Pokemon Black part 4: Where the villain reveals his plot

Explored the sand ruins and caught some more cool looking pokemon, got a fossil, went back to Nacrene Museum and turned the fossil into a Tirtouga. Now this looks like a good water type, it's going on my team.

Back to Nimbasa... wow there's a lot of stuff to check out here! Let's see... a Musical Theater, Battle Institute, Battle Subway, abaseball stadium... a basketball court... ok... yo you may be good at pokemon but I'll smoke you losers in the b-ball court. also there's Route 5 and Route 16 with a lot of trainers to level up if you need to... The battle institute isn't available yet either. Some "woman of mystery" comes out of the battle subway and heads to the battle institute. Whoa man she must be hardcore.

I tried out the battle subway, it's actually pretty interesting seeing all the weird new pokemon designs in this game. These designs beat the hell out of Gen 4...

Also someone gave me HM04 Strength... gave it to Drilbur, who also has Rock Smash... I think it's fitting that this pokemon has all the rock related moves. Hell yeah

Speaking of which, I think I'm gonna go beat that lighting gym with Drilbur single-handed. It's at the theme park... once you get there you're taken into a scene where you go on a ferris wheel with N, the leader of Team Plasma. He talks about how he's gonna defeat the champion and force every trainer to release their pokemon... So in Unova the champion is like Hitler or something? "Pokemon are not people! They must be separated from us and live on their own in camps made especially for them"

He battles me and lets the Plasma grunts escape... now off to the gym. The gym leader Elesa is a model, all the trainers here are into fashion, but none of that matters because the gym itself is a ROLLER COASTER MAZE! You control the roller coaster's path with switches. Is that awesome or what?

Also, Elesa is one damn nice looking gym leader.

This one trainer has a flying electric mouse... Emolga oh thats just great it's using double team. The gym leader has 2 of these things, and they know Aerial Ace, my Servine is screwed... This is much harder than I expected. Then there's Zebstrike, an electric zebra... Herdier took it out with a well timed Retaliate move, then got killed by Emolga due to being paralyzed... now I'm just down to Tranquill, a pokemon that's weak against electric. Died in one hit... luckily I still have a low leveled Panpour, I can use this turn to revive my Herdier and... Retaliate, done. phew, barely survived that one. That gym leader had type advantages over all but 2 of my pokemon, and those 2 were only neutral against those damn flying Pikachus.

"You're going to Driftveil City next?"

What? Bitch I didn't say that. I'll decide where I'm going thank you. She fixes route 5 so I can cross. Screw that I'm gonna see what's down route 16.

yeah... I like to think Pokemon is more interesting if you get "Game Over" when you lose a battle. At least during the story part of it anyway.

Tried out every stage show at the musical theatre. Dress up your pokemon! Watch them dance on stage! I think I'm playing Idolmaster or something...

Hmm, it's cool but I don't see the point. Are there like prizes? Do you have any control at all over the result? Looks like the results aren't ranked like the usual contest stuff, you just get various comments... After getting a 'very unique' comment someone shows up and gives me another prop to dress up with... you can also save photos of your performances... sounds cool but, meh, let's get back to playing Pokemon.

I decide to go check out route 16 for no reason in particular... seems like the game has finally opened up now and you are able to explore freely. It's... your average road between cities, absolutely nothing gimmicky or distracting here, and also the trainers here are kinda tough... I'll explore around for a while before the next gym.

Wind Waker Part 3: Legend of the Environmentalists

Now we come to an island that is... well it's a giant tree. This shouldn't seem odd to anybody who's played OoT, as that game had a tree that was big enough to fit a dungeon inside it.

The outside of Forest Haven is very reminiscent of Zora's River, and it almost seems to be more of a water themed island. Perhaps Forest Haven is a source of pure water, untainted by the salt from the ocean. The water flows out from the inside of the tree, and the way it's set up makes it seem like a kind of barrier.

Once you go inside the tree, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot there at first. It feels like it's full of life, yet at the same time it feels empty... The life force in the Forest Haven is the spirit of the Deku Tree, and its children the Koroks, who all share the same spirit. If you think back to OoT, the Kokiri were forest spirits born from the Deku Tree, and they never grew up, but they could also never leave the forest or else they would die.

After a bit more exploring, you find that you can talk to the big tree in the middle. This is the Great Deku Tree, and he's got a bit of an acne problem...

Since I'm here to get the Farore's Pearl, I guess I'll need to help this tree out. Knocked all these Chu Chu monsters off him and cleaned up. Now he's talking to me in some ancient language. After he realizes I can't understand, he starts speaking in WW language. He says Link reminded him of the Hero of Time, and that for a new Link to be here now, it must mean that Ganon has returned.

Wait, so he returned only recently? The dark evil wind that blew across the kingdom as mentioned in the prologue, was merely Ganon's shadow, or his phantom, perhaps? Since the ending of OoT altered destiny, the events of A Link to the Past were also changed, and Ganon was eventually able to escape his prison in the sacred realm... at least that's one interpretation of where ALttP goes on the timeline, and I think it makes the most sense. You can read more about the Predestined timeline theory here.

For this tree to even know the old Hylian language, he must be quite old. That doesn't necessarily mean he's the Deku Sprout from OoT, since for all we know there could be many Deku Trees. It's possible though. This tree also knows the who the King of Red Lions is. Hmm... the timeline clues here seem significant but too unclear to draw anything from.

But wait, this Forest Haven is obviously much higher above sea floor level than the Kokiri Forest, so how can it be the same Deku Tree? Trees can't get up and walk around. Apparently the Great Deku Tree is an Earth god of some sort. It's likely that it can use its roots to make the land itself rise up, and strengthen the soil so that it could form an island out in the ocean.

Think about where the Deku Sprite was in relation to the giant dead Deku Tree. He was only a few steps away from its wide open mouth. He could've shifted the land enough so that he grew inside the hollow deku tree, raised all the land around it, and eventually turned that tree into the Forest Haven. And the Kokiri spirits turned into Koroks...

They were hiding from Link because they've become afraid of humans. The Deku Tree tells you that the Koroks are his children, and that they once took the form of humans. They took on these shapes when they came to live on the sea. They evolved into walking, flying tree sprouts and they can now leave the forest any time, and can even go out to far off islands to plant other Deku Trees. Every year the Koroks come back to the Forest Haven to complete a ritual to create more seeds... by playing instruments. It's kind of awesome when you think about it.


But now, one of the Koroks is missing, the one called Makar. He went to the Forbidden Woods to try and find out why monsters were invading Forest Haven. It doesn't seem to make much sense. Why would the source of the monsters come from the Forbidden Woods. I guess the place does look kind of evil...

What with the the prickly roots crawling all over it, I mean, you could almost hurt yourself on that! This place must've been another giant tree that grew out of the ocean somehow. I'm guessing those roots are involved. Maybe this is one of the trees in the Lost Woods, and all the monsters living in the forest sheltered it from the flood until it became the Forbidden Woods. It could be connected to the Forest Temple.

If the Koroks succeed in spreading their seeds around the islands of the Great Sea, they will eventually manage to raise old Hyrule up out of the ocean, completely unflooding the land. Of course it'll be completely in ruins by then, but that leaves it open to the possibility that other triforce-related games could go after Wind Waker in the timeline, such as Zelda 1 and 2 for NES...

The gameplay mechanics take even more twists at this level. You can launch yourself out of flowers, blow gusts of wind to hit switches and knock out some enemies, and even parachute through the air with a leaf! Just like the magic leaf from SMB3 :D

Here's where I unsuccessfully try to get to the switch that opens the Nintendo Gallery. damn I thought I had it... I'm not sure if there's another way I'm supposed to go. What? It's been almost 8 freaking years since I last played this, and I'm not using a guide, so yeah...

Also picked up a magic potion even though I'm sure I won't need it.

The first 'puzzle' of this dungeon involves using the wind in innovative ways. The entrance is too far for you to glide to with the leaf... sure it's easy, but really I love how this game makes such great use of the wind in its game mechanics. The Forbidden Woods is a really fun dungeon for its gliding puzzles, and it can even get kind of tricky at times.

There's also bottomless pits in this dungeon, suggesting that it must be a very tall, unusually strong tree coming out of a lower ground beneath the sea level. This tree might even be older than the Forest Haven tree due to the fact that the ground didn't need to rise up for it to come out of the ocean.

There's also roots that pop out of the ground when you get close, similar to the surprise fire walls in OoT, only these are more annoying because they're louder and have a wider hitbox :P

This level does actually stump me sometimes (heheh STUMP get it?)... finding the boss key took me a while. I think I ran back and forth through a wind platform room several times. I ended up getting to a really hard to find treasure chest containing a... treasure chart. Yeah real nice game... find the treasure to find where the treasure is! Kind of a cheap way to add more hidden things to find.

The boss key ended up being across a big gap with water at the bottom. I couldn't figure it out at first, I confused it with Majora's Mask and thought I might have to come back here with ice arrows lol... But actually you can use the leaf to blow wind on the flower platform and make it move across the water. Of course! To play this game you must think like the wind.

The multi-targetting boomerang is pretty sweet too. So far every new item in this game has introduced a brand new game mechanic, this is what makes it stand out so much from the N64 games. It's not just more of the same game... Also I forgot you could use the grappling hook to climb ontop of whatever your grappled onto. This thing has a million uses!

The boss of Forbidden Woods is kind of like Barinade from OoT, only he's a flower so he can't move around lol. Total joke boss. Be careful, if you stand around to long he might hit you and take a quarter of a heart out!

Makar was hanging out with this flower thing for some reason. Now we get to go back to Forest Haven and listen to the Koroks rocking out with their fiddles.

Another great thing about Wind Waker are the various islands scattered throughout the sea, all having some unique objectives or puzzles to solve and a treasure to find. There's such a variety of stuff to do... you even get to control seagulls!
There's a big sidequest where you help the Koroks grow new Deku Trees on different islands... Also

This guy is hilarious. He should be in every Zelda game. HOOOOOOOH I SEE SOMETHING! THERE'S TOTALLY AN ITEM WORTH GETTING IN THE GENERAL DIRECTION I AM LOOKING IN!

A bit more exploring and I suddenly find myself in...

Could this possibly be a closed off entrance to the sunken Hyrule? Maybe... I mean there's not many people left who even know about the triforce anymore. This place must've been built during the flood when people were fleeing to higher ground. I remembered from OoT that triforce symbols usually mean you have to play a song... so I played the Wind's Requiem, and behold!

First triforce chart, hell yeah! Too bad I still have to shell out some rupees before I can read it. There's still my favorite part of the game coming up... That makes me wonder, is it possible to sequence break and find all the triforce pieces before going to the Tower of the Gods? I haven't played in so long I have no idea...

Pokemon Black part 3: Rivals getting better

There's a bunch of items and stuff to get from people at Castelia City it seems. Since I'm not using a walkthrough I'm probably not gonna get them all. Sheesh, there sure is a lot of stuff to do though. There's a few office buildings filled with trainers who want to battle you, and some random empty office buildings for no reason... and a bunch of docks which I guess will serve some purpose later on.

Alright enough of that, time for the gym, but wait the gym leader went off somewhere. Of course, another Team Plasma distraction, I should have guessed. This time they tried to steal Bianca's pokemon. As if she didn't seem weak enough already. I kinda feel bad for her :(

After that you get to fight Burgh, the bug pokemon gym leader. It's not really a fight more like squashing bugs. This is incredibly easy if you've been training a Pidove through the Pinwheel Forest. Mine has evolved into a Tranquill making this gym a complete joke. The gym has these oddly durable walls of honey that you need to walk through.

So far the only gym with a decent puzzle gimmick has been the 2nd gym, the museum in Nacrene City, where you have to follow the clues on the bookshelves to find the entrance to the gym leader. The first gym, in Striaton City was just a simple pokemon quiz that's typical of the beginning of the game's tutorials.

More rival battles yay! First Bianca battles you, with a lot more confidence now...

    I'm the new-and-improved version of me! It's gonna go great this time!

So the game has finally stopped making her into the weakling side character. This should be interesting. I would be amazed if she ends up becoming a more competent trainer than Cheren by the end of the game. Her pokemon now are Herdier, Munna, Pansear, and Dewott... yeah still not a problem in the slightest. My Herdier was able to take out her entire team.

Next there's a battle with Cheren... now this dude seems to know quite a bit about strategy... his level 22 pignite dominated my level 25 Tranquill, and even my Drillbur somehow got down to 1 hp against it, even with the type advantage. Herdier easily took care of the rest of his pokemon, including the ugly looking cat thing, Liepard (what kind of a name is that?).

Rock smashed his ugly face in.

Suddenly, a call from professor Juniper. To remind us that she's a main character too... Ohhhh yeah right she's the one who gave us our starters. uh what's her name again? :P

Bianca's apparently too busy training to become hardcore like Cheren and me, as she didn't pick up Juniper's call. She wants us to meet her at the gate to Nimbasa City... which is straight down the road. She probably took a car or something. The construction that was blocking the path on route 4 is finished after you beat the gym, purely by coincidence I'm sure.

There's also some ruins on the way... hmm do I get distracted by this or not? Well the game's telling me to go straight to Nimbasa City so I guess I'll go there first.

Juniper shows up to give us some ultra balls and to tell us to keep being awesome and to catch any rare pokemon you see because they might not show up again. Cheren tells me that this whole journey to fill up the pokedex was something set up by our parents as an excuse to travel the world and have fun. It seems like there's a bigger plot behind this, but I'm not sure what that might be yet.

Cheren heads down to the ruins... I decide to check that out after exploring Nimbasa City. Bianca shows up... excited about all the things to do and see at Nimbasa. This place is an entertainment centre, with a theme park and sports and musicals and stuff... there's probably even more distractions here than there was at Castelia City... I just take a look around the place, and scope out the town's music (as I always do) and then head back down to check out the ruins.

Dragon Roost Cavern: A volcanic adventure

...I'm still as blown away by these graphics now as I was 8 years ago. This game just looks that good... and now in hi-res! I think the nostalgic value of this game is even greater than MM and OoT. Something about the huge world, and small but familiar islands. I also kinda forgot a lot about this game since then. Throwing bait out to get a fish to draw you a map... whatever the spoils bag is for... then there's the pictobox... I'm looking forward to exploring and finding the secrets all through this game again.

Rupees seem to be very important in this game, too. Much more so than the N64 games. They are about as important as they were in the classic games such as LA and LoZ. It really makes you want to go out of your way to find rupee upgrades and chests, unlike in Twilight Princess where it was like "aw man not ANOTHER rupee chest".

Dragon Roost Island is home to the god of wind, Zephos.  As soon as you get to this island you can go to the wind shrine where Zephos teaches you the Wind's Requiem. Kinda makes me wonder if this place is somehow related to Link's Awakening and the Ballad of the Wind Fish... nah probably not.

The Rito tribe also lives on this island. Apparently they evolved from zoras into bird people. I guess since the water became too salty, they eventually abandoned the water and took to the skies. I think the zoras were cooler though...

The island itself is a volcano, which kind of resembles Death Mountain. If it is the same Death Mountain as the one in Hyrule, it must be a lot bigger than it was previously shown to be. Just like in OoT you also get to use bomb flowers in this area. Once you get into Dragon Roost Cavern, it really starts to feel more like an active volcano. Even more so than the Fire Temple in OoT. 

So the boat tells Link he's supposed to pick up an orb of some kind...

oh, there it is. The magic orb which probably means a lot to these Rito people that I'm supposed to take from them... This kid, Komali is their prince, and he isn't in the mood to talk to anybody since his grandma died. His grandma was also the only person able to calm Valoo, the dragon and spirit of the sky who sits ontop of the volcano. Link then goes to help Medli, Valoo's attendant, who wants to attempt to calm Valoo herself...

The story is as awesome as ever. I think if they were to ever make a Zelda movie it should be based on Wind Waker, just cuz there's so much good movie material in it.

This dungeon, the Dragon Roost Cavern, has one of my favorite Zelda items. The grappling hook was used by the zoras before they became bird people, that must've been how they transitioned from the water to the sky. While the hookshot kind of made it feel like you were a gimped Spider-Man, only able to cling to certain surfaces, the grappling hook and its abilities feel alot more realistic. Well okay, realistic in the Indiana Jones kind of way... I mean you're a 10 year old kid grappling across a volcanic pit after all.

I hear a lot of flack for this game comes from the fact that its too easy. I don't necessarily see that being the case. I doubt any competent gamer would have any trouble beating the entire game with 3 hearts, but that's not where the difficulty lies. The difficulty of WW comes primarily from its unique puzzles. When I played this for the first time I got stuck a lot, certainly more so than OoT and even more than MM. There's no fairy guiding you around, and the boat, for the most part doesn't help you out in dungeons either. The puzzles are so well designed, that I guess you might luck out and figure them out right away if you look at it in the right mindset. But it can still get kinda tricky. Instead of recycling a lot of the puzzles from OoT like you'd expect, there's a bunch of new twists and game mechanics that you have to figure out. Like how using sticks to light torches is a bit different now because you gotta find a stick from an enemy and carry it around... and you can even throw a torched stick at an unreachable piece of wood in order to burn it. Little stuff like that can be kind of tricky your first time playing.

The action parts may be pathetically easy, but still enjoyable just because of the unique ways the game approaches them. Like honestly, all the complaints you can make for this game being too easy, are more than made up for with the game's brilliant art direction. Sidling across narrow ledges was an awesome addition to this game too.

The giant centipede boss at the end of this dungeon is easy, but fun. The magic teleportation jars are a really cool gimmick they kind of remind me of the teleport shortcuts in some of the old Zelda games. I also liked the puzzle where you had to make a lava elevator using a jar of water thrown ontop of the rising lava, now that's the kind of awesome puzzle design you'd expect from a Zelda game.

After teleporting out of the dungeon with the power of wind, Link now has the ability to control the wind and sail anywhere. It's like... controlling the wind is the path of destiny... The Link of OoT, was the hero of time, following the destiny prewritten by time ... but the Wind Waker controls destiny itself by controlling the wind. The prologue makes it seem like the wind actually has a lot to do with Hyrule. Skyward Sword also heavily suggests that Hyrule is connected to a world in the sky. Hmm, perhaps we'll get some more back story for WW in Skyward Sword? I guess we'll wait and see.

Pokemon Black Part 2: Plot Speculations

There's that guy who doesn't let you pass until you get the first gym badge. There must be like street gangs of these people, their in every pokemon game. Oh you haven't beaten the weakling gym leader yet I can't let you pass this turf is reserved for non-weaklings... or something like that.

So far I've found out that Team Plasma wants to use dream powder to go into people's minds and brainwash them through their dreams... and that they have leaders called the "Seven Sages", and there's some sort of legend passed down about how pokemon were created or something... I GOT IT this must be another alternate Zelda timeline! I bet there's gonna be a Ganon pokemon at the end and I'll get the triforce! nah... but really though Pokemon has really improved a lot on its story since the last installment.

Nacrene city... not much to talk about here. A lot of these areas seem like their supposed to have a purpose but I can't really tell what it is until later on. There's the daycare, which I'm probably only gonna use for breeding. lol I'm going around talking to everybody and these kids at the daycare are engaged in some really philosophical debate, they're like "am I chasing after you, or are you chasing after me? by changing your perspective you can change reality..."

Drilbur looks awesome he's going on my team. Also started using a Pidove, Lillipup evolved into Herdier and became even more badass. The Panpour I'm really just dragging along I have no interest in training it. Still holding out for a good water type.

Pinwheel forest... more Plasma battles, basically more easy leveling yay. There's a lot of Team Plasma and Rival battles near the beginning which are stupidly easy if you've healed beforehand. So far Cheren has been an alright rival, but Bianca is a joke, she just may as well be a random trainer. Maybe she'll end up becoming a breeder instead or something lol.

Also I'm kinda intrigued by this c-gear thing that lets your Pokemon have dreams... I'm not sure what that's about but it sounds cool. I have no idea how to use this thing.

This game has a huge focus on scenery. Skyarrow Bridge somehow felt really awesome walking around in even though it's still just DS graphics.

Apparently Castelia City is supposed to be New York or something. I dunno. Them Japanese people are such Ameriboos, they probably think this is actually accurate or something. I want to like Castelia City but I mean... ahhhhhhh there's so many people to talk to! What is this survey nonsense? So many distractions! I'll probably be here for a while :P

This game's story is really starting to pick up. I'm actually looking forward to how it'll end up...

Episode 49: "Retro A-Go-Go"

UPDATE: As of 9/13/11 this video is now at THIS LINK

Is the Retro-Gaming craze helping or hurting us?



The Quest of The OverThinker comes to a close. Stay tuned for Episode 50 for the conclusion of the AntiThinker Saga!

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker - Why this Game is a Timeless Classic

With this year being the 25th anniversary of the Zelda series, and the anticipation of Skyward Sword coming out later this year, I've really been in the mode for Zelda games lately. It's amazing how enjoyable these games still are even after playing them dozens of times. Part of the reason I started this blog in the first place is I want to try and express how incredible these games actually are.

I'm currently playing through Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. First of all, this intro scene gives me the chills every damn time...

It puts the story of Ocarina of Time into the perspective of a legend passed down through the ages. It tells of a lost and forgotten kingdom. A kingdom that was saved by a time-travelling hero. This kingdom became so reliant on their faith in the goddesses and the Hero of Time, that when evil once again returned they could do nothing but pray for someone to come and save them... But the hero of time never returned, the kingdom was forever ruled by darkness.

So it begins... in Wind Waker, your surrounded by vast ocean where only little bits and pieces of Hyrules legends are remembered. There's Outset Island, a small island with a tradition of garbing young boys in a green tunic when they turned 10, to try and get them to know courage like the hero of legend... This is where a new hero named Link starts his adventure.

The story and characters are so amazingly well done. There's Link's sister, Aryll, who lets him borrow her telescope as a birthday present, and his grandma who gives him the green tunic and shield to become like the legendary hero... You don't really get a sense that this Link is a hero or courageous at all until the scene where Link spots a giant bird flying by with a girl in its claws. A nearby pirate crew stops the bird by shooting cannonballs at it, and the girl falls into the woods on the island's mountaintop. Link suddenly springs into action to rescue her, and has his first encounter with moblins.

Tetra is another awesome character. She is ungreatful for Link's rescuing her at first, until the giant bird comes back and kidnaps Link's sister... you can really sense the emotion at this part, as Link blindly runs after the bird without even realizing he's on the edge of a cliff. He convices Tetra to let him on the pirate ship so he can go and rescue Aryll.


I like how the bird mailman guy has an explanation for why he knows so much about the world. The majority of the population just stays on their little island oblivious of everything that's happening, but the birds and sailors and pirates are much more involved and know about the evil lurking in forsaken fortress. Also the pirates seem to know a lot about the world, including where that bird came

The scene where he gets the shield from his grandmother really tears me up. She knows what's going on and that Link must set out on a dangerous journey... she's reluctant to give the shield to him. Finally he sets off into the ocean. Waves goodbye to his home and never looks back.

Already you get a sense that Link is a very courageous kid, even though he had never once left the island, he heads straight for the Forsaken Fortress where his sister is held, gets shot out of a catapult, and sneaks around through this heavily guarded base without a sword...

Gameplay-wise it's easier than it looks, but still it looks freaking badass. The Forsaken Fortress is a really fun level. Solid Toon Link FTW. It's pretty straight forward when you pay attention to stuff but it's easy to get lost and not know what to do. This level is much more unique and fun than the usual first dungeon of a Zelda game.

Link found Arryl, as well as a bunch of other girls locked up, but then the giant bird comes down and takes Link away. He takes him to the leader of the fortress, Ganondorf...

This scene is comparable to Ocarina of Time when Link encounters Ganondorf on the black horse. A little powerless kid with tremendous courage faces up against a dark evil king with tremendous power... of course you know who wins in the end. You'd think that Ganondorf would've learned by now not to underestimate kids in green tunics.

The communicator necklace thing kind of makes it seem like Tetra will be the new Navi of this game, telling you what to do every step of the way. But that role is reserved for this guy:

The king of red lions is like both Navi and the owl Kaepora Gaebora combined into one. He tells you everything going on in the entire story and he also gives you hints on puzzles through the communicator necklace. Who needs strategy guides anymore? It would be nice if there was an option to turn these guys off in Zelda games so you can play through the game old-school style.

After this the boat takes Link to Windfall Island. There's ton of stuff to do here but most of it is later on in the game. After you pick up a sail from a shop you get the first of many sailing parts of the game. The sailing is kind of both good and bad, it gives you an amazing sense of adventure and atmosphere unlike any other game, but it's also objectively boring and monotonous. At least there's plenty of hidden treasures and stuff to keep an eye out for while your heading to your next destination...


Dragon Roost Island is the next part of the game... I'll post about that in my next update. There's still a lot of awesome parts to this game before the dreaded... triforce hunt.

The End Is Near...

MONDAY MARCH 28 2011

THE ENEMY RETURNS

THE TRUE FACE IS REVEALED

THE QUEST ENDS...

...THE WAR BEGINS

Starting Pokemon Black

Started Pokemon Black for the first time.

I'm playing as the girl trainer. Why?

she's hot. I'd rather look at that at the start of every battle honestly.

Now for starters... Snivy is my choice. I usually choose the water starter, but seriously Oshawott just looks dumb. I find grass types are very useful in the early game anyway for their abilities... and they can take out a lot of tougher defensive pokemon by leech seed spamming.

Then there's the characters. Bianca the noob trainer, who you can tell right away probably isn't gonna make it to the Elite Four. Then there's Cheren the serious business pokenerd, I guess he's basically like May's brother on the anime...

Professor Juniper is totally... there. She's lifeless and uninteresting at this point.

Every once in a while I keep stopping in a new area to listen to the catchy music... I do this in every pokemon game lol.

The game is off to a... very slow start. Wow... the tutorials really get worse with each game. It forces you into so many tutorials you even get to do anything until like 15 minutes in.

Meanwhile the 3 protagonists have a pokemon catching competition on route 1. All you can find here are Patrats, I guess it's supposed to end in a tie.

As usual the 2nd town is boring with nothing in it... except for a nice view ontop of a hill. I'm not sure where they got the ideas for these town names. Accumula town, wtf? It was so much easier when towns were named after colours. I doubt I'll be able to memorize any of them.

Caught a Lillipup, looks promising enough, decided to train it. Purrloin... nah I never had much luck with dark types.

Striaton City now. Whoever this Team Plasma is they seem like an interesting group. Speaking of which I heard there was a bad guy team in this game... I wonder when their gonna show up. oh, wait, Team Plasma is trying to liberate pokemon by stealing them... ok. So they're like the protaganist of Pokemon XD Gale of Darkness?

The dreamyard has some kinda "mysterious" thing going on, reminds me of the Unown caves. I'm intrigued... Also there's apparently there's a pokemon goes into your head and brainwashes you with dreams... Inception!

I got a dumb little water monkey thing called Panpour, literally right before the first gym which uses the opposite type of my grass starter. Screw that I'm not taking their easy mode crap, I'm beating that gym using Snivy and Lillipup.

Looks like Lillipup is one of those pokemon that is totally overused by all the npc trainers at the beginning of the game. bleh...

Thoughts on Majora's Mask

The story of Majora's Mask, while it may seem silly on the outside, is really one of the deepest and most touching video game experiences.

Even the intro to this game is really creepy, sad, and ominous and has this deep sense of mystery to it.

In the land of Hyrule, there echoes a legend.
A legend held dearly by the Royal Family that tells of a boy...
A boy who, after battling evil and saving Hyrule, crept away from the land that had made him a legend...
Done with the battles he once waged across time, he embarked on a journey.
A secret and personal journey...
A journey in search of a beloved and invaluable friend...
A friend with whom he parted ways when he finally fulfilled his heroic destiny and took his place among legends...

Such a short and sweet prologue, but that little bit of narration sets the mood of the whole game. It is a story of sadness and regret, dealing with lost friendships, and learning to overcome your losses instead of letting them consume you.

After returning to his own time at the end of OoT, Link felt like something was missing from his life. He set out on a search to find his special friend, the one who had been with him since the beginning. The friend he is looking for is none other than Navi. Having grown up in the Kokiri Forest without a fairy, feeling like an outcast most of his life, Navi must have been very dear to him. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that Link wouldn't have gained the courage to make it as far as he did without Navi helping him along. Her sudden departure must left Link feeling as empty and lost as he did back when he was a fairyless Kokiri boy.

Just as Link is dealing with the loss of his close friend, the Skull Kid is also dealing with the loss of his 4 close friends. The skull kid's situation is very much like Link's both of them are dealing with the loss of a friend, and both of them are haunted by the evil in Majora's Mask.

The creepiness of this mask is unlike any other Zelda boss. It's not a dark, powerful evil like Ganondorf, but more a psychological evil.

As Link treks through the lost woods, he also loses his horse, loses the Ocarina of Time, gets chased by giant Deku scrubs, gets turned into a Deku scrub himself, falls into a deep hole and goes through a trippy Alice in Wonderland sequence.

At this point one might begin to speculate that the curse of the Lost Woods hinted at in OoT is now affecting Link and this is the sort of thing that you'd go through before dying and turning into a stalfos... well, close. After falling into Termina the skull kid uses his creepy powers of staring and twitching his head and makes Link's body get taken over by the soul of a dead Deku Scrub.

To top it all off, there's the mask salesman.

This is undoubtably the strangest character in the Zelda series. His demeanor, his dialogue, his role in the story inspires many ridiculous and off-the-wall speculations as to the meaning of Majora's Mask. He seems to know about everything that's going on... There are tons of wacky theories you might have for this guy. I think the mask salesman represents Buddha. The man of many faces.

Somehow after the fall he ends up in the bottom of a tower in a completely new, strange town. This parallel world aspect was presented extremely well. You get a sense of atmosphere and story that is entirely unlike the classic tales of Hyrule and the Triforce. There's the fact that you start out smack-dab in the middle of a bustling town, There's no talk of a destined hero coming to save the land from evil, everyone seems to have their own agendas, and Link's story is just one of the many important stories being played during the 3 days.

You get to see all these separate stories play out, and at the end of each story you recieve a mask. These masks end up being a very important plot element. When you first arrive in Termina, you meet a Great Fairy who has been separated into stray fairies, and your first task is to find the missing stray fairy so she can become whole again. This theme of bringing people together recurs throughout the rest of the game.

Throughout the game's dungeons there are stray fairies scattered around, and they too need to be brought back together so they can be whole again. Also the dungeons are separated into four areas of Termina that seem to be completely separated as if each area is its own world. By defeating the boss in each dungeon and collecting its remains in a mask, the four giants from each of the four directions can be reunited and brought back together.

Speaking of which, this game's dungeons are very well designed. A huge improvement over Ocarina of Time's dungeons (which are also very well designed but too much on the easy side). I think these dungeons have a very unique spin to the classic Zelda formula while still staying true to the series.

What really makes this game stand out is the Stone Tower Temple. Why? Everything about it is perfect. It's unique, it's challenging, it makes good use of all the items and abilities you got in previous dungeons, it has some badass enemies...

it has amazing architecture...

...and it FLIPS UPDSIDE FREAKING DOWN.

Even with its amazing dungeons, you may get turned off by the fact there is only four of them. While this game only has 4 main dungeons, it does a really good job of filling the gaps between them with sidequests that are very relevant and important to the story. All of these tie into the main theme of the game's story.

At the swamp, you get the story of the Deku Butler who suffered the loss of his son, and Link helps him out by racing him and helping bring him a bit closer to coping with his loss. At the mountain, Link helps a Goron fill his stomach and recieve the Don Gero mask, then after spring returns to the mountain he brings the singing frog group back together. At the ocean, Link brings 2 seahorses back together, brings the Zora eggs together so they can hatch, and helps the Zora Band rehearse their new song. At the canyon, Link recieves the mask of Skull Keeta and uses it to bring the dead soldiers of Ikana to rest, reunites the ghosts of the two composer brothers, Flat and Sharp, de-mummifies a girl's father.

Some of the sidequests have even more story relevance than the main quests...

There are sidequests about an innkeeper and her missing fiance, an alien abduction, and various townsfolk preparing for the end of the world in their own ways... It seems almost futile in the end, Link helping all of these people even though he'll just end up rewinding time anyway, and all he gets out of it is a mask. Are these masks really that important? It doesn't seem like it, until you reach the game's conclusion...

Finally, after helping everyone and obtaining all the masks, you can now confront the Skull Kid, and receive the final mask. As I said before, the Skull Kid's story is very much like Link's. The Skull Kid fell into a deep depression because his friends, the four giants, left him alone. Majora's Mask used his sadness to take control of him and wreak havoc on the world. Just by playing pranks on people at first, causing people to doubt each other and separate. Using the power of the mask, he tries to destroy Termina to get revenge on those who took his friends away from him.

When Link helps bring everyone back together, he receives masks from them. These masks represent the happiness that Link has brought to those people. Each mask represents a different story, an ego, a version of the person who Linked helped make happier.

The Oath to Order is the song that brings the four giants back together. They stop the moon from falling, then the Majora's Mask takes on a life of its own and goes inside the moon, with Link following it. Inside is a playground where a bunch of children are running around wearing the masks of the 4 bosses, and another child sitting by the tree wearing Majora's Mask.

I think these children are supposed to represent the gods of Termina. They are wearing the cursed masks of the bosses who invaded the four temples, which correlates with what has been happening in Termina. The 4 children running around all want to play hide and seek with Link. Hide and seek is the basic philosophical game of beings who know they are gods. Knowing all and seeing all would be a huge bore, and the only way to experience a thrill would be to make something unknown to you, by playing hide and seek.

But when you talk to the kid wearing Majora's Mask, on the other hand...

...Everyone has gone away, haven't they?  Will you play... with me?

You don't have any masks left, do you?  Well, let's do something else.  Let's play good guys against bad guys... Yes.  Let's play that.

Are you ready?  You're the bad guy.  And when you're bad, you just run.  That's fine, right?  Well... Shall we play?

He doesn't want to play hide and seek, but instead wants to play a game of good guys vs. bad guys. This is the basic philosophical game of people who believe in a god or diety. Instead of acting as you are one with the universe, you act as an individual and believe in external beings or gods. The stories of Christianity, for example, are deeply rooted in the theme of good vs. evil, giving a very serious and negative spin on the mysteries of life. Whereas the concepts of eastern religions are based on selflessness, enlightenment, reincarnation, giving a more optimistic spin on the mysteries of life. I believe Majora represents western philosophical views while the other kids who only want to play hide and seek represent eastern philosophical views.

Finally, when Link plays hide and seek with the four children inside the moon and gives all his masks to them, you get to see the true ending where all of Link's helping people throughout all of the time cycles have come together into one timeline. To reaffirm my theory that the children inside the moon are the gods of Termina, they use the masks Link gives them to merge all of these timelines together... They recreated the world using the souls of these masks.

3 quick things

...about the "Eastern vs. Western Game Stories" thing, which apparently everyone finds vastly more fascinating than the rest of the episode...


1.) Good Story is not the same thing as Good Writing. It's entirely plausible that Western game-writers write better screenplays - I wouldn't know, because I can neither read speak Japanese fluently nor read Kanji, and it's unfair to critique writing based on (usually poor) translation. So, yes, I'll take "every gonzo thing we can think of regardless of genre of aesthetic plus maybe somebody is a giant walrus just because" (Japan) over "Tom Clancy but shot like Black Hawk Down - unless it's period, in which case shot like Private Ryan, unless it's medieval in which case copypaste LOTR, unless it's scifi in which case Star Wars" (West.)

2.) With rare exception, I will take "characters who emote too much" over "characters who do not emote at all, or only emote flippantly." Also, I am neither an insecure 13 year-old nor a bitter 90 year-old - thusly, male characters who display quasi "feminine" traits, grow out and/or color their hair are not innately infuriating to me.

3.) Just a thought: If HUNDREDS of people rushing in to "disprove" the opinion in question keep citing as evidence, independently of one another, the SAME five or six titles - two or three of which are from the same company running on a VERY similar story engine... that MIGHT kinda be making the point for me. Just sayin.

PAX East 2011 Wrapup

Short version: It was a BLAST! Long version, after the jump...



BEST PART:
Finally meeting my editor Susan Arendt, the Loading Ready Run crew, Shamus and all the other Escapist peeps in person, plus doing the movie-night panel that went KICKASS.

WORST PART:
Ah, cons - where $5 for a slice of pizza somehow sounds briefly reasonable...

3DS:
For the first half-second of picking it up, my heart-sank: "Oh no... the 3D doesn't work." But once your eyes find "dead center" magic-eye style a half-second later... damn, that's a nifty effect - it really does look like the screen is a "portal" reaching much deeper into the background than possible in your hand, which is freaky as hell at first - and I'll bet it'll be even more impressive when not under harsh convention lightning (i.e. when the screen is the brightest thing in your field of vision.) I'm still not 100% sure if the effect has a practical application outside of looking cool, and I can see myself switching the 3D off for longer sessions, but it works and even absent 3D the graphics/controls are - as expected - terrific.

"FIREFALL"
Hadn't been following development on this, but evidently an online/co-op 3rd-person shooter that looks like "Gears of War" with a stylized, cartoon/comic inspired design aesthetic. They were putting on quite a show.

"MORTAL KOMBAT" REBOOT:
It's "Mortal Kombat 2" gone 2.5D in High-Definition and with tag-team play... and there isn't a DAMN THING wrong with that! They had it set up in oldschool arcade-style cabinets complete with "fighter stick" controls; played a match against a friendly stranger and suddenly it was the tolerable part of the 90s again - sooo satisfying to hear "Finish Him!" again. This thing will be HUGE.

TGO Special Message re: Japanese Earthquake

(UPDATED TO FIX FACTUAL ERROR.) Please consider making a donation to the charity or relief-organization of your choice to aid in the ongoing tragedy in Japan.

PAX schedule stuff PLUS "big" announcement

Okay folks, things have been and will be "sparse-ish" in the daytime 'round here for the weekend, as I'll be at PAX East for most of it. I'll probably turn up at the con itself around 4pm or so tommorow (got some business first) and be around for most of the evening after that... Saturday and Sunday? We'll see what happens, but I'm planning to be at as much as possible.

So... since I can't really blog from the con; I've gone and done the unthinkable... and signed up for Twitter. Yes, I'll be tweeting from PAX - follow me @the_moviebob. Let me know in the comments if that hyperlink works or not - Twitter's urls are weird, and I don't know if it "takes" like that. If it doesn't, just look up "the_moviebob" on Twitter itself - the other ones just called "moviebob" AREN'T me.

self-promotion

The OverThinker WILL be at PAX East 2011

Title kinda says it all. TGO, aka MovieBob, aka ME will be out and about at PAX East this year, so if you see me feel free to say hello ;) Can't say at this time exactly what days/times or in what capacity, but I'll be around.

Postscript for smart-aleck's: Astral-projection, that's how.

Unbeatable

Everything at once maddening yet undeniable about Nintendo's dual-existence as a corporate entity and Colonial Governor of a generation's memories; summarized in a single image:

Giving the keynote at GDC, President Satoru Iwata focused heavily on the upcoming 3DS handheld and dropped the customary not-in-any-way-shocking announcement that a new Mario title was in-production for the system. No screenshots or even title were given, save for the detail that it's being developed by the "Galaxy" team. Oh, and the "Super Mario" logo's shadow... has a familiar-looking TAIL.

And... there you have it. Waaaay more than half of any fans "on the fence" about the 3DS just made up their mind. That's another several-million systems presold, regardless of price or availability. Not because of a feature, or because of a full-lineup, or even because of a tangible game... but because they've vaguely intimated that we might at some point see Tanooki (re: Raccoon) Mario again after a 22 year absence.

THIS is why everyone else whose ever tried to sell a handheld console went bald early.