1978: Some More Heavensward Thoughts

Spent some more time playing Heavensward today and am having an absolute blast with it.

It’s been an odd adjustment to move from the rather freeform, “pursue your own goals” gameplay of a level cap character back into the routine of doing quests, exploring and all manner of other things. But I’m enjoying it a lot, particularly as so far Heavensward is proving itself to have a wide variety of things to do and ways to earn those all-important experience points.

The main story quests have been very good so far. They always were mostly quite interesting (though in the post-50 ones there was quite a lot of lugging boxes around and other menial tasks in between the more dramatic moments — not exactly the Warrior of Light’s finest hour) but Heavensward has raised the bar somewhat.

One way in which it’s done this is through the use of instanced quest battles — scripted encounters that take you out of the main multiplayer world and put you in your own private little area to complete objectives. In A Realm Reborn, these were usually fairly small scale but fun; in Heavensward they’re much more ambitious affairs with their own unique mechanics. One particular highlight relatively early on sees you running through one of the earlier dungeons by yourself in the attempt to rescue a prisoner — while you do so, their captors start filling the place with poison gas, so you have to deal with that as well as finding a way to release them.

The main story itself is interesting and feels more focused than A Realm Reborn, too. Taking a somewhat darker overall tone, the plot thus far has seen the Warrior of Light (you!), one of your erstwhile companions and two other characters who each played roles in A Realm Reborn exploring the lands beyond Ishgard in an attempt to stop a war between the Dravanian dragons and Ishgard that will doubtless end with much death and destruction on both sides.

A Realm Reborn set up dragons mostly as fearsome, dehumanised foes to be treated with respect but defeated nonetheless. They played a relatively minor role in the overarching storyline until the latter hours and the Binding Coil of Bahamut storyline, but they were there nonetheless — and as you progressed, particularly through the Bahamut narrative, it became very apparent that they weren’t quite the simple foes you might have expected them to be based on their appearances in other fantasy media.

Heavensward runs with this theme, with both the main story and sidequests going some distance to help us understand the dragons a little better. One questline in particular sees you helping out an Ishgardian who is essentially a “racist” of sorts against dragons — he refuses to believe they are anything more than monsters, but as you complete his quests, both you and he come to see that the dragons apparently have feelings and society just like the humanoids of the world.

The sidequests are kind of interesting in that they further your understanding of the game world much like in A Realm Reborn, but unlike the base game, the darker tone seeps in quite often, with many quests ending in less than perfect circumstances. In some regards it feels like some cues have been taken from Nier — also published by Square Enix — by demonstrating that sometimes, even with your best intentions and god-felling skills and abilities, you simply can’t bring about a happy ending for everyone. It’s sobering, but very much in keeping with the overall tone.

Then you have boss fights in which you and seven friends take on a giant insect god with a penchant for swinging four gigantic swords around at once, and you remember that this is still very much a Final Fantasy game at heart — and oh, do I love it for it.

1977: To The Heavens

Well, it’s finally here: Final Fantasy XIV opened the doors to its first full expansion Heavensward today — for those who preordered it, anyway — and I’ve spent literally all day playing it.

It’s good.

The story follows on directly from the end of the 2.55 story arc, which I won’t spoil here for those who haven’t seen it in all its ridiculous and tragic glory. Suffice to say, however, that it provides good reason for the Warrior of Light (that’s you!) and occasional companion Alphinaud to head in the direction of Ishgard, a region which had previously been closed off to outsiders, but which became a little more open-minded after seeing how you (and seven friends) fended off an absolutely massive dragon towards the end of A Realm Reborn.

The city of Ishgard itself is beautifully rendered, being somewhat similar in design to a cross between Final Fantasy XI’s cities of San d’Oria and Jeuno. It has its own very distinctive character that is separate to the three previous city-states we had the opportunity to visit in A Realm Reborn — the verdant, nature-filled environs of Gridania; the tall towers and tall ships of Limsa Lominsa; and the juxtaposition between extreme affluence and extreme poverty of Ul’Dah — with an austere, almost unwelcoming facade and some beautiful architecture. The kind of place where you’d be slightly afraid to touch anything, lest you befouled or defaced it in some way or another.

Outside the city, things get interesting. Early on, the main scenario quest sends you off in two separate directions: in one direction lies the Coerthas Western Highlands — a snowy, mountainous region similar to the existing Central Highlands region, but with more in the way of sheer cliff faces and inconvenient but impressive-looking lumps of rock all over the place — while in the other lies the Sea of Clouds, a floating archipelago of islands in the sky where skies are often clear and blue by simple virtue of the fact that the islands are above the clouds, but whose altitude drops the temperature to less-than-inviting levels. There’s a huge contrast between these initial two areas; Coerthas is drab, monochromatic and somewhat grounded in reality for the most part (huge dead dragon corpse aside), while the Sea of Clouds is dramatically colourful, the stuff of pure fantasy. I haven’t proceeded further afield just yet, but the main story is shortly to have me heading for Dravania, home of the dragons, so I’m interested to see how that compares.

One really striking thing about Heavensward is its sense of scale. A Realm Reborn was no stranger to sprawling environments that were impressive to behold, but Heavensward takes it to a new level. Ishgard is gigantic and imposing in the same way an old cathedral is; meanwhile, the field maps are huge in terms of both surface area and variation in altitude — the latter aspect of which is, in part, designed to accommodate the new flying mounts you can ride around after completing the surprisingly enjoyable task of hunting down a number of hidden “aether currents” scattered around the region.

Another striking thing about Heavensward is nothing to do with its architecture, however: a good 80-90% of the original voice cast appears to have been replaced, meaning some characters sound quite different to how they sounded in A Realm Reborn, with several even having picked up regional accents (primarily Yorkshire so far) in the intervening period. It’s initially somewhat jarring, but overall the quality of the voice acting is much better than A Realm Reborn. This isn’t particularly difficult, however, because although A Realm Reborn had an excellent localisation (albeit one that diverged quite a bit from the original Japanese script and took on something of a life of its own) its voice acting was passable at best and woefully awful at worst. At least in English it was, anyway; the Japanese voice acting makes use of well-known voice talent like Rie Tanaka (Hyperdimension Neptunia) and Eri Kitamura (Senran Kagura) and as such has always been pretty good, but it’s clear that the English dub was perhaps, to put it politely, done a little bit on the cheap side.

It’s not entirely surprising, mind you; A Realm Reborn was a huge risk for Square Enix given Final Fantasy XIV version 1.0’s critical and commercial failure. As such, the decision to perhaps skimp a bit on the voice acting budget — many scenes in A Realm Reborn and indeed Heavensward also are unvoiced — was understandable. However, since A Realm Reborn achieved the seemingly impossible and rescued an all-but-dead MMO from oblivion, turning it into one of the company’s greatest success stories in the process, it’s gratifying to see that a bit more effort has been put into aspects of the presentation such as voice acting — even if the change in some characters’ voices is a little surprising the first time you hear it.

I’m yet to try out a huge amount of the new gameplay features — I’m concentrating on levelling my main class Paladin to 60 before levelling anything further — but the new skills for existing classes look interesting, and the altogether new classes seem to be really cool, though it looks as if “lolDRK” is going to become the new “lolDRG”. (Context for those unfamiliar: for the longest time, Dragoons (DRG) were notorious for dying a lot, due in part to their low magic resistance but also due to awkward animation locks on certain skills making it difficult to move out of the way of attacks; hence, “lolDRG” as the response to a Dragoon’s inevitable death; Dark Knights (DRK), however, appear to be ready to take up the mantle for themselves, from what I’ve heard so far.)

Oh, and the music is amazing. And the story is interesting. And I’ve fallen in love with this stupid game all over again. There goes the next few years of my life…

1976: The Sonic Game That Never Was

I’ve been pretty restrained with the current Steam sale, but one game I did pick up today was Freedom Planet, an homage to ’90s mascot platformers and particularly to Sonic the Hedgehog-style speedy platformers. And I’ve only played three levels so far, but I’m already gobsmacked by quite how good it is.

Freedom Planet tells the tale of the Kingdom Stone, a powerful artifact that is stolen by a horrible alien dude, and the quest of a plucky band of heroes to rescue it. The playable cast includes Lilac, a purple dragon that looks like a tsundere female Sonic; a green cat called Carol; and an overexcitable dog-like thing called Milla. There’s also an alien who thinks disguising himself as a duck is the best way to blend in — although on a planet of furries, that’s probably not all that unfair an assumption.

You can play the game in two ways: Adventure mode punctuates the levels with some lengthy, fully voiced cutscenes that tell the unfolding story, while Classic Mode allows you to play it in authentically old-school fashion without having to worry about narrative. When you’re in the platforming segments, you control your chosen character as they run, jump, climb, bounce and kick the shit out of enemies in their way. Each character handles noticeably differently and forces you to approach the levels in a different way, and some hugely enjoyable but challenging boss fights force you to play methodically rather than just mashing the attack button randomly.

It’s an absolutely beautiful game. Deliberately taking a low-resolution pixel art aesthetic but running in high definition for some beautifully sharp corners, each and every character is packed full of a ton of visual personality, with lots of different and unique animations for different situations. During the cutscenes, the characters make appropriate poses and animations according to the things they’re saying rather than just flapping their heads, and the whole thing is just so full of character that you can’t help but be drawn into the rather silly (yet surprisingly dark at times) plot.

And it plays as good as it looks, too; wonderfully tight, responsive controls mean that you never feel like you’re battling against the game, and the characters are always doing what you want them to do. Some tweaks have been made to Sonic’s basic formula, too; characters can run up walls and even along certain ceilings without too much difficulty, a double-jump special move makes traversal a little more straightforward, and each character has their own unique super-special abilities that help them get around as well as kill things.

I’ve only played a few levels so far but I like it a whole lot, and am looking forward to exploring it further. That will probably have to wait, however, because tomorrow is Heavensward day, and I’ve finished my work for the week, so I know exactly what I’m doing all day tomorrow…

1975: Bahamut Down

In the early hours of this morning, Wuckle and I achieved something I hoped we’d achieve before Friday: we defeated Bahamut Prime in The Burning Heart, bringing our expeditions into the Final Coil of Bahamut to a close — for now, at least; we have some members of our static raid group who are still yet to clear these fights, so we’ll be helping them through at some point soon.

As the “true final boss” of the game, I was hoping that the Bahamut Prime fight would be pretty spectacular, and sure enough I wasn’t disappointed. Here’s a video (from my character’s perspective as a Black Mage) of our clear:

The fight is not only a suitably challenging battle to bring the main endgame raid of “vanilla” Final Fantasy XIV to a close, it’s also a fitting conclusion for a Final Fantasy game. Japanese role-playing games are often known for getting a little… peculiar in their final confrontations, with final bosses often being fought in space, in clouds of darkness, in strange swirling miasmas or inside the cores of planets. In the case of Final Fantasy XIV, your battle against Bahamut Prime takes place within Bahamut’s own heart — Bahamut Prime, it seems, is not literally Bahamut himself (since he is both absolutely massive and in the process of being regenerated by the various Coils) but rather a manifestation of his will and rage.

This doesn’t stop him being a formidable opponent, mind you. The fight combines mechanics from a number of earlier battles to create a confrontation where you have to use everything you’ve learned about handling mechanics to be successful. There’s heavy amounts of damage. There’s people taking responsibility for ensuring the group isn’t wiped out by carelessness or inattention. There’s puddles of nasty shit on the floor that you have to drop carefully. And, of course, there are Divebombs, Final Fantasy XIV’s most notorious enemy ability, first introduced in the Turn 5 fight against Twintania, later seen in a somewhat different format in the Turn 9 fight against Nael deus Darnus and finally seen from not one but two independent sources in the Bahamut Prime battle.

Divebombs are notorious because in the case of Turn 5 in particular, they were the “roadblock” that stopped a lot of groups from progressing further, simply because they’re tricky to handle properly and can have devastating consequences for the whole group if handled incorrectly. Their inclusion in each of the three “final” battles in the three separate parts of Coil shows the battle designers’ awareness that they are a challenge — albeit a surmountable one — and a desire to test players’ abilities to the maximum, often without the helpful visual telegraphs that many of the other enemy attacks in the game have.

But anyway. You didn’t come for a deconstruction of the mechanics of Final Fantasy XIV’s raids. (Probably.) You came to hear me enthuse about beating a spectacular final boss fight — and, if you’ve watched the video, you’ll see that it most certainly is.

As I’ve written about a few times previously on these pages, I’m a big fan of well-done final confrontations, and a big part of an effective one in my book is good use of music. Turn 5 and Turn 9 (the previous “final bosses” of the game prior to the introduction of Final Coil) both had great music that was unique to the fight (or “almost unique” in the case of Turn 5 — it’s also used for the final boss of the main 2.0 storyline as well as a later confrontation); Turn 13, meanwhile, makes stunningly effective use of the game’s main theme song “Answers”.

“Answers” is one of the first things you hear in A Realm Reborn, since it accompanies the dramatic introduction sequence that depicts the end of the 1.0 world through the Calamity — an event that those who played the original incarnation of Final Fantasy XIV actually lived through.

The Calamity saw the descent of the artificial moon Dalamud as a result of the machinations of Nael van Darnus, an overly ambitious Imperial legatus and the main antagonist of the 1.0 storyline. As the moon approached Eorzea, however, an unexpected thing happened: it burst open to reveal a very angry Bahamut, who proceeded to lay waste to the realm in his somewhat understandable rage — after all, you’d be pissed off if you’d been locked inside a moon since ancient times, wouldn’t you?

All looks lost for Eorzea, but the intervention of Archon Louisoix, a major character in the 1.0 storyline and quests, sees something mysterious happen that no-one quite understands or remembers. Everyone wakes up five years later in a realm that is somewhat different to what it once was, but still very much intact. This is how A Realm Reborn kicks off, but the main storyline then goes off in its own direction and the truth of what really happened in the Calamity doesn’t start to be revealed when (if) you venture into the Binding Coil of Bahamut.

Through your explorations of the three Coils, you discover not only the truth behind the Calamity, but also what happened to a number of important characters who had apparently disappeared or died — most notably, Louisoix himself and Nael. Needless to say, everything comes back to Bahamut in the end — but during your investigations you also discover exactly what it was that led to Bahamut’s imprisonment inside the artificial moon, and why he’s so full of rage and resentment towards humanity.

Since “Answers” is a song so closely tied to this storyline, it’s fitting that it should be the accompaniment for its final conclusion. And it’s used beautifully throughout the fight, too, beginning with the mournful baritone lyrics speaking of suffering and pain, moving through the gentler, sweeter female lyrics that speak of “the land’s light of justice” and walking free before eventually culminating in the gloriously thick-sounding choral finale. The music isn’t just played straight through, though; the simple, sparse baritone singing is used in the fight’s first phase, the female lyrics come in in the second phase as you start having to deal with Bahamut’s minions as well as the dragon god himself, and the explosion of passion that is the finale comes as Bahamut Prime begins casting his ultimate attack Teraflare: a devastating blast of flaming energy that, assuming you survive, signals the beginning of the end.

Final Fantasy XIV uses music spectacularly well throughout to help with its storytelling. Each of the story’s main confrontations are accompanied by their own unique theme tunes, many of which have relevant lyrics. The presentation of the game’s absolutely, positively, definitely final battle (until Heavensward, obviously) is no exception to this, and I’m very excited to hear what Soken and his team come up with to accompany our new adventures.

It’s now 1am, though, and since I’ve had like three hours sleep, I think it’s probably time I caught up a bit.

1974: E3 is Bringin’ It

I’ve paid more attention to E3 this year than I have done in recent memory — even when I was actively covering it for publications I was writing for. When I was covering E3 and writing up news, I was often struck with how few of the “big announcements” were of interest to me personally, with the press conferences in particular being full of flashy but ultimately predictable and unsurprising bombast with very little in the way of genuine surprises.

This year it has all changed, though. After a wobbly start — Microsoft, EA and Ubi’s press conferences were all decent enough but rather forgettable — Sony pulled a corker out of the bag by revealing that all three of the totally implausible rumours that had been flying around were, in fact true. Yes, Square Enix is doing a complete remake of Final Fantasy VII, coming first to PlayStation 4. Yes, The Last Guardian still exists, and there’s gameplay footage to prove it. And yes, Shenmue III is on the way after a very long break — part-funded by Kickstarter (you’re damn right I pledged) and part-funded by Sony.

Then today was Square Enix’s presentation. In between the flashy but predictable games we all knew were coming — Just Cause 3 in particular is looking like it might be fun — there were some honest-to-goodness genuine surprises, chief among which was the fact that there’s a fucking new Nier game on the way, developed by Platinum Games.

This announcement was so out of the blue and unexpected that it genuinely blew people away. People were waiting for something unannounced to be revealed at Square Enix’s conference, but many had become convinced it was something to do with Chrono Trigger. Nope; it’s a new Nier game featuring a dream team of development talent, including the original producer, director and composer as well as art from the guy behind Bravely Default.

I adore Nier. It’s a wonderful, wonderful game that went sadly unappreciated in its own lifetime, ever-doomed to languish with a Metascore of 68 thanks to critics who were more wrapped up in its technical shortcomings than its ambitious and emotional story, wonderful use of the interactive entertainment medium to tell it, unconventional and fascinating characters and at times baffling fusion of game styles. It’s a beautiful experience with a narrative that sticks with you long after you’ve beaten it, and one of the most haunting musical scores I’ve ever heard in any medium. (I have the piano score for it; it’s a delight — and a challenge — to play.)

The news that a new Nier game is on the way is, in short, extremely welcome to me — and the fact that it looks like it will be focusing on the original game’s main heroine Kaine, a very angry intersex woman who has a somewhat troubled but oddly touching relationship with the protagonist Nier, is an absolute delight. I can’t wait to see what wonders the creative geniuses behind this absolute work of art come out with on new-generation hardware; I don’t doubt that it will be warped, full of jank and weird as fuck, but those things are what made the original Nier so utterly fascinating to play and to talk about.

So, in short, this has been the most exciting E3 for some time now. And then Final Fantasy XIV’s expansion Heavensward flings open its Early Access doors on Friday… man. What a time to be into video games.

1973: Muses

The world and their dog are talking about E3 at the moment, because everyone needs to livetweet the things that everyone else is watching. So rather than add to the noise, I’m going to talk about something completely unrelated to E3 or even video games: Love Live!

I’ve mentioned Love Live! a few times recently, I know, but the more I watch it the more I adore it. I’m coming up on the end of the second and final season now, and I’ve been very surprised how genuinely emotional it’s been: the premise (“cute girls get together and form an idol group to save their school”) is pure fluff, of course, but the amount of heart and soul with which the whole experience is infused with is simply magical.

The first season of Love Live! drew a little criticism from fans for taking quite so long to “get going”, as it were; it’s about nine episodes before the entire cast is together, and the season is only 13 episodes long, which doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for the main thrust of the story: Honoka’s (and, later, the rest of the group’s) dream to perform at the Love Live school idol festival in front of an army of adoring fans.

I could initially see where these complaints were coming from, but now I’m coming up on the end of the second season, I completely understand why they spent so long over introducing the characters and exposition in the first season: it’s so that when the main drama of the latter part of the second season comes along — the impending graduation of three of the characters, and the question of what happens to their group once they’ve gone — it’s all the more effective because you have a deep understanding of these characters and their affection for one another by this point. Love Live! is an immensely popular anime for fans to “ship” favourite couplings in, but it’s abundantly clear throughout that the affection — and, possibly, romance — between pairings like Nico x Maki, Rin x Hanayo and Eli x Nozomi was entirely intentional on the part of the writers, and the audience feels like they’re a part of this intimacy that the group of nine share with one another.

It tugs at the heartstrings, for sure, and I’m not ashamed to say that a couple of the most recent episodes I’ve watched may have drawn a tear or two. I will also be very disappointed if the final episodes aren’t total tearjerkers.

What’s interesting, though, is that Love Live! doesn’t elicit this kind of emotion in the same way as notorious “crying anime” such as AnoHana and Clannad: there’s no tragedy, there’s no real adversity besides the girls having to overcome various challenges on their quest for idolhood, there’s no death, pain or suffering. There’s just a wonderfully heartwarming sense of love and affection infusing the whole show, and the prospect of that ending is emotional — not because it’s sad (though it is that, too, to a certain degree), but because it’s a delight to have been able to ride along with these girls as they forged the sort of friendships that last for life.

I’m really intrigued to see how the series ends — and what the recently released movie has to offer if I’m able to track down a means of watching it. Suffice to say, then, that I am very much a Love Live! convert.

Oh, and if you were wondering, my provisional “best girl” ranking — provisional because the season’s not over yet, and there’s scope for things to change, I’m sure! — is as follows: Maki > Eli > Nozomi > Kotori > Umi > Honoka > Nico > Hanayo > Rin, with the proviso that I don’t actively dislike any of them; Rin is simply my least favourite, nya. (Although bonus points to her for the “nya”-ing, a trait that always makes me go a bit weak at the knees.)

1972: Togetherness

You know, I really shouldn’t be surprised about this any more, what with us living in the Information Age or whatever it is we’re in, with the Internet an omnipresent, omniscient collective of intelligences (in most circumstances) that, as a whole, never sleeps. But it does.

What, I hear you ask? The fact that someone, somewhere in the world, is probably doing the same thing you are at the exact same time as you.

I don’t often think about this, but it occurs to me when I fire up a multiplayer game that isn’t the current “flavour of the month” or Call of Duty. For example, I downloaded Tetris for my PlayStation 4, as it’s a long time since I seriously played Tetris and I fancied something that I could play together with Andie. The PS4 version of Tetris has an online mode where you can play any of the game modes with up to three other people playing at the same time as you. In the case of the “Battle” modes, you can directly interfere with one another, as is the tradition in Tetris multiplayer, but there are also a number of modes where you’re pretty much just playing alongside other people, perhaps to compare performance or pick up tips.

Now, Tetris is one of the most well-known, loved and respected games in the world, but I still find it surprising that there are people out there who make time to sit down and compete online. I’d ask “why?” but then I’d be forced to ask myself why I had chosen to play it online, too — and their answer would probably be the same as mine: to have some sort of “connection” with another person, even if it’s a non-verbal one that is as simple as a shared interest. (Aside: Online Tetris players are frighteningly good.)

It’s not just Tetris, either; I can sit down and play a mobile game like Brave Frontier, Love Live! School Idol Festival or Drift Girls and jump into one of the online modes in those and still find a live opponent to compete against. Again, in most cases, communication isn’t direct — most of these games don’t have a chat facility due to the impracticality of it in a mobile game — but it’s oddly heartwarming to be sharing an experience with other people, even if it’s only for a few short minutes as you attempt to full-combo Snow Halation or raise your ranking in the Drift Girls world tour mode.

Anyway. It’s kind of cool to occasionally connect with people in passing like this; with gaming often being a relatively solitary pursuit, it is sometimes nice to feel like there are other people out there who are into the same things as you — and perhaps even to share an experience with them.

Now I’ve probably got time for a quick Love Live! score match…

1971: don’t bully!!

Here’s a curious paradox for you: how much of the supposed epidemic of “bullying” and “harassment” going on on the Internet these days is down to people bringing it upon themselves?

This isn’t a question of “victim blaming”, as the buzzword has it, but it’s an actual phenomenon that I’ve observed — and, in my younger days, even engaged in myself. I can’t explain why I did such a thing, but I know I did it, I know that I was aware I was doing it even at the time, and yet I simply couldn’t stop myself.

I suffered dreadfully at the hands of bullies in primary school. I’m not sure what it was about me — my hair, my accent, the fact my ears appeared quite large in comparison to my head (I’ve since “grown into” them, I think) or some combination of all of the above and a few other things besides — but I was a regular target for some of the schools more notorious troublemakers. And it wasn’t to do with my friendship group, either, as on a number of occasions my supposed “friends” actually sided against me in an attempt to win favour points with the bullies (who, inevitably, were the “cool” kids). Perhaps it was self-preservation, perhaps they’d really had enough of me; either way, it was a betrayal, and it hurt.

But I know that I was partly to blame for some of the incidents that happened. I recall deliberately goading the bullies on more than one occasion — swearing at them, insulting them, trying to attack them — and inevitably being knocked to the ground, winded and crying. The teachers on duty would do their usual “come over and look concerned” bit, but then nothing would ever happen to the people who had assaulted me. And so the cycle would repeat, over and over again.

Perhaps it was an attempt to claw my own little bit of “power” on the playground, because I was very much at the bottom of the food chain. Perhaps it was an attempt to let out my frustration about what I now recognise as social anxiety and difficulty interacting with some people. Perhaps I was just a little cunt. I honestly don’t know the reason. But what I do know is that despite the fact I was the “victim”, I was also genuinely to blame for a goodly proportion of those incidents — not all of them, mind, but a fair few of them.

And I’m reminded of this as I watch interactions on social media today. Mr Brandon Orselli, the chap who runs NicheGamer, an independent games site that I’ve become quite fond of, regularly has to fend off people who start attacking him, his work and his staff without any sort of provocation. Their reasoning? His site has, at times, been sympathetic to the consumer revolt known as “GamerGate”, which has now been raging for some ten months and, despite a considerable amount of evidence to the contrary, is still regarded as a “hate group” of “misogynists”.

Now, I’m not here to talk about GamerGate and whether or not it’s right (largely because I know it’s a topic of discussion that tends to become irrational very quickly — both “sides” are very much at fault in this regard, and frankly I want nothing to do with the perpetual arguments and finger-pointing) but one glance at the front page of NicheGamer will tell you that it’s absolutely not any sort of GamerGate propaganda rag. Rather, it’s an up-and-coming independent site with a clear focus, a staff that is obviously passionate about their work — including some highly knowledgeable specialist writers — and an editor-in-chief who is not afraid to stand up for himself, his work and his site.

Orselli does admittedly, at times, come across as a little arrogant on social media — but you know what? I understand the pride he takes in his work, and the pleasure he feels when things go well for his site. And I very much respect his choice to take the bull by the horns and engage these “critics” in an attempt at conversation even as they are, at times, spreading information that simply isn’t true.

Why am I reminded of my own playground experiences? Well, the sort of people who are attacking Orselli and his staff remind me of the young me. They poke and they poke and they poke and they goad and they goad and they goad… and then they call foul (or, more accurately, “harassment”) when the person they’ve been poking and goading bites back. (It has to be said, mind you, that it’s not quite the same situation: Orselli is not a “bully”, has shown admirable self-restraint and civility in these interactions, and has been a lot more calm and collected about them than I probably would be!) In other words, observing from the outside and recognising this behaviour as something I once did (as a child!) makes it seem very much like those attacking Orselli, his site and others like them are specifically going out and looking for trouble so they can further their “harassment” narrative.

Certainly nothing I’ve seen of NicheGamer’s output — and since I’ve pretty much stopped following big games sites as they don’t cover many of the games I’m interested in these days, it’s one of the few sites I do check in on semi-regularly — warrants the sort of unpleasantness I’ve seen hurled at Orselli and his team on a seemingly daily basis, whatever your feelings on GamerGate (which, as previously noted, is not the same thing as NicheGamer). If anything, NicheGamer should be applauded for trying something different in a world of identikit big magazine-style or blog-type games sites, and catering to a specific audience rather than casting a very wide but very shallow net.

But anyway. It hopefully goes without saying that this isn’t any attempt to diminish any instances of genuine harassment that actually goes on on social media — after all, I’ve dealt with it myself, so I know how shitty it is. But this sort of behaviour — deliberate provocation — just rubs me up the wrong way, particularly as I’ve suffered at the hands of bullies many times over the years, both by bringing it on myself and through no fault of my own. So in the words of Twitter’s favourite anti-bully ranger:

https://twitter.com/antibullyranger/status/609751052125016064

Or, to put it another way, don’t be a cunt.

1970: Phoenix Down

We cleared The Final Coil of Bahamut, Turn 3 (aka Turn 12) in Final Fantasy XIV this evening. That means there’s only one more boss left to go until I’ve officially cleared everything in the game at least once. Said boss is a biggie, however; I’d expect nothing less, both for the “true final boss” of the game and for the “true final boss” of a Final Fantasy game.

Turn 12 is an enjoyable fight, though. It took a bit of practice to get it right, but we eventually got there without too much difficulty and frustration. It’s interesting in that it’s quite unforgiving of any mistakes you might make, but also relatively straightforward and easy once everyone knows what they’re doing. There’s a lot less in the way of randomness than some of the other encounters (particularly in Coil) so there’s a lot less in the way of unexpected things for the party to deal with — any unfortunate happenings can usually be traced directly back to someone doing something wrong somewhere.

Interestingly, a guildmate pointed out that the fight is very unforgiving because unforgiveness is an important narrative theme of the confrontation itself. I won’t spoil the story context of it for those who are yet to clear and hoping to remain unspoiled — it’s a significant narrative moment in the grand scheme of Final Fantasy XIV’s overarching storyline, particularly the spectacular cutscene that follows your victory — but I found it really cool that the mechanics of the game mirrored the narrative themes so nicely. It’s a subtle thing, but as someone who is very much interested in the different ways interactive entertainment can tell stories, I liked it very much.

I’ve been a little burnt out on the game recently, as prior to the imminent expansion Heavensward it’s been going through its longest drought of new content since it launched, and it’s been hard to motivate myself to keep running the same things over and over again, particularly as in some cases the things I “need” to run for various quests are things that have been in the game since launch, and as such I can probably do them in my sleep. (The Aurum Vale is a bit of an exception; I kind of like that there’s a dungeon that can still kick the arse of an unprepared or complacent party, even if it can be frustrating to plough through sometimes.)

There’s also the fact that with Heavensward comes a level cap increase, too, and as such a lot of the shiny, top-end gear that everyone’s been stocking up on will probably be irrelevant in a matter of weeks following the expansion’s release — though not much has been revealed about new gear as yet, so it will be interesting to see how they deal with the discrepancy between character level (currently capped at 50, rising to 60 with Heavensward) and gear level (currently capped at 130, with a couple of individual items being level 135) without revamping the whole system. (Or perhaps they will revamp the whole system, I don’t know. Either way, I’m looking forward to it.)

Running T12 tonight, though, reminded me the main reason I play this game; it’s not to always be running new and exciting things, it’s not to bring down fearsome foes — though that’s cool — and it’s not to experience the story (which is also great) — but instead it’s to have a good time with people who have become really good friends over the course of the last couple of years. The feeling of camaraderie you build when playing a game like this over a long period is unlike anything else in all of gaming, and it’s a delight to be able to team up for nights like tonight, where everyone bands together against a common challenge and helps each other out.

So yeah. I may be a little burnt out on grinding for tomestones and the current gear treadmill, but there’s still plenty of life in Eorzea’s champion Amarysse yet; and I have no doubt whatsoever that Yoshi-P and his team will deliver a spectacular experience with Heavensward that will make me fall in love with the game all over again. Only 6 days until Early Access starts… man, I better finish Omega Quintet before then…

1969: μ’s Music Start

I’ve been continuing to watch Love Live! and it’s become something of a favourite, particularly now I’m in to the second season which, for my money, is considerably stronger than its entertaining but rather slow-paced debut.

A while back I wrote about how the show is unabashedly nice about everything, and keeps a positive spirit pretty much all of the time without resorting to overblown, melodramatic conflict between characters. The second season has definitely had more in the way of conflict and drama, but it’s been kept sensible and believable for the most part, and primarily used as an opportunity to develop the characters and their relationships with one another further.

One thing that is particularly charming about the show is how it subtly splits the main cast of nine down into smaller subgroups and pairings. We see the development of these individual small groups and couples as well as the group as a whole, and it’s rather touching to see — particularly as in many cases, things aren’t made particularly explicit, but it’s extremely obvious to see, for example, the genuine affection that Maki and Nico have for one another.

It’s funny, too. This scene was a particular standout moment for me:

And there’s plenty of other great moments. I particularly like how the characters all have a few surprising elements to go alongside the trope their “facade” appears to be based around. Nico, for example, acts like a cheerful and energetic young girl when she’s on stage and performing, but becomes one hell of a tsundere when she’s in private. Nozomi, meanwhile, initially appears to be softly-spoken and refined, but occasionally reveals some surprisingly lecherous tendencies towards her bandmates.

Umi’s a particular highlight for me. Initially positioned as the conventional “class representative” type — long dark hair, stern expression, takes everything much too seriously — she occasionally reveals that she has a fun side underneath her mature exterior, which she primarily maintains in order to keep the rather childish and impetuous Honoka in check. Umi has some wonderfully deadpan lines, and despite the “class rep” type of character usually being fairly expressionless (or limited to one emotion — usually anger and frustration at everyone else’s incompetence), Umi is actually one of the more expressive characters in the show; her calm and refined demeanour for the majority of the time makes it all the more impactful when she does genuinely get mad or sad.

In short, then, I can well and truly understand why this show is so beloved by its fans, even as it’s surrounded by hundreds of other shows that may seem conceptually, thematically or aesthetically similar. Love Live! stands above your average slice-of-life with its loveable characters, catchy songs and sense that it’s a show with some genuine heart and soul behind it.

I’m looking forward to watching the rest, and will be intrigued to check out the movie when it eventually arrives.