I Relinquish My Crown

Many people know me as the "Shenmue Guy" aka, the guy who stood up during the announcement of the Shenmue III Kickstarter at Sony's Press Conference at E3 2015. That was a long time ago, but it feels like it was only last year. To many people that moment solidified me as a legend, a true Shenmue fan. However, that moment means a lot more than just a game. That moment symbolizes how far I can go. That I can make my dreams come true. That I can achieve what I set my mind to. E3 has been a holy grail of gaming, and I have wanted to go ever since I found out that such a conference existed. And I was able to secure the fact that I was there, and that I left an impact on the community.



All of that being said.... I hate Shenmue.

Well, hate is a strong word. Let's talk about what I don't like about Shenmue, and why I don't want to be the "Shenmue Guy" anymore.

After going to E3, and being discovered as the Shenmue Guy, I started live streaming on Twitch a play through of the original game for Dreamcast. looking back, the game doesn't hold up. The characters, story, gameplay, voice over, and especially the QTEs all fall flat. So, let's break down what I think are the shortcomings of this game.

1. Characters
I believe that in order to have a good, thoughtful, and engaging story, you have to have characters that are equally so. Shenmue does not have any of these. The story is about Ryo Hazuki, who comes home one day to find his father being confronted by a mysterious man from China, asking about a "mirror". Ryo's father is killed by the mysterious man in cold blood and leaves with the mirror in hand. Ryo then scrambles to his fathers side to hear his last words which are thus: "friends, those you love, keep them close". Ryo then swears revenge, and sets out on his quest to hunt down and kill the man who killed his father. This is pretty typical of a kung fu movie, and even more typical of a video game. The thing is, Shenmue sees itself as a game that tells a story about self discovery, and evolution, yet throughout the entirety of Shenmue, Ryo's character arc goes from angry, to angry. He's flat. He's boring. His attitude and focus does not change at all. Ryo pushes everyone aside to focus on his goal of vengeance. This is the opposite of his fathers last wish. Ryo does not keep anybody close to him. In fact, he pushes them all away if they refuse to help him or try to dissuade him of pursuing vengeance. What is the point of this character? What is the point of this game? Ryo might just be an example of what not to do. Now, I'm not entirely sure of what I would do if I saw my father killed by some guy. I think that I would try to go after him too, but I would also go to the police. Something that Ryo has not done. In fact, nobody even mentions the authorities at all. Late 1980s Japan must have been a lawless time, where vigilantes who know karate solve all the crimes and deliver justice.



Now, I've seen a few martial arts films in my day, and most of them specifically say not to seek out revenge, or use martial arts in a manor of offence. I went to grade school with a kid who was in a karate school, and he always said that karate was not for beating people up. I guess it wouldn't make for a good story if the main character didn't have any flaws, or obeyed the rules, but Ryo doesn't even consider the fact that he is going against the teachings of his father. These teachings are barely referenced throughout the game, unless you do very specific things at very specific times. Plus, there are framed pictures of mantras and mottoes all around Ryo's house about keeping one's mind "as clean as a polished mirror". This is the games attempt at theming, because of the aforementioned mirror that the mysterious man was asking about, and the constant mention of the polished mirror. None of this reflects (eeyyyyyy) very well on Ryo, as his mind is constantly clouded by anger.

2. Story
The story of the game is pretty typical of a video game, of which most plot points revolve around rescuing a princess or girlfriend, and vengeance. This plot can also be summed up in a kung fu movie that only lasts about an hour and a half, rather than the envisioned six part series of game that the director Yu Suzuki had originally planned.



I've heard it said that if you're going to tell a story about a character, why not make it about the most interesting part of their lives. I'm paraphrasing because I don't remember the exact quote, but Shenmue is boring. There is a lot of aimlessly wandering around, and even more waiting around. Ryo is supposed to be a highschooler, but is throwing himself into these situations that not even a sensible adult would follow through on. Like when seedy looking individuals tell him to meet them in a dark alley at a specific time, and Ryo actually does it! Aside from the few and far between moments where Ryo is doing something interesting like beating up bad guys, or sneaking around in places he's not supposed to be, he's talking with random people around town trying to follow up on leads that he doesn't have. The structure of the games story starts out pretty strong, but about half way through it, you feel as though you're just grasping at straws because the leads that you do discover never lead anywhere. I don't think that a game like this should be a linear experience, but there should be some amount of hints or clues to guide you through it.



Take a game like L. A. Noire. This game is about being a detective and solving murders. Players have to explore, discover, and logically put together all of the information from said clues and witness testimonies to make sure that they come to the truth. Shenmue is the start of this kind of experience in video games, though I can't help but feel as though this could have been executed better. Storytelling is something that transcends media. Video games are notorious for having bad stories, though in this day and age of gaming, stories have gotten a lot better and much more engaging. Still, if a game like Chrono Trigger, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy VI (or is it III?) can have stories with characters that I find interesting and relateable, what is Shenmue doing wrong?

3. Presentation
One thing that I cannot front Shenmue for doing poorly is its environment. The game does really make you feel like you're in small town Japan. People in the town of Dobuita and Yamanose walk around, and meet with their friends. They go shopping, they have errands to run. It all feels very organic. However, they all look and talk like robots.



The animators of the game seemed to only put time and effort into the movements and animations of Ryo, the main character. Everyone else moves like wooden dolls, and their faces don't emote when they speak. It's really weird when the only person who does is just the one character. Maybe Ryo is stuck in some kind of poorly made simulacrum of Dobuita. I'm not sure, but the terrible voice acting doesn't help to resolve that hypothesis.



Every character, including Ryo, speaks with a very flat and boring tone, doing very little to add to the immersion of the game. Those that do attempt to add character, only add caricature. These few actors that the studio had at their disposal must have been getting tired of working on the game, and maybe were just phoning it in for those lines, but everybody just sounds awful. I know that these were the early days of the immersive storytelling game, but I think that voice acting had been around for a time longer than 3D video games.



4. QTE
Imagine walking down the street to go to the store, and someone who passes you by suddenly shouts at you to press X, if you don't do it, they punch you in the face. That, in essence, is what a Quick Time Event is. Shenmue was the game that brought them to the forefront of video games. For some reason, they have become a trope in video games. QTEs are an unnecessary addition, and nothing would be lost if they were to go away. Even in Shenmue. If Shenmue didn't have its notorious quick time events, nothing would be lost from the story or the experience of the game overall. It's as though the developers believed that because Shenmue is a video game, and not a movie, that the players must have some kind of interaction, otherwise they would get bored. Even during conversations with characters, players have to push the A button in order to keep things moving forward. Why am I not allowed to listen or watch? What if I want to take notes on what is being said? Why do I have to always have to hold the controller? I think that cutscenes and dialogue scenes can serve as bookends to scenes or acts of the story. There's no real balance to the ebb and flow of Shenmue's storytelling method. It's either very slow and boring, or it's very intense action.



5. It's Boring
Shenmue is, overall, a boring game. Most of it is just wandering around town, talking to anybody that you can talk to in order to find the next clue, or whatever, to get to the next action sequence in order to advance the plot. After awhile, the game loses it's charm, and it all becomes mundane. There's no way to advance time. There's too many dead ends or leads that don't get you anywhere. Most of the time, I would just happen to come across the next thing that I was supposed to do. That's no discovery, that's an accident. Shenmue WAS a masterpiece for its time, but it's time to take off the nostalgia goggles. I don't see that Shenmue III is going to change or make any kind of improvements to its formula or design philosophy, and it'll be another boring game, trying to masquerade as a deep and intelligent story about revenge and changing ones heart.

Sticks and Stones

It's no secret that the gaming community online is toxic. What I mean by that is that they are rude, hateful, and open to spitting out vitriol whenever possible. If you jump into a game of Call of Duty, Halo, Overwatch, League of Legends, or any kind of online competitive game (which is a majority of them) you will likely come across somebody with a microphone who will insult you and talk about how they slept with your mom. This kind of mentality has been shaped by playing video games.

In an article written by my friend in early 2016, he talks about the "myth of redemptive violence", which is a common theme in video games that tells gamers that most problems can be solved through killing the bad guys. This myth has bled into the psyche of gamers and has made them think that if something negative happens, the best way to approach it is to be rid of it. Even gamers know that actual physical violence is not the solution to problems. That principle has been instilled in us since we were children. However, nobody said anything about hurting someone else's feelings to make them go away so that we wouldn't see them again.

Video games haven't made people rude. I'm not saying that. However, video games have made us rude to people that gamers view as the opposition. Anita Sarkeesian is a journalist who set out to create a video series that discussed the portrayal of women in video games. Most of what Sarkeesian had to say didn't put video games in the brightest light. With that, the gaming community lashed out at her for undertaking this task. Death threats, threats of rape, threats of physical violence, publishing her address of her place of living, photoshopping pictures of her face beaten and bruised; the list goes on. All of this because of video games. If you asked any of the people who did some of these things, they most likely would respond with "I wasn't going to do it". For some reason the idea of "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" has prevailed in the minds of gamers. However, one could call this frequent stream of threats violent. It is harassment. It is assault. It is slander, and they are lies. All of these things being amoral. Though, none of these things matter to the gamer, because they weren't actually going to make good on their promise to hurt anyone, they just wanted them to leave, and shut up about video games.

The stereotype of the gamer is one who sits indoors all day, playing their video games in the dark, eyes glued to their screen. Sadly, this portrait of the gamer isn't too far off from the vocal minority that has banned together under the flag of #gamergate. This hashtag has brought out the worst in the gaming community. The reality is that they are few, but they can still make a lot of noise. #gamergate was originally started because of a journalist named Nathan Grayson at Kotaku. Word had got out that Grayson was in a relationship with a game developer named Zoe Quinn. Quinn has developed several games by herself, and had released them all for free on Steam. Grayson had never written any articles about her games, as it would have gone against Kotaku's policies of integrity. However, Quinn's ex had found out about the relationship and had written up a slanderous piece about the couple and had spread it across every forum that was available to him. This lead to a multitude of gamers calling for the heads of the "corrupt" journalists in the video game journalism industry. The backlash of this forum post was monumental. Zoe Quinn was the most hated person on the internet. Everything I mentioned that happened to Sarkeesian happened to Quinn tenfold. When Quinn went to the authorities to ask for help, her claims were dismissed. Most likely because all of her evidence came from Twitter, and that she couldn't place the names and locations of where these threats were coming from. While #gamergate has yet to hurt anyone, the threats to these peoples livelihoods is real.

Using various forums to meet, members of #gamergate had resolved to harass advertisers of particular gaming sites by making false claims that what the website was publishing was offensive. #gamergate sent hundreds of thousands of emails to stop advertisers from giving money to these sites, cutting off income from the people who work for these sites. This was a real act. This was not a threat. This was not just harassment. This was something that gamers had banned together to accomplish, and it worked. I'm sure that they felt pretty proud of themselves for eliminating an enemy in their sights.

This is the mentality of gamers. In most games, threats are dealt with through violence. If an enemy is killed, that is a good thing. One less thing to worry about. Gamers tend to see things in black and white, because that's how the stories usually go in video games. Save or harvest, paragon or renegade, good or evil, light side or dark side. Games too often provide players with binary choices with clear consequences. Slowly, subtly, this has warped the views of gamers. If something is bothering them, a gamer must take care of it with the means at its disposal. If someone is badmouthing a game of their childhood, they must be destroyed. If someone is threatening the status quo of gaming, they must be destroyed. If someone didn't touch on the gameplay element of a game in their review, they must be destroyed. #gamergate has gotten so out of  control, that the slightest disturbance is worthy of their ire. It is a group of immature children that have figured out how to use twitter and email to harass and threaten those who have different opinions of them. Because in video games, if you're not for us, you must be against us. You're either on the red team, or you're on the blue team.

Life is not black and white. The stories of peoples circumstances are more than what is presented upon your first meeting. Video games are magical, and wonderful, but they are not a direct simulation of life. They're just fantasies. They are just something to be enjoyed, and when people in these communities are acting out like this, it is hard for me and many others to call themselves proud to be a gamer. It's bad enough that people who don't play games think gamers immature and childish, it's even worse when they think us violent and angry. #gamergate does not do anyone any service. The mentality of eliminating opposition due to a difference of opinion, diversity, or just because they aren't playing a video game as well as you are, is no way to live life. This is a deplorable facet of video games. It's become so common, that most of us have just accepted that it's just how things are in gaming communities.

But I say no. I say that we all should do our best to clean up the gaming communities. We can be just as loud as they are and shout a different message. One of kindness and love. I know that's really difficult when you're losing, but maybe we need to exercise some self control and step away for a while. Getting angry will only hurt yourself and others. Games are entertainment, and they are art, and if they leave us in a bad mood, perhaps we've spent a bit too much time with them. We all need to keep a positive attitude, and that can be just as infectious as a negative one. We need to encourage others and lift each other up. Leave comments on videos that are kind. Tweet out kindness. Don't build gates, build bridges. Make an open doorway into gaming. Because we love video games, don't we? We love to see our friends playing them and enjoying them. We should want to share our passions with others, not hoard them like some kind of dragon. Don't be a dragon. Dragons don't have friends. Also, people want to kill dragons and be rid of them. You want to be the hero, don't you? Slay dragons. Kill them with kindness. Be a positive change. Be a force for good. Be a force for kindness. Show love and compassion for those around you. Even if you don't know them, or have never seen their face. Show kindness.

Thoughts on Final Fantasy VII

Final Fantasy VII is a game that is widely heralded  as a classic. A revolutionary game that influenced and inspired the masses on what a game could be. Recently, I played through it for the first time, and here are some of my thoughts on the legend.

The Final Fantasy series has always irked me in one way or another. Either the story and characters never resonated with me, or the combat system was too confusing for me to get a hold of. I decided to be patient with VII and give it a chance. The result was a resounding "it's okay, I guess".

The Final Fantasy franchise always has top marks in visuals and soundtrack. However, those do not make for a great game, and the aesthetic isn't really consistent with the overall tone of the game. Most of the places you visit and the things you see are just visually interesting, and don't really hold any value other than to look pretty, so it seems rather empty. The soundtrack, composed by Nobuo Uematsu, is as wonderful as ever. While I've never played most of the Final Fantasy games, his renown is well known. I've even been to a few Final Fantasy concerts because I know how great the music is. Final Fantasy VII is a testament to his creativity. The songs in VII are catchy, and they help to embed the areas that you'll visit in the game in your memory. It would be nice, however, if I could listen to them for more than five seconds.

Random battles are annoying. It doesn't matter what game you're playing. They just ruin the moment. This was one thing that I found to be grating on my nerves throughout most of my playthrough of Final Fantasy VII. Sometimes in video games, I just like to run around in circles with my characters while I think of the next thing that I need to do. I can't really have the opportunity to do that when every few steps are interrupted by a random battle. I couldn't really think at all of what was going on, because my train of thought was constantly interrupted by a loud noise and the screen going all crazy just to transition to a handful of random monsters that aren't even worth enough experience points to warrant casting a spell on them.

Something that made the experience of Final Fantasy VII dull was the lack of variety in the characters. Sure, they all looked visually distinct, and they all had their individual personalities; however, everybody could cast spells, use techniques, and summon creatures to fight for them without any kind of class based skill or statistic. I've been playing a lot of Dungeons & Dragons lately, and the thing that makes for an effective team is composition. In recent titles like Overwatch, this element is stressed heavily, but Final Fantasy VII isn't a competitive online shooter, it's an RPG. When everybody can use spells just as well as the other person, nobody is special and all of the battles come down to wizard battles. Why is it that Cloud, who is iconic for wielding a huge sword, barely uses it? It was ineffective to continuously use the standard attack, when I could cast a spell that would deal just as much, if not more, damage to all targets on screen? Barret, the guy with the gun for his right arm, was assigned to be my healer because Aeirs (the girl who dies) died on me. The reason this bothers me so much is because the personalities of these characters only come through when they have a bit of dialogue.

The characters didn't have classes. They could use any spell that they wanted. The only thing that separated them were their limit break moves, which only happened once their gauge was full. Sure, it was cool to see Tifa suplex a dragon, but the rest of the time she was using ice and fire spells. She's supposed to be the hand-to-hand martial artist, but she's casting Ice 3 like a level 20 wizard. Because of the games indifference towards classes (which as I understand were a huge element of earlier Final Fantasy games like 3 and 4), composition didn't matter. Even if composition did matter, there was no way to read party member statistics to differentiate them.

The characters of Final Fantasy aren't very unique to being with, however. Everybody fills in the roles that their supposed to, and nobody really stands out as a unique character to me. Plus, the game forced the romance between Cloud and Aeris, when I wanted Cloud and Tifa to be a thing. The game takes you on its narrative, and doesn't allow for much, if any wiggle room. I was just there for the ride. I know that if you do a specific thing, you can have Cloud go on the date at the Golden Saucer with someone other than Aeris, but I didn't really know how to do that, since spending time with different party members only occurs in the aforementioned team composition. It isn't like Mass Effect where I can chat with my crew for a bit and get to know them more. The thing that bothered me the most is that nobody really surprised me all that much. Save for Cait Sith turning out to be a spy for the bad guys. Tifa plays the childhood friend. Aeris: the beautiful girl whom the main character immediately falls in love with. Barret: the radical who acts like he has nothing to lose, but who has a family to look after / token black character. These archetypes aren't interesting. They're boring and frustrating. Nobody changed throughout this adventure.

All in all, Final Fantasy VII is a video game. You have your cast of characters, and you save the world. That's it. There's a few interesting moments here and there about identity, and big corporations flippantly killing the planet (which seems more relevant than it ever has been these days). Other than that; nothing special. A few moments caught me off guard with random encounters being way above my level and wiping my party, but I was able to make it past them once I figured out how to run from battles. Final Fantasy probably would have blown my mind if I had played it when it originally came out. Is it worth playing now? I can't be sure. The genre of the Japanese RPG has evolved to a new standard, and Final Fantasy VII seems archaic by now.

B



Side note: The ATB system still doesn't make any sense to me, and I think it's trash. Also: random encounters that can wipe my party during a crucial moment in the story are bull shit.

For Honor Closed Alpha Starts Thursday

For Honor is an upcoming game from Ubisoft about medieval warfare. Players can choose from three different factions: Knights, Samurai, and Vikings. The full game is set to be released next February 14, but this Thursday players can register to get into the closed alpha and get a taste of the game before its' full release.



The alpha will have quite a lot of features including: being able to play as two of the four available heroes from each of the three factions (knights, samurai, and vikings), three (3) maps, three different multiplayer modes (1v1, 2v2, and 4v4). There will also be a little bit of leveling up to do in the alpha that will allow players to unlock cosmetics for the available characters as well as perks and equipment.

If you want to sign up to get into the closed alpha, go here, and sign up with Uplay.

via: Games Radar

The Last Guardian Delayed Until December

The Last Guardian has once again been delayed. Even after the announcement at E3 2016 that the game would be released on October 25. The announcement of the delay comes from Shuhei Yoshida, the president of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios. In a blog post on September 12, 2016, Yoshida makes the announcement, to a surprisingly calm internet. Perhaps because this game has been in development for a very long time, and we're all just kind of used to this thing by now. However, The Last Guardian is still slated for a 2016 release, and it seems as though the development team are just ironing out the bugs now to make sure that the game is what they want it to be.



via: Game Informer

Can't Stop, Won't Stop

This is my 200th blog post! Yaaaaayy!!!!

While some of my posts are very old, and I wrote them long before I started to dedicate myself to this blog and practicing my craft more. I'd say that it still counts.

Either way.

I've been writing on this blog consistently for a while now, and I'm really proud of myself for doing so. It is not the most popular blog on the internet, and most of my personal friends forget that I even write this blog. However, that doesn't stop me from doing so. I really enjoy writing. It's my passion, and I know that there is room for improvement. Practice makes perfect, as they say, so I like to keep on writing. It's important to me that I do so, because I don't want to lose whatever edge that I've spent so much time developing. I kind of feel like a character in an MMO, where I am frequently told that only I can save the world, but there are seventeen thousand other characters of the same class who follow the same quest line and get told the exact same thing, and we all follow the same missions that can "change the tide of battle", but it doesn't make a difference one way or the other. It just feels kind of pointless at times, but whatever. I'm still having fun doing this.

There are lots of times when I don't update my blog, and I get pretty upset about it. At the end of the day, I just have to shrug it off. I missed a day. It isn't the end of the world. Besides, it isn't as though I can't update again, or write on a day that isn't when I had planned to write. Inspiration can strike at anytime, and that's when I like to write.

Often times, it does seem rather fruitless to continue to write on this blog, especially when I do such a poor job of sharing it around, but I like doing it. I play so many video games, and in reality they don't help me to get anything accomplished, but I have enjoyed myself. I just want to be happy at the end of the day, and if I can feel accomplished by making a blog post, or by playing some video games, then that should be enough. It's kind of difficult to be an adult these days. There's a lot of things that stress me out. I battle depression on a regular basis, and I'm only just making it by financially. Yet, there are still things that I can do to just be happy.

Happiness is a concept that we learn about when we are very young. At some point along the way, probably during school, we forget about being happy. We start to take ourselves seriously. We have responsibilities, and deadlines, and all of these things that stress us out. More often than not, we're worried, and we're just doing okay. It's difficult for us to say that we're happy. I love my video games, and I love this blog. I like spending time with people I care about, and I like having fun. It's kind of sad that I have to make time for those things, but it's really important that I do, because I should be happy. We all should. I don't think that it's worth working all the time, so that I can have money, so that I can work more, so that I can get more money, so that I just end up staying in this vicious cycle that doesn't leave any time for myself, or the things and people that I care about. Even the Bible says to keep the Sabbath holy. In other words: take a day off. Treat yourself. Enjoy life. Because so many of us are just existing. I know that I am. I have to fight to break that monotony of rhythmic routine. That's why I like video games. That's why I like writing. That's why I like spending time with other people. Because it breaks that routine where it becomes mind numbing.

I may have rambled for this post, but it felt good to do so. I know that life is difficult, and that it's hard to see the bright side sometimes, but also, we have to make the bright side. There's probably something that you can do today to make yourself just a little bit happier. Go be happy. It isn't childish. It isn't silly. It's something that we all need, and we all deserve.

I intend to keep on writing this blog, whether you read it or not, because it makes me happy, and I like doing it.

More Anime For Your Buck

Streaming service Crunchyroll recently announced that Funimation has entered into a partnership with them. This means that Funimation shows that premiere in Japan will be available the next day on Crunchyroll. Other Funimation anime will also be available on Crunchyroll, such as Cowboy Bebop and Psycho Pass.

Crunchyroll is basically the Netflix of anime, and has a huge selection of shows to watch. Crunchyroll also offers the viewing of new anime that is released the day after it premiers in Japan, so anime lovers can stay current with all of the new anime that comes out. It's also a good way to support the official release, and makes it easier to get your hands on professional and official English dubs of anime without having to scour the darker corners of the Internet.



via: Kotaku