Dragon Ball Super Ep. 121: Notes and Final Thoughts

 I had a fair amount to say about this episode. I kind of went in with high hopes we would get something a little different. I suppose we did but not in a good way. It was kind of boring. Yes the visuals were somewhat impressive, especially at the end, but a good story is more than visuals. There’s heart, there’s innovation, there’s subverting tropes, or even using some tropes the audience might not expect. We did not get that.

What I would have liked to see would be a few variations, make the monster so strong and so crazy the pride troopers are forced to get involved. And rather than leaving the hero’s ready for the final fight, leave them in a bit of a pinch, make them exhausted or injured. Maybe make us care about Universe 3 more. They had a great moment when they were erased, but I needed more to really care about them, which is sad, because if you think about it a universe getting erased is horrific. All these people are fighting for their survival, and we should get a sense of that throughout the fighting.

The review, from watching the episode to the finished video took about three and a half hours, which meant it was kind of late to post on Saturday night. I’m trying to find a way to say more while shortening the production. I worry about trying to ab lib at this point, but I really want to be able to put something up by 10 or 10:30 EST.

The Universe three arc is now finished and I am glad to see it go. It was unworthy considering how close we are to the end. I just hope the ending actually does live up to the hype.

-Gedaemon

My Yearly Pokemon Binge

There are two video game events I look forward to every year. My Zelda binge and my Pokémon binge. I am currently working through the Pokémon binge.

It makes sense in a way. I pick up anyone one of the six out of seven generations of Pokémon games I own, play it, and when I am done I’m still not satisfied so I pick up another.

The thing that makes playing Pokémon so wonderful is every play through is a little different. You never know what you will catch to fill up your party, and if you get anything interesting or useful you can pass it up through the pokebank. When I get tired of it, all my mon will be waiting for me next year.

Competitive Pokémon is full of number crunching and complicated strategies which I really respect, but so far I haven’t had the patience for things like breeding a perfect Pokémon or EV training. Instead I’ve really enjoyed self-imposed challenges like Nuzlocks. For those who don’t know, a nuzlock is when you can only catch the first Pokémon you see in an area, and if it faints it’s dead. I generally give myself a little leeway. I can catch rare things as long as I don’t use them, I box rather than release, and I like to give myself a rare traded Pokémon near the start of the game just to make things different. I do sacrifice a captured Pokémon to get it however. The last one was a Mankey that unfortunately died soon after coming aboard. This time it’s a Gloomy that will hopefully last a bit longer.

Nuzlock purists will probably scoff at the liberties I’ve allowed myself, but that’s the great thing about the series, there are so many ways to play. You can play normally, competitive, nuzlock. You can do all of these to one degree or another.

Each generation also has its own charm. I have both Leaf Green and the virtual console of Blue. Even though they tell roughly the same story they are very different games, as the mechanics in the third generation are not the same as the first. If pressed I prefer Leaf Green if only because I can play it on the big screen via GameCube. On the other hand I prefer Emerald to Omega Ruby despite the improved mechanics.

It’s all this that makes Pokémon such a solid game series, and why Game Freak can get away with putting out pretty much the same game time and time again. With so much to do and see, the need for innovation is minimal. It’s far more important that each generation and game has its own flavor, like chocolate or vanilla ice cream. As much as people talk about craving something new and original, they also love simple variation on a theme with a dose of nostalgia, and there is nothing wrong with that. Pokémon is successful because the formula works.

Anyway, I’m glad I got into it shortly before the announcement of Crystal. That should be fun. It has been a long time since I played a second generation game and it will round out my collection. I only hope my interest holds out through February. 

-Gedaemon

My Thoughts: How Mr. Satan Became Hercule

Watch the Video

Dragon Ball Z is one of my all-time favorite shows. The first time I saw it was the Ocean dub with its awesome/cringeworthy “Rock the Dragon” opening. So, for a long time, my experience with Dragon Ball was censored. But on the street I started hearing rumors: That the Japanese Dragon Ball was full of violence and cursing, and this captivated my young imagination.

Of course, of all the things you could censor in Dragon Ball Z, the name “Mr. Satan” is odd. You can at least argue that violence could be imitated and people could get hurt, but this is just a name for a gag character.

Enter religion. To many people Satan is not just a religious figure, but a reality, and exposing children to a fun gag character named “Mr. Satan” is a threat not to their bodies but to something far more serious,  their eternal life.  Religion took a name and made it unusable.

Of course, there was no group that protested against a name being appropriated from a Roman god. Why is that? Well, of course most people don’t believe in the Roman Gods and even most Christians regard them as something akin to fairy tales. We still teach or children the basics of Greek and Roman myths for cultural competency and few worry that their children will be converted to classical paganism. And that is the hypocrisy: the decision is not made on an avoidance of any religious references, just those likely to upset a large subset of the population.

Why do sectarian religious views shape localization? Is it because of quantifiable harm? Or is it because certain groups have the numbers to raise a stink? Like so much censorship, the localization of Mr. Satan was driven by a desire to avoid controversy.  A bunch of angry parents writing letters and not letting their children watch the show is bad for business and that is, for many companies, far more important than artistic integrity. That is not likely to change.

What can change however is how companies view the issue. Anime is special in that fans have, and do, raise a stink about these issues, enough to make companies realize they are likely to lose more viewers for putting out a censored version. There is now public pressure to not censor anime. Imagine if people responded to censorship the way they did about EA micro-transactions. Fan demands can translate into improved industry behavior.

In any case I am happy dragon Ball Super, with all its market potential, can air uncensored in the US.

Small victories.

-Gedaemon

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My Thoughts: the Localization of Mario Kart

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Harvest Moon DS & Quest mechanics

Recently I’ve been playing Harvest Moon DS again. Why? Is it because I am a glutton for punishment?  Is it that it has lots of addicting mechanics? I am not sure. Probably because there is just so much content in the game I haven’t seen yet.

I’ve written about Harvest Moon DS before.  I was unfair then, having just got off of a play through of Harvest Moon 64 I was jaded, but I do think the game piles on needlessly complicated tasks to pad things out. The most egregious example is the quest to rescue the harvest sprites.

At the beginning of the game the harvest sprites and the harvest Goddess disappear, and through doing a variety of random or repetitive tasks, you must recue sixty of the sprites to return the Harvest Goddess to the valley. Until you do this you cannot access large parts of the game.

Quests are an indispensable part of RPG mechanics. Ideally the game gives you a goal, some in game motivation for the goal, and a reward for the player at the end. This reward could be a cut scene, a special item, or if the quest is central part of the game, plot advancement.  But there are several kinds of quests, fun quests with easy to moderate difficulty, or hard, tedious quests meant to satisfy completionist urges.

The great thing about the classic Harvest Moon games is that they are filled with both kinds of quests. As you go about building your farm and starting a life in the country side there are all sorts of weird characters, funny cut scenes and special items you can unlock by completely various tasks.  Some of these quests are obvious. Some you have to think about or just look up, some are just impossible thanks to shoddy programing or localization; something very common in Harvest Moon DS, and 64.  But the problem with the Harvest sprite quest is that it’s both tedious and central to the plot. You have to unlock the sprites or the game wont advance. And the sprites are sealed behind repetitive activities like selling three hundred bottles of milk, or upgrading a tool to max.  What if I don’t want to raise animals? What if I want to turn all my milk into cheese so I can sell at a higher price? Then good luck unlocking a good chunk of the harvest sprites, because your other options are buried behind even more difficult and tedious accomplishments.

This is a pity because there is a lot you can do in this game. It chalked full of content, but before you can access a lot of it it you have to grind, and not just the random mindless grinding of a classic RPG which could be charming it its own way. The easiest way to unlock the harvest sprites is to look at which ones you have, and look up online which you are closest to unlocking, then plan your gameplay around the mechanic.  It should be the other way around, and I think it’s clear they were going for that. Most sprites are unlocked through normal gameplay elements like watering crops or selling stuff. But the numbers involved and the nature of the quests makes this end up backwards. You end up playing the game to fulfill the quest, not fulfilling the quest by playing the game.

So what makes a quest mechanic good? A good quest mechanic is one you want to complete, not just one you have to. A good quest mechanic is fun. Of course this is highly subjective, some people get joy out of fulfilling any quest no matter how out of the way or tedious. That’s fine and I think it is good that so many games have stuff for those people who either love  getting 100% completion or just can’t get enough of an individual game. Nor am I one of those people who believes a game should necessarily be easy or purely about story progression. True, some games are designed that way, and they should minimize mechanics that get in the way of that. There are all sorts of games, but I do question the wisdom of putting a long, tedious quest at the game’s core.  I am sure there is a market for that, but when I pick up an RPG I expect some degree of complicated quests, but I expect the long drawn out ones to be secondary to the gameplay. 

-Gedaemon