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.

Thoughts on Mass Effect

Mass Effect has been out for 7 years and yet somehow I have avoided any major spoilers about...well, everything. I went in blind - other than knowing that it was a space opera, and that the ending of Mass Effect 3 was contentious for some reason.

Boy, I reaaallly like this game. I feel stupid for waiting 7 years (7 years!!) to play it.

So, some themes that have come up in the first couple of hours:

I like the idea of humans being late-comers the space scene. It definitely puts Shepard in an interesting position - not the pawn of some gigantic empire, but not fighting against some evil controlling overlord either. It's nice to be sort of unimportant in the grand scheme, at least at first.

I do have a problem with this scenario though. Apparently, humans have quickly excelled within interstellar politics, and are demanding to be part of the council, which has existed 10-20 times longer than humans have been in space. I get the feeling I'm supposed to agree with the humans in the game, but considering that there are other space-faring races who have (a) been around longer and (b) probably understand the politics better but are still not in the council, it actually seems pompous to me. Specifically, it seems like a very USA-like attitude, the sort of exceptionalism that we really get behind. I hope that there is more complexity to this argument later in the game.

The three major alien races are a bit bog-standard unfortunately, although it's not all bad. For instance, the all female race is actually the most intelligent, longest lived, and most diplomatic species in the game. They were also the first to get into space. This is in contrast to the typical male-centric interpretation of sex-crazed man-eating green-skinned space ladies that I'm used to.

But then we have the typical Warrior Race (TM) and the Hyper-Intelligent Race (TM). It seems like the individual characters are treated with more respect than their stereotypes though, so that is good.

The soundtrack is fantastic - I love the mix of 80's space-synth tracks and the more orchestral tracks.

I'll be writing more about Mass Effect as I play further through it. Consider me a time travelling gamer from the year 2007, and enjoy my first journey through the series.

Assassin's Creed - initial thoughts

With the rise of the Xbox One, I've decided to finally catch up on some of the core 360 games that I never really got to when they were full price. I just got Assassin's Creed and played it for about 30 minutes this morning. I had no idea going in what the game is about except murder-fying people in a simulation, and getting lost in a crowd subsequently.

So far, I really like the premise of playing a simulation of an ancestral memory. It reminds me of York addressing the player directly as Zach in Deadly Premonition. When York talks directly to me as if I was some personality in his head, it makes me feel like an agent separate from the actual events of the game - which in essence I am, as the player. Same thing for Assassin's Creed: by addressing the fact that the whole game is a simulation, it makes me aware of the simulation and draws me in as a real actor in the following events.

I also like how they refer to the control scheme as Puppeteering. I just thought that was charming. I also like that the setting is somewhere other than  Space, The Old West, or Big City X.

Other than that, I have no idea what is going on. It seems a lot less like a bro-shooter kind of game than I'm used to, which is good. I prefer being a scalpel to being a chainsaw anymore. Maybe my age is showing.

Eft to Newt

Eft to Newt is a Twine game about being a talking, sentient Axolotl salamander, although this mechanical description doesn't really say anything significant about the game.

At one point, a living statue looked at me and said "Holy shit, a talking salamander!" At another point, I was captured by rogue government agents bent on evolving the human race based on salamander hormones or something. At yet another point I was eaten by a genetically engineered snake-like creature that dripped different colored ink from its claws and fangs. I learned quite a bit about the life cycle of salamanders in the mean-time.

It's disarming and genuine, and it wouldn't work as anything but a game. It's mythical in scope but practical in application, like living in a fairy tale as a side character.

It's very funny.

To say it has a branching narrative would be a lie - it goes beyond that. I imagine it more like the spokes of a wheel that move in completely different directions from the same starting point.

It has a lot of words, and it's going to take a while to read everything. Despite that, each playthrough is very short. Every ending is the "7th ending" which is just so charming and I don't know why.

I don't think I stopped smiling while I played this game, except for the weird mazey bit in the abandoned pen store. Even that was forgivable because of the strange stuff that happened there.

There is an option to "Consider going into baking professionally." I obviously chose this option.

Eft to Newt is about being different and finding empathy in unlikely places, and is very wonderful. If my thoughts about it are scattered, that's because the game is so varied. Despite this, everything strikes at the same theme.

It's available right now on Gum Road for exactly $2. Every dollar is going towards saving the Axolotl Salamander because Michael Joffe is an excellent person. You should read and play more of his stuff at his blog, Video Games of the Oppressed.

DISCLAIMER: I received this game for free as a review copy, I guess, but then I bought it anyway. So there.

Pokemon ROM Hacks and Mystery

I like to play games for a number of reasons - to be challenged, to explore something unknown, to connect with other people, to find comfort in familiarity. Pokemon falls strictly in the last category. It is possibly the closest thing I have to rosary beads, more of a habit than anything. Something to remind me of my childhood, my adolescence, my first job.

Recently I have been playing Pokemon: Liquid Crystal, a remake of the Crystal version based on Fire Red. If that doesn't mean anything to you, no fears. It's basically a fan remake of an older game based on a newer engine. It's like rewriting Beowulf with modern English, or remaking Robocop with CGI except not awful.

So it's a remake, but it's also ROM hack made primarily by one person, frequently updated for the better part of 6 years. That means that there are some...new features. For instance, the day/night cycle from Crystal returns, but as far as I can tell it's only visual. It has no real effect on the game. There are also new weather cycles based on the season it is in real life, which basically amounts to getting pelted with hail occasionally. It's also a lot harder than the original since the trainers have much stronger Pokemon.

The weird thing to me about this is that I play Pokemon like someone reading In Watermelon Sugar for the hundredth time: I know what's coming up, and that is where I find pleasure. But now I'm coming across unfamiliar paragraphs, slight changes of wording, and entirely new chapters. I have a good idea of what's going to happen, but it's always tinged with a feeling of slight strangeness.

Even worse, I haven't actually played the original Crystal, only the slightly older and inferior Silver version. So I don't know what's new to Crystal and what's new to the ROM hack.

All in all though, I'm enjoying it immensely. It's a lot like playing Pokemon for the first time, helped especially by the lack of full documentation or walk-throughs for the hack. The frequent updates also mean that any documentation I do find is probably out of date. It's a unique experience and I'm happy to have it.