Return to Midgar

I have a special relationship with video games. As a kid, I spent more time in virtual worlds than I did in the real one. A few of them stand out more than the others, playgrounds I spent more time with, worlds I memorized. Spira, Ignas, Balamb, Hyrule, Zebes, the World of Balance and of Ruin. Today, I'm returning to Midgar, a city in a dying planet: Gaia.

Final Fantasy VII came out in 1997 for Sony PlayStation. It is widely perceived as one of the best RPGs ever created, and a large part of the reason why Squarenix is a respected company despite the love-or-hate relationship most people share with their later output. The game is beautiful for its time, though hard to look at now. The music is great; the main theme is embedded at the top of this post.


The story is a fairly classic RPG plot line, though it's done incredibly well. You're trying to keep a villain, Sephiroth, from destroying the world. You have a pretty motley assortment of characters that you pick up along the way. Your main character, Cloud, is an ex-member of an elite military organization known as SOLDIER. As the game opens, you are a mecenary working for a terrorist organization known as Avalanche. Their plan is to destroy industrial reactors built by a conglomeration named the Shinra Electric Power Company, because they are draining the planet of its life.

You begin in a slum-ridden metropolis known as Midgar, and spend about the first five or so hours of the game within the city. The game is well-paced, much moreso than the newer entries in the Final Fantasy series. The first five hours are pretty much all action until you escape the city and have an extended flashback explaining the origin story of Sephiroth.

I'm gonna be sporadically blogging as I make my way through the game; this is the third Final Fantasy I'm playing in my efforts to complete them all in a row.

Robyn-Body Talk Part 1 and 2

Robyn is better than you. Let's just face that from the start. She's cooler, better socially adjusted and more romantically inclined.

But where she differs from the other pop stars that we've decided are better is in that she is also better than all of those pop stars. She achieved success in the Top 10 of the Billboard 200 in the late 90s, and did very little outside of her native Sweden for sometime after that success. In the mid-2000s, she broke away from the structure of a major label, and created her own: Konichiwa Records. She essentially gained full creative control. She has this especially clever little song--"Konichiwa, Bitches"--that cements her post-industry Missy Elliott-style swagger.


But what I'm really concerned with is the great series of three mini-albums that Robyn has been releasing this year, called "Body Talk".

These are autobiographical pop albums, and I mean that sincerely, and not in the way that "Piece of Me" by Britney Spears was autobiographical. It's readily apparent that Robyn loves the dance floor as much as any self-respecting Madonna-influenced pop artist should. Her full voice glides and skips over a pop beat infused with grinding dubstep and electro stomps. We, in America, praise Britney Spears and Lady Gaga as the heiresses of Madonna's crown, but I think Robyn fits the role better. Where Britney Spears goes on auto and Lady Gaga goes celibate, Robyn catches on fire and lights up the popscape around her. There are more catchy (and complex) hooks on these two (so far) albums than in Spears' and Gaga's combined catalogues. And she means it. And you know she does because she isn't getting paid nearly enough to fake it.

Her subject matter is focused. She is talking about failed relationships, love and gaining independence. Where other pop music shows off its medical efficiency, its shell that remained after all the soul was taken out by a computer, Robyn tells truths of human emotion that would not be conveyed if it were not her singing. Her music is successful because she understands the spirit of pop as opposed to the automaton factory of American popular music. She knows it's about the dance floor and catharsis and joy in life even when it sucks.

When she cries out, "I'm in the corner watching you kiss her, oh! I'm right over here; why can't you see me, oh? I'm giving it my all, but I'm not the girl you're taking home; I keep dancing on my own." You understand. And the beat is good, even though she never has to claim it is. And her voice is pure. And you want to dance your problems away. And I think ABBA would approve of that sentiment, that catharsis, something she acknowledges by naming a song "Dancehall Queen". Robyn is an artist, and who knew I'd ever be calling pop music artistic again?

A change of pace

I'm not really sure what I want to use this blog for yet, so there will probably be some variety in the entries at first. I think maybe that this variety will be the purpose of the blog. So, for the time being, you can expect to find random thoughts, as well as notes on video games, comic books, music and film. To embrace the random thoughts, here's a completely unrelated entry:

I’ve been having these dreams lately, and they’re a type of dream I’ve had before. It’s always the same motif. I’m walking around places I used to frequent with people I used to know. There’s always some sort of decay, some sort of entropy. The physical places have broken down as much as my physical relationships as much as my memories of the scene.

It’s hard to maintain relationships with people.

There are these two words in Greek, one of which is never seen without the other. “Men” and “de”. They represent a comparison, though not necessarily an oppositional one. It has a hard use to describe, largely because it’s a device that isn’t present in English. It’s subtle, but understood. And these words are extremely common, they’re ingrained in the language. They make ideas flow. There are almost no stops in Greek, just a continuous use of conjunctions to represent a relation to a previous idea.

English, on the other hand (a translation of “de,”) is jagged. Every idea is separated, and you’re free to jump quite carelessly from one thought to another. Academics and cultural critics are fast to criticize the “internet generation,” but what about the foreshortening and loss of subtlety that previous generations have suffered? We’ve cut out intricacy from language already; why not cut out facial expressions?

Maybe it’s not hard to maintain friendships, but is instead difficult to maintain complexity. It’s entropy. And I suppose, in that sense, the degradation is natural.

Nerd Task

I'm contemplating a bold and daring "Nerd Task."

Playing through all of the Final Fantasies in a row.

It would be Final Fantasy 1 and 2 on my PSP. Final Fantasy 3 and 4 on my DS. Final Fantasy 5 and Final Fantasy 6 from the Anthology collection (PS1) played on PS3. FF 7-9 (PS1) played on PS3. Final Fantasy 10 and 12 (maybe 10-2) played on PS2. Final Fantasy 13 played on PS3.

If I do I will be making updates on this blog about my playthroughs! I was also thinking of maybe starting the handheld versions and the console versions simultaneously so I'd have something to switch between. Choices choices.

Digital Devil Saga

This game starts off on a simple enough premise. You are in a post-apocalyptic world. It is constantly raining. You are a member of one of the smaller of six tribes that are fighting to gain territory. One day, while fighting your main rivals, an event occurs. A bomb, no, a shell, drops into the middle of the battleground. You come closer to it and find a single girl inside. She is different. Everyone in the game has very odd coloring in terms of hair, but this girl is merely pale with black hair. Suddenly, all of your characters turn into demons. In fact, every member of all six tribes have turned into demons, though most people are capable of changing between demon and human unless under distress. You, the leader of one of the tribes, meet at neutral ground with the other leaders and are told by those in authority that a race has begun. The first tribe to defeat every other tribe and bring the girl back to the neutral ground gains escape from the hell world. They gain paradise.

This is one of my favorite role playing games I have ever played, so excuse the gushing. The game is published by Atlus, a well-known company responsible for publishing many role-playing and tactical classics of the PlayStation 2 reign in America. They published Disgaea, which should inform you of the quality of their games if you're at all aware of the tactical role-playing game market. They published Nocturne, pretty much one of the most important role-playing games published in the last decade.

This game is not as innovative as Nocturne, but I believe it's more fun. The story is definitely weaker than Nocturne, but the gameplay doesn't have the same unforgiving feel that Nocturne did. You have a main party this round, so you don't have to worry about convincing demons to join you. The enemies have less one hit kill moves. There's a high encounter rate, but the battle system is interesting enough to keep you in the game. The battle system is turn based, which seems a little anachronistic in this day and age, but it's not stupidly simple. There's quite a bit of strategizing involved, especially during boss encounters (which are fairly frequent.)

Your "heroes" decide that they would rather be living, so they go about conquering every tribe, gaining support from the left over members of the tribes as they proceed. This game is graphically violent. Characters are frequently shown participating in cannabalism. Almost every character you meet dies. The pacing can be a little awkward, leaning more toward battle gameplay than story most of the time, but when major story points happen they are very rewarding and encourage continued playing. The game can be beaten in about twenty five hours or so, but I usually take a little longer because I'm interested in full completion.

The graphics in the game are cell-shaded, and above average for the era this game is from. Environments are detailed enough, and characters are surprisingly emotive. There's never really any slow down, and cut-scenes can be cinematic when the game is at its best.

There's a cliff hanger ending. There's also a sequel, so it's nothing to worry about. Obviously, I highly recommend this game. It might be a little hard to find now, because it came out in 2005, but I see copies in used sections of stores occasionally. The thing to do is call around town before you go searching for it, no need wasting gas if everywhere you go isn't going to have it. If you're a fan of Japanese role-playing games, you're doing yourself a disfavor if you don't seek out this game.

Sandman

Sandman is arguably one of the most famous comic books ever written. Especially for people who actually read comic books, but that's another story. It's hard to say why the book resonates with so many people who read it. Neil Gaiman is clearly a master of the craft, as he is an adept at many crafts.

I haven't read much of Sandman, though I spent a good portion of this year so far reading Mike Carey's Lucifer, the spin-off series. The book can be challenging in a way. Both Gaiman and Carey deal with human problems that humans often avoid, mostly through an exploration of paranormal metaphors.

Sandman tells the story of the Master of Dreams, Morpheus, though he goes by many names. The stories focus on the character sometimes, and others they simply focus on humans that he involves himself with. The Master of Dreams himself is one of "The Endless," though even they die. Death is his sister. Lucifer his inferior.

This book is gut wrenching. It deals with all the perversity of humans. In the first issue in this collection, the third volume, "Dream Country," we see a writer lock up one of the muses that has been captured for over sixty years. He rapes her nightly, even as she inspires him to great fame. We see people drowning cats in the second. In the fourth we see a woman who has been given powers that have caused extreme disfigurement and a long life span beg for release from Death herself. Like I said, it's a hard book to deal with.

To any person who argues that comics are not an art form, this is the book I direct them to. Obviously, a person's definition of art is directly related to their pretension, but I think this book is hard to deny. The artists trade-out, but they're all gifted in different ways. Gaiman's writing is erudite, filled with allusions. He deals with issues that resonate with readers, issues of a higher gravity than general comic book fare.

I don't want to say too much about this book. Because you should read it. Everyone should read it. It should be taught in college literature courses. Maybe I'm just a fan boy, but I think everyone who has taken the time to look into it would agree with me.

There's a great piece on the New Yorker website about Gaiman. He's an interesting fellow, mostly because he's incredibly quirky. It's clear that he understands the nerdier side of fiction. He describes Sandman as "sexually transmitted," because guys would give their girlfriends Sandman and when they broke up the girlfriend would take it to her next boyfriend. He's obviously joking, but he has a good sense of humor.

Scott Pilgrim

Scott Pilgrim doesn't want to save the world. He just wants to get the girl. The girl is Ramona, a mystery from America. He keeps seeing her in his dreams, but the catch is that she's literally in his dreams. She travels on these sort of subspace highways, which Scott doesn't know about because he's Canadian (obviously.) That being stated, Scott has to defeat her seven evil ex-boyfriends in order to get her to go out with him. Duh.

This series, drawn and written by Bryan Lee O'Malley, is hilarious. And by hilarious I mean completely and utterly ridiculous in a way that is only believable because O'Malley handles it so well. There is almost constant humor in this book, hand-tailored for those of us prone to sarcasm.

Scott Pilgrim is lost in life in that way that most 20-somethings seem to be. He's in a rock band (obviously.) And dating a high school girl that he hasn't even kissed (obviously.) He has a job, but it's not important, and he doesn't seem to own much more than the clothes on his back. But he's likable, which is more than can be said for most.

O'Malley does a number of things well in the book. He's not afraid to get away from generic panel structure, which adds a depth and levity to the book that it wouldn't have otherwise. He's also not shying away from anime-style action scenes. Think flying with movement lines behind characters and punches with sound effects. The concept of Scott having to fight his girlfriend's seven evil ex-boyfriends is an obvious metaphor for dealing with the baggage of the person you like.

I've only read the first volume, but I'll be picking up the rest of the series before the movie drops (yup, Hollywood likes it, too!) I suggest you do the same, because chances are this book is a lot better than the movie will be. Don't let the movies ruin it before you have the chance to fall in love with it!