Odds and Ends - Refresh Edition

Finally got Melee back in the house after an ill-concieved lending on Lego's part. Had a few stand out rounds with Doc. Typical... Doc's the only one of my mains not returning for Brawl. Other than that I'm pretty happy with the final roster. (Really, though, Falco, but no Dr. Mario? Are you serious?)

Some nice TF2 last night. Defending the third Dustbowl stage, I registered 43 kills and 9 deaths. (Assist, destruction, and defense totals escape me.) Lego is totally right, though; Skill levels skyrocket after midnight.

Speaking of which, can anybody recommend a good PS3 mic? My Samsung WEP200 is not really meant for this purpose.

Obligatory T5DR notes: I keep seeing high rank Drag ghosts using a punch parry that I don't know. I've heard rumblings in the forums about this hidden move. I really need to look into it. Those same ghosts just love Pinpoint Fracture (qcf+4). (Why don't I?) Thirdly, for some reason, I'll use the Choke and Roll (f,f+2) nigh constantly when I'm screwing around with Hwoarang, but I never use Sergei's (f,f+1+2). (Blizzard Rush, or whatever it's called.) I've got a lot of work to do before T6.

Sidenote: When the fuck is T6 coming out? I've always heard Namco likes to keep SC and Tekken releases as far apart as possible. With SC4 slated for June, formulaically, T6 should drop now, or early Q4.

In other news, Final Fantasy XII By Committee is closing in on the last Esper, the notorious Zodiark. Deep within the lair of the uber-bats, also known as the Henne Mines, we battled our way to the thirteenth summon, only to be rebuffed. (Game over.) Down, but not out, we took a breather to fell the Shadowseer at Ridorana after FAQ'ing the arbitrary black orb puzzle. We then commenced Henne Bat Genocide '08 to bring the stragglers up to Level 60 and recessed for the week. Hopefully some research should yield success next time. Next on the agenda is the loot-swapping Biggoron's Sword Tournesol process and the last few Elite Marks. I'm not sure if we've settled on taming all the Rare Games are not, but we are nearing the end of XII. Just in time for XIII!

The End of the World

Yesterday, June 13, was "Blog Like It's the End of the World Day." Everyone was supposed to write a blog entry as though the world were under attack by zombies. I would have participated, had I known in advance, but these things have a way of sneaking up on me (see also Talk Like a Pirate Day).

I don't know about you, but I treat every day like we're only one zombie attack away from obliteration because, let's face it, we may well be only one zombie attack away from obliteration. There's just no way to know.

In any case, I'm sorry I missed international zombie uprising blog day because gaming has a long, rich history of zombie inclusion and representation. A colleague and I, shirking work for a few minutes, were discussing the brilliance of a collaborative, War of the Worlds-esque "widespread zombie attacks" scenario in the blogosphere when it came to light that I have never played Resident Evil in any of its various iterations.

My colleague, a non-gamer at that, was visibly shocked and said incredulously: "But even I've played Resident Evil." My gamer cred is suffering with her, I can tell. I must stress that it would be impossible to overemphasize her shock and incredulity.

It is a damn shame, and I'm properly embarassed about it. Resident Evil (Biohazard in Japan) is a gaming industry mainstay and in the top 20 best-selling game franchises of all time. Japan has even issued a commemorative stamp in honor of its ten-year anniversary. The thing is, playing as Jill Valentine all those years ago I walked into the hallway where the zombie dobermans come crashing in through the window and that was it for me. Too scary. I mean zombies are scary enough, but you can get away from them because they're shambling. Not so the MA-39 Cerberus; they're fast, and snarling and slavering and scary. My Jill Valentine took shelter in a nearby closet, and she's been in there ever since.

Resident Evil was really a pioneer of the survival horror genre, which has become an increasingly popular subset of games. Capcom's 2006 blockbuster Dead Rising for the XBox 360 is a testament to this phenomenon. Naturally, I haven't played Dead Rising as I don't own a 360; as Killa has mentioned before, Dead Rising is one of the few titles on the Microsoft platform that really inspires jealousy in us.

Even outside of the survival horror genre, zombies make memorable appearances throughout the industry. Take ReDeads from the Legend of Zelda series, for example. These creepy f***ers have no business being in a Legend of Zelda game. That ear-splitting, paralyzing shriek when Link makes eye contact with them; their slow, shambling progression toward Link as he stands frozen in place, quaking, waiting for the paralysis to wear; you desperately jam every controller button---or swing your wiimote around like a cowboy, if you're playing Twilight Princess---but they just keep coming. It's been noted that the frightening ReDeads are out of place in the Legend of Zelda series, an unexpectedly terrifying apparition in a series that is often suitable for children.

Not all zombies are horrible, though. Perhaps the least loathable game zombie is Sir Auron from Final Fantasy X. On the surface FFX appears to be, much like every other FF game, a convoluted, action-packed adventure full of political overtones and set in a rich, detailed fantasy milieux, all overlying a poignant love story. Another analysis of FFX is that it's a crazy, zombie-infested doomsday tale; a zombie sleeper hit, even. Think about it---who among them is not an unsent (that is, a person who has died but whose spirit has not been sent to the farplane)? Every turn in FFX leads you to the revelation that someone is a zombie. Even the main boss, Yu Yevon, is cruising around the world in a giant zombie fish thing. Likewise, Seymour Guado---and his creepy mother, the aeon Anima (or Fish Mummy, Killa and I like to call her)---, the Maesters of Yevon, Beldemine, Yunalesca, one by one turn out to be unsent. Finally, Yuna's trusty bodyguard, Auron, too, turns out to be undead.

If I had had time to concoct a blog entry for yesterday's event, it would have read something like this:

Work is cancelled because there's a zombie uprising. Going to try to finish Odin Sphere with the unexpected free time. If I'm not too tired later, maybe looting and rioting.

If there was a mass zombie uprising, I'm afraid I'd be woefully unprepared, having never played through the training manual.

Odds and Ends (Catarina Edition)

Allergy season is in full swing and I could not be any more miserable than I am. I have gone through several boxes of Kleenex in the last month alone. The Claritin, it does nothing! Fortunately, I have at least one thing to look forward to in the coming weeks. After being alerted by Joystiq's post on the subject, I got tickets for myself and my husband to see Video Games Live at the Kennedy Center. Unfortunately, Killa won't be able to join us due to a work obligation.

Because there wasn't enough fussin' and a-feudin' in the world already, Square Enix definitively confirmed Final Fantasy XIII as a PS3 exclusive (via IGN). Read through the comments at your own risk, if you feel you are prepared to witness the depth and breadth of fan's inhumanity to fan. I'm less interested in the news itself than in the reaction from soldiers on both sides of the console war.

In other news, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link was the one-hundredth game offered on the Wii Virtual Console, debuting this week. I never beat Zelda II when I was playing it twenty years ago, because it was too difficult. However, in the age of the Internet (the GameFAQs age), anything is possible. Also new this week is one of my all-time favorite NES games, Milon's Secret Castle. If, like me, you have forgotten how to get the spring shoes, you should check out the awesome Milon's Secret Website.

Finally---I saved this for the end since it has embedded video, although it's probably the most interesting tidbit in this post---Bethesda Softworks has released a teaser trailer for Fallout 3. I'm looking forward to this game more, perhaps, than is appropriate considering I never played Fallout 1 or Fallout 2. And not simply because Liam Neeson is going to be providing some of the voice work. Enjoy!

Get Lucky: Part Snake Eyes

The Odds Stat

As much as I disdain straying in the slightest from the world of videogames, Marvel Comics has always been very good to us gamers, so I think this one trespass can be forgiven. Marvel introduced Longshot in 1985 in a six part limited series. He was a four-fingered alien with hollow bones and the reality altering powers that resulted in him having unnaturally good luck. (And as we've seen from the Scarlet Witch, the ability to defy probability is quite the volatile gift.)

He even appeared as a selectable character in the obscure 1990 DOS RPG X-Men II: The Fall of the Mutants. He also lent his name to a piece of equipment in X-Men Legends II, a nifty item called The Luck of the Longshot. He is oft overshadowed in the videogame arena by his nemesis Spiral due to her appearance in Capcom fighters, most notably in the lead off slot of Duc Do's highly successful MvC2 team of Spiral/Cable/Sentinel.

But enough periphery. An intriguing ability, to have perpetually good luck. Though the Slots of which I spoke in Part I may be mastered through the exercise of hand-eye coordination there is still an element of chance within the spinning reels. Quantifying someone's luck, though, seems like a ridiculous task. That is to say, unless you are a game developer.

Take the cult classic post-apocalyptic RPG Fallout. Luck is one of the primary stats present in the game's robust character creation mode. The shelling out one's bonus points towards Luck provides a higher critical chance, improvement of some skills, and has some effect on the story.

It can be particularly effective to allocate enough points to bring Luck to 9 or 10, and then pick the Jinxed trait, which would normally cause you and everyone around you to have more critical failures, i.e. misfires and whiffs. With a prodigious luck sum, however, you will be invulnerable to this effect, and only your opponents (and allies) will be subject to this misfortune. There is also the Alien Blaster weapon, that can only be acquired through a rare random encounter in the desert that is stumbled upon exclusively by the highly lucky vault-dwellers.

Take another classic, the PS1 smash Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Alucard's Luck will determine the frequency of dropped items from fallen foes, the chances of a critical hit, and also the likelihood of the Talisman item's effect kicking in and absorbing damage in your stead. MagusB has written an intriguing Luck Mode FAQ, which covers a Luck Mode run through. It is a sort of New Game+ challenge starting with ridiculously weak statistics and 99 Luck, which apparently completely changes the feel of the game. It is suggested that one is wise to abandon the use of magic and subweapons. Also, the aforementioned Talismans that are next to useless on a regular playthrough due to the rarity of their activation are the saving grace of the highly luckly vampire hunters.

And Square Enix, wow. Not only do they have a passionate love affair with slots (e.g. VI's Setzer or VIII's Selphie), they too embrace the luck statistic, off and on. In the luck-oriented X-2 of which I have already made mention, it is used as a roll, if you will, against status ailments sticking. In the toughest neighborhood in Spira, the notorious Via Infinito dungeon, the villainous Chac fiend will make short work of your descent by petrifying YuRiPa in the Glare of an eye. It is highly recommended that one uses the Ray of Hope Garment Grid's Luck-boosting effect in conjunction with the Lady Luck jobsphere's naturally good fortune to avoid the stony fate of many a reckless Gullwing. Preparation, you see, that's what I call making your own luck.

All in all, chance is a bit of a paradox in videogames. Timeseeding functions replace real randomness, and good fortune translates into finding nice loot. I suppose it's better than how luck works in real life, though. What with bad luck and all.

Get Lucky: Part I

Slots of Fun

As I mentioned a few PgDns ago, I've been indulging in Mario Party 7 recently. One minigame from which I experienced higher than average enjoyment was a Single Player Bowser Minigame called Slot-A-Whirl. It is a rather simplistic game; stop the three slot reels to line up three Bowser keys, and you get to keep whatever Bowser threatened to confiscate. Faire Square of Mario Party 6 has a very similar board event, and there are several other instances of slot-based game mechanics in the series.

Slot-A-Whirl caught my attention in part due to its difficulty. It is actually somewhat tricky, unlike the board event from Faire Square that is nigh impossible during the night phase. I fancy myself an afficionado of video game slots primarily due to my extended time with Final Fantasy X-2. After enough playtime, ordinary battles became unneccesary. Only boss battles required actually indulging in combat, and in such cases there are plenty of overpowered tactics to exploit, such as the Catnip Gunner or the Mascot dresspheres.

One of the easiest methods to access, even in one's first playthough, is the Lady Luck dressphere and her Slots ability. The three reels can combine to produce a wide range of effects, running the gamut from beneficial, to ineffectual, to disasteriffic. But once one masters the skill of selecting and executing different effects, one can draw great power from this randomness. (Extensive use of the pause function can aid in the quick adaptation to the system, in case you were wondering.)

The greatest of the offensive results is Dark Matter. A nifty little attack that fires off the old "one shy of ten grand" (i.e. 9999), which for much of the game is enough to Overkill anything that dares block the Gullwing's path. Besides through the Lady Luck loophole, Dark Matter is a rather rare item, and an otherwise valuable commodity in X-2 and other iterations of the Final Fantasy multiverse.

This meditation has stirred my interest in (yet another) FFVII play through, this time with a focus on Cait Sith. His Slot Limit Break is something I have left woefully unexplored. A quick look at the definitive FAQ of FFVII by Kao Megura (may he rest in peace) reveals that the effects of this one-armed bandit can include: a random Summon, a total HP/MP restore, the super Moogle, guaranteed criticals for a time, or instant death for your opponents or your party. Beats the hell out of a Dolphin Blow, no?

(to be continued...)

Bad Mother Snubbers

We all know Mother's Day is a day to make Mom feel special. Well, we did that for Jenova and The Boss, but there are a lot of moms in the gaming universe that we left out. So here's a quick rundown. (And massive apologies for those who didn't make it into this list, either...) >.>

Mother Brain (Metroid) Big Sis Prinny (Disgaea) Justice (Guilty Gear) Sindel (Mortal Kombat) Olga Gurlukovich (MGS2) Wrinkly Kong (Donkey Kong) Elmyra Gainsborough (FFVII) Edea Kramer (FFVIII) Q-Bee (Darkstalkers) Jun Kazama (Tekken) Nina Williams (Tekken)

Happy Mother's Day: Jenova

The one the Professor mistook for a Cetra . . . was named Jenova. That is the "calamity from the sky." We are all nothing more than Jenova's puppets.

Sephiroth says it best when he explains: "The Jenova Project wanted to produce people with the powers of the Ancients . . . no, the Cetra. . . . I am the one that was produced." An itinerant alien creature found sealed in a "2000 year old geological stratum," apparently dead: Jenova. A psychotic scientific experiment injects Jenova's cells into the unborn child Sephiroth. Is Jenova his mother? Sephiroth seems to think so, noting that "With her superior power, knowledge, and magic, Mother was destined to become the ruler of the Planet." But Sephiroth isn't alone. Without realizing it, the cast of Final Fantasy VII and many of the various people and creatures that they meet are being drawn to the Knowlespole (i.e., the Northern Crater), for Jenova's Reunion. Although they believe they are willfully hunting down Sephiroth, the truth is that the alien Jenova cells within Cloud---as well as those within the many black-cloaked figures they encounter---are being inexorably drawn toward Sephiroth's body---the largest concentration of Jenova cells---to reform the creature Jenova.

Throughout the game, whenever the player's party fights Sephiroth, Jenova appears to battle immediately afterward. Later on, as the plot unfolds, it becomes apparent that Sephiroth has been ensconced in the Lifestream, frozen deep within the Northern Crater, the whole time. What you've been fighting are pieces of Jenova under Sephiroth's control impersonating Sephiroth (as Sephiroth says, "The ability to change one's looks, voice, and words, is the power of Jenova"). The fascinating aspect of this Madonna-and-child dynamic is their reciprocal symbiosis: Jenova's cells exist and act from within her son and host, Sephiroth; meanwhile, Sephiroth---frozen and incapacitated beneath the Knowlespole---can only exert his influence in the world by controlling the Jenova cells in others. Although Sephiroth emerges as the primary antagonist of Final Fantasy VII, all of his actions are designed to promote Jenova's agenda: to effect the "Reunion" that will allow her cells to reform, and then to take back the planet in her name.

In the final event of Final Fantasy VII, the Sephiroth > Jenova pattern is reversed: As any mother would do (and, we realize toward the end of the game, as she has done all along), she comes between the player's party and her son, Sephiroth. Only when she has finally been defeated can you battle the real Sephiroth at last and end the game.

In Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, the characters Kadaj, Yazoo, and Loz are introduced as children of Jenova, striving to complete the Jenova Reunion that was foiled during the events Final Fantasy VII. In Advent Children, the trio places a special emphasis upon Jenova as the "mother" of any creature that is infected with her cells (including all of the children experiencing the Geostigma illness). Kadaj and company, oddly enough, don't carry any Jenova cells within themselves, which is why they are so desparate to find the missing head of Jenova (remember that Sephiroth carried it off during the Nibelheim event in FFVII) so that they can infect themselves with her cells and join in the Reunion.

Bossa Nova Monday: Yunalesca

Reaper of Souls

For 1,000 years, the summoners of Spira have traveled on a pilgrimage to Zanarkand to receive the final aeon, needed to defeat Sin. For 1,000 years---ever since defeating the first coming of Sin and dying in the process---the unsent spirit Yunalesca has waited in the ruined city of Zanarkand with a terrible revelation: There is no final aeon. In order to defeat Sin, not only must the summoner sacrifice his life by performing the final summoning, but he must also sacrifice one of his guardians to become the final aeon. After defeating Sin, the sacrificed guardian will then take its place, becoming the next Sin. Unwilling to make this terrible choice and perpetuate the cycle of destruction, Yuna and her guardians instead undertake to battle Yunalesca and send her to the Farplane for good.

Yunalesca is a classic multi-form boss; each time you defeat her she comes back in a scarier, stronger form (until you defeat her third and final form; then she's really done). Her second form spams curative magic on your party, which would be nice except that she's turned your characters into undead zombies with her Hellbiter attack, so the Cures hurt rather than heal, and the occasional "Full Life" spell can mean instant death. But don't break out the holy water just yet---her Mega Death special casts instant death, killing the entire party . . . unless they happen to be zombies, in which case the attack is harmless (death spells, instant death attacks, and items are traditionally ineffective against the undead).

Weapon:	Absorb (1st form); Curative Magic (2nd & 3rd forms)
Signature Moves:	Mega Death; Mind Blast
Weakness:	Holy Magic
Distinguishing Features:	Her sexy bikini body is hiding a terrible tentacular monster!
Difficulty:	7/10
Death Quote:	"Ah . . . Zaon . . . Forgive me. . . . Spira has been robbed of the light of hope. . . . All that remains is sorrow."
Similar Characters:	Jenova (FFVII), Medusa (Kid Icarus)

Top 10, Again and Again

By now we're all used to the Top 10 [Somethings] in [Something] lists that proliferate all over the internets (e.g., Top 10 Most Clichéd Items on the Internet). Top 10 women in gaming lists are a frequent enough occurrence that there's no need for any more of them (see, e.g., yada yada). The other day, though, I was directed to a blog called ShinyShiny that apparently is in the business of explaining tech gadgets to helpless females(?). The specific article to which I was directed is a top ten list of female video-game characters you should idolise [sic x 2], which is a new enough twist on an old favorite that I was willing to give it a look.

I gave up hope for the ShinyShiny list as soon as I saw Ico's Yorda at number nine. It's true that Yorda can open some doors with magic that the protagonist can not otherwise get through, as they noted. That doesn't outweigh her role in the bulk of the game, which is spent dragging her along behind you like a deadweight, literally leading her around by the hand, helping her jump across tiny gaps and coaxing her up steps, yelling at her, and defending her from shadow monsters. She's completely helpless, and, should you turn your back on her for even a moment, she'll wander off and get into some terrible predicament. I don't understand how she is worthy of idolization. Is it because she's taller than Ico? Did ShinyShiny even play Ico?

Likewise, simply having appeared in many games doesn't make a character worthy of idolization. Consider Princess Zelda of Legend of Zelda fame: She's certainly physically lovely, magically powerful, and deeply good in ever fiber of her being, but she isn't a good candidate for an idol---i.e., someone to look up to and emulate. Advising a woman to idolize Princess Zelda is advising her to play a supporting role in her own story. (For the same reason, Yuna Braska of FFX and FFX-2 didn't make my cut.) Moreover, there isn't "one" Princess Zelda to idolize; every Legend of Zelda game features a different Zelda. Is this what I should idolize? A series of women, each interchangeable with all the others? Should I aspire to be confused with anyone who happens to have the same name as me?

It's not that there's anything wrong with Princess Zelda or Princess Yorda. They're both very interesting, multifaceted characters and have appeared in some of the greatest games ever made. It's just that those qualities aren't something to be idolized or emulated by real-life women. Trying to behave like Yorda would be just as foolish and ridiculous as trying to look like Lara Croft. And anyway, not every female character has to be admirable and aspirational---just like not all male video game characters are great role models. It's just that if you're going to compile and put forth a list of female characters who are worthy of idolization, I feel like a little care should be taken to see that they have some quality that makes them worth admiring (other than having "ethereal good looks" or "great hair"), or at least that you can put forth a legitimate reason why you feel they make a good role model (see Shiny's blurb on Zelda).

Without any more complaning, here is my Top 10 List of Video Game Women You Can Actually Idolize.

10. Beauty Queen Etna (Disgaea). Etna doesn't get to be a Netherworld Demon Lord by using her feminine charms. Instead, she fights her way tooth and nail to the top and then bestows upon herself the title of Beauty Queen. Etna never asks anybody for anything; if she wants something, she goes out and gets it---often, she takes it. And she makes no apologies for her caustic sense of humor. I'm looking forward to the PSP remake of Disgaea: Hour of Darkness with an all-new Etna-based storyline branch.

9. Chun-Li (Street Fighter). "I'm the strongest woman in the world!" Of all the fighting games in all the arcades in all the world, she walks into mine. There are a lot of fighting games out there with a lot of token cheesecake characters, but Chun-Li has been there from the start; her Lightning Kick and Kikoken are iconic; and her little dance of joy when she wins---"Ha, ha, ha, Yatta!"---taught a whole generation of boys to be ashamed when they got beat by a girl.

8. Rydia (Final Fantasy IV). I didn't want to flood the list with Final Fantasy characters, so I had to be pretty choosy. Rydia isn't the most memorable FF character (maybe I'm showing my age by remembering her), but she fairly embodies personal growth. Rydia is the only FF character we see grow from a child to a young woman in the course of a game. She's also the first powerful summoner of the Final Fantasy series. Throughout the Final Fantasy games, the female characters have always tended toward the mage classes while the male characters tend to be the fighters. As a summoner, Rydia was an incredibly powerful damage dealer, blazing the trail for later summoners like Garnet and Yuna.

7. Princess Peach (Super Mario Brothers). Princess Peach evolved from Donkey Kong's Lady (aka Pauline) character, the original damsel in distress. In recent years, however, Peach has really come into her own. Sure, she still needs to be rescued every now and then, but now she does the rescuing sometimes, too (see, e.g., Super Princess Peach). She was a playable character as early as 1988 in Super Mario Brothers 2, and since then she's been holding her own in other titles like the Paper Mario series and the Mario Party series. She's also proved an able go-kart racer, tennis player, golfer, and even a basketball player. She also made an appearance as a formidable fighter in Super Smash Brothers Melee. All without breaking a nail.

6. Impa (Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time). There have been several Impas over the years; we met her first in the original Legend of Zelda and just recently we ran into one of her descendants in Twilight Princess. For my money, the most admirable Impa is the iteration found in the Ocarina of Time. As the young princess's nursemaid and bodyguard, Impa---last of the warrior race of Sheikah---whisks the child Zelda away from Hyrule Castle ahead of disaster and spends the next seven years teaching her young charge everything she needs to know so that, when the time comes, Zelda will be ready to do her part to save Hyrule. When that mission is completed she takes up her post as the Shadow Sage. Impa is both nurturing and ass-kicking, a hallmark of the wise warrior archetype.

5. Ms. Pac-Man (Ms. Pac-Man). When Ms. Pac-Man first pakku-pakku'd her way onto the arcade scene in 1981 she was a female original. The only other lady in the land was Lady from Donkey Kong, and Lady was just a damsel. Ms. Pac-Man, the first female video game protagonist of all time, could do everything that Pac-Man could do---but she was actually faster than Pac-Man and, as a bonus, she had a sassy bow and a cute mole.

4. Jill Valentine (Resident Evil). The original Zombie Stomper from Resident Evil. She could carry more stuff than Chris Redfield (maybe she had a purse?) and open doors with her lock picks, but she couldn't take as much damage as Chris. One of the most common arguments supporting uneven representation of women in video games is that "men play games, and people want to play characters that represent them." Moreover, as I learned in the MMORPG wars, when men play a female character they want a fine (and largely unclothed) female body to watch to make it interesting. Resident Evil split the difference by offering two protagonists from the start. One man, one woman; both completely capable, each with unique advantages and challenges. Jill Valentine wasn't a skinny, skanky supermodel with a couple of guns and a hankerin' for some zombie spankerin'. She really did give the impression of being a fully capable, totally badass paramilitary solider.

3. Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca (Final Fantasy XII). The best female protagonist in an FF game in a long time (but with the worst name). Ashe is sort of an evolved form of FFIX's Garnet. More than anything, I appreciate her bringing the Final Fantasy series back around to more of an expansive epic plot and certainly more of a group dynamic than in recent games. Ashe isn't the narrator (narratrix?) of FFXII, but she is the main character and protagonist. A young widow, resistance leader, and displaced monarch, Ashe is incredibly accomplished for a nineteen-year-old. She's not afraid to indulge her emotions, but she knows when to move beyond them.

2. Amaterasu Okami (Okami). When the sun goddess Amaterasu has to come down to Earth, she doesn't choose to come in the form of a scantily clad bimbo, but in that of the legendary white wolf Shiranui. Her mission is purely benevolent: Armed only with a celestial paintbrush, to restore all the color of the world and drive out an unnatural darkness. Apparently, she is also endowed with infinite patience (I would never have been able to put up with Issun).

1. Samus Aran (Metroid). We spent the whole game of Metroid thinking Samus was a dude. Why? Because she was clad head to toe in her power suit and it didn't have built-in breasts or a tiny cinched waist; because the instruction manual referred to Samus as "he"; but mostly because we had never seen a female character in a video game before who wasn't sitting around waiting to be rescued, and we certainly didn't see them flying around space shooting brains with their totally awesome ray guns. Only Ms. Pac-Man approaches Samus's early protagonist status, and never forget that Ms. Pac-Man was just having a snack; Samus Aran was saving the whole galaxy.


Honorable Mentions
---Judge Magister Drace (FFXII). I would have given Drace a spot in the main list, but her appearance in FFXII is so brief. Drace is the only female among the Judge Magisters of the Archadean Empire and the champion of the youthful Prince Larsa. Drace is a decent person first and a judge second, and she proves herself when she attempts to arrest her corrupt monarch, even knowing that the futile effort will cost her life.

---Mama (Cooking Mama). No, she's not saying "You're not mine!" when you mess up. She's saying "Do not mind!" Mama doesn't want you to feel bad when you burn the toast or drop the eggs on the floor. She just wants to spend time with her kids, doing something fun and educational (cooking). It's too bad more mamas aren't like her.

Odds and Ends

Hope everyone likes the banner. I've had the actual logo done for some time, but retrofitting it into this template was trickier than I would have hoped. Sooner or later we'll give this space a new coat of hyper paint; until then, consider this the first step of our Spring cleaning.

My time with GGXX#Reload has been going well. I've found Sol to be very easy to pick up due in large part to the familiarity of his control scheme. Entranced by the unique character design of Dizzy, I have forced myself to learn to use her properly, though her mishmash of bizarre projectiles and furious ground combos took some time to absorb.

I pretty much have the idea of Bursting down, but Roman Cancelling is still alien to me. I've been studying the frame inputs in Training Mode, but I'm still nowhere near a point where I can use RCs or FRCs in the heat of battle. This game really makes me thirst for a console version of Slash or Accent Core sometime soon.

I ran into this recap of MGS2 in haiku form on the PA G&T forums awhile back. Thought I'd share it with you, and likewise post it in a more accessible location for my own viewing. Many thanks to aett, and his mad summation skills.

Turn off the console

I need scissors! 61!

We have Rosemary "

Now that we've delved pretty deeply into FFXII, and have gained a working understanding of the gambit system, it makes me think about how many menu choices I've made over the years in Final Fantasies, and RPGs in general. FFX-2 alone could be near a million... C'est la vie.

Is Nothing Sacred?

A wretched, blasphemous rumor has emerged from the depths of the Tubes. Could part of the Final Fantasy XIII cadre be heading to the 360? While this gossip has been met with doubt by some, other speculators are piecing together the likelihood of, perchance, a Live Arcade title akin to FFXIII Agito, the mobile component of the Fabula Nova Crystallis. Is there no loyalty anymore? What's next? Mario Galaxy for the next-gen N-Gage? *shudder*

Gamers Don't Have an Old Timer's Day

It can be hard for a gamer to think about aging. Most gamers are young. Characters in videogames are usually young. The player character is usually a strong, young man. Typically, in games, the more times you do something, the easier it becomes. Either your character becomes stronger as you progress, like levels in an RPG, or the player's experience of a scenario makes it easier the next time, like in a platformer or a racing game. The idea that with time one can become weaker, and less able to cope with challenges, is a frightening thought.

I remember Final Fantasy IV very fondly, as it was the second game of the series that I played. In fact, the SNES cartridge I had did indeed say "Final Fantasy II" but this was merely to prevent the οἱ πολλοί from knowing what they were missing.

Even as a youth I was steadfast in my good RPG habits, which primarily are (1) save, save every chance you get, and (2) when in doubt, level up. Whenever, wherever, just fight random encounters to build yourself up a bit. Well, I luckily didn't fall into a pitfall that was likely to ensnare anyone who follows these tenets blindly. You see, in the Water Cavern, you gain the once great sage Tellah of Mysidia. And as Tellah gains levels, his stats go down, to indicate his advanced age and frailty. If one first leveled "up" for an extended period, and then saved, one would be stuck with an extremely vulnerable sage.

Not only does he become weaker with every battle, in the original version he had a command called Recall, which would allow him to randomly remember one of the powerful spells he once knew. So not only is his body withering with age, his once great magic prowess is now hindered by his failing memory. As a young gamer in the earlier 90's, this struck me as a very interesting mechanic; immediately unfamiliar due to my internalization of the concept that leveling up made characters stronger.

Skip ahead about half a decade to 1996. Capcom was refining the formula of its popular Street Fighter Zero/Alpha to quickly produce a sequel. They had reincarnated Birdie and Adon from the original Street Fighter into the interquel series, and to expand the roster for SFZ2 they again drew from their back catalog of fighters. After his stint as a Chinese assassin in the mediocre original, Gen returned to action in the Zero series after learning that he was dying from leukemia. He sought a worthy opponent, and came across Gouki/Akuma, the master of the Satsui no Hadou. Although it is not entirely clear, one would have to postulate that Gen was finished off since it was a fight to the death, and Gouki was later seen chronologically killing Vega/M. Bison's second body in Street Fighter II Turbo. Although, with fighting games, you never know what's canon, right? Regardless of the timeline, Gen did manage to make a large contribution to the next generation. He is responsible for training the young relatives of his Street Fighter (I) countryman Lee. Of course, I speak of Yun and Yang Lee of Street Fighter III. In particular, Yang's Mantis style is very similar to some of Gen's techniques.

Fatally afflicted, yes, but Gen is still a treacherous challenge in Zero 2 and 3. His ability to switch between his Sou-ryuu and Ki-ryuu styles mid-match makes his moveset formidable. He is remarkably quick and agile for being old and terminally ill, and for this reason doesn't really give the sense of mortality one gets from Tellah's predicament.

But with nothing to lose, Gen faces the deadliest opponent of the Zero series, and dies the way he wished, in battle with a worthy adversary.

Skip ahead to the new millenium, and please take into consideration the character EGM called the fourth greatest boss of all time.

Let me linger in this world just a little longer... I have already slept enough for one lifetime... enough for an eternity...

These words echo through the dense woodland of Sokrovenno, signaling the dawn of one of the toughest challenges the Metal Gear series will ever dish out. Personally, I have an attachment to The End and I can say without hesitation that he is my favorite boss fight. Ever. I believe my first successful attempt took about forty minutes. Even on my Foxhound run it took me almost twenty. And if you're having a really hard time, just keep trying. If you haven't beaten him in two weeks, he will just die of old age. Of course, you could save, and advance your PS2's internal clock a fortnight. Or you could just snipe him in his wheelchair immediately following an earlier cutscene. If you're a cheap fucking coward.

Like the rest of the Cobra Unit, The End is codenamed after the emotion he carries with him into battle, in this case the desire to continue to exist. He is over one hundred years old during the events of Snake Eater, and doesn't have any interest in killing Snake. The Ancient Sniper merely wants to test his ability, and to try once more to do what he does best, to hunt his prey.

Hideo Kojima seems to be revisiting similar themes again in MGS4, wherein Solid Snake is suffering from advanced aging. Preview trailers show this new Old Snake apparently commiting suicide, and there is speculation that his health and stamina may steadily decrease throughout the game, not unlike our first example. Of course, this is merely assumptions made about a Kojima game, which means absolutely nothing, as Hideo loves to shock his audience with unexpected twists.

So from this, what should a gamer learn about aging? About sickness and mortality? I think that in continuing, and finding extra lives, and dodging bullets and Bullet Bills, one forgets that no amount of skill or effort can allow one to evade the inevitable; That there is no eternal life code; And that nothing lasts forever.

We're Still Having Fun

(Well, Aerith isn't.)

According to Kotaku's This Day in Gaming feature (and they've never steered me wrong before), today is the ten-year anniversary of the Japanese release of Final Fantasy VII.

In honor of the day, I'd like to share an anecdote about Final Fantasy VII.

My good friend Ryan is a big fan of this game. Huge. He's the one who first turned me on to it. We were in high school at the time, and one day he asked me: "Hey, Cat, do you have a PlayStation at your house?" We did have a PlayStation, Killa's, so I told him I did. He eagerly pressed the three-disc set into my hands. "Take this home and play it," he said. "Seriously. Just play it until it's over. This is the best game there's ever been."

He was right. At the time, there was just nothing like it. It was the first Japanese RPG to make it big in the United States. The graphics were revolutionary for the time. The CGI cutscenes were a whole new thing. And that part with Aerith was completely mind blowing. There have been better-looking games since, and maybe even games with tighter, better stories (I can never choose between VII and X), but I don't believe that any game since---except, perhaps, for LoZ: The Ocarina of Time---has had such a major, paradigm-shifting influence on gaming and the video game industry. Final Fantasy VII was for the 1990s what Super Mario Bros. was for the 1980s and PacMan was for the 1970s---and that is no small thing.

As for my friend Ryan, FFVII has ruined him for all other games. Whenever I talk to him about a new game, he asks me to compare it to Final Fantasy VII. All new games are judged, not on how they stack up to Final Fantasy VII, but on how much they are exactly like Final Fantasy VII. For example: I called Ryan to tell him that FFXII was out and I had gotten a copy of it. He said to me, "Cool. Is it like Final Fantasy VII?" I replied, "Well, it's a Final Fantasy game; it's in the same genre. What do you mean?" There was a pause. Finally, he asked: "Does it have materia?" I had to admit that, no, it doesn't have materia.

"Have fun with that," he said. "I think I'll just play Final Fantasy VII again."

Abuse your speakers/
Lose your manners/
Disturb the neighbors/
This one's a Bangaa.

Revenant Wings New Trailer

Worldwide Nintendo news blog C3 has the first trailer for the forthcoming Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings RPG for the Nintendo DS. The release date hasn't yet been announced, but the end of the trailer says it is "coming soon." Hopefully sooner than Phantom Hourglass.

And Then, There Were Twelve

These years of our lord 2006 and 2007 are proving to be a really great time for my favorite game franchises. I've talked Twilight Princess to death the last few days because it's really all I've been playing. In fact, my household is actually playing in shifts---id est, Gabe plays while I blog and I then play while he sleeps, ad infinitum. Even now, I can hear sword slashes and monkey howls wafting up the steps. The dog, somehow, remains nonchalant.

But that's not all the gaming goodness going on in our casa these days. As giddy as gamers get over Zelda, there are other hallmarks of gaming fame that get get our airship motors running---chief among them the macrocosmic Final Fantasy series, with its thirteen titular installments, two movies, countless spin-offs (including Tactics, Dirge of Cerberus, and Crystal Chronicles), and appearances in other games such as the fighter Ergheiz and the blockbuster Kingdom Hearts series. (In comparison, the Legend of Zelda series has thirteen titles, plus appearances in the Super Smash Brothers series, and an ill-fated cartoon that I think we'd all best forget.)

Most gamers---at least, any gamers who are even remotely familiar with the RPG genre---count the brutal and totally unexpected death of Aeris Gainsborough among the most definitive moments in gaming history (right up there with Samus Aran's gender-bending striptease back in 1987). And if you can think way back with me, back to 1990, maybe you can remember another defining moment in gaming: when you rescued Princess Sara of Corneria but instead of winning the game, the title screen rolled down to let you know that the game was actually just starting. For most of us, I think it's fair to say that installments VII and X (and, by association, X-2) have made an indelible impression on our collective gaming consciousness.

Final Fantasy XII is being billed as the best of the bunch, but it remains to be seen whether it can live up to the hype. If it's going to displace VII and X at the top of the list, it's going to have to be truly exceptional. So far (about 10 hours in) the plot and milieux are very immersive. It helps that the story takes place in the world of Ivalice, which has already been established in previous titles FF: Tactics, FF: Tactics Advance, and Vagrant Story. The graphics are about the best I've seen in any PS2 game (though I'm partial to the watercolor realism of Shadow of the Colossus) and feature an absolutely astonishing level of detail (see, e.g., Vaan's hair). But my favorite feature so far is the gameplay. Killa and I were divided on this at first, but I was glad to see the end of the random encounter engine.

In March 2006, Final Fantasy XII received a perfect 40/40 from Famitsu magazine, joining an elite group of only six titles (six including FFXII). This makes director Yasumi Matsuno only the second person ever to have two games (FFXII and Vagrant Story) in Famitsu's elite 40/40 club, after the venerable Shigeru Miyamoto (LoZ: The Ocarina of Time and LoZ: The Wind Waker).