The first media round-up post of 2015
Last night, I got the last darklit planet pin and finally, finally beat The World Ends With You to my satisfaction. \o/ (I don't have 100% completion, but I've mastered almost all the good pins and I've unlocked all the character and story content, which is the real thing I care about. I'm content leaving stuff like Final Time Attack to the true completionists.)
Overall, it was a very enjoyable game! As with my last major gaming experience, Tales of the Abyss, the battle system had a steep learning curve that felt overwhelming at first but became incredibly satisfying once I actually learned how to use it (ie "cheaply spam lightning bolts and juggle bosses"). But unlike Tales of the Abyss, TWEWY had a story that didn't fall apart in the second act, and characters whose fates didn't leave me disappointed and frustrated in the endgame. (It was a pretty simple story, admittedly. But it did catch my by surprise at a few key moments!) Plus I really loved the Secret Report mechanic and how it gave the ending of the game some replay value.
[SPOILERS for the ending of The World Ends With You (but not the secret reports)]
I don't have a lot of deep thoughts about the story itself, but I did find it a little funny how the narrative started out as a pretty standard friendship narrative between Neku and Shiki, and then got jacked very abruptly by Joshua and stayed jacked by him for practically the rest of the game, to the point where Neku addresses his whole ending soliloquy to him (at least, I assume that's who he's talking to). Joshua was probably my favorite character, so I don't exactly mind, but it was a little unexpected ... if admittedly fitting, because I guess that's kind of Joshua's whole gimmick. Also it does a helpful job of facilitating the slash potential of said game, which I appreciate.
Though that said, if the game had been able to maintain its Joshua-centric focus without damseling both the main female characters, I also would have appreciated that. (Bring Shiki back earlier, or switch Beat and Rhyme's genders, or just genderswap Beat ... it wouldn't have been hard!) As it was, I liked both Shiki and Rhyme a lot but wished they had had more to do. :/
[/spoilers]
So yeah, that was fun. :D
Keeping the topic on media, here's my thoughts about some things I have watched in the past few months:
1) Big Hero 6 - I went into this movie with medium-low expectations (mostly thanks to "this movie's narrative structure is a mess" Frozen), but I ended up really loving it! I thought the visuals were so lush and beautiful, and I really enjoyed the humor and character moments, especially anything having to do with Baymax, who was charming. I agree with others that the villain's backstory and motivations felt kind of rushed + random (and that the big sacrifice at the end felt pretty contrived), but in general the movie was so consistently engaging and entertaining that I didn't hardly mind. I would watch a sequel.
2) Birdman - Also very enjoyable, in a very different way from Big Hero 6. :V The female roles felt underwritten, but I enjoyed the sharpness of the dialogue and the performances overall, and I thought the stylistic gamble they took with the direction really worked to help the whole film feel very claustrophobic and unrelenting. I also liked the story, though I'm not entirely confident that I got the message I was supposed to from it .... We were supposed to think that Michael Keaton's character's play was terrible, right? That was the great irony of his character, that he was sacrificing his relationships and personal well-being at the altar of a mediocre piece of "high art" which ends up becoming a success not because of any artistic merit it has in of itself, but because of a meta gimmick that ends up making the piece "go viral" just like the pop media Keaton's character despises? If that's not the intended take-away, I may have to retract a little of my praise, but assuming that is how I'm supposed to feel about the movie, I liked it a lot. Would recommend, if not necessarily re-watch.
3) Kill la Kill - If I told myself six months ago, "You are going to watch a very unapologetically and gratuitously fanservicey anime, and you are going to love it," I'm not sure I would have believed myself. But I did! Don't get me wrong, I don't think this show is very deep, and I don't think it's especially profound (nor is it trying to be), but it is fast-paced and high-energy and totally committed to its completely loony story premise, and it does have a lot of characters I liked and narrative+stylistic creativity that I enjoyed, and for me personally, the fanservice was mitigated a little bit by the facts that a) it gets much more equal opportunity as it goes on; b) the female characters' impractical outfits don't get in the way of their being able to do battle or save the world from aliens; and c) the story is principally about female rivals, and female friends, and female protagonists getting into knock-down drag-out fights with female villains, which means I didn't have to worry about any of those female characters being victimized by or reduced to love interests for men, which was nice. (I wouldn't say the show is actively feminist or anything, but it also didn't feel actively misogynist to me!)
The one thing that did kind of alienate me was the sexualized abuse scenes later on, which were the one time the show felt a little too male(?)-gazey for me to enjoy. (Evidently I can enjoy violence, and I can enjoy nudity, and I can enjoy dysfunctional and abusive relationships, but I still get a little skeeved out by abusive naked violence to characters that we're supposed to think is sexy. YMMV on their appeal, though.) But those moments were few enough, and there were enough other things in the show that I enjoyed, that it was mostly just really really fun to watch.
(This entry is mirrored at http://spywindow.dreamwidth.org/204351.html, where it has
comments)
Overall, it was a very enjoyable game! As with my last major gaming experience, Tales of the Abyss, the battle system had a steep learning curve that felt overwhelming at first but became incredibly satisfying once I actually learned how to use it (ie "cheaply spam lightning bolts and juggle bosses"). But unlike Tales of the Abyss, TWEWY had a story that didn't fall apart in the second act, and characters whose fates didn't leave me disappointed and frustrated in the endgame. (It was a pretty simple story, admittedly. But it did catch my by surprise at a few key moments!) Plus I really loved the Secret Report mechanic and how it gave the ending of the game some replay value.
[SPOILERS for the ending of The World Ends With You (but not the secret reports)]
I don't have a lot of deep thoughts about the story itself, but I did find it a little funny how the narrative started out as a pretty standard friendship narrative between Neku and Shiki, and then got jacked very abruptly by Joshua and stayed jacked by him for practically the rest of the game, to the point where Neku addresses his whole ending soliloquy to him (at least, I assume that's who he's talking to). Joshua was probably my favorite character, so I don't exactly mind, but it was a little unexpected ... if admittedly fitting, because I guess that's kind of Joshua's whole gimmick. Also it does a helpful job of facilitating the slash potential of said game, which I appreciate.
Though that said, if the game had been able to maintain its Joshua-centric focus without damseling both the main female characters, I also would have appreciated that. (Bring Shiki back earlier, or switch Beat and Rhyme's genders, or just genderswap Beat ... it wouldn't have been hard!) As it was, I liked both Shiki and Rhyme a lot but wished they had had more to do. :/
[/spoilers]
So yeah, that was fun. :D
Keeping the topic on media, here's my thoughts about some things I have watched in the past few months:
1) Big Hero 6 - I went into this movie with medium-low expectations (mostly thanks to "this movie's narrative structure is a mess" Frozen), but I ended up really loving it! I thought the visuals were so lush and beautiful, and I really enjoyed the humor and character moments, especially anything having to do with Baymax, who was charming. I agree with others that the villain's backstory and motivations felt kind of rushed + random (and that the big sacrifice at the end felt pretty contrived), but in general the movie was so consistently engaging and entertaining that I didn't hardly mind. I would watch a sequel.
2) Birdman - Also very enjoyable, in a very different way from Big Hero 6. :V The female roles felt underwritten, but I enjoyed the sharpness of the dialogue and the performances overall, and I thought the stylistic gamble they took with the direction really worked to help the whole film feel very claustrophobic and unrelenting. I also liked the story, though I'm not entirely confident that I got the message I was supposed to from it .... We were supposed to think that Michael Keaton's character's play was terrible, right? That was the great irony of his character, that he was sacrificing his relationships and personal well-being at the altar of a mediocre piece of "high art" which ends up becoming a success not because of any artistic merit it has in of itself, but because of a meta gimmick that ends up making the piece "go viral" just like the pop media Keaton's character despises? If that's not the intended take-away, I may have to retract a little of my praise, but assuming that is how I'm supposed to feel about the movie, I liked it a lot. Would recommend, if not necessarily re-watch.
3) Kill la Kill - If I told myself six months ago, "You are going to watch a very unapologetically and gratuitously fanservicey anime, and you are going to love it," I'm not sure I would have believed myself. But I did! Don't get me wrong, I don't think this show is very deep, and I don't think it's especially profound (nor is it trying to be), but it is fast-paced and high-energy and totally committed to its completely loony story premise, and it does have a lot of characters I liked and narrative+stylistic creativity that I enjoyed, and for me personally, the fanservice was mitigated a little bit by the facts that a) it gets much more equal opportunity as it goes on; b) the female characters' impractical outfits don't get in the way of their being able to do battle or save the world from aliens; and c) the story is principally about female rivals, and female friends, and female protagonists getting into knock-down drag-out fights with female villains, which means I didn't have to worry about any of those female characters being victimized by or reduced to love interests for men, which was nice. (I wouldn't say the show is actively feminist or anything, but it also didn't feel actively misogynist to me!)
The one thing that did kind of alienate me was the sexualized abuse scenes later on, which were the one time the show felt a little too male(?)-gazey for me to enjoy. (Evidently I can enjoy violence, and I can enjoy nudity, and I can enjoy dysfunctional and abusive relationships, but I still get a little skeeved out by abusive naked violence to characters that we're supposed to think is sexy. YMMV on their appeal, though.) But those moments were few enough, and there were enough other things in the show that I enjoyed, that it was mostly just really really fun to watch.
(This entry is mirrored at http://spywindow.dreamwidth.org/204351.html, where it has
comments)