Yeah Woops

I suppose I should apologize for yesterday's absence. I'd like to tell you that I was sitting inside and playing Bravely Default all day, but that didn't happen. Honestly, I just didn't find the time. Yes, I know the point of a blog a day is to make time, and I guess I could hide behind the weekend ("by blog a day, I mean blog a week day, dummy"), but that's really just a cop out. Won't happen again.

So let's actually talk about why I'm not playing Bravely Default, then, and touch upon an ill of the gaming industry that's mercifully fading away: the pre-order racket.

In the 8-, 16-, and most of the 32-bit era, the idea of pre-ordering a video game so you could be assured that your retailer of choice would have a copy for you wasn't a thing. You would save up your meager shekels and drive to whomever was willing to sell you what you wanted, and that would be that. Of course, in the early days of the home video game business, games didn't have specific release dates, and would just sort of happen upon a retailer almost as if by invoiced sorcery. As time went on, and Madden games became annualized, the record store model of pre-ordering large releases became the de facto way of doing things. Inherently, this isn't bad, really. I don't really see anything wrong with wanting a guarantee when it comes to your entertainment.

But that's not how things have turned out. Large, gaming-centric retailers like GameStop survive on two business models: selling you used video games (at higher costs than I think they're worth, but that's me), and getting you to look ahead at what's coming out so you can throw your $5 down to pre-order it. They certainly don't make as many millions selling brand new material than used, but let's hypothesize that for every 10 people that pre-order something a few months ago, one of them will either not care any more, completely forget, or have any other reason not to go pick the thing up. That's a free five clams in GameStop's pocket. Nothing really wrong with that either, really. Like I said, large record store chains were doing the same business for decades before the music industry went belly up.

The problem is that GameStops are, by and large, small, and they while it looks like it's wall-to-wall video game goodness in there, they are surprisingly under stocked. The vast majority of it is pre-owned (if the GamesStop overlords had it their way, it would all be used games because that makes them the most money), too. The industry is such that a lot of games come out during certain times of the year, but not all the time, and those store managers don't want to deal with piles of product that's not moving. This is where the pre-ordering thing really rears its ugly head. For large, AAA releases, they will always overstock the place with them because the average schmuck will probably wander in there and grab it for either themselves or as gifts for someone. But this is only AAA stuff. Again, because of the size of these places, and the fact that new stuff makes them less money, it's highly unlikely that they'll have a good supply of mid-tier or niche releases unless one of them rolls in their used, especially the brand new stuff. This stock controlling practice basically boils down to this: if you didn't per-order, say, Bravely Default, you're shit out of luck. The one or two extra copies that they ordered for display already sold that morning. Do you want us to ship it to your door for an extra fee?

I don't have to tell you how aggravating that is, and how absurd, but that's the way the large, retail games business evolved itself into living over the past ten years. Bravely Default, though, is a curious example in this scenario, though. Here's why:

I have a Wal-Mart gift card that I received for Christmas. Now, Wal-Mart being the largest retailer of just about anything, it seemed fairly reasonable that they would stock a brand new game developed by a large company (Square Enix) and published by a much larger one (Nintendo, for God's sake). Since I live in an apartment building with some shifty-eyed neighbors, I wasn't really down for having it shipped to me, so I thought I'd do the next best thing and just pick it up in-store. For some reason, WM's website didn't allow for a pre-order of any kind, now a piece integral for this whole proceeding to work, so after just waiting it out last week, I detected no change from the site, other than assuring me that I could freely buy it on Friday when it was released. Fine, then, I'll just call the store. Nope, they told me. Even though they were keenly aware that it had come out that day, they didn't have it. Strange. So yesterday, I took it upon myself to meander into a different Wal-Mart. Nope again. Gift card be damned, I head over to a GameStop on the way home. The cock-eyed look of the girl across the counter told me before she even opened her mouth what my fate would be. She even did some checking for me, the princess, and found that no other GameStop in town had it, either. Should have pre-ordered it, man!

I find it alarmingly stupid that I can visit a large retail chain and not find a brand new game distributed by Nintendo, but I can nab a copy of something like Glory of Heracles --one of their flops-- that, for whatever reason, is still easily obtainable through distribution channels (seriously, who the eff- is buying that game still?).

So I have not played Bravely Default yet, but it's ok. Even though this whole scenario had me pretty irritated yesterday, I take solace in the fact that, when it's finished downloading, I won't have to worry about this anymore.

Bravely Going

Today marks the NA release of Square Enix's Bravely Default, the deliriously goofy name for what appears to be the best new Final Fantasy in almost a decade. Everybody and their brother says so. I have to be honest, I am awfully excited to go play it.

The reasons, though, are firmly set in that I'm ready for a good RPG, and not because I just love old school Final Fantasy games. I mean, I do, but if I were to only want to play something new just because it feels like something old I would sit around and download bullshitty tablet game all day long as that seems to be the market for recycled content you can overpay for. Less cynically, though, I like the optimism and good will, however tenuous it is at the moment, that Bravely Default and this Tuesday's Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII is bringing back the struggling Square Enix. In the most simple terms, that company really needs a win, and even if it comes from the court of public opinion and not sales figures, it would go a long way toward rebuilding the publisher into the creative powerhouse that it was in years' past.

But that's still just cleaning off our rose-tinted glasses. It's been a pretty tumultuous decade for Square both financially and figuratively. Major releases have tanked and at the cost of tens of millions of dollars (plus incalculable time wasted in development). More than perhaps any major Japanese publisher other than Konami, HD development really caught Square with its pants down. This is ironic considering that the company's games were such a champion of new and emerging audio/visual technology in older console generations; the advent of higher resolutions and consistent frame rates have led them to fumble around trying to figure out exactly how to move their major franchises forward. The problem, as Final Fantasy XIII has shown us, was that they did it on their terms, and not their audience. So much time and money wasted on making a stiflingly linear game that still seemed half-baked upon release was a clear enough indicator that the emperor had no clothes, and that proletariat gamer could only look at them in baffled amusement.

You could probably say that the divisiveness over Final Fantasy games, and much of Square's output, began during one of the earlier PlayStation generations, but the 2008 release of XIII represents a clear partition in their existence. Certainly before XIII came out, the hardest of the hardcore fans of the series would piss and moan that things Just Weren't Like They Used to Be (as evident by the first guy to buy FF XII in Japan telling CEO Yoichi Wada that they should remake VII during a live press event), but this was during a period that games from the franchise --and the company as a whole-- were still coming out at a steady clip and of high quality. While, yes, you could complain that X or XII wasn't your cup of tea, but you couldn't argue against the fact that all of that production went into making as solid a product as could be made for its time. Visually impressive, finely balanced, and (for the most part) coherently written were things that you could expect from a new Final Fantasy game whether you liked it as much as their Super NES predecessors or not. But then XIII came out, and all of a sudden, all of your doomsday scenarios about a company falling apart seemed frightfully on-target.

For as subjective as video game reviews really are, the overall consensus was that we were seeing quantifiable evidence that they Just Weren't Like the Used to Be. While there is certainly a small cadre of XIII apologists out there, the years since its release has lead to much head shaking and shoulder shrugging over its design. So much, in fact, that it took Square to cobble together two more games in the XIII "series" to make good by the fans. The fact that they even did this proves that the old guys were right all along, and a general perception that if Square Enix, the shepherds of the once titanic genre, couldn't figure it out than the RPGs of yesteryear were doomed to fade away.

This is defeatist thinking.

This morning, I read this exemplary article about the shooing of Jay Leno. Part of the story was about how smug a villain Leno had become over his 22 year tenure as host of the decaying Tonight Show, but much more of it was how sad the world will be without Leno in it to punish with our "hipper," "edgier" scorn. This really struck a chord with me, especially today with Bravely Default's release. While the opposite may be true in that I did it because I care and not because I have empirical evidence of their idiocy, but I have been ragging on Square for years now, and their paleolithic design sensibilities and business practices need to bow out for the younger, sexier, more in-touch Jimmy Fallons of the game design world. When I sat back and really reflected on it, though, this is not at all what I want.

No, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that the JRPG isn't mounting a comeback (it's been here for years), nor am I going to pontificate that the publisher has finally gotten its head out of its ass (we still need to be cautious about Final Fantasy XV, after all). We need to stop being so pious toward past successes, and less embittered to recent failings. I know that this sounds a little counter intuitive because I began by telling you how excited I am for a decidedly retro RPG, and I just said a second ago that it's hard to be totally optimistic about what the company is pushing out over the next few years, but really, optimism is something Square desperately needs, and Bravely Default and Lightning Returns, while diametrically different games, clearly show that the company can push their creativity when they need to. That's good for everybody. Some companies --Nintendo, for example-- really turn up the gas when they're backed into a corner, and it looks like that's what's finally happened to Square. While the reviews aren't finished being tallied for BD, and haven't even hit yet for LR:FFXIII, it's hard to disagree that this could be the start of a return to form in the post- XIII-Weren't-Like-They-Used-to-Be era. If we didn't at least hope for the fact that companies will make better games than their previous output, nobody would play anything new at all, and we need to move past that. It's time for us to be excited again. I hope that you feel the same way.

See you tomorrow.

So This is the New Year

Look, I knew for years that we were never going to have jet packs by now, but dammit, 2014 being here makes me feel that we should be further along or something. Just look at this, for God's sake. Where's my bio suit and seedy intergalactic watering holes? Where's my instant wall climbing wall-breaking laser blasts? Science is bullshit.

So it's been a while, right? Yes, internet, it has. Dry your eyes, though; a new year means new beginnings and other spastic lies that I'm prone to breaking. Still, now that certain months-long obligations are taken care of, it's time to get back to my fighting weight writing-wise. That was an absurd and stupid thing to say. Resolution 2: we'll keep that jive to a minimum.

So let's use this precious time that we have together at the moment for a bit of catch up. The last few weeks have been a typhoon of lousy weather, vacations from work, on and off illness, and mmmyes a few holidays. Now that my family has finally figured out that video games aren't something I'm going to eventually outgrow, they've succumbed to years of reminding that it's perfectly fine to bestow nerdy gifts for Christmas as opposed to a Christmas tree and nativity scene, monitor cables, and place mats.*

Since the whole month of December is typically written off as a gluttonous mess not unlike whatever goes down at Pizza the Hut's place, and I just mentioned that I wasn't exactly feeling tip top the whole time, gym hopping was kept to a minimum over the past several weeks. Typically, that drives me a little nuts, but you can't fight Mother Nature when she says, "you know, you should be throwing up right now. Go do that." Naturally, this left plenty of time for the interactive digital entertainments. A few of them were wacky or fun or stupid or smarmy enough that I wanted to write about them individually, but I thought I'd save you some eye strain and just run them down as a list.

Behold, then, what I've been doing for the past three weeks:

Batman: Arkham Origins
Full disclosure: I love Batman perhaps more than I love my parents (and they know). But, you know, I'm just not in to the open world Batman games. Akrham Assylum was totally my thing, though. It did the whole "metroidvania" schtick better than recent Castlevania games had done at that point, and it just felt like playing as Batman, which pretty much no other game starring the character had ever pulled off at that point since most of them were either platformers or brawlers. Arkham City was still a good game, but the explorability of the city seemed to step on what made the first game so good; the focus. So I wasn't really super psyched to play Arkham Origins, especially after some kind of middling reviews.

Annnnnd....I was kind of right. Still a good game, but I found that I was only interested in the story missions, which was basically a series of indoor levels that you simply had to traverse a large city to find. I suppose it's fine to have Gotham as a large backdrop for things to do between plot-driven adventures, but everything that I was given to do was just busy work. Blow up 40 of these. Find sixty of those. Beat up some guys and then disarm a bomb. Now do it over there and over there and over there. Snore.

The stuff that I wanted out of it was really good, though. The Joker stuff was great, and the inclusion of a couple of other irregular DC characters in the world of video games was handled pretty well (I'm talking specifically about Deathstroke). It was a fine looking game, too. The facial models were kind of lousy, but since pretty much everybody whose anybody wears masks in Gotham City, it wasn't really that distracting. There was a few things that pissed me off, though, but that's mostly due to common problems with free-running games and the unreliable combat.

Batman: Arkham Origins: Blackgate
The overuse of colons in the title should alarm you. Eff it, I'll just answer the question running around your head for you: Yes, Blackgate actually came from a man's colon. Ostensibly a more "true" metroidvania game, Blackgate did its best to cram all of the controls of it's console sibling into a 2.5D environment, which means that the player must have the finger dexterity of a concert pianist to play smoothly. Or it would, if anything actually worked according to plan. The control and button inputs were about as responsive as screaming at a deaf person at a Mastadon concert, and Batman would routinely take bullshit damage from randomly-placed strips of spikes in the ground when he should have rolled over them. The Dark Knight would recover his health after a second, though, so it was all good. Why were the spikes on the ground at all, then? You're not seeing this, but I'm shrugging my shoulders and making obscene hand gestures right now.

Structurally, the game was a total mess. Boss fights were less of a visceral feeling of accomplishment and more a series of trial and error stumbles until I figured out whatever puzzle-like nature the game all of a sudden decided to throw at me. Some of them were timing-based, so the lack of reliable control was sort of a thing. Others were riffs on previous environments and encounters so left field that if they weren't handled with surgical precision than it would spell instant Bat-cadaver. Let's not even talk about the least intuitive map in video game history, either. Jeeeeeebus.

Ni No Kuni
People that I like hate this game. People I don't like love it. If I didn't get it for a song, I would never had formed an opinion either way. As it stands it was actually alright. Pretty, but really kind of shallow, it was as close as I'll probably come to playing a Pokemon game since it's big draw was the monster taming and training (which I thought was handled weakly). It had been so long since I've played a console JRPG, though, that everything just felt comforting; the grinding, the dialog, the tiny mental benchmarks you make for when you know it's time to put it down and go to bed. It felt good to be immersed in something like that, even though most JRPGs make me feel totally detached anymore. If you had met me ten years ago, that last sentence would be kind of a shock.

Probably what helped me keep up with it to the end was the plot, though. Now, let's be clear here in that it in no way is good, but Ni No Kuni's biggest strength was it's noticeable lack of anime stupidity. You can probably hand that to developer Level 5's partnership with Studio Ghibli, but this could have fallen apart under a lot of weight, and it really didn't. To be honest, I'll never, ever play this game again. But for a modern console semi-real time menu-based RPG, I was as satisfied with it as almost any game in my PS2 library. That's a compliment, right?

Guacamelee!
People, you should be playing Guacamelee! Then you should finish it and play it again. Luchardors out to save El Presidente's daughter from the undead in an interconnected metroidvania game makes sense. Hell, even just simply that sentence just feels right. If there was an official winter jam, it would be Guacamelee! So let it be written.

Bravely Default demo
If Ni No Kuni was comforting, the now week-old Bravely Default demo for 3DS was warm post coital cuddling. I get that Square Enix, in it's weird Square Enix way, didn't want to name it a Final Fantasy game (but I'm a little baffled that it's not picking up the label now that it's coming West), but that's exactly what it is: job systems, Firaga, phoenix downs, the whole bit. If that tickles you the same way it does for me, than you've probably already played the demo or need to start paying better attention to release dates.

I played through the demo to its most ludicrous extent. All of my characters maxed their job levels, the social town-building mechanic had no place left to build, and no single creature in the game was any kind of threat when I finally closed the book on it. I don't really dig the fact that I had to wait hours (days, actually) for me to build a quasi-village to get strong enough gear to take on the demo's final boss, and I use that in the present tense because I'm hoping against hope that this doesn't surface in the full version of the game outside of optional boss fights. In no way does mean that I'm taking a pass on the game when it hits in February, but if there had to be a criticism, that would be it.

Street Fighter III: Third Strike
I'm playing this all the time. No, I'm not in front of it. You and are squaring off right now in my head. You just lost.

*All actual gifts. For real.