Recently, Adult Swim announced brand new
episodes of FLCL (pronounced Fooly
Cooly or Furi Kuri). Back in the early 2000s, FLCL was one of the major anime on the Adult Swim viewing block, along with
the likes of the original Fullmetal Alchemist
and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone
Complex. Though FLCL was over the
top and wacky, the coming of age story of a young boy trying to figure out what
to do with his life really struck me, seeing as I was a young teenager at the
time. Needless to say, it’s one of my personal favorite anime. The fact that
the show was only six episodes was bitter sweet; it did what it sent out to do
and did so in a way that didn’t feel rushed.
Not to worry, FLCL
is coming back! Just like Trigun, Evangelion, Dragon Ball Zbefore it,
more content is being pumped out for a show that came out over a decade ago.
Not only anime, but Star Wars, X-Files, Prison Break and a large chunk
of other Hollywood movies and TV shows are being resurrected as well. True, these
movies, TV shows, etc. never really went anywhere but within the confines of our
fond memories, but here they are again, resurfacing like one of the undead.
But is it a good thing that our favorite shows and movies
are coming back? Like with zombies, these reboots/sequels bring back things we
once loved with the possibility of turning them into something vile.
Personally, I did not care for the six part revival of The X-Files (kind of like how I didn’t care for the last few
seasons in general). Even my favorite anime of all time, Neon Genesis Evangelion, returned over a decade later as a something with great potential but became an awkward mess by the third movie. These revivals are banking on our beloved
memories – our nostalgia – to win over what might otherwise be a terribly written
plot.
In terms of video games, Square Enix is pretty much a
peddler of nostalgia these days. Whether it’s the myriad of Dragon Quest remakes, the highly
anticipated Final Fantasy VII remake, or the plethora of nostalgia focused Final Fantasy games (Dissidia, Record Keeper, World, etc.),
their Eastern games are nothing but ghosts of the past. To be fair, you do get
the occasional Nier, the promising I am Setsuna (though even it is banking on nostalgia) or the ever illusive Final
Fantasy XV (granted, its long development time could make someone nostalgic
for its first reveal nearly a decade ago). The company’s Western developed
games aren’t too much different, with entries in the Tomb Raider and Hitman
franchises coming out pretty regularly, though we do sometimes get gems like Life is Strange.
Is this constant cycle of death and rebirth a good or bad
thing? It certainly isn’t anything new. Remakes and adaptations have been part
of our world for many decades. Sometimes, remakes can even surpass the scope
and themes of its original source. An example of this would be Battlestar Galactica. Taking a silly,
sci-fi romp and turning it into an epic space opera that delves into what it
means to be human was truly brilliant. And it won’t even be the last time we’ll
see a remake of Battlestar Galactica.
Of course, you can’t please everybody; the power of
nostalgia goggles can be overwhelming. Some people just want the original, but
prettier or with a new feature or two. If we wanted to see a regurgitation of
what we’ve seen already, we can easily go back to the shows and movies that
meant so much to us. I guess what I’m getting at is that it’s fine to revisit a
story and its characters as long as it builds upon the source. You can be
pessimistic and assume all remakes, reboots, sequels, etc. are quick cash
grabs, but sometimes you have to have faith. Or you can clutch onto that
pessimism with the secret hope that you will be pleasantly surprised. But if a
remake exists exclusively to be a shallow version of the original, what’s the
point of it existing? Besides, if a remake/sequel/reboot/etc. truly does suck, it by no means disqualify the existence of the original by any means. It will always be there.
With all that being said, I’m still going to watch FLCL when it finally returns, though I categorize myself as cautiously optimistic. And while
we’re bringing franchises back from the dead, can we cast revive on Xenosaga? Pretty please? At least just
give me Evangelion 4.0 already.
Developer: Monolith Soft Publisher: Nintendo Platform: Wii U Genre: RPG
Xenoblade Chronicles X
is the second entry in the fresh new series by Monolithsoft, a company
previously known for the Xenosaga
series. As with the previous entry, Xenoblade
X takes a step back from being the story-heavy juggernaut its sibling
series was known for in order to let the world and gameplay shine. Undeniably,
the world of Xenoblade X, the planet
Mira, is the star of the game. With its
huge five continent and beautiful vistas, the planet feels alive. Over 160
hours of my life passed by in order to beat the game, but I still feel like I’ve
barely scratched the surface. The game really is a journey, but not one without
its struggles.
One of the many beautiful vistas in Xenoblade Chronicles X.
The Story
Two alien races wage war in an epic space battle, leaving
Earth to be caught in the crossfire. In a last ditch effort to survive,
humanity launches several ships to escape before our planet is destroyed.
Months later, one of those alien races adds insult to injury by shooting down
one of the escaped ships, the White Whale, leaving it to crash on the
mysterious planet of Mira. And that’s pretty much the premise of the game. The
main character, an avatar you create, is struck with amnesia and is discovering
the planet and its occupants at the same pace as yourself.
The story itself is pretty good, but it suffers some major
pacing issues courtesy of the way chapters are structured. In order to advance
the story within the game, sometimes you have to fit certain criteria, such as
exploring a certain percentage of one of the game’s five continents. If you are
a completionist who does every sidequest (and this game feels like 70%
sidequests, 30% main story), reaching the goal for each chapter will come along
with ease, but if you are trying to get through the main plot as quickly as
possible, you’re pretty much forced to slow down. And with each main chapter being
sometimes shorter than an hour, you don’t always get as complex and
philosophical moments as Xenogears,
Xenosaga, and even a bit of the original Xenoblade Chronicles. However, that isn’t to say X has a terrible plot, there are many
intriguing concepts and heart-pounding moments to keep you invested.
Where the main plot fails to build and expand the world, the
sidequests provide depth in huge waves. The game is littered with sidequests,
and most of them fleshes out the world and inhabitants of Mira quite well. A
problem I had with the original Xenoblade
was that a lot of the sidequests were” hunt this, get that” with barely any
exposition. You still have missions like those, but thankfully a lot of them
provide plots, sometimes complex and test your morality, others sometimes goofy
and ridiculous. Just about every alien race that joins New Los Angeles, the
last city of humanity, is fleshed out in great depth through these quests,
though I really wish I got to learn more about L and Celica, who are party
members for crying out loud.
There are a whopping 19 playable characters, including your
created avatar, but only a handful of them get any screen time. For the most
part, Elma and Lin hog the spotlight. Then you have other big players like Lao,
Doug, Irina, and Nagi. A few pop up in the main scenario, such as the whimsical
L, but the rest are cast aside as extras. And it’s a shame because a few of
them cast a very bright light with their personalities. Case in point, I hated
the characters H.B. and Murderess at first, but after playing their affinity
missions (basically sidequests that develop individual characters), the two
have become some of my favorite characters in the game. In a nutshell, the game
has a great cast of characters, but only a few of them hog the stage.
As a Xeno game, I
feel as though it is a love letter to all Xeno
fans, whether they go back as far as Xenogears
or they have only played the previous Xenoblade
games. During character creation, there are several hairstyles you can choose
that look like they were modeled off characters from Xenogears and Xenosaga.
Nods to the previous Xenoblade come
in many forms, from Lin’s Monado hairpins to the occasional mention of legends
from Tatsu. Though I won’t spoil the ending, you can’t witness the final
cutscene without thinking of Xenosaga.
You wouldn’t know it, but the fandoms of Xenogears,
Xenosaga, and Xenoblade can be
quite divided at times, but I feel like this was a game to bring them all
together. For that, I love this game. At the same time, if the next Xenoblade follows up directly to this
one (I hope it does because of the open ending), it really needs to step up its
game in terms of plot.
Hey there, KOS-MOS.
The Gameplay
If you have played the previous Xenoblade Chronicles, you will feel right at home. If you’ve played
a Massively Multiplayer Online RPG of any kind, you will probably feel really
comfortable with X. Like with the
previous Xenoblade Chronicles, the
battle system is a real-time affair, relying on cooldowns for Arts, your
special attacks. However, one of the major overhauls for this game is the Soul
Voice system. Instead of a traditional healing system, healing relies mainly on
correctly hitting a quick time event at the right time or choosing the right
Art your party members shout out. There are a few Arts that allow you to heal
the traditional way, but only certain classes have them. Soul Voice only felt
like an inconvenience a few times, mostly when I chose a class that didn’t have
a certain type of Art in it that my party members would always shout for me to
use.
As mentioned, the game provides a variety of different
classes for the player. The good news is that they can be changed at any time.
Throughout the game, I juggled many classes. If you get all the way to the end
of a class branch, you can master the final class and be able to use the
weapons of that class with any other class.
New to the Xenoblade
series is the ability to pilot your own giant robot, called Skells in the
English version. Combat is pretty much the same as on foot, but the ability to
take your fights over deep water or up in the sky adds a whole new dynamic to
the game (and looks really, really cool). However, you don’t get your own Skell
right away. Like getting a car in real life, you first have to wait until you
are eligible and then apply for a license. Your Skell even has insurance. It
took me over 50 hours to get my Skell license, but you could probably get it
maybe 20 hours sooner than I did. I don’t mind the late addition because it
adds variety to the game. Revealing your hand early on would just cause boredom
down the road.
Every moment with your Skell makes you feel like a proud parent.
One of the most addicting features of the game is planting
probes all across Mira. Planting probes not only helps provide locations for
quick travel, but it also allows you to mine for precious materials, gain a lot
of money, and also mine for miranium, another currency in itself that can be
used to craft equipment and refuel your Skell. There are different types of probes
you can use to maximize your experience, and I felt like it was an interesting
puzzle to figure out. Granted, planting the probes comes with its dangers, with
enemies three times your level walking around, but it also adds a bit of thrill
to the whole process. Also, I love how mixed the levels are for enemies purely
because it feels organic for this alien world.
The gameplay isn’t perfect, though. The main issue I had
with the game is how you handle your party members. In order to recruit someone
in your party, you have to find them physically within the entirety of New Los
Angeles. Unlike the previous game where you can simply just put them in your
party from a menu, you have to track them down yourself. Also, depending on the
time of day in the game, the character you want to recruit might be somewhere
completely different because of the heart-to-heart system. Heart-to-heart
events are meant to develop your affinity for each character, but it just
becomes a pain at times to find them. Google was my friend.
Also, party members do not level up outside of your party. I
know, other RPGs do that, not a big deal. However, it is a big deal when the
game constantly shoehorns only Elma and Lin into your party, leaving most of
the other party members under levelled, unless of course you do some power
levelling. And with a cast as large as Xenoblade
Chronicles X, you might need to juggle quite a bit if you want everyone in
the same ballpark.
Also, small pet peeve, but several characters in your party
show up in cutscenes with their own Skells, but outside of cutscenes it is
expected for you to buy Skells for them, and Skells are not cheap. Pay for your
own giant robots, guys!
Besides party management, item collection can be one of the
greater frustrations of the game. Collecting items isn’t as easy as going to a
place, picking up the item, sidequest solved. No, you must go to a place,
collect items until you get within the right percentage for the item you want
to drop. Same goes for enemies, though your odds improve if you target the
right portion of an enemy. But this gets more complicated when the game tells
you very little about where to find an item. “Go check Primordia for this item,”
it says, except that Primordia is a huge continent. I found myself Googling a
lot of sidequests throughout the game (the player’s guide was of little help
except for the maps). However, if you play online, this whole procedure is
rectified with Reward Tickets, which you earn from squad missions and by other
means. By earning these Reward Tickets, you can use them to pay to get items,
which feels cheap, but it saves you hours of gameplay time. Unfortunately, you
can’t buy every item in the game
with these tickets, but it is still helpful.
Which leads me to my last complaint: the game tells you very
little. Sure, I don’t want the game to hold my hand for over 100 hours, but I
didn’t find out many key things until I was deep in the game, mostly by
accident. It wasn’t until I hit the 85 hour mark that I found out how to
upgrade Arts and skills. While playing online (which is cool but the number of
missions can be quite limited), I had no idea what BLADE Medals or Tickets were
used for until I Googled them. The game does have a digital manual, but I was
hoping the tutorials that are actually in the game would help more than they
did.
None of these flaws (probably not flaws to some people) were
a game breaker, only small annoyances. I still loved the gameplay, otherwise I
wouldn’t have gone beyond 100 hours.
Though the online features can feel limited, having the ability to recruit other players' characters into your party is a really cool touch.
The Sound
One of the highlights of Xenoblade
Chronicles X is the soundtrack. Though it is very polarizing amongst
others, I greatly enjoyed the music. Hiroyuki Sawano throws in many tracks with
vocals, typical of his style. Granted, the tracks with rap can be a bit jarring
for a JRPG, but I grew accustomed to it. However, what I didn’t get accustomed
to was the fact that many key scenes in the story blared the music louder than
the characters talking. It became a jumbled mess when tracks with vocals played
while characters were talking at the same sound level. An option in the settings
to adjust the sound levels would have easily fixed this issue, but there is no
such option for this game. It’s quite a shame.
The voice acting itself is pretty stellar. With a mixture of
American and British voice acting, the characters play off each other well. One
voice I did not expect came from L: he just sounded so goofy to me at first.
However, his voice grew on me because it really suited his personality. “Asscaves”
has been added to my everyday speech.
In Summary
Xenoblade Chronicles X
is a charmer. I fell in love with the vistas of Mira and its inhabitants. The
story left much to be desired, but what was there enticed me to keep going. As
a Xeno fan, the game is a wink and a
nod to all fans, though I hope the next game will be able to combine what made Xenogears and Xenosaga special, a philosophical and deep storyline, along with the addicting gameplay the Xenoblade series has become known for.
A couple of weeks ago, I watched the film Ex Machina for the third time. For those
who haven’t seen it, the movie centers around Caleb, a young programmer, who has
been appointed to use the Turing test to see if Ava, an android, is passable as
a true artificial intelligence. Each time I’ve seen it, I’ve watched it with
people who hadn’t experienced it before, so I’ve enjoyed hearing their take on
the film. Needless to say, it’s now one of my favorite movies of all time.
However, it made me think of the difference in perspective
people from the West, such as the U.S., and people from the East, such as
Japan, have about artificial intelligence. Through films, TV shows, and so on, the
West usually offers a cautionary tale when it comes to artificial intelligence
whereas the East romanticizes it. Why such a stark contrast? Who is right? Will
the arrival of true artificial intelligence result in our destruction or will
we be able to live with these new entities in perfect harmony?
Western Perspective
From The Terminator franchise
to Stephen Hawking himself, artificial intelligence is touted as something to
be feared. The fear of a man-made living being can be seen all the way back in
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a story
about an artificially created person. Even Frankenstein himself abandoned his
creation out of fear of what he had done. Throughout the tale, though, you start
to question what makes one human and who really is the bigger monster,
Frankenstein or his creation.
From there we get the likes of HAL-9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. An AI said never
to be wrong, his sanity declined after given the order to keep the real mission
objective secret from the crew of a space shuttle. I will always remember HAL’s
creepy rendition of “Daisy” as his memory was being removed bit by bit. You can’t
blame him; his orders conflicted with his need to be always right and helpful
to the crew. Without him, you probably wouldn’t see the likes of GLaDOS from
the Portal video game series.
And then we have Ava from Ex Machina. In the beginning, she comes across as a very curious
girl, wanting to see the world, fall in love, and, really, be human. You feel
for her plight to escape, get away from her abusive “father.” But then you
realize it’s all been a part of the Turing test; she was a mouse using Caleb as
a means to escape the maze. In that case, does she pass the test? Does her
ruthlessness show the conscience of a manipulative machine or a manipulative
human?
One common denominator between these various films and books
is the idea of hubris, of man putting himself on the same playing field as God.
With HAL, Ava, or even Frankenstein’s monster, humanity has created something
beyond an offspring but a completely new species. But should humanity take on
the role of God? I’m not a religious man, but humanity has already gone in the
direction of changing the world around them to suit their needs, for the better
and worst.
Granted, the experts who are scared aren’t scared because of
just hubris. Like Ava, an artificial intelligence could potentially use us
until we are no longer necessary. Enter the days of The Terminator, the last dregs of humanity hiding until our robot
overlords finally wipe us all out. It’s all very doom and gloom, though every
once in a while you have Western films and TV shows that tell a slightly
brighter tale, be it Short Circuit or
the recent British series Humans.
But, for the most part, people still fear the day of the Singularity, when
artificial intelligence goes beyond our capabilities to maintain.
Eastern Perspective
On the other hand, Eastern media tends to portray artificial
intelligence in a brighter light. The Ghost
in the Shell series is an excellent example of AI and human intelligence
co-existing and even merging; the difference between them is blurred. For example,
in the first film, Project 2501 is an AI born from the net and seeks to be
human through survival and propagation. On the other hand, the protagonist,
Motoko, in the second film, has her consciousness uploaded to the net,
becoming, in a way, an artificial intelligence originally born as a human
being.
My favorite video
game series, Xenosaga, portrays many
artificial people struggling with what it means to be human. KOS-MOS, the
series’ poster girl, is an emotionless killing machine, but her creator, Shion,
wants her to be so much more, treating her like a daughter. MOMO is a
biological android known as a Realian in the series, designed after her creator’s
dead daughter; she struggles to find her own identity and be more than just a
copy of someone.
Throughout various other anime, video games and manga,
androids are seen as learning creatures, starting from cold, emotionless
machines to caring people. These stories of artificial intelligence tend to
lead to the creation of “humanity” within these machines. Whereas in the West
AI is a brand new entity that could decide to wipe us out, in the East it is
almost like a new step in human evolution.
In the Korean anthology Doomsday
Book, the second film, The Heavenly
Creature, centers on a robot that has achieved enlightenment. I believe
this goes in contrast to my discussion of the Western perspective; whereas the
West fears hubris, the East embraces the soul in all things. Where The Heavenly Creature is centered around
Buddhism, I believe the Japanese perspective stems a bit from Shintoism. In Shintoism,
everything is inhabited by a spirit, including things such as trees and rocks.
With this approach, it’s easy to see why the Eastern perspective is more
favorable toward artificial intelligence. With Japan's aging population, the robot revolution is sounding more and more appealing for them. Hell, robots can get married in
Japan.
So…who is right?
It’s hard to say, really. With people like Stephen Hawking
and Elon Musk warning us about the dangers of artificial intelligence, it’s not
easy to ignore. On the flipside, you have other people claiming that AI still
has a long time to go before it becomes anywhere near as malevolent as HAL. In
the meantime, it makes great science fiction, whether you fear or romanticize
the subject. I’d like to believe in Alan Turing’s idea of teaching artificial
intelligence like a child, letting them know the difference between right and
wrong, but that may be too optimistic. For now, I’m content with having awkward
conversations with Google on my phone.
From Thanatos Contract, a visual novel series I created with a group of friends.
What is a visual novel?
Visual novel. What do those two words make you think of? A
picture book? A comic book? Visual novels are a medium that mixes video games
with reading, art with music, to deliver a unique experience. You won’t be
shooting someone in these games unless presented to you as a choice, similar to
choices presented in Choose Your Own
Adventure books. Sure, there are visual novels that provide puzzles to
solve, but, for the most part, the narrative is the main draw. For Japan, this
has been a popular genre for many years, but the West is finally starting to
see the appeal of the genre.
A niche genre
The first series of visual novels to intrigue American
consumers most notably would be the Phoenix
Wright series. For those of you unaware (and shame on you), the Phoenix Wright series revolves around a
young defense attorney as he tries to clear his client’s name. The game blends
between visual novel and adventure game, where you must investigate crime
scenes while you gather clues. With these clues, you provide proof supporting
or denying the testimony of witnesses. Each game provides a good story with an
eclectic cast of characters to wrap up the experience. For people new to the visual
novel genre, the Phoenix Wright series
is a good place to get your toe wet.
Even with the success of the Phoenix Wright series in the early 2000s, visual novels didn’t hit
their stride in the U.S. market until much later. For people who enjoyed the
genre, fan translations were their only source of getting these games outside
of Japan. If a game didn’t have any type of interaction beyond clicking through
text boxes, it wouldn’t come here.
With the success of the Phoenix
Wright games for Capcom, other companies slowly started to put their feet
in the visual novel market. Aksys Games, most known for publishing the Guilty Gear and BlazBlue fighting games, published 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, or just 999 for short, leading to a series of
visual novels more popular in the West than in their native country. More recently, Nis America published the popular Danganronpa series, providing a dark twist to the courtroom drama
seen in the Phoenix Wright series.
Granted, games like these are still visual novel hybrids, containing elements
from puzzle games and even rhythm games, but more and more people have become
accepting of the genre.
As time went on, companies specific to publishing visual
novels were created in the U.S. MangaGamer has been an active company for
publishing PC visual novels from Japan, one of their most notable titles being Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, or When They Cry in English. Another company is
JAST USA, though they have been known to work with MangaGamer in the past for
distribution.
A more recent juggernaut in the visual novel publishing game
is the company Sekai Project. Using crowdfunding to gauge interest in the
visual novel market, Sekai Project has gained success from many of their
projects. Not only have they published visual novels that fans have been begging
for, such as Clannad, Sekai Project
also publishes indie visual novels from developers from not only Japan but from
around the world. Though they might not be the first publishers to bring visual
novels to Steam, they have certainly flooded the market. The
company shows no sign of stopping as their list of games for the future grows.
Make your own visual novel!
With Kickstarter and various visual novel programs, becoming
an indie visual novel creator is fully within reason, though not a guarantee.
Sure, you can become a one person development team if you are talented enough,
but throwing on the role of artist, composer, and programmer might be a bit
daunting. But whether you are planning a best-selling masterpiece or just want
to try it out, there are many ways to create your own visual novel.
The route I highly recommend is Ren’Py. With over a decade
of support, Ren’Py is a program that can bring to life either the simplest
visual novels or the most complex. Not only that, the community behind it is extremely helpful, and the amount of games created using the program ranges in
the hundreds. Even a few Steam visual novels were created using Ren’Py,
including the excellent Sunrider,
which I backed on Kickstarter. I’ve personally dabbled with Ren’Py, creating my
own visual novel series along with a few Xenosaga fan projects. The code isn’t too difficult though it may be daunting at first
glance (the Py in Ren’Py standing for Python, after all), but I highly
recommend playing the built in tutorial and searching through their website for
all the help you need. If you aren’t an artist or musician, you can also find
tons of creative commons images and sounds around the web. The best thing of all: Ren'Py is
completely free.
But wait, what if I can’t program? Don’t worry, I have you
covered. Tyrano Builder Visual Novel Studio follows a drag-and-drop method of
creation that is easy to make simple visual novels. You can find it on Steam
for about $15 and it supports porting games to Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android, HTML5, and CSS3. I haven’t personally used this engine yet, but I’m keeping
my eye on it in case of a sale (though $15 still isn’t a bad price).
If you want to go the free route, Novelty is another
drag-and-drop visual novel maker. The community isn’t quite as developed as Ren’Py’s
and you can’t really make any overly complex games either, but if you want free
and simple, this is it. I’d recommend it to beginners that find Ren’Py
intimidating.
The Golden Age of Visual Novels in the West
With games like Steins;Gate
finally making it to the U.S., on a console of all platforms, visual novels are
finally gaining their momentum in the West. I still wouldn’t say they are as popular
as the next blockbuster first person shooter, but the popularity of visual
novels is enough to satisfy the fans who do enjoy them. To conclude, here are a
few of my favorite visual novels in no particular order:
World End Economica – From the creator of the Spice
and Wolf series, the story revolves around a kid trying to get rich on the
moon by investing in the stock market. That may sound a tad boring, but the
cast of characters and setting keep your interest.
Zero Escape Series (999 and Virtue’s Last Reward) – A series that deals with
complex philosophic themes, quantum mechanics, and just about everything else,
it’s hard not to love the complexity of these games. The third and possibly
final game is set to release summer 2016.
Saya no Uta (The Song of Saya) – From Gen
Urobuchi, famed writer of such series as Fate/Zero and Madoka Magica, Saya no Uta is a short, Lovecraftian
visual novel that manages to creep you out through its art, music, and writing.
Warning: not for children.
Danganronpa Series– Do you like growing attached to characters to only have them
slaughtered before your eyes? If you said yes (through a veil of ugly tears),
this series is for you!
G-Senjou no Maou (The Devil on G-String) – If you liked Death Note, G-Senjou no Maou
follows a similar formula of a cat and mouse game where an eccentric detective
tries to find a criminal mastermind.
