Month: October 2012

#oneaday Day 997: Rally the Troops

While the world and his dog is playing XCOM (which I fully intend to at some point — just not yet) it’s been quite interesting to contrast the experience of playing Aselia the Eternal, which I first mentioned a few days back. At first glance, you might not think there’s much to connect these two games, but after about 6 or 7 hours of Aselia’s visual novel stuff (which is good in and of itself — but more on that in a future READ.ME column on Games Are Evil) you get into a surprisingly hardcore strategy RPG type thing, where you have a big scary overworld map, squads of warriors, buildings, resources and a need to actually think about what you do.

But there’s an interesting side-effect to the fact that you’ve spent 6 hours reading before you get to pick up a sword and start twatting things — you develop an emotional investment in these characters. And this is where the XCOM comparison (or, more accurately, contrast) comes in. In XCOM, people typically rename their characters to customise them and feel like they’re playing with people they “know” or have designed. The simple act of renaming a character, in most cases, is enough to develop a degree of “attachment”.

In Aselia, meanwhile, you don’t get to rename the characters, but you do get to see what they’re like off the battlefield — and not just in a training room sort of scenario. No, a big part of Aselia involves having conversations and seeing these characters going about their daily lives. We learn a lot about their attitude towards combat, and even more about the game world’s social hierarchy.

This means that when you go into battle with Aselia, Esperia and Orpha, you know who these people are, you care about them and you want them to succeed. You want them to come back safely — and not just because in most cases allowing one of the main characters to die causes an immediate Game Over. You’re cheering for them as they take on increasingly-improbable odds, and you nurture them, training them up to be as badass as they can possibly be in order to take on these rising challenges. I can only assume this feeling of attachment will increase as the game progresses and the romantic subplots start.

It’s one of the most interesting things about Aselia the Eternal, in fact. Like most visual novels, it’s primarily been designed as a storytelling vehicle, in which the gameplay serves the narrative. The “battle” gameplay will frequently break for the characters to have a moment of soul-searching (or, more often, the protagonist to have some sort of at least partially-justified mental breakdown). Between battles there may be several hours of sitting around talking, drinking tea and bouncing underage-looking girls on your knee. But there’s a great feeling of coherence to the game, helped partly by the fact that even though the strategy component is broken into discrete missions, there is persistence in the game world — any character improvements, buildings and other business you did in a previous mission will still be there when you next hit the battlefield.

It’s clear, in short, that the game is someone’s vision rather than something that’s been focus-grouped. While this means it undoubtedly won’t be universally appealing — not everyone enjoys spending six hours reading before they get to “do” anything — it makes for an experience that is dripping with personality and a feeling of authorial ownership. Someone wrote this as a story rather than designing it as a game, and it’s a very interesting contrast to titles where the lines between narrative and gameplay are more clearly demarcated.

Further thoughts as I continue — it’s a lengthy game, so expect at least one or two more posts on the subject.

#oneaday Day 996: はじめまして

I’ve been doing a bit more on my 日本語 studies recently thanks to the excellent iOS app Human Japanese. This app is essentially little more than an electronic textbook, but it does a few things that are enormously helpful, particularly when attempting to learn hiragana. For starters, when learning the various characters, you can tap on them to see the appropriate stroke order, which is apparently important. Then there’s revision quizzes throughout the chapters that, in the case of the hiragana chapters I’ve been trawling slowly through so far, allow you to test yourself by attempting to read the characters and determine what the various “words” (or, more accurately, combinations of syllables) make up. I was quite pleased when I realised I knew how to spell one of School Days’ characters, whose name also happens to be the word for “world” — せかい.

I’ve also learned how typing in Japanese works, and I think it’s probably going to be quite a helpful way to learn the hiragana characters, particularly with the way the iPhone’s Japanese keyboards work.

For those unfamiliar (and curious enough to continue reading) it works like this: the Japanese hiragana character set, which tends to be the first “alphabet” that beginners learn, is split into “sets”, and the iPhone hiragana keyboard simply represents these sets — press and hold on one and you’ll see the five different characters that make up each set. Rather than simply vowels and consonants like we have in English, hiragana characters all represent a complete syllable rather than an individual sound or, as more commonly happens in English, a number of possible sounds. Think of how many possible ways you can pronounce the letter “O” depending on where it is in a word, for example — confusing when you think about it that way, isn’t it? Not so in hiragana — each character always sounds the same when read aloud.

Each of the aforementioned “sets” is made up of, at the very least, a vowel sound, and often a consonant. When learning the vowels, rather than the order A, E, I, O, U we English speakers are used to, Japan uses A, I, U, E, O. In hiragana, the symbols for these vowel sounds are あいうえお. These, of course, have absolutely no resemblance to the Roman characters we use in English, so it’s necessary to actually drill them into yourself by repeatedly writing them down over and over. I already have several pages of a notebook devoted to effectively writing “AAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIUUUUUUUUUEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOO” which I hope is never used as evidence against me in a Japanese court because it makes me look proper mental, like, innit.

Anyway, yes, sets — beyond the initial vowels, each set is combined with a consonant. For example, the K-set runs ka, ki, ku, ke, ko or, in hiragana, かきくけこ. Just to make matters more complicated, certain characters can add a little symbol called a ten-ten or dakuten to themselves to “soften” the sound and make another set of sounds. For example, the K-set can be softened to the G-set, which runs ga, gi, gu, ge, go or, in hiragana, がぎぐげご. It might be difficult to see at that font size, but the little quote mark-like symbol in the upper-right of each of those characters is the ten-ten that softens the sound — or, more accurately, turns an unvoiced consonant into a voiced one.

I’ve actually been quite surprised how quickly some of these symbols have stuck in my head — though the problem with learning them by rote is that you start to remember them according to the patterns rather than in context and out of order. I seem to find some symbols much easier to remember than others — I can remember all the basic vowels without much difficulty, for example, and the K/G sets are also reasonably firm in my mind, but the others gradually drop off in memorability. This is probably nothing more than a side-effect of the order in which I’ve learned them — I’ve known the vowels and the K/G sets longest, so it’s unsurprising I know them the best — but I’ve still been quite impressed with myself that I can successfully decipher if not the meaning of words just yet, then at least the sounds therein. It’ll come with time.

The thing to keep doing, I think, is just to keep immersing myself in as much of it as possible. I’m picking up words all the time by listening to Japanese language-track anime and games, and now that I’m learning the hiragana I’ll be able to spell (and, by extension) read them before long too. When I can read and understand a Japanese sentence, I’ll be truly impressed with myself, but it remains to be seen how long that will take me. And then there’s kanji to worry about after that, but we’ll cross that particular bridge when we come to it.

Anyway, so, if you’re the slightest bit interested in learning Japanese via self-study, check out Human Japanese. It’s available on iPhone, iPad and Android and there are lite versions to try out before you splash the cash. Pretty generous lite versions, too — you should be able to figure out whether or not you’re going to have difficulty without having to spend a penny. Which is nice.

がんばって！Or something.

#oneaday Day 995: Cultural Victory

Can you have too much culture? Can the sum of human creative endeavours add up to too much for someone to take in?

Well, first of all, those are two different questions. The answer to the second one, at least, is “yes”; the former? I’m not so sure.

We’re already at a point where there is so much Stuff in the world it’s impossible to keep on top of it all. Whatever media you’re into, be it books, movies, TV shows, music or games, there’s enough Stuff out there to keep you entertained probably for the rest of your life in just one of those formats, let alone if you, like most people, spread your time between several. Even if you spend your time focusing entirely on one genre within a single medium, you’ll never get to the bottom of the pile. You’ll never “finish” culture. You’ll never see everything there is to see.

Depending on your outlook, this is either a fantastic thing or incredibly depressing news. For many, there’s a degree of “shame” over not having caught up on things that are supposedly “canonical” or “essential” for everyone to have read/seen/played/whatever. The very term “pile of shame” (from which the Squadron of Shame takes its name) is used to refer to one’s backlog of entertainment that has been purchased but not consumed — or, in some cases, the definition is stretched a little to include Stuff that the owner of said pile intends to consume at some point in the future, but perhaps hasn’t quite got around to just yet.

With books, it’s fine. Books are passed down from generation to generation; republished and republished. Today, we can keep a book alive forever by converting it to a digital format and scattering it to the four corners of the Internet. Sure, you lose some of the joy of turning paper pages and that distinctive musty smell they have, but at least the important bit — that’s the work printed on those pages, lest you forget — is immortalised. You can read it on your computer; on your tablet device; on your e-reader; on your phone. You can annotate it and share your thoughts with other people around the world in an instant. Books are just fine.

Music, too, has proven itself to be pretty timeless over the years — for the most part, anyway. Throughout history there has been plenty of “disposable” music, but the true greats endure for years. Look how long the works of Bach and Mozart have lasted — people are still listening to, performing and studying these pieces hundreds of years after they were first composed. In more recent years, look at how the music of artists such as Elvis Presley and the Beatles is still interesting and relevant today. In very recent years… well, it remains to be seen which artists (if any) will leave a lasting legacy on culture, but there will almost certainly be some. (And if there’s any justice, it won’t be anyone who has ever won or been involved with The X-Factor.)

Movies, too, have become increasingly timeless with the improvements in technology over the years. While once a movie only lasted as long as the medium on which it was physically printed, now, like books, we can archive and keep movies forever. Sure, some moviemaking techniques now look antiquated and are unpalatable to modern audiences, but those truly interested in the full history of the medium can trawl back as far as they wish and see how it has developed.

Games, though, are arguably a bit more tricky, as they have an inherent “expiry date” due to the numerous proprietary technologies involved. While emulation technology is getting better all the time, it’s still not perfect, and the legal grey areas surrounding it make it something that some people prefer to shy away from altogether. When you consider “PC” games, too, there’s even titles that are ostensibly on the same platform that will no longer run on more modern technology. Fortunately, there are places like GOG.com who aim to keep these titles alive for modern audiences, but eventually even their remastered, tweaked versions will “expire” as technology makes the next big leap forward. What happens when computers become wearable and we don’t use TVs any more? Will we still be able to play classic titles designed for the flat screen?

With all this, it’s easy to wonder how you can possibly get through all those things that you’re “supposed” to watch/read/see. The answer is surprisingly simple: don’t. Accept the fact that you’re never going to read Great Expectations; you’re never going to see Citizen Kane; you’re never going to listen to anything by The Smiths; you’re never going to get caught up on the Assassin’s Creed series. Cherry-pick the stuff you’re interested in, finish what you start, and don’t feel obliged to jump in to things just because they’re brand new and everyone is talking about them right now. Get to them when you have time to appreciate them rather than rushing through them in the ultimately futile attempt to feel “relevant”.

Crucially, enjoy (or at least appreciate) the culture you consume, whatever medium it’s in. Your tastes are your own, and no-one has the right to try and change them. People can share their own opinions, sure, and these may help sway your thoughts one way or the other, but ultimately your feelings about the things you like and dislike are entirely up to you. There’s no “correct” opinion; no gold standard of cultural awareness you need to aspire to; no “checklist” to complete. The sooner you recognise this fact, the sooner you can get on with working your way through that “pile of shame” — because there’s some great stuff in there that you haven’t discovered yet. And the stuff that is shiny and new right now will still be here in a few years time.

Take your time. Enjoy it. It’s the least you can do for the people who have invested their time, money, blood, sweat and tears into entertaining you.

 

#oneaday Day 994: I Don’t Care

I’m coming to the rather cynical conclusion that I’m not sure I care enough about certain issues to want to shout and scream and rant and rave about them all day, every day. A big part of the reason behind this is the fact that people who do care enough about certain issues to shout and scream and rant and rave about them all day, every day are wearing me down significantly. I won’t get into specifics, as that will likely only provoke more shouting, screaming, ranting and raving, but suffice to say I really can’t be arsed with it any more.

I am fully aware that taking this rather apathetic attitude towards Big Issues makes me officially Part of the Problem. But, you know, I just don’t care any more. I have had my share of shit things happen to me in my life — nothing on a par with the abuse and crap some social groups have to put up with, though, obviously — and I am just exhausted. I am 31 years old and I just want to settle down with a nice, quiet life. I want to have a nice house with a cat and/or a dog, a car that doesn’t rattle when it goes around corners, a job that I enjoy that also allows me the free time to do things I want to do. I am partway there already (mainly on the job front) after a difficult couple of years, and I just do not have the energy to get upset and angry over things outside of my immediate situation any more. It’s selfish, and I’m completely aware of that — and mildly guilty about it, to my annoyance — but it’s true. I want my own life to be sorted before I try and fix the rest of the world, and I’ve still got a long way to go yet.

In honesty, it’s not that I genuinely don’t give a shit about the issues in question and don’t think they’re a problem. It’s that any time a “discussion” on said issues comes up, it devolves within a matter of seconds into people throwing tables at each other, telling each other to “get a grip” or that Their Opinion Is Wrong. I’ve tried on several occasions to engage in such discussions in a reasonable, rational manner and every time this pattern has emerged, without fail. It’s utterly predictable. Someone makes an inflammatory statement deliberately designed to provoke, someone else comes along with a counterpoint, then both sides gather the troops and proceed to bitch and scream at one another with no resolution being reached. Then the whole thing just happens again and again and again. In some cases, people in question repeatedly stoke the fire in an attempt to get the arguments to flare up again long after the initial flurry has passed.

I have one far-off friend in particular whom I otherwise like very much who I now feel I can’t really engage with via social media any more because 90% of their posts seem to follow the pattern outlined above. This sort of person attracts like-minded individuals, most of whom are strong-willed and keen to argue their case aggressively. I hate unnecessary aggression and will do anything possible to avoid it, whether it’s in actual conversation or on the Internet. If that means no longer talking to someone online, then it’s a sad situation for sure, but it’s what I’ll do.

There’s also the fact that in a lot of cases these screaming matches don’t achieve anything whatsoever. A lot of the people who hold these strong opinions can very much talk the talk but then don’t do anything to back up their bold words. If they took some sort of action regarding the things they feel so strongly about, I might be more inclined to care more one way or the other. But when the same old arguments arise day after day after day, I just get tired and don’t want to engage with it any more. The impact is lost. I don’t care any more. I just want to have a quiet life. If your points are making me — and doubtless plenty of others like me — feel like that, you are not arguing your case well.

Is that such a bad thing? Apparently so. But if it’s wrong, to mangle the cliché, I really don’t have the energy or give enough of a shit to be right.

 

#oneaday Day 993: Why You Should Probably Play Quest for Glory

It feels like a good time to explain Why You Should Probably Play Quest for Glory, because 1) the complete series is available on GOG.com for $3.99 for one more day and 2) the Squadron of Shame just released a podcast detailing exactly why it’s awesome. You can listen to it in the player below and go leave a comment here.

Quest for Glory remains to this day an aberration in both the point-and-click adventure and RPG genres, in that it is both. For those who have no experience of the series, the basic gist of all games in the series is that you have the mouse-driven “walk, look, use, talk” interface of an adventure game coupled with the stat-based system of an RPG. You wander around, you find out about quests, you get into fights, you save the sleepy Germanic valley/city/African-style savannah region/world.

Sounds simple, right? After all, RPGs and adventure games already have a lot in common — mainly the fact that both often involve a lot of talking — thus it’s not much of a stretch to imagine an RPG with a point-and-click adventure game interface (or, in the case of earlier games in the series, text parser).

Except Quest for Glory doesn’t stop there, because it makes its games noticeably and significantly different depending on whether you initially choose to play as a fighter, magic user or thief. (It’s also worth noting that the “thief” class is a proper thief who breaks into houses and nicks stuff for personal gain, none of that namby-pamby “rogue” nonsense)

That’s right — join the quest as a fighter and, for sure, you’ll be doing a lot of fighting, but you’ll also be using your brawn to solve non-violent problems. Become a thief and you’ll be using your agility, climbing ability and stealthiness to sneak around and solve problems from the shadows. Become a mage and over the course of the various games in the series you’ll outfit yourself with a diverse array of spells, only a couple of which are of the traditional “throw fiery objects at opponents” variety.

Best of all, if you’re the sort of indecisive person who likes to play as a “hybrid” class, you can spend a few extra points on character creation to take a skill that doesn’t normally belong to that type of hero. Want to be a wizard that’s good at climbing? Go ahead. A thief with a good line in magic tricks? Sure! A fighter who knows what the word “sneak” means? Knock yourself out! All skills that are at higher than zero can be raised through grinding — the Quest for Glory series subscribes to the Final Fantasy II/Elder Scrolls mentality that skills should be raised organically as you use them rather than at arbitrary level boundaries. Crucially for the whole fun factor, though, it’s relatively rare that you’ll need to grind a skill, unless you’re specifically aiming to do and see absolutely everything the game has to offer. (And if you are, you’re a masochist.)

Then there’s the fact that the Quest for Glory series was one of the first series that allowed you to transfer your save file from one game to the next. Beat one game and you’d be invited to export your character ready to import once the next game released. This was remarkably forward-thinking (and confident) of the developers at the time — and also somewhat symptomatic of the different times back then. Now, sure, we have franchises like Mass Effect and Dragon Age allowing you to import your save file from the previous game, but each game in the series didn’t specifically include with a promise of the next one. In other words, whether or not a game gets a sequel these days isn’t necessarily preordained — it’s often dependent on sales. In Quest for Glory’s time, it was built in to the design from the very beginning, even as technology improved over time.

This is one of the other interesting things about playing through any of Sierra’s old adventure series. You can see how gaming technology evolved from game to game. Quest for Glory I and II initially used 16-colour 320×200 EGA graphics and a text parser, though Quest for Glory I was subsequently rereleased with 256-colour 320×200 VGA graphics and a mouse-driven interface. Quest for Glory II never got the same treatment officially, but a fan-made free remake (approved, but not funded or assisted by, the original team) brought it into the latter days of the 20th century rather nicely. Quest for Glory III then brought the series officially into the 256-colour VGA age, and Quest for Glory IV was the first CD-ROM based episode, featuring none other than John “Gimli and That Professor Bloke I Can’t Remember the Name Of from Sliders” Rhys-Davies on narration duties.

Quest for Glory V marked a bit of a turning point, however, not just for the series, but for Sierra’s fortunes and the adventure game genre at large. Being a CD-ROM only multimedia extravaganza with 256-colour 640×480 Super VGA visuals, polygons and a prerendered intro sequence that, while impressive at the time is utterly laughable if you watch it now, Quest for Glory V marked the point where, for many, the franchise lost its way. There are plenty of people who adore the game, of course, but those who grew up with the earlier entries in the series can’t help but mourn the direction it took with its fifth instalment and its subsequent demise.

This wasn’t the only time Sierra did something weird with one of its established series. In fact, almost all of Sierra’s classic, long-running series ended up as something completely different to their original forms — King’s Quest became a 3D action RPG with its eighth instalment; Police Quest became the tactical SWAT series after its fourth incarnation (later dropping the Police Quest moniker altogether); and Leisure Suit Larry just went off the rails altogether after its sixth episode (which, naturally, is called Leisure Suit Larry 7). In comparison to these other titles, Quest for Glory V‘s changes were actually relatively modest — but still enough to put some off.

Perhaps the saddest thing about the demise of the Quest for Glory series is that we really haven’t had anything like it since. We’ve had a resurgence of point-and-click adventures in the last couple of years, sure, but nothing that so deftly blends two genres together with interesting stories, a genuinely amusing sense of humour and satisfying gameplay.

However, there’s some good news for fans of Lori and Corey Cole — they’re working on something new called Hero U, and will be opening a Kickstarter funding drive some time later this month. More details here. I’m pretty excited — they’ve said outright that it’s not going to be a new Quest for Glory game, but it will incorporate some of the things they learned from making those games. Sounds awesome, right? Of course.

Hope you enjoyed the podcast. We certainly spent long enough recording it — and then I spent even longer editing it. 🙂

#oneaday Day 992: Making Excuses

It came to my attention last night that some people were missing the stickmen cartoons. This was nice to know, as I’d always wondered if anyone actually found them entertaining or not and occasionally found myself suffering from a bit of a “crisis of confidence”, thinking they were crap, not funny or whatever. I’m usually fairly confident in my creative work, but I think at the back of my mind was the knowledge that bad webcomics often get ridiculed, and I really don’t like being ridiculed. Call me irrational like that.

Of course, the pretty limited audience this blog has probably means that the vast majority of the Internet had no idea of the existence of that cartoons, so there’s that.

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with the cartoons, if I’m honest. I genuinely love the characters I’ve created, even if they’re silly, stereotypical and don’t have any really meaningful depth. It’s also nice to occasionally drop in a guest character based on someone I know — that has never been received negatively, even though I spend much too long worrying about whether their stickmen representation actually looks anything like them. (note to self: they’re stickmen. If you think you’re going to make them realistic, you are Doing It Wrong.)

At the same time, it adds a bunch of extra work to my daily blog posts (you’d be surprised how much I agonise over getting those crap drawings just right) and also means that if I’m away from my Mac — which has the software I use to make the comic layouts — I can’t do them easily. It irks me somewhat if I’ve started doing them daily again and then suddenly have to leave a gap. Sometimes I end up not starting again after said gap, which I think is probably what happened last time. Or possibly just laziness and/or starting to write when I just really wanted to go to bed.

I also get a bit hung up on trying to tie the strip and the blog post together, and sometimes there’s nothing funny in the post I can spin out into a comic. In particular if I’m writing about something personal or upsetting, cracking a joke about it can feel a little flippant or insensitive. (Can you be insensitive towards yourself? I guess so.) The solution to this is, of course, simply to not be too attached to the concept of the strip and the post having anything to do with one another, and dealing with situations where penis jokes might not be appropriate as they arise.

So there you are. Those are the things that go through my head regarding the stickmen, and the reasons why sometimes I stop for a little while. Since they apparently have a small but dedicated following, however, I will certainly do my best from this point on to keep them coming! (hurr hurr, you said “coming” — Phillipe)

#oneaday Day 991: Last Man Standing

So, having hit one thousand daily posts before me (he did start first), Mr Ian Dransfield has officially bowed out of the daily blogging business. I don’t blame him at all — he notes that the prospect of continuing even on a weekly basis feels like “giving myself work I don’t want to do” so has chosen instead to jack it in altogether. A hearty congratulations to him for having put up with it for so long, though — a thousand daily posts is a massive amount of stuff to evacuate from your head on to the page. Believe me, I know.

Since I’m coming up behind Ian and closing in on that elusive post number 1,000 as the last man standing, this has naturally got me thinking about the whole business, too. Specifically, it has me thinking to myself “is it worth still doing this? Am I actually enjoying it?”

And, I have to conclude once again — this isn’t the first time I’ve asked myself this question — that “yes” is the answer to both of those questions. In the last 991 days, I don’t think there’s been a single time that I’ve resented my self-imposed obligation to write this blog. There have been days where it’s been difficult to think of something to write, sure, and there have been days where other distractions have meant I haven’t written it until a ridiculous hour in the morning (I think 4am was the latest after having watched several episodes of Firefly while in conversation with someone over the Internet) but I’ve certainly never felt like it was an unwelcome obligation. Quite the opposite, in fact — although it usually ends up being the last thing I do each day, it’s something I often find myself thinking about over the course of the day’s activities and looking forward to actually sitting down and writing. It is, as I’ve said many times before, a cathartic means of self-expression for me, with the happy bonus that I’ve got to know a number of thoroughly pleasant people in the process. Moreover, a number of people who already knew me have got to know things about me that they might not have done otherwise.

Like Ian, my life has changed immeasurably since I started writing this blog. I have changed jobs several times — going from primary school teacher to unemployed bum to part-time, low-paid games journalist to legitimate, properly-paid games journalist. My relationship status has changed several times — my wife and I split, signalling the start of the darkest period I’ve ever been through in my life; I met someone, that didn’t work out; I met Andie, that did work out (right? Hopefully. OH GOD WHAT IF— [*slap* — the Rational Part of Pete’s Brain]). I went to America several times for various reasons (PAX East, family time). I’ve moved several times — from Southampton back to my childhood home in Cambridgeshire, then onward to my current situation in Wiltshire (and hopefully back to Southampton at some point in the near future). I’ve re-established contact with some friends; lost touch with others. And I’ve discovered anime.

Alongside all these various upheavals, the one constant in my life has been this silly little corner of the Internet that I call my own, with the tens of thousands of words I’ve tapped onto it at ungodly hours in the morning, usually from my own computer, but sometimes from my phone, sometimes my tablet, sometimes my netbook. This blog has been someone I can always “talk to”, to offload thoughts and memories both pleasant and painful, and to share those things with anyone who will listen. It’s been an immeasurably valuable experience for me, and thus I have absolutely no intention of stopping right now.

I realise that by saying all these things now I am effectively sabotaging my own “YAY 1,000 POSTS” post, but eh, whatever. With Ian’s departure from the journey, it felt timely to say them now. Doubtless inspiration will hit me at about 2am on Day 1,000 and I’ll have something amazing to share with you.

Until then, though, it’s business as usual, I’m afraid. Thanks for continuing to read, like and comment, and I’ll see you again tomorrow!

#oneaday Day 990: Aselia the Eternal, Early Impressions

For an upcoming READ.ME column over on Games Are Evil, I’m going to be covering a game called Aselia the Eternal. Depending on how much progress I make before Sunday, said column will either be this week or, more realistically, next week. But I thought I’d take a bit of time to share some less formal initial impressions on the game for those who are interested, or simply curious.

Aselia the Eternal is a visual novel for PC (and PSP in Japan, I believe). There are actually two versions available — an 18+ edition with H-scenes and a 15+ version without. Only the 15+ version has officially made it to Western-speaking territories due to some of said H-scenes supposedly being in questionable taste — and also because of Western publisher/localiser JAST USA’s desire to start putting out a few “all ages” titles as well as their myriad 18+ shag-happy offerings.

The basic premise of Aselia the Eternal is thus: Protagonist Yuuto lives alone with his little sister Kaori. Their parents died a while back in an accident, but Kaori was spared thanks to Yuuto imploring anyone who would listen to give him a miracle and save his sister. It turns out someone was listening — the spirit of the sword “Desire,” which, as these things tend to do, claims ownership over Yuuto’s soul in exchange for his sister’s life and, at an unexpected point after several hours of fairly typical high school drama, sucks Yuuto into another world where All Is Not Well. War is brewing, and Yuuto is about to become embroiled in it as part of a force of “spirits” — seemingly human creatures with strong bonds to their swords who are treated as nothing but weapons by the actual humans. Since humans make spirits (and “Etrangers” from another world such as Yuuto) do all their fighting, most places have little hesitation in going to war because there’s actually very little risk to the “real” people, and as such Yuuto arrives just as It Is All Kicking Off, as it were.

The interesting thing about Aselia the Eternal is that rather than representing the conflicts and battles that Yuuto and his spirit companions get into purely through narrative text, there’s actually a very competent strategy game built in alongside all the visual novel stuff. When it’s time for Yuuto and his allies to saddle up and hit the road to complete a mission, gameplay switches from the usual “read, read, read, read, read, make a choice” to a tactical map view, at which point you need to put your strategic hat well and truly on if you’re going to survive.

The world map of Aselia the Eternal’s battles is node-based in nature. Player units, each of which may contain up to three members, may move one space per turn, as may the enemy. If a unit enters a contested space occupied by an enemy unit, a battle begins, at which point the makeup of the teams becomes important.

Each unit has an attacker, a defender and a supporter. The attacker makes use of direct-damage skills. The defender tends to mitigate damage. The supporter either casts damage spells or adds useful effects. Each individual character has their own set of skills that changes according to what slot they’re in — the eponymous Aselia, for example, may attack with her sword twice in a battle if she is in the attacking position, whereas if she is in the supporter position she is able to block enemy spells and prevent them from causing damage. The “colour” of each unit also has an impact on their effectiveness — green spirits are best in defensive positions, blue spirits are best in attacking and red ones are best in support, though according to the enemy’s abilities (which can be previewed before battle is resolved) you may wish to switch them around a bit. Each character only has a set number of uses of each of their skills before they either need to switch them around or go back to a friendly-occupied town or base to refresh themselves.

It’s an unusual, original, simple and elegant system that works extremely well, offering a degree of tactical flexibility while rewarding those who think carefully about the best way to approach a particular situation. The node-based nature of the world map means that it’s relatively accessible to strategic newcomers, but still offers the potential for pulling off clever tactics, particularly later in the game when you get access to additional characters and, by extension, units. It’s surprisingly tough and unforgiving, too — lose a main character in battle and it’s an immediate game over. No Phoenix Downs here. (Also, SAVE!)

What’s surprising about the inclusion of this aspect of gameplay is not that it’s in there at all — there are a number of visual novels that incorporate minigames — it’s that despite it being there, the game is still a storytelling vehicle first and foremost. It’s not a strategy game/RPG with lengthy story sequences, it’s a visual novel with occasional strategic battles. This might not sound like a big difference, but it’s the difference between playing something like, say, Final Fantasy Tactics, where the story sequences sometimes feel like they’re just rushing you through towards the next battle as soon as possible, and what we have here, which is an unfolding story in which you occasionally have to fight. The “pace”, for want of a better word, is a lot slower — though that’s not necessarily a bad thing, as it gives you plenty of time to get to know and become attached to these characters before walking into battle with them.

In fact, what the experience really feels like is the developers sitting down and thinking “this is the story we want to tell. There are battles at this point, this point and this point because they serve the story.” rather than “we are making a strategy RPG. We need gameplay to be 75% strategic battles, 25% story.” It feels very much like something that has been designed primarily as a narrative, in short, rather than a game — and that’s rather interesting, because I can’t imagine any Western publisher greenlighting a game with such a seemingly skewed ratio of traditional gameplay to sitting back and just reading. (Of course, I can’t imagine any Western publisher greenlighting a visual novel full stop, but that’s beside the point.)

I like what I’ve seen so far. The story is quite slow to get going but it already has some interesting characters involved, and I’m intrigued to see where it goes next. Watch out for further thoughts when I’ve played a little further.

#oneaday Day 989: Blackout

I was all set to write something profound tonight, then the Internet died and I’m relegated to blogging from my phone.

All right, I didn’t have anything hugely profound to say and even if I did I could clearly still say it from my phone, but the Internet has gone down, which is, as everyone thoroughly immersed in 21st century living knows, incredibly annoying.

Given its prevalence in our everyday lives, it’s very easy to forget what life without the Internet was like. Something as simple as checking the news or finding out what time something was on TV relied on you having… oh, it’s back. I’ll return when I finish watching this episode of The World God Only Knows. Ja ne!

… … … …

20 minutes later…

There we are, that’s better.

Shit, now there’s pressure on me to write something meaningful. Umm…

Nope, I got nothing. And fuck all that Internet talk. I’ve written that exact same post at least five or six times already in the last 989 days.

I finished watching Welcome to the NHK today. The last few episodes were major-league Feels territory. It was a fascinating show, all-told, that I may write about in more detail at some point in the near future. What I particularly liked was that it wasn’t particularly easy to pigeon-hole into a specific category of genre. It had elements of comedy, drama, romance, surrealism and all manner of other stuff too. On the whole it was quite an emotional experience for me — I’m not sure how much it would resonate with someone who couldn’t relate to some of the issues therein, but I certainly found it to be an excellent, worthwhile, enjoyable and moving watch.

Tonight, as I mentioned earlier, I’ve started watching The World God Only Knows after recommendations from several people. I’ll blog in more detail about this when I’ve watched more than two episodes, but it seems to be highly entertaining so far.

The premise, for the unfamiliar, is that dating sim addict Keima inadvertently enters into a contract with the unfeasibly cute and broom-wielding demon Elsie to help round up “Loose Souls”, runaway spirits that hide themselves inside the hearts of girls. Keima is thus tasked with making said girls fall in love with him, thus releasing the Loose Soul for Elsie to catch. Keima, sadly, is more than a little socially awkward, having spent all his time dating 2D girls rather than interacting with real people. However, since reneging on the contract means that both he and Elsie will be decapitated by the magical collars placed upon them, he has no choice but to go along with the outlandish plan. Consequently, he attempts to use his knowledge of dating sim tropes to figure out girls in the real world and, of course, Hilarity Ensues.

I’ve watched two episodes so far and already I want my own Elsie to hug. Certain characters just nail the whole adorableness factor, and she has this particular characteristic in spades. The show as a whole is rather endearing, too, though, regularly lapsing into heavily-stylized and chibi sequences rather than trying to remain too grounded in reality. The concept is, after all, ridiculous, so rather than trying to take itself too seriously the show appears to very much embrace its silliness. I’m fine with that, and am looking forward to exploring the rest of the episodes.

Anyway, on that note I think it’s probably time I hit the sack. Hopefully tomorrow will see a more coherent entry and less in the way of Internet outages.