Reader Question: The Roots Of JRPG Standards

This one was inspired by one of Brandmeister’s comments on my Suikoden III deconstruction. His question:

“I’ve always wondered how the JRPG ‘standard’ evolved. Was there one critical success, and then every other game was patterned after that? Did they start with D&D and its encounter tables?”

Video Game Review: Suikoden III

My friend Joe and I beat the game Suikoden III, part of a somewhat lesser known series of Japanese turn-based role-playing games (JRPG). I might say Suikoden and its ilk are in the same vein as Final Fantasy but I can already hear the legions of Suikoden fans knocking on my door, Internet torches and pitchforks at the ready, for daring to compare this beloved series to anything short of solid gold sex. So before I go enraging all five of you, let me put this out there:

I love Suikoden III, and I think it’s the best in the series, probably one of the best of its genre.

Now that the legions of Suikoden fans have proof I don’t know what I’m talking about, let’s break down how Suikoden III fits, and how it averts, the best and worst of JRPGs as a genre.

Gaming Rant: The Bioware Game

In my rant about gaming Stockholm syndrome, I mentioned some of my fairly radical opinions on Mass Effect 2 and by extension Bioware’s extended library of games. The topic of making computer RPGs fun is something I’ve been struggling with for awhile now. I am sure anyone who doesn’t replay Planescape: Torment every month has at one time or another questioned the fun they have with modern RPG releases. We are hypothetically at the apex of digital immersion, where graphics engines are capable of more details presented faster and more smoothly than ever before (note: capability and execution are two different things, as shadow glitches and clipping and so on still permeate many, many games). We have professional game design schools which specialize in training the next generation of developers. We have everything we need to make great advancements in storytelling and revolutions in game design. And yet, we are still remaking Baldur’s Gate, tarted up with space magic and Cthulhu monsters.

Gaming Rant: Five Hundred Hours Are Not Enough

As my Steam page informs me, I have officially played five hundred and one hours of Left 4 Dead 2 as of last night (Update: As of 8/7/12, that amount is up to almost 740 hours). Considering I bought the game when it was new (a year and a half ago), I can safely say this is ridiculous, and that I am ridiculous by extension. It’s not as if I play the game competitively. I’m not part of a league, nor am I in the business of making new maps for the game. There’s challenging aspects on the higher difficulties, but it’s rare that I play on anything above Normal. So, clearly I don’t play it for the challenge, and I’m not insane enough to think game development is good for anything other than melting my brain into slag.

Anime Review: Fullmetal Alchemist and FMA Brotherhood

If you thought our World War II needed more wizards, then Hiromu Arakawa provides this stirring tale of sacrifice versus reward and the search for truth in a world full of bad-asses flexing so hard that everything around them explodes. Two brothers seek the heretical power to bring their mother back to life, despite everyone in the entire world telling them what a phenomenally bad idea it is to engage in resurrection spells. Though their search for power is the primary focus of the story, they must also deal with an ancient conspiracy, growing Middle Eastern tumult thanks to military oppression, and the overwhelming nonsensical urges accompanying puberty.

This core setup is consistent between the two series, but their execution differs wildly. Fullmetal Alchemist (FMA), the first series, has a much lighter tone similar to Trigun: even though terrible things are happening all around them, plenty of filler episodes focus on physical humor, side jokes, and retreading the plot. There’s nothing wrong with lighthearted shows, but brevity is the soul of wit, and taking three episodes to explain one episode’s worth of material is a pretty significant waste of time better spent on advancing the plot. FMA: Brotherhood, in contrast, maintains a fever pitch of deluging people with information and action, while not dwelling on either for more time than necessary. Which is good, since FMA: Brotherhood has roughly twice the characters to keep track of, and covers about ten times as many events and conflicts. While both series maintain consistency in their magic systems, Brotherhood does not let its characters sit around and explain theory ad nauseum, preferring instead to show how it works with as many lightning strikes as possible.

Subtlety and inhibition are lost arts in Amestris (the world of FMA). People do roundhouse kicks to cut buildings in half. A sixty year old man cuts a tank in half with a sword. Clockwork cybernetic arms and legs – with hardly any inherent downsides beyond the pain of instillation – are the product of a respected and profitable industry. This is a place where realism is a four-letter word. And yet, the setting holds together – lashed together with duct tape and bungie cords, perhaps, but it holds, thanks in large part to the endearingly silly cast of characters. I can respect that if nothing else.

WATCH IF YOU LIKE: A world full of bad-asses, consistent magic systems, fighting “the man”

AVOID IF YOU DISLIKE: Genre mashing (cyborg wizards, etc.), ancient conspiracies, people exploding

FINAL VERDICT: Rent/Netflix a few episodes to see if it grips you. I like its unapologetic absurdity, but without a tolerance for genre mashing, some might get tired of its exuberant use of fantasy mixed with World War II technology.

Movie Review: Thor (2011)

Superheroes and I don’t typically get along so well, thanks to a general distaste for Silver Age moralizing and any level of fanboyism, along with a preference for characters to mature and stories to come to a form of closure. Anyone who’s read a comic book in the last ever likely knows about the comics industry’s allergy to letting an Intellectual Property (IP) end when it reaches a logical conclusion, rather than about ten years after it stops being relevant. The recent onslaught of superhero movies is accompanied by all the comic nerds belching a variety of complaints about the lack of adherence to the patently absurd existing canon of whatever childhood icon on display this week.

Thor takes those complaints and kicks them into a volcano before flying on a rainbow to the far side of the Planet Awesome, better known as Asgard. And it only gets better from there.

Wherever they found Chris Hemsworth, and whatever he does after this movie, are both irrelevant. This man was born and raised to play Thor, god of thunder, immense ham, and cocky warrior-prince, sent to Earth to learn a lesson in humility. They must have made the sets out of candy, because he, and in fact most of the cast – the ever-talented Sir Anthony Hopkins as Odin, especially – chew the scenery with gusto. There is not a single ounce of subtlety to this movie; based on the performances, I imagine the script was basically the words “Do Awesome Stuff” underlined several times with a couple pages of “Thor Gets Run Over By a Car” and “This Scene Includes a Giant Rainbow Laser” because honestly, what else do you need to know to act in this movie?

Whenever Thor is not on screen self-parodying, though, the movie tends to drag. The conspiracy to conquer Planet Awesome, perpetuated by the triple-crossing machinations of Loki, troll of the universe, wastes screen time better spent on getting into special effects fights. The astrophysicists who follow Thor around – the least believable scientists since Denise Richards in “The World Is Not Enough”, Natalie Portman and Kat Dennings, spend their screen time lusting audibly at Mr. Hemsworth’s abs – are generally useless, even as audience stand-ins. The climax drags a bit, but as all superhero movies must, Thor ends on a positive note. 

WATCH IF YOU LIKE: Turning off your brain, special effects, man abs

SKIP IF YOU DISLIKE: Useless characters, black/Asian Norse gods, Natalie Portman in non-skimpy clothing

FINAL VERDICT: Rent. Unless you are particular attached to Chris Hemsworth’s abs or to the Thor property, I wouldn’t suggest watching this more than once. That said, if you can turn off your credulous nature for an hour or two, it’s a wild and unapologetic ride through space on a rainbow laser.

IMDB's entry on "Thor".

Movie Review: Drag Me To Hell (2009)

I haven't laughed this hard since "Evil Dead II". Which is fitting considering both are from the same director, Sam Raimi. Oh, sure, "Drag Me To Hell" has all the trappings of a suspenseful horror movie, all the gross-out, all the ancient occultism, all the scary soundtracks. What makes "Drag Me To Hell" excellent to watch, however, is the canny self-parody, the feeling that you know the characters are aware of their medium and are purposefully playing a joke on the audience with a wink and a nod in much the same fashion as a stage magician.

Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) makes the age old, though understandable, mistake of angering a witch through the everyday hubris of being a loan officer at a bank. For the crime of not extending her mortgage payments, the witch gives Christine three days before she is dragged to hell by the demon Lamia. As the curse gets progressively more difficult to contain, Christine and her boyfriend Clay (Justin Long) must consult a psychic, and later a medium who has dealt with Lamia before, to remove her curse before time runs out. The problem is, the more Christine struggles against her curse and gets more gore and dirt dumped on her and vomited into her mouth or eyes or whatever is convenient, the further she drags herself into the grip of the powers fighting for her soul.

The best part, honestly, is how tight the movie is. Nothing is shown that isn't used. The ending makes total sense, but it is presented as such an out of left field shock, the vomit or the bugs or the worse that is sprayed all over the main character is comparable to the ending. This is a movie that goes so overboard on the occultism and gore, then kicks all the wacky grossness into an incinerator at the end in one final attempt at nuking anything resembling subtlety. You are not buying a psychological horror movie when you get "Drag Me To Hell". You're buying a blowtorch with which to cauterize any weakness you might have to psychological horror movies.

WATCH IF YOU LIKE: Blondes Getting Expectorated Upon, Nonsensical Occult Horror, Bad People Losing
SKIP IF YOU DISLIKE: Gore, Horror That Doesn't Take Itself Seriously, A Total Lack of Subtlety

FINAL VERDICT: Buy if you liked the "Evil Dead" series (since this is pretty much a Bruce Campbell-less version of the same thing), Rent otherwise.

IMDB's entry on "Drag Me To Hell".