I didn't play this game, I watched a let's play. This game looked really pretty. I can tell that the player was legitimately tense while playing it. I would like to actually play it and provide a complete review of the positives, because there are many, but since I haven't played it and I won't play it any time soon, I can't. I am however, dying to make some comments on what I didn't like.
1. Claire's Jacket
Did the developers forget to give Claire a 90's appropriate outfit? I don't recall many college girls in red leather jackets in 1996. Yes, this jacket was distracting to me. It's an oversight as well; a missed opportunity to remind the player that this game is set in the 90s.
2. Chief Irons
This fucking game gave Chief Irons a pedo vibe. It was super creepy and you can tell the developers had regrets. The game included some forced dialogue to let the players know that Sherry wasn't in that kind of danger, but the entire part of the game with this crap was still very uncomfortable. The orphanage level sucked too. It was boring!
3. Reused Bosses
The developers got lazy or just didn't understand the concepts of a scenerio A and B. Why do Leon A and Claire B both fight two of the same Birkin tyrant fights? That's paradoxical and disappointing. Why can't you make these parallel timelines make sense? Why can't you give me the boss variety that I should have had? Birkin 1 sucked ass too! It was too long and too repetative. Both Leon A and Claire B fight the same Birkin in the underground Umbrella facility too. That fight gave way too much space to move around for a horror game. Confining, close quarters fights are scary. This was not scary because you could get the hell away and Brikin could get stuck on or blocked by the walls. Shame!
4. Ambient Music
I think the devs made a big mistake by not including actual, scary background music.
5. The Sewers
This version expanded on the sewers. Gross. That's gross, Capcom. Fuck you.
6. Aya's Deus ex Maxhina Gun
They Did such an amazing job on Annette Birkin and the only thing they gave to Aya to compete is a universal-solution-item. That's goddamn lame. It looks super cheap to solve Aya's conflicts with this gadget.
That's about it. I might have some complaints about a puzzle or something. The puzzles seemed lacking in this version. There's a lot to praise though. A hell of a lot! I just don't feel like I can do so without playing the game.
Wednesday, March 6, 2019
Saturday, March 2, 2019
Why There are Power Levels in Dragon Ball
Why were power levels invented in Dragon Ball to begin with? I occasionally encounter a video on the internet that speculates who had what power level and when or what ki multiplier each transformation, fusion or zen-ki boost is worth or etc., and I think they're all incorrect. Not only are they incorrect, there is no being correct when you're filling the gaps yourself or using third party resources. Toriyama did not plan some spreadsheet of power levels to keep throughout the series. If he had, he surely would have said so explicitly at some point. I agree with Team Four Star: Power levels are bullshit.
Think about it from a narrative point of view. If you want to make a story interesting, give the protagonist a weakness or make a strength redundant. Ki sensing was still new to the series by the time scouters were introduced. Goku only got the ability two story arcs ago and it was an ability he gained at the end of that arc. The next arc was the world martial arts tournament with Piccolo Jr. This arc showed how this ability gave Goku a very special advantage no one else had. Then it was revealed that Piccolo had the ability too. What if another new antagonist also had this power, negating the advantage it afforded to the protagonist?
Well, Raditz is a space man. Give him a wristwatch for his face that tells power levels.
I don't know why Toriyama decided on the numbers that he did. I could speculate, but I don't like speculating on creative decisions. The facts of the matter are this: Dragon Ball was produced on a tight schedule, power levels were brand new, and the only aspect about the numbers that mattered were the differences. Toriyama is not the type of writer who plans out fine details well in advanced. This guy named major cities after directions, he named characters and powers after food, his girlfriend invented the motions for the Kamehameha when he asked her for an idea, he made decisions about a famous character design based on saving time, and he forgot that saiyajins have fucking tails.
Here are some more facts. Based on the numbers provided in the Raditz story arc, we know that at the time, Goku and Piccolo are many tens of times stronger than ordinary people. We know that weighted clothes reduce your ki somehow and by about 20% or so. We know that Goku is barely stronger than Piccolo. We know that special techniques are either several times as powerful as the fighters who use them or are a major ki amplifier. We know that the Kamehameha is stronger than the Special Beam Cannon. Finally, we know that Gohan is stronger than Goku.
If a writer wanted to communicate this information to the reader, this creative method succeeded succinctly. I still remember the approximate differences almost 20 years later.
Scouters were used repeatedly during the saiyajin and the namek arcs. At some point they stopped giving specific numbers and gave a nice even rounded score to the nearest thousand, ten thousand, hundred thousand, etc. Power levels are clearly simplified at this point. This emphasizes the use of power levels as a means of giving the audience a measurable way to tell which character is stronger and by how much. If you want to suppose anything, suppose fans and editors were the real reason power levels persisted through the series as long as they did. This supposition can be supported by how much work goes into estimating power levels by third parties rather than Toriyama himself and that the last official power level from the manga is for Future Trunks when he fought Freeza and was clocked in at fucking 5.
Besides clever estimations by fans on forums and video sharing sites and the like, there are some sources of supposedly official power levels. There is a Dragon Ball encyclopedia series called Daizenshuu. These books are not written by Toriyama but do contain numbers from the manga. There are pamphlets (for fuck sake) that came with non-canon Dragon Ball movies written and directed by people other than Toriyama. There's a magazine called V-jump which has also released power levels. I can't find Toriyama's name on those and it looks like they were used as promotional material for Dragon Ball video games.
If I were writing a series like this one, I would just use an imaginary tier, rank, or class system to categorize characters by their power and it would be based on my intuition because numbers are for games, not comics. I do appreciate that fans like power levels, but let's put this to rest. Find me a power level guide authored by Toriyama or else you or some other ass is assigning numbers based on arbitrary criteria (however reasonable they may be) where there are none because you're a human and humans like to make sense of things even when there's no sense to be made.
Think about it from a narrative point of view. If you want to make a story interesting, give the protagonist a weakness or make a strength redundant. Ki sensing was still new to the series by the time scouters were introduced. Goku only got the ability two story arcs ago and it was an ability he gained at the end of that arc. The next arc was the world martial arts tournament with Piccolo Jr. This arc showed how this ability gave Goku a very special advantage no one else had. Then it was revealed that Piccolo had the ability too. What if another new antagonist also had this power, negating the advantage it afforded to the protagonist?
Well, Raditz is a space man. Give him a wristwatch for his face that tells power levels.
I don't know why Toriyama decided on the numbers that he did. I could speculate, but I don't like speculating on creative decisions. The facts of the matter are this: Dragon Ball was produced on a tight schedule, power levels were brand new, and the only aspect about the numbers that mattered were the differences. Toriyama is not the type of writer who plans out fine details well in advanced. This guy named major cities after directions, he named characters and powers after food, his girlfriend invented the motions for the Kamehameha when he asked her for an idea, he made decisions about a famous character design based on saving time, and he forgot that saiyajins have fucking tails.
Here are some more facts. Based on the numbers provided in the Raditz story arc, we know that at the time, Goku and Piccolo are many tens of times stronger than ordinary people. We know that weighted clothes reduce your ki somehow and by about 20% or so. We know that Goku is barely stronger than Piccolo. We know that special techniques are either several times as powerful as the fighters who use them or are a major ki amplifier. We know that the Kamehameha is stronger than the Special Beam Cannon. Finally, we know that Gohan is stronger than Goku.
If a writer wanted to communicate this information to the reader, this creative method succeeded succinctly. I still remember the approximate differences almost 20 years later.
Scouters were used repeatedly during the saiyajin and the namek arcs. At some point they stopped giving specific numbers and gave a nice even rounded score to the nearest thousand, ten thousand, hundred thousand, etc. Power levels are clearly simplified at this point. This emphasizes the use of power levels as a means of giving the audience a measurable way to tell which character is stronger and by how much. If you want to suppose anything, suppose fans and editors were the real reason power levels persisted through the series as long as they did. This supposition can be supported by how much work goes into estimating power levels by third parties rather than Toriyama himself and that the last official power level from the manga is for Future Trunks when he fought Freeza and was clocked in at fucking 5.
Besides clever estimations by fans on forums and video sharing sites and the like, there are some sources of supposedly official power levels. There is a Dragon Ball encyclopedia series called Daizenshuu. These books are not written by Toriyama but do contain numbers from the manga. There are pamphlets (for fuck sake) that came with non-canon Dragon Ball movies written and directed by people other than Toriyama. There's a magazine called V-jump which has also released power levels. I can't find Toriyama's name on those and it looks like they were used as promotional material for Dragon Ball video games.
If I were writing a series like this one, I would just use an imaginary tier, rank, or class system to categorize characters by their power and it would be based on my intuition because numbers are for games, not comics. I do appreciate that fans like power levels, but let's put this to rest. Find me a power level guide authored by Toriyama or else you or some other ass is assigning numbers based on arbitrary criteria (however reasonable they may be) where there are none because you're a human and humans like to make sense of things even when there's no sense to be made.
Madness at my local starbucks
I witnessed today in a star bucks a homeless man possibly insult a woman over some chairs. The woman's response escalated the inaudible exchange by her rapidly clearing a 3 to 5 foot space and putting her nose within literal inches from his and scream "if you disrespect me again, I'll have you killed" like a schitzo. Starbucks called security who had the homeless man removed. This woman threatened, in the hypothetocal, a human life and star bucks management sided with her, rather than asking both parties to be removed. What in God's fucking name is wrong with people? Calling someone a slur and refusing to share chairs is less immoral than a death threat. For the record, the supposed insult tossed was "slut" and moments later, this woman spoke loudly to a mixed room that she hadn't had sex in 18 months. This woman and her party seemed so hyped after security escorted the homeless man out saying "don't ever come back," that they used the chairs for less than a minute and instead stood around the table for less than ten and left. I feel sorry for the small boy who was with them because he'll likely have them as his primary influence and become an adult with poor judgement and questionable morals like the rest of the group. Within the group was a man who seemed much more well adjusted than I was who very calmly and politely though falaciously told the homeless man following the death threat that he should not disrespect a woman like that. I can't tell what part was most disturbing, but it was probably that this companion to the woman was very comfortable with this threat as seemingly were all parties involved . I don't recall how much he physically intervened because it happened so quickly, but I believe his positioning of himself around all parties was tactful. I think these people are ordinary people but they have a sort of mentality comparable to a Hollywood version of a crime family mixed with some Beverly Hills wannabes. I stood in line behind these very people as well and they paid a nine dollar order with a 100 dollar bill which is either something either ghetto people or criminal people do, and they took forever because they were chatting.
My questions are this: for the young man in this woman's party, do you condone hypitetical death threats? For the star bucks manager, did you miss the death threat and are you just doing your job? And for the woman, do you think this erratic behavior is acceptable? Additionally, I'd like to know what the people of the room would think if I were to discuss this incident with them.
I thought about this some more and it occurred to me that the man who stepped in could have been expertly defusing the conflict. He might be fully aware that the woman was in the wrong by threatening to kill a man over his poor manners, but his offensive and subtle intervention by taking her side while remaining courteous to the homeless man might have been a very pragmatic move. Safety should come before right or wrong. Deescalating the situation so that everyone could walk away is the best outcome reality can hope for. If this was intentional on the mans part, than he deserves some praise.
My questions are this: for the young man in this woman's party, do you condone hypitetical death threats? For the star bucks manager, did you miss the death threat and are you just doing your job? And for the woman, do you think this erratic behavior is acceptable? Additionally, I'd like to know what the people of the room would think if I were to discuss this incident with them.
I thought about this some more and it occurred to me that the man who stepped in could have been expertly defusing the conflict. He might be fully aware that the woman was in the wrong by threatening to kill a man over his poor manners, but his offensive and subtle intervention by taking her side while remaining courteous to the homeless man might have been a very pragmatic move. Safety should come before right or wrong. Deescalating the situation so that everyone could walk away is the best outcome reality can hope for. If this was intentional on the mans part, than he deserves some praise.
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