Music of the Month; Flash

Flash is dead, long live Flash. You might not remember the time when websites were blinky hells filled with animated .gifs and midis put on automatic blast. That’s not Flash, Flash hells were similar, but worse, with multiple elements of a site built from different pieces of flash and stuck together. Stopping all those scripts and different Flash elements became one of the many reasons why you wanted to block scripts on a site. Not only did it make the site loading faster, but also safer. Plus, much fewer ads to go around. Flash became less and less relevant in the teens, and now with the change of the decade, it’s support has been ended. HTML5 and whatnot have taken its place as the annoying fuck on the Internet that makes the otherwise pleasurable browsing such a bitch and a chore. Nevertheless, in the late 1990s and early in the New Millennium we had a golden era of Flash Animation, something that brought marvellous spectacles from every corner of the modern world to the trash tier TV-shows. Experimentation lead into some shows down the line being fully animated in Flash, and its janky and terrible looking animations became somewhat a standard. Even before Flash, we had Shockwave, but I guess only some people remember the Shockwave game sites, which were pretty much the same thing in Flash game sites. Just different platforms. Flash archives will keep all these products of the early century’s Internet culture at anyone’s hand, and people interested to see how… interesting it all was at the time. Play it once more, Jack.

By this point I assume most of Muv-Luv fans out there have already geeked out when it comes to Project MIKHAIL’s Pre-Alpha footage. While it only shows very early footage, it’s showcasing symptoms of doujinshi jank, a topic few posts back. There are some visual cues that have been taken from games like Guilty Gear Xrd with how hits pause the action for an effect. There are loads of effects on the screen as well, obfuscating the action to a large degree. Perhaps the screen is zoomed in for whatever reason, but that’s whole other issue. There’s also lots of glow and bloom in the glowy bits, which plays into the whole overt amounts of effects in play. Sure, TSFs have sources of light on them, but this is more an issue of modern design of having armour bits and shapes include nonsensical glowing parts, lines and bits that make no sense. Even if they make sense, they’re far too bright or constantly on. Granted, this is pre-alpha, so maybe all that stopping-effects is just the engine struggling, though I have some doubts on that. Then again, if this is going to be a mobile game, I’ll clock out early on.

The ultimate TSF action-game is still far away, as it would be a modified version of Virtual-On for massive arenas, freedom of combos and weaponry combined with thousands upon thousands of enemies coming at you at once. After all, TSF and Valgern-On controls are an expy of VO. I must admit that if I were to have a word in this development, I’d make a clear difference between standard TSF OS and XM3 upgraded ones. The main difference between the two were that XM3 allowed motions to be buffered and ignored certain safety regulations with the TSF, whereas the standard OS only accepted inputs after it had finished the previous action and had returned to a safe position. Meaning that an old TSF ace knew how to string and time his actions never to have the TSF stop moving, whereas XM3’s input buffering allows the pilot to bypass the restriction. The learning computer TSF OS has as a part of it comes into play here, as its AI was taught how the pilot would act and would anticipate the motions done in what circumstance, further taking down the movement lag between inputs. While this would be somewhat difficult to implement in-game, perhaps introducing some sort of smoothness of function to the action would be representable. After all, TSFs require their pilots to train in the sims in order to function as smoothly as possible, while a raw TSF would control like a frozen truck under a load of cement. Probably never going to happen, but it’d introduce an RPG-like mechanics to the player avatar growth as well as require periodical visits to the simulators, especially when gaining a new unit.

I won’t be discussing this year’s plans, as we’re hitting a 10-year anniversary relatively soon. We’ll discuss what comes after we’ve crossed the rubicon. For now, remember to sharpen your knives. After Christmas, they’re probably in even worse condition. A sharp knife is much more safer tool in the kitchen than a dull one.

Music of the Month: Drill Domination

I’m writing this post, though I should be sleeping. I’m using the excuse of eating to stay up enough to write this post, while in reality, my food is still in the microwave because I didn’t feel like cooking chicken risotto this late in the middle of the night. Sudden shift changes due to a robot being programmed have thrown my daily rhythm to hell, which doesn’t really jive well with me exercising. Despite my utter hatred, dislike and sheer abhor towards exercising, I decided against my better judgement to start it again, as your body is the best investment you can have. That’s one more thing that eats two hours of my daily life away from hobbies and other stuff I should be doing. Then again, my scanner/printer just broke down thanks to a part that’s designed to break down in time due to its smaller than necessary contact points bending easily under normal ink cartridge usage. Don’t buy Epson.

With food in front of me and half a litre water in my mug, I’m wondering why the hell I didn’t do enough food for the whole week. I’ve noticed that salads don’t keep me full for the whole day. Eating before I go to sleep might cause some mishaps according to some, but at least I’m not hungry and I have the energy to exercise in the morning.

That doesn’t change the fact that I hate exercising in the morning, it makes me groggy for the whole day. Pissed off, unsociable, and generally about as enjoyable to be around as a bear shot in the ass. I guess that also makes me want to do my job as fast and as efficiently as possible so I could be done with it. I’ve picked up reading again due to some of the downtime (that may be increasing in the near future thanks to the whole Chinese originated flu floating about) and the series I’ve picked up again is A Certain Magical Index and its numerous spin-offs.

The problem with me and reading is that I’ve taught to think through the prose I read. Turning your brains off can’t be done, unlike with other media. This is partly why I prefer science fiction to fantasy, as fantasy doesn’t handle concepts as SF does. An exception to this is Japanese Fantasy, which blends SF into itself to a far larger degree. If The Lord of the Rings was a science fiction work, the concept of the ring and its abilities would have been explored further and in far greater detail. However, for fantasy work, it isn’t necessary or even desirable at best. Some of the Japanese prose has a tendency to stop the story in its track and explore a concept through a wholly different lens, sometimes citing actual studies or experiments. Some works turn this into a whole dialogue and explore the extent of the concept as a whole or its possible branches before putting it into proper use within the story. Purple’s Qualia does this to the point of fault, as a friend mentioned the work’s like the author was masturbating about these subjects. Funny that thing, he doesn’t like Science Fiction all that much. Another friend agreed the works’ pretty dang sweet, so what’d I know.

A Certain Magical Index is a series that’s a rarity for me anyhow. Both its literary and animated versions have their own strengths and pacing. Sometimes the books work out things better, sometimes the animation adaptation takes the lead. Going through both, even if I’m already familiar with the other, seems like a worthwhile effort. Reading through all these books will take me ages, but I’ll squeeze a book or two in some slots whenever I have downtime and haven’t planned on doing a scan-marathon. I should try to have one this Saturday.

What I find interesting in the series is that outside the whole practical exploration of concepts within the work’s setting, it goes to town with them. Often I end up questioning a pathway of a story or author’s decision to have events and concepts turn out in a manner that ignores their secondary characteristics. With A Certain Magical/Scientific series I’ve found constantly that these secondary characteristics, even tertiary in some cases, are weaved straight back into the whole story not thirty seconds after I’ve raised a question. That is mostly because the characters aren’t written as dimwits or idiots as most of their fellow genre characters often are, as they often stop and think. An example of this whole thing would be something like as follows; a concept of a person split into two cyborgs with different halves is introduced and explored. The two halves are clearly distinct beings that live their own lives despite being sourced from the same person. AI and advanced cybernetics have been helped to realise this (Academy City, the main setting of A Certain Magical Index is a scientifically hyper-advanced self-governing city with everything being tested and examined from weird mixtures of food to creating false deities). After living as two separate beings, the two halves are rejoined together. The rejoined human has two different sets of memories, but the overall acceptance of the situation and the participant’s psyche hasn’t been damaged or has rejected two sets of memories from the same time period. My first question after this was straight up What about the mechanical parts? and ‘lo and behold, the main point of the story ends up being these secondary elements, where the experiment also brought the cyborg halves into one whole, resulting in an android that considers itself as the same person. It just lacks any memories before the patient was turned into two cyborgs.

The series is full of these What about this thing? moments. It’s an effective use of a relatively short length of the books themselves, and the series is almost wholly consistent with itself. When a series runs a decade and then some, there are bound to be some small issues here and there, but nothing major. For an ever-expansive series, a franchise really, the overall story hasn’t really let go of its interesting characters and slowly building plot that keeps raising the stakes. I would be amiss if I didn’t mention that the series also crossed over with Virtual-On, which is why the series experienced a short, but oh so sweet, come back.

I guess that covers things what’s going on. I’m certain you’re able to read between the lines that the current situation where I am is somewhat dire, and despite my personal feelings and wants, I’m still returning to write an excessively long post about nothing to start the month with in order to get some steam out, as well as forcing myself to get rid of some fat again. It doesn’t matter regarding the blog itself, but things aren’t… well. That will, sadly, be reflected in the future posts but hopefully not in their amount. I doubt things will get better towards the new year either. I’ve got to start prioritizing. Maybe I’ll start writing more about single entry series or things that I’d like to have covered like I’ve done with Muv-Luv and Purple’s Qualia. Ah well, just wait ’til I start spouting shit about compact cassettes.

Music of the Month; Major Demon

Whenever I find myself discussing electronic game history and culture, I’m always surprised how much information out there is heavily biased towards the American view. Take the 1984 video game crash for an example. It’s touted as an industry wide destruction that was dooming the whole industry. Rarely you see anyone mention that arcades were doing just fine and neither Europe or Japan (and by that extension, rest of Asia) felt the effects. Nor is it often mentioned that this was the second time the video game industry felt a crash, as the first one was experienced in 1979 with the death of Pong clones. Atari managed to survive that market, but the saturated Pong consoles didn’t experience a smooth transition to the Second Generation as much as it was a truck driven to a wall and whatever could be salvaged was put together and out. Then again, only in the US. Japan had its own thing going on with Cassette Vision and other domestic consoles going around with Atari’s consoles being mostly a niche, a side dish at best. European markets have always been more driven by computer markets rather than consoles, hence why the British and French microcomputers mostly get a glancing mention in US sources based while European memoirs celebrate them. Because of these microcomputers, every console in until the PlayStation had a hard time to penetrate the markets, especially if they were disastrously mismanaged like the NES and its high-cost cartridges. The Sega Master System managed to nab important countries under its belt due to decent marketing and cheaper titles. In the meanwhile, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and similar computers were making strides, alongside later entries like Atari ST and Amiga. The only real place the NES pounced its competition like there was no tomorrow was in the US, as even in Japan Famicom faced serious competition from the PC-Engine.

It’s understandable how a lot of misconceptions about the electronic game market of the 1980’s have come about. Not only it was an era where Japanese economy bubble was rumbling across the world, but also a time when the industry was still brand new and saw its most dramatic high and lows. After those growing pains, electronic game market has been rather stable, though it becoming a behemoth of all entertainment industries has also translated to rising costs across the board. Nevertheless, with the NES striking gold in the US, lot of assumptions and deductions where made based on the local market synergies, as Nintendo was represented somewhat homely device as were its games. One of the reasons why Nintendo saw so much effort to localise certain Japanese big hits, like Dragon Quest, with loads of extra content in the package, as well as their now infamous censorship rules. Due to the sheer separation of markets, the US wouldn’t see the progression of Japanese developed games until the NES hit the shores, effectively skipping many genre’s and NES’ own growing pains, and pretty much all of the classic NEC PC titles, outside some that got ported to MS-DOS at a later date, like Sorcerian. This would lead into old arguments about some games being ripoffs of others or companies copying style and design from others, while the matter might be around. The previous post can be said to be about this to some extent.

Europe of course had all the trickling effects, and Nintendo never even enforced the need to properly convert NTSC 60Hz games to PAL 50Hz. Funny that, it also goes backwards, with some European developed games run unintentionally faster on NTSC systems. Not that Sega cared either, and the industry standard of not doing the necessary conversions stuck. Video games are a business after all, you put limitations and rules what can be in these titles to encourage sales, and flaunt your stances and values in the best ways you can to show the customer how much trust can be put on them.

Not exactly my usual month’s breaker, but I don’t really have much plans. Due to changes in career and job description, my usual work days have become longer and while work in itself might be easier with robots, it is more stressful with its own little issues that I have to learn from the mud. Moving these posts’ release schedule to 16:00 GMT0 have made a significant different in how much time I can put into typing stuff down. Hobbies shouldn’t feel like work, and I’ve removed quite a load with that simple change. I’m not exactly sure if there is a notable difference in quality or amount of text I’ve produced during as of late. With summer heat hitting the streets more and more each day, I’ve found myself wanting to spend more time out, hence there might be times when I’ll just miss a post intentionally. Not that I’ll abuse this decision, breaking a decade long habit is rather difficult. I’m also adamant on returning to make reviews at some point, but that really depends if anything interesting comes at hand. My heart still lies in reviewing controllers, but the sheer lack of need for new ones and nothing peculiar coming my way has thrown a monkey wrench in those gears. Ah well, I can always make those short series introductions.

Music of the Month; Dogora

You probably did (not) notice that updating was a bit off last month. You know the usual song; stress, work, the two combined, twists in social life, lack of time and so on and so on. The month went by faster than expected, if I’m being honest. Missed some news I wanted to touch upon, situations and events passed by like they were air. Doesn’t exactly help that I’ve hurt my wrist, so I might end up being economical for the next few weeks when it comes to typing.

That said, why Ifukube music all of the sudden? For whatever reason, I began to listen Ifukube out of the blue this week, and his pieces played on during my off-hours non-stop. There were numerous pieces I never listened to, or took any notice really. Ifukube’s library of songs he composed for Toho alone is very vast, and this song above somehow stood apart. While Ifukube’s songs are rhythmically cohesive all around, something about Dogora VS Self-Defence Force playes differently, as if there are two parallel pieces going at the same time, but always meeting at key points. Ifukube felt that to fully understand movie and its music, the two should always be together, as separately they lose the effect and power they were intended to have. I fully agree with him on this matter. Be it games or theatre or whatever, when you have a scene specifically set to music, the lack of the scene or vice versa will always leave something to be desired. Then again, I still know jack shit about music, so this probably is nonsense babbling.

While this probably would make a post on itself, the whole situation with the leaked Dragon Ball English audio with the voice actors letting things rip like no other. If you want to check ’em out, if you already haven’t, there’s a Google Drive with them. While we could discuss ethics of the situation, like whether or not they were justified to use the soundtrack or the like, I really don’t see any point in this. People at work sometimes have to let some steam out by doing stupid shit and laugh after, or even during, hard work. It’s funny to have a character go balls-to-the-walls wack sometimes and make them say something inappropriate. These bits really are something that should never cross to the customer side of things, and people letting stuff out like this is nothing out of ordinary. It is an open secret that voice actors and people working with them often allow all sorts of stuff going on during sessions to ease things out.

This Dragon Ball example is just the latest thing, though before this the most famous one was the Thundercats leaks from way back when. Hell there’s a page dedicated to them. These two things are the same thing really, be it bloopers, outtakes, leak reels or whatever. The voice actor of original Lion-O, Larry Kenney, discussed that this happens. While some might find these jokes and skits offensive, the American voice acting culture at workplace more or less has it as a working standard. The Japanese working culture wouldn’t allow stuff like this, but at the same time, they often don’t give a damn how shit rolls in Overseas market. Just look at how terrible translations are across the board, be it books, games or movies. Then you have shows that were let do whatever, nobody cared. Cue for Ghost Stories English dub. It’s like a whole show of outtakes. Of course, Toei doesn’t really like this thing at all, considering they are paranoid about how Dragon Ball as an IP is handled, and with the Internet outrage culture making its rounds, Funimation probably will feel some results from this backlash. There’s a whole lot more with one of the VA’s suing Funimation after they fired him for reasons and such, but as I usually say; don’t care about the provider, care about the product.

What’s for next month? I can’t really say. That foxgirl Kickstarter got funded, though there’s not much to talk about it. I’m just glad more people will be able to get their hands on it now that it comes gets an English translation. However, I am pretty sure NijiGEN won’t get funded despite being halfway in, because it has sat there for a week now. Not much to talk about if it fails, but if it succeeds, I’ll be sure to keep tabs on it. Then again, with Ifukube being the music, and music sets the month, perhaps I should make time and rewatch Shin Godzilla in order to expand Themes of Godzilla post. I have found that the more I mull it over, the more stuff I consider I must touch upon. Better just cut my losses and get it done with. It’s just one weekend spend on it, whatever could go wrong? Of course, all the âge related stuff are completely open and I still have a folder on my desktop to remind me that there are few more TSF stuff and other subjects to touch upon. On one hand, perhaps I should cut blogging so that there’s one major post a week, and whatever small ones every time something interesting catches interest, but can’t really see that format working. Yknow, they’d be about as rambly if not even not more so than this post. I’m not going to ask for you to drop a comment if you’d like me to try it out, because let’s be real, nobody would comment anyway.

Remember to sharpen, hone and oil your knives. Sharp knife is much safer tool in the kitchen than a dull one, and the same goes for scissors.

Music of the Month; Megalomania

It has been a rather stressful last month or so. I didn’t even notice when summer months turned around, and that I could’ve set this post last week, or earlier. Things just flow at a rapid pace, with summer heat being a pest. Even my plan to attend a convention to have a presentation was shot down by car breaking down on me and the spare part might cost up to a grand with some luck. There has also been a death in the family, so excuse me if this post will end up being rather short and anemic.

I’ve come to a point where I can safely say that I won’t be planning the future of the blog. It was certainly fun to plan stuff out when and how I’d make certain posts, but that’s just not all that possible if I want to spend any time off the computer screen. That’s not to say I’ll just abandon every long-running posts I have, but as you’ve noticed during the last year and a half (or most likely, have not) is that all plans have mostly gone to shit. Time is of the essence, and that is something I would like to spend elsewhere at times as well.

To cover some topics quickly, the gaming disorder has now been officially been recognised as a disease by the WHO. I’ve covered this topic myself few times over, and the arguments and sources linked in them still apply. WHO is not exactly the most popular organisation going around, and I hope this will be redacted or made far more accurate than what its current for is, as now its determinants really fucking everywhere. You could apply the main forms of it to any enthusiast in a given hobby. A healthy obsession for a hobby is a thing, but hey, a person who appreciates their hobby to a high point should now be considered mentally ill. What a load of shit. Niche Gamer has an opinion piece why WHO is flawed classification, echoing some of the stuff I’ve already written, but also going into deeper and wider look. Ryan Pearson’s article touches on proper points, but leaves the whole political aspect out. Maybe for the better, outside some of the internal leaks that commented on certain nations pushing this classification there is no solid evidence for it.

There’s a new Godzilla out there, and I honestly have no want to see it. The 2014 Godzilla was a disappointment at best, extremely boring at worst. As a movie, it was extremely kitch, safe and resorted on failing consumer expectations. I might go to see Godzilla II (I do love how overseas market gets a number before King of the Monsters in an era where too few movies are numbered anymore) and do a short first impression review, but I’d need to kick myself into the theater and get someone to go with me. Not a tall order, but this is also a good time to rewatch Shin Godzilla and add its themes to the Themes of Godzilla post I have floating around. That’s a post that should get expanded, but with what time?

Here’s the beef I’ve always had with Godzilla, and technically with any other franchise that does the same thing Robocop; it gets dumbed down for the kids. Not just in story, but also in production values and themes. Those movies that are aimed for children audience mainly have the short end of the stick in every regard from story to special effects. The VS Godzilla did find a good balance between adult themes and kid friendly Godzilla, but at the same time looking at the series in perspective it is clear how run out of worthy ideas and resorted on their catalog of popular monsters, setting the whole theme of reusing and revamping old monsters in new guises for the future. Godzilla stopped pushing the envelope well into the 60’s, yet the VS series didn’t even try. Space Godzilla? Evil Mothra? Plant Godzilla? Another Mechanical giant monster based on previous monster? I do love the VS series of movies, but goddamn do they look meek when you take the nostalgia goggles off. Ever since I found out the Gamera trilogy, I’ve been going back to those movies ever since, and its influences are very, very strong in these new millennium American Godzilla movies. Maybe I should just cut this rant short for now. There is room for a serious Godzilla movie every now and then, but the rest will colour the cultural perception. It’s just that very few want to make a good Godzilla that took itself and its themes seriously. No, let’s just drop an Oxygen Destroyer as a missile and call it a day. Let’s not even consider its ramifications.

E3 is around the corner again, I honestly couldn’t give jack shit at the moment. I know I used to make posts about it, but with the lack of time (there’s that again, I’m repeating myself far too often) I’d rather not spend three days of watching direct advertisement meant to sell me games I probably don’t want anyway. Less reason to get angry, more reason to enjoy whatever sunshine and wasps this summer offers. Sure, I’ll probably end up writing a post or two if something interesting pops up in the news sites that warrant speeding the videos over after the fact, but otherwise, I really have to question the hype surrounding E3 when it is world’s most expensive marketing event. Hatebait click articles of course would make money, but that’s not how we roll here.

How we roll is with tea heated in the microwave, added sugar and drinking while the spoon is still in the mug. Just remember to sharpen those knives of yours, that makes cooking safer.

And oh yeah, R-Type Final 2 has some 50h left in its Kickstarter, throw some money at it if you want to fund a resurrection of one of the genre defining franchises.

Music of the Month; 3-2-1 Let’ Go

So, here we are, more than a decade since the last proper R-Type game that wasn’t driven by plot and tactics, and R-Type Final 2 has been announced. Seeing that there are a whole generation who seem to have missed the franchise as a whole, I’ll be giving it a similar short introduction post in the same manner I did for Aleste. The death of the shooting genre might be two decades old, but when a venerable name like this steps back into the field, a name that once wrestled in the same class as Super Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, Gradius, 1984,  and other heavy hitters, it should be noted. R-Type returns to its roots, even if for one title. More can’t be asked for. More on that when the post proper gets made.

As for posts that should or should not be made, I know work is a constant and recurring excuse I give out on being either late or simply not having time to do proper research for the longer posts I was so keen to make, but I have to resort to that once more. Sadly (gladly?) our production got ramped up by a notch again, meaning work needs to be done and yours truly is there to meet the quota. Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise. Then again, I will have that full four weeks of summer vacation, all of which I can spend inside and write and scan stuff that I’ve missed. Like last week. Last weekend was a mess, as I was supposed to go out of town, but got sick thanks to cold nights with fever and all, and in the end couldn’t do jack shit. I’ll be doing double duty this weekend to balance things up, though I’m more and more convinced I’d need someone else on this blog to ensure content production keeps up in the schedule, but very few people are willing to do stuff like this out of joy of it all. Topics for those are already lined up, and interestingly both of them are shooting game related. Well, the above should give some strong hints on what the other will be.

I’ve put the third post about scanning on hold for now, as I need to track down some nice old games related magazine to scan, but it can’t really be any magazine. It needs to be from around the mid-90’s and of certain kind. A high-end publication won’t do, so I might try to find my old mag that covered Spaceworld 1996. I remember that being in a very busted condition and the overall paper quality being of semi-decent kind. It might be lost to time at this point, but I can always track down something else. Might be worth tracking down a random 90’s Japanese gaming magazine instead for record keeping. I’ve also asked a Youtube for his view on the matter for a third party view, and we’ll see if either of us remember to say about that when I get my hands on whatever magazine it ends up being.

Enjoy the music piece, and please remember to sharpen, hone and oil your knives now that a new month as kicked itself into a higher gear again. A sharper knife doesn’t just mean better cutting, but also safer cooking. A blunt knife slips and rips more easily, and is danger to all.

Music of the Month; Ninjas

You know what we’re going to talk about again? That’s right, censorship.

For the last few days, Kenichiro Takaki’s interview on Inside Games have been making some rounds about the Internet. Pretty much everyone has covered this at some level, with Lewd Gamer having one and Censored Gaming having a video on the subject too. The topic that Takaki mentions is sort of side mention on the overall interview, but the core of it is as follows; the original idea for Senran Kagura 7EVEN would be impossible to release and the developers have to reconsider everything about the game itself due to the censorship policies Sony is currently employing. Furthermore, Takaki mentions that these regulations are trend that will spread further.

Imagine that, an entertainment many consider a form of art becoming censored to serve a view. The moment art has been perverted to serve a view by limiting what can contain within the art, it stops being art and becomes a vehicle for the ideology the censor upholds.

That is, if we consider electronic games as a form of art. Otherwise we might just have to face that the industry is a business where business sensibilities and winds of politics play extremely large role. I guess the late 2010’s and part of 2020’s will be remembered when Sony and Valve, and maybe some other corporations as well, begun to censor games harshly in moral panic about sexual depiction of fictional characters.

You may laugh at the whole thing, it is “only” Senran Kagura after all. Then let’s not forget all the titles Valve has banned from Steam, or the extensive censorship NISA employed within almost every title they publish (not to mention the sheer amount of bugs their localisations are known for, or the lacklustre as all hell translations they have going) or how Sony has effectively blocked titles from being published due to their risque nature. I’ve talked about these few times over. It’s not just a slippery slope we’re having here, it’s a no-friction glassy ice slope at 60-degree angle we’re trying to not to bust our tail bones on here, and we’ve got nothing but shitty shoes with hard plastic soles. The only way the consumer can effectively fight against this is by getting political and goddamn I know most of my readers hate that.

Thankfully, this time it’s easy. No reason to grab the flag of your political view and some Molotov cocktails, but simply to refuse to support or purchase any products from the offending companies, refuse to use their services and goods, and make sure that that they know it. Send ’em an email, go to a forum or whatever. Money talks more than empty promises or deeds gone cold. With the amount of entertainment and games out there, you will always have other options that will fill that niche. If that’s not the case, that’s a goddamn good time to start looking into alternatives that you didn’t know existed. Easier said that done, I know.

But why is that I keep talking about this titty ninja franchise? That’s something I had to ask myself when Takaki’s interview came out. Am I fan of the series? Do I just appreciate it? Despite the rather mediocre nature of majority of the games, what makes me coming back and revisiting the series time and time again? I’ve got no answer for you, and I can assure you its not not the front and back assets of the characters. I’ll be breaking some character as the blogger with this and rust up a post about how exactly I got involved with the franchise. It’s like that old ass Kimi ga Nozomu Eien post from years yonder (Jesus Christ I hope I’ve gotten better since then) but about a series that’s still relevant. No, I’m not going to put much trust in KGNE remake, especially now that Nekopara-style has vomited itself all over it.

Speaking of other posts for the month, or for the next two months depending how much I’m going to overwork myself, nothing definitive has planned outside the usual stuff I talked in January, but now you can add Iczer Robo’s visual history to that, where I cover some of the major illustrations and designs that the Iczer series’ mecha has seen. This’ll include some of the more obscure ones as well, namely the original comic version and its 1990’s counterpart, and the two animal themed mechas from Iczer-3 audio drama, because Iczer Dragon needs more love in general.

Both will take some time to finish. In the meantime, I’m to grab a bottle of whisky and celebrate my anniversary.

Music of the Month: Rock the World

After spending good three days of building my new PC and troubleshooting things that have been popping up now and then, I completely forgot that I was supposed to write something for Sunday. That’s not the only thing I’ve forgotten lately, due to being so damn tired. Enough excuses, let’s get this on the roll.

So, whatever plans I might’ve had are more or less out of the window thanks to people ordering more and more stuff from the place I work, meaning the speed and production amounts have been upped ever so slightly but enough to push the proverbial breaking point of the manufacturing process. Rather, I’ll have to approach things by case-by-case basis and hope that I don’t put things out too late. Well, I’ll be doing Mega Man 11 at some point.

As such, I’ll use this opportunity to comment on the previous post about Capcom’s IR materials. It’s a long post in comparison to most and has quite a lot of hot air, but something that needed to be covered. Rather than spouting what Capcom says, here’s my personal take what Capcom wants to do in the future; high-end games.

Monster Hunter World and Resident Evil 7 have been big hits, and Capcom seems to think it is thanks to the games having high production values across the board, especially in the graphics department. While the term artisanal design was thrown in there, it ultimately means very little if not expanded. Effectively it means master craftsmanship and how something is worked by hand to perfection, but how well that applies to Capcom’s titles is up to interpretation. They are infamous for dishing out game sequels after sequels, though this has been on the slower end as of late. Game development has gotten more expensive with each generation and they feel it. Each title has to be bigger and more successful than the previous. The two aforementioned titles fit the bill perfectly, something Resident Evil 2‘s remake and Devil May Cry 5 do too. While the games will have something the consumers will have to scratch their heads over with, Capcom is putting a lot of money and time into them, hoping to get return in their investment. MHW is regarded a cornerstone within the company in terms of success, and they want to replicate that.

Furthermore, Capcom is surprised by the success of Mega Man 11. Without a doubt it has come as a surprise, and the Man of Action Mega Man cartoon basically exists to drive brand recognition, especially among younger consumers who have no previous experience with the franchise. The initial sales have been very positive and the reception of the game has more or less followed the same pattern. Above all, Mega Man 11 is a PR victory for Capcom and does go against their set idea of high-end games, something consumers should be somewhat happy about. MM11 was relatively cheap to develop, which probably served more to its favour than most think. It also shows that games don’t need to be at their highest ends in order to make a mark. Capcom probably took notice of this, as they’re also noticed the good sales the Mega Man X collection was having.

This has lead them to consider reviving some of their old IPs and the upcoming Capcom Belt-Action Collection is probably is part of the whole deal to see what sticks to the wall. Sadly, Capcom doesn’t have the licensing rights to some of their best beat-em-ups, but at least the collection has the first ever home port of Battle Circuit, something long-time Capcom and CPSII fans have been waiting for. When’s Wazrard getting a proper home release? Does this mean fan favourite IPs will be revived? Naturally, no. First three people who I saw commenting on the post said Breath of Fire, but I don’t see that being very likely. Firs being that BoF was never a great seller and that they have better options to fill the RPG quota if they want to. However, the one thing that is in BoF‘s favour is that Capcom recognizes themselves relying on limited genres, with fighting games, action and horror taking the top spot. Capcom has to diversify its selection at some point, but that may go toward mobile gaming.

According to the materials, Capcom has been making loads of money in the smartphone market, but still don’t have much success in there. What does this mean, exactly? They’re not the top dog and despite the few titles they manage to get money out, the competition is making bigger bank. This is largely an Asian thing, as the mobile game market is absolutely bonkers huge there, eclipsing both console and PC market without any margins of error. It’s no wonder companies like Blizzard want to release a game into the market like they were horny teenagers with free access to the corest of hardest porn. We’ll get to Blizzard’s PR disaster with Diablo Immortal on Wednesday, it’s a damn good example how not to do consumer service. But this is Capcom, they don’t give a damn about the mobile market in the West, as Asia’s the gold mine and they don’t have the tools or skill to mine money. Maybe Capcom wants to see if they can do something else in the market, or maybe they’ll put more effort into expanding genre selection on consoles and PC. That’s why testing waters with cheap releases and collections is important to them. I’m not saying you should go buy MM11 or any of the collections in hopes to gain BoF Collection, you should always buy only what you think is the best value for your money. More RPG related stuff Capcom has been putting out might sway them more, or showcase how something similar makes good sells. Like most Japanese companies, Capcom seems to be data driven. Showcase them data and examples to support your claim or suggestion, and it has geometrically highest chances of getting through.

Whatever Capcom puts into production and announces within the next year will be based on the success and methods MHW and Mega Man 11 have laid out when it comes to consoles and PC. Mobile, well, we’ll have to sit tight and see.

Music of the Month: 8-Bit Brave

Ah, what a month has it been. If you’ve noticed that the writing has been all over the place for during January, that’s because I’ve had much less time to given any emphasize toward quality (or whatever quality goes into making this blog) and just getting something out. Let’s stretch a bit, as usual for these posts.

We basically skipped the usual robot related design and a review post. The Virtual-On historicals have taken their slot, as they require comparatively a bit more research than what I have time now, especially considering I still need to play the games to give them a proper assessment rather than just going with the flow. I’m also planning an additional post about where VO has appeared outside of its own games, mostly mentioning Valgern-On and MARZ‘s Super Robot Wars entries. There’s quite a lot of to do with these upcoming three, and I can’t even begin to write properly about A Certain Magical Virtual-On as of now. I’ve also added the VO entries into Robot Related Materials you can access in the menu on the top of this page.

With VO posts doing relatively well for a niche topic, I’m considering of doing more of post of their sort. Not necessarily historical entries per se, but more series or franchise comprehensive series. Still, Muv-Luv and Guilty Gear related stuff still reign at the top of most hits, with few mecha and that NES region free post in the mix.

With my new work contract that I’ve gained via career change, I’ll be working a full day-job in five shifts. Whether or not I have time, or simple energy, to write something of worth nothing twice a week may become rather challenging. I’ve decided not to push myself with this, and will allow myself to pass on one of the posts, if deemed necessary. I’ll try to drag A9Doc, who did the neat Digimon post recently to cover my sorry ass, if he manages to come up with a neat topic. You may see more Digimon related posts than usual because of this, but all of them should touch on character designs or the like first and foremost to keep it according to the blog’s theme.

This also means I’ll be breaking the thousand word limit I’ve had for years now. This is to ensure that I can include all the things I’ve wanted to mention rather than splitting some topics. In some cases, I’ll forgive myself if I got well under that golden standard I’ve been living up to. If somebody is wondering why I had such a limit, it was because early on I got some feedback that I tended to write posts that were too long to read. Thus, cutting back and making them more palatable was the goal back then, but that was then.

To help with things overall, I will take last year’s Monthly Threes and combine them into one larger post per topic. Is this cheating, I hear someone ask. It partially is, but these posts have some of the best stuff I’ve done. With some encouragement from a certain Casp O’saurus, I’ll be picking some of my better posts and try to spread them around a bit more.

As for the ixtl/âge stuff, there hasn’t been much I’ve wanted to comment on. I never made any posts about Avex picture’s acquisition, because I never got a good picture what sort of company they are, in the end. There are less good sources to go through, and things being more or less standard Japanese corporate politics says things can go either ways. Either ixtl will stay as they are and be milked to the end, until they’re absorbed fully into avex as a whole, or they’ll manage to do some seriously impressive stuff that will make money. Knowing ixtl’s track record, despite the Kickstarter, things can go either way. At least the translation team has now moved to ixtl’s stables. We’ll just have to sit back and see when everything has been cleared out, as they’ll have to relaunch Muv-Luv on Steam under a new publisher now that Degica is no longer involved.

TSF comparison entries are still planned, but just as with the Guilty Gear comparisons, time is a commodity  that I don’t have too much. I’ll plan one of each for March, as February is still Virtual-On country.

I once said that I’d follow Yo-kai Watch‘s success in the West, but seeing its success was less than expected, it really did drop from my radar. I picked up the first game from sales recently, and I have to admit that I’m liking its semi-automatic battle system. I’ll have to play it a bit more to get a proper feeling, but all things all, I can understand well why the series got such a loud applaud in Japan. Maybe a review is coming out on it at some point, but not anytime soon. I’ll be giving some of the sequels a look too, and how they’re managed to change the formula.

And oh, the reason why Yuusha Oh Tanjou! got the spot this time around is that The King of Braves GaoGaiGar‘s final episode’s 20th anniversary was on the 31st of January.

 

Music of the Month; To Fly Through Fire

It’s one of those months for sure

I recommend people to carry some sort of pocket knife with them. Not in order to do violence, but to have a tool with utility. There are times when in an emergency arises and having something sharp and multiuse comes in handy. Like when your work clothes catch on fire, and you need to get them off as soon as possible. In a car crash it comes handy in cutting your seat belt off, it you can’t get the lock system open. Of course, you can slice apples with it too.

To talk about the whole mecha post issues I’ve been having, mainly that I haven’t kept the transformation theme constant and skipped it few times around, it’s a combination of lacking time to put the time into proper description and finding really good sources. There are few books out there that I could recommend for you to read through yourself, but most of them are in Japanese, which limits their effectiveness to an extent. As such, I might as way it officially that the theme is dropped for the rest of the year, because I have to concentrate on other things. I’ll still aim to produce mecha content monthly, and not just TSF stuff. Not everybody likes them after all.

On more game related side of things, I came across a SNES Mini and decided to pick one up for my nephews. First I thought picking one for myself too, but thought that as I already have most of the games on my shelf, it’d be a waste. Because Christmas few months away, I decided to test the machine so that there would be no let-downs on Christmas day. The thing about these Mini consoles is that their built-in library is, ultimately, rather bland. On paper is looks good without a doubt, but for someone who has played these games many times over and already owns them, the set isn’t even vanilla. It could use more two-player games, though this leads me to the best thing about the package; the SNES controllers that came with it are diamond. Hell, this makes me wish Nintendo would put the real controllers in a new limited production, so collectors and whatnot could get a new set of pads for their consoles. I won’t be doing a review on it, because the machine is just a small Super Nintendo. I’d rather review the real deal.

As for what will be reviewed this month is anyone’s guess. I don’t have anything too interesting on the horizon when it comes to interesting gaming thingamajigs, but that can change any moment. I was considering reviewing Cuphead and break my own rule not to review anymore, but maybe that’s a silly rule, even when those are the least read posts. I should stick with the more obscure stuff people want more information on that is not expanded elsewhere. That’s the core idea with all these weird controller and homebrew reviews. Something like SNES Mini is reviewed everywhere else already.

Maybe reviewing mechas again like what I did with Metal Gears would do good for a change.

As for whatever else for this month, Inktober’s kicking around again. I recommend checking your favourite social media site what sort of images people are producing, and I too may take part in it… if time allows me to. The idea is to do a picture by using ink, and some of the works are absolutely beautiful to behold.

Whether or not I’ll manage to put a post on Mega Man‘s 30th anniversary is an open question, but some sort of post regarding the franchise is planned, but again, only if I can get the materials together. I’d like to this post to hit sometime this tear, not necessarily on the anniversary day itself. I had my old editor up for a music related post regarding the series, but that never went anywhere, so I might have to pick up that in the future, despite being tone deaf.

An addendum to Themes of Godzilla post is in the works too. This would be a more in-depth view on Shin Godzilla now that I don’t have to work with limitations, and who knows, maybe I’ll expand this into a monthly series on itself and rewatch all the movies while I’m at it. Doing it a production order of course would be the best thing, but I do think that taking Godzilla with least connection to others, like Shin Godzilla and the 1998 Godzilla, can be viewed in a vacuum-like state, where they can be weighted on their own merits. Some of the movies are rather connected to each other either through story, setting or the staff, and with that you have certain tones and themes repeating. I’d even go so far that I’d divide Godzilla eras based on the staff who worked on them.

I might actually review the Art of Shin Godzilla, a 559-page book. It has some reviews up on the ‘net, but none of them really go in-depth whats in it and how it’s built. You shouldn’t review a book based on its cover, but like with everything, first impressions go a long way.

As for the ARG podcast we had going on, I’ve removed the link on the side. This is because due to certain changes in situations I highly doubt we get the same people on the mic anymore, though continuing with fewer people would be a possibility. The uploaded episodes won’t go anywhere, neither will the Degica interview. I regret things going like this, but alas it takes two to tango. Well, maybe this’ll encourage me to start those voice blogs next year. The plan is to turn some of the older posts with more solid content into audio form. I see the Monthly Threes I did as the best choices for this, as they tend to hold content with a point. Hell, they might be best content in this blog, but that’s not saying much, isn’t it?

Speaking of the posts, this is the 803rd post this blog has. I need to get my act together and wrote a new Different take on customers.