Native Jovian

I just picked Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers (yes, that's it's actual name) back up again after not having played it in a while. Holy crap, I forgot how completely and utterly ridiculously awesome it is in every possible way. If you liked the original Crystal Chronicles at all, or if you enjoy things that are awesome, then definitely give Crystal Bearers a try. It should be pretty cheap to pick up used, and it really has to be played to be believed.

Have you seen it? I enjoyed it when it looked like a Yu Yu Hakusho clone (middle/high school students protecting humanity from evil spirits!), but as soon as they started the actual plotline, it dove headfirst into all the worst parts of shonen anime. People spending more time talking about their relative power levels and/or secret techniques than actually fighting. Having zillions and zillions of enemies who naturally attack the heroes in ascending order by power level so that each battle increases their strength just enough for them to win the next battle. New enemies emerging from nowhere with no warning just as the previous enemies were destroyed. Etc etc etc. Nothing about it is unique or original, or even particularly well executed.

I actually just finished watching Gurren Lagann (free on Youtube? YES PLZ). It was alright, but not great. Simon was a pretty weak protagonist until about episode 20 or so, and while the secondary characters generally made up for it, there were a bunch of episodes (9/10 and about 16-20) that just made me want to stab things. Gainax needs to learn that mecha protagonists should go from awesome in the beginning to AWESOME!!! at the end, not from sorta lame in the beginning to awesome by the end. Gurren Lagann was entertaining overall, but I'd still recommend G Gundam for your hotblooded beyond-the-impossible awesome incarnate. (Zoids New Century Zero is also a good choice for that purpose, though it can't compete with either G Gundam or Gurren Lagann for sheer ridiculousness.) Plus, Gurren Lagann's epilogue was just sorta weird. Kinda made the entire thing feel a little pointless.

I will, but only if the bets can be posted in Valve time.

I could be wrong but I think this is exactly what people are complaining about. Also, good to see other people sharing my raging hatred of the ambassador

Well sure, pick one of the best songs on the soundtrack. There were certainly some bright spots here and there, but overall I found Turn A's OST to be pretty generic. I never really noticed the music while I was watching it, which, while not necessarily a bad thing, isn't quite what one expects of Yoko Kanno.

Holy shit, I stealth-punned myself. Damn. But yeah, I hear the manga is a lot better than the anime for most of the issues I had with Plantes, but I'm not a big manga fan in general so... yeah. I wouldn't even believe this was possible if I hadn't watched Turn A Gundam.

Planetes had a brilliant setting, memorable characters, high quality animation, and gets massive bonus points for respecting Newtonian physics. Which it why it was so soul-crushingly disappointing that the plot was absolutely garbage. Not only was the pacing terrible in general, but the ultimate conflict and resolution both were supremely unsatisfying. It made me sad.

I finally got around to watching a half dozen or so episodes of Gurren Lagann on Youtube today. I saw one random episode on TV a while ago, decided it sucked, and didn't look back until mecha fans across the internet wouldn't shut the fuck up about it. My thoughts: about what I expect from Gainax, fairly entertaining as long as your threshhold for fanservice is high. However, I find myself wanting to stab Simon just so he'll stop taking screen time from Kamina, and I'm aware of certain spoilers that make this sadly impossible. And yet, people keep telling me that the series gets BETTER after episode eight-or-so. Wat. I distinctly remember wanting to stab Simon really really super extra hard just from the one random episode (which was around the middle of the series, IIRC) that I saw. Someone please explain this discrepancy to me.

If there was any MMO I was going to be interesting it, it would be this one, but a) I can't spare the money right now, and I hear the learning curve is murderously steep.

I agree with this 100%.

YES.

Does the DVD have extended scenes of Quaritch being even more awesome or anything like that? Because then I might actually buy it.

I cannot get over the irony of this being a comment about the fact that he didn't like a game franchise that centers around killing gods.

All three of those movies were awesome. Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

Eh, I can't stand manga. I dunno what it is about the medium, but I can't get into it at all.

I rewatched Zoids New Century recently, and it remains ridiculously over the top awesome. I've also started watching Air Gear, which is basically Jet Set Radio: The Anime (except with more violence and less graffiti). It's pretty much exactly what you'd expect out of a shonen anime featuring rocket skates, with the notable exception that it has a lot of swearing and nudity (so it's not the sort of thing you want to watch with your elementary school kid brother or something, regardless of how harmless the premise seems). It actually sorta annoys me, because it seems like every five minutes they have to remind you that this is a SERIOUS show for ADULTS because it has CUSS WORDS and TITS HELL YEAH WOO!, which is an attitude that I find highly silly. It's not even relatively clever fanservice, like (say), FLCL. It's literally "HERE LET ME SHOW YOU MY TITS WOO". Apparently the guy who wrote the manga used to do porn and never quite kicked the habit. But then, I read that on the internet, so who knows if it's actually true?

Zircon, we can pitch "people like ME2!" vs. "people didn't like FF12!" back and forth at each other all day, but anecdotes don't really make a case. Is innovation riskier than stagnation? Yes, certainly. Are many companies risk-averse? Yes, certainly. Does that mean the industry as a whole is stagnating? No, obviously not. The smaller companies you mention essentially have to innovate because they can't compete with the sheer production values of larger developers. Hell, Nintendo does a lot of this too -- you think the Wii is an example of the industry stagnating? I hope I don't have to point out the different ways that the Wii is innovative to you. And it's, by far, the best selling console -- as in, "nearly as much as the PS3 and 360 combined" best selling.

You always say then when I end up on the opposite side of an issue as you. Then he's missing the point entirely, because most of the examples he gives (ME2, Bioshock 2, FFXII) were commercial successes. He's saying that the gaming industry is stagnating, and places the blame on people who complain about the sort of innovations seen in ME2 and FFXII and Heavy Rain ("We complain that videogames have stagnated – that they’re not innovative enough anymore. But when someone puts a new spin on an old idea, we roll our eyes and suddenly become cynical old museum curators, shooing away every piece that can’t fit in a frame and hang on a wall."), when those games have done very well and have made money. Hell, the most popular console by far is the Wii, which is by far the most "different" of the modern consoles. If he's trying to say that people are wrong for disliking ME2/FF12/whatever, then he's an idiot for trying to tell people what their opinions should be. If he's trying to say that gamers dislike innovation and that dislike is harming the industry, then he's objectively wrong because that's verifiably not the case.

I disagree. Ignoring the pedantic definition of "RPG" (you're playing a role in a video game, it's an RPG, durrrrr), he's basically saying that people are complaining about ME2 for being different even though it's better. Which completely ignores the fact that the people complaining about it don't think it's better. Same here; people didn't like FFXII's combat (preferring old school RPG battles) are "close-minded" and "stuck on their preconceived notions" rather than "having a different opinion". The underlying assumption is that FFXII's combat is better, and the people who refuse to admit that are just having negative kneejerk reactions to innovation. It's basically begging the question. "FFXII is better than previous FFs, so why do a lot of people dislike it?" "Maybe they don't think it's better." "Well, they're wrong, it is, so they must just hate anything new." As far as from within the thread itself... The opposing opinion, that it's better to actually be making decisions during a battle rather than sitting back and literally watching the game play itself, is equally valid. And yet, some people play through the whole game multiple times for different character builds and such. Are they WRONG in doing that? Are they deluding themselves by playing and enjoying a BAD game? The whole exchange between Jack and Vagrance is pretty much a perfect example of what I'm talking about. You can go for point-by-point rebuttals of your respective thoughts on a given game, but it's pointless, because it's a matter of opinion. Arguing about opinions is pointless because it just comes down to personal taste.

Summary of both the original article and the thread it spawned: YOUR OPINION IS DIFFERENT THAN MINE THEREFORE YOU ARE WRONG QED! Seriously, just because you hate random battles and like FFXII's system better doesn't mean that everyone who likes random battles and so hated FFXII's system are wrong. It just means that they have a different opinion than you. Just because you like shooting stuff more than mucking about with stats and level-ups doesn't mean that ME2's system is forever and always better than ME1's system. I like mucking about with stats. I love games like FFT and MS Saga that let me customize every little bit of every unit in my party -- games where I spend more time preparing for combat than actually fighting. But luckily, I had whatshisface from MaximumPC to tell me I'm wrong. Seriously, why is it so hard for some people to simply accept that different people have different tastes, which lead them to have different opinions about the same thing? You're allowed to disagree with someone without either of you being right or wrong! Seriously.

Apologies for not knowing that Balthier appeared in WotL, but: 1) time mage looks exactly the friggen same 2) dancer isn't even in that picture 3) Dur.

...the FF12 character? What the fuck? Why would he be in an FFT poster (DUR HUR DUR THEY'RE BOTH IVALICE aside)?