Chrono Cross is a terrible RPG. This is an accepted truth by most people who have played it, and it seems likely that those few pitiable wretches who believe otherwise are a danger to themselves, their minds unable to distinguish between pleasure and horrible agony.
But what MAKES it such a legendary example of poor gaming? Well, the reasons are actually comparatively few, just very weighty. The first I may some day get into, but not today--the fact that the story is about as convoluted, nonsensical, stupid, jumbled, and poorly explained as is humanly possible. I mean, I guess I HAVE seen one RPG plot that was even more tangled and silly, which was the inexplicable, stupid insanity of Robotrek. But in Robotrek's favor, as unmanageable as its plot was, that game wasn't actually trying to pass itself off as particularly meaningful or deep. Chrono Cross you're actually supposed to take SERIOUSLY.
The second, and really only other, problem with Chrono Cross is its cast. Like I said, not very many problems...but those problems encompass pretty much everything that matters in an RPG. The problem with the characters I've delved into once before, in my Chrono Cross's Characters rant, but that rant only really told half the story of why CC's cast just didn't work. And to be sure, a major part of why it didn't function was covered there--namely, how stupid and inane the plot-significant characters were. But the other half of the equation for CC's suckitude lies with the accent system.
See, it's like this. Chrono Cross has a lot of party members in it. A huge lot. As in, over 40 individuals that can join the party exist in this game. That's pretty much the biggest cast you're gonna see in an RPG whose title doesn't start with "Suikoden." This cast's size makes me suspect that Squaresoft really just wanted to have a huge cast for the bragging rights, not because it thought it needed all or even half of the characters for any purpose of quality. The suspicion of mine that this development decision was about quantity rather than quality is supported substantially by the fact that CC's cast wound up including a Mexican wrestler, a bobble-head alien, a talking clown skeleton, and an anthropomorphic turnip. It's a little hard to buy that a story's thematic narrative couldn't have been properly achieved without a walking vegetable swinging a sword around.
So once Square has its cast of mermaids, cyborgs, mutants, beach bum doctors, pirates, and more, it is faced with the enormous task of making them actual characters, personalities instead of just brightly-colored chunks of meat to fill your party with. Trying to give them all their own stories and side quests that develop them is a method far too time-consuming and competent for the writers of Chrono Cross, so almost everyone's defining scenes of characterization in this game are extremely short and choppy, a hurried assurance by Squaresoft that they haven't totally forgotten that the character exists, who's more a momentary distraction from the game than a part of it.
But that's okay! Because, you see, Squaresoft still has its secret weapon for character development, the ultimate tool for setting their characters apart and giving them personality and depth! And that tool is...the Accent System! What is that, you ask, or maybe don't since you would know if you'd played Chrono Cross and you wouldn't be reading this rant if you hadn't? Why, the Accent System takes one line of dialogue and adds one of dozens of different accents to it to make it different! Need a party member to say something, but don't want to write different lines of dialogue for all 40+ possible members? The Accent System fixes this problem in a jiffy! Just write one single line, like, say, "Serge, you are very dull," and throw it into the Accent System, and you're all set! Is the weird alien Starky in the party? He'll say, "Seeeeerge is veeeeery duuuuuull." Is Poshul, the talking purple dog, there, instead? She'll say "Thergy-poo, you are very durr." What about that foreign cook guy, Orcha? He'll say, "Serge, CHA are very dull." Hence, the Accent System makes writing party reactions and dialogue easy, allowing for one set of script to account for the words of 40 characters!
Yeah. Here's the problem with that. An accent should NEVER be the defining characteristic of a character.* Not in RPGs, not in ANYTHING. If the only personality trait that distinguishes a cave girl, a boxing bartender, a revered military general, and a rock star from one another is HOW they say words, not WHAT words they say, then your failure as a writer has brought shame to yourself and every human being you've ever interacted with.
Characters' reactions during a game's course help to develop them in small, and sometimes even big, ways. Even if they share a similar reaction, never should 2 different people say the exact same thing. Because if the only difference between 2 characters is whether they'll say a single sentence with a French or Olde English accent, you don't HAVE 2 characters. You have 1 character that can just change bodies. Each individual personality on an RPG's team that you want to develop through interactions with a plot in motion needs to have their interactions be genuine for them, needs to have the dialogue and actions tailored for them, not the other way around.
You want an example of how it SHOULD be, let's take a look at a couple other games. For starters, Dragon Age 1. As you go through the game, the members of your party will at times react to what's happening and offer their advice and opinions to the protagonist. What they say, how they react, depends on who is there. If the protagonist chooses, for example, to spare an enemy's life, Leliana or Wynne will approve of the decision, and make their approval known. Morrigan or Sten, on the other hand, may disapprove of this mercy, and say so. Each one will react in a way that is characteristic of THAT individual, rather than just have a generic response that they all parrot with different inflections. This, as much as the private scenes and conversations of character development, develops the party members of Dragon Age 1 and makes them memorable, unique, and worthwhile. In addition, there are certain moments where one character may react to a situation while the other party members may not, simply because the situation has more relevance to that one character. There aren't just uniform places where the characters have to convey something, there are also places where only certain individuals will have something to share. This further cements the individual aspects of each character.
A lot of games do this. And, provided that the people writing the game are reasonably good at what they do, it works well. Come to think of it, I seem to recall one game in particular that had its cast members react to things and say stuff in ways appropriately tailored to them, where even if the script called for any companion to have the same reaction as the others would at that point, they still had their own way of expressing the uniform reaction, the dialogue made for them as individuals. Now what was the name of that game, again?
Oh, yeah. Chrono Trigger.
So it's not like Squaresoft didn't have an example at hand to follow on how to use their characters. They did. It was the game that Chrono Cross was a sequel to. But no, they decided it would be a great idea to write one character's dialogue and then use it for 43 different characters, with the hopes that the player might be fooled into thinking there was some difference between any of these 43 individuals by a few mild grammatical variations.
And hey, I realize that it would be a ridiculous amount of work to have to write an entire game's worth of dialogue for over 40 characters. I do. But you know what the solution to that problem is? DON'T HAVE SO DAMN MANY CHARACTERS. This game wouldn't have suffered from not having a fucking talking voodoo doll in your party. None of its narrative "quality" would have been lost without the addition of the half-man, half-mushroom. This game didn't by any stretch of the imagination need even half of its playable cast. The answer was NOT to find a way to do LESS work than ever by using Babel Fish to cover their asses.
* Not that Squaresoft hasn't tried to have it that way before. I mean, take away the pirate lingo and Final Fantasy 5's Faris is about as bland and uninteresting as...well, every other FF5 character.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Fallout: New Vegas's Wild Wasteland Trait
So, Fallout games, like many PC RPGs, start by having the player create a character, choosing skills and stat distributions for their character that will (hopefully) aid the gamer in playing according to their preferred style. One of the distinctions the player may give their character is what Traits the character will have. Traits are certain characteristics that will change somewhat what the character can do in a general sense, almost always having both a positive and negative effect. For example, the Trait Gifted gives the player an extra 7 points to distribute to the character's stats, but at the cost of lowered skills, while the Kamikaze Trait increases a character's battle speed, but lessens the character's defenses. Obviously, it's not always an even trade--Gifted's penalty is paltry compared to its benefit, while in some Fallout titles it takes some work to play in a way that Kamikaze is going to be worth its cost.
Fallout: New Vegas introduces a new Trait called Wild Wasteland. Wild Wasteland basically allows the player to encounter various scenarios in the game which are a bit silly and fun, somewhat zany stuff put in for kicks. For example, the player can find in his/her travels a burnt old refrigerator with a charred corpse inside alongside a hat which suggests that the skeleton was Indiana Jones, referencing one of the most overwhelmingly stupid moments in film history, the scene in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull during which Indiana Jones survives ground zero of a nuclear bomb's explosion by climbing into a refrigerator.* The Wild Wasteland Trait puts a bunch of fun little references like this into the game, as well as adding a few extra lines to the Mr. New Vegas talk show radio station thingy, some comments in the credits, and even a few weapons you couldn't get otherwise, like an Alien Blaster and Holy Hand Grenades. Fun!
Now here's the damn problem: this should never have been a Trait.
See, Fallout? The series? It's filled with this stuff. As a general rule, any Fallout game you play will have a load of special, goofy encounters you can get into that are just there for shits and giggles. In Fallout 1, you can, during your travels across the wasteland, stumble across Doctor Who's TARDIS, or a herd of talking cows, among other things. Phil the Nuka-Cola guy in Fallout Tactics, all the Monty Python references in Fallout 2...hell, the entire (crappy) Mothership Zeta add-on for Fallout 3 falls into the category of these bizarre, odd little events that Wild Wasteland encompasses. Hell, some of the Wild Wasteland stuff has been done before previously in the games--the Timmy-falling-down-the-well gag in Fallout: New Vegas was already done in Fallout 2 (and not even as a special encounter, but rather right in the middle of a normal town), and, while not normally accessible due to a bug, Fallout 2 also had the Holy Hand Grenades first, too. The Alien Blaster's been a part of the series since its appearance in a special encounter in Fallout 1 as a joke weapon (albeit a devastatingly powerful one). There were comments for the credits in Fallout 1 and 2 just as there are for Wild Wasteland-enabled Fallout: New Vegas.
In short, interjecting the occasional bit of goofy humor is meant to be an inextricable part of the Fallout series. It has been that way from the very start! It's part of the charm and atmosphere of the series, and Fallout isn't complete without it. So why the hell is it an optional trait in Fallout: New Vegas?
I know, it seems like a small thing, but it nonetheless does bother me quite a bit. The idea behind this was that it was a compromise between members of the creative team behind Fallout: New Vegas who thought these wacky ideas would be fun, and other members who thought it would be out of place. So basically, a disagreement between people who people who knew anything at all about the game they were creating, and humorless nitwits who had no idea what they were doing. The thing that gets me riled up over this is the fact that there could be a significant number of people on the staff developing Fallout: New Vegas who had such a poor idea of what a Fallout game is supposed to entail. It worries me that future Fallout games could see less and less of these tidbits of humor and fun that have been a complimentary, necessary companion to the series's solemn and gritty atmosphere from the start.
And to give myself a little ground to stand on besides just vague worries, I'd like to note that having the Wild Wasteland Trait present in the game means that those who want a true Fallout experience will have one fewer Traits to choose from for their character. You only get to choose 2 at the start of the game, and a player might not want to have to give up a desirable Trait, gameplay-wise, just because someone on the developing team didn't have the sense to make the Wild Wasteland stuff a normal part of the game.
I'd also like to point out that if there is ANY Fallout title where the Wild Wasteland components were appropriate, it would be this one! I mean, Fallout 3? The setting and theme of that Fallout were just overall more serious and epic than previous games, so I could see someone arguing that too much goofy stuff could interfere with the game's intent. The game's focus is on Washington, D.C., and several themes strongly tied to America's policies, history, and human rights are prevalent. Heavy stuff. Fallout: New Vegas, on the other hand, is focused on Las Vegas and its surrounding area, and the majority of its themes and plot focus relate to the parts of American culture that Las Vegas influences. Oh, there's plenty of other great references to and examinations of American culture in Fallout: New Vegas not directly tied to Las Vegas, but still, the ideas and ideals of Vegas are predominant.
So how, exactly, is it NOT appropriate to the game to include a bunch of weird, silly, fun stuff in it? Really bizarre shit is PART of Las Vegas. A BIG part. One of the only decent comedy movies to come out in the past decade, The Hangover, built its entire premise around how much crazy, over-the-top shit you can encounter in a single night in Las Vegas. It's like a goddamn paradise for hedonistic insanity. If there was ever a Fallout where the Wild Wasteland stuff wouldn't be out of place, it would be this one! Playing without it is removing an (albeit small) aspect of the game's symbolic qualities.
So yeah. Wild Wasteland's content should be part of the game and not just optional, and forcing the player to give up on one of the regular Traits to experience the Wild Wasteland stuff is unfair. I sure hope they never have such a divorce of the zany stuff from the game proper in any future titles.
* Thank GOD I don't do a rant blog on movies. I could scream at the sheer, unparalleled idiocy of this scene for at least 20 pages.
Fallout: New Vegas introduces a new Trait called Wild Wasteland. Wild Wasteland basically allows the player to encounter various scenarios in the game which are a bit silly and fun, somewhat zany stuff put in for kicks. For example, the player can find in his/her travels a burnt old refrigerator with a charred corpse inside alongside a hat which suggests that the skeleton was Indiana Jones, referencing one of the most overwhelmingly stupid moments in film history, the scene in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull during which Indiana Jones survives ground zero of a nuclear bomb's explosion by climbing into a refrigerator.* The Wild Wasteland Trait puts a bunch of fun little references like this into the game, as well as adding a few extra lines to the Mr. New Vegas talk show radio station thingy, some comments in the credits, and even a few weapons you couldn't get otherwise, like an Alien Blaster and Holy Hand Grenades. Fun!
Now here's the damn problem: this should never have been a Trait.
See, Fallout? The series? It's filled with this stuff. As a general rule, any Fallout game you play will have a load of special, goofy encounters you can get into that are just there for shits and giggles. In Fallout 1, you can, during your travels across the wasteland, stumble across Doctor Who's TARDIS, or a herd of talking cows, among other things. Phil the Nuka-Cola guy in Fallout Tactics, all the Monty Python references in Fallout 2...hell, the entire (crappy) Mothership Zeta add-on for Fallout 3 falls into the category of these bizarre, odd little events that Wild Wasteland encompasses. Hell, some of the Wild Wasteland stuff has been done before previously in the games--the Timmy-falling-down-the-well gag in Fallout: New Vegas was already done in Fallout 2 (and not even as a special encounter, but rather right in the middle of a normal town), and, while not normally accessible due to a bug, Fallout 2 also had the Holy Hand Grenades first, too. The Alien Blaster's been a part of the series since its appearance in a special encounter in Fallout 1 as a joke weapon (albeit a devastatingly powerful one). There were comments for the credits in Fallout 1 and 2 just as there are for Wild Wasteland-enabled Fallout: New Vegas.
In short, interjecting the occasional bit of goofy humor is meant to be an inextricable part of the Fallout series. It has been that way from the very start! It's part of the charm and atmosphere of the series, and Fallout isn't complete without it. So why the hell is it an optional trait in Fallout: New Vegas?
I know, it seems like a small thing, but it nonetheless does bother me quite a bit. The idea behind this was that it was a compromise between members of the creative team behind Fallout: New Vegas who thought these wacky ideas would be fun, and other members who thought it would be out of place. So basically, a disagreement between people who people who knew anything at all about the game they were creating, and humorless nitwits who had no idea what they were doing. The thing that gets me riled up over this is the fact that there could be a significant number of people on the staff developing Fallout: New Vegas who had such a poor idea of what a Fallout game is supposed to entail. It worries me that future Fallout games could see less and less of these tidbits of humor and fun that have been a complimentary, necessary companion to the series's solemn and gritty atmosphere from the start.
And to give myself a little ground to stand on besides just vague worries, I'd like to note that having the Wild Wasteland Trait present in the game means that those who want a true Fallout experience will have one fewer Traits to choose from for their character. You only get to choose 2 at the start of the game, and a player might not want to have to give up a desirable Trait, gameplay-wise, just because someone on the developing team didn't have the sense to make the Wild Wasteland stuff a normal part of the game.
I'd also like to point out that if there is ANY Fallout title where the Wild Wasteland components were appropriate, it would be this one! I mean, Fallout 3? The setting and theme of that Fallout were just overall more serious and epic than previous games, so I could see someone arguing that too much goofy stuff could interfere with the game's intent. The game's focus is on Washington, D.C., and several themes strongly tied to America's policies, history, and human rights are prevalent. Heavy stuff. Fallout: New Vegas, on the other hand, is focused on Las Vegas and its surrounding area, and the majority of its themes and plot focus relate to the parts of American culture that Las Vegas influences. Oh, there's plenty of other great references to and examinations of American culture in Fallout: New Vegas not directly tied to Las Vegas, but still, the ideas and ideals of Vegas are predominant.
So how, exactly, is it NOT appropriate to the game to include a bunch of weird, silly, fun stuff in it? Really bizarre shit is PART of Las Vegas. A BIG part. One of the only decent comedy movies to come out in the past decade, The Hangover, built its entire premise around how much crazy, over-the-top shit you can encounter in a single night in Las Vegas. It's like a goddamn paradise for hedonistic insanity. If there was ever a Fallout where the Wild Wasteland stuff wouldn't be out of place, it would be this one! Playing without it is removing an (albeit small) aspect of the game's symbolic qualities.
So yeah. Wild Wasteland's content should be part of the game and not just optional, and forcing the player to give up on one of the regular Traits to experience the Wild Wasteland stuff is unfair. I sure hope they never have such a divorce of the zany stuff from the game proper in any future titles.
* Thank GOD I don't do a rant blog on movies. I could scream at the sheer, unparalleled idiocy of this scene for at least 20 pages.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
General RPGs' AMVs 4
Yes, folks, it's that time once again...that magical time where I avoid having to say anything meaningful or worthwhile about RPGs, and instead just throw a bunch of Youtube links your way. Let's see what AMVs I've got for us to share today!
And as always, if you like any of these, please, vote them up or, better still, leave a comment saying what you thought of them. Quite a few of these seem to be almost completely ignored, and it really is a damn shame for someone to take the time and spend the effort to make a good product in a sea of lousy ones and then have it passed over.
FALLOUT
Fallout: New Vegas: Citizen Soldier, by Joylock: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRX4AtqNMRQ
The music used is Citizen Soldier, by 3 Doors Down. Really, I don't know what to say about this. Joylock's Fallout 3 AMVs have made it into this rant blog twice before, once as part of one of these General RPG AMV rants and once as being so great as to deserve an individual rant. If you've seen them before, this is just more of the same--Joylock manipulates the Fallout game's engine to set certain scenes using certain characters, and basically creates a series of clips that not only connect strongly to the music that's playing in terms of lyrics and tone, but also shows the fundamental conflicts between good and evil contained within Fallout: New Vegas through the actions of the characters he manipulates, in a sense paraphrasing the game yet also exemplifying it. Great stuff, to be sure.
FINAL FANTASY
Final Fantasy 8: My Heart Will Go On, by T0mb0ner: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvd8nfYedT4&feature=channel_video_title
The music used is...is...it's...it's My Heart Will Go On, by Celine Dion, okay? Yes. YES. I know. Look. Just...just watch the AMV, okay? As long as you can hold back the thick, hot bile that creeps up your throat at the thought of Squall and Rinoa, and as long as you can keep yourself from giggling at how unbelievably over-the-top this song's sappiness is...and I'm not saying that's easy...you can actually recognize that this AMV is honestly pretty good. The video works with the song and makes sense with the mood and lyrics, the effects are good, it all just works. God, I can't believe I actually like an AMV to this song. A Final Fantasy 8 AMV, no less! About Squall and Rinoa! Some dark magics must be at work here.
Final Fantasy 10: Burning in the Skies, by Junpei19870: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvJkJpRUipM
The music used is A Thousand Suns: The Full Experience, by Linkin Park. This video's good overall, and I particularly like the way it cuts to and from the Sending ceremony and the tragedy that led to it. Shows that Junpei19870 had ideas and some creativity in conveying them. The mood of the song works with the video very well overall, and there's some good moments of connection between the video and the lyrics, too. Overall, a nicely solemn and touching AMV that combines well the solemn and touching nature of both the song and a large portion of Final Fantasy 10's plot and themes.
Final Fantasy 12: The Last Conquest, by Resk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDUHO1TyGvo
The music used is Preliator, by Globus. Resk has had one of his AMVs featured here before, the Shadow Hearts: As the Warlock Said one, and gives another quality video with this offering. Resk's use of FF12 clips in conjunction with the epic, call-to-war music is so skillful, inspiring, and gripping that you can actually pretty easily forget how terminally boring and directionless the game actually was. Hell, this AMV is what FF12 SHOULD have been like; I feel like Resk has far better captured the essence of Yasumi Matsuno's vision for FF12 far better than the game itself did.
THE LEGEND OF DRAGOON
The Legend of Dragoon: Strength of Sacrifice, by Resk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRGqxqMIOn8
The music used is Hour of Destiny, by Junichi Nakatsuru--I think. The credits aren't clear. Hey, another AMV by Resk. I like that there are a few AMV-makers out there that don't just stop with one really good AMV, but manage to keep making them. The instrumental song is complimented very well by the LoD visuals, with Resk's editing present as scenes and events are matched to the tune's pitch and tone, and with a great many fades and overlays* and such effects to make it that much more visually appealing. A very nice work, indeed.
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: The Real World, by SpeedDemon070: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwYeuUscBnE
The music used is Real World, by All-American Rejects. This AMV is just very well constructed, coordinating the scenes and effects to the music's lyrics and especially tone and shifts. There's really not much to say; it's just a very solid AMV.
MASS EFFECT
Mass Effect 1 + 2: Alive, by Vendo233: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aZfHgrPO9g
The music used is New Beginnings Remix, by Future World Music. Mass Effect gets more tribute videos like this than it does normal AMVs, but sometimes they're really very good. Most of these good ones are, of course, done by Geno|3oost, whose channel I directed you to last time. But Vendo233 does very nicely here, combining powerful, significant background music with appropriate visuals and the ever noteworthy dialogue of the games to create a tribute AMV that is pretty darn inspiring.
MY LITTLE PONY
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic: Ponysona 4, by MrSirPGW: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Jvam3L34FEo
The music used is Pursuing My True Self, from the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 soundtrack. Alright, I know I often pretend to know what words are going through my readers' heads, and I'm probably often wrong, but I'd bet good money that right now you are thinking to yourself something along the lines of, "That idiot, My Little Pony is not an RPG." And hey, no argument here. BUT! This AMV DOES still count as an RPG AMV, because even if the visual aspect of the video primarily uses footage from the MLP: Friendship is Magic cartoon, which, yes, again, I DO watch and think is pretty awesome, and I encourage you to watch it if you don't already because it will genuinely just make you happier...the overall premise is more strongly tied to an RPG (Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4) than many other AMVs I've listed here are to their respective games. See, this is basically an AMV that takes the opening to SMTP4, from its visual style and backdrops to its music, and puts in the main (mane) characters from the My Little Pony cartoon. It's extremely faithful to the original opening video to the Persona 4 game, basically having the new characters do the same stuff in the same way as the original video made the Persona 4 characters. For example, the original opening takes off with the main character Souji spinning to face the watcher with various words and sentences of significance from the game in the background, while this one has the primary (pri-mare-y) character of MLP, Twilight Sparkle, do the same thing, using text from the show's opening (and a plea for Persona 4 fans not to kill the author) in the background. It's like this from start to finish, a well-planned and executed AMV that matches up really well to be a fun homage to the original opening video from Persona 4. Here, here's the original SMTP4 opening, if you don't have it handy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEwKj6W14Jo&feature=fvst . Watch them back to back--see what I mean? Since the majority of this semi-AMV's content is undeniably based on the RPG and not the non-RPG cartoon, I consider this one fair game for this rant. And while it's not incredible or anything, this AMV is harmlessly amusing, and its combining of Pony with Persona is basically seamless. You can tell it's not a half-assed effort or anything like that; someone wanted to make an AMV that was fun for its concept and for the fact that it's faithfully paying homage to the original SMTP4 through careful imitation.
PARASITE EVE
Parasite Eve 1: Killers Within, by Auron: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbisAM1nMbU
The music used is Hands of Death (Burn Baby Burn), by Rob Zombie. What can I say on this one, really? If you want an AMV that uses a dark, heavy, creepy song and a dark, heavy, creepy game to make a dark, heavy, creepy AMV, you probably can't do any better than this one. Sure, it doesn't seem to have much of a point, and while most of the effects are really cool, the black strobe thing is overdone...but this is still pretty darned slick.
SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES: Minato Will Leave Out All the Rest, by TsubasaArisato: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dk-gn9MGwso
The music used is Leave Out All the Rest, by Linkin Park. This AMV has its moments where it just seems to coast along without doing anything noteworthy, but overall it works with its tone and the song's ideas and theme quite well, making it a solid music video in the end.
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES: South Texas Deathride, by Aneinokaijin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUDkwYHXGK8
The music used is South Texas Deathride, by The Union Underground. This AMV represents a combination of things that are...HIGHLY unlikely to elicit a positive response from me. First: Honestly, much as I love SMTP3, its FMVs are sparse and short, so it's tough to really make a worthwhile video out of them. Second: Grittier, harsher, and/or darker music styles don't often impress me all that much, and frankly, they usually don't make for good material for an AMV, because their louder/darker nature just kind of overwhelms everything and is often too constant; too much of one tone makes it hard to properly connect a video to a song in any concrete way. Third: The AMV uses a lot of visual effects, and while I think such things can be VERY beneficial, AMV creators, when they decide to really start mixing up the visuals, tend to go overboard with them to the point where it's distracting. Fourth: It's pretty short; only a little over a minute and a half long. AMVs that are this short tend to feel incomplete, often because they have to cut out of their song before it's done. But despite all these factors...this AMV really works. The scenes' actions nigh perfectly mesh with the music's tone and, at times, lyrics, the mood of the song works well with the mood of much of Persona 3's scenes, the many visual effects are employed with what I might almost call grace--they're numerous, but they're pretty much always effective at heightening the video's draw and the connection between scene and music, and never distracting. It's dark but not over-bearing, its brevity doesn't seem forced, and everything meshes into a single product exceptionally. Damned good work here; if they'd been able to keep up the quality for the length of the entire song, I probably would have kept this one for a rant all its own.
THE WORLD ENDS WITH YOU
The World Ends with You: The World Ends Without You, by Sunrise Studios: http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members/members_videoinfo.php?v=169670
Youtube upload found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV-CuseDKRo
The music used is Pressure, by Paramore. Good effects, the scenes and effects have a good connection to the music's lyrics and changes...another basically solid, well-made video on this list.
XENOGEARS
Xenogears: AERIALS, by Lulu: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To7z6C50Ics
The music used is Aerials, by System of a Down. This AMV has nigh-perfect synchronization between visual and audio, the effects are great...there are a few scenes that kind of just seem like filler more than anything (unsurprising, given how little FMV Xenogears really has to work with), but all in all, this AMV is great; it makes Xenogears look so cool that I almost forget when watching what a godawful mess the game actually was.
* I THINK they're fades and overlays...I believe I've mentioned before that my technical knowledge of cinematography is lacking, yes?
And as always, if you like any of these, please, vote them up or, better still, leave a comment saying what you thought of them. Quite a few of these seem to be almost completely ignored, and it really is a damn shame for someone to take the time and spend the effort to make a good product in a sea of lousy ones and then have it passed over.
FALLOUT
Fallout: New Vegas: Citizen Soldier, by Joylock: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRX4AtqNMRQ
The music used is Citizen Soldier, by 3 Doors Down. Really, I don't know what to say about this. Joylock's Fallout 3 AMVs have made it into this rant blog twice before, once as part of one of these General RPG AMV rants and once as being so great as to deserve an individual rant. If you've seen them before, this is just more of the same--Joylock manipulates the Fallout game's engine to set certain scenes using certain characters, and basically creates a series of clips that not only connect strongly to the music that's playing in terms of lyrics and tone, but also shows the fundamental conflicts between good and evil contained within Fallout: New Vegas through the actions of the characters he manipulates, in a sense paraphrasing the game yet also exemplifying it. Great stuff, to be sure.
FINAL FANTASY
Final Fantasy 8: My Heart Will Go On, by T0mb0ner: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvd8nfYedT4&feature=channel_video_title
The music used is...is...it's...it's My Heart Will Go On, by Celine Dion, okay? Yes. YES. I know. Look. Just...just watch the AMV, okay? As long as you can hold back the thick, hot bile that creeps up your throat at the thought of Squall and Rinoa, and as long as you can keep yourself from giggling at how unbelievably over-the-top this song's sappiness is...and I'm not saying that's easy...you can actually recognize that this AMV is honestly pretty good. The video works with the song and makes sense with the mood and lyrics, the effects are good, it all just works. God, I can't believe I actually like an AMV to this song. A Final Fantasy 8 AMV, no less! About Squall and Rinoa! Some dark magics must be at work here.
Final Fantasy 10: Burning in the Skies, by Junpei19870: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvJkJpRUipM
The music used is A Thousand Suns: The Full Experience, by Linkin Park. This video's good overall, and I particularly like the way it cuts to and from the Sending ceremony and the tragedy that led to it. Shows that Junpei19870 had ideas and some creativity in conveying them. The mood of the song works with the video very well overall, and there's some good moments of connection between the video and the lyrics, too. Overall, a nicely solemn and touching AMV that combines well the solemn and touching nature of both the song and a large portion of Final Fantasy 10's plot and themes.
Final Fantasy 12: The Last Conquest, by Resk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDUHO1TyGvo
The music used is Preliator, by Globus. Resk has had one of his AMVs featured here before, the Shadow Hearts: As the Warlock Said one, and gives another quality video with this offering. Resk's use of FF12 clips in conjunction with the epic, call-to-war music is so skillful, inspiring, and gripping that you can actually pretty easily forget how terminally boring and directionless the game actually was. Hell, this AMV is what FF12 SHOULD have been like; I feel like Resk has far better captured the essence of Yasumi Matsuno's vision for FF12 far better than the game itself did.
THE LEGEND OF DRAGOON
The Legend of Dragoon: Strength of Sacrifice, by Resk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRGqxqMIOn8
The music used is Hour of Destiny, by Junichi Nakatsuru--I think. The credits aren't clear. Hey, another AMV by Resk. I like that there are a few AMV-makers out there that don't just stop with one really good AMV, but manage to keep making them. The instrumental song is complimented very well by the LoD visuals, with Resk's editing present as scenes and events are matched to the tune's pitch and tone, and with a great many fades and overlays* and such effects to make it that much more visually appealing. A very nice work, indeed.
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: The Real World, by SpeedDemon070: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwYeuUscBnE
The music used is Real World, by All-American Rejects. This AMV is just very well constructed, coordinating the scenes and effects to the music's lyrics and especially tone and shifts. There's really not much to say; it's just a very solid AMV.
MASS EFFECT
Mass Effect 1 + 2: Alive, by Vendo233: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aZfHgrPO9g
The music used is New Beginnings Remix, by Future World Music. Mass Effect gets more tribute videos like this than it does normal AMVs, but sometimes they're really very good. Most of these good ones are, of course, done by Geno|3oost, whose channel I directed you to last time. But Vendo233 does very nicely here, combining powerful, significant background music with appropriate visuals and the ever noteworthy dialogue of the games to create a tribute AMV that is pretty darn inspiring.
MY LITTLE PONY
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic: Ponysona 4, by MrSirPGW: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Jvam3L34FEo
The music used is Pursuing My True Self, from the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 soundtrack. Alright, I know I often pretend to know what words are going through my readers' heads, and I'm probably often wrong, but I'd bet good money that right now you are thinking to yourself something along the lines of, "That idiot, My Little Pony is not an RPG." And hey, no argument here. BUT! This AMV DOES still count as an RPG AMV, because even if the visual aspect of the video primarily uses footage from the MLP: Friendship is Magic cartoon, which, yes, again, I DO watch and think is pretty awesome, and I encourage you to watch it if you don't already because it will genuinely just make you happier...the overall premise is more strongly tied to an RPG (Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4) than many other AMVs I've listed here are to their respective games. See, this is basically an AMV that takes the opening to SMTP4, from its visual style and backdrops to its music, and puts in the main (mane) characters from the My Little Pony cartoon. It's extremely faithful to the original opening video to the Persona 4 game, basically having the new characters do the same stuff in the same way as the original video made the Persona 4 characters. For example, the original opening takes off with the main character Souji spinning to face the watcher with various words and sentences of significance from the game in the background, while this one has the primary (pri-mare-y) character of MLP, Twilight Sparkle, do the same thing, using text from the show's opening (and a plea for Persona 4 fans not to kill the author) in the background. It's like this from start to finish, a well-planned and executed AMV that matches up really well to be a fun homage to the original opening video from Persona 4. Here, here's the original SMTP4 opening, if you don't have it handy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEwKj6W14Jo&feature=fvst . Watch them back to back--see what I mean? Since the majority of this semi-AMV's content is undeniably based on the RPG and not the non-RPG cartoon, I consider this one fair game for this rant. And while it's not incredible or anything, this AMV is harmlessly amusing, and its combining of Pony with Persona is basically seamless. You can tell it's not a half-assed effort or anything like that; someone wanted to make an AMV that was fun for its concept and for the fact that it's faithfully paying homage to the original SMTP4 through careful imitation.
PARASITE EVE
Parasite Eve 1: Killers Within, by Auron: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbisAM1nMbU
The music used is Hands of Death (Burn Baby Burn), by Rob Zombie. What can I say on this one, really? If you want an AMV that uses a dark, heavy, creepy song and a dark, heavy, creepy game to make a dark, heavy, creepy AMV, you probably can't do any better than this one. Sure, it doesn't seem to have much of a point, and while most of the effects are really cool, the black strobe thing is overdone...but this is still pretty darned slick.
SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES: Minato Will Leave Out All the Rest, by TsubasaArisato: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dk-gn9MGwso
The music used is Leave Out All the Rest, by Linkin Park. This AMV has its moments where it just seems to coast along without doing anything noteworthy, but overall it works with its tone and the song's ideas and theme quite well, making it a solid music video in the end.
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES: South Texas Deathride, by Aneinokaijin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUDkwYHXGK8
The music used is South Texas Deathride, by The Union Underground. This AMV represents a combination of things that are...HIGHLY unlikely to elicit a positive response from me. First: Honestly, much as I love SMTP3, its FMVs are sparse and short, so it's tough to really make a worthwhile video out of them. Second: Grittier, harsher, and/or darker music styles don't often impress me all that much, and frankly, they usually don't make for good material for an AMV, because their louder/darker nature just kind of overwhelms everything and is often too constant; too much of one tone makes it hard to properly connect a video to a song in any concrete way. Third: The AMV uses a lot of visual effects, and while I think such things can be VERY beneficial, AMV creators, when they decide to really start mixing up the visuals, tend to go overboard with them to the point where it's distracting. Fourth: It's pretty short; only a little over a minute and a half long. AMVs that are this short tend to feel incomplete, often because they have to cut out of their song before it's done. But despite all these factors...this AMV really works. The scenes' actions nigh perfectly mesh with the music's tone and, at times, lyrics, the mood of the song works well with the mood of much of Persona 3's scenes, the many visual effects are employed with what I might almost call grace--they're numerous, but they're pretty much always effective at heightening the video's draw and the connection between scene and music, and never distracting. It's dark but not over-bearing, its brevity doesn't seem forced, and everything meshes into a single product exceptionally. Damned good work here; if they'd been able to keep up the quality for the length of the entire song, I probably would have kept this one for a rant all its own.
THE WORLD ENDS WITH YOU
The World Ends with You: The World Ends Without You, by Sunrise Studios: http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members/members_videoinfo.php?v=169670
Youtube upload found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV-CuseDKRo
The music used is Pressure, by Paramore. Good effects, the scenes and effects have a good connection to the music's lyrics and changes...another basically solid, well-made video on this list.
XENOGEARS
Xenogears: AERIALS, by Lulu: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To7z6C50Ics
The music used is Aerials, by System of a Down. This AMV has nigh-perfect synchronization between visual and audio, the effects are great...there are a few scenes that kind of just seem like filler more than anything (unsurprising, given how little FMV Xenogears really has to work with), but all in all, this AMV is great; it makes Xenogears look so cool that I almost forget when watching what a godawful mess the game actually was.
* I THINK they're fades and overlays...I believe I've mentioned before that my technical knowledge of cinematography is lacking, yes?
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Dragon Quest 5's List
Things That I Believe Are More Exciting Than Playing Dragon Quest 5
Getting into a lengthy debate with a stuffed animal.
Watching C-SPAN on mute.
Singing to John Mayer.
Filling out medical forms.
Plain toast.
Folding laundry.
Dragon Ball Z.
Pocket Lint.
Watching Girl in the Golden Boots--WITHOUT the Mystery Science Theater 3000 commentary.
Slightly moist cardboard.
Sweeping the floor.
Lullabies.
Playing Monopoly by yourself.
Hanging out with a slug.
The Family Circus.
Being a judge for a yawning contest.
Water-flavored soup.
A 72-hour Brady Bunch marathon.
An aerobics class led by a sloth.
Waiting in line at the Registry of Motor Vehicles.
Closely comparing toothbrushes at a store to determine which is the truly superior model.
Ricky Gervais...just barely, though.
Walking your pet rock.
Reading through the Megatokyo archives.
Being dead.
Getting into a lengthy debate with a stuffed animal.
Watching C-SPAN on mute.
Singing to John Mayer.
Filling out medical forms.
Plain toast.
Folding laundry.
Dragon Ball Z.
Pocket Lint.
Watching Girl in the Golden Boots--WITHOUT the Mystery Science Theater 3000 commentary.
Slightly moist cardboard.
Sweeping the floor.
Lullabies.
Playing Monopoly by yourself.
Hanging out with a slug.
The Family Circus.
Being a judge for a yawning contest.
Water-flavored soup.
A 72-hour Brady Bunch marathon.
An aerobics class led by a sloth.
Waiting in line at the Registry of Motor Vehicles.
Closely comparing toothbrushes at a store to determine which is the truly superior model.
Ricky Gervais...just barely, though.
Walking your pet rock.
Reading through the Megatokyo archives.
Being dead.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Avalon Code's Spirits' Weakness
So. Elemental spirits. Not exactly a new concept in RPGs. Seems everywhere you turn in this genre, some sentient, magical embodiment of something or other is jumping out at you, forcing you to go on quests, screaming plot into your ears, and offering to loan its powers out to passersby with all the discretion of a 50-cent hooker.
Avalon Code has a pretty typical set of elemental spirits to it. You've got one for Fire, one for Ice, one for Lightning, and one for Nature. Granted, most games will have spirits for things like Wind and Earth and so on before they get around to Nature, but other than that, it's pretty standard stuff. They advise the protagonist on where to go through the plot, they know the magical history of their world, they can be summoned for major attacks, they look vaguely silly...you know, same old, same old. There's just one thing that sets them apart: their weakness.
Now, an elemental spirit having a weakness isn't uncommon. It'll usually be attacks of the opposite element. You know the drill...Water spirits get electrocuted by Lightning magic, Light elementals aren't fond of Dark attacks, and you can fuck Final Fantasy 8's Ifrit's shit up good with Shiva the Ice lady. Poor, stupid Ifrit. These weaknesses make sense. Or at least, as much sense as elemental weaknesses ever make in RPGs.*
The Avalon Code elemental spirits, however, are a little different. Their weakness isn't their opposite element. No. Their weakness is water.
Yes. Water.
Allow me to clarify. I don't mean powerful Water magic, like you'd usually use against a Fire elemental or something. I mean a small amount of H2O. And I don't mean that it hurts them. I mean it completely disables them. You get an Avalon Code elemental spirit wet, and it is powerless. You could seriously, no exaggeration, POUR A GLASS OF WATER on one and it would be rendered utterly ineffectual.
It's all about lazy writing, of course, as so many problems I rant on boil down to in the end. The writers want the hero taken down at certain points in the plot, the hero's always got those little elemental spirits hanging around him/her, so the spirits have to be taken down each time, too. How will the writers do that? Well, they COULD employ some creativity and come up with some tactical means of defeating the spirits--or they COULD give all 4 the same weakness and make it something that can be easily obtained by any of the people disabling the hero. That way the writers can use the same means of spirit nullification each time and not have to worry about...what was it, again? That thing they're paid to do? Oh, yeah...THINKING. And so, the avatars of all the planet's natural energies, the gods of the elements of life, are easily conquered by anyone with a spray bottle.
But let us consider this in depth. Let us wrap our minds around this phenomenon.
The elemental spirits that embody and maintain the natural forces of the whole world are weak to water. Now, I'm not sure how much of Avalon Code's world is covered with water--maybe they aren't 70% ocean the way Earth is. But even if water only covers 10% of Avalon Code's world's surface, you're talking about one of the most common and simple chemical compounds in the universe. You're talking about a substance that every living organism on the planet needs to have reliable access to in order to survive. The spirits of the powers of all creation, able to raise blazing infernos, rain lightning storms upon the land, freeze the world in huge blizzards...are rendered totally helpless if you splash them with a liquid that any and every person in the world can obtain.
And then there's the elemental side of it. I mean, okay, I get that the spirit of Fire can be beaten by some water. I really think the corporeal essence of combustion should be able to withstand having a wet sponge wrung out over his head, but we'll let it go. Why is the Lightning spirit as weak to water? Why does the NATURE spirit get knocked on her ass by a light sprinkle? I mean, the existence of the watering can would indicate that a little H20 falling on a plant isn't terribly detrimental to it. And while it's been a while since I took a Biology course, I seem to remember that plants, much like every other living thing, need water to LIVE. So I'm not sure why the spiritual embodiment of them is knocked on her ass by anyone holding a squirt gun. And that's just going on the assumption that "Nature" just means plant life, as the game implies. If you expand that idea to include a general view of the basic environmental world, water's a PART of that.
And hey, how about the ICE spirit? It's also been a while since I took a Physics or Chemistry course, but if I do recall correctly, ice. Is. WATER. The Ice spirit's kryptonite is ice at room temperature. She is weak to herself.
Oh, and incidentally, you know how I've been "exaggerating" for comical effect thus far the small amount of water it would take to disable these spirits? I have not really been exaggerating all that much. I mean, there is a scene in the damn game where a character takes down the spirits with the water contained in a...pail? Bucket? Glass? I don't remember exactly what the container is--I actually do think it might have been a glass. But it's an easily carried container for liquid that only contains a comparatively small amount of water--and it's enough to take down all 4 creatures of arcane elemental power at once.
By God, this is SO DUMB.
* Why IS Fire so weak to Ice in these games, anyway? I understand Fire being weak to Water, cuz, y'know, water actually puts fire out in real life, but Ice? Fire melts ice in real life; ice only really beats fire AFTER it's melted into water. You can make a fire in freezing temperatures without much extra trouble so long as you have the materials to do so. Fire's second weakness should be Earth, not Ice. You pile a heap of dirt and sand and rocks and such on top of a fire, that'll put it out--hell, it's more reliable than water, even, cuz water won't stop a grease fire. Oh well.
Avalon Code has a pretty typical set of elemental spirits to it. You've got one for Fire, one for Ice, one for Lightning, and one for Nature. Granted, most games will have spirits for things like Wind and Earth and so on before they get around to Nature, but other than that, it's pretty standard stuff. They advise the protagonist on where to go through the plot, they know the magical history of their world, they can be summoned for major attacks, they look vaguely silly...you know, same old, same old. There's just one thing that sets them apart: their weakness.
Now, an elemental spirit having a weakness isn't uncommon. It'll usually be attacks of the opposite element. You know the drill...Water spirits get electrocuted by Lightning magic, Light elementals aren't fond of Dark attacks, and you can fuck Final Fantasy 8's Ifrit's shit up good with Shiva the Ice lady. Poor, stupid Ifrit. These weaknesses make sense. Or at least, as much sense as elemental weaknesses ever make in RPGs.*
The Avalon Code elemental spirits, however, are a little different. Their weakness isn't their opposite element. No. Their weakness is water.
Yes. Water.
Allow me to clarify. I don't mean powerful Water magic, like you'd usually use against a Fire elemental or something. I mean a small amount of H2O. And I don't mean that it hurts them. I mean it completely disables them. You get an Avalon Code elemental spirit wet, and it is powerless. You could seriously, no exaggeration, POUR A GLASS OF WATER on one and it would be rendered utterly ineffectual.
It's all about lazy writing, of course, as so many problems I rant on boil down to in the end. The writers want the hero taken down at certain points in the plot, the hero's always got those little elemental spirits hanging around him/her, so the spirits have to be taken down each time, too. How will the writers do that? Well, they COULD employ some creativity and come up with some tactical means of defeating the spirits--or they COULD give all 4 the same weakness and make it something that can be easily obtained by any of the people disabling the hero. That way the writers can use the same means of spirit nullification each time and not have to worry about...what was it, again? That thing they're paid to do? Oh, yeah...THINKING. And so, the avatars of all the planet's natural energies, the gods of the elements of life, are easily conquered by anyone with a spray bottle.
But let us consider this in depth. Let us wrap our minds around this phenomenon.
The elemental spirits that embody and maintain the natural forces of the whole world are weak to water. Now, I'm not sure how much of Avalon Code's world is covered with water--maybe they aren't 70% ocean the way Earth is. But even if water only covers 10% of Avalon Code's world's surface, you're talking about one of the most common and simple chemical compounds in the universe. You're talking about a substance that every living organism on the planet needs to have reliable access to in order to survive. The spirits of the powers of all creation, able to raise blazing infernos, rain lightning storms upon the land, freeze the world in huge blizzards...are rendered totally helpless if you splash them with a liquid that any and every person in the world can obtain.
And then there's the elemental side of it. I mean, okay, I get that the spirit of Fire can be beaten by some water. I really think the corporeal essence of combustion should be able to withstand having a wet sponge wrung out over his head, but we'll let it go. Why is the Lightning spirit as weak to water? Why does the NATURE spirit get knocked on her ass by a light sprinkle? I mean, the existence of the watering can would indicate that a little H20 falling on a plant isn't terribly detrimental to it. And while it's been a while since I took a Biology course, I seem to remember that plants, much like every other living thing, need water to LIVE. So I'm not sure why the spiritual embodiment of them is knocked on her ass by anyone holding a squirt gun. And that's just going on the assumption that "Nature" just means plant life, as the game implies. If you expand that idea to include a general view of the basic environmental world, water's a PART of that.
And hey, how about the ICE spirit? It's also been a while since I took a Physics or Chemistry course, but if I do recall correctly, ice. Is. WATER. The Ice spirit's kryptonite is ice at room temperature. She is weak to herself.
Oh, and incidentally, you know how I've been "exaggerating" for comical effect thus far the small amount of water it would take to disable these spirits? I have not really been exaggerating all that much. I mean, there is a scene in the damn game where a character takes down the spirits with the water contained in a...pail? Bucket? Glass? I don't remember exactly what the container is--I actually do think it might have been a glass. But it's an easily carried container for liquid that only contains a comparatively small amount of water--and it's enough to take down all 4 creatures of arcane elemental power at once.
By God, this is SO DUMB.
* Why IS Fire so weak to Ice in these games, anyway? I understand Fire being weak to Water, cuz, y'know, water actually puts fire out in real life, but Ice? Fire melts ice in real life; ice only really beats fire AFTER it's melted into water. You can make a fire in freezing temperatures without much extra trouble so long as you have the materials to do so. Fire's second weakness should be Earth, not Ice. You pile a heap of dirt and sand and rocks and such on top of a fire, that'll put it out--hell, it's more reliable than water, even, cuz water won't stop a grease fire. Oh well.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Fallout: New Vegas's Ending
I really did love Fallout 3. It's got a simple yet epic plot, some neat characters, the events that move the plot along are well-executed, there's oodles of creativity to it, and there is, as in any Fallout, just tons of symbolism and references to the USA's culture, ideals, people, history, and place in the world. It was a reinvention of the series and yet a very faithful continuation of it, and there are few things I can really say weren't done well with it. But I do have to say, if there was 1 thing that disappointed me, it was...well actually, I guess it would have been the lousy, pointless Mothership Zeta DLC package. But if there were 2 things that disappointed me, then they'd have been the Mothership Zeta DLC package and the ending.
Now, I already made a rant about how stupid part of Fallout 3's ending was, and I soon after had to retract that rant as the Broken Steel DLC fixed the nonsensical part of the ending. So I don't have any complaints about the part of the ending where the Lone Wanderer must decide who goes in to fix the thingy any more. But the basic ending sequence was still disappointing when compared to that of previous games.
See, in previous Fallout games, the ending would be a sequence of scenes of people and places you encountered in your quest, with a voice-over in which the narrator explained what ended up happening to these individuals and locations after the game's end. In most cases, the future of many people and civilizations would be heavily influenced by your actions in the game. A few things didn't change no matter what you did, like the fate of Myron in Fallout 2, but overall, the game's ending was a chance to hear about the fruits (or ashes) of your labor, and even with the stuff you couldn't change, hearing about what happened later on was still neat.* In Fallout 3, however, you got an extremely brief sum-up of your character's actions that basically amounted to, "The Lone Wanderer was good/bad. The Capital Wasteland was changed for the better/worse because of The Lone Wanderer. The Lone Wanderer decided to purify/poison the water. The End." Not exactly the detailed summary of a quest that took 100+ hours of play time that I would have hoped for. Hell, not only does it not include any proper details for the fates of the places and people of the game, but it also doesn't even do a good job with what it DOES summarize! I mean, you're probably aware of whether or not your main character was a good or bad person, since, y'know, you were there for all the moments that would have determined that!
Thus, I am very pleased that Fallout: New Vegas has returned to the traditional Fallout way of ending a game--by listing off what happens to all of the settings and characters of importance after the game's conclusion, most of which are influenced by the protagonist's actions throughout the game. It's a very rewarding and interesting way to end a game, and is particularly appreciated when that game has taken as much time and attention as a Fallout game tends to.
I'm also pleased that Fallout: New Vegas goes 1 step further than the older games, too--it has more than 1 voice actor doing the narration. See, in Fallout 1 and 2, the ending narration was all done by the same voice actor, Ron Perlman. This was fine, as he's basically the vocal soul of the franchise, and he added a pleasant sense of depth and significance to the fates he was describing. But Fallout: New Vegas goes further: each part of the ending that details the future of a place or person is narrated by a character who had significant ties to it. For examples, the eventual fates of your party members are each narrated by the voice actor who played that character, while the description of what happens to, say, the Kings gang in Freeside, is narrated by The King, leader of the gang. Having narration by the characters relevant to the people and places described in the ending is a nice touch, makes the ending's story come more alive to me. And you still get Mr. Perlman in there for the summary of the Courier, so nothing is lost with the change.
So yeah, kudos to Obsidian and Bethesda for correcting the mistake made in Fallout 3, and not only that, for going above expectations to make the ending's telling even better than hoped for. If they keep making Fallout games in the future, I hope they do the same things for those games' endings as they did did for Fallout: New Vegas, because it's everything a Fallout fan wants and more.
* Of course, there were a few parts of Fallout 2's ending clips that were glitched up and didn't allow you to get the ending you should have due to programming errors, too. There are, thankfully, some fan-made mods out there that fix this, the most notable and worthwhile, of course, being the Fallout 2 Restoration Project patch, made by the most dedicated fan I've ever encountered, Killap. Yes, I know I already advertised this patch in my last Annual Summary, but I feel it really bears mentioning again that you can have a chance to play Fallout 2 the way it was meant to be played if you go here: http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=56087&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0 and download it. It's a must-play for any Fallout fan, one of the series's true classics as it was meant to be.
Now, I already made a rant about how stupid part of Fallout 3's ending was, and I soon after had to retract that rant as the Broken Steel DLC fixed the nonsensical part of the ending. So I don't have any complaints about the part of the ending where the Lone Wanderer must decide who goes in to fix the thingy any more. But the basic ending sequence was still disappointing when compared to that of previous games.
See, in previous Fallout games, the ending would be a sequence of scenes of people and places you encountered in your quest, with a voice-over in which the narrator explained what ended up happening to these individuals and locations after the game's end. In most cases, the future of many people and civilizations would be heavily influenced by your actions in the game. A few things didn't change no matter what you did, like the fate of Myron in Fallout 2, but overall, the game's ending was a chance to hear about the fruits (or ashes) of your labor, and even with the stuff you couldn't change, hearing about what happened later on was still neat.* In Fallout 3, however, you got an extremely brief sum-up of your character's actions that basically amounted to, "The Lone Wanderer was good/bad. The Capital Wasteland was changed for the better/worse because of The Lone Wanderer. The Lone Wanderer decided to purify/poison the water. The End." Not exactly the detailed summary of a quest that took 100+ hours of play time that I would have hoped for. Hell, not only does it not include any proper details for the fates of the places and people of the game, but it also doesn't even do a good job with what it DOES summarize! I mean, you're probably aware of whether or not your main character was a good or bad person, since, y'know, you were there for all the moments that would have determined that!
Thus, I am very pleased that Fallout: New Vegas has returned to the traditional Fallout way of ending a game--by listing off what happens to all of the settings and characters of importance after the game's conclusion, most of which are influenced by the protagonist's actions throughout the game. It's a very rewarding and interesting way to end a game, and is particularly appreciated when that game has taken as much time and attention as a Fallout game tends to.
I'm also pleased that Fallout: New Vegas goes 1 step further than the older games, too--it has more than 1 voice actor doing the narration. See, in Fallout 1 and 2, the ending narration was all done by the same voice actor, Ron Perlman. This was fine, as he's basically the vocal soul of the franchise, and he added a pleasant sense of depth and significance to the fates he was describing. But Fallout: New Vegas goes further: each part of the ending that details the future of a place or person is narrated by a character who had significant ties to it. For examples, the eventual fates of your party members are each narrated by the voice actor who played that character, while the description of what happens to, say, the Kings gang in Freeside, is narrated by The King, leader of the gang. Having narration by the characters relevant to the people and places described in the ending is a nice touch, makes the ending's story come more alive to me. And you still get Mr. Perlman in there for the summary of the Courier, so nothing is lost with the change.
So yeah, kudos to Obsidian and Bethesda for correcting the mistake made in Fallout 3, and not only that, for going above expectations to make the ending's telling even better than hoped for. If they keep making Fallout games in the future, I hope they do the same things for those games' endings as they did did for Fallout: New Vegas, because it's everything a Fallout fan wants and more.
* Of course, there were a few parts of Fallout 2's ending clips that were glitched up and didn't allow you to get the ending you should have due to programming errors, too. There are, thankfully, some fan-made mods out there that fix this, the most notable and worthwhile, of course, being the Fallout 2 Restoration Project patch, made by the most dedicated fan I've ever encountered, Killap. Yes, I know I already advertised this patch in my last Annual Summary, but I feel it really bears mentioning again that you can have a chance to play Fallout 2 the way it was meant to be played if you go here: http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=56087&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0 and download it. It's a must-play for any Fallout fan, one of the series's true classics as it was meant to be.
Monday, July 25, 2011
The Magic of Scheherazade
Today we're going to speak of a game very dear to my heart: The Magic of Scheherazade. This fun little NES RPG is pretty darned obscure; I've found very few other people who've ever heard of it. Hell, I've barely mentioned it in this rant blog thingy of mine at all after, what, 4 years of blabbing? And you know that ain't the norm--usually if I like a game, you'll hear about how awesome it is every other rant I do.* But it's a real damn shame how unknown this game is, and how long it's taken for me to decide to talk about it. Cuz you know what? This game had a lot of creative qualities, and it was pretty ahead of its time in several ways. And because now time is Arpy Time, you're gonna have to hear about them.
Alright, first of all: Time Travel. This game has it. Now, I know time travel was not a new concept by 1987, but as far as RPGs go, I'm willing to bet that this is one of the earliest RPGs to ever incorporate time travel into its plot and setting in a major way. I'd be surprised if it were not THE first to do so, really. And in its humble way, it does it well. It ain't exactly Chrono Trigger, but The Magic of Scheherazade does use its time travel plot elements with purpose and some good sense. I mean, yeah, there are times when it doesn't seem terribly essential--there's a time in Chapter 2, for example, when the reason you have to travel to the past is to pick up a party member who lived way back when, and this instance really doesn't have any narrative aspect that necessitated the time travel besides the game telling us that we had to. I mean, the character could just as easily have existed in the present. But most of the time, the time travel aspect is used well, such as when the protagonist encounters a demon so unstoppably powerful that the only possible way to vanquish it is to travel many, many years into Earth's past to kill the demon just as it's born, since that's the one time it will be vulnerable enough that any physical and magical means will be capable of beating it. TMoS is an RPG that uses time travel long before any other that I know of, and frankly, it manages to use the concept better than several later RPGs ever did.**
Next, how about the cast? TMoS probably has the most diverse RPG cast of its time. Seriously. Your party will eventually consist of a living pumpkin-headed wooden doll, a cat fairy, a flying monkey, a robot archeologist, not one 1 but 2 genies, and...a bottle with arms, legs, and an eye. Among others. That's a pretty different cast. Hell, the TMoS ensemble is STILL one of the weirdest I've seen in RPGs so far. I suppose it's a little excessive at times, as quite often the bizarre form these allies take isn't at all relevant--the bottle, for instance, is relevant to the plot for his magical abilities and knowledge of how to defeat his chapter's demon. No one remarks even once about the fact that it's a fucking talking BOTTLE. So there are some characters who didn't NEED to be so weird. Still, for its time, it was pretty different to have such a creative ensemble of individuals, and I think it's still a part of the game that makes it worth noting.
There's a few different smaller aspects that were also pretty groundbreaking ideas in TMoS, too. For starters, the music, simple though it is, really is very nice, and it sets the mood well, which, honestly, can't be said of all that many NES RPGs. There's also the fact that this game allows your character to switch Job Classes--a concept that Final Fantasy 3 is often praised for supposedly inventing 3 years after TMoS. And how about the battle system? TMoS is the first RPG I've ever heard of to have a mixed battle system--most of the time, it's an Action RPG, with real-time battles with free reign over your character's movement, like The Legend of Zelda or Terranigma. But any time you go to another screen, there's a good chance you'll be attacked by enemies in a random encounter, and THEN you have to fight using a Regular RPG battle interface, using turn-based menus, as with most Final Fantasy games or Chrono Trigger. Having an RPG with 2 separate battle systems constantly at play is uncommon even to this day. I think TMoS might have been the first to try it, and it did it pretty well. And speaking of the battle system, this RPG has combo abilities. Like, if you get into the turn-based combat, and you choose certain allies to fight with you, you can use special abilities that combine the powers of all the party members to do massive damage to the enemy team. Yeah, 8 years before everyone was paying attention to Chrono Trigger's Combo skills and saying what a neat idea they were, The Magic of Scheherazade was pioneering that idea.
And one last little thing about the battle system in this game: you can hire NPC soldiers to help you in combat. The troopers aren't as powerful or hardy as your regular party members, but they're damn helpful as attack support. Why the hell is it that over 20 years later there's practically no RPG since that's been bright enough to do this? I mean, come on, if I'm out to save the world with just a dozen assorted oddballs, no matter how powerful my companions may be, it only makes SENSE that I'd want to have some soldiers around to back us up. It's not like mercenary groups are terribly hard to find in your average RPG. Why the hell don't OTHER protagonists hire on some extra muscle? If you're out to save the world or whatever, isn't it actually really dumb to encounter groups of warriors who assist you for money and not at least CONSIDER buying their services?
There's also the matter of the setting. Now, I'll grant that the NES's ability to visually portray its settings is a bit limited, but I really like the fact that The Magic of Scheherazade is an RPG with an Arabian background. Frankly, the backdrop of Arabian mythology is a really neat one, and it's criminally under-utilized in video games in general, to say nothing of RPGs--this is seriously the only RPG I've ever seen or heard of that uses Arabian themes for a setting. What a damn shame.*** All the more reason this game is so notable, I suppose.
Lastly, I'd just like to say that while the plot is not exactly heavy, there are some parts of the game's story that are really cool. Just the start of it's pretty darned neat--you basically start the game when a cat fairy named Coronya finds you and hauls your amnesiac ass out of a magical other-dimensional limbo place, where you were banished after you failed to defeat the game's evil wizard antagonist Sabaron. It's basically a more magical, somewhat less grim version of the opening to the SNES Shadowrun RPG, or Planescape: Torment--you wake up, no memories, after a disastrous failure. I won't exactly say that TMoS had the idea before Planescape: Torment, because PT's opening has a lot of differences and is much more symbolic, plot-essential, and well-executed, but still, the foundation for the idea is much the same, and it's pretty damned cool. There's also a plot twist near the end of the game that is just really awesome, completely unexpected, and in some ways, pretty touching.
Anyways, that's about it, but as you can see, there's really quite a lot about The Magic of Scheherazade that makes it a really noteworthy RPG, one of those hidden gems of the past. It impressed me as a youngster, it still impresses me now, and I thought it deserved some recognition for its many interesting and fine qualities, several of which were way ahead of its time. You really should give it a try--I don't think it's on the Wii network for download, but emulation's always an option (not that I would EVER suggest such a DASTARDLY avenue! No, never), and there's actually a site where you can play it right in your web browser: http://game-oldies.com/play-online/magic-of-scheherazade-the-nintendo-nes# . Since the game relies on passwords instead of save files, there's no reason you can't use this convenient option for playing it. So try it out some time!
* Hey, guys, just in case you missed it, I like Planescape: Torment and Wild Arms 3.
** See: Star Ocean 1 (if you spend 98% of the game in the past, what was the point of having time travel at all?), Final Fantasy 8 (like everything else in the game, time travel was handled with all the skill and care that one would expect of a vapid 13-year-old fanfiction writer), Robotrek (makes no goddamn sense)
*** I am just waiting for the day the Shin Megami Tensei series makes a game/set of games with its usual excellent religious examination focused on Islamic beliefs. There is just SO MUCH fascinating content they can sink their storytelling teeth into there.
Alright, first of all: Time Travel. This game has it. Now, I know time travel was not a new concept by 1987, but as far as RPGs go, I'm willing to bet that this is one of the earliest RPGs to ever incorporate time travel into its plot and setting in a major way. I'd be surprised if it were not THE first to do so, really. And in its humble way, it does it well. It ain't exactly Chrono Trigger, but The Magic of Scheherazade does use its time travel plot elements with purpose and some good sense. I mean, yeah, there are times when it doesn't seem terribly essential--there's a time in Chapter 2, for example, when the reason you have to travel to the past is to pick up a party member who lived way back when, and this instance really doesn't have any narrative aspect that necessitated the time travel besides the game telling us that we had to. I mean, the character could just as easily have existed in the present. But most of the time, the time travel aspect is used well, such as when the protagonist encounters a demon so unstoppably powerful that the only possible way to vanquish it is to travel many, many years into Earth's past to kill the demon just as it's born, since that's the one time it will be vulnerable enough that any physical and magical means will be capable of beating it. TMoS is an RPG that uses time travel long before any other that I know of, and frankly, it manages to use the concept better than several later RPGs ever did.**
Next, how about the cast? TMoS probably has the most diverse RPG cast of its time. Seriously. Your party will eventually consist of a living pumpkin-headed wooden doll, a cat fairy, a flying monkey, a robot archeologist, not one 1 but 2 genies, and...a bottle with arms, legs, and an eye. Among others. That's a pretty different cast. Hell, the TMoS ensemble is STILL one of the weirdest I've seen in RPGs so far. I suppose it's a little excessive at times, as quite often the bizarre form these allies take isn't at all relevant--the bottle, for instance, is relevant to the plot for his magical abilities and knowledge of how to defeat his chapter's demon. No one remarks even once about the fact that it's a fucking talking BOTTLE. So there are some characters who didn't NEED to be so weird. Still, for its time, it was pretty different to have such a creative ensemble of individuals, and I think it's still a part of the game that makes it worth noting.
There's a few different smaller aspects that were also pretty groundbreaking ideas in TMoS, too. For starters, the music, simple though it is, really is very nice, and it sets the mood well, which, honestly, can't be said of all that many NES RPGs. There's also the fact that this game allows your character to switch Job Classes--a concept that Final Fantasy 3 is often praised for supposedly inventing 3 years after TMoS. And how about the battle system? TMoS is the first RPG I've ever heard of to have a mixed battle system--most of the time, it's an Action RPG, with real-time battles with free reign over your character's movement, like The Legend of Zelda or Terranigma. But any time you go to another screen, there's a good chance you'll be attacked by enemies in a random encounter, and THEN you have to fight using a Regular RPG battle interface, using turn-based menus, as with most Final Fantasy games or Chrono Trigger. Having an RPG with 2 separate battle systems constantly at play is uncommon even to this day. I think TMoS might have been the first to try it, and it did it pretty well. And speaking of the battle system, this RPG has combo abilities. Like, if you get into the turn-based combat, and you choose certain allies to fight with you, you can use special abilities that combine the powers of all the party members to do massive damage to the enemy team. Yeah, 8 years before everyone was paying attention to Chrono Trigger's Combo skills and saying what a neat idea they were, The Magic of Scheherazade was pioneering that idea.
And one last little thing about the battle system in this game: you can hire NPC soldiers to help you in combat. The troopers aren't as powerful or hardy as your regular party members, but they're damn helpful as attack support. Why the hell is it that over 20 years later there's practically no RPG since that's been bright enough to do this? I mean, come on, if I'm out to save the world with just a dozen assorted oddballs, no matter how powerful my companions may be, it only makes SENSE that I'd want to have some soldiers around to back us up. It's not like mercenary groups are terribly hard to find in your average RPG. Why the hell don't OTHER protagonists hire on some extra muscle? If you're out to save the world or whatever, isn't it actually really dumb to encounter groups of warriors who assist you for money and not at least CONSIDER buying their services?
There's also the matter of the setting. Now, I'll grant that the NES's ability to visually portray its settings is a bit limited, but I really like the fact that The Magic of Scheherazade is an RPG with an Arabian background. Frankly, the backdrop of Arabian mythology is a really neat one, and it's criminally under-utilized in video games in general, to say nothing of RPGs--this is seriously the only RPG I've ever seen or heard of that uses Arabian themes for a setting. What a damn shame.*** All the more reason this game is so notable, I suppose.
Lastly, I'd just like to say that while the plot is not exactly heavy, there are some parts of the game's story that are really cool. Just the start of it's pretty darned neat--you basically start the game when a cat fairy named Coronya finds you and hauls your amnesiac ass out of a magical other-dimensional limbo place, where you were banished after you failed to defeat the game's evil wizard antagonist Sabaron. It's basically a more magical, somewhat less grim version of the opening to the SNES Shadowrun RPG, or Planescape: Torment--you wake up, no memories, after a disastrous failure. I won't exactly say that TMoS had the idea before Planescape: Torment, because PT's opening has a lot of differences and is much more symbolic, plot-essential, and well-executed, but still, the foundation for the idea is much the same, and it's pretty damned cool. There's also a plot twist near the end of the game that is just really awesome, completely unexpected, and in some ways, pretty touching.
Anyways, that's about it, but as you can see, there's really quite a lot about The Magic of Scheherazade that makes it a really noteworthy RPG, one of those hidden gems of the past. It impressed me as a youngster, it still impresses me now, and I thought it deserved some recognition for its many interesting and fine qualities, several of which were way ahead of its time. You really should give it a try--I don't think it's on the Wii network for download, but emulation's always an option (not that I would EVER suggest such a DASTARDLY avenue! No, never), and there's actually a site where you can play it right in your web browser: http://game-oldies.com/play-online/magic-of-scheherazade-the-nintendo-nes# . Since the game relies on passwords instead of save files, there's no reason you can't use this convenient option for playing it. So try it out some time!
* Hey, guys, just in case you missed it, I like Planescape: Torment and Wild Arms 3.
** See: Star Ocean 1 (if you spend 98% of the game in the past, what was the point of having time travel at all?), Final Fantasy 8 (like everything else in the game, time travel was handled with all the skill and care that one would expect of a vapid 13-year-old fanfiction writer), Robotrek (makes no goddamn sense)
*** I am just waiting for the day the Shin Megami Tensei series makes a game/set of games with its usual excellent religious examination focused on Islamic beliefs. There is just SO MUCH fascinating content they can sink their storytelling teeth into there.
Friday, July 15, 2011
General RPG Lists: Greatest Heroes
Hi, all. Again, it's been a long time since I made my list of the greatest RPG heroes of all, and frankly, a list of just 5 isn't going to cut it any more when there's roughly 160 to choose from now. So here's an updated list of 10. Do enjoy. Ahem...
I did a villain list, so of course I've gotta pick one for the main characters. Of course, determining whether a character is a good hero (for protagonists almost always tend to be heroes) is a lot easier than determining whether they're a good villain--we have a more universally defined vision of what makes a hero good than we do for villains, generally: kindness, morality, determination, leadership...you know, the good stuff. And depth, of course, but with all that I harp on having well-written and insightful characters in these rants, that probably goes without saying for me at this point.
All the same, choosing the greatest 10 (figured that'd be a good number, since I did 10 villains) RPG main characters has its own challenge--it is HARD to choose so few out of so many. Unlike villains, who, sadly, are only rarely noteworthy figures in games (or anything else, really), RPG heroes have a great many excellent characters in their midst. So if you don't see your favorite, it's not necessarily because I think they aren't a good hero--I just didn't have room for any but the very, very best.
Of course, it also doesn't necessarily mean that I DON'T think they aren't a good hero. You could just have lousy taste.
So anyway, here they are: the greatest 10 RPG heroes to date, ascending in greatness. Big spoilers, and all that.
EDIT 11/01/2019: Velvet (Tales of Berseria) has been added as Honorable Mention; Marche (Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 1) has been bumped off.
10. Sora (Kingdom Hearts Series)
It's hard to say why exactly Sora is so appealing as a hero, but he really is. He just fits the bill in a simple, nice way. He's focused on his goals, but never to the point that he's not willing to take the time to help others with their problems and defend what's right. He rallies his friends, encouraging them and bringing them together as a force for goodness, and he never gives up on anyone. His simplistic good nature may sometimes seem unrealistic, but overall, he's an enjoyable hero that you can rely on to do the right thing and stand strong for his friends.
9. Makoto and Kotone (Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3)
Although the Persona Q subseries finally allows us to hear them speak
and get to know their personalities, Makoto and Kotone are silent
protagonists, which doesn't usually lend itself to a great character,
but it's been said that actions speak louder than words, and it's never
been truer than with them. The protagonist of SMTP3 is the greatest of
friends, the kind that can change the life of anyone who knows him or
her for the better. Classmates, teammates, people both old and
young...anyone who befriends this kid and spends time with him/her will
find themselves by the end of it happier, truer to themselves, and able
to face their future with a clear heart and strong self-identity. And
as he/she helps others, our hero(ine) grows as a person him/herself,
gaining insight into the truths of human nature and gaining the power to
succeed and protect the world thanks to this greater understanding.
And when it comes down to the final battle, an impossible fight against
doomsday called by the despair of all those unable to find a reason to
exist as Makoto/Kotone has helped others to do, (s)he's willing to make
the ultimate sacrifice, to protect humanity from itself and give people
more time to find themselves before they bring their doom on themselves
in their lesser understanding. The protagonist of Persona 3 is put
forth as a messiah, and even if it's heavy-handed, it checks out--Makoto
and Kotone have truly found a higher level of being through the
ultimate wisdom of human connection, and are meant to be the shepherd
who will guide the rest of humanity to joint them in this enlightenment.
8. Ramza (Final Fantasy Tactics)
You know, it's not that compromised heroes can't be intriguing and
excellent with their depth and struggles to overcome their own inner
demons. You can get some really excellent characters this way, and I
must admit that the top 2 of this list are going to be heroes who
struggle with their own convictions and issues. It just tends to
produce a better character.
But y'know, sometimes, as totally awesome as he is, you don't feel like
Batman and his endless (but totally kickass) issues and considerations.
Sometimes, you're tired of Spiderman and his personal problems, even if
they do make him easier to relate to. Sometimes, you just want
Superman and Captain America: a straightforward, solid, 100% pure hero
who's an unshakable icon for justice and heroism, someone whose
unwavering sense of duty and morality is by itself a legend.
Ramza, to me, is this RPG hero. He's not a boring character by any
means--he questions himself, and he shows quite well his humanity in his
joy and grief, hope and despair, and love and anger. But all the same,
he is an unrelenting force for justice in his game, giving his moral
duties ultimate priority over all else, even his own family. With
Ramza, there's never any question or doubt that he'll do the right thing
in any situation, no matter what the personal cost. Ramza's heroism is
simple, indomitable, pure, and inspiring.
7. Shepard (Paragon Version) (Mass Effect Series)
Shepard is the ubermensch. He/She is just the kind of leader you have absolute confidence in, a hero you know can go into any situation, no matter how dire, and pull the best possible victory from it. Strong, skilled, smart, charismatic, courageous, and even caring, Shepard inspires his/her subordinates and peers with respect and awe, demanding the best from his/her team but working hard to make sure they're ready to give it by being a friend and caretaker to them. He/She knows when to be understanding and caring, and when to be demanding and forceful to inspire others to do the right thing. A lot of heroes in RPGs take an approach to their huge problems of refusing to accept any solution but the very best (you know the kind: "Yeah, we could save billions of lives by letting one willing person sacrifice themselves...BUT DAMMIT THAT'S JUST NOT ACCEPTABLE! Let's risk the lives of everyone on the planet in an all-or-none gambit instead! THAT'S the morally superior approach, surely!"), and most of the time, I feel like these heroes just happen to luck into a perfect solution they can accept...but Shepard's the kind of perfect example of heroism that makes me buy that he/she really can find the happy ending to almost any problem.
6. Yuri (Shadow Hearts 1 + 2)
While he's decent in Shadow Hearts 1, it's SH2 where Yuri really shines. Yuri's an interesting hero, particularly in SH2, in that his acts of heroism almost seem to go against his personal feelings. While he has an earnest drive to right wrongs that he sees and has a clear grasp of right and wrong, Yuri's heart isn't really in his good deeds and world-saving...he starts off as a punk that really doesn't care about the world around him and the affairs of others, motivated more by impulse than anything deeper. The good influences of his companions, his father's memory, and most of all Alice Elliot all inspire Yuri to begin to care about the world and its people, if not by his own beliefs than at least by proxy. What I mean is, he never quite gives me the feeling in SH1 that he himself really feels the drive to be heroic, to actively seek out what's wrong and fix it, but rather, he seems see that the people who are so important to him care about his world and its residents, that they (particularly Alice) cherish it and want to keep it safe, and thus by effect, Yuri will fight for these things because even if they don't personally seem to matter to him as much, they do matter to the people he loves. It makes him quite interesting. Then in SH2, after the death of Alice, Yuri seems to lose that secondhand heroic fire...he allows himself to be drawn into a quest to save the world, he goes through the motions of heroism that he learned in the previous game, but the entire time, his heart isn't in it, and he's suffering the pain of loosing the person who gave his life meaning. All he has for motivation to live and go on now is to protect the world that Alice loved...yet he doggedly continues until he knows his part is done, for her memory, not because he himself really cares. Yuri's a very deep and interesting character, and even if he isn't by nature a heroic person, he fights that nature and forces himself to heroism for the sake of the ones he loves and loved, which in itself is an inspiring act.
5. Tidus (Final Fantasy 10)
The Final Fantasy series may have an assortment of villains that range from miserably crappy to, at their very best, barely average, but the crappy villain cast is balanced by the series having quite a few really excellent main heroes. As you can see, several of the heroes here are from the FF series, and Final Fantasy 6's Celes, FF6's Terra, and Final Fantasy 7's Cloud all were strong competitors to Sora and Shepard for the end of this list. I had such trouble deciding that I even went, when I first wrote this list back when it was 5 instead of 10 long, and asked for opinions on the dilemma from my good man Donraj, my good lil' buddy Queelez, my good...something...Trippy, and my good friend Jolt. The series knows how to craft a protagonist.
Something like Shepard, Tidus really embodies a leader in his interest and care-taking of his team. Oh, sure, it's not quite to the same extent as Shepard and Final Fantasy 9's Zidane (further down) in the sense that Tidus seems to reach out to some of his team members tentatively rather than assertively, but Tidus nevertheless shows his general concern for each of his teammates many times, and tries (often resulting in awkward failure, but the important thing is the effort) to help each with his or her individual concerns. And, as with Zidane and Final Fantasy Tactics's Ramza (also further down), Tidus pretty steadfastly stands by his morals and beliefs, and inspires those with him to do the same, if not quite as strongly as they do.
But what makes Tidus really great is just how immensely deep and dynamic a character he is by himself. Tidus undergoes dramatic changes to his character, more than most of the other heroes on this list. Over the course of the game, he goes from being a complaining, selfish, and at times abrasive kid that Yuna's group has to more or less babysit, to being a loyal, trustworthy, and willing leader to them all. He goes from being a person with no reverence for the world around him, who resists the idea of sacrificing a person to save it, to a willing and respectful sacrifice himself. While the things he sees and hears on his journey, and his encounters with the remnants of his father's legacy, give Tidus good character development, he changes most drastically thanks to his love for Yuna. These changes are a moving and realistic merging of his personality with that of the person he loves--just as Yuna's love for Tidus leads to her taking on his characteristics of optimism, persistence, and the desire and courage to cast aside the flawed system of old in favor of the hope of a new and better way to accomplish her goals, so does Tidus adopt Yuna's traits of compassion, contemplation, and the selfless choice to sacrifice his own life for the good of another's. He and Yuna compliment each other in their love, two becoming one, and this leads to one of the best heroes I've seen to date--one who is not only a good leader and noble servant of good, but also a fascinatingly complex and human character, as well.
4. Marona (Phantom Brave)
Caring, generous, brave, optimistic, enthusiastic, uncompromisingly moral, encouraging, noble, forgiving, friendly, protective, honest, virtuous, self-sacrificing, polite, and inspiring. I'd have a hard time coming up with a description for a truly good person that doesn't apply to Marona. While not incapable of negative emotions--she's tragically lonely and misunderstood, and no stranger to despair--Marona is from start to finish a touching and inspiring individual, as innocent as any child yet as ready to help and do work as any adult. She's a character with depth, yet is as simple and heroic as Ramza was--more, even.
3. Zidane (Final Fantasy 9)
Final Fantasy 9 would be excellent and have great emotional impact on the player even without him, but Zidane is nonetheless the fun-loving, good-natured heart of this classic. The cast in general is deep and involving, characters who make us think and consider, but Zidane is the one who makes it all real to the audience, grabbing our attention, involving us, entertaining us, and helping us to better appreciate everything else about the game's plot and characters. I think that's a pretty important part of a hero, particularly in an RPG, where you spend so much time directing one around--the hero's ability to involve you not only in his own affairs, but also in those of the world and people around him, helping to translate their issues and ideas to you.
Part of how Zidane does this is another reason why he deserves to be on this list--he genuinely leads his party. That really is, to me, a significant part of a hero--how they behave to the people they lead. Zidane is genuinely concerned, friendly, and encouraging to all his friends, taking on just the right tone for each to be just as supportive a leader as each one needs.
Finally, Zidane is just, in general, a really great character. Call me old-fashioned, but I miss the days when our heroes were, y'know...nice. And Zidane is. He's good-natured, selfless, can't help but help others, and has the heart of gold that a hero should. But he's also dynamic; being a hero who actually lives up to the name doesn't limit his character (contrary to contemporary popular belief, this actually IS quite possible--take note, Marvel Comics). He has his flaws and rough edges, and he develops as a character both evidently (most notably during his visit to Terra, where his personal views and beliefs are tested, confirmed, and strengthened), and subtly (as evidenced by his gradual change over the course of pretty much the entire game from a cheeky womanizer who recklessly hits on any and all attractive women he encounters to a (admittedly equally cheeky) romantic with a touching love for the main girl, Dagger). Zidane's both a great hero and a great character.
2. Virginia (Wild Arms 3)
I did a rant on Virginia previously that can give you a fairly good idea of how well she succeeds as a female character in a male protagonist's role, providing an example to the RPG industry that girl-led RPGs don't have to have their entire focus tailored for the gender of their heroine. This is true, but it's not all I want to say. Virginia's noteworthy for the girl-in-a-boy's-role thing that she does so well, but she's also, regardless of that, a magnificent heroine.
First of all, the leader thing? Virginia does it in spades. She establishes her team through her will alone, managing to be the glue that holds them all together as one force through thick and thin--crazy glue, really, because not one of them seems to take her talk of ideals, hopes, and dreams seriously, at first (and Jet just plain never does). Yet all the same, her enthusiasm and charisma keep them all together, drive them forward, and helps each of her companions along in developing himself as a person and refining his outlook on the world. Yet at the same time, she does more than just inspire them and help them to grow--Virginia also listens to them, and grows as a person herself from their thoughts, opinions, and feedback. Not only does this lead to an ever-developing, dynamic protagonist, but it also makes her even more a leader in my eyes.
What really makes Virginia incredible, though, is the honestly never-ending development as a person she receives. From the beginning of the game to pretty much its end, Virginia is on a journey of self-discovery, battling self-doubt as often as she does any villain to come to a firm understanding of who she is, what she believes in, and what she wants to stand for. If she doesn't exactly change in a revolutionary way, Virginia's character is at least under constant self-revision and scrutiny--there's no single huge moment, or even couple huge moments, of revelation that are the pivotal turning points for her, no one massive catharsis that changes her significantly, as is typically the case in RPG heroes' character development. Instead, the player sees her grow at a near constant rate, with Virginia undergoing many personal, emotional discoveries and changes as she sees and experiences different situations and people...the way real people do. As gripping and touching a regular hero's big scene of change may be in an RPG, all us folks here in real life undergo many, many changes of view and opinion in our lives, and probably have several huge moments of clarification that define us, not just one or two. In this way, Virginia is a fantastic character and a hero that is not only developed with far more care and time than almost any other RPG character, but also one that we can see as a heroic human being better than most.
1. Ryudo (Grandia 2)
And so we come to Ryudo. Here's the deal, folks: the heroes I've listed above? They all more or less start out as good, decent, heroic types (even Tidus, for his initial flaws, has that heroic tendency to save first and ask questions later). Most undergo changes to their personality, big and small, but in the end, the effect is mostly a case of a good person becoming a better, more emotionally complete person. Even Yuri, for his general apathy about the world's affairs, isn't able to let an injustice he sees right in front of him pass. And hey, that's good! As I said early on, a hero ought to be an actually good person.
But that said, Ryudo is different. Ryudo starts off as an ass. Granted, an amazingly hilarious, witty one, but an ass all the same. He's not out to help people, or make the world better, or stop evil, or any of that jazz--he's just a mercenary doing his job and putting up with the crappy, annoying customers all day.
But as the story goes on, he gradually evolves into much, much more. He grows to care about others, to value others' life and freedom enough to fight for them against impossible odds, and to hope, believe in good, and stand up for justice as any hero should.
Now, of course, you're probably thinking, "Gee, I think I've seen this before." Well yes you have, and yet, no, you haven't. No lovable Han Solo-esque scoundrel who turns out to have a heart of gold undergoes the drawn-out, excellently developed change from jerkwad to true hero that Ryudo does. This is no sudden, inexplicable 180 degree change--you're there for the whole time watching each step the guy takes into becoming a champion of life, liberty, and love. This ain't the redemption-less failure that Final Fantasy 8's Squall is; you can understand and appreciate the steps Ryudo takes on his journey, and you like him all the way along. His journey to the person he becomes is inspiring in how huge a change it is, the steps on it are interesting and believable in how realistically they're paced, and the hero he becomes is one whose convictions and past trials make him truly worthy of this top spot.
Honorable Mention: Velvet (Tales of Berseria)
Sometimes, being a hero isn't about being the best person, about embodying the best qualities of humanity. Sometimes, the hero of a story is also the villain of its world. Velvet Crowe is a woman defined by her fall, by the suffering and hatred that made her a fearsome demon of vengeance, and she makes no apology for it. The violent loss of everything she loved through betrayal made her the obsessed, blood-soaked specter of chaos that the entire world fears, and she she does not forgive those who created her, even if it was done for the sake of the world's survival. And yet, it is in her villainy that Velvet shines as a hero. The darkness of our species is nonetheless a part of what makes us human, and if it is eliminated altogether, we lose something valuable. Just as more traditional heroes stand as beacons of light in an otherwise all-encompassing darkness, so does Velvet stand as a beacon of darkness in an otherwise all-encompassing light, the demon of our worse nature who has the courage to protect humanity's freedom and individuality even as the world reviles her for it. An excellent character by any measure, Velvet stands out as the greatest example of a person who takes upon the role of villain in order to be the hero that her world truly needs.
Monday, July 4, 2011
General RPGs' AMVs 3
Well folks, I said I was gonna occasionally share 13 good RPG AMVs with you intermittently, and dammit, I meant it. So here's another handful of RPG AMVs that, if not amazing, are still solidly good, which is still pretty damn rare in the world of RPG AMVs.
And as before, if you think any of these are decent, by all means, please do give the video a Thumbs Up, or better still, leave a positive comment. A lot of the good RPG AMVs get very little recognition.
FALLOUT
Fallout 3: Droid Love, by ArkanaYragael: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xl1msshbAyg
The music used is Droid Love, by Space Ritual. This is a strong mood-creating AMV, pairing the slow, ethereal, displaced sound of the music to the Capital Wasteland of Fallout 3. The result is very haunting and entrancing. Unfortunately, the second half of the AMV is not nearly as good as the first, with its scene selection simply not fitting the music as well as the first half's did--otherwise, I'd have probably kept this video as a personal favorite. Still, it's worth checking out.
Fallout 3: This is War, by Joylock: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACEFHN-TmwU
The music used is This is War, by 30 Seconds to Mars. 30 Seconds to Mars is kind of like the new Linkin Park in the world of AMVs--everybody and their grandmother uses their most popular music for making music videos, and almost all of those music videos suck. Really, the only difference between the 2 groups is that Linkin Park actually has some semblance of talent. Joylock, the same skilled AMV-maker who gave us Fallout 3: Land of Confusion (which I did a full-on review of a while back), has beaten incredible odds, however, and actually delivered us the first good 30 Seconds to Mars AMV ever. Although he uses the game editor to set up a lot of situations that wouldn't normally have occurred, the video's thematic from start to finish, and pretty much every part of it relates to the lyrics and tune of the song (which even, somehow, seems less lousy while you watch and listen--amazing what a good AMV can do to one's perceptions). I particularly like the fact that some of the video's relations to the song are subtle and clever--when the song talks of the "victim," Joylock doesn't show us any one individual or group of people like he does for the rest of the roles the song lists off, but rather shows an image of the DC ruins, which is neatly symbolic. Great AMV, this one.
FINAL FANTASY
Final Fantasy 8: Squall's Mind Says "Hello," by MisterEvenro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XSGYCc1DIw
The music used is Hello, by Evanescence. The timing on matching events in the video to the song is nice in this AMV, as is the way the video works with the music's tone and its lyrics. The video also often uses actual game footage effectively with the song, which, so long as it's done properly, is always a nice change in a Final Fantasy AMV, since most of them just reuse the exact same 20 minutes of FMV footage in different ways over and over again. It has a very nice, poignant ending, too. All in all, this AMV is a lovely package; really, the only thing keeping it just below deserving a rant all on its own is the fact that there are some parts of the in-game footage that aren't used effectively enough, and seem kind of like filler. But overall, this AMV is very, very good.
Final Fantasy 9: Gravity of Love, by Dreamer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT3yHrpdIX8
05/27/17 UPDATE: A Youtube user named S (there was seriously no one who had already claimed that!?) has made an updated version of this--it's the same AMV as Dramer's, but with the higher quality visuals from the FF9 PC rerelease. It looks faithful to the original to me, so you might want to check it out instead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RARvY_gvaAU
The music used is Gravity of Love, by Enigma. I have to admit to really liking this song, so maybe I'm somewhat biased for AMVs that use it, but I do think this game is a great compliment to it. Several lyrics match up to the selected scenes, the heavy, ethereal charm of the tune is a lovely companion to the powerful and magical beauty of FF9, and the scenes act and change in concert with the music. Good stuff!
Final Fantasy 9: Requiem for a Dream, by Mivmax62260: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86mW8021m9c
The music used is Requiem for a Tower, by Clint Mansell. This song matches the action-related parts of the game very well to the powerful, building music. There's really not much to say here, other than that the song and the game mesh well, and that the pacing of the scene section is well-done.
GRANDIA
Grandia 1: Passion, by Tamagotschi95: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3dRaH9uGEI
The music used is the orchestral version of Passion, from the Kingdom Hearts 2 soundtrack. This tribute to Grandia 1 is impressively compiled, using the music's grand feeling to work with the visuals and faithfully portray the atmosphere of epic adventure that Grandia 1 so embodies. Finding ANY Grandia 1 AMV is difficult, given that it was one of those Playstation 1 RPGs that used a significant portion of its limited FMV towards illustration of legends rather than of actual plot events, so finding a solid video like this is a pleasurable rarity.
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: Mad World, by TheDreamingSongbird: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiDkIQKfIxc
The music used is Mad World, by Gary Joules. While there are some scenes where the connection between song and video is tenuous, and overall I can't say that the song particularly embodies any overall feeling or theme of the game, the visuals are generally a nice match to the quiet, displaced emotion of this song, and several scenes also coordinate well to the lyrics.
MASS EFFECT
Mass Effect 1 and 2: Geno|3boost's Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/Genol3oost
This isn't actually a single AMV, but a large collection of semi-AMV tributes to the Mass Effect series. The large majority of them are made quite well. They pretty much always get the emotion and message they intent to convey across effectively, through use of effective mood background music, video selection, and use of the game's voice work.
Mass Effect 2: I'll Stand by You, by Almajademe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgOpMLu5CrI
The music used is I'll Stand by You, by Pretenders. Okay, I have no idea how it's possible given that this song is, to me, the prime example of a song of so much overblown, self-important mush that it comes across as funny to me rather than emotional...but this tribute to the character Thane and his potential relationship with Female Shepard is actually pretty good. Thane's personal story seems to work pretty well with the song, somehow, and the clips chosen to accompany the song are usually selected well and are serious enough to work with the tune yet real enough to tone down the song's excessively dramatic qualities. It doesn't always work and some parts just don't hold up, but overall, it's a decent AMV, and that's hard to believe given the song.
Mass Effect 2: Tank!, by Solidfalcon77: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajVqeUX6MYQ
The music used is Tank!, from the anime Cowboy Bebop. This one is just plain clever, fun, and entertaining, combining the opening song to Cowboy Bebop with scenes from a fellow sci-fi classic that work surprisingly well with the Cowboy Bebop theme. Add in a lot of masterful visual effects to mimic the classic anime's actual opening, and you have a work that is just plain cool.
SHADOW HEARTS
Shadow Hearts Series: E.T., by Zexion678: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivJ4ssumi-0
The music used is E.T., by Katy Perry. Oh, barf, Katy Perry. Ugh. Just typing the name makes my fingers feel unclean. Buuuut, despite how much I hate that self-important sensationalist slut, this is really a very well-made AMV. The editing and timing of the video's scenes and effects are nigh perfect, and the scenes are very skillfully connected to the feel of the music and its lyrics--showing SH1 + 2's Yuri's and SH3's Shania's demonic forms when the song talks of extraterrestrials, showing SH3's Lady's cursed kiss when the song talks of poison kisses, and so on. This skill put into making the video and music work together in this AMV is top-notch; I'm almost tempted to keep it for my personal collection, in spite of it being a mix of Katy Perry and 50% Shadow Hearts 3 video. The only thing keeping me from that is the fact that this video, for all its merits, doesn't seem to have too strong of a purpose or idea behind it, which is pretty essential for me. Nonetheless, this is really quite excellently created.
SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4: Aerials, by Lossdinen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbnLaDgl8bo
The music used is Aerials, by System of a Down. I should note that this AMV only uses a portion of the whole song, but while this was a problem with a Legend of Zelda AMV in my last rant, here it earns no demerits, because unlike the last time I mentioned this issue, the portion of Aerials used in this AMV has been masterfully edited out, so that the AMV's start and finish feel like whole--if you didn't already know this music was only a part of a bigger song, you could easily believe that this was it in its entirety. Anyway, SMTP4 has very limited FMVs to work with, and many of them are chaotic and confusing, so creating any kind of linear story in an AMV is difficult. One can, however, do well with a more visual, artsy approach, and Lossdinen does this well, using the heavy, darker tone of the song in conjunction with the darker nature of the game well. Some scenes work quite well with the lyrics, too, which is a nice bonus. This AMV is dark, moody, tense, and yet has underlying urgency, which matches both the music and the overall feel of the game's plot very well.
THE WORLD ENDS WITH YOU
The World Ends with You: Left-Handed Lovers, by Coloraoi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnU7rt9TB1s
The music used is Please Don't Go, by Barcelona. I wouldn't have thought that this game would garner many AMVs, given its cut scenes' style, but it apparently has quite a few. This one matches the music's tone to the game's videos very well, and pulls the viewer in with its solemn, touching feeling. It has its flaws--notably that it's short, and shorter still when you consider how much of the video's time is taken up with game voice acting instead of actual music video--but overall, I think it's pretty good.
And as before, if you think any of these are decent, by all means, please do give the video a Thumbs Up, or better still, leave a positive comment. A lot of the good RPG AMVs get very little recognition.
FALLOUT
Fallout 3: Droid Love, by ArkanaYragael: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xl1msshbAyg
The music used is Droid Love, by Space Ritual. This is a strong mood-creating AMV, pairing the slow, ethereal, displaced sound of the music to the Capital Wasteland of Fallout 3. The result is very haunting and entrancing. Unfortunately, the second half of the AMV is not nearly as good as the first, with its scene selection simply not fitting the music as well as the first half's did--otherwise, I'd have probably kept this video as a personal favorite. Still, it's worth checking out.
Fallout 3: This is War, by Joylock: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACEFHN-TmwU
The music used is This is War, by 30 Seconds to Mars. 30 Seconds to Mars is kind of like the new Linkin Park in the world of AMVs--everybody and their grandmother uses their most popular music for making music videos, and almost all of those music videos suck. Really, the only difference between the 2 groups is that Linkin Park actually has some semblance of talent. Joylock, the same skilled AMV-maker who gave us Fallout 3: Land of Confusion (which I did a full-on review of a while back), has beaten incredible odds, however, and actually delivered us the first good 30 Seconds to Mars AMV ever. Although he uses the game editor to set up a lot of situations that wouldn't normally have occurred, the video's thematic from start to finish, and pretty much every part of it relates to the lyrics and tune of the song (which even, somehow, seems less lousy while you watch and listen--amazing what a good AMV can do to one's perceptions). I particularly like the fact that some of the video's relations to the song are subtle and clever--when the song talks of the "victim," Joylock doesn't show us any one individual or group of people like he does for the rest of the roles the song lists off, but rather shows an image of the DC ruins, which is neatly symbolic. Great AMV, this one.
FINAL FANTASY
Final Fantasy 8: Squall's Mind Says "Hello," by MisterEvenro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XSGYCc1DIw
The music used is Hello, by Evanescence. The timing on matching events in the video to the song is nice in this AMV, as is the way the video works with the music's tone and its lyrics. The video also often uses actual game footage effectively with the song, which, so long as it's done properly, is always a nice change in a Final Fantasy AMV, since most of them just reuse the exact same 20 minutes of FMV footage in different ways over and over again. It has a very nice, poignant ending, too. All in all, this AMV is a lovely package; really, the only thing keeping it just below deserving a rant all on its own is the fact that there are some parts of the in-game footage that aren't used effectively enough, and seem kind of like filler. But overall, this AMV is very, very good.
Final Fantasy 9: Gravity of Love, by Dreamer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT3yHrpdIX8
05/27/17 UPDATE: A Youtube user named S (there was seriously no one who had already claimed that!?) has made an updated version of this--it's the same AMV as Dramer's, but with the higher quality visuals from the FF9 PC rerelease. It looks faithful to the original to me, so you might want to check it out instead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RARvY_gvaAU
The music used is Gravity of Love, by Enigma. I have to admit to really liking this song, so maybe I'm somewhat biased for AMVs that use it, but I do think this game is a great compliment to it. Several lyrics match up to the selected scenes, the heavy, ethereal charm of the tune is a lovely companion to the powerful and magical beauty of FF9, and the scenes act and change in concert with the music. Good stuff!
Final Fantasy 9: Requiem for a Dream, by Mivmax62260: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86mW8021m9c
The music used is Requiem for a Tower, by Clint Mansell. This song matches the action-related parts of the game very well to the powerful, building music. There's really not much to say here, other than that the song and the game mesh well, and that the pacing of the scene section is well-done.
GRANDIA
Grandia 1: Passion, by Tamagotschi95: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3dRaH9uGEI
The music used is the orchestral version of Passion, from the Kingdom Hearts 2 soundtrack. This tribute to Grandia 1 is impressively compiled, using the music's grand feeling to work with the visuals and faithfully portray the atmosphere of epic adventure that Grandia 1 so embodies. Finding ANY Grandia 1 AMV is difficult, given that it was one of those Playstation 1 RPGs that used a significant portion of its limited FMV towards illustration of legends rather than of actual plot events, so finding a solid video like this is a pleasurable rarity.
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: Mad World, by TheDreamingSongbird: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiDkIQKfIxc
The music used is Mad World, by Gary Joules. While there are some scenes where the connection between song and video is tenuous, and overall I can't say that the song particularly embodies any overall feeling or theme of the game, the visuals are generally a nice match to the quiet, displaced emotion of this song, and several scenes also coordinate well to the lyrics.
MASS EFFECT
Mass Effect 1 and 2: Geno|3boost's Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/Genol3oost
This isn't actually a single AMV, but a large collection of semi-AMV tributes to the Mass Effect series. The large majority of them are made quite well. They pretty much always get the emotion and message they intent to convey across effectively, through use of effective mood background music, video selection, and use of the game's voice work.
Mass Effect 2: I'll Stand by You, by Almajademe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgOpMLu5CrI
The music used is I'll Stand by You, by Pretenders. Okay, I have no idea how it's possible given that this song is, to me, the prime example of a song of so much overblown, self-important mush that it comes across as funny to me rather than emotional...but this tribute to the character Thane and his potential relationship with Female Shepard is actually pretty good. Thane's personal story seems to work pretty well with the song, somehow, and the clips chosen to accompany the song are usually selected well and are serious enough to work with the tune yet real enough to tone down the song's excessively dramatic qualities. It doesn't always work and some parts just don't hold up, but overall, it's a decent AMV, and that's hard to believe given the song.
Mass Effect 2: Tank!, by Solidfalcon77: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajVqeUX6MYQ
The music used is Tank!, from the anime Cowboy Bebop. This one is just plain clever, fun, and entertaining, combining the opening song to Cowboy Bebop with scenes from a fellow sci-fi classic that work surprisingly well with the Cowboy Bebop theme. Add in a lot of masterful visual effects to mimic the classic anime's actual opening, and you have a work that is just plain cool.
SHADOW HEARTS
Shadow Hearts Series: E.T., by Zexion678: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivJ4ssumi-0
The music used is E.T., by Katy Perry. Oh, barf, Katy Perry. Ugh. Just typing the name makes my fingers feel unclean. Buuuut, despite how much I hate that self-important sensationalist slut, this is really a very well-made AMV. The editing and timing of the video's scenes and effects are nigh perfect, and the scenes are very skillfully connected to the feel of the music and its lyrics--showing SH1 + 2's Yuri's and SH3's Shania's demonic forms when the song talks of extraterrestrials, showing SH3's Lady's cursed kiss when the song talks of poison kisses, and so on. This skill put into making the video and music work together in this AMV is top-notch; I'm almost tempted to keep it for my personal collection, in spite of it being a mix of Katy Perry and 50% Shadow Hearts 3 video. The only thing keeping me from that is the fact that this video, for all its merits, doesn't seem to have too strong of a purpose or idea behind it, which is pretty essential for me. Nonetheless, this is really quite excellently created.
SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4: Aerials, by Lossdinen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbnLaDgl8bo
The music used is Aerials, by System of a Down. I should note that this AMV only uses a portion of the whole song, but while this was a problem with a Legend of Zelda AMV in my last rant, here it earns no demerits, because unlike the last time I mentioned this issue, the portion of Aerials used in this AMV has been masterfully edited out, so that the AMV's start and finish feel like whole--if you didn't already know this music was only a part of a bigger song, you could easily believe that this was it in its entirety. Anyway, SMTP4 has very limited FMVs to work with, and many of them are chaotic and confusing, so creating any kind of linear story in an AMV is difficult. One can, however, do well with a more visual, artsy approach, and Lossdinen does this well, using the heavy, darker tone of the song in conjunction with the darker nature of the game well. Some scenes work quite well with the lyrics, too, which is a nice bonus. This AMV is dark, moody, tense, and yet has underlying urgency, which matches both the music and the overall feel of the game's plot very well.
THE WORLD ENDS WITH YOU
The World Ends with You: Left-Handed Lovers, by Coloraoi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnU7rt9TB1s
The music used is Please Don't Go, by Barcelona. I wouldn't have thought that this game would garner many AMVs, given its cut scenes' style, but it apparently has quite a few. This one matches the music's tone to the game's videos very well, and pulls the viewer in with its solemn, touching feeling. It has its flaws--notably that it's short, and shorter still when you consider how much of the video's time is taken up with game voice acting instead of actual music video--but overall, I think it's pretty good.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Dragon Age 2's Finale's Problems
Dragon Age 2 has received a pretty mixed reception. Some people love it and think it as good or better than its predecessor. Some recognize it as imperfect, but overall a worthy title. Many don't hate it, but find it nonetheless disappointing, bad in a general sense. Others still simply hate it and think it's terrible.
Myself, I haven't entirely figured out my own stance on the game. It's got its good points--I certainly appreciate its overall plot, and the attempts to further portray and develop the details of DA's world's culture and people rather than focus on yet another save-the-world scenario. On the other hand, the characters that Dragon Age 2 uses to push forward its story are, in light of the cast of DA1, surprisingly lacking in depth and personality. Few of DA2's characters can claim personalities of depth to rival even the lesser of Dragon Age 1's cast--DA2's Anders and Isabela, who have probably the most compelling depth that any of DA2's characters can offer, barely measure up to DA1's Shale and Morrigan in their character development, let alone the original's greater individuals like Leliana, Sten, Alistair, Zevran, or Wynne. So DA2 succeeds well enough in having a good premise and story, but the individuals who are supposed to bring that story and premise to the player and connect him/her with them are fairly lacking.
However, while most of the game I am somewhat ambivalent about, the finale to Dragon Age 2 is...well, it's garbage. It's rushed, it's trite, and it's infuriatingly disappointing. This game's ending is what pushes the scales of bad characters versus good story, which had been fairly evenly balanced, down on the negative side, and makes me dislike the game as a whole. While I've certainly seen worse last gasps from RPGs (I doubt anything's gonna sink lower than Valkyrie Profile 2 in that regard), the ending of DA2 and the events directly leading into it are just very poorly conceived and enacted in many regards. Here are what I think are the major flaws with the finale.
First of all, let's assume that the finale properly begins when Anders, in an act perfectly defining the term "dick move," blows up the Chantry and forces all-out violence between the Mages and Templars. This opening scene itself is a problem. Now, granted, the method of instigating the game's final conflict is sound--it makes sense that this is the act that makes peaceful resolution impossible and turns the city of Kirkwall into a war zone. The problem is the perpetrator, and how it's handled. Throughout the game to that point, Anders has struggled to control himself while Justice, a spirit from the Fade, inhabits him due to a between-games event where Anders took Justice into himself. In this act, however, Justice was tainted by Anders's great anger and hate for the unfair treatment of Mages by Dragon Age's society,* and thus Anders is often seen to struggle with himself against Justice's unyielding fury at all who would imprison, repress, harm, or stick out a tongue at mages. Anders has enough presence of mind to fear his new short temper, however, as shown in several instances during the game. There's even one side quest you can do for Anders earlier in the game, the Dissent quest, wherein Anders loses himself to Justice's influence and in his rage attacks the woman he'd been trying to save. Afterward, he is, of course, horrified by the fact that his wrath's directionless power caused him to turn against even that which he wanted to save.
Yet for all his knowledge of his condition, and for all his regret and terror at what can occur when he lets his anger, hasty decisions, and fanatical goals drive him to extremes, he STILL decides that blowing up a fucking church and in the process murdering the greatest voice of reasonable compromise in the city of Kirkwall is an acceptable idea. What was the point of having him learn that his extreme acts could endanger all he wished to protect earlier in the game if he's just going to ignore it?
There's a whole plethora of other reasons why Anders magically exploding the Chantry is a load of crap, too. Besides basically negating everything he knows and has learned about himself and any wisdom Hawke may have shared with him about it, it's also incredibly hypocritical for his character. All throughout the game, Anders is harsh in judging Mages who resort to the forbidden Blood Magic and pacts with demons in order to achieve their ends of resisting their Templar captors and pursuers, even in the case of Merrill, who, while shown not to have a realistic understanding of the risks of her dabbles in the dark arts, pretty clearly has far more restraint, self-control, and innocent good nature than Anders himself does. So after a whole game of Anders disapproving of Mages taking an approach of going to any immoral and dangerous length to remain free, how does Anders force the city to war on the issue of Mage rights? Why, by destroying a church containing a woman that encourages peaceful cooperation, through an act of magical terrorism, of course. Because THAT'S true to his character, right?
Someone at Bioware is a fucking idiot.
Other reasons for why this opening to the finale is stupid exist (such as the disparity between this building-destroying spell's size and power and that of all other examples of magic previously seen in either game, for example, or why Anders would be stupid enough to force open conflict when his side is at a severe disadvantage numerically and socially, and is unprepared for such a struggle), but they're smaller nitpicks, trivial compared to the problem of trying to reconcile Anders's character to this act.
But that's just the BEGINNING! The Fail continues all through the game's finale!
Alright, so, the next part to this finale is the reaction to Anders's war-mongering. Meredith, the head of the Templars, and Orsino, the head of the Mages, are both understandably upset with this turn of events. Neither one wanted the innocent and decent Reverend Mother to die--Meredith owed her service and reverence as a member of the same religious order, and Orsino was a big fan of the woman's ability to restrain Meredith from just outright murdering any Mage she passed by in the hallway. Of all the people in the city of Kirkwall, these 2 have some of the greatest cause to be devastated and enraged by Anders's murderous idiocy. And hey, to some extent, they react predictably--Meredith declares that this act necessitates a city-wide racial cleansing of the Mages that have now been proven through Anders to be too dangerous and unpredictable to live (I suppose, given how little sense it makes for Anders to have done this, the "unpredictable" thing is kind of warranted), and both leaders are not happy with Anders.
But "not happy" is about as much as there is to it! Meredith is not known for having any restraint when it comes to taking down a Mage that she suspects is dangerous. Orsino's spent many long years trying to convince the city that Mages aren't inherently dangerous or unstable so long as you treat them with common decency, and give them some measure of freedom.** And now, after all that work, one rogue Mage has brought about a spectacle that destroys all credibility of Orsino's reassurances and speeches, vindicates the ignorant belief that corruption and destruction can come from even the most benign-seeming Mage, and forces a holy war that will probably end with the deaths of every Mage in the city including Orsino himself, and possibly many more Mage deaths across the world. So Meredith is violently paranoid, and Orsino's entire life just went down the drain. Do you know what they decide to do with him?
Oh, nothing.
No, really. Rather than blow the guy up, as you'd expect Orsino to do out of fury and despair, or run him through, as you'd expect Meredith to do out of fury and the same fanatical devotion to duty that she's had from the moment the game first mentions her, they take off to rally their forces for the upcoming battle, letting the fate of Anders be decided by his friend, the main character, Hawke. Yeah...pretty out of character for Meredith there, at the very least. I mean, all this is decided after a quick battle with some individuals from the side that Hawke sides against, so if you have Hawke side with the Mages, Meredith isn't necessarily in a position to do anything about Anders, and I guess it's not unimaginable that Orsino wouldn't want personal retribution on Anders...I guess. But if you have Hawke side with the Templars, then it's Meredith and her forces that have the advantage after the skirmish, so she has ample opportunity to act in accordance with her character and take out this exceptionally dangerous Mage who just murdered a woman of God with extreme prejudice. But as I said, she, like Orsino, is fine with just leaving Hawke to decide what to do with Anders. I know she's got a lot to do, what with the whole sudden, bloody war running through the streets and all, but I feel like a violently paranoid religious fanatic whose divine boss has just been randomly exploded by an embodiment of everything she fears is conspiring against her would find the time to make one quick stab, or at least insist a little harder that she put him to death.
I'm also not entirely happy with the part of this scene where Hawke does decide whether Anders lives or dies. I mean, the scene's done fairly well overall, I suppose, but it's here that another party member, Sebastian, insists that Anders must die for what he's done, and will leave the party and swear revenge if Hawke does not choose to execute Anders. I mean, it's in character for Sebastian to do. And I suppose SOMEONE ought to be appropriately personally enraged with Anders for causing the situation. But this sequence ultimately makes the game incomplete without Sebastian, who you have to pay extra money to have. For the specifics of this, and why it makes me annoyed, see my last DA rant, Dragon Age 2's The Exiled Prince Downloadable Content.
So anyways, yeah, the immediate aftermath regarding Anders is poorly done in several regards. So let's continue on. Things progress pretty naturally for a bit, with Hawke and company proceeding through the combat in the streets between the Mages and Templars to the place of the final showdown between Meredith and her Templars, and Orsino and his Mages. Aside from the very random appearance of Carver or Bethany along the way if he or she joined the Grey Wardens, this part is fine. So let's skip to the next part, the Templar attack on the Mages' home. Meredith and Orsino have one final vocal confrontation, and the lines are drawn. And this is a terrific time to mention why this moment, and the face-off between these 2, is not nearly as dramatic or gripping as it should be.
See, it's like this. This game's final conflict, the great showdown, the battle that everything has been leading up to, is between Mage and Templar. Orsino represents the Mages, Meredith represents the Templars. You even see them facing each other in an artsy fashion on the title screen. It's the game's big thing. So why, why exactly, is it that, in a game that spans a Prologue and 3 Acts, the first time we EVER see Meredith or Orsino is at the very end of Act 2? Yes, that's right, the individuals who embody their faction, the personal representations of the game's main conflict, the heads of the social unrest around which this entire game revolves, are FIRST SEEN in the LAST THIRD of the game! How much dramatic tension can there really be from conflict between 2 individuals who you have barely begun to know? These are the major leaders, the most plot-important NPCs in the game! The whole game's plot revolves around the factions they lead! Why in the world would they be rushed in at the last minute!?
Oh, sure, the game does MENTION them occasionally from early on. Meredith's name and policies do come up in conversation enough for the player to have a grasp of what her schtick is, and Orsino is, well, barely mentioned in any significant capacity, but not totally unknown. But hearing some rudimentary information second-hand about a character is not an adequate way of familiarizing a player with a character so fundamentally important to the game's ultimate conflict. Meredith and Orsino should have shown up earlier in the game, had their significance to Dragon Age 2's events SHOWN, not whispered, and in that process, there should have been far more interaction between them and Hawke, because as of this finale, the player has very little personal understanding of these 2, no real connection with them and scanty knowledge of their backgrounds, personalities, and motivations. It's just...it's like only finding out what candidates are running for president 10 minutes before you have to vote for one. The most you can glean from what little time you have to familiarize yourself with them is elementary at best.
So yeah, anyways, we finally get to the final battle. You have a moment to prepare, whichever side you choose, during which you can have Hawke talk to his/her party members one last time for some of those finale-speeches that party members always do in RPGs. These aren't really anything particularly special, certainly nothing as moving or epic as the ones in Dragon Age 1 were, but I don't really know how that could be improved--such speeches work well at the end of a long journey, and don't apply as well to an unexpected situation such as this one--so I can't really count that against the game. Then the fight starts.
Here's the next part of the finale that is stupid! No matter who you side with, you're going to have to fight and kill Orsino. If you sided with the Mages, he'll be so overwhelmed by the battle's cost in lives that he'll go to extreme measures, and have to be put down by Hawke and company. This can be dumb in and of itself, since it's quite possible to have Hawke mount such a very strong defense against the enemy Templars that you don't see any Mage casualties actually happen, and either way it's questionable, as Orsino will lose it pretty quickly. I mean, it'll be like 5 minutes of fighting a handful of Templars, then Orsino will panic. If you sided with the Templars, the situation is slightly less stupid, as Orsino would actually have a good reason to lose his cool with Hawke and company carving their way to him.
However, the real problem with this scene is that it happens at all. What I mean is, Orsino is resorting to extremely forbidden, ethically intolerable magics. Apparently he knew this serial killer mage from earlier in the game, and uses his abominable research to combine himself with a crapload of dead bodies to make a hideous, uncontrollable freak. Now, what little we've seen of Orsino in this game just doesn't add up with this. The guy criticizes Meredith repeatedly for her being completely paranoid, for her seeing forbidden, dangerous magic everywhere she looks. He stands for the idea that Mages are not inherently dangerous or prone to corruption. And now out of NOWHERE he announces that he's well-versed in some of the most heinous, irresponsibly dangerous magic seen in the series so far, and then immediately employs it.
Even if you can argue that it's not completely unbelievable to his character that he would be involved with unholy patchwork necromancy pioneered by a serial killer--I could see possibly arguing that it's important to the narrative to show even the most seemingly trustworthy of Mages not incorruptible when pushed into a corner, although that's only sidestepping the out of character issue, not actually addressing it--the scenario is still stupid for being unbelievable. Are we really supposed to buy the idea that the most prominent Mage in the city, who is publicly outspoken about Mage rights, and consistently argues with his Templar keepers, was able to, while under the watch of a paranoid religious tyrant, sufficiently research and practice an almost entirely unknown form of forbidden magic in total secret? I realize that the game shows a lot of Mages being able to learn forbidden magic without the Templars catching on, but this guy is the most well-known, influential, and politically powerful Mage in the city. You can't tell me Meredith wouldn't be watching him like a hawk!
Oh, yeah, speaking of Meredith. So, after beating Orsino, you'll have to fight Meredith, the final boss of the game, whether you're allied with her or against her. This is a more believable scenario than having to fight Orsino no matter what, because Meredith's obviously so nuts at this point that she sees enemies everywhere, even in allies. The problem, though, is WHY Meredith is crazy. While the little information the game's given the player over its course about Meredith has always implied that she's pretty paranoid, she only got really crazy recently, and the reason for that is now revealed. It is--GASP--the red Lyrium Idol's fault! Yes, the Lyrium Idol, that made Bartrand go crazy earlier in the game, was purchased by Meredith and forged into a sword for her, and that has made her insane and obscenely powerful!
How does the Idol do that? Why was it made? Who made it? Is it malicious, or just inanimate rock? Who knows? Maybe Bioware. Certainly not we, the gamers, because if Bioware does have any concrete ideas about the nature of this plot contrivance of theirs, they're sure as hell not interested in sharing them. This object contributes in a major way to the events of the game and the final conflict that the game's meant to lead up to, and all we know about it is that it glows red and people become assholes by touching it. It's basically Bioware saying, "A wizard did it. A rock wizard."
Ugh. So anyway, final battle happens, it's all epic and over the top and everything that a final battle is, and of course, to emphasize how epic it is, all of Hawke's friends are allowed to fight--those not in the party will be computer-controlled allies on the field of battle. Decent. And much with Dragon Age 1's final battle, other NPCs start to show up as the battle goes on. Cullen, a Templar who recognizes that Meredith's brain is buggier than Fallout: New Vegas on its release day, assists Hawke, and Donnic, one of the city's law officers, may also come to Hawke's aid, provided that you had him and Aveline hook up and Aveline's still with you at that point. These are fine, they make sense, NPCs who have a stake in Hawke's victory and/or feel a personal connection to 1 of Hawke's party. But others who can join in the battle are Zevran and Nathaniel.
Zevran and Nathaniel are party members from Dragon Age 1, Zevran in the main game and Nathaniel in the bland Awakening expansion. In DA2, Zevran is seen briefly during a side quest, as is Nathaniel. While you can assist each of them during these sidequests, their presence in the game and connection to Hawke and the city of Kirkwall are, frankly, completely inconsequential. Nathaniel I guess I could see having some slight stake in the battle if Carver or Bethany is a Grey Warden and thus his comrade, but that's a slight stretch. And Zevran really just doesn't have any reason to be there. Seems like they were just grasping at straws for someone else to throw into the final battle.
So, finally, Hawke's bunch defeats Meredith, and the game is over. And that's where the finale really gets annoying. See, poor writing's a bitch, and all the stuff that didn't make sense was frustrating, but few things are a kick to a gamer's nuts quite like an unsatisfying, sloppy, half-assed ending, and Bioware really did their most to do their very least here. There is just practically goddamn nothing. The story's narrator, Varric, ends his tale that he's telling to his interrogator, the player is informed a little of the global repercussions of this final battle, but all important specifics just aren't there. Basically, this is the gist of it, paraphrased less than I would have liked:
Varric: And that's about it. No one knows where Hawke's been for ages now. None of his/her companions have stayed with him/her, except (Insert Romantic Interest's Name Here). Also, I don't feel like relating what any of Hawke's companions are up to now.
Interrogator: So you've taken up days of my time spinning this yarn about Hawke just so you could tell me exactly dick about what I really needed to know, which was, y'know, what happened to Hawke and where he/she is now.
Varric: Yeah, pretty much. I know you probably could have been dealing with this whole religious and social revolution that's been going on as a result of Hawke's actions, but I apparently have got nothing. You'll just have to be satisfied with a conclusion that isn't in any way conclusive. That's just how it goes when the writers get to the end and realize they have no goddamn clue what they wanted to do and are just sick of the whole thing.
Interrogator: Please go away.
Varric: You betcha!
(Exit Varric. Enter Leliana, for some reason)
Interrogator: Yeah, so, that was extremely disappointing.
Leliana: Oh, WAS IT? Or is not knowing what happened to Hawke, combined with the disappearance of Dragon Age 1's hero which has been very barely referenced until now, ACTUALLY a way of AWESOMELY implying that there's more to come, something on the horizon so epic that both Hawke and DA1's hero have perhaps secretly left to team up against it maybe?
Interrogator: No...I'm pretty sure it's just extremely disappoin--
Leliana: ROLL END CREDITS!
Yeah, rather than give any conclusion whatsoever to this damn game, Bioware just puts a couple more carrots in front of our noses. None of the major issues of the game are settled, what ended up happening to pretty much all the important characters is never addressed, and the most you even learn of the protagonist's fate is shadowy, utterly shameless sequel bait.
Incidentally, I'd just like to note, here, that sequel bait endings don't HAVE to be a bad thing. Mass Effect 2 has a sequel bait ending, in that, having dealt with the threat of the Collectors, Shepard must now turn back to the coming invasion of the Reapers, which are shown to be drawing uncomfortably close to the galaxy. This is okay, because the game's focus, beating the Collectors as an extension of the Reapers and assembling a team and alliances that will be able to stand against the Reapers when that battle comes, has been taken care of, concluded very well. DA2 just opens up new cans of worms for its main focus of Mage vs. Templar in its ending, and drops the personal conclusions for the important characters of the game altogether.
Even if your ending is nothing but sequel bait, it can STILL be done better. Take Knights of the Old Republic 2 (whose sequel bait was unfortunately never to be resolved with another game). Yes, almost the entirety of the ending to the game is focused on the fact that the main character, The Exile, is now going to take steps to deal with the upcoming threat of the Sith, which KotOR1's protagonist, Revan, has already left to take on.*** For starters, immediately after the final battle, the player DOES get a chance in KotOR2 to hear some sort of conclusion for the places and people of importance to the game, as Darth Traya relates glimpses of their futures to The Exile. You don't exactly see all of it, but at least they're mentioned. More importantly, though, the sequel bait didn't just come out of NOWHERE. Many are the times in KotOR2 that, through conversations and plot events, the idea of a looming threat of the Sith is mentioned, and Revan's disappearance linked with this (forgive the phrasing, but it works) phantom menace. So when KotOR2's ending focuses on The Exile taking steps to prepare in one way or another for the Sith, it's something that makes sense, and puts a lot of the game into a different, but appropriate, perspective, one of preparation of another warrior to deal with the true threat that has been the underlying evil at the edge of everything in the game. It's RELEVANT. Significant! Poignant, even. It's intellectually sound and, while an obvious hook and lead-in for future adventures, there is some satisfaction to be had in it.***
With Dragon Age 2, as I said, it's just out of the goddamn blue. There are maybe a couple very vague, seemingly unimportant references made to DA1's hero's disappearance made during DA2's events, certainly no true suggestion made with words, course of plot, or atmosphere of game events that would imply great significance to the DA1 hero's absence, either to the world stage or to DA2's setting, events, and characters.
So there you have it. The finale starts with a poorly-conceived plot event that doesn't fit with the personality of the character perpetrating it, the finale is nonsensical or stupid throughout its course, the writing for it is a clearly sloppy hack job at several key points, it focuses on characters that have barely even been encountered until that point (yet manages to unrealistically mangle what little you DO know about one of those characters), and perhaps worst of all, the ending itself is practically nonexistent, offering no actual conclusion, no reference to or acknowledgment of any of the game's events and player's decisions, just absolutely goddamn NOTHING but transparent, desperate, poorly executed sequel-bait that only the most shallow and easily led of morons could possibly feel excited about. If I ever make a list of the worst RPG endings of all time--an idea that had not occurred to me until this very moment but, thanks to Dragon Age 2, seems extremely plausible--you can bet your ass DA2's will place highly on the list. This game's ending is just absolutely worthless, and the finale events leading up to it are utter bullshit. Shame on Bioware for this atrocity against storytelling.
* This, by the way, is the worst example of a company interpreting its own character that I've seen since...well, earlier this year, when I watched Lufia 2's remake utterly destroy the character of Guy...but despite the lack of time between these, Anders's character in Dragon Age 2 is built off the foundations of very poor writing. In Dragon Age 1's Awakening expansion, Anders was a witty, enjoyable, and generally cheerful guy who easily got caught up in the wonder of being free from the Circle's overbearing rules. He was a free spirit who perpetually refused to be shackled. It's not that he didn't bear the desire for Mages to be freed from the captivity that the Circle inflicted on them, and it's not that he wasn't capable of darker emotions...but the idea that he was secretly harboring such an intense, burning loathing for the world's unfairness that he could twist a spirit of Justice into a spirit of vengeful wrath is absurd. The jump from comical free spirit who laments and resists the world's injustice to brooding freedom fighter who can only just barely contain his blind fury is unreasonable even when Bioware tries to explain it away with "A wizard did it. A ghost wizard," and their explanation of the specifics of this magical exchange just make it less plausible.
** Of course, Anders is a COMPLETELY free Mage who has many acquaintances and friends that respect him, so he'd basically be a model example of how Orsino stresses a Mage should be treated. And this model of a healthy Mage blew up a church to cause a religious racial war. Again, great job on thinking things through with this plan, Anders. Thanks for the confused message, Bioware.
*** I think there's more to this ending that's going to be unearthed in a fan-created restoration project for the game that I'm keeping an eye on, but this will still be the focus of it, just done better thanks to the presence of content that was intended to be there from the start.
Myself, I haven't entirely figured out my own stance on the game. It's got its good points--I certainly appreciate its overall plot, and the attempts to further portray and develop the details of DA's world's culture and people rather than focus on yet another save-the-world scenario. On the other hand, the characters that Dragon Age 2 uses to push forward its story are, in light of the cast of DA1, surprisingly lacking in depth and personality. Few of DA2's characters can claim personalities of depth to rival even the lesser of Dragon Age 1's cast--DA2's Anders and Isabela, who have probably the most compelling depth that any of DA2's characters can offer, barely measure up to DA1's Shale and Morrigan in their character development, let alone the original's greater individuals like Leliana, Sten, Alistair, Zevran, or Wynne. So DA2 succeeds well enough in having a good premise and story, but the individuals who are supposed to bring that story and premise to the player and connect him/her with them are fairly lacking.
However, while most of the game I am somewhat ambivalent about, the finale to Dragon Age 2 is...well, it's garbage. It's rushed, it's trite, and it's infuriatingly disappointing. This game's ending is what pushes the scales of bad characters versus good story, which had been fairly evenly balanced, down on the negative side, and makes me dislike the game as a whole. While I've certainly seen worse last gasps from RPGs (I doubt anything's gonna sink lower than Valkyrie Profile 2 in that regard), the ending of DA2 and the events directly leading into it are just very poorly conceived and enacted in many regards. Here are what I think are the major flaws with the finale.
First of all, let's assume that the finale properly begins when Anders, in an act perfectly defining the term "dick move," blows up the Chantry and forces all-out violence between the Mages and Templars. This opening scene itself is a problem. Now, granted, the method of instigating the game's final conflict is sound--it makes sense that this is the act that makes peaceful resolution impossible and turns the city of Kirkwall into a war zone. The problem is the perpetrator, and how it's handled. Throughout the game to that point, Anders has struggled to control himself while Justice, a spirit from the Fade, inhabits him due to a between-games event where Anders took Justice into himself. In this act, however, Justice was tainted by Anders's great anger and hate for the unfair treatment of Mages by Dragon Age's society,* and thus Anders is often seen to struggle with himself against Justice's unyielding fury at all who would imprison, repress, harm, or stick out a tongue at mages. Anders has enough presence of mind to fear his new short temper, however, as shown in several instances during the game. There's even one side quest you can do for Anders earlier in the game, the Dissent quest, wherein Anders loses himself to Justice's influence and in his rage attacks the woman he'd been trying to save. Afterward, he is, of course, horrified by the fact that his wrath's directionless power caused him to turn against even that which he wanted to save.
Yet for all his knowledge of his condition, and for all his regret and terror at what can occur when he lets his anger, hasty decisions, and fanatical goals drive him to extremes, he STILL decides that blowing up a fucking church and in the process murdering the greatest voice of reasonable compromise in the city of Kirkwall is an acceptable idea. What was the point of having him learn that his extreme acts could endanger all he wished to protect earlier in the game if he's just going to ignore it?
There's a whole plethora of other reasons why Anders magically exploding the Chantry is a load of crap, too. Besides basically negating everything he knows and has learned about himself and any wisdom Hawke may have shared with him about it, it's also incredibly hypocritical for his character. All throughout the game, Anders is harsh in judging Mages who resort to the forbidden Blood Magic and pacts with demons in order to achieve their ends of resisting their Templar captors and pursuers, even in the case of Merrill, who, while shown not to have a realistic understanding of the risks of her dabbles in the dark arts, pretty clearly has far more restraint, self-control, and innocent good nature than Anders himself does. So after a whole game of Anders disapproving of Mages taking an approach of going to any immoral and dangerous length to remain free, how does Anders force the city to war on the issue of Mage rights? Why, by destroying a church containing a woman that encourages peaceful cooperation, through an act of magical terrorism, of course. Because THAT'S true to his character, right?
Someone at Bioware is a fucking idiot.
Other reasons for why this opening to the finale is stupid exist (such as the disparity between this building-destroying spell's size and power and that of all other examples of magic previously seen in either game, for example, or why Anders would be stupid enough to force open conflict when his side is at a severe disadvantage numerically and socially, and is unprepared for such a struggle), but they're smaller nitpicks, trivial compared to the problem of trying to reconcile Anders's character to this act.
But that's just the BEGINNING! The Fail continues all through the game's finale!
Alright, so, the next part to this finale is the reaction to Anders's war-mongering. Meredith, the head of the Templars, and Orsino, the head of the Mages, are both understandably upset with this turn of events. Neither one wanted the innocent and decent Reverend Mother to die--Meredith owed her service and reverence as a member of the same religious order, and Orsino was a big fan of the woman's ability to restrain Meredith from just outright murdering any Mage she passed by in the hallway. Of all the people in the city of Kirkwall, these 2 have some of the greatest cause to be devastated and enraged by Anders's murderous idiocy. And hey, to some extent, they react predictably--Meredith declares that this act necessitates a city-wide racial cleansing of the Mages that have now been proven through Anders to be too dangerous and unpredictable to live (I suppose, given how little sense it makes for Anders to have done this, the "unpredictable" thing is kind of warranted), and both leaders are not happy with Anders.
But "not happy" is about as much as there is to it! Meredith is not known for having any restraint when it comes to taking down a Mage that she suspects is dangerous. Orsino's spent many long years trying to convince the city that Mages aren't inherently dangerous or unstable so long as you treat them with common decency, and give them some measure of freedom.** And now, after all that work, one rogue Mage has brought about a spectacle that destroys all credibility of Orsino's reassurances and speeches, vindicates the ignorant belief that corruption and destruction can come from even the most benign-seeming Mage, and forces a holy war that will probably end with the deaths of every Mage in the city including Orsino himself, and possibly many more Mage deaths across the world. So Meredith is violently paranoid, and Orsino's entire life just went down the drain. Do you know what they decide to do with him?
Oh, nothing.
No, really. Rather than blow the guy up, as you'd expect Orsino to do out of fury and despair, or run him through, as you'd expect Meredith to do out of fury and the same fanatical devotion to duty that she's had from the moment the game first mentions her, they take off to rally their forces for the upcoming battle, letting the fate of Anders be decided by his friend, the main character, Hawke. Yeah...pretty out of character for Meredith there, at the very least. I mean, all this is decided after a quick battle with some individuals from the side that Hawke sides against, so if you have Hawke side with the Mages, Meredith isn't necessarily in a position to do anything about Anders, and I guess it's not unimaginable that Orsino wouldn't want personal retribution on Anders...I guess. But if you have Hawke side with the Templars, then it's Meredith and her forces that have the advantage after the skirmish, so she has ample opportunity to act in accordance with her character and take out this exceptionally dangerous Mage who just murdered a woman of God with extreme prejudice. But as I said, she, like Orsino, is fine with just leaving Hawke to decide what to do with Anders. I know she's got a lot to do, what with the whole sudden, bloody war running through the streets and all, but I feel like a violently paranoid religious fanatic whose divine boss has just been randomly exploded by an embodiment of everything she fears is conspiring against her would find the time to make one quick stab, or at least insist a little harder that she put him to death.
I'm also not entirely happy with the part of this scene where Hawke does decide whether Anders lives or dies. I mean, the scene's done fairly well overall, I suppose, but it's here that another party member, Sebastian, insists that Anders must die for what he's done, and will leave the party and swear revenge if Hawke does not choose to execute Anders. I mean, it's in character for Sebastian to do. And I suppose SOMEONE ought to be appropriately personally enraged with Anders for causing the situation. But this sequence ultimately makes the game incomplete without Sebastian, who you have to pay extra money to have. For the specifics of this, and why it makes me annoyed, see my last DA rant, Dragon Age 2's The Exiled Prince Downloadable Content.
So anyways, yeah, the immediate aftermath regarding Anders is poorly done in several regards. So let's continue on. Things progress pretty naturally for a bit, with Hawke and company proceeding through the combat in the streets between the Mages and Templars to the place of the final showdown between Meredith and her Templars, and Orsino and his Mages. Aside from the very random appearance of Carver or Bethany along the way if he or she joined the Grey Wardens, this part is fine. So let's skip to the next part, the Templar attack on the Mages' home. Meredith and Orsino have one final vocal confrontation, and the lines are drawn. And this is a terrific time to mention why this moment, and the face-off between these 2, is not nearly as dramatic or gripping as it should be.
See, it's like this. This game's final conflict, the great showdown, the battle that everything has been leading up to, is between Mage and Templar. Orsino represents the Mages, Meredith represents the Templars. You even see them facing each other in an artsy fashion on the title screen. It's the game's big thing. So why, why exactly, is it that, in a game that spans a Prologue and 3 Acts, the first time we EVER see Meredith or Orsino is at the very end of Act 2? Yes, that's right, the individuals who embody their faction, the personal representations of the game's main conflict, the heads of the social unrest around which this entire game revolves, are FIRST SEEN in the LAST THIRD of the game! How much dramatic tension can there really be from conflict between 2 individuals who you have barely begun to know? These are the major leaders, the most plot-important NPCs in the game! The whole game's plot revolves around the factions they lead! Why in the world would they be rushed in at the last minute!?
Oh, sure, the game does MENTION them occasionally from early on. Meredith's name and policies do come up in conversation enough for the player to have a grasp of what her schtick is, and Orsino is, well, barely mentioned in any significant capacity, but not totally unknown. But hearing some rudimentary information second-hand about a character is not an adequate way of familiarizing a player with a character so fundamentally important to the game's ultimate conflict. Meredith and Orsino should have shown up earlier in the game, had their significance to Dragon Age 2's events SHOWN, not whispered, and in that process, there should have been far more interaction between them and Hawke, because as of this finale, the player has very little personal understanding of these 2, no real connection with them and scanty knowledge of their backgrounds, personalities, and motivations. It's just...it's like only finding out what candidates are running for president 10 minutes before you have to vote for one. The most you can glean from what little time you have to familiarize yourself with them is elementary at best.
So yeah, anyways, we finally get to the final battle. You have a moment to prepare, whichever side you choose, during which you can have Hawke talk to his/her party members one last time for some of those finale-speeches that party members always do in RPGs. These aren't really anything particularly special, certainly nothing as moving or epic as the ones in Dragon Age 1 were, but I don't really know how that could be improved--such speeches work well at the end of a long journey, and don't apply as well to an unexpected situation such as this one--so I can't really count that against the game. Then the fight starts.
Here's the next part of the finale that is stupid! No matter who you side with, you're going to have to fight and kill Orsino. If you sided with the Mages, he'll be so overwhelmed by the battle's cost in lives that he'll go to extreme measures, and have to be put down by Hawke and company. This can be dumb in and of itself, since it's quite possible to have Hawke mount such a very strong defense against the enemy Templars that you don't see any Mage casualties actually happen, and either way it's questionable, as Orsino will lose it pretty quickly. I mean, it'll be like 5 minutes of fighting a handful of Templars, then Orsino will panic. If you sided with the Templars, the situation is slightly less stupid, as Orsino would actually have a good reason to lose his cool with Hawke and company carving their way to him.
However, the real problem with this scene is that it happens at all. What I mean is, Orsino is resorting to extremely forbidden, ethically intolerable magics. Apparently he knew this serial killer mage from earlier in the game, and uses his abominable research to combine himself with a crapload of dead bodies to make a hideous, uncontrollable freak. Now, what little we've seen of Orsino in this game just doesn't add up with this. The guy criticizes Meredith repeatedly for her being completely paranoid, for her seeing forbidden, dangerous magic everywhere she looks. He stands for the idea that Mages are not inherently dangerous or prone to corruption. And now out of NOWHERE he announces that he's well-versed in some of the most heinous, irresponsibly dangerous magic seen in the series so far, and then immediately employs it.
Even if you can argue that it's not completely unbelievable to his character that he would be involved with unholy patchwork necromancy pioneered by a serial killer--I could see possibly arguing that it's important to the narrative to show even the most seemingly trustworthy of Mages not incorruptible when pushed into a corner, although that's only sidestepping the out of character issue, not actually addressing it--the scenario is still stupid for being unbelievable. Are we really supposed to buy the idea that the most prominent Mage in the city, who is publicly outspoken about Mage rights, and consistently argues with his Templar keepers, was able to, while under the watch of a paranoid religious tyrant, sufficiently research and practice an almost entirely unknown form of forbidden magic in total secret? I realize that the game shows a lot of Mages being able to learn forbidden magic without the Templars catching on, but this guy is the most well-known, influential, and politically powerful Mage in the city. You can't tell me Meredith wouldn't be watching him like a hawk!
Oh, yeah, speaking of Meredith. So, after beating Orsino, you'll have to fight Meredith, the final boss of the game, whether you're allied with her or against her. This is a more believable scenario than having to fight Orsino no matter what, because Meredith's obviously so nuts at this point that she sees enemies everywhere, even in allies. The problem, though, is WHY Meredith is crazy. While the little information the game's given the player over its course about Meredith has always implied that she's pretty paranoid, she only got really crazy recently, and the reason for that is now revealed. It is--GASP--the red Lyrium Idol's fault! Yes, the Lyrium Idol, that made Bartrand go crazy earlier in the game, was purchased by Meredith and forged into a sword for her, and that has made her insane and obscenely powerful!
How does the Idol do that? Why was it made? Who made it? Is it malicious, or just inanimate rock? Who knows? Maybe Bioware. Certainly not we, the gamers, because if Bioware does have any concrete ideas about the nature of this plot contrivance of theirs, they're sure as hell not interested in sharing them. This object contributes in a major way to the events of the game and the final conflict that the game's meant to lead up to, and all we know about it is that it glows red and people become assholes by touching it. It's basically Bioware saying, "A wizard did it. A rock wizard."
Ugh. So anyway, final battle happens, it's all epic and over the top and everything that a final battle is, and of course, to emphasize how epic it is, all of Hawke's friends are allowed to fight--those not in the party will be computer-controlled allies on the field of battle. Decent. And much with Dragon Age 1's final battle, other NPCs start to show up as the battle goes on. Cullen, a Templar who recognizes that Meredith's brain is buggier than Fallout: New Vegas on its release day, assists Hawke, and Donnic, one of the city's law officers, may also come to Hawke's aid, provided that you had him and Aveline hook up and Aveline's still with you at that point. These are fine, they make sense, NPCs who have a stake in Hawke's victory and/or feel a personal connection to 1 of Hawke's party. But others who can join in the battle are Zevran and Nathaniel.
Zevran and Nathaniel are party members from Dragon Age 1, Zevran in the main game and Nathaniel in the bland Awakening expansion. In DA2, Zevran is seen briefly during a side quest, as is Nathaniel. While you can assist each of them during these sidequests, their presence in the game and connection to Hawke and the city of Kirkwall are, frankly, completely inconsequential. Nathaniel I guess I could see having some slight stake in the battle if Carver or Bethany is a Grey Warden and thus his comrade, but that's a slight stretch. And Zevran really just doesn't have any reason to be there. Seems like they were just grasping at straws for someone else to throw into the final battle.
So, finally, Hawke's bunch defeats Meredith, and the game is over. And that's where the finale really gets annoying. See, poor writing's a bitch, and all the stuff that didn't make sense was frustrating, but few things are a kick to a gamer's nuts quite like an unsatisfying, sloppy, half-assed ending, and Bioware really did their most to do their very least here. There is just practically goddamn nothing. The story's narrator, Varric, ends his tale that he's telling to his interrogator, the player is informed a little of the global repercussions of this final battle, but all important specifics just aren't there. Basically, this is the gist of it, paraphrased less than I would have liked:
Varric: And that's about it. No one knows where Hawke's been for ages now. None of his/her companions have stayed with him/her, except (Insert Romantic Interest's Name Here). Also, I don't feel like relating what any of Hawke's companions are up to now.
Interrogator: So you've taken up days of my time spinning this yarn about Hawke just so you could tell me exactly dick about what I really needed to know, which was, y'know, what happened to Hawke and where he/she is now.
Varric: Yeah, pretty much. I know you probably could have been dealing with this whole religious and social revolution that's been going on as a result of Hawke's actions, but I apparently have got nothing. You'll just have to be satisfied with a conclusion that isn't in any way conclusive. That's just how it goes when the writers get to the end and realize they have no goddamn clue what they wanted to do and are just sick of the whole thing.
Interrogator: Please go away.
Varric: You betcha!
(Exit Varric. Enter Leliana, for some reason)
Interrogator: Yeah, so, that was extremely disappointing.
Leliana: Oh, WAS IT? Or is not knowing what happened to Hawke, combined with the disappearance of Dragon Age 1's hero which has been very barely referenced until now, ACTUALLY a way of AWESOMELY implying that there's more to come, something on the horizon so epic that both Hawke and DA1's hero have perhaps secretly left to team up against it maybe?
Interrogator: No...I'm pretty sure it's just extremely disappoin--
Leliana: ROLL END CREDITS!
Yeah, rather than give any conclusion whatsoever to this damn game, Bioware just puts a couple more carrots in front of our noses. None of the major issues of the game are settled, what ended up happening to pretty much all the important characters is never addressed, and the most you even learn of the protagonist's fate is shadowy, utterly shameless sequel bait.
Incidentally, I'd just like to note, here, that sequel bait endings don't HAVE to be a bad thing. Mass Effect 2 has a sequel bait ending, in that, having dealt with the threat of the Collectors, Shepard must now turn back to the coming invasion of the Reapers, which are shown to be drawing uncomfortably close to the galaxy. This is okay, because the game's focus, beating the Collectors as an extension of the Reapers and assembling a team and alliances that will be able to stand against the Reapers when that battle comes, has been taken care of, concluded very well. DA2 just opens up new cans of worms for its main focus of Mage vs. Templar in its ending, and drops the personal conclusions for the important characters of the game altogether.
Even if your ending is nothing but sequel bait, it can STILL be done better. Take Knights of the Old Republic 2 (whose sequel bait was unfortunately never to be resolved with another game). Yes, almost the entirety of the ending to the game is focused on the fact that the main character, The Exile, is now going to take steps to deal with the upcoming threat of the Sith, which KotOR1's protagonist, Revan, has already left to take on.*** For starters, immediately after the final battle, the player DOES get a chance in KotOR2 to hear some sort of conclusion for the places and people of importance to the game, as Darth Traya relates glimpses of their futures to The Exile. You don't exactly see all of it, but at least they're mentioned. More importantly, though, the sequel bait didn't just come out of NOWHERE. Many are the times in KotOR2 that, through conversations and plot events, the idea of a looming threat of the Sith is mentioned, and Revan's disappearance linked with this (forgive the phrasing, but it works) phantom menace. So when KotOR2's ending focuses on The Exile taking steps to prepare in one way or another for the Sith, it's something that makes sense, and puts a lot of the game into a different, but appropriate, perspective, one of preparation of another warrior to deal with the true threat that has been the underlying evil at the edge of everything in the game. It's RELEVANT. Significant! Poignant, even. It's intellectually sound and, while an obvious hook and lead-in for future adventures, there is some satisfaction to be had in it.***
With Dragon Age 2, as I said, it's just out of the goddamn blue. There are maybe a couple very vague, seemingly unimportant references made to DA1's hero's disappearance made during DA2's events, certainly no true suggestion made with words, course of plot, or atmosphere of game events that would imply great significance to the DA1 hero's absence, either to the world stage or to DA2's setting, events, and characters.
So there you have it. The finale starts with a poorly-conceived plot event that doesn't fit with the personality of the character perpetrating it, the finale is nonsensical or stupid throughout its course, the writing for it is a clearly sloppy hack job at several key points, it focuses on characters that have barely even been encountered until that point (yet manages to unrealistically mangle what little you DO know about one of those characters), and perhaps worst of all, the ending itself is practically nonexistent, offering no actual conclusion, no reference to or acknowledgment of any of the game's events and player's decisions, just absolutely goddamn NOTHING but transparent, desperate, poorly executed sequel-bait that only the most shallow and easily led of morons could possibly feel excited about. If I ever make a list of the worst RPG endings of all time--an idea that had not occurred to me until this very moment but, thanks to Dragon Age 2, seems extremely plausible--you can bet your ass DA2's will place highly on the list. This game's ending is just absolutely worthless, and the finale events leading up to it are utter bullshit. Shame on Bioware for this atrocity against storytelling.
* This, by the way, is the worst example of a company interpreting its own character that I've seen since...well, earlier this year, when I watched Lufia 2's remake utterly destroy the character of Guy...but despite the lack of time between these, Anders's character in Dragon Age 2 is built off the foundations of very poor writing. In Dragon Age 1's Awakening expansion, Anders was a witty, enjoyable, and generally cheerful guy who easily got caught up in the wonder of being free from the Circle's overbearing rules. He was a free spirit who perpetually refused to be shackled. It's not that he didn't bear the desire for Mages to be freed from the captivity that the Circle inflicted on them, and it's not that he wasn't capable of darker emotions...but the idea that he was secretly harboring such an intense, burning loathing for the world's unfairness that he could twist a spirit of Justice into a spirit of vengeful wrath is absurd. The jump from comical free spirit who laments and resists the world's injustice to brooding freedom fighter who can only just barely contain his blind fury is unreasonable even when Bioware tries to explain it away with "A wizard did it. A ghost wizard," and their explanation of the specifics of this magical exchange just make it less plausible.
** Of course, Anders is a COMPLETELY free Mage who has many acquaintances and friends that respect him, so he'd basically be a model example of how Orsino stresses a Mage should be treated. And this model of a healthy Mage blew up a church to cause a religious racial war. Again, great job on thinking things through with this plan, Anders. Thanks for the confused message, Bioware.
*** I think there's more to this ending that's going to be unearthed in a fan-created restoration project for the game that I'm keeping an eye on, but this will still be the focus of it, just done better thanks to the presence of content that was intended to be there from the start.
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