Until it's not. HA! GOT YOU, YOU STUPID SHIT! I pulled you into false sense of security and BAM! subverted your expectations!
Before you go on, I want you to know that this will have spoilers to all 3 The Fruit of Grisaia games so quickly read all of them and come back if you haven't already.
But anyways, I decided to delve a little bit into the anime of Grisaia no Kajitsu and while the opening text displayed over each character as they are presented on screen I began to think about my own interpretation of the characters from the series and how it does a great job of somewhat subverting the anime/visual novel trope with it's characters. Feels like this is what Doki Doki Literature Club tried to do but instead of being smart it instead did "hey, reader, wouldn't be weird if one of the cute girls started bleeding from their eyes? Pretty creepy for a visual novel with cute anime girls set in a school environment." But Grisaia somewhat embraces these tropes and turns them on their head. Instead of taking place in a high school environment where only a few characters matter and therefor have actual names and faces it takes the approach of having it still set in a high school where literally only the important characters exist since there's no one else in the school!
I've honestly never noticed the subtle genius of this on Grisaia's part. How many visual novels have you read where the entire school is nothing but background noises? They do away with the pointlessness of background characters altogether and make them literally isolated because that's pretty much how it is in every VN. It's this type of subtlety I enjoy from an almost parody to visual novels.
Well, what about the character's themselves? Well, I'm glad you asked, me! You have the usual character tropes in Grisaia, sure. There's the tsundere, the unapproachable one, the obedient one, the slut, the loli, all of whom who you expect certain traits from but again, it subverts your expectations.
The tsundere takes on a facade to hide her own identity, so her own action of trying to be a tsundere is simply so she can hide the real part of her. Christopher Nolan must be turning in his grave thinkign he couldn't come up with a character this deep in cliches! The unapproachable girl is so unapproachable that she tries to kill Yuuji, LITERALLY! The obedient one acts like the childhood friend because... well, she is and even goes to far as to dress up as a maid. The slut instantly attaches herself to the MC and offers her body, not out of her own personal feelings but because she feels she needs to be punished. The loli's character is a result of her abuse as a child causing her to be emotionally stunted.
All characters have an underlining dark reason for why they fall into these cliches which pulls the reader in to learn more and honestly, I'm sad I never caught any of this in my first or second read through of the series. It's so well done, so subtle that it makes me really appreciate the first VN more looking back on it and I'm glad I went back to the anime to remember all this.
...And then the sequels came out.
Yeah, remember that first bit of this blog? If not, might want to scroll up some. It's the bit about bringing you into a salse fense of security.
Yeah, you read that right and I did that on purpose. What are you gonna do now?
My comrades @DarkZedge and @Dergonu informed me that later entries in the series involved Yuuji ending up in a harem with every girl. I don't know how to look at this angle as more than fan service and undermining the emotional investment I had with the characters, especially when the first one was doing so well in NOT succumbing to your typical visual novel tropes, although there was the Makina's sex scenes with Yuuji where this emotionally damaged girl is having sex with someone who she views as her papa shivers but then the sequels do fall into the biggest trope of all, the "everyone wants the MC's dick" trope. Every girl who he slightly breathes in the direction of wants to be a part of his life.
This cliche has infested the anime, manga, and visual novel world like a cancer and in visual novels its more acceptable since you project yourself into the character more often than not and therefor feel fulfilled as a person while your visual novel counter part is fully filling your waifus with his massive love!
But I digress. Grisaia felt smarter than that, I felt more respect for the character's before I learned they all fell into this overused trope. I feel like the series went on for one more visual novel long than it should have, like The Hobbit movies. We get a whole backstory of Yuuji's training, his life with his master which was nice but to top it all off we get a plot about a father figure of his coming back and causing a mess with all the girls coming together to save him in the end, or something.
You know, now that I'm thinking about it, I feel like I remember nothing about the 3rd one, aside from a fight with the dude, and seeing his sister again but when I do think back on it I just feel like it wouldn't have missed anything to be a bit more condensed, cause that's what remembering it is like. I can't remember anything aside from bits and pieces because those were the ones the set itself the most from this overly long series.
"No, don't you see, Mitch?! They subvert your expectations again by making each character unique and he STILL ends up with all of them? Isn't that clever?" That's fine and all but the girls were dealing with crippling emotional baggage that was dealt with one by one and felt we had actual climax to, and not the climax Yuuji got in Amane's massive vagina!
I would've preferred if Yuuji died, cause I'm american and that's how we end every series these days. That or they think he died and he decided to start a new peaceful life while the girls must take their once again broken lives and rebuild the pieces but this time with more efficiency thanks to Yuuji. As opposed to the alternative route where they live on an island, ignore their problems and have everything solved by sweet, juicy Yuuji cum!
Though I will say I did like the implication that the routes at some point all converge, so he sleeps with all of them while solving their problems. But then the problem arises with Amane's where it goes deep into the future with them being happily married then eventually dying. And you know what? That's perfectly fine with me.
Recently I finished the 2013 smash anime Kill la Kill, which is about a young girl name Ryuko Matoi seeking vengeance for the death of her father. The only clue Ryuko has is one half of a massive scissor that was used to kill him that Ryuko now uses as a weapon.
With nothing else to go on, she decides to challenge the person with the most command in the town, Satsuki Kiryuin, who rules the only school in the district, Honnoji Academy. Upon seeing the one half of the weapon Sastuki reacts noticeably to which Ryuko catches.
Ryko not missing her reaction decides to take action and force whatever knowledge Satsuki may have out of her. However despite how tough Ryuko is she is way out of her league against a student of Honnoji Academy who wears a special uniform from the academy that enhances their ability. Ryuko beaten and bruised quickly makes an escape to her now burnt down home to access a secret chamber underground. There she comes across an seemingly normal uniform but as she picks it up and bleeds on it the uniform comes to life and forcibly attaches itself to Ryuko's body. With the power from the outfit now on her, Ryuko sets off on a journey far more deep and cruel than she could've imagined in a quest for revenge.
The first noticeably trait that popped out at me about Kill la Kill was its very unique art style. On the surface it is very distinct and engaging to look at as a viewer. But as the series progressed I couldn't help but think of two other animes with their own styles that couldn't effortlessly cross genres the way Kill la kill has. These two genres being dramatic and over the top comedic moments. Kill la Kill's style allows itself to be free from either constraint to openly switch between the two, sometimes in an instant, while the other animes seemed to have trouble with it. The animes I'm talking about for now are Your Lie in April and My Hero Academia.
Neither anime looked bad its just the art style they chose pulled me out as a viewer or left me wondering how I'm supposed to be feeling for the character or moments when it would switch.
Starting off with Your Lie in April, I started off watching this anime relatively knowing what was going to happen and was wondering if the anime could tug at my heart strings. I was only able to make my way to the first half of the series before just dropping it. I could go into all the reasons why that is but for the sake of my argument, I'll stick with one minor but constantly present annoyance and that was its inability to switch gears from dramatic moments to over reactions for comedic effect. You have beautiful moments like this
Mixed in with this
this
then this
It would pull me one way than try to pull me another. The problem is, the drastically different styles were distracting more than anything.
Then we have My Hero Academia.
After watching One Punch Man I wanted to give MHA a try. The majority of opinions is if you like OPM, you'll like MHA. Well, seeing as how I loved OPM I decided to give it a try. I made it about 3 episodes. I don't know if Ill ever try again but from what I saw, same problem as YLiA was present in MHA. In the world of MHA there's some kind of test present that citizens can take that will evaluate how much of a hero you are or something like that. Forgive me for forgetting exactly what it is but for the sake of this example let's just go with that. Early on our main character thinks back when he was younger when a doctor had evaluated his potential as a hero. The evaluation concluded that the mc couldn't be one as he failed every category. This of course devastates him as he's always dreamed of being a hero. Later that day he sits at his computer staring at his hero and crying before turning around to his mother at the door asking distraught if he could ever be a hero.
So we have a character learning that his life long dream would be impossible with how he currently is. His life is shattered, his dream is gone, he is broken and what image do they use for this?
Yeah, call me heartless but this image of our main character doesn't tug at my heart strings and instead leaves me confused as to how I'm supposed to be feeling. The anime just started and there's a mix of genres being juggled so I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about this. I get it's to convey hes distraught but look at it. It just looks so silly. You got the massive eyes, massive even by anime standards. You got tears that fill up half of them. How am I supposed to take this seriously? Am I even supposed to?
Back to Kill la Kill, the anime has set up wonderfully the differences it's animation will take based on the part of the story its telling.
We have this with a character breaking down. Of course when looking at it it's automatically seen as over the top and silly and how can you take this seriously? Well, the anime has already established this character as the comic relief for the most part but she does have great qualities. And she is a comic relief like no other as tense and serious moments are usually interrupted with her stepping in all enlightened like and in a running gag fashion explaining her friends emotions and motivations.
I've finished the show and I have no fucking clue what she's trying to say here. I'm pretty sure even watching this scene I could barely keep up to whatever her points are.
But back on topic, in contrast to Mako's crying, the comic relief, we also have this.
The styles don't deviate from each other so far that they become two different entities and instead helps lend itself to emotionally driven moments like this and this
so the two can share the same universe without any real distractions.
Well done Kill la Kill.
In case you haven't guessed it, I do recommend this anime. Was surprised on how much I enjoyed it and now have a better understanding of shows like Power Rangers. Friends joining together to suit up and team up against a common enemy. The music kicking in as they suit up in their power outfits to face a great enemy. Really gave me some goosebumps.
Ah, Assassins Creed, when did it go oh so wrong? Did you tire out your welcome with new entries to the series coming out every single year? Was it the repetitive missions and game play that carried from one game to the next? Or was it just because it wasn't interesting anymore? Could be all of them. Well, they're still making money with every new major Assassins Creed game so what do I know? I do know that after Black Flag came out in 2013 for the 360 I began to really not care about the series. I mean, Black Flag was the high point of the series. You played as a pirate with all the Assassins Creed mechanics plus new ones for the ship combat and movement. But the game itself has no real replay value because of the fucking insane amount of trailing missions the game throws at you. I don't remember these being an issue when first playing the game because I was an idiot but now it's so painfully obvious that this game can have the pace of a snail race in molasses on a cold winter morning. The pacing for the player feels forced as most missions rely on the pacing of others. You can't just jump down on people and say "HEY! Give me what I want or I will kill you!" NO! You have to tail the guy/guys until they reach their destination while also not being spotted in the process. One of the first missions in the game is fucking chasing someone and you will not catch them until the game wants you to.
Then you have the modern day stuff going on as you play a faceless nobody playing a simulation of a real world event. At least with Desmond the guy had some kind of arc going on. He was beginning to slowly understand he was having a bigger role in the world to saving it or destroying it. I actually like the real world events in Assassins Creed back in the day. It was a hell of a lot interesting than some faceless mute being told what to do every step of the way by either some voice in a headset or by that chick from Jurassic World
I wonder if Ubisoft was aware of what they were doing when creating the faceless muted character that you control from a first person perspective? You have no input on the events happening around you, you just go along without question. You literally have no voice for this big corporation and mindlessly play a game on a computer. Well, the jokes on them since my computer is such a piece of crap, I PLAYED ON THE 360! Take that, Ubisoft!
So you play a pirate name Jack pr something in a time when "Pirates are just looking for freedom." I mean, sure, there was a slight tad oppression on the people from the governments but don't try and spoon feed me shit about pirates just wanting to be free. You know, pirates? The ones that sailed the sea from port to port pillaging and killing anyone and everyone along the way. Those guys? Yeah, they were just looking for freedom from their understandable oppressive government.
But anyway, you play a man named James who impersonates an assassin and travel to where he was supposed to go in his stead because he will get money somehow. I forget what the point of this was. I do remember that when asked why he can climb stuff so well, Jake responds with "A true fisherman has each individual be as strong as a fishhooks." Sure, that explains everything. So Jeremy goes to the meeting and er... does a thing... and then gets a ship! The details are pretty fuzzy but Blackbeard is in it. I remember he died very differently from in real life... for some reason. No clue why. Maybe it was just so Juan can see him die. Well, Cleopatra is a sex symbol in Origins so it seems Ubisoft doesn't actually care about historical accuracy. Even though they claim these stories to be inspired by historical events.
Details are fuzzy, characters forgettable and overall, I just don't care about it anymore. I haven't played an AC game since this one for good reason. Even if they changed everything about AC I wouldn't care.
Listen, it took me about 20 minutes to come up with that one. So anyway, in case you haven't figured it out, I will be talking about Horizon Zero Dawn. A new ip from the developers Guerilla Games, best known for the Killzone series. Horizon Zero Dawn isn't just another success story to place on top of the already pile of success stories out there. No, no, no, no, no, no, no it is not. Horizon Zero Dawn is a beacon of hope to any company thinking of taking a risk with a new ip. Before it was released, Horizon Zero Dawn already was garnering interest from its audience because of it's sort of mix between Brave, Turok:Dinosaur Hunter, and Terminator.
Hey, I'd watch that. And now here we are one year later with the game selling over 7 million copies and a new DLC, The Frozen Wilds, proving that despite what EA loves to shove down our throats that singleplayer focused games aren't dying and don't sell well. Now games with multiplayer do sell better as well of games with a connection to a previous universe, such as Call of Duty games, Black Ops, Doom, Gears of War, etc, etc. Horizon is none of these. All it has going for it is its characters, settings, game play, and story. And it succeeds on all.
You play a young, redhead girl named Aloy. No, that's not how you pronounce that name. Look at how it's spelt, imagine how it's pronounced based on that and then forget about it. That's how you pronounce her name. An outcast raised by her guardian to pass a trial she will face when she comes of age so she can finally be accepted as one of the tribe. Aloy being an outcast shapes her actions in the game. As an adult she doesn't go insane with talking with herself to be annoying but just enough to be informative. She also has some nice idle animation and even non idle ones, such as placing her hands just over tall grass so they can skim on her fingertips. Holding out her hands to feel the rain or snow. Little touches of this helps the gamers be immersed with the character and the world. Of course it does help that this is one of the best looking games in recent memory.
I got Horizon and it's DLC while it was on sale, luckily and was very surprised on how immersed I found myself in the game. The mechanics work well in the game and are effective in your journey to avenge your tribe. Speaking of, I kind of feel they lost an opportunity here for some interesting conflict. You see, early on, Her tribe is attacked and a large portion of them are killed. Aloy was just freed from being an outcast literally less than 5 minutes ago, and being an outcast means that no one from the tribe can have contact with you, or accept you as their own. So she, aside from her guardian, Rost, had been living on their own with their wits to help them survive. Now, as they are attacked, Aloy then gets a personal reason to go after the attackers. I felt like this is a missed opportunity for Aloy to have a personal struggle with the whole thing. Like now that she's seen as someone who's useful to the tribe while before everyone treated her like she didn't even exist. She only took the trial so she could find answers about her mother. Just imagining her fighting the tribe that abandoned her and looking past her rooted feelings on the matter would've been interesting to experience.
So, besides hunting with your bow and setting traps, Aloy has another tool in her arsenal, a kind of like bluetooth headset. This allows her to basically go into batman mode and get more information on the world around her. Except the drawback is she can't run while having it on and it also has a very limited range. This works well because one, it's mostly an open world stealth game and two, it allows you to not rely heavily on it. HOWEVER, there are times for sidequests where you must use it to track an item or person or a target. This is when the thing becomes way to simplified. It's basically turn on your bluetooth, point at the glowy bit and then press R1 to make a trail to follow. Sometimes reach the end of the trail and press R1 again. Felt like this tool should've been a tad more complex, like having filters for chemicals, heat, or unique properties that you need to manually cycle through until finding the right one. Something, ANYTHING other than "point at the thing and press a button."
Speaking of press the button, I've gotten to a point with some kind of ancient underground facility and as I approach a control panel for a bridge, Aloy says aloud "How do I get that to activate." Yes, quiet the conundrum here, Aloy. What do we do? Perhaps we find a machine with some kind of pass for the internal workings of the facility? Maybe we play a quick hacking mini-game that's time based to get passed this? Nope! Just hold triangle next to the thing and that'll sort everything out. Again, I wish there was a bit more complexity to the mechanics to the game. I mean, FFS, I need several different bows to fire different elemental arrows, for some reason. Make the one thing that seems like it would be complex complex! AND LET ME PICK UP RESOURCES I'VE USED! Like wire traps or arrows that missed. You can place wire traps that are explosive or shock the enemies that you can't pick up when you want to move them. If you place them in a spot the enemy isn't nearby anymore, you have to adjust yourself so they charge through the trap. Or, if you realize you don't want to fight the enemy anymore, you cant just leave. Otherwise you waste a tripe wire or two since you can't pick them back up.
But anyways, small gripes in an otherwise great game. Certainly pick it up when you get the chance. On sale or full price, you can go wrong with this unique experience.
Shadow of The Colossus for the PS4 is a remake of the PS2 game released back in 1876. The graphics hasn't been lightly touched here and there to make another profit from idiots like me who buy a game they already played and beaten. The graphics have been worked from the ground up to appear like modern day graphics. The game supports 4k resolution, and the environment has been reworked to include more textures, such as grass and rocks. You may be asking yourself "Mitch, the hell are you doing writing anything? Your grammar and sentence structure is so bad that I've contemplated blocking your illiterate ass several times." and you would be write. You may also be asking yourself why these details matter at all. Who cares about a little grass and some added rocks here and there? Well, you see with most remastered's they simply just up the engines lighting and maybe a few fixes on textures and character models, but to have a complete remake? That's something to be praised for. How many times has a game been just essentially re-released as a "remastered" and hardly anything was added?
I mean, just look at the major differences from ps2, ps3 and the ps4.
There is an obvious difference between each version outside of just simple furthering the render distance and upping textures. The PS4 version is the version you must have. It brings to life a level of definition that honors the original creators art.
What else the remake adds is a photo mode with filters that can be accessible at any point by pressing down on the d-pad. New collectibles, the game keeps tracks of your statistics, and changes the controls a bit while still keeping the old school feel.
Speaking of the old school feel, all you do is still kill colossi still. No new enemies, no hidden collectibles to gather except for some gold coins which no one is sure what they do if anything, no new colossi, just the same old giant, albeit pretty empty world. Of course, this emptiness could've been intentional and not simple a limitation of what the ps2 can handle. Now, there are bigger worlds from the ps2 era with more going on, such as GTA San Andreas, but you have to keep in mind that structurally, these are two different games. Now, I know its hard to wrap your head around the fact that this
is not the same as this,
but please bear with me here. GTA San Andreas focused on the feel of a large, living, breathing city. With citizens going about their day, gyms, fast food joints and a plethora of side activities. But the character models for GTA SA was very plain as far as animation is concerned. Sure there were unique ones with characters having arms stuck to their side, some people who slouch as they walk, etc, etc. While Shadow of The Colossus's character animations were complex. The main character flailed his arms around like he was constantly trying to shake something off, but it was detailed nonetheless. And of course there's the massive colossi's animations as well. Each was unique in design and in animation. This of course took up space on the memory and it worked.
But enough of that, lets go back a little. Lets just take a step back from our monitors and look at the decision to keep the world practically bare to maybe give the player and the character you control a sense of mystery and forbiddeness in the land. The character is already doing something that is seems atrocious to his kind and even the gods as he is slowly punished for slaying these ancient creatures for a selfish reason, that is, to bring back a woman who has died. Apparently sacrificed for some ritual as well. The sense of loneliness is exactly what the character is. Alone. He acts on his own decision to bring a life that has already gone frolm the world and apparently for a pre-established reason. But dammit, he's gonna do it! He will climb that forbidden mountain, even if it means his life! He is being selfish but he must see it through for the one he loves!
Of course, take that as you will. Still doesn't change the fact that it is quite empty aside from lizard tails and fruits to eat. Something carried over from the ps2 that back then wasn't as big an issue as it would've been today if it was first released today.
A trip down memory lane except better than you remembered. With all the high resolution textures and character models your eyes can barely handle. And, for those who have been curios about this games hype back in the day but never got around to it, now's your chance... assuming it goes on sale, because 40 bucks is a bit much, despite my weak will caving into the idea of owning this game.
