#media that has well mixed plot and character development my beloved

[misty-feathers]

i love you ds9 murder mystery with flashbacks and learning about the backstory of some mcs

showstopping amazing incredible truly

[thefrostqueen]

Hanyo no Yashahime

Season 1 Review

It’s review time

Hanyo no Yashahime is the sequel to the classic anime InuYasha, in which a teen from present day travels back to Feudal Japan where demons and magic are very much a reality. The sequel follows the children of the main characters from InuYasha and puts them on their own adventure to save the world.

Note: All opinions are my own. This is a critical review of entertainment media, and will include criticism. If you do not agree, then simply ignore.

The Plot

Early on, it was established that Towa and company would seek out the dream butterfly and get back Setsuna’s dreams/sleep. Treekyo told them they would have to defeat Sesshomaru and Kirinmaru. After many episodes, this plot line was unimportant and almost discarded. Passing and fleeting, the true motive of the girls quest is sporadic and mentioned sparingly, and for many episodes it seemed they were only there to slay high level demons.

Mysteries and questions were extremely abundant and established early on, and as the episodes went by, it was clear they wouldn’t be answered. At least this season. One thing the fandom has noticed is how many questions there are, and how in some crazy way sunrise managed to withhold all answers and key plot points from the plot for so long. Treekyo? Not that important apparently. Her prophecy? Never mentioned again. The dream butterfly? Seen not explained. It’s connection to Kirinmaru and Zero? Contradicted in the show. InuYasha and Kagome? Just as forgotten as Moroha when there is a fight.

The pacing of this show was all over the place and inconsistent, providing too much focus on filler in some episodes and not enough plot in others. And in the episodes where we got to come back to the main story, we would get info dumps. I mentioned in my mid-season review how info dumps are cheap in the scheme of writing and plot outline, and I’ll say it again because I was surprised as the episodes went on how inconsistent everything was getting.

Now, don’t get me wrong, InuYasha had lots of fillers too, but unlike Yashahime, they established a lot of exposition and plot within the first 12 episodes; we got the main characters and their ambitions/conflicts, the main villain, the dual antagonist (Sesshomaru, at least he was a villain for a bit anyway) and the basics of the magic system was established and explained. Yashahime did set up the character’s goals, but the character’s quickly seemed to forget them, while in InuYasha their goal of finding the jewel shards was always at the forefront of the majority of the episodes. The main villain was supposedly Kirinmaru (his careless attitude throughout most of the show did not provide the antagonistic “high stakes”) and he sent demons to battle the girls, but the girls were so overpowered and perfected their powers so quickly that the demons provided no real challenge or added any stakes or drama.

The ability/powers of characters were retconned. This was odd and not something I expected. One of the most notable examples is how certain abilities are apparently genetic and inherited through dna instead of through the swords that harbored them like the original series established. An example is Moroha’s “Crimson Backlash Wave” where it mimics the ability Tessaiga has where it sends an opponent’s own demonic attack right back at them, destroying them with their own demonic energy. Moroha does not use Tessaiga, she uses Kurikaramaru. The backlash wave was said to be unique to Tessaiga, and only able to be used with Tessaiga, but that lore was weirdly chosen to be retconned. It is unclear wether or not this will be expanded upon in season 2.

In episode 19 of Yashahime, there was blatant homophobia and transphobia. No excuse, there was. InuYasha also had homophobic and transphobic characters. Yashahime could have changed that, but it perpetuated that instead, and it was extremely disappointing. In episode 20, Shiori, a beloved character from the original series, is shown changing into her human form during a solar eclipse. Yashahime chose to whitewash the character by lightening her dark skin. In InuYasha, several characters had darker skin, like InuYasha himself, and when he turned into his human form, his skin would stay the same. There is no excuse for this. Both of these episodes blighted Yashahime’s potential to step away from those things, but it continued to do it instead.

The final episode of the show was fast and full of unanswered questions. The dream butterfly was still not explained, Rin did not wake up, InuYasha and Kagome were not even mentioned, let alone released, and Kirinmaru parented Towa and Setsuna better than their own father. Zero flees, using spider silk (she strangely has many parallels with Naraku, even down to spider imagery) and sets herself up to be the main villain. And Setsuna dies, and Sesshomaru doesn’t seem that worried at all. It was interesting however to see Kirinmaru fight the girls, and he basically began teaching them about their moves and powers. Another interesting aspect was how Sesshomaru is apparently, potentially, time traveling. He shows up and hands Towa the Tensiaga, and the rain stops, and when she takes it, the rain starts again. Towa looks up and it is shown Sesshomaru has vanished instantaneously.

The Characters

Towa Higurashi: In the first two episodes, Towa was portrayed as a tomboy who kicked ass and cared for her family. She was confident and had ambition. Once she came to the feudal era however, her entire personality changed. Her surroundings and the people/beings she met were indeed something she had never encountered, but she suddenly became a moralist, and cautioned Setsuna and Moroha to never fight, despite she herself being notorious in modern day for fighting bullies and bad people. It is almost like her fighting persona in modern day had never happened. Overall, it felt her character was overly gullible, and though she meant well, her sudden drop from “school fighter” to “naive moralist” was odd and seemed to contradict the character they set up in the first three episodes.

Setsuna: Like father like daughter, Setsuna retains her father’s most iconic personality traits, and is focused on her ambitions and remains cautious around people and demons alike. She was, perhaps, the one out of the three princesses to have the most backstory and character focus (despite Towa being the main character) The mystery of her connection with the dream butterfly was genuinely interesting, though it did feel like it dragged on for too long in certain aspects (some lore even felt contradicted) Writing wise, Setsuna felt the most consistently written character of the three girls, both in personality and in development.

Moroha: The perfect mix of her parents, Moroha has had little to few familial relationships and friendships in her life. Her goal of earning money seemed petty at first, but when Moroha finally got her own episode, it was revealed to have a deeper meaning. That episode highlighted Moroha’s strength and perseverance. What was a poor move on behalf of Yashahime’s writers was the strange choice to constantly omit Moroha from vital fights (and even basic fights) It happened pretty much every time, and Moroha was never around for key information about her parents or their quest. It is unclear why her being there for the information would be a bad thing. Her relationship with Towa and Setsuna was shallow, and their bonding had no real emotional impact. In fact, Towa and Setsuna openly mention how they need her for her abilities, not because they like her. The one episode they tried to make them bond fell flat due to the lack of build up and relationship development.

Conclusion

Hanyo no Yashahime was inconsistent and fell flat with several character relationships and motivations. Plot point execution was sporadic and lacked emotional depth and coherent understanding, leaving viewers more confused than awed. Characters from InuYasha were out of character and felt hollow; some of them were not even involved as much as one would think and one didn’t even show up. Kirinmaru is perhaps the most interesting new character to come out of the series, and his respect for the Great Dog Demon has led him to enter a deal with Sesshomaru, and even protect the three princesses. This contradicts several actions he took, and makes a compelling mystery in certain aspects. In conclusion, the show felt rushed and lacked emotional and character depth, and presented several problematic and harmful themes.

Note: Again, all opinions are my own. You are free to comment, but please be respectful.

[miqojak]

15. Recommend us 5 books?

I'm gonna cheat and suggest book series where I can, lol.

1. The Fever series, by Karen Marie Moning. She began as a romance writer, but this series is a BALLER series about the Fae, and all that surrounds them. I didn't much care for the protag, McKayla, all that much at first - very barbie-girl who has everything, her life is a cake-walk and nothing ever goes wrong! She gets what she wants because she's pretty, not smart, etc. But like, holy shit the character development in this series is so good, on top of the stellar lore about the Fae, and the unflinching look at how the Seelie and Unseelie operate. There's ancient monsters, there's gods, there's fae, there's blood, there's even post-apocalyptic fae realm stuff later! This series really hits a lot of likes for me, and the romance bits are well done - talk about slow burn. There's also a LOT of found family in here. But, at times, it does get gritty and dark...it's Fae, after all, and the writer doesn't gloss over the horrible things they do. They're also an easy read, and the books are pretty short. (I promise you that the plot points that come to light at the climax of Mac's tale will be doozies you didn't see coming. So many twists and turns in this story!)

2. The Vampire Chronicles: Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned

I have a long-standing love of vampires, and have a very high bar for what constitutes a good vampire story - Dracula, obviously, being the standard by which I judge most things (I felt it might be weird to suggest Dracula, but it's a good read once you're used to the dry writing style), since Dracula is sort of the traditional vampire, and all. Anne Rice might be a bag of mixed nuts, herself...but her vampires are amazing. And, if you're looking for queer media...well, these are some gay as hell vampires (mlm more often than not, but let's not forget about the bi/pan's out there). Lestat, obviously, is beloved by most who read it. He's a 'bad boy with a heart of gold'...usually. He's not afraid to challenge the status quo, and look fly as fuck while doing it - I mean, he makes his own vampire themed punk band at one point, what's not to love? But where Interview is about romance gone wrong, and the passing on of legacies, Lestat is...well, what 'he' says it is, in the beginning. It's about him. Queen of the Damned isn't as high on my list as the others (though the story of the first vampires is hella, and I'll gladly learn more about Lestat), and I've never read past it in her series, but if you read no others...read the first two...and I'll give Rice this, her writing is beautiful. There are times in which it has definitely sparked something in me, to see how beautifully she phrased things. 3. The Shadow and Bone Trilogy, by Leigh Bardugo

Okay, I know this new show may make the book suggestion seem silly, but wow the books blow the show out of the water! There's so much more to take in, and learn about the universe. There's so many things they gloss over or leave out in the show! The culture of the people in the story is so rich, but...delivered to the reader in a way that really makes it interesting, and not like a fantasy history lesson. The protagonist is, once again, someone I don't much like initially - she feels entitled and stubborn and foolish...because she is, at first. I once played a Pathfinder character like her - chosen by gods for a great deed, through no will of her own, thrust into danger at every turn with a power she didn't ask for...my character hated it, and resented the power and attention for a long time, but seeing this protag go through the arduous journey of having to grow up very fast as a young adult is just so well done, here. It's hard not to wonder 'why would she go along with this' until we realize that she is a naive, young woman who has no idea how to navigate magical politics. And let me tell you, those magical politics are rather intricate, and incredibly interesting. I love a unique magic system, and this one hits that sweet spot for me...especially with how in-depth the books are about it. And turning most fantasy on its head, this is set in a more fantasy-Russia type of setting...really shifting the expectations and cultural norms we're used to seeing in most fantasy. The villain is similarly used to great effect, and never too much - and when we finally do start to learn about him? It's hard not to see how he came to be how he is, and why he thinks he's in the right; almost all villains see themselves as the hero of their own story, after all. (There's also a little queer rep here, as well - think it's mostly wlw this time.) Well worth the read, and not a terribly long read, at that, these 3 books.

4. I was going to suggest The Stormlight Archive, by Brandon Sanderson, but I'm here to say: read anything by Brandon Sanderson, if you like magic/fantasy. I fucking love long books - and I fucking love fiction, and magic and unique magic systems. This world/universe has all of that, plus great characters with amazing character development and complex magic systems. While the Stormlight Archive is its own set of books on its own world, other series of his books are set in the same universe so they are all, technically, interconnected. They all have amazing fantasy stories with wildly unique magic systems that do, at their core...all kind of feel like they might maybe be stemming from something similar, despite their differences? There's a lot of 'give and take' with his systems, there's a lot of exploration of how the magic affects society, and religion. If you lack the time for a whole series, there's other stand alone books (that, guess what, still fall into that universe!), like The Emperor's Soul:

A heretic thief is the empire’s only hope in this fascinating tale that inhabits the same world as the popular novel, Elantris. Shai is a Forger, a foreigner who can flawlessly copy and re-create any item by rewriting its history with skillful magic. Condemned to death after trying to steal the emperor’s scepter, she is given one opportunity to save herself. Though her skill as a Forger is considered an abomination by her captors, Shai will attempt to create a new soul for the emperor, who is almost dead. Probing deeply into his life, she discovers Emperor Ashravan’s truest nature—and the opportunity to exploit it. Her only possible ally is one who is truly loyal to the emperor, but councilor Gaotona must overcome his prejudices to understand that Shai’s forgery is as much artistry as it is deception. Brimming with magic and political intrigue, this deftly woven fantasy delves into the essence of a living spirit.

Excuse me, who doesn't want to read that?? But my favorite stand alone of his is Warbreaker:

Warbreaker is the story of two sisters, who happen to be princesses, the God King one of them has to marry, the lesser god who doesn't like his job, and the immortal who's still trying to undo the mistakes he made hundreds of years ago. Their world is one in which those who die in glory return as gods to live confined to a pantheon in Hallandren's capital city and where a power known as BioChromatic magic is based on an essence known as breath that can only be collected one unit at a time from individual people. By using breath and drawing upon the color in everyday objects, all manner of miracles and mischief can be accomplished. It will take considerable quantities of each to resolve all the challenges facing Vivenna and Siri, princesses of Idris; Susebron the God King; Lightsong, reluctant god of bravery, and mysterious Vasher, the Warbreaker.

It's hard to put my finger on why I like this one so much - hell, I have always wished he'd write more stuff for this world and its magic! But the characters are all so different and unique and really grow throughout the story, and once again you see a lot of magic and politics and how it all connects with religion surrounding that world's magic, and how not only the powerful, but the weak, survive in this sort of world. The characters, the magic system, the setting...this story fits neatly into its own stand alone book, and feels good to finish.

HOWEVER, and I'll make these my last recommendations, as I grow long-winded - if you lack time for even ONE book, read some of his novellas! Here's two I own, and thoroughly enjoyed (both with very different kinds of settings and interactions...and fun magic): Perfect State, and Sixth of the Dusk (I feel like the culture in Sixth could be neat Viera inspiration? I might re-read it, myself.).

Perfect State:

God-Emperor Kairominas is lord of all he surveys. He has defeated all foes, has united the entire world beneath his rule, and has mastered the arcane arts. He spends his time sparring with his nemesis, who keeps trying to invade Kai's world. Except for today. Today, Kai has to go on a date. Forces have conspired to require him to meet with his equal—a woman from another world who has achieved just as much as he has. What happens when the most important man in the world is forced to have dinner with the most important woman in the world?

Sixth of the Dusk:

Sixth of the Dusk, set in a never-before-seen world, showcases a society on the brink of technological change. On the deadly island of Patji, where birds grant people magical talents and predators can sense the thoughts of their prey, a solitary trapper discovers that the island is not the only thing out to kill him. When he begins to see his own corpse at every turn, does this spell danger for his entire culture?

It's taken me a while to do this because I wasn't sure...and then I word vomited, so pardon that. I am very passionate about Brandon Sanderson's work, and while he can get lengthy in his Stormlight Archive books, if thick fantasy tomes aren't for you...well, a lot of his other work is equally as good, and more concise in the delivery. But when I dig into a story? It's nice for me to know there's two thousand more pages of the good stuff coming my way.

[wall-of-history]

BIONICLE 2: Legends of Metru Nui is Still as Beloved as Fans Remember: A Response to Comic Book Resource and Matthew Attanasio

Hey everyone! I’m James, the guy behind Wall of History. I know I rarely drop the facade of my brand on official Wall of History accounts, but today, I’d like to make a more casual, opinionated post on something that’s been getting a lot of attention from the BIONICLE community on Twitter.

Last night, Comic Book Resources posted an article titled “BIONICLE 2: Legends of Metru Nui is Still as Pointless as Fans Remember,” and if you have even a surface-level familiarity with the BIONICLE community, I’m sure you can guess the reaction we had — CBR’s tweet was pretty quickly ratioed by fans, drawing comments like, “Comic book resource [sic] once again proving you do not require a brain to type,” and, “We think that the Vahki would like to have a word with you guys." BIONICLE fans generally agree that Legends of Metru Nui is the best film in the franchise, so claims that we universally “remember” it in such a negative light are completely baseless — I’d like to move past the inflammatory title, however, and analyze the actual contents of the article.

LEGO's decision to focus on prequel material was received as a slap in the face. While fans were ready to see the story press forward, it instead fell backwards to tell stories that held little significance to the ‘present day’ plot of the franchise.

To say that the story of Metru Nui held “little significance” to the plot of the franchise is ridiculous. For three years, fans had been given only vague legends about the origins of the Matoran and their struggle with the Makuta, and after Makuta’s defeat, “pressing forward” meant returning to the world they had left behind following the Great Cataclysm. To introduce us to that world and show us how the Matoran came to be in their present situation was an obvious next step for the story.

That's not to say the various comics and novels didn't deliver interesting stories; they did.

That’s true, they did! However, the rest of this article gives me reason to believe you didn’t actually read them (or, at the very least, didn’t pay attention when you did).

They just weren't what fans craved at the time. Legends of Metru Nui failed to bring anything valuable to the table in this regard, with a sloppy story, terrible pacing and forgettable characters.

There are numerous claims and implications throughout this article (we’ve already glossed over one) that BIONICLE fans generally felt certain ways about this film, as well as this story arc as a whole, but none of these claims are backed up. To blatantly misrepresent the feelings of the community like this is rather poor journalism.

Regarding your claim that Legends of Metru Nui failed to bring anything valuable to the table, I’ll reiterate my point from above — the ending of Mask of Light saw the Matoran take the first steps toward reclaiming their home, a home that had been hidden from us, the fans, since the inception of the franchise. Showing us why and how this home was lost in the first place proved to be a vital step in expanding the scope of the BIONICLE legend. Makuta’s actions in Legends of Metru Nui ended up being the inciting incident for the rest of the story, a story that was largely set in the Matoran Universe introduced by this arc.

Your claim that the film has forgettable characters is, like your claim that fans generally remember this film negatively, demonstrably false. Vakama is widely regarded as one of the best characters, if not the best character, in the franchise (the last post on this very blog is evidence of this), and Nidhiki proved to be so popular that his origin story was later relayed to us twice, in the short story “Birth of a Dark Hunter” and the novel BIONICLE Legends #4: Legacy of Evil.

These new heroes are Vakama, Nokama, Matau, Onewa, Whenua and Nuju, Toa of Fire, Water, Air, Stone, Earth and Ice, respectively. Whereas Mask of Light's Toa Nuva were already fan-favorites, the Toa Metru were a mixed bag, and this film did nothing to help their image. In truth, all three of the main Bionicle films failed to highlight how awesome the Toa could be, which is a shame.

BIONICLE is not the story of the Toa. It’s the story of the Matoran.

In the behind the scenes featurette on the Legends of Metru Nui DVD, the narrator makes the odd claim that both Mask of Light and Legends of Metru Nui are “all about the Toa.” This claim is odd not just because Mask of Light literally isn’t about the Toa (it’s mostly about two Matoran), but also because the Matoran have always been the heart of the franchise — a fact that Legends of Metru Nui comments on.

Many fans feel that Mata Nui: The Online Game is the best BIONICLE media, and it’s a story that largely focuses on the Matoran. You play as a Matoran, you primarily interact with Matoran, you solve Matoran problems… and until the very end, the Toa are mostly off doing their own thing. This makes for a really compelling story, precisely because the Matoran aren’t “awesome” like the Toa. It’s cool when the Toa unite their elemental powers to make the Makuta explode into a pile of scrap metal, but it’s compelling when the Matoran armies, whose leaders previously seemed preoccupied with their own problems, unite to save the ragtag Chronicler’s Company from what would have been a deadly Rahi attack.

The Matoran have always been the emotional heart of the BIONICLE legend (the Toa’s stories do focus on saving them, after all), and Legends of Metru Nui understands this. When Lhikan tells Vakama to “save the heart of Metru Nui,” the Toa Metru immediately assume he’s talking about himself… and that kind of makes sense! Lhikan is, after all, the last Toa, a fearless, noble hero, and the last bastion of light in a city being consumed by shadows. Of course he’s the heart of Metru Nui! The Toa Metru spend most of the film searching for Lhikan, but when they find him, he’s not the hero he used to be anymore — he’s a small, frail Turaga now, and he berates Vakama for seeking out him instead of saving the true heart of Metru Nui, the Matoran. This is a great twist, not only because it finally delivers on some of the spooky foreshadowing from earlier in the film, but also because it sends a clear message to the audience that the Matoran are the heart of this legend.

The plot revolves around Vakama's (voiced by Alessandro Juliani) inner struggle to realize who he is. If that sounds familiar, it's because that was basically the plot of the first Bionicle film, which handled these themes in a much stronger way.

While it’s true that Takua and Vakama both struggle to accept their destinies as Toa, I feel Vakama’s struggle is the stronger of the two, as his is based in the very relatable anxiety of impostor syndrome.

That's largely because Vakama, along with just about every other character in the film, is incredibly boring.

This is one of the comments I mentioned above that makes it hard for me to believe you actually read the comics and novels that tell the rest of the Metru Nui story. Vakama’s character arc is undoubtedly the most complex in the franchise, based in relatable anxieties, and actually has a clear beginning, middle, and end (contrast this with the more repetitive character arcs of the Toa Nuva, who have to learn about the importance of unity several times over before they finally internalize it).

Despite being the protagonist, Vakama has an incredibly erratic and unfocused arc, while Whenua (voiced by Paul Dobson) and Nuju (voiced by Trevor Devall) receive next to no development at all.

This latter statement regarding Whenua and Nuju is true, but I don’t think it works as a criticism of the film, which is clearly meant to focus on Vakama, Lhikan, the Matoran, and the Makuta. Rarely does a film with an ensemble cast give a complete arc to every single character, and if it keeps the film more focused, that’s a good thing.

And whereas the antagonistic Makuta had a consistent, threatening presence in Mask of Light, he's an absolute joke here.

He eats people in this movie!

However, much like Mask of Light, Legends of Metru Nui maintains the problem of poor editing to the point of being laughably bad. There are transitions and cuts that make absolutely no sense. The movie struggles to let scenes settle and develop, with many in the middle lasting no longer than a minute, which is extremely jarring to watch.

Alright, I’ll give you this one — the editing could stand to be a bit more polished. It’s a film that’s trying to juggle quite a few plot threads, though, so I think its ambition makes its editing shortcomings forgivable.

For example, in the comics, writer Greg Farshtey explains why Vakama experiences visions of the future. But in the film, there's no explanation for this at all, making it seem like Vakama has clairvoyant powers out of nowhere (not that his vision [sic] do anything substantial in the film).

This is an extremely odd comment, because it’s just not true on either count. Vakama’s visions are never explained in the comics, but they are explained in the film, barely fifteen minutes in: “Visions can be a sign of madness, yes, or messages from the Great Spirit.”

The claim that Vakama’s visions contribute nothing substantial to the film is also objectively false, since his visions are what compels the team to go after the Great Disks, from which Vakama crafts the Mask of Time.

There are plenty of other small lines and instances that ignore the continuity, like Whenua commenting on how he went from being a Matoran archivist to a Toa fugitive in a day. That's obviously not how it works -- the disk hunt alone takes a while in both the comics and the film, so Whenua's statement makes no sense.

Whenua’s line is, “When I woke up, all I worried about was cataloging.” He does not explicitly claim to have been a Matoran when he woke up. All this line does is show that Whenua thought he’d be able to return to his life as an archivist now that the Morbuzakh and Krahka had both been defeated.

Of course, nowadays, many Bionicle lore scribes have properly allotted the film in the larger Bionicle timeline. But at the time of release, it felt like Legends of Metru Nui was blatantly going against everything that was already happening in the canon, which was upsetting and/or painful to watch.

Do you have a source confirming that fans felt this way at the time? As I briefly discussed earlier, this article is filled with implications that BIONICLE fans in general feel the same way about Legends of Metru Nui that you do (this is even made explicit in the title), but none of these implications are backed up, and this is simply not the case.

For the true fans out there, revisit this film if you want. Just don't expect anything special.

I watched it just the other day and had a great time! And the last time I hosted a stream of it, we all had a great time! And this brings me back to the core issue with this article: the baseless claim, in both the title and contents, that BIONICLE fans generally dislike Legends of Metru Nui. Perhaps it’s odd to write a response like this for what’s probably a pretty harmless article. Perhaps it’s an overreaction. But to see a huge site like CBR publish an article like this, that's not just full of factual inaccuracies, but also misrepresents the feelings of most of this community, is upsetting. To ascribe this kind of negativity to a generally friendly community, a community that so genuinely loves what we love, flaws and all, for some clickbait ad revenue… is upsetting.

[teganberry]

The Disney Princess Dilemma

Kingdom Hearts 3 has been a game filled with massive highs and devastating emotional lows. And while the game is both a critical and financial success for Square Enix, the opinions of dedicated fans have been rather divided. Overall the game is an amazing piece of entertainment, but there is one aspect of the narrative that most fans seem to agree is the game’s biggest flaw, the rather weak portrayal of it’s female characters, in particular Kairi.

Now before I dive in any deeper I want to make a few things clear. Kairi is one of my favourite characters in the Kingdom Hearts series, and has been since I first got into the series well over 15 years ago. As such this post is intended as a character study and discussion, not an excuses to bash on Kairi’s character or Nomura’s ability as a writer. I adore Kairi and I’ve got far too much respect for Nomura as a creative to so thoughtlessly throw hate around. Secondly, while I will be referring to certain character’s as being “Princes” and “Princesses”, shipping has got nothing to do with this, they are simply Disney character archetypes I want to explore. There is no hidden agenda here, just an honest discussion. Alrighty, this is going to be a long one, let’s jump in!

As it stands we have no idea what the future plot of the Kingdom Hearts series holds, the only person who does know is Nomura. Perhaps everything we’ve seen so far is all part of a bigger master plan that will one day blow all our collective minds away. But until then when it comes to the problem surrounding Kairi’s portrayal in Kingdom Hearts 3, the best way we can find the answers for where things potentially went wrong is to look back.

Since I completed the game and begun to see many of the complaints surrounding Nomura’s writing of Kairi, I begun to wonder how had it all come to this. A lot of people have concluded the main issue is that Nomura just doesn’t like Kairi anymore and he no longer knows what to do with her. Personally I don’t think that’s the case. If Nomura really was tired of her and she wasn’t working into his long term plans then he would have written her out of the plot a long time ago. But he didn’t. Kairi has continued to make significant appearances in a majority of the titles in the series. She has been front and centre in the promotional material for Kingdom Hearts 3, a great deal of the the game’s opening was focused on her, (even more so than Aqua which really surprised me), and the ending of the game seemingly sets Kairi right at the heart of whatever is about to come next in Sora’s journey. So then what went wrong? If Nomura doesn’t hate Kairi and isn’t bored with her then why was she relegated once again to the role of the damsel in distress? Well I believe it all comes back to her original role in the Kingdom Hearts series, Kairi is Square Enix’s Disney Princess.

One thing we have to keep in mind whenever you consider the development of a Kingdom Hearts game is that Disney is always at the heart of development process. Not just in the creation of the Disney worlds, but in how the original characters are designed, how they act, and how the overall story progresses. Kingdom Hearts is this weirdly impossible mix of JRPG and Disney storytelling that somehow works to create an utterly amazing greater whole. As such each character by design, especially in the case of the original Kingdom Hearts, can be seen as fitting into a number of well known Disney archetypes.

Most classic Disney films have three main character types the plot centres around, the Prince/Hero, the Villain, and the Princess. As the first game in the series, the developers wanted to make sure every aspect of the game was filled with that beloved Disney Magic. We see that Sora, Riku and Kairi were all purposefully written to embody these three classic archetypes. Sora is the daring Prince, he’s our hero and the one we know will save the day no matter what. Likewise Riku comes to embody the role of the Villain, as we constantly see him attempt to get in Sora’s way and undermine his journey. Now before any RIku fans jump down my throat, Riku obviously isn’t the true villain of the game as he also embodies that age old JRPG role of the rival to Sora’s hero. So we always knew Riku would be redeemed by the game’s end, but that doesn’t change the fact that for a time Riku was one of the bad guys. That of course means Kairi is the Princess, but not just any princess, she is purposefully written to embody the traits of a classic Disney Princess.

In Kingdom Hearts lore the original seven Princess of Hearts were comprised of Snow White, Aurora, Cinderella, Jasmine, Belle, Alice and Kairi. The Disney Princess are all very recognisable, and considering they are now the 7th highest grossing media franchise of all time (I’m not kidding! They make more money then the entire Harry Potter/Wizarding World franchise), it makes sense to see them grouped together in Kingdom Hearts. In comparison, at the time Kairi was a brand new character that the player knew very little about, and had never been associated with the Princesses before. So in order for her inclusion as a Princess of Heart in the narrative to work, Nomura needed to develop her character in such a way that the player would see and accept her as essentially a new Disney Princess. The best way to accomplish this then, with perhaps the exception of Alice in Wonderland, was to have Kairi’s role in the game unfold in a similar manner to what we often see occur in the other Princesses’ films, the often helpless Princess being captured or tormented by the villain, then eventually saved by the Prince. That’s why every time we see Kairi’s lifeless body throughout the entire game we can’t help thinking of Sleepy Beauty, because that’s exactly what Nomura want’s us to see. The game directly draws on the plot of Sleeping Beauty, Kairi embodies the sleeping Aurora, Sora is Prince Phillip charging forth with enchanted sword in hand, while Riku is being manipulated by the central villain of Sleepy Beauty herself, Malificent. Nomura’s narrative cements the subliminal suggestions in our minds and archives his goal, Kairi becomes a new kind of Disney Princess.

The narrative of having Kairi saved by Sora worked quite well in the original Kingdom Hearts, because the overall intention of that game was to create an experience reminiscent of the classic Disney films everyone grew up on. And while she was relegated to the role of damsel in destress for a large portion of the story, Kairi does get her moment to shine and show us that there’s more to being a princess than simply waiting to be rescued. Kairi represents the inner strength that balances out Sora and Riku’s outward power. Its a theme that has come to be associated with her character throughout all the main entries in the series.

So what was next for Kairi? Well as it turns out more of the same it seems. Kairi unfortunately finds herself being kidnapped by the villains once again in Kingdom Hearts 2, likely due to Nomura again wanting to make it clear that Kairi is the Princess of this story. But first lets take a look at the development of Kairi’s design over the course of the series. While initially being presented as a rather normal teenage girl in the first game, during the development of Kingdom Hearts 2 there was a conscious push to make Kairi even more Princess like than she had been in previous games. Her hair is longer, she wears a pretty pink dress now rather than shorts and tank tops, and her overall appearance is much more elegant and mature. In a cast interview with Kairi’s then english voice actress, Hayden Panettiere, it’s mentioned that she was often asked to raise her voice a few octaves to make Kairi sound more like a Princess. Kairi’s physical Princess evolution is pushed even further in Kingdom Hearts 3 when she is given a new battle dress and a hair cut that is somewhat reminiscent of Snow White. While this new outfit does appear hardier then her previous design, unlike her fellow Guardians Kairi does not wear any form of gloves or gauntlets to protect her hands, instead only wearing a few bracelets. Comparing her Kingdom Hearts 3 outfit to that of Sora and Riku’s does bring into question it’s overall practicality, but she is a Princess and the design makes that very clear visually.

For the sake of character development and future plot progression it makes sense to bring Kairi’s role as a Princess of Heart to the forefront, as it would soon come to play an even greater part in Kingdom Hearts lore. Having been born with a heart of pure light makes Kairi very unlike any other character in the series. But it seems in order to press upon the player that yes indeed Kairi is a Princess, In Kingdom Hearts 2 Nomura fell back on the old Princess needing to be saved by the Prince plot device in order to drive that home. Thankfully though things are changed up a bit this time around. Kairi is sick of waiting around, and whenever she gets the chance to strike out on her own to find her friends, both before and after being kidnapped, she does so without hesitation. She’s even given a Keyblade and is finally able to fight for herself this time! Hurray! Overall it isn’t great that Nomura chose to make Kairi the old school Disney damsel in distress again, but despite this we do see determination and growth in her character. Perhaps not as much as we see in Sora and Riku, but there is development none the less and by the end most fans were excited to see how she would continue to grow as a character in future instalments.

For a good while it did seem that Nomura was hinting at Kairi taking on a much bigger role in the highly anticipated Kingdom Hearts 3. It was revealed in Dream Drop Distance that Yen Sid intended for her to be trained as a Keyblade Wielder, ensuring she would become one of the Guardians of Light and take part in the second Keyblade War. And as I mentioned previously, Kairi was quite often front and centre in most of Kingdom Hearts 3’s marketing material. Her line “This time, I’ll protect you” was constantly used throughout said marketing for the game. It all looked promising for Kairi! But then we all know what happened.

Now before we jump into Kingdom Hearts 3 itself let’s take a step back to the years following the release of Kingdom Hearts 2, and consider what was happening over at Disney Animation at the time. After nearly a decade of creating films that were mostly considered not up to scratch, Disney decided to go back to their most tried and true formula for creating successful animated films, adapting fairytales, specifically Princess movies. While this was the most sensible choice to make, Disney were also keenly aware that their older brand of Disney Princess film would likely no longer appeal to a modern audience. Today young girls want to look up to brave, strong and charismatic heroines who aren’t afraid to carve out their own path in life. Watching a movie about a Princess waiting to be saved just wasn’t going to cut it anymore. So Disney adapted and ever since then we’ve been introduced to an all new kind of Disney Princess, Tiana, Rapunzel, Elsa, Anna and Moana, Princesses who are the hero of their own stories.

This is what audiences have come to expect of the Princesses, to stand proudly on their own two feet, no longer being relegated to position the damsel in distress. So when it was announced that Tangled and Frozen would be brand new worlds in Kingdom Hearts 3 it set an exception in the minds of fans. Here we had two beloved Disney films that feature strong and brave Princesses as the central characters. It only makes sense then that we should expect the same strength to flow through to the wonderful ladies of Kingdom Hearts. But that didn’t happen. Instead nothing really changed for any of them, and instead of pushing Kairi to grow into the modern Princess we all want her to be, Nomura held her back.

Now the question we need to ask here is why? Why did Nomura choose to not follow the new Disney trend when he has stuck so closely to their lead in the past? I suppose the only person who can truly answer that question is the man himself. But lets try and think about this logically, as I can see two likely reasons why this occurred. The first is the fact that overall Square Enix and many other gaming companies still don’t do a great job when it comes to writing realistic and truly relatable female characters. Not to say there are none, but it is still a prevalent problem none the less. Case and point Lunafreya from Final Fantasy XV. The fact that in order to get a true understanding of Lunafreya as a character and her true feelings, we’re going to have to read a novel that acts as an alternate happy ending to the original game says a lot. But I’m getting off topic here! The track record for the development of female characters in games isn’t great, that’s not an excuse and game companies really need to start doing better, but it is a possible explanation for why the plot of Kingdom Hearts 3 unfolded the way it did.

The second and more likely reason to have Kairi play the Princess in distress to Sora’s hero once again was probably due to time constraints. AAA video game production is a massive undertaking with very strict deadlines. As a result developers are often forced to sacrifice interesting story elements and mechanics in order to make sure that a game is able to reach said deadlines in a solid and workable condition. Final Fantasy XV is again an excellent example of this and what can go wrong. In the time since the game’s release it has more or less been confirmed that due to the incredibly strained production of the game a vast majority of story content was cut out, and the game was left in a rather obvious unfinished state narrative wise. We know that the engine swap during the development of Kingdom Hearts 3 from the Luminous to the Unreal engine had a big impact on the game’s development time, and pushed it’s final release date back significantly. So it goes without saying that things would have been cut in order to make up for lost time. The fact Nomura has confirmed that we will be receiving DLC fleshing out Xion’s role in Kingdom Hearts 3 more or less confirms this. At the end of the day Square Enix is a business and sometimes sacrifices need to be made in order to ensure a product can be developed properly and efficiently.

There is every possibility that Nomura had planned a number of different ways for Kairi to develop and grow as a protagonist in Kingdom Hearts 3 before her tragic death occurred, perhaps even fighting back as much as she could before being captured. But the problem lies in just how many loose ends needed to be tied up in the game with the limited development time they had. So much attention need to be paid to as many characters as possible to wrap everything up that you run the risk of the game becoming bloated, or things feeling rushed and unfinished. I’m not saying it was the right choice to cut out Kairi’s potential character growth, but we can see why it was easier for Nomura to fall back on having her be easily kidnapped again to move that part of the plot forward as quickly as possible so the momentum didn’t slow down. She is a Princess after all, right? Well no, that reasoning isn’t an excuse anymore, audiences expect far more from the Princesses and its time for Square Enix to follow Disney’s lead.

So what can be done? If the reason Kairi is being held back is due to her role as a Princess then can it be fixed? The simple answer is yes, it can. Disney have already clearly laid out what they now expect of female heroines and Princesses in their films. With the less than positive critical response to the development of the female protagonists in Kingdom Hearts 3, Square would be crazy not to jump at the chance to give fans what we want to see. Nomura clearly understood what it meant for a character to be a Disney Princess during the development of Kingdom Hearts 1, and I’m sure he’s very aware that audience expectations have changed. What needs to be done now is for Square to take that step forward alongside Disney and allow Kairi move on from her role as a Classic Princess and finally grow into a Modern Disney Princess, not simply fall back on old writing habits out of convenience. By voicing our opinions in an honest and constructive manner on social media platforms such as Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram ect. Square Enix and Nomura will hear us. We need only tell them that not only do we want to see more from Kairi, but that we want her to stand proudly as one of the new Princesses of Heart alongside Elsa, Anna and Rapunzel, a positive embodiment of the new bread of Disney Hero.

[xavierfiles-blog]

When Will Marvel Stop Being Cowards And Let Nightcrawler Be Amazing?

In AGE OF X-MAN: THE AMAZING NIGHTCRAWLER #1 by, Seanan McGuire and Juan Frigeri everyone’s favorite blue and fuzzy mutant is the most popular and famous figure in the world. This is the best indication we have that this alternate reality is actually the utopia it is claimed to be. Over forty years past his introduction and it still shocks me the Kurt Wagner isn’t the biggest name, not just in comics, but in media as a whole. Nightcrawler possesses the winning combination of an incredible and visually exciting design alongside a charming and likable personality. He has been beloved by X-Men fans for generations but has not been able to teleport himself out of that bubble and into solo success.

It isn’t that Kurt has been ignored, writers pretty much immediately got the appeal. Nightcrawler was a pet character for his creator, Dave Cockrum. While Dave was drawing UNCANNY X-MEN and Chris Claremont was writing, Nightcrawler seemed to be the break-out character, pulling a lot of focus. This lessened after John Byrne began drawing the title and wanted to focus on the Canadian Wolverine. Still, Nightcrawler remained a popular mutant. He was the second X-Man to get a solo mini-series and briefly led the X-Men in the mid-80s. During the mutant madness of the early 90s, Nightcrawler was positioned as the lead character in Excalibur. But as time went on it became clear that no one was able to figure out what to do with the character.

Credit to Marvel, it hasn’t been for lack of trying. Nightcrawler just started his 5th solo series, but none of them have lasted past issue #12. While the jury is still out on THE AMAZING NIGHTCRAWLER (it had an enjoyable but imperfect first issue), only one of his solo series actually got to the core of what works about the character. Dave Cockrum’s 1985 NIGHTCRAWLER limited series sees Kurt on a swashbuckling adventure where he gets to become a pirate, save a princess, and live out his Errol Flynn fantasies. It isn’t a self-serious character piece or an examination on the human condition, it is just a beautiful drawn romp by way of Edgar Rice Burroughs. This is the sweet spot for Nightcrawler.

Other attempts to kick off a story about the character fell on their face by looking at the wrong aspects of Nightcrawler. Chris Kipiniak and Matthew Dow Smith’s 2002 NIGHTCRAWLER for the Marvel Icons line examined a relatively recent (at the time) development for the character, his ordination into the Catholic priesthood. Ignoring the fact that no one involved in this story knew how priest work, it is an interesting angle, but one that fundamentally changes the character and his appeal. Up until around 2000, Nightcrawler’s faith was an aspect of the character, but not the defining one. He was religious in the way most religious people are. It was part of his life sure, but it didn’t define every action he made. Kurt wasn’t one to go on moody diatribes about the existential nature of faith. This series focused on that at the expense of the joy and energy that normally comes when Nightcrawler is on the page.

I’m curious why external media choses to play up this aspect of the character. In both his appearance on X-MEN: THE ANIMATED SERIES and X2: X-MEN UNITED, Kurt’s defining characteristic is his piousness. Perhaps the creators see the appeal of exploring the duality of a demon on the side of angels, but in execution it never goes deeper than that. I wouldn’t advocate for eliminating his faith, it is an interesting dimension to the character, only to balance it with other aspects of his personality.

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Darick Robertson tried again in 2004 with a book that leaned really hard into the supernatural. This is post-Draco, a horrible story when Kurt was revealed to be the son of a satan. It mixed those ideas with the well-established concept that his adopted mother, Margali Szardos, and his sister/lover were both powerful sorceresses. Again, this could be a fun concept if it was just Nightcrawler plus magic. Instead it became an overly dark and serious story about exorcism, abuse, and the destruction of relationships.

The crux of this twelve issue series deals with Nightcrawler’s brother Stefan Szardos. Kurt was forced to kill a demon possessed Stefan to prevent his brother from murdering children. This led to the formation of the mob the chased Kurt in GIANT SIZE X-MEN #1. It’s a dark origin for the character, and one most writers tend to leave in the past. It doesn’t play to any of the swashbuckling strengths that Nightcrawler has and doubles down on some of the worst tendencies of mid-00s comics. The last issue is Nightcrawler having an existential crisis while talking to Mephisto. It isn’t what anyone wanted from the character and that tone is a big reason why it didn’t resonate with readers.

The closest we have gotten to a Nightcrawler ongoing that actually worked was Chris Claremont and Todd Nauck’s 2014 series. It came in the aftermath of Nightcrawler fighting his way out of heaven and hell to come back to life in Jason Aaron’s AMAZING X-MEN. Tonally, the book hit a sweet spot, while probably leaning into the X-Men elements of the character too much to make it stand out. The first arc dealt with magic thanks to the return of Margali Szardos, but it was done in a whimsical, Excaliburesque way. Claremont smartly built up a unique supporting cast around Kurt, including the students Ziggy and Scorpion Boy, and an antagonistic love interest in the form of The Crimson Pirates’ Bloody Bess. Nauck’s artwork elevated the series by providing a joy that is essential to the character.

Unfortunately, the series had several roadblocks to success. Claremont’s tone and character voices were as good as his plots were bad. It was a mishmash of canon that was better left forgotten with a writing style that never evolved out of the 80s. The market dynamics at the time did little to help the book last. AMAZING X-MEN had just recently begun, and it was already marketed as the “Nightcrawler book”. Many customers weren’t going to double dip on the character. At the same time, Marvel was starting solo series for MAGNETO, CYCLOPS, STORM, and DOOP. Those existed in tandem with five other X-Men team books, two Wolverine books, and two books featuring secondary X-Teams. The market was flooded with X-Men and Nightcrawler didn’t stand a chance.

Even with these failures, Kurt Wagner remains beloved and his current mini speaks to that. In the Age of X-Man, the only intelligent thing Nate Grey did was make Nightcrawler the biggest star in the world. He is a celebrity in every sense of the word. He is beloved and iconic as a movie star and the premier superhero. It is no coincidence that the book is titled THE AMAZING NIGHTCRAWLER, or that the logo is a riff on Spider-Man’s. In the Age of X-Man, Kurt is as loved and well known as Spider-Man is our world. The trick is replicating that adoration.

Nightcrawler should be a slam dunk as a solo hero outside of the X-Men. If writers can lean into the swashbuckling adventure and away from existential questions of religion, they have a shot at making Nightcrawler a world-wide phenomenon. Let Kurt fight The Spot or Kraven The Hunter to get him out of the bubble of the X-Men. Let him join the Avengers and prove his mettle against the biggest threats. Let my dude be what Spider-Man is, the iconic character of the Marvel Universe. He deserves it.

PS: Give him his damn beard back!

[ciathyzareposts]

Return to Zork

Where should we mark the beginning of the full-motion-video era, that most extended of blind alleys in the history of the American games industry? The day in the spring of 1990 that Ken Williams, founder and president of Sierra On-Line, wrote his latest editorial for his company’s seasonal newsletter might be as good a point as any. In his editorial, Williams coined the term “talkies” in reference to an upcoming generation of games which would have “real character voices and no text.” The term was, of course, a callback to the Hollywood of circa 1930, when sound began to come to the heretofore silent medium of film. Computer games, Williams said, stood on the verge of a leap that would be every bit as transformative, in terms not only of creativity but of profitability: “How big would the film industry be today if not for this step?”

According to Williams, the voice-acted, CD-based version of Sierra’s King’s Quest V was to become the games industry’s The Jazz Singer. But voice acting wasn’t the only form of acting which the games of the next few years had in store. A second transformative leap, comparable to that made by Hollywood when film went from black and white to color, was also waiting in the wings to burst onto the stage just a little bit later than the first talkies. Soon, game players would be able to watch real, human actors right there on their monitor screens.

As regular readers of this site probably know already, the games industry’s Hollywood obsession goes back a long way. In 1982, Sierra was already advertising their text adventure Time Zone with what looked like a classic “coming attractions” poster; in 1986, Cinemaware was founded with the explicit goal of making “interactive movies.” Still, the conventional wisdom inside the industry by the early 1990s had shifted subtly away from such earlier attempts to make games that merely played like movies. The idea was now that the two forms of media would truly become one — that games and movies would literally merge. “Sierra is part of the entertainment industry — not the computer industry,” wrote Williams in his editorial. “I always think of books, records, films, and then interactive films.” These categories defined a continuum of increasingly “hot,” increasingly immersive forms of media. The last listed there, the most immersive medium of all, was now on the cusp of realization. How many people would choose to watch a non-interactive film when they had the opportunity to steer the course of the plot for themselves? Probably about as many as still preferred books to movies.

Not all that long after Williams’s editorial, the era of the full-motion-video game began in earnest. The first really prominent exemplar of the species was ICOM Simulations’s Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective series in 1992, which sent you wandering around Victorian London collecting clues to a mystery from the video snippets that played every time you visited a relevant location. The first volume of this series alone would eventually sell 1 million copies as an early CD-ROM showcase title. The following year brought Return to Zork, The 7th Guest, and Myst as three of the five biggest games of the year; all three of these used full-motion video to a greater or lesser extent. (Myst used it considerably less than the other two, and, perhaps not coincidentally, is the member of the trio that holds up by far the best today.) With success stories like those to look to, the floodgates truly opened in 1994. Suddenly every game-development project — by no means only adventure games — was looking for ways to shoehorn live actors into the proceedings.

But only a few of the full-motion-video games that followed would post anything like the numbers of the aforementioned four games. That hard fact, combined with a technological counter-revolution in the form of 3D graphics, would finally force a reckoning with the cognitive dissonance of trying to build a satisfying interactive experience by mixing and matching snippets of nonmalleable video. By 1997, the full-motion-video era was all but over. Today, few things date a game more instantly to a certain window of time than grainy video of terrible actors flickering over a background of computer-generated graphics. What on earth were people thinking?

Most full-motion-video games are indeed dire, but they’re going to be with us for quite some time to come as we continue to work our way through this history. I wish I could say that Activision’s Return to Zork, my real topic for today, was one of the exceptions to the rule of direness. Sadly, though, it isn’t.

In fact, let me be clear right now: Return to Zork is a terrible adventure game. Under no circumstances should you play it, unless to satisfy historical curiosity or as a source of ironic amusement in the grand tradition of Ed Wood. And even in these special cases, you should take care to play it with a walkthrough in hand. To do anything else is sheer masochism; you’re almost guaranteed to lock yourself out of victory within the first ten minutes, and almost guaranteed not to realize it until many hours later. There’s really no point in mincing words here: Return to Zork is one of the absolute worst adventure-game designs I’ve ever seen — and, believe me, I’ve seen quite a few bad ones.

Its one saving grace, however, is that it’s terrible in a somewhat different way from the majority of terrible full-motion-video adventure games. Most of them are utterly bereft of ideas beyond the questionable one at their core: that of somehow making a game out of static video snippets. You can almost see the wheels turning desperately in the designers’ heads as they’re suddenly confronted with the realization that, in addition to playing videos, they have to give the player something to actually do. Beyond Zork, on the other hand, is chock full of ideas for improving upon the standard graphic-adventure interface in ways that, on the surface at any rate, allow more rather than less flexibility and interactivity. Likewise, even the trendy use of full-motion video, which dates it so indelibly to the mid-1990s, is much more calculated than the norm among its contemporaries.

Unfortunately, all of its ideas are undone by a complete disinterest in the fundamentals of game design on the part of the novelty-seeking technologists who created it. And so here we are, stuck with a terrible game in spite of it all. If I can’t quite call Return to Zork a noble failure — as we’ll see, one of its creators’ stated reasons for making it so callously unfair is anything but noble — I can at least convince myself to call it an interesting one.

When Activision decided to make their follow-up to the quickie cash-in Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2 a more earnest, better funded stab at a sequel to a beloved Infocom game, it seemed logical to find themselves a real Infocom Implementor to design the thing. They thus asked Steve Meretzky, whom they had just worked with on Leather Goddesses 2, if he’d like to design a new Zork game for them as well. But Meretzky hadn’t overly enjoyed trying to corral Activision’s opinionated in-house developers from a continent away last time around; this time, he turned them down flat.

Meretzky’s rejection left Activision without a lot of options to choose from when it came to former Imps. A number of them had left the games industry upon Infocom’s shuttering three years before, while, of those that remained, Marc Blank, Mike Berlyn, Brian Moriarty, and Bob Bates were all employed by one of Activison’s direct competitors. Activision therefore turned to Doug Barnett, a freelance artist and designer who at been active in the industry for the better part of a decade; his most high-profile design gig to date had been Cinemaware’s Lords of the Rising Sun. But he had never designed a traditional puzzle-oriented adventure game, as one can perhaps see all too well in the game that would result from his partnership with Activision. He also didn’t seem to have a great deal of natural affinity for Zork. In the lengthy set of notes and correspondence relating to the game’s development which has been put online by The Zork Library, a constant early theme on Activision’s part is the design’s lack of “Zorkiness.” “As it stands, the design constitutes more of a separate and unrelated story, rather than a sequel to the Zork series,” they wrote at one point. “It was noted that ‘Zork’ is the name of a vast ancient underground empire, yet Return to Zork takes place in a mostly above-ground environment.”

In fairness to Barnett, Zork had always been more of a state of mind than a coherent place. With the notable exception of Steve Meretzky, everyone at Infocom had been wary of overthinking a milieu that had originally been plucked out of the air more or less at random. In comparison to other shared worlds — even other early computer-game worlds, such as the Britannia of Richard Garriott’s Ultima series — there was surprisingly little there there when it came Zork: no well-established geography, no well-established history which everybody knew — and, most significantly of all, no really iconic characters which simply had to be included. At bottom, Zork boiled down to little more than a modest grab bag of tropes which lived largely in the eye of the beholder: the white house with a mailbox, grues, Flood Control Dam #3, Dimwit Flathead, the Great Underground Empire itself. And even most of these had their origin stories in the practical needs of an adventure game rather than any higher world-building purpose. (The Great Underground Empire, for example, was first conceived as an abandoned place not for any literary effect but because living characters are hard to implement in an adventure game, while the detritus they leave behind is relatively easy.)

That said, there was a distinct tone to Zork, which was easier to spot than it was to describe or to capture. Barnett’s design missed this tone, even as it began with the gleefully anachronistic, seemingly thoroughly Zorkian premise of casting the player as a sweepstakes winner on an all-expenses-paid trip to the idyllic Valley of the Sparrows, only to discover it has turned into the Valley of the Vultures under the influence of some pernicious, magical evil. Barnett and Activision would continue to labor mightily to make Return to Zork feel like Zork, but would never quite get there.

By the summer of 1992, Barnett’s design document had already gone through several revisions without entirely meeting Activision’s expectations. At this point, they hired one Eddie Dornbrower to take personal charge of the project in the role of producer. Like Barnett, Dornbrower had been working in the industry for quite some time, but had never worked on an adventure game; he was best known for World Series Major League Baseball on the old Intellivision console and Earl Weaver Baseball on computers. Dornbrower gave the events of Return to Zork an explicit place in Zorkian history — some 700 years after Infocom’s Beyond Zork — and moved a big chunk of the game underground to remedy one of his boss’ most oft-repeated objections to the existing design.

More ominously, he also made a comprehensive effort to complicate Barnett’s puzzles, based on feedback from players and reviewers of Leather Goddesses 2, who were decidedly unimpressed with that game’s simple-almost-to-the-point-of-nonexistence puzzles. The result would be the mother of all over-corrections — a topic we’ll return to later.

Unlike Leather Goddess 2, whose multimedia ambitions had led it to fill a well-nigh absurd 17 floppy disks, Return to Zork had been planned almost from its inception as a product for CD-ROM, a technology which, after years of false promises and setbacks, finally seemed to be moving toward a critical mass of consumer uptake. In 1992, full-motion video, CD-ROM, and multimedia computing in general were all but inseparable concepts in the industry’s collective mind. Activision thus became one of the first studios hire a director and actors and rent time on a sound stage; the business of making computer games had now come to involve making movies as well. They even hired a professional Hollywood screenwriter to punch up the dialog and make it more “cinematic.”

In general, though, while the computer-games industry was eager to pursue a merger with Hollywood, the latter was proving far more skeptical. There was still little money in computer games by comparison with movies, and there was very little prestige — rather the opposite, most would say — in “starring” in a game. The actors which games could manage to attract were therefore B-listers at best. Return to Zork actually collected a more accomplished — or at least more high-profile — cast than most. Among them were Ernie Lively, a veteran supporting player best known to a generation of ten-year-old boys as Cooter, the mechanic from The Dukes of Hazzard; his daughter Robyn Lively, fresh off a six-episode stint as a minor character on David Lynch’s prestigious critic’s darling Twin Peaks; Jason Hervey, who was still playing older brother Wayne on the long-running coming-of-age sitcom The Wonder Years; and Sam Jones, whose big shot at leading-man status had come and gone when he starred in the dreadful Flash Gordon film of 1980.

If the end result would prove less than Oscar-worthy, it’s for the most part not cringe-worthy either. After all, the cast did consist entirely of acting professionals, which is more than one can say for many productions of this ilk — and certainly more than one can say for the truly dreadful voice acting in Leather Goddess of Phobos 2, Activision’s previous attempt at a multimedia adventure game. While they were hampered by the sheer unfamiliarity of talking directly “to” the invisible player of the game — as Ernie Lively put it, “there’s no one to act off of” — they did a decent job with the slight material they had to work with.

The fact that they were talking to the player rather than acting out scenes with one another actually speaks to a degree of judiciousness in the use of full-motion video on Activision’s part. Rather than attempting to make an interactive movie in the most literal sense — by having a bunch of actors, one of them representing the protagonist, act out each of the player’s choices — Activision went for a more thoughtful mixed-media approach that could, theoretically anyway, eliminate most of the weaknesses of the typical full-motion-video adventure game. For the most part, only conversations involved the use of full-motion video; everything else was rendered by Activision’s pixel artists and 3D modelers in conventional computer graphics. The protagonist wasn’t shown at all: at a time when the third-person view that was the all but universal norm in adventure games, Activision opted for a first-person view.

The debate over whether an adventure-game protagonist ought to be a blank state which the player can fill with her own personality or an established character which the player merely guides and empathizes with was a longstanding one even at the time when Return to Zork was being made. Certainly Infocom had held rousing internal debates on the subject, and had experimented fairly extensively with pre-established protagonists in some of their games. (These experiments sometimes led to rousing external debates among their fans, most notably in the case of the extensively characterized and tragically flawed protagonist of Infidel, who meets a nasty if richly deserved end no matter what the player does.) The Zork series, however, stemmed from an earlier, simpler time in adventure games than the rest of the Infocom catalog, and the “nameless, faceless adventurer,” functioning as a stand-in for the player herself, had always been its star. Thus Activision’s decision not to show the player’s character in Return to Zork, or indeed to characterize her in any way whatsoever, is a considered one, in keeping with everything that came before.

In fact, the protagonist of Return to Zork never actually says anything. To get around the need, Activision came up with a unique attitude-based conversation engine. As you “talk” to other characters, you choose from three stances — threatening, interested, or bored — and listen only to your interlocutors’ reactions. Not only does your own dialog go unvoiced, but you don’t even see the exact words you use; the game instead lets you imagine your own words. Specific questions you might wish to ask are cleverly turned into concrete physical interactions, something games do much better than abstract conversations. As you explore, you have a camera with which to take pictures of points of interest. During conversations, you can show the entries from your photo album to your interlocutor, perhaps prompting a reaction. You can do the same with objects in your inventory, locations on the auto-map you always carry with you, or even the tape recordings you automatically make of each interaction with each character.

So, whatever else you can say about it, Return to Zork is hardly bereft of ideas. William Volk, the technical leader of the project, was well up on the latest research into interface design being conducted inside universities like MIT and at companies like Apple. Many such studies had concluded that, in place of static onscreen menus and buttons, the interface should ideally pop into existence just where and when the user needed it. The result of such thinking in Return to Zork is a screen with no static interface at all; it instead pops up when you click on an object with which you can interact. Since it doesn’t need the onscreen menu of “verbs” typical of contemporaneous Sierra and LucasArts adventure games, Return to Zork can give over the entirety of the screen to its graphical portrayal of the world.

In addition to being a method of recapturing screen real estate, the interface was conceived as a way to recapture some of the sense of boundless freedom which is such a characteristic of parser-driven text adventures — a sense which can all too easily become lost amidst the more constrained interfaces of their graphical equivalent. William Volk liked to call Return to Zork‘s interface a “reverse parser”: clicking on a “noun” in the environment or in your inventory yields a pop-up menu of “verbs” that pertain to it. Taking an object in your “hand” and clicking it on another one yields still more options, the equivalent of commands to a parser involving indirect as well as direct objects. In the first screen of the game, for example, clicking the knife on a vulture gives options to “show knife to vulture,” “throw knife at vulture,” “stab vulture with knife,” or “hit vulture with knife.” There are limits to the sense of possibility: every action had to be anticipated and hand-coded by the development team, and most of them are the wrong approach to whatever you’re trying to accomplish. In fact, in the case of the example just mentioned as well as many others, most of the available options will get you killed; Return to Zork loves instant deaths even more than the average Sierra game. And there are many cases of that well-known adventure-game syndrome where a perfectly reasonable solution to a problem isn’t implemented, forcing you to devise some absurdly convoluted solution that is implemented in its stead. Still, in a world where adventure games were getting steadily less rather than more ambitious in their scope of interactive possibility — to a large extent due to the limitations of full-motion video — Return to Zork was a welcome departure from the norm, a graphic adventure that at least tried to recapture the sense of open-ended possibility of an Infocom game.

Indeed, there are enough good ideas in Return to Zork that one really, really wishes they all could have been tied to a better game. But sadly, I have to stop praising Return to Zork now and start condemning it.

The most obvious if perhaps most forgivable of its sins is that, as already noted, it never really manages to feel like Zork — not, at least, like the classic Zork of the original trilogy. (Steve Meretzky’s Zork Zero, Infocom’s final release to bear the name, actually does share some of the slapstick qualities of Return to Zork, but likewise rather misses the feel of the original.) The most effective homage comes at the very beginning, when the iconic opening text of Zork I appears onscreen and morphs into the new game’s splashy opening credits. It’s hard to imagine a better depiction circa 1993 of where computer gaming had been and where it was going — which was, of course, exactly the effect the designers intended.

https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/rtz1.mp4

Once the game proper gets under way, however, modernity begins to feel much less friendly to the Zorkian aesthetic of old. Most of Zork‘s limited selection of physical icons do show up here, from grues to Flood Control Dam #3, but none of it feels all that convincingly Zork-like. The dam is a particular disappointment; what was described in terms perfect for inspiring awed flights of the imagination in Zork I looks dull and underwhelming when portrayed in the cruder medium of graphics. Meanwhile the jokey, sitcom-style dialog that confronts you at every turn feels even less like the original trilogy’s slyer, subtler humor.

This isn’t to say that Return to Zork‘s humor doesn’t connect on occasion. It’s just… different from that of Dave Lebling and Marc Blank. By far the most memorable character, whose catchphrase has lived on to this day as a minor Internet meme, is the drunken miller named Boos Miller. (Again, subtlety isn’t this game’s trademark.) He plies you endlessly with whiskey, whilst repeating, “Want some rye? Course you do!” over and over and over in his cornpone accent. It’s completely stupid — but, I must admit, it’s also pretty darn funny; Boos Miller is the one thing everyone who ever played the play still seems to remember about Return to Zork. But, funny though he is, he would be unimaginable in any previous Zork.

https://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/rtz3.mp4

Of course, a lack of sufficient Zorkiness need not have been the kiss of death for Return to Zork as an adventure game in the abstract. What really does it in is its thoroughly unfair puzzle design. This game plays like the fever dream of a person who hates and fears adventure games. It’s hard to know where to even start (or end) with this cornucopia of bad puzzles, but I’ll describe a few of them, ranked roughly in order of their objectionability.

The Questionable: At one point, you find yourself needing to milk a cow, but she won’t let you do so with cold hands. Do you need to do something sensible, like, say, find some gloves or wrap your hands in a blanket? Of course not! The solution is to light some of the hay that’s scattered all over the wooden barn on fire and warm your hands that way. For some reason, the whole place doesn’t go up in smoke. This solution is made still more difficult to discover by the way that the game usually kills you every time you look at it wrong. Why on earth would it not kill you for a monumentally stupid act like this one? To further complicate matters, for reasons that are obscure at best you can only light the hay on fire if you first pick it up and then drop it again. Thus even many players who are consciously attempting the correct solution will still get stuck here.

The Absurd: At another point, you find a bra. You have to throw it into an incinerator in order to get a wire out of it whose existence you were never aware of in the first place. How does the game expect you to guess that you should take such an action? Apparently some tenuous linkage with the 1960s tradition of bra burning and, as a justification after the fact, the verb “to hot-wire.” Needless to say, throwing anything else into the incinerator just destroys the object and, more likely than not, locks you out of victory.

The Incomprehensible: There’s a water wheel out back of Boos’s house with a chock holding it still. If you’ve taken the chock and thus the wheel is spinning, and you’ve solved another puzzle that involves drinking Boos under the table (see the video above), a trapdoor is revealed in the floor. But if the chock is in place, the trapdoor can’t be seen. Why? I have absolutely no idea.

The Brutal: In a way, everything you really need to know about Return to Zork can be summed up by its most infamous single puzzle. On the very first screen of the game, there’s a “bonding plant” growing. If you simply pull up the plant and take it with you, everything seems fine — until you get to the very end of the game many hours later. Here, you finally find a use for the plant you’ve been carting around all this time. Fair enough. But unfortunately, you need a living version of it. It turns out you were supposed to have used a knife to dig up the plant rather than pulling or cutting it. (The question of how it should survive even this treatment, considering you don’t plant it again in a pot or anything — much less how you can dig anything up with a knife — goes unanswered.) Guess what? You now get to play through the whole game again from the beginning.

All of the puzzles just described, and the many equally bad ones, are made still more complicated by the game’s general determination to be a right bastard to you every chance it gets. If, as Robb Sherwin once put it, the original Zork games hate their players, this game has found some existential realm beyond mere hatred. It will let you try to do many things to solve each puzzle, but, of those actions that don’t outright kill you, a fair percentage lock you out of victory in one way or another. Sometimes, as in the case of its most infamous puzzle, it lets you think you’ve solved them, only to pull the rug out from under you much later.

So, you’re perpetually on edge as you tiptoe through this minefield of instant deaths and unwinnable states; you’ll have a form of adventure-game post-traumatic-stress syndrome by the time you’re done, even if you’re largely playing from a walkthrough. The instant deaths are annoying, but nowhere near as bad as the unwinnable states; the problem there is that you never know whether you’ve already locked yourself out of victory, never know whether you can’t solve the puzzle in front of you because of something you did or didn’t do a long time ago.

It all combines to make Return to Zork one of the worst adventure games I’ve ever played. We’ve sunk to Time Zone levels of awful with this one. No human not willing to mount a methodical months-long assault on this game, trying every possibility everywhere, could possibly solve it unaided. Even the groundbreaking interface is made boring and annoying by the need to show everything to everyone and try every conversation stance on everyone, always with the lingering fear that the wrong stance could spoil your game. Adventure games are built on trust between player and designer, but you can’t trust Return to Zork any farther than you can throw it. Amidst all the hand-wringing at Activision over whether Return to Zork was or was not sufficiently Zorky, they forgot the most important single piece of the Infocom legacy: their thoroughgoing commitment to design, and the fundamental respect that commitment demonstrated to the players who spent their hard-earned money on Infocom games.  “Looking back at the classics might be a good idea for today’s game designers,” wrote Computer Gaming World‘s Scorpia at the conclusion of her mixed review of Return to Zork. “Good puzzle construction, logical development, and creative inspiration are in rich supply on those dusty disks.” None of these, alas, is in correspondingly good supply in Return to Zork.

The next logical question, then, is just how Return to Zork‘s puzzles wound up being so awful. After all, this game wasn’t the quickie cash grab that Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2 had been. The development team put serious thought and effort into the interface, and there were clearly a lot of people involved with this game who cared about it a great deal — among them Activision’s CEO Bobby Kotick, who was willing to invest almost $1 million to bring the whole project to fruition at a time when cash was desperately short and his creditors had him on a short leash indeed.

The answer to our question apparently comes down to the poor reception of Leather Goddesses 2, which had stung Activision badly. In an interview given shortly before Return to Zork‘s release, Eddie Dornbrower said that, “based on feedback that the puzzles in Leather Goddesses of Phobos [2] were too simple,” the development team had “made the puzzles increasingly difficult just by reworking what Doug had already laid out for us.” That sounds innocent enough on the face of it. But, speaking to me recently, William Volk delivered a considerably darker variation on the same theme. “People hated Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2 — panned it,” he told me. “So, we decided to wreak revenge on the entire industry by making Return to Zork completely unfair. Everyone bitches about that title. There’s 4000 videos devoted to Return to Zork on YouTube, most of which are complaining because the title is so blatantly unfair. But, there you go. Something to pin my hat on. I made the most unfair game in history.”

For all that I appreciate Volk sharing his memories with me, I must confess that my initial reaction to this boast was shock, soon to be followed by genuine anger at the lack of empathy it demonstrates. Return to Zork didn’t “wreak revenge” on its industry, which really couldn’t have cared less. It rather wreaked “revenge,” if that’s the appropriate word, on the ordinary gamers who bought it in good faith at a substantial price, most of whom had neither bought nor commented on Leather Goddesses 2. I sincerely hope that Volk’s justification is merely a case of hyperbole after the fact. If not… well, I really don’t know what else to say about such juvenile pettiness, so symptomatic of the entitled tunnel vision of so many who are fortunate enough to work in technology, other than that it managed to leave me disliking Return to Zork even more. Some games are made out of an openhearted desire to bring people enjoyment. Others, like this one, are not.

I’d like to be able to say that Activision got their comeuppance for making Return to Zork such a bad game, demonstrating such contempt for their paying customers, and so soiling the storied Infocom name in the process. But exactly the opposite is the case. Released in late 1993, Return to Zork became one of the breakthrough titles that finally made the CD-ROM revolution a reality, whilst also carrying Activision a few more steps back from the abyss into which they’d been staring for the last few years. It reportedly sold 1 million copies in its first year — albeit the majority of them as a bundled title, included with CD-ROM drives and multimedia upgrade kits, rather than as a boxed standalone product. “Zork on a brick would sell 100,000 copies,” crowed Bobby Kotick in the aftermath.

Perhaps. But more likely not. Even within the established journals of computer gaming, whose readership probably didn’t constitute the majority of Return to Zork‘s purchasers, reviews of the game were driven more by enthusiasm for its graphics and sound, which really were impressive in their day, than by Zork nostalgia. Discussed in the euphoria following its release as the beginning of a full-blown Infocom revival, Return to Zork would instead go down in history as a vaguely embarrassing anticlimax to the real Infocom story. A sequel to Planetfall, planned as the next stage in the revival, would linger in Development Hell for years and ultimately never get finished. By the end of the 1990s, Zork as well would be a dead property in commercial terms.

Rather than having all that much to do with its Infocom heritage, Return to Zork‘s enormous commercial success came down to its catching the technological zeitgeist at just the right instant, joining Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, The 7th Guest, and Myst as the perfect flashy showpieces for CD-ROM. Its success conveyed all the wrong messages to game publishers like Activision: that multimedia glitz was everything, and that design really didn’t matter at all.

If it stings a bit that this of all games, arguably the worst one ever to bear the Infocom logo, should have sold better than any of the rest of them, we can comfort ourselves with the knowledge that Quality does have a way of winning out in the end. Today, Return to Zork is a musty relic of its time, remembered if at all only for that “want some rye?” guy. The classic Infocom text adventures, on the other hand, remain just that — widely recognized as timeless classics, their clean text-only presentations ironically much less dated than all of Return to Zork‘s oh-so-1993 multimedia flash. Justice does have a way of being served in the long run.

(Sources: the book Return to Zork Adventurer’s Guide by Steve Schwartz; Computer Gaming World of February 1993, July 1993, November 1993, and January 1994; Questbusters of December 1993; Sierra News Magazine of Spring 1990; Electronic Games of January 1994; New Media of June 24 1994. Online sources include The Zork Library‘s archive of Return to Zork design documents and correspondence, Retro Games Master‘s interview with Doug Barnett, and Matt Barton’s interview with William Volk. Some of this article is drawn from the full Get Lamp interview archives which Jason Scott so kindly shared with me. Finally, my huge thanks to William Volk for sharing his memories and impressions with me in a personal interview.)

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/return-to-zork/

[livalitul]

Thoughts on Sonic’s 30th Anniversary + The State of the Blue Blur

Since Tumblr is, more or less, a place to scream into the void I figure I might as well talk about my overall thoughts on the stream/the overall anniversary thus far. And some other stuff related to Sonic because why not. 

I think the nicest thing I can say about it is that my thoughts are about as mixed as kool-aid. On the one hand, I am genuinely glad that SEGA finally learned after 30 years that rushing a product/products to meet an arbitrary deadline was a stupid idea. Took them long enough. But yeah, I’d much rather wait for a game to come out and be finished, than get the mess that was ‘06 again. 

But on the other hand, we literally got nothing for this year, save for a remake of Sonic Colors, the symphony show, and a spin-off celebration IDW Sonic comic. Which are all good! But then you realize that we haven’t gotten a mainline Modern Sonic game since Forces (which was mediocre at best and a dumpster fire at worst, despite how safe they played it) and that game came out... *checks notes* ...four years ago. And with how little we’ve seen of it (a teaser trailer) coupled with the fact that it’s coming out next year, I’m more than a little concerned. 

With that said, we still have Sonic Prime on the horizon and the sequel to the movie, both of which are probably going to be good, so even if the game does end up being bad, it honestly wouldn’t surprise me if they just doubled down into focusing their efforts on non-video game media for Sonic. They quit the console market, so it wouldn’t be the weirdest thing that happened. Sonic’s cartoons/anime have always been beloved.

And if that does happen, a part of me would be sad, but at this point I think I’d welcome it. I know people love Sonic Colors a lot, but Colors marks the end of a good portion of the things I liked about Sonic. The lore, seeing all the characters do things and develop, having actually dark/serious stories. The fanbase has always been split and SEGA, contrary to popular belief, has been pretty accepting of fans’ thoughts and ideas. We got 3 games with characters having a gun. Sonic’s “stupid friends” got taken out. More focus was put on 2D segments. Classic Sonic has his own universe separate from Modern. The plots aren’t as serious.

But here’s the thing; the games still don’t get well-received by a lot of people. Colors and Generations, sure, but that’s two games. The modern era is long and I think most people can pick out at least 2 games from the time period of up to Unleashed and after Sonic Adventure 1 that they liked. And Forces sold well, sure, but a lot of that can easily be chalked up to the character creator. Sonic fans love making their own OCs, so a game that let them do that was bound to entice players. And that trailer was lit, don’t even lie to yourselves.

Worse yet, you have people who are replaying the older modern games and realizing that they aren’t bad. Plenty of people have an appreciation for Unleashed now. And it’s been my favorite Sonic game for a while. So the fanbase, which seems  even more divided than ever. And maybe I’ll touch more in depth with this idea at a later date, but I feel like I’m just ranting at this point, so I’ll try to wrap it up.

What I’m essentially trying to say is that while I still am, and likely will always be, a Sonic fan, a lot of the things that I’ve come to love about the games simply aren’t there any more. Plenty of people want Classic Sonic to be the dominant style of games, but I never liked those games. I played through the collection as a kid and none of them came even close to resonating with me like Sonic Adventure 1 did. Or SA2: Battle. Or Sonic Heroes. And a lot of fans who think they know what they’re talking about, really don’t. Or they don’t realize what they’re asking for. People always say Sonic Team needs new blood, but pretty much the whole team is new! The issue is that a lot of people who are good at making Sonic feel like Sonic simply don’t work at the company any more. And those that made games like Colors and Generations, don’t truly understand it as well as they should. And even SEGA can’t keep their stuff straight. Seriously, the stuff I learned from Ian Flynn’s interviews has been enlightening. 

I think SEGA made the right call splitting up the universes to keep at least two sections of the fanbase happy. But while I am still glad that Modern Sonic gets to exist despite how split opinions are on the modern games, ultimately they don’t really grab me like they used to. And I am starting to worry if they ever will.

[explosionofpaper]

The Philip’s Best Things of the Year 2017 List

“But Philip, it’s March! Why are you doing your best of 2017 list now?”   Well that’s because it sometimes takes me a while to get around to things, and hey, at least it isn’t April.

Anyway, I had a pretty good time in 2017. There were some really important changes in my life, some great people and events, and a whole heap of good media.

Presented below are some of my favourite medias of 2017. This is stuff I experienced for the first time in 2017, not necessarily stuff which came out in 2017. Also the things aren’t ordered within their sections.

Books

Strange Practise by Vivian Shaw

This was one of those books which I picked up in Waterstones entirely on a whim, and I’m incredibly happy I did (as should be obvious with it being on this list). It explores one of my favourite concepts, that of how the fantastical actually operates in the real world. The main character, Dr. Greta van Helsing (descendent of the usual van Helsing) is a doctor to the supernatural, and through her presence causes the monsters who make up her clientele to feel much more grounded and real than they would otherwise.

The book also makes really good use of public domain characters, placing them in the world such that they feel they belong there, without their public domain status being the spotlight. Another thing the book does well is conveying emotions; in particular it does a fantastic job of conveying emotional vulnerability without it being a synonym for weakness.

Dune by Frank Herbert

You know what Dune is. I don’t need to explain it.

Dune has been haunting my reading list and bookshelf for an awful long time. Every time I would pick out a new book to read, Dune would be there, waving it’s pages to catch my attention and calling “Hey! It’s me, Dune! I’m a classic of the genre. I’m beloved for good reason. You’re not having read me causes you to miss out on many references, and you’re well aware of this. I can explain to you what the Gom Jabbar is. Read me!” And every time I would glance at Dune, think about how long and revered it is, avoid eye contact, and pretend that I hadn’t heard or seen it.

Well this year I finally put that right. It felt good to finally have it stop taunting me, but it felt even better to actually read it, because it turns out that Dune is really fucking good.

The way that the world is built, the interactions between the characters, the way things grow and develop in the book, all of it is just so damn good. It’s Dune, go read it.

City of Miracles by Robert Jackson Bennett

City of Miracles was a fantastic end to a trilogy which I’ve loved. Tying up the major loose ends, answering the major unanswered questions, and taking the world and themes to a wonderful ending point.

The trilogy as a whole did some really nice stuff with the perspective and pacing. Each book has a different main character (though they’re each always important), and they’re set many years apart, decades even. This results in the world feeling and characters feeling very alive and functional in that they’re doing stuff even if we’re not seeing it. The books focus on the three major Divine events since the Blink (incidentally, I’m a big fan of this type of post-big-event setting), and just lets us know that stuff happened during the time between.

The book also contains a bit I adore, in which exposition is explicitly and dramatically avoided in a way which ties perfectly into the characters in the scene.

The Bands of Mourning by Brandon Sanderson

I’d fallen a bit behind on Cosmere stuff recently, so I spent a bit of this year catching up. They were all good, but The Bands of Mourning really stood out to me as excellent, and some of Sanderson’s best work. Something I loved in particular about this book was the way in which it managed reader emotions. I don’t want away too much, so I’ll just say that the reader’s feelings are directed in such a way that it maximises impact and catharsis, and really elevates the later parts of the book.

The Tropic of Serpents by Marie Brennan

The first of the Lady Trent books was good, but it really came into its own with The Tropic of Serpents. The way that these books approach dragons, from the perspective of a natural historian viewing them in a scientific manner, is incredibly refreshing; it’s so nice to see Dragons actually fitting in a Victorian era (I think, I get all the eras named after monarchs mixed up) world, and the characters treating them like they belong.

Even leaving the dragons aside, the handling of the era is really good. It deals really well with the struggle of science in the face of politics, as well as the struggles of women and the lower class within the scientific communities.

The Brothers Cabal by Jonathan L. Howard

I love the Johannes Cabal books. Cabal is a real bastard, and that makes him a joy to read about. He’s not evil mind you, he’s certainly not a pinnacle of virtue either, but he’s mostly kind of a good guy. Any shitty things he does are in service of a greater goal, but he’s still a bastard. It brings a texture to his internal conflicts which you don’t really see often.

He’s a great character, but having his brother around elevates him even further. The two of them are fantastic comparisons and foils for each other.

The way in which the Cabal books handle the supernatural is also great. It feels functional and integrated into the world, yet still unmistakably outside of the normal.

Kill All Angels by Robert Brockway

Much like City of Miracles, this was a fantastic end to a trilogy.

The Vicious Circle books are fascinating and notable for a variety of reasons: there’s the way in which they keep two timelines going throughout the whole trilogy; there’s the way it showcases cosmic horror on a human level, as well as placing the horror on that level; there’s the way it handles the idea of humanity, and what it means to loose it; and there’s also the way in which it takes the question “Why is Mario Lopez so weird?” and builds it out into one of my favourite horror series.

I rather not say any more about the series, just know that I really recommend it.

Also when I said “Mario Lopez”, I actually meant to say “A character similar to, but legally distinct from Mario Lopez”.

Games

Doki Doki Literature Club

This game hits like a ton of bricks, and good bricks at that. At this point I think that most everyone knows the deal with DDLC, but I’m still going to avoid big spoilers.

DDLC is one of those games which catches you by surprise, and isn’t what you first expect. It’s got a big old twist, shocks the hell out of you at some moments, and does some terrific integration of mental illness into the plot and characters. All of that is done fantastically, but the thing which really makes DDLC stick out to me is just how good the core game itself is.

The first part of DDLC, before stuff hits the wall, is the best dating sim visual novel I’ve played. That’s super important for setting up and enabling the later stuff, but it’s also just great. If Team Salvato announced that they were doing a pure dating sim, I would be well up for that.

West of Loathing

Considering the amount of time I’ve put into Kingdom of Loathing over the years (spoiler: a lot), it’s should be no surprise that I love this game. However I will say that I was a tad surprised with just how much I loved it.

KoL has always been a game driven mostly by it’s writing and concepts, and this game capitalises on both of those. There’s an awful lot of writing in the game, and all of it is good. Everywhere where there can be a joke, there’s a good joke, and everywhere where there isn’t a joke, there’s some damn good writing which would have had its impact lessened by a joke (to be clear: all of the joke writing is also good; I mean just that there’s always a good reason for jokes being absent).

The story the game tells, and the way it does it, are both incredible; and there’s a real elegance to the game’s art style.

Super Mario Odyssey

This game is a true delight. I’m famously bad at sticking it all the way through games, but this one kept hold of me and I finished it in a weekend. Not that I’ve 100%ed it mark you, but I also didn’t exactly rush through the campaign, I took my time, did a bit of sightseeing and all that.

The game’s also kept me coming back. I keep on finding myself popping back in to pick up a few more moons.

It’s just so joyous, so lovely, so utterly delightful. There’s just so much in the game, and it’s all just so good.

Just Dance 2017

Yeah that’s right, Just Dance. I’d never really played Just Dance before this year, but I have now and I love it. It’s just a whole heap of fun to play, and a nice alternative to going for a run if I want to exercise but don’t want to leave the flat.

I specify 2017 because that’s the one I’ve played.

Monument Valley 2

The first Monument Valley is one of my favourite games, so there was a bit of a worry that the sequel wouldn’t live up to my expectations. Thankfully those worries were unfounded, and I’d put MV2 right up there with the first. It plays like the first, but with twists on the mechanics to keep it feeling fresh. Similarly, it explores the same themes, but from a different perspective. The looks are just as stunning as the first, and go even further in many points, really exploring what the graphic style can do.

Ultimately the game is more Monument Valley, and that’s exactly what I wanted it to be.

Linelight

Linelight was a nice little puzzle game with straightforward, easily understood mechanics and a delightful, simple aesthetic. It managed to excel due to the excellence in puzzle design, and the way in which it conveyed ideas and meaning.

Put simply, if Thomas Was Alone didn’t exist, then these would be the strongest emotions a game has made me feel about such simple shapes. This game however didn’t have a narrator, instead it used just the mechanics to make me attached to some of my companion lines, and did so in a sublime way.

TV Shows

Girls’ Last Tour

I’ll be honest with you; I picked up this show because they dab in the OP. It turned out that was actually a good decision, as it led me to one of my all time favourite shows.

Girls’ Last Tour is a slow paced, intimate show. It’s an exploration of the two main characters travelling through a dead world, and just trying to survive. The world feels empty in a way which few other post-apocalypse things manage, mostly due to the fact that there are so few characters. In the 12 episode run, only 2 supporting human characters are encountered, and each is around for only one episode. This means you really get to know the main characters, and to truly see how their time in this dead world is affecting them.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable

It’s no secret that I love Jojo, and Diamond is Unbreakable is without a doubt my favourite part so far.

I loved Stardust Crusaders, but I had several issues with it. Diamond is Unbreakable fixes damn near all of them, and it really feels like Mr JoJo learnt some lessons from SC and applied them here. The characters are great and you really get to know them, the fights are cool and satisfying, and all the Stands feel unique and interesting.

Then there’s the actual presentation of the show, which is absolutely stunning. The unusual colour palette gives the world a whole new depth, and the soundtrack is just incredible. In particular there’s a certain use of a certain theme, which results in one of my all time favourite moments in a tv show.

Cromartie High School

Cromartie’s really damn funny, though it’s hard to put into words exactly why. I think a large part of it is the show’s absolute commitment to inconsistency. It’s committed to the extent that not even the show’s inconsistency is consistent. Things are forgotten, the forgetting is lampshaded, but then some characters will remember things whilst others won’t. Storylines will just stop, but then they might suddenly restart at a later date as if they had been going all along. It’s a show where nothing is ever really forgotten, but nothing is ever really remembered either.

It’s art is what I’m trying to say. Pure art.

My Brother, My Brother and Me

That’s right, this one isn’t an anime. It is a spin-off from a podcast though, so it’s a pretty nice lead in to the next section.

Do you like the MBMBaM podcast? If yes, then you’ll love the show. If no, then there’s a good chance you’ll still love the show. The podcast is used as the basis for it, but it’s built up into something even greater. It’s not just that it has editing and a budget, it also shows us new layers to the relationship between the brothers, and puts them in the real world as opposed to the podcast void which they normally live in. Everything in the show is so funny, and so good. I really do love it.

Podcasts

Wonderful

Wonderful is an aptly named podcast; it’s a true joy to listen to.

In the podcast, husband and wife, Griffin and Rachel Mcelroy, talk about the things they like. That’s the entire premise, and it makes for a truly wonderful podcast because it’s just so positive and sweet and lovely. There are no rules on the kinds of things they talk about, so they could be as general as a genre of film, or as specific as a sequence of notes in a particular song.

This podcast is the second iteration of Rose Buddies, which was a Bachelor fancast, and shares the same podcast feed, so watch out for that if you pick it up. Not that Rose Buddies wasn’t also a great podcast, but it was of a different style. The fact that I picked up Rose Buddies in 2016 does make the podcast’s place on this list a touch more dubious, but I’m the one making up the rules here, so I’m saying it’s fine.

Pretend Friends

This podcast is a delight. It’s an RPG podcast with the Continue? guys, and I have a history of finding them funny, so it makes sense I like this podcast. But what really elevates it is the game that they’re playing, that being Space Kings. Space Kings is notable in several ways, one of those ways being that it isn’t actually out yet. The GM of the podcast is one of the devs of the game, and the podcast is a bit of a beta test for it. That’s a nice novelty, but the thing which is really great about Space Kings is how it’s built around making a good collaborative story and having a laugh, rather than being built around firm mechanics.

It’s a podcast of a bunch of friends trying to make each other laugh, succeeding, and telling a story about a bunch of friends travelling around in space and getting up to some good hijinks. At one point a cat cuts a spaceship in half, at another a mop fires a gun. It’s a good time.

The Worst Idea of All Time

You know how I said that Wonderful’s place on this list was a tad dubious? Well TWIoAT is even more dubious due to the fact that I’ve been listening to it for years. The reason I’ve put it here is that it ended this year. TWIoAT was a fantastic ride the whole way through. If you’ve ever wanted to listen to a pair of skill Kiwi comedians lose their minds over a few years, then this is the show for you. Whilst I’m sad to see it go, I’m happy that the two of them can start the road to recovery now.

Web Shows

Super Beard Bros - Dark Souls 3

Beard Bros is a long time favourite of mine, and I think that this might well be one of their best series. Brett is just such a fantastic addition to the crew, and allows the other two to shift into slightly different roles. All of them are on utterly top form in this series, and it leads to a fantastic atmosphere, and lovely series.

The core of it is how wonderfully positive it is. Alex gets frustrated at times, but never really angry and seems to be having a great time with the game. Brett’s a fantastically encouraging person, and a true delight to listen to. And it’s so nice to get to hear Jirard chilled out, and finally having the time to make the wrap of the day.

Press Buttons ‘n’ Talk - Phoenix Wright 2

I discovered PB’n’T late last last year (2016) with their playthrough of Phoenix Wright 1. From there I worked my way through the rest of their stuff and caught up in PW2, which was a pleasing symmetry.

The channel is always great to watch, but the Phoenix Wright games are where they really excel. The voices given to the characters really bring the games to life, and they’re off high enough quality, and consistently enough applied that they’re now firmly in my head as the cannon voices for the characters. Even Phoenix himself, who’s handed back and forth between the two of them, feels consistent and has a real identity in his voice.

It’s a good series.

[the-kool-kyle]

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Review

It's been 42 years now since we were first introduced to massive blockbuster franchise Star Wars in 1977. Created by George Lucas it has become one of the greatest pieces of science fiction in history and one of the most popular franchises of all time spawning billions of fans world wide thanks to it's fun action, unforgettable adventures, tear jerking moments and best of all....it's lovable relatable characters. Such as Mark Hamil as Luke Skywalker the brave selfless Jedi, Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia the strong independent rebel, Harrison Ford as Han Solo the scoundrel with a heart of gold and Peter Mayhew as Chewbacca the hulking yet gentle giant Wookie. Over the last 40 years the franchise has had the prequel movie trilogy, Graphic Novels, comic books, TV shows and countless video games. But now this decade we have the “Sequel Trilogy” which is the new Star Wars movies set 30 years after “Return of the Jedi”. The trilogy focuses on the remnants of the Empire now known as “The First Order” trying to conquer the galaxy and the Resistance lead by General Leia trying to stop them.

The Sequel Trilogy has gotten something of a mixed reception from the fans and critics since the release of “Force Awakens” some people like them and some hate them but overall everyone can agree their not as good as the original trilogy. But overall the trilogy has done a great job in introducing and building it's new characters like Rey the scavenger turned Jedi, Finn former Stormtrooper who defected to the resistance and Po ace pilot and cocky rebel. The trilogy also brings us a new villain Kylo Ren leader of the Knights of Ren and son of Han and Leia who shows no mercy and uncontrollable rage. The movies also use the original cast like Luke, Leia, Han and Chewie.

But were getting off track. Were here to talk about the newest instalment and final movie for the Skywalker story line....Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. The film picks up after “The Last Jedi” where Kylo Ren is now the supreme leader of The First Order after killing “Snoke” and now seeks to conquer the galaxy and destroy anything that stands in his way. While the resistance continues to fight for freedom and peace in the galaxy....Rey tries to bring balance to the force. After the controversial and hugely discussed Last Jedi the fans are divided on what has become of the franchise. Mainly due to the massive backlash over Luke Skywalker's death and the many hated characters that were introduced in Last Jedi. However I can truly say that from the bottom of my heart.....that Rise of Skywalker is....the best Star Wars movie since Empire Strikes back! It was exciting, action packed, tear jerking, full of twists and turns, had great character arcs and truly did the franchise justice. I'll be honest there were times that I shed a tear in both excitement and sadness. Yep it's that amazing. This film was without a doubt the perfect way to end the Skywalker Story and end with a bang.

But that's just my opinion every Star Wars has always had their own crazy views and thoughts on all Star Wars material. Overall “Rise of Skywalker” is entertaining and provides answers to some questions raised in the last 2 movies but there are some plot holes and new characters who don't make much of an impact as the old ones which leads to the conclusion that the studio didn't have any of these movies as well planned out as expected but then again most franchises aren't. So there new movies are nowhere near as legendary as the original trilogy by George Lucas but still have a lot of heart and ambition.

Ever since Disney took over....the Star Wars franchise has been changed forever...but above all has divided the most of the fans. For example ever since the they cancelled the Clone Wars TV in exchange for Star Wars Rebels which was more family friendly has sparked outrage due to the fact that a lot of fans preferred the Clone Wars more mature and darker take on the franchise. Well I can't blame them since sometimes it's good for a franchise to mature with it's audience and to have more mature themes and darker story lines. Most of which were used for the Knight of the old Republic and Force Unleashed games as well as the Clone Wars TV series and comic books. Sadly how ever since Disney bought the rights most of the “Star Wars Extended Universe” has been declared non-canon. This was created after the original trilogy to continue the stories of Luke, Leia, Han and the rest of the characters as well as introducing new characters through comic books, novels, video games and other media. However since acquiring the Star Wars media Disney has removed most of these stories from canon. This has really been a major disappointment to the older Star Wars fans. But honestly why did they have to do this I can't see why most of the Extended universe and canon can't fit together. So in conclusion this new generation of Star Wars media has divided the fan base and it may never be whole again.

The Star Wars franchise's strongest suit has always been it's characters. Rey played by (Daisy Ridley) the young woman who has evolved from the lonely orphan scavenger to a strong, independent, no nonsense Jedi that has become one of the best female leads in Star Wars history like Leia, Padme and Bastila. Having been trained by Luke him self she has become a powerful, strong and the last Jedi. Daisy Ridley really works hard on bringing this character to life and earns respect for it.

Finn former stormtrooper played by John Boyega has really developed as a character since he defected from the first order and tried to run away from the war. Since then he has become the team's moral compass and greatest soldier who is always willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good which he has done many times. Proving that not all stormtroopers or first order soldiers are there by choice and just want to do whats right.

Po fighter and the greatest pilot in the resistance has really stepped us from being a background character from Force Awakens to a fun relatable hot head that will go to extreme and crazy lengths to end the war and save the galaxy. Oscar Isaac really does a great in portraying the cocky, stubborn yet brave pilot.

Chewbacca aka Chewie the iconic Wookie and Han Solo's best friend returns. Chewie is one of the most beloved characters in the franchise due to hulking size, gentle personality, fierce loyalty and iconic roar. He has appeared in over 7 Star Wars movies and can be found in a lot of the SW extended universe media due to a Wookie's long life span of 400 years and Chewie is only 200 in Return of the Jedi.

Carrie Fisher returns one more time to play the strong wise leader of the resistance Leia Organa. Princess Leia rebel and sister of Luke Skywalker. Leia has become Sci-Fi royalty in both the Star Wars universe and science fiction itself she has evolved from the Damsel in distress to a strong tough female character that still has a soft side as well as the iconic haircut. Following actress' tragic death in 2016 the studio had to take a few liberties but even with these restrictions they were still able to give give the character a perfect send off. It was the best way they could have done it and it's what Carrie deserved.

The film's main villain Kylo Ren returns this time with The Knights of Ren who the movies have only mentioned. While Adam Driver does a great job in portraying this Sith villain he has gotten something of a mixed reception from the fans and the critics. Some dislike the characters portrayal as a moody, arrogant and whiney teenager. Others like him mainly for his badass mask design and his cross guard lightsaber. But overall he doesn't quite live up to the villainy expectations of Darth Vader, Maul, Revan or any of the other Sith lords we've seen throughout the years. While some like the character and others don't he still has his redeeming qualities like his mentioned cross guard lightsaber and new battle damaged mask.

Final Verdict: So in conclusion not all the fans are gonna be happy...so people are gonna like this movie and some are not. But that's what the fans have always been like since the beginning and it's what makes them so unique. SO wether or not this film was able to stick the landing of 40 years of story telling is entirely up to the viewer. But for me the film was awesome!

Final Score: 9/10

[gyrlversion]

Here’s What Diehard Disney Fans Think About These Live-Action Remakes

If it seems like Disney has been making a more aggressive push lately to turn its animated classics into live-action films, it’s because it has been — and the company hasn’t been subtle about it, either. After the success of 2016’s The Jungle Book and 2018’s Beauty and the Beast, Disney has doubled down on its commitment to breathe new life into its animated movies. In 2019 alone, Dumbo, Aladdin, and The Lion King all received the live-action treatment (though, The Lion King is more of a CGI animation than a live-action production), with many more adaptations in the works. But while some OG fans of the classics are thrilled that their favorite tales are being revamped with a greater emphasis on inclusivity, others are a bit more skeptical about Disney’s decision to dive in deep with the remakes.

So what is it that critics have against Disney’s colossal wave of live-action adaptations? For some, they think it’s a sign that one of Hollywood’s most revolutionary studios is running out of fresh ideas. And rather than putting in the work to come up with new stories it hopes fans will enjoy, it’s much easier for the corporation to continue with the same old classic tales that have been successful in the past. Why? Because Disney owns the intellectual property of all its animated classics, which basically means the company can continue to remake as many versions of these same stories as it would like, in perpetuity.

To some, this decision to re-tell the same stories using real actors and CGI effects comes off as uninspired, and several people feel that it doesn’t at all exude the type of creativity and innovativeness that Disney’s known for. “The things that made the movies classic, and great were the expressiveness, and personality,” Adam Martinez, a fan of the classic movies, tweeted, “and I’ve yet to watch a ‘live action’ one that matches or exceeds the originals quality. Why? It’s not original.”

But loyal fans of the animated classics aren’t turned off solely because Disney appears to be taking the easy road to financial success. In her review of The Lion King, Kendra James of The Verge wrote, “The new Lion King will make a lot of money, and hopefully, some of that money can be used to make films that have more artistic integrity, narrative ambition, and bare reason to exist.” And that seems to be the general consensus among some fans, as well. By recycling old tales, some feel that Disney is using their millennial audience’s unceasing desire for nostalgia to lure them back to the box office. “We live in an age where the majority of the millennial generation was born and raised on the Disney classics,” Anthony Cain, a critic of Disney’s live-action trend, told MTV News. “Instead of trying new and interesting things, they play it safe.”

Though, even critics of Disney’s live-action slate understand that it’s all part of the company’s well thought-out marketing strategy. Disney knows exactly what it’s doing by making new iterations of beloved films that were released decades ago. After all, fans of the classics have already developed deep, emotional connections to the characters and storylines, and if they know that they feel fondly about a particular film, there’s a greater chance Disney will make a significant return on its investment — and a new generation of parents will share these beloved films with their children, creating new memories and future Disney fans. “They know millennial parents will take their kids to see these movies, then show their kids the originals, then start the process all over again,” Cain added. Savvy business strategy or not, isn’t any well-crafted film that brings families together in the movie theater worth celebrating?

It’s also worth noting that the classics aren’t going anywhere. Diehard fans of the animated movies can still watch them at their leisure. And as some people on social media have pointed out, there are actually a lot of benefits to remaking these adored animated movies. For example, as we’ve seen with Halle Bailey’s recent casting in the upcoming live-action version of The Little Mermaid, creating updated versions of these films offers Disney an opportunity to present these classic tales in a more inclusive way. And considering the first Black princess arrived in 2009 with The Princess and the Frog, we can all agree that these stories could use an extra dose of inclusivity — even if there are naysayers on the internet who insist that Ariel, a fictional mermaid, needs to be white and have red hair.

The impending remake of Mulan also offers the company the chance to retell the inspiring tale in a more accurate and respectful way — helmed by Niki Caro, the second woman to solo direct a Disney movie with a $100 million-plus budget. In the live-action version, Disney will do away with the songs from the animated classic, Mulan’s original love interest Captain Li Shang, and yes, dragon pal Mushu and the cricket, too. And while those elements certainly added some extra flair, ultimately, many people agree that they’re just not necessary. “The original Disney movie was beautiful and had iconic songs and hilarious sidekicks, which I know resonated with people…” Clara Sia, a supporter of the Mulan remake, tweeted. “That version still exists. You can watch it any time you want. A version more respectful to my culture won’t cancel that movie. There’s room for this.”

Still, there will always be diehard fans of the animated versions who insist that if these movies get the live-action treatment, the plot and the characters need to stay as close to the classics as possible, à la Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. But as some fans on social media have aptly pointed out, maybe these live-action remakes aren’t for the fans of the classics. Maybe they’re for an entirely new generation of Disney fans who want to see female leads that not only look like them, but that empower them, too. “[Mulan] looks like it could be a game-changer for Disney,” Myan Mercado, a loyal fan of Mulan, told MTV News. “I think she’ll end up being a lot of little girls’ favorite — if she isn’t already.”

In addition to the obvious need for Disney stories headed by diverse female leads, another argument is that live-action versions are downright entertaining — and not to mention, extremely advanced — which should be enough of a reason for them to exist. Technology has evolved tremendously since we watched the animated movies as starry-eyed kids, and with all the progress that has been made with effects, some fans really appreciate the opportunity to watch these tales come to life in a different way. “I think it’s a no-brainer to come out with live-action remakes,” Megan Lapinski, a longtime Disney fan, told MTV News. “It’s the perfect balance between the classic Disney stories and new age technology that makes it all really impressive.”

Overall, fans of the classics have mixed opinions about Disney’s decision to go full force with these new adaptations. Though, that won’t exactly keep them from their local theaters on opening weekend. These stories defined their childhoods, and bringing them back in a different form offers an escape to their youth that they likely feel they wouldn’t be able to get anywhere else. “Some us of us just want a simple escape and [to] remember what it was like as a carefree kid watching these,” Lapinski said. “It’s amazing to me how a movie can bring up so many past feelings and emotions.”

The post Here’s What Diehard Disney Fans Think About These Live-Action Remakes appeared first on Gyrlversion.

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[recentanimenews]

"Juni Taisen: Zodiac War" Book Review and Comparison

Popular anime series often see a bit of a lag before their source material gets released in English translation, so we're very lucky Viz released the original light novel of Juni Taisen: Zodiac War just two weeks into the anime's broadcast. I picked up the novel on the release date, so I had my introduction to NisiOisin's quirky battle royale through the anime, but I've already completed the story in the novel. It's fascinating to compare the strengths of both versions.

  Today, we'll be reviewing Viz Media's translation of the novel, as well as comparing the novel with the first six episodes of the anime. And don't worry, we won't be spoiling the anime!

    Reviewing the Juni Taisen Novel

Juni Taisen: Zodiac War is a light novel originally published in 2015 as a prequel to a one-shot manga collaboration between author NisiOisin and illustrator and mangaka Hikaru Nakamura. Isin is the infamous author of the Monogatari series, while Hikaru Nakamura is best known as the creator of cult series Arakawa Under the Bridge and Saint Young Men. The plot concerns the titular Zodiac War, a mysterious battle royale held by a secret society every twelve years, with the prize being a single prize: Any wish. The combatants are themed after the animals of the Chinese zodiac, with attacks, personality traits, and histories that riff off this important cultural touchstone. The premise seems to combine two fairly overdone stock anime plots, but NisiOisin is known for his self-aware genre knowledge and willingness to play with the rules. Juni Taisen: Zodiac War is a fantastic example of this with characters who all seem to upend some rule of the game, making it less a question of who will win, and more of a question of how and why.

In the novel (translated by Nathan A. Collins for Viz), the prose is very direct and to the point, helped along by the translation's decision to emphasize action and flow over getting bogged down in NisiOisin's wordplay (the groan-inducing puns in characters' names are left to a helpful appendix). NisiOisin has only a few flights of fancy (he is still NisiOisin, after all), with most of the action told in third person narration by one character at a time. Being a story of a brutal battle to the death, characters are often dispatched before they're able to be developed to a satisfying level, but the characters who do survive are often more well-rounded than those who die early on. Nisio is obsessed with personalities, so character superpowers end up causing fewer deaths than ideals and flaws. The table of contents lays out the exact order of events from the very start, there's very little surprise in who wins, and those who approach the material from that perspective will be disappointed. However, when I finished the story, knowing who the winner was from page one, I was still extremely satisfied by all of the character developments I could not predict.

On a technical note, the production of Viz's release is top notch. Unlike most Japanese novel releases, Juni Taisen is given a hardcover with dust jacket, ornate red and gold title pages, and sturdy paper. If you enjoy the anime, or are willing to try a more quick, brutal, and direct work from NisiOisin, I greatly recommend the book. Those looking for a deeply character driven world like Monogatari won't find it here. I will now discuss how the anime chose to adapt the series through episode 6, so spoiler warning below.

Novel versus Anime

Who wasn't awed by Juni Taisen's first episode, where Boar takes all of the abuse she's received from her parents and turns it on her poor younger sister, becoming an even more monstrous version of her father? What's most amazing about this episode is that this story is not in the book. Amazingly, all of the background information of each fighter is told in a textbox listing their biographical details, while the prose of the novel takes place entirely during the Zodiac War. Boar's entire scheme in the anime was taken from the line, "Originally her sister, five years her elder, had earned the right to participate in the Twelfth Zodiac War, but in culmination of a twelve-year plot, Toshiko killed her sister and claimed the invitation for herself." Perhaps the story came from notes NisiOisin provided to the man doing the adaptation, Sadayuki Murai, but Murai's own resume includes writing Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, Kino's Journey, and other classics. Changing the older sister to a younger one may have been entirely his idea.

The book has 12 main sections, which track perfectly to twelve episodes, the usual length of an anime series. The first three episodes – Boar, Dog, and Chicken – are adapted pretty much straight from the book. The Zodiac War material from Boar's chapter would not fill a full episode, so her backstory was fleshed out a great deal. Poor Dog had a lot happen during his battle, so his life as a calligraphy buff and daycare teacher was left sadly unexplored. Chicken had perhaps the best mix, with an equal amount of backstory and confrontation, giving her a full character arc.

By this point, a pattern had been identified, so the anime decided to shake it up, allowing events that happened simultaneously occur to all characters at the same time, allowing more tension and suspense to build. The stories of Monkey, Sheep, and Horse blended elements from the fourth, fifth, and sixth chapters into the ideal battle flow, while still expanding upon their backstories. Monkey's peace treaty, a touching scene equal to Boar's magnum opus of violence, was also anime original.

The anime adaptation does have some drawbacks. On many occasions, characters will talk and think at the same time, leading to two sets of subtitles onscreen. The book, with no time pressures, doesn't have this compression problem. Nisio's beloved linguistic trickery is also largely absent from the anime, with its focus on action, and many small clever details, like Sheep's mobage addiction, are dropped for sake of time.

  It's fascinating to compare how the different versions of Juni Taisen try and take advantage of the strengths of their medium. If you're a fan of the series, I recommend following along on the next six episodes and seeing how they're adapted.

Review Roundup (Novel)

+ Great production on study hardcover book

+ Exciting, twisted subversion of battle royale series by too-clever-by-half NisiOisin

- Your favorite character gets killed off too soon

- Hectic battle format precludes deep character development or worldbuilding

---

Thomas Zoth is a features writer for Crunchyroll, blogs occasionally at Hungry Bug Diner, and appears on podcasts at Infinite Rainy Day. You can follow him on twitter at @ABCBTom.

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[cathygeha]

REVIEW:

One Summer Night by Caridad Pineiro

At the Shore #1

 This book begins and ends with a wedding. It has ups and downs. It is a bit like a modern day Romeo and Juliet story without the death of both the main characters and the families in discord is all due to their fathers having a falling out over 30 years before the story begins.

 Rachel is dealing with a family company on the brink of disaster with a father unwilling to move in a direction that might save the business. She has friends that will star in the future books of the series but are also there to support her during the telling of her story.

 Owen also has a huge company that he runs with his father but where his father’s goal is to break Maggie’s father Owen’s is quite different. In fact, he wants to HELP Maggie an in doing so will also help her father.

 Owen and Rachel do have a chance at a happily ever after IF they can get all their ducks in a row…well…get them BACK in a row and if both are willing to listen to their hearts.

 This is a book I believe will appeal to New Adult readers and those that like a fairly predictable plot without any major dramas to contend with.

Thank you to NetGalley, SOURCEBOOKS Casablanca, and Barclay Publicity for the ARC – This is my honest review.

 3-4 Stars

ONE SUMMER NIGHT by Caridad Pineiro Review Tour!

 It’s release week for Caridad Pineiro and her newest contemporary romance, ONE SUMMER NIGHT. Follow the tour for reviews, excerpts, and enter to win a $100 Amazon gift card and three runner-ups will win ONE SUMMER NIGHT branded T-Shirts and Hats.

 What happens at the shore, stays at the shore in Caridad Pineiro’s contemporary romance, ONE SUMMER NIGHT. Maggie Sinclair is out of options, and Owen Pierce, life long neighbor and enemy has an offer that’s impossible to accept. Fans of Bella Andre’s Sullivans series and Shannon Stacey’s Kowalskis series are sure to love this light and playful enemies to lovers romance.

  Title: One Summer Night

Author: Caridad Pineiro

Release Date: October 3, 2017

Publisher:  Sourcebooks Casablanca

Series: At the Shore

Genres: Contemporary romance

Pages: 352

 Synopsis:

 An offer that’s impossible to accept . . .

Maggie Sinclair has tried everything to save her family’s business, including mortgaging their beloved beach house on the Jersey Shore. But now, she’s out of options.

The Sinclair and Pierce families have been neighbors and enemies for almost thirty years. That hasn’t stopped Owen Pierce from crushing on Maggie, and he’s determined to invest in her success. Now he has to convince her that he’s more than just trouble with a capital T…

Add to Goodreads: http://bit.ly/2w73ky4

Buy Now: Amazon | iBooks | B&N

Amazon → http://amzn.to/2krMwfE

iBooks → http://apple.co/2qsqdwx

B&N → http://bit.ly/2kNuo0p

  ONE SUMMER NIGHT Excerpt

Copyright © 2017 Caridad Pineiro

 With keen interest, Owen Pierce took note of the three women as they hurried away from the dais and into the Sinclair mansion.

 “Put your eyes back in your head, Bro. She’s nothing but trouble,” Jon warned in low tones.

 Owen bit back the retort that if anyone knew about trouble, it was his brother. Jonathan had always marched to a different drummer and had set out on his own as a teenager to explore what he wanted out of life. Now a successful entrepreneur, he had captured the media’s attention with his innovative designs and daring adventures. That left Owen to shoulder most of the burden of the family’s real estate business, as well as deal with his father’s anger over Jonathan’s latest newsworthy escapade.

 He envied his brother’s carefree spirit and determination, especially as Maggie Sinclair marched back onto the patio with her friends, an angry bride, and an obviously inebriated groom. Both the bride and groom looked far from happy as they approached the elaborate multi-tiered wedding cake that had been wheeled out to the middle of the makeshift dance floor.

 He worried the bride might plunge the long knife she held into her new husband, but luckily for the newlyweds, Maggie directed the blade toward the cake.

 Jon playfully elbowed him. “Seriously, Owen. She’s not for you. Father declared the Sinclairs off-limits ages ago. He would have a stroke if he thought the two of you were involved.”

 Involved with Maggie Sinclair, Owen thought and sighed with regret.

 In a way, he’d been involved with her forever. He’d like to chalk it all up to a sloppy, hurried, and stolen kiss at eighteen and the allure of forbidden fruit. But since that kiss, he’d watched her mature into a smart, beautiful woman. One who was willing to work hard for the town and business she cared about as well as friends and family. With every encounter, he’d grown more intrigued with the person Maggie had become.

 But his father had come down hard on them about mingling with the Sinclairs right after Maggie’s mother’s death. For years, they’d been unable to come to their Sea Kiss home, and even when they’d returned, they’d done so without their father, who refused to be so close to the family he thought had wronged him.

 Not that Owen expected that Jon would kowtow to such rules, since his brother was the kind of man who didn’t hesitate to take what he wanted.

 He arched a brow and met his brother’s blue-eyed gaze, which glittered with a mix of undisguised challenge and amusement. “Do you think you’re the only one entitled to a little adventure in your life?” he said.

 Jon chuckled. “My kind of adventure is way safer than what you may be considering.”

 “Why’s that, Li’l Bro?” he asked, appreciating the sight of Maggie in a dusty-rose gown that hugged dangerous curves. Her chestnut-brown hair fell to her shoulders in soft waves and framed ice-blue eyes and a sassy, sexy face that snared his attention every time he saw her.

 Jonathan took a last sip of his champagne and barely stifled another laugh. With a shake of his head, he replied, “Because all I risk is an occasional broken bone, but that…” He jerked his head in Maggie’s direction as she stepped back beside Connie and Emma. “That will break your heart.”

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  About Caridad Pineiro:

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When Will Marvel Stop Being Cowards And Let Nightcrawler Be Amazing?

In AGE OF X-MAN: THE AMAZING NIGHTCRAWLER #1 by, Seanan McGuire and Juan Frigeri everyone’s favorite blue and fuzzy mutant is the most popular and famous figure in the world. This is the best indication we have that this alternate reality is actually the utopia it is claimed to be. Over forty years past his introduction and it still shocks me the Kurt Wagner isn’t the biggest name, not just in comics, but in media as a whole. Nightcrawler possesses the winning combination of an incredible and visually exciting design alongside a charming and likable personality. He has been beloved by X-Men fans for generations but has not been able to teleport himself out of that bubble and into solo success.

It isn’t that Kurt has been ignored, writers pretty much immediately got the appeal. Nightcrawler was a pet character for his creator, Dave Cockrum. While Dave was drawing UNCANNY X-MEN and Chris Claremont was writing, Nightcrawler seemed to be the break-out character, pulling a lot of focus. This lessened after John Byrne began drawing the title and wanted to focus on the Canadian Wolverine. Still, Nightcrawler remained a popular mutant. He was the second X-Man to get a solo mini-series and briefly led the X-Men in the mid-80s. During the mutant madness of the early 90s, Nightcrawler was positioned as the lead character in Excalibur. But as time went on it became clear that no one was able to figure out what to do with the character.

Credit to Marvel, it hasn’t been for lack of trying. Nightcrawler just started his 5th solo series, but none of them have lasted past issue #12. While the jury is still out on THE AMAZING NIGHTCRAWLER (it had an enjoyable but imperfect first issue), only one of his solo series actually got to the core of what works about the character. Dave Cockrum’s 1985 NIGHTCRAWLER limited series sees Kurt on a swashbuckling adventure where he gets to become a pirate, save a princess, and live out his Errol Flynn fantasies. It isn’t a self-serious character piece or an examination on the human condition, it is just a beautiful drawn romp by way of Edgar Rice Burroughs. This is the sweet spot for Nightcrawler.

Other attempts to kick off a story about the character fell on their face by looking at the wrong aspects of Nightcrawler. Chris Kipiniak and Matthew Dow Smith’s 2002 NIGHTCRAWLER for the Marvel Icons line examined a relatively recent (at the time) development for the character, his ordination into the Catholic priesthood. Ignoring the fact that no one involved in this story knew how priest work, it is an interesting angle, but one that fundamentally changes the character and his appeal. Up until around 2000, Nightcrawler’s faith was an aspect of the character, but not the defining one. He was religious in the way most religious people are. It was part of his life sure, but it didn’t define every action he made. Kurt wasn’t one to go on moody diatribes about the existential nature of faith. This series focused on that at the expense of the joy and energy that normally comes when Nightcrawler is on the page.

I’m curious why external media choses to play up this aspect of the character. In both his appearance on X-MEN: THE ANIMATED SERIES and X2: X-MEN UNITED, Kurt’s defining characteristic is his piousness. Perhaps the creators see the appeal of exploring the duality of a demon on the side of angels, but in execution it never goes deeper than that. I wouldn’t advocate for eliminating his faith, it is an interesting dimension to the character, only to balance it with other aspects of his personality.

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Darick Robertson tried again in 2004 with a book that leaned really hard into the supernatural. This is post-Draco, a horrible story when Kurt was revealed to be the son of a satan. It mixed those ideas with the well-established concept that his adopted mother, Margali Szardos, and his sister/lover were both powerful sorceresses. Again, this could be a fun concept if it was just Nightcrawler plus magic. Instead it became an overly dark and serious story about exorcism, abuse, and the destruction of relationships.

The crux of this twelve issue series deals with Nightcrawler’s brother Stefan Szardos. Kurt was forced to kill a demon possessed Stefan to prevent his brother from murdering children. This led to the formation of the mob the chased Kurt in GIANT SIZE X-MEN #1. It’s a dark origin for the character, and one most writers tend to leave in the past. It doesn’t play to any of the swashbuckling strengths that Nightcrawler has and doubles down on some of the worst tendencies of mid-00s comics. The last issue is Nightcrawler having an existential crisis while talking to Mephisto. It isn’t what anyone wanted from the character and that tone is a big reason why it didn’t resonate with readers.

The closest we have gotten to a Nightcrawler ongoing that actually worked was Chris Claremont and Todd Nauck’s 2014 series. It came in the aftermath of Nightcrawler fighting his way out of heaven and hell to come back to life in Jason Aaron’s AMAZING X-MEN. Tonally, the book hit a sweet spot, while probably leaning into the X-Men elements of the character too much to make it stand out. The first arc dealt with magic thanks to the return of Margali Szardos, but it was done in a whimsical, Excaliburesque way. Claremont smartly built up a unique supporting cast around Kurt, including the students Ziggy and Scorpion Boy, and an antagonistic love interest in the form of The Crimson Pirates’ Bloody Bess. Nauck’s artwork elevated the series by providing a joy that is essential to the character.

Unfortunately, the series had several roadblocks to success. Claremont’s tone and character voices were as good as his plots were bad. It was a mishmash of canon that was better left forgotten with a writing style that never evolved out of the 80s. The market dynamics at the time did little to help the book last. AMAZING X-MEN had just recently begun, and it was already marketed as the “Nightcrawler book”. Many customers weren’t going to double dip on the character. At the same time, Marvel was starting solo series for MAGNETO, CYCLOPS, STORM, and DOOP. Those existed in tandem with five other X-Men team books, two Wolverine books, and two books featuring secondary X-Teams. The market was flooded with X-Men and Nightcrawler didn’t stand a chance.

Even with these failures, Kurt Wagner remains beloved and his current mini speaks to that. In the Age of X-Man, the only intelligent thing Nate Grey did was make Nightcrawler the biggest star in the world. He is a celebrity in every sense of the word. He is beloved and iconic as a movie star and the premier superhero. It is no coincidence that the book is titled THE AMAZING NIGHTCRAWLER, or that the logo is a riff on Spider-Man’s. In the Age of X-Man, Kurt is as loved and well known as Spider-Man is our world. The trick is replicating that adoration.

Nightcrawler should be a slam dunk as a solo hero outside of the X-Men. If writers can lean into the swashbuckling adventure and away from existential questions of religion, they have a shot at making Nightcrawler a world-wide phenomenon. Let Kurt fight The Spot or Kraven The Hunter to get him out of the bubble of the X-Men. Let him join the Avengers and prove his mettle against the biggest threats. Let my dude be what Spider-Man is, the iconic character of the Marvel Universe. He deserves it.

PS: Give him his damn beard back!

When Will Marvel Stop Being Cowards And Let Nightcrawler Be Amazing? was originally published on Xavier Files