Episode Gladiolus, Grimm Finale, 7th Moon Mecha/Camp NaNoWriMo

First off, the first DLC for Fnal Fantasy XV dropped this week, Episode Gladiolus, and it has been a bit of a disappointment. As hoped for, it does finally answer the question of what Gladio did when he left the party for Chapter 7, and simultaneously came with an alternate chapter 13 showing what Gladio and Ignis did after being separated from Noctis, which was better. Both are pretty short and to the point and are so stripped down from the main game they feel completely different. Chapter 13 features a special sequence that explains what happened to Aldercept and Ravus and is totally worth playing this sequence, although it does kind of piss me off that Ardyn gave these two a shortcut, like why the hell couldn't Noctis have found that passage? But that's nothing compared to the Trial of Gilgamesh, Gladio's reason for leaving the party. Apparently this trial is for the Crownsguard and is roughly the equivalent of Noctis reclaiming for the Royal Arms. It's promising in concept and it's a fun romp to see some familiar faces in Enkidu and Gilgamesh, the latter coming with another signature Battle on the Big Bridge complete with a new remix of the song, but for the first time since Gilgamesh began his transdimensional journey, it's not the same Gilgamesh humorously breaking the fourth wall and admitting how many worlds he's been in, this time it's the ghost of the first King's Shield, the knight whose title is now held by Gladio himself. The frustrating part is that everything you did in the game goes out the window, Gladio is now at level 24 armed with a Claymore, no alternate weapons, no items except what you collect in the dungeon. Gladio has access to his own techniques which he now uses with his own meter, but there's no warp strikes, no magic, nothing but Cor having your back between bosses, but the four trial bosses you have to fight completely alone. I haven't been able to finish the final battle with Gilgamesh, largely because I blew through a lot of items fighting Humbaba, a boss that is based on the Red Giant that is the most pain in the ass demon to fight when you have a full party of four let alone Gladio alone. I did get far enough to see that Gladio got his scar from Gilgamesh when he slashes our hero across his face and Gladio continues undaunted, which answers the question of how that happened, but until I defeat Gilgamesh and see how this actually ends, the whole thing pretty much blows, I hope the other DLC are better. What I wish would have happened was that this worked like the Moogle Chocobo Carnival where you access the DLC with a save file and use Gladio with the gear, stats and items he has from the file, I even saved a file from Chapter 6 just for this. Instead, the current format lacks leveling and reduces the experience to being visually the same as the main game, but mechanically it's just a hack and slash minigame with minimal impact on the game overall. EDIT: I finished the fight with Gilgamesh, you get the Genji Blade which allows Gladio to perform Dual Master, we also find out the blade was Cor's and he used it to cut off Gilgamesh's arm, although they claim Cor did not defeat Gilgamesh, I want to know the definition of defeat when one guy cuts off his opponent's arm and is not considered as successful as the guy who gets a scar but leaves none on his enemy. Anyway, final ruling, unless you absolutely have to know exactly what Gladio was doing when he left the party in Chapter 7 or at the very least you want to play as Gladio instead of Noctis, this DLC is a letdown and not really worth it to any but the most ardent fans.

Grimm just ended in a fittingly weird way, the Destroyer came from another dimension and killed everyone leaving Nick with a choice to save his friends or kill him.Then his mother and aunt, both dead mind you, appear out of nowhere to help him do the right thing. Then Nick gets pulled into another world where none of what happened actually happened and nobody remembers it but him and Diane. Fast Forward twenty years, his son Kelly now hunts wesen with his sister Diane and the triplets Rosalee and Monroe had. Frankly I'm disappointed that we never saw the triplets nor found out whether they were Blutbaden, Fuchsbau or some sort of mutt. The ending was good, but I'm sad that that particular plotline was rushed. For the shippers out there, I think one of the triplets is a girl and falls in love with Kelly, probably a Fuchsbau, a real vixen through and through, it all started the first time she woged in front of him, while most wesen see their inner horror in a Grimm's eyes she saw the inner beauty he saw in her, his eyes reflecting the passion of love not hate, then they knew they were soulmates. Also, what if Kelly is part zauberbiest like Sean? His hand could be the part that woges, giving him super strength and telekinesis to bring weapons to his hands or throw them with heightened accuracy and brew the occasional zaubertrank or cast a spell when necessary. And back to shipping, Diana should date the blutbad son of Monrosalee, Monroe Jr. perhaps. Feel free to run with any of this with your own fan fiction, maybe we can get a convincing universe going for a possible reboot down the road.

Now for my big news, National Novel Writing Month spring Camp WriMo is beginning and now for the main event...7th Moon Mecha! After five years, I'm going to challenge myself this month to finally tackle the first sequel to 7th Moon! I attempted this years ago and botched it, but that means little, the first novel took three or four drafts over ten years, 7th Moon Mecha has only begun to fight and this time the book will be written! I will be dragging out the first three chapters I had before and continue the story of a mech war that starts with China reenacting the Three Kingdoms era, then flowing into a holy war in the holy land with clones of Tengu, then off to Europe to face vampires and steampunk mecha, and then to North America to take a tour of the last five cities on the continent and find out the truth behind the new war.

With this, I leave you to get back to serious writing after taking a break for a few months, I need to get back to work, and for the rest of the month, this blog will be nothing but updates on my writing. Next month, Tokyo Ghoul review, but that will have to wait for now...

Final Fantasy XV Final Review and Dragon Quest Builders

I finally finished Final Fantasy XV and it's time to give my final take on the whole game. It's hard to say really because my main play was interrupted by the Moogle Chocobo Carnival for a month. Having said that, I realize I still spent nearly two months on just the first eight chapters and then sped through the last five chapters in about a week. I don't know whether to complain about how fast the end went by or how long the beginning took. This is where it becomes a matter of opinion, and my opinion is that the story was solid at the end, but the extras that they are throwing in to make it bigger and better are taking away from the main story, and that's on top of all the sidequests that already got in the way. Next week, DLC is coming up that I believe will add to the game and I respect them for seperating the other characters like this, as a writer I know that perspective is important and it's easier to keep people focused if you follow just one character, much as we see our own lives entirely from our own perspective, limiting this to Noctis gives us a more focused story. Learning what the others were up to at critical points when they were away from Noctis will be fun, but we needed a chance to get through the story without the distractions, which is why it is so frustrating that so much already happened. It reminds me of Final Fantasy VI, only in reverse, the beginning was very linear with only one sidequest in the entire first half, and then suddenly after following a very structured and engaging story it becomes nothing but sidequests between you and the final dungeon. The abrupt shift leaves the game feeling disjointed, the story seems weak, not because it's bad, but because the player is too distracted by side shows to focus on the main attraction. Ultimately, this game was awesome but it could have been better if it they had focused on the main story and filled in the gaps they left behind instead of making the open world so open. Here's my highlights from the finale:

Now that FFXV is done, I'm on to Dragon Quest Builders, the most retro piece of nostalgia I have seen from a game company that seems to specialize in it. This game is like Minecraft, only it takes place in the world of the original Dragon Quest after an alternate ending to the original game. Dragon Quest actually has two endings, the real ending in which you defeat the Dragon Lord, and the bad ending in which you take his offer to join him. Dragon Quest II followed the former, the latter leads to this game, the Dragon Lord rules, the world is a mess, and you are the second chance to save the world, the Builder, who will rebuild the towns of the game, destroyed by the Dragon Lord and the fallen hero. The basic concept is interesting, especially when part of the original lore was about the legend of a town builder named Galen, and at one point you get to rebuild that town. Is it possible that you are the legendary Galen or his descendant? As you seek the answer to this question, DQB plays out with a retro feel that is simultaneously a thumbs up to the fans and a middle finger to any progress the industry has made since the original game. The world is made of blocks like Minecraft, but much is rounded out in cel shading to fit the anime style of Akira Toriyama. Not only are the graphics retro, but the soundtrack is clearly the same as the original game, upgraded in performance quality, but unmistakable tunes that any true fan will recognize and be taken straight back to the 80's 8-bit debut of the franchise. Deceptively cute monsters wander the world, appearing in exactly the frequency necessary to collect the materials needed to build whatever you need next. The simplest thing to do is break down blocks to rebuild the buildings, but you also craft verious items ranging from storage and decorations, to weapons, armor, and food. I don't know if younger players can fully appreciate this game because to me it relies heavily on knowing what this world was and how you are to put it back together, but I imagine once you're young enough to not know Dragon Quest, you are drawn in by Minecraft style play. The best part is that unlike the random, aimless sandbox of Minecraft, DQB tells a story, with characters who direct you to perform particular tasks. Some players may feel it limits creativity to have to wait for all your resources and tools to be unlocked through story play, but as I've said, I like having some direction, I like a story, I like knowing that I'm building everything for a reason. It also doesn't hurt that a twenty year old memory hints at how this will end. Galenholm, here I come!

Grimm nearing it's end, another FFXV rant, and some 7th Moon news

Grimm has only a few weeks left before it's series finale and it's about time. I do like Grimm, it has been a good show, but it relied on a mythology that it seems they have been half-assing from the beginning. The story is about how Grimm's fairy tales are actually criminal profiles for people that can transform into monsters that inspire folklore, centering around Nick Burkhardt, a Grimm, one of the few non-monsters that can see the monsters. For the first few episodes they don't even have good terminology just names that are German words describing the monsters. They attempt to be creative by using the big bad wolf and instead of simply calling them werewolves, they call them Blutbaden and don't really give them any canine features, which is in stark contrast with every new species that are very clearly animalistic. Eventually they give them a collective name, the Wessen, and then they have to deal with some contradictory plot points, like Wessen having two transformations, a subtle one that only a Grimm can see and a vulgar one which is identical except that anyone can see it, which makes Grimm less special until we find out that a Grimm's eyes reflect horror to a Wessen and Grimm have some preternatural ability to fight Wessen that doesn't really make any sense. Worst of all, breeding rules are extremely confusing, as a main character, Sean Renard has been described as half-zauberbiest, yet all other Wessen seem to be all or nothing, so how does a half anythign fit in? And WTF is up with the royals whoseem to be important but nobody ever says why? And then there's the dance around magic, At first they made a strong effort to suggest there was a scientific explanation and there was minimal if any magic, but then they started to go wild in the last couple of seasons and they are just barely holding it together. They have strayed from Grimm's fairy tales and gotten into other folklore and started getting lazy enough to start using names that are ripped from common mythology with no more effort to use original species names, even Blutbaden got retroactively connected to Lycanthropes. Despite all this, the show thrived with strong characterization that connected the audience to the Scooby Gang even though some of it didn't make sense. Shippers are all about Monrosalee, but the love triangle between Nick, Adalind, Juliette, and Sean ended up in a way nobody would have predicted, and Nick and Adalind being happy lovers with their son Kelly is kind of a neat bow on a hot mess that the writers seemed to create while under the influence of something good and strong. Don't even get me started on Juliette becoming a hexenbiest named Eve or Sergant Wu contracting Lycanthropy. We love the dysfunctional family that has pulled together on Grimm, but it is time to wrap it up before it falls apart and the writers know it. The final episodes will air over the next few weeks, so here's to you Grimm, what a fun wild ride it was, but I, for one am ready for it to be over, so bring it home good.

Meanwhile in Final Fantasy XV, I finally got to Altissia, which I know all too well from the Moogle Chocobo Carnival, thankfully easy to navigate now, it's nice to see what it really looks like without the decorations. I even got through all of the sidequests and hunts, so I believe it's time to get linear, which I'm actually super looking forward to because I kind of lost track of the story, so dammit, I really just want to run though this without any further distractions. I mean, shit, We're talking about  divine royals and gods and demons and I'm tired of justifying driving around in circles doing lame shit like taking photos, fishing, and grocery shopping(yes, if you haven't played the game, you seriously do that). I get the sidequests tied to Royal Arms, but seriously, there is no reason why any of this other crap should matter, and Noctis should be able to really just say "Sorry, I gotta LITERALLY SAVE THE WORLD, your frogs will have to wait Sania." Oh this is gonna be good. Oh yeah, and Episode Gladiolus is coming next week, more on that when it actually arrives.

As for 7th Moon, first, next month I'm hosting a panel at Tora-Con where I'm gong to talk about all the books I've written and share the future of  7th moon as a book series, an anime, and a video game, and update fans on the progress I've made to actually make this happen. Second, I'd like to announce, I've decided to stop beating around the bush and just make Keisei permanently nude. I wanted to do it all along, but I was too chicken to follow through, but I have realized the target fan base will probably be more receptive, so going into the next book, Keisei will just not wear clothing because she's kind of a nudist. She's not so much committed to following a formal movement as much as she actually just doesn't give a shit, and she spends all her time with three guys who don't care either, and the world will have to accept that the cat girl feels her fur provides enough coverage. For those not familiar with the phrase "permanently nude" it's a growing sub-genre of fiction in which a character faces circumstances in which they are nude all the time even when it doesn't make sense, thought they usually give a reason that justifies why the character remains naked in spite of social norms, but doesn't change the fact that most people are still taken by surprise, even the naked character herself(usually it's a girl, everyone likes naked girls better). For those not familiar with 7th Moon(shame on you, you should have read it, click the link on the side) Keisei was created to be a sex slave and while she wasn't actually violated during her childhood, she did suffer lesser abuse including never wearing clothes for the first nineteen years of her life, but it wasn't until she was twenty -one that she ever encountered anyone who actually thought this was unusual, so while many would consider it a symptom of abuse, she never knew any different, nudity isn't actually abuse or degradation in her mind, it simply is truth, and putting clothes on doesn't fix anything, it's just a chore to get dressed every day, and considering she is closest to a celibate monk, a child too innocent to process nudity taboos, and her lover who never learned the taboo in the first place, it's really just easier for her too be naked. Having said all this, bear in mind she has two strips of fur that cover her her chest and pelvis like a bikini so the censors should be satisfied and only extreme fetishists will actually get off on this. This is not going to be erotic fiction, she's just a random naked chick in an action series, and she'll kick your ass if you give her shit for it, believe it, the scene already played out three times in the first book.

Well, that's all for now, excuse me, I have to go back to Final Fantasy, 7th Moon, and Toonami to watch the new Samurai Jack, the last of One Piece and starting next week the beginning of Tokyo Ghoul.

Time After Time

Last week a new sci fi show premiered on ABC called Time After Time. For weeks this show was promoted as Jack the Ripper time travels to the present day and continues his killing spree in America. This came off as preposterous and I had no idea why it was even greenlit. Then in the last week before the premiere they finally revealed they had buried the lead, the time travel is courtesy of H. G. Wells, the author who invented the very concept of time travel when he wrote the Time Machine. According to this show he researched his book by actually inventing a time machine. Coincidentally, he is friends with Jack the Ripper, who he knows as a surgeon named John until the very night he reveals the time machine to his friends the police come looking for Jack the Ripper at every house while John is there and he uses the time machine to escape, again pure coincidence to two days before the actual premiere date of the show. The convenient plot devices continue as the time machine automatically returns within moments unless it's overridden by a key which Hugh(as I shall be referring to Wells from now on) was holding and therefore he gets to use the time machine to pursue John to the future where the time machine is now in a New York City history museum. From here Hugh pursues John through the city, which is difficult because John is adjusting much better than Hugh, but Hugh has some unlikely help from Jane, an assistant curator in charge of the exhibit who has a crush on him and the feeling is mutual though he's too much of a gentleman to do anything about it, and even stranger, Vanessa, the owner of the exhibit who happens to be Hugh's great granddaughter that he had visited three years earlier(time travel brain bender, her three years earlier is still Hugh's future, so he had to leave a note to convince his past self that his future self visited his great granddaughter in her past, congratulations if you followed that).

Hugh and John  have a pretty straightforward hero/villain relationship complicated by the fact that Hugh is struggling with a man that he has long considered a friend is also the most infamous serial killer of all time. Vanessa plays her role well, though it concerns me that she may not be who she says she is and I worry that there may be a secret subplot where she is actually working with Jack the Ripper or someone worse. Jane is the least convincing as a way too nice girl who falls into her role as Hugh's love interest too easily to be believable, but Whovians will recognize her as the companion to Hugh's Doctor and the dynamic actually works despite the contrivances.

So here's the setup, Jack the Ripper has access to H. G. Wells time machine which he will use to visit various points in time expanding his reign of terror while Wells himself with his new girlfriend pursues him and gets the inspiration for his books as they fight over the key to the time machine. The fact that H. G. Wells is the actual protagonist is far more appealing than Jack the Ripper being the antagonist and knowing where the story is now going makes it worth watching. It airs Sunday at 9 after Once Upon a Time so tune in to two hours of the weirdest takes on classic literature I have ever seen.

open world vs linear rant continued

A couple of weeks ago I was talking about complaints I've been hearing about how some video games are too linear and how new players prefer open world. I realize I've been biased because when I grew up, it was largely linear games, a new generation has come up that wasn't trained to enjoy such games and have a more open mind. Having said that, I do remember a few experiments in open world games in the 8-bit and 16-bit eras, and let me say, it just didn't work before 32-bits, or more to the point, polygonal 3-D graphics.

Back in the day, most games were side-scrolling platformers that in retrospect, were basically the same game mechanically but with different graphics. They were all the same thing, go from left to right, collect anything that flashes and avoid anything that moves. And we had fun with that dammit. Then came games like Mystery Quest, Legacy of the Wizard, and Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar and to a certain extent Metroid. All of these games were kind of open world without the clear objectives from the get go and even worse, there weren't a whole lot of signs of where you were supposed to go. I rented all of these games and wasted a weekend on each making no progress because I had no idea what to do. Final Fantasy VI won me back with it's linear story, the first half of the game has one sidequest and otherwise straightforward, which made the back end of the game disappointing when it turned into all sidequests with no direction beyond an online guide preventing me from facing Kefka with only six or seven out of twelve to fourteen characters. By stark contrast, sidescrolling platformers never gave me this kind of trouble because I always knew just keep going right. I like that.

Playstation changed everything because 32-bits meant creating a 3-D world, so instead of simple left to right sidescrolling platformers, now the same kind of game could take place in a 3-D world and the open world concept was born. Yes, you could run a specific path, but the new perspective finally revealed there was more to the game world than the path. Elsword was the first game I actually played that figured out a brilliant way to present 3-D graphics for a 3-D world and yet map it for 2-D play creating the illusion of 3-D while actually making it a traditional 2-D sidescroller. Some players are satisfied with these gimmicks, others want to break the fourth wall and move in all directions. The problem is that it's very hard to program gameplay environments and it's really a pain to create areas that serve no purpose. Players demand open world but programmers are reluctant to put in the effort if there is nothing to do there, hence the sidequest, essentially in video games they make it so that you go there for something fun that you don't actually need to finish the game. Sometimes this is worthwhile and adds to the game, but other times it can take away from the game.

Again I go back to Final Fantasy XV. I am most sensitive to the sidequests in this game because once again, Square came up with a great story and the sidequests actually seem to contradict it. The worst part is, while sidequests allow you to more fully explore the game world, it also draws attention to how small and unreal the world actually is. Consider the layout of Lucis, basically three actual towns, one of which is destroyed at the beginning, the rest of the kingdom being gas stations and tourist attractions. Why are there still people on the road? Nobody should actually have any need to leave Lestallum. And yet, the cars still pass through on the highway. There's a guy at Cape Caem who buys your carrots for his restaurant...where the hell is the restaurant? And why does he have half a dozen high grade weapons to trade for carrots? Why is Talcott so happy about his cactuar collection when his grampa just died? Why is everyone so calm given the drastic events going on? And why can't I kick Dino and Viv's asses for even suggesting selling me out to the Empire? And I can't complain enough about fishing or Justice Monsters and Cup Noodles...Ignis has to be so pissed he can make a gourmet meal out of behemoth meat or crab claws and Gladiolus just wants cheap ramen.

Some games are about storytelling, have respect for the story. If you aren't into that, fine, but don't rag on the rest of us. Me, I'm looking forward to the game getting more linear so I can get on with he story and save the world like a real hero should do.