2131: It Builds Character

0131_001

[For some reason this failed to publish when I wrote it yesterday. Apologies.]

“Tell us about a favorite character from film, theater, or literature, with whom you’d like to have a heart-to-heart. What would you talk about?”

From the Daily Post writing prompt, It Builds Character.

There are any number of interesting characters from a variety of media I’d like to do this with, so in order to prevent analysis paralysis I’ll simply go with the character that popped into my head immediately when I saw this prompt: Milla Maxwell from Tales of Xillia.

Milla was a big part of why I enjoyed Tales of Xillia and its sequel so much. She was a well-defined, very distinctive character, both visually and in terms of her personality — and even so far as her slightly lisping English voice acting went — who has stuck with me long after I was done with those games.

Milla, for those unfamiliar with Xillia is… well, to be honest, it’s a long and complicated tale that is explained over the course of two games, but suffice it to say that she’s not quite “normal” in that she’s lived in isolation from human society for a very long time and has mysterious, quasi-magical powers thanks to her ability to commune with the Great Spirits.

All this stuff isn’t why I’d want to hang out with Milla, though. I’d want to hang out with her simply because she’s cool, and smart, and funny — but endearingly naive about lots of things. Her isolation from human society leads her to ask interesting but not always entirely socially acceptable questions, and her curiosity about the world is infectious. She knows how to get things done when the occasion demands it, but she also knows that it is important to enjoy yourself and indulge your body and mind’s demands when you’re aware of them.

Mostly, she just seems like a nice person, and someone I’d enjoy spending time with. There’s not a single point in either of the Xillia games where Milla has a mean word to say about anyone — the cast as a whole is pretty closely-knit and pleasant, but Milla stands out even among them — and even when confronting her enemies, she’s keen to understand them and why they are the way they are.

What would we talk about, though? Well, Milla’s naivete means that we’d almost certainly have a lot to talk about, particularly if I were to introduce her to things with which she wasn’t overly familiar. Perhaps I’d play some music for her, and attempt to explain the emotional power that sound has over us. Perhaps I’d show her some video games — I could show her her own game, that’d raise an interesting conversation, I’m sure — or sit her down and attempt to engage her interest with a board game. All of these activities would doubtless prompt the question “why?”, and one of the nice things about Milla is that when she asks this, she’s not being facetious, sullen or passive-aggressive about not wanting to do something; she genuinely wants to know and understand why people choose to partake in particular activities. And I think helping her with those big questions would make for some absolutely fascinating conversations.

So, Milla Maxwell, if you ever feel like stopping by, well, I’m pretty sure I can keep you occupied, entertained and intrigued for quite some time, and that’s not something I can say with confidence to many people!

2130: Scrub Up

0130_001

I’ve been watching Scrubs on Netflix recently, because somehow, despite E4 showing it nearly every minute of every day for several years (the other minutes being taken up by Friends) I’ve never actually seen the whole thing all the way through. I’ve seen most of it, but I’ve not seen the later seasons in particular.

Scrubs is an interesting show in that it strikes a good balance between comedy and drama. It’s not a show that you can particularly pigeonhole easily, because it’s experimental and strange and isn’t afraid to have one-off episodes exploring interesting, weird concepts. In many ways, it’s a bit like earlier shows that took a similarly experimental approach in a fairly mundane setting — I’m thinking stuff like Ally McBeal here — but it very much has a feel that is all its own.

One of the reasons I’ve been enjoying it so much recently is because I’m finding protagonist JD to be quite relatable, in a number of different ways. In particular, his naiveté and hesitance to truly join the “adult” world — even when confronted with challenging situations, such as those that he faces in his job as a doctor every day — are very familiar feelings to me, and as JD gets older over the course of the show’s complete run, it’s almost comforting to see that he doesn’t really get any more comfortable with being a “grown-up”; although he’s only a fictional character, it’s nice to know that the way I feel sometimes isn’t entirely unfamiliar to others!

Scrubs is also fun for the fact that it captures the atmosphere of working in a stressful environment rather well. There are people who handle stress with aggression and impatience — particularly if, like in Dr. Cox’s case, they’re dealing with other issues alongside anything that crops up at work — and there are people who deal with it using humour. There are some who take the humour further and confront difficult concepts by making use of black humour, and there are others who, at times, allow emotions to get the best of them. And then there are those who are able to leave all the troubles and difficulties of the working day behind them the second they walk out of the door; while this is arguably the best approach for one’s mental health, is this really the best thing for those you are taking care of?

To cut a long story short, then, watching Scrubs on Netflix has given me an appreciation of why this show has remained so consistently popular since it first appeared in 2001. I haven’t yet seen the notoriously different final season, though I’m curious to, even if it’s as much of a shift from the original format as it apparently seems to be. Even if it’s rubbish, though, there’s plenty of good stuff in the preceding seasons, and it remains timeless television that I can see remaining relevant to many people for many years to come yet.

2129: Devil Drink: A Call for Help

0129_001

Real Talk today. Serious business. And I’m probably going to regret writing this and making it so public, but I’m at my absolute wits’ end, don’t know what to do and could do with some support, be it from friends or strangers.

No names or anything will be given in this post, but some of you may be able to work certain things out from it. If you do, please do me a favour and don’t point anything like that out in the comments or say things to the people involved, because that’s just not going to help anything at all.

Anyway.

I don’t drink any more. I used to drink quite a lot when I was at university and the few years afterwards; I was somewhat legendary among a number of my friends for spectacular drunk text messages, with the mangled garbage that T9 predictive text would come out with being far more entertaining than the stuff AutoCorrect spews out from the iPhones and Androids of today. It was fun, though I never enjoyed the hangover the next day.

I stopped drinking for two real reasons: firstly, I’d got to the stage where I simply wasn’t enjoying it any more — alcohol tended to give me heartburn, and I came to the conclusion that being a bit wobbly and lary wasn’t enjoyable enough to justify feeling a bit sick after just a sip or two — and secondly, more importantly, it became apparent that someone in my life had a capital-P Problem with drink.

This wasn’t the first time I’d encountered someone with such an issue; a friend of mine at university suffered a similar affliction to quite a serious degree, though at the time, young and stupid as we were, it felt like something that should be laughed at rather than something that was a serious problem. More than ten years after that, though, I understand what a horrible, devastating thing alcoholism is, and how horrible it is to be in a position where you’re absolutely helpless to give any sort of aid to the person who is suffering so much they feel the need to take the pain away with excess amounts of drink.

The person in question had a problem for quite some time before seemingly resolving it. I tried several ways of dealing with it — with humour, with sadness, with anger, with disappointment, with honesty, with support, with attempts to engage and understand — but nothing seemed to be particularly effective. What actually happened is that over time, the person in question simply seemingly got over it, stopped drinking altogether and we said nothing more about it, though I always took care to steer clear of conversations that involved alcohol or being drunk or anything like that.

Recently, though, this person has suffered a bit of a relapse. It’s not to the same degree as it was before by any degree of magnitude, but it is happening again. And, once again, I feel completely helpless to do anything about it — perhaps because, if my past experience is anything to go by, there really isn’t anything I can do about it, and the person simply has to resolve it themselves.

This is upsetting and deeply, deeply distressing, though. It may sound selfish to make this about me, but I feel it’s important to note the impact of alcoholism on the people around the afflicted person as well as the afflicted person themselves. Because that impact can be devastating. It can have a huge impact on their mental wellbeing, and on the way they see the afflicted person. It can have a huge impact on the way they interact with the afflicted person, and the things they feel comfortable doing and talking about with the afflicted person. And it can impact on their life at large, preventing them from doing some things and forcing them to do others.

Ultimately it can build a great deal of resentment, frustration, anger and sadness — some of which is perhaps justified, but the rest of which is simply an impotent expression of fury at a sensation of powerlessness. I recognise this, and I would like to clarify that I certainly don’t hate the person involved for this by any means, particularly as I’m familiar with the extenuating circumstances that have brought this relapse on. Rather, I just want to feel like I can support them and help them through it once again, but I don’t know if I have the strength to handle it for a second time.

So that’s pretty much where I am right now. I don’t know what to do. I need help. Although I don’t know how anyone might be able to help, and I feel guilty writing this, given that I predict a significant proportion of you reading this will put two and two together quite quickly. As I say, though, if you do, please, just, shush. That part isn’t important.

Right now, I am sad, upset and angry, and I need help. Please help.

2128: Point to Point

0128_001

I’m apparently on a minor retro kick at the moment, what with playing The Legend of Zelda and, also, downloading the “3D Classics” version of OutRun on my 3DS.

I love OutRun. It’s one of those games that I used to see in the arcade but, for whatever reason, didn’t play very often. (I feel it was probably something to do with my Dad baulking at the idea of paying 50p for one credit, but I usually managed to convince him that it was worth paying this much to play G-LOC, which at least had aeroplanes in it.) We also had the dreadful Atari ST port of Turbo OutRun, which I actually rather enjoyed despite its atrocious framerate, appalling load times (in the middle of a race!) and loss of various animations and game features if you had less than 1MB of RAM in your computer.

Despite all these setbacks, OutRun has always remained a racing game that I’ve been very fond of, and when the Shenmue series hit Dreamcast with a variety of playable Sega games right there within the game itself, I spent a great deal of time recapturing past glories (or, more commonly, indignities) on OutRun and Super Hang-On. When the PlayStation 2/Xbox era rolled around, I spent a lot of time playing the wonderful OutRun 2, which brought the basic gameplay of the original up to date with fresh graphics, but otherwise played just like an old arcade game. And when the Xbox 360 got a tweaked port of OutRun 2 on its downloadable Xbox Live Arcade service, well, of course I was going to play it again.

3D Classics OutRun is arguably a step back technology-wise from OutRun 2 and its spinoffs; it’s based on the original 16-bit sprite-based graphics rather than being rendered in full polygonal glory. This is true to the original game, however, and there are a few little tweaks here and there to bring it a bit more up to date. It runs at 60 frames per second, for one thing, making it look smoother than the arcade version ever did, and makes excellent use of the 3DS’ glasses-free stereoscopic 3D for some impressive visual effects. Possibly my favourite “pointless but cool” feature in it, however, is the simulation of the arcade cabinets’ movement that you can turn on; OutRun was one of the many arcade games in the period that had “Deluxe” cabinets featuring hydraulics that would cause your seat to move around as you played. Your field of vision on the tiny screen of the 3DS isn’t quite the same as literally feeling your car being slammed around corners, but it’s a decent enough approximation, and a fun (and optional) effect to play with.

But enough about the technical side of things; every time I play some variation on OutRun I find myself pining for this lost age of racing games. Not necessarily because of the graphics or the style of play or anything — playing racing games with strict countdown time limits can be a bit of a culture shock these days! — but because they feature a subtle difference from most modern racing games in that they are point-to-point racers rather than lap-based.

I like point-to-point races, and we don’t see nearly enough of them in modern racing games. There are exceptions, mind you: Burnout 2 had a nice little feature where once you completed the various events in one area, you then had a point-to-point race to get to the next one; Burnout Paradise was almost entirely point-to-point races; the Midnight Club series took an enjoyably chaotic approach to point-to-point racing by allowing you to choose your own route through an open-world city, so long as you hit the checkpoints along the way. But despite these examples, many of the racers we have today are lap-based.

Why is this something I care about? Well, lap-based racers are fun, of course, and allow you to learn the course, even within a single race. Point-to-point racers, meanwhile, have a wonderful sense of going on a journey, and in the case of games like OutRun, it’s immensely satisfying to successfully reach the next stage of said journey and see what new scenery there is to admire a little further down the road. OutRun even takes this one step further, by providing a fork in the road at the end of each stage, allowing you to continue in one of two different directions to create your own custom route through the game.

3D Classics OutRun isn’t a deep game in the slightest, especially when held up against more modern examples. But there’s a purity to the experience that you just don’t get in more realistic fare; it’s a game that revels in the enjoyment of taking a fast car on a rollercoaster ride and seeing how far you can get this time. I love it, and I’m happy it’s still a relevant game in 2015!

2127: Hero of Hyrule

0127_001

All the pointless bickering over the distinctly stupidly named “Linkle” the other day got me thinking about The Legend of Zelda. “Linkle”, if you somehow missed this, is effectively a genderbent version of Zelda protagonist Link who is set to appear in the upcoming 3DS version of Hyrule Warriors Legends; rather than a simple reskin, however, she appears to be her own unique character. Which is cool, especially as she’s kinda cute!

But anyway. As I was saying, I got thinking about The Legend of Zelda and how it’s a series that has, for one reason or another, kind of passed me by a bit over the years. There was a period when I was very much into it — I’ve beaten A Link to the Past numerous times on the SNES, and absolutely adore Majora’s Mask — but for some reason, the other games haven’t stuck with me. I didn’t make it through Twilight Princess or Wind Waker, and I didn’t even play Skyward Sword, let alone the numerous handheld incarnations that have appeared over the years.

I thought, out of idle curiosity, that I’d casually start way back at the beginning with the original NES version of The Legend of Zelda and see how far I get before I don’t feel like playing any more. I was also curious to see how the series had developed over the years, because for sure it’s come a very long way since the original game.

The original game, however, is still surprisingly solid, if rather challenging, to say the least. One thing that stands out immediately is how little handholding it offers; it presents the player with a sprawling open world which they’re expected to navigate themselves around without the aid of objective markers, and several dungeons which can theoretically be completed in any order. Compared to later Zelda games, these dungeons are relatively simple and don’t have a great deal in the way of puzzles, though there are a couple that are effectively “gated” by requiring items found in other dungeons to access.

I won’t lie and pretend that I’m going through The Legend of Zelda completely blind; it is, after all, 2015, and the Internet exists, so there’s little reason to play the game without the benefit of, say, a map. I’m not using a walkthrough, mind you, just a map to show where all the areas are and how they connect to one another, since this is the sort of thing that tended to be included in the physical manuals of games way back in the day.

I’m actually rather enjoying the sense of exploration and discovery that the lack of tutorial messages and, indeed, developing plot provides: it makes The Legend of Zelda feel like a very “pure” gaming experience that is satisfying — and, at times, frustrating — to work through. Plus if nothing else it’s something to do while waiting for dungeon queues in Final Fantasy XIV…

2126: One of Those Times

I’ve been having a rough few days, depression- and anxiety-wise. Things have been “getting to me” more than they have for a long time, and today felt particularly bad; earlier in the day I just needed a cry more than anything. I wasn’t crying over anything in particular; it just happened. Everything was too much. I felt a little better afterwards, but there’s still some residual bleakness lurking around inside my head.

I was interested to see on Twitter that a friend of mine had also been having a rough time with his mental health, in his case noting that his anger at something that might seem relatively “trivial” to an outside observer had actually led him to self-harm for the first time in quite a while. Like me, he noted that the incident itself wasn’t a particular catalyst for his reaction; it was, presumably, just more a case of “the straw that broke the camel’s back”, and everything coming to a head leading to something mental snapping.

Times like this seem to come for a lot of people around the same sort of time. I don’t really know what causes it, but it’s interesting to ponder. In this particular instance, it’s entirely possible that the horrible things that have been going on in Paris have subconsciously infiltrated our minds and have been influencing our thoughts in negative directions, but to be perfectly frank, it doesn’t feel that way to me at all; I’d been feeling bleak and miserable before all that happened, so perhaps it’s something else.

Maybe it’s environmental? We’re coming into winter now, and the evenings are getting darker earlier, making the whole world seem just a little bit more closed-in and oppressive to some people. I’ve always quite liked the night, but it being dark outside is very much a signal to the body that “the day is over, it’s probably time to do relaxing things and/or sleep now” and as such isn’t particularly conducive to being productive.

Maybe there’s some sort of physical reason; a literal “something in the air”, as it were. Air pressure can sometimes have an effect on the way you feel physically, so perhaps there’s an effect on mental wellbeing too, or perhaps just the changing weather of the advancing seasons has an impact on how everyone’s feeling.

Or maybe it’s even some sort of metaphysical, spiritual thing; the balance between Light and Dark, Good and Evil being off or something. (It’s probably not this. But you never really know, do you?)

Whatever it is, it’s pretty crappy, and I know from today that I’m not the only one who is feeling a bit bleak and miserable about everything for no real reason at the moment. As such, I’d like to say to anyone out there who is feeling a bit low that I hope things look up for you soon, and remember that it’s often really helpful to try and express the things you’re feeling, even if you can’t quite explain them. Talk to a friend; write them down in a journal; blog them as I have; tweet them to your followers. Looking at things from another perspective can sometimes be helpful, and even if it isn’t, it can give you a much-needed sense of relief and release to just get all those stray, dark thoughts out of your head.

Be well, everyone!

2125: Walk a Mile in the Tank’s Shoes

One of the things I really like about Final Fantasy XIV is how easy it is to switch jobs to one of the other classes. Swap out your weapon (and, more than likely, armour) and bam: you’re another class, with no need to create a new character.

This system encourages people to try out more than the class they start with, and provides a great opportunity for players to learn about not just the role they choose to “main”, but also other types of character they might run into in cooperative content.

It’s actually really interesting to run the same thing as each of the three main types of character — tank, healer, DPS — because the experience is often significantly different for each. And it’s not always just a case of “tank stands in front of monsters, DPS stand behind, healer makes sure no-one dies” — one of Final Fantasy XIV’s biggest strengths is that its encounters are often designed to keep things interesting for everyone in the party, with tanks, healers and DPS alike being expected to deal with mechanics and take care of themselves as much as possible.

Take something like the fourth floor of the Alexander raid, for example. As a tank, your job is relatively straightforward: stand at the front repeatedly hacking away at The Manipulator’s legs until it falls over; try and mitigate as much of the incoming damage as possible. Straightforward, that is, unless you’re the off-tank, in which case you’ll be frequently sucked into a side “Quarantine” room with a DPS and expected to defeat a not-particularly-tough add before being returned to your party. DPS, meanwhile, are expected to pop exploding orbs that appear around the room, try and position themselves so tanks can intercept damage from laser attacks, defeat additional enemies as quickly as possible and, above all, try not to die. And the healers, aside from keeping everyone standing, have to deal with a unique mechanic in the last phase where they need to keep apart from each other and the rest of the party, lest everyone keel over dead.

It’s not always this complex, of course, but even so, walking a few miles in each of the three roles’ shoes gives you a better overall understanding of how the game as a whole works, and that’s really important when playing cooperatively — if only to know exactly what all those buffs the healers are throwing on you mean, and that you shouldn’t Stun enemies when the Dark Knight has Blood Price up!

That and it’s just kind of fun to see how the different classes play, because even in ostensibly similar classes (Paladin, Dark Knight, Warrior, for example — all are tanks) there’s plenty of variation in play style and overall “feel”. You might even find yourself liking a new class more than what you originally considered to be your “main” — it’s happened to me twice to date!

2124: Here are 35 Games From Between 1981 and Now with Female Protagonists

Polygon wrote something dumb the other day. As most of you know, this is nothing unusual, so I’m not even going to bother to link to an archive this time. The gist of the piece, though, was that female-fronted video games are New and Exciting, and their evidence for this was Assassin’s Creed Syndicate (which features both a male and a female protagonist) and Fallout 4 (which features customisable, player-created protagonists).

Trouble is, it’s not the first time either of those games have had a female protagonist. Assassin’s Creed Liberation featured only a female protagonist — no bloke with whom to share the limelight — and Fallout has had a selectable character gender since its very first installment. In fact, female-fronted games are nothing new at all. And as an attempt to prove this, I am going to list one game from every year since I was born in 1981 that featured a female protagonist, be it of the pre-scripted, “written” variety, or the ability for the player to create their own female character with which to experience the game.

1981: Ultima

One of the earliest role-playing games, Richard Garriott’s Ultima set the mould for many future titles to follow. It featured a fairly comprehensive, customisable character creation system that included the option to play as either male or female characters. Rather progressively, this choice was purely cosmetic, and had no effect on your stats whatsoever; none of that “women are weaker but can run faster” stuff here.

1982: Ms. Pac-Man

Ms. Pac-Man was copyrighted in 1981, but actually came out in 1982. Developed and released by Midway without the authorisation of Namco, Ms. Pac-Man is a very fondly regarded game that some people even prefer to the original Pac-Man.

1983: Ultima III

Cheating? Nah. Ultima III was an important installment in the series, as it was one of the first games to feature tactical turn-based combat. It also allowed you to select your gender as male, female or “other”. How progressive!

1984: Ice Climber

Nintendo’s two-player platformer featured both male and female protagonists who had exactly the same abilities.

1985: Gauntlet

Inspired by Dandy Dungeons from two years earlier, Gauntlet combined the aesthetic and theme of dungeon-crawling role-playing games with the immediacy and action of an arcade game. It had four playable characters, one of whom was a woman.

1986: Metroid

Samus, that armor-clad badass you play for the whole game, is a lady. Surprise!

1987: Phantasy Star

Sega’s excellent sci-fi dungeon-crawling RPG (bring graph paper) had a female protagonist by the name of Alys. She was cool.

1988: Super Mario Bros. 2

Rather than getting kidnapped, Peach (then known as Princess Toadstool) was instead a playable character in the American and European release of Super Mario Bros. 2, which was actually a reskinned version of a Japanese game called Doki Doki Panic. Peach was one of the most useful characters due to her ability to float for several seconds after a jump, allowing her to reach places the other characters might have had difficulty with.

1989: The Colonel’s Bequest

One of Roberta “King’s Quest” Williams’ early games, The Colonel’s Bequest was noteworthy for being a somewhat more mature-themed take on the adventure game than its stablemates from Sierra (and Williams herself). Its protagonist was a woman named Laura Bow, who fronted both this game and its sequel The Dagger of Amon Ra in a short-lived mini-series.

1990: Gauntlet: The Third Encounter

Gauntlet’s Atari Lynx-exclusive incarnation was noteworthy for taking longer to complete than a set of batteries in the Lynx would last. It also had an array of peculiarly unconventional protagonists such as “Nerd” and “Pirate”, but also brought back the Valkyrie from the original Gauntlet. She is a lady.

1991: Street Fighter II

The world’s first encounter with Chun-Li’s thighs, and the world was never the same again. For many people, Street Fighter II was the first time a female character had been so noticeable in a major release, though as we’ve seen, there have been plenty of examples in the preceding years.

1992: Alone in the Dark

The first fixed camera angle 3D survival horror game, Alone in the Dark allowed you to play as either a male or female protagonist.

1993: Lost in Time

A gorgeous adventure game from Coktel Vision, Lost in Time featured a female protagonist, full-motion video, freely explorable 3D rendered backdrops and all manner of other goodness.

1994: Super Metroid

Samus is still a lady.

1995: Phantasmagoria

Noteworthy for several reasons: a female protagonist, coming on about a bajillion CDs due to all its full-motion video, being rather more adult-oriented than the rest of Sierra’s catalogue, which was mostly family-friendly, and attracting controversy for its extreme violence and rape scene.

1996: Dead or Alive

While Street Fighter II was noteworthy for introducing us to Chun-Li, she was but one woman in a cast of mostly men. Dead or Alive gave us a cast with four women to play: Kasumi, Ayame, Lei Fang and Tina.

1997: Ultima Online

You could be anyone you wanted to in this, male or female. You didn’t even have to be an adventurer if you didn’t want to; you could play the game and become a shopkeeper or crafting specialist.

1998: Parasite Eve

Square’s peculiar blend of survival horror and RPG wasn’t entirely successful at what it set out to do, but its protagonist Aya Brea was pretty badass and went on to star in a couple of sequels.

1999: UmJammer Lammy

The sequel to PaRappa the Rapper featured a leading lady guitarist instead of a rapping dog. Playing it still felt like you were tripping balls.

2000: Resident Evil Code: Veronica

The Resident Evil series as a whole had always had playable women; Code Veronica put female protagonist Claire Redfield very much front and centre.

2001: Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance

A spinoff of the Baldur’s Gate series of Dungeons and Dragons-themed RPGs on PC, Dark Alliance was a Diablo-style action RPG for one or two players, and had a playable female character in the form of the elven Sorceress.

2002: Fatal Frame

This absolutely terrifying game featured a playable female protagonist, though you played as her brother for the prologue sequence.

2003: Dark Chronicle/Dark Cloud 2

This sequel to one of the more unusual RPGs out there featured both a male and female protagonist that you could switch between at any time.

2004: Metroid: Zero Mission

Samus is still a lady!

2005: Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit

The world’s first encounter with David Cage featured several different playable characters, including a woman and a black dude.

2006: Dreamfall: The Longest Journey

Not one, but two playable ladies in this adventure game and sequel to the wonderful The Longest Journey (which also had a lady in the leading role).

2007: Tomb Raider Anniversary

Can’t talk about gaming ladies without having Lara Croft in there somewhere. Tomb Raider Anniversary was a considerably enhanced remake of the original game.

2008: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

This year’s Castlevania game brought us Shanoa, a pretty awesome female protagonist who would be seen again in the underrated PS3 and Xbox 360 time-attack Castlevania.

2009: OneChanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad

Exploitative it may be — and deliberately so — but OneChanbara certainly features some of the most ass-kicking young ladies you’ll see in gaming.

2010: Final Fantasy XIII

Love it or hate it — I love it, everyone else hates it — Final Fantasy XIII had a highly capable woman at the helm. For double Progressive Points, the one black character in the main cast was also arguably one of the most well-realised characters in the whole thing.

2011: Hyperdimension Neptunia

An all-female cast, with any male characters being literally faceless, the original Hyperdimension Neptunia managed to kick off what has become a highly successful series even after some atrocious reviews from people who really didn’t “get it”.

2012: Atelier Meruru

The Atelier series is pretty much the nicest series in existence, and has always had pretty girls at the helm. This year’s installment was the wonderful Meruru, the third and final installment of the Arland trilogy, and a favourite of many series fans.

2013: Gone Home

A favourite of progressive, narrative-loving types, Gone Home was a “walking simulator” with a female playable protagonist who ultimately was of little importance to the story; instead, the story was largely focused on her sister, who, being her sister, was also a lady.

2014: Senran Kagura: Shinovi Versus

The Vita installment of this lovely hack-and-slash series of brawlers came out this year, and features some wonderfully well-realised characters in its almost all-female cast.

2015: Life is Strange

Another narrative-heavy game, this well-received episodic series featured a female protagonist.

I think I’ve made my point. Can we stop with this shit now?

2123: Duty Complete: 24 Hours in Eorzea

Well, I’m all done! I have indeed played Final Fantasy XIV for 24 hours. Ish. (The game went down for maintenance between 7 and 11 this morning, so I must confess I snatched a quick nap, then was back on until 24 hours after I originally started.) In total at the time of writing I raised $280, which was well over my initial goal of $100, so I’m very pleased with that. A big thank you to everyone who watched my stream, and an even bigger thank you to those who dug deep and flung some cash at Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals in appreciation of my efforts. You can find my archives here, and if you want to make a last-minute donation, you can do so here.

It’s been a lot of fun! Spending such a protracted amount of time with the game has meant I’ve been able to plough through a bunch of interesting things, most notably the new Lord of Verminion minigame, which actually turned out to be surprisingly great.

Part of my reason for wanting to spend so long playing nothing but FFXIV was to check out all the new stuff in version 3.1 that launched on Tuesday, so I thought I’d spend today’s post pondering my thoughts on the things that spring immediately to mind.

The Diadem

The Exploratory Missions to The Diadem were one of the things I was most interested about in the update, and they seem to be an interesting affair, to be sure, and absolutely unlike anything else in the rest of the game. Whereas most of the group content in the game is strictly linear — even boss fights follow strict phase-based progressions and “dance steps” to learn — The Diadem is a much more freeform experience, somewhat akin to exploring out in the open world, with the notable difference that everything in The Diadem both wants to and is absolutely, positively able to kill you, even if you’re well geared. (This is a common criticism of Final Fantasy XIV and many MMOs in general; once you reach a certain level of power, monsters out in the open world simply cease to be threatening in the slightest.)

There are a number of ways you can tackle The Diadem. The optimal way to do so is to form a 24-player alliance of three 8-player parties with your Free Company and take your own airships. While The Diadem allows a maximum of 72 players in the zone in total, entering as a full alliance allows you a certain amount of control and influence over what goes on in there rather than having to contend with clashing egos and people trying to give orders in /shout.

Execution-wise, of all things, The Diadem feels a bit like Diablo meets Final Fantasy XIV. You explore, you beat up monsters, most of them drop Stuff, some of which is useful and others of which is little more than fodder to exchange for tokens (which can subsequently be exchanged for better stuff) and you repeat the process until you’re either bored or your allotted 90 minutes is up. There are clearly a bunch of hidden mechanics that people haven’t quite figured out just yet, most notably with regard to the spawning of “Notorious Monsters”, extremely powerful monsters that most likely require the cooperation of all 72 players in the area to take down. For now, the assumption seems to be that killing stuff as quickly as possible hastens the spawn of NMs, so once all the parties have completed their three objectives to get their 40 Allagan Tomestones of Esoterics, attention tends to turn to efficient killing.

The Notorious Monsters themselves — and indeed the monsters you fight around the zone — are pretty cool, as many of them make use of mechanics usually only seen in boss fights in dungeons. While some can be pretty much brute-forced with a simple tank-and-spank approach, the tougher opponents require dodging and careful use of all your abilities to defeat. They also usually drop better rewards, too, with the most coveted items being item level 210 pieces of equipment that are roughly equivalent in power to upgraded Esoterics gear — some of the best gear in the game at present.

There’s a bit of figuring out still to do here, but I enjoyed my two trips into The Diadem, and am looking forward to more.

The Void Ark

The new 24-player raid is a highlight of the new patch for sure, featuring some cool environments (with dynamic scripted environmental effects as you explore) and some great boss fights.

Overall, it feels a bit tougher than the Crystal Tower raids of A Realm Reborn, though this may be more to do with average gear levels than actual difficulty. There are certainly a couple of bosses in particular that seem to give groups difficulty, though, most notably the penultimate boss Cuchulainn, who has a whole raft of mechanics to contend with, and who proves to be something of a stumbling block for many alliances, for what I’ve heard. (The final boss Echidna is considerably easier after the horror that is Cuchulainn, though, which is something of a relief.)

I like Void Ark, and I especially like that it offers some decent rewards. The Item Level 200 gear is nice, but even nicer is the weekly guaranteed drop of an item that can be exchanged for Esoterics upgrade items, providing an easy means of boosting your overall power level by a bit.

Lord of Verminion

This was actually probably my biggest surprise of my 24-hour stream, as I ended up playing a whole lot of it and genuinely enjoying the experience. Not bad for something that I was ready to write off as a silly distraction that had no point whatsoever. I’m still not entirely sure it really has a point beyond playing just for the sake of it, but I found playing through the 24 single-player challenge missions to be great fun.

Lord of Verminion allows you to use any of the collectible minions you’ve acquired over the course of the game in a real-time strategy game in which the basic aim is to destroy your opponent’s three Arcana Crystals before they do the same thing to you. Combat is based on a straightforward rock-paper-scissors mechanic — Poppet beats Monster beats Critter beats Poppet — but each minion also has its own HP, attack and defense values along with a special move that they can trigger when in a group of four identical units who have “charged” their Action Points. These special moves vary from temporary buffs to powerful attacks, and some of them remove the minions using them from the field, so you have to be a bit careful.

What I really liked about the single-player challenges is that rather than just a sequence of standard matches, you also have boss fights along the way, many of which actually use mechanics from their counterparts in the “real” dungeons and raids in Final Fantasy XIV. Most notably, the final Lord of Verminion challenge is essentially a recreation of Turn 4 of The Final Coil of Bahamut, with your summoned minions taking on the Elder Primal Bahamut himself, dodging his powerful Megaflare attacks while attempting to damage him as much as possible as quickly as possible.

Plus beating all 24 challenges gets you a Twintania minion, which I’m willing to bet not too many people have just yet, so I shall enjoy being one of the few for the little while that lasts!

2122: EXTRA LIFE: 24 Hours in Eorzea – Tonight from 8pm UK Time

A somewhat different post to usual today in that I’m promoting something I’m doing later rather than just writing about what’s been happening today.

I’ve been meaning to participate in the Extra Life gaming marathon for the past few years, but for various reasons have never quite got around to it. Finding myself with a free 24 hours or so, though, I’ve decided to spend 24 continuous(ish) hours playing Final Fantasy XIV in an attempt to 1) raise some money for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals and 2) thoroughly explore both the new patch 3.1 content and aspects of the game I haven’t delved into too much as yet.

From my Extra Life page, where you can donate:

Hi everyone!

While the world is busy with Fallout 4 and Call of Duty Black Ops III, I continue my life’s work of yammering on about Final Fantasy XIV until people give it a try just to shut me up.

This year’s Extra Life conveniently falls around the first major content patch for Heavensward, which means there will be lots of exciting new stuff to explore, including the Extreme-level version of the Thordan boss fight, airship exploration missions in the Diadem and much more besides. So I figured why not take the opportunity to show what’s new in version 3.1 — or perhaps, for some of you, what’s new since you last tried the game, or even what this Final Fantasy XIV malarkey is about in the first place — and hopefully raise some money in the process.

I’ll be streaming on Twitch between 8pm UK time on Wednesday November 11 and 8pm on Thursday November 12; there may be brief gaps for food, drinks and whatnot, but otherwise I’m aiming for a full 24 hours in Eorzea. Join me!

ABOUT EXTRA LIFE

Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals treat thousands of children each year, regardless of their family’s ability to pay. These kids are facing scary stuff like cancer, cystic fibrosis, and injuries from accidents to name just a few.

Extra Life is a huge worldwide celebration of the social impact of gamers of all kinds: from video games to board games and tabletop RPGs! Since 2010, Extra Life has raised more than $14 million to help children’s hospitals provide critical treatments and healthcare services, pediatric medical equipment, research and charitible care. It’s my sincere hope that you’ll find it in your heart to support my efforts with a monthly pledge or one-time gift that will go directly to my hospital.

Your donation is tax-deductible and ALL PROCEEDS go to help kids. Donations to me will be aimed at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in Oakland, California, since I don’t live in the U.S. but my brother John does, and that was the closest hospital to his home!

I need your help to reach my goal For The Kids. Please make a safe, easy donation online today. Click the “Support This Participant” button on this page to get started. Thank you so much for supporting my efforts!

I was originally intending to start streaming around 5pm UK time, but I’ve pushed this back a little in order to take care of some business in the early evening. I will be fuelling myself with cheap knockoff energy drinks, pasta pots and anything I can convince my wife to cook up for me, and will be appearing on stream both “in character” and via webcam, all being well, assuming I can get said webcam working adequately.

I’d greatly appreciate it if you popped in and checked out my stream for a bit, and if you’re feeling particularly generous, slip a few quid to my campaign page. None of the money goes directly to me; it’s being aimed directly at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in Oakland, California, one of the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals supported by the Extra Life initiative. I know it’s not UK-based (because Extra Life is North American) but a good cause is a good cause, regardless of its geographical location, so I hope you’ll consider digging deep and showing your support, both for the kids and for my endurance run!

Thanks in advance for your support.