I want YOU!
Share your feelings with the infinite compassion of the Picayune. Grampy bone promises not to make fun of you.
Yes, that's right. That's what I was trying to do before. Entertain you.
No, it is NOT cute.
Anyhowwhowherewhatthefuck, I've added some textboxes that are entirely server-side cgi. They're just like those little realtime chat windows people put in their Xangas... but not quite as gay.
...and by gay I don't mean homosexual. I mean no disrespect to those of us who've a abnormal affinity for the poop-chute. I mean non-denominationally negative... you know... faggy.
I certainly don't want to offend anyone.
Jon Cott gave me the idea. I figure that if you come accross a topic you've got opinions about, or you don't like something I say and "you and me gonna have words, y'unnestan'?", just fill out the box and hit submit. It's anonymous and easy. If you'd like to have something posted as an "article" like Jon's was... write it brilliantly. Like Jon's was.
I'm just kidding. Just ask me to put it up in your comment.
Jon Cott responds to 12.10 Update...
I don't often praise writing. The apocalypse must be upon us.
As usual, a few points. First off I'm angry, because when I first started reading, I read about the degradation of square as a whole, taking into consideration their other games, their branch outs, etc. This got my head spinning. A Token example is the seiken denetsu series (2 mostly, 3 for added effect). SECRET of MANA was a damn good game. Chrono Trigger was a Damn Good Game!!! Square had that seal, that anti-rubbish potion. It's amazing when you imagine a chart, when you look at their apex and see that they were making these simple yet in depth, amazing games. And we'll just forget about Secret of Evermore.
Well, looking at that apex, it's no wonder they lost their way. They spread themselves thin in the halcyon days of SuperFamicom (I concur that the video-game industry as a whole did, more on that later). It's like the momentum from VI led to square deciding it was time for a change, an ill-advised revolution. I remember being on the internet at my dad's house when it was still brand new, looking on the empty web for stimulus and finding out that SQUARE HAD DITCHED NINTENDO!!! I think you can draw a direct line there. The momentum from VI resulted in one more big finale, the beautiful shot of Jizz in the eye that FFVII was. Their whole history was building before that - that was them at the top of their tower, asking themselves what they'd really done and where to go next.
Everything about VII screams indulgence...cloud was as mysteriously vapid as he could get, the giant sword, the new platform (sleeping with the enemy), the new technology, and the FVMs it brought, every last drop of jizz in america's eye. The Sexual Train of Gaming Goodness was dry, spent, and swollen.
So what next? The reason i brought up MLB mind control is that while formulating my argument, I looked ahead and saw you'd already gone there...two words-Bushido Blade. That whole post-96 era, one of the things that kept me away from games for awhile (but a few crude 64 games to show for it). I guess it is kinda ignorant and blind to reality of me to do this, but I don't even count those as square games. They are a product of PLAYSTATION, with a little of Square's over-inflated, behemoth structure of the time trying to compensate.
It was so funny, to see Parasite Eve in print just brought back those days of disillusionment. Square fucked Who? Square shit out What? that sort of thing.
To wrap up this whole thing, I start a new topic for us old fogies, something I think about a lot. How far have video games come really? I think we were born at a crucial time in history, the first nintendo generation. I was what, 3 when my brother and I got one for christmas? My point is, games, as a whole, have sucked since SuperNintendo. Now I know that's a brash, totalitarian point with a crumbling foundation but seriously, what have cd/dvd/great graphics brought us? Am I really more satisfied. It must be a human thing to complain, to look at the past and scream bloody murder about its superiority, but SERIOUSLY!!!
Remember the knock down drag out war of the early 90s between sega and nintendo. That's gaming to me, that's the life and excitement. I remember my loyalties were entirely to nintendo, and it was always going back and forth. When Mortal Kombat came out on consoles, and Genesis had the gore code, I was infuriated. Those Sega-Jap-Bastards I said. That sort of thing. In EGM, I used to like reading the personal stories of the editors and the like, talking about being in college and playing madden92 all night, or playing doom for the first time, that sort of thing. I almost wish I would've been my age now back then. I sure as hell would've gotten more out of my gaming. Now I'm at that level, I'm an adult, not just a thoroughly boogered kid, but games have lost their glimmer.
Fan Service sums it all up. Everything has been eaten by bureaucracy and corporate culture. Everything is B-Bust catering to ADD Retards. Their are yes-men meeting up to maximize profits. Games were better when they were crude, because at least they were at the innovative front of crude.
Now we've got the language down perfect, but nothing left to say.
Okay, I've gone on long enough. Gaming and music, two of the only things I get lost blabbing about. Good luck on the final thrust of your blade into the bloated carcass of community college. If it get's tough, I reccomend PEARL (it always works for me).
-Spent
Jonner
うるさい
That's Japanese for, Jesus, would you shut the fuck up about your stupid game-elitism?
BZZZT!
Wait... Yes I will.
This first, though. It was brought to my attention that it seems like I've only really disliked one of the Final Fantasy games and that doesn't necessarily constitute a trend.
It was mostly at the lingual level of a retarded monkey trying to recite Shakespeare with his penis, but... I got the general idea and translated it for you. As you might have guessed, this has been another pearl of wisdom from a Japanese curasumeeto.
First of all, that's not true. The gradual degradation of something I consider enjoyable DOES constitute a trend, even if it hasn't gotten bad enough for me not to find said enjoyable thing enjoyable anymore.
Of course, that only matters if you don't need in-home care to keep you from hurting yourself with rectangular paper and wooden pencils.
He brings up a good point, though. I probably didn't make myself clear. I've been explaining things the way I would to a Hannah Lim or a Jon Cott... someone who played these games before it was "cool" to... because they were good games.
I forget that the VAST majority of you don't play video games, aren't good at them, and don't really like them. You play because you're a "gamer's" girlfriend, or you're trying to impress somebody, or you're an impressionable pop-culture MTV junkie... something like that. The list goes on.
- in which case, you probably only played FFX or in some cases, FF9 and don't know a Cloud from a Squall from a Zidane from a Locke.
If you haven't played any of them, stop reading and go do something constructive. I don't think I know ANYbody who hasn't played Final Fantasy X.
Anyway!! The degradation of Squaresoft is better documented not by the Final Fantasy games, but by the smaller spinoff games that Squaresoft produces. The observable trends that these games show, however, are extremely obvious. I thought it might not be worth mentioning, but since some of you seem to need me to tell you that the sun is bright and the arctic is cold, here we go:
I'm saying that Squaresoft games are trying to be marketable to people who can't appreciate good games, and in so doing make themselves cheaper. I'm not saying the games aren't still fun. I'm saying it's a deadly path we're treading. Remember Busihdo Blade? That's where it started, I belive. Parasite Eve, was also a genre-busting attempt. They were terrible games, but they weren't particularly disgusting or anything. They were just a failed attempt to appeal to the fighter and horror genres... they failed because Squaresoft doesn't make fighters and carpenters don't make lcd monitors. They can try if they want, but they'd be better off sticking to what they know they can do. Then we get the games like Ergheiz that helped cater to the world's frenzied obsession with Tifa's two forty-pound breasts. She was the first debaucherous element to be added to a Square game. It gets worse. Soon, with the successful appeal of FFX to faux-gamers (you know... there's a girl you know who tries to talk to you about Final Fantasy because she wants to be "cool" too, but it's obnoxious that she thinks all black mages are references to Vivi... the fish out of water that thinks she's convincing you she's a land-dweller... THAT girl)
Squaresoft offered us a shotgun blast of unsuccessful titles that had no identity around that time. Soba Frontier, The Bouncer, Brave Fencer Musashi, The SquareEnix titles, that racing game... all road signs in the maze Squaresoft is getting itself more and more lost in. The cheapening culminates with Kingdom Hearts. Now, Kingdom Hearts is a fun game... but come on. Even a moron can see what I'm talking about here. Wouldn't you be embarrassed if you started a game company today and saw yourself fifteen years in the future producing shit like this? Mandy Moore can NOT be Aeris. How dare they... how dare they tarnish the clerical purity of the silent pink flower of the slums?! How could they cast her as an empty-headed pop celebrity?! I won't even begin to tell you what's wrong with Lance Bass playing Sephiroth (although Haley Joel Osment sic did a great job as Sora). I know you're thinking, well... their voices weren't that way in Japan...
But they were. The voices of the characters in the Japanese version were mostly Disney employed voice actors for Japanese Disney cartoons.
For God's sakes, there's your standard heard-one-heard-'em-all j-pop song in FFX-2. See, having a Kumi Koda song in a game doesn't seem like a big deal to most of our country because Janie the housewife who played FFX in her spare time doesn't know anything about j-pop... she doesn't realize that it's pop music. She just thinks it's a badly translated song.
That's fine... but... keep in mind that if we had Britney Spears sing a pop opening to Hamlet, Japanese people would, for the most part, think it was pretty cool.
That's it. I'm done. No more of this Squaresoft ranting. Rejoice. Japanese 180 is over and all you nerds can bite my ass in hell.
I wish I'd thought that out better.
Oh, wait, no, I lied. I wanted to talk about the soundtrack to FFX2.
It's good. It's not Nobuo Uematsu, but since a lot of you don't have any idea who that is, it doesn't matter. The soundtrack isn't bad at all... on any level. I wanted that on the record because I know those of you that have Square experience (Jon Cott) are wondering if I'm enfuriated that Nobuo Uematsu didn't score FFX2. It's okay. We don't need him anymore. Nobuo Uematsu's music was perfect because it had an otherworldly beauty to it. The music he made was foreign and disorienting, but it was eerily recognizable. It bore a strange similarity to things we might have heard before. Since, however, Squaresoft games now operate on more of a Hanz Zimmer soundtrack, it doesn't really matter who does it, as long as it fits.
Okay, okay...
Hip hip hooray for fanservice!
And it is. The game's a lot of fun. I still really like the combat system and you get to see all your old buddies from FFX again.
FFX was unaccountably good. Christopher and I theorize that FF7 made Square all mainstream, so they crapped it all up for FF8 to tailor it to all the hype and ads. They realized it sucked, so with FF9 they went back to their roots, but they overdid it a little. FF9 is fun, but unremarkable. Then, for FFX, they struck just the right balance again...
So I guess I understand why they'd make an FF X-2. They think, "We may never get this lucky again, so let's hold on to Spira as long as we can and make as much money off of it as possible."
...the game gets pretty embarrasing to watch. Lots of the dialogue gives you an "oh Jesus, are you kidding me?" vibe... lots of one-liners from our new friend Paine (no, that's really her name - she's hurtin' inside). The costumes are pretty insulting, too. All in all, though, its one of those kinds of things where if you squint at it, it'd be okay. If I pretend Yuna's shorts extend just a little further so that they actually cover her ass instead of functioning as lingerie, I can revel in her continued adventures in Spira.
No substance, though... The point of my rants below is the fact that this lightweight game of meaningless fanservice is coming from my old dead friend Squaresoft. How did you feel when Orson Welles started having to advertise beer, fish sticks, and dog food? This is like that. I'm sure those were some pretty damn good commercials, but that's not the point. Oh, and I keep forgetting to do this:
FFX and FFVI get five stars.
FFVII gets four and a half.
FFIX, FFV, and FFIV get four stars.
FFI gets three (it was innovative, but you can't judge games by their novelty with regard to the time they came out)
FFVIII gets a bleeding skull and crossbones with human feces smeared all over it.
The jury's still out on X-2, but it can't really be measured since it owes all its success to the prior success of FFX.
This was mostly just so you know where I'm coming from. These are just opinions, though... Some of you have a hard time understanding that what makes me uneasy is the trend of video game development and the reduction of standards of practice in the name of the "all ighty ollar"... it's not that any one game is a specific abomination... except for FFVIII (which is specifically abominable).
Riiiiiiiight...
Holy freaking crap. This game has already made me laugh out loud twice, and I don't think it was on purpose.
"Oh...my...god." I liked this game better the first time I saw it when it was called "Charlie's Angels". I don't think this was meant to be a game, really. I think it's more of a fanservice kind of thing... It would make sense. Rikku's showing two kinds of cleavage, Yuna's dresses make me cry with shame, the gameplay is "Mission" based... I think it's a supplementary.
It could just be a bad first impression, though.
They must have gotten rid of the storyline, too, because it's just Final Fantasy Tactics Advance style mission acceptance. I miss the lineality. Far too many faux RPG "experts" whine and complain about a game being too linear, or sing praises about an expansive free roaming world without having played the game.
There's a tremendous difference between tedium and replay value. We've forgotten that. We cling to anything new or novel. Just because it isn't like most of the other games, doesn't mean it's better. That's a fallacy. Zing!
FFVI was a great non-linear game because, in the world of ruin, you can accomplish tasks out of order or not at all, but the cohesive story still guides the play. If you're just popping in and out of locations for no reason other than, "Let's go here next...", yes it's non-linear. No, it's not good.
FFX2 isn't too bad, though, all things considered. If I ignore the expectations I usually have of a Squaresoft game and I compare it to some of the other shit out there that companies want me to play, this game is one of the best out there. Sad, isn't it?
The combat system is kind of cool. I'd have to say it's my favorite ATB system thus far. I sort of liked the variable turn based fighting from FFX, though.
FF X-2: Hey, come on.
スクエやエックスは こんねん ティー アンド エイが だいすきです。
Squaresoft is the mainest of the mainstream these days, and you know what that means...
It's been lame-ified beyond recognition because that's what most people like.
You know Squaresoft games are no longer what they once were in the mid nineties because if you open up the OC Register there's a list of "Cool Family-Friendly Games that are Hot this Christmas!" in the accent section.
Uh... What the hell.
SquareEnix is it now, huh? If you're any kind of Final Fantasy fan that all nerds wish they were, you know how blasphemous that is.
What has happened to movies is happening to games too, you guys. I think it's time for us to kill ourselves in protest.
Take a gander at the back of the Final Fantasy X-2 box. It advertises an "all-female playable cast" that has "
interchangable outfits". "Last time she saved the world. This time... it's personal!"
"First real sequel EVER for a Final Fantasy game!"
I mean, that's fine for this (pictured right):
But, come on. There used to be a time when games were judged by their content and not by their flashy graphics or sexy women... and so desperate are we for that sex appeal to sell our games that we've destroyed the character of Yuna. Yeah, do you remember Yuna? The sweet, virginal, priestess who was an almost maternal source of purity and femininity in Final Fantasy X? Now she's a shoot-shoot bang-bang cowboy-gun-slut. That's amazing. And... look... I know there were a lot of you out there that wanted to bang Riku even though she was just a girl, so look! Here's your shot! She's all growed up and wearing hotpants and a thong. Wheeee.
It doesn't matter how many message boards you're the king of or how many times you've played FFVI on your emulator. Most of you "square fans" have no frame of reference against which to jude whether or not a game is good. Final Fantasy X-2 is an outrageous travesty. It's not a BAD game, of course. Schwarzeneggerian big-budget action flicks are not witout their merit either (I'm going to see The Last Samurai and drown in my own retard-drool and it will be fun)... But if these kinds of games are all you've known, you don't have a right to talk about Final Fantasy games like you're an expert just because you own all of Nobuo Uematsu's CDs. Games used to have to be about innovative gameplay, storyline, and character exposition because we were limited to this:
But if you haven't played them as they've come, you have no way to judge. These games weren't created in a time-space vaccuum, you know. If you consider yourself a longtime fan because you played FF7, you don't know what a good RPG is. You're a fish that doesn't know he's wet.
And yet... most people don't see what's happening here. We live in a world where Ubi-Soft is a powerhouse and Square and Enix are one and the same. Do you even remember Enix? They made bad RPGs... but the thing is that I STILL bought them.
Today's "nerd" tries to compensate for his lack of "worldly" (and by that I mean real experience in video gaming) exposure by drinking of the flood of information in which we're drowning. They think they're on the ball because they read all the news, watch all the promos, download all the trailers, and use the winamp skins.
Grow up.
Doing those things is unintentionally admitting that you have no concept of a really good game. Remember the "intentional fallacy"? You have to judge a work by its merits, not by the intention of its author or any other contextual information. The more you allow your judgement to be biased by the context of a game's creation, the more hypocritical and worthless your opinion of the game becomes.
And it really ought to bother everyone that they're remaking the old games. I know I'm essentially just paraphrasing the complaints Trey Parker and Matt Stone have already made about Star Wars' "Special Edition", but early games' mediocre translation and lack of flash graphics were part of their charm and part of the history of video games. The technology available at the time provides context for the look and feel of the games. If video games are always remade with bigger better computers, nothing will ever be sacred. Everything will be the domain of the masses, and any game that might have once specifically fit you will be destroyed in the name of a more sellable product with CG cutscenes and big explosions of technology.
If you can't enjoy a game that doesn't have killer graphics, you don't deserve to own any games.
You deserve, instead, to be speared with a steel spike up through your asshole out through your mouth.
Final Fantasy X-2 will probably be fun. It might have been nice to see Grown-up Rikku in a thong if I didn't feel like it was the deflowering and rape of someone I knew. It's like a person dressing your daughter in a thong and a white t-shirt and spraying her with a hose on live TV (and then broadcasting that show into the homes of the geekiest demographic on earth so that they can all masturbate to, what they can only assume must be, a naked female body). But, you know. If I could detatch myself from the characters, I'd still have a very male appreciation for the slutty costumes. That's part of the reason I own DOA:XBV. It was a good purchase. As long as I'm going to have a tedious volleyball game, I'd like to be looking at millions of dollars' worth of technology in the shape of a double-D sized Japanese girl with red hair. DOA:XBV Marketed itself as exactly that. What bothers me is that Squaresoft, the company I once thought responsible for all happiness on earth, has lost its way so much that I can use DOA:XBV for a contextual reference point when I write about Final Fantasy games. A number of girls play Final Fantasy games... what are they going to do? Video-game-women's unrealistic figures just piss most girls off... and now they're dressed just like any self-respecting woman would, right?... Maybe I'll keep playing FFX with Julia and tell her that there IS no FFX-2. The point is, games have fallen so far from what they used to be. Advancements in console's capabilities have only made game developers spend most of their time catering to those capabilities. The trend is the degradation and "blockbuster-izing" of video games and we have no reason to believe that it will stop with Final Fantasy X-2. Sure it's an embarrassing game, but that's all. Squaresoft decided to stab their standards in the back and wallow in the vomit of profitability by making a sequel to one of their games (they promised they'd never do it ten years ago, and now it's a drawpoint that they list on the back cover of the game). But at least the game is still going to be good. I don't feel ripped off. It's like a really good shitty movie, you know?
Which brings me to another point. I got into this argument with a kid in my Japanese glass (good sweet God, I hate those people). He had played Final Fantasy 8 and onward, so he was clearly an expert... but that's beside the point. Also beside the point is the fact that he's a 200 pound bag of pork with halitosis and acne who will die a virgin since his physical appeal is MORE of a drawpoint than his wit. My point is, that I don't hate these games and I don't hate Squaresoft. I hate people who don't appreciate the way they used to be, and that the way they are now is a perverse evolution of Squaresoft's former glory. That isn't to say, of course, that all of their progress has been bad. Some of it has just been different. Squaresoft's trend of change, in its entirety, is to cater to the increasing amounts of people that buy its games. The more people consume a product, the dumber it has to be, the less specificity it has to have, the shorter it has to be, the less substance it has to have, and the flashier it has to be (naked women, good graphics, explosions, etc.). That's bad. However, the more people consume a product, the better a chance it has of appealing to a demographic that deserves to enjoy a good RPG. Because it's a popular theme among lonely nerd guys AND women, there's more of an emphasis on romance in the later games.
Julia's going to bawl at the end of FFX. It's unfortunate that now, your average 11-year-old contentedly plays the same games as your average 20-year-old... but it's good that a recluse like me can play the same games as a flower like Julia.
The trend in game "advancement" however, is toward "extremeness" and "lameness" as an observant friend of mine has commented. That person said it very well. If left unchecked, how long will it be before games are reduced to pornography? How many years will it be before things are nothing but senseless splatters of appeals to popularity instead of a structured gaming experience? Pop culture references and celebrities being thrown around in games just for the sake of sales, not for the game.
I don't think it's too far off. I'm insulted by the way the medium has been infiltrated by popularity. Look what it's done to my beautiful hero of the past - Squaresoft. If you aren't similarly suspicious... you're part of the problem... and I'll be seeing you REAL soon. Mwaaah ha ha... mwah... mwah ha ha ha ha ha!
...because I'm going to draw a picture of you and put it on my dartboard. Bourgeoisie, I stab at thee.
New Self-made Site! You're thrilled!
...and I'm christening the new site with insults and complaints. Is anyone surprised? If you were, you're at the wrong website.
Yes, I know. You don't care whether or not I made it...
...and that's a pretty lousy attitude to have, mister.
The point is that, at least in some small way, I can stop being the "wangster" of the internet community by using an html builder to write my website for me. I suppose you could have called me a winternet wasite waproprietor.
What?
What doesn't work what way?
Well... anyway...
It's still under major construction, so don't be alarmed when some of my frames don't work, and don't commit suicide because most of the site is still in its old format. I know you would've. Saved your life! Now you're my slave.
That's all I wanted you to know.
Oh. You know what? I'm really tired of people getting mad at me and giving me labels because they're insecure about their own minds in some way.
I'm not a "word-nazi". I could be, if you'd like. I really could go waltzing around spouting a bunch of inappropriate SAT-list garbage. "Verisimilitude" this and "a priori" that and everything is quintessential, anachronistic, concordant, or pleurocardial. I mean, you know... Because I'm always talking about body cavities in my daily conversations.
The other day I had a conversation with someone who tried to tell me they weren't being "accusatory". I mean, come on. But I knew that, if I'd asked her on another day, she might have been able to tell me about being "accusational. Even if she just plain doesn't know, I still don't regret not saying anything because it wasn't an appropriate time. She was talking about something serious and wanted to be taken seriously.
The point is that if you complain that I'm too uppity about language, it says a lot more about you than it does me. Because you find evidence that I notice lingual mistakes, you become nervous and immediately throw up a smoke screen of disclaimers. "I don't care." "That's just the way I am." "He's ALWAYS correcting people. That's ALL he does."
Despite the fact that those are all fallacies... I don't understand why it makes you so uncomfortable. It shouldn't.
If you're lousy with the language, it's not a big deal. The only people that need to backpedal out of my vision or hide behind an excuse are people that can't communicate, but would like to think that they could.
If Claudius hadn't killed Hamlet's father, he wouldn't have objected to the play so much.
Catch my drift?
This would be much easier to explain if I could name the people I'm thinking of... but that wouldn't be very... classy.
And with regard to the idea that being "wordy" is an individual trait I've dedicated my life to... you could only believe something like that if you'd failed at doing it yourself. I don't sit around reading the dictionary. I don't even read very much anymore. I make typographical errors just like everyone else and I seldom correct them. The English language just comes fairly easily to me, and for the aforementioned prejudices it is a terrible liability (as most abilities are). It's not even anything great. I'm not pretending that there's anything that distinguishes me from the thousands of others like me that have come and gone. Relative to my other skill levels, my wordsmithing is pretty okay. Don't panic now. I'm probably not talking to you, even if it might seem that way. I'm trying to make the case that I shouldn't be targeted by classic American anti-intellectualism because very few of you have any real reason to suspect that I am intelligent. Even if I were, though (which, really, I must insist that I'm not)... are we not familiar with the concept of knowledge being freeing? We believe, after all, that language preceeds thought. Only a... how shall I say... stupid ass would try to distance lingual ability from mental prowess. Are you trying to tell me that we are able to communicate well or excel in English academia the same way some people are real good bowlers?
"And you'd say 'SOUR GRAPES!'"
-Tommy Smothers
Should I ask what kinds of excellence you DON'T dismiss, would I find that (suspiciously) they are the ones that you are the champions of? Is being irritating one of them?
I think you need to go watch a summer blockbuster and talk about how brilliant it was. I'm not very good at dealing with faux-intellectuals.