Nintendo Land and hindsight

I picked up Nintendo Land for $10 the other day, and I've played a bit of it with my wife and on my own. It's a fun game with a lot of neat gimmicks that have longer lifespans than I would expect from a bunch of mini-games. It's definitely a mini-game collection, but it feels meatier than most games I would describe like that.

When Nintendo Land first came out it was seen as a showcase of all the neat things you could do with the Wii U's gamepad. This turned out to be terribly true: it's just about all the neat things you could do with the gamepad.

The Wii U is dying at this point, and I think most of us can agree that the gamepad is pretty much a bad gimmick. I can't think of much that it could do that wasn't done on the DS or the Wii better, except for maybe Mario Maker. Even that game is something you could accomplish on a tablet - the TV display is just a nice bonus. Looking down at the gamepad while playing a game is a really awful experience, and the best thing about it is that I can play games with the TV off. But even then I just want a nice, powerful portable machine, not something locked to my living room

I loved the Wii, and I loved the DS. But combining the two was doomed from the beginning. Nintendo Land was supposed to be a shining light towards all of the new things you could do on the Wii U. Instead, it ended up showcasing almost everything interesting the Wii U could do, and with the benefit of hindsight we can see how limited the console truly is.

Terraria, Disgaea, and my stupid brain

I've been playing a lot of Terraria this week, in lieu of doing things that are actually productive. Terraria is a fantastic game, but I've already played 280+ hours of it according to Steam. And the new patch didn't necessarily add anything that interesting. So why am I starting a new character yet again?

I've also been playing a lot of the PSP version of Disgaea, which I already completed on the DS. Disgaea is, again, a fantastic game, but I've already finished it and even did some power leveling back on the DS. So why is it that I feel compelled to dive into the item world yet again?

I think there's something in common here. This past week has been stressful to me for various reasons, and I feel like I don't have control over my life in some ways. I also feel overwhelmed by the amount of things bouncing around in my head, which is distracting me from the things I need to get done. All in all, it's been kind of crappy. So why those two games?

Terraria and Disgaea could not be farther apart in how they play, but the way that they feel in my brain is very similar. Both games occupy my brain almost completely. My spacial reasoning is occupied by digging or trying to find Geo chains. My forward thinking is occupied by planning the best builds to fight the next boss, or by planning on which items I will level up first. My senses are occupied by constant input, either from massive particle effects and lighting changes, or by amazing combat animations. I'm usually doing math in my head at the same time, either counting the blocks I need to build a cool house, or the damage I'm doing to enemies and how many attacks I need to do to finish them off.

That said, neither game is that hard. The parts of my brain being occupied are challenged, but not that much. It's relaxing in a way that only video games seem to be, at least to me. I've got constantly shifting, realizable small goals, along with overarching large goals that I am always making progress towards. 

I have a few "stress relief," or more accurately "problem avoidance," games. Terraria, Minecraft, Disgaea, Dragon Quest, Peggle. They are pretty different on the surface, but in the end they all occupy multiple parts of my brain so that I'm not really thinking about anything else.

I don't think this is always healthy behavior. It can be very toxic, in fact. But it is something I do, and I think it's something that can be done healthily as long as I'm aware that I'm avoiding shit, and what kind of effect these games have on me.

Terrible Fate

Link is not really an interesting character, and purposefully so. He is a cipher, intended to help the player project themselves into the game. The most boring thing that somebody can talk about is Link's characterization, Link's feelings, Link's personal connections.

I'm here to talk about Link's feelings.

In Ocarina of Time, Link is cast as the Hero of Time. In practice, this means that the player can jump between a time before the rule of Ganon, and a time 7 years later when Ganon is doing his big-bad routine to the whole world. The plot of the game starts with Link as a child. Soon, he transforms into a 7-year-older version of himself without experiencing any time in-between. The cruelest form of time travel - he still ages, but gets none of the benefit of having lived the years between 9 and 16.

In the end, Link saves the world in the future timeline, but returns to his present, when he was 9 years old. The implication is that none of the bad things happened and, therefore, the world didn't even need saving. His role as the Hero of Time is totally negated, and nobody knows what he did.

Another part of the tragedy is that by this time Link has not only discovered that he has no family, but that he doesn't even share a species with those who surrounded him as a child. He can remain in the forest, but he is the only one who will age. The Kokiri who raised him remain forever children. What does he have left? He's essentially an orphan, and it's implied that the only person who even knows him outside of the forest is a princess in a castle town far away. And there's no way he can be friends with a princess.

The direct sequel, Majora's Mask, begins with 9 year old Link racing through a foggy forest riding his horse, Epona. He gets mugged by a Skull kid in a weird mask and loses all of his possessions, as well as his horse, and falls down a hole into another world.

Majora's Mask is a game about impending doom. The moon is going to crash into the world in 3 days, and nobody can stop it (except Link of course). Death is everywhere - the three major masks that Link can acquire are all the faces of dead people, and one of them is a child. Almost everyone is miserable, and even those who have found happiness will be dead in 3 days.

I think this is a perfect mirror for the turmoil that Link must be experiencing. He has no family, he has no friends, and even his accomplishments are taken away from him. He's thrown into a cruel world where nobody wants to speak to him. He finds himself repeating the same 3 days ad nauseam, having almost all of his achievements taken from him every single cycle.

And yet, he starts to make progress. He starts to learn the world, its pitfalls and its charms. He gets to know the strange, miserable people around him, and he begins to use his curse as a way to help those around him, even if it's only temporary. He plays songs of healing for those near death, and finds a way to make their sacrifices (or meaningless deaths) into something that will eventually save the world.

At the end of his mission, he discovers that the Skull kid who mugged him is just a lonely little boy. And even the main villain is a lonely deity who can't find friends to play with him. They are reflections of his emotional state, but he is able to use his likeness with them to learn about them, and in the case of the Skull kid, save a life.

The perfect encapsulation of the theme of misery being turned into progress or even joy, is when Link puts on a transformative mask. Watch this animation:

Link is obviously in terrible pain every time he puts on that mask, yet it is necessary to do this maybe a hundred times during the game itself. The pain is worth the results, and it's a reminder of the sacrifices that went into making that mask.

So Majora's Mask ends up being a catharsis for Link. He may still be miserable, but in helping others through their misery, he can maybe find a way to help himself.

I'm not here to say this was intentional on the part of the designers, but I think it ties in nicely to the Hero of Time legend. It's probably the darkest of all of Link's incarnations, especially when you consider that Wind Waker effectively erases everything Link DID achieve in Hyrule. Majora's Mask is a perfect send-off for the loneliest Link, and it's my favorite of the series.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

I finally watched Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It was certainly a movie with actors in it, huh? Look I'm going to spoil the crap out of this movie so if you haven't seen it then I guess don't read this.

I'm not a huge Star Wars fan, though I'm not a detractor either. I do love the world, a mixture of sci-fi and fantasy, a bit medieval and a bit futuristic. My first experience with Star Wars was probably Shadows of the Empire on the N64, and I was obsessed with that game. The soundtrack especially captured my imagination, and flying an X-wing or whatever the ship on Hoth was called, was really excellent.

I went back and watched the original trilogy with my dad and enjoyed them thoroughly, even knowing all the spoilers. They're pretty solid movies, right? Big ships, big explosions, big emotions. A slightly esoteric world with a very easily digestible plot. Perfect for kids to eat up with just enough depth to keep adults watching. And Light Sabers are just...really awesome.

The prequel trilogy was pretty much garbage to me, but I wasn't that excited for them in the first place. As stand alone movies, they are very much weird, messy, heavy things that don't really flow well or make a whole lot of sense. I did love the pod racers and I played the Pod Racer N64 game pretty heavily at one of my friend's house. Honestly the whole thing didn't impact me much, but I was definitely over my Star Wars thing at that point.

So The Force Awakens gets announced, generates a huge amount of hype, everyone's saying this will be a return to form. I'm thinking, what form? A big flashy movie with an easy-to-digest plot? I've always thought the most interesting things about Star Wars have been the side projects and weird fan creations, not the movies themselves. But still, I got a little excited.

It's telling that even in a short essay about this movie, I feel the need to describe my history with the franchise. This is very much in line with what The Force Awakens was trying to do: make a movie that stands on its own, but pleases people who are familiar with the world and characters. And it does that! It's fine! It's one of those movies that if I saw with no context, I probably would not give a second thought to. I would be confused about some plot points but mostly just write it off as "another action movie."

But it does have context! Lots of it! The original trilogy was about a rag-tag group of underdogs fighting against a largely established oppressive government. It was about a select group of magical people who controlled the destiny of the universe, for better or worse. It was about a laser blasters that looked like crossbows, and technologically advanced swords that could reflect bullets.

I felt the momentum of the original trilogy affecting The Force Awakens a lot, but...it didn't really make sense. The Force Awakens feels almost like a remake of A New Hope, but it isn't brave enough to disconnect itself from all the history and baggage that comes along with being a Star Wars Movie. This creates some weird situations. The heroes are a rag-tag group of underdogs, but they're actually sponsored by the established government. They're fighting against what would amount to a group of terrorists in the modern world, but they're essentially terrorists themselves. It's a mess! And it's not even discussed in the movie, except by the bad guys! Very strange.

And why are they calling themselves the Rebellion, except for historical purposes? What are they rebelling against?

And then there was the characterization of the returning characters, particularly Han and Leia. They were very charming, and I really liked their playful dialogue in particular. But again this aspect was dragged under by the baggage of being an Important Sequel. Their discussion about their son going to the dark side was about as emotional as a conversation about where to go for lunch. I didn't buy it at all. If they were new characters, then there would be no need for all this "what happened between movies" plot revealing dialogue.

I feel like a lot of this is informed by wanting to be completely unlike the prequel trilogy. Where the prequels are tackling the downfall of a ruling government, The Force Awakens is about underdogs fighting space Nazis. Where good and evil is a bit murky in the prequels, everyone is clearly on one side or the other in this movie. Where the prequels had about 6 million Jedis with their own Light sabers, there are exactly three Jedis and two Light sabers in this movie. Where the prequels had lots of dialogue about the plot, the new movie tries to jam a bunch of plot dialogue into as few lines as possible.

Look, what I'm saying here is that the movie should have picked one or the other. Be an interesting sequel to the originals AND the prequels. Tackle the idea of what the Empire would look like when it's weak. Show how the Republic would handle that now that they're in charge. Let us see how the characters we love have changed.

OR be a remake (or totally unrelated movie) and let us just live in the Star Wars universe with some fun, interesting characters that have no baggage. Fun dialogue, eye catching action, familiar ideas with new twists. Light and airy or heavy and serious, but no baggage please.

But trying to shoot right down the middle means that the movie is just...fine? Not bad, but not amazing. It doesn't have enough new ideas to be an amazing movie in its own right, but it doesn't take the old ideas to any interesting places either.

Also, is there any better indication that this is a by-the-numbers sequel than the whole "It's like the Death Star about 100x bigger!!" thing?

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (SB Crosspost)

I've recently started posting a lot on the selectbutton.net forums, and some of these are long-form posts about games. I wanted to save them somewhere accessible. The original post can be found here.

I'm close to finishing SotN and I had a bunch of thoughts I wanted to put here before I forgot.

There are a few ways of doing effective worldbuilding. To take two examples that come to mind: Mario 64 vs. Banjo Kazooie. Mario 64 does not really do worldbuilding. Each painting is a small, enclosed or floating space, like a little garden with clear limits and boundaries. Banjo Kazooie is functionally the same but with a few differences. Each world implies a larger world outside of it that you can't get to. Things like impassable hills and fences, or doors that can't be opened, or oceans that seem to go beyond the playable area - they show that Banjo is being transported somewhere, not just the inside of a magical painting.

Aria of Sorrow is more like Mario 64. It's an enclosed space with specific goals and challenges that don't imply much more is going on. Symphony of the Night constantly feels like it has unplumbed depths. Rather than using physical markers, like Banjo Kazooie, SotN does world building by being incredibly secretive and impenetrable.

One thing I'm thinking about specifically is the item drops from enemies. Many of the enemies have very, very rare item drops. Practically, most players will see maybe 5% of these drops. Most of the items are not very useful, but they are rare, and many of the weapons even have secret attacks triggered by certain button combos. I think this lends the game a deep air of mystery, where each person who plays the game has a slightly different experience. Many conversations I've seen about SotN focus on the "Wow, I didn't know you could do that!" factor.

That extends to the mysterious nature of Alucard as well. He's got totally secret, undocumented spells that you can stumble on by pressing buttons in a certain order. His stats are different depending on how you perform in the first battle. Sometimes he turns into a gargoyle instead of turning to stone when hit by a Medusa Head. He's got all sorts of secret animations involving different contexts. He's not impenetrable, but I certainly don't identify with Alucard the same way I identify with Soma. He feels like another entity, not an extension of myself.

The castle itself has tons of weird secrets. There's a face near Dracula's throne room that looks like a face in the normal castle and a different face when it's upside-down. There are (apparently) rooms you can only reach by doing a super jump as a wolf (???). Famously, there's the room where the priest gives you grape juice...unless he stabs you. And of course the Inverted Castle is the major example of a bizarre secret.

Even the menus hide secrets until you've discovered them! What kind of options menu has ellipses instead of words on it?

Hell, there's even some stuff that was probably unintended. I think that the experience listings for each enemy that the Librarian gives might be wrong - the Dodo should give 777 exp but it's closer to 2000. This makes me wonder how much other stuff he tells you is wrong, or whether the items function as described. (Turns out that experience given is based on your level compared to theirs, so it's intended, but still weird)

There's a bunch of meta-stuff going on in the years since as well. The glitches that allow you to visit rooms you shouldn't or break out of the castle, the changes between various releases, content hidden on the disc...

I'd believe almost anything you told me about SotN. This game isn't just a legend in itself, it creates legends.

In the end, it's not really an incredibly mysterious game, but it feels like one. Sure, you can look up all of this information online, but just playing the game as intended, there's no way you'll see every single thing the game has to offer in less than 100 hours. I can't think of many games that make the world feel real through secrets like this.

The funny thing is that this didn't strike me at all until my second playthrough. I had played all of the GBA games and Dawn of Sorrow before ever touching this game, so SotN didn't seem that special the first time. But this second time through I've encountered so much that I didn't see or notice in the first game. I think it's really built around the idea of playing multiple times, or at least talking to people about the game.

Anyway, that's what I've been dwelling on. I'm near to finishing the game, assuming I don't grind for more weird items. I'm happy to say that this game is probably the best of the Igavanias, and it's definitely my favorite now.

Rejuvenation

I'm taking this old dusty blog of mine and re-opening it. I've done a bit of cleaning, and changed the goal a little bit. Instead of writing nice, polished pieces, I'm instead using this as a media diary of sorts. So I'll be writing smaller pieces more frequently. The intention is to keep a catalog of things I've played, watched, read etc.

I'll also be using this as a place to store some of my posts on Selectbutton.net since I think they are basically blog posts anyway.

Check out the new About Me page, and my work-in-progress Media Diary for 2016.