Blockbuster triple A titles are generally fucked because they're too goddamned expensive, and people are willing to spend more time on video games that are made by three or less people.
In a similar vein, Mass Effect 3's ending disappoints literally every living thing that witnesses it, proving that it's a story worth finishing correctly and that they cannot afford not to try and please every single customer at every single moment. Fortunately, people are still willing to pay money for an imaginary gun.
Some third party Japanese developers dare to give a shit about the worldwide market. Xenoblade Chronicles grants Western-style exploration and accessibility on a console begging for any kind of substance, making Nintendo fans everywhere mumble, "Better late than never, I guess!" ATLUS releases Persona 4 again, demonstrating that they already figured this shit out years ago.
Square Enix releases Final Fantasy IV again to distract consumers from all their other decisions. Mouth-breathing cretin Motomu Toriyama promises Final Fantasy XIII: Lightning Returns next year. North American releases for Final Fantasy Type-0 and Final Fantasy Versus XIII have been delayed to make time to develop a Nintendo 3DS version of the iOS version of the Nintendo DS version of Final Fantasy IV.
Some YouTube users admit that the trailer for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn is "kinda cool".
Basically everyone is disappointed in the WiiU to the point that some savvier parents convince their children that Santa Claus is dead so they don't have to buy it.
Nintendo for some reason chooses not to reveal that the best way to play Kid Icarus Uprising is with the thumb-mounted stylus they used with Metroid Prime Hunters fucking, like, six years ago.
Reviewers reveal they have no idea what they're doing, giving shitty games low ratings and giving equally shitty games generally favorable reviews.
Capcom admits they have no idea what they're doing, distributing a survey through crowd control service Capcom Unity to find out what the hell the people who buy their games even like. They throw a pile of papers up into the air and shake their heads when man-children clamor for a new Mega Man Battle Network.
With Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance on the horizon and the release of The Phantom Pain's trailer, everyone is forced to trust that Hideo Kojima knows what he's doing.
The Walking Dead made all developers everywhere realize that they should quit games and that Brendan McNamara, director of L.A. Noire, should kill himself.
"Boy, I really screwed up on that one," McNamara said as he carried a large stone tied to his ankle toward the edge of a suspension bridge. "L.A. Noire cost exactly a gazillion dollars to make and was shitty as fuck. The development team for the Walking Dead was one-eightieth the size of ours, and they made one of the best video games in history."
"Well, can't win 'em all," McNamara said as he heaved the stone over the side of the bridge.
December 31, 2012
November 16, 2012
Fourside, Part 3: An Annoying Apotheosis
The moment you step out of the warehouse with the battered Mani Mani statue, Apple Kid calls you to inform you of his newest invention, a yogurt machine that only dispenses trout-flavored yogurt. He's nice enough to send it to you via Escargo Express' "neglected class" delivery service.
When you step out of Jackie's Cafe, a monkey will come up and tell you that the simian guru Talah Rama is awaiting your presence at the caves in Dusty Dune Desert.
Just as the talking monkey leaves, a guy from Escargo Express comes up and tells you that he lost the yogurt dispenser in the desert, so you can go and get it yourself.
Then the moment the Escargo guy leaves, Electra, Geldegarde Monotoli's overworked maid, drops by to tell you that she could really use some trout-flavored yogurt to serve to Mr. Monotoli's special guests - probably the goddamn Minches.
FINALLY, once everyone's done running on- and off-screen like a Scooby Doo hallway scene, you get control back, and it's time to head to the Monkey Caves in the Dusty Dunes desert.
Now this shit is some ridiculous trolling. It's not a monster-filled dungeon, but it's just as harrowing. You have to navigate your way through this monkey maze, but the only way to access each entrance is to give a consumable item to the monkey blocking your way.
This is especially devious considering at this point you're still hoping Paula will rejoin the party so you can start carrying more things again. Now, when inventory space is most precious, the game asks you to lug around a bunch of bullshit just so you can give it away to the these filthy monkeys.
The good news is, unlike the game's previous cavernous troll, this one is worth the effort. The monkeys are all pretty funny, and you get some super sweet items, including a Fire Pendant, a Bag of Dragonite (Using it in battle transforms you into a dragon for one turn and do big-time damage. Yeah, this game's mythology is all-encompassing), and the always useful revivifying Cup of Lifenoodles.
Not only that, but once you finally reach the end of cave, you meet Talah Rama, an enlightened Monkey with visions of the future who ascertains that, YES, YOU are meant to restore balance to the Earth, and he offers you an awesome power to help you. [You can accept or reject this awesome power. Talah Rama jovially supports either choice.] He also gives you the Trout Yogurt Dispenser.
Ultimately, you'll end up following one of his monkey disciples all of the way out of the cave and onto the desert highway. Here, you are taught the ability PSI Teleport, which allows you to travel back to any place you have previously visited. Well, hot fucking damn.
What I love about PSI Teleport is that, even with the ability to travel anywhere almost instantly, you still have to put some effort in. You can only use it if you have enough space in front of you to gather speed and then "take off". If you collide with anything before you actually teleport, the skill fails and you lose those Psychic Points.
What's especially devious about this is that, if you were to teleport to Saturn Valley as I did when I first got this ability, you would not be able to teleport OUT of Saturn Valley, because there's not enough room! I don't think that's a coincidence - it's one of the few places in the game you can rest without spending money.
Anyway, now you never have to take a bus again! If you Teleport back to Fourside, you'll find Electra standing outside of the Monotoli Building, who'll swipe the Trout Yogurt Dispenser and then grant you access to the VIP elevator inside!
Up on the 48th floor are a series of hallways and meeting rooms that are eerily empty, save for creepy Sentry Robots who will come directly after you once you draw near, ask you for identification, discover you have none, and initiate battle. These guys are especially diabolical because they're always in places where it LOOKS LIKE you can avoid them, but in all but one situation, you can't through normal means.
You can also find a room with Electra in it. She'll give you some trout-flavored yogurt.
Finally, you end up in a room with a really doofy looking bucket o' bolts called the Clumsy Robot. What's funny about this guy is that, when it's not wasting a turn doing something stupid, it fires missiles at you, doing massive damage. It's the Mr. Magoo of boss fights.
The Clumsy Robot can also feed itself bolgna sandwiches, endlessly healing its HP to maximum. It seems like one of those stupid RPG rigged fights that you're supposed to lose because the story says so!
But just as things seem bad, The Runaway Five bust in and the boss music changes to something rompin' and awesome! One of the them accidentally flips the robot's power switch, and the fight is won.
You can always count on one thing - every time you bail The Runaway Five outta debt, they always return the favor.
[The truth is, I found out, the balogna sandwich does nothing to heal the Clumsy Robot. Once the Runaway Five show up, that basically means to did enough damage to defeat him, like any other fight. But this way is so much funnier. Oh my God! Why don't more RPGs have fights that end like this? The set piece possibilities are endless!]
In the next room, you find a broken old man who immediately begs for forgiveness and runs behind Paula, cowering.
Paula behaves just as she did the first time you rescued her from captivity, calm and optimistic. She also assures you that Monotoli actually isn't all that bad.
Monotoli basically places all of the blame on the Mani Mani Statue, which he claims attracts evil and weakens the hearts of those who come into contact with it.
He also says that he received messages from the statue, telling him to make sure that Ness and gang never make it to the resort town, Summers, and that they never find out about the "Pyramid" or some such. He intuits that Ness definitely should go to Summers, and offers his helicopter as a means of conveyance, opening the secret door to his private helipad.
When you get out to the helipad, you find... POKEY?!
That fat fucking FUCK! Now that Monotoli is a plain old man again, Pokey has no use for him, so he steals the helicopter and flies away. Where the hell could he possibly go? Hopefully his weight throws off the helicopter's balance and he crashes and dies. How'd he even GET out there??
When you head back inside to tell Monotoli what happened, he actually expresses concern for Pokey. I always thought this to mean that Monotoli is such a nice guy, he would even fear for the safety of someone who used him as tool and probably was the person ACTUALLY RESPONSIBLE for all of the bad attributed to his own self.
Only this time did I consider that maybe Monotoli expresses concern for Pokey because he knows something about the helicopter that we don't...?
When you move to leave, a "!" appears over Paula's head and everything fades to black around her.
It's a disquieting moment, suggesting that's Paula's ESP is a strange and alienating thing, another facet of her feminine otherness. When things return to normal, she shrugs off the episode as a spell of dizziness and suggests that the gang heads back to the town of Threed. The Runaway Five offer you a ride there.
On your way out of the building you suddenly receive ANOTHER call from Apple Kid.
Hello! How are you? This is Apple Kid.I told you to remember that Phase Distorter! This is another eerie moment for me. You've been told about evil and darkness before, but those were by special people who have a certain spiritual awareness. Apple Kid, though a genius, is just a regular dude. Is Giygas' evil so pervasive that even average people are starting to pick up on it?
I think I'm a real genius... In fact, I know I'm a genius.
Why? Well, I have discovered the primary enemy of you and of all humanity.
We have to fight and defeat this being...
To do so, we need to invent a machine called the "Phase Distorter."
I've got to find the wandering scientist,
Dr. Andonuts, and make the distorter. So, I may be gone for a while.
Later... *click*
If you still haven't figured out what's waiting in Threed, the Runaway Five give you a hint after they drop you off in their sweet bus: "By the way, why did you need to come back here? You must have forgotten some very important item or gadget here... How's that for a guess? Am I close?"
Head up to the graveyard, where Jeff crash-landed the Sky Runner, and you'll find that the members of the zombie action committee, formerly so useless, have restored the Sky Runner to working order! Hop in, and you're on your way~~~~~~~
That was a long one, but everything in this entire sequences is basically emblematic of Earthbound.
- Clear and intertwining objectives (Find THIS monkey to get THIS machine to rescue THIS girl to intuit THIS method of travel to reach THIS resort town...)
- Silly fucking shit (monkeys, trout yogurt, impeccably-timed entrances, robots that eat sandwiches)
- Arduous and sometimes clever dungeons with sweets rewards (Telportation, getting Paula back)
- An economic use of the cast, providing depth to you, them, and the world (Apple Kid, The Runaway Five, the citizens of Threed)
- The assertion that all people at their core are essentially good (except for Pokey)
November 13, 2012
So I started Assassin's Creed III
Got some problems.
The early game twist. For one, it's not early enough. FFXIII's 20-hour tutorial was better paced than this, and I hate that game.
For two, it would have been more effective if A) I gave a shit about any of those characters and B) all promotional materials didn't already tell me who the main character is.
It's like they were trying to pull some Metal Gear Solid shit on me. The difference here is that THOSE games are directed by a visionary, and THESE games are directed by a committee.
MGS2 hoodwinks you into thinking you'll play the whole game as Solid Snake because the whole point of the story is that people can be controlled by the manipulation of information and that anyone can be molded into a super soldier given proper context and total control.
MGS2 contrasted its promotional material to surprise and to make a point. In AssCreed 3, the contrast made me impatient and frustrated.
It's too bad, 'cause Kojima clearly has a lot of respect for these games, since you can dress like Altair in MGS4 and swan dive into a pile of hay in Peace Walker.
I don't understand the rules. I only played a little bit of the previous games' campaigns, and all the tutorials this game throws at me aren't illuminating enough.
Several times, the game pauses all action so that you can complete a tutorial sensitive to the current situation. You are unable to do anything else until you prove that you understand what the game is trying to teach you. Pressing any buttons unrelated to this tutorial yield no results. (This is a things in lots of games, and it's shitty in all of them)
Early on, you're asked to shoot a wagon full of barrels of gunpowder to blow it up. PRESS L to AIM, PRESS Y to SHOOT. So I'm aiming at this wagon of gunpowder pressing the Y button and nothing is happening. No shooting, my dude doesn't even reach for his pistol. What's strange is that I am still able to use the B button to pick up and put down a musket that's on the ground.
So I'm pressing everything, picking the gun up, aiming, pressing Y, putting the gun down, aiming, pressing Y, NOT aiming, pressing Y... Finally I figured, "Okay, the game must have screwed up." So I reload my last checkpoint.
And I'm standing in the same place with the same problem. So now I start swinging my aim around and pressing buttons. FINALLY, my dude fires his gun - at one barrel of gunpowder standing BESIDE the wagon on the ground.
I wasn't ALLOWED to shoot the wagon full of barrels. There was a special barrel that I was supposed to shoot.
I feel like an idiot. I guess this is a regular AssCreed thing, but I hate how completely the terms of failure change for every single mission.
In the same mission I was talking about earlier, my buddies and I steal this chest and I have to defend them as we make our escape. At this time, the game teaches me how to loot bodies for ammo and money. So, naturally, I start looting everybody, thinking I must need a bunch of ammo for the rest of this mission.
As I merrily loot these corpses, the game displays a message - "WARNING: REMAIN IN THE AREA."
I think, "Okay," so I stay right around where I already am, looting the bodies. A few seconds later the mission fails and I have to restart.
Apparently, "REMAIN IN THE AREA" meant "FOLLOW YOUR FRIENDS BEFORE THEY WALK TOO FAR AWAY BECAUSE WE DIDN'T PROGRAM THEM TO STOP, EVEN THOUGH THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE FOLLOWING YOUR ORDERS"
The game sometimes acts like the passenger-seat navigator in a buddy comedy car chase. "Okay, follow this guy! UH OH, we got spotted! Better kill these guys! But not THAT GUY!! Alright, let's try and-- OH NO, spotted again! Nooo, you can't fight them here, we gotta turn around and try again. Now take a left! NOO, the OTHER left!!"
I also feel stupid because the camera is so close to you. I feel like I can't see as much as should. For a super-assassin, I don't feel very aware of my surroundings.
Somehow, there are still not enough buttons. I had just killed a guy standing near a ledge, and now I wanted to drop down. However, when I pressed the button to drop from the ledge, I instead picked up the corpse of the guy I just killed. That's not what I wanted to do.
During this same mission, while I'm creeping through tall grass to stay hidden, I try to navigate around a ladder rising out of the grass. The moment I touch the ladder, I jump up onto it, alerting every guard around me.
Game, I appreciate your making most of my actions flow gracefully from one to the other, but if I was sneaking through grass to avoid suspicion, why would I suddenly want to jump on a ladder and become the single most visible thing in the area? Or maybe the challenge is that I'm playing as a fucking moron.
Transitions. I usually have trouble grasping where and when I am unless the game makes it explicitly clear. The first time I left The Green Dragon tavern on a mission, I was not outside of the Green Dragon but far away on the other side of the city.
After a cut scene, the game displays a message that says, "A FEW DAYS LATER..." and then plops you outside of the Green Dragon. So, like... what, have I been standing in the street for a few days? Once you go into the Green Dragon, another cut scene starts right away, so why did they bother returning control to me at all?
For a AAA title, this shit feels sloppy and lazy. I hope the Vita game is better.
I started and finished Dishonored a little while ago, and I thought it was just a different flavor of Bioshock. Still, it might be a better game then AssCreed 3.
EDIT (11/15/12): Now that I'm playing a Connor, this game is exponentially more fun. Is it innovative and progressive? Nah. But it's still alright.
EDIT (9/26/16): No, it turned this game sucked worse than Resident Evil 6 that year. Even as an American, I can see that colonial structures aren't fun to be around compared to the grand structures of the old world. And beyond that, it's just Ubisoft – chasing icons on maps. Sounds like Black Flag brought back the only good thing about this game: owning a sweet fucking boat.
The early game twist. For one, it's not early enough. FFXIII's 20-hour tutorial was better paced than this, and I hate that game.
For two, it would have been more effective if A) I gave a shit about any of those characters and B) all promotional materials didn't already tell me who the main character is.
It's like they were trying to pull some Metal Gear Solid shit on me. The difference here is that THOSE games are directed by a visionary, and THESE games are directed by a committee.
MGS2 hoodwinks you into thinking you'll play the whole game as Solid Snake because the whole point of the story is that people can be controlled by the manipulation of information and that anyone can be molded into a super soldier given proper context and total control.
MGS2 contrasted its promotional material to surprise and to make a point. In AssCreed 3, the contrast made me impatient and frustrated.
It's too bad, 'cause Kojima clearly has a lot of respect for these games, since you can dress like Altair in MGS4 and swan dive into a pile of hay in Peace Walker.
I don't understand the rules. I only played a little bit of the previous games' campaigns, and all the tutorials this game throws at me aren't illuminating enough.
Several times, the game pauses all action so that you can complete a tutorial sensitive to the current situation. You are unable to do anything else until you prove that you understand what the game is trying to teach you. Pressing any buttons unrelated to this tutorial yield no results. (This is a things in lots of games, and it's shitty in all of them)
Early on, you're asked to shoot a wagon full of barrels of gunpowder to blow it up. PRESS L to AIM, PRESS Y to SHOOT. So I'm aiming at this wagon of gunpowder pressing the Y button and nothing is happening. No shooting, my dude doesn't even reach for his pistol. What's strange is that I am still able to use the B button to pick up and put down a musket that's on the ground.
So I'm pressing everything, picking the gun up, aiming, pressing Y, putting the gun down, aiming, pressing Y, NOT aiming, pressing Y... Finally I figured, "Okay, the game must have screwed up." So I reload my last checkpoint.
And I'm standing in the same place with the same problem. So now I start swinging my aim around and pressing buttons. FINALLY, my dude fires his gun - at one barrel of gunpowder standing BESIDE the wagon on the ground.
I wasn't ALLOWED to shoot the wagon full of barrels. There was a special barrel that I was supposed to shoot.
I feel like an idiot. I guess this is a regular AssCreed thing, but I hate how completely the terms of failure change for every single mission.
In the same mission I was talking about earlier, my buddies and I steal this chest and I have to defend them as we make our escape. At this time, the game teaches me how to loot bodies for ammo and money. So, naturally, I start looting everybody, thinking I must need a bunch of ammo for the rest of this mission.
As I merrily loot these corpses, the game displays a message - "WARNING: REMAIN IN THE AREA."
I think, "Okay," so I stay right around where I already am, looting the bodies. A few seconds later the mission fails and I have to restart.
Apparently, "REMAIN IN THE AREA" meant "FOLLOW YOUR FRIENDS BEFORE THEY WALK TOO FAR AWAY BECAUSE WE DIDN'T PROGRAM THEM TO STOP, EVEN THOUGH THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE FOLLOWING YOUR ORDERS"
The game sometimes acts like the passenger-seat navigator in a buddy comedy car chase. "Okay, follow this guy! UH OH, we got spotted! Better kill these guys! But not THAT GUY!! Alright, let's try and-- OH NO, spotted again! Nooo, you can't fight them here, we gotta turn around and try again. Now take a left! NOO, the OTHER left!!"
I also feel stupid because the camera is so close to you. I feel like I can't see as much as should. For a super-assassin, I don't feel very aware of my surroundings.
Somehow, there are still not enough buttons. I had just killed a guy standing near a ledge, and now I wanted to drop down. However, when I pressed the button to drop from the ledge, I instead picked up the corpse of the guy I just killed. That's not what I wanted to do.
During this same mission, while I'm creeping through tall grass to stay hidden, I try to navigate around a ladder rising out of the grass. The moment I touch the ladder, I jump up onto it, alerting every guard around me.
Game, I appreciate your making most of my actions flow gracefully from one to the other, but if I was sneaking through grass to avoid suspicion, why would I suddenly want to jump on a ladder and become the single most visible thing in the area? Or maybe the challenge is that I'm playing as a fucking moron.
Transitions. I usually have trouble grasping where and when I am unless the game makes it explicitly clear. The first time I left The Green Dragon tavern on a mission, I was not outside of the Green Dragon but far away on the other side of the city.
After a cut scene, the game displays a message that says, "A FEW DAYS LATER..." and then plops you outside of the Green Dragon. So, like... what, have I been standing in the street for a few days? Once you go into the Green Dragon, another cut scene starts right away, so why did they bother returning control to me at all?
For a AAA title, this shit feels sloppy and lazy. I hope the Vita game is better.
I started and finished Dishonored a little while ago, and I thought it was just a different flavor of Bioshock. Still, it might be a better game then AssCreed 3.
EDIT (11/15/12): Now that I'm playing a Connor, this game is exponentially more fun. Is it innovative and progressive? Nah. But it's still alright.
EDIT (9/26/16): No, it turned this game sucked worse than Resident Evil 6 that year. Even as an American, I can see that colonial structures aren't fun to be around compared to the grand structures of the old world. And beyond that, it's just Ubisoft – chasing icons on maps. Sounds like Black Flag brought back the only good thing about this game: owning a sweet fucking boat.
November 7, 2012
So I played Dishonored
Before you spend money on Dishonored, take a moment to check amongst your possessions.
If you have Bioshock, print this out and put in on your Bioshock case.
Now you own Dishonored!
If you have Bioshock, print this out and put in on your Bioshock case.
Now you own Dishonored!
October 31, 2012
So I've been playing Xenoblade Chronicles.
Reasons I'm glad I started Xenoblade Chronicles.
The setting. The game's mythology is set up right from the get go in a very Ocarina of Time fashion. Two great beings fought and came to a standstill when they each struck the finishing blow on the other. As time passed, life sprung anew upon the body of each being.
Every once in a while, as you go from place to place, you'll forget that the swamp or shoreside you're running along is atop a giant dead thing until you come out onto some plateau that grants you a view of what appear to be wing-like rock formations against the blue sky, far out into the distance, even past the clouds.
By putting such an emphasis on draw distance that the Wii is mercifully capable of, the game's story is able to work together with its technology to set expectations for all the places you'll go. Most of the locations in the game are named after body parts, so you can come to your own conclusions about which parts may be able to sustain life. And when you look through pouring rain atop a cliff into the face of the OTHER giant, well, you know you'll be getting personal with it later.
Characters wear what you equip them with.
Gem crafting. One of the more comforting things about Xenoblade is when you realize that the developers must have ditched the isolationist attitude of their friends at Square Enix and deigned to play a Western RPG. While I await the day that mission- and quest-based gameplay dissolves into something with more, eh, elegance I'll say, traveling and questing is as seamless and painless as I've known it to be in a Japanese RPG.
Xenoblade is the only JRPG I have played for three hours, deviated from my original mission five times, and hadn't noticed because I discovered so many interesting new things. It's the kind of joy that's mostly been relegated to Western RPGs - a world that is actually kind of nice to get lost in.
The ability to make gems best embodies the Japanese interpretation of Western design, and not just because it involves jamming precious magical stones into weaponry, which has always been awesome.
In a game like Skyrim, you have dozens of skills at your disposal, especially when it comes to creating and altering your equipment - blacksmithing, alchemy, enchanting, etc. If you want to get something done, you have your pick of what method to use.
In Xenoblade Chronicles, rather than being provided many options to do one thing, you are given one method with which to do many things. When you master the art of gem crafting, if you know what you want and have the materials to make it, it can be done.
This also ties in with another system that makes a lot of sense, which is your party's affinity - that is, how well they get along with one another. The more characters spend time with and fight alongside each other, the more quickly their affinity proves, the better they'll cooperate in battle, share each other's skills, and improve their gem crafting.
I'd thank the Persona series' Social Link mechanic for this particular inspiration, an exceedingly clever way to tie together combat, party management, and story.
Everyone's British. It's so nice to hear voice actors in a video game and not recognize any of them.
Reasons I think I'll go back to playing Earthbound.
I want to be surprised. Even after 17 years, Earthbound still deviates from genre norms and defies expectations more than Xenoblade does.
Now, I don't think cliches are a bad thing. I don't talk about it too much, but one of my favorite RPG experiences was playing Wild Arms 4 for the first time.
The game is a walking monstrosity of cliches, with nearly every facet being taken whole from some other game which in turn was inspired by some anime. The result is a kind of beautifully stupid mosaic that is somehow truer than the sum of its parts. Cliches are cliche for a reason. Beneath every stereotype is an archetype, something primal and real that connects deeply to fears and cares that all people have.
Tons of video games have their young protagonists going on a coming-of-age journey. Wild Arms 4 was the first to actually make me reflect on my impending adulthood.
So when I started playing Xenoblade Chronicles, I didn't mind too much that my huge best friend would be the tank or that the girl would be our healer, because the game is like, "This guy said he'd protect you no matter what, and this girl is a trained medic," and I was like, "Okay, that makes sense." What I saw was what I got, and I rolled with it.
Then I reached Alcamoth, on the head of the Bionis. If you played Chrono Trigger, this is kind of like the Zeal Kingdom of the game. Or for Xenogears, Solaris - a highly advanced place unlike any other up till this point which acts as an inevitable site for shattering plot revelations. (Director Tetsuya Takahashi worked on all three games, so he's clearly strapped for ideas)
When it should feel like a destination, it actually just serves as a road block to the place you really want to get to: Prison Island. But you have to get the king's permission to get there, which means to have to save his daughter, which means you have to prove your worth, et cetera, et cetera.
Up until now, the game has been pretty straight forward. Nothing has been lingered on, cut scenes have been pretty quick and unobtrusive (here's a problem; here's where we come in; here's how it's resolved). Cliche plot points really haven't been an issue because they're treated like building blocks for the game - not especially artful, but useful for founding objectives and challenges upon.
When the game reaches Alcamoth, it starts presenting its cliches as though they aren't cliches. This is the point at which I remembered, "Oh yeah, this was the same developer responsible for Xenosaga."
Hey, remember how we're on a sworn mission to gain revenge on those horrible machines that tried to murder us? Well, forget about that for now. How about instead of all that stuff you've been looking forward to, we have several back-to-back cut scenes detailing the political machinations of people you haven't even met before? Looks like there's a lot of dirty dealing going on concerning things I don't even really understand! I wonder who's behind it all? Maybe it's the person who looks and sounds like they're behind it all?
[There's a sudden influx of really unclever cut scenes at this point, just when my roommates decided to start paying attention as I play the game. I felt almost as bad as when my dad walked in on me playing Final Fantasy X-2.]
Like, why all the ceremony? Why all the pomp and circumstance when I KNOW what's going to happen? I've played a lot of games, Takahashi! A bunch of them were games YOU made!!
Nothing surprising happens. Nobody changes. Good people are good and bad people are bad. Everyone looks and sounds like exactly the sort of people they are.
Now I WILL admit that, once I got to Prison Island, things vastly improved. I got to go some place that looked cool, I got to beat big things up, and the ensuing scenes provided a good balance of questions, answers, and warnings of bigger things.
But now I'm really worried that things are going to get worse as time goes on. I'd be willing to suffer a dumbening story if I knew the challenges would improve, but frankly the game's been getting easier and the boss fights haven't required too much strategizing. Even gem crafting is becoming a process of 1) boosting Agility and 2) tossing everything else.
I think a break'll do me good. Keep the magic of Bionis alive.
The setting. The game's mythology is set up right from the get go in a very Ocarina of Time fashion. Two great beings fought and came to a standstill when they each struck the finishing blow on the other. As time passed, life sprung anew upon the body of each being.
Every once in a while, as you go from place to place, you'll forget that the swamp or shoreside you're running along is atop a giant dead thing until you come out onto some plateau that grants you a view of what appear to be wing-like rock formations against the blue sky, far out into the distance, even past the clouds.
By putting such an emphasis on draw distance that the Wii is mercifully capable of, the game's story is able to work together with its technology to set expectations for all the places you'll go. Most of the locations in the game are named after body parts, so you can come to your own conclusions about which parts may be able to sustain life. And when you look through pouring rain atop a cliff into the face of the OTHER giant, well, you know you'll be getting personal with it later.
Characters wear what you equip them with.
Gem crafting. One of the more comforting things about Xenoblade is when you realize that the developers must have ditched the isolationist attitude of their friends at Square Enix and deigned to play a Western RPG. While I await the day that mission- and quest-based gameplay dissolves into something with more, eh, elegance I'll say, traveling and questing is as seamless and painless as I've known it to be in a Japanese RPG.
Xenoblade is the only JRPG I have played for three hours, deviated from my original mission five times, and hadn't noticed because I discovered so many interesting new things. It's the kind of joy that's mostly been relegated to Western RPGs - a world that is actually kind of nice to get lost in.
The ability to make gems best embodies the Japanese interpretation of Western design, and not just because it involves jamming precious magical stones into weaponry, which has always been awesome.
In a game like Skyrim, you have dozens of skills at your disposal, especially when it comes to creating and altering your equipment - blacksmithing, alchemy, enchanting, etc. If you want to get something done, you have your pick of what method to use.
In Xenoblade Chronicles, rather than being provided many options to do one thing, you are given one method with which to do many things. When you master the art of gem crafting, if you know what you want and have the materials to make it, it can be done.
This also ties in with another system that makes a lot of sense, which is your party's affinity - that is, how well they get along with one another. The more characters spend time with and fight alongside each other, the more quickly their affinity proves, the better they'll cooperate in battle, share each other's skills, and improve their gem crafting.
I'd thank the Persona series' Social Link mechanic for this particular inspiration, an exceedingly clever way to tie together combat, party management, and story.
Everyone's British. It's so nice to hear voice actors in a video game and not recognize any of them.
Reasons I think I'll go back to playing Earthbound.
I want to be surprised. Even after 17 years, Earthbound still deviates from genre norms and defies expectations more than Xenoblade does.
Now, I don't think cliches are a bad thing. I don't talk about it too much, but one of my favorite RPG experiences was playing Wild Arms 4 for the first time.
The game is a walking monstrosity of cliches, with nearly every facet being taken whole from some other game which in turn was inspired by some anime. The result is a kind of beautifully stupid mosaic that is somehow truer than the sum of its parts. Cliches are cliche for a reason. Beneath every stereotype is an archetype, something primal and real that connects deeply to fears and cares that all people have.
Tons of video games have their young protagonists going on a coming-of-age journey. Wild Arms 4 was the first to actually make me reflect on my impending adulthood.
So when I started playing Xenoblade Chronicles, I didn't mind too much that my huge best friend would be the tank or that the girl would be our healer, because the game is like, "This guy said he'd protect you no matter what, and this girl is a trained medic," and I was like, "Okay, that makes sense." What I saw was what I got, and I rolled with it.
Then I reached Alcamoth, on the head of the Bionis. If you played Chrono Trigger, this is kind of like the Zeal Kingdom of the game. Or for Xenogears, Solaris - a highly advanced place unlike any other up till this point which acts as an inevitable site for shattering plot revelations. (Director Tetsuya Takahashi worked on all three games, so he's clearly strapped for ideas)
When it should feel like a destination, it actually just serves as a road block to the place you really want to get to: Prison Island. But you have to get the king's permission to get there, which means to have to save his daughter, which means you have to prove your worth, et cetera, et cetera.
Up until now, the game has been pretty straight forward. Nothing has been lingered on, cut scenes have been pretty quick and unobtrusive (here's a problem; here's where we come in; here's how it's resolved). Cliche plot points really haven't been an issue because they're treated like building blocks for the game - not especially artful, but useful for founding objectives and challenges upon.
When the game reaches Alcamoth, it starts presenting its cliches as though they aren't cliches. This is the point at which I remembered, "Oh yeah, this was the same developer responsible for Xenosaga."
Hey, remember how we're on a sworn mission to gain revenge on those horrible machines that tried to murder us? Well, forget about that for now. How about instead of all that stuff you've been looking forward to, we have several back-to-back cut scenes detailing the political machinations of people you haven't even met before? Looks like there's a lot of dirty dealing going on concerning things I don't even really understand! I wonder who's behind it all? Maybe it's the person who looks and sounds like they're behind it all?
[There's a sudden influx of really unclever cut scenes at this point, just when my roommates decided to start paying attention as I play the game. I felt almost as bad as when my dad walked in on me playing Final Fantasy X-2.]
Like, why all the ceremony? Why all the pomp and circumstance when I KNOW what's going to happen? I've played a lot of games, Takahashi! A bunch of them were games YOU made!!
Nothing surprising happens. Nobody changes. Good people are good and bad people are bad. Everyone looks and sounds like exactly the sort of people they are.
Now I WILL admit that, once I got to Prison Island, things vastly improved. I got to go some place that looked cool, I got to beat big things up, and the ensuing scenes provided a good balance of questions, answers, and warnings of bigger things.
But now I'm really worried that things are going to get worse as time goes on. I'd be willing to suffer a dumbening story if I knew the challenges would improve, but frankly the game's been getting easier and the boss fights haven't required too much strategizing. Even gem crafting is becoming a process of 1) boosting Agility and 2) tossing everything else.
I think a break'll do me good. Keep the magic of Bionis alive.
October 2, 2012
Fourside, Part 2: Moonside and the Horrors of the American Dream
With Paula still kidnapped, Everdred tells Ness and Jeff to check behind the counter at Jackie's Cafe. When they do, the boys are transported to Moonside.
Although Fourside is almost a clear representation of New York City, I've heard Moonside construed as a stand-in for the Las Vegas Strip. It makes sense, considering the garish neon sensibility and the trek through the desert to get there.
I think Moonside acts as a more overt representation of the seedy underbelly of the big city at night, and how strange and terrifying it can be for two boys from a midwest suburb and an English boarding school.
People lie to your face and purposefully misinterpret your responses (Yes becomes No and No becomes Yes). Invisible boundaries signify a complete ignorance on your part as to how to get around. The only way to find your way out is to trust complete strangers to teleport you with the click of a camera shutter about the city. Enemies roam the street represented by flickering flames, illuminating but still unknowable, untouchable.
I say "illuminating" because, like bad guys in other parts of Earthbound, they seem to indicate the nature of their environment.
Two of the four occurring enemies here are the Enraged Fire Plug and the Robo Pump, two ordinarily useful devices that make for a deadly combo - the fire hydrant deals crushing damage with a jet of a water, and the gas pump explodes after three rounds. These are symbols of American urbanization and the conquering of inconvenience and danger through infrastructure! Why are they killing us?
The other two enemies here are the Abstract Art and Dali's Clock. They represent the kind of hip beatnik style I referenced earlier, the kind of things a cultured urbanite would at the very least be aware of. Though not as overtly dangerous as the other two, the art can hypnotize you, and the clock can freeze time, very creepily muting the background music while wailing on you.
Moonside is a city of conflicting identities. A haven for ideas and advancements for society, but also a place with dark alleys where society cannot defend you from knowledge you are too young to understand. A place of cultural understanding where nothing is what it seems and the truth is obfuscated by flashiness and idol worship.
Literal idol worship! The goal here in Moonside is to make your way through the not-quite-visible maze of the city to reach and destroy the Mani Mani Statue. In order to do that, you have to teleport around for a while until you are greeted by an invisible man with a unibrow and a gold tooth. The guy blocking the path to Mani Mani thinks this guy is so cool that he just has to leave his post and go get a drink with him. Adults are fucking weird
When you do defeat the Mani Mani Statue, you're brought back to the warehouse behind Jackie's Cafe, next to the battered idol. A mouse tells you that you were just walking around the warehouse with a glazed expression. Moonside was evidently an illusion created by Mani Mani.
That's where the explanation ends. It's unclear whether Moonside is an immutable fantasy world that Mani Mani has dominion over, or if it was a vision experienced only by Ness and Jeff. Is Moonside simply a manifestation of Ness' fears and paranoia about the world he's trying to save, projected by Mani Mani to protect itself?
Moonside acts as a neat little preview of the psychological bent Earthbound is only too eager to take from this point on.
Something that always struck me is how the Moonside theme reminded me of this unnamed song from Silent Hill, which was released about 4 years later. Some of Earthbound's more intense music does have a similar foreboding quality to Silent Hill's earlier songs, though there aren't any apparent commonalities between the sound staff for either game. It stuck out to me, because both Moonside and Silent Hill are fucking weird. There are some clear nods toward Twin Peaks in the Silent Hill song, so I wonder if Moonside has similar inspirations.
That may not be so, because Moonside's theme is based on a riff from Ric Ocasek's "Keep On Laughin'". From this point on, Earthbound's music starts having a lot of interesting inspirations.
August 28, 2012
Fourside, Part 1: Death is Only the Beginning
Paula is gone. AGAIN.
When you come back from your spelunking adventure, the four-story (Wow!) Fourside Department Store is open for business. And it has everything you need! Every kind of healing item up until this point, and on the very top floor there's brand new weaponry to equip - FINALLY! Certainly the best part, in ANY RPG, of coming to a new town is getting the newest gear.
And then, once you descend each escalator back to the ground floor and make your way toward the exit, the lights flicker and some... THING sweeps through your party and snatches Paula away. As the lights flicker again, every NPC disappears, and a voice over the intercom summons you to the office at the top floor.
So now a place that was once a haven of supply and demand is now one of the most devious dungeons in the whole game.
Paula is gone. She is the most versatile striker of the team, who can direct strong attacks at single targets or whole groups, and she was the only member with elemental skills. But you can't use those anymore because she's gone.
Also because she's gone, all of Paula's items are gone. PROTIP: Before this point, take important items away from Paula - explosives, Teddy Bears, and especially the electro-reflective Franklin Badge. In fact, if you have space, load up on Teddy Bears and Bottle Rockets. Probably shoulda mentioned this sooner!!
The enemies here are fucking tough. There's a huge spike in difficulty here, so I hope you bought the best stuff before the blackout. Most enemies have a "regular" attack and a "strong" attack, but it seems most of them use their strongest attacks all of the time. The Mystical Records can heal each other with Lifeup, too. If you have the Franklin Badge, that should at least protect you from the attacks from the ambulating bass guitar pretty well.
The assortment of enemies could be a nod to the style of hip urban beatniks. Y'know, listening to their records and going to their clubs and playing their upright basses and drinking their scalding hot coffee? Y'know? The selection of enemies here seems too specific not to suggest something.
The environment works against you. While riding the escalator, you are robbed of control until you reach the top or bottom. This restricts your ability to scroll enemies away.
What do I mean when I say scroll enemies away? Well, if you have enough space, and you see enemies in the distance that have not noticed you yet, and you don't want to fight them, all you have to do is walk in the opposite direction until the enemies scroll off-screen, plus a few more steps. When you walk back, the game will have basically "reshuffled" the enemies. Depending on the location, sometimes this technique will result in a different set of enemies, and sometimes you can make enemies disappear altogether.
Since each floor in the department store is connected by an escalator, there is no opportunity to reshuffle the enemies off-screen. So each time you ascend to a new floor, it's very likely you'll be bum-rushed by whatever the game wants to throw at you. So be prepared each time you step on the escalator.
The big boss on the top floor, who's been taunting you over the PA periodically, is tough but simple, and if you let loose everything you have at him before he does the same to you, he should be taken care of pretty easily.
Being an alien, he clearly works for Giygas, but on defeat he says, At this moment, Paula should be... Monotoli... Gwaaaarrrgh!!, then dissipates.
Monotoli, based on NPC intel, is a Trump-styled self-made billionaire who seems to essentially run the town. Indeed, there is no city hall, but there is a giant skyscraper that says, "Monotoli" on it.
Investigating the Monotoli building will only lead you to find... Pokey! Apparently, he's now Monotoli's political and economic advisor. He insults your taste, and then has you escorted from the premises - again, another one of those rare, uncomfortable times that control is robbed of you. Fucking Pokey.
So, it seems you can't just walk in to the office of the most influential man in Eagleland. However NPC investigation will reveal that Monotoli spends a lot at Jackie's Cafe - an unusual dive for a man of means to patronize. The patrons at Jackie's are pretty tight-lipped, but one will tell that she hears some kerfuffle outside.
When you go back outside, Fourside's upbeat music has been replaced by something creepier, and you'll find... Everdred, lying prone in the alley! He reveals that he stole the Mani Mani statue from Carpainter in Happy Happy Village - likely with the hopes of pawning it somewhere for a chunk of change - but he was hoodwinked and robbed of the statue by none other than Monotoli. The statue is likely the source of his newfound influential power.
This is a very scary moment. Everdred has been very good to us, and we know how clever he is, especially when it comes to dealing with greedy behind-the-desk overseers. And yet Monotoli STILL got the upper hand on this guy. Clearly, Monotoli isn't like the other politicians and businessmen we've run into. He's clever, he's rich, and he's evil.
What adds to the gloom of the atmosphere, aside from the music, is that you have to push through a crowd of onlookers to get to Everdred; mostly one guy you can actually get to move out of your way if you give him something to eat. Though they don't seem to hear the conversation, it's a pretty intimate moment to share out in public surrounded by strangers.
Once Everdred tells you everything he knows, he asks if you'd like him to repeat what he said. This happens in the game whenever you're presented with a chunk of plot information, as with Buzz Buzz's final words.
Though paralleling Everdred with Buzz Buzz reminds me of a certain mystery. This sprite.
Its Everdred's angel - the same kind of sprite that replaces characters in your party when their HP hits 0 and they need to be revived. This sprite is never used, but was found amongst other junk data in the game. This sprite leads to two possible conclusions.
1) At some point in planning, Everdred was supposed to die here in the alley. Just as with Buzz Buzz, an important NPC would die after telling you something very important. This would represent a big shift in scope, as it would lead to the first death of a human being, and would represent Monotoli as a reprehensible monster. If Everdred did not die in the alley, it's possible his sprite would appear during the game's credits. But I guess that was too much of a downer.
2) Everdred was meant to be a playable character at some point. This is not a popular opinion, and there is no other data supporting this possibility, but there is some context. Only members of the player's party have angelic sprites; all other NPCs flicker or fade from existence if they're killed or otherwise defeated.
Looking back at Mother 1 (Earthbound Zero), you can see that all of the playable characters in its cast were the basis for the playable characters in Earthbound - kid in red ball cap, cute blonde girl in pink, dorky smart kid with glasses. There's also a fourth party member who joins for a period of time: a muscley, snarky gangster with sunglasses named Teddy, who is older than the rest of the kids.
While Everdred is a much older, possible dirtier version of Teddy, it's pretty easy to see the connection. Most people say that Teddy was the basis for Frank Fly, which certainly makes sense. Even if the idea was discarded early on, I'm almost confident it was a possibility at some point during production. It seems Itoi has a weird respect for shady gangster tough guys.
Anyway, Everdred doesn't die. What he does do is recite his "last" haiku poem.
When on your way out
Be sure that you say goodbye
then lock the door tight.
He urges you not to follow him as he stumbles away.
But before he goes, he tells you to check behind the counter in the cafe.
When you come back from your spelunking adventure, the four-story (Wow!) Fourside Department Store is open for business. And it has everything you need! Every kind of healing item up until this point, and on the very top floor there's brand new weaponry to equip - FINALLY! Certainly the best part, in ANY RPG, of coming to a new town is getting the newest gear.
And then, once you descend each escalator back to the ground floor and make your way toward the exit, the lights flicker and some... THING sweeps through your party and snatches Paula away. As the lights flicker again, every NPC disappears, and a voice over the intercom summons you to the office at the top floor.
So now a place that was once a haven of supply and demand is now one of the most devious dungeons in the whole game.
Paula is gone. She is the most versatile striker of the team, who can direct strong attacks at single targets or whole groups, and she was the only member with elemental skills. But you can't use those anymore because she's gone.
Also because she's gone, all of Paula's items are gone. PROTIP: Before this point, take important items away from Paula - explosives, Teddy Bears, and especially the electro-reflective Franklin Badge. In fact, if you have space, load up on Teddy Bears and Bottle Rockets. Probably shoulda mentioned this sooner!!
The enemies here are fucking tough. There's a huge spike in difficulty here, so I hope you bought the best stuff before the blackout. Most enemies have a "regular" attack and a "strong" attack, but it seems most of them use their strongest attacks all of the time. The Mystical Records can heal each other with Lifeup, too. If you have the Franklin Badge, that should at least protect you from the attacks from the ambulating bass guitar pretty well.
The assortment of enemies could be a nod to the style of hip urban beatniks. Y'know, listening to their records and going to their clubs and playing their upright basses and drinking their scalding hot coffee? Y'know? The selection of enemies here seems too specific not to suggest something.
The environment works against you. While riding the escalator, you are robbed of control until you reach the top or bottom. This restricts your ability to scroll enemies away.
What do I mean when I say scroll enemies away? Well, if you have enough space, and you see enemies in the distance that have not noticed you yet, and you don't want to fight them, all you have to do is walk in the opposite direction until the enemies scroll off-screen, plus a few more steps. When you walk back, the game will have basically "reshuffled" the enemies. Depending on the location, sometimes this technique will result in a different set of enemies, and sometimes you can make enemies disappear altogether.
Since each floor in the department store is connected by an escalator, there is no opportunity to reshuffle the enemies off-screen. So each time you ascend to a new floor, it's very likely you'll be bum-rushed by whatever the game wants to throw at you. So be prepared each time you step on the escalator.
The big boss on the top floor, who's been taunting you over the PA periodically, is tough but simple, and if you let loose everything you have at him before he does the same to you, he should be taken care of pretty easily.
Being an alien, he clearly works for Giygas, but on defeat he says, At this moment, Paula should be... Monotoli... Gwaaaarrrgh!!, then dissipates.
Monotoli, based on NPC intel, is a Trump-styled self-made billionaire who seems to essentially run the town. Indeed, there is no city hall, but there is a giant skyscraper that says, "Monotoli" on it.
Investigating the Monotoli building will only lead you to find... Pokey! Apparently, he's now Monotoli's political and economic advisor. He insults your taste, and then has you escorted from the premises - again, another one of those rare, uncomfortable times that control is robbed of you. Fucking Pokey.
So, it seems you can't just walk in to the office of the most influential man in Eagleland. However NPC investigation will reveal that Monotoli spends a lot at Jackie's Cafe - an unusual dive for a man of means to patronize. The patrons at Jackie's are pretty tight-lipped, but one will tell that she hears some kerfuffle outside.
When you go back outside, Fourside's upbeat music has been replaced by something creepier, and you'll find... Everdred, lying prone in the alley! He reveals that he stole the Mani Mani statue from Carpainter in Happy Happy Village - likely with the hopes of pawning it somewhere for a chunk of change - but he was hoodwinked and robbed of the statue by none other than Monotoli. The statue is likely the source of his newfound influential power.
This is a very scary moment. Everdred has been very good to us, and we know how clever he is, especially when it comes to dealing with greedy behind-the-desk overseers. And yet Monotoli STILL got the upper hand on this guy. Clearly, Monotoli isn't like the other politicians and businessmen we've run into. He's clever, he's rich, and he's evil.
What adds to the gloom of the atmosphere, aside from the music, is that you have to push through a crowd of onlookers to get to Everdred; mostly one guy you can actually get to move out of your way if you give him something to eat. Though they don't seem to hear the conversation, it's a pretty intimate moment to share out in public surrounded by strangers.
Once Everdred tells you everything he knows, he asks if you'd like him to repeat what he said. This happens in the game whenever you're presented with a chunk of plot information, as with Buzz Buzz's final words.
Though paralleling Everdred with Buzz Buzz reminds me of a certain mystery. This sprite.
Its Everdred's angel - the same kind of sprite that replaces characters in your party when their HP hits 0 and they need to be revived. This sprite is never used, but was found amongst other junk data in the game. This sprite leads to two possible conclusions.
1) At some point in planning, Everdred was supposed to die here in the alley. Just as with Buzz Buzz, an important NPC would die after telling you something very important. This would represent a big shift in scope, as it would lead to the first death of a human being, and would represent Monotoli as a reprehensible monster. If Everdred did not die in the alley, it's possible his sprite would appear during the game's credits. But I guess that was too much of a downer.
2) Everdred was meant to be a playable character at some point. This is not a popular opinion, and there is no other data supporting this possibility, but there is some context. Only members of the player's party have angelic sprites; all other NPCs flicker or fade from existence if they're killed or otherwise defeated.
Looking back at Mother 1 (Earthbound Zero), you can see that all of the playable characters in its cast were the basis for the playable characters in Earthbound - kid in red ball cap, cute blonde girl in pink, dorky smart kid with glasses. There's also a fourth party member who joins for a period of time: a muscley, snarky gangster with sunglasses named Teddy, who is older than the rest of the kids.
While Everdred is a much older, possible dirtier version of Teddy, it's pretty easy to see the connection. Most people say that Teddy was the basis for Frank Fly, which certainly makes sense. Even if the idea was discarded early on, I'm almost confident it was a possibility at some point during production. It seems Itoi has a weird respect for shady gangster tough guys.
Anyway, Everdred doesn't die. What he does do is recite his "last" haiku poem.
When on your way out
Be sure that you say goodbye
then lock the door tight.
He urges you not to follow him as he stumbles away.
But before he goes, he tells you to check behind the counter in the cafe.
August 13, 2012
A Troll Too Far
Once again, the Runaway Five are in debt. They owe the Topolla Theater in Fourside a million dollars. I still don't really get how performers get so mired in debt. I guess they just don't read their contracts?
The manager suggests that you'd have to find buried gold to settle that kind of debt.
Say, didn't we just meet some miners in the desert? Does that mean... we have to go back there?
I think this is the most noticeable mistake in pacing in all of Earthbound. After arriving in the fabled city of Fourside, a location entirely different from another town up until now... the only way to progress is to LEAVE this magical new place and go back to Dusty Dunes Desert, which you just finished scouring.
Unlike the Pencil Eraser troll from earlier, this double-back can result in quite the lengthy and possibly arduous detour, and it's repetitive. It feels like only so long ago that we just took a bus and busted the Runaway Five out of a bogus contract.
However, like the Pencil Eraser troll, this whole scenario is basically the set up for a joke - one of my favorite long-form gags in the whole game.
When you head back to the desert, you'll find that the miners' dig has really come far, but they have to stop digging because they unearthed a maze filled with hostile critters, including five monstrous moles.
The first mole you find in the labyrinth introduces himself as one of the five master moles of this hole, and declares that he is the third strongest. It seems like coincidence that you happen to find the most average of all of the moles. When you challenge the next master mole, it says,
I'm really the third strongest master. I'll destroy you now!Uhh. I and then the next one says,
My strength falls between the second and fourth strongest masters. Do youAnd,
wanna test me?
I'm truly the third strongest master of this hole. I'll demonstrate the power of being third to you!And then,
Ha. You've fought the strongest master of this hole, the second strongest master of this hole, the fourth strongest master of this hole, and the weakest master of this hole! I'm truly the third strongest master of this hole. Now you see the true advantage of being third!I love how all of these terrifying moles - they are pretty scary, their big sprite charge at you when you get close - revel in their average-ness. And yet, as average as they are, they're all too dumb or lazy to realize who really is the most third of them.
The dungeon itself is rather devious. As long as one of the master moles still stands, baddies will keep swarming throughout the hole. Not only to you have to defeat them all, you have to find them in the genuinely confusing underground labyrinth, doing your best not to cover old ground. It's a very old-school, dungeon-crawly sort of dungeon, a battle of attrition as you slowly burn through all of your PP and restorative items.
My friend Mike watched me play through this dungeon, having heard of Earthbound but never having seen it in action.
"Looks pretty boring," he said.
It was a harsh thing. The whole point of this blog is to point out why Earthbound is technically a rather good game. And yet, I couldn't immediately disagree with Mike's assessment.
The truth is, this is the part of the game where you might start asking yourself, "Am I playing a boring game?" Now, part of it is because you've had the same resources available to you for awhile: the same three characters, the same combat items for Jeff, roughly the same PSI skills. Go-to strategies have solidified by now, and one battle tends to go the same way as another. The tenacity that Ness needed to win his fights when he was alone is not quite so necessary.
A big part of it, though, is that as clever and funny as this dungeon is, it suffers a surprisingly dull and annoying assembly of enemies. Not only are they largely color swaps of old enemies, most of them appear by themselves or with weaker enemies, obviating the need for strategies more complex than basic attacks and PSI Freeze. The real difficulty comes in the sheer amount of times you'll be poisoned by these enemies, forcing you to hold back on Ness' PP.
Read that last sentence again without giggles.
So, yeah. It's a real shame that such a clever dungeon design and such a great joke has to be bogged down by a sudden lack of variety and repetitiveness.
Once you're down, though, you'll be rewarded with a giant diamond for your efforts, with which you can pay off the Runaway Five's debts and finally explore the rest of Fourside.
And then: shit gets real.
August 10, 2012
Everybody hates Dusty Dunes Desert but me
When you defeat Master Belch and liberate Saturn Valley, you can take the bus to Fourside, where the Mani Mani Statue has apparently been taken.
But before you reach Fourside, your bus hits bumper to bumper traffic in Dusty Dunes Desert.
Click to embiggen
Most people hate Dusty Dunes Desert because, as video gamers, they know there's some way to trigger the traffic jam to end. The most logical thing to do would be to let time pass by and go to sleep - the old drug store nearby will let you sleep on the floor for a fee.
But when you wake up, the traffic jam is still there! It's a forever jam!
So clearly there's something you're meant to see or do somewhere in the vastness of the desert. So it's time to strike out.
If you click up on that image provided by Starmen.net, I can give you a little tour.
Above the drugstore, there's a shady guy who sells weaponry. Clearly some ex-CIA guy or something hawking confiscated goods. I think it's a pretty clever way of providing Jeff with firearms and explosives.
Above that guy, there is a hole in the ground. A monkey sage lives there, clearly some kind of parallel to the dalai lama or the Saiyuki legend. He doesn't do much, yet.
At the top left of the desert, beside the water and the present with the Cup of lifenoodles (very valuable, the first item capable of reviving fallen characters), there is a single black pixel - this is a talking sesame seed. It will express its desire to see the white sesame seed again, to apologize for some unnamed wrong in the past.
The white sesame lies directly southeast, past the oasis with the present containing a Skip sandwich DX, by the impenetrable bank of rocks by the highway. It stresses the fact that it still loves the white sesame seed. If you go back to talk to the black sesame seed, it barely believes that the white sesame seed still loves it, and cries (actually its says, "Weep, weep...")
Where were we? Oh yeah. Northeast of the last oasis, near the present with the Double burger in it, is a Contact lens. I'll tell you now that there is a man in Fourside who is missing this Contact lens. If you return it to him, he'll reward you with a single, consumable, combat item: a pair of stinky socks, which will stun an enemy for one turn in battle.
South by southeast of the Contact lens, you'll find a shack acting as the HQ for a pair of miners, the Geldegarde brothers. They haven't found anything yet. Funnily enough, they'll let you sleep on their busted couch for free. Beats paying for the wooden floor at the drug store!
One of the miners will ask you for something to eat. Be kind. Once you give it to him and spend the night in their shack, the traffic jam will be gone.
If you head east around the rock bank and then south, you'll end up back on the road. (PROTIP: You can get suntroke in the desert if you spend too much time out there, but you can't get sunstroke on the road!) If you follow the road west, you'll come across a broken slot machine. However, if you want to play slots anyway, the three guys dressed as mariachis will spins in circles for you, simulating the actual game.
I've spent a lot of money here and only won once. I won a can of fruit juice. Evidently you can win a PSI caramel, which is pretty good, but not worth the time, honestly.
Not much further west of the three amigos, there is a present with a thousand dollars inside.
There are great items throughout the desert, including a Big bottle rocket and a Sudden guts pill. There are also two piles of bleach buffalo bones, one which says,
So I don't get it! Look at all of these things I pointed out, all in one area, without transitions. Why do you guys hate Dusty Dunes Desert?
Oh, well, it could be all of the baddies. They're really tough around here. They do a lot of damage, and some even poison you!
But the rewards are so worth it! Not only will you get a lot of neat items and experience points, you'll get a lot of experience. The sesame seeds are worth the price of admission alone!
Though if you ARE having a tough time, and you wanna level up quickly,
look for this fucker:
If you find him, he will give you ten times the experience you would get in any given battle. He's very elusive, but if you get the drop on him, you'll kill him instantly. Here's one way to do it.
Once the traffic jam has dispersed, you're free to take the bus (or walk, actually, though it takes a while) to Fourside.
But don't get too comfy.
But before you reach Fourside, your bus hits bumper to bumper traffic in Dusty Dunes Desert.
Click to embiggen
Most people hate Dusty Dunes Desert because, as video gamers, they know there's some way to trigger the traffic jam to end. The most logical thing to do would be to let time pass by and go to sleep - the old drug store nearby will let you sleep on the floor for a fee.
But when you wake up, the traffic jam is still there! It's a forever jam!
So clearly there's something you're meant to see or do somewhere in the vastness of the desert. So it's time to strike out.
If you click up on that image provided by Starmen.net, I can give you a little tour.
Above the drugstore, there's a shady guy who sells weaponry. Clearly some ex-CIA guy or something hawking confiscated goods. I think it's a pretty clever way of providing Jeff with firearms and explosives.
Above that guy, there is a hole in the ground. A monkey sage lives there, clearly some kind of parallel to the dalai lama or the Saiyuki legend. He doesn't do much, yet.
At the top left of the desert, beside the water and the present with the Cup of lifenoodles (very valuable, the first item capable of reviving fallen characters), there is a single black pixel - this is a talking sesame seed. It will express its desire to see the white sesame seed again, to apologize for some unnamed wrong in the past.
The white sesame lies directly southeast, past the oasis with the present containing a Skip sandwich DX, by the impenetrable bank of rocks by the highway. It stresses the fact that it still loves the white sesame seed. If you go back to talk to the black sesame seed, it barely believes that the white sesame seed still loves it, and cries (actually its says, "Weep, weep...")
I have to stop right here to talk about this.
What I love about the sesame seeds is how easy it is, because they're so small and featureless, to consider them as a microcosm for the complexity of human relationship.
Consider how gender neutral they are, even thought the black one is called "he" and the white one "she". It's easy to assume that the black sesame seed is male - black being the "bolder" color, and males usually being the gender that has to apologize for past transgressions.
And yet, when you deliver the white sesame's message of love back to the black sesame, it weeps in an open show of emotion.
It's also possible that you might find the white sesame first, in which case you would deliver the black sesame's message back to the white one. The white sesame, after finding out the black sesame is okay, says, stoically, "...Hmm, I see."
We never find out what went on between them, how they truly feel about each other presently, or what will happen to them in the future. Despite their size, we are not given the option to physically reunite them. They stay where they are, destined to drift on the grains of desert sand like ships at sea.
Ships in the night. Sesame seeds in the desert.
This is the boldest depiction of romantic love in Earthbound, and the dangers thereof. Like many serious things in this game, it is swathed in absurdity.
Itoi, you will find, is very good as concealing crises within silliness, making you forget how dire a situation may actually be, and then suddenly, when you least expect it, make you realize the gravity of everything all at once.
These sesame seeds are like a magic trick. There's a pledge and a turn, but there is no prestige. It's too early for that yet.
Where were we? Oh yeah. Northeast of the last oasis, near the present with the Double burger in it, is a Contact lens. I'll tell you now that there is a man in Fourside who is missing this Contact lens. If you return it to him, he'll reward you with a single, consumable, combat item: a pair of stinky socks, which will stun an enemy for one turn in battle.
South by southeast of the Contact lens, you'll find a shack acting as the HQ for a pair of miners, the Geldegarde brothers. They haven't found anything yet. Funnily enough, they'll let you sleep on their busted couch for free. Beats paying for the wooden floor at the drug store!
One of the miners will ask you for something to eat. Be kind. Once you give it to him and spend the night in their shack, the traffic jam will be gone.
If you head east around the rock bank and then south, you'll end up back on the road. (PROTIP: You can get suntroke in the desert if you spend too much time out there, but you can't get sunstroke on the road!) If you follow the road west, you'll come across a broken slot machine. However, if you want to play slots anyway, the three guys dressed as mariachis will spins in circles for you, simulating the actual game.
I've spent a lot of money here and only won once. I won a can of fruit juice. Evidently you can win a PSI caramel, which is pretty good, but not worth the time, honestly.
Not much further west of the three amigos, there is a present with a thousand dollars inside.
There are great items throughout the desert, including a Big bottle rocket and a Sudden guts pill. There are also two piles of bleach buffalo bones, one which says,
(...I'm just a pile of bleached bones. I can't talk.)And another which says,
(Even though I'm just a pile of bones, I can talk and I'm lonely out here in the desert.)
So I don't get it! Look at all of these things I pointed out, all in one area, without transitions. Why do you guys hate Dusty Dunes Desert?
Oh, well, it could be all of the baddies. They're really tough around here. They do a lot of damage, and some even poison you!
But the rewards are so worth it! Not only will you get a lot of neat items and experience points, you'll get a lot of experience. The sesame seeds are worth the price of admission alone!
Though if you ARE having a tough time, and you wanna level up quickly,
look for this fucker:
If you find him, he will give you ten times the experience you would get in any given battle. He's very elusive, but if you get the drop on him, you'll kill him instantly. Here's one way to do it.
Once the traffic jam has dispersed, you're free to take the bus (or walk, actually, though it takes a while) to Fourside.
But don't get too comfy.
August 6, 2012
Not Lackin' Any Meat
It's tempting to say that Earthbound has no cut scenes, because that's not really true. But it robs control of the player very rarely, and only in specific instances.
• Introducing a new playable character (in the cases of Ness and Jeff)
• Carrying the player to a new location (when traveling by bus or the Sky Runner)
• When there's a musical concert going on
• Otherwise showing the passage of time.
For the most part, events in the game are limited to dialog, which the player can advance at will, or battles, which require direct participation.
When the control is denied at any other points, usually these points are unusual and require our attention. And they stand out! As when Captain Strong leads you into the back room to get pummeled by cops. Or when you get captured by zombies in Threed.
Even some time sensitive events that you think would require some sort of cut scene - a beginning to end pantomime depicting a particular event - are instead presented simply through the suggestion by the placement of NPCs.
When you defeat Master Belch and liberate the Mr. Saturns of Saturn Valley (Belch was in charge of the zombie-siege of Threed, and the Saturns were slaves in a Fly Honey factory... Take my word for it), rather than cutting away to show some sort of exodus or mass escape, Ness and gang simply exit Belch's lair and find Mr. Saturns lining the pathway, as they each express their gratitude for their freedom.
The layout of the Saturns kind of act as a static Zoetrope; each Saturn stands alone as an individual, but as you walk past them, they also representing a Saturn (or multiple Saturns) in motion, escaping from captivity.
The movement of many characters is made apparent without the use of complex programming, the denial of control, or the loss of meaning. As a result, the player keeps playing, meaning more game and less cut scene.
Earthbound's not lackin' any meat!
• Introducing a new playable character (in the cases of Ness and Jeff)
• Carrying the player to a new location (when traveling by bus or the Sky Runner)
• When there's a musical concert going on
• Otherwise showing the passage of time.
For the most part, events in the game are limited to dialog, which the player can advance at will, or battles, which require direct participation.
When the control is denied at any other points, usually these points are unusual and require our attention. And they stand out! As when Captain Strong leads you into the back room to get pummeled by cops. Or when you get captured by zombies in Threed.
Even some time sensitive events that you think would require some sort of cut scene - a beginning to end pantomime depicting a particular event - are instead presented simply through the suggestion by the placement of NPCs.
When you defeat Master Belch and liberate the Mr. Saturns of Saturn Valley (Belch was in charge of the zombie-siege of Threed, and the Saturns were slaves in a Fly Honey factory... Take my word for it), rather than cutting away to show some sort of exodus or mass escape, Ness and gang simply exit Belch's lair and find Mr. Saturns lining the pathway, as they each express their gratitude for their freedom.
The layout of the Saturns kind of act as a static Zoetrope; each Saturn stands alone as an individual, but as you walk past them, they also representing a Saturn (or multiple Saturns) in motion, escaping from captivity.
The movement of many characters is made apparent without the use of complex programming, the denial of control, or the loss of meaning. As a result, the player keeps playing, meaning more game and less cut scene.
Earthbound's not lackin' any meat!
August 4, 2012
More about Dad
Ness' dad is only ever present through a telephone. This is apparently representative of Itoi's assertion that Japan is so work-centric you can never even see your children. I'd believe it!
Despite this, it's likely that Dad will be the single character in the game you talk to the most, as he saves your game. Like many good fathers, his duties are vague and unknowable to a young mind, but incredibly important.
Every time you call Dad to save your game, he asks if you're ready to stop playing and hit the hay.
If you don't take him up on the offer, he says,
Ness, you like to work hard, just like your mother. But, I don't think it's good to work too hard.
(Click! Beep-beep-beep...)
Ness' dad telling me not to work too hard is basically the reason the rest of my school career turned out the way it did. If you say Yes to his suggestion, he says,
We're a great team, aren't we? Well, you should turn the power OFF instead of just pressing RESET. All right?
And then the game just stops. The background music continues, but you can't close the dialog box, you can't move, pause, or do anything. All you can do is turn the game off, like you told Dad you would.
I never realized it until this current playthrough, but in turning off the game, you are hanging up the phone. That's why there's no Click! Beep-beep-beep at the end of that sentence!
I've gotten into the habit of whispering "Good night" when turning the game off.
Another funny thing Dad does is, once you have the Receiver phone from Apple Kid, he will call you if he thinks you've been playing too long. After a long period of time without saving, even if you're in the middle of a dungeon, Dad will call and ask if you think you've played long enough.
Mostly, it's just a reminder. He won't save your game in the middle of nowhere, but he does tell you to get somewhere safe and get some rest.
What's REALLY funny is if you play for a long time in one sitting, and then Dad calls while you're playing as Jeff.
Hello, it's your dad. You've been out there for a long time now... It may be none of my business, but don't you think it would be a good idea if you took a
break?
Yes
>No
Ahhh... and this would be...? So, this isn't Ness. Oh well, it's okay...
Anyway, don't strain yourself on your journey. Good luck... whoever you are.
July 27, 2012
Jeff's "Family"
When Ness and Paula make it to Threed, they find it's overrun by creepy Halloween ghouls. Ghosts, zombies, zombie goasts, living marionettes.
When they try to investigate the meaning behind this monster mash, they're ambushed and thrown into a creepy underground dungeon with no way out.
That's when Paula uses her telepathy to contact the only person who can help.
Jeff is awakened from his sleep by the psychic call from across the ocean. Much like Ness and the meteorite, Jeff's call to action comes in the middle of the night, interrupting what should be a regular night in his regular life at the Snow Wood Boarding School in Winters, a perpetually snowy town in Foggyland - a clear representation of the UK.
He gets up, totally dressed in his school uniform, and heads for the door, when he's halted by his friend and roommate Tony, who comes with him.
Everyone else at the boarding school is still awake, gathered in a common area, talking. It seems like Jeff and Tony are those kids. Introverted. High maintenance. On the spectrum?
Seemingly the only teacher at Snow Wood, Maxwell, provides Jeff with a machine to open the lockers in the locker room so he can gather equipment. Indeed, the machine can open any lock. Man! Presumably, Maxwell can trust a good kid like Jeff with this sort of thing.
Tony, without asking why Jeff has to leave, helps his friend scale the gate of Snow Wood.
A lot of people have made fun of Tony, with his dopey hat and his perpetual O face. His relationship with Jeff doesn't quite read as a bromance, so people assume that he's gay. And, since the game's release, it turns out that he is! According to Itoi, in so many words.
So it's true. It seems that Tony loves Jeff, whether or not he knows it. And Jeff is leaving behind the one person who loves him to go somewhere he doesn't know to do something he's not sure of.
As Jeff journeys south, he passes a drug store that sells weaponry for Ness and Paula. There's a shortcut that is blocked by an iron pencil statue. There's a glowing light in a cave that says, Only Ness can absorb the power of this place. Even so close to home, so much is around to remind him of his destiny intertwining with Ness'. And telling the player, "Look forward to coming back to this place!"
Finally, you make it to the southern laboratory, and finally meet Jeff's estranged father, Doctor Andonuts, who doesn't even recognize him at first.
He lets on that he, too, had been contacted by Paula for the purpose of getting Jeff to Threed. He mentions his Phase Distorter which is incomplete (remember that!!!!!!), but ultimately offers his Sky Runner.
Jeff boards, and it automatically takes him to Threed, flying over a few locations that Ness and friends will visit in the future - revealing the locations of treasure in a certain desert.
Jeff's role, aside from being the guy who uses bottle rockets and wins boss fights, is being the loner. He doesn't come from a loving family like Ness and Paula. His father never visits, even though he's not far away. The only encouragement he gets is from a teacher (Maxwell, not the Doctor, saves his game data). He only has one friend, and the both of them are kind of losers. The bubble monkey, who accompanies him south from the drug store, abandons him to pursue the love of a lady monkey.
Ness is a good kid, and most definitely a swell avatar for the player. But the truth is, most kids who play and love Earthbound are probably more like Jeff. Reclusive and unpopular, not especially talented in most things, but deep down quite proud and real fucking smart.
We have seen the family lives of Ness, Paula, Pokey, and now Jeff. The most important lessons that Jeff teaches are that suffering an awkward adolescence will provide you with the self-knowledge to become a better and more dependable person in the long run,
and that your family, big or small, are the people who love you.
EDIT 12/19/14: This sums it up nice.
When they try to investigate the meaning behind this monster mash, they're ambushed and thrown into a creepy underground dungeon with no way out.
That's when Paula uses her telepathy to contact the only person who can help.
Jeff is awakened from his sleep by the psychic call from across the ocean. Much like Ness and the meteorite, Jeff's call to action comes in the middle of the night, interrupting what should be a regular night in his regular life at the Snow Wood Boarding School in Winters, a perpetually snowy town in Foggyland - a clear representation of the UK.
He gets up, totally dressed in his school uniform, and heads for the door, when he's halted by his friend and roommate Tony, who comes with him.
Everyone else at the boarding school is still awake, gathered in a common area, talking. It seems like Jeff and Tony are those kids. Introverted. High maintenance. On the spectrum?
Seemingly the only teacher at Snow Wood, Maxwell, provides Jeff with a machine to open the lockers in the locker room so he can gather equipment. Indeed, the machine can open any lock. Man! Presumably, Maxwell can trust a good kid like Jeff with this sort of thing.
Tony, without asking why Jeff has to leave, helps his friend scale the gate of Snow Wood.
I don't know where you're going or why...But remember, we are best friends forever.
A lot of people have made fun of Tony, with his dopey hat and his perpetual O face. His relationship with Jeff doesn't quite read as a bromance, so people assume that he's gay. And, since the game's release, it turns out that he is! According to Itoi, in so many words.
So it's true. It seems that Tony loves Jeff, whether or not he knows it. And Jeff is leaving behind the one person who loves him to go somewhere he doesn't know to do something he's not sure of.
As Jeff journeys south, he passes a drug store that sells weaponry for Ness and Paula. There's a shortcut that is blocked by an iron pencil statue. There's a glowing light in a cave that says, Only Ness can absorb the power of this place. Even so close to home, so much is around to remind him of his destiny intertwining with Ness'. And telling the player, "Look forward to coming back to this place!"
Finally, you make it to the southern laboratory, and finally meet Jeff's estranged father, Doctor Andonuts, who doesn't even recognize him at first.
Uh, those glasses look good on you. How about a donut?
>Yes
No
Well, I was only offering... I'd also like a donut right about now.
He lets on that he, too, had been contacted by Paula for the purpose of getting Jeff to Threed. He mentions his Phase Distorter which is incomplete (remember that!!!!!!), but ultimately offers his Sky Runner.
What do you think? Isn't it neat? Get in! Let's get together again in 10 years or so.
Jeff boards, and it automatically takes him to Threed, flying over a few locations that Ness and friends will visit in the future - revealing the locations of treasure in a certain desert.
Jeff's role, aside from being the guy who uses bottle rockets and wins boss fights, is being the loner. He doesn't come from a loving family like Ness and Paula. His father never visits, even though he's not far away. The only encouragement he gets is from a teacher (Maxwell, not the Doctor, saves his game data). He only has one friend, and the both of them are kind of losers. The bubble monkey, who accompanies him south from the drug store, abandons him to pursue the love of a lady monkey.
Ness is a good kid, and most definitely a swell avatar for the player. But the truth is, most kids who play and love Earthbound are probably more like Jeff. Reclusive and unpopular, not especially talented in most things, but deep down quite proud and real fucking smart.
We have seen the family lives of Ness, Paula, Pokey, and now Jeff. The most important lessons that Jeff teaches are that suffering an awkward adolescence will provide you with the self-knowledge to become a better and more dependable person in the long run,
and that your family, big or small, are the people who love you.
EDIT 12/19/14: This sums it up nice.
July 20, 2012
Low-life scum and gullible musicians save the day
Everdred runs Burglin Park, the open-air market in Twson. It's suggested that he's something of a mobster, and NPCs explicitly state that he's tied to kidnappings and burglaries, and not someone to mess with.
When you tread deeply into Burglin Park, Everdred jumps off the roof of his own house and challenges you to a fight. His actions in combat include stealing consumable goods from you, knitting his brow, and biting you.
Once Everdred finds out how tough you are, he tells you about Paula's whereabouts. Evidently, in the Japanese version of the game, he lets on that he owns the cabin that Paula is being held in. Everdred rents out a cabin in the wilderness to people without scruples.
It's unclear precisely why he informs you about Paula's location - and he also suggests that he heard you were looking for her. And he asks you to bring her back here when you find her. Jesus, what does he want?
When you do bring Paula back to Everdred, he is impressed, again suggesting he has informants about town.
I heard that you've been pretty proud of yourself since you saved Paula's
life... I was going to ask you to be my partner, but I know you'll refuse. It's
written all over your face. If you accepted, I was going to give you some
money. Actually, I can't keep the money now anyway. Let me give this to you.
It's 10,000 dollars. Use the money any way you like. You cannot refuse my
generosity. Just accept it.
Ha ha! Okay. And then you receive an item called Wad of bills. What do we do with this money? Hey, y'know who else wanted to see Paula? That band at the theatre: the Runaway Five!
While you're backstage, you find out the band is indebted to the owner of the theatre, Mr. Poochyfud. I dunno how talent booking works exactly, but I guess the Runaway Five sells a lot of tickets, and that's why the owners wants them to stay.
But guess how much their debt is? $10,000! When you give Poochyfud the wad of bills, the Runaway Five line up to express their gratitude, then they pile into their bus to go to Threed.
Oh, but you can't get to Threed. The tunnel is inhabited by zombie goasts.
Our tour bus is too loud for any ghosts to bother us, say Lucky of the Runaway Five. The coolness and funk emanating from the bus does indeed repel the ghosts in the tunnel to Threed.
We almost see the same relationship between Everdred and Poochyfud as we did between Frank Fly and Mayor Pirkle back in Onett. Everdred and Frank are both the guy on the street with bad reputations, and Poochyfud and Pirkle act as "the guy behind the desk" who restricts progress for other people.
Like Frank Fly and Carpainter, Everdred acts against his reputation after he's defeated in a fight. Fighting Ness seems to bring out the best in people. Must be something about the purity of combat with the Chosen One that makes them see the truth.
But Everdred almost anticipates being on amicable terms with Ness from the top, introducing himself by saying, "Why don't we chat later-after we've locked horns!"
It's not clear if he's truly changed at all because for every nice thing he does for Ness, he also gets something in return. By helping you find Paula, he's also clearing his name in regards to her disappearance. By giving you $10,000, he is also getting rid of money that is clearly dirty.
And who's only too happy to take the money? Why, Poochyfud, the unscrupulous owner of the Chaos Theater. And that is how organized crime helps save the world.
So you came to Twoson to smash the cult to find Paula to impress the guy to get the money to pay the debt to free the band to get to Threed.
What's great about Twoson is that, we get to see how quests start neatly dovetailing into each other. The reward for the previous objective becomes the means of overcoming the next objective. Every event and character in the game is tied together simply by doing the next thing you need to do to progress.
July 18, 2012
Paula, a woman far away
Paula is The Girl in every sense. She's feminine and well-loved like a young Miyazaki heroine, she wears pink like Princess Peach, she wears a bow in her hair like Ms. Pac Man, and she uses a frying pan as her weapon of choice.
I'd like to think the frying pan was an ironic choice - like, they knew how funny it would be. I'm also confident that Paula's use of a frying pan would lead to Princess Peach being able to use a frying pan (among other things) in Super Mario RPG, and then again in Super Smash Bros. Melee.
Paula was raised by loving parents who also run the preschool in Twoson - how community-oriented they are! Paula seems to lend a hand at the school as well, which goes to show how she grew to be so kind and likeable.
Like Ness, we discover that Paula also has psychic powers, her specialty being telepathy. When you first rest at a hotel after completing Giant Step, Paula will contact you and request your aid.
Despite her talent and resourcefulness, her parents actually seem pretty dopey! After Paula's kidnapped, her father doesn't realize she's missing until you ask to see her at their home. He panics and runs around town looking for her [P P P Paula! Where are you? It's time for a yummy piece of pie!] and presumably never tells his wife, who does not mention Paula's absence.
In a lot of ways she's a stereotypical girl in an RPG, but I think this is done with purpose. She does get kidnapped, and she is heavily suggested to act as a love interest for Ness, and she IS the most magically (psychically) talented member of the group. So she's girly. But, in the 90s, I feel like if a fictional girl wasn't wearing pink with bows in her hair, she could have been Boomer from the Burger King Kids Club.
She's also the most versatile attacker. All of Ness' iconic attacks in Smash Bros. - Fire, Thunder, Freeze, Magnet - were actually borrowed from Paula. She gets more Psychic Points than Ness, and can even use PSI Magnet to leech PP from enemies - an explicit encouragement to use her special skills as often as possible. Her sheer offensive potential, I believe, does a lot do balance out her girliness. Hey, she doesn't even learn restorative skills.
There's also something about Paula I never took seriously before. To spoil something: before you recruit your remaining party members, you take control of them for very brief but very illuminating moments.
You never take control of Paula. I can't think of a more eloquent way to illustrate how an adolescent male like Ness has no idea what goes on in the mind of a girl his age. When I first played this game, I was an adolescent male like Ness, and I never even thought to want to play as Paula.
Another interesting thing about Paula is revealed in looking back at the Japanese version of the game. When naming your party at the beginning, you can choose "Don't Care" to have the game cycle through a set of pre-made names.
In Japanese, these names are, of course, different, but some of them are very special. If you were to name everyone with the 4th set of names,
Ness would be John
Paula would be Yoko
Jeff would be Paul
Poo would be George
and the dog would be Ringo.
Yoko: a lady among men, a non-Beatle among Beatles. The ultimate "other" is paralleled with Paula.
Right from the get-go, Earthbound has so much to say about men and women.
July 17, 2012
Happy Happy, Joy Joy, Mani Mani
So back in Onett, there's this guy who lives on the big hill named Lier X. Agerate, Treasure Hunter and self-described "billboard guy".
At first I thought Agerate might be a stand-in for Shigesato Itoi, or rather the kind of person Itoi was or met as an ad man in the 80s. He calls himself a Treasure Hunter, but actually, he just advertises that he's a treasure hunter.
He's also really really friendly with Ness, despite being an older gentleman who isn't part of his family. Kind of awkwardly forced, a bit creepy, in the way I've noticed other Japanese auteurs represent themselves in their own work. I guess I'm mostly thinking of Akira Toriyama.
He also initiates a very important sub-plot when he actually finds treasure. (0:34 in the video)
The thing he finds is creepy, and gives a very peculiar sound cue when examined. But that's it, at least for now. In fact, you don't HAVE to do ANY of this, which is why I didn't mention it before.
ANYWAY, once you get through Peaceful Rest Valley, you'll reach Happy Happy Village. Happy Happy Village, I think, is a unique result of Japanese minds recreating a particular aspect of American culture.
The villagers all follow a man called Carpainter who believes that happiness can be found once everything is painted blue. They all praise the color blue, assert how happy they are, and some even suggest their strong distaste for any who disagree with their viewpoint.
On one side of the village there is a woman who requests donations from you, follows you around and insults you if you don't comply, and if you DO comply, gives you a postcard, which, in terms of resale value, is the most worthless item in the game. On the other side of town there is a market where you can name your own price for the items on sale. If you don't pay anything and talk to the man keeping surveillance behind the bush, he will fight you.
Religious extremism is everywhere in the world, but the hypocritcal nature of the Happy Happyists seems distinctly American to me. Evangelical in practice, Mormon in origin, Scientologist under scrutiny. Also, fucking look at these guys.
These cultists appear at random throughout the town. The rest of the villagers are polite enough, but they do not take responsibility for these violent crazies. The little Santa Claus pom-pom at the end of their hoods were added in the American version. There also used to be a little "HH" on the forehead, as though the Ku Klux Klan komparision wasn't close enough already.
Around the same time as Earthbound's development, the Aum Shinrikyo cult would carry out a Sarin gas attack in Tokyo. In creating the Happy Happists, maybe Itoi was casting a wider net than just Christian extremism. (The cult even published a magazine called Enjoy Happiness)
With enough scouting around, you'll find out that Paula - who may have contacted you telepathically in your sleep by now - is locked in a cabin somewhere in Peaceful Rest Valley, being sweated out until she agrees to become Carpainter's right-hand priestess. Carpainter has the key to her cell, but if you visit her she'll give you the Franklin Badge as protection from Carpainter's power over lightning.
Yeah, what, lightning? Wait. Shut up.
When you exit, you're greeted by Happy Happyist cronies and... Pokey?! He's a high priest with the cult now, and based on accounts in Twoson, he may have been in charge of Paula's kidnapping. He sics the Happyists on you. Pokey, what are you up to?
The next place to be is the Happy Happyist HQ in the middle of the village. So this is where they're all coming from! I can't stress enough how funny and weird and clever this place is. The only way through the throngs of chanting followers is to find the stand-outs and ask them to move out of your way - though some will fight you.
And then you're face to face with Carpainter. No, wait, first you meet this... receptionist.
Because I didn't know what else to do!
Then, up the stairs, you're face to face with Carpatiner and,
HEY that other thing! Agerate's statue that he found. First you have to overcome Carpainter in battle. Which is very easy! Because the Franklin Badge reflects all of his Crashing Bang Boom lightning attacks. It's kind of a joke, and it feels great. Yeah, take that, asshole!
Oh, but he's not a real asshole. Once defeated, much like Frank Fly back in Onett, Carpainter comes to his senses right away. He says that the statue had been making him do peculiar things since he obtained it. He promises to get rid of it and return the village to normal.
Carpainter is a weird guy. His name is a pretty half-hearted pun, and he seems to be wearing something like a yarmulke. Maybe Itoi just wanted to use Happy Happy Village to include religions predomninantly practiced in America? Or some kind of statement about how, despite the percentage of Christians in the country, the Jews seem to run everything?? I don't believe that by the way. His design is just so peculiar to me.
The statue, which Carpainter reveals is called the Mani Mani statue, is also pretty weird, but a little easier to break down. It definitely looks like an Oscar statuette with devil horns - a pretty natural symbol for the corrupting nature of power and fame. Also, not only does "Mani" sound a little like "money", the statue also functions as an evil and powerful MacGuffin in the same way the Mammon Machine does in Chrono Trigger. "Mani" kind of sounds like "Mammon", and Mammon also basically means wealth as a result of avarice.
For now, we take Carpainter's word for it, and the statue just kind of hangs out. Carpainter also gives us the key to Paula's cell. Let's go get her!
July 13, 2012
Peaceful Rest Valley, and a suprise
Peaceful Rest Valley is the biggest outdoor dungeon yet. It's a very weird place, with the vaguely threatening music over the sound of rushing water, and the strangely beautiful contrast of the pale grass and the purple water.
It's surprisingly labyrinthian, and it's filled with useful goods and, of course, deadly new baddies. Those that are not alien in origin are sentient plants, perhaps made so by alien meddling. Giygas, what are you UP to??
Some of the enemies here also have wild, careening movements, veering back and forth. This makes them very difficult to outmaneuver, but because of the nature of Peaceful Rest Valley, they might get caught on flora, rocks, and other obstacles. You can use choke points to your advantage here to elude enemies and pick your fights more careful.
PROTIP: Grab the Teddy Bear from Paula's bedroom back in Twoson. For as long as you have it, it will receive damage instead of you, about 100 HP worth. Be sure and grab it after you've gotten the Pencil Eraser, so as not to waste it.
These Mobile Sprouts aren't so tough, but they can use PSI Magnet to steal you PP and heal themselves with PSI Lifeup. They can also sow seeds around multiply, so you don't want a bunch of these guys stealing PP and healing each other. That would be the worst.
The Li'l UFO is not only quick and evasive, but it shoots a beam that causes nighttime stuffiness. That's right - it gives you a cold! You sneeze and suffer 4 HP of damage every round. You can cure yourself if you have a cold remedy, or if you've learned PSI Healing.
The Territorial Oak is one of the most ridiculous enemies in the game. Not only can it hit hard and lower you offense and defense, it also bursts into flames and explodes upon defeat, hurting everyone. You are guaranteed to take a hit when fighting the Territorial Oak, and any Teddy Bear you have is destroyed. Tread softly, and scroll through text quickly to minimize damage.
Spinning Robo is basically like Li'l UFO, though it can also put a Shield on itself. Also, sometimes it drops... WAIT, WHAT
Guys, I--
This is my 10th time playing this game. And I have never gotten this item before.
This is so exciting.
Well, it turns out the only thing to do with it is sell it for $1000. Not A LOT of money, but enough to add plenty of wiggle room to my next shopping trip.
I almost want to keep it for posterity.
Trolling in Twoson
In Onett, enemies did not appear within the boundaries of town. In Twoson, some of the townsfolk ARE bad guys!
These guys are mostly soft, but they start introducing some ridiculous and tricky strategies, brushing their teeth and acting like drunk weirdos to buff, debuff, and stun.
Anyway, from this point on, I'm not going to do so much of a play-by-play of the game. There enough yokels whom I've stolen images from who've been down that road. From now on I'm just gonna comment where the commenting is good.
SO in Twoson you find out that your next party member, the telepathic Paula, has been kidnapped by the Happy Happyist cult. Her parents, who run the preschool, are the last to find out.
In order to get to Happy Happy Village, you have to go through Peaceful Rest Valley.
Not very far into the valley, you run into this.
There is no way past it. At least not now. And yet, this is the direction you're supposed to go! So I guess there's something you need back in Twoson?
You have to talk to the inventors! One of them can give you something useful, probably! Let's talk to the handsome young Orange Kid.
Greetings. I'm Orange Kid, the inventor. Have you heard of me? I'm a bit
embarrassed about my reputation. I have a lot of inventions in development,
but I'm running short of cash. I'm basically a happy-go-lucky person, so I'm
not worried. You know, I'm working on this machine that would really help you
in Peaceful Rest Valley. I hope it's ready soon... what? You're actually
willing to help finance the project?
>Yes
Oh goody! Would it be okay to get $200 to buy materials?
>Yes
Thank you very much! Your support should have a tremendous impact on all
mankind.
Let me give you my new "Super Orange Machine." I call it "Suporma" for short.
Please use it for spreading peace and goodwill on Earth.
Alright let's go back to Peaceful Rest Valley and try this out.
The Suporma sang the song "Ode to Orange Kid." As soon as it finished, the
machine broke down.
...
Alright, my confidence in inventors has taken a hit, but let's try talking to the dweeby Apple Kid.
Well, I have sort of neglected doing my housework... I know it's a bit of a
pig sty, but anyway... I'm Apple Kid. I haven't taken a bath in quite a while,
so I may be kind of stinky.
By the way, I'm starving. Do you have something to eat? If you do, can I have
some?
>Yes
What can you give me?
Please choose something edible... I'm not a garbage can, you know.
>anything edible
Thanks. You seem very nice. Uh, I wonder if... Maybe you would like to
invest some money in my inventions?
>Yes
Yes! Yes! Yes! Oh. Excuse me. I mean thank you! By the way, I could really
use $200.
>Yes
Thank you. I won't let you down.
The invention isn't ready off the bat, though. In the meanwhile, Apple Kid's pet mouse gives me the Receiver Phone, with which I can receive a phone call from anywhere in the world. Though I can't make outgoing calls with it.
Only after dicking around for a little bit will you get a call from Apple Kid tell you he finished his invention: the Pencil Eraser, which will erase any pencil shaped object.
This interlude demonstrates another thing Earthbound is good at: trolling. Even if you invested in the inventions before you headed for Peaceful Rest Valley, the Pencil Eraser would not be complete until went to the iron pencil statue and came back to town.
This also acts as an additional incident of the motif started with the introduction of Buzz Buzz: never judging a book by its cover. The pudgy, stinky Apple Kid was much nicer and more useful than the slick and vain Orange Kid.
The whole game is like this. In addition to your party members, you will make the most unlikely of friends.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)