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Post by Youngster Joey on Feb 14, 2019 20:29:00 GMT -5
Adding to my irritation, my grandmother went and posted a picture of a woman at a bank wearing a burqa with the caption:
I feel kind of bad in that I will make my grandmother feel bad, but this just sends me into f**king orbit. Really? Really? . She's a lady minding her own business who happens to be wearing a burqa. She's got every right to wear a burqa if she wants to, and who is she even hurting? No one! My grandma always goes on about how Christians are persecuted, America's the greatest country in the world, blah blah blah. No. f**k you. You whine about people saying "Happy Holidays" as persecution against Jesus and then call out some lady for wearing a burqa in a bank. That is persecution.
You can worship the spaghetti monster and wear tutus on your head for all I care. You go on about how this is a free country and people have their rights? News flash: Muslims have those same rights, too. Or are rights within our country only reserved for some? I suppose so for her.
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Post by Friendly Person :) on Feb 16, 2019 12:29:31 GMT -5
I keep meaning to post something, then forgetting, then the next day meaning to post something, then forgetting, etc.
Anywho, Trump is a phenomenal idiot. I can only pray that this state of emergency gets blocked and goes nowhere, but honestly the political arena is such a clusterf*ck anymore that I can't be certain of anything.
Is it unacceptable to go into a bank wearing a hoodie and sunglasses? Few adults wear hoodies up indoors, and fewer still wear sunglasses, so I've never really seen this be an issue. Then again, I've never heard a single person claim that 'Happy Holidays' is a persecution against Jesus either, so I guess your grandmother is just special.
Burqas are interesting though. They're a great example of the inherent contradiction of liberalism -- by which mean philosophical liberalism, that is to say, the rights of the individual. I generally think of myself as a very liberal person, but when it comes to the burqa, I can definitely see how both sides feel. On the one hand, women absolutely should have the right to wear what they want and practice whatever religion they wish. On the other hand, if the compulsion behind wearing one is to de-sex a female, then I begin questioning if it's such a fantastic thing. While in theory it remains the individual's choice, if one is raised in a heavily religious culture it's rarely much of a choice at all.
Of course, this isn't simply a burqa issue. A similar one has popped up recently with gay marriages. If liberalism is the right of the individual, then it's the right of a homosexual to marry another homosexual. Yet, is it not also the right of a priest to reject marrying these individuals on the grounds that it would force them to violate their own beliefs? Truly, you can please some of the people some of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the time.
In other news, despite it continuing to be free on Amazon Prime (which is where I first watched it), I decided to buy the Blu Ray for After the Storm. It came with a 70 minute mini-documentary on the making of the film, which at first I thought I'd never watch given its length. Yet after watching the movie again, I thought I'd check out a few minutes of it. Surprisingly its constructed in such a way that it becomes like a movie unto-itself.
Two scenes really stood out. First, watching the set-designers make stains on new appliances and objects to make them look "lived in" is a very odd thing. I know that movies use techniques like this to make something look real -- baking pictures to age them is something I've heard of -- but it's fascinating to see and consider how much work actually goes into making a house look believable. It's something that, if done well, you never even consider because the illusion is so real. In other words, the more time you spend on it, the less time the viewer spends thinking about it. Hours of labour to make said labour invisible.
On a similar note, one part of this documentary depicts the filming of a single scene. It was, for the director, the scene from which he derived the entire movie, and so was very important to him. In blocking the scene, they discovered that if a line was spoken with the character sitting down, it carried a much stronger impact than if spoken while standing (as the script originally called for). This lead to a long discussion on whether or not to do the scene as planned, or change it to the version with more impact. Since this was such an important scene, the added weight of the latter really drove home the emotion. Yet, because the rest of the film is so domestically real -- that is to say, emotional shifts are greatly subdued/understated -- it runs the risk of coming across as too impactful. It was interesting watching at least an hour's worth of debate (probably more) over how to deliver this single line.
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Post by Youngster Joey on Feb 16, 2019 14:48:22 GMT -5
Burqas are interesting though. They're a great example of the inherent contradiction of liberalism -- by which mean philosophical liberalism, that is to say, the rights of the individual. I generally think of myself as a very liberal person, but when it comes to the burqa, I can definitely see how both sides feel. On the one hand, women absolutely should have the right to wear what they want and practice whatever religion they wish. On the other hand, if the compulsion behind wearing one is to de-sex a female, then I begin questioning if it's such a fantastic thing. While in theory it remains the individual's choice, if one is raised in a heavily religious culture it's rarely much of a choice at all. Yeah, it's a valid point--if social mores dictate you're expected to wear the burqa, the idea of "free choice" is a bit blurry. Maybe no one will force you to, but there will be implicit disapproval, so... yeah. It works better in societies where there is no such implicit expectation, such as in the US. Wearing a burqa is more of a cultural, rather than religious, thing anyway, since in the Koran itself doesn't actually tell you to wear that thing specifically. It just says, paraphrasing, to hide things of a seductive nature, and hair is considered to be such in Middle Eastern cultures. Hence, hide the hair. (And, well, some people apparently get their jollies off seeing any female skin at all, so might as well cover it all up.) Meanwhile, it's not uncommon for African-Americans to convert to Islam, and obviously there are no strongly held sentiments about covering up in that culture. So, if an African-American convert decided to wear a burqa, I say she's well-entitled to it, and that would be an excellent case of truly being her choice. Granted, not all such things are so clear-cut or simple. In the case of religion, I think it's fine if the priest says no to marrying gays. That's his prerogative. Religion isn't providing any service necessary for being able to live in society. It's kind of like being in a country club. Country clubs can include or exclude whoever they want, and it's sad if they decide they don't want to include you, but they're a private entity, and it really wouldn't make a difference in anyone's life if they existed or not. Not everything in life is going to be fair and all-inclusive. It's a little trickier when it comes to business, and I recognize my opinions aren't really consistent when it comes to that. There have been times where bakeries have refused to make wedding cakes for same-sex couples, and my immediate reaction has always been, "Well, they're not a very nice person >(s, but they're entitled to sell to whoever they want." But, then, if I ask myself if it would be okay if they denied black people that same service, and my immediate reaction would not be that, but rather, "That's racist and terrible; those denied customers have every right to complain." It's not because I like black people more than gays or something, though, so my reaction doesn't really make sense. I think I've just been ore conditioned to be reflexively repulsed by rejection on merit of race on any grounds. But it's not like being denied service because you're gay or female or red-haired or whatever would be any different? Either way, you're denying somebody service on a merit of something they can't control. It's weird. Anyway, I started work on jonsnowisdumb.com. I haven't written any code. I've just smashed my head against the wall repeatedly with CSS and HTML trying to get text to behave a certain way inside of my banner. I should probably try to get a solid understanding of layouts in CSS instead of trying to reverse engineer stuff? I know what I want to do, but the proper incantations in the right order, bleghh. I think I'm just being stubborn about taking a solid amount of time to look at all of my options because I just don't care about website design very much and consider it a distraction to what I actually find interesting, the actual website logic. Probably just extending my suffering by throwing random sh*t around until it works, though...
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Post by Youngster Joey on Feb 18, 2019 22:07:21 GMT -5
OH f**k YEAH
BASEMENT DWELLING, HERE I COME
After 3 months of not calling Dell after my computer stopped turning on, I finally decided I should, you know, actually call so I can use the computer I purchased and all. (I hate calling customer service that much.) I hadn't bothered plugging in at my new place, since, well, what was the point? But I figured, you know what, the first thing those clowns are gonna ask me is if my computer is plugged in, and I should at least bother, even though it won't do a damn thing.
This baby's alive, dammit!!! I guess both of my wall outlets must have blown out? (They worked with other stuff...) Who cares, I am buying the expansion pack for Civ right now and nobody's gonna stop me.
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Post by Friendly Person :) on Feb 20, 2019 1:40:14 GMT -5
Is it weird if, until I read the rest, I thought you legit meant that you had found a new place in a basement?
-edit- So would it come as a surprise to any single person here that I think the Link's Awakening remake looks bad?
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Post by Youngster Joey on Feb 21, 2019 1:27:12 GMT -5
Well, I did live in a basement apartment once. It sucked, and I moved out as soon as my lease was up. I didn't think that living in a basement with minimal natural sunlight would be a big deal, but surprise surprise, it actually is. It's really depressing, in fact.
My favorite part of the new Civ expansion is when they call an emergency session in Congress. Teddy Roosevelt, they complain, is being overly aggressive towards Rome. Let's hold a vote to take military action against him! Except they kindly also invite me to said meeting, and obviously I vote no. Just like the real UN, they said okay and I went right back to business. Rome is gone from the map now :-)
They raised a second session on me when I went after Cree. Cree can suck a d!ck--he whined incessantly about me attacking Rome, which obviously put him at the top of my sh*t list. I did lose the most recent vote, since at this point nobody in the world likes me except for Canada (thnx bby). But unfortunately only Siam wanted to help out Cree, and Siam hasn't done shit. Haven't seen a single unit. Don't even know where Siam is on this randomly generated map. womp womp.
I think Link's Awakening looks okay. Not omgz adorable, but also not bad.
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Post by Friendly Person :) on Feb 21, 2019 23:03:09 GMT -5
To Derman: I played The Beginner's Guide.
So like most games of its type, it's a neat concept, but to me it feels more like a proof-of-concept than something that will really delve deep into my subconscious. It reminds me of a short story versus a novel in the sense that short stories almost never have characters that actually feel multi-dimensional -- rather, they're stand-ins meant to represent ideas or actions. On the whole this makes short stories more representative rather than grounded and defined, which lends to that nebulous feeling of infinite possibility that the best short stories give. And that's fine -- clearly our conversations have shown that I enjoy some short stories -- but for me that lack of definition makes them difficult to make a deep personal connection. It's kinda like how I can enjoy discussing Barn Burning for a few hours and then let it go. Meanwhile Wind-Up Bird and Kafka stick in my head, because while they feel equally as confusing, I feel a bond to the characters that drives me to want to understand them and their world more. In that sense, I'm happy to play and discuss a game like this, but I'll be just as happy to move on because I wasn't able to make any personal connections to either the characters or the setting to make me want to revisit it either physically or beyond-a-certain-extent, mentally.
Funny enough, my opinion of the narrator very quickly (I mean *very* quickly) shifted to that of a True Detective quote (perhaps you've reached it if you got the chance to watch the show): "You got some self loathing to do this morning, that's fine, but it ain't worth losing your hands over."
To Joey: This sounds like the kind of sh*t that happens in Age of Empires. Out of curiosity my friend and I started a game of Capture the Fort against the AI. Naturally since I didn't want to use my scout, I sent him straight for the fort in the centre of the map and captured it. My friend built walls around my fort... and the AI proceeded to never attack us once in the entire game. Seriously: standard difficulty AI saw the walls and never pushed anything, letting us win uncontested.
The new Zelda just looks really lifeless to me. The perspective is awkward, the realistic lighting clashes with the cartoon style, Link looks like a soulless derp, and it has that Octopath Traveler thing where all of the screen effects look like cheap overlays added through a check-box in the engine rather than something actually integrated into the game. It calls to mind 3D Dot Game Heroes in a lot of ways, except that game was aping Zelda, so... irony? Also 3D Dot came out 10 years ago, so yeah...
I think I would be more favourable towards it if it offered something about it to play over the original, but the thing with Zelda games is that after the first two they've aged flawlessly. There's no need to re-make Link's Awakening because you can go play the original (or the improved DX version) and it plays 100% fine, since the controls are responsive and the graphics managed that charming ageless quality.
To everyone: Played Life is Strange. I didn't hate it, but nor do I find myself in love with it. It has a lot of ideas that I like (a grounded setting, a focus more on day-to-day lives, but also enough mystery and drama to keep a touch of tension just under the surface), but unfortunately fails to realise most of them due to lazy/mediocre writing. Also it has a really bad idea of what teenagers sound like (as well as an irritating degree of hipster BS). I struggle to recommend it, but I also don't really find myself wanting to dissuade anyone away from it either.
Too bad I've heard the sequel sucks. Oh well: win some, lose some.
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Derman
Oracle Knight
I still don't have a knife tag on my golden birth knife
Posts: 194
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Post by Derman on Feb 22, 2019 12:14:53 GMT -5
I lived in my brother's basement for one summer. I liked how it was never too hot, but I didn't spend much time in there other than sleeping. I think we finns are used to the low sunlight environment, since during winter we spend most of the daylight inside because of work/school. It's dark when we get up in the morning, and dark when we get back home. Maybe that's why everyone is so grumpy during winter...
The Link's Awakening remake looks like something made from existing/stock assets where they made sure they just barely fit together. It's a shame since pretty much every Zelda game has had a pretty strong and unique art style, while this one looks like a generic indie Zelda-copy. Might try it if my brother buys it. Also, I've gotten so used to being called "derp" in games because of my steam name (and since nobody uses that word anymore) that I thought you were referring to me with the "soulless derp" comment.
I thought the Beginner's Guide was an example of a story that couldn't be told in any other medium (you could argue it could work as a movie I guess, but I think it uses the player interaction pretty well). I agree that it's more like a proof-of-concept than a full story. Still, I liked what it had to offer and it was a nice experience. It didn't feel like it was made just as a product to sell, but to tell a story the creator wanted to tell.
I feel like I should try writing my thoughts on NieR:Automata, which I finished a couple of weeks ago. I enjoyed it a lot more than I was expecting. I'm also surprised I managed to avoid pretty much all the spoilers, so I got to experience the story completely blind. But I have to go, so I don't have time to write a longer post. I'll try to post something later.
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Post by Youngster Joey on Feb 23, 2019 2:47:53 GMT -5
Yeah, the AI in this game is... interesting. I definitely feel like there is more of a challenge with the non-military victories, because in that case their base output is simply higher than yours on higher difficulty levels, and they're able to complete wonders much faster. You have to put your nose to the grindstone to do well. Military, meh. They can come and nerf you if you don't have an army, but if you have an army and they declare war on you, they don't send any units out, which means declaring war on me is a mere formality, not an actual hike in difficulty. I've literally been in a 500-year war with Napoleon one time who sent over no units, but refused to make peace with me. What the hell, man. If you're not going to try to fight me, at least call it a truce. It's almost like the game decides that fighting you isn't actually worth it or something?
I'm coming to the conclusion that I like non-domination victories in Civ better, for a couple reasons. They're much more down-to-the-wire; you really need to be strategic and thoughtful at the higher difficulty levels, whereas domination, meh, once you get a foothold, you're set for the rest of the game. I've known for centuries now that I'm going to emerge victorious; it's just a matter of me making my way around the world. I am so massive in my current game right now (3/4 of the world) that my science and cultural output is on steroids, so I could get a science victory now if I really wanted to. Even if some other civ is doing well, I'd kill them anyway, so what's the rush? The end game is a chore; I have so many cities across the world that it takes me forever to complete a turn, and it's impossible to make strategic decisions with any one city. There's just too many, and at this point, any given city isn't really that special. (Part of this is my play style; I keep all cities, instead of razing them. Even if the population is 1.)
When I do non-domination victories, meanwhile, it's down to the wire until the very end, and poor mistakes can screw you up. Since I'm focused on things other than military, I usually only have a few cities, and they have a very specialized purpose. I think about what I am doing with each city, and I'm constantly monitoring neighboring civs to make sure they won't impede me in some way. The game goes by quickly, but it's tenser.
Also, I feel like the new expansion is definitely geared more towards non-domination victories. It's a cool concept, but I just don't care about global warming or about voting for cotton being worth an extra amenity, because none of that matters when I march in with a massive army. The strategy of approving--or denying--benefits would be much more interesting and relevant to me if I wasn't interested in just steamrolling.
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Post by Youngster Joey on Feb 24, 2019 11:05:51 GMT -5
I take that back. I like global warming as a mechanic. I discovered, hey, if I just destroy the world's climate enough with my nasty coal plants, no need to go sack Korea--their cities will be submerged by the rapidly rising sea levels anyway :-) Hehehe. Just according to keikaku.
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Post by Friendly Person :) on Feb 24, 2019 14:14:37 GMT -5
I keep seeing Civ 6 on sale, and I keep thinking about picking it up. I've had fun playing AoE2 with a friend, but the lack of diversity makes me want something with more to it. But heck, the gold edition on sale is 30 bucks, and then the expansion on sale is another 30... that's a lot of dosh for a game I'm not even sure I'll play that much (I've put ~40 hours into Civ 5 in the decade or so I've had it). Besides, I'm sure someday the whole dang thing will be on sale for 20.
yaaaaaaaaay steam sales
-edit- Finished season 3 of True Detective. I'm going to have to wait until I watch the entire thing in one go (which I'm waiting for the Blu Ray to do) before I can really give a solid comment, but as of right now I think it's pretty great, albeit perhaps a bit anti-climactic. Thing is, I can't decide if the anti-climax works in the show's favour or against it. I'm leaning towards the former right now, but I really need the weight of those previous seven episodes bearing down to fully appreciate it. Either way, really glad they had a chance to turn around season 2.
Also read all of Catcher in the Rye today. I've always avoided it because I've felt it a kind of meme book, which right from the start brings up one of the biggest challenges with the book: it has so much history that it's hard to see the work in any other context. I went into it expecting some angry self-centred kid, because that's the type of people who seem so attracted to it. Indeed, that's what the first several pages give you. But over time you start to see how damaged he is, and I can't help but wonder if maybe all the teenagers who cling to Holden as some kind of hero really seemed to get it. Which is why I can't even decide if I liked it: did I actually like it, or am I just so surprised that it bucked my expectation?
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Post by Youngster Joey on Feb 27, 2019 0:38:03 GMT -5
Well, I haven't finished jonsnowisdumb.com yet, and I wanted to write this, so I'm dumping this here for now. I should edit it later.
It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of flamboyant, obnoxious characters--think Visaerys from Game of Thrones or Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. The more over-the-top or self-indulgent, the better. I invariably find them comically endearing, well beyond probably what the creators intended. What can I say? If life were D&D, I’d be chaotic, no question.
It comes certainly as an irony, and probably a surprise to others, that my favorite sort of character is actually the direct opposite of a Gaston. My favorite characters are the Shinji Ikaris from Neon Genesis Evangelion, the Lukes from Tales of the Abyss. Self-doubting and mild-mannered, unable to shake the feeling they’re just not good enough and unfailingly kind to everyone but themselves. It’s pretty common for people to criticize both of them--they’re too whiny, a girl thingy, insufferably self-effacing. They’re the main reason people stopped watching the show, or stopped playing the game. Grow a pair already and man up! 10 hours of non-stop whining about your situation gets really old.
I’m not offended by those complaints. They’re actually pretty legitimate ones, in fact. I can see why people would hate both of them, and why they, as the main characters, could easily kill someone’s enjoyment of the game/show. Shinji is an impotent, sorry teenager with a desperate daddy complex for most of the show, and Luke spends the better part of Tales of the Abyss needlessly apologizing for his stained existence long after others have forgiven him. But that’s kind of exactly why I like them? They’re flawed. Just like the average person.
You don’t get that window into most fictional characters. If they fear others dislike them, well, you’d never know. Perhaps Belle of Beauty and the Beast has no hang-ups at all; she certainly doesn’t seem to. Real people, of course, do, although they might not state it outright. I know I have my own insecurities, and, consequently, most TV or book characters might be interesting or amusing, but certainly not deeply relatable. They’re two-dimensional, at best. Boring.
Shinji and Luke, by comparison, have their insecurities on full display. Their constant inner self-deprecating monologue is perhaps unusual because they voice aloud in it a way most people wouldn’t, but it’s realistic. Everyone’s struggled with their fears to some degree at some point. We’ve all been there. And how many of us have felt a gush of relief or sense of sudden comradery when we found out that--wait--someone else reveals they share the same insecurities or flaws? Even if you have nothing else in common with someone else, that person’s shared vulnerability reminds you of you. Like Shinji or Luke as you will, but you certainly can’t say you can’t empathize with them or feel like you know them better than most characters.
I don’t mind that Shinji and Luke’s insecurities are frequently on display, either, even though sometimes they can feel like broken track records that you just want to shake some sense into. An insecurity isn’t a one-off thought or statement, after all. Someone who fears others dislikes them thinks about it a lot. Like a record player. Over and over and over. We don’t have access to either Luke or Shinji’s inner thoughts, so that repetition has to get articulated aloud to come across. This has the downside of appearing “whiny” to some, but it’s a necessary cost. The benefit is it allows us to deeply understand and empathize with the character far more than a passing “I hate myself” would.
--
Luke’s relatability is precisely the reason Tales of the Abyss remains my favorite game, more than a decade later. In a lot of ways, Abyss ruined JRPGs for me, since I’ve never found one that had a character I found as relatable and realistic, or one whose character development I was so proud of.
Why? I don’t know about anybody else, but if I destroyed an entire city because of my childish, self-centered naivety, I wouldn’t be over that overnight. Or ever. I’d never forgive myself. And I don’t doubt for a second suicide would seriously cross my mind if, to add onto my sins, I also found out that I was a throwaway copy who was never even supposed to exist, solely created as a weapon. Basically, Luke’s entire existence was a mistake no one wanted, a lie that cost thousands of lives. In any other JRPG, they'd be mere plot points glazed over with a couple sentences, which is pretty... not realistic.
Refreshingly, and unsurprisingly, Luke rips into himself every other second for it. It doesn’t matter if others forgive and accept him; it doesn’t matter if he tries to change for the better; it doesn’t matter if he didn’t ask to exist. He killed thousands, and he wasn’t who he thought he was. How can you possibly blame him for doubting his right to be alive? Hell, the entire plot would be completely unrealistic if he didn’t. His deep self-flagellation is precisely what makes his character, and the game, so relatable, because any normal person would do the same.
That relatability and the constantly rollercoaster of Luke’s emotions, incidentally, makes the rest of the plot gripping. As a third-party observer, you know he has value, that his life is worth living, but you also can understand entirely why he feels the way he does. His relatability is why you understand why he attempts suicide, you’re overjoyed when he survives and finally realizes he doesn’t want to die, and, then, are crushed when, shortly later, he realizes his lease on life is, in fact, cruelly fading away. And, finally, you’re bursting with pride when, in spite of his death, in spite of what he’s been through, he accepts his fate and his own unique personhood.
Surely, some might argue, the game could have toned down Luke some and spared us the depressing non-stop record player. The show just did that, in fact. It’s surprisingly incredibly faithful to the plot, although Luke's ruminating is notably absent. He does feel sorry for himself some, especially in the episodes immediately after Akzeriuth, but it quickly levels out. Luke is thereafter comparatively blithe, far more focused on what to do next to save a world falling apart than despair over his existence. When he decides to commit suicide, it’s… kind of jarring? Wasn’t he over his identity crisis ages ago? Huh, he survived. Oh, I guess he’s going to die anyway, that sucks.
I wouldn’t recommend the show to anybody. It’s not bad… but it’s also kind of pointless. Tales of the Abyss is about Luke, and his coming into his own personhood. He does come into his own in the show, I guess, but you’re just a passive observer. If he hated himself on the inside, well, you’d never know. You don’t really get to know him or empathize with him much. He’s just a JRPG character. And the plot? Also standard JRPG fare. What would be a run-of-the-mill JRPG plot is totally transformed in the game because you care deeply and empathize with Luke.
--
If Luke makes Abyss a fantastic game, what does Shinji do for Neon Genesis Evangelion? Well… he saves it from totally forgettable mediocrity. I’ll state right now I don’t think Neon Genesis Evangelion is well-written. The pacing is poor, the mix of comedy and gravity inappropriately and jarringly mixed, and half of the show is repetitious Scooby-Doo Monster-of-the-Week. I wasn’t even sure I liked the show at all for the vast majority of it, and I honestly hesitate to call it good. Why is Eva popular, and why have I not written it off? Shinji. Entirely Shinji.
As the main character, Shinji unsurprisingly isn’t immune to the poor writing of the show. Unlike Luke, he has no clear character arc, and not because they didn’t try to give him one. Several times he seems to find peace with himself, only to be jerked back by the overall inconsistent writing. He reaches no satisfying zen like Luke as a result, no moment at which you can look back and think, wow, Shinji’s really grown, Shinji’s really come into his own. No, where Shinji shines is that he’s… a kid. A petulant, unconfident, wanting-to-be-loved kid. Luke found out he was a clone and destroyed an entire city. An unfortunate scenario, but one you or I will never be in. Shinji is a sad, shy kid who just wants the approval of others. A kid many of us can remember being at thirteen or fourteen.
And--I think this is what made Evangelion notable--Shinji acts like the fourteen-year-old kid he is, consistently. When an unloving father whose approval you’ve always pined for commands you, a wimpy kid who knows nothing, to put your life on the line, get in a giant robot you’ve never seen before, and duke it out against a terrifying monster… of course you’re going to panic and cry at your fate. And you’re going to be be resentful, deeply resentful, of the fact that no one asked you to pilot it, and conflicted because all you want in the world, as a young boy, is to be loved by your parents. Shinji is no pilot of Gundam Wing, who at fifteen all happily get into a similar weapon of mass destruction on a mission to destroy Earth and have no problems with that at all. He reacts the way you or I would, put in the same situation, and he doesn’t magically gain the maturity of an adult over the course of the show through a great character arc. Funnily enough, fourteen-year-olds don’t stop acting like teens after a year or so, either.
I dunno. The rest of the show might be a mess, but Shinji stands refreshingly unique.
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Post by Friendly Person :) on Feb 27, 2019 11:37:00 GMT -5
Pokemon Sword and Shield? Guess they finally ran out of names...
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Post by Youngster Joey on Feb 27, 2019 13:22:31 GMT -5
water type one looks like a**
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Derman
Oracle Knight
I still don't have a knife tag on my golden birth knife
Posts: 194
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Post by Derman on Feb 27, 2019 13:49:31 GMT -5
they all do it looks okay-ish. I wonder if they have anything new for the pokemon formula.
I don't know a single person who stopped playing Abyss because they hated Luke so much (I mean, I've seen comments etc., but I haven't personally interacted with anyone like that). I feel like I wouldn't get along with those people very well. I can understand why people would hate the character, and maybe they did overdo his whining a bit in the game, but at the core the character is just someone whose confidence and self confidence are just gone because of everything that has happened in his life. And hating it is not going to make it any better. Sure, it's a video game character, but if they don't feel empathy towards him, would they feel empathy towards real people struggling with the same problems? They shouldn't stop playing the game because they hate him, they should root for him to get better.
Assuming the character is well written of course. In real life, not every sentence the person says is necessarily full of self-loathing. I think the skit system does pretty good job of balancing his personality because it shows him in different situtations, which wouldn't normally occur in the story, and gives him more personality beyond the whiny b*tch he is sometimes. If a person skips them and just does the story scenes, I can see his whining being a lot bigger problem for some.
I personally liked Luke all the way through (well, maybe not the first act, where he was just an arsehole), obviously because he was relatable, but also because he had some serious character growth during the game. I have a hard time deciding which cast I like better, Vesperia or Abyss, but I think abyss takes the cake because it finished the character arcs it started. Vesperia, especially Yuri, feels like a missed opportunity which even the added scenes with Patty couldn't fix.
I think Shinji is more frustrating for me because while he is similar problems as Luke, the way he sometimes is completely fine and sometimes not is too much. Instead of feeling like he's growing with the story, it feels like two different characters. I don't think there's anything wrong with the character, but the execution was pretty bad.
So... what did I think of Nier: Automata... (minor spoilers ahead, I guess)
The best game ever It was great, as I said. It did a lot of things I've been wanting to see done in games more often, like integrating some of the gamey elements into the story and world. Stuff like menus and saving had an in-universe explanation, your character being and android and the menus were just the control system. Even though it has been done many times before, I feel like it added a lot to the game. Browsing menus, finding plug-in chips and changing them didn't feel as disconnected from the rest of the game because it made sense, and the way they worked was aknowledged in the game. Stuff like "recalibrating your systems" by having to adjust volume and brightness sliders in the settings menu was a nice touch that gave it some personality. You could even remove one plug-in chip called OS-chip or something, which would basically quit the game. I dunno, it's one of those things I personally very appealing, and I wish more games did that.
Another thing I liked was the way it recognizes that the player has the choice to not do something. Whenever there was a time-critical event, like a place being attacked, if you decided to ignore it and go somewhere else, you would get an ending. Instead of the game forcing you to turn back or having someone remind you but otherwise let you do whatever you want, the game gave you the natural consequence for your actions. You'd get a short message about what you did and what happened, get the ending screen and you return to the title screen. You can load your last save and you wouldn't really lose anything by doing that (you do have to get all the 27 endings if you want all the achievements though) which does take something away from the impact of the consequences, but it's not a big tradeoff for the convenience of not having to start the game again.
The main story was nice, but I think the world is what makes the game so great. While the main story focuses on what it means to be human, the world and the worldbulding focuses on human society, and human values. It made me look forward to each new area, to see what the game had to offer next. I'm glad I finished most of the side quests before moving on with the main story. When dramatic stuff happens, I really cared a lot more about the different characters because I had interacted with them during the side missions. Some later plot points build on stuff revealed in side missions, and some of the side stories are pretty good by themselves.
I'm not going to comment much on the actual gameplay. It was smooth, the open world wasn't too big or too small. Exploring and fighting was more of a relaxing experience, especially with the music. It felt a lot more like a JRPG than character-action like DMC. The twin-stick shooter bits were a nice change of pace, didn't mind them at all.
Music was godlike, my favorite game soundtrack of all time, probably.
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