1290: The Never-Ending Battle

Oh, God. Reviews for Dragon’s Crown came out today, and I had a feeling there was going to be at least one shitstorm over it.

Dragon’s Crown, lest you’re unfamiliar, is a new game for PS3 and Vita loosely inspired by the brawler classics of yesteryear such as Golden Axe, fused with some modern ideas from roguelikes and action RPGs. It gained notoriety prior to release for featuring some heavily exaggerated, almost abstract art, in which the “Amazon” character is a gigantic, musclebound behemoth of a woman; the “Sorceress” character has boobs that will give her significant back problems later in life; and the “Fighter” character has armour that would put the COGs from Gears of War to shame. The female elf ranger, meanwhile, looks almost normal, though she has some grade-A zettai ryouiki going on with her boots.

Here’s the Sorceress and the Amazon.

Now, you may have one of several reactions to the art used in this game. You may find it offensive in its overly sexualised depictions of women. You may find it ludicrous and amusing. You may find it beautiful. You may find it erotic or arousing. You may find it kind of cool in a stylised sort of way. Or you just might hate it not for what it represents, but simply because the style doesn’t appeal to you.

Here’s the thing: all of those opinions are “right”. Or, more accurately, none of them are “wrong”. Your opinion is your own, and you should take ownership of it, not be pressured into thinking what other people seem to think you should think.

Unfortunately, there are people on both “sides” of the argument that has sprung up around this game — leaving aside the people in the middle who either think it’s “kind of neat” or “meh” — who are being a little unreasonable about all this. Not everyone, by any means — both Polygon and GamesBeat’s reviews, for example, while differing wildly in their final evaluation of the game, read as fair comments that accurately reflect the authors’ perspectives as people who strongly disliked the art — but there’s a significant proportion of people both on the “pro” and “anti” sides of the debate who are, frankly, being a bit dickish.

The most obviously obnoxious side is, of course, the group of people who have just become collectively known as “the misogynists”. The young men who enjoy their T&A and get defensive any time they feel someone is attacking them and their tastes. The same people who, in extreme cases, send death threats to people like Anita Sarkeesian simply for exploring depictions of women in video games.

However, I’ve seen equally obnoxious comments today on the side of people who dislike the art style and think it’s sexist, misogynist or otherwise discriminatory. I’ve seen Dragon’s Crown referred to as a “wank game” (by a woman) and numerous snide comments from people (men and women) on Twitter calling it “juvenile” or being otherwise disrespectful towards those who either don’t have a strong opinion on the art style, or those who actively like it. I’ve also seen people implying that the people who do like Dragon’s Crown will never get laid, and are just pathetic losers for whom, I quote, “the closest u will ever get 2 a woman is ur miku miku dominoes figurine” [sic — in reference to Hatsune Miku, the popular animated Japanese mascot who was recently used in a Dominos Pizza campaign in Japan.] Real classy, there.

When you see this going on, it’s sort of understandable why the “misogynist” side gets overly defensive and wants to lash out at the people criticising them. It’s not acceptable. The ones attacking the art style of Dragon’s Crown are the same ones criticising others for disrespectful comments and behaviour — particularly towards women — and yet they’re engaging in it themselves simply because someone disagrees with them. Not good at all.

Where do I stand on Dragon’s Crown? I think it’s cool. It’s distinctive, heavily stylised and immediately recognisable — not to mention memorable. I don’t find it erotic or arousing, personally — it’s just too exaggerated for my particular tastes — but acknowledge that there may be some people who do. For context, I enjoy the art style of modern anime — particularly the more “moe” end of the spectrum — and freely admit that I believe drawings and animations can be as sexually arousing — sometimes more so — than photographs and videos. I also like looking at — and, even better, playing as — attractive female characters in video games, because they’re everything I’m not, and I often identify or empathise with them a lot better than beefcake males.

Most importantly, I acknowledge that not everyone agrees with the way I feel and I wouldn’t expect to make anyone feel the same way if they’re just not into it. Similarly, I acknowledge that some people find Dragon’s Crown’s art distasteful, but I do not expect those people to be patronising, condescending and even, at times, outright aggressive towards those who do like the way it looks.

Let’s maybe try to respect each other a little more, even when we disagree — even on controversial topics.

If only.

1289: Oh When The… You Know

I’ve been playing a game for review this evening, but I can’t talk about it yet because blah blah embargo, etc. So instead I’m going to talk about Saints Row The Third, which, conveniently, is available for whatever price you please as part of the latest (pretty incredible) Humble Bundle.

Grand Theft Auto has been losing me for a while. It took me a long time to get around to finishing Vice City — though I eventually did — and I never finished San Andreas or Grand Theft Auto IV at all. (I also own the two Grand Theft Auto IV side stories, but haven’t touched them at all.)

The problem is that Grand Theft Auto had started taking itself a bit seriously. While it’s still full of cringeworthy puns and scathing putdowns of American culture, the stories themselves have been getting a bit too “gangsta drama” for me; there seemed to be less of the colourful characters from earlier installments and more in the way of people calling each other “bitch” and “motherfucker”. (Confession: I actually had to turn the subtitles on in San Andreas not because I couldn’t hear the speech, but because I couldn’t understand what the characters were saying.) This is probably a grossly unfair assessment, but I’ve been struggling to maintain interest in them for quite some time, and Grand Theft Auto V doesn’t really have me hyped at all. (This makes the fact the Internet collectively jizzes its pants every time a new screenshot appears especially frustrating, as I’m sure you can sympathise.)

I’m not sure what prompted me to pick up Saints Row The Third for PC. I don’t even think it was a Steam sale — I’m pretty sure I bought it at full price shortly after it came out. Reviews I’d read had been mostly positive, with a few criticising it for not having as interesting a setting as Grand Theft Auto, but most had mentioned one important thing: fun.

I’d never played a previous Saints Row game, so I had no frame of reference to compare The Third to except for Grand Theft Auto. And it quickly became apparent that Saints Row The Third was the game I’d been wanting Grand Theft Auto to turn back into ever since Vice City. Freedom to run around causing chaos; lots of side missions to do; a plot that was enjoyable, silly nonsense; and the fact that if you wanted to run down the street punching everyone in the face, it didn’t really feel “out of character” for the protagonist.

Saints Row The Third is a playground. Sure, there’s a plot to follow, but the main attraction is the “activities” scattered around the map. These vary from destroying as much shit as possible while on foot and equipped with infinite ammo to destroying as much shit as possible while in a bloody great tank. There are also missions where you have to drive around with a tiger in your car, arena challenges where you have to defeat enemies and avoid traps, and “insurance fraud” missions where you have to fling yourself into traffic and injure yourself as much as possible against the clock.

By far my fondest memory of Saints Row The Third is the one and only time I’ve had the chance to play multiplayer with my good friend Mr Alex Connolly, though. We just so happened to actually be online and available at the same time for once, so we jumped into a game together and caused chaos. There’s really nothing quite like rolling up to a character you know is another real person, letting them jump in your Tron-style car and then tearing around the city to cause some havoc. Saints Row The Third doesn’t significantly change its structure when played in co-op, but the simple presence of another player helps make it even more fun than it already is.

If you’ve never played Saints Row The Third and like the sound of a chaotic romp through something like Grand Theft Auto used to be, that Humble Bundle I linked above is a fantastic deal. Or, let’s not forget, the fourth entry in the series is coming soon. But that… that I can’t talk about right now.

1288: Final Fantasies

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Final Fantasy series recently, prompted in part by the impending release of the third Final Fantasy XIII game Lightning Returns, which is actually looking rather spiffy. It’s a series that, as I’ve noted a few times before, I’ve followed from VII onwards, though I later went back and educated myself on earlier installments in the series.

As such, here’s a few thoughts on each mainline entry.

FINAL FANTASY I: Generic as hell, right down to the monsters ripped straight from the D&D Monster Manual and its high fantasy setting. Minimal plot, incomprehensible plot twist right at the end. Worth playing to see the series’ origins, but feels very grindy these days.

FINAL FANTASY II: Very interesting, particularly when you compare it to other JRPGs around at the time. Not only was it an early example of a Final Fantasy game focusing on plot, its mechanics were kind of cool. Okay, they had their problems, too, but indirectly Final Fantasy II set the template for the “use it to improve it” skill system seen in, among other things, the Elder Scrolls series.

FINAL FANTASY III: By now, the pattern of odd-numbered Final Fantasy games focusing on mechanics and even-numbered ones focusing on plot was set in place. Final Fantasy III had minimal plot, even in its later 3D remake, but it’s a game worth playing to see the genesis of the Job system that made frequent reappearances throughout both the mainline series and its numerous spinoffs.

FINAL FANTASY IV: Heavy on the plot, light on the mechanics. In Final Fantasy IV, you’re stuck with whatever party members the plot dictates you have at any one point, with minimal customisation. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, though; it allows you to focus on the plot which, while basic and clichéd these days, was impressive, epic stuff back when it first came out, and noteworthy for having characters with distinct personalities.

FINAL FANTASY V: I must confess to never having finished this one, but it has one of the best implementations of the Job system of the whole series, allowing you to blend abilities from two different Jobs, assuming you’ve already learned some from the Job you’re not actively equipped with. Once again, it’s an odd-numbered Final Fantasy so the plot is somewhat disposable, but again, the mechanics are the reason to explore this game.

FINAL FANTASY VI: For many, the best Final Fantasy but again, I must confess to never having beaten this, and somehow never having had the ending spoiled for me. VI gives a good balance between the predefined characters of IV and the customisation of V by having distinctive characters whom you could teach spells to. The plot, meanwhile, was excellent, if arguably overly ambitious for the technology it had available to tell it.

FINAL FANTASY VII: I’ll always have a soft spot for this one, what with it being the reason I like JRPGs as much as I do today. I haven’t played it for probably a good ten years or so, but I’m open to the idea of revisiting it at some point. Those awful field screen character models bugged me even back then, though; I believe the PC version allows you to mod them.

FINAL FANTASY VIII: Much-maligned, but this is one of my favourites of the series. A touching love story coupled with some world-shattering silliness, with one of the best final encounters of all time — even if the finale itself was somewhat nonsensical.

FINAL FANTASY IX: One of the best battle themes in the series, though the child-like characters looked a little strange after the realistically proportioned people in VIII. IX has a ton of series fanservice, as it was the series’ swansong on PS1.

FINAL FANTASY X: The change to PS2 and full 3D was very jarring to me, especially when combined with the move to a fully turn-based system. Said turn-based system was great, though, particularly the way you could manipulate the turn order to your advantage. This mechanic would later be seen in a whole bunch of other JRPGs — Trails in the Sky is one that springs to mind — so it proved to be massively influential. Also noteworthy for having a cool level-up system that made for highly customisable characters… and for having a terrible conversion to PAL consoles, with ugly black borders at the top and bottom of the screen and a frame rate significantly slower than the NTSC (Japan and US) versions.

FINAL FANTASY X-2: Gloriously camp, and delightful as a result. Final Fantasy X-2 may have taken place in the same world as X, but it had a completely different character. X was melancholy throughout; X-2 was rambunctious and joyful. This ultimately wasn’t to everyone’s taste, but the game certainly didn’t suffer as a result. A non-linear structure combined with a fantastic implementation of the Job system made Final Fantasy X-2’s small party of three immensely customisable, and there was a ton of stuff to do in the game, much of it optional. Highly recommended.

FINAL FANTASY XI: The first of the two MMOs in the series, Final Fantasy XI is noteworthy for being one of the first games of its type to actually make an effort with narrative progression alongside the otherwise relatively straightforward MMO gameplay. There was a story, there were bosses, there was even a final boss. Subsequent expansions continued the stories into ever more exciting encounters, but you had better be ready to invest a lot of time — the game had one of the slowest rates of levelling of any MMO, and though this was marginally improved over time, it’s still painfully slow and dependent on playing in parties.

FINAL FANTASY XII: XII took a bunch of ideas from the MMO XI and transplanted them into a single player game. It was the biggest shift the mainline Final Fantasy series — many fans don’t count Final Fantasy XI due to its online nature — had seen for a long time, since it abandoned the old-school turn-based or active time battle systems in favour of a quasi real-time system somewhat akin to that seen in a Western RPG like the later Dragon Age. In fact, Dragon Age pinched a few ideas from Final Fantasy XII itself, such as being able to program the game’s AI to respond to specific circumstances.

FINAL FANTASY XIII: The first HD Final Fantasy divided opinion significantly. I really liked it, but others didn’t appreciate the streamlined first 20 hours or so, in which you have a bunch of options locked off as you’re forced by the game to familiarise yourself with specific party setups with limited — but still some — customisation. The battle system shifted from micromanagement to switching character classes on the fly, and was very fast-paced. When the game opened up very late on, there was a ton of side content to do, and you could go back and do more after you’d beaten the final boss. Whatever you think of the game, though, it’s hard to deny the fact it’s one of the most beautiful games you’ll ever see on any platform.

FINAL FANTASY XIII-2: Many of the criticisms against Final Fantasy XIII were addressed with XIII-2, but the previous game had built up such an inexplicable bank of ill-will that many people never even bothered with it. The time-travelling story was convoluted and hard to follow, but the non-linear game structure provided a lot of interesting things to do. There were also some actual puzzles in the game, which the series hadn’t seen for quite some time.

Lightning Returns: FINAL FANTASY XIII: Details are relatively thin on the ground for this upcoming new entry in the series too because everyone’s so angry about the fact that Lightning has jiggly boobs, but it sounds like it’s going to be more “actiony,” but provide you with a number of different means of tackling various situations. An open world section is also promised, along with some Final Fantasy X-2-style dress-up funtimes that I’m looking forward to very much.

FINAL FANTASY XIV: The second massively multiplayer incarnation of the series was reportedly awful, but I never played it.

FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn: The second incarnation of the second massively multiplayer incarnation of the series is simply marvellous, however, and I’m looking forward to playing it when it releases later in August. It takes the good things about Final Fantasy XI — the Final Fantasy-like presentation, the music, the diverse characters, the implementation of a plot into a massively multiplayer game — and throws out the grindy stuff in favour of a wide variety of stuff to do, friendly to both solo and group players, and a number of mechanics inspired by other successful MMOs such as Guild Wars 2.

FINAL FANTASY XV: Details are scant on this one as yet, but early videos look pretty spectacular. Will it be a next-gen system seller? Who knows? I’m certainly looking forward to finding out.

1287: Thunderbolts and Lightning

Japanese gaming never died. It just shifted its focus. And that’s a good thing.

I find myself contemplating this topic for a few reasons, including Twitter discussions on various related topics, and a few articles I’ve seen posted around the Web recently on the subject of Japanese gaming making “a comeback”.

Japanese gaming never went anywhere. It may not be the focus of the games industry now — a side-effect of the very American Xbox 360 dominating a healthy proportion of the console generation we’re just coming to the end of now — but it’s still been ticking along very nicely, and in fact, for my money, it’s been doing a much better job of catering to unique audiences than focus-grouped Western titles.

Japanese role-playing games used to be a big deal. Or, more accurately, a new Final Fantasy release used to be a big deal, particularly back in the PS1 era, which carried some of the best installments in Square Enix’s long-running series. The JRPG market was always far broader than just Final Fantasy, even in the West, but Final Fantasy was in the unique position of being a Japanese role-playing game — by all accounts, a fairly “niche” genre, even back then — that successfully achieved mainstream penetration thanks to its impressive presentation. There were plenty of other JRPGs that flew under the mainstream radar but which are still fondly remembered by fans, but Final Fantasy was the one that everyone latched onto — with good reason.

These days, however, Final Fantasy enjoys a curious reaction from press and public alike. Ever since Final Fantasy XIII came along, there’s been a significant amount of negativity directed at the series — negativity that isn’t altogether justified.

Final Fantasy XIII, like every other Final Fantasy before it, mixed up the formula rather than just being a reskinned version of the previous game. It abandoned the micromanagement of previous games’ battles in favour of a fast-paced take on the Active Time Battle system that focused more on carefully-timed switches of character roles rather than choosing individual commands. It provided a focused experience, pushing the story constantly forwards, forwards, forwards down a linear path until a point close to the end, where you suddenly had a large open world to explore.

Past Final Fantasy games have actually followed this exact formula to the letter — linear beginning that gets more and more open as you proceed towards the finish line, with the game completely “open” by the time you reached the end. Final Fantasy XIII just didn’t hide it quite as well as the previous ones — and intentionally so; game director Motomo Toriyama wanted players to concentrate on the story for the beginning part of the game without distractions.

This is something to be criticised, apparently, yet it honestly baffles me as to why. Final Fantasy XIII’s extreme linearity for the first 20-30 hours or so means that the story is constantly moving rather than doing the usual RPG thing of stalling for hours at a time while the player goes off and breeds chocobos or something. You’re always moving from place to place, seeing new things, meeting new characters, fighting new enemies and learning new nuances of the game’s systems. By the time you come out the end of this “20-hour tutorial,” as some people call it, you’re fully equipped to take on the challenges of the open world you’re dropped into — and you have characters that are beefed up enough to be able to take on some significantly powerful monsters.

A common criticism of that “20-hour tutorial” is that there’s “nothing to do but fight,” which is an argument I can sort of see, but which I disagree with. Sure, in game terms you’re doing little more than running forward and fighting, but in the process you’re seeing things happen around you, meeting new characters, learning about the world — not to mention the fact that you’re choosing how your characters develop and crafting weapons to improve their performance… and not to mention the fact that the fighting is fun. Final Fantasy XIII may not populate its world with gimmicks and sidequests, but that doesn’t make it bad at all. It simply means it’s not to some people’s tastes, and that’s fine; what the people who find it distasteful don’t seem to realise, however, is that “I don’t like it” is not the same as “this is bad” — the very same thing that happens with other, more “niche” JRPGs like Hyperdimension Neptunia, Ar Tonelico and Time and Eternity: games with a laser-sharp focus on exactly the sort of person they want to be playing that game. (Me.)

The initial reaction to Final Fantasy XIII unfortunately meant that its sequel Final Fantasy XIII-2 was met with everything from indifference to hostility on its release, when it was actually a remarkably solid game. Its time-travelling story was confusing and convoluted, yes, but much like the weak, forgettable story of Final Fantasy XII didn’t affect the fact that the game itself was good, so too was the case with XIII-2, which built on and evolved many of XIII’s ideas. It addressed most of the criticisms people had about Final Fantasy XIII while simultaneously remaining recognisably true to its predecessor.

And now we find ourselves coming to the third game based around Final Fantasy XIII’s world: Lightning Returns. Once again, this game is being met with outright hostility for a variety of reasons. Particular attention is being paid this time around to the matter of the main character Lightning, whom everyone seems to have suddenly decided is massively offensive. Game director Motomu Toriyama is clearly enamoured with his creation and that’s absolutely fine — in many ways, it’s delightful to see a creator so passionate about something he’s created; at the same time, I don’t blame Square Enix for indulging in some gratuitous cross-promotion such as putting Lightning in a special quest in the upcoming MMO Final Fantasy XIV, or putting out some promotional art of her wearing the starting costume for one of Final Fantasy XIV’s character types and doing a(n admitedly provocative) pose from that character’s set of default “emote” animations.

It’s here that Final Fantasy’s background as a niche title with mainstream acceptance is working against it. With the JRPG genre regularly losing out to more popular types of game like first-person shooters and open world adventures, it seems that Toriyama is choosing to focus the Lightning Returns experience on a smaller niche that will appreciate it, and in the process is alienating the mainstream. In the case of most modern JRPGs, which have been happily ignoring the mainstream completely for several years now, this is fine; when you have a property as well-known as Final Fantasy, though, it’s an issue. Not that Toriyama and co are trying to focus on a more niche audience, mind you — that’s something I wholeheartedly encourage — but that people seem pissed off that Square Enix isn’t making the games they want them to make.

Well, to that, I simply say good on Square Enix for sticking with what they want to do. Not every game needs to be a focus-grouped mass appeal game designed to shift five million copies. I often find the ones that are to be rather soulless experiences at their core, so I wholeheartedly encourage and embrace any title with the balls to say “don’t like this? Fine. Leave.” rather than grabbing onto their ankles and screaming for them to “PLEASE DON’T GO”. Games are a business, yes, but that doesn’t mean that those who create them have to be beholden to the whims of the public; ultimately it should be the creator’s decision what to, you know, create.

I’m looking forward to playing Lightning Returns. You may not be, and that’s fine. But if you’re not, try not to push your opinions on everyone else as gospel, because there are a lot of people in the world, and everyone has their own take on things. No-one’s forcing you to play or like Lightning Returns; just respect the fact that there are people out there who will be playing it, and who may well end up liking it as a result… just like any other game out there.

Stepping away from the Internet now.

1286: Take a Note, Nep-Nep

When was the last time you played a video game that required you to either 1) map it yourself or 2) make notes while playing? I’m willing to bet it’s quite a long time, unless you’ve either 1) been playing the Etrian Odyssey series or 2) been playing an old-school Sierra game.

I’ve been playing a much more recent game and making notes, however. The game isn’t demanding that I make notes, but I’m getting a strange sense of satisfaction from figuring the game out for myself rather than immediately reaching for the walkthroughs, as is the common approach these days.

The game in question is Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory, which I’m now 40 hours into and probably about halfway through the plot, I estimate. I could have raced through and finished by now, I’m sure, but there’s something about this game in particular — even more than the previous two Neptunia games, which I adored in all their flawed glory — that is making me want to take my time and soak everything up.

It’s a different kind of wanting to soak things up to something like Ar Tonelico, though. In the case of Gust’s oeuvre, I wanted to continue immersing myself in the world; spend more time with the characters; see every possible conclusion to that lengthy story that I’d been enjoying so much. With Victory, meanwhile, my enjoyment is coming from the game mechanics as much as the setting and characters.

The three Neptunia games have a fun setting and some immensely entertaining characters, you see, but I wouldn’t call the world especially “immersive”. The only real “exploring” you do is going into dungeons, and these are primarily designed for being 1) a place to fight monsters and 2) a place to harvest items for use in crafting and/or quests. There’s a lot of repeated content — some dungeons are just variations on the same map, a la Phantasy Star Online and Dragon Age II — and thus they’re best regarded as a backdrop for the more interesting stuff that’s going on with the game mechanics.

More so than any of the previous Neptunia games, Victory is a case of a number of individually simplistic systems and mechanics coming together to create something significantly more complicated and deeper than the sum of its parts would appear to create at first glance. Sure, you can play through Victory without exploring these aspects of it, and that’s a perfectly valid way to play. But since mk2 in particular, I’ve found the gameplay of this series so satisfying that I want to indulge myself in all its nuances as much as possible.

Let me explain what I’ve been doing and taking notes on this evening. In doing so, you’ll hopefully see how the different individual systems at play in Victory combine to make something that is a surprisingly deep experience.

Each dungeon in Victory has a bank of monsters you’ll encounter. Like mk2 and unlike the first game, you can see the monsters on the map and attack or avoid them as you desire, though a single monster figure on the field actually represents a party of enemies that might include other opponent types.

Each monster drops at least one item, most of which are “trash” items that don’t have any use by themselves. But most of these items are used either in crafting recipes — crafting an item once means that it’s then available for purchase in all of the game’s shops, so it’s something you need to do — or for completing quests. Already we have several overlapping systems here — exploring dungeons leads to combat, which leads to the acquisition of items, which can be sold, used in crafting recipes or traded in for quest rewards.

As well as tangible rewards, quests also manipulate the game’s “shares” mechanic that has been around since the first game. I haven’t studied the effects these shares have in great detail yet, but if it’s anything like the first two games, the characters associated with a particular nation will be powered up or down according to how high their shares are. In my experience, it’s not a huge increase or decrease, but I’ll need to analyse things more comprehensively to figure that out. In mk2 the shares values also determined which ending you got; I don’t think that’s the case in Victory but I could be wrong.

Now, here’s the twist on the usual “monsters drop shit” thing — partway through the game, you gain access to a mechanic called Scouting, whereby you can send several NPCs off to scout dungeons while you do other stuff. Depending on how much you pay them and their level of proficiency, they may come back with items, money or, more importantly, a report that something has changed in the dungeon they were scouting. This could be a change in the amount of credits monsters drop or the experience points they award, or it could be a shift in the harvestable items or the monsters wandering around the dungeon.

The latter two are significant, because they are the only means of acquiring some items that are, again, used for crafting or completing quests. Most dungeons have at least one optional boss monster, and it’s usually these that are manipulated through the Scout system. Normally, these optional bosses are referred to as “Dangerous”, which simply means they’re tougher than the other stuff in the dungeon and have their own cool battle theme. However, a Scout spotting a shift in the monster patterns may turn them to either a “Risky” monster, which drops chips that can be used to burn discs with specific characteristics, abilities and stat improvements on, or a “Tough” monster, which drops medals that can be traded in to acquire the actual discs required to make use of this mechanic.

Whether a “Dangerous” monster becomes “Risky” or “Tough” when a scout finds it — actually finding something at all is determined largely by chance, but is influenced by both how much you pay the scout and their own abilities — is decided by whether a “flag” item in a dungeon is standing or broken. If it’s standing and your scout spots a change in monster patterns, you’ll come across a “Tough” monster; if it’s broken, you’ll meet a “Risky” monster. These shifts in monster patterns only last for one in-game “day”, though, so if you’ve sent your scouts off to random places all over the world and they’ve all found new monsters, you’ll need to decide which ones to take on. It becomes necessary to think about where you send your Scouts and why, otherwise it’s a bit of a waste of time.

This “flag” system also determines which harvestable items become available when a scout spots a change in the items available in the dungeon.

Confused? I was initially, too, because the game doesn’t explain this in great detail, which I was initially a bit annoyed about. However, having sat down and actually taken some notes this evening on each dungeon — what the normal lineup of collectable items and monsters are, and the differences that successfully Scouting it has, both with the flag broken and standing — I now feel like I understand this game mechanic. It isn’t explained in great detail because it’s not something you need to use to finish the game. You’re told regularly by NPCs that you don’t need to do quests and you don’t need to use Scouts, but if you do, you’ll find more cool stuff.

I could, of course, have simply gone to GameFAQs and looked all this shit up myself. But there’s something inherently very satisfying about figuring out how it all works myself. It makes me feel like I’m really “beating” the game at what it’s doing — learning how to leverage its rules to my own advantage, rather than simply getting someone to tell me how to do it. It’s something I can see myself doing a lot more in the future, as I’m appreciating the game a great deal more as a result.

1285: Wake Up Club

I hate mornings.

Actually, that’s not quite accurate. I don’t mind mornings in and of themselves, and in fact if I get my day started early enough I’m always pleasantly surprised how much free time I have left at the end of it. What I actually hate is the combination of waking up and getting up.

Waking up is the first challenge. Or rather, remaining awake after waking up for the first time is the first challenge — the actual act of waking up isn’t, in and of itself, especially difficult.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I tend to have very vivid dreams in the morning after I’ve woken up for the first time and fallen asleep again. Sometimes I have very vivid dreams immediately before I wake up for the first time, too, and the immediate temptation is to fall back asleep again to “finish” them, because waking up almost inevitably interrupts them at an interesting, exciting or otherwise pleasing point. (Sometimes they’re nightmares — err, morningmares? — but even then there’s a sort of morbid curiosity to see how things pan out.)

It’s so easy to just close my eyes and drift back off to sleep again, particularly if Andie has gone out to work and I’ve been left by myself. Without anywhere I “have” to be and with a job that I don’t need to start until late morning, I can quite feasibly fall back asleep again if I want to.

Doing that isn’t really compatible with having a productive day, though, and certainly isn’t compatible with the programme of light exercise (walking 3-4 miles a day at a fairly leisurely pace) I’ve been following for the past couple of weeks. So I’ve been forcing myself out of bed in the morning, even if I don’t really want to. And this morning I really didn’t want to, but I managed it anyway.

One tool I’ve found quite helpful in making myself wake up and get up first time is a freebie download for Vita called Wake Up Club. This is basically little more than an alarm clock app, but it has a few little features built in that engage the brain enough to prevent you from falling asleep again.

There are two main ways it does this. Firstly is the fact that in order to get it to shut up in the first place, you have to actually pick up the Vita, press the “Yes” key when it asks if it’s all right to let the Wake Up Club app bring the Vita out of sleep mode without you having to touch the power button. Once the app is open, you then have to tap on a leisurely bouncing image of your PSN avatar to actually get the thing to be quiet.

Except there’s another step after that, too, which is where the “club” bit of the app’s title comes from. Every morning, Wake Up Club picks a bunch of people who have all set their alarm for the same time and invites them to harass each other if they don’t wake up immediately. You do this by tapping on their avatar, which causes their Vita to yell at them until they, too, inform their device that they have indeed woken up and could they please stop shouting at them?

I’m actually yet to have to do this on other “players” who are using the app, since everyone seems to wake up fairly quickly. The only time I get to tap on other people’s avatars are if there’s no-one else “playing,” or if the Vita has had some sort of PSN-related meltdown in the night and has lost connection. Then you get to tap on the avatars of computer-controlled “club” members until they wake up, which takes a good few seconds. By the time you have finished tapping on things, you’re well and truly awake, those simple motor actions being enough to get your brain moving beyond that point that will allow you to fall asleep again as soon as your head hits the pillow.

Also there are trophies if you are a trophy whore and like receiving arbitrary rewards for “gamifying” your life. So there’s that.

Anyway. Yeah. If you’re having trouble waking up, get some form of alarm clock that requires you to do something more than just hit it to shut it up. If you have a Vita, Wake Up Club is as good as anything, particularly as it’s free.

1284: MIRAKURU ROMANSU

I’m a little further into Sailor Moon now. (That sounds a bit wrong. Never mind, let’s just run with it.) Still not a long way, but long enough for both Sailors Mercury and Mars to have shown up, which has thrown an interesting twist into things.

As I suspected, both Mercury and Mars are considerably more competent than poor old Usagi, who is still a clumsy crybaby even when transformed. That said, it’s interesting to see the different ways that Mercury and Mars come to “competence” — Mercury, in keeping with her “normal” incarnation as Ami, is quiet, intelligent and thinks things through; Mars, meanwhile, is aggressive, quick to anger and courageous. Mercury is by far the most “mature” of the bunch, despite Mars clearly being the oldest (I assume, anyway; I’m judging largely on the basis of their physical development and the fact that Mars has a job rather than attending school) [correction — the episode I watched the day after this post was written saw Mars turn up in a school uniform, so scratch that!] — the episode I watched today featured Usagi and Mars arguing throughout, with Mars in particular betraying the facade of maturity she clearly tries hard to keep up by getting sucked into Usagi’s ridiculous world. I’m spotting a bit of a tsundere streak in Mars, too (well, mostly tsuntsun at present) which, of course, means I find her tremendously attractive.

The show continues to be simplistic, entertaining fun at its current stage. I don’t know if it gets any more complex later on, but to be honest, I don’t mind at all if it continues in its present, rather formulaic fashion. You don’t have to think too hard about it or try to hunt for hidden meanings; you can just flop down in front of it and enjoy the silliness. It’s the Saturday morning cartoon formula — predictable villains who are always after the same thing (the curiously non-specific “energy” in Sailor Moon’s case), a predictable main cast who get to do one majorly awesome thing per episode that can be easily represented through the insertion of stock footage, and a comic sidekick character. (That said, Sailor Moon’s sidekick character Luna the cat is actually the most mature, sensible one out of all of them.)

What’s interesting about Sailor Moon at this early stage — and I could be wrong about this, since I’m only ten episodes into the whole run — is that it’s essentially a superhero show, focused almost exclusively on female superheroes, in which said female superheroes don’t appear to be there just to be “sexy”. Sure, they’re all in short skirts, Sailor Mars is wearing some distinctly impractical-looking high heels and there was a rather gratuitous pantsu shot (Sailor Mars again) in the last episode I watched, but for the most part when they’re in their Sailor Senshi forms, it’s all business, bubbles, fireballs and Moon Tiara Action. (Incidentally, I feel that Sailors Mercury and Moon drew the short straws when it came to their awesome powers — Sailor Mars can set things on fire, while Mercury can, err, make a lot of bubbles, and Moon can throw her tiara at things. Granted, getting hit by Sailor Moon’s tiara generally appears to make things turn into dust, but still. Sailor Mars can set things on fire.)

Anyway, yeah. Sailor Moon is awesome. I’m disappointed in myself I haven’t watched it sooner, but at least I can make up for lost time now.

1283: Dislike

I find myself thinking more and more about deactivating my Facebook account. I realise that in this day and age doing such a thing is tantamount to unplugging yourself from The Matrix, but I really don’t feel there’s a lot of value there for me any more.

The thing that has stopped me from closing my Facebook account in the past is the fact that “it’s the only real means I have of staying in touch with certain people.” That may be true, but the real question is how often I actually speak to the people for whom the only means I have of reaching them is Facebook? I have a lot of doubling-up between Facebook and Twitter, and in the case of most of my “real-life” friends I have their phone numbers. If I want to make plans with someone, I’ll generally text them. If I don’t have their phone number, I’ll reach for Twitter. Facebook messages are frequently ignored.

The reason Facebook’s value has declined for me over time is because the social media landscape has changed. What was once a cool means of communication has been roughly shoved in the direction of “branding” and advertising. It’s obvious the moment you read anything in tech journalism about social media, whether it’s Facebook or the latest pointless mobile app that lets you manipulate photos no-one cares about in a slightly different way to all the other apps that let you manipulate photos no-one cares about. None of the press coverage about new social media apps has anything to do with people communicating with one another; it’s all about how brands can leverage their social graph and monetize their core demographics. It’s about how a seemingly innocent app that allows you to subtly manipulate photos no-one gives a shit about is actually a means of getting your “brand” in front of as many people as possible. It’s about “engagement”, “ROI” and “CPC”.

I don’t give a fuck. And I don’t want to be a part of it. I don’t want to be confronted with an ad for an app or game I don’t give a shit about before I see anything my friends have posted — which, nine times out of ten, I probably don’t give a toss about anyway. I don’t want to be continually confronted with “sponsored posts” festooned with comments from complete imbeciles who think telling an ad to “fuck off” will make it go away. And I really couldn’t give a flying honk what George Takei’s PR team (spoiler: that’s not George Takei writing those posts) saw on Reddit last week and is only now getting around to sharing with everyone on the Internet.

Even outside of “branding” and advertising, though, the way people use Facebook has changed, too. With more and more different types of post available, the service has become more of a means of simply broadcasting pointless, impersonal shit into the void of the Internet rather than a way to start discussions or have conversations. What was once a two-way discussion is now a largely one-way street. (I’m aware a blog is exactly the same, but at least a blog is under no illusions about what it is and is not; Facebook, meanwhile, has always marketed itself as some form of communication tool, when this is, in fact, a relatively minor part of its reason for existence these days.)

All this may be hypocritical, because I’ve been guilty of all of the above at one time or another. But that was a process of discovery and exploration, leading me to the realisation I’m at today: aside from Twitter, which genuinely is still a reasonably useful means of communication for me, most other forms of social media carry little value to me besides giving me something to fiddle with on my phone when small talk dries up and I don’t want to just sit there looking like some sort of mute twat.

I haven’t decided yet whether or not I’m actually going to close down my Facebook account, but now I don’t work reviewing awful, exploitative and, hell, just downright crap social games for a living, I have no real “need” for that particular ball and chain any more. I’m going to do some very serious thinking about whether Facebook has a place in my life any more in the next week or two, and come to a conclusion then. If you’ve been having similar thoughts to me, then I urge you to do the same. I have a strange feeling we’ll feel better without that particular annoyance in our lives.

1282: Dead Body Gathering

I’ve been replaying Corpse Party recently due to the fact that I’ve owned the sequel Book of Shadows for ages and haven’t gotten around to it yet. Since Book of Shadows is more of a spinoff that tells other concurrent stories that take place during the first Corpse Party, I figured it would probably be a good idea to refresh my memory on the original.

I’m reminded how much I liked the game first time around, for a number of reasons. It has its frustrating elements, sure — chief among which is the lack of a “fast forward” function for scenes you’ve seen before and want to skip after reloading from a “Wrong End” — but there’s a lot more to like than there is to dislike.

The most impressive thing about Corpse Party is still its sound. Not only does it have some fantastic music, but it also makes use of some utterly brilliant 3D sound effects that are alarmingly realistic when listened to on headphones. There’s one sequence partway through where a character is listening to someone’s voice on their phone, and the way the sound is positioned actually makes it sound like a phone held up against your ear. Elsewhere, careful positioning of sounds in the stereo field can make it sound like they’re coming from over your shoulder, or off in the distance.

Alongside the marvellous 3D sound is some incredible voice acting. I have pretty limited knowledge of Japanese seiyuu, but it’s clear that those who signed on to voice Corpse Party’s cast really know what they’re doing. The delivery of their lines is packed with character and some really genuine-sounding emotion. When a character shouts, they sound angry. When a character is crying, it’s heartbreaking. When a character screams, it’s enough to send shivers down your spine.

The game, as I’ve said on a few occasions previously, is also a masterclass in that essential part of horror — “less is more”. While Corpse Party has its share of explicitly gory moments, its most horrifying scenes are completely invisible in terms of visuals, instead unfolding entirely through sound effects, text and occasional flashes of colour. The imagination really gets to work in these scenes, filling your mind with some truly, truly unpleasant mental images that are all the worse for the fact you know that you’re responsible for picturing them. I often find myself wincing at explicit, gory horror movies, but Corpse Party is the only game that’s managed to genuinely get me squirming using nothing but a minimalist approach.

I’m into the game’s fourth chapter, so I’m making good progress on my playthrough. I’ve managed to avoid a lot of the “Wrong Ends” so far, though the growing completionist streak I appear to be developing will probably insist I go back and get them all in order to fill in all those “Ending List” stars at some point. And this time I will actually play the “Extra” scenes that you unlock as you play through, too — for some reason I didn’t get around to those last time around.

Anyway. Yeah. Corpse Party. If you’re yet to experience this creepy classic on PSP and Vita and are hungry for something scary, get on that right now.

1281: MIRACLE ROMANCE

I guess about now is a good time to admit that I’ve started watching Sailor Moon and, predictably, enjoying it a great deal.

In my defence, after watching Revolutionary Girl Utena and finding it enjoyable but immensely confusing, I felt obliged to check out Sailor Moon for further education in the ways of the magical girl. I have a sort of ulterior motive for educating myself on this particular aspect of anime — for starters, I’ve always been interested in it, but never got around to checking any of it out; secondly, I hear that Puella Magi Madoka Magica or whatever it’s called is very good, but is something of a deconstruction of the magical girl genre as a whole and consequently is best appreciated when you have more than a passing familiarity with its tropes.

So, Sailor Moon, then. In stark contrast to Revolutionary Girl Utena, Sailor Moon is charmingly unsubtle about everything it does. The lead character Usagi seems to do nothing but shout or cry all the time, and the show’s moral messages are only a couple of steps removed from He-Man’s posturing. While there’s no “Hey, Kids!” moment at the end of a Sailor Moon episode, the inherent “message” of each chapter is so startlingly obvious within about five seconds of it starting that it becomes more of a Columbo-style show, where you’re waiting to see how it reaches the conclusion you already know from the outset, rather than holding on tight for some narrative twists and turns.

That’s not to say it’s bad, though; simple is good sometimes, and God knows it’s appreciated after Utena. Sailor Moon’s characters are charming and endearing, even if they’re loud, and they’ve all grown and developed even in the space of the few episodes I’ve watched to date. I’m looking forward to seeing how Usagi — who, spoiler, is also Sailor Moon — develops over the course of the 300 bajillion episodes there are, because she is comically incompetent at present, despite ostensibly being the show’s heroine. Her “sidekicks” who are teased in the show’s opening titles haven’t shown up yet, but I assume it’s only a matter of time.

It’s clear even from this early stage that Sailor Moon was very influential, however. I’m seeing elements of its humour and characterisation in the latest Hyperdimension Neptunia game, for example, where Neptune takes on the Usagi role of “amusingly rubbish protagonist who’s aware she’s rubbish”, and her companions are actually far more capable than she is. There’s also the more obvious fact that Neptune and co are all themselves magical girls, able to transform into their “Hard Drive Divinity” forms to power up and become stronger — though there’s less “identity hiding” in the world of Neptunia than there is in the more “grounded in reality” world of Sailor Moon.

And that music. Amazing. While the copies of the episodes I’m watching aren’t brilliant quality — or perhaps they really were that poor quality when originally broadcast — the amazing background music still stands out, if only for the fact it sounds like it belongs in a 1960s TV series rather than the 1992 anime from which it actually hails. Huge string orchestras, wakka-wakka guitars, choirs of singers mewling “oooooooh, oooh-ooooooohh, Saiiiiloooor Mooooooon…” as Usagi transforms. Marvellous stuff.

Anyway. I’m going to watch a lot more of Sailor Moon, I predict. I have the whole series to hand, but it remains to be seen if I can manage all of it. I’m sure I can, and I’m sure I will feel suitably satisfied at its conclusion. I hope there’s a good ending. Please don’t tell me if the ending is rubbish!