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lihimsidhe · 3 years

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Full Review: https://youtu.be/nMBgmV3QMwY

Summary

Stories Untold is a sci fi psychological horror adventure game released in 2017 by the studio No Code Lt and published by Devolver Digital.(1) Adventure games are characterized by exploring, puzzle solving, and narrative interactions with game characters. (2) The ‘adventure’ label hails from the 1st known adventure game Colossal Cave Adventure developed during the 1970’s. (3). In Stories Untold the player will do mostly 3 things: enter text into a writing prompt and hope what they entered progresses the game forward (text adventure), click around the environment to find interactive elements and utilize these elements in a specific order (point and click), and do some very light exploration.

Stories Untold’s origins lay in Ludum Dare; an event where game developers around the world challenge themselves to make a game from scratch in just a few days aka a ‘game jam’. (4) House Abandon was the product of such a game jam. (5) House Abandon would prove to be so well received that it is the very spark that would grow to become Stories Untold. (6). House Abandon became just one of the four stories featured in Stories Untold.

Each story has the player assume the role of an unidentified person using various electronic equipment ranging from locations that include an abandoned house, a laboratory, and a remote radio station in a blizzard. There is a fourth chapter but to explain its location and tasks can easily wade deep into spoiler territory.

It’s very difficult to reveal if this game attempts to execute on a specific message or not without spoilers. So treading as carefully as I can I will say that yes there is a message to be found here. A tragic takeaway that can hit hard for some players who put in the work to leave no narrative stone unturned.

Analysis

Disclaimer: I’m not a fan of puzzle games, or puzzles in games. They too often devolve into ‘guess what the developer was thinking’. More on this in a bit. Back to the regularly scheduled program:

The development studio behind Stories Untold, No Code Ltd, describes the game as the following:

“Four Stories. One Nightmare.

From the prototype 'The House Abandon' comes the critically acclaimed, and BAFTA winning, 'Stories Untold', the latest madness from No Code. Four short stories, tied together in a complex web of psychological-horror, intense visuals and genre-bending adventures.” How does this game execute on these selling points? Let’s address the last line first: genre-bending adventures. In my playthrough I walked in expecting a fairly basic adventure game with excellent presentation and left having experienced that same notion. This is all to say that Stories Untold, as far as I can tell, is not bending any genres.

The text adventure portion of Stories Untold doesn’t make a noticeable departure from one of the earliest text entry experiences ELIZA; a program created in the 1970’s that simulates a psychologist by responding to a user’s text entries (7). In fact after having played around with some ELIZA clones online (8) I’d say that Stories Untold actually underdelivers in this genre compared to ELIZA that was developed nearly fifty years ago. Point and click began with the game Enchanted Scepters in 1984 released on the Mac (9). In that game you do much the same as you do in Stories Untold: Moving your cursor to find an interactive point that hopefully drives the game forward. An activity unfavorably described as ‘pixel hunting’.

While I do concede that Stories Untold executes well enough on its mechanics would I also concede it is genre bending? Absolutely not. Mechanically speaking it falls very strictly within its genre.

As for the intense visuals the game advertises it has? I’m strongly inclined to agree. This game’s visuals are a love letter to the 80’s. It’s as if the game reached into the past and brought a portion of that era forward in time both temporally and visually.

Stories Untold also executes on psychological-horror aspects as well. There were times I was genuinely frightened both via jump scares and/or the dense atmosphere the game draws the player into. This game evoked feelings of fear, mystery, and foreboding of what was behind the next event.

“It is up to the designer to provide the appropriate information to make the product understandable and usable. Most important is the provision of a good conceptual model that guides the user when things go wrong.” (10) -Don Norman

The promise of a text adventure sounds great on paper: enter some text and the game reacts to what one entered driving the player’s progress forward. Just the thought of that fills my mind with excitement at being able to utilize my conversational skills I’ve learned in life to interact with a game sounds incredible The thing is, and the reason I’m personally not a fan of puzzle games is that they almost always seem like playing a game of ‘guess what the developer was thinking’ instead of the player applying their common sense to solve a puzzle.

If for example in a text adventure game you are trying to walk around a house you simply typing ‘walk around the house’ may or may not work. Perhaps the developer perceived ‘walk into yard’ as walking around the house. For me this creates a schism where it stops being about me vs the game and instead becomes a battle of how my exact wording for doing something very simple differs in verbage in how the developer would write it. So instead of walking around the house and losing myself in the story I’m now trying to guess what the developer thinks are the right words to say. What compounds this here is that the feedback is binary; either what I typed works or it doesn’t and I get the equivalent of an error message that doesn’t offer any guidance on exactly what the developer was thinking. This ‘guess what the developer was thinking’ issue wasn’t as pronounced in the point and click sections of the game. These were almost always tests on one’s observational skills and parsing over every little detail until the path forward reveals itself. Some of the puzzles I was willing to endure and some… I just looked up a walkthrough to solve them so I could get back to enjoying the game’s incredible atmosphere. The crazy thing about Stories Untold is me as a player desperately trying to scrutinize every little detail to move forward shares a strong connection to the game’s narrative. I really appreciate that despite my misgivings with this game’s puzzles.

As for the game’s narrative itself… I say I left the game mostly satisfied. Throughout the game the music, visuals, and gameplay really got my mind racing with the possibilities of the world that was spilling out before me. “Where could this story be leading?”, I excitedly pondered. And sometimes I was even afraid the game would provide an answer. Seeing how it was resolved was a bit underwhelming. I won’t lie. I went from a mind racing with possibilities to a flat, “Oh it’s that? Well that’s something I guess.”

If there was one thing I wish this game did differently it would have been to have focused entirely on the text entry mechanic presented in House Abandon. I said before I went and played with some ELIZA programs online and I loved that there was no failure state. The conversation just continued even if the code emulating a human would sometimes spout nonsense. I don’t expect anyone, let alone Stories Untold, to conjure up a fully realized artificial intelligence to amuse me for my 3 hour adventure game. But I can’t help but muse about a more realized text entry loop.

This game has 12 total achievements to earn. (11) Since the game utilizes a level select system, there are no missable achievements. Most achievements are earned by just progressing through the game. The ones that aren’t awarded in this manner are obtained by light exploration and finding some collectibles. All in all very easy to 100% in one sitting.

Significance

Stories Untold has received several notable awards (12) including British Academy of Film and Television Arts Game of the Year in 2017 (13).

Steam Reviews has it sitting at ‘very positive’(1) while Metacritic has it at a 7.0/10 user score. (14)

It has sold at least over 100,000 copies on Steam (15). If Steam sales remained roughly the same on the other platforms it was ported to (Nintendo Switch, Playstation, Xbox) that would imply at least a few hundred thousand people have decided to enter the world this game provides. While adventure games have drastically changed since the days of Colossal Cave Adventure with games like The Walking Dead and Until Dawn, text adventures have mostly fallen out of mainstream gaming discourse. For that reason the fact that Stories Untold managed to break through in the way it did favors it being a touchstone for many adventure and text adventure games going forward.

Recommendation

Ask yourself the following: Do you like arbitrary puzzles? Do you mind some psychological horror in your entertainment? Do you ever wish you could just play through chapters in your favorite book? If you answered yes to both these questions then this game was made for you.

What if you’re like me and you can barely stand puzzles in games because they seem to evoke a ‘guess what the developer was thinking’ type of feeling?

I would still recommend this game. The reality of the game is that it can be completed in just a few hours. When you get stuck, look up a guide, solve your roadblock, and get back to enjoying this game’s stellar atmosphere. It’s really worth experiencing. Especially if you lived through and/or are a fan of the 80’s

If you’re completely puzzle adverse but still enjoy interactive narrative? It might be worth looking up a playthrough or livestream.

Sources

1. Dev & Publisher: Stories Untold on Steam (steampowered.com)

2. Adventure Game Def: https://www.britannica.com/topic/electronic-adventure-game

3. colossal cave adventure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_Cave_Adventure

4. ludum dare: https://ldjam.com

5. game jam: http://www.nocodestudio.com/development-updates/2016/9/5/the-house-abandon

6. dev interview: https://www.pcgamer.com/crafting-the-unique-genre-defying-horror-of-stories-untold/

7. ELIZA (origins): https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00146-018-0825-9

8. ELIZA (interactable): http://psych.fullerton.edu/mbirnbaum/psych101/eliza.htm

9. 1st point click game: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/01/history-of-graphic-adventures/

10. Don Norman: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E257T6C/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_2BZA3S6D0KPFSKXFKHVM

11. Achievement List: Steam Community :: Stories Untold :: LihimSidhe

12. Various Awards: http://www.nocodestudio.com/nocodegames

13. BAFTA: https://www.bafta.org/media-centre/press-releases/british-academy-scotland-awards-2017-winners-announced

14. Metacritic: https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/stories-untold

15. sales: http://www.nocodestudio.com/development-updates/2017/9/21/stories-untold-news-patch-indiecade-awards

#storiesuntold #nocode #devolverdigital #videogames #sciencefiction #horror #adventure #scifi #horrorgames #horrorgame #textadventure #videogame #enchantedscepters #ELIZA #colossalcaveadventure #adventuregames #adventuregame #scienceficitiongame

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soyouareandrewdobson · 4 years

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Doing something for fun: RPGs about broken anuses.

As promised, after the abomination that was the Sam arc, I am now going to write random posts about more positive/fun things. However, I also decided to add a little twist to them and correlate them in some way thematically to Dobson. E.g. by reviewing a game/show that does all the things Dobson hates/obsesses about/or fails at right.

And my first entry in that regard is related to a videogame that came out a couple of years ago, based on a tv show Dobson claims to hate. South Park: The fractured but whole.

Seeing how the game is 3+ years old at this time and there have been tons of reviews & walkthroughs showing how good and fun the game is, I do not really want to cover the plot and all the things that make it great in detail. Lets just say you can really feel that Parker and Stone were heavily involved in the writing of the game, as it is filled to the brim with references to the show and the typical satirical humor of it, that in parts manages to cross the line even further for me than the show. Right from the start you get a very dark but smart social joke and commentary out of the way, when as you set up your characters looks and the difficulty of the game, it is the tone of your skin that decides how hard the game gets. Meaning if you play as a black person, you are having a very hard time. It is not too preachy, just an acknowledgment that yes, in American society, blacks can have it harder compared to white people. Especially when living in a town like South Park, where social standing is pretty low and the police force is inherently corrupt and racist, doing something so outrageously to black people, I do not want to spoil it. Let’s just say it ends in a better Lovecraft joke than any of the shit SJWs did in light of censoring Call of Cthulhu board rpgs.

The overall plot is simple: While last time the kids played fantasy and things escalated quickly as they do in South Park, this time they play superheroes, with two fractions having formed: Coon and Friends vs the Freedom Pals and things escalating just as quickly. What starts off as the hunt for a missing cat to earn a 100$ reward Cartman wants to use to start a multi billion dollar movie franchise just like Marvel, turns soon into the player and his friends having to fight a real crime conspiracy thought up by one of South Park’s most nefarious characters, which also involves genetic mutations, time travel and eldritch horrors. Thankfully you, the “New Kid” from the last game, even after losing all your previous powers thanks to no one playing fantasy anymore, gain new superhero powers, make friends with the South Park kids again and even learn new fart techniques by none other than Morgan Freeman, that help you out along the way. All while also slowly revealing more about your backstory hinted on in the previous game and the tragedy of your dad having had intercourse with your mother.

Being a South Park and RPG fan for years, I wanted to play this game for quite some time, but only managed to do so recently. And even if I spoiled myself massively over time with cutscenes and major battles online, this game is still fun (thanks in part also to the fact I watched the cutscenes years ago and by now forgot a lot of them). The turn based battle system is way more interesting than last time by also depending on you positioning the characters on the field in a strategy based RPG style, there are lots of classes to choose and powers to combine (I myself going for elementalist, assassin, plantmancer and blaster currently) and you have a ton of allies in the game. The original cast of the four main boys, Jimmy and Butters has expanded significantly in this game with characters such as SUPER CRAIG, Clyde as the blood sucking MOSQUITO, Token as TUPPERWARE and Wendy as the social media huntress CALL GIRL (yes, that is her name) and they all are fun to interact and play with, with each one having their own unique sets of moves and finishers once again. Even outside of the battle, thanks to the writing, there are always great lines from them to get when interacting or taking missions from them. I especially came to love Tweek and Craig, who are not just decent fighters (Tweek in particular is a great elementalist) , but in this game are also now a couple ever since that yaoi episode from South Park. Helping them reconcile after a bad break up over the course of the game just feels surprisingly nice, mostly because unlike other LGBT celebrating media out there (Korra and She Ra e.g.) none of the characters crosses some sort of moral line where you question why they deserve to be together (Hello, Catra), it is not heavily handed garbage fishing for brownie points and it is obvious through dialogue and actions they care for each other, even if they are at first going through a bad break up as only South Park could ridiculously portray it.

Overall, the game is also surprisingly “inclusive” and socially relevant without being preachy about it, if you ask me. From the aforementioned skin color thing, to LGBT representation via Tweek and Craig, the police being involved in a plot that especially nowadays is sadly more relevant than ever (mind you, I do not believe that in real life all cops are bad, but in my opinion bad eggs on both sides certainly led to the current situation in the US and that is all I say) to the fact you can over the course of the game decide not just if you are playing as a boy or a girl, but even something in-between, a cis-/transgendered person and decide your race, religion as well as to whom you are sexually attracted to. Granted, I barely see how it has any bearing on the game’s plot, but I appreciate the following things: a) the inclusion of the possibility to decide on those factors itself, making creating your character even more fun (a basic right others demand for certain games nowadays in all the wrong ways) and b) that the game does not make the biggest of deals about it. See, I am under the impression that often times the most progressive and inclusive thing is to just let the story and personality of a character speak for itself, instead of the fact that it also identifies by a specific gender, sexuality, race or other allignment. In fact focusing on those things on a character only is something I consider ”positive stereotyping”, which for me is just racism in the opposite direction. And if you no think I am going off track here and need to be beaten up by someone who genuinely has some grip on pc culture, don’t worry. This game features PC Principal actually doing an ok job teaching you about microaggressions in his typical PC Principal manner, which in itself becomes a relevant move in future battles and is hilarious to watch. Speaking of the new kid, putting things like your chance to gender identify yourself with it in more detail (which you can also adjust again later on in game if you feel like it) aside, for a silent protagonist he/she/it can have a nice level of debt to it, if you look too much into it.

Not only does it have a funny backstory explaining its fart and social media powers, there are recurring scenes of the kid’s parents being on each others throat and the kid just silently eating dinner for the night that genuinely feel sad and create sympathy in our little FartLord to the point you just want the kid to go out there, have an adventure and hopefully find a way to change its parents for good, cause it is obvious they love the kiddo, but damn do they need to cut off the substance abuse.

Storywise you get something out of this game that is way more entertaining and hilarious than the last two seasons of the show combined (FUCK the season of 2019) and game content wise you are also rewarded with a lot of shit, just for exploring the town. Be it you finding hidden yaoi fanart that earns you money, your allies helping you solve puzzles that reward you with exp and new costumes to further customize your outfit, making new friends on Coonstagram by taking selfies with all the major and minor characters of the town, helping Big Gay Al finding his missing cats, stumbling upon Memberberries, forging new artifacts to increase your strength, finding summons… all stuff that helps you not just gain exp and become stronger, but also makes you enjoy going through South Park outside of the main story content. In fact I spend a majority of my first twelve hours in this game only wrapping up the prologue missions and first two chapter of the game, while otherwise talking with as many people in town as possible, exploring the stores and houses, doing side missions etc. just for the fun of interacting with the characters and the world they are part of.

Now, how does all of that relate to Dobson?

Well lets see…

Game based on something he hates that has however rightfully more success than he ever deserves, with lots of political commentary and satire for years in its humor? Check.

Game itself having more of that commentary done right then Dobson in his own comics and story attempts? Check

LGBT representation via Tweek and Craig as well as Big Gay Al that does not feel too stereotypical despite Al himself being extremely stereotypical in design? Check

Some pretty decent/hilarious female characters in the game once you know them? (again, Call Girl and Classi, who fucks the L out of the A-S-S) Check.

Being a style of game he hates for no apparent reason, but executed well (RPGs)? Check

Thematically focused on superheroes, a trend he is obsessed about, but here both appreciating while also poking good fun at common tropes of it and the marketing of the MCU, in doing so just highlighting how much of a mindless consumer Dobson is? Check

Being a game where you can also play as any gender and race and its not turned into a “groundbreaking” industry changing feature pandering to minorities that in the eyes of corporations are just a market to exploit, not people? Check

Heck, if Dobson was not a biased idiot, the game would be perfect for him. It even panders to his toilet fetish in videogames.

Kid you not: a mini game in the game itself features the possibility to go to every toilet in town and shit in it. The process of defecation itself being a rhythm game and you earning exp from it once you took enough dumps. And considering Dobson once spend hours in Skyrim looking for outhouses, that sounds right up Dobson’s back alley.

Bottom line, this game is fun. If you like South Park, superheroes and RPGs, this game is perfect for you. And seeing how it has been a few years since it came out, I think it should be possible to get a cheap copy of it somewhere. Go on, play it. But always remember: Never fart on another dude’s balls. It is just not the polite thing to do.

#so you are a cartoonist #Andrew Dobson #syac #south park #the fractured but whole #super heroes #rpg

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atopearth · 5 years

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Final Fantasy X-2 HD Remaster Part 1 - Chapter 1 & 2 on YRP’s Adventures

I still think that for all the dress spheres, only the main ones (including the songstress) had effort put into it because I remember the rest being pretty ugly lmao. . Anyway! Always happy to see Rikku. Not too fond of her costume since she’s barely wearing anything LOL, but I guess it suits her despite that. Leblanc the thief dancing in the form of Yuna is still weird lol, I know she took her garment grid but does that make her take on her face etc too?? Lol, I never understood that. I always find it so funny to go touch the crouched Yuna wearing the moogle costume to heal your HP/MP hahaha. I remember everything about the introduction so not much to say besides, I wonder when Yuna learnt to use a gun? Still think Yuna’s Gunner costume is like female Tidus, but I guess since the focus of FFX-2 is her seeing a sphere of Shuyin thinking it’s Tidus so she goes around looking for similar spheres to see if she can somehow find him again, it’s a very fitting costume haha. Brother learning their language to communicate better with Yuna is so cute. Anyway, let’s see if I enjoy FFX-2! I don’t remember much about it but I remember thinking it was okay…hahaha.

I still remember the running after and beating Leblanc to the top of the Mt Gagazet ruin in a limited amount of time! I remember thinking it was so annoying because I was so lost the first time I did it, and the timer being annoying didn’t help hahaha. Think I missed one item but whatever, I got there with like plenty of time to spare XD The most memorable optional visit is definitely the Luca one, I think it’s so funny to see Yuna’s perspective of the beginning, since she had to hide in a moogle costume whilst Rikku and Paine dealt with Leblanc the thief haha. Yuna’s so expressive in her moogle costume that it was pretty funny. Dona and Barthello in Luca are as meh as usual, never been fond of Dona haha. Running through Mi'ihen highroad was dangg tiring though, so many battles loll, the encounter rate is high. Oh well, I guess I learn my skills that way.

I remember visiting the Youth League headquarters and talking to Maechen, he gives a nice little background on what happened in these two years and how the Youth League came to be so it’s worth a listen even if it’s a bit long. Considering that Clasko enjoyed taking care of chocobos, I’m not sure why he’s playing tour guide here, at least he follows us along on the airship after? LOL when he asks if he can come along and the no option is “sorry loser”, so mean hahahaha. I also remember the mission at the Moonflow where you have to protect the hypello from bandits! I remember failing in the past hahahaah, I guess I’m better now since I did it on the first try?

Gippal was and will always be my favourite new guy in FFX-2, Nooj and Baralai have always been pretty meh to me. Gippal is funny, cool and pretty cute. I guess alike others, I would ship him with Rikku hahaha. As the leader of the machine faction, he’s doing a lot of good for Spira as well since he’s helping to improve their lives, such as fixing the lightning rods in the Thunder Plains so that we’ll never need to dodge lightning ever again hahaha! I still remember Macalania Woods very well because I really love how ethereal it all looks and since Tidus and Yuna had their scene here, it’s hard to not think it’s a beautiful place. So really, thinking about how the Fayth not being here anymore is causing the woods to slowly die is just so saddening. It only adds to the sadness to see the once proud Guado be left scattered everywhere, hiding in Macalania and other places after not being able to fend off the Ronsos that came for revenge. Considering how much the Guado did in support for Seymour, it’s difficult to not hate them, nevertheless it’s still sad though.

The Calm Lands seem even more vast now, so many mini games but yeah omg, that publicity campaign for one of the companies there, I remember that! I remember thinking it was so annoying lol. Had to track my footsteps and go back to all the places I went to, just to talk to all these people to get those publicity points zzzz. Argent it is btw! Seeing Kimahri as elder is really nice, too bad his job is difficult so it’s hard to get the approval of everyone there, but he’s trying so I’m happy. Wakka and Lulu expecting a baby is all I remember about Besaid haha. It was bad of Yuna to leave without telling anyone but I think it was the right choice, it was about time Yuna got the freedom she could never have and explore the world she saved. I remember silly Wakka hoping to find a sphere of his parents so that he could see how he should act as a father, but really, he just needs to act how he thinks he should and learn from there, no one knows how to be a parent from the start.

Lol, Yuna and them were so happy to steal that awesome sphere from both New Yevon and the Youth League and then felt bad so decided to return it to one of them? Okay lol. I’d definitely choose to give it back to the Youth League, so thankfully you have to choose them to get the 100% completion. I mean, New Yevon just continues to hide things all the time, like all these spheres etc, how do they want people to trust them? Well, Beclem (the guy that lets you play gunners gauntlet) is such an ass, no respect for the person that brought about the Eternal Calm, actually, he’s got no basic respect for even her as a person, zzzz. Otherwise, gunners gauntlet is a pretty fun game, I’m not bothered to get the points but it’s cool to shoot fiends with different bullets haha. Shelinda being a reporter now is very fascinating… Considering that she’s left the temples because she didn’t want to be ordered around like a slave anymore, why does she still wear her temple garments? Where’s her makeover lol. Seeing Calli (the girl that was excited for the Calm in FFX on the Mi'ihen highroad) was nice, just because it really shows that time has passed and people had the room to grow up doing what they want. Not sure if chocobo rights are best argued by saying we should get to ride them throughout the highroad since I feel like they should roam free but okay lol. At least the chocobo catching game was a bit fun, seeing it surrender was so cute but saddening lol.

If Yuna really joined the Youth League and got a Yunie Squad, that would be so funny loll. But really, as a high summoner and the person who brought the Calm, I’d agree that she should stay as neutral as possible but side more with the Youth League just because they really do have Spira’s best interests at heart. Not sure what Tobli’s concert is for but if I get the profits, sure thing! Easy way of earning 12,500 gil, yay! The data seller at Guadosalam is cool too! Got 70,000 gil for selling the data to the right person! Could have kept restarting to hopefully get the 100,000 gil but I was too lazy hahaha. As for the Thunder Plains mini games with calibrating the towers though? I hated that, I remember the pain so well lmao. I could only do 6 towers and gave up lolol. Could probably do 7 but if I can’t do all 10 to get the ribbon, why bother? Hahaha, sorry my reaction speed and hand eye coordination just isn’t that great lol. I also want to preserve my sanity. We even got Tobli the musicians at Macalania! Really, Tobli, what are you even doing lmao. Still sad to see them talk about how Macalania Woods is nearing its end since the Fayth are gone… Seriously though, everyone needs help lol, even Clasko deciding to open up a chocobo branch needs YRP to clean out the monster arena and catch chocobos for him lmao. I really wonder what Clasko really did as a soldier if he can’t even clean up some fiends though…🤔 Oh well, whatever, as long as he’s happy lol.

Alike Yuna, seeing Zanarkand as a tourist spot never sat well with me, so if pairing up monkeys can make them multiply and cause a monkey problem that will prevent people from coming, I guess it’s good? Lol, nah, I don’t like the idea of Zanarkand filled with monkeys either lmao, can’t they just label it as a historical site to be preserved? Sigh. Lmao at the way Yuna holds the monkey when you’re pairing them up though, it’s like the Lion King🤣🤣 Seeing that YRP quite blatantly stole the Leblanc syndicate uniforms (and spheres!) at every encounter, you’d think Ormi and Logos would strengthen their security on the premises but nope, YRP easily infiltrates! Also, kinda disappointed in Yuna dipping in the hot spring on Ronso sacred grounds, Kimahri trusted her to understand that so I didn’t think she’d be like the Leblanc goons and do such a thing as well, so yeah… Anyway, Leblanc is so smitten with Nooj, I wonder if he likes her at all? Are they together? That massage game was weird though lolll, I swear FFX-2 has the weirdest mini games to complete. How would I know which part Leblanc wants me to massage?!? Yes, I kept cracking her bones LOL. Anyway, just wanted to say that I’m glad I don’t write walkthroughs because I’ve been steamrolling through these boss battles so I don’t even know what they really do lmao. Paine as a Festivalist, Rikku as a Psychic and Yuna as a Songstress is the team I’ve been levelling and it easily deals with everything besides any instant kill moves lol.

Hmmm so there’s some sort of machina at the bottom of Bevelle called Vegnagun that could destroy all of Spira… Wouldn’t it suck if Yuna brought the Eternal Calm but then they all get killed by this machine? Lol. At least Nooj is aware and hopes to disassemble it before anything happens, guess Gippal might give him a hand? Not sure what Baralai’s objectives are right now though~ I see, so Baralai thinks that Vegnagun is too dangerous and shouldn’t be touched, so he’s stopping everyone from approaching, which is fair enough, what if it activates because you come close or whatever, very risky. Otherwise, underground Bevelle was pretty annoying with all the jumping, operating machines in different ways to get chests, kinda confusing but I guess it’s probably worth it? Lol, always good to get a ribbon! Anyway, fighting Dark Bahamut was kinda saddening, not the way we wanted Yuna to see aeons again, since it wanted to kill them etc. I wonder what happened to Vegnagun and Nooj and Baralai? Where did they all go?

#final fantasy x-2 #final fantasy x 2

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matayu-sometimes-writes-stuff · 6 years

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On Final Fantasy XIII

I have to admit that I went into this game expecting to be disappointed. While I have intended for a while now to play through every non-MMO Final Fantasy game, at the time I started playing it I had only completed the original and FFII, and was around halfway through FFIII. The only reason I decided to play it now was availability; my brother had a copy, so I didn’t need to purchase it for myself.

I hadn’t really heard much about the game other than “It’s bad” and “It’s Final Hallway XIII lol”. And while there is certainly an argument to be made that FFXIII is objectively a bad game, and the “hallway” criticism (that most of the game’s areas are linear, with barely any deviation in route) is valid, I absolutely loved this game. I would not recommended it to anyone who isn’t determined to play it through, for reasons I’ll elaborate on later, but this is currently my favourite Final Fantasy game, beating out the original, II, III, and now IV (which I am at the final dungeon of as of this writing).

I’ll address the criticisms first. Beginning with the “hallway” criticism. Yes, of the game’s 13 chapters, only the area in chapter 11 (which can be revisited during chapter 13) offers any sort of exploration. It’s also where the game’s version of side quests are introduced. Note that although it’s labeled as chapter 11, almost two thirds of the game take place in this open area. I understand that this isn’t worth ten chapters of linearity to some people, but I actually found the linearity of the game to be quite enjoyable. Some people make the argument that the linearity is necessary for story purposes, as our six protagonists are fugitives from their government, and don’t have the time to be running around looking for twenty bear asses with the army breathing down their necks. This is a valid defense, but I have a much simpler one.

Of all the Final Fantasy games I’ve played, Final Fantasy XIII was the first and thus far only one where I didn’t need an internet walkthrough to figure out where the fuck I was supposed to fucking GO.

Maybe it’s because I’ve only played NES and SNES-era Final Fantasy games for comparison, but FFXII was so much more enjoyable simply because I didn’t need to constantly be checking a mile-long GameFAQs walkthough every twenty minutes or so, searching for place names or proper nouns just for some hint of where I needed to be. Now, this changed when I started doing the aforementioned side quests, if only because there’s no indication on the in-game map where the questgivers are unless the quest is active, but until that point I had no need for cross-checking a walkthrough. Hopefully this will get better when I finally get through the 16-bit era, but until then the linearity that I’ve heard so many people complain about is one of Final Fantasy XIII’s biggest draws for me. The linearity made the game more fun.

As mentioned earlier, the game only really opens up in chapter 11, which is where the majority of the game’s runtime is. This is because chapters 1 through 9, and most of 10, are the game’s tutorial.

These segments are roughly 20 hours long.

Final Fantasy XIII has a 20-hour-long tutorial. There’s really no way to spin that as a positive. The game uses that time to its advantage, introducing five of the six protagonists from the get-go and developing them in a way that I quite enjoyed, and will say more on later. The fact of the matter is, though, that 20 hours is a ridiculous time to spend teaching the player how to use your combat system. I’m not sure if it makes it better or worse that it does legitimately take 20 hours to master Final Fantasy XIII’s version of the Active Time Battle system.

Again, full disclosure, I wound up loving the combat system in FFXIII. But I didn’t understand how it worked until around chapter five. To explain, you have a party of at most three characters. You control one character directly, and the other two are controlled by the game’s AI, which takes its cues from you. Each character has a combination of three of six possible roles. You create what the game calls “paradigms”, six sets of any three of the available roles that you can freely switch between during combat. This allows for a party in trouble to switch on the fly from offensive classes to (for example) a tank and two healers. Once you get a handle on it, it’s very intuitive. The problem is, of course, how long it takes to get a handle on it. Twenty hours is still ridiculous.

Ultimately, a video game succeeds or fails on its gameplay. You can have the most gorgeous backgrounds, beautiful music, and memorable characters, but if the game is hard to play, all that falls by the wayside. Looking at you, Skyward Sword. But that’s a discussion for another time.

I’m sure the twenty-hour long tutorial turned people off of FFXIII when it first came out. I do agree that it’s ridiculous, and it’s most of the reason why I wouldn’t recommend the game to anyone who wanted something just to pick up and play. My brother, who you’ll remember is the one who actually owns the copy I played, never actually finished the game, nor has any desire to. I likely would have put it down myself if I hadn’t resolved myself to playing it all the way through. I’m glad I did. But if you aren’t approaching it with that mindset, I wouldn’t expect you to enjoy it.

Speaking of enjoying things, let’s move on to what I actually liked about this game, which is the story and characters. I don’t know how it stacks up against more contemporary Final Fantasy games, but I personally was glad to not be playing yet another Dungeons and Dragons campaign. The story is mostly driven by its characters.

Claire “Lightning” Farron is the face of Final Fantasy XIII, and the only character I knew about heading in. What I knew, or rather had heard, was that her character was “Cloud Strife but as a woman.” I’ll be the first to admit that, since I haven’t played Final Fantasy VII yet, I don’t know how firsthand how true this assessment is. However, from what I’ve been able to gather from pop-cultural osmosis, this is almost completely untrue. Lightning was designed with “female Cloud” in mind, but for the most part this is where the similarities end.

Lightning is essentially the single parent of her little sister Serah, and is overprotective of her to a fault. This has caused an estrangement between the two of them, exacerbated by Lightning’s disapproval of Serah’s fiancé, who will be discussed when we get to him. When Serah is cursed by what are essentially minor gods in this setting with a task that will either transform her into a mindless monster if she fails or put her in stasis potentially forever if she succeeds, Lighting sets out on a quest to rescue her from her fate, to the extent of defying her own gods-given task, and heaven help anyone who gets in her way.

One of the weaknesses of Final Fantasy XIII, in my opinion, is that the game’s engine doesn’t give its characters the most expressive of faces. Lightning is a very reserved person, but you are able to figure out how she’s feeling from careful consideration and inference based on what she says versus what she’s been through. This could be made much easier if the engine was capable of rendering microexpressions. I do kind of hope FFXIII will get a high-definition rerelease, if only so that this sort of thing could be added.

Lightning’s arc in this game (it continues slightly in Final Fantasy XII-2, and completes in Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII) involves her learning that even if Serah is getting married, it doesn’t mean she’s going to be alone in the world. She forges friendships that will last literal lifetimes with her fellow companions, one of whom is her future brother-in-law she despises so much.

Time to talk about him. Snow Villiers is a dumbass. A moron. An idiot. An airhead.

I love him so much.

I didn’t always. I actually started out hating him just as much as Lightning did. Snow wants to be a hero. Sorry, make that a Hero™. He’s the leader of a citizen’s militia in his and the Farron sisters’ hometown, and he believes that a true hero never needs a plan, because of the laws of narrative causality or some such bullshit. Naturally his arc involves him realizing that that’s a really, REALLY stupid way to live your life. It’s actually better than I’m making it sound: he goes through a gradual realization that his philosophy is hindering others more than helping them, and goes through some low points before he learns how to temper his enthusiasm with careful planning and coordination. Part of this is coming to the conclusion that he can still be heroic, even if he (or anyone, really) can’t live up to the platonic ideal of heroism he has constructed for himself. I began by hating him, by the end of FFXIII I loved hating him, and by the end of the trilogy I actually genuinely grew to love him. But that’s a story for another time. Snow’s motivation is actually the same as Lightning’s: to rescue Serah Farron from her fate, regardless of who or what gets in the way.

One of the people hurt by Snow’s general idiocy is another of our protagonists: a young boy of fourteen named Hope Estheim, whose mother volunteers to fight alongside Snow to defend her son. Her death isn’t COMPLETELY Snow’s fault, but both Snow and Hope act as if it is. It doesn’t help that she shares a name, Nora, with Snow’s militia. (No Obligations, Rules, or Authority. No, seriously.) Hope’s initial motivation is revenge against Snow. To the point of murder. Naturally this doesn’t play out, but Hope’s interactions with Lightning and Snow are a guiding factor in their own arcs, giving Lightning the familiar ground of a big-sister role as she teaches him how to survive on the run, and showing Snow that heroism is still possible even if you don’t match Snow’s ideal. (To elaborate, when given the opportunity to take revenge for his mother, Hope not only can’t go through with it, but shortly after that actually defends an unconscious Snow after the two survive a several-story fall.)

Hope comes into his own after reuniting with his father, whom he was afraid would shun him both for not being able to save his mother, and for becoming one of the gods-cursed beings that the general public are being made to fear. Bartholomew Estheim not only reassures him that he would never feel that way about his own son, but gives Hope the confidence he needs to stand up and take action of his own accord, rather than reacting to what’s happening to him as he had been doing. Hope’s a good kid.

To contrast, Sazh Katzroy is a good father. He’s the oldest member of the main cast, old enough to have a young son, Dajh. Dajh is cursed in a similar way to Serah, and Sazh’s journey is about trying to get him back from the government, who in a cruel twist are using the powers the curse gave him to hunt our protagonists. Sazh is effectively the team dad, and honestly his arc can be summed up with a single GIF of Marlin from Finding Nemo. “Have you seen my son?!”

Kidding aside, what Sazh has to go through are probably the most realistically terrifying events of the game. He’s a single father whose preschool-aged son is not just missing, but has been taken from him. And like everyone else under the curse, Dajh is on a ticking clock to decide which fate worse than death awaits him. There’s actual, realistic fear there, and I did really care about seeing the two reunited.

Sazh also got the chance to act as a surrogate father to Oerba Dia Vanille, the fifth and final character who’s introduced from the get-go. For initially unexplained reasons, she’s the only member of the main cast (that we’ve met) with an Australian accent. She’s bubbly, peppy, and dealing with a trainload of internalized guilt over events that happened 500 years before the game even began.

Vanille, along with our sixth and later introduced really final party member, are the last survivors of a civilization that fought and lost a war against the floating colony the rest of the cast lives in 500 years ago. The two of them were cursed way back then, and entered stasis until the present day. Vanille is a gentle soul, and was horrified both at the number of innocent people she had killed way back when to complete her task, and at what her awakening had brought: both Serah and Dajh were cursed, by different gods, directly because of it. There’s actually a very touching scene shown as a flashback of Vanille meeting Serah a day or two before the events of the game proper, in which she essentially apologizes for what she’s done, and Serah forgives her despite not really understanding the extent of what Vanille was apologizing for. There’s also an even more powerful scene when Sazh finds out that what happened to Dajh was Vanille’s fault, after spending roughly a full day trying to keep the young woman alive. Sazh has a tough decision to make, but it ultimately results in Vanille realizing that she is worthy of forgiveness, which she can achieve by joining with the other characters to save the people she was tasked with destroying.

The sixth and final party member is Oerba Yun Fang, introduced about a chapter or so after the rest as a “mysterious woman” before swooping in with an appropriately named renegade army faction (the Cavalry) to save the other characters from a tight spot. She also has an Australian accent, marking her and Vanille as native to the surface of the planet. (The difference is that Vanille’s VA is actually Australian. Fang’s is not.)

Fang is in many ways a foil to Lightning. She has the same sort of big sister relationship to Vanille that Lightning has with Serah; although where Lightning is overprotective because she doesn’t want to lose her only family, Fang is overprotective because she and Vanille are literally the only members of their people left alive (to their and our knowledge), and they are actively being hunted down by a hostile nation. Fang’s motivation is to keep Vanille safe, at any cost, even her own humanity. There’s an often-quoted line: “I’ll tear down the sky if it’ll save her.” There are some people who view Fang and Vanille’s relationship as romantic, and while I understand where they’re coming from, I prefer the parity it gives the narrative if Fang and Vanille’s relationship is incredibly similar to that of Lightning and Serah’s. While Lightning learns to overcome her unfounded distrust of others, Fang is overcoming her very well founded distrust of others. Both women learn to open up to their companions; that they aren’t as alone in the world as they feel they have to be.

I also really loved the ending of this game, so spoilers follow. The heroes win; what kind of Final Fantasy game would it be if the villain wins, eh? Though the floating colony does get dropped on the planet, our heroes were able to convince the army to evacuate the colony instead of fighting to the death, which means most of the civilians survived. Fang and Vanille, however, sacrificed themselves to stasis in crystal for an unknown amount of time to create a support pillar for the colony; it forms into the logo for the game, which I thought was a clever touch. Lightning, Snow, Sazh, and Hope are all rocketed to the surface of the planet, but survive via also being turned to crystal; they are freed from the stasis and the brands indicating them as cursed have mysteriously vanished. Out of the wreckage walks Serah and Dajh, also freed from the curse, to reunite with their families. Bartholomew Estheim is nowhere to be seen, but a codex entry in XIII-2 confirms that he survived and reunited with Hope after the fact. I would have liked for him to be there, but I understand that showing the reunion with Serah (and Dajh) was more important. It was a bit jarring hearing Leona Lewis in 2017, as I had forgotten she even existed, but apparently there was no way to translate the Japanese theme into English and have it still be lyrical AND make sense, so they substituted an English song with the same thematic elements. It’s a nice song, and it works. This was a good ending to a good story in a maybe-okay-at-best game.

Beautiful music, lovely visuals, fantastic characters that play off each other, stacked up against a control system that takes almost a full day to learn, a slightly sluggish camera, and a linear, story-driven game world (which apparently counts as a bad thing for some reason). I love this game. I’ve heard very good things about VI, and everyone always gushes over VII and IX, but until I get to those, I have my favourite Final Fantasy, and it’s XIII.

#Final Fantasy XIII #blogything #i love this goddam game #Final Fantasy

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son-of-a-duck · 7 years

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July 25, 2017

I had a chance to wake up when my alarm went off. And I did, but then I didn't get out of bed and eventually went back to sleep. Only partially, though, because I had weird dreams that involved the random things I was hearing on the radio. Maybe tomorrow I'll get up. I need to take that first step to exercising again.

I took notes for the first half of my day. I pulled more books for my America display because it was starting to look a little empty. I printed out and cut more prize tickets. I decided to cut all 400 of them and I'm feeling good about it. I will probably have to print more before the program is over. We ran out of solar glasses in envelops so we had teen volunteers stuffing envelopes all day. I picked up a stack this morning and throughout the rest of the day the teens brought them up to us. We should be good for awhile. Hopefully. Our social media posts have done the trick and we are getting a steady stream of people asking for glasses. I also did multiple walkthroughs this morning.

Before lunch we had a little birthday celebration for my boss. The new librarian also brought cherries. We thought she was bringing something salty. Instead, we had a lack of fear of running out of cherries.

This afternoon I pretty much just spent my time writing numbers on prize drawing tickets. At one point I had to redo over 200 of them because for some reason I went from 539 to 340. Whoops. Despite that, I was able to catch up on all of the tickets I had pulled out of the jars. There are a bunch of tickets in the jars again because it is never-ending. Well, for at least another week or so.

I also pulled a few more books for my NPR display. I might pull a few more to hold me over through the end of the month. I think it has checked out eighteen books this month, which is pretty good for the kiosk.

The PR debacle from this weekend continues to grow. The spot on the news last night probably didn't help. It does show the power of a single individual and social media, though, so that's something. Based on the Facebook discussion, it looks like this guy saw the description of the event, got worked up and started posting on Facebook, went to the event having already made up his mind that it was promoting hate groups, and then went back to Facebook to post about his already formed opinion. Then someone else saw it and they posted it to the news station, which got that ball rolling. It is all still based on a single person's opinion of an event that he already formed before the event. The torches were lit before the monster was even created. And in this case, it doesn't really seem like there was a monster, just shadows and clouds mistaken for monsters. But again, I was not at the event, along with 99% of the people talking about the event, so maybe we should all just chill out.

On my way home I stopped by my Mom's house so she could explain what I needed to do over the next several days while she's out of town and I'm dog sitting. I'm not really looking forward to it because I don't like change, but I'll survive. Hopefully.

When I got home I ate the rest of the pretzel bites my sister made and then started making dinner. I made the stir fry recipe my coworkers gave me for my birthday. They gave me all the pre-measured ingredients for my birthday, so this time around it was a little more involved, but I managed. I also altered the recipe a little bit by adding a jalapeno and red and yellow bell peppers, which made it way more colorful. Something that I think is second only to taste when it comes to food. And in this case, it was pretty tasty, as well, so I had the whole package.

My ethernet cables came today so I hooked up both of my desktops. I had more than enough length to reach my new desktop in the basement but it's better to have too much than not enough. I also got my new wi-fi adapter but haven't had time to try it out. I'm curious to see what kind of connection I can get with it in the basement. I am thinking about taking my new desktop to my Mom's house when I'm over there, which will give me a chance to try out the wi-fi adapter there as well.

I bought Playerunknown's Battlegrounds today. My how my tone has changed from earlier in the month. I still think it might be a game I end up not enjoying, but it was on sale today, which I was waiting for. I've got it downloaded but I'm not sure when I'll get a chance to actually play it. Hopefully soon. Tonight I've been watching a livestream where they are all just annoyed with the game, which isn't a great thing to see after I just bought it, but I'll try to keep an open mind.

An update on my throat. It is still bothering me, but mostly just later at night. Kind of like my eye. I'm falling apart.

An update on the dating app. Still no matches. At least as far as I know because I think only girls see the matches. I do know that I haven't gotten any messages, so that seems like a pretty good indication that no one is interested. I'm beginning to think that dating apps might not be for me. It's still a decent distraction, though.

It's now after midnight again. I'm going to record my audio journal and go to bed. I'm really behind on uploading videos and I'm running out of space on my hard drive for all the videos I've recorded. I need to work on that.

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son-of-a-duck · 7 years

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January 5, 2017

This morning I woke up and the guys on the radio said there wasn't much snow on the ground, like maybe an inch. They apparently get to work very early and have no access to windows because when I looked there was well over an inch.

This presented a bit of a problem because maybe my tires need changing. I had absolutely no traction. Once I turn onto the main road by my house there is a big hill. Turning onto the main road was a bit sketchy but I made sure there weren't any cars behind me and that the ones in front were far in front so I wouldn't have to worry about having to stop halfway up the hill and then not being able to start up it again. When I turned onto the next side street it was back to a lot of wheel spinning and minor fishtailing. I couldn't tap the gas light enough to avoid spinning out. After parking at the dentist's office I looked at my tires they were completely packed with snow and ice. So I was basically driving on ice skates.

I should have canceled my dentist appointment because they told me what they always tell me. My teeth look great. My gums look great. Keeping doing what I'm doing.

On my way home I tried using the manual shift option on my car. I think it was my first time using it on purpose. I think most automatic cars have Drive and then a couple other lower gear options but mine just has the manual shift option. Getting out of the parking lot I kept it in first and second gear. I got adventurous and bumped it up to third on the side street. I went back to full auto on the main street until I got to the hill near my house and then left it in second going down the hill so I wouldn't have to use my brakes. I felt a lot safer doing that.

With the rest of my morning I watched more Madoka Magica and played more Farming Simulator 15. I finally had enough money to buy the corn-harvesting header for my combine, so I did and went to the store to get it. Then I spent at least twenty minutes harvesting my corn field. One of the reasons it took so long is because my trailer isn't very big so I had to take multiple trips to go sell it.

I believe it was on my last trip to sell grain, right after unloading it, that the power blinked and my computer shut off. When I got everything turned back on and got back into the game I learned that I apparently hadn't saved in awhile. I was standing at the spawn point without a tractor because it was up at the grain place. When I ran down to my field, all the corn was still there, not harvested, and my combine did not have the corn-harvesting header on it. Good grief. I had to run all the way back to the grain place to get my tractor, then re-bought the header and drove to the store to pick it up, and then started to harvest the corn for the second time. It made a tedious job enough more tedious. I did learn that there is invisible corn, however, so that's a plus. Even when there aren't any cornstalks visible, if there are dark, shadow-looking spots, there's corn there.

Before heading to work I swept off half of my front porch and the steps so that when my box of food was delivered the UPS guy wouldn't have to leave it in the snow.

Work was a slow and quiet day. I finalized the handout for the class next week. I added in the XKCD comic about passwords, as well as links to the random word list and random number generator, along with a screenshot of how I used the random number generator.

I sent an email to all the patrons coming to the class, or at least started the email. The librarian who will be teaching the class composed most of it because she knew what she wanted to say and she wanted to say it in her own style. It was basically a helpful reminder for the patrons attending that they should have access to their email address, especially if they need to create a Facebook account, and they should bring pictures if they want to upload pictures. We also asked them to send in any questions they would like answered during the class. Hopefully they all read the email. At least one person did and wrote back with a question that was way beyond the scope of the glass. The librarian responded, basically saying as much, and told her about the one-on-one tech trainer and the tech drop-in times. Which means I should probably start researching the question just in case.

Tonight I spent most of the evening talking with my coworker. When we work together, especially closing, we end up spending a lot of the time talking about video games and other random tech things. It was good tonight because I really didn't have anything I needed to do. Or was willing to do. I made a post on our building-wide job talking about the upcoming classes and workshops and included a picture of the schedule. This was the idea of one of the other librarians and I think it was a good one. Now the other staff around the building will have an idea of what is coming up in case they get a question from a patron or see a patron need that can be met by one of the classes or workshops.

The two older ladies were back today. They were there when I got to work at noon and I have no reason to believe they hadn't been there since we opened. And they were there as we closed, like they have been several times over the last two weeks. I could still hear them upstairs with five minutes to go so I went up and my coworker was trying to urge them along. While he turned to help one of them get her flash drive the other logged back into the computer and started typing a new document because she wanted to print it out. My coworker and I both started protesting at the same time and told her she didn't have time and needed to log off. They were still picking up things as the final announcement went off and I headed downstairs to do a final walkthrough. I joked the other day with my coworkers that we needed to block off the bathrooms because the go-to of these ladies is to be there until we actually close and then go into the bathroom for at least another five minutes. Tonight the custodian actually put a sign on the door saying there was a leak in the first floor women's restroom and locked the door. It worked perfectly because they couldn't get in and had to resign themselves to actually leaving.

When I got home there was not one but two boxes on my porch. One was obviously my food. It was packaged really well. Each meal was in its own small box, which were located inside a thermal bag thing along with two big ice packs. This must be a winning combo because even though it had sat on my porch for five hours, nothing was frozen. There are a couple ingredients I'm not going to use, like the kale for the soup, or the olives for the flatbread, but I'm excited to try the different meals.

The other box was the space heat with the 3D virtual fireplace effect that my mom ordered the other day and that she let me pay for. Much like the ladder it was also a pain in the butt to get out of the box. One of the leading reasons for finding a significant other at the moment is that so I have someone to hold boxes as I try to get crap out of them. I did eventually manage it, got the legs screwed on, and got it plugged in. I like it. It seems solidly built, it looks nice, and the flame effect is pretty cool. So far I am pleased.

When I got the food put away and the heater put together I hoped into Farming Simulator 15 and recorded today's audio journal. It ended up lasting over thirty minutes, which is surprising. And now after writing all this it feels a bit like deja vu. Such is my life now. I am enjoying recording the audio journal and I hope I keep it up this time.

Now I am going to go to bed because it is half past midnight and I'm tired. My goal for tomorrow was to not leave the house but I apparently have a urologist appointment tomorrow afternoon. I thought I had one coming up but didn't realize it was so soon. At least it is in the afternoon. I haven't had a kidney stone in quite awhile now, so I kind of feel like canceling the appointment but it can't hurt just to check in. I'll probably end up going.

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