Tag Archives: thekapz

Tales of Xillia: 4-man Co-op (first impressions)

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So, for anyone who doesn’t know, I stream myself playing games pretty much every Saturday night. Usually, I do single-player games with a commentator or two. This time, after talking to a friend, I decided that I would tackle a game from the Tales series of games. These games are known for supporting 4-player combat, although most people just play by themselves or with one other person. Now, each Tales game generally has a gimmick that they can use to enhance combat.

However, Tales of Xillia’s is a little odd. It actually “hampers” 4-man combat. When you link with another character, the one being linked to is automatically taken over by an AI, and only unlinking will restore the ability to control that character. It’s basically a way to make playing by yourself easier and more fun because it makes the AI much smarter.

Now, at first, I didn’t like it. I didn’t think my group would need it. But then I started doing some research after a very painful 1st boss, and after doing some research and really thinking about it, 4-man combat with linking is starting to grow on me.

Let me explain linking really quick. Linking allows characters to beef themselves up, share skills, and use “Link Artes”, more powerful versions of normal Artes. With 4 players, linking isn’t really an option if everyone wants to participate in 100% of the combat. So, you’re basically gimping yourself for bosses, which is the problem (normal battles are completely fine with no linking). How can my group utilize linking effectively while not feeling like we can’t play during boss battles?

The easy way is to have two people allow themselves to be linked from time-to-time. I played a lot of Tales of Symphonia – it was my first ever Tales game! I played it so much I’d go through the whole game just having the CPU’s fight during boss battles and managing them through items. So, really, I’m okay with being linked and just sitting there sometimes, but even I’ll want to play sometimes, so I’m set on finding a way to utilize linking differently than the game intends you to (which is have it up basically all the time).

My strategies going in are not to try and fill the Link Gauge, which is filled through normal attacks while linked and using Artes while linked.

We could link for different things quickly. For example, if one of us is knocked down, we link with Jude, get picked up, and then unlink. We could link to position someone from behind quickly since the AI is programmed to take the best route to the back of an enemy. These are the kinds of small optimizations I think we could use with linking to utilize it while still basically playing the whole time.

We could also link just to spam more powerful artes if the boss is knocked down/stunned, and then unlink. It’d be a quick link to unleash a couple powerful attacks.

Those are all I’ve got right now though. If we wanted to fill the Link Gauge effectively we could go in waves of 2 players being linked and switching off every “tier” (I think there’s 4) of the Link Gauge. Again, I personally am okay with letting myself be linked, but this is a final resort kind of option if the boss is really hard and we need over limit.

I’m actually pretty excited to try and master linking with 4 people. Sure, it’s not the standard Tales 4-player experience, but to be honest it’s kind of refreshing and I think it can be a lot of fun. It’s obviously poorly designed (it feels like the multiplayer for Xillia was shoe’d in), but I’m the kind of guy who tries to make something work, and I think linking could be a really cool way to play this game with 4 people, even if it’s generally seen as bad. I think there’s a lot of strategy to be had with this sort of linking; unfortunately, no one’s really experimented with it and just bash it, so I think there’s a lot of untapped potential here.

There’s got to be a way to make this work. I think people just focus on filling the Link Gauge too much and not on the little optimizations you can make regardless of the Link Gauge.

Just Sayin’.

Common (forum) RP’ing Pitfalls

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I used to be a forum RP’er. I started waaay back in the day on Nintendo’s old Power Up (RP) board on the Nsider forums, and wound up running my own for a good 5+ years. I think forum RP’ing is a great alternative to wanting to do something role-play related without 1) leaving the comfort of your chair/couch/whatever, and 2) playing a game.

Throughout those years that I was really into forum RP’ing, I’ve encountered (and committed) plenty of pitfalls that are pretty common to forum RP’ing. Both newbies and veterans are capable of these, and while this is aimed at forum RP’ing, it definitely applies to other kinds of RP’ing as well!

Believe me, I’ve committed all of these multiple times, so if you’re a forum RP’er, don’t feel bad if you’ve done these before.

Being Alone

A big part of any RP is the start. How do the characters meet? Normally, there’s something that draws all the characters together. You might all be part of a guild. Maybe a big event is happening and everyone is gathering for different reasons, only to have someone set off a chain of events and draw everyone else into the conflict – whatever it is, it’s important in an RP that everyone meets, and that’s usually near the beginning.

Well, sometimes that doesn’t happen. Your character is mysterious, anti-social, and stays away from everything. During those few opening posts where people gather he stays to the shadows, literally not bothering to do anything but mind their own business. This can be a potentially big problem if they don’t jump into the action and become forgotten. This can be managed by a skilled thread owner with an NPC, but sometimes even that’s not enough.

You can be mysterious and brooding, but just make sure that your character winds up with everyone else (or at least another PC). You can maybe plan to have your character come in way later, but that’s something you’ll have to discuss with the RP owner.

Speaking of…

Crashing the RP

The guy who makes the RP (at least, for me) usually has a plan of action for the flow and plot of the RP. Sure, there are cool side stories because of how the characters interact, but a lot of the times someone will come in and try to shift that plot through some means. Maybe you come in and just kill the main atagonist. You blow up a city. You rip a hole into the space-time contiuuum. This kind of stuff should only be happening after talking to the one running the RP. If you’re unsure about what you can and can’t do (IE: can I kill that enemy? Can I take that path? Can I be one of the hidden masters?) just ask them! They’ll let you know.

The way I do it is I force every player to make an arc for themselves within the world. I ask them what they’re envisioning for this character to become, and then work with them off that and try and weave it into the main story. Obviously, sometimes it doesn’t go as plan, but there is a plan, and that’s what’s important. This plan ensures that they don’t break the RP and the player has a good idea of how things will play out and are able to flesh their arc out from that plan. I make sure they don’t go overboard or undersell their character during crucial plot moments that should star them.

And if someone completely breaks it I retcon it because I’m the one running the show. Just like how DM’s have their own flavor and rules, so do RP owners.

Everyone gets a chance to shine

This is more for RP owners, but make sure everyone’s getting some sun. While most RP’s do have a main protagonist, all PC’s are important protagonists and they all should play a part in the outcome of the RP. RP owners, don’t focus on your own character all the time. I’m very guilty of this. I used to have my character in my own RP be the mega star that outshone everyone. During the tail years of my RP’ing my character was obviously the most important, but they were tied to many other characters that played almost as important a role.

Likewise, if one of your characters is very important, don’t overshadow the others. However, if your character doesn’t, it might be because…

Too timid

Like the character that broods alone, this type of character kinda just…well, sits there. They’re part of the party, sure, but they’re timid; they don’t take initiative. And so, during crucial moments they withdraw into themselves, most of their dialog being their own thoughts. This can turn especially bad if they become characters of self-pity/depression. Guys, this is fantasy. Depressed characters don’t do anything. Unless it’s centered around someone dealing with depression, I advise against it. These characters can become dead weight really fast, and you don’t want a character that contributes nothing.

Patience (lack of)

Ever flown through an important moment in the RP and it was only 2-3 people when 6-7 are in it? This is actually pretty common, and definitely something to think about in smaller RP’s. In crucial moments, if you post and your character says something to someone else’s character, wait for them. Don’t let another character go off and propel the scene forward. This was the most common problem for the group I RP’d with – we’d fly through really important fights and scenes without some of the players. Have some patience, let the others contribute (unless the scene/battle doesn’t call for them to or they give you the okay).

Character (and NPC) Control

Some RP’s allow you to have multiple characters. Sometimes you need to control a lot of NPC’s. This can be really fun because there’s a lot of interaction, but a really common problem that arises is that you almost have too many characters. You could go off RP’ing on your own with the characters you control. While this could be cool as a little short story – 10-20 posts that are literally just about your 4 characters adventuring together isn’t exactly beneficial to the RP, because you’re really only interacting with yourself.

Another common problem is that you feel compelled to answer something with every character, which doesn’t sound right. Realistically, you probably only need one character to answer, maybe two if that second character is also very involved in the conversation.

You also don’t want to leave a character by the wayside (unless it’s an NPC, in which you can dispose of them pretty quickly as long as they get their job done).

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While these pitfalls happen often, don’t think they’re always bad. Sometimes retconning happens (the process of saying a scene never happened, a character never existed, etc…), and that can help stop these, but your RP may employ them as part of it. Maybe you’re controlling three different characters who are in different groups; maybe your character keeps to themselves but is actually spying on the group for whatever reason, and reveals themselves sometime later (I’ve actually played a character that did this and I contributed maybe 50 of the 700+ posts to that particular RP, but it was one of my favorite RP’s to participate in). The variables to how a RP is progressing greatly change some of these pitfalls, so they’re not always bad – I think that in most cases, they are, and it’s something to watch out for in other forms of RP’ing.

Just Sayin’

P.S. – Anyone who knows what that is may get a kick out of this archived page (fun fact: one of my old threads is on there!) –http://web.archive.org/web/20060502142725/http://forums.nintendo.com/nintendo/board?board.id=poweron_rp&page=14

Smash 4 is hard to play

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This past Saturday I entered a Super Smash Bros. Wii U (Smash 4) tournament. Being primarily a Project M player and being part of the competitive Smash scene in general, there’s a lot of hate against Smash 4 for its “easy” play in terms of technical ability.

But dammit Smash 4 is hard! I play Mario, one of the more aggressive characters in the game, and it’s painful sometimes how hard it is to get in on another good player. In Project M I can rush down someone with Meta Knight’s great pressure tools and feel relatively safe near someone’s shield. I don’t feel safe at all when I’m near someone’s shield in Smash 4, and it’s so stressful when you’re trying to space around it!

Really, I think it’s harder than the technical barrier Melee/Project M have for new players. Sure, you can pick up and play Smash 4 easily, but to be able to get in on someone good, especially a more defensive player/character? That’s not gonna happen for a while. At least in Melee you can Nair someone’s shield with Fox and be almost completely safe as long v as you L-Cancel and Shine. That kind of input skill can be committed to muscle memory and performed without even a second thought after like two weeks of practice. Obviously it gets a little harder during an intense, heart-pounding match, but I think that can apply to really any game that has even a tiny amount of technical skill involved.

Maybe it’s just harder for me to play Smash 4 than it is Project M. Maybe it’s just more stressful because during a combo in Melee/Project M you can relax yourself for a moment (at least, I do). I dunno. All I know is that Smash 4 is hard to play.

Just sayin’.

REVIEW: Ouran High School Host Club

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*SPOILERS: Don’t read this if you don’t like being spoiled.*

It’s rare for me to watch two shows in a row that I really enjoy. Luckily, Ouran High School Host Club delivered that second consecutive show experience for me!

Background:

Ouran High School Host Club is a reverse harem (one girl, many guys, for those that don’t know) about a girl named Haruhi who dresses androgynous due to her attitudes on gender that stumbles into the host club at Ouran High School, a club about entertaining girls who have nothing better to do because the boys there have nothing better to do. They mistake Haruhi for a boy, and she’s coerced into being a host to repay the debt she incurs from breaking a very expensive lamp. And then they find out Haruhi’s a girl.

It’s a great premise for a reverse-harem because it explores a lot of different topics that a typical harem (reverse or not) explores. Funny how two comedies in a row are deeper than most dramatic anime I’ve seen thus far.

Plot Direction:

Ouran High School Host Club acts like a typical harem-style show, but completely turns it on its head every episode. There’s the episode for every character, the beach episode, the summer vacation episode, the school festival episode, etc… but it does keep a small overarching plot line.

The plot is not the main focus here, however. The show thrives on poking fun at the typical, and besides the characters, this is probably the best part of the show. It’s one of the funniest shows I’ve seen in a while, and that’s because it’s unabashed in how blunt it is in making fun of everything it comes into contact with. I really enjoy how it deals with stereotypes, especially when it comes to gender and social/economic status. That’s where the comedy really hits its mark.

The show itself ramps up in drama and character near the end. It’s very slapstick and lighthearted in the beginning. It’s pretty impressive to see that pulled off well, but what I think is most impressive is how they play with Protagonist and Main Character.

Character:

Again, the characters are the pinnacle of this show, and the reason why their comedy succeeds so well. I could go on about every character, but I think Haruhi deserves a special mention here. In most harems I’ve seen, the protagonist (generally the guy in a harem, girl in a reverse-harem) are the protagonist and the main character. Sure, the other characters go through some change, but it’s really the guy/girl that go through the biggest arc. Haruhi doesn’t. Her arc goes from being forced to work as a host to enjoying working as a host, but it’s incredibly subtle and not really touched upon until the end; to be honest, it’s not that important. So what’s so great about her?

She’s only a main character. And to be honest, I found it really refreshing.

She’s the one that drives the entire host club into changing, but has no real internal conflict to get through. She’s just a catalyst for everyone to change, and that leads me to my next point – most of the host club members are protagonists. Most of them have some conflict that they need to resolve that Haruhi brings out – the twins have to deal with the fact that they can really open up to someone else besides each other, Tamaki has to deal with his feelings of love for Haruhi and his feelings of keeping the Host Club like a family because he was stripped of his own, Kyoya has to deal with being the third son in his family. Honey and Mori have their own episodes, but they’re pretty set in how they are during the show. Honey changes during flash backs when Tamaki convinces him to join the Host Club, but Mori is very much a main character alongside Haruhi, although I’d put him more as a secondary main character.

This combination of protagonist/main characters and have multiples of each usually falls flat because there’s too much going on and the drama usually kills the comedy, but the show does an amazing job of tying everything together and weaving together the dramatic moments with the comedy. The execution is simply superb.

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Ouran High School Host Club is a comedy first, but like The Devil is a Part-Timer!, where I think it shines best is its characters. This is the second comedy in a row I’ve watched, and both have been fantastic because there’s a deeper level there than just comedy, but it’s not so dramatic that the lightheartedness is taken away. I think having excellent character execution is why these two comedies were so great. I think this direction for comedy – where there’s some real character growth and well-defined character roles, is amazing, and it lets the funny moments be even funnier while not letting the inevitable dramatic moments get in the way because they’re so craftily executed.

Ouran High School Host Club does this in dazzling form, and I didn’t even talk about its dazzling animation and music. Do yourself a favor and check it out.

Animation/Art: 8/10
Music: 9/10
Plot Direction: 8/10
Character: 10/10
Final Score: 8/10

Just sayin’

REVIEW: The Devil is a Part-Timer

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*SPOILERS: Don’t read this if you don’t like being spoiled.*

One night, I was in the mood to watch some anime. I started browsing through Netflix and came across The Devil is a Part-Timer, which said it was a comedy about Satan working part-time at a fast food restaurant. I was intrigued and up for some light-hearted comedy, and it was only 13 episodes, so I gave it a shot.

Man, do I wish it had been longer than 13 episodes!

Background

After being defeated by the Hero in Ente Isla, Satan retreats to Earth, where he winds up in modern-day Tokyo with his most trusted general, Alciel. After realizing that magic doesn’t work, they decide to find a place to live, change their names (to Maou and Ashiya), and bide their time until they can return to Ente Isla and conquer it. Little do they know that the Hero, Emilia (Earth name Emi) has cahsed them down to slay them once and for all and save Ente Isla. It’s a really good premise; simple, to-the-point, and best of all, has amazing potential. But does it deliver?

Plot Direction

Oh yes. Yes it does!

So, this show is a comedy. And it’s a comedy about Satan, an almost omnipotent being, working at a MgRonald’s (yes that is a blatant reference to McDonald’s!). Just thinking about it is pretty chuckle-worthy, and really, the comedy is pulled off great, but what I really want to touch on in this review is where this anime goes in (sadly) only 13 episodes.

There’s a lot of development in character and story in this show, and it does that really nicely, even though almost every single episode feels like a filler episode. What this show is really about, to me, is what if the roles of the Devil and the Hero were (somewhat) reversed? Sure, there’s a lot of stories where the enemy is misunderstood and trying to do something for the greater good, but there’s always something that leaves you wanting them defeated. In this show, Satan is the protagonist, and he’s the protagonist not because this show is about being evil – no, it’s about role reversal.

Emi, the Hero, is actually an anti-hero, as you find out. She has that perfect tragic Hero backstory – she was taken away from her family to be trained as the Hero, she finds out her father dies from a general of Maou’s army, and then swears vengeance on him. This is flipped into being an anti-hero when it’s revealed that there is no “destiny” to slay the Devil King. The church in Ente Isla fooled her as part of an elaborate plot to take over. Unfortunately, this whole backstabbing isn’t explored nearly as much as I would have liked, but that’s because there’s only 13 episodes. If there’s a second season I really hope they go into more detail about this, because it’s something I’d love to see more of.

So the show basically puts you in this weird spot where Emi continues to try and stick to “being the Hero”, even though there was no grand destiny, in order to justify her wanting to kill Maou because his army killed her father, while Maou continues to bewilder her and others who come into the show trying to stop him (because he’s the Devil King) when he does nothing but good, even when he momentarily regains his demonic power due to the negative emotions elicited by people.

Frankly, this is one of the best role reversal plots I’ve experienced. It’s all pretty subtle save for a few episodes, and it’s garnished with a hefty helping of comedic frosting. While I’m sure others can, I can’t find anything I disliked about where the show went or its plot as a whole, and that’s in part due to how well these characters develop.

Character:

This is, hands-down, the best part of this show. In particular, Emi stands out as the pinnacle of a developing character.

Maou develops, but it’s more that he opens up to you like a friend becoming closer to you than him really changing. You find out that he only attacked humans in Ente Isla due to misunderstanding them, and that he actually prefers living on Earth because the people there have been kind to him. It’s this living in modern-day Tokyo that Maou comes to understand, appreciate, and respect humans. It’s weird to see someone who’s supposed to be evil be so kind, especially when it involves Emi.

This isn’t in the anime explicitly, but while looking the show up I came across the light novel (which it started out as), and there’s a scene where Maou tells Emi that she has to keep an eye on him and stop him because he’s going to take over Ente Isla someday, even though both of them know that’s not going to happen. It’s an incredible scene for both of them, with Maou selflessly lying just to appease the distraught Emi. Again, it’s somewhere waaaay down the line in the light novel, but I think it’s worth mentioning because that kind of perfect role-reversal is very subtle throughout the anime, whereas it’s a little more clean-cut in that scene.

Speaking of Emi, she’s probably the most developed character. She goes from the Hero, hell-bent on taking out Maou, to a girl who doesn’t exactly know what she should be doing concerning Maou because her only desire is to exact revenge on him for her father. She bluffs that she needs to take him out because she’s “the Hero”, but she values him as an unlikely friend. She even goes out of her way to talk someone of the church of Ente Isla into holding off on slaying Maou despite all the horrible things he did in Ente Isla, claiming that it was her duty as the Hero.

The rest of the characters all undergo some sort of development, and really, I’d like to write about all of them, but in this review I really wanted to touch on the dramatic role-reversal that’s subtly masked under an anime labeled as a comedy, and how brilliantly it’s executed. Trust me when I say that pretty much every character is enjoyable and undergoes some form of character development. It’s fantastic.

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The Devil is a Part-Timer was a show I randomly decided to watch on Netflix, and it rocketed into the top 5 for me. This show has it all for me – action, great comedy, character, and plot, and to top it all off, the animation is really good. The only really glaring flaw is that it’s only 13 episodes. Still, If you’re looking for something to marathon through and get way more than you expected out of it, check this anime out!

Animation/Art: 9/10
Music: 7/10
Plot Direction: 10/10
Character: 10/10
Final Score: 9/10

Just sayin’

UPDATE tiiiime!

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I apologize for not putting up a post in the past two weeks. I have been doing a lot of interviews and job applications, and after a long struggle, I finally have a full-time job! I’m happy with what I’ll be doing and it’ll finally give some real structure to my days, something I’ve been longing to have for quite some time.

So, with that in mind, it’s time to once again change my schedule to once a week. I’m gonna try and mix up my posts with shorter posts now that I’m moving back to once a week. I try to select things that lend me to writing something a bit more lengthy (hence why they’re usually reviews), but I think I’m gonna try and put up shorter stuff that I wouldn’t normally put in, say, a tweet.

What won’t be changing is the upload day. I will be aiming for Monday as I have been for a while.

Just Sayin’