and there’s no indication that they grow over the course of the games--for all we’re shown, they’re roughly as strong at the beginning of Xenosaga 1 as they are by the end of Xenosaga 3, and if they HAVE grown, then we’ve never been made privy to what it was that nurtured them. You could theorize that he’s a shy and pathetic social outcast so that he’ll swoon over any girl who treats him halfway decently (basically, me in high school...and college...and...let’s stop there, actually), but for Xenosaga 1 and 2 Shion only treats him as either a work underling or an annoyance, and in Xenosaga 3 she’s distracted all the time, so you can’t even go with that (plus, that interpretation’s a bit of a stretch for Allen). So basically, what Allen sees in her is never shown. Does she do anything for him or to him in a spiritual sort of way, like how Arnold influences Helga to be a better person, or Final Fantasy 10’s Yuna and Tidus nurture their own best traits within the other through their emotional connection? Not that we’re shown. I mean, Allen changes for the better, I guess, in that by the end of Xenosaga 3 he’s willing to join the rest of the party in a dangerous situation without complaint, meaning that he’s gotten much more of a backbone, but...well, it’s not Shion that’s inspiring such a change in him, I think, so much as it is his love for Shion. But that motivating love for her is being born entirely of himself, not her own actions or influences, so I don’t think it really counts as a point of something he’d love her for. It’d be like saying he loves her because she’s someone he can love. And either way, he never gives us the idea that he acknowledges her potential betterment of him. So again, we’re not shown any real reason for him to love her.
Now, if you look through that last paragraph, you’ll see I used the word “shown” several times at key points. Rather than just being a case of having a low vocabulary, that was intentional, because it leads me to this piece of storytelling wisdom: Show, don’t tell. Now, I think that tell is underrated as a narrative fashion these days (Isaac Asimov, after all, mostly told in the first book of his Foundation series, and it was awesome), but it’s overall sound advice. And that’s the thing--we’re told that Allen loves Shion, but we’re never really shown that he loves her. Oh, the games throw us several scenes of him looking and acting like he loves her, yeah, but we’re just never given any understanding of how, why, where it came from, what keeps it going, and so on. And this is all just why this pairing is stupid and wrong from Allen’s side...which brings us to the other side.
Third: Shion never had any interest in him. She barely seems to even consider him a friend for most of the series, and on the occasions when she does, it’s still not as a particularly close friend. She clearly likes him just fine, but that’s all.
Now, though Allen can’t seem to work up the nerve to be honest with the woman he supposedly loves for the near entirety of the series, he DOES make a few blundering, pathetic attempts to let ambiguous implications let her know how he feels about her. These implications are utterly lost on her, and it is, for ONCE in a story coming from Japan, NOT because she is just generally oblivious. It is believable oblivion, the kind you would naturally have if someone just did not even register on your radar as potential romance material.
See...in most animes and games and such where this trope of romantic obliviousness comes in, the person (we’ll call them Person A) who’s not picking up on the other person’s interest (we’ll call them Person B) is clearly just completely oblivious. That is to say, there’s reason to think that Person A would certainly have at least some interest in Person B, if Person A were not so completely oblivious as to miss all of Person B’s signals. And it also usually seems kind of unrealistic that Person A is somehow missing all these signals to start with.
It ain’t like that with Shion. The lack of recognition isn’t out of character for the sake of poor writing. It doesn’t come off like she’s just not getting something that she might actually have an interest in. With Shion, it’s clear that she’s not picking up on Allen’s signals because it’s just something she would never think of.
That does not sell me on this pairing.
Fourth: It’s so obviously, and poorly, shoehorned in. And I mean like wow, here. You know the first time, the very first time in the entire series when Shion ever looks at Allen with anything resembling interest? During the end sequence. The END.
I assume you’ve played the game if you’re reading this far, but let me refresh your memory here. They’re all escaping because God knows you can’t have a final dungeon that doesn’t fall apart at the drop of a hat (well, the drop of a last boss’s body, at any rate), and they’re all fighting Gnosis on the way out, and a big appears in front of them, and somehow the rest of them are too busy to notice it, so Allen...sorry, give me a moment to stop giggling at the very memory of how overblown and stupid this is...he lets out this roar and vow to protect Shion, which is about as hilariously over the top as one might expect because his voice acting was not meant for manly roars, and he jumps way up into the air, lands on the Gnosis, and starts beating on it with the butt of his rifle. You are watching a scrawny stereotype scientist jump like 20 feet up, knock down a towering titan of a monster, and instead of FIRING THE GUN HE’S HOLDING, start hammering at it with his skinny little arms holding the rifle butt. By far the most amazingly silly, stupid part of this scene is the fact that you are actually supposed to take it seriously.
As this happens, Shion’s eyes are like...you ever watch your average girl when she first sees the werewolf guys in the Twilight movies go topless? It’s basically the anime version of that.
And that’s it! That is the first and LAST time in the entire roughly-200-hours-long Xenosaga series where Shion shows an actual, demonstrable interest in Allen. The ending of it. I mean, there’s shoehorning, and there there’s THIS. Out of all the truckloads of details and ideas they violently cram into these games, the hundreds of silly and terrible aspects that were given actual game time, THIS did not make the cut! Why should I take this romantic subplot seriously when the writers didn’t? Not to mention that this scene would imply that the only way that the writers feel they can possibly inspire some emotional reciprocation in Shion is by employing the most ridiculously unlikely shit possible.
And hey, at the risk of beating a dead horse by reminding you of my own pairing preferences yet again, I’d like to point out that it’s funny what you can read into this scene. See, at the moment this scene happens, it seems very likely that Shion will either never see KOSMOS again, or will at least not see her for a very, very long time. So, this extremely recent separation and loss having just had enough time to start sinking in, what is it that makes Shion suddenly into Allen? Seeing him fight for her, act as her protector.
Y’know. The thing that KOSMOS is most significantly known to Shion for.
So from a certain perspective, you can actually say that this terribly silly, painfully forced Shion x Allen moment is actually just confirmation that she loves KOSMOS, that it’s nothing more than an attempt to regain that love by replacing KOSMOS with someone who can fill the same role. I mean, yeah, I’m obviously reading more into it than I was meant to here, but be honest--is that interpretation not just about the only thing that could make at least SOME part of that scene halfway sensible?
Whether or not you want to look at it that way, though, the scene is, like I said, utterly absurd, unintentionally laughable, and pathetically last-minute. The pairing itself has 0 chemistry, Allen’s persistent emotional constipation gives the player no reason whatever to support it, and the only time that the writers could bother to actually show it at all was right at the last second. Allen x Shion is a fucking joke.
On an unrelated note, thanks to those of you who sent me rant topic ideas over the little Christmas - New Year break. I've chosen the best one and sent the fellow who came up with it an email about the prize, but I appreciate them all.
Oh gosh, I should do a rant about one of the problems with Xenosaga 3’s story decisions. Let me see. How about making half the main cast overall unimportant to the game’s events? Or continuing the decision of Xenosaga 1 and especially 2 to give Ziggy no significant relevance to the story? Maybe the fact that an entire game’s worth of events happened between Xenosaga 2 and 3, and is only related to the player through vague references and an in-game glossary? Perhaps the lack of background and depth for almost all of its villains, whether major or minor?
Oh, I know what I’ll rant about! Allen and Shion. Good God alive, Allen and Shion.
Okay. Before we begin, let me just get this out of the way, to be fair and honest. I personally have advocated, since Xenosaga 1, the idea of Shion and KOSMOS being involved romantically. I think there’s some real romantic potential there, and I swear, it cannot possibly just be my imagination that the games themselves hint at it. KOSMOS is extraordinarily protective of Shion far beyond the scope of her programming; keeping Shion safe can be considered the ultimate priority for KOSMOS, and she will, and does, break the laws of her own construction to make that happen. Shion’s interactions with KOSMOS seem to personally focus Shion in a way that doesn’t happen with her interactions with anyone else, and she’ll allow KOSMOS in without a thought even when she shuts everyone else out. Hell, there’s a scene where KOSMOS even seems to say she loves Shion, in as much capacity as she can--when Shion asks why KOSMOS watches over her in ways far beyond her programming, KOSMOS’s response is basically that protecting Shion is her highest priority, not as a part of her programming per say, but as a direct, interrupting value that comes from her core, able to supercede every other behavioral directive. Shion interprets this as essentially meaning that KOSMOS’s very heart wants to protect her, and it seems like a pretty legit understanding to me (though I am, granted, hardly knowledgeable about the way proposed AI behavior programming and such would work). To me, that is, all things considered, basically a statement of love, right there. Then there’s all the implications of the previous lives thing, the way KOSMOS acts once she’s regained her lost soul...frankly, if the game had just outright acknowledged that KOSMOS and Shion loved each other at some point, and left it at that, it would have been one of the few aspects of Xenosaga’s plot that was understandable and concluded well.
But although I personally believe that there’s a connection of love between them, I DO try to stay objective, both when I’m playing a game and when I’m ranting. I try never to let what I want override my ability to recognize what is, you know? It seems to me like the entire series is implying that KOSMOS and Shion are in love, but I concede that you can argue, probably effectively, that every instance of proof for this idea has some other intention, some other meaning. So what I’m about to say is, honestly, me being objective, not letting my personal biases get in the way of the issue.
Allen x Shion is a fucking joke.
Alright, another note I’d like to make before I continue. I don’t dislike Allen. And I don’t begrudge him his interest in Shion (although I sure as hell don’t understand it; good lord is she a pill). I think Allen is an okay guy. Mildly annoying at times, but in his cowardly way he’s dedicated, he’s got a good heart, and...well, that’s about it actually, since his character is rather flat, but he’s alright.
No, the reasons I dislike the whole Allen and Shion thing that Xenosaga 3 decides to make canon are as follows.
First: He’s an emotionally gutless coward for literally more than 99% of the series. I don’t hold his physical cowardice against him, as I said--he’s not a fighter, and he gets involved in some highly dangerous situations against his will, so him comically wailing like Shaggy from Scooby Doo is tolerable to me. But I’m talking emotional cowardice here. He does not do ANYTHING to make his feelings known to Shion for the entire three games until the second-to-last confrontation of Xenosaga 3. That’s over the course of YEARS! And over a hundred hours for the player. Closer to 200. It takes him until the end of the damn game, the right-before-the-final-boss confrontation, to confess that he loves Shion!
Now, I think he does do this confession scene pretty heroically. It’s one of your standard anime-tastic “I’ll stand up for her even though I’m powerless cuz TRUE LOVE HAS INFINITE HP!!!” scenes, where he just keeps getting up and taking more punishment for Shion’s sake, despite having no chance in hell of doing anything. Cliche, but it works for him.
Although now that I think about it, I’m not sure he actually SAYS he loves her in this scene...but it is, for the first time with him, implied enough to more or less be a confession of love.
Anyway. Should I really be rooting for someone who cannot express their feelings to the object of their affection for years, during events of such magnitude as those of the Xenosaga series? It ain’t like the situation in this scene is the first time the Xenosaga gang has gotten involved in something dangerous in his presence! Shion could easily have died any time during the entire series, and more than once very nearly did. He couldn’t find it within himself to tell her at any time during these tumultuous times how he felt? His love for her isn’t strong enough to overcome basic bashfulness during a prolonged period of time in which every time he sees her could be the last time, and yet I’m supposed to accept his feelings as legitimate.
Hell, not to belabor the point, but as I mentioned above, fucking KOSMOS is more honest about her feelings than Allen is, and she’s a fucking robot--a ROBOTIC robot, not the touchy-feely variety. Even if you take that scene between her and Shion not to imply romantic love, it’s STILL a scene in which KOSMOS is being as honest about what she feels as she is literally capable of, which is more than Allen can manage up until the last second.
Now, my sister has argued with me on this point, saying that an unrequited love can still be powerful and real, and I suppose I can understand where she’s coming from on this. I mean, one of the greatest cartoons ever conceived, Hey Arnold!, has a believable and touching case of this with Helga’s feelings for Arnold, which she doesn’t reveal to him for almost the entire series. Of course, Helga is 9 years old, while our boy Allen is a grown fucking man, but we’ll put that aside. So this first point of Allen’s emotional cowardice is, I guess, not a death knell for the Allen x Shion idea, even if I do still think it deserves some consideration.
But the thing is, Hey Arnold! really sold the watcher on Helga’s love for Arnold. I mean, we see many occasions that give us an understanding of why she loves him, from how her feelings started, to her consistent monologues about it, to how well they mesh when Helga puts down her defenses, to how clear it is that Arnold’s influence makes Helga into the better person that she often yearns to be. If you’re gonna aim for the unrequited love angle, you gotta make it believable...and that brings us to our second point.
Second: Why the hell does Allen love her to start with? Now I understand love is all about emotion, but even emotion has its own form of rhyme and reason, and to sustain as powerful and involved an emotion as the love that Xenosaga clearly wants to imply Allen has for Shion, one needs to have some level of connection with the person that one is in love with.
Where is that with Allen, exactly? What is it that draws Allen to Shion? What is it about her that he loves so much? She’s more or less never shown to be considerate of him. Most of her interactions in the games are just bossing him around or getting exasperated with him, and on the occasions where she’s not being mildly hostile, she’s always distant. You could theorize that he’s attracted to her intellect or professional abilities, but we never see an indication that Allen has a particular pride or interest in such things (I mean, he’s great at his science-y job, but it’s never shown that he has more than a typical interest in it). So basically, it’s never shown that they connect well or that there’s a reason to think they connect well. It’s shown that he has no real idea of the pain she carries inside of her until the rest of the cast is aware, and that’s really her only substantial character depth, so what part of her is it that he loves? There’s not a lot to her personality otherwise. I mean, she does put her life on the line for stuff and do the usual hero-ing it up that an RPG character has to, but Allen’s feelings are shown to have been established before any of that stuff started, and there’s no indication that they grow over the course of the games--for all we’re shown, they’re roughly as strong at the beginning of Xenosaga 1 as they are by the end of Xenosaga 3, and if they HAVE grown, then we’ve never been made privy to what it was that nurtured them. You could theorize that he’s a shy and pathetic social outcast so that he’ll swoon over any girl who treats him halfway decently (basically, me in high school...and college...and...let’s stop there, actually), but for Xenosaga 1 and 2 Shion only treats him as either a work underling or an annoyance, and in Xenosaga 3 she’s distracted all the time, so you can’t even go with that (plus, that interpretation’s a bit of a stretch for Allen). So basically, what Allen sees in her is never shown. Does she do anything for him or to him in a spiritual sort of way, like how Arnold influences Helga to be a better person, or Final Fantasy 10’s Yuna and Tidus nurture their own best traits within the other through their emotional connection? Not that we’re shown. I mean, Allen changes for the better, I guess, in that by the end of Xenosaga 3 he’s willing to join the rest of the party in a dangerous situation without complaint, meaning that he’s gotten much more of a backbone, but...well, it’s not Shion that’s inspiring such a change in him, I think, so much as it is his love for Shion. But that motivating love for her is being born entirely of himself, not her own actions or influences, so I don’t think it really counts as a point of something he’d love her for. It’d be like saying he loves her because she’s someone he can love. And either way, he never gives us the idea that he acknowledges her potential betterment of him. So again, we’re not shown any real reason for him to love her.
Now, if you look through that last paragraph, you’ll see I used the word “shown” several times at key points. Rather than just being a case of having a low vocabulary, that was intentional, because it leads me to this piece of storytelling wisdom: Show, don’t tell. Now, I think that tell is underrated as a narrative fashion these days (Isaac Asimov, after all, mostly told in the first book of his Foundation series, and it was awesome), but it’s overall sound advice. And that’s the thing--we’re told that Allen loves Shion, but we’re never really shown that he loves her. Oh, the games throw us several scenes of him looking and acting like he loves her, yeah, but we’re just never given any understanding of how, why, where it came from, what keeps it going, and so on. And this is all just why this pairing is stupid and wrong from Allen’s side...which brings us to the other side.
Third: Shion never had any interest in him. She barely seems to even consider him a friend for most of the series, and on the occasions when she does, it’s still not as a particularly close friend. She clearly likes him just fine, but that’s all.
Now, though Allen can’t seem to work up the nerve to be honest with the woman he supposedly loves for the near entirety of the series, he DOES make a few blundering, pathetic attempts to let ambiguous implications let her know how he feels about her. These implications are utterly lost on her, and it is, for ONCE in a story coming from Japan, NOT because she is just generally oblivious. It is believable oblivion, the kind you would naturally have if someone just did not even register on your radar as potential romance material.
See...in most animes and games and such where this trope of romantic obliviousness comes in, the person (we’ll call them Person A) who’s not picking up on the other person’s interest (we’ll call them Person B) is clearly just completely oblivious. That is to say, there’s reason to think that Person A would certainly have at least some interest in Person B, if Person A were not so completely oblivious as to miss all of Person B’s signals. And it also usually seems kind of unrealistic that Person A is somehow missing all these signals to start with.
It ain’t like that with Shion. The lack of recognition isn’t out of character for the sake of poor writing. It doesn’t come off like she’s just not getting something that she might actually have an interest in. With Shion, it’s clear that she’s not picking up on Allen’s signals because it’s just something she would never think of.
That does not sell me on this pairing.
Fourth: It’s so obviously, and poorly, shoehorned in. And I mean like wow, here. You know the first time, the very first time in the entire series when Shion ever looks at Allen with anything resembling interest? During the end sequence. The END.
I assume you’ve played the game if you’re reading this far, but let me refresh your memory here. They’re all escaping because God knows you can’t have a final dungeon that doesn’t fall apart at the drop of a hat (well, the drop of a last boss’s body, at any rate), and they’re all fighting Gnosis on the way out, and a big appears in front of them, and somehow the rest of them are too busy to notice it, so Allen...sorry, give me a moment to stop giggling at the very memory of how overblown and stupid this is...he lets out this roar and vow to protect Shion, which is about as hilariously over the top as one might expect because his voice acting was not meant for manly roars, and he jumps way up into the air, lands on the Gnosis, and starts beating on it with the butt of his rifle. You are watching a scrawny stereotype scientist jump like 20 feet up, knock down a towering titan of a monster, and instead of FIRING THE GUN HE’S HOLDING, start hammering at it with his skinny little arms holding the rifle butt. By far the most amazingly silly, stupid part of this scene is the fact that you are actually supposed to take it seriously.
As this happens, Shion’s eyes are like...you ever watch your average girl when she first sees the werewolf guys in the Twilight movies go topless? It’s basically the anime version of that.
And that’s it! That is the first and LAST time in the entire roughly-200-hours-long Xenosaga series where Shion shows an actual, demonstrable interest in Allen. The ending of it. I mean, there’s shoehorning, and there there’s THIS. Out of all the truckloads of details and ideas they violently cram into these games, the hundreds of silly and terrible aspects that were given actual game time, THIS did not make the cut! Why should I take this romantic subplot seriously when the writers didn’t? Not to mention that this scene would imply that the only way that the writers feel they can possibly inspire some emotional reciprocation in Shion is by employing the most ridiculously unlikely shit possible.
And hey, at the risk of beating a dead horse by reminding you of my own pairing preferences yet again, I’d like to point out that it’s funny what you can read into this scene. See, at the moment this scene happens, it seems very likely that Shion will either never see KOSMOS again, or will at least not see her for a very, very long time. So, this extremely recent separation and loss having just had enough time to start sinking in, what is it that makes Shion suddenly into Allen? Seeing him fight for her, act as her protector.
Y’know. The thing that KOSMOS is most significantly known to Shion for.
So from a certain perspective, you can actually say that this terribly silly, painfully forced Shion x Allen moment is actually just confirmation that she loves KOSMOS, that it’s nothing more than an attempt to regain that love by replacing KOSMOS with someone who can fill the same role. I mean, yeah, I’m obviously reading more into it than I was meant to here, but be honest--is that interpretation not just about the only thing that could make at least SOME part of that scene halfway sensible?
Whether or not you want to look at it that way, though, the scene is, like I said, utterly absurd, unintentionally laughable, and pathetically last-minute. The pairing itself has 0 chemistry, Allen’s persistent emotional constipation gives the player no reason whatever to support it, and the only time that the writers could bother to actually show it at all was right at the last second. Allen x Shion is a fucking joke.
On an unrelated note, thanks to those of you who sent me rant topic ideas over the little Christmas - New Year break. I've chosen the best one and sent the fellow who came up with it an email about the prize, but I appreciate them all.
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Annual Summary: 2012
Well, the year’s over and done with, for the most part. 2012 was supposed to be the year the world ended, according to a misinterpretation of the Mayans, but since I’m betting it won’t, I guess this rant column’s gonna keep going.*
2012 reminds me a bit of 2011 in that I played a lot of RPGs this year that didn’t leave a particularly strong impression one way or another. Still, there were some particularly good ones that kept things interesting, as well as a few truly vile moments of gaming that kept me cranky enough to keep churning out rant ideas. Again, I had a good mix of RPGs here, spanning a wide range of time and styles. Here’s what I played:
Anachronox
Bastion
Boktai 1
Borderlands 1
Fire Emblem 1
Golden Sun 3
Hoshigami Remix: Ruining Blue Earth
Icewind Dale 1
Icewind Dale 2
Infinite Space
Izuna 1
Izuna 2
Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days
Knights in the Nightmare
Legaia 2
The Legend of Zelda 2
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Mass Effect 3
Mega Man Star Force 1
My World, My Way
Orcs + Elves
Romancing Saga 1
Xenosaga 3
Xenosaga: Pied Piper
A fair number of games for the year, I’d say. The Nintendo DS and 3DS continue to be instrumental in my RPG-playing efforts, and the weekend sales of Good Old Games.com have ensured that I’ll not be wanting for more games any time soon. Kept busy with plenty of other stuff, as always, and, as always, I’ll pretend you care enough to want to read a brief summary of it all--jobs, rants, fanfiction-writing, the first season of The Colony, seasons 1 through 6 of Doctor Who (rewatching the first 5 with my sister), the second and now third seasons of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (which I still heartily recommend to anyone who has somehow managed to surf the internet up until now without encountering it), the full run of The Sarah Jane Adventures, seasons 1 and 2 of Sherlock (thank God the BBC decided to reclaim the character from the fumbling, undignified slop that Hollywood’s vomit-inducing Robert Downey Jr. movies had reduced him to), Torchwood’s first 3 seasons (rewatching them with my sister), the game Little King’s Story, the game Rock of Ages, the entire run of Scrubs, and several books and stories by Tina Fey, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, George Orwell, Mary Rinehart, Suzanne Collins, Agatha Christie, and Ray Bradbury. I do keep myself occupied.
Incidentally, and kind of off-topic, is it just me, or was this just an awesome year for movies? I mean, every year’s got some that really shine, but 2012 was just smoking hot the whole way. The Hunger Games movie was very nearly as good as the book, everybody seemed obligatorily impressed with Moonrise Kingdom, I hear that Cloud Atlas and Flight are solid, my sister tells me that Silver Linings was really good, Lincoln is great, Argo was quite good (you can barely tell it's Ben Affleck playing the role, which is a HUGE plus in a film starring Ben Affleck), it’s hard to imagine that The Hobbit won’t be a very solid work, and frankly, Wreck-It Ralph is just absolutely fantastic, one of the best animated features that Disney has ever done, and the first time I’ve ever seen Disney manage to out-Pixar Pixar. With this and Tangled under their recent belt, maybe Disney’s finally ready to reclaim their spot at the top of animated movies. Hell, if it weren’t for The Dark Knight Rises, I’d seriously say that Wreck-It Ralph was the year’s best movie. But on that note...The Dark Knight Rises. Just wow. Words fail me for how incredibly awesome it is. Maybe I’m just undervaluing previous years, but 2012 really seemed like a great movie year.
Anyway, on the RPG front, the year started out alright. I enjoyed My World, My Way quite a bit despite its repetitive nature, and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is pretty decent, for a Zelda title. I then got a short series of rather bland and uninteresting titles such as but not limited to Golden Sun 3, Boktai 1, and Icewind Dale 1, but I figured, that didn’t matter, because the amazing, spectacular, sure to be a solid winner Mass Effect 3 was coming out! And then I played Mass Effect 3 and...well, if you’ve been paying me any mind at all, you know how that went. And after that, I...well, I kinda stumbled around in a mental fog for a few months, gaming (and doing most other things) almost more out of habit than interest, until...well, actually, I’m kinda still feeling the natural depression that comes as an after-effect of Mass Effect 3’s ending. But I’m sure it’ll clear up eventually.
Anyway, the one good part of experiencing the keenest disappointment ever conceived is that after ME3’s ending, the normal terribleness of Mega Man Star Force 1 and the narrative approach of Xenosaga 3 seem almost welcome. At least the shocking incompetence of a bad JRPG is a familiar foe to me, unable to penetrate the very core of my mental being as ME3 did. And there were a fair number of good experiences afterward that I was all the more thankful for, too. The year thankfully ended on a pretty high note with Romancing Saga 1, which I was surprised to find very enjoyable and subtly masterful, and Infinite Space, which, despite clumsily jamming everything its 40-hour story had been leading up to into its last 2 hours or so and despite an annoyingly vague ending, is really pretty darned good.
But enough of vague recollections and off-topic digressions. Let’s get to the main event, here.
RPG Moments of Interest in 2012:
1. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was released on the 25th anniversary of the Zelda series, and in some ways serves as a tribute to the long-lived series. For the special occasion, we’re given our earliest look into the franchise’s history, our heroes being the very first Link, what is likely to be the very first Impa, and what is essentially the very first Zelda. The game also has some references within it to previous games and characters of the series, but very little that’s actually overt about it. I kind of like this approach, as opposed to the way that Wild Arms 5 did their anniversary shout-outs, which felt kind of over numerous.
Also of interest about this game is that it’s basically the first time in the series that Zelda and Link are very plainly implied to have a romantic interest in each other (up until now, any such idea for the previous Links and Zeldas was made much more from the fancy of the player than from any substantial evidence provided by the game). What’s more interesting than even that, though, is that the game also gives Link the option to openly court and even become involved with an entirely different individual! It just seems very amusing to me that the one time the series actually will take the plunge and officially recognize an attraction between Zelda and Link, THAT’S the game where they throw in a fully-realized non-Zelda love interest for Link.
2. Mass Effect 3’s Ending. Okay, yeah, I know I harp on this a lot, but A, you have to understand that it really is so horrible that it will make anyone who holds any value for the soul of the series spiritually ill, and B, it certainly WAS a moment of interest this year. If you’ve ever harbored any doubt that it is at all possible to utterly shame, cheapen, poison something substantially beautiful instantly, to reduce to ruin in 5 minutes what took hundreds of hours to build in its telling...well, doubt no more. The Extended Cut to the game that adds to the ending definitely improves it, but it’s the equivalent of treating dismemberment with a Bandaid. Thanks a fucking lot, Bioware.
3. Played another Independent RPG this year, Bastion. Artsy, fun, very impressive. Definitely worth checking out. Hell, it was good enough that playing it after Mass Effect 3 helped to restore me a little. So far, my experience with Indie RPGs has been a staunchly positive one.
4. I finished the Xenosaga series this year, playing Xenosaga 3 from start to finish and even reading the translated script of the small side game, Xenosaga: Pied Piper (since it was never released over here). The series definitely has some creative, complex, thought-provoking content to it. It’s just a damn shame that the actual communication of this content to the player in the second and third games is so staggeringly over-complicated and nonsensical that it actually makes Chrono Cross look straightforward and logical.
5. The Knights of the Old Republic 2 Restored Content Mod had its Version 1.8 release this year, which, near as I can figure, contains more or less all the significant content that the project is going to. Basically, this is a fan-made mod for KotOR2 that, like the Fallout 2 restoration project that I was such a fan of in 2010, fixes bugs and restores much hidden, inaccessible, or outright lost content to the game that was meant to be there originally. Of course, while this was a great idea for Fallout 2, it’s FANTASTIC for KotOR2, because KotOR2 is a game whose missing content and glitchiness was noticeable throughout the entire game. This mod restores sidequests, unlocks dozens of extra conversation paths, recreates an entire area of the game that was cut but obviously meant to be there, and makes the finale far more sensible. And with a game like Knights of the Old Republic 2, which is just absolutely saturated with brilliant insight and fascinatingly powerful writing and voice acting, even the smallest of restorations can go a long way to finding new joy in and appreciation for the title. I’ll probably make a proper rant extolling the virtues of this mod at a later date, but for now, I heartily recommend you go to http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-sith-lords-restored-content-mod-tslrcm and try it out if you’re any fan of KotOR2, because it’s just a blast.
6. It strikes me as really weird that after 20 years of RPG playing during which I only ever played a single RPG with a title starting with the letter I (Illusion of Gaia), I suddenly played 5 separate I games all in the same year. Just one of those odd quirks of life.
7. I'm not sure if this counts as an actual RPG moment of interest per say, but this year some people--namely you--have actually started reading this blog. I've got like 9 people subscribing now, which is a gain of roughly infinity% since a couple years ago. I assure you, this HAS gone straight to my already bloated head.
Best Prequel/Sequel of 2012:
Winner: Icewind Dale 2
I sincerely wish I could have put Mass Effect 3 on here, because almost the entire game is a terrific conclusion to an already terrific series, but, that ending...Anyway, Icewind Dale 2 is the winner this year partly because it’s a very marked improvement on the first game. ID1 was a very, very boring by-the-numbers Dungeons and Dragons adventure, with very little of note to pull you into the game’s world and events--the story was generic fare with few embellishing characteristics, and the cast was utterly uninteresting. ID2 is not amazing, but its villains actually have some character depth, the story is told in a more engaging fashion, and there’s some actual value to said story--it’s more thoughtful, has more significance to its setting’s world and people, as well as the player. ID2 is exactly the sort of improvement that ID1 needed. But at the same time, it definitely connects very strongly to its predecessor, taking place in the same general area many years after ID1’s end, with its core plot being a result of some of the events of the first Icewind Dale. Icewind Dale 2 effectively uses ID1, pays proper respect to it, and then goes in its own direction, as a good sequel should.
Runners-Up: Izuna 2; The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Izuna 2 is a good sequel in that it keeps the whacky, characteristic style that the original Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja had, but gives it a more dynamic plot, with a cast that’s slightly expanded, but more importantly has more significant roles for its individuals. As for The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, it helps to set up a lot of the core plot devices of the Legend of Zelda series quite tidily, so it’s a definitely worthy prequel. And...that’s it. Unfortunately I don’t have a third runner-up here. The other sequels and prequels I played this year just generally weren’t very good as follow-ups to the original titles, at least not enough that they deserve recognition.
Biggest Disappointment of 2012:
Loser: Mass Effect 3
I’m sure that you’re as tired of seeing me talk about this as I am of talking about it (probably more so, even), so let’s make it quick: ME3’s ending is a complete violation of nearly every major theme of the Mass Effect series, and it destroys the very essence of the game’s protagonist. The Star Wars prequels, Grandia 3, Indiana Jones: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the Avatar: The Last Airbender movie, these are all just warm-ups in disappointment by comparison.
Almost as Bad: Borderlands 1; Mega Man Star Force 1
It’s not that Borderlands 1 is bad. I mean, it’s not GOOD, either, but it’s certainly not bad. But after hearing these guys I work with obsess over the series nonstop for like a solid month after the second game’s release, I would’ve figured it’d be better, is all. I can respect that its minimalistic storytelling is just the way it does things, and that it’s at least setting up a semi-sci-fi universe for future games to capitalize on, but I don’t have to like it, and I was expecting more. As for Mega Man Star Force 1...well, I didn’t really know what to expect from it, but I kind of did expect something NOT boring and incredibly dumb. Oh, and Mega Man. I guess I was expecting Mega Man in a Mega Man game, not some half-assed semi-emo preteen who’s clearly somehow misplaced a significant portion of his brain. Thus, I was understandably disappointed.
Best Ending of 2012
Winner: Romancing Saga 1
What you get out of RS1’s ending depends on what you put into it, so admittedly, your results may vary. But if you did most of/all of the sidequests in the game (a challenging but entirely achievable possibility), the ending is pretty darned good, showing you various scenes of the people you helped after the world-threatening crisis, and concluding with confirmation that the heroes managed to beat destiny and survive their final battle, and a personal congratulation from your chosen main hero to you for a job well-done, which is kind of fun, and nice. Assuming it’s a later playthrough than your first and that you’ve pursued the Aldora path of the Who Am I? quest, the ending also has a really nice scene for Aldora, too. All in all, it’s satisfying, and it ties things up neatly while reminding the player of the long journey through the game’s events. What more can you ask for from an ending, really?
Runners-Up: Bastion; Fire Emblem 1; The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Don’t know what to say here, really. Bastion just has a solidly good ending, regardless of what the player chooses for it. The same is true of TLoZSS--it’s properly epic and conclusive and satisfying, bringing everything together in a grand finish. Really, a good ending seems so simple a thing to achieve--just have everything wrap up, and satisfy the player. And that’s what Bastion and TLoZSS do, very well. FE1’s ending is also decent--again, not much to say about it, it’s just a decent conclusion that does well by its game.
Worst RPG of 2012
Loser: Mega Man Star Force 1
Dumb. Dumb! Dumb dumb dumb. There is just no other way to describe this meaningless turd of a game. The protagonist is an unappealing, unrealistic sad sack, his buddy is a vaguely dislikeable jerk, the supporting cast are mostly one-dimensional shells of characters, the plot is cookie-cutter at the best of times, and the whole game revolves rather unsettlingly around the idea of utterly submerging yourself in social networking, and works to devalue the idea that anyone might just want some alone time. The narrative style is infantile; I can’t decide whether it’s a case of being intentionally dumbed-down because of the misconception that young audiences are too stupid to comprehend and follow even the most rudimentary of ideas and plot threads, or if it’s just this way because the writers themselves are genuinely capable of no better storytelling style than an uneducated, inebriated 9-year-old. Either way, this game is a complete waste of time.
Almost as Bad: Boktai 1; Golden Sun 3; The Legend of Zelda 2
I really would have liked to stick it to ME3 further in this category, but I have to admit, everything up until the ending is too great for me to actually call it a bad game. Anyway. Boktai 1’s got some ideas that are basically not bad, but overall it’s got a boring and barely present story and cast. The same is true of TLoZ2, only even more so. I guess I could give it a bit of a break because of how old it is, as console RPGs back in the days of the NES had limited means to tell a story with, but y’know, that didn’t stop The Magic of Scheherazade, Phantasy Star 1, or Crystalis from being pretty decent RPGs, so TLoZ2 gets no free pass--it’s bad. As for Golden Sun 3...well, it’s the only real competition that Mega Man Star Force 1 had for the Worst RPG spot this year. GS3’s plot is generic and stuffed with filler, and its characters are almost all barely mentally-existent annoyances. I was wholly unimpressed with Golden Sun 1 and 2, but they were far superior to this crap.
Most Improved of its Series of 2012:
Winner: Icewind Dale 2
Like I said above, Icewind Dale 2 basically improves significantly upon ID1 in every aspect of storytelling, making the whole adventure into something I actually wanted to play to its end, rather than only felt obligated to.** The developers are taking the great setting of the Dungeons and Dragons universe and actually GOING somewhere with it, exploring aspects of its culture and such, and it really makes all the difference.
Runners-Up: Izuna 2; Legaia 2; Xenosaga 3
Legaia 2 is a fairly average RPG, not particularly special but definitely not bad, but as such, it’s a definite step above Legaia 1, which was plagued with vague storytelling, a crawling pace, and a mostly unremarkable cast. Izuna 1 was enjoyable, but Izuna 2 perfectly capitalizes on its predecessor’s charm, providing more and better plot, a more significant role for its supporting cast, and just enough new characters to round the cast out nicely without overloading it. This essentially means that the quirky, enjoyable humor of the first game, which was its best and most memorable quality, is given far more opportunity to shine. And lastly, well, while Xenosaga 3’s narrative is, as I’ve said, the most incomprehensibly messy nonsense to ever be wrapped around some actually okay ideas, the fact remains that, buried deep underneath every storytelling mistake conceivable, there IS something of worth to find, which is a HELL of a lot more than you can say for Xenosaga 2.
Most Creative of 2012:
Winner: Bastion
It was actually a tough call between this and Romancing Saga 1 in some ways, but ultimately, Bastion’s gotta be the winner. The world of Bastion is not extensive, but it IS pretty unique and interesting, and given adequate explanation to make it so. The plot of Bastion is in some ways fairly standard (most of the time its focus is on finding magical plot doohickeys), but is generally quite interesting and different, as one might expect from a magical steampunk perspective on a post-apocalyptic adventure. The way the game is played and explored is fairly creative, too, being constructed before your eyes with every step you take. Most creative, though, and the real reason it’s the winner for the year, is the way its story is told, through the single voice of a character relating the adventure as it’s happening. It’s a neat method, and Bastion makes it work really, really well.
Runners-Up: Anachronox; My World, My Way; Romancing Saga 1
Anachronox is another interesting science fiction setting which seems to have a lot of neat potential, and many of its ideas are quite interestingly unique--I particularly liked the way in which the universe is threatened. It also pretty effectively adds a lot of humor to the mix, too. Overall, it’s a highly individual sci-fi adventure. My World, My Way is just a load of fun, a game about a bratty, spoiled-yet-not-really-obnoxious princess who sets out to become a great adventurer and who can basically alter reality by pouting hard enough. Half the game is actual standard RPG adventuring, the other half is her pouting until the universe itself caters to her whims. You can’t deny that’s a pretty different idea. And finally, Romancing Saga 1 is exceptionally creative, a non-linear Japanese RPG (which by itself is basically unheard of) where what you accomplish and how long you take to do it both has huge ramifications on future events, and yet at the same time can mean nothing at all, all depending on what you, the player, want to do. Its storytelling elements have a nature like that of classic mythology, and while it has no New Game+ per say, there are many elements to the game that encourage multiple playthroughs--a couple of quests can’t even be completed until a second or third playthrough (and one of them is, to me, a highlight of the game’s story). Having the option of 8 separate characters to play the game as is a neat idea, even though the actual differences to the game’s events don’t usually amount to much. And I have to give credit where it’s due--the actual mechanics of gameplay are almost as creative as they are extensive. RS1 is very creative, indeed.
Stupidest Weapon of 2012:
Loser: Battering Ram (Bastion)
Look, a battering ram is great when you’ve got dozens of people holding it and your intention is to slam your way through a barrier, but when you’re actually attacking people and you’ve only got yourself to lift it, a goddamn tree trunk is not an ideal weapon!
Almost as Bad: Dolls (Izuna 2); Keyblade (Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days)
Remember way, way back, when I made a rant about the stupidest weapons in RPGs, and both Keyblades and Dolls made it onto the list? Go read that.
Best Romance of 2012:
Winner: Shepard and Tali (Mass Effect 3)
It’s sweet, it’s touching, it’s believable, it’s done well, and in some ways it’s even epic. The romance that ME2 started is carried over into the next game well, and it continues to be great.
Runners-Up: Garrus and Shepard (Mass Effect 3); Kaidan and Shepard (Mass Effect 3); Link and Peatrice (The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword)
While Garrus and Shepard was, in ME2, an even better love story than Shepard and Tali, I feel it’s lessened a little in ME3, which does such a great job at making Garrus seem like the ultimate war-brother buddy to Shepard that it almost seems like the romance doesn’t fit right any longer. It’s still really nice, though. With Kaidan and Shepard, I have to admit, I mostly just really like the scene where they get together, provided Kaidan wasn’t romanced in ME1 (most people will see this scene with Male Shepard, since a Female Shepard probably would have already gone for Kaidan back then). It’s convincing, and nice, and it really feels very natural and mature, 2 people realizing after a long time of being comrades that there could be more, and wanting to explore the idea. As Kaidan himself says in the scene, it feels right, somehow. Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot to the romance beyond that which is particularly great, but that’s still enough for me (and there wasn’t much competition for this spot, honestly). Lastly, call me crazy, but Peatrice’s transformation from an apathetic market worker (man can I ever relate) to a happy, smitten girl that clearly just adores Link is ridiculously sweet and makes me feel warm fuzzies. I mean, I’ll grant you that the romance’s origins are not exactly inspiring (she assumes Link must be interested in her since he visits her storage service so often, and starts crushing on him back, with Link eventually having to option to just go with it and say he likes her back), but like I said, actually watching her change is nice and done reasonably well, and it actually gets a positive reaction from me, which is more than I can say for most of the other love stories I saw this year, so there you go.
Best Voice Acting of 2012:
Winner: Mass Effect 3
Bastion actually gives ME3 a run for its money on this, but in the end, the continued excellence of the vocal work for such classic personalities as Mordin, Wrex, Tali, and Shepard himself, combined with the solid performances by almost the entire rest of the cast, put Mass Effect at the top once more for this category. Yeah, not every performance is good in ME3--Female Shepard still sounds like a run-down RMV worker after a double-shift, Liara still sounds like she’s talking in her sleep about a subject that bores her, and Diana Allers’s vocal work is some of the worst I’ve ever heard in my entire life, but the combined power of the rest of the cast’s positive performances far outweigh the few negatives.
Runners-Up: Anachronox; Bastion; Borderlands 1
Anachronox’s voice acting is all decent, gets the job done and properly portrays the characters. Borderlands 1 only has any significant vocal work from NPCs and the occasional villain, but it’s distinctive and quite good. As for Bastion, well, like I said in the full rant on the game, Bastion entrusts nearly every aspect of its entire plot and character development to a single narrator, so having that narrator be a hell of a great voice actor is absolutely essential--and he definitely is up to the task.
Best Villain of 2012:
Winner: The Illusive Man (Mass Effect 3)
Honestly, while I encountered a lot of decent villains this year, none of them were amazing. Of the decent ones, I’d say The Illusive Man is probably the best, a classic case of stupid pride and greedy desire for power taking him down the path of being destroyed by that which he planned to conquer. How much of The Illusive Man is his own foolishness and how much is the Reapers’ Indoctrination is difficult to say exactly, which provides for interesting speculation. His final showdown with Shepard and Anderson is good, too, even if it’s a bit too close to the showdown with Saren in Mass Effect 1 for my liking.
A lot of people will, of course, disagree with my pick here, saying that ME3 ruined The Illusive Man and Cerberus by just haphazardly crowding them into the Bad Guy role, but I’m gonna say right now, these people are short-sighted idiots. Anyone who couldn’t see where Cerberus was headed in ME2, what it was, was apparently a gullible sap, more than ready to swallow the sugar-coated bullshit that The Illusive Man and his then-sycophant spooned him/her. It was always quite obvious to me, at least, that “protecting humanity” was always just a nice spin to put on “superior power at any cost,” and ME2 had plenty of occasions where reading between the lines made this clear. So to me, The Illusive Man’s character was simply showing itself honestly in ME3, not being altered.
Runners-Up: Girahim (The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword); Isair and Madae (Icewind Dale 2), Zulf (Bastion)
Girahim’s a case where he just pulls off the villain role well, a convincingly and amusingly bad fellow out to achieve villainous goals. I mean, you gotta love a bad guy who says he’s gonna inflict such agony on someone that they’ll deafen themselves with their own screams. That’s pretty hardcore. Zulf, however, is a villain with some actual character depth, a man acting without thought at the whims of his emotions of anger and betrayal. If Bastion had put more emphasis on his character and that character’s relation to the protagonist, Zulf probably would have been top dog this year. But that’s not really how the narrative style of Bastion works. Finally, Isair and Madae are also a case where the villains had some character depth, and their goal in some ways is a noble one, the empowerment of the world’s half-breeds, beings who are made social outcasts through the unavoidable fault of their being born of parents of separate species. In fact, the game makes it sound like their goal wasn’t even all that evil to start with, and their war-making is a result of a deadly insult made by a leader of one of the “good” towns. They’ve got backstory, they’ve got interesting goals...just a little more work and they would have been really great villains. A little more development given to them as the game progressed, a better, more intellectually stimulating final exchange between them and the heroes during the final showdown...it would have really done wonders, I think. Still, they make fine, if slightly too distant, villains.
Best Character of 2012:
Winner: EDI (Mass Effect 3)
EDI’s explorations into what it means to be “human” are not exactly new ground for the most part, nor are they the best example of this idea that I’ve seen (Aigis of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 and Tio of Grandia 2 put her to shame), but it’s still a compelling journey of spirit for her, and I like how her character develops over the course of the game’s events, and the way that Shepard can guide her along in this quest for understanding and self.
Runners-Up: Legion (Mass Effect 3); Padok (Mass Effect 3); Yuri (Infinite Space)
There’s a reason I loved ME3 up until it’s ending, folks. That reason is that it was awesome. Legion is as solid a character as he was in ME2, with his character being further explored through his reactions to and part in the conflict between his people and the Quarians. It’s pretty compelling. Then there’s Padok, the character who assists with the Genophage Cure plot arc if Mordin died in ME2. Padok’s a really neat character, who I don’t feel will ever be properly appreciated because he’s a stand-in for Mordin. His guiding beliefs in the fateful course of evolution are really quite neat, and give him a quirky nobility that’s somehow a bit inspiring. Finally, Yuri’s growth during Infinite Space is interesting in that you can see it happening in action for a while as he has new experiences and learns from those around him, but after the major turning point of the game, his character has become more or less fully developed, and it’s up to you to recognize the how and why of it. But it’s done well, and I would certainly say that he earns the game’s praise of his potential as a man and leader.
And as a note, I would have included Mordin from ME3 on this list, as well (in fact, he would have been the year’s winner), but for the fact that, as great as his character is in ME3, it’s essentially no different from his character in ME2. While EDI and Legion are characters from the previous game who grow in new ways in ME3, Mordin just stays the same. This still makes him probably the best character in the game, of course, because he’s just that awesome, but it does mean that I don’t really feel like I can qualify him for this list again, since he’s remaining essentially static to a personality established in a game from a previous year, y’know?
Best Game of 2012:
Winner: Romancing Saga 1
Mass Effect 3 should have won this category, easily, but Bioware chose to destroy it utterly with that ending.
Anyway. RS1 is really a very impressive game, all told, so long as you’re looking at it for its full potential (as in, you’re judging it by the full scope of its quests and events, even though you can potentially avoid some, many, or nearly all of them in any given playthrough). It pulls off a non-linear plot as well as any game can be expected, and that plot is interesting and at times pretty epic. There are several very impressive emotional moments in it (the possible final scene with Dowd in Jamil’s playthrough, for example, or the later parts of Aldora’s quest), and the general atmosphere is done well. The part of the game where you can travel into the underworld to meet Death, for example, was handled with a great epic gravity in its tone. The game is exactly as it wishes to be--a grand, epic tale, romantic in the classic sense of the word. It was a rocky start for me, but by the end, I was pleasantly surprised by it.
Runners-Up: Anachronox, Bastion, Infinite Space
Anachronox is a very cool, enjoyable tongue-in-cheek sci-fi romp that has some surprisingly dark moments and subtle forms of telling its story (particularly its backstory). It’s definitely one of those hidden gems of forgotten RPGs. As I’ve said here and in the rant on the game, Bastion is very artsy and quite good, a highlight of my year, and definitely worth checking out. Lastly, while Infinite Space kind of takes a little time to get going, has an annoying difficulty level (just do yourself a favor and get some cheat codes going), and rushes its closing events like you wouldn’t believe, it’s ultimately a very impressive, immersive science fiction story with several really powerful scenes, solid characters you really come to enjoy, and a fair helping of creativity.
List Changes of 2012:
Most Annoying Characters: This didn’t actually change, but lemme tell you, Diana Allers from Mass Effect 3 very nearly managed to replace the legendarily irritating Navi here. The single, solitary grace of Allers is that she’s ultimately optional, and not with you every second of the game, like Navi is. Even then, though, it’s really close.
And that’s that! 2012’s over and done with. I’m looking forward to 2013, I must admit, for I have several hidden gems bought at GOG.com to play through, as well as Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2 (SMT just never fails to please), and I plan to play The Last Story, as well, which I’m kinda psyched about--it looks like it was made with a lot of care and effort. On the other hand, I’m sure plenty of stinkers await me (Mega Man Star Force 2, for starters), and there’s every indication that Bioware plans to keep releasing one mediocre DLC waste of money after another, so you never know how it will really go. At any rate, thanks very much for continuing to read this awful mess for another year, and I’ll see you in 2013.
Oh, and as a special bonus to any of you who actually took the time to read all the way down here, I’m gonna host a little contest with my readers (all two of you). Send up to 3 ideas for a rant topic I can use to my email (the_rpgenius, at, hotmail.com) by 01/08/13, and the person who sends the best rant idea to me I will buy 2 RPGs for, from Good Old Games.com. The first of these RPGs will be Planescape: Torment, because you all WILL submit to its excellence. The second will be an RPG of your choice, up to $10 (this gives you roughly 95% of their catalogue to choose from). If you already own and have played Planescape: Torment, I’ll throw a different first game your way. So get to it! Send me those ideas!
Incidentally, since I'm not going to rant about a game I don't know about, these are the RPGs I've played:
The 7th Saga; Alundra 1 + 2; Anachronox; Arc the Lad 1 - 5; Avalon Code; Bahamut Lagoon; Baldur's Gate 1 + 2; Baroque; Bastion; Baten Kaitos 1 + 2; Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled; Boktai 1; Borderlands 1; Breath of Fire 1 - 5; Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, Order of Ecclesia, Portrait of Ruin, and Symphony of the Night; Children of Mana; Chrono Cross and Trigger; Crystalis; Dark Cloud 1 + 2; Disgaea 1 + 2; Dragon Age 1 + 2; Dragon Ball Z: Legend of the Super Saiyen; Dragon Quest 4 - 6 + 8; Earthbound; Eternal Poison; Evolution Worlds; Fallout 1 - 3, New Vegas, and Tactics; Final Fantasy 3 - 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 12: Revenant Wings, Crystal Chronicles 1, Mystic Quest, Tactics, and Tactics Advance 1; Fire Emblem 1, 4, 7, and 9; Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon; Glory of Heracles 5; Golden Sun 1 - 3; Grandia 1, 2, + 3; Hero's Saga: Laevatein Tactics; Hoshigami Remix: Ruining Blue Earth; Icewind Dale 1 + 2; Illusion of Gaia; Infinite Space; Izuna 1 + 2; Kingdom Hearts 1, 2, 358/2 Days, and Chain of Memories; The Kingdom of Loathing; Knights of the Old Republic 1 + 2; Knights in the Nightmare; La Pucelle Tactics; Lagoon; Legaia 1 + 2; The Legend of Dragoon; The Legend of Zelda 1 + 2, A Link to the Past, Link's Awakening, Majora's Mask, Ocarina of Time, Phantom Hourglass, Skyward Sword, Spirit Tracks, The Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess; Live A Live; Lufia 1 + 2; Lunar 1 + 2; Magic Knight Rayearth RPG; The Magic of Scheherazade; Makai Kingdom; Mana Khemia 1; Mario and Luigi 1 - 3; Mark Leung: Revenge of the Bitch; Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3; Mega Man Star Force 1; Monstania; Mother 3; My World, My Way; Okage: Shadow King; Orcs + Elves; Paper Mario 2; Parasite Eve 1; Phantasy Star 1 - 4 and Universe; Phantom Brave; Planescape: Torment; Pokemon Generations 1 - 5; Quest 64; Radiant Historia; Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure; Risen; Riviera: The Promised Land; Robotrek; Rogue Galaxy; Sailor Moon: Another Story; Sakura Wars 5; The Secret of Evermore; The Secret of Mana; Seiken Densetsu 3; Shadow Hearts 1 - 3; Shadowrun (SNES and Genesis); Shin Megami Tensei 1 + 2, Devil Summoner 1, Devil Survivor, Digital Devil Saga 1 + 2, Nocturne, Persona 3 FES + 4, and Strange Journey; Shining Force 1, 2, and EXA; Skies of Arcadia Legend; Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood; Soulblazer; Star Ocean 1 - 3; Startropics 1 + 2; Suikoden 1, 2, 3 - 5, Tactics, and Tierkreis; Super Mario RPG; Tales of Legendia, Phantasia, Symphonia, and the Abyss; Tenchi Muyo RPG; Terranigma; Treasure of the Rudras; Valkyrie Profile 1, 2, and Covenant of the Plume; Vandal Hearts 1 + 2; Wild ARMs 1 - 3, and 4 + 5; The World Ends with You; Xenogears; Xenosaga 1 - 3 and Pied Piper
Any and all rant ideas must be about one or more of them, or about RPGs in general. Happy Holidays!
* Actually, I theorize that the Mayans were predicting 2012 as the year Daniel Tosh would get his own cartoon, and thus was simply the year when we all would want the world to end.
** Yes, I feel obligated to play my RPGs to their end, regardless of quality. It’s just an RPGenius thing. I definitely don’t recommend it as a gaming style for anyone else, though. Sometimes I like to imagine a world, a much happier world, in which I had turned off Phantasy Star 3 when I first wanted to (at the title screen).
2012 reminds me a bit of 2011 in that I played a lot of RPGs this year that didn’t leave a particularly strong impression one way or another. Still, there were some particularly good ones that kept things interesting, as well as a few truly vile moments of gaming that kept me cranky enough to keep churning out rant ideas. Again, I had a good mix of RPGs here, spanning a wide range of time and styles. Here’s what I played:
Anachronox
Bastion
Boktai 1
Borderlands 1
Fire Emblem 1
Golden Sun 3
Hoshigami Remix: Ruining Blue Earth
Icewind Dale 1
Icewind Dale 2
Infinite Space
Izuna 1
Izuna 2
Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days
Knights in the Nightmare
Legaia 2
The Legend of Zelda 2
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Mass Effect 3
Mega Man Star Force 1
My World, My Way
Orcs + Elves
Romancing Saga 1
Xenosaga 3
Xenosaga: Pied Piper
A fair number of games for the year, I’d say. The Nintendo DS and 3DS continue to be instrumental in my RPG-playing efforts, and the weekend sales of Good Old Games.com have ensured that I’ll not be wanting for more games any time soon. Kept busy with plenty of other stuff, as always, and, as always, I’ll pretend you care enough to want to read a brief summary of it all--jobs, rants, fanfiction-writing, the first season of The Colony, seasons 1 through 6 of Doctor Who (rewatching the first 5 with my sister), the second and now third seasons of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (which I still heartily recommend to anyone who has somehow managed to surf the internet up until now without encountering it), the full run of The Sarah Jane Adventures, seasons 1 and 2 of Sherlock (thank God the BBC decided to reclaim the character from the fumbling, undignified slop that Hollywood’s vomit-inducing Robert Downey Jr. movies had reduced him to), Torchwood’s first 3 seasons (rewatching them with my sister), the game Little King’s Story, the game Rock of Ages, the entire run of Scrubs, and several books and stories by Tina Fey, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, George Orwell, Mary Rinehart, Suzanne Collins, Agatha Christie, and Ray Bradbury. I do keep myself occupied.
Incidentally, and kind of off-topic, is it just me, or was this just an awesome year for movies? I mean, every year’s got some that really shine, but 2012 was just smoking hot the whole way. The Hunger Games movie was very nearly as good as the book, everybody seemed obligatorily impressed with Moonrise Kingdom, I hear that Cloud Atlas and Flight are solid, my sister tells me that Silver Linings was really good, Lincoln is great, Argo was quite good (you can barely tell it's Ben Affleck playing the role, which is a HUGE plus in a film starring Ben Affleck), it’s hard to imagine that The Hobbit won’t be a very solid work, and frankly, Wreck-It Ralph is just absolutely fantastic, one of the best animated features that Disney has ever done, and the first time I’ve ever seen Disney manage to out-Pixar Pixar. With this and Tangled under their recent belt, maybe Disney’s finally ready to reclaim their spot at the top of animated movies. Hell, if it weren’t for The Dark Knight Rises, I’d seriously say that Wreck-It Ralph was the year’s best movie. But on that note...The Dark Knight Rises. Just wow. Words fail me for how incredibly awesome it is. Maybe I’m just undervaluing previous years, but 2012 really seemed like a great movie year.
Anyway, on the RPG front, the year started out alright. I enjoyed My World, My Way quite a bit despite its repetitive nature, and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is pretty decent, for a Zelda title. I then got a short series of rather bland and uninteresting titles such as but not limited to Golden Sun 3, Boktai 1, and Icewind Dale 1, but I figured, that didn’t matter, because the amazing, spectacular, sure to be a solid winner Mass Effect 3 was coming out! And then I played Mass Effect 3 and...well, if you’ve been paying me any mind at all, you know how that went. And after that, I...well, I kinda stumbled around in a mental fog for a few months, gaming (and doing most other things) almost more out of habit than interest, until...well, actually, I’m kinda still feeling the natural depression that comes as an after-effect of Mass Effect 3’s ending. But I’m sure it’ll clear up eventually.
Anyway, the one good part of experiencing the keenest disappointment ever conceived is that after ME3’s ending, the normal terribleness of Mega Man Star Force 1 and the narrative approach of Xenosaga 3 seem almost welcome. At least the shocking incompetence of a bad JRPG is a familiar foe to me, unable to penetrate the very core of my mental being as ME3 did. And there were a fair number of good experiences afterward that I was all the more thankful for, too. The year thankfully ended on a pretty high note with Romancing Saga 1, which I was surprised to find very enjoyable and subtly masterful, and Infinite Space, which, despite clumsily jamming everything its 40-hour story had been leading up to into its last 2 hours or so and despite an annoyingly vague ending, is really pretty darned good.
But enough of vague recollections and off-topic digressions. Let’s get to the main event, here.
RPG Moments of Interest in 2012:
1. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was released on the 25th anniversary of the Zelda series, and in some ways serves as a tribute to the long-lived series. For the special occasion, we’re given our earliest look into the franchise’s history, our heroes being the very first Link, what is likely to be the very first Impa, and what is essentially the very first Zelda. The game also has some references within it to previous games and characters of the series, but very little that’s actually overt about it. I kind of like this approach, as opposed to the way that Wild Arms 5 did their anniversary shout-outs, which felt kind of over numerous.
Also of interest about this game is that it’s basically the first time in the series that Zelda and Link are very plainly implied to have a romantic interest in each other (up until now, any such idea for the previous Links and Zeldas was made much more from the fancy of the player than from any substantial evidence provided by the game). What’s more interesting than even that, though, is that the game also gives Link the option to openly court and even become involved with an entirely different individual! It just seems very amusing to me that the one time the series actually will take the plunge and officially recognize an attraction between Zelda and Link, THAT’S the game where they throw in a fully-realized non-Zelda love interest for Link.
2. Mass Effect 3’s Ending. Okay, yeah, I know I harp on this a lot, but A, you have to understand that it really is so horrible that it will make anyone who holds any value for the soul of the series spiritually ill, and B, it certainly WAS a moment of interest this year. If you’ve ever harbored any doubt that it is at all possible to utterly shame, cheapen, poison something substantially beautiful instantly, to reduce to ruin in 5 minutes what took hundreds of hours to build in its telling...well, doubt no more. The Extended Cut to the game that adds to the ending definitely improves it, but it’s the equivalent of treating dismemberment with a Bandaid. Thanks a fucking lot, Bioware.
3. Played another Independent RPG this year, Bastion. Artsy, fun, very impressive. Definitely worth checking out. Hell, it was good enough that playing it after Mass Effect 3 helped to restore me a little. So far, my experience with Indie RPGs has been a staunchly positive one.
4. I finished the Xenosaga series this year, playing Xenosaga 3 from start to finish and even reading the translated script of the small side game, Xenosaga: Pied Piper (since it was never released over here). The series definitely has some creative, complex, thought-provoking content to it. It’s just a damn shame that the actual communication of this content to the player in the second and third games is so staggeringly over-complicated and nonsensical that it actually makes Chrono Cross look straightforward and logical.
5. The Knights of the Old Republic 2 Restored Content Mod had its Version 1.8 release this year, which, near as I can figure, contains more or less all the significant content that the project is going to. Basically, this is a fan-made mod for KotOR2 that, like the Fallout 2 restoration project that I was such a fan of in 2010, fixes bugs and restores much hidden, inaccessible, or outright lost content to the game that was meant to be there originally. Of course, while this was a great idea for Fallout 2, it’s FANTASTIC for KotOR2, because KotOR2 is a game whose missing content and glitchiness was noticeable throughout the entire game. This mod restores sidequests, unlocks dozens of extra conversation paths, recreates an entire area of the game that was cut but obviously meant to be there, and makes the finale far more sensible. And with a game like Knights of the Old Republic 2, which is just absolutely saturated with brilliant insight and fascinatingly powerful writing and voice acting, even the smallest of restorations can go a long way to finding new joy in and appreciation for the title. I’ll probably make a proper rant extolling the virtues of this mod at a later date, but for now, I heartily recommend you go to http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-sith-lords-restored-content-mod-tslrcm and try it out if you’re any fan of KotOR2, because it’s just a blast.
6. It strikes me as really weird that after 20 years of RPG playing during which I only ever played a single RPG with a title starting with the letter I (Illusion of Gaia), I suddenly played 5 separate I games all in the same year. Just one of those odd quirks of life.
7. I'm not sure if this counts as an actual RPG moment of interest per say, but this year some people--namely you--have actually started reading this blog. I've got like 9 people subscribing now, which is a gain of roughly infinity% since a couple years ago. I assure you, this HAS gone straight to my already bloated head.
Best Prequel/Sequel of 2012:
Winner: Icewind Dale 2
I sincerely wish I could have put Mass Effect 3 on here, because almost the entire game is a terrific conclusion to an already terrific series, but, that ending...Anyway, Icewind Dale 2 is the winner this year partly because it’s a very marked improvement on the first game. ID1 was a very, very boring by-the-numbers Dungeons and Dragons adventure, with very little of note to pull you into the game’s world and events--the story was generic fare with few embellishing characteristics, and the cast was utterly uninteresting. ID2 is not amazing, but its villains actually have some character depth, the story is told in a more engaging fashion, and there’s some actual value to said story--it’s more thoughtful, has more significance to its setting’s world and people, as well as the player. ID2 is exactly the sort of improvement that ID1 needed. But at the same time, it definitely connects very strongly to its predecessor, taking place in the same general area many years after ID1’s end, with its core plot being a result of some of the events of the first Icewind Dale. Icewind Dale 2 effectively uses ID1, pays proper respect to it, and then goes in its own direction, as a good sequel should.
Runners-Up: Izuna 2; The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Izuna 2 is a good sequel in that it keeps the whacky, characteristic style that the original Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja had, but gives it a more dynamic plot, with a cast that’s slightly expanded, but more importantly has more significant roles for its individuals. As for The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, it helps to set up a lot of the core plot devices of the Legend of Zelda series quite tidily, so it’s a definitely worthy prequel. And...that’s it. Unfortunately I don’t have a third runner-up here. The other sequels and prequels I played this year just generally weren’t very good as follow-ups to the original titles, at least not enough that they deserve recognition.
Biggest Disappointment of 2012:
Loser: Mass Effect 3
I’m sure that you’re as tired of seeing me talk about this as I am of talking about it (probably more so, even), so let’s make it quick: ME3’s ending is a complete violation of nearly every major theme of the Mass Effect series, and it destroys the very essence of the game’s protagonist. The Star Wars prequels, Grandia 3, Indiana Jones: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the Avatar: The Last Airbender movie, these are all just warm-ups in disappointment by comparison.
Almost as Bad: Borderlands 1; Mega Man Star Force 1
It’s not that Borderlands 1 is bad. I mean, it’s not GOOD, either, but it’s certainly not bad. But after hearing these guys I work with obsess over the series nonstop for like a solid month after the second game’s release, I would’ve figured it’d be better, is all. I can respect that its minimalistic storytelling is just the way it does things, and that it’s at least setting up a semi-sci-fi universe for future games to capitalize on, but I don’t have to like it, and I was expecting more. As for Mega Man Star Force 1...well, I didn’t really know what to expect from it, but I kind of did expect something NOT boring and incredibly dumb. Oh, and Mega Man. I guess I was expecting Mega Man in a Mega Man game, not some half-assed semi-emo preteen who’s clearly somehow misplaced a significant portion of his brain. Thus, I was understandably disappointed.
Best Ending of 2012
Winner: Romancing Saga 1
What you get out of RS1’s ending depends on what you put into it, so admittedly, your results may vary. But if you did most of/all of the sidequests in the game (a challenging but entirely achievable possibility), the ending is pretty darned good, showing you various scenes of the people you helped after the world-threatening crisis, and concluding with confirmation that the heroes managed to beat destiny and survive their final battle, and a personal congratulation from your chosen main hero to you for a job well-done, which is kind of fun, and nice. Assuming it’s a later playthrough than your first and that you’ve pursued the Aldora path of the Who Am I? quest, the ending also has a really nice scene for Aldora, too. All in all, it’s satisfying, and it ties things up neatly while reminding the player of the long journey through the game’s events. What more can you ask for from an ending, really?
Runners-Up: Bastion; Fire Emblem 1; The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Don’t know what to say here, really. Bastion just has a solidly good ending, regardless of what the player chooses for it. The same is true of TLoZSS--it’s properly epic and conclusive and satisfying, bringing everything together in a grand finish. Really, a good ending seems so simple a thing to achieve--just have everything wrap up, and satisfy the player. And that’s what Bastion and TLoZSS do, very well. FE1’s ending is also decent--again, not much to say about it, it’s just a decent conclusion that does well by its game.
Worst RPG of 2012
Loser: Mega Man Star Force 1
Dumb. Dumb! Dumb dumb dumb. There is just no other way to describe this meaningless turd of a game. The protagonist is an unappealing, unrealistic sad sack, his buddy is a vaguely dislikeable jerk, the supporting cast are mostly one-dimensional shells of characters, the plot is cookie-cutter at the best of times, and the whole game revolves rather unsettlingly around the idea of utterly submerging yourself in social networking, and works to devalue the idea that anyone might just want some alone time. The narrative style is infantile; I can’t decide whether it’s a case of being intentionally dumbed-down because of the misconception that young audiences are too stupid to comprehend and follow even the most rudimentary of ideas and plot threads, or if it’s just this way because the writers themselves are genuinely capable of no better storytelling style than an uneducated, inebriated 9-year-old. Either way, this game is a complete waste of time.
Almost as Bad: Boktai 1; Golden Sun 3; The Legend of Zelda 2
I really would have liked to stick it to ME3 further in this category, but I have to admit, everything up until the ending is too great for me to actually call it a bad game. Anyway. Boktai 1’s got some ideas that are basically not bad, but overall it’s got a boring and barely present story and cast. The same is true of TLoZ2, only even more so. I guess I could give it a bit of a break because of how old it is, as console RPGs back in the days of the NES had limited means to tell a story with, but y’know, that didn’t stop The Magic of Scheherazade, Phantasy Star 1, or Crystalis from being pretty decent RPGs, so TLoZ2 gets no free pass--it’s bad. As for Golden Sun 3...well, it’s the only real competition that Mega Man Star Force 1 had for the Worst RPG spot this year. GS3’s plot is generic and stuffed with filler, and its characters are almost all barely mentally-existent annoyances. I was wholly unimpressed with Golden Sun 1 and 2, but they were far superior to this crap.
Most Improved of its Series of 2012:
Winner: Icewind Dale 2
Like I said above, Icewind Dale 2 basically improves significantly upon ID1 in every aspect of storytelling, making the whole adventure into something I actually wanted to play to its end, rather than only felt obligated to.** The developers are taking the great setting of the Dungeons and Dragons universe and actually GOING somewhere with it, exploring aspects of its culture and such, and it really makes all the difference.
Runners-Up: Izuna 2; Legaia 2; Xenosaga 3
Legaia 2 is a fairly average RPG, not particularly special but definitely not bad, but as such, it’s a definite step above Legaia 1, which was plagued with vague storytelling, a crawling pace, and a mostly unremarkable cast. Izuna 1 was enjoyable, but Izuna 2 perfectly capitalizes on its predecessor’s charm, providing more and better plot, a more significant role for its supporting cast, and just enough new characters to round the cast out nicely without overloading it. This essentially means that the quirky, enjoyable humor of the first game, which was its best and most memorable quality, is given far more opportunity to shine. And lastly, well, while Xenosaga 3’s narrative is, as I’ve said, the most incomprehensibly messy nonsense to ever be wrapped around some actually okay ideas, the fact remains that, buried deep underneath every storytelling mistake conceivable, there IS something of worth to find, which is a HELL of a lot more than you can say for Xenosaga 2.
Most Creative of 2012:
Winner: Bastion
It was actually a tough call between this and Romancing Saga 1 in some ways, but ultimately, Bastion’s gotta be the winner. The world of Bastion is not extensive, but it IS pretty unique and interesting, and given adequate explanation to make it so. The plot of Bastion is in some ways fairly standard (most of the time its focus is on finding magical plot doohickeys), but is generally quite interesting and different, as one might expect from a magical steampunk perspective on a post-apocalyptic adventure. The way the game is played and explored is fairly creative, too, being constructed before your eyes with every step you take. Most creative, though, and the real reason it’s the winner for the year, is the way its story is told, through the single voice of a character relating the adventure as it’s happening. It’s a neat method, and Bastion makes it work really, really well.
Runners-Up: Anachronox; My World, My Way; Romancing Saga 1
Anachronox is another interesting science fiction setting which seems to have a lot of neat potential, and many of its ideas are quite interestingly unique--I particularly liked the way in which the universe is threatened. It also pretty effectively adds a lot of humor to the mix, too. Overall, it’s a highly individual sci-fi adventure. My World, My Way is just a load of fun, a game about a bratty, spoiled-yet-not-really-obnoxious princess who sets out to become a great adventurer and who can basically alter reality by pouting hard enough. Half the game is actual standard RPG adventuring, the other half is her pouting until the universe itself caters to her whims. You can’t deny that’s a pretty different idea. And finally, Romancing Saga 1 is exceptionally creative, a non-linear Japanese RPG (which by itself is basically unheard of) where what you accomplish and how long you take to do it both has huge ramifications on future events, and yet at the same time can mean nothing at all, all depending on what you, the player, want to do. Its storytelling elements have a nature like that of classic mythology, and while it has no New Game+ per say, there are many elements to the game that encourage multiple playthroughs--a couple of quests can’t even be completed until a second or third playthrough (and one of them is, to me, a highlight of the game’s story). Having the option of 8 separate characters to play the game as is a neat idea, even though the actual differences to the game’s events don’t usually amount to much. And I have to give credit where it’s due--the actual mechanics of gameplay are almost as creative as they are extensive. RS1 is very creative, indeed.
Stupidest Weapon of 2012:
Loser: Battering Ram (Bastion)
Look, a battering ram is great when you’ve got dozens of people holding it and your intention is to slam your way through a barrier, but when you’re actually attacking people and you’ve only got yourself to lift it, a goddamn tree trunk is not an ideal weapon!
Almost as Bad: Dolls (Izuna 2); Keyblade (Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days)
Remember way, way back, when I made a rant about the stupidest weapons in RPGs, and both Keyblades and Dolls made it onto the list? Go read that.
Best Romance of 2012:
Winner: Shepard and Tali (Mass Effect 3)
It’s sweet, it’s touching, it’s believable, it’s done well, and in some ways it’s even epic. The romance that ME2 started is carried over into the next game well, and it continues to be great.
Runners-Up: Garrus and Shepard (Mass Effect 3); Kaidan and Shepard (Mass Effect 3); Link and Peatrice (The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword)
While Garrus and Shepard was, in ME2, an even better love story than Shepard and Tali, I feel it’s lessened a little in ME3, which does such a great job at making Garrus seem like the ultimate war-brother buddy to Shepard that it almost seems like the romance doesn’t fit right any longer. It’s still really nice, though. With Kaidan and Shepard, I have to admit, I mostly just really like the scene where they get together, provided Kaidan wasn’t romanced in ME1 (most people will see this scene with Male Shepard, since a Female Shepard probably would have already gone for Kaidan back then). It’s convincing, and nice, and it really feels very natural and mature, 2 people realizing after a long time of being comrades that there could be more, and wanting to explore the idea. As Kaidan himself says in the scene, it feels right, somehow. Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot to the romance beyond that which is particularly great, but that’s still enough for me (and there wasn’t much competition for this spot, honestly). Lastly, call me crazy, but Peatrice’s transformation from an apathetic market worker (man can I ever relate) to a happy, smitten girl that clearly just adores Link is ridiculously sweet and makes me feel warm fuzzies. I mean, I’ll grant you that the romance’s origins are not exactly inspiring (she assumes Link must be interested in her since he visits her storage service so often, and starts crushing on him back, with Link eventually having to option to just go with it and say he likes her back), but like I said, actually watching her change is nice and done reasonably well, and it actually gets a positive reaction from me, which is more than I can say for most of the other love stories I saw this year, so there you go.
Best Voice Acting of 2012:
Winner: Mass Effect 3
Bastion actually gives ME3 a run for its money on this, but in the end, the continued excellence of the vocal work for such classic personalities as Mordin, Wrex, Tali, and Shepard himself, combined with the solid performances by almost the entire rest of the cast, put Mass Effect at the top once more for this category. Yeah, not every performance is good in ME3--Female Shepard still sounds like a run-down RMV worker after a double-shift, Liara still sounds like she’s talking in her sleep about a subject that bores her, and Diana Allers’s vocal work is some of the worst I’ve ever heard in my entire life, but the combined power of the rest of the cast’s positive performances far outweigh the few negatives.
Runners-Up: Anachronox; Bastion; Borderlands 1
Anachronox’s voice acting is all decent, gets the job done and properly portrays the characters. Borderlands 1 only has any significant vocal work from NPCs and the occasional villain, but it’s distinctive and quite good. As for Bastion, well, like I said in the full rant on the game, Bastion entrusts nearly every aspect of its entire plot and character development to a single narrator, so having that narrator be a hell of a great voice actor is absolutely essential--and he definitely is up to the task.
Best Villain of 2012:
Winner: The Illusive Man (Mass Effect 3)
Honestly, while I encountered a lot of decent villains this year, none of them were amazing. Of the decent ones, I’d say The Illusive Man is probably the best, a classic case of stupid pride and greedy desire for power taking him down the path of being destroyed by that which he planned to conquer. How much of The Illusive Man is his own foolishness and how much is the Reapers’ Indoctrination is difficult to say exactly, which provides for interesting speculation. His final showdown with Shepard and Anderson is good, too, even if it’s a bit too close to the showdown with Saren in Mass Effect 1 for my liking.
A lot of people will, of course, disagree with my pick here, saying that ME3 ruined The Illusive Man and Cerberus by just haphazardly crowding them into the Bad Guy role, but I’m gonna say right now, these people are short-sighted idiots. Anyone who couldn’t see where Cerberus was headed in ME2, what it was, was apparently a gullible sap, more than ready to swallow the sugar-coated bullshit that The Illusive Man and his then-sycophant spooned him/her. It was always quite obvious to me, at least, that “protecting humanity” was always just a nice spin to put on “superior power at any cost,” and ME2 had plenty of occasions where reading between the lines made this clear. So to me, The Illusive Man’s character was simply showing itself honestly in ME3, not being altered.
Runners-Up: Girahim (The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword); Isair and Madae (Icewind Dale 2), Zulf (Bastion)
Girahim’s a case where he just pulls off the villain role well, a convincingly and amusingly bad fellow out to achieve villainous goals. I mean, you gotta love a bad guy who says he’s gonna inflict such agony on someone that they’ll deafen themselves with their own screams. That’s pretty hardcore. Zulf, however, is a villain with some actual character depth, a man acting without thought at the whims of his emotions of anger and betrayal. If Bastion had put more emphasis on his character and that character’s relation to the protagonist, Zulf probably would have been top dog this year. But that’s not really how the narrative style of Bastion works. Finally, Isair and Madae are also a case where the villains had some character depth, and their goal in some ways is a noble one, the empowerment of the world’s half-breeds, beings who are made social outcasts through the unavoidable fault of their being born of parents of separate species. In fact, the game makes it sound like their goal wasn’t even all that evil to start with, and their war-making is a result of a deadly insult made by a leader of one of the “good” towns. They’ve got backstory, they’ve got interesting goals...just a little more work and they would have been really great villains. A little more development given to them as the game progressed, a better, more intellectually stimulating final exchange between them and the heroes during the final showdown...it would have really done wonders, I think. Still, they make fine, if slightly too distant, villains.
Best Character of 2012:
Winner: EDI (Mass Effect 3)
EDI’s explorations into what it means to be “human” are not exactly new ground for the most part, nor are they the best example of this idea that I’ve seen (Aigis of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 and Tio of Grandia 2 put her to shame), but it’s still a compelling journey of spirit for her, and I like how her character develops over the course of the game’s events, and the way that Shepard can guide her along in this quest for understanding and self.
Runners-Up: Legion (Mass Effect 3); Padok (Mass Effect 3); Yuri (Infinite Space)
There’s a reason I loved ME3 up until it’s ending, folks. That reason is that it was awesome. Legion is as solid a character as he was in ME2, with his character being further explored through his reactions to and part in the conflict between his people and the Quarians. It’s pretty compelling. Then there’s Padok, the character who assists with the Genophage Cure plot arc if Mordin died in ME2. Padok’s a really neat character, who I don’t feel will ever be properly appreciated because he’s a stand-in for Mordin. His guiding beliefs in the fateful course of evolution are really quite neat, and give him a quirky nobility that’s somehow a bit inspiring. Finally, Yuri’s growth during Infinite Space is interesting in that you can see it happening in action for a while as he has new experiences and learns from those around him, but after the major turning point of the game, his character has become more or less fully developed, and it’s up to you to recognize the how and why of it. But it’s done well, and I would certainly say that he earns the game’s praise of his potential as a man and leader.
And as a note, I would have included Mordin from ME3 on this list, as well (in fact, he would have been the year’s winner), but for the fact that, as great as his character is in ME3, it’s essentially no different from his character in ME2. While EDI and Legion are characters from the previous game who grow in new ways in ME3, Mordin just stays the same. This still makes him probably the best character in the game, of course, because he’s just that awesome, but it does mean that I don’t really feel like I can qualify him for this list again, since he’s remaining essentially static to a personality established in a game from a previous year, y’know?
Best Game of 2012:
Winner: Romancing Saga 1
Mass Effect 3 should have won this category, easily, but Bioware chose to destroy it utterly with that ending.
Anyway. RS1 is really a very impressive game, all told, so long as you’re looking at it for its full potential (as in, you’re judging it by the full scope of its quests and events, even though you can potentially avoid some, many, or nearly all of them in any given playthrough). It pulls off a non-linear plot as well as any game can be expected, and that plot is interesting and at times pretty epic. There are several very impressive emotional moments in it (the possible final scene with Dowd in Jamil’s playthrough, for example, or the later parts of Aldora’s quest), and the general atmosphere is done well. The part of the game where you can travel into the underworld to meet Death, for example, was handled with a great epic gravity in its tone. The game is exactly as it wishes to be--a grand, epic tale, romantic in the classic sense of the word. It was a rocky start for me, but by the end, I was pleasantly surprised by it.
Runners-Up: Anachronox, Bastion, Infinite Space
Anachronox is a very cool, enjoyable tongue-in-cheek sci-fi romp that has some surprisingly dark moments and subtle forms of telling its story (particularly its backstory). It’s definitely one of those hidden gems of forgotten RPGs. As I’ve said here and in the rant on the game, Bastion is very artsy and quite good, a highlight of my year, and definitely worth checking out. Lastly, while Infinite Space kind of takes a little time to get going, has an annoying difficulty level (just do yourself a favor and get some cheat codes going), and rushes its closing events like you wouldn’t believe, it’s ultimately a very impressive, immersive science fiction story with several really powerful scenes, solid characters you really come to enjoy, and a fair helping of creativity.
List Changes of 2012:
Most Annoying Characters: This didn’t actually change, but lemme tell you, Diana Allers from Mass Effect 3 very nearly managed to replace the legendarily irritating Navi here. The single, solitary grace of Allers is that she’s ultimately optional, and not with you every second of the game, like Navi is. Even then, though, it’s really close.
And that’s that! 2012’s over and done with. I’m looking forward to 2013, I must admit, for I have several hidden gems bought at GOG.com to play through, as well as Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2 (SMT just never fails to please), and I plan to play The Last Story, as well, which I’m kinda psyched about--it looks like it was made with a lot of care and effort. On the other hand, I’m sure plenty of stinkers await me (Mega Man Star Force 2, for starters), and there’s every indication that Bioware plans to keep releasing one mediocre DLC waste of money after another, so you never know how it will really go. At any rate, thanks very much for continuing to read this awful mess for another year, and I’ll see you in 2013.
Oh, and as a special bonus to any of you who actually took the time to read all the way down here, I’m gonna host a little contest with my readers (all two of you). Send up to 3 ideas for a rant topic I can use to my email (the_rpgenius, at, hotmail.com) by 01/08/13, and the person who sends the best rant idea to me I will buy 2 RPGs for, from Good Old Games.com. The first of these RPGs will be Planescape: Torment, because you all WILL submit to its excellence. The second will be an RPG of your choice, up to $10 (this gives you roughly 95% of their catalogue to choose from). If you already own and have played Planescape: Torment, I’ll throw a different first game your way. So get to it! Send me those ideas!
Incidentally, since I'm not going to rant about a game I don't know about, these are the RPGs I've played:
The 7th Saga; Alundra 1 + 2; Anachronox; Arc the Lad 1 - 5; Avalon Code; Bahamut Lagoon; Baldur's Gate 1 + 2; Baroque; Bastion; Baten Kaitos 1 + 2; Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled; Boktai 1; Borderlands 1; Breath of Fire 1 - 5; Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, Order of Ecclesia, Portrait of Ruin, and Symphony of the Night; Children of Mana; Chrono Cross and Trigger; Crystalis; Dark Cloud 1 + 2; Disgaea 1 + 2; Dragon Age 1 + 2; Dragon Ball Z: Legend of the Super Saiyen; Dragon Quest 4 - 6 + 8; Earthbound; Eternal Poison; Evolution Worlds; Fallout 1 - 3, New Vegas, and Tactics; Final Fantasy 3 - 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 12: Revenant Wings, Crystal Chronicles 1, Mystic Quest, Tactics, and Tactics Advance 1; Fire Emblem 1, 4, 7, and 9; Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon; Glory of Heracles 5; Golden Sun 1 - 3; Grandia 1, 2, + 3; Hero's Saga: Laevatein Tactics; Hoshigami Remix: Ruining Blue Earth; Icewind Dale 1 + 2; Illusion of Gaia; Infinite Space; Izuna 1 + 2; Kingdom Hearts 1, 2, 358/2 Days, and Chain of Memories; The Kingdom of Loathing; Knights of the Old Republic 1 + 2; Knights in the Nightmare; La Pucelle Tactics; Lagoon; Legaia 1 + 2; The Legend of Dragoon; The Legend of Zelda 1 + 2, A Link to the Past, Link's Awakening, Majora's Mask, Ocarina of Time, Phantom Hourglass, Skyward Sword, Spirit Tracks, The Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess; Live A Live; Lufia 1 + 2; Lunar 1 + 2; Magic Knight Rayearth RPG; The Magic of Scheherazade; Makai Kingdom; Mana Khemia 1; Mario and Luigi 1 - 3; Mark Leung: Revenge of the Bitch; Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3; Mega Man Star Force 1; Monstania; Mother 3; My World, My Way; Okage: Shadow King; Orcs + Elves; Paper Mario 2; Parasite Eve 1; Phantasy Star 1 - 4 and Universe; Phantom Brave; Planescape: Torment; Pokemon Generations 1 - 5; Quest 64; Radiant Historia; Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure; Risen; Riviera: The Promised Land; Robotrek; Rogue Galaxy; Sailor Moon: Another Story; Sakura Wars 5; The Secret of Evermore; The Secret of Mana; Seiken Densetsu 3; Shadow Hearts 1 - 3; Shadowrun (SNES and Genesis); Shin Megami Tensei 1 + 2, Devil Summoner 1, Devil Survivor, Digital Devil Saga 1 + 2, Nocturne, Persona 3 FES + 4, and Strange Journey; Shining Force 1, 2, and EXA; Skies of Arcadia Legend; Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood; Soulblazer; Star Ocean 1 - 3; Startropics 1 + 2; Suikoden 1, 2, 3 - 5, Tactics, and Tierkreis; Super Mario RPG; Tales of Legendia, Phantasia, Symphonia, and the Abyss; Tenchi Muyo RPG; Terranigma; Treasure of the Rudras; Valkyrie Profile 1, 2, and Covenant of the Plume; Vandal Hearts 1 + 2; Wild ARMs 1 - 3, and 4 + 5; The World Ends with You; Xenogears; Xenosaga 1 - 3 and Pied Piper
Any and all rant ideas must be about one or more of them, or about RPGs in general. Happy Holidays!
* Actually, I theorize that the Mayans were predicting 2012 as the year Daniel Tosh would get his own cartoon, and thus was simply the year when we all would want the world to end.
** Yes, I feel obligated to play my RPGs to their end, regardless of quality. It’s just an RPGenius thing. I definitely don’t recommend it as a gaming style for anyone else, though. Sometimes I like to imagine a world, a much happier world, in which I had turned off Phantasy Star 3 when I first wanted to (at the title screen).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)