|
Navigation: |
| |
| Name | Bluestarultor |
| A.K.A | Blue, Blues, Bluey... |
| Job Class | Blue Psychic |
| Hometown | Weston, WI |
| Date of Birth | April 3 |
| Age | 26 |
| Height | 5'9-3/4" |
| IQ | ACT average of 32, 98th percentile |
| Weapon | Staff, 3-section Staff (self-training), Bow, Sword, Sword & Dagger, Unarmed |
| Spells | White Wind, Angel Whisper, Aqua Breath, Thrust Kick, Banish, Mighty Guard, Blaster, Random Bullet |
| Summons | Brothers, Kujata, Alexander |
| Limit breaks | Generation Next |
Random Realization:
When looking at the Gunner Dressphere in Final Fantasy X-2, one notices that Paine's version of the Tiny Bee pistol is more of a hand cannon. Compared to the standard posed by Yuna and the small version Rikku holds, and given the phallic nature of a gun, Paine metaphorically has a bigger...
Hi, and welcome to my user page. Bluestarultor, at your service, but people call me Blue, Bluey, Blues, Bluesey, Bluestar, and a million other personal variants. As long as it contains "blue" in there someplace, I'll assume you mean me. It's my name everywhere on the Internet and I even answer to it in real life.
P.S. If you don't see a shadow on this, you are using a shit browser. To remedy this, download Firefox.
Quick Look
Edit
If you'd like any of my custom userboxes, feel free to grab the code and use them for your own page. Just keep in mind that certain ones use either graphics from my Photobucket or information specific to me that you need to change. I'd appreciate it if my personal graphics were changed out for your own, since those are my work and my bandwidth. If you do sprites or games, show off your own work. ;)
| Wiki-related: | |||||
|
| ||||
|
| ||||
|
| ||||
|
| ||||
|
| ||||
| WikiGriff components: | |||||
|
| ||||
|
| ||||
| Demographic: | |||||
|
| ||||
| |||||
| Personal: | |||||
|
| ||||
|
| ||||
| |||||
| Characters: | |||||
|
| ||||
|
| ||||
| |||||
|
| ||||
|
| ||||
|
|
I classify characters by how much I'd like to be around them. This is just a selection.
| Would Befriend | Would Meet More Than Once | Would Meet Once | Would Not Meet |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zack Fair, Vivi Orunitia, Zidane Tribal, Zell Dincht, Red XIII | Yuna, Aerith Gainsborough, Edgar Roni Figaro, Sabin Rene Figaro, Laguna Loire, Sazh Katzroy, Reeve Tuesti | Paine, Cid Highwind, Rinoa Heartilly, Setzer Gabbiani, Shadow, the Turks, Oerba Yun Fang, Auron | Seifer Almasy, Balthier, Vincent Valentine, Terra Branford, Lightning |
About MeEdit
I'm not big on the wiki model as a contributor due to not having much in the line of news sources, but I figured if I was going to be following the new games coming out, I may as well join. I'm a programmer by trade and am an amateur game programmer, pixel artist, and writer. Helixrain is my younger brother (I am so sorry :P). All of my own sprites are done from the ground up, pixel by pixel, although sprites I've done for other people have been recolors or have used bases. GraphicsGale and Paint.net are my allies in this, Gale for grabbing the colors from the palette and PDN for pretty much everything else, since layers are just so gosh-darn convenient. ;)
Aside from that, I do my music and sound effects in Anvil Studio, which is free MIDI software. Having the sheet music is really great for composing. For music I listen to, game music is always good, I like music ranging from 60s rock all the way through disco and into the 80s, and a lot of Japanese and other Asian pop. Girls' Generation's Gee is like crack and f(x)'s LA chA TA is great, but the group I always come back to is Perfume. No matter what happens, even if nothing else does it for me, Perfume is my feel-good band. Their music is great and they're fun to watch just because it's clear they love what they do, and you can't not have fun along with them.
Randomly:
- Although I never got into any kind of divination, it's creepy how well astrology and numerology describe me. Even the Chinese Zodiac.
- I have extremely good pattern analysis skills.
- My favorite element is water because to me it represents both finesse and power. Water flows, but it doesn't take much to overwhelm something. My least favorite element is fire, because I see it as too destructive. Fire consumes what it touches and spreads. No other element has the same utter lack of control.
Finally, I abuse emotes. I know it might make me come off as immature, but I think everyone should. Text is a barrier to meaning and things said in jest can come off totally wrong without any indicator of it. Especially if people don't know you well. I also tend to invent the occasional emote if I think it helps express my meaning more than a traditional one. Just, I dunno, flip your screen on its side or something and figure it out. XD
Origin of the ClassEdit
Blue Magic pretty much had me at FF7, before I even knew what it was (7 was my first FF). After I got FF5 in Anthology, I was pretty much hooked on the idea. It also helps that my favorite color has been blue for years. XD
That alone wouldn't have been enough to solidify the "psychic" half of things if not for the fact that I'm incredibly perceptive. Face-to-face, I've always been able to tell if someone was lying and read their emotions bordering on psychic empathy. I also notice a lot of stuff others don't and can make fairly accurate predictions into the near future of things like how a relationship is going to go (I can proudly claim I got a guy happily married via my advice) and how busy things will be at work to the point my co-workers started joking about it and the idea just took off. It's kind of like that series where the ex-psychic investigator just "pays attention." The info you can get by doing that is pretty extensive.
Thus the concept of the "Blue Psychic" was born and the character Jay was created to be my avatar - an overall nice guy who just has a few triggers and is a little too good at returning fire in subtle, but often embarrassing ways when people trip them, allowing me to rant on things that bug me without making an unlikable character. Jay's a little guy with a lot of power, not much to spend it on, and no real sense of his limits when he needs to use it, since he usually doesn't have to worry about running out. Most of his repertoire consists of subtle psychic tricks like empathy and basic commands that aren't much good offensively and some of his gained "Blue" abilities have prohibitively specific applications. He's half a farce of the source material, but also lets me get creative to show how seemingly silly things can be adapted into practical applications with a bit of ingenuity for the other half.
Most of this has stayed put at Nuklear Power Forums, but the title's followed me here. ;)
Character BackstoryEdit
Those floating orbs on my sprite actually have story importance. When I still had an interest in making sprite comics, the explanation was that Jay got each one from a different person in a way as they taught him about himself and the orb left him. They are, in order:
- Red - Fighter
- Green - Monk
- Black/Purple - Black Mage
- Yellow - Chromomancer (color magic)
- Blue - White Mage
- Clear - Bard (generated at basically the same time)
The colors are less related to the class and more related to the person. Jay was considering becoming a Bard when Troy finally found him again (he was absent for years for reasons I won't go into) and, as his guardian angel, told him that he was a Blue Psychic. So Jay got the White Mage orb by learning about himself, while the Bard orb fell away from him without ever being used. Jay is able to class change back to any of them at will and continue to grow them, or he can draw the powers from them directly without class changing at the dubious cost of using the MP of the person he got it from. This would normally mean that White Mage is free because it comes from his own stores, but because of how it was generated its skill set is reversed, which means that the only thing it has to work with for a good many more levels is an incredibly powerful healing spell that explodes anything that's not already dead, but can revive things from basically nothing if need be.
SymbolismEdit
My l'Cie crystal, shown to the right, is based on something out of one of my oldest stories and has diverged quite a lot. The S shape comes from something I used to do with my hands to stretch in middle school and it became a piece of an emblem of the main character of a book that's still quite important to me. The idea was to have that flat pane behind a gold cross as a sort of symbolic thing since I was a Catholic writing a Catholic character, but since his name was Trey Smith, the cross eventually became a gold T instead, which it remains for him to this day. In the overlap, I borrowed it for an avatar elsewhere because, again, of wanting to have a bit of a religious thing for myself, but also because I'd started taking on several of my characters' traits for my persona over there, many of which my avatar sprite still retains. This is a very recent update to the design of it, turning the S from a flat pane with a lighter, brighter outline into a solid-color, rounded gel/crystal thing, and the cross has been taken from solid gold to a more star-like crystal. It's basically just made a turn for the modern, and I also took myself out from in front of it. I suppose you could also say that it now represents Light and Water, my two preferred elements, although that's just a realization on my part after the fact. In all honesty, I didn't start out intending the S to be so gel-looking, but I'm not good enough in image-editing to really get the roughness of the crystals in FF13 and the symbol looks pretty good on its own as a standalone.
My alternate l'Cie crystal is based on yet another avatar I used to use a lot. It was one of my earliest and was originally kind of crappy, with my sprite with a hand-pixeled glow floating translucent in front of a yin-yang. Eventually I got tired of that look, but liked the concept, and instead turned my sprite bluescale (although for some reason to this day the skin still looks pink to me) and did a glow effect on that for more of a ghostly look, which oddly enough creeped me out a bit at first when I put it up. The symbolism behind that was that, being honest, I was in a bad place and kind of miserable, more so when I redid it, and the worlds of my characters and stories seemed more appealing to me than real life. I've always thought of my characters as people and the yin-yang symbolizes two of them who are very important to me. So it kind of represented an inversion where I was they shade and they were real. When I wanted to do another crystal, that was the obvious choice, and while my sprite has been removed from the equation, the concept of the shade standing in front hasn't, unlike with the first one. The humanoid form is actually an upscaled version of the basic human body from Ruby with an outline applied and quite frankly a lot of work done to make it look decent. I know the lighting on it isn't realistic, but I happened to like it more than other things I tried. I learned a bit more doing it and honestly think it turned out better than the first one lighting-wise. I suppose you could say it's ironic that my main symbol is one that I took from a character and my alternate is one I did purely for myself, but honestly I never hated either of them, and still don't, but I'm a little less emo now. ;)
IRCEdit
As maintainer of the SacredMinotaur IRC bot (click the link in the sidebar for easy access to the section and a link to the main page), as well as being fairly regular on the channel, I guess you could say I've established a presence on the #FFWiki IRC.
If you have any questions you want to ask in private, like, I dunno, for me to make someone an Eidolon as a secret gift or something I'm often hanging around in the channel. While I tend to get distracted by other things, assuming I don't have my speakers off for some reason, sending me a directed message or query gets my attention with the sound.
Look for Bluesey or, less frequently, Bluestarultor to find me. ;)
Best-of Stellar ArenaEdit
Special thanks have gone out to:
- Clarent (formerly Kayreeed Caliburn) - a gold award for being the first voter minutes after the arena went up!
- Leon95 - a silver award for being the second voter and the first to vote in both fights!
- SilverCrono - a bronze award for third voter, first to get an award in a fancy bubble, and last to get an award!
- SilverCrono - a white honesty award for making a liar out of me, but not out of himself having used my table code for DSS' arena.
| Platinum awards for my first proper tournament: | Blue steel awards for my first proper tournament: | Stardust awards for my first proper tournament: |
Non-Wiki ProjectsEdit
I recently came out with my first public release: MediaAlarm! It's free, but if you like it, you can donate whatever you feel it's worth.
So, yes, as a programmer, I write programs, do web site coding, etc. I've written small tools like a die-roller and something to generate colors in hexadecimal, but most of my current projects are games.
The real purpose of this section is for you to follow that link in the heading. I have projects for the future you might think are cool and comments are always welcome. ;)
You can find additional info in the form of a sales pitch at:
http://www.bluestarcreations.net/
Wiki ProjectsEdit
Some services I offer on the wiki include:
- Talk bubbles
- Custom signatures
- Coding help (as I learn more of the wiki's code)
- HTML & CSS help
- Anything else you might poke me for to the best of my ability
For actual projects...
FF13 EidolonsEdit
I give this one its own subsection because it deserves it at this point. Born from my personal effort to translate Brothers into Eidolon format, I have since done another one for my real-life brother and a third, incomplete, one out of boredom. But, most importantly, I did two for Sorceror Nobody's personal l'Cie before finally becoming one and making it my Focus. If you are one of his branded l'Cie and would like me to do up pages in the style of FF13's Eidolons for your claimed summon, simply ask on my talk page. This is my own project to flex my design skills, but it's also there to flex my ability to work with others, so the process will be as follows:
- If you want one, simply ask on my talk page.
- I will look at your Eidolon and role proficiencies and come up with your Eidolon's abilities and Gestalt transformation.
- When I'm happy with a first draft, I'll direct you to my Eidolons page to look it over.
- You can then come back to me and ask for changes.
- I'll then implement some changes based on your feedback and come back to you again.
- Repeat the previous two steps until you have a product you like (or make me give up in frustration, which, trust me, takes a lot - no jury in the world would convict me :P ).
Is your Eidolon already in FF13? No problem! I'm prepared to come up with a new appearance based on other incarnations and new attacks to work with it. The incarnation used is pretty well at my discretion, since I'll be picking forms that I can see a transformation in. Consider it semi-canon, since I'm designing FF13 Eidolons based on non-FF13 bases across the board. Summons change appearance across the series and FF13 is no different. ;)
If you're not a Sorceror l'Cie, I'm not against making something up for you, too, but l'Cie will be given preference. In cases of non-l'Cie, I'll need to know what three roles you feel represent you best at minimum, and preferably what rough order they're in. In the case of a rough tie, the tied pair counts as one, but remember l'Cie can only have three specialties, so no more than one tie anywhere in your top 4 of 6 m'kay? ;)
Furthermore, it's unfair to ask me to do other people's Eidolons without their permission (or unless you're doing it as a gift or something, at which point, please ask me on the IRC so it remains a surprise). If you're not a Sorceror l'Cie, please check this page for which summons are and are not used.
With that, ask away, and please be patient. I'm only one man with limited time.
FF2 PS WalkthroughEdit
Yep. Just happened to see it and figured it would give me a reason to play. The tone will be humorous and probably deprecating to the game. Does that make the game bad? Well, no, the game does that quite well on its own. :P
Seriously, though, this will be something to slowly work on, maybe to make my second Focus. Maybe. I'm juggling a lot right now, so this will likely be the first to go when time gets short.
Sorceror l'CieEdit
Yes, after all this time of refusing, I'm giving in. Don't all flatter yourselves; it wasn't your collective poking that finally made me cave. :P My foci (yes, I already know I'll be changing it in time) will be things I'll be doing anyway, and what I want is accountability to other people than myself. SN retains the right to edit this section as necessary, and I promise not to mess around with his template.
| This user is a cursed l'Cie, bound into the service of Sorceror Nobody for eternity | |||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
|
Rant of the MomentEdit
- For previous rants, please see my Rant Archive.
FF13, this is NOT character developmentEdit
So I'm basically back to where I was in FF13, which means things are going to get interesting shortly.
But this point of the game really highlights something that was mishandled. As much as I campaign for Hope and will say he's actually very well-written, and even well-acted, there is just one glaring stumbling block that gets highlighted here.
See, Hope's forgiveness of Snow is pretty much instantaneous. It's literally "I'LL KILL YOU!" and then he's blown off a cliff and unconscious for a few minutes, after which he and Snow have a heartfelt outpouring of feelings and skip along into the sunset hand-in-hand as sunshine-and-rainbows-and-unicorns-forever best friends.
This kid has spent HOURS of my time and DAYS of his own hating Snow with murderous intent and was about to follow through before getting blown off the building. Suddenly everything is okay forever?
Now, come on, here. Things are not that simple in real life. Hope is basically written straight from absolute hatred into a friendship purely for plot convenience and it makes me cringe. At the very least the kid should still harbor hard feelings towards the guy, even if he can find it in his heart to forgive him. You do not go straight from premeditated murder to best friends.
The only reason I can think of as to why they did this was to clear the way for the next inner-party conflict, which happens between Sazh and Vanille and is frankly much better-handled. Unlike Hope and Snow, where Hope is harboring hatred for hours, Sazh is presented with a reason to hate a person he's grown to like. Like Hope, Sazh is driven into a murderous rage over losing a loved one before his eyes. Unlike Hope, Sazh and Vanille do not end on a happy note after their conversation, even after Vanille protects him from imminent death from Brynhildr similar to Snow's protection of Hope. Even after the battle, Sazh is still prepared to shoot her before becoming ashamed of himself and ostensibly succumbing to his pre-established suicidal tendencies (even though the player knows he can't die, since he visibly gains a summon out of the deal (if I were to redo that portion, I'd save getting the Eidolith for afterwards to ACTUALLY make it look like he followed through for shock value)).
This is highlighted in glaring contrast when the focus goes back to the rest of the party and you pretty much immediately see Hope and Snow joking around and roughhousing like they'd been best friends all along.
I mean, I'm sorry, but Hope just needed to carry more baggage about all this. The kid is otherwise very good at that, like any real-world teen. Forgiveness does not equal friendship, and a more strictly civil relationship, at least for a while, would have been a much better handling of it.
Things you learn from the ground upEdit
Some of you may have seen my musings recently on Twitter, but I'm planning a fighting game now, just to add another drop in my ocean of game ideas. The difference is, in a way, this takes a lot less work and I may actually make the thing someday.
Now, I know that sounds highly unfair. I'm not saying fighting games are overly simplistic. They're incredibly hard to master in many cases. What I really mean is that almost all the upper-level complexity - that used in competitive play like tier lists and the metagame - is not something that the developer can outright plan. Or at the very least it can yield unpredictable results when released to the wild as the gaming community finds latent functions that the devs didn't anticipate. Those types of high-level complexity are things that are ultimately decided upon by the players, which means they're things I don't need to worry about as much. I can just focus on creating the initial balance on a conceptual level - your bouncy hard-to-hit one, your slow bruiser, etc.
And again that last statement sounds grossly unfair, because it assumes every fighting game possesses the same stocks, which they don't (or maybe they do; I wouldn't know). As of right now, I have 12 fighters and a final boss, but each of them brings something unique. I do have some of the "standard" stocks, but only really because they fit with character concepts I wanted. The concepts I did start out with are more things like "Cancer Man" (who uses his smoking habit as a weapon) and "Toy Fighter" (who is a kid who uses toys as traps and weapons).
See, when I say "I wouldn't know," I mean my experience with kickers is limited to Evil Zone (which I don't count toward this due to its unique setup), Street Fighter II for PC, a bit of the Tekken series and Mace in arcades, and a bit of various Super Smash Bros. over the years. I know that sounds like a lot, but the truth is SF2 is the only one with a standard control scheme I ever actually owned and played at length. When it comes to fighting games, I have basically no frame of reference other than a shoddy, pared-down version of an early version of a game that's seen more iterations than full sequels.
But I see that as an asset, because it means I don't know what is and isn't "possible" with these things. I'm fully aware some of my ideas are at the very least unconventional. The game's style could best be described as "Guilty Gear meets Starbucks" because I went for a whimsical, yet ultimately familiar approach to character design. There is no "karate master" in this game as much as "a guy in cheetah paint who uses cat styles of kung fu." Keeping that in mind, the archetypes I came up with are simply a mix of concepts I've heard about thrown onto designs of people you literally might see on the street, and might even horribly mistake for normal (or at the very least part of a familiar subculture). Whether their abilities are "fair" or "right" is completely another matter. They make sense for the character designs I came up with for the visual feel of the game. They do not need to make sense for other examples of the genre.
Isn't that where new ideas come from, after all?
I could just as easily propose some of my ideas to people way more into fighting games than myself and have them be shot down with barely any consideration. Instead, I'll probably save it for the finished product and let them see how it works. Or at the very least completely ignore them. Despite it sounding like a poor idea, I've ignored a LOT of feedback when doing my games, because it's my vision, not someone else's. Jerako has over 70 different weapon types, but as long as they're in balance, that's just more choice for the player. At face value, it would be very easy for some schlub off the street to spout I have way too many and be on his way. I actually took the time over the course of years to incorporate things from my favorite games and own experiences and put them in classes that make sense, balance them all, etc.
By building from the ground up - reinventing the wheel with no prior knowledge - I'm freed from the limitations imposed by others on the minds of fans and other creators. I can explore that because I'm not focused on the existing mindset.
Aside from being more free to explore, I get to examine things I'm vaguely familiar with, like hitboxes, attack priority, and stats. I have my hitboxes already color-coded based on the functionality I think I'll need, without really worrying about whether that's how it's actually done. Attack priority is something I'm still thinking about and deciding to what extent I'll use it. The stats I have written up are based more on RPG logic than fighting games, but that may not be a bad thing.
But most of all, I'm pretty much guaranteed a unique product and I get to learn while doing it. Some people may appreciate what I plan on doing in it, others might find it flawed, and someone else might think it's at least interesting and use bits and pieces as a base for their own work and maybe improve on things I didn't do well. Maybe I'll make a sequel and improve things myself based on fan feedback. And maybe I'll gain a following for my unique approach to setting and character design. You never know.
A look at a couple more gaming systemsEdit
When I said in a previous rant that it seemed game systems were raining from the sky, I wasn't kidding, although I'll admit attributing it entirely to the OUYA was unfair. I just stumbled across two more at The Escapist's "Wish List" and wanted to tell you my honest opinion and what could be done to make them better, rather than the misguided attempts they are.
Let's get the "easy" one out of the way. Meet Sphero, the light-up ball you drive with your phone: http://www.gosphero.com/. I'm serious. That's it. You have to give the makers props for managing to think of as much stuff to throw onto their site as they did. This thing is at best a novelty on its own, worthy of a few minutes of idle tinkering before becoming an expensive dust collector. But aside from the incredibly obvious limitations of a "crazy ball" style pet toy that you have manual input over and moves at a fraction of the speed, they do at least have some interesting features, like fully customizable light color and being waterproof, aside from being sturdy as hell (admittedly easier for a sphere by virtue of its ability to redistribute physical stress).
What actually caught my attention and made it worth talking about was the augmented reality features in some of its apps. Augmented reality is in an awkward preteen phase right now, not quite getting past the novelty of childhood and brushing against the poorly-implemented bandwagoning of the teen years. That said, this thing actually puts an interesting factor into it, being able to act effectively like the ball on a PlayStation Move wand for the purpose of positional tracking using your phone or tablet's camera. The Move, does, after all, use a shittier camera to track a smaller ball based on the known size of the sphere. By all means, your cell phone has a lot more to work with in the visual assets department.
The long and short of it is at bare minimum, you can make a free-range Pac-Man game of this just by turning the ball yellow and throwing around some pills and ghosts. Hell, by limiting the inputs allowed to cardinal directions and denying access to directions at specific intervals, you could even work it into a maze. They already demonstrated overlaying much more interesting characters over the ball to interact with virtual objects and applying other ideas to it, so really, Pac-Man is condescending on my part.
But here's an even more interesting idea. What if, for some games, you didn't control the ball? Imagine TWEWY played by two people on their own phones with the ball acting as that shining orb that goes between screens in the DS game. Each of you stand on opposite sides of it and pass it back and forth between your segregated phone screens as you scribble at your own individual enemies. Maybe not the most dramatic use of the item, but one that gives a real physical object in the real world to reinforce the object in the game world. Blurring those lines is exactly what augmented reality was meant for. This approach just comes at it from the opposite side, or maybe more accurately loops all the way back around. Imagine Pikmin where your little dudes are in danger of being crushed by the roving sphere. Imagine Eye Pet where, at the end of the day, it doesn't go away when you turn the game off, just turns back into this silly little ball. You could potentially care about a ball. It could play with your real pets just like anything else.
By putting a real object in a fake setting, you can get much crazier results than just interacting with something that's not really there. Because you're interacting with something that is and can be literally anything.
The second one is a much more complex affair, and on this one, I'm not going to talk so much about ideas as features. Meet Sifteo Cubes - the console made of a sum of parts: https://www.sifteo.com/product.
For this one, I'll say that the basic idea is promising, but with a limited library and some lacking features, it could stand a few changes for version 3.
First off, why is there only a speaker in the "brain" of this thing? If I'm playing with a modular system, or really any system, I don't want the sound to be coming from somewhere off to the side unless I'm in a surround sound setup. That just breaks immersion. Speakers are fairly cheap and could just as easily be shoved into the cubes themselves, on all four sides if desperately needed, or just as a fairly big one by handheld standards that sits flat inside and has sound holes all around the outer edge. Bigger speakers are even easier to get decent sound quality out of, so as long as you keep enough solid plastic to retain stability, you're getting bang for your buck with that setup.
Second, they make a big deal of how you can flip them as part of the control scheme, but that just means you're hiding the screen. Solution: put another screen on the other side to actually make it do something. This effectively doubles the cost of each cube (screens are ironically hella expensive), but the things aren't exactly cheap in the first place. This just means you'll want a modest ridge to keep the screen faces off the table to avoid scratching either side. As for the AAA battery, there's nothing stopping you from splitting the cube in half rather than having a back panel, which would probably make them EASIER to change.
Third, something that's pretty clear in even the marketing material is the relative difficulty of lining the things up decently. Keep in mind these things are 1.7 inches (4.3 cm) square. That's practically the size of your palm. Despite this, it's basically impossible to make a grid of them if any of the marketing material is any indication. There is a VERY easy, and relatively cheap, fix for this. Magnets. Assuming you ditch the "flip" idea, all you need is 8 button contacts per cube alternating magnet and normal steel in a central ring to make sure that you will always have a strong snap-even connection. Incorporating flip gets a bit more complicated, but if you want to go that route, you only need 1 magnet and 2 pieces of unmagnetized steel in a Magnet-Steel-empty-Steel clockwise arrangement per side at the corners. The empty slot could just as easily be used for any number of small ports, like a headphone jack or even micro USB. Which leads me to...
Fourth, why do we need the big, clunky piece to plug into the computer at all? I get it does all the sound and real processing, but seriously, there can't possibly be that much tech in there. Looking at this base, it seems to be exactly the size of two cubes, which means that it's exactly the right dimensions to prove that a cube can probably hold a speaker of the same type they're already using for one, but also that with a minor sacrifice in increased thickness they could potentially cram it all into one master cube, or even distribute the processing a bit to reduce the size of the master board. This means, in effect, that version 3 of these things could completely eliminate anything other than the cubes themselves. Sure, each cube will come out thicker overall, and losing the master cube leaves you rather boned, but 1) you can tell the master cube by the fact it has both a headphone jack and micro USB, 2) you're paying for the tech either way, and 3) they're CUBES, which are generally not judged by their thinness in one dimension (if you hadn't noticed, these things are not truly cubic).
Fifth, I've seen the minor complaint that these things are less a full touchscreen and more they register only when touched in the middle. I get they may be cutting costs with this, but they're large enough to at least register swipes and basic positional touch, even if it's only single-touch. No one is really expecting the world on this, but some semblance of fidelity is appreciated.
Most of all, though, despite having been at PAX late last year, they've got very little to market the thing with. Let me be frank on this, but as I've said before, systems live and die on support. They desperately need to get the word out to developers and make the case to both devs and people out of primary school that these things are worth having. Obviously, you're not going to have shooters or anything requiring advanced controls and fast action, but the RPG potential for this thing is high and could introduce WAY more than their current offering of Sandwich Kingdom which has only seemed to be yet another maze to show off the ability to connect screens. We're talking each cube holding a unit or two in battle that you can connect to allow party member cubes to attack enemy cubes, or make it into a switching game where you can exchange party members out into reserves when their HP gets low for healing while another one takes on the monster or swapping party members out to take advantage of enemy weaknesses to different weapons and magic. This could actually be a serious, or all-ages, game to make people feel like it's worth having. Better yet, assuming all my upgrades are in place (or at least the second screen), you could do a HELL of a lot with dual-world gameplay, which, when implemented on a screen-by-screen basis, could offer a LOT of depth and new ways to get from point A to point B by switching worlds entirely or gallivanting directly from one to the other and back again, taking advantage of the schizophrenic disparity between maps to hide chests, block and open paths, and even drop the player into bottomless pits, since you seriously never know what you're going to get unless you're constantly looking. Imagine these physics being applied to something like Pokémon and how drastically it changes the face of the game. What if there are FOUR worlds like Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and you never know which one is hiding on the other side? Heck, all of this could even be accomplished just by the "flip and reveal" method they seem to offer as a feature (although I argue the second screen is a better implementation). The games so far have utterly failed to show off the insane amounts of flexibility the system potentially has, sticking to basic features, and that's just sad.
Crap. Writing all this about the cubes actually kinda makes me want them, even in their current state. I HAVE SOLD MYSELF ON THE POTENTIAL OF A SYSTEM I AM HIGHLIGHTING AS HORRIBLY FLAWED! If that doesn't mean there's a good idea in there somewhere, I don't know what does.
My absence and (hopeful) returnEdit
I have come to the realization that I'm effectively a WikiAngel at this point. It's a realization that really hurts. I never wanted it to come to this. I could say "life got in the way" and be done with it, which is true, but also false. I've tried to come back here when I was at a high point, but ultimately it never lasted, because the high point never lasted. Every time things seemed to be going well, it came crashing back down.
My absence here hasn't been ultimately a lack of time, but a lack of energy. Time is definitely a factor. Until a few weeks ago, my whole life consisted of waking up, or trying to wake up, at 5:00 in the morning so I could be out the door at 6:00 or 7:00 and drive for an hour to work. Depending on whether I was early, normal, or late, I was either able to leave at 3:00 and have the rest of the night to myself, leave at 5:00 and be on my own terms, or leave at 5:00 and have to try to stay awake until midnight to watch the system. It wreaked havoc on my sleep schedule and energy levels, and caused me problems both personally and professionally. The truth is I have the worst drive of anyone at my place of work, or did until our newest hire, who drives 2 hours each way and sees it as a step up from the 4 hours she drove at her previous job. I have to say that's ridiculous, and either one would probably have quite literally killed me. I already totaled a car once on my way there, and with animals, bad road conditions, and other factors, my drive is far from safe. More damningly, I had, and still have, stress when it comes to my personal and professional standing at work. My professional issues and personal conflicts took a lot out of my emotional resources.
It basically came to a head a few weeks ago when I was actually suspended for a day. I won't go into details, but those who follow me on Twitter would have seen me complaining about it and resolving to find a new job. It wasn't just talk. I used the day to send out applications and came into work the next day with my two-weeks notice and the intent to hand it over first thing in the morning. I even got a call around noon from one of the grocery stores I'd applied to.
But what happened before that is almost surreal. Before I could actually hand the papers to my boss, she took me to a meeting with her and her boss. They said they wanted to keep me and were redefining my duties to do that. Her boss didn't even know the folder I still had in my hand contained my resignation. They'd somehow used the day I was gone to work out what they could do to keep me on the team.
I have to say that that meant a lot. Frankly, I was not a good fit for the things they had hired me for. Some of it was internal to me; some of it had to do with me taking the brunt of things other people were doing because I'm not a forceful person. But to be told that I'm valuable enough as a programmer that they were willing to keep me based on that in spite of my weaknesses in other areas meant a LOT. That they wanted to redefine my duties to keep me on things they valued me for was something I could never have asked for. When the call came in at noon, I told them things had changed on my end. I was hesitant, because I wasn't sure what to make of it, but I did it.
I will admit things still aren't perfect. I'm not well-liked by many people inside and outside my department for various reasons, and I'm not well-respected by many of those same people. I will be honest and say they have valid reasons for that. Reasons which, unfortunately, are just a part of who I am. I also have the same commute as ever, which is still 2 hours of every weekday I will never get back. On the other hand, some of this is being mitigated now. I'm not being asked to do things they know I'm not good at because my superiors know it's just setting me up to fail. I'm also taken out of the weekly rotation, which has helped me get back into a regular pattern so I'm not half-dead for 2 weeks out of every 5 between early and late shifts. I've actually set my first alarm for 6:00 and the extra hour of sleep has already done a lot for my energy. I won't say I'm at all bouncing around, but I feel like, on a good day, I might actually be able to do more than just sit and save pictures off of image boards, which is basically what my life consisted of for several months, at some points being unable to even handle basic necessities because I just couldn't move.
I've been away from this wiki for longer than I'd ever hoped. Almost 8 months, if not longer. I haven't done anything else I've ever cared about in that time, either. Barely any sprite work, no forums, no music, no nothing. Not even friends, because I either didn't have the energy or drove them away. Nobody wants a downer around all the time. My social life has been mostly online for years anyway.
I'm finally to the point where I think I can start living again, though. Slowly, but surely. I hope it sticks this time, because if not, well, I've been frustrated enough recently even after the changes to look for other jobs in my field (not enough to go back into food service). And I was satisfied to see things actually opening up a bit after quite a while of nobody wanting entry-level workers. I may not ultimately stay at this job into the foreseeable future. But as for right now, I'm able to live with it. The big question of "where do you see yourself in five years" is still a big question mark for me. In that amount of time, I might actually be able to transfer to a location much closer to my home and end up even better off for it, but then I also might not be with the company in the same timespan. I'm playing it by ear, deciding what's best for me. I should have been doing that more all along, but ultimately I think it's better I stayed just so I can establish myself in my industry. There's a very real threat for programmers that they'll never get a job in the industry again if they don't succeed at their first one. For the longest time, I was pretty sure that was going to happen to me. Now all I have to do is wait for my 2-year anniversary coming up in June to be really set to leave if I have to.
But really, I'm just thankful to my place of work for what they've given me so far. Most places would not have been NEARLY as generous, for many things. Most importantly, like the quote goes, approximately, "Everyone is a genius. If you judge a goldfish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its life thinking it's retarded." I'm glad I have a job that recognizes that.
Blue's Bottom heroesEdit
This is a bit touchy, because it's easy for me to bitch about characters I have little actual experience with (see space marines). That said, I think there's enough I can actually speak for to make a list.
- Cecil Harvey
Of FF4. This one seems a bit unfair, because FF4 was really the first real attempt at a coherent story in a Final Fantasy title. It was really the first time such a thing was even possible because of the technology available. I exclude FF2 from this because, having played the PSX version, I've seen a bit of things and recognize it as a product of its time. FF2 has a series of events rather than an actual narrative. FF4 shot for the narrative. The problem with Cecil is he's just not that interesting. In some ways, he's before his time in being rather emo as a Dark Knight, but after becoming a Paladin, he doesn't get much more likable. I know FF4 is in general probably one of the most serious games of the franchise. To his credit, he shows not only an ability to be serious, but also one to be caring, and I have to say that it's still a very bold move to actually start the game with the player character in a stable relationship with another party member, which I think really paid off. That's something publishers actively seek to kill in today's market. I guess what I can suffice to say is that Cecil is not actually a bad character so much as one limited by the times he was created in. It does annoy me that his class change means I lose out on a very useful skill (Dark Blade) in place of nigh-useless low-level White Magic and all his old equipment becomes doorstops. Especially because this happens pretty much directly after you can break your bank buying the best Dark Knight equipment the game offers. But for Cecil himself, I always thought he was in his 40s or something as a kid, because he always just came off as a boring adult. It's a notion I still have to remind myself is incorrect to this day.
- Luke Fon Fabre
Of Tales of the Abyss. Believe it or not, I don't hate most of the cast like many people do. I actually really like that they're all horrible people who manage to horrible each other straight. The problem is Luke isn't really horrible in that kind of constructive way. Being self-centered and naive at the same time makes him interesting, but most of the potential behind that gets tossed out because he's just too much of an idiot. The guy pretty much is bent over a table for one of the main villains of the game and refuses to believe the guy he hero-worships could possibly do anything wrong, despite being used by him to destroy a chunk of a continent and make it look like Luke's fault. Luke does eventually get better, but it takes him over half the game to finally accept his sword trainer is evil.
- Wakka
Of FFX. I hate to say it, but Wakka is a douche. And worse yet, he's a religious-fundamentalist douche. Wakka is overall pretty personable, and has some understandable baggage over the death of his brother, but when it comes to matters of technology and Yevon, he's the absolute worst kind of conservative sheep. He just doesn't think. This is a guy who tries to comfort people watching everything they know get destroyed to festival fireworks. This is literally the best he can offer as a city is destroyed. Keep in mind, this isn't the only settlement that gets wiped off the map in front of him. It's just the only one that belongs to a people he's been taught to be racist against. Wakka's issues are a bit of a hot button for me because, as a religious person myself, he's the type of religious person that makes the rest of us look bad. He's not actually a bad person at his heart, but because he thinks what he's told to think, he ends up spreading a lot of misery thinking he's doing good which a little tolerance and critical thinking could easily remedy. It's not really until you get into FFX-2 that he really gets over all that.
- everyone from FF12
I mentioned this in the "not on the list" of my top heroes, but only because that's generally to explain why popular characters didn't make it into my list. It still stands that I hate every last one of them. Although I'll admit that if the game had been centered on Basch like the writer had wanted, I might feel very differently about it. Basch at least had the potential of an interesting story if it had been allowed to be properly fleshed out, and more attention to his character might have made him worthwhile.
- Nier and Grimoire Weiss
Let me say I make it no secret I hate Nier with a passion. I've mentioned it before, but I do. That said, I don't really hate all the characters. Kainé is pretty entertaining, and the skeleton kid (I forget his name) is okay, I guess. Nier and his pet book, however, annoy me. First off, Nier manages to be stoic to the point of pointlessness. You could just as easily be pushing a boulder around and it would have the same build and emotional depth. His "witty banter" is lousy even by space marine standards. He just doesn't emote. Neither does Weiss, who has an unvarying faux-British snoot stereotype. Weiss is just so dry that his attempts at wit are hampered by it. What could have been chuckle-worthy conversations at most elicited a "heh" from me. Aside from that, Nier spends the whole game trying to save his daughter by fishing, running simple errands, and visiting the same four dungeons twice, because it worked so well visiting them the first time before she got kidnapped. I'm pretty sure he just sat on his ass for two years in between, too. Despite this, he has the audacity to act desperate when digging up items from mining points like he's somehow in some kind of hurry. I get that the game tries to portray a simple life being rebuilt in the ruins of society, but Nier doesn't get a stable job (other than occasional dock work) and really doesn't seem to be driven to help his daughter in a timely fashion, so the best I can say is he's a deadbeat.
Not on the list:
- Hope Estheim
Hope of FF13 gets a lot of hate, but I'm a pretty big advocate for the kid. You have to realize he's just a normal teen who's had his entire world torn out from under him and is lashing out. Seeing him before that shows him to be a pretty average kid who loves his mom dearly, carries baggage over his absentee dad, and is doing his best to grow up. This entire setup is shattered all at once, leaving him with nothing, nobody, and a price on his head. He's aware that the experience has messed him up, but it's his only way of not collapsing entirely, so he continues on with whatever he can cling to. He's very well-written, all told.
- Snow Villiers
Snow doesn't warrant the kind of hate needed for this list, either. I mean, yeah, he's annoying, but he's also written pretty well. Snow really has no coping mechanisms outside of "being the hero" and when that breaks down, he's left with absolutely nothing. So he just tries to push forward with it. Given that he's pretty much literally a bum (NORA is funded entirely by Lebreau's bartending) whose only direction pre-game was using surplus military arms to hunt encroaching wildlife, there's good reason Lightning dislikes him and disapproves of Serah being with him. But at least it's something. And frankly something vaguely constructive. In the game itself, Snow, more than anyone else, is left trying to run away from his problems when he can't fix them, but at least he tries fixing them. He keeps his promise to Hope's mom. Most importantly, he's not afraid to put himself out on the line for others. He cushions Hope's fall, approaches the military when the party is cornered despite being injured, and even at the start throws himself into a war zone despite being completely outgunned and inexperienced fighting other humans. He's an idiot, but he's a noble idiot, exhibiting loyalty, selflessness, and a strong sense of justice. If anything, he's not much different from the standard RPG hero stereotype of yesteryear, before they all started listening to Linkin Park and cutting. He's just thrown into a world that kinda has.
As you can see, this one was a bit harder to fill out. I avoided using anyone from shooters, because that's pretty much shooting fish in a barrel, and by "barrel," I mean that of an aircraft carrier's cannon, with the cannon itself. I could have thrown in Sid from Quantum Theory and called it a day, but I actually wanted to sit down and figure out what RPG characters I didn't like, since RPGs have more of a writing focus.
Oh, and Terra didn't make this. Call it an about-face, but what I've seen of her from FF6 GBA has been completely different from what made me hate her in the first place. She still has issues, but she has yet to actually spend her time crying about her powers in this revision, and in fact seems to accept them and actually be rather happy that others appreciate them. All in all, through relatively minor changes, they managed to give an entirely different outlook to the character and make her into a functional human being. Shocking, I know!
Until next time!
Blue's Top HeroesEdit
So I did villains, and I wanna do heroes, so I WILL! :D
- Red XIII (Nanaki)
Oh, come on, if you didn't see this as first on my mind (although this list is in no particular order), you don't know me very well. Red has the benefits of first being a pretty interesting character and second still having a lot of mystery surrounding him. He's most likely the smartest person in the party despite being equivalently the youngest (despite being chronologically the oldest) and shows a lot of wisdom regardless. He's also very much a young person trying to be an adult, showing occasional hints of his inexperience and more childlike traits despite maintaining a very mature exterior most of the time. There's also a lot of his story that's never been told despite bits being scattered throughout the Compilation. How he lost his eye between capture by the Turks and being rescued from Hojo's lab. His life and relationship with Deneh, or any others of his kind for that matter. It's never stated whether he's technically alone or if there are more of his kind that simply don't get screen time. I still hold his story needs to be told in full, or at least have the loose ends tied up.
- everyone in Grandia III
I mentioned that Emilious was a poor villain, but thankfully he gets minimal screen time compared to the heroes. I was tempted to say "Yuki and Ulf" and call it a day, but really, that was because Ulf himself is a character I love, and owes a good deal of it to his interactions with Yuki. But then I realized that if I had to put Yuki, I pretty much had to include everyone. So I did! The heroes of this game are almost all individually interesting, but the best parts come from their interactions. Too many RPGs have people brought together by circumstance who travel because they all share a goal, but Grandia III breaks the mold by actually making them personally invested in each other. Yuki and Ulf are two peas in a pod, sharing a love of flight, having eating contests, and quickly becoming best friends in a very genuine fashion. Yuki and Miranda also provide some hilarious interactions, with Miranda acting more as an older sister than mother, both engaging in sniping with him and leveraging power over him, but the two getting along quite well. Alfina starts out with the party protecting her as the basic "lost princess" type, but does validly get along with them all, slowly opening up as the game progresses. Even in the short time I've had Dahna, she shows a warmth and caring toward the much younger members comprising the party when she joins. These are people who travel together not because they're going the same way, but because they're skipping down the Yellow Brick Road hand-in-hand.
- Zack Fair
I'll admit I haven't played his game myself, but I have seen disconnected portions of it when my brother did. Even in that, I got to like Zack. We all knew he was going to die at the end by necessity, but the game did a darn good job of making you forget that and really get invested in him, only to really twist the knife when it happened. Zack is a pretty good proof of concept of what I really feel Sephiroth deserves in terms of telling his full story, done with a MUCH less important character when speaking about the game that spawned them both. It's an accomplishment to take a character whose ending you already know, make you fall in love with him, and then manage to shock you with the ending you already knew about. Zack himself is very likable and well worth investing the time in. The series is better for letting you get to know him.
- Vivi Orunitia
Vivi should come as no surprise to anyone, either. I've spoken on him as much as Red, but Vivi manages to be adorable and badass at the same time, with his insecurities and awkwardness providing an early charm that makes you feel protective of him as well as chains to break in a very meaningful character arc. Vivi shines the brightest when he manages to get past his insecurities to help his friends. Vivi's story is full of "bawww" moments which can be either optional or not, like visiting the cave near Treno and seeing the frankly horrible atmosphere he was raised in and views with a rosy glow. His rare combination of childlike innocence and bravery in hairy situations set him apart from a lot of other child heroes, who most often set out with the Power of Friendship™ firmly in grasp from the word go, rather than being put in truly grown-up situations and making decisions to fight real battles. Despite being thrust into these events, Vivi is never forced to "grow up" in the sense of losing his innocence. He retains it while continuing to fight for what he believes in. Vivi is a rare case of a game presenting a child character running with adults and totally nailing it.
- Zidane Tribal
If Vivi and Red XIII are significant parts of who I've been over the course of my life, Zack and Zidane are parts of people who helped me grow a bit. Zidane may be goofy and womanizing, but he's also a caring individual who does a lot to help Vivi grow and gain some confidence. Zidane is probably one of the best protagonists of Final Fantasy just because he's so fun to watch goof around, as well as work out the logic of his own actions. He's always got some crazy scheme, but the best part is it always works, or he makes it work in Jack Sparrow-like feats of improvisation. Aside from that, he's an upbeat guy despite some baggage, and even the baggage doesn't get revealed until well after his personality has been established and you already like him. It's not even like his goofiness is a mask. He's just like that despite his backstory.
- everyone in Grandia II
Yeah, there's an "I" knocked off the end here. But I like them for very different reasons. Grandia II has a lot less chemistry than its numbered sequel between characters, but the characters are all very deep to compensate. Ryudo, Elena, and Millenia all have their love triangle, but none of them is defined by it as much as it plays out as a well-handled addition to their individual personalities. Ryudo is a mercenary and often complains about money early on, but he does have a heart of gold buried in there and does things anyway, making his complaints a much more comedic affair than if they'd been played straight. Later on he realizes there are things bigger than himself and ends up learning how to deal with people again after years of living life as a business. Elena likewise struggles with being torn between her duties and her relationship with the party, especially her feelings for Ryudo, which are forbidden fruit, and ends up coming out of her shell. Millenia comes at it from the opposite end, having fun being with the party, but struggling with Ryudo's hesitation with her, and ending up settling down a bit. Mareg provides the party with a solid rock and guides them up until his departure, which is one of the few things games have ever done to make me cry. Tio starts from basically nothing and learns to be human from the party. Even Roan has his moments.
- Junpei Iori
Of Persona 3. Junpei was easily my favorite character out of the game (or even any Megaten game I've played so far) just because of how big a goofball he is. He's the only one of them that actually acts remotely like a teenager, or at least an American one. His room is such a wreck a rich girl thought it was robbed and called the police. His beach vacation plans consisted of a) picking up chicks and b) probably not knowing what to do with one from there, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. He gets jealous of the player just seeming to be naturally good at everything and manages to talk up one of the enemies like he's the leader, both bringing her to like him because of his constant prodding and ending himself up kidnapped because she told the others before that point. He's like an excitable puppy and I just wanted to bring him home and keep him as a pet, which sounded a lot better in my head, but still counts for something. He's the only character I'd actually have cared enough about to date if FES had offered the female protagonist and it's a crime that it's not really an option in the PSP version.
- Rise Kujikawa
Of Persona 4. One of the last potential love interests to show up, despite being the first character you see when you start a new file. Rise can easily lose out to other love interests in the party (although there's one more that REALLY gets the short straw), but made me change my goal away from Yukiko when I saw more of her from my brother playing ahead. Rise, despite being a teen idol, is actually a pretty great person despite having definitely been shaped by stardom. Actually, much of that is what makes her such a great character. Her character arc really centers around adjusting to normal life after the stresses of the spotlight and actually finding herself as a person, much moreso in some ways than the others. Unlike everyone else, she questions whether she even HAS a true self, since the industry has created her entire image. She may often be disingenuous, but that's born from having put on a public face for so long it's become a part of her. She still stands like she's onstage, still hides her emotions, still puts on an act, and seeing her learn how to open up again is almost like seeing someone have to adjust to life after the military. Out of all the female party members, she's the only one to actually express interest in the protagonist, where the others have to be coaxed into it. Despite this, the relationship is actually rather sweet, with the player being her sole confidant as she shares her triumphs and tribulations. The player is really the only person she feels she can trust when the world has objectified her and no longer sees her as a human being. The best twist that really elevates her is that she decides on going back into showbiz, but as her own person. It would have been easy to have her drop out of it forever, or go back in failure because she can't manage in the real world (both perfectly realistic outcomes), but instead she decides to take back control of her own image, announcing her own return date (safely after the game's events) and outright saying she's going to show the world her real self.
- Bayonetta
You can just see the first part of this rant for the bulk of it, but suffice it to say Bayonetta is comfortable with herself and shows a lot of class, which is not mutually exclusive with the sex factor. She carries herself with poise, never loses her cool, and has a valid sense of superiority. At the same time, she's fallible and human. She's an awesome character and most people completely miss the point.
- Yuna
Yuna makes the list between her involvement in FFX and FFX-2. They did a good job of advancing, rather than revamping, her character between the games, which is actually pretty impressive. She has some really shining moments when she takes care of things herself in FFX, like beating an entire Al Bhed ship into submission with her staff before you even get there, or the wedding, or, as much as people hate it, the Laughing Scene and others where she opens up to Tidus and shows she's capable in her own way. X-2 totally takes that and runs with it. Aside from that, despite her being a doormat in FFX, she still manages to be a likable character and she definitely grows out of it even in FFX itself. I will say it's a little annoying they always seem to remove her from the party right when she'd be most useful, but unlike other games in the franchise that do this, she's not really made out to be in serious trouble when it happens. As much as I like Aeris and Rinoa, when those two leave your party, it's because they're (going to be) dead or in a similar state. Terra is inaccessible for a chunk of FF6 because she seriously needs to get over her issues. Yuna does such things as "going on ahead with Seymour" (which seems safe at the time) and "getting kidnapped by Al Bhed" several times, which is generally either perpetrated by her own family or ends with her, again, beating everyone to death with her staff (which given her low damage output either took a while or a lot more viciousness than she generally shows). I'm totally going to get the HD remix when it comes out this year, and I'm going to love it.
Not on this list:
- Lightning Farron
Of Final Fantasy XIII and its various sequels. Lightning is at best a polarizing character, but in my personal opinion, they didn't accomplish what they set out to do. Mind you, she's incredibly human, but she's also kind of a bitch, which makes sense for a military woman, but doesn't make her particularly likable. Add to that that the developers somehow thought she was classy (hence all the rose imagery) and I just kind of have to wonder how they define "class." She's impulsive, violent, short-fused, rude, and lacks people skills. That's pretty much the opposite of classy. When it comes to her role in the sequels, despite having seen most of FF13 and played about half of it, I honestly don't care that much. She's not a character I'm particularly invested in.
- everyone from Final Fantasy XII
I've spoken on this before. They can all die in a fire.
- Terra Branford
I'm not even going to try to link to all the bitching I've done about her. Just know that my stance has softened significantly with the GBA version. Amazing what a full re-translation can accomplish. That's why I'm putting her here instead of saving her for my "bottom" list. For now, at least.
So there you have it. Big list, and some of them I'm hesitant to have on there, but still.
The state of the console marketEdit
So I've mentioned the OUYA, and the Nvidia Shield, but these aren't the only new consoles to be coming out. In fact, at time of writing, I was just followed by yet another new system-maker (something called OTON) on Twitter, likely fishing for a fanbase. Before you go out to look into OTON and give them your money, let me say there's absolutely nothing to see, even on their Facebook page, other than what looks like 3D renders and loads of text proclaiming it's the wave of the future and makes custom games for you. Speaking as a programmer, that's $170 dollars for, at best, something capable of generating Mario levels or a dungeon-crawler, and probably not particularly exciting ones. At worst, the whole thing is a scam, since they provide no evidence of an actual system, game footage, or a controller that doesn't have painfully sharp edges because their 3D artist isn't very good.
It seems that after OUYA got so much attention, everyone started crawling out of the woodwork with their own new systems. I'd LOVE to say this is a good thing, but in reality, I think it's overall a very, very bad one. Let me explain.
The problem with the games industry right now is that AAA in its current form is not sustainable. I've touched on the reasons why recently, but to boil it down, it's for the same reasons as the great video game crash of the 80s. You have a small number of providers treating consumers like crap, and the consumers are only going to take the abuse for so long.
The indie industry, however, is seeing success like it's never enjoyed before. This has led to a rapid growth as new developers see their success is possible provided they have a good product. OUYA generated a stir because most of them never thought their games would hit a console.
Unfortunately, there's also too much of a good thing. With the Piston (Steam Box), OUYA, and Shield already coming as proper new consoles, controllers like the MOGA coming out for mobile devices, and the publicity surrounding them, it seems like we're hearing about some new system that will change the world every few days. This leads to the opposite problem of the AAA market - you're getting a lot of people excited about too many things, causing severe fragmentation. For every new system that comes out, it hurts everyone's chances that much more, including their own. Not all of these platforms will succeed. In fact most of them won't. It's a real shame, because some of them might actually be a good idea.
The problem comes in that a system survives on support. The PSP lacked software support and never went very far because of it. The reason SEGA no longer MAKES consoles is because of a lack of support at launch. So when you're talking about a system's ability to survive, you're talking about its ability to collect games to make the hardware worthwhile. The stars are simply not aligned right now for the indie console rush to overtake the AAA console market. The indie console market doesn't have the support it needs right now and the AAA console market isn't quite dead yet. In fact, if the Xbox 720 goes the same direction as the PS4, we may see AAA consoles become more accessible to indie devs overall. The OUYA was a breath of fresh air. The Shield was a bit of a chilly breeze. We're now staring at what's becoming a full gale.
As for the AAA consoles themselves, Sony and Microsoft are demonstrating the right and wrong ways of doing things. Sony is making the PS4 significantly easier to develop for than PlayStation has ever been by dropping the core architecture of the PS1 in favor of making it more like a very fancy PC. If that boggles you, yes, the PS2 and PS3 are both essentially very powerful expansions of the PS1, taken in different directions. If you want to be boggled more, the machine you're using now still has the same core architecture left from the late 70s, if not earlier. Compatibility is the specific reason these kinds of changes aren't often done. Doing so completely redefines the operation of the machine, the same as if you were suddenly zapped with a ray that turned you into an orange. A core system imposes unique limitations that subsequent upgrades need to work around (if you want to hear about some of the crazy things computers do to lie to lower levels of the system, take a basic hardware class at your local tech). That said, with this drastic change to the system comes a drastic change to the ease of development. Programming for PS4 is literally as easy as programming for PC, and the "dev units" sent out to the game studios were just normal computers with some specific hardware built in. This could allow indie developers easy access to a AAA console, and will pretty obviously make it easier and more attractive for AAA studios. PS4 games will probably come out faster, better, and cheaper (for the studios) than they ever have before. On top of that, Sony is not only adding in a lot of really nice features, like a better Eye camera and the ability to plug a headset into the new controller, they're actually bundling it all into the basic package! Sony has made a clear commitment to motion gaming both in their new controller and continued support for the Move, and are making it easier than ever to acquire. They've essentially thrown the cards down at developers to say "this stuff is now here; what's your excuse?" It's a bold move with the exciting prospect of Sony actually having found a way to basically force support for their own hardware after developers largely shunned it. If the ploy pays off (and Sony isn't made a fool of for literally handing out all the hardware needed only for it to be completely ignored), it probably will be the means by which motion gaming is finally taken seriously. Add to that a ton of frankly amazing media features, mobile device integration, dual physical and digital releases, and more, and I have to say Sony has done literally everything right in the market.
Microsoft, on the other hand, is doing things absolutely wrong. They have yet to even properly announce the Xbox 720 and already there are rumors circulating that it will be always-online, won't allow used games, and is eschewing backwards compatibility in favor of making you buy an "Xbox Mini" which can download older titles or be hooked up to use the 720's disc drive (aside from general TV functions). Yes, these are rumors, and no, Microsoft has said nothing to confirm them. On the other hand they haven't denied them, either. They've just fired their creative director, who commented on it (yes, he "resigned" officially, but if you're thinking he did it of his own accord, you're fooling yourself). I read a good article that suggested Microsoft is gauging the public reaction to the idea so they can either do it if they can get away with it or come out on launch with better features if it becomes clear it's an incredibly poor choice just so they can chide everyone for thinking it was true. Either way, they win the argument, but as it stands, they're suffering a lot of bad press that they could be avoiding over a decision that would unquestionably alienate a percentage of their audience. You can read full articles on it online (or watch The Jimquisition if you prefer a video), but many people just don't have the connection for that, or even a connection at all. It's a very stupid idea for that and several other reasons (like suddenly finding retailers who rely on used game sales refusing to allot shelf space), and would pretty much mean the death of the Xbox line. Microsoft might think they're winning somehow by staying silent, but even if they automatically win the argument, they also automatically lose sales, because breeding contempt for a product before it's out is a good way to kill interest, even if the rumors are false. Frankly, they have enough PR problems with Windows that people aren't very charitable to start with. Take away reliable access to Halo and I'll be surprised if there aren't fires.
As for Nintendo, they blew their chance with the Wii U, which has undersold and received a lot of negative feedback. Once again, Nintendo is essentially a generation behind hardware-wise, but this time they don't have a cheap, family-oriented experience to offer. Wii U launched at the same rough price as the Wii (~US$300), but without someone else being horribly expensive in comparison, that sounds like a lot of money, especially with the OUYA launching at US$100 and the tantalizing offer of free games. In effect, OUYA is really the new, cheap, family-friendly (yes, they have standards for that) console. Nintendo offered a new console with a control system that was a solution looking for a problem, and with the PS4's confirmed (and Xbox 720's rumored) capabilities to turn any phone or tablet into a paired device (plus the Vita for PS4), Nintendo can't even say it has something unique. Aside from the controller itself, devs making decent use of it has been as lacking as devs making decent use of the PS3's SixAxis technology, which comes as no surprise, since the Wii was itself flooded with sub-par games. Nintendo is going to see their hold on console gaming weaken, ironically, because they can't rely on their system being considered in a different class anymore, and what they had was never that good in the first place.
While the AAA market is currently in a death spiral, mostly because of publishers and their dirty business practices on the software side, it's not too late for them to theoretically pull out of it. That said, the console market could itself provide too much extra baggage for that to happen. Unfortunately, the indie market needs to wait for the burning wreckage phase to happen before it can rise up out of the ashes. I guess what to take from this is Sony's the only one with a parachute right now and might survive unscathed, and if Microsoft fails hard enough, Nintendo might come out with a few bruises by landing on its mangled body. All three could potentially escape the nose dive altogether, and there might be a place for Steam Box, OUYA, and Shield after all. Things just aren't ripe right now for the indie market to overtake AAA, is all I'm saying.
Blue's bottom villainsEdit
I really wanted to do this, but I was actually surprised at how hard it was. There are a lot of mediocre villains who aren't anything special, but it surprised me how hard I've had to think of bad ones. The conclusion I've come to is it's very hard to actually screw up a villain, largely because the most important thing is simply for them to oppose the player. That said, I've come up with a few who are and aren't on the list.
- Jihl Nabaat
Jihl of FF13 had all the makings of a good villain. She was a cruel, impassive ice queen able to keep up a friendly façade just long enough to earn Sazh's trust, but even in doing so made the viewer immediately distrust her. I absolutely loathed her and wanted nothing more to have my boss battle with her and really finish her off. That boss battle left a bad taste in my mouth - it never happened. Instead she was picked off like a Red Shirt as the "real" villain of the story revealed himself, right when it looked like I was finally going to get my revenge. If you haven't noticed, I took this personally. I normally don't use the term "controller-snapping" because even when I suck at a game, I rarely blame the controller for it and rather just stop playing either until I cool off enough to retry or forever if the game just sucks. This was controller-snapping frustration. It was bullshit. I was denied. Not getting my boss battle after it looked like I'd built up to it in such an abrupt and careless manner pissed me off in all the wrong ways. And moreover, Jihl herself deserved more than being quite literally shot in the back. She did NOT get a villain's death. It was hollow. It left me feeling cheated. This is the absolute worst thing you can do to any character in the first place - make their death meaningless without DAMN good reason - but it was also a slap in the face for the player, because it just up and threw out all the investment they'd previously built up in her. They could have at least let me fight her and do it after. For all the things she did right, in the end, it was just a waste, and I feel angry again just thinking about it.
- Emilious
Emilious of Grandia III is one that pissed me off, and not in a very good way. This guy's motivation is not wanting to talk to the gods for a living, so he goes and makes a pact with one of them to kill the rest. First, overreacting, much? Second, not exactly accomplishing the "not talking to gods" stuff very well, are we? Xorn himself is kind of an "ex-god" that believes love is the root of all suffering and cruelty (and you can argue he's not entirely wrong) and was kicked out of the pantheon sometime before game start, but relatively recently in history. But yeah, Emilious effectively threw a whiny teenager fit, ran off to make a deal with the devil, and has been doing a whole lot of nothing for three years until now, when he's an adult and still somehow thinks beheading gods is a good idea after he ostensibly has been doing just fine not bothering with them at all. The worst part is his current situation is little different from his former one. He's still being treated like a child and told what to do; just by the bad guys instead of the good guys. Emilious gained exactly nothing from switching sides and frankly doesn't seem any happier, but still ends up doing their dirty work for them because he's still as impressionable and stupid as he was when he ran off in the first place. He really should know better.
- Nier
Either one of them, really, given the very morally ambiguous ending. OrigiNier is the "villain" only in the sense of existing and taking NeoNier's daughter, who is also his daughter, kind of, probably because NeoNier's daughter fucked with a book she shouldn't have, just like the original one did and ARGH! Spoilers, by the way. So anyway, the player guides NeoNier through four dungeons, then does it again because it worked so well the first time, ends up killing everyone who ever mattered in the game either directly or indirectly, fights his Shadow counterpart, and then the both of them watch as OrigiNier's daughter commits suicide so NeoNier can have his version back and NeoNier walks out with her, leaving OrigiNier broken and with nothing, because this is such a fucking happy game. In all seriousness, this game is pretentious and depressing as all fuck and it boils down to the Shadows are really all the humans who did (didn't?) die in a major apocalypse, so no matter how you look at it, literally everyone in the world is some sort of dick by default, either walking around in the old populations' rightful bodies or generally being miserable to the bodies that are walking around. Either way, the RIGHT solution would probably have been for the two Niers to figure out a way to separate their daughters instead of one committing suicide because she felt bad for NeoNier, since between the two of them they have the most powerful tomes of knowledge in the world, but again, this game thinks happy endings are for little girls, so you're just lucky the whole building doesn't collapse on them just as they make for the door, but not before they all inexplicably go crazy like half of everyone else who gets killed. Fuck this game in its entirety.
- Emperor Gestahl
While Kefka isn't on this list, his leader most definitely is, primarily because he's too dense to recognize a raving loon when he sees one, much less take care of the problem. Aside from that glaring oversight, he's also creepy enough to suggest his two generals breed to produce magical children. Aside from the obvious suggestion of eugenics (being generous) and his unerring trust (being VERY generous), his primary goal in life is enacting genocide on an entire race of people for the sole purpose of using their corpses as weapons of war (and now you'll never look at Magicite the same again), up to and including staging a peace treaty just to nail more of them. So on top of being a sicko and idiot, he's also a coward and racist.
- Yevon
The Yevon religion of FFX is basically hinged on two precepts: 1) people are dying for nothing and 2) nobody is allowed to question it because nobody's considered a better solution for a thousand years. That's really it. Yu Yevon decided to turn himself into a demon space whale to win a war and his daughter formed a religion around it which she and others have perpetuated for a millenium. Nobody, at any point, decided to try to take it out at the core, instead telling everyone in the world that they're horrible and that's why a monster goes around blasting stuff. This is how religion normally works, but then normal religions also don't have such a tangible horrible thing to point to to tell convenient lies about. Maybe if Nicki Minaj were immortal. At any rate, it only takes a handful of people a few months at most to end the whole thing, so as a whole, Yevon is cowardly, complacent, and needlessly overbearing, which is a combination I never thought I'd see in the same sentence.
Not on the list:
- Seymour Guado
Despite Yevon being a bunch of sheep, Seymour himself is actually an okay villain. He's a creep, for one, in such a way that really highlights how blindly accepting Wakka and presumably the general public is of their religion when Tidus sees right away there's some glaring issues with the leadership. Aside from that, he's interesting to watch flounce around. You just don't get that kind of villain very often, probably because it makes too many people uncomfortable, but it's a good effect for a serious villain. He also does some of the same things right that Vayne does, like being able to put on a good public image while murdering his father in a power grab. Even though nihilism has been done to death, the fact that Seymour is the product of a lifetime of racism and shame at least gives him an interesting Freudian Excuse. He's not one of my favorites, and the fact that his whole race and religion are covering for him detracts from his own personal villain factor, but he's actually pretty passable.
- Ultimecia
Ultimecia of FF8. I'm actually surprised I forgot about her on my previous list. She's far from one of my top favorites, but does deserve a mention. It's easy to forget that you actually see a lot of her during the course of the story, just in Edea's body. She actually is pretty successful in attaining her goals up until the end and finishes off with a redemption, which is more than most villains can say. Her biggest issue is she knows SeeD is going to come to kill her, but in a cruel twist, it's really her own actions to prevent it that cause it. Aside from that, in her time, she's probably the last person in the world, so there's a good tinge of tragedy to her character.
So there's my second list, as promised.
The death of LucasArts and the state of the games industryEdit
First off, let me say that much of what made LucasArts games good has not been with the company for a very long time. LucasArts hasn't seen its heyday since the 1990s, before some of you reading this were even born. The world has drastically changed since then and so had the studio.
Something caught my eye on Twitter, though. This idea that games as an industry are booming. They are, but not how you'd expect.
To start this off, I need to talk about the pieces of the games industry as a whole and the roles they play.
Triple-A game development has never been as lucrative as people seem to think. Developers don't make nearly as much money as publishers and bear the brunt of the risk. If a development studio makes a bad game, it can mean death to the studio, who have invested all of the time, energy, and money into the project.
The harsh truth is that developers work long hours for salaried pay, especially as a project approaches the deadline. Your average worker in the games industry is a cog in a much larger machine, picked as the top of thousands of applicants because of how competitive the industry is, worked to the bone in a high-stress environment, and expected to operate on faerie dust (illegal drugs) and the dreams of children (his children, being able to eat) to marathon the last several weeks of development. In an incredibly results-oriented industry, poor performance quickly means a severed limb, so workers who can't take the heat or entire studios that don't meet expectations can find themselves out the door with nothing but coldly-calculated statements of hollow well-wishes from their former employers to offer a semblance of comfort.
Even with a studio closed, the parent company may not be able to cling onto life, which is why we've seen so many companies in bankruptcy. Development costs are through the roof in an economy that has trimmed a LOT of jobs that simply aren't coming back because their duties have been redistributed. People don't have the same money to spend anymore, either as individuals or in businesses. If a game isn't successful, the developer's just sunk a lot of time and money that their company will never get back, and the companies simply can't afford the losses. If the average American is living paycheck-to-paycheck, the average AAA game company is living off last year's Christmas present hoping for life itself they get another one this year. Basically, a AAA game developer is less like a cubicle worker and more like a broke college student, financially.
The growth in the market comes far more from the indie side. Indie games aren't held to the same standards as big titles graphically (which is 90% of a AAA budget), are able to take more risks because of a lack of outside meddling, and owe far less money to other people, successful or not. Because they take a fraction of a percent of a AAA game's budget and aren't held to the same time constraints, basically any money they make is profit, and bombing has significantly less impact on everyone involved. Indie games are made by at most a handful of people doing it mostly for themselves, which allows them to crank out games with unique ideas that can hit niche markets. These niche markets can then provide massive returns on a limited investment. Financially, indie games are more akin to any entrepreneur than to a cubicle worker. Their successes and failures are purely their own, and while failure only impacts the direct investment, success can range from break-even to beyond the furthest stars.
This is not to say there aren't pitfalls. Indie games lack many protections the AAA industry enjoys. Things like legal protection (especially in terms of IP and copyright), marketing, name recognition, investment capital, and industry support. Until the OUYA was announced, many people, myself included, were effectively barred from ever bringing their games to a console because of the cost and difficulty of doing so. It's only relatively recently that crowdsourcing venues like Kickstarter have allowed indie devs to get investors to fund their work. Likewise, the superstar indie dev as a concept is almost dead. Notch (Minecraft) is really the only one left that I can think of. This is because being an indie developer just isn't as special as it used to be when Pixel (Cave Story) actually brought the concept into the public eye. The market is absolutely flooded with hopefuls (myself included) who will never get that far. And even if they do, there's one unfortunate beatin' stick that bigger companies have and know people can't defend against: copyright law. All it takes is one company to issue a copyright claim, even if they have absolutely no case, to destroy an indie production, and there's a worrying trend starting where they're starting to specifically target ones getting community support because they know they can even get money for it if there's a Kickstarter attached. Indie devs simply don't have the resources to fight things out in court and patent trolls know it, so in one fell swoop, copyright law is being used as a weapon to destroy indie productions and even get some money out of it in the likely case the developers settle out of court.
Publishers don't represent game industry growth, but are still a large and lucrative part of the business for now. Publishers rake in essentially free cash by acting as a marketing middleman, and bear only as much risk in a project as they directly invested in its creation and marketing. If a game fails, the publisher doesn't feel it nearly as much as the developer, whose studio might be closed by the parent company to cut as many costs as possible to try to keep from going under entirely. Publishers, unlike either AAA or indie developers, pretty much are the cubicle workers. They rarely know anything about games and are your typical pencil-pushers dictating what developers should do based on cold statistical numbers on what's a sure sell because casting a wide, generic net minimizes the risk of losses. They then handle the marketing. Publishers are essentially an extra judge, jury, and executioner standing in the way of the market, because if things don't go the way they like, they hold the keys to whether a studio gets air time before the public even has a chance to make their own decisions about it. They get PAID to do all this, and it hasn't been until recently where developers have stopped seeing them as a necessary evil and started looking elsewhere.
Publishers especially are lashing out both at indie studios and the general public (supposedly pirates, but there have been a lot of good articles recently about exerting control over legitimate users for business reasons) in desperation because the market is not sustainable in its current state. Without some pretty big changes to how the AAA industry does business, it's going to crash in the not-too-distant future and bring a lot down with it, and publishers both are to blame and stand to lose the most during the market's recovery as indie studios get bigger and form into the new wave of AAA. This crash is entirely preventable, but hinges on companies re-structuring, adopting better business practices, and most importantly finding a way to do their own marketing to cut third-party publishers out of the equation. Developers who find ways to market their own titles get to keep the cut a publisher would take and keep creative control of the project, so in the next 10 years or so, we may see a decline in the publishers' role and presence, or more of what Square does with keeping a lot of first- and second-party studios and publishing on the side.
With all that out of the way, as for LucasArts itself, Disney made a calculated move, because they are nothing if not vicious in their business practices. Disney made the decision to convert it from a developer to a publisher. That's where the real money is at (licensing), it lets studios with a better reputation take a crack at Star Wars (despite the scrapping of projects that could have redeemed the studio), and it minimizes their financial risk (they get paid the licensing regardless and take a cut of the profits). Disney doesn't know a thing about games, but they know how to exploit a property indefinitely.
To speak briefly about the future, Square Enix is the first to really take the right steps based on the official statements circulating right now. After Wada stepped down, his replacement said Square as a company is going to look at what didn't work and toss it to focus on what did. Square has already said they won't be doing any more casual games because that's one thing that didn't work. It was a cash grab that ended up damaging the company's reputation. Square also is totally revamping the failure that was FF14, having handed over creative control to a different person, and what little I've seen looks promising (the male Miqo'te especially look downright badass and I WANT one, like, NOW, just give me one in FF15! *froth*). Their efforts show a willingness to be a better company overall, although what changes they ultimately make are to be seen.
Other companies are also going to need to make some shifts to survive. Marketing and "safe sell" software only go so far when quality is lacking and quantity is through the roof. I've said this for years, but pathways have never been more open between companies and fans to establish lines of communication, but even so, those lines still haven't been established. Which is really a shame, because fan feedback has made some pretty important decisions, like Elizabeth's role in Bioshock Infinite. The push for shinier graphics has reached the point where most people can't tell the difference anyway and it doesn't make sense to waste the time when people are perfectly happy with pixel-sprite retro titles that are fun and cheap. Game writing needs to improve if it's ever going to be taken seriously as an art form, which is likewise an evolution movies had to go through (I'll argue it IS improving, slowly but surely, but improvement is a continuous process). Most importantly, game quality has to improve, which is going to be a hard sell in the pre-order climate that's been set up and which greatly shields mediocre and even bad games. The latest "betrayals" (SimCity, Colonial Marines) that have been cropping up point to a more serious aspect of the industry that's a bigger problem than specific instances. Crap sells as well as gold, especially if you pay before you get it; marketing, not quality, sells games. This hinges on buyer trust, which is why the backlash has been what it has when that trust was abused. Companies are going to need to maintain good faith with their consumers both by making good games and not overhyping them. Preferably by selling them at an appropriate price, too.
Blue's top villainsEdit
There are only so many good video game villains out there. In this, I'd like to touch on the ones I feel are the best, as well as touch on why a few of the the most popular ones aren't in there.
- Lynx
Lynx of Chrono Cross is probably my favorite villain of all time because he's just so darn good at it. Here we have a man who, despite racism against Demi-Humans, has managed to play two human armies against each other and taken up residence as a guest of the general of one of them. He initially attempts to persuade Serge to join him, at the same time revealing Serge's unique position in life and messing with his head using a combination of a magical artifact and various verbal tactics, attempting to make Serge question himself as well as seduce him directly. And it very much is a form of seduction. This is rather uncomfortable to watch, because the player is treated to Serge's view of the man's advance as the climax of Lynx's messing with him, with Lynx being the only thing in his vision, directly after grazing Kid with a poisoned dagger, causing her to fall off the cliff. When Serge refuses and jumps off the cliff himself, Lynx reacts in a very startled, helpless manner, as he very well should, considering he basically had Serge in the palm of his hand. And all of this is a fantastic start for the character, really sealing many aspects of his character: patience, mesmerization, ruthlessness, and fallibility. Quite frankly, there's indication that Lynx succeeded in this kind of hypnotic seduction before with General Viper, and he succeeds with it with others later on, so Lynx had no reason to think that Serge would be able to resist. There's definitely hesitation on Serge's part before he snaps out of it. Basically, anyone else would have been at his beckon call. Even when that fails, Lynx proves to be an intelligent and cunning foe, luring the party to him, and in a special location key to implementing his plans, no less. He then switches bodies with Serge, stabs Kid with her own knife, and hypnotizes her into staying on as his traveling partner. And then continues to harass the party personally. This man isn't a villain I love to hate. I would effing bend over a table for this guy. He manages to combine Magnificent Bastard with flavors of Darth Vader Clone, Living Shadow, and a healthy dose of Manipulative Bastard. Add to that that he's both physically imposing and physically and magically powerful, menacing, and very, very personal and there's good reason he tops my list.
- Malcolm
Malcolm of Legend of Kyrandia isn't your traditional villain, but he does almost everything right. Ignoring the sequels in the franchise, at game start, he's already killed the king and queen and usurped the throne, and he starts the game by petrifying Brandon's (the protagonist's) grandfather and caretaker. Malcolm is often referred to as a "mad jester," but really, he's not so much crazy in the raving sense as he is gleefully sociopathic in the same sense as the Joker. Unlike the Joker, though, he actually goes about things with a sense of purpose and simply enjoys himself while doing it, making him, in my opinion, a better villain. Despite being ostensibly the king of the realm for years, he still wears motley and is never seen without the three daggers he idly juggles, which he can throw with pinpoint precision and, as evidenced by when you throw one back at him, can effortlessly pluck from the air. Malcolm, despite having given Brandon every reason to fear him, actually doesn't care to do him any harm. He occasionally comes to toy with Brandon after Brandon starts his quest against him, but is shown more to be entertained by his efforts than threatened by him, essentially only punishing him for disappointing him with shows of cowardice (which, this being the genre, amounts to instant death) until the gloves really come off at the very end. Malcolm isn't undone by contrivance or because the hero is in any way better than him (Brandon can safely be said to very much not be), but because he gets sloppy at the end in his anger at being sucker-punched. And even then, it's VERY easy to be on the wrong end of the final game-ending spell. Malcolm is an excellent villain because he's already essentially won before the beginning of the game and carries himself like it. It's only when Brandon suddenly stops being amusing that he falls for a rather simple trick because he, finally, does not actually have his head on straight.
- Scotia
Scotia of Lands of Lore gets on this list for some of the same reasons as Malcolm, but mostly because of just how different she is from the villains of the time and even today. First off, she's incredibly rare in being a female main antagonist and final boss. Second, she's a wizened old hag rather than the typical evil beauty. Third, despite this, she's also a capable military leader - a general in fact. Part of her backstory is that she feels cheated out of her rightful position and lands by King Richard and isn't entirely wrong in this, and so joins the Dark Army of the non-"Ascended" races such as orcs with the intention of using her section of it to personally take back, and therefore reclaim, the lands Richard stole from her. Her motivation is largely one of revenge against the good guys, and she does a damn good job of succeeding. Aside from that, she's a decrepit old lady and still manages to come off as genuinely menacing. Like the others so far, she deals with the good guys in a direct and frankly ruthless manner, managing to poison the king within an inch of his life, harassing the party personally on occasion, and capturing or killing some of your most important allies, even turning one to her side. She's also a powerful spellcaster, made even more dangerous by her newfound ability to shapeshift. Killing her can actually become impossible if the player doesn't take appropriate action in the final battle. Despite her physical frailty and advanced age, she's easily one of the most dangerous villains on the list.
- Vayne
Vayne of FF12 is really the only one out of my top villains that doesn't interact with the party much. One of the major reasons I disliked the game is because the party generally tottered about unhindered, largely because they were accomplishing a whole lot of jack and shit in the grand scheme of things. Other major reasons include that the game's poor handling of its visuals invariably made me want to be dead within ten minutes of playing from eyestrain headache and the fact that the cast is pretty much utter shit. Vayne is really the only character out of the production I don't despise, because I love to hate the guy. He's ambitious, ruthless, and a politician in every sense of the word, able to make the public adore him even while he goes about murdering his own family. He's driven by a lust for power and, to my limited knowledge, does just fine at getting it until essentially the final battle of the game. Vayne is good enough to make up for a lot of FF12's sins, but sadly there's more of them than there is of him.
- Kuja
Kuja of FF9 makes it onto this list by the skin of his teeth. In all honestly, Kuja is what Sephiroth damn well should have been. Unlike Sephy, you get to see him in the height of his power and see his capacity as a villain just being himself. You get to see his inflated self-image, how he fancies himself a graceful actor and poet in his own story, his theatrics, etc. He's a villain and he knows it and he loves it. He's a charming snake that revels in his own venom. And then it all comes crashing down when he's informed of his own mortality. Suddenly all the manicured beauty falls away in favor of his bestial Trance form and he destroys the entire world he'd been working for up to that point. Just up and burns it to the ground. THAT is how you do a villainous breakdown. Suddenly a villain you love to hate switches gears completely into something to be validly feared.
Not on the list:
- Kefka
I know I'm going to draw ire for this one, but honestly, I just don't like Kefka, and not even in the constructive way I'm not supposed to. He just pisses me off in the wrong ways. I don't love to hate him; I hate to hate him. Kefka is most comparable to the Joker, and I don't care for him, either. Kefka's biggest problem is being a stark-raving loon, but somehow no one seems to notice until it's too late. This is problematic because it's very well their business to notice, especially with his high rank. Basically the entire story hinges on nobody putting a stop to his antics until he's already God, where it would have been fairly easy to stop him at any point before then, especially early on. His success hinges on the utter ineptitude of a head of state and his other two generals at recognizing a clear problem in their organizational structure. Aside from that, "because I'm evil" is a very poor motivation for a villain, even when insanity is involved.
- Sephiroth
I've touched on Sephy before, but suffice it to say that his motivations and actions are internally inconsistent. He puts as much work into ruining his own plans as he does into making them succeed. He at one point has the good sense to kill what he feels is the greatest threat to his success, but otherwise is often cordial with Cloud and basically showers him with gifts despite other times calling him a traitor to what he believes is the rightful life of the Planet. It certainly doesn't help matters that they basically wrote him a whole new motivation after the fact for use in the movie and novellas.
- Gilgamesh
First off, let me say I adore Gil as a character. He's a major thorn in your side in some of his appearances, but he also is rather lovable and goofy and even his mid-battle fake-outs are rather endearing in their own way, partly despite and partly because of how annoying they can be. That said, I don't actually consider him a villain. Gil is at most only two steps from being one of the good guys in any appearance, often put on the wrong side by virtue of his own gullibility or misplaced loyalty. I've done a whole rant about how Uematsu is the only one to have really understood his theme and I stand by it, because even though Gil is a boss in many of his appearances, his self-identity is pretty heroic.
So that's my opinion on some of the best, and not-best, villains I've encountered in games. Notice I haven't said "worst" at any point in this. I wanted to talk about villains I liked. There are a lot of outright lousy villains out there. I may do that one next.
Blues ReviewsEdit
- For previous reviews, please see my Review Archive.
Bioshock Infinite first impressionsEdit
Let me just say this is the first Bioshock game I've actually played or really been excited about, mostly because this is the type of game that I'm rarely able to play well. Yes, FPS is not my forte, although The Elder Scrolls tends to be structured in such a way that I can do pretty well. On the other hand, I was promised Move controls for this one, so I decided, with how much I liked at least watching my brother play the original, to have a go at it.
I can't say I've gotten far yet, but I did see a bit further and it looks promising. For my own part, I have to say the intro caught my interest and really made me want to examine everything.
First things first, the Move controls work really well once you have things properly configured. For something like this where I have an aiming reticule, I don't really feel the need to flail around and had to re-adjust the Move settings to get a better experience out of it. Luckily, you can do this and/or recalibrate at any time. Unluckily, doing so wipes the outer circle away from your reticule, leaving you with nothing but a tiny dot, which is barely visible on its own. I ended up restarting the game and got it back, and was able to calibrate a bit better, but ended up getting greedy because of issues in the down direction and feeling I'd better get it right before I got into my first combat situation. Nailed it, circle vanished, quit the game again. Basically, if you need to recalibrate, you're best off just quitting and doing it at game start.
This is not to say the Move is not a good option. As I said, with proper configuration, it works beautifully. The configuration is really intuitive, with presets for any level of expertise (including Casual for schlubs like me <3 ), with the ability to manually adjust the width and height of the cursor's "dead zone" (I assume active area), sensitivity, and the speed at which it turns you, among other things. Yes, your aiming reticule works to turn you, by pointing it at the edges of the screen. This might sound like a bad idea to those used to having the right thumbstick control the camera, but it's actually very natural, just like turning your head. Essentially, that little target pulls double duty as your hand and the focus of your eyes and I had basically forgotten I was aiming a controller before I even got out of the rain, which allowed me to focus on actually playing the game and getting immersed. Which leads me to my next point.
Second, while I make a habit of trying to peck away at everything, my brother made no attempt to move things around, and the truth is that I'm just going to have to get used to not being able to. Forgive me, but after being so used to the greater freedom TES offers, I'm in the habit of being able to pick up any book, figurine, or other small object I see lying around, or move bodies, but the only body I've seen so far is an immovable statue, as is anything that doesn't happen to be a coin or specifically highlight to interact. I realize this is normal for the series, but I'm just used to more. I'd really love to be able to at least push things around rather than everything that doesn't light up acting like it's been frozen solid and crazy-glued to the floor. I wanted to examine the body better; push it around in the chair it was tied to so I could really look at it. I wanted to examine a bust that had been knocked on the floor. I wanted to take the dagger lying on the stool, because Lord knows it would have been good to have around, and it looked like a pretty nice one besides. I wanted to do all this and more to really get a feel of the brutal execution scene I'd been presented with, but I wasn't allowed, or else I could have probably spent an hour in the first building instead of slogging along to the top of the lighthouse because there was literally nothing else to do. The intro is incredibly atmospheric and very, very pretty, but the inability to interact with the environment in any meaningful way is the most maddening block to my immersion in a first-person game. In TES, it's like doing a cannonball straight into the deep end, whereas here it's like doing a pencil dive and finding yourself standing disappointedly with your feet on the bottom and the water only up to your neck. It's deep enough, sure, but not as deep as it could have been and not what you were expecting. It is just short of immersion.
From watching my brother play ahead, there's a lot to be said for Elizabeth herself and her relationship with Booker. Elizabeth herself is probably the best party AI ever to hit an FPS, not as a combatant, but by making sure you're well-stocked on ammo and Salt (MP) in hairy situations and staying out of your way. She also basically showers you with money in downtime, which is useful in its own right, and can use her abilities to provide emergency battle support and healing by opening up tears in reality. Having read about the unusual course of development from Wikipedia, I have to say the very organic approach to writing led to a lot of chemistry between the characters as well. Elizabeth's bookishness is at times an asset and at times a liability for Booker, considering Booker isn't exactly coming into the situation to do charity. Her relative innocence also means she both learns from him and from the world in general, and is able to emotionally react to a lot of things where Booker might take a more stoic approach. Despite this, she's a strong woman all things considered, having learned tricks in her isolation that are useful to the player such as lockpicking and the aforementioned tears she can open, as well as having enough teeth to take a wrench to Booker's head in a situation I won't spoil. Most of all, she really comes off as a partner, rather than a companion, which are two very different things. Elizabeth is the support to Booker's offense and is an indispensable ally.
If I do have a complaint with the characters, it's that Booker just sounds too modern. Here we have the VA of FF13's Snow sounding essentially the same in a game set in the the early 1900s, and he just seems out of place. Especially because he's supposed to be from Brooklyn and has exactly zero of the accent, or really any accent other than modern Midwestern. Everyone else doesn't exactly speak with a heavy accent, either, but they do often have hints of British or other things that make them sound a bit more period. Booker, in an attempt to make him appeal to a wider audience, speaks with an accent that won't be invented for a half century within the context of the game. Elizabeth also suffers from this, but not quite to the same extent.
Otherwise, the game's moral choice system really transcends the term. The outcomes of the choices you make aren't immediately apparent and are actually, well, moral. As in the morals you choose for the character, rather than "good" and "evil." The game, rather than make you go for obvious "save the child or kick his dog" decisions, forces you to make real moral and ethical judgments, which in turn snowball into hints as to Booker's character.
I'll leave this here until I get to actually play a bit more on my own, but suffice to say I'm glad we have it.
Awards GivenEdit
 Five Portal-Star Award |
Given to:
- Sorceror Nobody - for being my go-to guy when looking at wiki code, amassing a horde of l'Cie, and being one of the few people I've come to really know and trust here in my relatively short time editing.
- Drake Clawfang - for being my go-to staff person, doing more for the wiki daily than I could ever hope to, and being another of the few people I've come to know and trust in my short time here.
- 8bit BlackMage - for helping for weeks on end with implementing some CSS for the wiki, agreeing to let me remove him from the bot's ignore list, and generally being a patient and understanding individual.
AchievementsEdit
|
This shining blue text, from me to me, is to commemorate having introduced glow text to the wiki, which has found its way into signatures, logos, and even other people's awards. I'm pretty proud to have given everyone something they like and use! |
|
| "HAPPY B-DAY!" | This is commemorate the day of your birth. Not your Birthday? Too Bad! It's your early present!
Anyway, I only give these out to people who desevre it, by doing stuff. Stuff like: Being Awesome, helping me out, etc... Take this, Bluestarultor PS-For being epic coding win and (hopefully) making a valiant effort for a new irc bot. Congrats! -Made with love by Kupohunter, and his pal Gil |
| Ramuh: My master would like you to have this... |
| My master, Clarent (talk/ contribs), would like you to have this award, as you definitely deserve it because you had helped her so much on the wiki, with wiki markup and other stuff. If you want to talk to her for whatever reason, you are more than welcome to post on her talk page. |
|
| Ramuh: My master would like you to have this... |
| My master, Clarent (talk/ contribs), would like you to have this award, as you definitely deserve it because you had helped her so much on the wiki, with wiki markup and other stuff. If you want to talk to her for whatever reason, you are more than welcome to post on her talk page. |
Yep! Got it twice!
| "YOU HAZ WONE ONEZ INTERNETZ | Congrats, you can have this lolcat and post it on your page. You have gotten it for...
Being amazing at coding/making cow -Awarded by the epic guy known as Gil's Page - Colosseum - Master - Blog - Talk You got this epic award at 18:56, June 7, 2011 (UTC), and now you are 5 (or I guess 4) away from 1up-ing SN's amount of internets. GOOD LUKZ! |
|
| "YOU HAZ WONE ONEZ INTERNETZ | Congrats, you can have this lolcat and post it on your page. You have gotten it for...
For realizing that Cid is younger than -Awarded by the epic guy known as Gil's Page - Colosseum - Master - Blog - Talk You got this epic award at 18:56, June 7, 2011 (UTC), and now you are 4 away from 1up-ing SN's amount of internets. GOOD LUKZ! |
Wiki CodeEdit
This is pretty much mostly for my own benefit so I don't lose them, but if you need to poke around to see how things work, feel free. I'll admit that I did to make them. ;)
User:Bluestarultor/Talk - My talk bubble.
| |||
Same talk bubble, additional code for SacredMinotaur.
| |||
Same talk bubble, additional code for my crystal.
| |||
Same talk bubble, additional code for my admin setup.
| |||
User:Bluestarultor/BluestarultorSig - My normal signature (Bluestarultor 
BSA)
User:Bluestarultor/FF13Sig - My Command Synergy Battle signature, most often used for arenas. (Bluestarultor☆BSA talk)
User:Bluestarultor/BotSig - Reserved for SacredMinotaur for breaking ties in user arenas. If you'd like to use it for yours, see here. (GFMinotaur and GFSacred, IRC Bots )
User:Bluestarultor/Sig - See below.
Yes, I used the sig1/sig2 trick. I have no idea if it actually provides any benefit combined with putting it as my custom signature (it automatically does it when I sign with four tildes). If you want help setting that, I can walk you through. Just ask on my talk page.
User:Bluestarultor/BSA Sticker
From a humble sticker to the navigation bar you see at the right. Feel free to poke around and try to figure it out. Just be aware it's a total mess of code. If you want your own, I might help you with it, depending on my time, energy level, and what you want with it. I reserve the right to decline, though, as I have other responsibilities.
User:Bluestarultor/Announcement
User:Bluestarultor/Announcements
Since people have already expressed interest in them, these are the boxes often floating at the bottom of my pages. The first one is the box, the second is the template where I place the boxes just for easier updating. If you'd like to use them, please, PLEASE leave a message on my regular talk page. If you leave it on either of the talk pages for the templates, I don't get notified, and silence on my part is not tacit approval. Those things are the result of tons of complex work and I'd like due credit.
User:Bluestarultor/Page Header - because I decided to expand the widths of my pages from Oasis' 660px and got sick of going through every page to change it as complaints poured in.
User:Bluestarultor/5-Star_Award - An award from me to the cut-above of the wiki. ;)
Notes to SelfEdit
Current Projects to Work OnEdit
- Some potential ideas for other l'Cie's Eidolons:
- in code (please do not look if l'Cie)
Things to Tinker Around WithEdit
- Table coding as for an arena.
- Possible matches if I ever get the time and don't feel like I'm hopping on the bandwagon (for the "Best-of Stellar Arena"):
- Best Summon Siblings (Shiva Sisters (the motorcycle) v. Brothers (rock, paper, scissors))
- (more to come)
Non-Wikia StuffEdit
ProjectsEdit
- Java can handle MIDI directly, where Flash and C# need external libraries (C# can use WMP; Flash needs outside stuff).
- For the most part, lack of alpha means Java's transparency issues aren't important. Battle still needs to go in C#.
BattleEdit
- Flash has a deal-breaker. It can't handle MIDI. With all the music I have, that's a lot of increase in file size to convert it all to MP3. C# can at least use WMP and I'm already familiar with how to do that (XNA does not, in fact, support MIDI). Lucky for me, I saved everything. Back to C#. I'll just render the cutscenes from Flash into AVI and stick a media player behind the faceplate and screens. That should make for 3+ media players: 2 to ensure smooth looping of the music, 1 for video, and maybe 1 or more for sound effects if I can't make them all WAVs.