funyarinpa
Oh look I'm posting something after months of not posting anything whatsoever (I don't really feel comfortable posting about RL stuff -- I get why people use flocks for that now, haha! -- so instead I will blog about video games because video games are basically 90% of my life)
1)
So... I ended up playing through 999, and while I liked it well enough, I don't think it's going to end up being a particularly memorable game for me. It's kind of hard for me to pin down exactly why, but maybe it's because I only really get attached to lighthearted stories? Real life is generally lighthearted, and that's what makes the more dramatic moments feel so, well, dramatic! So stories feel most realistic to me when they're written that way; mostly cute moments interspersed with occasional drama. 999 is quite dark, the atmosphere feels sort of... tense?, and the humor didn't appeal to me (for some reason I also can't quite understand), so I guess that's the closest thing to an explanation I can give as to why it's not going to end up being a favorite of mine. Even though it probably makes no sense!
Or maybe it's because the game took place on a ship. Even though it wasn't really a ship. I don't like ships, they tend to make me feel seasick
There were definitely a bunch of things I liked about 999, though! For one, the theory of morphogenetic fields is really fascinating, and as silly as it might sound, I'm fairly certain something of the sort could indeed exist in real life. Yeah, it's impossible to prove the existence of telepathy and the like, but it would explain an awful lot if it were true (like how animals can seemingly communicate with each other without actually appearing to interact at all or how nobody knows anything about how animal brains store data or how people always start humming songs that have been stuck in your head for a long time) (I'm not the only person who has experienced the latter having happened on several occasions, right). There's a fairly interesting post on the ideas and theories 999 borrows from real life here, by the way. It's an interesting read!
The idea of basing the characters' personalities on Enneagram types (according to the interview on the official site, at least) and then subverting the stereotypes is pretty cool, too. I've never been interested in Enneagram stuff, but I can't help but to wonder what a game with characters based on MBTI types would be like! Mostly because I'm an MBTI nerd.
Speaking of that interview, though -- one thing that really bugged me was how I felt a lot of questions were left unanswered. You basically had to read that interview in order to understand what had happened, and even then I sort of feel as if there are a bunch of holes in the plot (or perhaps, the characterization of the 9 persons in the Nonary game) that I don't quite understand. For example, if Akane/June is really as cold-hearted as Uchikoshi claims, how come there are little to no hints of her "real" personality in the actual game? It shouldn't be obvious, but some subtle foreshadowing would've been nice.
I also really don't like the bad endings and I feel they provide little closure to the story. Which is what makes them bad endings, I guess! But I feel like playing through only the Safe and True endings would've been the ideal way to experience the game for me personally, to be honest. I did Axe and Sub first, and it almost made me want to stop playing, because I was starting to think I'd never get any answers to all the questions I'd been having.
As for the characters... I think Snake is my favorite, overall! He's a snarky badass blind genius, so basically everything about him is amazing (but I wish he didn't spend most of the game being locked away in a coffin, wahh)
I thought Lotus was rather interesting, as well. Judging by her outfit, you'd expect her to be there purely for the fanservice, but that's not really the case. Lotus probably does the best job out of the entire cast about subverting your expectations of her -- she's actually a very pragmatic woman, a loving mother, and, apparently, an amazing programmer (female programmers are rare enough in real life, so I certainly wasn't expecting to see one in a game)! So she's probably my second favorite. :D
I sort of feel like I've ranted enough about 999 at this point, so I guess that's a decent summary of my thoughts on it! (but what is a funyarinpa) (we just don't know)
Also, I took a quick look at the sequel to the game, and... Alice, what are you wearing. A metal necklace is not a good substitute for a bra ;A;
2) In other gaming news, Pokémon Conquest! It's amazing and I love it *_*!! It's just as enjoyable as the main games to me, and I certainly wasn't expecting that from a spin-off, so I was very pleasantly surprised. My biggest issue is really the lack of a story. I mean, technically there is one, it's just that there's so little of it, and it's really a shame! Unless you count the warriors' constant random quips during battle. Some of them are pretty hilarious (especially Kanetsugu's constant rambling about honor! I never thought I'd see a character worse than Zuko on that front, but he really is and he pretty much can't say so much as a sentence without the word honor in it)
Either way, a Pokémon SRPG crossed over with Samurai Warriors (I guess it's technically Nobunaga's Ambition, but the characters are from SW3) was clearly the best idea ever and whoever thought of it deserves a medal. A golden one!
3) Speaking of Samurai Warriors, Conquest made me feel very interested in the series, so I've spent the past few days reading up on it, and from what I gather the games are basically set during war times, have lots and lots of playable characters, and apparently there's also a lot of gay subtext hmm that sure sounds like another game series I like a lot even though they're completely different gameplay-wise and kind of setting-wise too
I've never played a hack-and-slash game before, so I was kind of worried I might not like these type of games, but after looking through a whole bunch of videos I've concluded that they actually seem quite fun to play! I'm pretty sure what made me worried was all the terrible reviews the SW games got, but all of the reviews boil down to "this game is too similar to the other games in the series, and therefore we'll give it a low score!!". Ugh, it reminds me of how the Ace Attorney games got progressively worse review scores due to the games having "too similar gameplay" to each other (seriously, isn't it obvious that the story is kind of the point of an Phoenix Wright game, rather than the gameplay, which suits the series perfectly fine and doesn't need changing...?). I really need to stop reading video game reviews. Or the terrible ones, at least!
I really like the idea of loosely basing the story and characters on historical people, too! It's actually made me read up a bit on Japanese history, which is something I'd probably never do otherwise. I'm not really a history buff, ahaha, but it can be pretty interesting sometimes. :D
As for the characters, I'm really curious about most of them (I still blame Pokémon Conquest), and that's probably a huge part of why I'm interested in the series. Some of the designs are really pretty, too! Not counting the overly fanservice-y ones, of course (that means you, Kunoichi and Nene). Actually, I was surprised to find that most of the female characters are pretty well covered-up, but I can't help but to wonder if that's at least partly due to the fact that there are so few of them! I can understand why (I guess there are just way more notable Sengoku-era men than women), but it's still a shame.
On a completely random note, the SW series seems somewhat similar to Tales, I've noticed, in the sense that both Koei and Namco seem to have a habit of releasing a dozen spinoffs per main game and then not localizing half of them! Wahh importing everything is going to be expensive and I still don't know anywhere near enough Japanese to be able to understand a game ;A; And also I'm apparently going to have to buy a PS3, both for SW stuff and for Tales of stuff. ... Gaming is an expensive hobby!
Since I'm rambling about samurai games either way, I might as well mention that I also looked up some information on Sengoku Basara, which has basically the same idea as SW behind but with a completely different execution! It looks much more colorful and flashy (which I appreciate), and that in turn makes the gameplay seem more fun, but in contrast to SW I honestly don't feel particularly invested in the characters, so I doubt I'll ever end up playing it. The fact that I'm already attached to characters from a game series I've never played is... kind of a problem ahh I think I'm shipping things already too someone please send help
1)
So... I ended up playing through 999, and while I liked it well enough, I don't think it's going to end up being a particularly memorable game for me. It's kind of hard for me to pin down exactly why, but maybe it's because I only really get attached to lighthearted stories? Real life is generally lighthearted, and that's what makes the more dramatic moments feel so, well, dramatic! So stories feel most realistic to me when they're written that way; mostly cute moments interspersed with occasional drama. 999 is quite dark, the atmosphere feels sort of... tense?, and the humor didn't appeal to me (for some reason I also can't quite understand), so I guess that's the closest thing to an explanation I can give as to why it's not going to end up being a favorite of mine. Even though it probably makes no sense!
Or maybe it's because the game took place on a ship. Even though it wasn't really a ship. I don't like ships, they tend to make me feel seasick
There were definitely a bunch of things I liked about 999, though! For one, the theory of morphogenetic fields is really fascinating, and as silly as it might sound, I'm fairly certain something of the sort could indeed exist in real life. Yeah, it's impossible to prove the existence of telepathy and the like, but it would explain an awful lot if it were true (like how animals can seemingly communicate with each other without actually appearing to interact at all or how nobody knows anything about how animal brains store data or how people always start humming songs that have been stuck in your head for a long time) (I'm not the only person who has experienced the latter having happened on several occasions, right). There's a fairly interesting post on the ideas and theories 999 borrows from real life here, by the way. It's an interesting read!
The idea of basing the characters' personalities on Enneagram types (according to the interview on the official site, at least) and then subverting the stereotypes is pretty cool, too. I've never been interested in Enneagram stuff, but I can't help but to wonder what a game with characters based on MBTI types would be like! Mostly because I'm an MBTI nerd.
Speaking of that interview, though -- one thing that really bugged me was how I felt a lot of questions were left unanswered. You basically had to read that interview in order to understand what had happened, and even then I sort of feel as if there are a bunch of holes in the plot (or perhaps, the characterization of the 9 persons in the Nonary game) that I don't quite understand. For example, if Akane/June is really as cold-hearted as Uchikoshi claims, how come there are little to no hints of her "real" personality in the actual game? It shouldn't be obvious, but some subtle foreshadowing would've been nice.
I also really don't like the bad endings and I feel they provide little closure to the story. Which is what makes them bad endings, I guess! But I feel like playing through only the Safe and True endings would've been the ideal way to experience the game for me personally, to be honest. I did Axe and Sub first, and it almost made me want to stop playing, because I was starting to think I'd never get any answers to all the questions I'd been having.
As for the characters... I think Snake is my favorite, overall! He's a snarky badass blind genius, so basically everything about him is amazing (but I wish he didn't spend most of the game being locked away in a coffin, wahh)
I thought Lotus was rather interesting, as well. Judging by her outfit, you'd expect her to be there purely for the fanservice, but that's not really the case. Lotus probably does the best job out of the entire cast about subverting your expectations of her -- she's actually a very pragmatic woman, a loving mother, and, apparently, an amazing programmer (female programmers are rare enough in real life, so I certainly wasn't expecting to see one in a game)! So she's probably my second favorite. :D
I sort of feel like I've ranted enough about 999 at this point, so I guess that's a decent summary of my thoughts on it! (but what is a funyarinpa) (we just don't know)
Also, I took a quick look at the sequel to the game, and... Alice, what are you wearing. A metal necklace is not a good substitute for a bra ;A;
2) In other gaming news, Pokémon Conquest! It's amazing and I love it *_*!! It's just as enjoyable as the main games to me, and I certainly wasn't expecting that from a spin-off, so I was very pleasantly surprised. My biggest issue is really the lack of a story. I mean, technically there is one, it's just that there's so little of it, and it's really a shame! Unless you count the warriors' constant random quips during battle. Some of them are pretty hilarious (especially Kanetsugu's constant rambling about honor! I never thought I'd see a character worse than Zuko on that front, but he really is and he pretty much can't say so much as a sentence without the word honor in it)
Either way, a Pokémon SRPG crossed over with Samurai Warriors (I guess it's technically Nobunaga's Ambition, but the characters are from SW3) was clearly the best idea ever and whoever thought of it deserves a medal. A golden one!
3) Speaking of Samurai Warriors, Conquest made me feel very interested in the series, so I've spent the past few days reading up on it, and from what I gather the games are basically set during war times, have lots and lots of playable characters, and apparently there's also a lot of gay subtext hmm that sure sounds like another game series I like a lot even though they're completely different gameplay-wise and kind of setting-wise too
I've never played a hack-and-slash game before, so I was kind of worried I might not like these type of games, but after looking through a whole bunch of videos I've concluded that they actually seem quite fun to play! I'm pretty sure what made me worried was all the terrible reviews the SW games got, but all of the reviews boil down to "this game is too similar to the other games in the series, and therefore we'll give it a low score!!". Ugh, it reminds me of how the Ace Attorney games got progressively worse review scores due to the games having "too similar gameplay" to each other (seriously, isn't it obvious that the story is kind of the point of an Phoenix Wright game, rather than the gameplay, which suits the series perfectly fine and doesn't need changing...?). I really need to stop reading video game reviews. Or the terrible ones, at least!
I really like the idea of loosely basing the story and characters on historical people, too! It's actually made me read up a bit on Japanese history, which is something I'd probably never do otherwise. I'm not really a history buff, ahaha, but it can be pretty interesting sometimes. :D
As for the characters, I'm really curious about most of them (I still blame Pokémon Conquest), and that's probably a huge part of why I'm interested in the series. Some of the designs are really pretty, too! Not counting the overly fanservice-y ones, of course (that means you, Kunoichi and Nene). Actually, I was surprised to find that most of the female characters are pretty well covered-up, but I can't help but to wonder if that's at least partly due to the fact that there are so few of them! I can understand why (I guess there are just way more notable Sengoku-era men than women), but it's still a shame.
On a completely random note, the SW series seems somewhat similar to Tales, I've noticed, in the sense that both Koei and Namco seem to have a habit of releasing a dozen spinoffs per main game and then not localizing half of them! Wahh importing everything is going to be expensive and I still don't know anywhere near enough Japanese to be able to understand a game ;A; And also I'm apparently going to have to buy a PS3, both for SW stuff and for Tales of stuff. ... Gaming is an expensive hobby!
Since I'm rambling about samurai games either way, I might as well mention that I also looked up some information on Sengoku Basara, which has basically the same idea as SW behind but with a completely different execution! It looks much more colorful and flashy (which I appreciate), and that in turn makes the gameplay seem more fun, but in contrast to SW I honestly don't feel particularly invested in the characters, so I doubt I'll ever end up playing it. The fact that I'm already attached to characters from a game series I've never played is... kind of a problem ahh I think I'm shipping things already too someone please send help