Lost Odyssey is this Final Fantasy fan's perfect old school JRPG revival

image via Wikipedia

Last October I stumbled upon a video game so good that it quickly became an obsession. The game: "Lost Odyssey," published in 2007 by Microsoft for release solely on the XBox 360.

Even before that, around last summer, I acquired an XBox 360 and around 20 games from my landlord. It all came at a great time, when my older games were gathering dust, and I was resorting to re-playing them—not a bad time, but after a while of it, I was in a gaming funk. Suddenly I was awash in new gaming experiences, and it was really nice. My fun-at-home factor skyrocketed.

I was in for a bit of a disappointment, however, as far as the games were concerned. Chalk it up to differences in gaming taste between my landlord and I, but The "Halo," "Gears of War," "Guitar Hero," and "Saints Row" franchises, though really well-made and worth putting time into, didn't really fit what I was looking for, or what I could play in front of my kids.

Many of them were short on positives—originality, compelling characters, confident narrative, convincing voice acting—and heavy on the negatives—stereotypes, cliches, and over-sexified-female characters who offer nothing to the story (I'm looking at you, "Ninja Gaiden 2").

Now, I like a bit of violence in my games, as I am a big "Street Fighter" and "Mortal Kombat" fan, but most of these newer games feature constant murder  that I just don't have or want the stomach for. Plus, I look at #Gamergate lately and wonder, would this sea of gamers be a little less threatening if they hadn't been fed heaping loads of endlessly-re-spawning murder in their precious video games for the past 20 or 30 years? Could that constant de-sensitization be coming through in how they treat people online, if not in real life?

So I really have to put 'excessive violence' in the 'negatives' category, because I don't want to be the type of person who can just look the other way. "Grand Theft Auto V," though wonderful, has been my most modern game to put me at my limit for gratuitous violence. So the "Gears of War" and "Halo" games are out for me–constant murder going on there, be it alien or human. The "Ninja Gaiden" games are fun too, but OMG the violence is up to 11.

"Soul Caliber 4" can be summed up as: Bouncing Titty Game.

Even shooting endless zombies on "Resident Evil" online, for RE4 thru 6, has gotten old. And those are some incredibly entertaining online experiences. (I still plan on getting RE:Revelations when it becomes cheaper).

You'll see "Lost Odyssey" there on the right. That wasn't part of the original collection; it was part of a group of games in the basement that my landlord had left down there for some reason.

So I'm down there doing laundry one day, and I notice LO on the shelf, collecting dust. I pick it up, see it's an RPG. There's a big "this-game-is-for-demo-purposes-only" sticker on the front that covers up a key piece of information that would have tipped me off to its creator and his history with video games.

Now, I'm a sucker for a good RPG, and after "The Witcher 2" left me underwhelmed (prob should have played "The Witcher" first), I was really hungry for everything an RPG should be: immersive and story-rich, with characters full of depth, epic music, at-least-believable graphics, fun battle sequences, monsters, and a shit ton of magic.

Knowing nothing, I took LO upstairs and gave it a try.

Immediately it looked like a Final Fantasy game. The music, the character designs, the massive-scale, world-shattering shit that was happening right off the bat, and especially the battle system, all contain elements from various FF games, including 1, 4, 6, 7, and 8 (Japanese release #s).

It's pretty similar to the latest FF games too (10 - 13), but that sort of goes without saying. That's the way RPGs are made these days—advanced, evolved. Like Internet 2.0. Gone are the days of small sprites and blocky, clunky worlds.

Already I could see LO improves upon every aspect of Final Fantasy games from which it seems to borrow—nothing is simply a straight transfer, but was streamlined, and with such style!

Needless to say, I was pleased as punch. When I gleaned so much old school JRPG influence from LO, combined with its modern and badass feel, I no longer had to hope this game was going to be something special, it was throwing special at me. LO holds on to what it is and doesn't let go. It doesn't just go halfway in—"Lost Odyssey" captures and owns old-school JRPG style.

And having grown up with old school JRPGs, I am the ideal demographic for this shit.

After 15 minutes of being introductorily wowed and awed, the opening credits began to roll, and who does it credit for the game's music but none other than Nobuo Motherfucking Uematsu. My jaw dropped. Uematsu is a guy whose music I have deeply studied. It fascinates me how much he can do with so little.

So I take to Wikipedia. WTF is this game? This is what I see:

The plot of Lost Odyssey was written by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of the famed Final Fantasy series.

Of course! It was exactly then I became fully enthralled.

It's not often I get a pleasant surprise like this, and it took all the pieces coming together at the right time to make it happen. Knowing nothing going in was essential to my elation at the discovery of the pure gaming magic that LO delivers.

Even the name sounds like Final Fantasy! It's like Sakaguchi was trying to say, 'Hey guys, I know the franchise has gone off the rails—allow me to put it back on track, from the outside.'

So, let's get into specifics.

LO improves upon every aspect of Final Fantasy games from which it borrows—nothing is simply a straight transfer.

The battle system is reminiscent of FF1, in that you input your entire party's commands, and everyone goes at it for a single round. This is repeated until one side wipes out the other. You may remember how infuriating could with FF1, but in LO the mechanics are improved and the flow of battle is smooth.

Interesting to me is how far back in time they had to reach to resurrect that battle system. It's inherently more challenging than the now-standard Active Time Battle (ATB) system, which I first saw in FF4. It was a stroke of genius to take such an old school battle style and make it the main battle system of a modern game. Isn't it cool that old-school elements re-tooled are what make much of this game enjoyable?

LO streamlines character movement and exploration by giving you a 'run' button to make your character haul ass thru those maps. Giving the player a reason to explore, LO peppers the maps with shiny trinkets and treasure chests waiting to be found, rewarding those who investigate every corner of a map. This was another thing I always loved about those old-school JRPGs—finding treasure in the nooks and crannies.

You can change your equipment mid-battle! Win. The game doesn't focus on armor, either. Your characters learn skills and gain HP as they level up, but they never change clothes. New weapons, 'Attack Rings' and accessories are always popping up, and consist of what you'll be spending your hard-earned G on. It simplifies the game, not bothering with armor. I like it.

Without spoiling too much, I'll only say that the characters are wonderful. Without hesitation, I can say that all of them are likable.

Remember Snow from FFXIII? No trace of his dumbassitude within the main party.

Remember the horrendous voice-acting of FFX? Gone. All the voice-acting here is great.

As a side note, the character Seth is the same voice as Twilight Sparkle from "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic."

And all those reasons I listed above for not liking games, including weak female characters, stereotypes, and excessive violence and swearing? Gone. This game has no blood and no cursing, which means I can play it around my kids.

Further, the writing is phenomenal. The characters of the children are not written accurately enough to represent their age group, IMO, and the drama is so heavy-handed you could swim through it like syrupy gelatin, but those are my biggest complaints. The game sure had me crying several times during the heaviest emotional parts, and then had me wow-ing at the epic parts. It's a full package.

Don't pass this game up if you're a Final Fantasy fan.

Bethesda's Todd Howard interviewed last May, talks Fallout 4 IMO

Here is an interview with Bethesda's Todd Howard from Germany. He was there to accept a Lifetime Achievement Award from LARA.



Published June 6, it's a very current and encompassing perspective on where Bethesda now stands, in terms of history, sales, development, and the its future games.

If nothing else, Todd Howard is enthusiastic. I just love this guy. He's weathering this storm of Fallout 4 anticipation like a champ.

On receiving the LARA award: "We're going along and making our games, and something like this comes along, which is ... you know, it's wonderful, you kinda take a step back. But it's not just me, I think it's the whole studio. I kinda represent everybody. It's a privilege of mine to be in charge of a group like that.

I've spent more time with Elder Scrolls than I have anything in my life. 20 years. So they become part of you in a way that is very different [than for the gamers]. And Fallout as well, I've worked on for a very long time. And we're not ready to say, okay, Lifetime Achievement ...."

Interviewer: "You're not ready to call it quits."

TH: "Absolutely not, no. Our best stuff is ahead of us, no doubt. No doubt."

God, this guy is good. You can tell he's interview-trained and -experienced. Lets nothing slip.

So that gives me hope for the next Fallout title. I, like the rest of the fan base, cannot wait. But the best part of the interview is yet to come.

Howard gives a really cool synopsis of Bethesda's history, specifically regarding the making of Fallout 3, their first Fallout game, at 12:10. He recalls how warmly he felt the reception from fans and how rewarding it was, specifically because Bethesda didn't create the game, but "rebooted and added our own flavor to it," Howard said.

Around 2000, Zenimax acquired Bethesda, giving them "a new lease on life," Howard said, because the company had been falling on hard times since 1996. "We went into Morrowind ... there were six of us at the time, we were that small."

Then Howard and the interviewer talk publishing a little bit.

"And since Skyrim, we do it ourselves everywhere."

On 'killing your babies': "We do it often."

Then there's great talk about consoles and PC versions of his games. It begins with the interviewer's question at 19:16, largely having to do with how Howard views the PC from many standpoints.

On Skyrim: "The PC is the best place to play that game."

He says processing power is good because it stimulates graphics, but the real thing that's cool in the new console generation is increased memory.

Asked for an example (20:40) of how this would affect gameplay (and this is where I believe the conversation begins hinting specifically at Fallout 4, mainly based on how Howard begins his answer), Howard uses the example of load time between opening and closing doors between the outside world and taverns or buildings. With increased memory, those things could be loaded when you come close to them, even if they're not on-screen.

This is a really exciting thing to me as a player too. Load time is my least favorite thing about Skyrim and Fallout 3, and it would add a much more realistic feel if this could be eliminated from gameplay.

The reason we have this current surge and emergence of open-world games, IMO, is that it feels much more realistic than any game genre that's come before, and it's still brand new in the entire context of gaming. It's a baby. It's got so much room to grow.

Now, here's the FO4 stuff, it's gotta be, there's no way it's not, it's gotta be!

20:30. This is what the Fallout fans should be excited about. Here's why: though they don't say the word 'Fallout' at any time during the asking of this question or through to the end of the interview, they talk about 'fake announcements.' What was the fake announcement? Survivor 2299, of course.

I totally get why Howard, and the whole Bethesda community, is waiting to say anything. They don't want to 'dribble it out,' Howard says, they want to say, "Boom, here it is," because he remembers how cool that feeling was for him when it happened with other games.

I want that feeling! So you wait, Todd Howard. You wait, Bethesda. You work. Take your time. I want a game that is ready to go, not another New Vegas fiasco. 

China, IL is awesome, and so is Adult Swim

Img source

Cartoon, insane, hilarious, doesn't take itself seriously at all, and yet has a beating heart. The characters are well-written, the dialogue is engaging. Never a boring moment. You won't regret it.

Here's the show's page on Adult Swim.

Here's show creator Brad Neely's China, IL predecessor comic, Baby Cakes.

So start with either, I've given you all I could possibly give you, time management enthusiast.

Adult Swim, for the past few years, has been hitting it out of the park. The shows they run are the best in modern comedy, from Tim & Eric, The Heart, She Holler, The Eric Andre Show, Frisky Dingo, Bob's Burgers, Metalocalypse, NTSF:SD:SUV, Rick & Morty, Sealab 2021, Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, and The Venture Brothers.

And those are merely my favorites—the above list barely scratches the surface of the total number of programs they air.

Plus their homepage design has been awesome lately, and they've been running series-long marathons of one show at a time, available to watch right there when you visit the site.

TVT recommends.

The A.V. Club's review of Watch Dogs is amazing

Watch Dogs apparently does not overcome my least favorite modern gaming trope—that of being marketed towards 12-year-old white males.

Here is The A.V. Club's review of Watch Dogs that opened my eyes. Cool title, too: "Watch Dogs takes a great idea and bludgeons it with normality." Great writing, John Teti. I mean, you knocked it outta the park with this one.

As per usual, The A.V. Club comes out on top of this debate, writing intelligent article after intelligent article. And I'm really glad they're writing these articles, because the gaming industry is held by the balls of corporate interests ensuring that modern games do not rise above the maturity level of elementary schoolers.

Okay, let me rephrase that: Bethesda makes awesome stuff for adults. Nintendo makes really great stuff for kids that adults also love. Rockstar makes games for 12-year-old boys (with the exception of L.A. Noir). Capcom makes games for 12-year-old boys. Konami makes games for 12-year-old boys.

Chauvinism permeates all of it. It's a boys' club. A white boys' club (have you seen any major games feature non-white-male protagonists lately?).

With all the technology modern games run on, wouldn't it be nice if the writing could rise to the level of, for example, great cinema? You'd have complete marriage of aesthetics and concept. It would be so wonderful.

You know what I also think? Make Link a female in the next game, Nintendo! And make Zelda a prince that gets kidnapped!

Movies to Watch in 2014

The Wrap has compiled a great list of upcoming movies to watch this year. Among them are new works by Darren Aronofsky, Lars Von Trier, Wes Anderson, and George Clooney. It left me with lots of thoughts! Here are several of them.