My Little Pony: Assumptions are Not Magic

  First of all, I enjoy the show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.  Half the internet is turning away in disgust, and the other half is high fiving me.  But I have some things to discuss.  So does this mean I am a 'Brony'?  Once I would have called myself that, but I'm not so sure any more.  Why is that?

"Because you're a Pegasister?"

  No, Pinkie, I don't call myself that, either.

"Oh."

  It's because Brony is one of those words that seems to have lost it's meaning.  Let's take a step back a bit.  First of all, why does anyone mock people who enjoy 'a kids show'?  Batman: The animated series was a kids show.  I see plenty of people talking about Spongebob Squarepants and turning him into memes.  Spongebob is aimed at children as well.  Why is Spongebob alright to watch but not My Little Pony?  I think the answer isn't so much that 'adults watch it' but that adults make a big fuss about watching it.  And mostly, the type of things you see are a lot more tame.  There is a lot more porn of ponies than there is of Spongebob.

That I know of.  I will not be doing research on this.

  So when someone draws a picture of Twilight Sparkle doing something that would never occur in the cartoon, people nod and go 'Bronies'.  And yet, that's not 'Bronies'.  That is one specific person that drew that.  One assumes an entire fandom is based around the actions of some.  The simple truth is that people are people and everyone does their own thing.  It sounds basic, and yet people seem to forget it.  Is there even anything wrong with drawing art like that?  It's not hurting anyone, even if some people find it weird.

  I was reading an article on Cracked.  The article doesn't matter, merely the comments section.  Of course, the comments section at Cracked is a bigger hive of scum and villainy than Mos Eisley spaceport.

There is pony art for every occasion.

  So someone made a comment about the article.  Without a single comment about my little pony, yet their icon was a picture of Rarity.  Someone responded with 'Die brony.'  Why would someone's icon create that kind of a reaction?  It's due to the way information spreads.  Most people are not doing research on My Little Pony.  This is not a shocking thing.  So all they hear is the weird stories and end up assuming that everyone is like that.  I can tell you that 95% of the my little pony fans do not want to have sex with Twilight Sparkle.  Fluttershy on the other hand...

  Alright, so all pony fans are not perverts.  Another problem with the My Little Pony fandom is how in-your-face they tend to be.  You can easily get sick of seeing and hearing about the show when you don't care about it.  Once again, this isn't everyone.  How many shows have monthly conventions around the world?  There's not even anything NEW happening, what the heck is there to have conventions ABOUT?

  I think it's less about the show and more about the people.  A show about friendship.. is bringing people together.  People go to the conventions to meet others and spend time with friends.  There isn't anything wrong with that, I think it's a nice thing.  If a show about friendship is actually bringing people together, that's one of the biggest successes of a message I've ever heard.

  I have not gone to any of these.  I do not write fanfiction, I do not draw art, I do not live my life around the show.  Does the base idea of 'I like the show' make me a Brony?  It's a term that makes me uncomfortable to associate myself with, and it's not fair, because most of the fandom is doing nothing to make it an embarrassing term.  The small part that is insane about in the show, in various degrees, is what everyone sees.  Because quite simply, the people who are quietly enjoying the show.. are doing nothing to make themselves seen.

  I have encountered people who have taken 'I am a brony' as a way of acting superior.  Sort of.. 'look, I can watch a cartoon and not be embarrassed, because I am secure in myself!  And when you make fun of me I love an tolerate.  I am a better human being than you.'  Watching a TV show does not make you a better human being.  It doesn't make you a better pony, either.

"I can't believe you went there!"

  But it doesn't make you a WORSE human being either.  It just makes you someone who enjoys a fandom.  While yes, going overboard because someone has a Rarity icon is their fault, the people who are 'tolerating' you annoyingly is their fault.  Sometimes bronies bring it on themselves and sometimes they don't.

  There's no easy map for this, but people simply need to behave like mature individuals.  Don't make assumptions about someone merely because they like a TV show.  Don't make assumptions about people because they DON'T like a TV show.  No one should have to be embarrassed that they like a show that teaches proper values and friendship.  I know there is a 'mods are asleep, post ponies' section who enjoy shoving them in peoples faces.  This is part of the reason there is so much hate.  There are MANY websites devoted to the show, like Equestria Daily.  You do not need to force it on other people when you can find people of like mind.

  If you think you can expand peoples minds about what they are missing, feel free to make a suggestion.  But don't be pushy if they say it's not their sort of thing.  As for all the pony porn.  Frankly, if that's what you like, more power to you.  Just post it where it belongs.  If, however, something is posted to a Deviant Art account, and someone specifically goes to find it, just to hold it up and show that bronies are weird, well, you're the one browsing pony porn.  If you look for it, you can find perverted art of ANYTHING.  This is something else I will not be doing research on.

"Whew."

  I rather doubt that my little blog that no one visits is going to make a mass change on this subject.  Like most of my posts, this is something that I had on my mind.  Now it is something that is out there on the web.  Now then, everypony hug and get along.

Are sprites a bad thing?

  So, these days not many games come out that use sprites.  I suppose, for the most part, they are considered a thing of the past.  Admittedly, many games these days are in 3D and sprites wouldn't work.  But I started thinking about this when the new Strider game was announced.  It is going to be one of those, so-called, 2.5D games.  A game where you run around on a 2D plane, but all the assets are in 3D.

  There is nothing inherently wrong with this.  But to compare, this is a screen shot with the upcoming remake of Ducktales.

  Obviously the backgrounds are in 3D, but the sprites are smooth, colorful and not a pixel to be seen.  To give another example, here is a screenshot from Dust.

  There is one thing about sprites.  They don't age.  Now, I'm not saying all sprites are created equal.  Obviously Super Mario Bros 1 looks a bit different from something like Super Castlevania.  My point is just that, for me, I can go back to old games.  While I can say 'this sprite of Mario is simple', it's the same as the day it was created.  I'm probably sounding a bit odd, but let me compare.  I have no problem with old sprites, but when I put in an old game like Final Fantasy 7..

"Are these... random collections of shapes supposed to mean something?"

  It just looks bad.  Maybe it's just my brain at work.  While I can look at old games and see that the sprites lack detail, I don't think they look any worse than the day they were made.  But old blocky polygons are something that I think my brain has moved on from.  Perhaps this is a personal thing.

  Speaking about sprites in general, I just feel there's more life to them.  There is art involved in making them.  When things are done in 3D, they feel a bit less.. real, I suppose.  There's a term called the 'uncanny valley', it means something is close enough to human, but not close enough, so your brain will feel a bit uncomfortable about it.  It'll tell you that something is 'off'.  Sprites are clearly far enough away from being 'realistic' that perhaps it doesn't trigger that feeling.

  Lots of games that use sprites these days are trying to be 'retro', so the sprites are old and pixelated.  There aren't many games that are trying to use sprites seriously.  It's sad because sprites can pull off artistic styles and designs that you couldn't pull off with 3D models.  Off the top of my head, there's only one game that manages to get close to looking as pretty as hand drawn things, while still using 3D models.

This game.

  Perhaps I'm just being nostalgic, but lots of games these days just feel a bit 'samey'.  I could post screenshots form Call of Duty and Battlefront, but it's been done to death.  Yatzee, over at Zero Punctuation, has complained about all the games these days using pallets of brown and grey.  This is probably a symptom of everything moving more and more towards trying to be 'realistic'.

  I say, we shouldn't fear sprites.  Obviously I don't think every game should start using them.  But I think games made from sprites still have their places in the world.  Now that our technology is more developed, sprites can be used to explore new art styles and ways to see video games.  Lots of old games are getting 'HD' remakes, but it's basically just smoothing over the art.  Games made from scratch can have more frames of animation.

  Maybe companies these days are just afraid from straying with what works.  People in space armor shooting aliens.. in space.  Things like this might just be a place for indie developers now.  But I can guarantee, if any of those games make big bucks, you'll see the big companies leaping in to follow.

A displaced review: Transformers Prime

  This Friday is the season finale of Transformers: Prime.  Afterwards there will be a finale 'movie' called Predacons Rising.  This is a bit sad as I have really liked the show.  There is already a new show in the works, apparently, scheduled to come out around the same time as the fourth Michael Bay movie.  I hope it takes place in the same universe, rather than being yet another restart of a story.
  I decided to take this opportunity to do a little review.  I feel the show is one of the best things to come out of Transformers for a while.  I will try and avoid major spoilers, as I am trying to make people go out and see it if they haven't.  But there will be some in here.  So, to start off, what is Transformers: Prime?

  Transformers Prime is set in the so-called 'Aligned continuity'.  This means the series is set in the same universe as the War for Cybertron and the Fall of Cybertron video games.  So if you are a fan of those, that's something to be aware of.  There are obvious traits taken from the Michael Bay movies in the sense of character designs and such.  Bumblebee also doesn't speak in this one, though instead of playing clips from the radio, he makes blips and squeaks that people have come to understand. 

  The story focuses around a small group of Autobots on Earth, consisting of, to start, with Optimus Prime, Arcee, Bumblebee, Ratchet and Bulkhead.  You may have seen some shots with Cliffjumper in them, but unfortunately..

"I, Starscream, have killed you.  After you've been beaten and two people are holding your arms."

  I know I said that I would avoid spoilers, but this happens in the first episode.  It helps set the tone that this show isn't playing around.  I'm not saying it's a complete gore fest, but you will see named characters die.  The show lets the fact that they're robots let them get away with things that wouldn't fly on a 'normal' kids show.  You could make a drinking game out of brutal deaths in Tron: Uprising, which uses the excuse that people turn into glowy blocks.  Thankfully Prime never gets that bad.

  As the show begins, the Autobots already have an understanding with the american government.  You are spared any long set up so they can get right into the action.  They are provided with a secret base and help assist in Decepticon related matters.  After the events of Fall of Cybertron, Cybertron is left dead and thus the Transformers have no home any longer.  For reasons that become clear as the show goes on, Earth seems to have a large amount of Energon deposits, so the Decepticons are quite interested in it.  Before I move on, let me address one issue.

Wait... noooooo...

  The dreaded 'human characters.'  And not only that.. but kids.  Up there, in order, are Miko, Raf and Jack.  Now, they are not that bad.  They have a larger part at the start of the show, I wonder if it was due to producer meddling, but they never disappear.  Unlike some previous Transformers shows, however, the main focus is not on them, they are just part of the cast.  They end up taking direct part less and less towards the end.  I don't want to sound like the kids are just an irritation that is thankfully limited, however.  They are good characters in their own rights.  Miko is generally the only one who I feel grates sometimes, but she also gets a crowning moment of awesome or two.

  What makes these kids special is that they aren't special.  To explain, it doesn't feel like they're forced into things.  In Armada, the kids had a bond with the mini-cons and thus, had to be around.  In animated, Sari was the only one who could use the magic key.  This show handles writing them in as characters, rather than the plot forcing them to be around.  There are many character moments along the way on both sides.

"Look at me.  Tolerating this human.  My character is developed.  Can I go, now?"

  You can't have a story without good villains, however.  I must say that this Megatron is one of the best I feel has ever been in a show.  His only competition would be Beast Wars Megatron for me.  Prime Megatron is very powerful, but also very intelligent.  He does not come up with cartoonish plans.  He is quite capable of both manipulation and punching your face in.  You have to be able to respect a villain to consider a villain a threat.

  Starscream comes off as a combination of various incarnations of Starscream.  At times he can be cowardly.  He has a definitely thirst for power and for taking over from Megatron.  He manages to be a threat as well, though.  I will admit, at times he is the Decepticon whipping boy, but you never feel like he's a guy you can blow off as merely a joke.  Starscream gets some surprising character developments here and there as well.

"My 'someone is complimenting me' senses are tingling."

  Next up has to be my absolutely favorite incarnation of Soundwave ever.  He does not speak, but he does not have to speak.  He is the quiet bad-ass.  He doesn't even have a face, instead his face consists of a viewscreen.  He simply communicates, most of the time, with either his actions or displaying something.

I like his design in general.

  This Soundwave does not turn into a cassette player, but one of those unmanned flying drones.  He does still have Laserbeak, however, attached to his chest.  When Soundwave is out in the field, you know things are going to get done.

  There are more Decepticons, of course, as well as a horde of faceless 'Vehicons' that the Autobots are allowed to mow down left and right.  On top of this, there's even some human villains.  There is a criminal organization known as MECH who believes that he who has the best technology, wins.  Once they become aware of the existence of the Transformers, they obviously want that technology for themselves.  Even if they have to dissect them to get it.

  What about the good guys?  Well, Optimus Prime is.. Optimus Prime.  He doesn't change very much between his incarnations.  Bumblebee has been a soldier for some time, though his inability to speak makes most of his expression come from his gestures and actions.  Ratchet is a grouchy old medic, who at first is rather annoyed by having to deal with humans.  Arcee is a soldier who has lost more than one partner in her time, as such, she is hesitant at forming bonds.  Bulkhead is a former member of a group known as the Wreckers, and as such, his best talent is smashing faces.  This is the intro cast.  All of them will learn and grow as the series goes on.

  Which brings us to a big reason why I like the series.  There are story arcs.  This isn't 'Megatron tries to cause trouble, The Autobots stop him, I'll get you next time, Prime!'.  Events from one episode lead to the next.  Things that happen matter.  You want to come back for the next episode because you want to see where it's going.  

  The CGI is quite excellent.  There's a style to it, so it's not trying to look completely realistic.  But if you click on some of those images, you can notice details on the models even down to scratches in the paint.  The voice acting is also excellent.  Optimus Prime is once again voice by Peter Cullen, whom was Optimus back in Generation 1 and in the movies.  

  The action is always well done in both style and animation.  There are some darn good fight scenes that take place over the course of the series.  

"One shall stand..." ".. not saying it."

  I want to babble more about the show, but I don't want to ruin things for people I may have interested in watching it.  Maybe for me, the show ending is a bad thing.  But for you people who haven't seen it, it means it's all there for you to watch.  You don't have to wait to see what's going to happen, it's all there.  So what's stopping you?  Go on then.

Final Verdict:

  If you're a Transformers fan, this is a must see.  While there is humor to be had, the show approaches things in a mature manner and does not treat it's audience like it's dumb.  It's one of my all time favorite incarnations of the show.  If you're not a Transformers fan.. since this is a new story, you don't need to know anything in advance.  Although it takes place after the games, they share any information you require.  If you don't like to see transforming robots doing things, I suppose this might not be the show for you.

Where have all the RPGs gone?

  I'm going to start this post off like I start lots of them, with a story.  Long ago, back in high school, me and a friend used to rent games to play every few days.  We'd grab anything that looked interesting.  If there was nothing new, we'd grab things that didn't look interesting.  That was how I first ran into this game.

Admittedly, this isn't a very exciting box.

    It didn't interest my friend very much, but I was interested.  I was the one who rented it, so I took it home and finished it over the weekend.  That was a lot of playing.  I had probably tried Dragon Quest or something for the NES before, but I had never really experienced anything like this.  My mind was blown.  The story and the drama, all the characters, a whole world to explore.  I didn't know that this was the 'easy' version of the game or that this was really Final Fantasy 4.  All I knew is that I had a new favorite game.

    Even though I had already finished it, I got someone in my family to get the game for me for my birthday and I played through it again.  I went looking for things I missed.  For secrets.  I leveled Rydia up high enough to learn Meteo on her own.  RPGs were now my favorite type of video game.  

    And what a time to be into RPGs it was.  To be clear, I'm talking about RPGs where you gather a team of heroes and travel the world while selecting from a menu things like 'Attack' and 'Magic.'  Oh sure, I do love adventure games with action elements, like Legend of Zelda or Secret of Mana.  But the standard ones were my favorite.  The Super Nintendo had a lot of great games to play.  Chrono Trigger, the Breath of Fire series, Final Fantasy 3 (which was really 6) and lesser known series like Lufia and Earthbound.  I hope I'm not going to get in trouble for calling Earthbound lesser known.  Of course, there were less good RPGs out there as well.

"Hey, we're good at football games, how hard can an RPG be?"

    I played the Sega CD games that working designs brought over for us, like Lunar and Vay.  I played Phantasy Star on the genesis.  Then the new generation came out.  The Playstation brought along a bunch more games, as well as continuing current series.  

    These days, however, I find myself not buying many games.  Part of this is due to the lack of RPGs.  When I say RPG, I tend to mean what is commonly referred to these days as a JRPG.  The sort of game where a young group of guys with oversized swords runs off to stab god.  There are the 'Western RPGs', which focus more heavily on action.  You have your Skyrims and your Mass Effect.  I have no problem with these games.  I can like them just fine while they don't remain my favorite.  Here is a list of games released for consoles in 2012 which would be considered 'JRPGs'.

    Final Fantasy 13-2, Tales of the Abyss (3DS remake), Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2, Tales of Graces f, Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story, Pokemon Black 2 and White 2, and Paper Mario: Sticker Star.

    That's not a very big list.  I might have missed something, but that's most of it.  I still consider the 'Tales' series to be a JRPG, despite a more activate battle system, due to everything else in the game conforming.  Xenoblade and The Last Story are both a bit iffy.  Xenoblade plays more like an MMO and the Last Story is more action oriented, but I felt the need to include them as they only came to america due to a fan run petition that demanded more RPGs for the Wii.  Alright, lets take a look at all the RPGs released in america so far in 2013.

    Unchained Blades, Ni No Kuni, Etrian Odyssey 4, Atelier Ayesha, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers, Class of Heroes 2 and Shin Megami Tensei IV.

    It's not looking like this year will be much better than last.  Of those games, four of them are on the 3DS.  I am currently looking forwards to Tales of Xillia and Pokemon XY.

At least Namco still loves us.

    Like someone trying to pad out an essay, I'm going to list the top 10 best selling games. worldwide, so far for the year.  In order with the best selling first: The Last of Us, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (Xbox 360), Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (PS3), Tomb Raider, Bioshock Infinite, God of War: Ascension, Gears of War: Judgement, and Tomodoachi Collection.

    If you're wondering what the last one is, it's a game that only out in Japan.  So lets just look at the top nine, as most people reading this probably don't live in Japan.  Three of them are first person shooters (of the same game), three are third person shooters, one is a beat 'em up, and two are quirky 3DS games.  I suppose you can argue with me the story and extra mechanics of Bioshock Infinite or the Last of Us.  So whats the point of that?  I suppose the point is that RPGs don't make the big money.  

    Maybe it's because there's not many to choose from.  Maybe there's not many to choose from because they don't sell as well.  I'm not going to try and prove a point by making lists from the SNES era or anything, because this post already has enough lists.

    Maybe it is, in part, Square Enix's fault.  Why would I blame them?  Well, once upon a time, Final Fantasy was 'the' RPG series.  It was the most famous one.  Making a new Final Fantasy game was like printing money.  Lately, though, that's not the case.  I think this started with Final Fantasy 11.  Oh sure, people made fun of Final Fantasy 10, but I enjoyed that one when it came out.

"You enjoyed Final Fantasy X?  AH HA HA HA HA HA."

   Final Fantasy 11 was the first MMO.  As it was an MMO, I'm not going to talk about it too much.  I didn't do that well, though.  Then Final Fantasy 12 came out and, honestly, felt like a single player MMO.  This was the first game I saw a lot of people bashing.  It was also the first Final Fantasy game I got bored with and couldn't finish.  This was followed by Final Fantasy 13.  I believe this game got the most criticism.  It was the second Final Fantasy game I couldn't finish.

    Not being able to finish a game is my fault.  But it's more about the bottom line.  Final Fantasy 13 did make sales, but it was highly criticized.  Final Fantasy 13-2 had less sales.  Final Fantasy 14, another MMO, was so bad that the company apologized about it.  What does this have to do with things?  Well, perhaps game companies figure, if Final Fantasy is having trouble, what chance do they have?  If RPGs are not guaranteed any money if you make them and bring them to america, why take the risk?

    Also, it seems like times are changing.  Halo was released in 2001.  That was 12 years ago.  That means kids who grew up on Halo can now have they own jobs as they decide what games to buy.  There was a couple of articles about test playings of the Ducktales remake.

"I'm not paying a single dime for these improved graphics!"

    Kids just didn't get it.  They had to make videos of each level explaining the moves needed and dangers to watch out for.  There was much shaking of heads and people going 'kids these days.'  The thing is, kids these days are being raised on the game where someone over a radio will say 'You need to capture that building.'  Or text will pop up saying 'current objective:'  or usually.. both.  Kids these days are different.  The people who grew up on Halo are different from the people who grew up on Mario.  

    I do see some JRPGs coming out as indie games.  But they all seem to be tributes or loving parodies.  They are purposely being 'retro.'

I see what you did there.

Does that mean that JRPGs are just something from the past?  If people are trying to cash in on nostalgia, is nostalgia all there is?  My first video game system was the Atari 2600.  I hope that doesn't date me too badly.  I remember Pitfall being pretty awesome.  When I got an NES, however, I never looked back.  Super Mario Bros could do more for me than anything Pitfall could.  Are JRPGs just a thing I'm latching onto out of nostalgia?  Do they still have a place in the world, and they just don't sell well?  I'd be sad to see them fade away.  On the bright side, Tales of Xillia 2 has been confirmed to be coming to america before 1 is even released.

Told you Namco loved us.

    What do you guys think?

How was Mega Man supposed to end?

    The talk about Mega Man in my first post got me thinking.  How was Mega Man originally planned to end?  Was an end planned?  I do think so, based on some of the things that were going on in the games.  I have had an idea bouncing around my head for a long time now.  First, I will share with you the facts.  Hopefully some of this stuff is interesting and maybe you didn't know it all.  I will be ignoring Mega Man 9 and 10 for this one.  They were made far after the fact and by different people, and obviously are simply trying to be retro and not progress the story.

    Mega Man games were pretty standard up through Mega Man 6.  The plot simply consisted of 'Dr Wily causes problems and Mega Man stops him.'  The most complicated it got was that Dr Wily was forcing Dr Cossack to do something, or that he put on a disguise and called himself Mr X.

"Dr Who?  I don't know who you're talking about.  Clearly, I have a beard and sunglasses and thus am someone totally different!"

    Mega Man 7 started to have a bit more of a plot.  It introduced the combo of Bass and Treble, who have dogged Mega Man ever since.  I always wondered at the names.  They were given musical names, as if they were Dr Light robots.  Did Dr Light go 'Well, I don't remember building these guys but I guess I did.'  Although in Japan they were Forte and Gospel, of course.  Anyway, whats the difference in Mega Man 7?  Well, at the end, this happens:

    Um, wow.  Bad grammar aside, that's pretty serious.  Dr Wily has been defeated and surrenders.  Mega Man decides it's time to end it for good.  Wily exclaims that a robot can't harm a human, to which you can see Mega Man's response.  Wily is then rescued by Bass, who comments 'He who hesitates is lost.'  Would Mega Man have pulled the trigger if he hadn't be interrupted?  Does the Mega Buster have a trigger?  Probably not.  Then Mega Man 8 comes along.  It introduces Duo, the space robot, as well as the possibly silly 'Evil Energy.'

Any energy that forms a skull by default can't be good.

    Dr Wily starts messing with the energy of a space robot that had crashed on earth after a battle with Duo.  The details aren't that important for our discussion.  Mega Man fights robot masters and deals with Bass yet again.  Then he confronts Wily.  After defeating him, Wily surrenders and begs forgiveness.

    It's no 'Die Wily!' but Mega Man still sounds like he's tired of this crap.  Now, I've read that the Japanese version of Mega Man 7 was less obvious.  After Dr Wily says a robot can't harm a human, Mega Man merely responds with '. . . .'.  But even so, Mega Man had threatened him.

    After the events of Mega Man 8 were the events of Mega Man and Bass.  This wasn't released in america for a while and lots of people probably missed that it existed.  It mostly consisted of battling a robot that Wily had built to replace Bass, by the name of King.  Storywise it only seemed to push the fact that Bass was not completely under Wily's control.  So where else can you get some story from?

    Well, there were two Mega Man games released in the Arcade.  Mega Man: The Power Battle and Mega Man: The Power Fighters.  They were structured like fighting games.  All you did was defeat the robot masters.  The games let you play as Mega Man, Protoman and Bass.  The second game also added in Duo.  It seems a weird place, but it's where we got our next plot progression.  Mega Man's endings were standard 'he poses with his friends' type stuff.  But this is Protoman's ending.

    Dr Light informs Protoman that he will die without being repaired and that, as his creator, he is the only one that could do it.  Protoman responds with 'Don't worry about my problems, I know my body better than anyone else.'  Protoman leaves, refusing his help.  Well, Protoman is dying?  Why wouldn't he accept help?  He didn't actually say 'I'm fine', but rather 'I know my body better than anyone else.'  So it's possible he's already aware that he's dying and simply knows it can't be fixed.  Well, that's depressing.  Whats going on in the Bass ending?

    Well, Dr Wily wonders why the heck Bass keeps destroying his robots.  Bass says that it's to prove he's the strongest of Dr Wily's creations.  Dr Wily says that his current project will be more powerful than anything else.  Bass gets a glance and this is the responce.

    The fact that Dr Wily created Zero isn't that shocking at this point.  But Dr Wily is actively constructing him.  This is the last bit we get for quite some time.  When Mega Man returns, in Mega Man 9, it's just another standard Wily plot.

    So where was all of this leading?  Well, it's time for my theory.  Afterwards I'll toss out some evidence from the X series to back up my thoughts.  I once had a friend who 'totally swore, you guys' that he had a friend who worked at Capcom.  That friend supposedly leaked the information that Zero himself either had a copy of Dr Wily's memory, or he had transferred his mind digitally.  Dr Wily was always into robots, but he never seemed big on improving himself.  Would he take that step?  Well, he had to have been getting on in age and Mega Man seemed like he was ready to end it all.  Maybe he would start considering his own mortality.

    So imagine Mega Man shows up for yet another final confrontation.  Protoman doesn't seem like the sort of guy to die in bed, so if he's dying, he'd probably go out with a bang.  What would be the most dramatic way to do that?  Probably saving Mega Man in some manner.  For arguments sake, lets say he dies protecting Mega Man from Bass.  So Mega Man has just lost his brother and had already been pretty pissed at Dr Wily.  So perhaps this time, he doesn't hesitate.  But what if Wily was in the process of uploading his mind to Zero at this point?  That process is interrupted, Zero doesn't wake up.  Mega Man may have only appeared to kill him because he is now 'brain dead', but as far as the world knows, Mega Man took his life.

    Why do I feel this scenario is reasonable?  Well, according to a comment from Capcom at one point, Dr Light was already constructing X at a similar point to when Dr Wily was constructing Zero.  So X is in the works during all this.  But when you start up Mega Man X, you get this message.

    Why would he include such a warning?  Why was X sealed away in the first place?  Well, imagine you are building a robot with his own free will.  Suddenly, near completion, your current greatest creation murders someone.  You might start worrying what your new creation will do with this free will and have a few second thoughts.  So X was sealed up while diagnostics were being run on him.

    So how would the world react to Mega Man killing?  I'd like to think there would be people going 'so the crazy guy isn't going to try and kill us anymore?  Woo!' but there might also be some fear.  If the most powerful robot in the world is capable of killing, who says he won't decide to take over the world?  If you want the sad ending, perhaps Mega Man was disassembled.  But I like to think something else.  In my vision, Dr Light removed all of Mega Mans weapons and told the world that Mega Man was no more.  Which was true in a way, as now there is only Rock.  Then maybe he, Rock and Roll retired somewhere nice.  As he got older, maybe he recalled Dr Wily's technology and uploaded his own memories somewhere, himself.

"X, I left these recordings that update somehow with each of your games.."

    What about Dr Wily?  Well, when Zero awakens he seems to be quite out of his mind.  This may be a result of Dr Wily's upload being messed up.  He had a battle with Sigma, which ended with a 'W' appearing on his forehead jewel and Sigma punching him out.  This uploaded things to Sigma himself, leaving Zero free of Dr Wily's influence.  

    Sigma's own hardware wasn't designed to run Wily's code.  It made him go freaky and became the Maverick virus, but he didn't become Dr Wily.  But maybe, over time, the voice in his head started getting itself together and whispering to him.  First Sigma mentions him in end of X2, that he is the 'last of the doctor's creations'.  

    Later in Mega Man X5, Sigma says he's been working with an 'old man', and you get this familiar boss.

    You fight the 'Black Devil' while the background flickers with a W logo.  This is all pretty blatant.  What if Dr Wily had completely woken up in Sigma now and was cooperating with him?

    This game ends with the apparent death of Zero and X.  However, if you're in X's ending, you get to see what happens after Zero dies.  A 'mysterious figure' shows up and X is somehow found repaired.  

"Dangit, and the warranty expired in 20XX."

    So Dr Light, the only one who would know how to fix X, shows up.  But how can a hologram repair anyone?  Well, I like to think that he had help.  A couple of robots who may not have weapons, but who have a perfectly good pair of working hands.  Who have been hiding out from all the troubles of the world somewhere peaceful.

    Just a thought.

Pokemon XY rumors

    I'm going to discuss some of the rumors for the new Pokemon games in this post.  Of course, at this point they're still just rumors.  But the guy who leaked this stuff, has also said a bunch of other stuff that has been coming true.  Therefore, this might just be true, so if you want to avoid spoilers, you might wanna skip this post.

   Lets start off with the starters.  This seems like a good place to start.

    Not bad overall, I think.  The fox is cute, Chespin is kinda odd, but has potential.  The frog is a frog.  Overall I like the designs on these starters more than the past few gens.  But what is on everyone's mind is what their final types will be.  That and what they'll look like.  The internet is almost full of more fan art for that than normal pictures.  So, according to the leak, this is how they'll end up:

• Fennekin: Fire/Psychic.  This is an interesting type combination, it's one that only exists in one other place, right now.  Darmanitan in Zen mode.  Not counting the new type (which I'll get to) it's a combination that has five weaknesses (ground, rock, ghost, water and dark) and six resistances (fighting, steel, fire, grass, psychic, ice).  But most of all, people are crying for Fennekin not to become fire/fighting.  So this would be a good thing.
• Chespin: Grass/Dark.  This is another uncommon combination.  Not as rare as the previous, though, it is shared by Nuleaf, Shiftry and Cacturne.  All of which are from Hoenn, if that means anything.  This is a type combination with six weaknesses (fighting, flying, poison, bug, fire and ice) and six resistances (ground, ghost, water, grass, electric, dark.)  On top of that, it's immune to psychic.  This is an interesting turn. 
• Froakie: Water/Fighting.  Here's another type combo we haven't seen much of.  Outside of the legendary pokemon, Keldeo, the only other contender is Poliwrath, all the way back from Gen 1.  This combo comes across as the most defensive of the starter typings, with only 4 weaknesses (flying, grass, electric and psychic) and 7 resistances (rock, bug, steel, fire, water, ice, and dark.)  

    Besides the fact that these are all rare type combinations, through Gen 5, lets look at them again.  Your in-game rival will usually choose the pokemon that your starter is weak to.  Another rumor is that Gen XY will have two rivals, similar to how Gen 5 worked, presumably.  Let's look at this, though.  Say you choose Fennekin.  In a previous generation, your rival would choose Froakie.  Water does, in fact, beat fire.  But once they are evolved, Fennekin's psychic type will give Fennekin a super effective type against Froakie in return.  Comparing Fennekin to Chespin, while Fennekin's fire type gives an early advantage, Chespin again picks up a type that gives it a fighting chance against Fennekin, not only super effective, but immune to the physic attacks.  

    If this rumor is true, the starters all seem balanced to have both 1 strength and 1 weakness to each other.  This is pretty amazing.  Why do I say that?  Because to me it seems a lot more thought went into this than usual.  If the develops are really putting thought into these things, it bodes well for all the games changes in general.  But I already explained why I think this game might be the first 'new' Pokemon in a while in a previous post, so moving on.

    This is Mewtwo's new form, called 'Awakened forme.'  It's hard not to have seen it yet, if you follow pokemon at all.  My opinion on it is that the head-tail ruins the whole thing.  Looks like that twiggy neck should just snap right off.  But I'm here to share rumors!  So, here we go.  Mewtwo is going to get two new forms.  They will be activated by items, presumably similar to changing Shaymin with the Gracidea flower.  This form is supposed to lean more heavily towards his 'Mewtwo' design, while the other form is supposed to lean more heavily towards 'Mew'.  

    I would be happy for this to be true, as I think this form is a tad ugly.  Can the world live with a cute Mewtwo?  There's no word on just what these forms do, just yet.  Mewtwo already has pretty good stats, if they got boosted it would be overkill.  They could shuffle them around a bit, perhaps, but that would just make him Deoxys Jr.  Perhaps the new forms will let him pick up secondary typings.  Is the world ready for Psychic/Fairy Mewtwo?

    Now, Fairy type being a thing isn't just a rumor anymore.  But it bears mentioning that this information source both mentioned Fairy type being super effective to dragons and some old pokemon gaining the fairy type before the real information hit.  So what is the rumor, then?  Fairy types full list of strengths.  According to the source, they are as follows.  

• Super effective to: Dragon, Dark and Fighting
• Weak to: Poison and Steel
• Not very effective to: Fire and Psychic
• Immune to: Dragon

    No resistances were listed.  But if it is immune to dragon, this is a pretty major deal.  The jokes about fairy types being dragon slayers get stronger.  Using Outrage could be a death sentence if you are locked into the move while they switch in something immune.  Giving poison something else to is nice, as poison only has one super effective as it is.  Steel doesn't have too much it's strong against, either.  Classically, there are tales of fairies being weak against iron and such, so it makes sense that way as well.

    Here's a couple of smaller things that I still find interesting.  According to the source, you will be able to train EVs with mini-games.  This can remove some of the tedium and guessing game involved in grinding them.  Also, HMs are supposed to be less of an impact.  I don't like dragging an 'HM slave' pokemon around with me, but I don't wish to mess up the movesets of the ones I use, either.

    There are other rumors, of course, I just touched on the ones I found the most interesting, and that I thought others would want to hear about.  I shall keep appraised with any interesting things that I come across. 

Animal Crossing: Fun or a second job?

    I'm going to start out being honest.  I don't like games where you need to make your own fun.  What do I mean by that?  I mean games that give you a bunch of tools and say 'go ahead, do what you want.'  Minecraft is one example.  I can't play the game more than 20 minutes or so, while someone else is spending a week constructing a scale model of the Enterprise.

Every version of the Enterprise exists somewhere in Minecraft.

    Now this is merely my own opinion.  I am not criticizing people who enjoy this sort of thing.  It's not for me, but that doesn't mean I can try and figure out why it's fun.  When you build the Enterprise, you have a feeling of accomplishment, right?  You've made something big and difficult that you can be proud of.  But was the actual construction project fun?  Is the hours of work enjoyable, or is it all the means to a goal?

    Lets talk about something I've been hearing a lot about lately, Animal Crossing: New Leaf.  I see lots of people playing and talking about playing it.  I played the original Animal Crossing back on the Gamecube because people poked me about how fun it is.  It wasn't long, however, before I discovered that I was logging onto the game because I had to, not because I was having fun.  Need to get to the store while it's open, need to pull some weeds.  New Leaf makes you the mayor of the town, so there's somewhat more reason why everything goes to heck without you.  But not much, honestly.

That'll teach you to go away for the weekend.

    Is it fair to be punished for not playing the game?  Animal Crossing isn't the only thing to do this, of course.  Some games are worse than others.  These days, MMOs like the idea of Daily quests.  Sure, if you don't log in, you're not losing anything.  You are, instead, missing out on something.  For a lot of people, the idea that you missed out on some experience, items, or achievement points, is the same as having them taken from you.  They are things you would have had if you had logged in.  I often see people saying they are 'doing their dailies' and it's all they log in for.  Are they having fun?  I'm usually told they are.  But if playing the game is so fun, why are you only logging in to do a daily task?

    When you get a reward of some sort, part of your brain makes you feel good.  Your brain can't tell if an item is real or digital.  To your brain, you have received something that is of value to you, and so it rewards you with warm fuzzies.  So sometimes you go 'that was fun,' but it wasn't fun, you just liked being rewarded.

    Animal Crossing makes it a bit worse.  Rather than just having to do something daily, it follows a clock.  You might need to play it at a certain time.  When I played Animal Crossing on the Gamecube, I was working all day.  I'm aware that I probably wasn't the target audience, but that meant that whenever I had time to log in, it was the middle of the night.  Sometimes I'd try and get in before work, when it was the morning.  It didn't take me long to realize I was playing because I felt like I had to.  So I stopped.  If I ever decided I wanted to play again, my town would be a mess.  I'm punished for putting down the game.

    What is the goal in Animal Crossing?  Well, it's to do whatever you want.  The only real goal is paying off your debt to Tom Nook.  All the jokes aside, he seems to let you take your time in paying that off.  For me, though, I need a goal.  Once I had paid him off in the original game, I felt no more reason to play.  It was the 'I win!' moment.  The whole town is still out there, though, with all the same activities.  But for me, there's no reason to do them.

"But I need more Nintendo Related house decorations!"

    If you have fun with this sort of game, that's fine.  Everyone enjoys their own thing, after all.  Fishing and shaking trees and chatting with animal people are all things to do.  You should just make sure that you're playing for fun.  If you find yourself saying 'I don't feel like playing right now, but I need to pull some weeds' or 'I have to get to the shop before it closes' or 'I'd better check what items are selling good today', then maybe you're not playing for fun anymore.  Maybe you're trying to maximize your profits or you're worried about the animals giving you a guilt trip.

"Dangit Sally, I have my own life!"

    I've watched my boyfriend be obsessed with MMOs, rushing to do his dailies and becoming upset when he missed them, all the while insisting he's doing it for fun.  All I'm saying is to judge your own feelings.  If you start finding yourself feeling that you 'have to' hop onto Animal Crossing instead of that you 'want to'... maybe it's time to let those animals fend for themselves.  

Dragons and video games

    Well, I said I'd talk about whatever occurred to me here.  So far I've discussed video games and I've discussed dragons.  I think it's time for me to branch out and discuss dragons in video games.
    Dragons show up in video games a lot.  They're frequently monsters or bosses who don't have much to say to you.  Sometimes they have their own personality, but you still need to stab them in the face with your weapon of choice.  If I tried to list every game that had dragons in it, I'd be here all day.  So it's obvious that people think dragons are cool.  In fact, some might say that they're over done.  But here's a thought, how often do you get to play as a dragon in video games?

Not a dragon.

    There's Pokemon, where 'dragon' is a whole elemental type.  There's also the Breath of Fire series, where your character can turn into a dragon form.  And then there's various strategy games with dragons as 'units'.  But in the end, in those games, the dragon is just the skin wrapped around some numbers and stats.  Are you getting the dragon experience?  If you're just clicking 'attack', it doesn't matter if you're telling a dragon or a guy with a sword to do it.  So what about other games?  I know my first thought.

This guy right here.

    Spyro has a whole series devoted to him, and I find most of the games enjoyable.  But what I'm discussing right now is what makes a dragon game?  First, lets look at the original games.  Dragons were just one of the races that lived in that world.  Spyro could glide and breathe fire, sure, but imagine with me for a moment.  Many games of that era featured Bandicoots or Bears or Squrriels as the main character.  How does it tie into the game?  Lets say you Search/Replaced all the dragons in the early Spyro games with other creatures, would the games actually be any different, other than the models you're playing as?

    Lets look into the reboot, when Spyro got dark and gritty and Sparx got really annoying.  Dragons are actually important now, powerful creatures feared by the forces of darkness.  So we're heading in the right direction.  But still, the only people you interact with in these games are people trying to kill you, and a few NPCs.  Once again, lets just pretend that gryphons were legendary forces in this world.  Has the game changed any?  I might be sounding a bit picky, but I have a point I'll get to.

    So what about games where you ride dragons?  There's lots of those.  You have your Panzer Dragoon, your Drakan, your Lair and your Drakengard.  There's more of these types of games, of course.  Technically your character is the person on the dragon, but when you move the control stick and hit buttons, it's the dragon doing things, so just as good, right?

    The problem is, once again, in the content.  The dragon is just a vehicle, in a Star Fox style shooter.  Some of the story lines of these games make a fuss about dragons, of course, but it's generally about the main character.  The dragon rarely, if ever, speaks and has a character.  If we take out our magic Replace power again, and turned the dragons into a vehicle, has the game changed?

Thanks for helping prove my point, Drakengard.

    So what makes a dragon?  Time for another story.  Long ago, someone had a dream of an MMO called Horizons: Empires of Istaria.  It wasn't going to be like any other MMO.  See, this game was going to have a variety of races, all of which operated in their own way.  The races would have their own play style.  Take a look at this from the early ideas.

    That dragon is pretty darn big, seems a bit unfair, right?  Well, in the original concept, dragons would start off rather weak.  They were also neutral or hated by every other race, meaning every race could attack them.  Why would you want to mess with a dragon?  Crafting components from the young ones, crafting components and raiding their hoards for the older ones.  Dragons were planned to grow over real time.  No way to grind to max.  You would have to wait literally a year or more before your dragon was a monster of destruction.  You couldn't just not play him either.  You need to run around and train, otherwise you ended up with a grown dragon that was tubby and weak because he hasn't gotten off his butt.  Other races would work similarly.  Demons and Angels would have to try and murder each other on sight, least their gods disapprove.  Vampires would appear to be human to most people, but couldn't go out in the day and had to feed on blood.  And so on.

    So what happened?  Well, it's a long and sad story.  The short of it is that the guy with all these dreams, the one who started the company, ended up being betrayed and having his company taken over by another guy.  That guy decided to toss out most of the original ideas.  So when Horizons was actually released, what did we get?  Half of those races weren't in the game.  What we did get were all the same.  Oh, the races had a few passive abilities, but stats and skills were determined by class, and every race could be every class.  So in the end, a pixie warrior was just as good as a half giant warrior.

    But dragons were different, sort of.  The only classes they could have were Dragon Adventurer and Dragon Crafter.  They couldn't use any equipment.  All dragons had the same classes, so there was no variety.  And ironically, dragons were the weakest race.  Sure, they gave them better strength to make up for lack of equipment, but a sword with bonus crit still did more damage.  When they finally added the 'adult' quest for dragons, they could fly.  That was quite fun.  But still, in the end, it was far from what was promised.  But get this, the game still has it's followers.  Horizons was bought by the fans, who now run a few servers.  These days it's just called Istaria.

    So why is an old, mediocre MMO still going?  Well, it's the only one where you can be a dragon.  I freely admit trying to balance dragons in things would be difficult.  But every MMO out there, the races don't matter very much.  Some have passives that make them better at one thing or another, but when people are putting a group together, they go 'looking for thief' and not 'looking for giant.'  Though I'm not sure a giant thief would be the best at that job.

    So, time to put my money where my mouth is.  If I'm so full of myself saying what isn't a dragon game, how about instead I say what is a dragon game?  First, being a dragon has to have some effect on the story and the world around you.  You have to feel like you are a dragon, and not just a character shaped like one.  Off the top of my head, I have a few ideas.

  First, single player ideas.  Lets think of a game in the manner of God Games, the sort of games where you are an all powerful entity who gets to choose the fate of the land.  Except instead of being a disembodied hand or something, you're an actual avatar in the world in the form of a dragon.

Not a dragon.

    First you customize your dragon, in appearance and skills.  You can pick out a place to make your lair.  Scope out nearby towns.  What do you do with them?  Perhaps you try and get them to trust you, become a guardian to the land.  That might get you some donations for your hoard.  Maybe you should burn them to the ground to avoid anyone bothering you.  Perhaps just a little threatening, so they'll hand over all their treasure and the occasional virgin sacrifice.  But then you have to deal with wandering heroes bothering you.

    Of course, if you start to get too rich and powerful, you attract the attentions of armies who want your gold and your land.  You may even have to start dealing with rival dragons.  Do you make alliances?  Do you kill your opponents?  This is a game where you get to deal with all the details involved in 'being a dragon.'

    Perhaps you think simulation is for wimps.  You want to chomp peoples heads off.  So lets imagine a game, instead, like Skyrim.  You start off as a younger, weaker dragon.  When you start to travel, people react like you'd expect them to react to dragons.  Once again, you choose.  Do you try and befriend people, do you chomp the heads you so feverishly crave?  You grow from worrying about people turning swords on you, to using those swords as tooth picks.  Now maybe you're controlling land and holding off armies.  But unlike in the previous example, you're stomping directly around the battlefield, crushing people and cooking them.  Or perhaps you're a nicer dragon, but the people are calling for you to defend them.

    In both of these examples, the main idea is that you are acting out as a dragon in a world that recognizes you as such.  It's not just a power up or a vehicle.  I suppose the idea I am getting at is that you have to feel like being a dragon matters.

    So how about multiplayer?  I still think an MMO could give dragons a try.  It would be a challenge, of course.  If they were just the same as other races, we fall back into my earlier complaints.  But if they're stronger than everyone else, is that fair?  Well, game balance doesn't always mean that two units can always defeat each other.  Starcraft strives to be balanced, but a Zealot is always going to defeat a Zergling.  The balance comes in with the cost of the units and the time it takes to make them.

    Would dragons be the 'best' thing to play as?  Not necessarily.  Being the strongest race doesn't mean the best.  Maybe others would want you dead.  Can you imagine playing AS the raid boss?  What about dungeons?  Well, young dragons can travel with people, but once they grow and become stronger, give them a humanoid form.  In this form they are weaker and can use armor and weapons from their hoard.  So they can still take part.

    But the fun comes in with dungeons designed for them.  Imagine a few dragons needing to distract a titan from above while the main force attacks it's weak underside.  You can fill up the team with dragons, as multiple roles are required.  Just as a warrior is probably going to defeat a cleric in battle, but you don't make teams full of warriors.  Well, maybe you do.  I'm not here to judge.

    Also, imagine a dungeon that requires flight.  So the raid is split into small groups riding on player dragons.  This is a level of teamwork that you don't usually see.  The dragon needing to keep ranged classes in range while avoiding attacks, healer needing to keep the dragon and the passenger healed, ect.  I just have ideas, I'm sure professional game designers could figure out the details.

    I suppose this was a bit of a long rant about dragons.  But hey, I'm a girl who likes dragons.  So far, I still the Spyro games are the closest I've come to feeling like I'm controlling a dragon, even if the story doesn't put as much emphasis on it.  What do you guys think?  Know any games I don't know about that you feel give you the better dragon experience?  I'll just keep waiting for a game closer to my own expectations, or at least a new pokemon that looks more dragon-like.

A dragon.