I've talked very briefly before about Super Smash Stadium, hands down the best massive Super Smash Bros fanfiction out there.
Okay, so I may be a bit biased since I was a part of it, but it was the first of its kind and the biggest, and while it was rather awkward early on, but I personally like to think that it eventually transcended the genre and became more than a mere fanfic but actually a great creation in its own right.
Even so, I will admit is that it was never perfect. Following are the five lowest points in Super Smash Stadium's history.
(I should note, however, that I will not be counting anything from after Metal Man took over the site, meaning nothing from Season X1 or X2. This is specifically about the site's original run. If I was going to include Metal's contributions, it would be as "absolutely everything involving Metal Man.")
5. Ash Ketchum
"But wait," I hear you say. "Ash Ketchum being in Super Smash Bros would be stupid, sure, but how is it one of the worst things ever?" Well, what if I told you that he didn't have any of his pokémon with him, not even Pikachu? What if I went on to tell you that he was a clone of SSB fighter Ness, who mastered all of Ness's psychic techniques after a single training session? And what if I also told you that, in order to differentiate his moves from Ness's he screamed the obnoxious pun "PokéThunder" instead of PK Thunder? And what if I now ask you to please put down the knife because murdering the author wouldn't be worth it?
Maybe a little explanation would help. Early on all SSS matches were created by having the characters fight in the actual Super Smash Bros game and writing down what happened, and so any original characters had to be clones of existing characters in order to facilitate that. This was also before Pokémon Trainer was an official character, so we couldn't just clone him.
Why make him a clone of Ness, specifically? Why not just let him be in the Stadium as a non-fighter, being the trainer for Pikachu? Why use that godawful PokéThunder pun? Only the original author - Lemmy Koopa - knows for sure.
The writers work in mysterious and often stupid ways.
4. Yoshelly
If anything about SSS spoke to the "teenage kid's fanfic" stereotype then Yoshelly, a superfluous pink Yoshi described in her first appearance as "the most famous Yoshi at Dinosaur High School", was that thing.
Yoshelly was born from a strange combination of feminism and misogyny. On the one hand, the stated reason for her creation as a character was a perceived lack of female characters in Super Smash Brothers. (This was in the time of the first game, when the only definite confirmed girl was Samus Aran, though we were also operating under the idea of Jigglypuff being a girl.)
But on the other hand her first appearance involved her being given away as a love slave to the winner of Match 8, so yeah.
Yoshelly never had much in the way of personality, power, or impact on the plot and, like most of the other characters on this list, she was thankfully done away with by Lord Reid during the Comic Match in season 3.
3. Kirbetty
Kirbetty, like Yoshelly, was supposedly created because of a perceived lack of female fighters, and like Yoshelly she was a poorly considered mistake who was thankfully ended in the season 3 Comic Match.
Also like Yoshelly, Kirbetty was introduced to act as an existing character's girlfriend, in this case Kirby's. What makes Kirbetty worse by far is that, unlike Yoshelly, Kirbetty actually replaced an existing character. The storyline already had a girlfriend for Kirby in Jigglypuff, and when Kirbetty joined it was as part of the "cat fight" that forced Jigglypuff to leave the Stadium until the very end of season 1.
2. The Rex Storyline
This was an attempt at an "interactive story" connecting the website with the message boards. The villain of the story, Rex (or as he was known on the boards "!REX Airship!") was going to appear on the message boards for a bit to mess with the fans, before getting defeated by all the heroes of the Stadium. I know, it sounds fun and it possibly could have been.
But then they let Lord Reid play the part of Rex.
While we all thank Reid for ridding the Stadium of Ash, Yoshelly, and Kirbetty, that doesn't change the fact that he was also very sadistic, selfish, and generally kind of an asshole. Rather than lighthearted riffing and playing with the fans, he tormented people, pretending that an insane hacker had taken over the site and was going to destroy it forever. This was especially bad considering all of this happened only a couple of months after a real hacker actually did take over the message boards.
The Rex storyline was by far the lowest point for SSS. A large chunk of the fanbase ran away from fear or stress, and even more left out of disgust after Rex's true identity was revealed. The only reason the Rex storyline isn't number 1 is because, while it was highly damaging to the fanbase, it wasn't so much for the site itself and a newcomer to the site now wouldn't even know very much had happened. The same can not be said for...
1. Ganna Legacy
Ganna Legacy was a story written by SSS's then-president, VGW. It was sort of a fanfic, in that it included a small handful of characters from Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, but it was mostly it's own thing. I know you're probably asking, "so what's the problem?" The guy is allowed to write more than one thing. Unfortunately, VGW disagreed with the previous sentence.
Even though the stories had dick all to do with each other, VGW decided that they must be one, and that SSS was the one that was going to have to change to accomodate the new material. Ganna Legacy became required reading to understand the plot of season 2, which was really bad for two reasons.
First, Ganna Legacy sucked. It was boring and mostly existed as an ego wank for VGW's Marty Stu self-insert character, Dark Horse.
Second, the story was never actually finished and then what little there was got lost in a server crash, officially rendering the entirety of season 2 incomprehensible.
But wait, Ganna's legacy of shame doesn't end there! When VGW stepped down at the end of season 2, he was replaced by Zeratul, who proceeded to overreact to the whole debacle on a level somewhere between "anime villain" and "political pundit." Reasoning that season 2's problems lay with the fact that it had a story (as opposed to this particular story simply being bad and poorly executed) Zer banned the entire concept of story from the site for season 3. He immediately terminated any and all attempts at ongoing story arcs, character development, and even running gags. In the end, the rest of us were left to come up with a story for the season 3 finale at the last minute, after Zer dropped off the edge of the Earth.
So basically, Ganna Legacy was responsible for ruining two entire seasons of the site. That's why it remains the lamest part of the entire Stadium.
Monday, December 31, 2018
Monday, December 24, 2018
Video Game Review: Dungeons of Dredmor
Let me make this clear - I like rogue-likes. I do. One of my friends actually bought this game for me for Christmas two years ago, saying that it was similar to one of my favorite games - Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. At that time I played this game and wrote a negative review for it on Steam which relied heavily on comparisons between the two games.
That was unfair, I admit. I should judge the game on its own merits, not on how well it holds up to my own favorite game. I also bought both the DLC for the game – “Realm of the Diggle Gods” and “Conquest of the Wizardlands.” So, we'll see if all of this improves my experience at all.
Gameplay
The game works. I can say that for it. It runs competently and seems to be more or less free of bugs. It did crash on me once, and actually gave me an achievement for it - “Suddenly the Dungeon Collapses.” So that was.... cute.
Sadly, that's about the only good thing I can say here. The game is just boring to me. I'm sorry to all the people who love this game, but it is. At no point while playing did I ever find myself really looking forward to what was going to come next.
I never looked forward to the next floor, because I knew it would be exactly the same as the floor I was on, but with different wall and floor graphics.
I never looked forward to seeing a new enemy. There were occasional clever designs, but they all work basically the same and are super wimpy. At no point was I ever forced to switch up my tactics at all.
I never looked forward to finding some fancy artifact weapon because they're never interesting. In most rogue-likes finding a good artifact can make or break your entire run, but here? At most it's just going to be the same as a normal weapon of its type but maybe with +1 or +2 to some stat that I never use. Yawn.
I also never looked forward to my next skill, because the game has you choose all of your skills when you make your character and you can never deviate, so there's no room for experimentation whatsoever. To be fair, I guess that puts the game on par with most other RPGs... but it's still disappointing.
Also, the levels are just... tediously long and boring. There is a “No Time To Grind” option that shrinks levels in size while giving boosted experience, but it doesn't increase loot, and so is therefore absolutely worthless.
In all: it works, but Is just so boring. 3/5.
Presentation
Well, our main character isn't an “@” symbol, so that already puts it ahead of most rogue-likes.
Okay, but seriously, I have no real complaints about graphics or sound. Because the view isn't exactly top down, enemies, items, and traps can sometimes be obscured from view by parts of the environment... however, when this happens, the game politely points them out in various ways – sparkle effect on items, a pointy arrow for enemies, and a red outline for traps. So that's nice. It doesn't point out stuff hidden behind doors or dungeon objects, though.
I would also like it if my equipped armor actually changed my character's appearance, but it's not like the game has to do that. It would just be a nice bonus if it did.
I'll give presentation a 4/5.
Writing
Finally, the last part. I usually put this as “story” but... you know, it's a rogue-like.
I'll be brutally honest. I don't like Dredmor's writing style. In my original review I described the writing as “edgy” but I don't think that's really the right word for it. The writing is just immature. I can't even call it parody. It's just random jokes that mean nothing.
This game was clearly written by the type of person who thinks “irreverent” is a compliment, and who believes knowing the word “sesquipedalian” makes you smart. And if you don't know what I meant by that last bit... then you're probably the type of person I'm talking about. I don't guess that really makes it bad, though. If you like Family Guy and Robot Chicken, you follow Cracked, and you think the Clock Crew rules the Portal... then you'll probably love this game's sense of humor.
But if you'll excuse me, I need to pop my monocle back in, and go think about how much I hate you while enjoying my Beaujolais and camembert, and partaking of more intellectual entertainments... like anime. Anime is great. 2/5.
KR Rating: 3/5 MEDIOCRE
In all, I give it basically the same score I gave it before. Owning the DLC didn't really change my impression that much. There's some fairly interesting additions in them, but nothing that makes the game any less boring to me. Even Conquest of the Wizardlands, which adds a huge number of randomly generated "wizard tower" mini-dungeons, is just... they're all the same. Yawn. At the end of the day, even with the DLC, it's still Dungeons of Dredmor.
And now that that's all said and done... yeah, I just can't end this without bringing up Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup again. It's an excellent game and a perfect example of a rogue-like done right. In that game, I actually did look forward to reaching new regions because they had unique properties and interesting enemies. I also looked forward to finding new artifact items because they actually meant something. Finding the right artifact weapon or armor could make or break your entire run, unlike this game where randarts just mean +1 to some stat I don't care about and I'll probably just sacrifice them to my Horadric Lutefisk Cube... speaking of immature writing.
I just can't recommend this game to anyone when I already know there's another game that's just like it only better in every way AND ALSO FREE already out there. I can't.
That was unfair, I admit. I should judge the game on its own merits, not on how well it holds up to my own favorite game. I also bought both the DLC for the game – “Realm of the Diggle Gods” and “Conquest of the Wizardlands.” So, we'll see if all of this improves my experience at all.
Gameplay
The game works. I can say that for it. It runs competently and seems to be more or less free of bugs. It did crash on me once, and actually gave me an achievement for it - “Suddenly the Dungeon Collapses.” So that was.... cute.
Sadly, that's about the only good thing I can say here. The game is just boring to me. I'm sorry to all the people who love this game, but it is. At no point while playing did I ever find myself really looking forward to what was going to come next.
I never looked forward to the next floor, because I knew it would be exactly the same as the floor I was on, but with different wall and floor graphics.
I never looked forward to seeing a new enemy. There were occasional clever designs, but they all work basically the same and are super wimpy. At no point was I ever forced to switch up my tactics at all.
I never looked forward to finding some fancy artifact weapon because they're never interesting. In most rogue-likes finding a good artifact can make or break your entire run, but here? At most it's just going to be the same as a normal weapon of its type but maybe with +1 or +2 to some stat that I never use. Yawn.
I also never looked forward to my next skill, because the game has you choose all of your skills when you make your character and you can never deviate, so there's no room for experimentation whatsoever. To be fair, I guess that puts the game on par with most other RPGs... but it's still disappointing.
Also, the levels are just... tediously long and boring. There is a “No Time To Grind” option that shrinks levels in size while giving boosted experience, but it doesn't increase loot, and so is therefore absolutely worthless.
In all: it works, but Is just so boring. 3/5.
Presentation
Well, our main character isn't an “@” symbol, so that already puts it ahead of most rogue-likes.
Okay, but seriously, I have no real complaints about graphics or sound. Because the view isn't exactly top down, enemies, items, and traps can sometimes be obscured from view by parts of the environment... however, when this happens, the game politely points them out in various ways – sparkle effect on items, a pointy arrow for enemies, and a red outline for traps. So that's nice. It doesn't point out stuff hidden behind doors or dungeon objects, though.
I would also like it if my equipped armor actually changed my character's appearance, but it's not like the game has to do that. It would just be a nice bonus if it did.
I'll give presentation a 4/5.
Writing
Finally, the last part. I usually put this as “story” but... you know, it's a rogue-like.
I'll be brutally honest. I don't like Dredmor's writing style. In my original review I described the writing as “edgy” but I don't think that's really the right word for it. The writing is just immature. I can't even call it parody. It's just random jokes that mean nothing.
This game was clearly written by the type of person who thinks “irreverent” is a compliment, and who believes knowing the word “sesquipedalian” makes you smart. And if you don't know what I meant by that last bit... then you're probably the type of person I'm talking about. I don't guess that really makes it bad, though. If you like Family Guy and Robot Chicken, you follow Cracked, and you think the Clock Crew rules the Portal... then you'll probably love this game's sense of humor.
But if you'll excuse me, I need to pop my monocle back in, and go think about how much I hate you while enjoying my Beaujolais and camembert, and partaking of more intellectual entertainments... like anime. Anime is great. 2/5.
KR Rating: 3/5 MEDIOCRE
In all, I give it basically the same score I gave it before. Owning the DLC didn't really change my impression that much. There's some fairly interesting additions in them, but nothing that makes the game any less boring to me. Even Conquest of the Wizardlands, which adds a huge number of randomly generated "wizard tower" mini-dungeons, is just... they're all the same. Yawn. At the end of the day, even with the DLC, it's still Dungeons of Dredmor.
And now that that's all said and done... yeah, I just can't end this without bringing up Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup again. It's an excellent game and a perfect example of a rogue-like done right. In that game, I actually did look forward to reaching new regions because they had unique properties and interesting enemies. I also looked forward to finding new artifact items because they actually meant something. Finding the right artifact weapon or armor could make or break your entire run, unlike this game where randarts just mean +1 to some stat I don't care about and I'll probably just sacrifice them to my Horadric Lutefisk Cube... speaking of immature writing.
I just can't recommend this game to anyone when I already know there's another game that's just like it only better in every way AND ALSO FREE already out there. I can't.
Tuesday, December 11, 2018
Television Review: Power Rangers In Space (Spoiler Warning)
Super Sentai Equivalent: Denji Sentai Megaranger (Electromagnetic Squad Mega Ranger)
In Space follows directly after Turbo's downer ending. (Oh yeah, spoiler alert.) Divatox has finally succeeded in destroying the Command Center. Worse, the Rangers discover that Zordon has been captured following a devastating invasion of his home planet by the evil Dark Specter and his daughter Astronema. The Rangers, drained of their powers, make a desperate trip into space to search for Zordon... along the way they encounter the Astro Megaship and its pilot, Andros, the last surviving Space Ranger. Andros reluctantly agrees to take the team on as his new Space Rangers and joins them in the search for their lost mentor and to defeat Dark Specter and Astronema and save the universe.
Let's get this out of the way right now - In Space is good. In fact, I can say with confidence that In Space is the first truly good series of Power Rangers, which I must admit really surprised me. Mostly it was the title that threw me - usually adding "in space" to the title is what a studio does when they've just completely run out of ideas. But it was good, even by regular "not Power Rangers" TV show standards.
The villains weren't just mindlessly evil space demons, but actually had real motivations and characterizations. Ecliptor and Astronema both managed to be truly compelling and honestly sympathetic.
The heroes were pretty well written too, with actual flaws and a lot of really good interactions with each other. Alpha 6 also got a new, less obnoxious voice, and Dimitria went away forever. Win-win!
The one real flaw I find with this series, which is sort of a minor flaw in the grand scheme of it all, is that because of the increased focus on the Rangers' interactions with one another the actual monster battles sometimes seem to come completely out of nowhere. There was more than one time I found myself suddenly asking, "wait, why is there a giant monster all of a sudden?"
Well, I suppose there is one other issue... the show does seem to run out of steam a bit toward the end, finishing off with a massive deus ex machina ending as - SPOILER ALERT FOR A TWENTY YEAR OLD KIDS' SHOW - Zordon sacrifices himself to create a wave of magic that washes over the galaxy, either disintegrating or purifying all of the show's many villains and finally winning the war against evil (at least until the next series).
Still, all in all...
KR Rating: [5] GREAT
In Space follows directly after Turbo's downer ending. (Oh yeah, spoiler alert.) Divatox has finally succeeded in destroying the Command Center. Worse, the Rangers discover that Zordon has been captured following a devastating invasion of his home planet by the evil Dark Specter and his daughter Astronema. The Rangers, drained of their powers, make a desperate trip into space to search for Zordon... along the way they encounter the Astro Megaship and its pilot, Andros, the last surviving Space Ranger. Andros reluctantly agrees to take the team on as his new Space Rangers and joins them in the search for their lost mentor and to defeat Dark Specter and Astronema and save the universe.
Let's get this out of the way right now - In Space is good. In fact, I can say with confidence that In Space is the first truly good series of Power Rangers, which I must admit really surprised me. Mostly it was the title that threw me - usually adding "in space" to the title is what a studio does when they've just completely run out of ideas. But it was good, even by regular "not Power Rangers" TV show standards.
The villains weren't just mindlessly evil space demons, but actually had real motivations and characterizations. Ecliptor and Astronema both managed to be truly compelling and honestly sympathetic.
The heroes were pretty well written too, with actual flaws and a lot of really good interactions with each other. Alpha 6 also got a new, less obnoxious voice, and Dimitria went away forever. Win-win!
The one real flaw I find with this series, which is sort of a minor flaw in the grand scheme of it all, is that because of the increased focus on the Rangers' interactions with one another the actual monster battles sometimes seem to come completely out of nowhere. There was more than one time I found myself suddenly asking, "wait, why is there a giant monster all of a sudden?"
Well, I suppose there is one other issue... the show does seem to run out of steam a bit toward the end, finishing off with a massive deus ex machina ending as - SPOILER ALERT FOR A TWENTY YEAR OLD KIDS' SHOW - Zordon sacrifices himself to create a wave of magic that washes over the galaxy, either disintegrating or purifying all of the show's many villains and finally winning the war against evil (at least until the next series).
Still, all in all...
KR Rating: [5] GREAT
Monday, August 27, 2018
Game Review: Octopath Traveler
In a world that has very little description, eight random people with mildly tragic backstories will take on eight separate fairly interesting quests, using their semi-unique talents and skills to forge their own path in life! Or perhaps... their own... OCTOPATH?!
...okay, we'll be serious now. I haven't done the "Gameplay/Presentation/Story" format in a while - pretty much since I moved away from my old Angelfire site to this blog - but I'll bring it back for this review because I want to talk about each of these things in detail here. So, here we go.
Gameplay
In combat, the game plays a lot like Bravely Default. You can attack, defend, use skills... it's pretty much a typical JRPG. The main difference is the Boost system. Each turn your characters gain one BP, which you can spend to boost them, increasing their number of weapon attacks or boosting the power of usable skills. It's not exactly the same as the Brave system but it is somewhat similar.
The other notable thing in combat is weaknesses. Every enemy has an array of elemental and weapon weaknesses, and when you hit those weaknesses enough times the enemy "breaks", loses their next turn and takes extra damage for a bit. It's not that great of a system. When I think about exploiting weaknesses I usually think about poison and binding, not just "bring a guy with a spear."
There is also a level of customization but it's not quite as deep as Bravely is. Each character has a primary job, and later on you can unlock secondary jobs which modify your stats somewhat, give different skills, and even change your character's appearance - though the appearance change is only visible in combat or from the menu screen, not in the field, which seems like an odd choice.
Every job starts with its first two combat skills unlocked, and has five more which can be unlocked in any order by spending JP. Once all seven basic skills are unlocked you can then spend more JP to unlock a super-powerful divine skill for that job. As you unlock combat skills you'll also unlock four support skills for each job.
What all of this means for your characters is that they can use all of the unlocked combat skills from each of their two jobs. If you change jobs later you lose access to the combat skills of your previous secondary job, but you always have access to all of your support skills, though you can only equip and use four of them at a time.
In all, the customization isn't the worst I've seen, but also not the best.
Of course, the main gimmick here is the "path action" system. Each of the eight characters has a unique path action... well, sort of. You'll quickly realize that there are actually FOUR basic path actions, each of which belongs to two characters who use it slightly differently. For example, Tressa the Merchant and Therion the Thief both have the ability to get items from NPCs; the difference between them is that Tressa's Purchase action forces you to spend money, while Therion's Pickpocket action gets you those items for free, but with a percentage chance of failure.
The path action system is... well, it's okay I guess. As I said, there are four basic path actions.
Scrutinize/Inquire gives you a bit of flavor text about a given NPC and can sometimes unlock benefits like getting a discount at the inn or revealing a hidden item somewhere.
Guide/Allure convinces an NPC to follow along behind you, and you can then escort them for sidequests or summon them to help you in battle.
Purchase/Pickpocket allows you to get items off of NPCs, usually just cheap consumables but sometimes you can secure powerful unique items too.
Challenge/Provoke draws an NPC into a one-on-one fight with special rules, which can allow the two characters with this action (Olberic and Ha'anit) to gain levels more quickly.
It's a unique system and could have been really interesting if more effort was put into it. As it is it's mostly just a novelty more than anything else.
The one really good thing I can say is that it's really not the grindfest you may be expecting of a JRPG. In my first playthrough I only even bothered getting 4 of the 8 playable characters and I was able to level up fine just by completing their story missions. The people crying about how the game is a 100-hour grindfest (and don't pretend you haven't heard it) clearly just never played the game.
Still, at best the gameplay warrants a 3 out of 5. It's passable. Honestly, it's even fairly decent as JRPGs go. Of course, if you don't like JRPGs then this definitely isn't going to be the game to change your mind.
Presentation
Presentation is sooooo close to being great. The sprite work is lovely, and the music is beautiful. (I especially love the mid-game battle theme. This is one of the very few times I've found myself humming along to a game's soundtrack without even realizing it.)
And then they added the @#%$ing "Real Is Brown" graphic filter and RUINED IT.
Anyone who played video games in the 2000's knows exactly what I'm talking about. For those who didn't, imagine a really beautifully designed work of art, then smear a bunch of mud over it and shine fifty halogen spotlights at it. That's this game.
3 out of 5.
Story
Of course everyone knows the main draw of any JRPG is the story. And Octopath has eight stories! So it's got to be eight times as good as any other game, right?
Nah, not really.
The writing is pretty good, aside from absolutely everything that has to do with H'aanit and her fake olde english accent. (Seriously, shutten the @#%$ upeth, H'aanit. Thou voice doest hurten mine earseth.) The characters themselves are also generally likeable.
There are two main problems, though. First, there's barely any interaction between the characters. They only talk in scripted "travel banter" sequences, and only two characters at a time ever talk to one another. This also only happens during story chapters.
Speaking of which, number two, the story is relentless formulaic. With eight characters and four story chapters each that's 32 chapters, and each of them goes basically the same - go to a town and talk to somebody, use your path action on one or two NPCs, then go into an extremely linear dungeon and fight a boss.
It's not the worst I've ever seen, but it's pretty bad. I was going to say "it's at least better than something like Etrian Odyssey" but that's honestly not even true. Sure, your own party members have no characterization in that game (since you made them yourself) but the supporting cast of that game is more colorful and the meta-plot is far more epic. Octopath is not an epic. It's eight randos living their daily lives. To be fair, that's not inherently bad and I do quite enjoy the "everyone has a story to tell" approach... this game just didn't really do it for me, I guess.
2 out of 5.
KR Rating: 3/5 MEDIOCRE
And honestly, that sums up Octopath in its entirety. "It's not the worst I've seen." It's not a bad game. There are certainly worse ways to spend your time.
But for how much it was pushed and hyped there's just nothing about this game that honestly stands out. Every single thing about it is done better by other games. If you're really into JRPGs... well, this is one and is fairly competent so I guess give it a shot. If not, this isn't the game to change your mind.
...okay, we'll be serious now. I haven't done the "Gameplay/Presentation/Story" format in a while - pretty much since I moved away from my old Angelfire site to this blog - but I'll bring it back for this review because I want to talk about each of these things in detail here. So, here we go.
Gameplay
In combat, the game plays a lot like Bravely Default. You can attack, defend, use skills... it's pretty much a typical JRPG. The main difference is the Boost system. Each turn your characters gain one BP, which you can spend to boost them, increasing their number of weapon attacks or boosting the power of usable skills. It's not exactly the same as the Brave system but it is somewhat similar.
The other notable thing in combat is weaknesses. Every enemy has an array of elemental and weapon weaknesses, and when you hit those weaknesses enough times the enemy "breaks", loses their next turn and takes extra damage for a bit. It's not that great of a system. When I think about exploiting weaknesses I usually think about poison and binding, not just "bring a guy with a spear."
There is also a level of customization but it's not quite as deep as Bravely is. Each character has a primary job, and later on you can unlock secondary jobs which modify your stats somewhat, give different skills, and even change your character's appearance - though the appearance change is only visible in combat or from the menu screen, not in the field, which seems like an odd choice.
Every job starts with its first two combat skills unlocked, and has five more which can be unlocked in any order by spending JP. Once all seven basic skills are unlocked you can then spend more JP to unlock a super-powerful divine skill for that job. As you unlock combat skills you'll also unlock four support skills for each job.
What all of this means for your characters is that they can use all of the unlocked combat skills from each of their two jobs. If you change jobs later you lose access to the combat skills of your previous secondary job, but you always have access to all of your support skills, though you can only equip and use four of them at a time.
In all, the customization isn't the worst I've seen, but also not the best.
Of course, the main gimmick here is the "path action" system. Each of the eight characters has a unique path action... well, sort of. You'll quickly realize that there are actually FOUR basic path actions, each of which belongs to two characters who use it slightly differently. For example, Tressa the Merchant and Therion the Thief both have the ability to get items from NPCs; the difference between them is that Tressa's Purchase action forces you to spend money, while Therion's Pickpocket action gets you those items for free, but with a percentage chance of failure.
The path action system is... well, it's okay I guess. As I said, there are four basic path actions.
Scrutinize/Inquire gives you a bit of flavor text about a given NPC and can sometimes unlock benefits like getting a discount at the inn or revealing a hidden item somewhere.
Guide/Allure convinces an NPC to follow along behind you, and you can then escort them for sidequests or summon them to help you in battle.
Purchase/Pickpocket allows you to get items off of NPCs, usually just cheap consumables but sometimes you can secure powerful unique items too.
Challenge/Provoke draws an NPC into a one-on-one fight with special rules, which can allow the two characters with this action (Olberic and Ha'anit) to gain levels more quickly.
It's a unique system and could have been really interesting if more effort was put into it. As it is it's mostly just a novelty more than anything else.
The one really good thing I can say is that it's really not the grindfest you may be expecting of a JRPG. In my first playthrough I only even bothered getting 4 of the 8 playable characters and I was able to level up fine just by completing their story missions. The people crying about how the game is a 100-hour grindfest (and don't pretend you haven't heard it) clearly just never played the game.
Still, at best the gameplay warrants a 3 out of 5. It's passable. Honestly, it's even fairly decent as JRPGs go. Of course, if you don't like JRPGs then this definitely isn't going to be the game to change your mind.
Presentation
Presentation is sooooo close to being great. The sprite work is lovely, and the music is beautiful. (I especially love the mid-game battle theme. This is one of the very few times I've found myself humming along to a game's soundtrack without even realizing it.)
And then they added the @#%$ing "Real Is Brown" graphic filter and RUINED IT.
Anyone who played video games in the 2000's knows exactly what I'm talking about. For those who didn't, imagine a really beautifully designed work of art, then smear a bunch of mud over it and shine fifty halogen spotlights at it. That's this game.
3 out of 5.
Story
Of course everyone knows the main draw of any JRPG is the story. And Octopath has eight stories! So it's got to be eight times as good as any other game, right?
Nah, not really.
The writing is pretty good, aside from absolutely everything that has to do with H'aanit and her fake olde english accent. (Seriously, shutten the @#%$ upeth, H'aanit. Thou voice doest hurten mine earseth.) The characters themselves are also generally likeable.
There are two main problems, though. First, there's barely any interaction between the characters. They only talk in scripted "travel banter" sequences, and only two characters at a time ever talk to one another. This also only happens during story chapters.
Speaking of which, number two, the story is relentless formulaic. With eight characters and four story chapters each that's 32 chapters, and each of them goes basically the same - go to a town and talk to somebody, use your path action on one or two NPCs, then go into an extremely linear dungeon and fight a boss.
It's not the worst I've ever seen, but it's pretty bad. I was going to say "it's at least better than something like Etrian Odyssey" but that's honestly not even true. Sure, your own party members have no characterization in that game (since you made them yourself) but the supporting cast of that game is more colorful and the meta-plot is far more epic. Octopath is not an epic. It's eight randos living their daily lives. To be fair, that's not inherently bad and I do quite enjoy the "everyone has a story to tell" approach... this game just didn't really do it for me, I guess.
2 out of 5.
KR Rating: 3/5 MEDIOCRE
And honestly, that sums up Octopath in its entirety. "It's not the worst I've seen." It's not a bad game. There are certainly worse ways to spend your time.
But for how much it was pushed and hyped there's just nothing about this game that honestly stands out. Every single thing about it is done better by other games. If you're really into JRPGs... well, this is one and is fairly competent so I guess give it a shot. If not, this isn't the game to change your mind.
Thursday, June 7, 2018
Television Review: Power Rangers Turbo
Super Sentai Equivalent: Gekisou Sentai Carranger (Radical Racing Team Car Ranger)
You know when a TV show gets popular, so they make a movie based on it, but it's not actually canon so it's like all of the characters magically forget about what they went through the second it's over? Okay, now imagine if, instead of that, they declared it to be TOTALLY canon and made the plot of the entire next season all about the characters facing the fallout from that movie's events.
That's Power Rangers Turbo, in a nutshell. It's actually fairly impressive that they took the events of Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie as canon, when even non-kids' shows don't usually do stuff like that. Of course, there's a reason WHY they don't usually do it... without watching the movie you'll be fairly lost. Here's all you need to know - the new Blue Ranger is a little kid named Justin, there's a space wizard that talks like ET, space pirate Divatox hates the Rangers for screwing up her wedding to Off-Brand Satan, and the Zords are monster trucks.
Oh, you also need to know that this season is trash. That too. It's not quite as bad as Alien Rangers, and the second half of it is a lot better than the first half, but it's still pretty garbage.
The actors clearly didn't want to be there anymore after four and a half seasons. As a result they kept giving focus episodes to the newest ranger, Justin, a little kid who had the power to grow about two feet taller whenever he morphed. Justin wasn't actually bad as kid-appeal characters go, but he did get way too much screen time at the expense of everyone else, even fan favorite Tommy Oliver, who basically had nothing to do except have occasional shots of him driving race cars.
The villain was boring and stupid, even by the standards of already stupid villains from other seasons... every single member of Divatox' crew was trying to play comic relief at the same time, and their plans were always the same - send a monster to distract the Rangers while the villains plant a "detonator" (which the writers seemed to think was just a fancy way of saying "bomb") somewhere in the city.
Zordon and Alpha 5 also left to return to Zordon's home planet of Eltar. Their replacements were Dimitria and Alpha 6, two obnoxious characters with even more obnoxious gimmicks - Dimitria spoke only in questions and Alpha 6 spoke only in jive, and the two seemed to be in a constant competition to see which of them could be more irritating.
Oh yeah, and Bulk and Skull become chimpanzees for several episodes. There's that too.
To be fair to Turbo, it does get much better in the second half. The original set of Rangers (except Justin) all got replaced and as sad as it was to see them go, at least the new actors cared about the show. With that, the writers seemed to get a second wind too. Divatox and her crew actually got some new plans, even if those plans weren't all that much more effective than her stupid "detonator" plans.
My biggest feeling personally about Turbo is that I felt they wasted the potential of an automobile-themed Power Rangers. When I found out that the Zords were cars now, I imagined a show that was sort of a high-stakes game of demolition derby, like Power Rangers meets Wacky Races. Unfortunately, that... doesn't really happen. There are a few car battles but it's mostly just regular Power Rangers. I know this isn't their fault, it's just what Super Sentai footage they had to work with... still sad, though.
KR Rating: [2] BAD
You know when a TV show gets popular, so they make a movie based on it, but it's not actually canon so it's like all of the characters magically forget about what they went through the second it's over? Okay, now imagine if, instead of that, they declared it to be TOTALLY canon and made the plot of the entire next season all about the characters facing the fallout from that movie's events.
That's Power Rangers Turbo, in a nutshell. It's actually fairly impressive that they took the events of Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie as canon, when even non-kids' shows don't usually do stuff like that. Of course, there's a reason WHY they don't usually do it... without watching the movie you'll be fairly lost. Here's all you need to know - the new Blue Ranger is a little kid named Justin, there's a space wizard that talks like ET, space pirate Divatox hates the Rangers for screwing up her wedding to Off-Brand Satan, and the Zords are monster trucks.
Oh, you also need to know that this season is trash. That too. It's not quite as bad as Alien Rangers, and the second half of it is a lot better than the first half, but it's still pretty garbage.
The actors clearly didn't want to be there anymore after four and a half seasons. As a result they kept giving focus episodes to the newest ranger, Justin, a little kid who had the power to grow about two feet taller whenever he morphed. Justin wasn't actually bad as kid-appeal characters go, but he did get way too much screen time at the expense of everyone else, even fan favorite Tommy Oliver, who basically had nothing to do except have occasional shots of him driving race cars.
The villain was boring and stupid, even by the standards of already stupid villains from other seasons... every single member of Divatox' crew was trying to play comic relief at the same time, and their plans were always the same - send a monster to distract the Rangers while the villains plant a "detonator" (which the writers seemed to think was just a fancy way of saying "bomb") somewhere in the city.
Zordon and Alpha 5 also left to return to Zordon's home planet of Eltar. Their replacements were Dimitria and Alpha 6, two obnoxious characters with even more obnoxious gimmicks - Dimitria spoke only in questions and Alpha 6 spoke only in jive, and the two seemed to be in a constant competition to see which of them could be more irritating.
Oh yeah, and Bulk and Skull become chimpanzees for several episodes. There's that too.
To be fair to Turbo, it does get much better in the second half. The original set of Rangers (except Justin) all got replaced and as sad as it was to see them go, at least the new actors cared about the show. With that, the writers seemed to get a second wind too. Divatox and her crew actually got some new plans, even if those plans weren't all that much more effective than her stupid "detonator" plans.
My biggest feeling personally about Turbo is that I felt they wasted the potential of an automobile-themed Power Rangers. When I found out that the Zords were cars now, I imagined a show that was sort of a high-stakes game of demolition derby, like Power Rangers meets Wacky Races. Unfortunately, that... doesn't really happen. There are a few car battles but it's mostly just regular Power Rangers. I know this isn't their fault, it's just what Super Sentai footage they had to work with... still sad, though.
KR Rating: [2] BAD
Friday, May 25, 2018
Power Rangers Zeo
Super Sentai Equivalent: Choriki Sentai Ohranger (Powerful Team O Ranger)
Having finally found the scattered fragments of the Zeo Crystal, the Power Rangers are restored to their proper ages, granted new powers, and can begin to repair their destroyed Command Center. However they also face a new threat... the evil Machine Empire has come and driven away Lord Zedd and Rita from the moon in order to take over the Earth themselves!
Zeo was a sort of return to form for Power Rangers... which is mostly just to say that it didn't suck like Alien Rangers. Power Rangers was never exactly high art and neither was Zeo.
Granted, there were a few interesting ideas, but most of them were squandered. One notable example is when Machine King Mondo falls in battle, allowing the generic Monster of the Week - an evil robot called Louie Kaboom - to usurp his throne. Seeing the disposable henchman actually get something for himself was a neat concept and could have shown a deeper side to the usually one-note monsters. Unfortunately Louie WAS just a boring, one-note monster and was quickly killed off anyway.
Still, it's not like the original series was ever above that. The major flaw this has over the original is the villains. The Machine Empire just aren't that interesting. The don't have any of the sense of humor that made Rita Repulsa and Lord Zedd fun. In fact that only have one actual joke - Machine King Mondo dotes on his incompetent son Prince Sprocket and blames his actually competent underlings Klank and Orbus whenever Sprocket's schemes inevitably blow up in his face. Yawn.
On the other hand, they also don't have any of the seriousness or threatening intensity of later villains. Despite being built up as terrifying enemies who could make Rita and Zedd flee the moon in fear for their lives, the Machine Empire still fail instantly at everything they try to do and never come across as legitimately frightening.
In all, they're just sort of there. They're written just well enough to get the job done but not well enough to actually stand out... sort of like this season as a whole, really.
KR Rating: [3] MEDIOCRE
Having finally found the scattered fragments of the Zeo Crystal, the Power Rangers are restored to their proper ages, granted new powers, and can begin to repair their destroyed Command Center. However they also face a new threat... the evil Machine Empire has come and driven away Lord Zedd and Rita from the moon in order to take over the Earth themselves!
Zeo was a sort of return to form for Power Rangers... which is mostly just to say that it didn't suck like Alien Rangers. Power Rangers was never exactly high art and neither was Zeo.
Granted, there were a few interesting ideas, but most of them were squandered. One notable example is when Machine King Mondo falls in battle, allowing the generic Monster of the Week - an evil robot called Louie Kaboom - to usurp his throne. Seeing the disposable henchman actually get something for himself was a neat concept and could have shown a deeper side to the usually one-note monsters. Unfortunately Louie WAS just a boring, one-note monster and was quickly killed off anyway.
Still, it's not like the original series was ever above that. The major flaw this has over the original is the villains. The Machine Empire just aren't that interesting. The don't have any of the sense of humor that made Rita Repulsa and Lord Zedd fun. In fact that only have one actual joke - Machine King Mondo dotes on his incompetent son Prince Sprocket and blames his actually competent underlings Klank and Orbus whenever Sprocket's schemes inevitably blow up in his face. Yawn.
On the other hand, they also don't have any of the seriousness or threatening intensity of later villains. Despite being built up as terrifying enemies who could make Rita and Zedd flee the moon in fear for their lives, the Machine Empire still fail instantly at everything they try to do and never come across as legitimately frightening.
In all, they're just sort of there. They're written just well enough to get the job done but not well enough to actually stand out... sort of like this season as a whole, really.
KR Rating: [3] MEDIOCRE
Thursday, May 17, 2018
Mighty Morphin' Alien Rangers
Following the end of the original series, the Power Rangers are all transformed into children by Rita's dad and their power coins are destroyed, leaving them all that way seemingly permanently. Obviously, this wasn't going to stick. Eventually they went and found the Zeo Crystal, a magic rock with the ability to restore their proper ages and their powers, and that led into Power Rangers Zeo.
In the meantime, though, we got Mighty Morphin' Alien Rangers. Realizing that Earth is vulnerable without Rangers to protect it, Zordon calls on his friends from the planet Aquitar to defend the Earth while the kid rangers search for the pieces of the Zeo Crystal.
This is where the whole thing falls apart. The idea of other planets each having their own sets of Rangers was pretty cool, but... the Aquitian Rangers themselves just aren't good characters. They're twitchy and overly formal. Their struggles to survive in their new environment were really more tedious than interesting. Worst of all, only two of them even have any real characterization at all. Delphine the White Alien Ranger gets a lot of screen time as their leader, and Cestro the Blue Alien Ranger spends a lot of time working on tech with Billy. The rest of the Alien Rangers just sort of... well, they have to be there to pilot the zords, I guess.
Also, the actual Power Rangers, aside from Billy, are all still kids so everything they do is done with the child actors, who... do I even need to say anymore? I can count on one hand the number of shows I know of where child actors did a really good job - mostly because the list consists of Avatar: The Last Airbender and nothing else.
Fortunately this season didn't last very long. There's only 10 episodes before the Aquitian Rangers go back home and we move on to Power Rangers Zeo.
Unfortunately, that's about 10 episodes too many for what is quite possibly the WORST that Power Rangers has to offer.
KR Rating: [1] HORRIBLE
In the meantime, though, we got Mighty Morphin' Alien Rangers. Realizing that Earth is vulnerable without Rangers to protect it, Zordon calls on his friends from the planet Aquitar to defend the Earth while the kid rangers search for the pieces of the Zeo Crystal.
This is where the whole thing falls apart. The idea of other planets each having their own sets of Rangers was pretty cool, but... the Aquitian Rangers themselves just aren't good characters. They're twitchy and overly formal. Their struggles to survive in their new environment were really more tedious than interesting. Worst of all, only two of them even have any real characterization at all. Delphine the White Alien Ranger gets a lot of screen time as their leader, and Cestro the Blue Alien Ranger spends a lot of time working on tech with Billy. The rest of the Alien Rangers just sort of... well, they have to be there to pilot the zords, I guess.
Also, the actual Power Rangers, aside from Billy, are all still kids so everything they do is done with the child actors, who... do I even need to say anymore? I can count on one hand the number of shows I know of where child actors did a really good job - mostly because the list consists of Avatar: The Last Airbender and nothing else.
Fortunately this season didn't last very long. There's only 10 episodes before the Aquitian Rangers go back home and we move on to Power Rangers Zeo.
Unfortunately, that's about 10 episodes too many for what is quite possibly the WORST that Power Rangers has to offer.
KR Rating: [1] HORRIBLE
Saturday, May 12, 2018
Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers (The Show)
It was the early 90's, the era of totally radical attitudes and bright colors. Also apparently another moon landing. Yes, astronauts on the moon find and open up a "space dumpster," unwittingly releasing the long-imprisoned supervillain Rita Repulsa (later joined by Lord Zedd), who decides her first act upon release will be to conquer the nearby planet Earth. The only hope of stopping her is good space wizard Zordon, who summons five teenagers with attitude to don the brightly colored uniforms and vaguely dinosaur-themed weapons of the Power Rangers!
I probably don't need to say a whole lot about this show. (I will anyway, of course, because my first language has always been and will always be filibuster.) If you're the kind of person who cares about Power Rangers, then you already know about it. Hell, you probably know at least a little even if you don't care at all.
What you might not know is that Power Rangers is the "fortified wine" of television. That is, they took an existing product, mixed it with some stuff of their own, and presented it as a new thing. In this case the base was Japanese action series Kyroryu Sentai Zyuranger (Dinosaur Team Beast Ranger), part of the long-running Super Sentai franchise. Saban Entertainment used battle footage from Zyuranger, and later on Gosei Sentai Dairanger (Five Stars Team Great Ranger) and Ninja Sentai Kakuranger (Ninja Team Hidden Ranger), added new story scenes featuring American actors, and released it to western audiences. The result was a hit show despite its flaws, and the beginning of one of the longest running franchises on television, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.
I'll be going over all of the Rangers series to date here. No, not all at once as that would get boring for both of us, but I will keep up with it over time. So, on to our review.
So, the question on everyone's mind... is the nostalgia here deserved? Well, I would argue that nostalgia is never deserved or undeserved it simply exists on its own... but that aside, is the show good? I would say yes and no.
On the one hand, the show gave us some classic episodes and storylines. The most notable example of this is, of course, the story of Green Ranger Tommy Oliver, who started out as the most threatening and successful villain on the show, turned to the side of good, and eventually became a permanent part of the team as the heroic White Ranger. You might have heard of him as the most popular Power Rangers character ever and probably the longest running, not only following the other old school rangers into Zeo and Turbo, but also reappearing as a recurring character in Dino Thunder.
On the other hand, episodes and storylines like that were the minority. Most of them are really just "okay" at best. The show definitely tended towards the BAD side of campy in most cases. Evil tubes of lipstick and rapping pumpkins were common enemies. The "teenagers with attitude" were actually overly idealized with basically no flaws or attitude at all. (They also weren't played by teenagers, but you probably could have guessed that.)
It also suffers pretty serious decay later on, with eventually the two most threatening villain lackeys - Rito Revolto and Goldar - becoming absolute jokes who were regularly defeated by unarmed 10 year olds. And no, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I want to watch Rito and Goldar chop up a busload of little kids any more than the show's producers want to show that. Obviously. I just also don't want to watch the villains who I'm supposed to find intimidating get humiliated by tweens with water balloons. Yes, that happened. So... I don't know, maybe just don't write yourself into that corner to begin with? It's not hard, you just have to care about what you're doing.
And yes, I get that the show was aimed at kids and was meant to be funny, but that's no excuse. There's a difference between making your show accessible to everyone and just insulting the audience's intelligence. There's also a difference between telling jokes and BEING a joke.
So overall, it's kind of hard to give this show a single rating. Power Rangers was a roller coaster of quality. The good episodes were really good and would warrant an easy 4, while the bad episodes oscillate between a soft 2, a hard 0, and a middle finger before being tossed in the trash. Overall, I'd give it...
MEDIOCRE
While the show was mostly mediocre on screen, when it was off the screen... it was a hot @#%$ing mess. It was run by greedy dick Haim Saban, whose basic plan was just to make the cheapest show possible with a scheme that only beats out Vince Perri's Action 52 scheme by virtue of the fact that Saban's Get Rich Quick Plan actually worked.
Aside from the cheapness of just re-using scenes someone else shot, the actors were treated like slaves. Amy Jo Johnson (Kimberly, the Pink Ranger) has called it the lowest point of her entire career. Austin St. John (Jason, the Red Ranger) stated in interviews that he would have made more money working fast food. David Yost (Billy, the Blue Ranger) was so mistreated by his co-workers that he nearly walked off the show multiple times because the constant anti-gay bullying he suffered made him want to kill himself.
It's ironic that, in spite of how troubled the production was, this is also the most lighthearted and idealistic series of the entire franchise. The heroes have zero flaws, society is perfect (or at least has problems that are easily solvable), the only true evil out there comes from obviously bad space demons... I guess the ultimate lesson we can learn from this is that, just like the rich philanthropist who runs a secret sweatshop (ie. Haim Saban himself) anyone who puts that much effort into being so obsessively nice is DEFINITELY hiding something.
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