Yet more TALES OF INTEREST! I've got to say that this does go a long way towards explaining a number of things, like why Super Star is still my all time favorite Kirby game. A dropped "horror" game where Kirby's lips are stitched shut?! Then, there's the reveal that Spring Breeze was intended to be played without copy abilities ala the original Kirby's Dreamland. The latter I entirely expect to be an added option via ROM hacking fairly soon. The former? That's a tall order... But even tall orders must be filled hackers. Here I thought Sakurai was making all these modern Kirby games only to discover his role is essentially advisory. The man really has been chained to the Smash Bros desk for decades hasn't he?
I gotta say this whole series he's doing has been amazing. This time, it's "the opening takes too long!" Maybe not every game needs a half hour's discussion on 1960's era nuclear deterrence before you've snaked up on a single loose monkey.
I will absolutely disagree with one thing though. Do NOT start a game off playing as someone other than the main protagonists in an RPG. You seriously risk making that alternate character more interesting than the main character and people will spend the remainder of the game complaining about their lame Shonen protagonist that wants to be a pirate when he grows up when they could instead be that honor bound knight that got framed for a crime he didn't commit. (I'm looking at YOU Final Fantasy XII!) Sure, there's famous openings like temporarily playing as Richter for a single boss fight in Symphony of the Night, and of course that audience subversion in Metal Gear Solid 2, but in my experience more often than not you're going to disappoint your audience. Also, in medias res can be fun, but don't fall for the temptation of doing it in such a way that you "flash back" to months earlier and have to play a significant chunk of game to "catch up" to that prologue point. Just make that the start of the gameplay AND the narrative and hint at earlier story beats as they play.
Well, alright as far as quick "get to the point" intros in RPGs go, Final Fantasy VII actually does the best job of just about any FF game. Now personally, I've always loved Final Fantasy VI more, but if I'm being entirely honest with myself, it's cutscene explaining the war of the magi and the current state of the world with an empire bent on domination followed by a couple Star Wars references chatting about your main character's slave-crown followed by opening credits during a long slow march to Narshe? That wasn't the quickest smoothest intro. I'm used to it and I loved it as a kid because I hadn't seen something so cinematic employed in a game's intro before that, but Final Fantasy VII? The credits are before the title screen, so they can be skipped easily, and there's ZERO text or dialog in that opening cutscene, which just quickly shows a flash of Midgard city life, a view of how dirty the city and it's reactor smoke is, and then your main character jumping off a train and IMMEDIATELY fighting some guards before dialog even begins. You're in the game in about a minute, and it's still conveying everything you need to know to understand the most basic things regarding that world, and more details are drip fed to you through dialog from there. It's also a good example of in medias res that just throws you in the middle of a mission without flashing back and forcing you to "play" Cloud's trip to Midgar or the earlier part of the mission for several hours to "catch up" with that intro. Final Fantasy V, which I played later on, also does a good job of getting you into the game fast. A meteor crashes into the ground, you and your chocobo ride over to check it out, and then goblins. Final Fantasy X is just... way too confusing at the start of the game. Fast as it gets you into the action, the sides of it's narrative are too slippery to get ahold of and you just sink into that pitcher plant of "what? WHY?" all too quickly. Sure it gets you to the action, but you don't have the slightest clue of anything in this world and you're led to false conclusions very fast in a desperate attempt to get some idea of what's going on. I don't even mean intentionally misleading stuff. I mean "so Auron's his uncle?" stuff. Granted, it all gets smoothed out in the next hour or so, but even that time skip to suddenly exploring ruins to help Rikku reclaim some old junk you're still left wondering "alright... this is boring now because I don't know why I'm doing this". The narrative doesn't actually give you anything to get ahold of until you get through that SECOND section with Rikku and finally meet Wakka, Yuna and the gang. Then it's a good story.
Chrono Trigger also has a pretty good quick opening but it tosses you into the other end of the pool, which is that you get to explore it's "peacetime" mechanics in the game right from the outset at the fair before ever touching fighting mechanics (aside from Gato, man let me tell you something I love Gato, Gato has metal joints). That's another way to do things, because you're still playing the game but you're dealing with mini-games, exploration, and conversation mechanics. (Admittedly, JRPGs aren't exactly known for stellar conversational mechanics). Heck, all that goofing off at the fair ends up paying back in a big way later on. Watch your behavior!
All in all, I suppose this was just a rant on what I personally prefer in an opening, and an admission that my favorite Final Fantasy game and likely still my favorite JRPG of all time doesn't have the best opening.
Remember kids, and I mean this with all sincerity. Banned books are the best books.
Here's a few recommendations for more banned books.
Don't ban books! I absolutely promise you parents, they aren't putting literal porn in the school library! They're putting a lot of manga in there though... that's kinda weird. They never put comic books in the school library when I was a kid.
So... I've been reading a lot of sci-fi lately. There's these books called Blindsight which explore some interesting questions about whether consciousness, from an evolutionary perspective, is really all that important. Also it's got space vampires. Wait don't go! They're actually done rather well. They're treated like an alternative form of consciousness to help explore the central theme of the books. Also, they've got what is honestly the first time I've seen a scientific explanation for that whole "A crucifix! Hiss!" weakness of vampires. So, ignoring the central theme of the books I just wanted to talk about THAT for a bit.
Basically, in this world vampires were an evolutionary branch off sapians, just like neanderthals. They had a number of interesting mental quirks like the hiding gene that told them that after feeding, hide, hide until they forget you exist. But, they had an evolutionary glitch. Their brains couldn't handle right angles very well. In nature, right angles are very rare so evolution had no pressure that would have removed this undetected glitch, but then humanity started building things that used them more and more. Vampires had trouble crossing doorways unless they closed their eyes and someone guided them inside. And, then the romans invented that horrible torture, crucifixion. Just two large beams intersection but as a result you have the corners of four different right angles nearly touching. It's just too much for them to handle mentally and it paralyzes them. So, in this sci-fi story when they eventually started cloning extinct vampires, they altered them in several ways but left in the right angle aversion as a fail-safe.
Anyway, I thought this was interesting. Sometimes I read these books and something just pops out as so stupid no normal person would tolerate it, but then I realize just how absolutely ridiculous the Marvel movies now are. If those movies are now at the point where a super scientist, a mutant spider, and a wizard can fight a psychic alien for a legendary wish granting gem without just completely losing their audience to that utter nonsense I just said, I think they're able to accept pretty much anything.
First of all, the entirety of my thoughts regarding her death is... my condolences to the family.
Beyond that, her life oversaw a lot of rather evil things that she refused to take a stand on such as, but not limited to, the Irish "troubles" and um, "Brexit". More than that, the royal family has centuries and centuries to answer for of terrible colonialism. Now, I don't believe in inheriting guilt or praise for your family line's achievements... but the royal family absolutely DOES believe in that and that particular "inheritance" is baked into British law and grants them authority by birthright. It's valid in this case to bring up the guilt of their family, and to do so again and again until the day the royal family is disbanded as an institution.
So, all the media's fawning over their every move, from births to weddings to funerals, disgusts me quite a bit. This is especially true coming from U.S. media. I mean, what's with this "dynasty worship" in a land that is supposed to reject inherited authority entirely? Just listen to the words they use to describe every even in their lives, calling them "fairy tale" moments or describing the princes and princesses as especially regal as though they have divinely gifted beauty above and beyond us mere peasantry. It's worrying to say the least.
So yes, my condolences to the family, and yes due to their position of authority of course this is newsworthy, but can we stop with the hyperbole? This is not going to be "as memorable as 9/11", and the comparison is sickening. (Oh yes, I do remember where I was when I first found out about the attacks on 9/11. I was right here reading about it in Tendo City and thought it was part of Tendo's "old news reported as new" running gag we had going back then, and a reference to the older attach on the world trade center. Whoops....)
