ENTRY 02: 08/02/2023 - The Ship Sails On (plus spiders)

Hey again, it’s been a bit since the last update. Don’t worry, I haven’t been holding out on you, I just suddenly became busy with a time-sensitive project. I plan to get right on back to updating this webzone real soon.

Went to see that new Spiderverse movie today, the one people have been talking about. Saw the previous one a few years back and loved it, and heard some real promising stuff about this new one, so I was pretty hype to see it. It’s absolutely a fantastic movie, stunning artistically, all that good stuff. Had some pretty real stuff to say, too. Basically everything in that movie ruled, I could probably go on a tirade about a million different little things that blew me away, but I’ll spare you. Suffice it to say, a good time was had, even if there was a toddler in the row behind us who wouldn’t stop kicking the seats.

All this after celebrating my dad’s birthday yesterday. Honestly, I feel quite tired after all the things and events in the last few days, and there’s more coming. There’s a local con in town sometime at the end of the week, and it looks like I’m headed there. Hard to say no to these things, since, y’know, cool people and some sick-ass loot to get my hands on for cheap, but gosh, my poor autistic little creature brain is really getting fed up with all these Things™ happening in a row.

Ahh, but what can ya do. Let’s see, what else have I been up to… Oh, I have been getting back into Yume 2kki, that Yume Nikki fangame. Fun times there. I fell off of playing through the Dissidia games a while back, but I’ve been meaning to pick that back up, they’re a lot of fun. I’ve also been dipping back into Doom here and there. Mostly I’ve been distracted by Tumblr, hanging out with the other Based Ones, and a full playthrough of Final Fantasy XIII on Youtube. I always was curious what the deal with that game was, back when I first heard of it as a lad, it was “The Game That Ruined Final Fantasy”, but I can’t in good conscience really believe that now, the game certainly has merit. I can see why it would have confused and put off the rock-headed gamers of the pre-Gamergate era, though. It’s very Japanese, and while the localization and voice acting is extremely good, it doesn’t quite hide that fact, which I imagine caused some friction in its day. It’s actually the first game of it’s kind that I’ve seen really try and pull off English-sounding dialogue as well as it does, though, they really sound rather natural, even if the subject matter they’re dialoguing about is extremely anime.

It does strike me as the sort of game that’s very easy to lose the plot with if one doesn’t pay extremely close attention, though. Miss a cutscene or two and good luck understanding what the heck is going on. The characters don’t generally repeat an explanation, and the plot beats feel very episodic and disconnected as a consequence of the game’s length. Again, gamers of its time probably didn’t have the English class chops required to approach it on its own terms.

One point in their corner is their concerns over gameplay. I will say, from what I’ve watched, the gameplay does seem very repetetive and monotonous, though not much more than the average RPG in my eyes. Repetition in games is fine, and the soup du jour in RPGs, so I can’t really fault FFXIII for being that way. I think the real point of contention is how much the moment-to-moment combat experience has been streamlined. It seems there’s very little reason to actively select the actions of the characters within a battle, as the auto-battle features are very robust. One selects an overall gameplan in realtime, swapping gameplans on the fly depending on how the situation evolves, and the characters handle the rest. In hindsight, it’s like a more streamlined version of the Gambit system in Final Fantasy XII. I know the people who hated XIII didn’t play/like XII, though, so I guess that explains that. I personally found XII to be at least enjoyable when I played it, if not exactly engaging or enthralling. It’s like… if you compare an action game like Devil May Cry to a multi-course meal of various spicy foods, then FFXII was more like a bag of chips for me. Easy to hop in and shut off one’s mind to, and overall pleasant, but not especially demanding.

But I digress. Further discussion on this topic should be saved for a Musings post. In any case, I like the art direction (though the discouragement of exploration in the level design is disheartening), the music, and the characters so far. It’s a very pretty game, and a lot of love was put into it. Very of-its-time, leaned all the way in on the PS3 aesthetic. Very “Sophistifuture”, to borrow a phrase from ThorHighHeels. Worth the re-assessment.