#I think this is why they stopped putting the new gimmick into remakes
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
Text
The existence of mega Mewtwo annoys me lore wise
#so the lore of mega evolution is sketchy at best to begin with#because they kinda contradict it even within the same gen#but how the heck does mewtwo have a mega if it was made within the last 100 years and the kalos legendaries had been gone for like 800??#some of the sv paradox pokemon looking like the megas can make it seem like megas are very similar to primal reversion which is cool#that makes sense BUT THEN HOW DOES MEWTWO HAVE NOT ONE BUT TWO MEGAS#did mew used to look like mewtwo in the past is that why mewtwo turned out the way it did in the first place?!#pokemon#I think this is why they stopped putting the new gimmick into remakes#though this seems like a problem born from gen 1 favouritism#alternatively the mega Mewtwo stones are artificial and humans made those#but that makes me want to see more man made megas
42 notes
¡
View notes
Text
8 Signs your Sequel Needs Work
Sequels, and followup seasons to TV shows, can be very tricky to get right. Most of the time, especially with the onslaught of sequels, remakes, and remake-quels over the past⌠15 years? Thereâs a few stand-outs for sure. I hear Dune Part 2 stuck the landing. Everyone who likes John Wick also likes those sequels. Spiderverse 2 also stuck the landing.
These are less tips and more fundamental pieces of your story that may or may not factor in because every work is different, and this is coming from an audienceâs perspective. Maybe some of these will be the flaws you just couldnât put your finger on before. And, of course, these are all my opinions, for sequels and later seasons that just didnât work for me.
1. Your vague lore becomes a gimmick
The Force, this mysterious entity that needs no further explanation⌠is now quantifiable with midichlorians.
In The 100, the little chip that contains the âreincarnationâ of the Commanders is now the central plot to their season 6 âinvasion of the bodysnatchersâ villains.
In The Vampire Diaries, the existence of the âemotion switchâ is explicitly disputed as even existing in the earlier seasons, then becomes a very real and physical plot point one can toggle on and off.
I love hard magic systems. I love soft magic systems, too. These two are not evolutions of each other and doing so will ruin your magic system. People fell in love with the hard magic because they liked the rules, the rules made sense, and everything you wrote fit within those rules. Donât get wacky and suddenly start inventing new rules that break your old ones.
People fell in love with the soft magic because it needed no rules, the magic made sense without overtaking the story or creating plot holes for why it didnât just save the day. Donât give your audience everything they never needed to know and impose limitations that didnât need to be there.
Solving the mystery will never be as satisfying as whatever the reader came up with in their mind. Satisfaction is the death of desire.
2. The established theme becomes un-established
I talked about this point already in this post about theme so the abridged version here: If your story has major themes youâve set out to explore, like âthe dichotomy of good and evilâ and you abandon that theme either for a contradictory one, or no theme at all, your sequel will feel less polished and meaningful than its predecessor, because the new story doesnât have as much (if anything) to say, while the original did.
Jurassic Park is a fantastic, stellar example. First movie is about the folly of human arrogance and the inherent disaster and hubris in thinking one can control forces of nature for superficial gains. The sequels, and then sequel series, never returns to this theme (and also stops remembering that dinosaurs are animals, not generic movie monsters). JP wasnât just scary because ahhh big scary reptiles. JP was scary because the story is an easily preventable tragedy, and yes the dinosaurs are eating people, but the people only have other people to blame. Dinosaurs are just hungry, frightened animals.
Or, the most obvious example in Pixarâs history: Cars to Cars 2.
3. You focus on the wrong elements based on âfan feedbackâ
We love fans. Fans make us money. Fans do not know what they want out of a sequel. Fans will never know what they want out of a sequel, nor will studios know how to interpret those wants. Ask Star Wars. Heck, ask the last 8 books out of the Percy Jackson universe.
Going back to Cars 2 (and why I loathe the concept of comedic relief characters, truly), Disney saw dollar signs with how popular Mater was, so, logically, they gave fans more Mater. They gave us more car gimmicks, they expanded the lore that no one asked for. They did try to give us new pretty racing venues and new cool characters. The writers really did try, but some random Suit decided a car spy thriller was better and this is what we got.
The elements your sequel focuses on could be points 1 or 2, based on reception. If your audience universally hates a character for legitimate reasons, maybe listen, but if your audience is at war with itself over superficial BS like whether or not sheâs a female character, or POC, ignore them and write the character you set out to write. Maybe their arc wasnât finished yet, and they had a really cool story that never got told.
This could be side-characters, or a specific location/pocket of worldbuilding that really resonated, a romantic subplot, whatever. Point is, careening off your plan without considering the consequences doesnât usually end well.
4. You donât focus on the ârightâ elements
I donât think anyone out there will happily sit down and enjoy the entirety of Thor: The Dark World. The only reasons I would watch that movie now are because a couple of the jokes are funny, and the whole bit in the middle with Thor and Loki. Why wasnât this the whole movie? No one cares about the lore, but people really loved Loki, especially when there wasnât much about him in the MCU at the time, and taking a villain fresh off his big hit with the first Avengers and throwing him in a reluctant âenemy of my enemyâ plot for this entire movie would have been amazing.
Loki also refuses to stay dead because heâs too popular, thus we get a cyclical and frustrating arc where he only has development when the producers demand so they can make maximum profit off his character, but back then, in phase 2 world, the mystery around Loki was what made him so compelling and the drama around those two on screen was really good! They bounced so well off each other, they both had very different strengths and perspectives, both had real grievances to air, and in that movie, they *both* lost their mother. Itâs not even that itâs a bad sequel, itâs just a plain bad movie.
The movie exists to keep establishing the Infinity Stones with the red one and I canât remember what the red one does at this point, but it could have so easily done both. The powers that be should have known their strongest elements were Thor and Loki and their relationship, and run with it.
This isnât âgive into the demands of fans who want more Lokiâ itâs being smart enough to look at your own work and suss out what you think the most intriguing elements are and which have the most room and potential to grow (and also test audiences and beta readers to tell you the ugly truth). Sequels should feel more like natural continuations of the original story, not shameless cash grabs.
5. You walk back character development for ~drama~
As in, characters who got together at the end of book 1 suddenly start fighting because the âwill they/wonât theyâ was the juiciest dynamic of their relationship and you donât know how to write a compelling, happy couple. Or a character who overcame their snobbery, cowardice, grizzled nature, or phobia suddenly has it again because, again, that was the most compelling part of their character and you donât know who they are without it.
To be honest, yeah, the buildup of a relationship does tend to be more entertaining in media, but thatâs also because solid, respectful, healthy relationships in media are a rarity. Season 1 of Outlander remains the best, in part because of the rapid growth of the main love interestâs relationship. Every season after, theyâre already married, already together, and occasionally dealing with baby shenanigans, and itâs them against the world and, yeah, I got bored.
Thereâs just so much you can do with a freshly established relationship: Those two are a *team* now. The drama and intrigue no longer comes from them against each other, itâs them together against a new antagonist and their different approaches to solving a problem. They can and should still have distinct personalities and perspectives on whatever story you throw them into.
6. Itâs the same exact story, just Bigger
I have been sitting on a âhow to scale powerâ post for months now because Iâm still not sure on reception but hereâs a little bit on what I mean.
Original: Oh no, the big bad guy wants to destroy New York
Sequel: Oh no, the big bad guy wants to destroy the planet
Threequel: Oh no, the big bad guy wants to destroy the galaxy
You knew it wasnât going to happen the first time, you absolutely know it wonât happen on a bigger scale. Usually, when this happens, plot holes abound. You end up deleting or forgetting about charactersâ convenient powers and abilities, deleting or forgetting about established relationships and new ground gained with side characters and entities, and deleting or forgetting about stakes, themes, and actually growing your characters like this isnât the exact same story, just Bigger.
How many Bond movies are there? Thirty-something? I know some are very, very good and some are not at all good. Theyâre all Bond movies. People keep watching them because theyâre formulaic, but thereâs also been seven Bond actors and the movies arenât one long, continuous, self-referential story about this poor, poor man who has the worst luck in the universe. These sequels arenât âthis but biggerâ itâs usually âthis, but differentâ, which is almost always better.
âThis, but different nowâ will demand a different skillset from your hero, different rules to play by, different expectations, and different stakes. It does not just demand your hero learn to punch harder.
Example: Lord Shen from Kung Fu Panda 2 does have more influence than Tai Lung, yes. Heâs got a whole city and his backstory is further-reaching, but heâs objectively worse in close combatâso he doesnât fistfight Po. He has cannons, very dangerous cannons, cannons designed to be so strong that kung fu doesnât matter. Thus, heâs not necessarily âbiggerâ heâs just âdifferentâ and his whole story demands new perspective.
The differences between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi are numerous, but the latter relies on âbut biggerâ and the former went in a whole new direction, while still staying faithful to the themes of the original.
7. It undermines the original by awakening a new problem too soon
Iâve already complained about the mere existence of Heroes of Olympus elsewhere because everything Luke fought and died for only bought that world about a month of peace before the gods came and ripped it all away for More Story.
Iâve also complained that the Star Wars Sequels were always going to spit in the face of a characterâs six-movie legacy to bring balance to the Force by just going⌠nah. Ancient prophecy? Only bought us about 30 years of peace.
Whether itâs too soon, or itâs too closely related to the original, your audience is going to feel a little put-off when they realize how inconsequential this sequel makes the original, particularly in TV shows that run too many seasons and canât keep upping the ante, like Supernatural.
Kung Fu Panda once again because these two movies are amazing. Shen is completely unrelated to Tai Lung. Heâs not threatening the Valley of Peace or Shifu or Oogway or anything the heroes fought for in the original. Heâs brand new.
My yearning to see these two on screen together to just watch them verbally spat over both being bratty children disappointed by their parents is unquantifiable. This movie is a damn near perfect sequel. Somebody write me fanfic with these two throwing hands over their drastically different perspectives on kung fu.
8. Itâs so divorced from the original that it can barely even be called a sequel
Otherwise known as seasons 5 and 6 of Lost. Otherwise known as: This show was on a sci-fi trajectory and something catastrophic happened to cause a dramatic hairpin turn off that path and into pseudo-biblical territory. Why did it all end in a church? Iâm not joking, they did actually abandon The Plan while in a mach 1 nosedive.
I also have a post Iâve been sitting on about how to handle faith in fiction, so Iâll say this: The premise of Lost was the trials and escapades of a group of 48 strangers trying to survive and find rescue off a mysterious island with some creepy, sciency shenanigans going on once they discover that the island isnât actually uninhabited.
Season 6 is about finding âcandidatesâ to replace the islandâs Discount Jesus who serves as the ambassador-protector of the island, who is also immortal until heâs not, and the island becomes a kind of purgatory where they all actually did die in the crash and were just waiting to⌠die again and go to heaven. Spoiler Alert.
This is also otherwise known as: Oh sh*t, Warner Bros wants more Supernatural? But we wrapped it up so nicely with Sam and Adam in the box with Lucifer. I tried to watch one of those YouTube compilations of Casâ funny moments because I havenât seen every episode, and the misery on these actorsâ faces as the compilation advanced through the seasons, all the joy and wit sucked from their performances, was just tragic.
I get it. Writers canât control when the Powers That Be demand More Story so they can run their workhorse into the ground until it stops bleeding money, but if you arenât controlled by said powers, either take it all back to basics, like Cars 3, or just stop.
â
Sometimes taking your established characters and throwing them into a completely unrecognizable story works, but those unrecongizable stories work that much harder to at least keep the characters' development and progression satisfying and familiar. See this post about timeskips that take generational gaps between the original and the sequel, and still deliver on a satisfying continuation.
TLDR: Sequels are hard and itâs never just one detail that makes them difficult to pull off. They will always be compared to their predecessors, always with the expectations to be as good as or surpass the original, when the original had no such competition. Thereâs also audience expectations for how they think the story, lore, and relationships should progress. Most faults of sequels, in my opinion, lie in straying too far from the fundamentals of the original without understanding why those fundamentals were so important to the originalâs success.
#writing advice#writing resources#writing tips#writing tools#writing a book#writing#writeblr#sequels#kung fu panda
121 notes
¡
View notes
Text
Magical Melody Remake - A Wishlist
Based off my post from yesterday that I wrote!
MM generally gets a bad rap, I think, from the fandom overall. Which is fair, in all honesty! And as a kid, it was frustrating to play! But now as an adult, I treat playing MM as a challenge to overcome, and once you get past the clunky controls, itâs actually a very fun game to play!
So, if I were in charge of remaking MM for the Switch, hereâs some of the changes I would implement, or like to see.
The controls are the first, obviously. MM is so notoriously slow, with how it takes a few seconds to get your character moving into a run, the menus, pretty much...Everything. And there was no real reason to have it like that, so I would hope that would be the first thing to get fixed lol.
Proper volume control!!! I dunno how I put up with it as a kid, but now as an adult, I canât stand hearing all the little âbeepsâ and âboopsâ when Iâm going through all the menus. I now turn the volume of my tv way down, or just off when Iâm playing the game because thereâs no option to turn the SFXs off. I have the same issue with basically...All older HM games. But thatâs probably just a me thing :âD
So I actually am a fan of the layout of Flowderbud Village 2.0! MMâs unique gimmick is that you start off with 1 of 3 properties to build on, then start buying up more and more as you progress, to the point where you can basically own more land than the town itself! I really enjoy this system, and I feel it makes the farming experience much more unique being able to have your âmain hubâ kinda anywhere on the map.Â
So of course we gotta talk about the character models- Most people have an issue with everyone looking like weird chibi baby things. I personally was never too bothered, but I wouldnât mind them getting âupdatedâ either. Not like the models that are in the current FoMT game, but something that just doesnât make everyone look like...that lol. I wouldnât mind it as much if they were also given portraits as well when you talk to them.
And not just updated models, but also updated designs as well! So the cast of MM is a mix between characters that appeared in SNES AND in Save the Homeland/Hero of Leaf Valley. The SNES characters did get some updated looks, as theyâre not those EXACT same characters, but I would love to see everyone get a wardrobe update that set them apart as brand new characters, or as the decendents of who theyâre based off of.Â
Interesting to note though, that some of the characters who share a name and likeness to SNES...Are actually their grandkids! Or, most of them are! Eve will mention that sheâs named after her grandmother, who she looks very similar to. The implication is that Eve from SNES is her grandmother! I think sheâs the only one who mentions it, but other SNES bachelorettes are also clearly based off those counterparts. MM!Ellen works on the ranch, but she loves to bake, and your rival for her is Carl, a patissiuer. Ann is an aspiring inventor, just like her SNES counterpart. Maria, the Mayorâs daughter, was also his daughter in SNES and also worked at the library. Nina looks basically the same, and also works on the farm that sells seeds, and still loves flowers! Thereâs a lot of hidden lore for these characters that you can only learn about if you happen to catch them at the right places (usually at home, try it out sometime!)
I would...Totally get rid of their âvoicesâ. Some of them sound okay, but others...Ahheehhhh. May as well just dump âem altogether lol.
Let! Us! Continue! Playing! The! Game! If! We! Marry! Jaime!! In the original Japanese version, Jaime was just like all the other bachelors/ettes, and in that same version, there were rival marriages! Both these features were removed for the North American version. Iâm not sure if they were put back in for the Wii re-release, but I doubt they were.
Which speaking of marriage...Of course the chance to romance both bachelors and bachelorettes!! But also, keep Jaime androgynous! The original (English) player booklet for the GCN mentions only one that Jaime will âalways be the opposite sexâ of your character. But even then, Jaime is never referred to with pronouns or gendered language in the English version of the game. I know something similar happened with Inari in Trio of Towns, so I just hope xSeed would continue it!
The child growing up into an actual, well, child! Back in the day, your son (and yes it was usually always a son) would learn to walk at most, and then that would be it! Heâd be stuck in diapers and his little mouse hat forever! I would love for the child to now wear clothes, take off the hat (or maybe wear a baseball cap??), and be able to talk to you and participate in events around town. As for the look of your child, Iâve always been a sucker for âyour child physically resembles who you married but dresses like youâ.Â
Make training the horse freeaaaaaking easier!!! Iâve never won a Horse Race because I couldnât figure out beforehand how to properly train my horse. Itâs based off hearts but also star level?? But getting the horse in and out of the barn is so tedious that I just...Donât bother half the time. Sorry horsey!!
And speaking of the barn, and the coop for that matter, an actual, proper bell that you can use from the outside. Also, maybe not use up stamina when using the makers?? I donât know why that was a thing to begin with, but itâd be real annoying to waste stamina on that first BEFORE getting to water your crops. Luckily, this was back in the day when crops only needed to be watered once a day but still.
The whole stamina system would need a re-do. I hate that just about EVERYTHING cost stamina to do, requiring you to basically stop playing for that day or to go out of your way to get food to restore it. This is especially annoying in your first spring before the inn and the bar are built, and money is harder to come by.
Keeping the tools separate from the inventory? I really hated how this became a thing moving onwards, where tools would take up precious item slots in your tiny rucksack. And since the basket didnât really make a reappearance in this game in particular, it was extremely difficult trying to explore and forage in the early game with all your tools taking up space. I make a routine of running in and out of my house and keeping the tool box right by the front door to swap them in and out, and...I shouldnât have to but thatâs the best system I have. So itâd be nice to Not have to do that again!
Music Notes; I can take âem or leave âem. I donât mind the challenge of them being there, and it feels kinda nice to always have something to work towards. I know theyâre a part of the plot, but itâs still so exciting to even now unlock them at random.
Thatâs all I can think of for now! Did you think of something different? What are you feelings on Magical Melody as a whole, and what would you like to change about it?
#harvest moon#story of seasons#magical melody#i might do one more of these#i dont have anything to say on snes or hm64 because ive never played them :(#and after this the only other hm game ive played excessively is grand bazaar#now THAT i think i could actually go on forever about lol
17 notes
¡
View notes
Note
What would you rank all the fire emblem games that you have played.
Thank you for waiting, anon! This essay is finally finished! XD I donât know if either of us ever intended for this to end up so long, but it did.
Itâs interesting to see how each person experiences each game, so I hope everyone enjoys reading this. If anyone wants to ask questions for more details or just for conversation, please do!
I did a tier grouping ranking as well as ordering from bottom -> top, because that helped explain my feelings a little better. This isnât really reflecting my nostalgia or personal feelings for the characters/world quite as much as âhow much fun I had in my initial playthrough(s).â Because I think thatâs what these sorts of lists are generally asking for.
First, Iâd like to make a general statement about why I love FE games so much: Well, most simply itâs because I have more fun playing FE than any other series. That much is obvious though, right? I also love them because they all stand out in their own way, with their own unique combination of features, and because they are all super ambitious titles. It may lead to some rushing and half-baked ideas, but ambition is what excites me the most in any series. Even if the creators are not able to fully realize the ideas they had, the hard work still wows me as I play, and I can see hints of the full vision they had in every nook and cranny. Even the lowest games on this list are pretty high up there for me in fun level. The âfun but flawedâ games just had glaring issues that interrupted the fun from time to time.
...FEs 1 & 3 are overall exceptions to the âunique and standing out rule,â being early games in the series; and FE6 set up post-Famicom FE, so itâs pretty basic, too - but they still get their own awards for setting a solid foundation for a fun video game series that withstands the test of time.
I canât fully explain it, why I attached to FE the most over all other game series out there. But when I play FE, I usually donât think about whatâs not so great about the games. I just have fun. The gameplay always has me thinking, and I get engrossed in the stories and unlocking convos and supports.
Basic Tier
These games are really hard to judge properly in the ranking system, because they are just so basic for the series.
FE1 / FE11
When FE11 came out, I remember it getting so much flack for being really, really boring. But I didnât get that. I like FE gameplay and storytelling at its core, so I donât need the bells and whistles to have a good time. I knew this is where the series started, and was surprised with what content there was considering this is a remake of a game on the Famicom (NES).
FE1 set a very solid foundation for what the core of the series would be. Load it up next to a modern game, and it feels so the same and different all at once. Iâve only played a little bit of FE1 itself. I just canât get through it because FE11 is SO similar to FE1, so you really only have to play one to get the whole experience. I didnât feel like playing the same game over again at the time, so FE1 is still on my unfinished list.
Basic, solid foundation for the ages / 10
FE3 / FE12
After FE11 played it âsafeâ and took an âupgraded graphics with a few new ideas tacked onâ approach, I was blown away by how much FE12 did, even if it was more for worse than better sometimes. It added so many conversations, was the first to tinker with the idea of a more fleshed out Avatar, added more story⌠and so on.
From what Iâve read recently, the new story stuff isnât that great, but I donât remember now. Iâve only played this game once. Overall, despite some clunk with the giant maps and so on, this game really challenged itself to improve from FE11, and itâs how I learned to love remakes that arenât afraid to deviate from and add a lot to the original!
Set the stage for what kind of fun and ambition an FE remake could have / 10
FE3 is way more of a classic than any of us in the West can truly understand. It sold insanely well (the best in the series until Awakening I believe?), challenged the programmers to put FE1 on the cart as well, long before re-releases were a thing in the industry, and the game even made it to the Super Famicom Mini! I havenât played it yet because again, itâs hard to get the motivation to play through the slow speed and clunkiness when Iâve already experienced the remake, but Iâm looking forward to it some day.
The good olâ days of the Super Famicom & SNES / 10
FE6
This was the first game without Kaga (the series original creator), so it set the stage for a future without him. The series might have strayed far from his plans for story and such, but this game, while it was pretty basic, firmly established a new foundation for the series on a new system, and gave a glimpse of what greatness the future had in store.
Overall though, this game is harder to commit to memory than others, except for classic characteristics like how terrible Roy is until, finally, BAM he gets his sword in the final stretches of the game; and running in circles from Douglas so you can avoid fighting him and successfully recruit him after the chapter.
Awkward, but sets a solid foundation for post-Kaga and post-Famicom FE / 10
Fun But Flaws Distracted From The Fun A Lot Tier
FE16
I really, really hate to say it, because this game tries to mix up the FE formula with the school setting and other new features and changes, and brought in a good mix of old and new, just like all the other FE games. But this game left very little impact on me for such a big experience. And Iâm leaving out the fact that trying to play all four routes is dull as heck when I place the game this low. Iâm basing it off of just how much I enjoyed the first playthrough.
Overall, I was most turned off by the class system. Which is funny, because Iâve seen others praise this as FEâs best class system. Everyoneâs different. Classic classes like troubadours are just gone. The top tier classes are super limiting. Of course, you can just stop one tier down, but thatâs not emotionally satisfying to me - I want my characters to reach the top! Despite having such free choice, I feel more limited than anything. If theyâd just stopped at 4 tiers and not tried to go to 5, I think that would have been best. They had to stretch out the available classes too much to get to 5. ...Although being able to have an army of dragon riders is awesome, Iâll give it that. Dragons are too cool.Â
I was also really disappointed by the story. Fire Emblem has established that it can write a really emotional plot, and not be afraid to pull punches, with games like 4 and 8. I was expecting a huge contrast between part 1, where everyone is friends and classmates, and part 2, where war rips them apart, transforms them into different people, and forces them to brutally slaughter each other.
But in realityâŚthe hate between Dimitri and Edelgard has nothing to do with the school at all⌠That was jarring to me. Of course there is no one right direction to take a story in. But the worldbuilding and story writing⌠feels even less coherent than Fates. Thatâs an accomplishment.
This is the one time I say ambition was really just too much. The game didnât get enough polish. A game about the seasons doesnât even have seasonal differences...
While my friends who donât usually play Fire Emblem have had a fantastic experience with this one, after all Iâve been through, I found that I liked other FEâs more.
I think the best part about this game is the characters and supports. After Fates had a ton of supports in it just because it had to have them, the creators of this game werenât afraid to change up the support formula once more, so they could balance quality and quantity. ...And then, ironically, this game went for the (almost entirely) mute, personality-less avatar character. Funny how that works out. XD
Dragon Lord Army Go! / 10
FE14
I feel this game deserves way more credit than it gets, while also agreeing with the critiques. The ambition was as great as ever. But then it got stuck in development hell and we got what we got. (For those who donât know, the team was divided in two - the team that wanted a more fanservic-y experience, and the one that wanted to make a standard FE.)
I think the gameplay is the best part of this game, Conquest is great, and the gimmicks are indeed gimmicks, but still fun. In offering three different experiences, the entire package will please few, but that was the point of the multiple routes, to give everyone one route they would like, not to please everyone with all three.
But beyond the gameplay, the story is all over the place, the multiple routes just create more questions than answers; and features like an increased number of support convos and children feel like they are there only because of a desire to bring back âpopularâ features. After multiple food/cooking supports in a row, I couldnât take it any more. There was so little that the characters were actually talking about in their supports vs. Awakening. I generally feel that more supports = better, because character interaction through supports is of course a highlight of post-Famicom FE, but in this case, the numbers did not do any favors.
Bringing back weapons that donât break didnât feel well done, either. I just ended up using basic weapons the whole time because I didnât want to deal with the drawbacks of the higher level weapons.
Back to a positive for me: The hub world was neat, though it needed some convoluted story writing to be included. I was amused by going through the different features and collecting the items. I agree with Nintendo of America taking out the âpetting minigame,â but since I lived in Japan when Fates released, it was amusing to do on the train and weird out the bored Japanese people who peered over my shoulder.
Since all three routes were different, this game was fun enough until the end in comparison to Three Houses, of which I am STILL trying to slog through the last route one year after release. But Fates was made for every route to be different, whereas Three Houses was not, so itâs not surprising I feel like that.
But time for the real talk about this game⌠why is everyoneâs HP so low??? What happened?????
Up and down and all around in quality from start to finish / 10
FE15
I really want to like this game more. Oh, do I. Itâs absolutely GORGEOUS, the character art makes my heart skip a beat, the game proved that full voice acting does fit FE really well, it fleshed out things like the dungeon crawling & story, and added support conversations & skills, etc. while still staying kind of basic, retaining the feeling that the original was on the NES. The momentum for the fun and ambition that an FE remake could have transitioned well from FE12 to here and led to this being a stunningly presented game.
But the creators totally missed the point on what were the defining features of the game in my opinion, and that mismatch of vision ruined a lot for me. I loved the imbalance, struggling as I placed my units in corners of maps just to survive, until I obtained all those OP items, and my super soldiers marched into battle and did wild and amazing things. Valbar with +5 move and 40 speed with the Speed Ring is the one thing I remember the best of FE2 and oh man was it fun, and did I love it.
And I mean, I understand why the creators werenât going to keep that imbalance, it doesnât make the game good for everyone. Itâs just something I found fun, and made the game stand out among the other FEs. But the developers really just replaced old imbalance with new imbalance, the dread fighters being the one thing I remember in particular.
And they defined FE2âs best defining features as âthe maps and the terrain effectsâ and I just did not agree. That was the stuff I DISLIKED about FE2! And thatâs what they wanted to keep most? The terrain that made battles one giant miss, and the gigantic maps where Iâd spend half the time just getting to the enemies? No thanks.
Then the story only cranked up the horrible treatment of the women, with Faye⌠being Faye, and I hated the direction they went in with Celicaâs story...  Ugh.
For every step or two forward, thereâs one back / 10
FE10
FE games are always ambitious, but this one cranked the dial up to 10 and tripped over itself a lot. Still, it provided (even if it is info dumped) an intense and satisfying ending to the Tellius saga, and is another classic for the ages. I found the pacing boring and slow until then, though.
I think now that Iâm older I can appreciate the story much, much more - and how it shows the story and aftermath of the Mad Kingâs War from multiple points of view - Â but the lack of the support conversations, and too much going on for any aspect of this game to be properly refined, still make this one lower on my list.
If only I could have played it more than once, to really get a good memory of the events of the game. My Wii actually scratched up my disk (How this happened, I donât know, and itâs the ONLY disk my Wii ever slaughtered). It only held out long enough for my sibling and I to enjoy one playthrough each. Iâll get to playing my Japanese copy eventually!
Part 4 = Laguz Royals Emblem / 10
Somewhere Inbetween Tier
FE5
The last of the Kaga games. Still clunky and difficult, but with itâs own super unique features in capturing, stamina, and stealing weapons.
The brokenness of staves is not at all a flaw, but a feature in my opinion. Encouraging bizarre thinking and finding new ways to plow through maps is fun. I would probably be critical if this was a modern game, but I think older games need these quirks to stand out among modern titles with better graphics and decades of gaming history behind them.
And you still can complete the maps in a more traditional manner if you are determined. I did even for Reinhardtâs map.
Also, I gotta say... I donât agree that this is the most difficult FE overall⌠it just has the hardest individual maps. The difficulty spikes are all over the place. The game goes from bashing your head against a wall to snoozefest constantly.
Fog of war was a mistake though, if I was a time traveler, Iâd go back and make sure the programmers never figured out how to include it. XD
Steal ALL the tomes! / 10
FE13
Experiencing this game and its release in real time was an experience. The fandom really, truly thought this game might not only be the last FE ever, but also that it might not get a localization. Thinking there would never be a localization, I spent a night of my first trip to Japan buying a Japanese 3DS and a copy of the game. I only had 2 weeks on that study tour, but I was so determined that I used some of my precious free time to go shopping for it. To afford it, I even used the money my college gave to me for food, then subsided off of cheap convenience store meals with what little I had left. I barely had any true understanding of Japanese at the time, but I wanted other fans to experience this game, so I worked as hard as I could to translate as many supports as I could. This game is why I got into translation, and was what I really thought might be the end, so it will always have a special place in my heart for that.
Now to actually talk about playing the game itself. I really enjoyed it the first couple of times. Who cares that pair-up and the kids were OP, you either blast through the game with them and have a good laugh, or ignore them, set some challenging rules, and enjoy having at least a little challenge. I didnât care much that the supports were a little lower quality because of the sheer number of them, I eagerly awaited unlocking each one, and reading what the two characters would talk about. (We fans have fanfiction to turn to if we hunger for more development. :p) The bonus content was plentiful, and a great fanservice-y way to bring the series to a close.
After all is said and done though, the game left me feeling empty when I thought about replaying it any further. The maps and story felt empty in comparison to previous games. Now that itâs been 8 years since the initial release, Iâd of course enjoy a replay or two, but after having played FEs7-9 5 or 6 times in a row before moving on to the next game⌠anything less than that level of excitement was surprising for me. I placed this game kinda high on the list because itâs fun when you play it. Itâs just doesnât have as much replay value, I feel.
Also, as a group, the children characters are my favorite in the series. They all come from deeply traumatic backgrounds, and the way they work through that trauma and navigate being given a second chance, but also not a true second chance because this timeline is different from their own, is endlessly fascinating for me. I donât know if other fans give them enough credit, so I wanted to point them out in particular.
Would have been a fantastic way to send off the series, despite the flaws / 10
FE2
This game is flawed, imbalanced, makes me want to throw things, and itâs all, somehow, in a way that makes me LOVE IT. ...So long as I���m playing using an emulator with a speed up button.
This game is so hard, and the hit percentages are such garbage. But as I played, and unlocked more and more OP weapons and items, until I reached a point where the zombie dragons - what once took all my efforts - were an enemy that can easily be slaughtered in 1-on-1 combat... I felt so satisfied.
Old games need some kind of charm to make them still worth revisiting in a world of much better graphics and features that have now had decades to be refined. For me, this game has that perfect kind of quirky charm in spades.
The maps and terrain though⌠I have no words, just bash your head into the wall and you will understand how I feel.
Also, this game reminds me of Zelda 2 in it being a black sheep of its respective series⌠thatâs a fun little nugget of info.
Dumaâs sprite / 10
FE7
I donât remember this game as well, despite it being one that Iâve played about 5 times? I donât know why, itâs yet another fantastic Fire Emblem with its own ways that it stands out, managing not one, not two, but three lords, introducing the tactician, and so on. Guess time has just not been kind to my memory on this one.
I remember being really impressed with the length of this game back in the day, and Hectorâs mode offering enough differences to make it totally fun to replay the main game again.
Lyn gets kind of pushed to the side (because thatâs what generally happens to women main characters in Fire Emblem, if thereâs a male lord around), but having the three lords was really fun. With three people, you get a great balance between all of their personalities, and they all play off of each other well.
Of course I loved Lyn and Hector, most everyone does, but I was always just as much of an Eliwood fan. His average stats pushed people away from liking him as much as the others, but I always looked up to his kindness. Eliwood / Ninian was an especially favorite pairing for my sappy teenage heart. Eliwood was just so romantic and sweet to me.
And though the game was made easier with international audiences in mind, the developers hadnât invented all of the âeasier/for convenienceâ features yet, so this is the last time we got to enjoy some âharderâ features like needing to buy weapons during battles, and a convoy separate from the main lord. Thatâs cool if you like that stuff.
Unlocking the paralogues is hard though / 10
Favorites Tier
FE8
When it comes to FE8, while thereâs plenty to like about the gameplay (despite the game being so easy, but again, like I said with Awakening, you can just set your own challenge rules), what I really love to ramble on about is the story and its emotional impact. Lyon is so precious and kind, but has so many inner conflicts stewing deep inside of him, leading him to elder magics, and⌠The Demon King is just ends up as a sideshow compared to Lyon coming face to face with his own demons. Both the characters - and many players, Iâm sure - hope and hope to find a way to save him, but there just isnât one. There are never any real leads. Thereâs nothing. Only the harrowing reality that some people cannot be saved, no, that some people do not want to be saved. The inevitability of Lyonâs demise, and seeing it all play out, packs a punch most plots can only dream of.
But itâs not like I wonât talk about the gameplay features either. Bringing back much of the best of FE2, the overworld map and everything to do really enhances the experience. I mean, yeah, I guess two side dungeons isnât that much to get excited over, I can see that critique⌠but I didnât care, it allowed me to easily chase support conversations, and (with some RNG abusing to obtain enough Boots and money to buy the stat-boosting items, but hey, whatever it takes) I could max out my charactersâ stats and truly âcompleteâ a Fire Emblem game.
Sacred Stones is so awesome.
Finally! A postgame! I sure hope the developers keep this up in all the future games⌠oh. / 10
FE9
This is the first FE game I ever played, so it will always occupy the most dear and special place in my heart, even if FE4 eventually won over as my favorite.
Do you believe in first sight? I do, and this is what taught me itâs real. From the first second of the first cutscene, I was enthralled. ...And thatâs saying something, when the FE9 cutscenes are the kind of thing only a mother could love. But I just knew. I may have been a wee lass of 14, but I knew a love that would last a lifetime was being born. ...Or that would at least last 14 more years. I canât predict the future. Maybe Iâll wake up tomorrow and hate Fire Emblem with a burning passion? 2020 has taught me that tomorrow is always a big fat question mark.
Fun fact: in case you are wondering exactly what inspired my very initial interest in this series, it was a TV commercial. Probably this one. I just remember Ike running, of all things. My sibling and I both thought FE9 looked interesting from this commercial, and sought out the game all on our own with zero private knowledge that anything FE even existed.
This is where obsessions are born. Or mine at least. / 10Â
FE4
As Iâve established, this is my favorite of favorites. The bizarre way money, arenas, items, and more were handled, actually made the game more and more fun for me. Big maps are just so fun. Gen 1âs story is a tale for the ages, and Gen 2âs story is⌠well, classic FE, which never gets old for me. It will never cease to amaze me even today what the SNES/S Famicom could handle.
All Iâd want added is a âwarp between conquered castlesâ feature. Iâm completely neutral on a remake otherwise. Of course a lot more could be added and detailed upon that Iâd be happy for, but thatâs my one specific wish.
Calvary Emblem Forever / 10
Bonus:
FEH
I played this game every day for around 2 ½ years before I finally felt I had to break the habit, so Iâm not leaving it out! This title got a lot of flack for simplifying FE gameplay, but⌠looking at it that way completely disregards the niche app games fill, and the interesting ways developers view what type of games app games should be, and how the developers work hard to both innovate for the format yet stay faithful to the source. It is surprisingly deep, and the maps + higher focus on unit skills make you think entirely differently about how to win in what is, in essence, the same gameplay as the main series.
Plus, what fan couldnât get suckered into the fanservice of it? My best moments include attaining a +10 Nephenee while only spending money to get 2 of her, the other 9 were all F2P orbs; and becoming a Narcian/Valter shipper after supporting them on impulse because they were both on my flier team, and realizing the sick, twisted chemistry afterwards. Discovering rare-pairs is fun.
Also, finally, this game dared to nerf magic users a bit by making them RNG 2 only. If only the main series could do something like that.
I really enjoyed Heroes a lot, I just quit solely because it was a time drain. It was time to move on and play other things. And Iâm glad I got out when I did. Seeing the game stoop to over-the-top powercreep (above and beyond what it was always implementing) and add the monthly service to keep the $$$$$ raking in was hard to watch.
Perfect app-style game gameplay-wise and fanservice-wise, but why arenât gacha illegal yet / 10
FE Warriors
Oh yeah, this game exists too! Itâs a Warriors game. If you like the formula and it never gets old for you, youâll have fun with this game. If you donât mind the limited game representation too much, youâll have fun with this game. For me, the answers to those questions were a yes, so I enjoyed FE Warriors. Yay for wailing on hordes of enemies / 10
9 notes
¡
View notes
Text
Kamen Rider Ghost Movies and Specials
It's very amusing that I'm covering a horror movie here, but that isn't a part of the Ghost series.
It is time to (kinda) close the book on the Ghost season.
I gotta be honest, I wasn't looking forward to doing this, and I was both very disappointed and also very surprise. It was a fun journey, with a few questionable choices, but still fun nonetheless.
But before I get to the works that belong under this umbrella, we'll dive into something a bit different at first...
Kamen Rider: THE FIRST & Kamen Rider: THE NEXT
So, while looking at the list of Ghost's movies I saw that Kamen Rider 1 was on the list and that it was also technically part of the canon. I debated if I should watch it or not since, after all, my knowledge of the OG Kamen Rider is pretty much below basic and I was very afraid I would be missing in a lot of stuff. I was well aware I wouldn't be able to watch the actual show right now and I didn't want to read the wiki so I was about to give up on the idea when I looked at my notes and I saw that Kamen Rider THE FIRST and THE NEXT were a thing, and I thought this would fit in perfectly with the amount of time I have right now. I knew THE FIRST was a remake/adaptation of the original TV show and the manga and THE NEXT was its sequel so this would probably give me enough context to watch Kamen Rider 1.
And I wish I had done some more research before watching these movies because I feel like watching THE NEXT was a mistake.
Like, while I can't attest how truthful to the source material THE FIRST is, it was pretty much one of those compilation movies. The impression I had was that they choose the most crucial moments in a "The Best of" format and just glued that together and sold it as a movie. Which was not really a problem because it was pretty much a very solid movie, despite the cuts that leave a lot of gaps between each point. It lacked a lot of information, like how Hayato got to Shocker, and it kinda wasted time with the plotline of the kids from the hospital that didn't get a proper payoff, but it was still an entertaining movie. I love the action scenes, I'm not a specialist in this matter but it was really refreshing seeing a fight scene that was pretty much all done with practical stunts and very little CGI. This movie made me really curious to watch the original show, I know this is not exactly what I'll get whenever I watch it, but it left the "I want more" taste in my mouth.
THE NEXT on the other hand, while it was more of a "film" rather than a "compilation", it was also less of a Rider movie, they had riders on it, but it felt like they weren't the main focus. The feeling I had while watching it was that the producers either read the Helter Skelter manga, or watched Perfect Blue, or they saw one of those conspiracy theories of artists who don't seem to age that died and were replaced and wanted to make a horror movie that would deal in with the cruelty of the entertainment world, but they got denied and were put in to make the sequel of THE FIRST without wanting it, so they picked their original idea and shoved Kamen Rider into it as a secondary element that feels like it doesn't belong in that movie, and in the end, it fails at both. Admittedly, the horror portion was pretty good, I would be interested in watching it. It was the rider portion that was a letdown, it was pretty much just some random action, and while watching that girl fighting with a chainsaw was cool as hell there wasn't much background stuff to justify all of that and put some meaning on it. And there's also the terrible final scene with that awful CGI fire that was cringy as hell. If you want some advice, skip this one, it's not worth it.
Kamen Rider Ghost: Legendary! Riders' Souls!
Because I was left with the feeling that I got no useful information after watching THE NEXT, I decided to do something that I never do that is watch the web specials they release for each movie in the hopes that I would have enough context to watch Kamen Rider 1 without a problem. And well... I didn't expect them to be so pointless. Like, they have enough content to be its own TV movie and it's all just to explain how they got the Rider Eyecons, AND THAT'S IN THE MOVIE FOR LESS THAN FIVE MINUTES!!!!!!!!!! And like, these form changes are so useless that if they had taken that out of the movie it wouldn't make a difference!!! I swear to god, why do they still think this kind of stuff is cool? UGH
I don't have much to say because this was pretty much just a boss rush, but I have to say this. PLEASE STOP BRINGING FINAL BOSSES BACK, they're final bosses for a reason goddammit, they're not cannon fodder! When you bring a final boss back anytime you have a chance it just loses the cool effect it could have. Please, Kamen Rider, stop, we get it, you love your own franchise, you don't need to keep doing this circle jerk all the time when you wanna do something cool that serves as an homage to your own history.
Kamen Rider 1
Complains aside, finally the actual first Ghost movie, in the Ghost Movies and Specials post.
And this was a great movie, probably my favorite thing that came out of Ghost. This movie is exciting, it has things for both old and new fans, the plot is pretty decent, the action is a lot of fun, and the emotional beats work very well. I felt in love with Takeshi after this movie, he's such a cool guy, and I really like the actor, it was always a joy seeing him on the screen, his whole thing with Mayu was great, it was very endearing, and when Takeshi dies I really felt it, and the only reason why I'm okay with them bringing him back is that I like him so much and I didn't want to see him die. If THE FIRST made me want to watch the original series, seeing Takeshi in this movie made me want that even more.
I expected the Ghost cast to be the low point of this movie, and while my biggest complaint is about a thing related to the Ghost lore, I overall liked seeing Takeru tag along with Takeshi. To the surprise of a total of 0 people, Makoto was useless again, but honestly, his participation in this movie is so minor it doesn't even bother me. I also like that the villains of the movie were Shocker and Nova Shocker and not that white-suit guy from the specials. Having both Shockers there fighting not only the riders but also each other earned a lot of points with me, I particularly love how Nova Shocker decided to do their thing by embracing capitalism and becoming a corporation because corporative people are the scariest and I love when they make villains based on that.
But I think what I like the most of this movie is that brings up to discussion a theme that I always thought the show should've tackled on TV that is the importance of life, and all that Love&Peace talk about how we're all connected, and that we're connected to nature, that is connected to the world, and yadda yadda yadda. Yes, it's a pretty old speech and everything, but it's one of the subjects that match the most with what I believe is the premise of this show, and while I love that this is a part of this movie, it's pretty sad that none of this bleeds out to the TV show.
And talking about things that are pretty sad, the element I liked the least was the thing that Mayu had a very powerful Eyecon that has been dormant inside her. I understand this is a Ghost movie and they wanna use their gimmick, but they could've used Takeru's gimmick of going full ghost mode and start fo follow Mayu while invisible instead of making the final villain just another MOTW. I honestly think the conflict between Shocker and Nova Shocker was enough to make everything they wanted to do, on the scale they envisioned, without having to add anything related to the villains of this season.
Regardless of the complaints, this is worth watching, for sure, and I wish I hadn't wasted my time with THE NEXT and the specials because I wish I could've met this movie way sooner. XD
Ghost: The 100 Eyecons and Ghost's Fateful Moment
This movie... was a choice. I feel like I have nothing to say about this movie, it was empty, it was pretty much a copy of the Wizard and the OOO's movies merged together, there were a lot of depiction of historical figures that would probably leave some people turning on their graves, they tried to make not just one but TWO familiar dramas and both of them failed in being interesting or having a good pay off at the end, and if all of that wasn't bad enough, guess what? Takeru died again! And was "revived" once more! Yay! I swear, this movie is so frustrating, I just wanna forget it exists.
Well... at least the new Napoleon and Darwin forms looked good I guess.
The Legend of Hero Alain
Now, what wasn't a frustration was Alain's special series! I absolutely love being able to see different points of view of the same story, and being able to see that from the perspective of who became my favorite among the riders of this season was a true delight. I do think episode 4 was a bit useless and if they wanted to make an epilogue they could've done something better, but the other 3 episodes are pretty good.
In particular episodes 2 and 3, that are from the time around his redemption arc, were very touching and a huge part of that is obviously from the presence of the best character of this show, the #1 takoyaki lady, Fumi-san, who once again was here giving her wisdom and passing down some of the messages the TV show tried to pass but that it failed completely. And even though I knew they would eventually hit a point where they would talk about her death, I was still hit by the feels like if they were a truck and I cried.
If I have to say two things that I don't like about these specials it would be that "Human Life Course" Takeru, Akari, and Onari had in episode 3, that was just ridiculous. And I'm not the biggest fan of having this thing of Alain and Fumi having a story that goes way back than what we saw in the show. But honestly, even with these problems, this is one of my favorite media that came out of Ghost.
Kamen Rider Ghost RE:BIRTH: Kamen Rider Specter
Last, and deservedly the least, is Specter's movie. And talk about a bad movie,
You would think that at least on his own movie Makoto would be important, play a big role, but even though he defeated the big bad in the end, he actually did nothing that couldn't have been done for another character. Heck, if you think about it, the real hero at the end of the day was Onari because it was sneaking around and stealing that gem that solved the main problem about clearing the sky atmosphere in the end. All Makoto did here was take a dumb decision after the other and is dreadful to watch.
I think the biggest problem of this movie is that it depends on us believing in feelings developed between two characters that know each other for less than three days and one of those characters is framed by the movie SINCE THE BEGINNING as a maniac villain. And our pay off of this is to believe Makoto forgive the guy who was conducting crazy experiments and that threatened to kill his beloved sister because he considered her a failure. Thanks, I hate it!
Oh yeah and we had power-ups for Necrom and Specter that came out of nowhere and we just have to buy it. At least Spector's new form looks pretty cool, despite me not buying the "sin" motif, I would like to have an opinion on Necrom's form, but it happened on a shitty rain scene and I couldn't distinguish any memorable feature while watching it.
All in all, this movie was another disappointment.
Well, that's it for Ghost. I wish I could have something good to say to sendoff this series, but I honestly don't so I'll just wrap-up here after all this post is already long enough. What are your thoughts on these? Have you watched any of them recently? Let me know in the comments down below. Stay healthy, stay safe, never stop resisting, thank you so much for reading, and until the next time. Bye~
2 notes
¡
View notes
Text
âBut Theyâre Covered In Nipplesâ: The Story Of Destroy All Humans - Quillâs Scribbles
Another E3 has come and gone. There was some good announcements. Square Enix unveiled their Avengers game, Keanu Reeves came on stage to give us the release date of Cyberpunk 2077, Ubisoft are making another Watch Dogs set in London, and... um... what else happened?
Oh yeah!
DESTROY ALL HUMANS IS BACK!!!!!!
Yes, the cult classic Destroy All Humans is returning next year, developed by THQ Nordic and Black Forest Games. This was quite possibly the nicest surprise Iâve ever had. When the teaser trailer came up on my YouTube recommendations, I practically screamed the house down. Itâs a level of excitement I felt when 20th Century Fox announced they were finally making a Deadpool movie.Â
Yeah. That excited.
Destroy All Humans was my favourite video game series growing up. I played the first two games non-stop on my PS2 and I even bought a Nintendo Wii and PS3 just so I could play Big Willy Unleashed and Path Of The Furon (yeah, weâll get to them). Unfortunately, while the series was reasonably successful, it never quite broke through into the mainstream, and it ended up having a very short lifespan, making it one of the most underrated franchises of all time.
So, to mark the return of Crypto and Pox, I thought Iâd take a retrospective look at the series as a whole. Analysing each game in the franchise and talking about what made them so good, whilst also looking at how it faded into obscurity and how THQ Nordic and Black Forest Games can hopefully avoid this fate with their remake.
Radioactive, Exploding, Zombie Cows
The first Destroy All Humans was developed by THQ and Pandemic Studios (the latter probably most famous for making the original Star Wars Battlefront games. You know? The good ones that werenât overloaded with loot boxes and microtransactions) and was released in 2005 on the PS2 and Xbox. You play as a Furon warrior called Cryptosporidium 137, or Crypto for short, who is tasked with harvesting the brains of humans in order to extract pure Furon DNA from them. His leader Orthopox 13, or Pox, explains that the Furons are at risk of cloning themselves into extinction as they are unable to reproduce naturally due to a lack of genitalia and the DNA in their cloning banks are starting to degrade. Fortunately the Furons visited prehistoric Earth on their way back from destroying the Martians and took the opportunity to âlet off some steamâ with the natives. As a result, humans possess a strand of Furon DNA that can hopefully restore the Furonsâ reproductive organs. Unfortunately a secret government organisation called Majestic (a sort of cross between Project Blue Book and the Men in Black) have caught wind of the Furon invasion due to Crypto 136 crash landing in Roswell 10 years earlier. So Crypto 137 will have to be extra cautious in his quest to take over Earth.
The game was released four years after Grand Theft Auto III, which had completely revolutionised gaming with its open world sandbox. As a result, other companies were attempting their own open worlds and putting their own spin on them. While Destroy All Humans didnât quite have the same scale as GTA, it made up for it with quality over quantity. The game offered six small open world areas for players to have fun in and its central premise was utterly captivating. After countless games where you had to fight alien invaders, Destroy All Humans allowed you to play as the alien invader.
Pandemic Studios completely embraced the alien invasion premise, giving the player a vast number of weapons and abilities to wreak havoc on planet Earth. You had access to weapons like the Zap O Matic, Disintegrator Ray and Anal Probe (no, really, thereâs actually a gun called the Anal Probe and itâs as funny as it sounds) as well as mental abilities such as Psychokinesis, Hypnotism and the Cortex Scan, which allowed you to read the thoughts of humans and was also used to help maintain your Holoblob disguise in stealth missions. And if that isnât cool enough, you also get your own flying saucer, which you can use to destroy buildings and landmarks. The game gave you a lot of freedom, essentially dropping you in a small destructible playground and telling you to go and enjoy yourself.
But the thing I loved most about the first game was the writing. The plot itself is actually pretty good with plenty of twists and turns as the military and Majestic become more and more desperate to stop you. And the humour, my God the humour! Honestly Destroy All Humans remains to this day one of the funniest games Iâve ever played. Itâs use of satirical humour and 50s pop culture references never failed to make me chuckle. There was one moment that Iâll always remember where I scanned the mind of a police officer and it revealed that he was thinking about forming the Village People. If only he could find a cowboy, an Indian and a construction worker.Â
The gameâs main source of comedy mostly came from poking fun at the culture and attitudes of the time period. 1950s America was of course gripped by âthe Red Scare,â which the game mocks frequently as we see Majestic and the US government try desperately to cover up alien activity by blaming the death and destruction on communists, to the point where it just gets more and more absurd. At the end of each mission, a newspaper headline is shown, often blaming recent events on freak weather or communist propaganda. Yes, that should explain perfectly why peopleâs heads are exploding and why the cows are glowing green. Itâs all perfectly normal. No aliens here. Whatâs that? A little green man in a flying saucer is blowing up ice cream trucks? Damn you commies!
The game also pokes fun at 50s sci-fi B movies, often parodying and lampshading the tropes and gimmicks one would expect in a low budget sci-fi flick. For example, the game ends with you fighting a giant robot that houses the Presidentâs brain. Itâs fully aware of how ridiculous and stupid it all is and clearly revels in it. Killer robots, mind control, radioactive animals, mad scientists and secret government conspiracies galore. Destroy All Humans is very much a love letter to cheesy sci-fi.
But by far the biggest draw was the main characters. Crypto and Pox. Theyâre both such funny, wonderfully realised and likeable characters. Pox is voiced by Richard Steven Horvitz, who you may remember from Invader Zim, and he gives the character a maniacal glee. I honestly could listen to his rants all day. Heâs the quintessential evil genius. Crypto meanwhile is voiced by J. Grant Albrecht, who gives the character a Jack Nicholson-esque voice. Unlike Pox, Crypto is crass, crude and craves destruction, which often puts him at odds with Pox, who favours more subtle styles of invasion such as mind control. The two characters often bicker and squabble, which never fails to be entertaining, and yet there is an underlying respect and fondness for each other that helps ground the relationship. Itâs the perfect double act.
Destroy All Humans was a good game, but does it still hold up? Well there are a few issues. Controls can be a bit clunky at times and missions can often get repetitive. Destroy x number of farmers. Collect x amount of DNA. That kind of thing. Also, annoyingly, thereâs no checkpoints, which means if you die or fail the mission, youâre automatically sent back to the Furon Mothership and you have to start the mission all over again. But the writing, humour and entertainment value more than make up for it.
Hot Monkey Love
While the first game wasnât what youâd call a hit, it was successful enough for THQ to commission a sequel. Destroy All Humans 2 was released in 2006 on PS2 and Xbox, just one year after the first game, and this time Crypto was going international.
Set in the 1960s, ten years after the events of the first game, the KGB in Russia learn about the Furonâs takeover of America and plan a counterattack. They nuke the Furon Mothership, killing Pox, and try to assassinate Crypto 138, who is posing as the President of the United States. The assassination fails and Poxâs mind is able to survive in hologram form. The two then embark on a global adventure, seeking revenge against the KGB and uncovering a massive conspiracy that puts the entire Furon invasion at risk.
Destroy All Humans 2 is an ambitious sequel that increases its scope from the first game. No longer confined to America, we see Crypto terrorise San Francisco, London, Tokyo, Russia and even the Moon. Our arsenal of weapons are also expanded. The original weapons from the first game return as well as some all new ones such as the Disclocator, which fires a purple disc at a human or vehicle and sends them flying around the map, the Burrow Beast, which summons a Tremors-esque space worm to cause carnage, and Meteor Strike, which I think speaks for itself. We also get a few new mental abilities such as Transmogrify, which allows you to turn objects into ammo, and Free Love, which causes everyone in the general vicinity to start dancing, allowing you to make a quick getaway while theyâre distracted. The saucer too has some extra features, including a cloaking device and the ability to drain vehicles of health using your Abducto Beam.
This sequel pretty much takes everything that worked from the first game whilst tweaking the things that didnât. The GTA style Alert system got a complete overhaul. If you want to raise or lower the Alert level, all you have to do is bodysnatch a cop or a soldier and make a call using a police box (you can also make prank calls from them, which is good for a giggle). Holoblobbing has been replaced with Bodysnatching, which works so much better and it does away with the annoying Concentration meter, so you can PK cars and humans to your heartâs content. Thereâs also a lot more stuff to do now. There are numerous collectables such as Alien Artefacts, which unlocks the Burrow Beast weapon, and FuroTech Cells, which are your main currency that can be used to upgrade your health and weapons. Missions have greater variety than in the first game. Thereâs a lot more side missions, including Odd Jobs and my personal favourites the Cult of Arkvoodle missions, where Crypto brainwashes humans to worship the Furon God Arkvoodle of the Sacred Crotch.
As you can tell, the humour is still just as wacky and ridiculous as ever. Destroy All Humans 2 lampoons and ridicules the 60s mercilessly, taking aim at the Cold War and the hippie counterculture movement. It also pokes fun at 60s sci-fi films, spy films and Japanese movies like Godzilla. In fact thereâs a boss fight that involves you fighting a Godzilla-esque monster and itâs honestly the best boss fight in the series. It regains health by destroying buildings, so you have to destroy them first before you can kill the monster. Itâs a great premise.
Story-wise, Destroy All Humans 2 is a worthy successor, raising the stakes and expanding the lore. Weâre introduced to the Blisk, the Martians that were presumed extinct by the Furons millions of years ago. Itâs a brilliant conflict and ostensibly allows the developers to make commentaries on America and Russia at the time using the Furons and the Blisk respectively as stand-ins. Crypto and Pox are well written, funny and likeable as ever and weâre also introduced to an assortment of new characters, including the Russian spy Natalya and MI6 agent Ponsomby (voiced by none other than Anthony Head from Buffy). The game is engaging and rewarding, but it crucially never takes itself too seriously. For example thereâs one instance in Tokyo where Crypto learns about the battle between the White and Black Ninjas and he guesses that the conflict started because of the cliche student betraying his master type origin, but it turns out that both groups of ninjas were originally Grey, but then they ran out of grey fabric and disagreed over which colour they should be instead. Thereâs so many great comedic moments like that and they pretty much hit bullseyes every time.
That being said, there was one aspect of the game I didnât like and that was the crude sex jokes. Crypto 138 is the first clone to have pure Furon DNA, which means he now has genitalia. As a result, this new incarnation of Crypto is far more randy than 137 was in the first game. This mostly takes the form of Crypto constantly trying to hit on Natalya, despite her showing no sexual interest, which I personally found pretty gross. Worse still, the game ends with Crypto cloning Natalya and âmaking a few adjustmentsâ so she will consent to have sex with him. The word âcreepyâ doesnât begin to cover how I felt about this. If THQ Nordic and Black Forest Games ever decide to remake the second game, I really hope they consider rethinking that ending because... Jesus!
On the whole, Destroy All Humans 2 was a brilliant sequel. It was also sadly the last Destroy All Humans game to be developed by Pandemic Studios before they were bought by EA and eventually shut down in 2009. Unfortunately this would have a severe impact on the future of the series going forward.
Limp Willy
The next game in the series was a spinoff for the Nintendo Wii, released in early 2008 and developed by Locomotive Games. A PS2 version was also planned, but was scrapped due to budget cuts (remember this. Itâll become relevant later).
Destroy All Humans: Big Willy Unleashed was... underwhelming, to say the least. Set in the 1970s, six years after the second game, Crypto and Pox have opened a fast food restaurant called Big Willy as a way of disposing of the corpses left behind during Cryptoâs missions. However a rival fast food chain, run by Colonel Kluckinâ, is stealing their business and socialite Patty Wurst is threatening to expose Big Willy (smirk). So itâs up to Crypto to protect Poxâs Big Willy (haha) and maintain their cover on Earth.
Now youâre probably thinking this sounds quite tame compared to the previous two games, and yeah, it is. But itâs a spinoff, so I can understand to a certain extent. However there are a few narrative discrepancies. The big one being Crypto has retired from being the President. No explanation given as to why and we have no idea what Crypto is doing instead. When we first see him, heâs watching TV. He doesnât even know Big Willy exists until Pox brings it up. So whatâs going on exactly? Are they still trying to invade Earth or have they gone native? Also, compared to the grand conspiracy stories of the previous games, Crypto protecting a fast food restaurant sounds a little beneath him.
Gameplay is virtually unchanged from the previous game. Thereâs some new guns such as Ball Lightning and the Zombie Gun, but nothing special. The biggest addition is Big Willy, the restaurant mascot thatâs actually a Furon battle mech in disguise. Itâs... fine. Not that much different from the Saucer really. We also get some new locations. Harbor City, Fairfield in Kentucky, Fantasy Atoll (a weak parody of Fantasy Island) and Vietmahl (a painfully obvious homage to Vietnam). None of these locations are particularly interesting however. Thereâs also a multiplayer mode, which... exists.
Honestly the game as a whole is just lacklustre. The story just isnât as good as the first two games and the humour doesnât have the same wit or intelligence. Most of the comedy surrounds the fact that Pox has called his restaurant Big Willy and isnât entirely aware of the double entendre, which admittedly is funny for the first few missions, but by the time youâve finished Harbor City and move on to Fairfield, the joke gets old real fast. Thereâs less of an effort to actually satirise the culture or films of the time, instead merely making 70s pop culture references without ever actually doing anything with it. Itâs like the Family Guy school of comedy. Take Fantasy Atoll for instance. A pisstake of Fantasy Island, but instead of Mr. Roarke and Tatoo, we get Mr. Pork and Ratpoo. Thatâs the level of humour weâre talking about here.
Whatâs worse is that J. Grant Albrecht and Richard Steven Horwitz donât return as Crypto and Pox. Sean Donnellan and Darryl Kurylo voice the characters instead and itâs just not the same. It doesnât feel like Crypto and Pox. So from the very first cutscene, weâre already off on the wrong foot.
And then thereâs a bunch of other stuff that I find really questionable. The most obvious being the revelation that Colonel Kluckinâ makes his chicken wings from the corpses of the Vietmahl (Vietnam) war, which just seems in very bad taste to me. If there is a satirical point being made here, I canât find it for the life of me. Thereâs also some side missions where Crypto finds out that he and Natalya have a son, which goes absolutely nowhere and doesnât feel like something that should be in a Destroy All Humans game.
Overall, Big Willy Unleashed was a massive dud meant to tide us over until Destroy All Humans 3 came out later in the year. Honestly the one aspect of it I thought had potential was the side missions involving Crypto and Pox being assessed by a Furon Efficiency Expert called Toxoplasma Gondii. Considering what happened in the second game, including the destruction of the Furon Mothership, the return of the Blisk and the Furon operation on Earth being jeoprodised, this could have been a great premise for a sequel.
Instead what we got was...Â
Disco Inferno
Oh boy. Where do I begin?
Path Of The Furon was developed by THQ and Sandblast Games and released in December 2008 on the Xbox 360 in North America. The PS3 version was cancelled because Sandblast (and Locomotive Games) was closed down before development was finished due to THQâs financial problems at the time. However the PS3 version was released in Europe and Australia, so either THQ got another studio to complete it or, more likely, they just released it in a broken, buggy state.
Fans really didnât like this game, myself included, but before we go tearing it a new one, lets look at the few positives the game has. First off, J. Grant Albrecht and Richard Steven Horwitz return to voice Crypto and Pox, which is great. As a result, the original chemistry is back and they help salvage the game when the writing fails to deliver. There are a few cool new weapons, like the Black Hole Gun and the Venus Human Trap, which creates a giant man eating plant. The Saucerâs weapons have been tweaked, so now they affect the environment as well as destroy buildings. So if you fire your Death Ray at the ground, for example, you can create scorch marks. PK now has its own dedicated button, which means you can pick up and throw objects whilst using your guns simultaneously. Thereâs also the titular âPath Of Enlightenment,â which upgrades your mental abilities significantly as well as allowing you to freeze time.
Thatâs the good stuff. The bad stuff is... pretty much everything else.
The humour is, again, quite poor. Rather than satirising 70s culture, the game continues to make references to 70s films like The Godfather and Star Wars, but not actually doing anything with them. Just making the reference. The writing as a whole is quite substandard as the plot pretty much recycles the plots of Destroy All Humans 2 and Big Willy Unleashed, except instead of the Big Willy restaurant, itâs the Space Dust casino and instead of the Blisk, itâs Nexosporidium warriors, who are basically Furon cyborgs. Things do threaten to get a bit interesting when Crypto and Pox discover someone has been manufacturing synthetic Furon DNA, but nothing ever really comes of it. Instead the game focuses mainly on the Master.
Ah yes. The Master.
In an attempt to recapture the magic of the second game, Path Of The Furon tries to spoof kung-fu movies just like how DAH 2 spoofed spy films. Unfortunately this leads us to a slew of unfunny gags, cultural appropriation and some of the worst racial stereotyping I think Iâve ever seen. The Master is a Furon who crashed on Earth a hundred years ago and embroiled himself in Eastern culture, enhancing his PK abilities. This is what he looks like:
YYYYeah.
Oh and if thatâs not awkward enough, he also speaks in an over the top âah soâ accent. Itâs incredibly cringeworthy and made me want to crawl out of my body and hide in the darkest corner I could possibly find. How anyone involved in this gameâs development could look at this deeply racist and downright embarrassing excuse for a character and think this was okay, I donât know.
And before anyone tries to excuse it by saying that he has been living in China for a hundred years, so heâs bound to pick a few things up, please note that Nolan North is in this game playing the Furon Emperor Meningitis, who also has an over the top âah soâ accent. Now I suppose some could argue that the game is satirising how Asian people were portrayed at the time, but if thatâs what the game is going for, theyâve failed miserably. See, the problem with that argument is that replicating something doesnât count as satire. By recreating over the top racist caricatures, youâre not making fun of them. If anything youâre just reinforcing them. The first gameâs satire of the Red Scare worked so much better than this because there was an actual point behind it. It comments on how paranoid the people of the 50s were at the time by using Majestic to exploit the threat of communism in order to cover up alien activity, and everyone willingly buys into it because of that sheer paranoia. Now yes, admittedly the humour in Destroy All Humans isnât the most sophisticated in the world, but it used to be a LOT better than this. Not only do I find the racial stereotyping in this game deeply offensive, itâs also frankly beneath this franchise. And itâs not just limited to the Chinese either. The final act takes us to the Furon homeworld (which was pretty underwhelming after four games worth of buildup) and we meet another Furon called Endometriosis whose only characteristics are that he has an Italian accent and wears a beret. Itâs these broad strokes and general laziness that makes this game such a disappointing experience.
Path Of The Furon is subpar in every way imaginable. The writing, the humour, the gameplay and even the graphics. The first two games looked so much better than this and they were on older consoles from the previous generation. Itâs shocking.
Itâs hard to blame Sandblast Games for this considering they were shut down before development was finished. It was THQâs mismanagement and financial woes that killed off this franchise and indeed themselves. The company went bankrupt in 2012 and their various IPs were sold off to other studios, with Nordic Games buying the lionsâ share, including Destroy All Humans, which briefly reignited hopes that we might get another game, but that seemed unlikely considering the franchise has never exactly been a mainstream success. There was even talks of doing an animated sitcom based on the games for Fox, to be written by the same guy who did King Of The Hill, but that never went anywhere.
No. It seemed like Destroy All Humans was gone for good and fans reluctantly made peace with that. It was fun while it lasted, but perhaps it was time to move on.
Oh The Furonity!
Iâm not going to lie. I was pretty sure we were never going to see Destroy All Humans return. Not just because of its lack of mainstream appeal, but also because game development studios and publishers in recent years have become more and more reluctant to make single player, mid-tier games. Instead pivoting toward massive triple A releases and âlive servicesâ. So it came as a rather pleasant surprise when Nordic Games, now named THQ Nordic, released Darksiders III in 2018, a sequel to a series of games that were also not very mainstream but still had a significant cult following. This briefly reignited a small flicker of hope within me that maybe, just maybe, we might see our favourite Furon return.
And as you already know, I got my wish. A new Destroy All Humans game will be released next year by THQ Nordic and Black Forest Games.
So what can this remake learn from the franchiseâs past? Well thankfully the writing and voice acting is going to remain the same, so story, characterisation and humour wonât be an issue. Theyâre also incorporating elements from the sequels such as Transmogrify from Destroy All Humans 2 and giving PK its own button like in Path Of The Furon. Thereâs also a few new additions that Iâm excited about such as the ability to dodge and strafe using the jetpack. That should make combat much more exciting and dynamic. I know a few people have a problem with the new cartoony designs of the humans and the world, but I honestly donât mind. In fact I think it suits the tone and setting quite well. Hopefully people will eventually get used to it. The big question mark hovering over all this is whether theyâre planning to remake the other games in the series. I for one would love to see a remake of the second game. As for Big Willy Unleashed and Path Of The Furon, I think itâs best to leave them firmly in the past. The big dream would be to see Crypto and Pox have further adventures together beyond the first two games. Hopefully even have enough sequels to get the characters to the present day. Weâll just have to wait and see what the future brings. My only word of advice for them would be to never forget what made the first two games so good and so beloved. Big Willy Unleashed and Path Of The Furon lost their way, as its writing and humour grew lazier and lazier. If we are fortunate enough to get more games, the developers will need to remember what it was about the first game that made it so special and build off of it.
This is a second chance. Not a lot of franchises get this. Donât waste it. Hereâs hoping the remake will provide the definitive Destroy All Humans experience and that it will gain the success it deserves.
#destroy all humans#pandemic studios#locomotive games#sandblast games#thq#video games#quill's scribbles
22 notes
¡
View notes
Note
Y don't u care abt UsUm?
// Short answer; because I feel Nintendo doesnât either.
And now a long answer because Iâve been sitting on this rant for ages and I bothered the Discord server enough with it. I want to put foward first that the opinions expressed here are my own. I am a big fan of Nintendo and this is something that bothers me. This is no way shape or form an attack to people who love these games to bits. This is also not meant to hate on a franchise or a company. The purpose of this rant is to put some arguments behind my statements.
Sources are linked in the text. I used Nintendo but I always meant everyone involved in the making of these games.
The reason I feel comfortable sharing it now is because people have their, rightful, concerns about the upcoming games; Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield, releasing in a few short weeks for the Nintendo Switch. Nintendoâs newest and most succesful baby.Â
Why doesnât Nintendo care about Pokemon, according to you?
First we need to ask ourselves;
How much does Nintendo make on Pokemon?
While I do think they care in a sense the numbers wonât lie. Pokemon has made around $95 billion US dollars since the franchise came to life in 1996. To put it in a way bigger number; they make about 4130434782.61 US dollars PER YEAR on Pokemon. (This is my own math, I do not know the exact numbers per year. I divded their total by the amount of years Pokemon has been alive.) Thatâs a lot of money and itâs with right the most financially succesful franchise to date.Â
Only a part is made by the video games $17.138 billion. Itâs merchandise makes more; $64.1 billion.
I could not find a reliable source on how much it takes to make a Pokemon game in monetary value. What I could find however is that Pokemon is making less and less per game they release. Without counting Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, Sun and Moon made LESS than X and Y. Â
The only main series game that made less than Sun and Moon (again not counting UsUm) was Black/White.
Nintendo knows people will buy their games anyway;
Dropping sales or no, Pokemon still manages to fatten the piggy bank over at Nintendo because people will buy it anyway. The Pokemon craze of the 90â˛s should tell you that. People would buy it if it had Pokemon on it. Those people are now in an age group that has money to spend, hell some even have kids. So Nintendo is smart and releases commercials like this one or this one. This marketing is beautiful (and no, not only Nintendo knows how to do this) because they play on your feelings. Who didnâ make a friend because you both liked Pokemon? And if you grew up with Pokemon like the person in the second commercial the whole feeling and setting is famillair to you, hell they couldâve casted you and it wouldâve make sense. They compare the whole bleakness of adult life, having to work to pay the bills, having less time for video games, to that warm familliar feeling of coming home and playing Pokemon. They feed on your nostalgia; your desire to relive those moments or if you have kids, to share the feeling those games gave you with your off spring. Or your younger siblings or other family memmbers. I catch myself doing it! When a young one comes up to me, or I see a kid play the game on the bus I get that familiar feeling of âHey I used to do that!â Itâs smart and itâs a thing Disney is good at too. It zooms in on what was precious to you and now resells that feeling to you.Â
âHey buy our game to feel something again. The world sucks anyway but Bulbasaur is still cute!â This isnât a bad thing! Nintendo is a company and at the end of the day they need to make money. That is fair and I am in no way bagging on them over that. But itâs my belief that Nintendo keeps making money on the Pokemon games this way. Which leads me to my next point;
The Pokemon games come across as lazy.
Again, opinion but it feels like that. Which is also why I donât care for UsUm; itâs lazy.
I truly believe Pokemon has some decent writers who donât get their chance to shine. The beginnings of great stories and characters are there but it feels unfinished. Like someone bought the ingredients to a delicious dish but forgot to make them. Over the years Pokemon has a colorful bunch of characters, and the ones that stand out the most are the baddies. They usually get the coolest designs, the sickest themes, one way or another they are present in the climax but again. Itâs lazy. How many of them pretend to be good or have a high moral standing and then turn out to be absolute dickbags? Almost all of them. Then they have characters (Ghetsis, Lusamine and Faba come to mind first) do something horrible (abuse of minors and playing God) and they get away with it what is basically a slap on the wrist.Â
And after you beat them⌠for me the story stops. Yes you can go and beat some very powerful trainers and claim your title as whatever the thing in this game is and yes often that unlocks some post credit content but itâs bare. The big threat is gone.
âBut,â I hear you say âItâs a DS/3DS game. There is only so much you can do.â Disagree. Phoenix Wright, Ghost Trick, Professor Layton and The Legend of Zelda OoT 3DS and Majoraâs Mask all released on the same consoles and have a much richer story and even more characters. All games keep their pacing and the story really feels like it ends when the credits role.Â
Then there is the overal quality. The main characters in Sun/Moon looks like someone forgot to progamme their soul in: /Screenshot take from THIS video/
I, again, easily could compare this other games who have much more expressions but letâs take one of Nintendoâs own;
There is so much more emotion in the Legend of Zelda one. It released a few years earlier than Pokemon Sun/Moon too.
Second the frame rate drops like a hat. While some framerate drop is expected this much is a little too glaring to ignore. To compare it to BoTW or Red Dead Redemption on the PS4, who both also have some frame rate issues at times it only happens in certain locations, usually a spot with lots of effects of NPCs. In my opinion, Pokemon does not have the luxery of that excuse. It would random drop in almost every location i was in.
The story
Every Pokemon has a story and I get that itâs basic. Itâs a game for all ages after all. I get it wonât have a deep story like other games have. The basic gist of the game is to still enjoy catching all these monâs with occasional story woven into it. But here is the thing that irks me; The little sneak peaks of story that we do get.. itâs good. Itâs just so unfinished. Itâs like there is a constant battle in the developers room betweeing writing a deep and interesting story (Iâm not counting Pokemon Lore, just the story given in a game) and focussing on just the gameplay. There are many examples of rich story games with little gameplay (Grim Fandango, The Walking Dead, Almost every Visual Novel ever, Detroit; Become Human, just to name a few.) There are games with lots of gameplay and little story (Mobile games for example) and there are games that mix story and gameplay perfectly (Red Dead Redemption, Left 4 Dead 2, Persona 5 to name just a FEW examples)Â
I feel Pokeon TRIES to be all three of these styles of games but ends up failing at everything.
Storywise they lured peopel in with Team Rainbow Rocket, like mentioned before this is for most people the reason they get drawn in; seeing their old baddies return and getting to interact with them again. Itâs the same reason for me. But it feels unpolished, same with The Ultra Recon Squad. They seem like GREAT characters but again, so little is done with them that I feel there could be so much more.
Donât change a winning team.Â
Pokemon has been selling the same game to us for years. Again, I donât blame them. Why bother. People like it, why change it? They try new gimmicks now and again and I respect them for trying. I personally like the Letâs Go Eevee/Pikachu versions. While they were FAR from perfect I can at least applaud them for doing something new and interesting. While at the same time trying to lure people who only played the mobile app into the main series by remake the first game all over again. Again, I understand. I would too if I were them.
But with Sword and Shield they are taking something away; Pokemon. And with that the whole thing comes undone. This is supposed to be THE Pokemon game, the big one, the game that will release on The Switch; home of BoTw and Mario Odyessy but also the upcoming Witcher 3, Skyrim. Games that are all much bigger than Pokemon and yet they took a vital part out of it.
The video is deleted now and I wonât link to the Chinese Bootleg game as it does steal user data, but the whole issue was the animations. The animations in the bootleg were GOOD. And if we remember the amount of Pokemon makes per year they can afford themselves a team of good animators. This isnât some indie studio who employs 20 people and have to live of Kickstarter donations, this is GAME FREAK, this is NINTENDO. And itâs not like they canât, please remember Pokemon Stadium. Look at the animation on that. Now remember that Legend of Zelda, Ocarina of Time, ALSO came out for the Nintendo 64 and got a beautiful update on the 3DS. If they can do that, surely they can port the animations.
And yes, Iâm hearing you. You say that there are a lot of Pokemon.. but theyâre taking a lot of them out of Sword and Shield. So there is no excuse for the battles to look like this. And remember this is the same console that has BoTW, one of the most applauded games in recent gaming history. A game with tons of content, tons of NPCs, tons of Items and has almost none of the issues Pokemon has.
I donât care about USUM because itâs a lazy cash grab that adds nothing new to the table except some side story that doesnât do anything to the main story. Play UsuM, Play SuMo, youâre basically getting the same game. Nintendo is smart and tries to sell you the same game twice due to a Pokemon being unique to a game. Meaning that if you want them all, youâre going to have to fork over 120 US dollars and guess what? That version is almost sold out where I live. So itâs working. And I donât blame them. I am impressed.
Because I get the feeling that, with absolutely minimum effort they are forking in insane amounts of money. Nintendo is a company. They need money. I donât blame them for doing the things they do. I am however, entitled to my opinion and despite everything said above I will see myself getting a copy of Sword or Shield in the future. Because that is how it always is. Because I too, want to relive the moments of my youth when the biggest concern I had was chosing my starter.
#ask#pokemon#pokemon rant#the pokemon rant#non fiction#my writing#i went a little far lmao#pokemon sun#pokemon moon#nintendo#i still adore nintendo so don't get me wrong#but part of being a fan of something#is being able to say#that something isn't 100% perfect#i didn't proofread this at all#because i don't have eyes
4 notes
¡
View notes
Text
N'Pressions: Netflix' Carmen Sandiego
I will admit my past experiences with the Carmen Sandiego franchise is a mix of both enjoyment and frustration. My first encounter with the series was that my grandpa had the original black and white game installed on his Mac II and half the time me and my brother were guessing and constantly losing because who knew you needed the accompanying Almanac to go with it. Also I was like six and my brother four and we didnât even know what an Almanac was. We did sporadically watch the game show; both the geography and history ones, when our mother let us watch TV and well as the cartoon that came up on the Fox. To memory the only other game we ever owned was the USA specific one that we played to heck out of.
 I was not even aware that there was a reboot in the making until I had gotten an email from Netflix about some shows I might like. I glanced at the trailer on YouTube and admittedly was not exactly enthusiastic about the premise. From what it appeared to be, we were following Carmen specifically and that, while she was still a thief, she stole from other thieves. Sly Cooper. They were essentially premiering a Sly Cooper type show. Why didnât Sly get his own show?! Okay so the Ratchet and Clank movie tanked, but you have a bit more wiggle room with a show guys! Heck technically there is 2D animation in the Sly series, it would not look out of place. Well despite my disappointment, I decided to give this a fair shake.
The theme song is meh. Honestly it just doesnât stick with me like the previous three version. And yes, as corny as it was, I still like the Where in Time theme. I get what theyâre trying to do though; invoking a jazzy tone like in the James Bond series, Pink Panther, or Catch me if you Can-it just feels very generic to me. Which is an honest shame because the animation for the opener is beautiful. The black and white cut out backgrounds with the trademark red coat gliding through and the title character eluding capture is just a treat. Again it works really well with the mood and tone of the show; a spy-action chase theme traversing the world. Like I said it does feel like theyâre trying to invoke that classic thief/spy films. Itâs just the theme doesnât stick with me.
And as for the reboot itself, the show decides to elaborate and remake Carmen Sandiegoâs origin. Now I donât know if people were clamoring for this, but I never really came across any howling dissent like with She-Ra or Powerpuff Girls when this news came out. Most of the reactions Iâve seen were either excitement or hesitation. And letâs face it, any time there is a reboot there is reasonable grounds for reluctance. Now with Carmen there is a bit more of a leeway here. After all, at least to my memory, a set personality or origin for her. You knew she was a thief that wanted you to know it was her, someone who enjoyed the chase, and was very crafty and intelligent. Also mysterious.
So the new concept is that Carmen, or Black Sheep as her former name, was an orphan found by one of the V.I.L.E faculty members, Ms. Blunt and raised on V.I.LE Headquarters island where she had a series of various tutors who taught her geography, history, and world culture. She also learned a few other things by osmosis from other members of the organization and was also a bit of a prankster and precocious. Eventually she is allowed to train in the next school year where only 40 thieves graduate per year (clever pun). And itâs here where we meet some of the her schoolmates who will eventually her antagonists for the season. And if I may put in aside her, this show does this SO much better than She-Ra. The show actually does take the time to make them more or less fleshed out characters so you know the kinds of threats they will eventually be later on in the show. With She-Ra theyâre more like set pieces then anything else (save for Catra, but whatever). Anyway the school is run by five faculty members each with their own personality and gimmick to their methods of crime. And watching these guys is very enjoyable. The best comparison I can think of is the Kingdom Hearts series where if you compare the organization of Disney Villains and Origination XIII in terms of interaction and entertainment. The former classmates are more like Organization XIII. Sure they have their own gimmicks and personas, but they donât stand out as much and their interaction with Carmen is more professional and serious. The only exception may be Tigress-but sheâs more of a rival. Also I am convinced two of those guys are gay and it actually feels natural because itâs not their most outstanding feature. With the Faculty, it is a lot more personal. Plus their egos often clash with one another and theyâve got no qualms taunting or flaunting othersâ failures and their own successes. There is someone of a sixth member, who is the bookkeeper for V.I.L.E. Fun fact, she is voiced by the original Carmen and the reboot Carmen steals her soon to be trademark hat and coat from her. That is one of the cleverest pass the torches EVER.
Anyway, Carmen is flunked from the course and is forced to take it over. However she stows away on the place heading for heist where she learns the true face of V.I.L.E. She doesnât have a problem with theft, itâs the fact that the organization is willing to kill to get what it wants. There are other atrocities but I wonât spoil them here. So finding this out, she escapes the island with stolen data with the help of a hacker named Player and vows to destroy V.I.L.E by stealing thigs before they do and or steal back from them.
For the rest of the series, it plays itself out a straightforward heist and chase show. At the same time either Carmen or Player will drop factoids about each place they visit either to each other or to Carmenâs two assistants: Zack and Ivy. They are also perused by Interpol agents Chase Devineaux and Julia Argent. Chase is a by the book officer who is persistent in pursuit and isnât too interested in history and cultural facts. I would not call him stupid but rather heâs focused on the hunt and will do what he has to in order to keep up the chase. Also he has some of the best comedic lines in the show. Julia is more the bookworm and slow burning patient partner. ACME is also part of the chase as well as a shadow organization dedicated to tracking down and stopping VILE. When I first heard the two agents mention Chief I was super excited to see the return of the Chief andâŚshrugs. And nothing against Dawnn Lewis but she doesnât strike me with authority the same way Lynne Thigpen did. Also I am kinda sad that they went the more generic men in black look. Sure the old red and yellow coats were cheesy, but theyâve stuck in my mind more than anything. Plus with VILEâs color schemes being mostly green, black, and grey it would have made for the perfect contrast.
The show goes more for of a cutout style along the vein of shows like 6teen and Chaotix season 1 (yeah remember that show?) with coloring resembling more of a painterly style. Basically similar to the style of the opening but a bit more simplified. For the most part I donât mind it too much; but it tends to be not always as flexible when it comes to the action sequences. This is more noticeable with it comes to sequences that involve impacts, but theyâre too brief to really notice unless youâre actively looking for them. Same thing goes for other things like follow through and squash and stretch. But for a first season especially with this kind of animation, I will give them credit that more the most part its consistent and nine times out of then it doesnât feel stiff and awkward. If I have a minor nitpick itâs more the character designs themselves. I feel like a lot of these designs Iâve seen in other shows and none of them really stand out to me. Sure the old VILE agent designs from the show and games were kooky and sometimes questionable in design choices, but they still felt a bit more individual.
And now on to Carmen herself. Honestly, sheâs fine. Sure they changed her to more of a grey hero but they didnât toss off what made people like her. Sheâs fast on her feet, able to use what the situation gives her, and she is a skilled thief even when pitted against members of her own class. The only ones who really give her great trouble that she has yet to really outmatch are when sheâs going against facility members head on. Which makes sense as they are more experienced than her. Hell, she almost gets hugged to death in one episode. Admittedly the humor in the show is 50/50. I laughed at a few jokes, but most were minor shrugs. At least there was not anything that made me cringe or face palm.
I honestly enjoyed myself and I felt the show was in the spirit of the original series. While focusing on Carmen and making her a Robin Hood-esque character was an odd choice they didnât forget what the core of the series was. Globetrotting heists, geographical education, and just good old straight forward action. Also thank you so much for just focusing on being good educational entertainment. For actually being something that a broad spectrum can genuinely enjoy and not feel talked down to or pandered. I am very excited for the next season. So good job guys. Iâm Noctina Noir and Iâm one Nox of a Nobody.
8 notes
¡
View notes
Video
youtube
NO.Â
I HAVE MORE TO SAY ABOUT THIS.Â
Besides just âwhy???â over and over, though I am definitely thinking that.Â
And like also just a general confusion over why you would call this Reboot when it has nothing to do with Reboot? Besides one icon (that does not seem to even SERVE the purpose it served in the original story, and instead is just, like, a logo) and one character design (hi Megabyte WHAT tHE FUCK) it has no similarities and like
Putting aside questions like âwho would even want to make a Reboot reboot without Dot Matrix, the best cartoon lady of all time?â and a thousand others (I started typing them out, but they are too many). Letâs just.Â
Letâs just talk.Â
About Reboot.Â
The real Reboot.Â
Look, Reboot is beloved but there are some logistical nonsense problems that youâd want to address here in the future. None super important? To the main gimmicks? But some.Â
So letâs address the BASIC PREMISE to Reboot:
âAnthropomorphized software/processes living inside the world of the computer serve as the NPCs in video games loaded by the semi-mythical unproven force called The User. It is their job to try to prevent the user from winning the games.â
Thatâs it. Thatâs the hook. Two big world things. One: The User takes on almost the state of an unknowable capricious God, messing with their lives for reasons unknown. This just fun fucking world-building. Two: We see video games played out from the position of rooting for the computer to beat the player - a fun role reversal for us, and also a chance to do many many many TV and video game parodies, which were the bread and butter of the original series.Â
Meanwhile, we get two other big World Moments - malware/viruses that try to disrupt operation of the computer (Megabyte and Hexadecimal, primarily), and The Guardian (Bob), who is basically antivirus software meant to stop them.Â
This is all very very good.Â
The BIG story beat youâd probably want to find a write-around for if doing a remake (instead of a sequel - which, fine. Most people donât even KNOW the original series was cancelled on a big cliffhanger) is the Games themselves, just because there are parts of that system that didnât make sense then, that make even less sense now. Basically that losing games to the user would do damage to the sector the game was loaded in - that doesnât make sense? Winning a lot of video games will not destroy your computer.Â
But that doesnât mean we canât have other motivations for needing to beat the game and other personal consequences for losing the games.Â
And basically.Â
Iâm mad.Â
Because technology has gotten so much more vital and sinister and interesting and kind of alive in ways we donât understand since the original Reboot and there is so much to mine there for a really good fucking modern remake??
Things to consider: spyware, cookies, machine learning, invasion of privacy, sinister entities taking over your computer, sinister entities tracking your computer usage
Things to consider: âSelf-teachingâ software works by deleting inefficient programs and manipulating and re-testing working ones in a rapid-pace artificial evolution, and in that scenario it would fucking suck to be the not best software, wouldnât it?Â
Iâm just! So mad! A new Reboot could be so good! And so actually topical??? Plus like there are so many more new video games to parody now. GIVE ME MY OVERWATCH PARODY. Put the characters in a game like Minecraft where there is no fail state for the user and have them try to figure out what their job in such a game even is.Â
I just. Thereâs so much there! If you wanted to bring back actual Reboot!!!
And instead THIS?? WHAT EVEN IS THIS???
WHAT THE FUCK EVEN IS THIS????
34 notes
¡
View notes
Text
Staff Picks: Our Favorite Video Games of 2019
Welcome to the second part of our annual âStaff Picks,â in which the Ani-Gamers team selects some of our favorite anime, manga, and video games of the past year. This time weâre talking video games!
As usual there are a lot of games to cover, and between our two contributors we werenât able to play nearly as many of them as weâd like. This year saw two standout first-party Nintendo RPGs, including the first-ever original core-series PokĂŠmon games on a home console, the long-awaited release of Hideo Kojimaâs inscrutable Death Stranding, a new AAA Star Wars action game (Jedi: Fallen Order), and both Outer Worlds and Outer Wilds. Meanwhile, last yearâs big story of game industry unionization has continued to make headlines, notably at the Game Developerâs Conference in the spring, where major industry figures publically expressed their support for unionization. And thatâs not the only area where politics had a big impact on gaming in 2019 ��� Blizzardâs suspension of Blitzchung over his support for the Hong Kong protests highlighted the contradiction between the values held by game industry workers (including pro players) and their bosses. As uncomfortable as these conversations are, theyâre vital for building a more ethical industry.
In terms of the games themselves, many of them didnât make it out of our piles of shame in time for the Staff Picks, but the ones that made the cut cover a wide range of genres, including complex action games, extremely anime JRPGs, and obtuse puzzlers. Enjoy, and feel free to chime in with your own 2019 picks in the comments.
David Estrella
#3: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
The hardest part about Sekiro was mending my relationship with my podcast co-host after debating the ethical conundrum of difficult video games and being made to look like a prick on tape. Iâm completely making up what happened so donât ban me from the site, Evan. Levity aside, the irony is that I never actually finished Sekiro and gave up at an endgame optional boss. A far departure from both Dark Souls and Bloodborne, From Softwareâs katana-focused revenge story did a Shinobi Execution to my hundreds of hours of experience and I was forced to learn everything over again. Some people really got on board with the action-focused gameplay whereas I flunked out of samurai school, so Sekiro is only the third-best pick from me on my list. If there had been more lore to pick up off the ground, I probably would have finished it, but I think everyoneâs favorite fantasy author, George R.R. Martin, has me covered with Elden Ring, which will definitely be closer to what I expect from Hidetaka Miyazaki than what I got from Sekiro.
#2: Resident Evil 2
I originally wrote in Fire Emblem: Three Houses in here but I never finished that game in 2019. Resident Evil 2 (2019) on the other hand is a game I beat again and again throughout the year when I should have been focusing on other games (like Fire Emblem). First released on PlayStation over 20 years ago, the RE2 remake takes every great bit from that classic and reimagines it in the new engine used for Resident Evil 7. Fighting to survive Raccoon Cityâs zombie apocalypse again with Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield in a game rebuilt for modern standards is not something I expected to see, but I suppose Capcom didnât want to be shown up by Square Enix reviving the 32-bit era with the upcoming episodic Final Fantasy VII remakes. Conveniently enough, now that Iâve played RE2 inside out, weâre already getting the Resident Evil 3 remake in April, so now Iâve got one more good reason to put off finishing a single run of Fire Emblem in my lifetime.
#1: PokĂŠmon Sword & Shield
No one should be surprised that I would call PokĂŠmon Sword and Shield my top pick of the year. The only purpose for me doing this is to get it in writing but otherwise, yes, I really loved this iteration of the series. The reasons why I enjoyed it so much have practically nothing to do with the hyped-up gimmicks like Dynamax battles or the shift to console. On the one hand, things like story and environment design could have been much better, and on the other hand, I never want to go back to the old games after experiencing all of the quality-of-life changes made in Sword and Shield. Details that casual players wonât care about or ever become aware of like paying for max EVs with vitamins or using mints to change Natures have completely changed the game for anyone serious about raising PokĂŠmon. If I were asked if these improvements were worth losing over 400 PokĂŠmon from the roster, I would probably cry. Maybe. Maybe it was worth it.
Evan Minto
#3: Katana Zero
I played Superhot on a VR rig once, and it was the closest I ever felt to being a real-life action hero. In that game, âtime moves when you do,â allowing you to plan out elaborate, perfectly executed lethal maneuvers in Matrix-esque bullet time. Katana Zero applies a similar concept to the 2-D action-platformer. You play as a samurai assassin in a dystopian cyberpunk future, equipped with a power that allows you to rewind time when you die and slow it down while in combat. The former is mostly experienced as a simple respawn mechanic, but the latter is what turns Katana Zero into a unique hybrid of a puzzle and action game. Each room is filled with bad guys who can one-hit kill you, sometimes so many that defeating them all would be impossible using standard action game timing. Slowing things down, however, turns the game into a sort of puzzle, and allows you to link up dashes, wall jumps, sword slashes, and projectile throws in the span of a second or two. When the game plays the room back in real time, you really do feel like some kind of superhero. It doesnât hurt that the whole thing is wrapped up in an impeccable audiovisual package, featuring intricately animated pixel art, pulsing electronic music, and a clever dialogue display system that combines animated and colored text. The story is pretty standard stuff for the genre, but the surprisingly funny dialogue does a great job cutting the melodrama. Itâs nothing groundbreaking, but Katana Zero is a clever, well-crafted little action game.
#2: Baba Is You
I tried Baba Is You for the first time at a friendâs place, and was instantly sold. After just a few levels, I told him, âthis is a game for game designers.â The core mechanic is deceptively, deviously simple: the rules defining how the game world operates are blocks within the world, and you can rearrange them. The early levels are straightforward, if abstract, plays on this concept. Form the sentence âFlag is winâ and youâve got a win condition. Break up the sentence âWall is stopâ and voila: walls are no longer an obstacle. Itâs when Baba Is You takes the core mechanic and folds it in on itself repeatedly, however, that this puzzler reaches the realm of obtuse, mind-bending complexity. You can change which sprite represents the player character, or even control multiple players at once. You can separate sprites into layers that prevent them from intersecting with each other. Even the words that form the sentences themselves can be modified! Baba Is You sometimes reaches nearly impossible levels of difficulty, but since you can choose the order in which to try the puzzles, the game will never stop you dead in your tracks. This kind of bizarre, postmodern weirdness is exactly what I come to indie games for.
#1: Fire Emblem: Three Houses
I never even finished the easiest half of Fire Emblem: Fates (Birthright), but I was glued to Awakening on the DS, my introduction to the franchise. In Three Houses Nintendo and Intelligent Systems arenât even pretending that Fire Emblem is anything but a dating sim; you play as a part-time professor, part-time general, and the tactical RPG battles are interlaced with segments where you have to run around your home base talking to all of your students/units (fully voiced this time). At first this cumbersome back-and-forth, combined with a bevy of new combat mechanics, can make Three Houses feel like a game trapped between two conflicting identities, but after a few hours it clicked for me. All of the gameâs seemingly mismatched systems, from the battalions to the tea parties, talk to and reinforce each other. Building relationships between your units boosts their stats and opens up opportunities to train them in new skills, all of which make them more effective in battle. Then their battle experience alongside their comrades feeds right back into their relationships. These mechanics have been around in some form since at least Awakening, but here they meld together like never before. Three Houses is a bewildering and sometimes overcomplicated successor to the Fire Emblem legacy, but the whole mess somehow comes together into a spellbinding experience.
Check out our 2019 Manga Staff Picks as well!
Staff Picks: Our Favorite Video Games of 2019 originally appeared on Ani-Gamers on January 8, 2020 at 4:58 PM.
By: David Estrella
0 notes