Waifu Wars: Loyalty-Tier

So Destructoid is in the middle of a waifu war or something -- which is news to me, because I was under the impression that waifu wars never end.  Then again, I wouldn’t really know; I’ve never exactly been an active participant, because it’s not like I have a horse in that race.  But it’s funny, because the call for waifu soldiers came right around the time when I started watching RWBY (RIP Monty Oum) -- and based on its premise and art floating around, you’d think that it’s a verifiable waifu distribution service.

I’m really early into the show, but it’s already won me over.  Weirdly, it’s not for the reason I expected -- i.e. a bunch of sick anime fights.  True, those are in there, but the first eight or so episodes are less about the combat and more about the characters.  Or, more precisely, it’s about the comedy.  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised when each episode reminds you that it’s a Rooster Teeth production, but I found myself tuning in for the jokes instead of seeing girls -- and the occasional guy -- go at it with the forces of evil.

Still, the show does raise an interesting question: what, exactly, is a waifu?  Let’s break down into semantics for a bit -- and delay the announcement of mai waifu, but whatever.  The wait will make the reveal that much more satisfying.

PS4nukkah: Dragon Quest Heroes

That awkward moment when you realize that you played the godawful Final Fantasy Type-0 to completion, but couldn’t be bothered to make it even halfway into the significantly-better Dragon Quest VIII.

Also, isn’t Hanukkah over?  Yes.  But on the other hand, shut up.

PS4nukkah: The Witcher 3

All right, cards on the table: is The Witcher 3 a good game?  Yeah, obviously.

Really, you could leave it at that.  It’s a good game that’s both fun and intriguing; there are thrills to be had, but you only have to play for an hour or two (if that) to realize that this isn’t your standard-fare adventure.  That’s kind of a given, since I’m guessing that The Witcher 3 is one of 2015’s biggest games both in terms of popularity/hype and the actual scale of its world.  I had my doubts beforehand because open-world games have lost their pizazz in the wake of an industry that’s trying to run the subgenre into the ground (should we blame GTA5’s success for that?  Who knows?), but CD Projekt RED’s latest deserves whatever praise it gets…even if it’s not exactly ZOMG BESTEST GAEM EVAR material, but whatever.  You’re in good hands with it.

But you’re not here to see me give my blessing, are you?  So let’s get in deep with the game -- and try not to develop a Gwent addiction.  First off…

PS4nukkah: Metal Gear Solid V

You know, there’s something that’s been on my mind recently.

If you’re reading this post, then you’re probably aware of the current trends in the game industry.  One of the biggies right now: open-world games, for better or worse.  It makes sense for the subgenre to gain some traction, though; setting aside graphical power, the best way to prove the evolution of the medium (technologically or otherwise) is to increase the scale.  We’re thirty years out from the left-to-right stages of Super Mario Bros., so the assumption is that a bigger world = a better game.  And I mean assumption.

By now, gamers have caught on to the issues.  Sure, worlds are getting bigger and players can explore more of them -- but so what?  On one hand, you’ve got the Assassin’s Creed franchise, which puts out these massive, lavishly-rendered, intensively-researched historical cities one year after another -- and instead of being playgrounds that sate the mind and soul, they’ve long since devolved into repetitive chore simulators and window dressing.  Meanwhile, the recent Batman games went from the tightly-knit and small-scale Arkham Asylum to the bank-busting and bloated Arkham Knight; it had a big world and sheer graphical horsepower, but at the cost of a good story, good gameplay, and a game that didn’t have to shoehorn the Batmobile into every situation.  (Again, WHY do you have to drag the Batmobile up a building when you have the Batplane?)

I guess what I’m getting at here is this: are video games getting too big?  And of course, MGSV is here to provide one possible answer.

PS4nukkah: Bloodborne

I’m an idiot.

That should be blatantly obvious by now, because collectively I’ve blown about a hundred hours on the modern-day Final Fantasy games, and cleared one of its latest entries before I even touched Bloodborne.  I remedied that eventually, and while I’ve already said some stuff about the game already -- good things, no less -- I can’t emphasize it enough.  Bloodborne is a good-ass game.  If you haven’t played it and you have a PS4, go play it.  Especially now, since the DLC expansion The Old Hunters is out, AND there’s a game of the year edition that has it packed in.

But let’s get back to the matter at hand.  See, it’s been months -- literal months -- since the last time I booted up Bloodborne.  I pretty much forgot how to play, so I figured it’d be best if I started over with a new character and file.  As such, I made a new version of my old mainstay, Blackules; I just barely made it to the second boss (on accident) the first time around, but I hoped I’d do much better with a new hunter by my side.  And the initial run would have gone a lot better if I wasn’t a complete idiot.

I forgot how to heal -- and ended up assuming that I couldn’t heal until later in the game.

And you know what?  It might have actually made me -- if not the game in general -- even better.

Introducing: PS4nukkah!!

Get it?  It’s clever, because if you think of it as one word (with the 4 as an A), then it reads like “Psanukkah”.  And that sounds like Hanukkah.  Or pretty close to it, at least.

…It was either this or “PS4nzaa”.  Count your blessings.

Well, here we are.  After two full years on the market, the PS4 finally has a games library worth being excited about.  Granted that library is still full of holes, and it pales in comparison to what the Wii U’s been offering for much longer without a shred of fanfare, but for what it’s worth?  The PS4’s got some good games on it now, conclusively.  And with the holiday season encroaching upon us all, I see no better way to honor that dramatically-reduced rate of disappointment than by talking about some of those games.

Under normal circumstances, I’d be doing something like this for the Wii U.  But in order to not be such a biased fanboy, I’ve opted to switch gears and talk about what Sony’s latest has to offer.  It’s only fair, after all.  What games will I talk about?  I’m guessing that you already know the answer if you’ve read some of my other posts.  But for the sake of argument -- and a cohesive miniseries -- I’ll say that there’s going to be a certain theme attached to each of these four games.

What’s the theme?  Well…

The World’s Spookiest Post?

I’d imagine that with Halloween right around the corner, people are flooding the internet with skeletons, ghosts, zombies, vampires, werewolves, jack-o-lanterns, and other nightmarish ephemera (even though it’s plainly obvious that there’s nothing scarier than the creatures lurking in the ocean).  This would be the part where I play into that -- or more appropriately, do a post about something super-spooky.  A scary game, for one.  But I just did a hefty post on Crimson Peak, and it kind of feels like I’d be double-dipping.

So I asked myself, “What would be the scariest thing I could offer up to anyone who stumbles upon this post?”  And the answer to that is simple: art by someone who has no business trying to do art.  Because there’s nothing scarier than someone without talent shoving his lack of talent in people’s faces!

Mediocrity, ooooooooOOOOOoooOOOOoooooooooo!  How chilling!

An Erupting Burning Valentine’s Post: Gundam Build Fighters

I don’t understand how this anime can even exist.

Let’s discuss Kamen Rider Gaim (Part 2).

(Cross-Up is on hiatus, sort of, but not really!  I’m going to try and take it easy over the next few weeks, because it’s the winter holiday season and I half-expect nobody to be around on the internet.  Things will get back in gear sometime in January, but until then?  If you ARE here, then enjoy a handful of high-quality filler posts.  It’ll be fun, presumably!)

Before I get started, let’s play a game. 

I want you to think of a villain -- your favorite villain, from any story, from any medium, from any time.  Take as much time as you need before going on.  Then, once you have that villain in mind, think for a minute about why that villain means so much to you.  (In the event that the villain is more of a concept/conflict than someone the hero can punch in the face, substitute that instead.)  Don’t worry about forcing yourself to articulate it, or even mentioning it here in a comment.  Just keep your answers fresh on your mind, okay?

Good.  Great.  Remember those answers, because I’m going to come back to them later.  But for now?  Open your eyes for the next Faiz.

…Crap, wrong Rider.

My SPOILERS will make you cry.

Wipe your tears with this.  *tosses printed copy of the last two Gaim posts*

…That is also the wrong Rider.  Man, I’m really bad at this.

Kamen Rider Gaim: A Super Holiday Suplex Post

(Cross-Up is on hiatus, sort of, but not really!  I’m going to try and take it easy over the next few weeks, because it’s the winter holiday season and I half-expect nobody to be around on the internet.  Things will get back in gear sometime in January, but until then?  If you ARE here, then enjoy a handful of high-quality filler posts.  It’ll be fun, presumably!)

Oh man, please tell me I’m the first person on the internet to make this joke.  It would make me so very, very happy.

Well, if nothing else, I’m the first person to ever make the joke on this blog.  THAT MEANS I’VE WON!

All right, I’m about to unload a fruit basket’s worth of SPOILERS on you guys, so if you want a no-spoiler version of what I think about this show (and by extension, a trim primer on Gaim), then you’d better go read this post instead…or first.  Or you can read this one if you have no interest in ever watching it.

That would kind of make this post a moot point -- if not for the stuff I’m about to discuss.  Are you ready?  Here we gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

RE: Kamen Rider Gaim

(Cross-Up ison hiatus, sort of, but not really!  I’m going to try and take it easy over the next few weeks, because it’s the winter holiday season and I half-expect nobody to be around on the internet.  Things will get back in gear sometime in January, but until then?  If you ARE here, then enjoy a handful of high-quality filler posts.  It’ll be fun, presumably!)

I don’t do this very often -- or at all -- but I’m going to have to put a little strain on the rules.

What I post here tends to NOT be a straight-up review -- of TV shows, games, movies, or anything that pops up.  I’m more concerned with determining why something is good or bad instead of just outright saying “this is good” or “this is bad”.  There’s some overlap, sure, but as I’ve said in the past, this isn’t the place to go if you’re looking for a score on the latest game, or any sort of ranking system.

That in mind, I have to make an exception just this once for Kamen Rider Gaim.  Two reasons for that: first, I’d vastly prefer talking about it if I can point someone toward watching it -- but seeing as how that’d demand a fifty-ish episode marathon run, I think it’d be best if I at least put the suggestion in a reader’s head.  More importantly, Gaim is the sort of show that’s hard to talk about without tripping all over spoilers -- SO, I’m going to use THIS post as a sort of all-purpose primer.  It’ll superficially tell you what’s good and what isn’t (even if that means hinting towards spoilers); in the posts to follow, we’ll go into full-on discussion mode so I can talk about the good and the bad.  Watching Gaim in its entirety won’t be required, though, so you can rest easy.  Just read what I’ve got so you can walk away with a fresh perspective.

Okay?  Okay.  Let’s get started then.  First…

The Smash Diaries (Day 5)

So I decided to check the Smash Bros. wiki to see if there were any nuances I missed in the new game -- you know, to try and make some of those intangibles more tangible.  I already knew about the Tekken-style rage effect built in (get hit a lot, do more damage), but the wiki suggests that not only is there increased knockback, but also the inability to act out of hitstun.  It seems like a minor thing -- and it is, because not every player even knows what hitstun is -- but that nuance does mean something in the long run, especially for those who care immensely about the under-the-hood mechanics.   Among other things.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that whether you’re aware of the changes or not (or if I am, in all fairness), Smash 4 feels more…well, I don’t want to use this word exactly, but since I can’t think of a better fit, let’s go ahead and use “legit”.  I don’t know if this game will replace Melee as the EVO standard, if it’ll be able to exist simultaneously, or if it’ll just be cast aside by the old guard.  But I think it’s at least capable of making it there, and being welcomed by the fighting game community. 

Which brings me to the point of the day: Nintendo’s master plan.  Or my vision of it, at least.

The Smash Diaries (Day 4)

Before I get started, there’s one thing I have to mention: I’ve been playing this game exclusively with the Wii Classic Controller Pro (the one that came with Monster Hunter Tri).  As I’ve established by now, I don’t have any problems with the Wii U GamePad; the issue is that playing Smash 4 means completely un-learning how to play with a GameCube controller.  This has been…an issue on a consistent basis.  I need to get used to the new controller, but it’s the closest facsimile to the GC pad I’ve got right now.

So yeah, no commentary on how the GamePad figures in this time around.  So let’s put our focus back on the game -- though before we do that?  Let’s have a moment of silence for my brother’s GC pad.  After years of smashing, it finally gave out on him. 

Just as well, though.  It had a lot of exposed wires.

The Smash Diaries (Day 3)

On his way out one night, a friend of mine jokingly said that PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale is pretty much dead to us now.  I don’t want to say that he’s right…but yeah, he’s right.  The only reason to ever touch Sony’s mascot fighter again is if every copy of Smash 4 and every Wii U spontaneously exploded.  And I’m sorry to say it, but I just don’t see that happening.

All right.  So let’s dive right back in, shall we?

The Smash Diaries (Day 1)

So I’ve put some time into Smash 4 -- more than I thought, but less than I’d hoped.  By which I mean there have been several moments in the past few days where I thought to myself “I don’t want to sleep.  I just want to smash all night long!” 

That should probably tell you everything you need to know about how I feel about this game.

But for the sake of a VERY short post (hopefully), let’s start going over some of the particulars.  It’ll be fun.  Just, you know, not as much fun as playing the game.

Of Smash Bros. and Short Anti-Breaks

The time has come, and so have I

I laugh last ‘cause you came to die

The damage done, the pain subsides

And I can…et cetera, et cetera.

Smash Bros. 4 is here, people.  We can all play it now -- every last one of us.  MAXIMUM REJOICE.

So.  Let’s have a very quick chat.

The Evil Within: The Super Halloween Suplex Post

Sadly, this post has nothing to do with wrestling.  But it is Halloween-appropriate, so there you go.  That’s one match won.

Now then.  Let me start by saying this: I don’t have a lot of experience in “survival horror”.  Or horror in general, if you don’t feel like subdividing into smaller categories.  I’ve played my share of games, but there are still huge gaps I haven’t put much effort into filling.  How big are these gaps?  Well, let me put it this way: the first Resident Evil game I played from start to finish was Resident Evil 5.  I’m not much in the way of the horror genre, and with the Month of Pumpkinpalooza almost over I can’t help but feel like I’m missing out.  I should try to broaden my horizons.

So that’s why I tried out The Evil Within.  Not finished, mind, because I never would have done that in time for this post.  But I’ve taken strides with it.  And conceptually speaking, there’s no beter game to start out with.  It’s by the guy who practically made survival horror a thing (plus helped with Killer7)!  It sounded like a nightmare come to life thanks to a couple of previews!  It’s a bold counterclaim against the mindless power fantasies that are trying to strangle the medium into submission!  What’s not to love?

It turns out there’s a lot.  I’ve spent a LOT of time waiting for the game to get scary -- and, you know, good.  And right now, I doubt it ever will.

Let's discuss Ghost Adventures.

How much you enjoy or hate Ghost Adventures all comes down to a single question: do you believe in ghosts? 

If you do, then chances are you’ll be more likely to take the words of its investigators at face value, or at the very least buy into what they’re selling.  If you don’t, you’ll be more eager and more capable of poking holes in their “investigation” than I could ever be.

Personally, I can’t say that I believe in ghosts.  I’m not saying that they absolutely do exist, or that they absolutely don’t exist; it’s just that there’s not enough conclusive proof -- for me, at least -- that they do or don’t drift among us.  Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.  We can’t see oxygen, but we know that exists.  Same goes for Pluto.  Same goes for Antarctica.  Can we see any of those things with the naked eye at all times?  No.  But we can prove conclusively that all of those things are real.  That’s what science is for.

And Ideally, that’s what the Ghost Adventures team is for.  But proving the existence of ghosts is just one of their big trials -- because against all odds, they manage to make a show about finding ghosts unbelievably BORING.

Two shows enter a Halloween brawl!

I imagine I’m not the only one who wants to do a Halloween-themed post, and I doubt I’ll be the last.  But I figured I might as well.  It’s not often that one gets to celebrate holidays.

So here’s what I’ve been thinking.  For some inexplicable reason, people seem to like it when I overanalyze things to an absurd and likely-unhealthy degree, so if I’m going to do a Halloween-themed post, it might as well be about something scary.  And given what I’ve seen recently, I’ve got the material and the drive to talk about a TV show perfectly suited for the season of scares.

Or should I say, TWO TV shows.  And that’s where you come in.

Be afraid.  Be very afraid.

A Very Hraet-y Non-Canon Holiday Special (4)

Beat 1-4: Yep, Nothing Canon Here

Trixie could only stare blankly at the two Hoigleheimers.  JP, with hands crammed in his front pockets, rapped a toe against the sidewalk; he locked eyes with her a few times, but more often than not looked up at his dad with a nasty scowl.  Not that Patton noticed; he just stood in front of the rec center’s door with arms folded, as if acting as its bouncer (though incidentally, those that tried to exit the Z couldn’t, and just scurried away at the sight of him).

And all the while, Mrs. Overdose stared at the lot of them, gnawing on her reed.  “What the hell are we supposed to be doin’?”

“Well, I was hopin’ for some answers, but…”  Trixie rubbed the back of her neck.  “The way things’re lookin’, I’m startin’ to think maybe I shouldn’t have asked.”

JP looked up at the sky.  “Makes no difference to me.  If you want to know, then I’ll --”

“No.  Not yet, son.”  Patton held a forearm that could stop a tiger in front of JP.  “It’s not time yet.  We have to wait till the time is right.”

“Fine.”  He tapped his heel against the concrete, and rustled his hands through his jacket’s pockets.  “So Lloyd --”

“Not yet.”

“But --”

“Not yet.”

JP groaned and glared at a few shrubs.  Trixie hummed a bit, as if she wanted to start talking -- but instead she just sniffled a bit and coughed.  Mrs. Overdose looked about ready to deck the next person that walked by.

“…Okay, that’s enough dramatic tension.  Now you can talk.”