#cut the whole thing out and replace it with cutscenes and you will literally miss out on nothing lmao. it would be a massive QoL.

[zwei-rhunen]

WAIT

THIS BETTER NOT BE A REPEAT OF ARRS MFING HEROES FEAST or whatever it was called. swear to god

Literally, my ongoing train of thoughts were:

"lol i just had the MCH feast but okay sure"

........ wait. why does this feel.. familiar.

why do i feel disgust and dread and irritation?

/war flashbacks to the overly long and tedious endless, useless chain of fetch quests for the company of heroes

oH, NAH. this better not be like that again.

no. No!

NONONONONO

/deep sigh

i'm not afraid to abandon the MSQ for another 6-9-12 months if it turns out to be like THAT experience lmfao. absolutely not.

they could have cut out that ENTIRE segment and played a bunch of cutscenes of the WoL helping out that useless group.

it didnt even contribute to the storytelling, apart from making IRL me irritated. like there was zero value in suffering thru it all.

you can torture my character all you want, but you can also do that without pissing the human off lmfaoooooo

[nitpick7]

Ayo anyone wanna see my essay on why removing Anybody Have A Map made the Dear Evan Hansen movie worse? It is slightly long

Disclaimer: I did like the movie (I cried three times), but I think they made some stupid decisions with it.

Dear Evan Hansen movie + musical spoilers under the cut, plus a fair amount of DEH neg/crit

Instead of Anybody Have A Map, they just have Evan's mom say "Hey are you writing those letters to yourself? Also you should ask the kids to sign your cast" before he goes to school and sings Waving Through A Window. They ignore every other part of the song and quickly insert the only thing from the song that's absolutely needed to understand the story so Evan can go be angsty at school. We don't even meet the Murphys until they meet Evan in the principal's office to tell him about Connor.

Disclaimer part 2 electric boogaloo: I complain about Evan a lot here. It's not because I think his experiences aren't valid and it's not because I'm trying to demonize people with mental illnesses or something. I know that his own struggles influenced his bad decisions. That doesn't mean they weren't bad decisions. He still did shitty things and he wasn't justified (listen to Words Fail), but I know it was influenced by his mental health.

On with the complaining!

First of all, the movie opens with Waving Through A Window? It feels like they're putting the most popular song first as a desperate grab for your attention to convince you the movie is good and like... they really didn't need to do that. Waving Through A Window is right after Anybody Have A Map, it's not like anyone's gonna walk out of the theatre after one (really good) song.

Anybody Have A Map establishes a few things: it shows us that both of these families are struggling so that we know immediately that the Murphys' perfect facade is fake, it shows us that Connor was a dick to his family (this is very important), and obviously it tells us why Evan was writing letters to himself. It also introduces us to the two main families at the same time so we know this story isn't just about Evan.

By starting the movie with an Evan solo song instead of the group song, they frame Evan as the one main character, the only person whose perspective we need to understand. But Evan is incredibly flawed, just like everyone else, and by making us think the story is only about him, it immediately makes us (the audience) more inclined to believe that Evan is always in the right and less inclined to consider everyone else's side of the story. Evan is an incredibly unreliable narrator, he's always going to frame his actions as correct, or at least excusable, even when he's actively hurting/lying to other people.

All of the Murphys get introduced through interacting with Evan instead of interacting with each other. This makes it seem like the Murphys only exist for Evan, but the entire point of the climax is that everything doesn't exist just for Evan! Evan is not part of their family, he can't just use everyone around him for his own benefit, and all of the Murphys have lives outside of him. When they're introduced through Evan, they're introduced as existing for Evan. Anybody Have A Map introduces them separately from Evan instead of attached to him.

Without Anybody Have A Map, we never actually see Connor being mean to Zoe, so she just looks like an asshole for not being sad about her dead brother. To make up for it, she's constantly having to tell the audience why she hated him, tripping over herself to talk about all the shitty things he did to her because we don't have Anybody Have A Map to show us their interactions. Zoe ends up complaining about her brother the entire time, so when it gets to Only Us and she says that she doesn't want everything to be about her brother, it seems out of character for her.

And with the removal of Anybody Have A Map, we don't ever see Connor interact with his own family in the movie. Anybody Have A Map is the only time we get to see Connor with his family. It shows us that Connor really was an asshole to his family, it justifies Zoe hating him, and it gives his mom more dimensions by showing her struggling to keep her family together even with everyone fighting against her. Without that, the writers ended up ignoring the most basic piece of writing advice - "show, don't tell" - to fill in the missing information from the song.

In the movie, all we get of Cynthia Murphy is... her being sad about Connor and refusing to admit that he ever did anything wrong. She's just boring and annoying in the movie, but in the musical, we get that bit at the beginning that shows her as an actual person with actual motivations! By cutting Anybody Have A Map, they made her into a more one-dimensional character.

So in a bit of a conclusion: Anybody Have A Map establishes the Murphys as main characters separate from Evan and shows us Connor's relationship with his family instead of telling us about it. It sets the scene for the story before just jumping into "Evan is sad and alone uwu anxious depressed soft boy" and makes everyone a better, more three-dimensional character. Getting rid of it meant that they had to do backflips to justify everyone's decisions during the movie instead of setting everything up at the beginning.

I do think the movie could've benefitted from Disappear but then again, it could've benefitted from the whole "Connor being the visual/vocal representation of Evan's justifications for why keeping up the lie is helping people" thing in general, but they got rid of that so Disappear wouldn't have worked. (I am salty that they got rid of that thing but whatever) The Anonymous Ones worked instead and it was a good song, so sure, why not I guess? /neutral

I could also complain about how they got rid of To Break In A Glove, Disappear, and Good For You, but none of those decisions actually impacted the story too much. To Break In A Glove and Good For You both got replaced with some tell-not-show cutscenes that gave us the same information in a less interesting way (and Larry got less character development without To Break In A Glove), and Disappear got replaced with an Alana song which was honestly pretty good so i'm fine with that one.

Now for some good changes that the movie made!

The Anonymous Ones was a good song, I actually really liked that. I'm disappointed that they got rid of Disappear, but they replaced it with another song that served the same purpose while also giving Alana more screen time and character depth! And it was a genuinely good song, I really enjoyed it and it made me like Alana more!

I really liked the ending of the movie. In the musical, there are literally no negative consequences for Evan, Zoe even forgives him at the end. She fucking forgives him for lying to her entire family about their dead son and and taking advantage of them because it "brought them closer together". And the internet never finds out what he did! He does all this terrible shit, lies to the entire fucking world, and gets away scot-free. And he never learns anything real about Connor. The movie changes all of that.

Connor's song was also a great addition! Every time we saw Connor in the musical, he was either being a dick or he was a fantasy version of himself made by Evan and/or Jared. Seeing that Connor can, in fact, be a nice person, that Cynthia's belief in him wasn't misplaced, was so satisfying. He really was just a meaner version of Evan a troubled kid lashing out at the world in self-defense. He wasn't an entirely bad person.

The Murphys still decide not to tell anyone what he did, but then Evan decides (on his own!) that he needs to own up to what he did. He records a video of himself admitting to what he did, shifts all the blame to himself, and then goes out of his way to fix his mistakes in any way he can. He says that his biggest regret is not getting to know Connor while he had the chance, so he goes online to find anything he can. He reads Connor's favorite books, tries to find anyone who might be able to tell him what Connor was like, and when he receives a video of Connor playing his song in rehab, he takes the time to send the video (through the mail, on a flash drive) to the Murphys, Jared, and Alana.

Evan doesn't contact Zoe at the end, she contacts him instead. She doesn't forgive him, and he doesn't ask for forgiveness. He knows what he did was wrong and he owns up to it and tries to fix it as much as possible, knowing full well that it could ruin his life. He does the right thing for the first time in the entire fucking movie (that's hardly even an exaggeration) and it's such a good ending. It makes more sense and is more satisfying than the musical.

The Dear Evan Hansen movie was not nearly as bad as the reviews say it was. It wasn't as good as the musical, it had its own problems, but it also made some good changes that I think made the story better. It wasn't perfect, but I enjoyed it and most movies aren't perfect anyway. It really could've benefitted from Anybody Have A Map, though.

[aion-rsa]

10 Best Fighting Game Movies

https://ift.tt/31CS0wp

Once upon a time, Bruce Lee, Jim Kelly, and John Saxon visited a crime boss’ private island to compete in a fighting tournament and it was awesome. The 1973 movie Enter the Dragon is basically the prototype for the fighting games like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter. And when those fighting games became popular, they inspired their own movies that either tried to emulate Enter the Dragon or do something completely new.

The ‘90s gave us the cheesy live-action fighting game movies from Hollywood and the animated movies from Japan. There have been several live-action Mortal Kombat movies as well as a few animated ones. There have also been multiple Street Fighter movies, four attempts at Tekken, a trilogy of Fatal Fury films, and more.

Are most of them bad? Yes. But did we pick our 10 favorite fighting game movies anyway? You bet. Here are our picks:

10. ART OF FIGHTING (1993)

Eh…it’s harmless.

The Art of Fighting series is mostly defined by the twist that the first game’s final boss is the main character’s father and the second game’s final boss is a younger incarnation of the villain from Fatal Fury. Take away those aspects and you’re left with a rather lowkey storyline for a fighting game where a teenage girl is kidnapped by a mobster and is rescued by her brother and her boyfriend.

Wait, I said that weird. It’s two different people, I swear! Except in Capcom, where Dan Hibiki is literally both of them merged into one character.

In the 45-minute Art of Fighting movie about Ryo and Robert, who are like chiller and dopier versions of Ryu and Ken, we watch as the duo gets sucked into a plot about stolen diamonds, martial arts criminals, and angry police lieutenants. It doesn’t take itself seriously and it’s a fine, breezy watch.

Ryo’s incorrect hair color kind of irks me, though.

9. STREET FIGHTER ALPHA: THE ANIMATION (1999)

This movie suffers from the same problem as Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture. It features a cast of heroes from a fighting game taking on a villain created for the movie instead of the villains we actually give a shit about. But the movie does also have some brief but awesome cameos (Kim Kaphwan and Geese Howard from Fatal Fury and Dan Hibiki and Akuma from Street Fighter Alpha) to brighten up a less-than-stellar plot.

Street Fighter Alpha: The Animation does at least get by because the original characters play up Ryu’s whole fear about being overcome by “the Dark Hadou.” This leads to some cool animations where Evil Ryu looks like a mindless, shambling zombie but also an unstoppable fighting machine.

The movie’s main storyline is about a kid named Shun who claims that he’s Ryu’s long-lost brother. He too is a fighter cursed with an inner dark side, which is used as a red herring to suggest that Shun’s father (and presumably Ryu’s father) is actually Akuma. That ends up being bupkis and Shun is just linked to some scheme by a mad scientist or whatever.

Probably the funniest thing about this movie is the directors’ infatuation with Chun-Li’s midsection. She’s wearing her form-fitting Street Fighter Alpha costume and there are dozens upon dozens of random close-ups to her lower torso from the front and back. If this were a drinking game, it would kill you.

8. FATAL FURY 2: THE NEW BATTLE (1993)

Of the Fatal Fury movie trilogy, this one is easily the best, even if it makes all the good guys seem like a bunch of overly-serious crybabies. The basic story is that after having avenged his father’s death, Terry hits rock bottom, dusts himself off, and comes out the other end stronger. Good, good. Going Rocky III is the perfect direction for a follow-up.

The problem is that Terry comes off as a bit of a whiner and the other heroes try way too hard to vilify the movie’s main antagonist, who hasn’t actually done anything that terrible. Krauser shows up one day, challenges Terry to a fight, wins, and says, “Okay, when you get better, train and fight me again.” Krauser isn’t trying to take over the world or murder orphans or whatever. He’s just a dude with huge shoulder armor who wants a good fight.

But everyone acts like Krauser’s the absolute worst. Terry starts drinking and falls to pieces while his buddies hope to get revenge. What a bunch of jerks.

While a fun romp, the worst thing about this sequel is how they redesigned Krauser. Gone is his mustache and forehead scar for the sake of making him seem younger. Kind of a bullshit move, considering he’s supposed to be the half-brother to middle-aged Geese Howard.

7. TEKKEN: THE MOTION PICTURE (1998)

This hour-long anime is almost great but just can’t stick the landing. It runs into the same problem as Mortal Kombat: Annihilation where the game series tells a specific overall story but the movie cuts corners to tell the same story. Tekken: The Motion Picture covers the first Tekken while setting up Tekken 3 and skipping Tekken 2 completely.

It means that everything’s well and good until the confusing and rushed finale. Otherwise, the movie is a fine use of the Enter the Dragon formula. Heihachi Mishima has a special island fighting tournament and the entrants include his vengeful son, a couple of cops investigating the situation, a gigantic robot, an angry Native American girl, two feuding assassin sisters, and a bunch of awesome characters who only get about three full frames of appearances each. Really would have liked to see something from Paul, King, and Yoshimitsu, though.

Other than Kazuya being pissed at everything, the best scenes are the over-the-top ones. When Jack does crazy robot stuff, when dinosaurs show up and start eating people, and that memorable sequence where Heihachi catches a hatchet with his mouth and then shatters it with his jaw.

6. STREET FIGHTER (1994)

I know this movie is just a GI Joe script with Street Fighter names pasted over it. I know it’s a cheesefest of dopey ideas and Belgian accents. I’ve long accepted that. Thing is, the movie is still a total blast to watch. What it lacks in faithfulness to the source material, it makes up for with pure camp and ham.

The 16 characters from Super Street Fighter II are represented here, except Fei Long is replaced with the forgettable Captain Sawada. How ironic that the movie star character isn’t even in the movie!

In general, the movie features some head-scratching depictions of classic Street Fighter characters. All-American Guile is played by Jean Claude Van Damme, Charlie Nash and Blanka are the same character, Dee Jay is an evil hacker, Ryu and Ken are comedic conmen, and Dhalsim is a frumpy scientist.

It’s Raul Julia’s M. Bison who keeps this guilty pleasure afloat. He’s to Street Fighter what Frank Langella’s Skeletor was to Masters of the Universe. He gives 110% and his performance is easily the best reason to watch this movie. It’s truly a wonder to behold.

Read more

Games

The Forgotten Fighting Games of the 1990s

By Gavin Jasper

Games

King of Fighters: Ranking All the Characters

By Gavin Jasper

The movie is infamous for inspiring a fighting game based on it, but you know what nobody ever talks about? The Double Dragon movie also had a fighting game based on it made by Technos and released on the Neo Geo. And Double Dragon wasn’t even a one-on-one fighter to begin with!

Anyway, if you intend to sit back and watch Street Fighter, make sure to add in the RiffTrax commentary.

5. DOA: DEAD OR ALIVE (2006)

Enter the Dragon meets Charlie’s Angels is a heck of a concept, but DOA: Dead or Alive is so confidently tongue-in-cheek that it succeeds as an action comedy that’s way better than it has any right to be. Part of why it works is that Dead or Alive has never had much of an overarching storyline, but is more defined by the individual characters (plus, you know, all the cheesecake). Enough of those characters appear in what’s your regular “fighting tournament on a mysterious island” setup.

The whole thing moves with such energy that it’s easy to get sucked in. It’s the opposite of the live-action Tekken movie, where even though the film features accurate versions of all the characters, everything is so drab and lifeless that you just can’t wait for it to be over. In DOA, the combatants spend their downtime playing cartoony action volleyball with Fake Dennis Rodman on commentary, while in Tekken everyone mopes about dystopian capitalism.

Other than Helena’s character being “important dead guy’s daughter,” most of the main characters are charismatic enough to keep your attention during the 3% of the movie when fights aren’t happening. It must suck for Ninja Gaiden fans that Hayabusa is depicted as a total dweeb, but he at least gets to do some cool stuff here and there.

The movie also has Kevin Nash playing a character based on Hollywood Hogan and he’s so likeable that I’m genuinely bummed that he peaces out about halfway into the movie. Luckily, the movie is entertaining enough that I didn’t even notice until after it was over. It helps that during that time, we get more of Eric Roberts, his amazing hair, and his special sunglasses that turn him into the ultimate martial arts master.

Spoiler alert, but the secret to defeating him is, get this, removing his sunglasses!

4. MORTAL KOMBAT LEGENDS: SCORPION’S REVENGE (2020)

It took a while, but Warner Bros. Animation is on fire these days. After that Batman vs. TMNT movie and Teen Titans Go vs. Teen Titans, the studio appears to be hitting more than they miss. That’s exactly the kind of team needed to put together the latest animated Mortal Kombat movie.

This is the umpteenth retelling of the first game’s story. Not only does it have to compete with the first live-action movie, but also the events of Mortal Kombat 9, which depicts the tournament in cutscene format. Fortunately, Scorpion’s Revenge has a few tricks up its sleeve. First, it puts Scorpion in the forefront as the protagonist. He was barely a character in the original movie and the game just had him kill Sub-Zero and feel bad about it for the rest of the story mode. Now he feels like a character in a crossover, making a mark on the original story instead of being put in the sidelines.

We also have the wonderful stunt casting of Joel McHale as Johnny Cage. More importantly, Jennifer Carpenter plays Sonya Blade, which is such a step up from Ronda Rousey’s voice acting in Mortal Kombat 11.

This cartoon has a very hard R when it comes to violence. From the very beginning, Scorpion’s origins are gruesome and grisly. Once Jax is introduced, it doesn’t take long until we realize, “Oh, that’s how they’re dealing with THAT plot point in this continuity.” Then there’s a surprise villain death late in the movie that not only comes as a shocking development, but it’s so graphic and nasty that you can’t help but be taken aback.

Scorpion’s Revenge is a fantastic first chapter of what is hopefully a series of animated movies, but it does have its pacing issues. Scorpion being the protagonist may be a welcome change, but at times it does feel like a square peg being crammed into a round hole.

3. TEKKEN: BLOOD VENGEANCE (2011)

One of the best things about the Tekken series is the endings. While the cutscenes from the first couple games haven’t exactly aged well, these CGI epilogues have become a staple in nearly every installment. What better reward for your time and success than watching a rocking action sequence with Yoshimitsu and Bryan Fury killing each other in the jungle?

And so, to play to the series’ strengths, Bandai Entertainment released a Tekken movie that’s really just one big ending cutscene. It’s not canon, but it feels at home with the games.

Since Tekken’s main conflict is with two ruthless megalomaniacs (Heihachi and Kazuya) and a disgruntled nihilist (Jin), it’s hard to treat any of them as a real protagonist here. Instead, they go with Ling Xiaoyu, who is portrayed as the person who sees the good in Jin and wants him to see the light. She’s given a robotic BFF in Alisa Bosconovitch because Xiaoyu is kind of a tame character and needs someone with chainsaw arms and a jetpack to liven things up.

The first hour or so is good enough to keep your attention and its lightened up by a couple appearances by Tekken’s best character, Lee. But once it gets to the third act, it just becomes a completely awesome Heihachi vs. Kazuya vs. Jin fight, with Xiaoyu taking a backseat to watch all the crazy shit going on. It’s a full-on fireworks factory, as we not only see Devil forms of Kazuya and Jin but a very special final form for Heihachi that’s a true delight for Tekken fans.

2. STREET FIGHTER II: THE ANIMATED MOVIE (1994)

Let it be said that for someone who grew up in the ‘80s and ‘90s, finding a faithful cartoon adaptation of a video game property was not easy. Link and Simon Belmont were unlikable sexual harassers. Mega Man was a more annoying sidekick than Scrappy Doo. Mario and Luigi teamed up with Milli Vanilli. Power Team was…a thing. When we got an animated movie based on Street Fighter II, it was mind-blowing. This was a movie where the very first scene was Ryu tearing Sagat’s chest into a bloody gash thanks to a well-animated Shoryuken.

There’s a lot going on in this movie, but at the same time, nothing is going on. By this point, there were 17 characters in the various Street Fighter II games, and outside of a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Akuma cameo, it feels the need to include every single one of them. Some get minor roles, like Cammy and Dee Jay. Then there’s Zangief and Blanka, who fight each other for no reason other than for the sake of giving them something to do. Even Ryu vanishes for a huge chunk of the runtime.

Once everything funnels into the third act, this movie is great. And the earlier fight scenes are straight fire too, including the memorable Chun-Li vs. Vega brawl. Even though the movie already feels true to Street Fighter II, it’s even better when you realize that it’s all supposed to be a prequel to the game itself.

Or at least I hope so. Otherwise, all Sagat gets to do is get his ass kicked by Ryu and get chewed out by Bison.

1. MORTAL KOMBAT (1995)

The stars truly aligned for this one. Mortal Kombat Mania was at its peak, so it makes sense that this movie was a retelling of the first game’s story with added aspects from the second game, all while hyping up the arcade release of the third game. CGI was such a novelty in Hollywood in the ’90s that even if it looked primitive, it still looked cutting edge at the time. It was the perfect time to release this movie.

But Mortal Kombat isn’t perfect. Reptile is embarrassing. Scorpion and Sub-Zero being relegated to goons still stings. I still roll my eyes at the part towards the end where Sonya is suddenly the damsel in distress and Raiden flat-out verbally buries her by saying she couldn’t beat Shang Tsung in a million years. Otherwise, it’s the perfect storm of ‘90s action garbage.

There are so many over-the-top and charismatic performances here. Johnny Cage, Raiden, Shang Tsung, Kano, and even Goro are a blast to watch. All 10 characters from the original game are given something to do and, most importantly, they realize how uniquely weird the game’s story is and actually dive headfirst into it. The movie isn’t embarrassed to be a Mortal Kombat movie but handles itself well enough that we aren’t embarrassed to be watching a Mortal Kombat movie.

Even with a PG-13 rating, the movie was violent enough. Kano talked up seeing a pile of frozen guts in the wake of a Sub-Zero fight, Scorpion got his skull sliced apart with demon brain goo spewing all over the place, and Shang Tsung got impaled to death.

With the reboot being rated R, going for the gore could very well be the right route to go, but for the love of the Elder Gods, don’t forget to have FUN. All I’m saying is, if even Johnny Cage isn’t hamming it up, then what’s the point?

The post 10 Best Fighting Game Movies appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2Qf5EPa

[inikavulpixelreviews]

Let’s Talk About Pokemon - Gen 7 Retrospective

That's at least a little more sizable than the XY generation was. Granted we have some Alolan Forms to help inflate the numbers a bit. Sure, if you were to count Gen 6′s Mega Evolutions, Gen 7 would be the actual smallest Gen to date. But remember what I said last generation's recap with how Gamefreak seemed to be taking a “quality over quantity” approach for that generation? That mentality seems to be back in full force here. 'Cause we're looking at my second favorite Gen right behind Gen 5.

I did bring up that Gen 6 was my third favorite generation in terms of the new, numerical Pokemon introduced. What has Alola muscle over it is how it's crammed as much inventiveness into the designs as they could think. The starters, the Legendaries/Kinda-Legendary Ultra Beasts, even the common fodder Pokemon have a little more going on than their typical ilk. And even some of the more boring designs like Oranguru and Passimian have interesting battle mechanics by changing the way you can approach double battles entirely on their own.

That also seemed to be a focus this generation. Not all of course, but a lot of the new Pokemon seemed to be based on different gameplay interactions and having unique abilities or signature moves. Between Salandit's Corrosion to Minior's Shields Down to Mimikyu's Disguise to Toucannon's Beak Blast and to Toxipex's Baneful Bunker. They really tried taking a shot at making each Pokemon have something unique to bring to battles. They even essentially made a more tournament-rules friendly alternative to Arceus in Silvally.

But there's a little subject more contentious about Gen 7 than the Pokemon, of course. That being the games themselves, which feel like they got the fandom split. I like Sun and Moon, but even I'll admit Gamefreak's gotta try a little harder for Gen 8. All the inventive things they've tried from a gameplay perspective ultimately don't change much. The game still had an 8-mini-act structure just like the Gym games. HMs getting replaced with Ride Pokemon is nice, but is still the same mechanic with different dressing. The biggest changes in the usual story structure don't even matter that much, the biggest change feeling like you get to know the region's Legendary Pokemon from the very start in the form of Nebby. Otherwise, it's just A Little Bit Better Written Than Usual. Y'know, not that Pokemon games tend to be master classes in writing anyway, its only real competition there being Black and White's story. (And even then, Sun and Moon's in desperate need of a Skip Cutscene button.)

Then there’s the Let’s Go games, which I suppose are technically Gen 7 games. Those got even more divisive. Some love it, others hate it. I personally just find it boring as a rather dumbed down remake of the Kanto games, only really playing because it was an excuse to use Melmetal. There’s some neat things in there that I wouldn’t mind seeing implemented in the main series (namely overworld-wandering Pokemon and AVs replacing EVs.) Just please keep the very poorly implemented Go-imitating catch mechanics as far away from the main series as possible.

Pokemon’s also starting to get more competition recently as well. Other than Digimon of course. Ni No Kuni, eventually Tem Tem, of course, the rise of the mighty Yokai Watch, which to my understanding, has been wrecking Pokemon in terms of sale numbers in their home region. Each of them implementing monster-catching RPG mechanics in their own unique way. I can’t speak for Yokai Watch, but Ni No Kuni is a lot more like a traditional JRPG, with the monsters being familiars that still fight in battle, but the trainers themselves also participate in the battle as well! And Tem Tem, while very much like Pokemon, is giving it more of an MMO angle. While I’m not one to shout about how much Pokemon just NEEDS to make an MMO with ALL THE REGIONS already, I am interested in seeing where TemTem winds up. It IS a Kickstarter game that made way more than it asked for, but as we know from a certain Strong Numerical Value That Is One Less Than Ten, that’s no guarantee it’ll be amazing. But worth keeping an eye on. It still has the potential to be something Gamefreak’s gonna have to watch out for.

Whether I like these other games or not, I appreciate that they exist, because they mean that sooner or later Gamefreak's gonna have to get their ass in gear and do something about it. I'm really getting burnt out on a new Pokemon game coming out literally every year. What I've wanted more than ever is for Gamefreak to at least take a hiatus from the yearly releases to have the game that comes after said break to really kick it out of the park. I get that the Ultra games probably didn't take up much development time and from my understanding Let's Go was made by a whole different team, so those games coming out in the years between Sun and Moon and Sword and Shield might not have much bearing on the latter's quality, but still. Pokemon's not had a major mechanical update since they introduced Abilities in Gen 3. I just hope Gen 8 does something interesting or has some form of major mechanical overhaul. Not asking Pokemon battles to be in real time or anything. Just some new Super Forms and powerful one-off moves aren’t gonna cut it for me. After over 20 years of Pokemoning and on, what, year 8 of a new Pokemon game coming out every year? I'm a little bit fatigued.

...Okay, let's end this on a better note than that.

I AM still exciting to see what Gen 8 has to offer, and I hope they mean it when they say they're trying something different. And of course, I'm ALWAYS gonna be excited to see some more new Pokemon. Gens 5, 6, and 7 are proving they're nowhere close to being out of steam yet, and I can't wait to see more Gen 8 Pokemon come our way in the coming months.

Top 10 Favorites of Gen 7:

Dangit this is hard. So many to love! So many new super-duper-tippity-top favorites!! Shout outs to Palossand, Silvally, Salandit, Xurkitree, and Buzzwole. There's just too many good'ens!!!!

Bottom 10 Least Favorite of Gen 7:

Amazingly, the only Pokemon here I really “dislike” is Zeraora. The rest are just that cherry-picked handful of Alolan Pokemon I don't really care that much about. Hurray!

Bottom 10 Least Favorite Overall:

Almost got through with no new additions. Almost.

The Cutest:

God this Generation was good for Pokemon I just want to pick up and hug. Or in Mimikyu's case, get horrendously murdered by because I got a little too close to taking its rag off. And I'd still say “Thanks.”

The Coolest:

The Prettiest:

The Spookiest:

This gen was really good to scratch a Halloweeny itch. A BUNCH of cool new ghosts, complete with the eerie head leech Pokemon I never would’ve suspected would make it into Pokemon!

Most Creative:

Weirdest/Most Unique:

This section here could've been filled with Ultra Beasts alone if I really wanted to, haha.

Most Forgettable:

Magearna is here not necessarily because I think the design is forgettable, but gee wizz I keep thinking it's not a Gen 7 Pokemon.

Most Personality:

Here's a new section! Gen 7 had a lot of personality-based designs, so there was actually a fair bit of competition for a slot like this. Buzzwole and Bewear are just hilarious, and I'm still thoroughly impressed with Meltan. They managed to cram so much adorable personality into such a simple design. And I’ll eat my hat the day we get a Pokemon more smug than Salandit.

Most Under-Appreciated:

Poor Stakataka keeps getting dismissed because of its bad typing... not that I can blame anyone because Rock/Steel is easily the most boring of all the UB typings, especially when we had room to have a Ghostly duo between it and Blacephalon to have us our first Rock/Ghost type!

Most Long Overdue Concepts:

Seriously, how'd it take 7 generations to get a wolf and a mosquito? Let alone 6 generations to finally get a second MANTIS and traditional horse Pokemon?! As far as spooky Pokemon go, you'd think a shipwreck would be one of the easier and more obvious concepts to go after, even if the one we finally got didn't take the form I expected it to. And Araquanid's just here because a fully evolved BUG/WATER was a long time frickin coming.

Best Regional Variants:

At least I'm naming the category that way because Regional Variants better be a series mainstay from now on!! These are the Alolan Forms with the most fun alternate take on their original forms. And Vulpix and Ninetales are there because fox solidarity.

Best Ultra Beasts:

Again, I really hope Ultra Beasts won't be an Alola-Only thing. I want to avoid talking about Gen 8 spoilers to be considerate of anyone that wants to avoid those, but a certain image carved into the ground in a particular scene has me hoping Ultra Beasts might be returning. And that Xurkitree could have a big brother in the near future. There's hardly much basis because said carving could literally be anything, but. Please.

Anyway, I love the Ultra Beasts as a concept of extra-dimensional alien beings. Some sell the look of freaky aliens better, especially ones like Nihilego, Xurkitree, Kartana, and Celesteela. But nonetheless, these 6 are my favorites out of our roster. HOPEFULLY so far.

Pokemon That Should’ve Gotten Alolan Forms:

I tend to agree that limiting Alolan Forms to Gen 1 Pokemon only was a silly thing to do, but even minding that, I feel like there was crazy amounts of missed potential here. Seel and Dewgong just desperately need some fresh attention to stop being Pokemon’s more forgettable critters. While I suppose Lapras and Tentacruel are excusable given they’re sea dwellers regardless, I totally wouldn’t mind electric jellyfish versions of the Tentas, or even a Kracken-based form for the former. This was also MORE than an opportunity to redeem Dragonite with a more Dragonair-like variant. And some tropical jungle variations of Paras and Venonat would be neat. I’m just saying, a Venomoth turned into more of a Tropical Hawkmoth would’ve been killer.

And Parasect hurts the most. You’re telling you’re gonna have Parasect inhabit this jungle area along with another, brand new mushroom Pokemon. AND you’re gonna introduce the concept of Gen 1 Pokemon taking on new forms based on the new and radically different habitats in Alola. And you’re just NOT gonna place some glowing mushrooms on their backs, turn them pale white, and call them Bug/Fairy types?!?!?! Hello?!?!!??!?

...Oh, am I forgetting something?

Top 50 Favorites Overall:

...Surprise! Yeah, just sorta decided “why not?” This is our last Gen for the rest of the year, so let's end it on a “Look At All My Favorites!” type of a bang. Also because it pained me to see all these not make it to some sort of Top Favorites highlight. And of course, they might not be 100% consistent with scores or previous Top 10 favorites. I'm only a human with a finicky brain that is constantly changing how absolutely precisely I feel about every single one of these. 

And... that's it... that's every single Pokemon reviewed. Every single Gen Recapped. We've had lots of ups and downs and plenty of getting a little too excited about cartoon animals. Gen 8 is still a ways away, and even when it comes out, I'd like to wait a few months to let the new designs settle into my mind before I go writing opinion pieces on all of them. And of course, for official artwork to be out for everybody.

BUT I do have a handful of ways to pass the time until Gen 8 does come out... What's up next exactly? Well, we won't have to wait too long, thankfully...

[Archive]

[asiplaythem]

Devil May Cry: Series Retrospective- "DmC: Devil May Cry"

At long last, I sat down and played DmC: Devil May Cry. Well and truly, the dust has settled, the dead horse has been beaten into compost, and the reactionary rages and defenses have died down. And, for myself, I think my fanboy passion for the series has subsided.

A weak Special Edition, a pachinko machine and a bad MvC model later, I hold out no honest hope for the Devil May Cry franchise now. We’ll always have the Temen-ni-Gru Dante...but we’re not getting back together, lets face it.

So now, when I look at Ninja Theory’s protagonist, who I will still refer to as Donte, the fresh insult that he used to be is now replaced with a genuine, tryhard, grittiness that just seems cute in an “ah, bless” kind of way. He’s no longer the sour white whale that ate my favourite character and franchise, he’s just a little fish who flops around in a harmlessly funny way.

....before the massive flaws of the game come forth.

This review is based on the PS3 launch version and does its best to criticize it on its own merits/failings, not merely on fan insult or in comparison to the previous games. But it is after all called “Devil may Cry”, so its existence as part of a wider franchise isn’t ignored either.

Also, fair warning, this is going to be long as hell. Which is suitable, because it feels like hell sometimes...

Technical Qualities

The engine/optimization is dogshit.

Ninja Theory infamously rejected Capcom’s offer to translate their wunderengine, MT Framework, into English so that they could use it. Instead the team built DmC: Devil May Cry using Unreal Engine 3, which was already starting to look dated by 2010 when the game was announced. For perspective, Unreal Engine 4 was revealed to the public before DmC even came out. The likely reason Ninja Theory chose to stick with Unreal was because of a  developer kit popular with young game creators. Unreal 3 was a ubiquitous engine in the last gen of consoles, being the backbone of games like Bioshock: Infinite and the Batman: Arkham series. But you’ll be hard pressed to find any games using it that were as fast paced as the Devil May Cry series.

Off the top of my head, games that use Unreal 3 usually have collision and texture pop-in problems. This is less of an issue in first person or isometric games when player movement and camera angles/viewable space are restrained, but it’s disastrous for something like DmC with its wide angle camera, large open areas, dense enemy count and fast player movement.

On the very first mission, in no more than 2 minutes of having control, Donte got stuck in a wall as I tried to go through the level like a normal player. This was followed by hideous amount of texture pop-in, audio glitches that muted parts of the soundscape, a couple of attacks that didn’t connect with enemies when they should have, and loading times out the arse.

A nasty little secret I only found out from replaying it first hand was that many of the mini-cutscenes (like when Donte looks at the Hunter demon hop around buildings, or does a backflip as he collects his guns) are secretly loading screens, unskippable until the loading operation is completed. All of which are frustrating to have to sit through in such a fast paced game. The way they make such a deal out of the same, generic enemy spawning in by giving it a dramatic close-up every time feels patronizing on repeat fights. “OOOH look! It’s a flying thing again!”. Yeah, no game, these things are easy to kill and I know you’re covering up something with this. Nice try.

Without seeing the development build firsthand, I can’t say for certain why it ran so badly. The release of the Definitive Edition for PS4/XBONE implies that it was a hardware limitation...but....like....that’s what optimization is for; making games run well on older hardware. More on this later, but design choices in level layouts, for instance, can remedy this. You can, for instance, segment levels in a way that stops you from seeing large areas at a single moment, reducing how much the consoles needs to render and thus cutting down load times.

Instead, what we largely got were huge foggy rooms and camera lens flares there to hide unloaded textures. The problem then is that it just, in my opinion at least, doesn’t look very good. Think of how Silent Hill 2 and 3 manage to still look so good due to how they segment rooms with doors you can’t see beyond. Or how the use of fog doesn’t cover up anything that you’re supposed to be looking at. And how they manage to have shorter loading times for it, a whole generation of consoles in the past.

Another trick is to “hard bake” lighting effects into the level’s textures themselves, rather than relying on extra shader operations. It’s more taxing on hardware to emulate, say, the actual light physics of a red spotlight instead of just making the textures of the walls and floor red, using trickery to make it seem like there’s a functioning red light there. Open world games generally don’t have this option, but with Devil May Cry, which is a linear series with rarely changing environments, you can use trickery like this effectively. Instead, DmC has more shaders -many of which look terrible in cutscenes- than it can handle.

Ninja Theory did a bad job of optimizing their game for their primary hardware. Even with the update there were visual problems, audio glitches and collision bugs throughout the entire game. It’s far from unplayable, but it’s ropey for a AAA game.

Level Design

Before I get into the artistic choices, I want to take a moment to look at the more technical, grounded aspects of how Ninja Theory designed levels.

Most of the previous Devil May Cry games are economic with their level design, reusing areas multiple times over with remixed enemy layouts and the occasional change in lighting, music and even textures. This cuts down on development time, saves disc space, and allows the designers to really put care into each individual location. Resident Evil, the Souls games, and Deus Ex: Human Revolution are other good examples.

DmC had potential for this with its “living city” concept. The best use of this concept is with Mission 2: Home Truths, where Donte visits his and Vurgil’s gigantic childhood home. As you backtrack into familiar hallways and foyers, the corruption of Mundus’ influence causes walls to crack open, pathways to change shape and different enemies to spawn. It’s a great (re)use of assets that trip up your expectations as a player the first time around. It also uses some Metroidvania style locked doors and obstacles which you need certain abilities/weapons to traverse. The unfortunate limitation of that is that you can literally fly through some levels and skip entire sections of the game upon a replay; Mission 3 requires you to unlock the Air Dash move in order to clear a gap that appears early on, but you’ll already have it on a replay, turning a 20~ minute level into a 3~ minute one.

Sequence breaking like this doesn’t happen in any huge way though, due to how each level is an entirely separate area of its own. Likewise, most of these ability/weapon barriers lead to optional bonus areas that are slightly off the beaten path.

Linear level design isn’t inherently bad, but in this case I think it was a huge missed opportunity. Not only is there a parallel real world vs Limbo premise that has Donte shift from a greyscale, mundane city into a colourful, chaotic image of itself, that Limbo dimension has the ability to change in real time. If the level designers allowed players to shift from dimension to dimension in-game, a la Soul Reaver, or if they had just played up the “living city” concept in a more interactive way, the city would have been much more interesting and, ironically, feel much more alive than it does. Instead we got a linear, albeit pretty, collection of corridors with very little off the beaten path. DmC incentivizes exploration by hiding collectables, but “exploration” ultimately means turning left where you should turn right to find a Lost Soul behind a bin.

One place where they ALMOST got it right is the first Slurm Virility factory level. After a cutscene showing a mixing room, Donte and Kat break from the tour, slowly jog down some empty, boring hallways in to an equally empty and boring warehouse. Dante can’t attack or jump in this section, and there is absolutely nothing to interact with. It’s an unfortunately uninteresting forced walking section, only one small step above being an unskippable cutscene. Kat then sprays her squirrel jizz magic circle on the ground, Donte enters the Limbo version of the level, the room expands and the crates become platforms, and the level really begins from there. For reasons I never understood, Donte then has to take a huge route up sets of boxes and across dozens of different rooms to circle back on the way he came in. On the way back, he backtracks down the Limbo version of the boring hallways of before, except now they’re slightly less boring, with a few enemies to fight and moving walls and floors. Then you get to the mixing room (which is only shown in a cutscene) for a brawl, before moving on.

The reason this didn’t work as well as it could have are twofold. 1: You only see the real world version of a tiny portion of the level, and 2: said portion is boring as fuck and you don’t interact with it in any meaningful way. But hey, at least the idea was there.

Moments where the living city concept is pushed to the side for more one-off but more effectively done ideas can be found in the upside-down prison, the short prelude to the Bob Barbas fight and Lilith’s rave.

The upside-down prison starts off fairly strong, tapping into one of those childhood ideas we all idly wondered about; what if gravity suddenly shifted? The level starts off strong and has moments throughout that give a trippy sense of vertigo. Mostly this is with car and train bridges, but unfortunately loses the point as it progresses. Because the prison isn’t just upside-down, but is also in Limbo, gravity is already unreliable and the bottomless pit below the floor already looks like the sky. Similarly with the lead up to the boss fight with Poison that has you run “down” a vertical pipe, it all looks floaty and weird by default, making further attempts to be floaty and weird just seem...normal. Likewise, the prison is mostly comprised of bland, urban and industrial textures, completely interchangeable with any old warehouse. You quickly forget that you’re upside-down at all.

The setting also well outstays it’s welcome, taking up 4 entire levels to itself with not enough ideas to justify it. There’s even one moment where, after meeting Fineas, you’re told you need to follow a flock of harpies to find their lair....even though their lair is a completely linear set of halls...That says it all really; there was a fun idea in here, but it was executed without the same creativity.

Following that is the tragically short Bob Barbas prelude. THIS is one of the single most interesting concepts in level design I have ever seen. Seriously. I cannot think of any other game that took news graphics and idents and turned them into platforming sections. Even moments during the fight where Donte is dropped into news chopper footage manage to do something brilliantly original, stylish and funny. But as quickly as it came, it’s gone before you know it. It’s a fucking crime that the previous 4 levels didn’t use the same concept to break up the monotony of their urban corridors. They could have had Donte teleport around chunks of the level using the various TV screens with Bob Barbas propaganda on them, hopping across idents until he got to the other side. Shame.

Next up, almost in a moment of clarity from the designers when they realized that could do digital environments and cheesy tv show graphics in their game more than once, we have Lilith’s nightclub. Again, much more interesting than the living city stuff, albeit a bit harsh on the eyes with its lighting effects. There’s not much to say about it beyond “it looks cool”, but it’s worth mentioning that it feels much more focused and fully utilized than the upside-down prison. All in all. the level design in DmC is at odds with itself, marked by its lost potential. The concepts are interesting, but the execution is almost always lackluster, favouring hand-holdy linear hallways with “cinematic” qualities over more interactive, open spaces with a sense of place. For a game that, pre-release, seemed to want to show us a more fleshed out world than previous games, it winds up as little more than a flat backdrop.

But oh well, DMC is all about the action happening center stage, right?

Combat

Combat in DmC is a mix bag.

The number of different attacks available and Donte’s versatility at chaining moves across 5 different weapons is pretty great. I’m a fan of how you can swap special pause combos across your alternate weapons; two quick hits with Rebellion, a pause, then a final triple smash with Arbiter takes a little extra skill to pull off but rewards you with a faster combo than if you just used Arbiter alone. Likewise, little tweaks like how fast Drive can charge now and how it does actual damage unlike Quick Drive in DMC4, or how you can hold Million Stab for longer, are all mostly fun changes. I tend to have a lot of fun with Osiris and find it to be the most versatile weapon for pulling off different combos. Its ability to charge up the more hits it delivers is a good incentive to hook in as many enemies as possible too, even if it means its uncharged state doesn’t do enough damage. Aquila is a fun supplementary weapon, mostly good for distracting one enemy with the circle attack and pulling the rest into range for Osiris. Eryx, however, is rubbish. Its incredibly short range, long charge times and weak damage output really throw it onto the trash pile when Arbiter is right beside it. Also, personal taste, but it just looks stupid. It’s like a slimy set of Hulk Hands. And they don’t even yell “HULK SMASH” when you attack. Previous DMC gauntlets all include a gap-closing dive attack to put you in enemy range, but the Demon Grapple doesn’t work the large enemies you’ll want to use it against. More on that in a bit.

Guns are mostly pointless. Donte can move laterally so much easier than before that long range combat is redundant. Charge shots with Ebony & Ivory are like Eryx in that they take too long to charge and don’t do enough damage to be worth the wait. Also, because you need to be in a neutral, non-demon non-angel, state to fire them, charging them up while you wail on someone only works if you limit yourself to Rebellion. Switching to Demon or Angel weapons resets the charge and limits you to a grapple move.

Which leads to another problem; 4 of your 5 weapons disable the use of guns. I mean, you’re not missing out on much by the end anyway because the guns are boring and ineffectual to use against all but one enemy (the Harpy), but it feels like a mistake. They literally give you guns in cutscenes as an afterthought. Like when Vurgil goes “oh yeah, have this, it’ll kill the next few enemies really quickly then sit in your back pocket for all eternity thereafter”. Donte never feels like he’s earning these guns like he earns the melee weapons, and they never seem to be worth a damn in gameplay.

The grapples are more useful but, again, having two different types feels redundant in combat. Large enemies can’t be pulled towards you, so why not do what DMC4 did and have one grapple that does both jobs; pull small enemies towards you, pull yourself towards larger enemies? The end result in either scenario is to get in melee range, so it shouldn’t make that much of a difference. Considering Aquila has a special attack to pull enemies in, why not offload those moves to the other weapons too? If you want to keep both pull-in and pull-towards moves in combat, why not give, say, Eryx a special pull-in attack so you can swap back to guns easier?

In short; while the combat is versatile and very satisfying to pull off combos with, large parts of it feel badly thought out. The moves and weapons that end up being useless most of the time have enemies spawn after you unlock them, just as an excuse to show how they work.

The infamous “demon attacks for red enemies, angel attacks for blue enemies” gimmick actually wasn’t as bad as I expected. Until I had to fight a Blood Rage and a Ghost Rage at the same fucking time. I don’t think I need to get into it due to how many other people have complained, but it was just fucking infuriating to say the least.

Okay, so.....Devil May Cry 3 did it better. Most people don’t seem to know this, but DMC3 gave you damage bonuses if you used the right weapon against the right enemies, signified by a subtle particle effect. Nowhere in the enemy or weapon descriptions does it explain this, but if you use your head (or just experiment) you can generally figure it out. Beowulf is a light weapon, Doppelganger is a shadow monster, using light on it does extra elemental damage signified by a flash effect with each hit. Cerberus is an ice weapon, Abysses are liquidy enemies, so using ice on it freezes them, signified by an icicle effect. etc But most importantly; it never STOPS you from using the “wrong” weapon against enemies. I don’t think I need to go into how annoying it is when your combat flow is interrupted by your angel weapon PINGing off a red enemy, but god damn it.

Credit where credit is due; Ninja Theory did emphasize the right part of DMC’s combat when they opted to focus on combos over balance. Both 3 and 4 had broken combos and attacks that skilled players could easily pull off, but they would make combat boring and the games all emphasized an honour system to prevent abuse. If you were good enough to use Pandora to break enemy shields in 4, you were good enough to not abuse it.

Then again, a games combat is only as good as its enemies.

Enemies/Bosses

So it’s a real shame then that enemies and bosses don’t push you hard enough.

The AI is atrocious. NO hack n’ slash should have two hardcore enemies accidentally kill each other without you noticing. The mixing room in the Slurm levels pits you against two Tyrants/the big fat dudes who charge at you. There’s an easy-to-avoid pitfall in the middle of this room. Once, on hard mode no less, they spawned in as usual and one accidentally nudged the other into the pit, insta-killing him while I literally stood still and watched...

Most regular man-sized enemies (Stygians, Death Knights, and their variations) have a common problem of just not attacking first, opting to side step around you forever until you run at them. Luckily there usually is one aggressive enemy mixed in there, like the flying guys with guns or the screamy-chainsaw men, so you’ll be forced to dodge into their range, but it’s embarrassing when they’re isolated. You’re left standing there, charging a finishing attack with Eryx like you have your dick in your hand, and these things are just strafing around you, doing nothing. So you miss with Eryx, step forward, and anti-climatically twat them about with Rebellion just to get it over with.

At first I thought this combat shyness was a design choice, but then it happened with the final boss, revealing it to be a pathfinding bug. But more on that later...

So yes, the red/blue enemy gimmick is bullshit and breaks the flow of a room-sweeping combo you have going, but it actually works really well with the Witch enemy who hangs back, projecting shields onto other enemies while she snipes at you from a distance. She’s annoying to hunt down when you’re dealing with 10 other enemies, so you have to prioritize whether you want to plough through them first or clumsily chase her down first. It’s a nice dynamic to fights, adding that extra layer of strategy to mix things up in a less punishing way.

The main difference with the Witch and the other colour coded enemies is that the Witch gives you options. Blood/Ghost Rages do not, and make fights involving them feel like complete chores. You’ll find the one tactic that works, then rely on it every time.

No, the most egregious enemies were the bosses.

All of them, every single one, was terrible. Not including the Dream Runner mini-bosses, there was a total of 6, less than any of the other DMCs, which makes how sloppily designed they were all the more horrendous. Every single boss is formulaic, partitioned out into “segments” cut up by mini cutscenes that have Donte do something sassy when he works them down enough. But each of those segments tend to have Donte repeat the same, boring, tired tactic until the fight is over. Bob Barbas is the worst example; jump over his beams, use that one Eryx attack to slam into the nonsensical floor buttons, wail on him for a third of his health bar, kill 10 minor enemies in his news world, repeat two more times.

No matter what difficulty you’re on, these bosses never manage to be a challenge due to how placid they are. They will always accommodate their little “formula” you need to solve to beat them.

It’s baffling, because the previously mentioned Dream Runner mini-bosses are great. They’re aggressive, reactive, open to almost any combo you can outwit them with, and don’t force you to repeat the same set of steps in every encounter.

Vurgil on the other hand....

So, here we are, the grand finale. The ultimate evil has revealed itself, and it’s your own brother! You’re clearly a badass because you just took down Satan himself along with his army, so surely the only thing left that could challenge you is your more experienced twin.

Well, he would, if his AI didn’t start the show by consistently suffering from that same pathfinding bug that makes minor enemies interminably strafe around you. So far so good for my first playthrough. So I attack him, maybe hit him 5 times before a min-cutscene rears its head because I’ve suddenly made it into the next stage. Same thing happens once or twice. Then, somehow, Vurgil’s model freezes in the air during one of his attacks. He hangs there indefinitely until I attack him again. Then, at the end of the fight where he’s summoned a clone (because he can do that apparently, not that he’s ever so much as referenced the fact) so his real self can take a knee and heal, I’m supposed to use Devil Trigger to move him out of the way and finish the job (though, I don’t understand why the real Vurgil isn’t also thrown into the air). I do so, but the clone lingers on the ground for a moment, trying to attack me before just zipping into the sky; another bug. I attack the real Vurgil, but nothing happens at first. I keep wailing on him, hoping that one of my attacks will eventually collide and then, -Scene Missing-, the final cutscene of the battle plays.

Do I need to say any more? Do you see what a fucking mess the boss fights are? The final battle for humanity, the emotional crux of the story, the update to the final unsurpassed boss fight of DMC3, reduced to a buggy, embarrassing slap fight that gave me four glitches on my first playthrough.

The whole thing bungled the climax of its story. But, then again, was the story really that sacred to begin with....

Concept and Story

I promise I will not use the word “edgy” here.

Satire and social commentary, no matter how cartoonish, is a weird fit in a Devil May Cry game. DMC2 had an evil businessman too, and 4 ended with you punching the Pope in the face, but neither seemed to say anything substantial against capitalism or religion. They existed in a much more fantastical place, where any sort of commentary was aimed at a more philosophical target. “What makes us human? What makes us into demons? What is hell like? Is family more important than what you feel is right?” The previous games are all centered around a much more personal, individualistic identity crisis, and not any sort of populist, society-wide problems.

DmC brings up surveillance states, the most recent economic crisis and late-capitalism, soft drink addiction/declining nutrition, news manipulation, the prison industrial complex, conspiracy culture, populous revolt, some scant mentions of mental institutions, hacktivism, and the Occupy Movement. These topics, all of which are pretty damn serious and warrant long discussions, are simply decoration for a story about fantasy demons secretly running the world They Live style. Hell, it basically IS They Live, only the aliens are demons and the tools of control are more contemporary. (somehow there’s nothing about the internet in there though...)

All in all, its treatment of modern issues is childishly simple at best and cynical at worst. Sure, the game presents itself as defying capitalism and social engineering via advertising, but it then goes on to launch an ad and hype campaign bigger than any of the previous games, spanning across billboards, phone apps, social media promotion, the usual games media rounds and expensive pre-rendered television commercials. Hell, they even had an ad for their ad! All of this amid a gigantic fan backlash and in-fighting with games journalists on whether people were mad about Donte’s hair colour of if they were just outrightly entitled.

The fact that lead designer and writer Tameem Antoniades responded to this backlash and feedback by tweeking Donte’s design and adding in a random moment were a wig literally drops out of the sky onto Donte’s head for a jab at this “controversy” says something about the intent he had with his story; There is no real political statement behind DmC, it simply pulls from what was in the news at the time, and uses it as fodder for an otherwise archetypal plot.

The problem is that it tries to do this while also talking about hellish demons, heavenly angels and earthly humans. Well, mostly demons, because the angels are absent from the plot and Donte doesn’t seem to have any sort of Angel Trigger, and the only named human character is Kat, who doesn’t have much ploy within the story; she’s there to be rescued, and provide minimal help with a pat on the back from Donte. So demons rule the world, the angels are absent, and the people who suffer are us lowly humans. But it’s a half-demon, half-angel who “saves” us all/reduces the city to rubble, while all us humans can do is post about it on Twitter. Doesn’t sound very empowering to me.

The main villain should say it all. He’s some sort of businessman/oligarch/banker/economist/military commander/mayor/Satan, but he makes the undeniable point that he gave human civilization it’s structure. He has a wife he at least somewhat cares about, and a child he has high hopes for. He (and his wife) shows more emotion than any of our protagonists, and they have more at stake than anyone else, with a genuine vision for the future no less. So, when he very reasonably asks Donte what his goal is, all Donte can say is “freedom” and “revenge”, then continue to childishly taunt him when pressed further. I could go on about how unhealthy the obsession with the post-apocalypse our generation has is, but suffice to say; Donte is not someone to look up to.

Donte himself, and by extent his story, has no real ideological motivation behind him despite being dressed up as an anarchist. His motivations and arch as a character are no less two dimensional than the original Dante, but now manage to be over-stated and hamfisted, with an added veneer of “politics”. Vurgil points how much he’s supposedly changed right before the final boss fight, but how he changes doesn’t include a strong statement of intent. What does Donte want? Fucked if I know! Fucked if he knows.

All of this says nothing about how...well....plain bad the writing is. The dialogue is famously cringeworthy and the plot has more holes than a sponge.

If Mundus was hunting Donte to kill him this whole time, why can’t he find him despite having multiple cameras aimed directly at this house? Why didn’t he just kill him when Donte was in the orphanage run by “demon scum”? Where was Vurgil this whole time? Why does Kat need to hit the Hunter with a molotov? Actually, what the fuck is she doing in the real world while this is happening? Are people just ignoring this pixie girl throwing bottles around a pier? What’s that weird dimension Donte goes into to unlock new powers? If it’s his own head, why are Mundus’ demons in it? And why would it change his weapons? Why doesn’t he have an Angel Trigger? If Vurgil can do all that cool shit he does in his boss fight at the end, including opening a fucking portal to another dimension, why does he need to rely on Kat to hop dimensions earlier on? Or rely on anyone for that matter? Why does he have white hair when he’s born, but Donte has black hair until the end? If Mundus is immortal, why does he need an heir? Why does time randomly slow down after Vurgil shoots Lilith? How did Kat know the layout of so many floors in Mundus’ tower? Surely he didn’t give her a tour of the whole building, right? Did Donte and Vurgil fuck the entire planet by releasing demons into earth and destroying world economics and governments? Or are there pre-existing governments anyway?

Seriously, I could go on forever.

Beyond basic plot, logic and diegetic continuity (the rules of DmC’s world, and how it suspends your disbelief), you get into more subjective questions like “is Donte a likable character?”

I, perhaps surprisingly, think he is. He’s such a tryhard asshole for the majority of his game, never stopping to think about what he’s doing or to engage with the They Live world he lives in that he is, honestly, a bit adorable. He’s not someone I’d ever have the patience to hang out with in real life, but he is at least consistent. He’s a total lughead and he almost blows up the planet, but it makes sense that a nihilistic, “act first, think later” bro would do that.

And I think that sums up his story too; dumber than it thinks, but entertaining all the same. It’s a different kind of dumb than the original games, a kind of dumb that stares at the camera wall-eyed instead of with a sideways wink.

Conclusion

As of writing, I consider Devil May Cry to be dead as a series. With no solid news from Capcom on further projects for 7 years now, DmC: Devil may Cry is the swansong of the entire franchise. Well, beyond shitty cameo costumes in Dead Rising 4, or pachinko machines or whatever.

Likewise, more recent hack n slash series like Bayonetta, Metal Gear Rising and Nier: Automata have risen to challenge Devil May Cry for its crown, and without something better than Ninja Theory’s efforts to stop them, they’ll probably get it.

DmC is not a complete trainwreck. It’s enjoyable, worth the second hand price and 10+ hours of your time. It’s entertaining in a similar way a bad film is; so long as you don’t expect too much from it, you’ll have a laugh. Let go of your bitterness with Ninja Theory and Tameem and you’ll poke fun at it in a less mean-spirited way then your fan rage wants you to. DMC deserved to end on a better note than this, but.....honestly....fuck it. Capcom probably couldn’t make anything much better themselves these days anyway.

Treat DmC like a pug; malformed and lumpy, probably should have been neutered a generation ago, but funny to look at and play with, even though it’s covered in its own slobber.

[gamenaffection]

My thoughts on Final Fantasy XV

Final Fantasy XV has been one hell of a ride. I consider it a decent Final Fantasy game based on my experience with it.

My last main FF title I played was FF12 when it was first released. Sadly, I did not enjoy that FF title. From start to finish, I was just not having fun, I literally had to force myself just to see how it ends, because I hate leaving games unfinished. 

FFXV was not the case, I was enjoying the whole experience of the guys and their long journey to reclaim the throne. I want to talk about the positives I've seen with this game, but then there are the negatives, they are such an eye sore that do damage to the experience in some ways. I'm sure most players have experience glitches along the way with this game. Here are the glitches I experienced: the camera being locked in place for starters. No matter what direction I move with the right joy stick, the camera stays locked in place. Forcing me to leave a dungeon, reload my save, or fast travel to somewhere else in order to fix this issue. Not being able to pick up items off of the ground was another annoying issue I ran into. Then there's the admantoise boss battle... ...it was such a damn mess. Can't believe this huge boss battle was unchecked. You can tell it was literally thrown in the last minute.

While on the subject of negative things I found in FFXV, there were a couple of things that bothered me from the story. The most common issue is how certain scenes or events happened in game, and were never shown in game what really happened. For example, Gladiolus leaves the party and comes back later on. Of course, this is later on mentioned that you will get to see his story as a part of DLC. While I'm glad we are getting an answer to this, it's not an answer that is "Free of charge". It's just ridiculous to me that they cut out important events like this all because of dumb reasons. And I'm sure making the players pay up, might be one of those reasons. 

Comparing this to my experience with the previous FF games, it's just silly. It's like, cutting out that one part in FFVII where Cloud leaves the party and he just comes back like nothing happened. At this point when it's things like this, I would have to agree with other,s to an extent, when they say, "I have to remind myself this isn’t a Final Fantasy game.." You sometimes have to keep this in mind just to not be so harsh on this game, but it's difficult for me and a lot of other players who feel the same. 

My other main complaint is how they handled Luna's story. For an important character in the game, we knew very little about her, or how Noctis really felt about her. [I have read the recent article explaining this. It was still a poor excuse. ] There are rumors saying that they butchered her backstory due to "complaints" about it, but we will never really know. Just only going based on an assumption that others pointed out from a poll. Finishing off this talk about negative comments for this game, I have this to say: this is the end result of being in development hell for 10 years.

This is why I don't go on an angry rant or whine all day about the bad things. Because I knew, and many others saw this coming as well, that this game was going to be an incomplete experience, one way or another. I'm still bothered by the fact, it could have been a whole lot better. And I feel that, others felt a little cheated from this experience. Unlike the previous FF titles, you got the full experience. 

Even with all that has been said, I still enjoyed this game. It is memorable for what it was. I fell in love with the main characters, and to me, that doesn't happen often. There are other RPGs where I will maybe like one or two characters, and that's it. But this time, I loved their company. The boys were real to me. They were alive. Over time they grew on you and you learned so much about their personalities, and the way they interacted with each other. They reminded you of hanging out with friends, and I'm glad when games make characters relate able or remind you of the good things from your life.

 Top notch voice acting was a major influence. Both the dubbed and the subbed versions. Even after platinuming the game, and moved onto another game. I miss their chatter. I miss...the guys and their voices. Because I'm so familiar with the many things they say.  When voice acting is that memorable, you know they delivered a good voice acting experience. The battle system I knew I was going to love from the start, it's done by the same team who handles the Kingdom Hearts games. The amount of content is there, and even harder challenges exists so you will be there for quite a while if you're the type of person that wants to complete it all. My game file is at 147 hours. That shows how much love and time I spent on that game. I admit at first, I thought Prompto taking photos was silly. But over time, I realized that he can sometimes take some really amazing photos. This feature added onto the experience of sharing with others on social media. It was a way to share the journey with your friends IRL. 

The moogle chocobo carnival event was a nice touch. I loved the fact that anything you got from that event, it was also carried over onto the main game. That mariachi outfit is priceless in cutscenes. And last, but not least. The music to this game. The wonderful Yoko Shimomura brings out the best in this OST, I fell in love with the battle themes. And let's not forget the track, Somnus.

Overall, even though it had it’s flaws. I considered it one of my top favorite FF titles. It didn’t replace my love for Final Fantasy VII[my first FF] but it came close to it. I want to be positive and hope, the FF7 remake is treated well. But truth is, I’m very doubtful. We will find out later on when it’s actually released.

[noahcopeland-blog]

I have feelings for a game no one cares about: Legend of Kay Anniversary

I just finished playing The Legend of Kay: Anniversary. 

So basically, this was a game from 2005 that I would have played that crap out of as a kid, expect it was PS2 only (I was a Gamecube kid).

So about a year ago, they remastered it and released it on Wii U. Saw it at GameStop, got serious Ty the Tasmanian Tiger vibes from the box art, and bought it instantly. I had literally no knowledge of this game before then. Never even heard of it, and I don’t think most people have either. But I’m happy to say that I have enjoyed it!

So here comes the part where I needlessly analyze this game that only 6 people have played. 

TONE/WRITING:

The game is about a cat named Kay whose land gets invaded by these nasty rats and gorillas who plan to enslave everyone. Kay, of course, takes it upon himself to stop it. The whole game takes place in a very Asian inspired world of martial arts and Buddhist temples.

But one thing that is striking is that this game is completely tone-deaf with it’s narrative direction. I get the vibe that they are three different departments with three different interpretations of what the story should feel like.

Voice Director/Casting Director: “This is for little kids, so that’s get an 8-year-old to voice our lead hero, and make all the other voices really goofy and cartoony!”

Script Writer: “Let’s go super edgey with this and make our characters swear and make brutal threats of murder and decapitation! Also, add in alcohol.” 

Game Director/Story Director: “Let’s go for a good, balanced tone. One that’s kid friendly, but not goofy and soft. Think 4Kids Ninja Turtles maybe.”

Really though, it seems like no one was one the same page here. You get the feeling that the game wanted to be right-in-the-center tonally, but the voice acting got pulled in the extreme kiddy direction and the dialogue got pulled in the opposite direction.

Seriously, the titular hero, Kay, is voiced but what sounds like a very young child and it’s kinda embarrassing. Then, out of a nowhere, Kay starts swearing (in a very cringey edge-lord way, too) and it’s couldn’t feel more juxtaposed. 

Who thought this was a good idea? Were these guys just riding off the Jak II hype wave? “Jak II was a platformer with swearing and it was successful!”

Maybe Jak II’s darker, humanoid world found a way to get away with it, but the world of Legend Of Kay, with its fuzzy fur-ball characters, just can’t pull it off.

GAMEPLAY

This game really feels straight out of 2005. Definitely from a bygone era. And you know what? It’s an era that I miss. Legend of Kay has what I would expect, and want. It’s a third-person mascot platformer with action and adventure elements. Platforming, powerups, puzzles, combat, combos, exploration, hidden goodies, and a bunch of other things that were standard tropes of the genre in the 2000′s before 3D platformers faded into unjust obscurity (only to be replaced by a tiring barrage of first-person shooters).

The final boss feels exactly the way a final boss should. It’s big, epic, and you feel the that whole game is leading up to it. It’s great sense of excitement when you’re fighting the last boss, and great sense of accomplishment when you beat it. Not saying that modern games don’t do this ever, but it seemed so much more like an unspoken rule back then. It was expected and you were disappointed if it wasn’t there. Over time, I feel like developers tried doing different things for their final boss, perhaps solely for the sake of “avoiding cliches.” 

Let’s talk about combat. I think you can judge a game’s combat system on a “pre-Arkham” and “post-Arkham” scale. This game, of course, is pre-Arkham, and the combat system is pretty unique. 

Basically, if you get some combos going, you enter a new state of combat, where you zip around freely from one foe to the next, simply to how Arkham would do it four years later (and get ridiculous amounts of praise for it). It’s hard to put into words, but there’s definitely an “aha!” moment when you get a feel for the combat. There’s certain flow to it that is almost zen. 

While the combat does get repetitive and is unfair at times, it’s still a neat system that I’d like to see another game try to perfect.

You start with a sword, but you get two other weapons throughout the game: a big fat hammer and a set of Wolverine-esque claws. You be able to upgrade these weapons too, making them stronger which is a nice sense of progression. However, the claws are pretty useless, despite looking really cool. Immediately after you get them, you’ll use them to cut some bamboo and then will likely never see them again. They suck in battle and are less powerful than your standard sword. Why?

Moving on, there are definitely some weird gameplay moments of clunkyness that would have been unacceptable even at the time. For example: If you pull yourself up from a ledge grab on a moving platform, the platform will just move on without you and you’ll “pull” yourself up onto nothing and just fall through thin air. 

There’s also these weird colored diamonds that you can collect to increase your score. But to my knowledge, your score does absolutely nothing. You get no bonus for having a high score. It is literally just a number. Why?

As mentioned earlier, the voice acting is just terrible, and it really hurts how long winded some of the characters can be. At times, they talk just to talk. They don’t say anything of real value. Almost every time you run into enemies, the game stops to give you a “cutscene.” And by “cutscene,” I mean you sit and watch the enemies stand still in a defensive stance while they say five or six lines about how they want to hurt/beat/kill you. 

But in an odd way, part of me likes that. It gets too long and repetitive because it happens nearly every fight, but I like the attempt to make your enemies feel like characters with personalities. 

Speaking of making enemies feel more real, Legend of Kay has an interesting obsession with perma-death. Seriously, if you kill an enemy, his corpse will lay there infinitely. You can leave an area, turn off the game, load back up the save, go back to the area, and his body will still be lying right where you killed it. It’s feels more grim that way. In other platformers of the time, you’d kill an enemy and their body would fade out or disappear in smoke. But in Legend of Kay, the perma-death makes you start to feel the weight of your actions. You can’t just kill something and sweep the body away to instantly forget about. Nope, that body will always be there. Dang, that is some heavy stuff for a 2005 platformer.

One last thing. Legend of Kay does something that I hate in video games.  After you beat the game, loading your save file puts you right before the final boss forever. I hate that. I’ve always appreciated it when game will load you back to the hub-world and let you see the world in peace. At the very least, give me a level select list and let me replay levels I didn’t 100%. That brings me to my next point of discussion.

REMASTER:

I get the vibe that this 2015 remaster version had almost zero budget. Seriously, look at the back cover of the box. It looks like it was made in Photoshop in 10 mins. I’m not exaggerating. 

It’s doesn’t look terrible, it just looks like it cost almost nothing to make. This is not the work of a graphic designer. This is one of the programmers making it the day before the game ships.

Look at the text! It’s a plain as it gets.

Compare it to the original 2005 box art.

I didn’t play the original, but I get the vibe that almost no changes were made to the gameplay. Certainly not any big ones. Aside from some up-res’d textures, this the original 2005 Legend of Kay, warts and all. There were a lot of little things here and there that would go a long way into improving the game. Simple things that I’d imagine would be easy fixes. But this ain’t Majora’s Mask on 3DS. This is a graphical fix only.

OVERALL

Overall, I really enjoyed my time with Legend of Kay: Anniversary. It’s not going to happen, but I would love to see a new Ledgend of Kay game in 2017 or sometime in the future. This is a relatively forgotten franchise that I think could use new life. In fact, you could use it’s obscurity to your advantage. The world and characters are already built, but there are hardly any preconceived notions to worry about. 

As much as I hate this word, this experience was “nostalgic” for me in a special way. It’s a game I didn’t play as a kid, but feels 100% like a game I would have played as kid. It was great to take a trip back to 2000′s era gaming without re-playing through a game that I’ve already seen a hundred times. It’s a new experience from an old era. And boy, I do miss that era.

You’re alright, Legend of Kay. You’re alright. 

(Now bring on Yooka-Laylee)