Leon's Microblog – July 2022

One small thing I want to ding FFGOTDE for: no Glittermitten Grove references!? OK, I get it, that game was kind of a room-temperature mess, but that doesn't mean its individual components didn't have some likeability to them. It doesn't deserve to be shunned this much.

Frog Fractions GOTDE's new content at least tosses in multiple NPCs with passable point-and-click dialog tree banter, most of which was, importantly, parallel to whatever metatextual thing was happening onscreen, rather than constantly having to play off it.

The problem I had with Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe is that I played the new content for 20 minutes and then realised I didn't actually like the Narrator as a character enough to do another 20 (a problem that wasn't a factor in the original for obvious reasons).

The second track is actually pretty good, though. Feels like it came out of Mirror Stage or another Increpare game. Almost a shame this one got cut from the MangaGamer version.

In this one, you click the correct mouse button at most 3 frames before impact. Fairly straightforward. *actually reads the instructions* Wait, you have to block 100 punches just to get to level 2?? You have to play this for that long? Can that even finish before the music loops?

Just for the record, this is still inside the visual novel engine. Also, the only way to control the paddles is left-clicking.

Additionally, various little "hacks" like enemies having TBS-style facing, and being limited to moving 1 square per turn (i.e. you move dramatically faster than enemies) helps drop the cost of repositioning, letting you primarily focus on and react to enemy attack safespots.

All in all, this game is definitely more human than 95% of the Super Nintendo library, a library I'd begun to think I'd finally grown out of almost entirely… as well as easily rivalling other notably empathic 90s console games, like Soleil/Centy on the Mega Drive.

• The random encounters would be way more annoying if you didn't have a guaranteed Flee command(!!!). That being said, it's hilarious that there's a guaranteed Flee command BUT ALSO a secret event that occurs if you use the guaranteed Flee command 100+ times (which is likely).

Some other things about the finale: • I find it funny that the final dungeon is just a previous area that's been polluted with enemies from the other storylines, turning it into a horrid aesthetic mess like FF5's Cleft of Dimension (but in this case, less spooky and more corny).

I guess I'm being a little hard on the game, but only because the previous parts raised the storytelling bar shockingly high, such that this rather typical 90s JRPG climax felt underwhelming in comparison.

There were a number of directions I thought they could have went for this final antagonist's denouement (mainly involving stuff from the 8th storyline) so what the game actually offered (fight them into repentance) is a little disappointing, too.

Also… it was interesting how much it was emphasised that the final antagonist is Just Another Guy (shades of games like Mother 3, Undertale, Dynamite Headdy, et cetera) but that counterproductively made their role as antagonist seem that much sillier and exaggerated as a result.

There IS some attempt to thematically link the antagonists, but since the stories are so different in both tone and scope, the only theme the game can give them is "hate", which is both rather simplistic and doesn't entirely make sense for e.g the Prehistory or Mecha antagonists.

There aren't even many interesting character interactions from bringing the cast together, either… the main focus of this storyline seems to be just "pick your faves and go dungeon-crawling" – the game finally bowing to the demands of the JRPG genre that it resisted for so long.

I was expecting, at least, there'd be some payoff for the subtle connections between the storylines (the Wrestler appearing on TV in the Mecha storyline, for instance), but the Finale mostly ignores the previous worldbuilding (outside of cameos from the 8th storyline characters).

*sadly peels off the "Finally, a 90s JRPG with no grinding!" sticker from the game as I shed a single glistening tear that crystallises into a perfect tiny diamond as it drops into a nearby moonlit pond*

Ib (2012)

Won't go into details but the sequence you get when you select the 8th storyline's character for the "Finale" is definitely the funniest thing the videogame could have done at that point in the ongoing narrative.

I actually think the 8th storyline works really, really well as a standalone story, just as strong as the previous 7, to the point that it seems unfortunate that it's forced into the role of being a "linking story" for the overall game – a frame that downplays its own strengths.

I can't help but feel having one unchanging boss battle theme across all storylines is a bit too strong a "tell". This theme is so tonally different from each storyline's normal battle music that it signals that there's something unusual/noteworthy about each boss that uses it.

Comment about the battle system: I notice that not only is it grid-based, reminiscent of Ultima, but that it also has the "survive at 0 HP" thing, which I believe is also an Ultima-ism (Note: I only know about Ultima third-hand through Exile/Avernum for the Mac).

Honestly the -phobia themed enemies aren't half bad for lategame abstractly nightmarish Final Fantasy bosses… it beats the four elements or the Seven Deadly Sins or the Ars Goetia, at least.

"Why doesn't this game have more good female characters?"

The Mecha storyline has a lot of places where you have to basically kick the game in order to force the plot to advance.

Obviously they wouldn't have the main protagonist's Mega Man gimmick, but they could have their own little quirks that make matchups with each opponent interesting. And they, of course, get to appear in the Live A Live endgame storyline.

My off-the-dome idea: since this is painfully Street Fighter themed, why not let you select any of the other 6 fighters as an alternative protagonist? Multiple character routes is one of the pillars of vs. arcade game story modes, after all.

I see why the Wrestling storyline wouldn't be regarded highly, but to me the big flaw isn't that it's too short, but that it isn't /replayable/. The Ninja and Kung Fu chapters have a good deal of branches to explore, and this seems like a missed opportunity for another one such.

Thanks,

Probably one of the whole game's most interesting character designs: the caveman wearing a figleaf that, on closer inspection, is actually a live lizard that is used for attacks, and which stands up (like a grave flower?) in the defeat sprite.

It's a little funny how prehistoric creatures in this storyline are referred to by modern Linnaean names, because science is the only lens through which prehistory can be understood by modernity…

The cavewoman character doesn't get to uglylaugh >_> This chapter is kind of funny but it's still pretty much a damsel-in-distress story, so my ability to love it is unfortunately hard-capped.

Mother 3 (2007)

This one had pretty good dialogue renditions… not surprised that this storyline's translator was Tomato of all people.

The background music losing instruments whenever a saloon band member leaves the room is a pretty good joke for the 90's.

I'll sincerely admit I'm kind of dreading the Mecha storyline, because I am 35 and I know n-o-t-h-i-n-g about this genre. The precedent set by the Robots storyline, which was 75% reference to one specific movie, has me a little worried.

I saw the narrative explanation for the Robot storyline's boss battle coming from 38,000 kilometres away… and you know what?! Even though it's a little tonally out there, I'm still glad it happened.

I'd originally naïvely assumed that this would be more of a Quintet-esque game, where each storyline had similar structure and beats reinforcing the common humanity across the settings. But no, this really is an honest-to-god anthology, where anything can happen.

This impressive Robot storyline is making it abundantly clear (as if each story's individual credits sequences didn't outright say it) that completely different writers were responsible for each of these, with their own very personal notions of what game narratives can be.

How to play Live A Live

I redid the entire Kung Fu chapter JUST to check if it really did branch the way that I thought it did… Not bad, Squaresoft, not bad at all.

I recognise this reference

Or maybe a bunch of Flatland-ish wacky RPG villages, whose social arrangements are affected by the game physics in some way. A village where the "man of the house" is the house. A village where everyone lives in epsilon blocks and is hostile to the "Finite Realm". Et cetera.

The Diceydungeons Witch's inventory is a John Egbert Sylladex

It makes me recall Stephen's Sausage Roll's underrated predecessor English Country Tune (depicted below), which is just as abstract and "low-fi" as Parabox, but still hit more uneasy, alienating emotional notes with its audiovisuals that emphasised the mechanics' abstractness.

This is going to sound tremendously mean no matter how I put it, but: Cohost's inline CSS is the Playdate Crank of social network features.

Y'know, I didn't realise my previous run of this game was, er, /that/ long ago… it's a teensy bit shocking, actually. https://twitter.com/webbedspace/status/273790514728431616

I can't BELIEVE it has the Graph

One other baffling issue: 4. I found multiple places in episode 8 where the translation either changes first-person Japanese into third-person English, or vice-versa, for no apparent gain. Episode 8 does often switch between the two, but were they trying to "correct" some of it??

3. Constantly forgets how to localise certain basic nouns, resulting in things like characters' job titles flipping between 2 different English words. These make me think this is either an "assembly-line" translation with poor oversight, or else an acquired fanwiki translation.

About MangaGamer's translation: it's roughly comparable to the Umineko translation, except for these problems: 1. Loaded with typos (even in episodes that were translated 8 years ago). 2. The translators are completely uncredited anywhere.

………

Played Saikoroshi for the first time… honestly, I'm in admiration that even at the very end, Ryukishi07 was able to come up with something as sneaky as this. It's almost like a tonally inverted Onikakushi.

I really like how episode 6's final act is a very deliberate escalation from the first few episodes' final acts – taking the most sanctified and happy place in the story, and abruptly stripping away its sanctity and safety.

My favourite part of the When They Cry games is when the characters sit down at the end and carefully explain the subtext so the viewers at home can understand. This sounds like a burn, but I assure you, the only thing warm here is my heart.

It's understandable because even though it's arguably not "cheating", it's really not the sort of thing that should be part of an esport metagame. But, it's still a rather funny strategy.

Trying to figure out a way to explain that the "hina" kanji in Hinamizawa is 雛, and that watanagashi heavily references the real-life nagashi-bina ritual 流し雛, without people figuring out that the only way I could possibly know this is because of Hina in Mountain Of Faith.

I forgot to mention it, but the background music track that plays when this is onscreen… how do I put this… that track drinks https://twitter.com/webbedspace/status/1542932215130357761

Even forgettable stuff like the "Tsubame Gaeshi" in episode 7 has some clever little resonance – a miraculous maneuver for swapping mahjong tiles that only works if you carry all of them at once, leaving no one behind.

I like the very subtle joke in episode 7 where Keiichi gets out of playing a game by claiming to be a practiced expert at it, and when you recall that exact same game in episode 2, it was revealed to be a dice-based board game with no decision-making.

I feel like in hindsight it would've been more elegant if episode 8 had been named "Watanagashi" instead of episode 2, similar to the naming for Umineko's episode 8.

Higurashi really is the most "become completely obsessed with it for the rest of your life, kiss your identity goodbye" videogame I've played in a long time. I'd like to bring to your attention that this sentence does NOT in any way indicate that I, personally, have become compl

From episode 6

2000's videogames LOVE having this in their credits

Some more things about 5: I originally hadn't noticed because of the blistering pace of this episode, but Satoko's final scene, even though it doesn't give any real clues to the mysteries, it's by far the most thematically important, especially considering things she says in 6.

One crucial point it wasn't possible to understand the first time: I'd previously thought 6 was the turning point of the whole plot, but now I see the "seeds of the ending" appear in 5. And because they are in 5… that means they also appeared even as early as 2!!