Film poster for Chronicle

When three teens discover that they have developed superhuman capabilities, the sky appears to be the limit for them. However, is it all as glorious as it seems or are there dire consequences that come with the territory of gaining superpowers? Join me as I review the spectacular sci-fi thriller film Chronicle after the jump…

Chronicle (2012)

Starring: Dane DeHaan, Alex Russell, Michael B. Jordan, Michael Kelly, Ashley Hinshaw

Written by: Max Landis

Story by: Max Landis and Josh Trank

Cinematography by: Matthew Jensen

Editing by: Elliot Greenberg

Directed by: Josh Trank

Release Date – February 3, 2012

Chronicle Trailer

Movies based on super-powered humans, superheroes, supervillains, and the like are getting to be such a drag to go to; primarily because Hollywood has milked that cow dry. With the exception of things like Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy (which will end this summer), most of these kinds of films are either mediocre (X-Men: First Class) or absolutely awful (Green Lantern). When I heard about another movie that dealt with superpowers that went by the name of Chronicle, I was not interested in the slightest due to the fatigue of going to so many comic book and superhuman movies over the years. That all changed in last December when I was going through various trailers of many different movies on IMDB to decide what I would see in 2012. I saw the trailer for this movie and it got my rapt attention. A found-footage style movie that dealt with teenagers who obtain superpowers and a psychological examination on what they do with these powers; what a novel concept! Not only that, but the main writer of the film is someone that immediately made want to see it: Max Landis. Max is the son of famed film director John Landis (best known for his films The Blues Brothers, National Lampoon’s Animal House, and An American Werewolf in London).

However, I did not get my hopes up too much because I recognized that this movie could go either way; i.e. the final outcome either being a failure or a victory. This is especially pertinent because the found footage genre of film is becoming very tired, mostly due to the fact that indie filmmakers use this kind of genre as a crutch to, oftentimes, make completely boring or unoriginal horror films. Fortunately, Chronicle succeeded and rightfully shot right to #1 in the box office the weekend it came out. This makes the director, Josh Trank, the youngest director (since Stephen Spielberg with Jaws when he was 28) to direct a movie that is #1at the box office; and all when he is both 27 years old and working on his first feature film no less! Now that all the meta is out of the way, let us begin the review proper.

From left to right: Andrew (DeHaan), Steve (Jordan), and Matt (Russell) causing some mischief with their new found abilities

The story of Chronicle (snigger) is rather hard to review/describe because in order for me to properly review it, I’m going to have spoil the very beginning of it. The reason being, because it is integral to get a full understanding of how this film will operate for the rest of its running time. Anyway, it begins with a violently unhappy Washington state based high school student named Andrew Detmer (Dane DeHaan) buying a camera to record his rather unhappy life. To be more specific, his father (Michael Kelly is an abusive drunk and his relatively sweet mother is both dying of cancer and is bedridden; fun times all around. To add the cherry on the icing on the cake, he is very unpopular at school and a frequent target for bullies. The only person that Andrew considers to be a friend (or at the very least someone who does not give him a hard time) is his cousin, Matt (Alex Russell) who drives him to school every day. One night, he is invited by Matt to go to a rave he is attending; to which he reluctantly agrees. After various scenes of teenage angst and shyness on Andrew’s part, he is found outside in tears by the high school’s most popular kid and star quarterback, Steve Montgomery to come with him and Matt because they found something unusual in the woods. Steve’s reasoning is that Andrew has a camera and they want to get some footage of this weird thing they found (presumably to upload it to YouTube). When Andrew pursues Steve, he finds both him and Matt standing next to a steep hole that leads to a strange cave of some kind. Eventually all three go down the whole and go spelunking in it. Very far into the cave, they discover this very strange, blue glowing crystalline object. When they get close enough, it begins to glow red and they are apparently bombarded by some kind of sonic or audio force. So strong is it, that it completely destroys the camera and we don’t find out what exactly transpired.

Weeks (possibly months) later, Andrew has a new HD camcorder and uses it to document something that they have gained after the incident in the hole: their newly developed superpowers. Thankfully, they aren’t as flashy or silly as most comic book super powered humans turn out to be. All of three of them gain the abilities of telekinesis, flight, and limited telepathy capabilities (signaled by profuse nosebleeds). At first they begin to use these abilities to be jackasses (as teenagers often are wont to be) and eventually win recognition and popularity beyond the wildest dreams of most teenagers. However, it inevitably goes out of control and crazy, fucked up shit occurs as the stakes are raised and the mayhem dial is raised all the way to eleven.

Andrew using telekinesis to dangle his camera in the air whilst 500+ feet

I’ll admit that the story itself sounds somewhat formulaic and very familiar to most people as it is the plot of almost every origin story (movie or comics-wise), but what transforms this otherwise unoriginal plot is both the incredible cinematography and camerawork. As I mentioned before, this is indeed a found footage film and it neither disappoints nor deviates from this status. About 75% of the film is shot entirely on Andrew’s camera; the other 25% is shot on security cameras in corresponding areas and external cameras carried either by the police or nearby bystanders. During the cave scene I mentioned earlier, the filmmakers brilliantly showed the camera glitching out (both video and audio-wise) due to the presumably alien nature of the object. Another thing to mention are the jaw-droppingly suspenseful action scenes and scenes that display the kids using their superpowers. The latter are rather ingeniously shot and well-planned out to the point where you feel like you are actually with them. The most representative parts in this case are the flying sequences, which really make you feel like you are up in the air flying with them (even despite the fact that it is green screened). As an aside, the special effects are top-notch and it is clear that the filmmakers really put a lot of time and effort into making the audiences’ experience as real and authentic as possible. In regards to the action scenes, I am happy to report that they are neither gratuitous nor do they bog the film down; they are always in service of the story and the characters. When you see a character get hurt, it feels like it really hurts. With all these aspects in mind, I think I can honestly say, that this film, along with Cloverfield, The Last Broadcast, and the first Paranormal Activity film, stands as one of the absolute best (or at the very least most competent) in the found footage genre.

One thing that consistently struck me throughout my viewing of this movie the most, is both how well-written and how well-thought out the real-life superhero concept was. Real-life superheroes are nothing new in the world of movies; many movies have been made on the subject. Personally, I always welcome this concept because it almost always is both intriguing to think about and lots of fun t0 watch. Unfortunately however, I’ve found that more often than not, most of these movies don’t really succeed when they attempt the concept. In my personal view, a variety of reasons are to blame, such as not taking the concept to its fullest potential or adding something unnecessary to the formula that causes the rest of the film to fall apart. The two primary examples I associate with this statement are Hancock and Unbreakable. Hancock had the potential to be something great and it was pushing all the right buttons…until the final act…when a big revelation is made about Hancock. This twist alone completely destroyed the momentum this movie set up and caused it to derail so much, that the end result was that it became a big pile of shit. In the case of Unbreakable, I must admit that I thought it had a very interesting idea and was good most of the time. Once again however, the ending kinda makes it unsatisfying because it is a “To Be Continued” ending. Unfortunately, M. Night didn’t finish the planned series because of how people kept comparing it to The Sixth Sense (which came out a year earlier) and unfairly panned it. Chronicle however, does not have any of these problems whatsoever. The film grabs this concept by its nose hairs and runs with it all the way to the finish line. It does not hold anything back, portrays the characters in a very realistic manner despite their otherworldly gifts, and ends at a decidedly logical closing point that makes it satisfying by the end.

Publicity photo of Matt, Steve, and Andrew exploring the strange cave

Another great aspect about this film that I feel bad about not giving enough credit to are the visceral performances of the three main actors. Dane DeHaan is heart wrenching and pitiably wonderful as troubled teen Andrew Detmer. As angsty and insular as he is from the rest of the world, you really do pity him and feel bad when anything unfortunate happens to him. As wowed as I was by his performance, I fear that he might be typecast as an angry nerdy kid in the future. However, the night is still young and only time will tell. My personal favorite performance in the film is that of Alex Russell as Andrew’s cousin: Matt (which is also my name; so go figure). He is the Yin to Andrew’s raging Yang and is easy to root for because of how diametrically opposed he is to both Andrew’s actions and philosophy on how and what their powers should be used for. Based on his performance, I will be very curious to see where Mr. Russell goes with his career, because he looks like the kind of actor who might be capable of many different kinds of roles; however it is too early to say. Michael B. Jordan’s performance as the comic relief of the film was a welcome addition to the cast due to the fact that a heavy movies needs something to lighten the mood at times; and Jordan does not disappoint in that regard. The only other performance of note is the one performed by Michael Kelly as Andrew’s father; he plays both a great bastard & asshole I must say. The rest of the performances either don’t get enough screen time or are just not interesting enough to mention.

As for flaws, there aren’t many but I’ll spend a little time talking about the few that exist. There were a couple of scenes that did not really need to be in the film and kind of slowed the pace; most of them being unnecessary character development scenes. That isn’t to say they are bad, but I would have much rather seen them as deleted scenes as opposed to ones in the final cut. One other thing that I do acknowledge, but neither bothered me or deterred my experience in any way is the overall atmosphere of the film. This is not a light hearted or comedic film, even though both kinds of moments exist in it. In all honesty, this is a very very dark film (though nowhere near as dark as Super) that takes itself completely seriously and will more than likely disturb many people. One does indeed have to be in the mood to watch this movie in order to properly enjoy it, which was the outcome in my Dad’s case (who went to see it with me).

In closing, I highly, highly recommend Chronicle to anyone who is either a fan of science fiction, wants to see a movie that will really test your nerves, or wants to have a good time in general (if you are the kind of person who enjoys movies with negative dramatic moments/disturbing content). Should you, by some miracle, read this, Mr. Trank, I have to say bravo and that my hat is off to you on your success in your debut film. I think the future may hold good things for you, so keep it up and make more movies! It might be too early to say, but Chronicle might end up on my Top 10 list of the year because of how much it both surprised me and how much enjoyment I got out of it by the end. If you enjoyed this article or have feedback on what things you like or dislike about it, leave some comments in the comments section or send me an e-mail at geoffino04@gmail.com; I’m all ears.

Thanks for reading and take care!

]]> http://www.themoderndaypirates.com/pirates/2012/02/chronicle-review/feed/ 0 Geo[caption id="attachment_9869" align="aligncenter" width="509" caption="Film poster for Chronicle"][caption id="attachment_9869" align="aligncenter" width="509" caption="Film poster for Chronicle"][/caption] When three teens discover that they have developed superhuman capabilities, the sky appears to be the limit for them. However, is it all as glorious as it seems or are there dire consequences that come with the territory of gaining superpowers? Join me as I review the spectacular sci-fi thriller film Chronicle after the jump... Chronicle (2012) Starring: Dane DeHaan, Alex Russell, Michael B. Jordan, Michael Kelly, Ashley Hinshaw Written by: Max Landis Story by: Max Landis and Josh Trank Cinematography by: Matthew Jensen Editing by: Elliot Greenberg Directed by: Josh Trank Release Date - February 3, 2012 Chronicle Trailer Movies based on super-powered humans, superheroes, supervillains, and the like are getting to be such a drag to go to; primarily because Hollywood has milked that cow dry. With the exception of things like Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy (which will end this summer), most of these kinds of films are either mediocre (X-Men: First Class) or absolutely awful (Green Lantern). When I heard about another movie that dealt with superpowers that went by the name of Chronicle, I was not interested in the slightest due to the fatigue of going to so many comic book and superhuman movies over the years. That all changed in last December when I was going through various trailers of many different movies on IMDB to decide what I would see in 2012. I saw the trailer for this movie and it got my rapt attention. A found-footage style movie that dealt with teenagers who obtain superpowers and a psychological examination on what they do with these powers; what a novel concept! Not only that, but the main writer of the film is someone that immediately made want to see it: Max Landis. Max is the son of famed film director John Landis (best known for his films The Blues Brothers, National Lampoon's Animal House, and An American Werewolf in London). However, I did not get my hopes up too much because I recognized that this movie could go either way; i.e. the final outcome either being a failure or a victory. This is especially pertinent because the found footage genre of film is becoming very tired, mostly due to the fact that indie filmmakers use this kind of genre as a crutch to, oftentimes, make completely boring or unoriginal horror films. Fortunately, Chronicle succeeded and rightfully shot right to #1 in the box office the weekend it came out. This makes the director, Josh Trank, the youngest director (since Stephen Spielberg with Jaws when he was 28) to direct a movie that is #1at the box office; and all when he is both 27 years old and working on his first feature film no less! Now that all the meta is out of the way, let us begin the review proper. [caption id="attachment_9870" align="aligncenter" width="482" caption="From left to right: Andrew (DeHaan), Steve (Jordan), and Matt (Russell) causing some mischief with their new found abilities"][/caption] The story of Chronicle (snigger) is rather hard to review/describe because in order for me to properly review it, I'm going to have spoil the very beginning of it. The reason being, because it is integral to get a full understanding of how this film will operate for the rest of its running time. Anyway, it begins with a violently unhappy Washington state based high school student named Andrew Detmer (Dane DeHaan) buying a camera to record his rather unhappy life. To be more specific, his father (Michael Kelly is an abusive drunk and his relatively sweet mother is both dying of cancer and is bedridden; fun times all around. To add the cherry on the icing on the cake, he is very unpopular at school and a frequent target for bullies. The only person that Andrew considers to be a friend (or at the very least someone who does not give him a hard time) is his cousin, Matt (Alex Russell) who drives him to school every day. One night, he is invited by Matt to go to a rave he is attending; to which he reluctantly agrees. After various scenes of teenage angst and shyness on Andrew's part, he is found outside in tears by the high school's most popular kid and star quarterback, Steve Montgomery to come with him and Matt because they found something unusual in the woods. Steve's reasoning is that Andrew has a camera and they want to get some footage of this weird thing they found (presumably to upload it to YouTube). When Andrew pursues Steve, he finds both him and Matt standing next to a steep hole that leads to a strange cave of some kind. Eventually all three go down the whole and go spelunking in it. Very far into the cave, they discover this very strange, blue glowing crystalline object. When they get close enough, it begins to glow red and they are apparently bombarded by some kind of sonic or audio force. So strong is it, that it completely destroys the camera and we don't find out what exactly transpired. Weeks (possibly months) later, Andrew has a new HD camcorder and uses it to document something that they have gained after the incident in the hole: their newly developed superpowers. Thankfully, they aren't as flashy or silly as most comic book super powered humans turn out to be. All of three of them gain the abilities of telekinesis, flight, and limited telepathy capabilities (signaled by profuse nosebleeds). At first they begin to use these abilities to be jackasses (as teenagers often are wont to be) and eventually win recognition and popularity beyond the wildest dreams of most teenagers. However, it inevitably goes out of control and crazy, fucked up shit occurs as the stakes are raised and the mayhem dial is raised all the way to eleven. [caption id="attachment_9871" align="aligncenter" width="648" caption="Andrew using telekinesis to dangle his camera in the air whilst 500+ feet "][/caption] I'll admit that the story itself sounds somewhat formulaic and very familiar to most people as it is the plot of almost every origin story (movie or comics-wise), but what transforms this otherwise unoriginal plot is both the incredible cinematography and camerawork. As I mentioned before, this is indeed a found footage film and it neither disappoints nor deviates from this status. About 75% of the film is shot entirely on Andrew's camera; the other 25% is shot on security cameras in corresponding areas and external cameras carried either by the police or nearby bystanders. During the cave scene I mentioned earlier, the filmmakers brilliantly showed the camera glitching out (both video and audio-wise) due to the presumably alien nature of the object. Another thing to mention are the jaw-droppingly suspenseful action scenes and scenes that display the kids using their superpowers. The latter are rather ingeniously shot and well-planned out to the point where you feel like you are actually with them. The most representative parts in this case are the flying sequences, which really make you feel like you are up in the air flying with them (even despite the fact that it is green screened). As an aside, the special effects are top-notch and it is clear that the filmmakers really put a lot of time and effort into making the audiences' experience as real and authentic as possible. In regards to the action scenes, I am happy to report that they are neither gratuitous nor do they bog the film down; they are always in service of the story and the characters. When you see a character get hurt, it feels like it really hurts. With all these aspects in mind, I think I can honestly say, that this film, along with Cloverfield, The Last Broadcast, and the first Paranormal Activity film, stands as one of the absolute best (or at the very least most competent) in the found footage genre. One thing that consistently struck me throughout my viewing of this movie the most, is both how well-written and how well-thought out the real-life superhero concept was. Real-life superheroes are nothing new in the world of movies; many movies have been made on the subject. Personally, I always welcome this concept because it almost always is both intriguing to think about and lots of fun t0 watch. Unfortunately however, I've found that more often than not, most of these movies don't really succeed when they attempt the concept. In my personal view, a variety of reasons are to blame, such as not taking the concept to its fullest potential or adding something unnecessary to the formula that causes the rest of the film to fall apart. The two primary examples I associate with this statement are Hancock and Unbreakable. Hancock had the potential to be something great and it was pushing all the right buttons...until the final act...when a big revelation is made about Hancock. This twist alone completely destroyed the momentum this movie set up and caused it to derail so much, that the end result was that it became a big pile of shit. In the case of Unbreakable, I must admit that I thought it had a very interesting idea and was good most of the time. Once again however, the ending kinda makes it unsatisfying because it is a "To Be Continued" ending. Unfortunately, M. Night didn't finish the planned series because of how people kept comparing it to The Sixth Sense (which came out a year earlier) and unfairly panned it. Chronicle however, does not have any of these problems whatsoever. The film grabs this concept by its nose hairs and runs with it all the way to the finish line. It does not hold anything back, portrays the characters in a very realistic manner despite their otherworldly gifts, and ends at a decidedly logical closing point that makes it satisfying by the end. [caption id="attachment_9881" align="aligncenter" width="639" caption="Publicity photo of Matt, Steve, and Andrew exploring the strange cave"][/caption] Another great aspect about this film that I feel bad about not giving enough credit to are the visceral performances of the three main actors. Dane DeHaan is heart wrenching and pitiably wonderful as troubled teen Andrew Detmer. As angsty and insular as he is from the rest of the world, you really do pity him and feel bad when anything unfortunate happens to him. As wowed as I was by his performance, I fear that he might be typecast as an angry nerdy kid in the future. However, the night is still young and only time will tell. My personal favorite performance in the film is that of Alex Russell as Andrew's cousin: Matt (which is also my name; so go figure). He is the Yin to Andrew's raging Yang and is easy to root for because of how diametrically opposed he is to both Andrew's actions and philosophy on how and what their powers should be used for. Based on his performance, I will be very curious to see where Mr. Russell goes with his career, because he looks like the kind of actor who might be capable of many different kinds of roles; however it is too early to say. Michael B. Jordan's performance as the comic relief of the film was a welcome addition to the cast due to the fact that a heavy movies needs something to lighten the mood at times; and Jordan does not disappoint in that regard. The only other performance of note is the one performed by Michael Kelly as Andrew's father; he plays both a great bastard & asshole I must say. The rest of the performances either don't get enough screen time or are just not interesting enough to mention. As for flaws, there aren't many but I'll spend a little time talking about the few that exist. There were a couple of scenes that did not really need to be in the film and kind of slowed the pace; most of them being unnecessary character development scenes. That isn't to say they are bad, but I would have much rather seen them as deleted scenes as opposed to ones in the final cut. One other thing that I do acknowledge, but neither bothered me or deterred my experience in any way is the overall atmosphere of the film. This is not a light hearted or comedic film, even though both kinds of moments exist in it. In all honesty, this is a very very dark film (though nowhere near as dark as Super) that takes itself completely seriously and will more than likely disturb many people. One does indeed have to be in the mood to watch this movie in order to properly enjoy it, which was the outcome in my Dad's case (who went to see it with me). In closing, I highly, highly recommend Chronicle to anyone who is either a fan of science fiction, wants to see a movie that will really test your nerves, or wants to have a good time in general (if you are the kind of person who enjoys movies with negative dramatic moments/disturbing content). Should you, by some miracle, read this, Mr. Trank, I have to say bravo and that my hat is off to you on your success in your debut film. I think the future may hold good things for you, so keep it up and make more movies! It might be too early to say, but Chronicle might end up on my Top 10 list of the year because of how much it both surprised me and how much enjoyment I got out of it by the end. If you enjoyed this article or have feedback on what things you like or dislike about it, leave some comments in the comments section or send me an e-mail at geoffino04@gmail.com; I’m all ears. Thanks for reading and take care! http://www.themoderndaypirates.com/pirates/2012/02/review-the-woman-in-black/ http://www.themoderndaypirates.com/pirates/2012/02/review-the-woman-in-black/#comments Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:38:36 +0000 Eryn http://www.themoderndaypirates.com/pirates/?p=9785 Let’s get one thing out of the way right off the bat: I am rather partial to the idea of Daniel Radcliffe in a suit.

Already, The Woman in Black, Radcliffe’s brand new “Hey Look! It’s Totally Not Harry Potter!!” project, has scored some points with me, and that’s before I’ve even set foot inside an auditorium. Then again, the same could have been said of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and that ended up being my least favorite entry in the Potter film franchise.

Oh yes, I'd love to see this for his (ahem) acting. Yes.

So I wondered as I sat down with my popcorn and Smarties and settled in for the show: could the Radcliffe Suit Factor (trademark pending) hold The Woman in Black afloat?

The short answer is: no.

The slightly longer answer: kind of.

The TL;DR answer:

The Woman in Black is a very good looking movie if nothing else. We already touched on costuming, obviously, but the period dress is not the only thing to admire here. The movie sets out to be a ghost story where the scares come more from atmosphere than from gore, and everything about the look of the movie does contribute to that. The cinematography is beautifully crisp and muted, giving the whole film the air of a chilled day in January. A lot of love has been paid to the settings and props too, particularly those of the house we spend much of the film in.

A haunted house movie can live or die (so to speak) on the strength of its house, and The Woman in Black has that nailed. Every cobweb is where it should be; every shadow is thrown just so; every creepy Victorian doll has the requisite amount of creepiness. Someone spent a lot of time and effort making this movie look and feel right, and it does pay off. You never feel put off just looking at it.

Unfortunately, we do have to do more than just look at a movie like this. If it were otherwise, it would be a music video or an art film, and even then, it would probably still lack something — and that something I feel is a point. What is the point of this movie? That seems like an easy question to tackle: the point of a movie like this is to tell a ghost story that will make its audience have fun being scared. Question answered, right? Not so fast.

The problem here is that the movie seems to want to do more than that. The way it plays its lead character and structures its plot, it’s clear that it wants to have themes! And motifs! And develop its protagonist’s psyche in meaningful ways! And have a deeper, more well-told story like the big boys on the studio lot! This may be in part due to the movie’s source material (a 1983 novel by Susan Hill, later a stage play by Stephen Mallatratt), which may well have had more going on in terms of characters and story. Not being familiar with the source material, though, I am forced to evaluated the movie purely on its own terms, and on that level, it falls short of the mark for me.

Kids without eyes! That's creepy, right?

Let me back up for a moment. The movie begins with three girls playing in an attic with creepy porcelain dolls. Faint, creepy music plays in the background, the little girls play in a creepily slow way, and the whole thing just screams “CREEPY CREEPY ISN’T THIS CREEPY?”. Then (spoilers) something overtakes the three of them and causes them to stand up, walk across the room in unison, and step out the window to their deaths. Cut back to the wide-eyed face of one of the dolls left in the room. A woman off-screen lets out a scream: “Oh God! My baaaabiiiiiiiies!”

And then the audience in the theatre laughs.

Not even two minutes in to the movie, and the audience is laughing. For a campy Hammer horror flick, this would not be a problem. It is slightly more of a problem when it’s happening in your ostensibly serious business serious seriouspants movie (ironically also a Hammer production).

You could argue that this movie does go for camp at times. There is a wonderful bit performance later in the film from Janet McTeer, in which she plays a woman who mothers twin chihuahuas as though they were her own children (little sailor suits and everything). The key phrase here, though, is “at times”. The campier moments of the film are too few and far between to make a strong argument for The Woman in Black being primarily a camp horror.

Besides, I know what the true category for this movie is, and it is neither camp horror nor serious horror. It is jump scare horror. For all its atmosphere and admittedly decent acting (Daniel Radcliffe does sell those terrified looks most of the time), the filmmakers apparently did not trust any of that to actually chill or scare their audience. Instead, they went for the cheap way to guarantee audience tension, and that was to continually build up quiet moments only to make something move suddenly at the same time that a loud, sharp noise goes off. This is the most basic way to “scare” a viewer, and I would argue it’s not even scaring them — it’s startling them. Not the same thing.

What jump scares amount to

I started to do some counting after the first couple of instances of this. My final total was about ten or eleven full-on jump scares, and yet more pseudo jump scares that still had a loud, startling noise but didn’t have a full jump scare setup. For a movie that’s only an hour-and-a-half long, that averages out to about one jump scare every nine minutes, and considering the first scare isn’t until about twenty minutes in, that ratio gets even worse. I had my fingers over my ears for what felt like half the movie, but not due to any genuine dread about the events or atmosphere of the film, but just for sheer practicality reasons (sudden loud noises are unpleasant, damn it).

There was only one scary scene that did not rely heavily on the use of jump scares, and that was the lead-up to a bit with a rocking chair, which had some well-executed pacing and sound design going on. In all other scenes, the jump scares are literally the only thing that makes the scenes tense. To be fair, I give director James Watkins credit for attempting to play out the main horror scenes mostly without dialogue and without relying too heavily on the kind of action and shock scenes that modern horror audiences might expect. To stay fair, though, I can’t give him more credit than he deserves, and I have to say his attempts just did not work for me.

The pacing slowed almost unforgivably at times in the house scenes, even considering the intended effect of those scenes. Also, while there were occasionally some dutch angles and ghost POV shots thrown in to liven things up, the angles chosen to shoot poor scared Radcliffe seemed mostly uninteresting — usually from the front or from the side, usually flat, and usually the same monotonously creeping camera movement. I would accept the slow pace of those scenes if the framings were at least interesting. As it stands now, my alternate title for the film would probably be Daniel Radcliffe Investigates Strange Noises. And Wears A Suit. The Movie.

This is literally what most of the movie looks like.

One of the other major problems I had with the film was the script. The dialogue was the epitome of hokey, and it was a wonder that all the principle actors carried their parts as well as they did. Radcliffe’s boss gives exposition of the worst kind (“Well as you already know, [insert character name here], this is the situation”), things that could have been communicated through visual cues and actions by the actors are hammered home through dialogue, things that are communicated visually are often done so in overly obvious ways, and reactions rarely match what you would expect from characters considering what’s going on (there’s an especially egregious non-reaction from Radcliffe to Ciáran Hinds after an intense scene in the house).

Worst of all, the climax and ending both feel rushed and abrupt. When we reached the point in the movie where the characters think of a plot-solving solution and then go out to execute that solution, I caught myself thinking, “Oh. I guess this is the climax now?” And then later, near the very end, I thought again: “Oh. I guess this is the supposedly shocking twist ending that isn’t really a twist now?”

No wait, I take back that “worst of all”. Worst of all is, like I said before, the pointlessness. I just feel like turning to the movie and asking it what people should take away from having seen it. You startled me with a bunch of jump scares. Okay, thanks? You showed me Daniel Radcliffe in a suit wandering around a well-designed creepy house and staring at things with those nice eyes of his. Good on you, but I didn’t need to sit here for ninety minutes just for that. You tried to develop an engaging story about a single father doing his best for his son and representing his failure to do so in his inability to save other children from dying. Way to try, but your efforts seemed really forced. You had a total of seven child deaths. Oh good for you, you’re shocking (roll my eyes). And you had those chihuahuas. What was up with those chihuahuas, movie? Seriously.

Seriously. Why would you even.

That all said, if you don’t care how the tension in a horror movie develops just so long as you get it? You might still like The Woman in Black. There were plenty of people who walked out of that auditorium with me saying that they liked it and were scared. One said it was “the scariest effing thing [they had] ever seen.” Another said that she had been hiding behind her bag for most of the movie. If you’re just looking to have a fun time being scared and you don’t feel cheapened by jump scares, then heck, the movie might even be really effective. Combined with the stellar look of the film and the decent performances, you could get a pretty decent package overall, story issues aside.

So I guess the bottom line is this: if you want to like The Woman in Black, you will probably find something to like about it, even if it’s just Daniel Radcliffe’s coattails. Otherwise, your mileage may vary. And either way? Keep those earplugs handy.

Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

I is for…

"Nobody else can make a cowboy hat look this good."

Irvine: The lone wolf cowboy sharp shooter from Final Fantasy VIII, and also the last member of your party you gather in the game. Irvine is as girl crazy as he is gun crazy and doesn’t get along with anyone off the bat. He joins your gang just to shoot the Sorceress but this seemingly confident sniper kind of falls apart when it comes time to take the big shot, forcing Squall to channel his inner motivational coach. Irvine’s my favorite character in the game – I like his mix of arrogance and sensitivity. What I don’t love is getting the high powered pulse ammo for his limit break. Of course it can only be made from these rare and hard to get crystals. Because that’s where all decent bullets come from.

I is also for…

Surprisingly his favorite activity is snuggling.

It's getting hot in here! So take off all your clothes!

Ifrit – The fire based beast you can summon to rain fiery anger on your foes in most of the FF games. Along with Shiva, he’s one of the most reoccurring summoned figures.

Interceptor – Ninja Shadow’s trusty dog in FFVI. Shadow likes to claim the dog is deadly, and it’s hard to argue with him when the pup comes out of nowhere to attack your enemies after Shadow is hit. Man’s best friend indeed. Kick Relm or that walking corpse Strago off the team and put this canine in instead.

J is for…

"I'm that father you hope doesn't show up to your high school graduation! And don't worry, I won't."

Jecht – Main character Tidus’ arrogant dead beat dad who was a professional Blitzball player, an alcoholic and generally verbally abusive jerk to his small child. One day he up and disappeared, probably because he didn’t want to pay child support. Okay, that’s not what happened, but the actual story is a complicated thing involving time travel and three men on a journey to save the world. In my opinion, this guy’s best contribution to the game is his awesome Blitzball scoring technique, which is named after him, of course.

J is also for…

Gotta respect the mustache.

I think it's compensating for something.

Junon – After Midgar, it’s Shinra’s biggest stronghold in Final Fantasy VII. It boasts an underground mako reactor, friendly dolphins, non-stop Rufus parade music and a giant cannon by the end of the game.

Jumbo Cactaur – Take one of the tiny cactaur’s, multiply its size and terrifying 1000 needles attack by ten and slap a mustache on it. Now you have the Jumbo Cactaur, a very useful, if annoying to acquire GF from Final Fantasy VIII. Don’t take the proper approach while fighting him and he’ll run for the sandy hills, forcing you to repeat the whole painful process. And I mean painful. Can any attack called 10,000 needles be anything but?

K is for…

"This better be worth delivering all those chocobos myself."

Knights of the Round – And the angels came to Cloud and said, taketh this summon materia. And beat the crap out of Sephiroth with it. If only it was that easy. This is the ultimate summon of Final Fantasy VII. It makes that last battle with the one winged angel much easier. So of course getting it isn’t as easy as plunking down some gil in some shop. No. One of the few ways of getting your hands on this precious summon is by obtaining a gold chocobo. And the only way to get one of those is to either fight two terrifyingly murderous monsters or basically make one yourself. From scratch. Starting back a few generations. Good thing chocobos take only a day to be born and apparently can start mating as young as 2 seconds old. In all reality the planet should be overrun with these things. Anyway, all the hard work is worth it, because after Sephiroth hits you with multiple planets and a meteor and all other kinds of space garbage it’s pretty satisfying to send thirteen knights with sharp weapons after him.

K is also for…

"Just point me in the direction of the bar."

Do we at least get to make our own headstones like in Oregon Trail?

KO – Crap, you’re “knocked out” AKA “dead”. Or out of HP. Either way it’s not good. Break out the phoenix down or other life saving magic.

Kalm – The town right next to Midgar in Final Fantasy VII. This is where Cloud tells his really long and mostly inaccurate story of why he hates Sephiroth while Barret doesn’t pay attention and consequently understands nothing for the rest of the game.

L is for…

Squall strives for nothing less than constant perfection.

Limit Break:VI (Desperation Attack), VII, VIII, IX (Trance), X (Overdrive), XII (Quickening) – Sure, they’ve been called different things over the course of the series, but limit break is the preferred term. Basically they’re special attacks that can cause loads of damage. Usually you have to take a bit of damage to be able to use these awesome powers, but there are other ways to get these special moves going in certain cases. Trance is by far the worst of the incarnations – it isn’t very powerful and if it activates at the end of a fight too bad for you, because it’s not carrying over to the next battle. Overdrive is arguably the best – you can customize how you want your gauge to rise and you also have some control over the moves themselves.

L is also for…

Great, these stains are never gonna come out.

Girls can use swords!

Lightning – This main character from XIII has a kick ass name to match her attitude.

Lifestream – This stuff basically runs the planet in VII, although it can also poison you and make you loopy. Or, if you’re Cloud, it can cure your extreme memory problems and delusions of grandeur.

M is for…

FEED ME. IT HAS TO BE HUMAN AND IT HAS TO BE YOURS.

Malboros – There is no random encounter enemy that I hate more than this abomination. I’m pretty sure this thing is the result of the devil impregnating a some kind of mutated flytrap. And you can’t escape them. They pop up in game, after game, after game. Some titles have more than one type of this creep show – yes, they somehow managed to make the original even worse. By far the worst incarnation is in Final Fantasy VIII where their Bad Breath attack has brought my party to its blinded/silenced/petrified knees way too many times. Why? Because Bad Breath casts every status effect on your party. At once. And besides chucking acid at your face, it’s basically the only attack it’s got. And it’s all it needs. After casting it once, the Malboro then stands there and watches you slowly die. That’s it’s version of Jersey Shore.

M is also for…

Where dreams come to die!

I'm gonna take it home and call it cuddles!

Moogles – Cute, cuddly creatures that pop up in multiple titles, Moogles are always there to help. Sometimes they help you save or deliver mail, and in VI you even get to have one in your party! Kupo!

Midgar – Shinra’s stronghold city in VII, this city is divided into various sectors which are basically slums. You don’t get to explore too much of it, but when the nicest sector contains a whorehouse, you know this isn’t the type of place you want to be raising your kids. That and the fact that Shinra seems to have no problem destroying sections of it and crushing people to death.

N is for…

I can't even pronounce the name of this place, so I hate it already.

Necrohol of Nabudis – This is an optional area in XII, and the area basically brings death unless you have an insanely strong party. So why go there at all? Because you can find the best weapon in the game inside the monster overrun palace. And not only that, you can access this area fairly early in the game, when your party is nowhere near ready to take on the monsters inside. It is possible to run inside, grab the spear, and haul ass out of there, but you better be prepared to run and never look back. Because the baddies in there will murder you quickly. I call the mad dash to grab the weapon the “Run of Death”. It would be more worth it if the weapon were more badass, but the Zodiac Spear is actually kind of disappointing for something that’s such a pain to get.

N is also for…

"Why do none of the villains in this game have a defined gender?!"

Here's your poisoned coffee, Headmaster Cid!

Nida – He’s the other random character who becomes a SeeD alongside Squall and Co. Later he winds up piloting the Garden. Although he doesn’t say much, when he does speak he is annoying and/or creepy. At one point he mumbles under his breath that he’s going to run Garden one day. I’d stay away from his dorm if you want to keep your organs.

Necron – The bait and switch end boss in IX. You defeat Trance Kuja and then this whatever pops up out of nowhere. I guess it’s supposed to represent death, but no one’s really sure and it’s presence is basically pointless.

O is for…

"Wanna buy a potion? I swear they're real and not mostly water and vinegar."

O’aka – In X you meet this traveling merchant, and his prices are downright outrageous. After he tries to sell you potions he’s marked up 200%, he has the nerve to ask for a loan. Now I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure asking strangers for money isn’t the best business plan. Nor is giving money to random peddlers the best investment plan. In most cases, the guy would run off with your money never to be seen again. Well, luckily for Tidus and Co., if you give O’aka a certain amount of cash, he eventually offers the best prices in the game. He doesn’t run off and just buy a bunch of meth. O’aka also pops up in the sequel, where he again has money troubles and needs you to bail him out. On second thought, maybe he does need an intervention.

O is also for…

I fail to see what this has to do with the vegetable.

"Don't make eye contact with my horse. That alone will kill you."

Odin – the Norse god turned summon who pops up in several games. He’s probably most memorable in VIII where he has to be defeated in a certain amount of time in order to gain his respect and helping hand. After that he appears randomly in battle and destroys everything on screen…at least until you fight Seifer for the last time and he somehow manages to take the big guy down, even though he can’t even use his gunblade correctly.

Onion Knight - The Onion Knight has held many hats over the course of the series: a job class, an enemy and a weapon. Unless you’re a really hard core player, the job classes are kind of useless, as they are difficult to master, but the weapon is powerful, despite the fact that it looks like something you could win out of a crane machine at the arcade.

P is for…

You can never find one when you need it.

Phoenix Down – This item is the life force of your party. Literally. You can always count on a good ol’ Phoenix Down to bring your party members back to life. (Most of the time, anyway. They can be rather fussy in some of the games.) Some of the variables about the item may change from game to game (the price has ranged from 100 gil to a grand each, plus in III you can’t buy these necessities at all), but since the second game rolled around, fans knew what item they could throw on a fallen party member to get them back in the fight.

P is also for…

You take those baddies down, you...purple thing. With weird yellow...eyes? I hope?

Waiting for their Doublemint commercial.

Palom/Porom – Twin mages from IV who sacrifice themselves to save the rest of the party when the walls start caving in. Don’t worry, they come back. You can’t kill children in a game. Well, maybe you can. But you shouldn’t.

Pandemona – A wind element GF from VIII that looks like a…thing carrying a…thing. I don’t know. It’s fairly nightmarish. At least it’s on your side.

Next time, letters Q – Z and we finish this thing off!

If you want to read more of my stuff, check out my blog – Sephiroth’s Tutu.

Marquee Poster for Super Mario Bros anime movie

Before you read this article, I feel like I should confess something. This article was something I wrote about 3 years ago for a blog that is now long gone. More specifically, it was an article I still hold some pride and attachment to because of how hard it was to write about a movie that literally had no commentary or information on. Most of the words in this article is mostly the same as what appeared in that old blog, but I’ve since restructured and cleaned up the wording since I’m a much better blogger than what I was 3 years ago. Enjoy the article.

What can be said about Mario that hasn’t been said before? He is one of the most famous corporate mascots in history, he is unarguably the most well-known and recognized video game character in general (both by gamers and non-gamers alike), and he has been in too many video games to even count. Over the years, Mario has been involved in many different kinds of media and merchandise over the years; from toys, clothing, even cereal products. The most well-known media adaptations of Mario (other than video games) is the Saturday morning cartoon from the early ’90s dubbed “The Super Mario Bros. Super Show” and the horribly painful and shitty live-action Super Mario Bros. movie starring Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo (you read that right).  If any of you get curious and decide to search and watch this stuff…don’t, unless you are either a media masochist of some kind or genuinely enjoy bad movies.

However, the sands of time often hide many treasures just waiting to be unearthed and revealed to the world. Although many things about Mario are very well-known, there is one piece of media, the existence of which is something that very few gamers or average people are even aware of.

The aforementioned “media” is a full-feature length anime movie released in Japan only, and in theaters. It is called Super Mario Bros.: The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach! From what I understand, this movie is so obscure that the only people who are aware of it are either people who surf the internet a lot or anime fans on the level of either Anime World Order (a podcast you should all check out) or Mike Toole (a columnist on Anime News Network whose work you readers should read all of). It’s a shame not many people know of this, as it’s an okay movie and interesting piece forgotten of history. Normally, the way I would review a movie is by delving into the movie itself and giving my two-sense about it, but this movie is a special case so I’m gonna split it into two parts. Part one being about what little of the production and distribution histories that I can find about this movie, and part two being about the content of the movie itself.

As I stated above, there is very little is known about the production or the business aspects of how it was made. However after a lot of deep digging on the internet, I constructed together how I think everything went regarding the creation of this movie. Do not take this as fact, because we don’t really know the facts other than the names of the people involved and the studio’s involvement with the picture.

Lets go back to September of 1985, the Famicom (Japanese version of the original Nintendo) is already out and has just produced its first huge hit, Super Mario Bros; the latter of which was released on September 13, 1985. The game proved to be so popular, that a one-shot joint company known as Holly Planning Production/Grouper Production (I’ll refer to them as Grouper from now on) apparently contacted Nintendo. They asked them if they could make a Mario anime movie for the summer of 1986, which Nintendo agreed to do. After they got the green-light, Grouper got the animation department of Japanese entertainment mogul Toei to actually make it. This cannot be considered a tie-in-film because it was set for release in June of 1986, roughly a half-year after the release of the original Super Mario Bros. game. The director of this film is Masami Hata, an anime director and artist primarily for Sanrio (the company best known for Hello Kitty). I assume he was hired through Toei to direct this movie. To those of you who don’t know, Hata is known amongst hardcore anime fans as the man who directed fantastic anime productions such as Legend of Sirius (known as Sea Prince and the Fire Child in the USA), Princess Knight, and the nightmare fuel filled short (seriously) film known as Chirin no Suzu (known as Ringing Bell in America). As good as most of these productions are, they are relatively unknown amongst most modern anime fans, which is a crying shame as they are wonderful, and Hata is one of the grandmasters of anime since the beginning…but I digress.

A promotional cel of Mario and Peach holding...phone cards...? WhatisthisIdonteven

With about the normal amount of time an anime takes to make back in those days (roughly 7-8 months), they released the movie on June 20, 1986. Nothing is known about how well the film did, so I can’t say how popular it was in theaters. One of the more interesting things about this movie is that they released this on VHS in rental stores only, through a video rental service known as VAP Video. You gotta understand that rental movies were a big market back then, but some rental stores thought of a rather dumb idea (both financially and in terms of popularity) to sell movies only in rental stores and not in the regular home market, and this movie was one of the casualties of this dumb business decision. Because of this, this movie got the obscure reputation that it now possesses, plus it being distributed in extremely small quantities really hurt it’s reputation. These tapes can run up to $200 on auction sites because of how rare this movie and this tape really is. Sadly though, it doesn’t have any DVD release. The strangest aspect about this film in my estimation is that Nintendo either knowingly or unintentionally refuses to acknowledge this movie’s existence.

Front side of the Mario Anime Tape Cover

The actual tape itself (not mine since I don't legitimately own it).

Well this is the end of Part I where I review the actual movie. Stay tuned for Part II which should be up relatively quickly.

How did I put this list together? Well, it was a stringent scientific process where I sat down, jotted down a bunch of Final Fantasy stuff and then whittled it down to the top three under each letter. I tried to choose things that encompassed more than one game, and when I couldn’t, I just picked my favorite stuff or what I thought was most important. Yeah, it really wasn’t scientific at all. I’m a total liar. Just enjoy the primer. I’ve broken it up into 3 parts so I don’t overwhelm you with too much Final Fantasy awesomeness.

A is for…

All aboard to the end boss!

Airship: What do the Highwind, Ragnarok, Hilda Garde I, Enterprise, Falcon, Lunar Whale and Strahl have in common? …Besides being kind of awesome band names. They’re all airships that have appeared in Final Fantasy games. In pretty much every title you work your way up to an airship that allows you to easily travel around the world and attend to your world saving duties. The best ones can land anywhere – some can even be hopped on through save points. You acquire them in various ways: simply finding them, borrowing them from an ally, and…occasionally you might have to steal it or rescue one from space. Pretty standard stuff. Finally getting your hands on an airship is a big deal – no more plodding around from one location to the next, fighting randomly encountered squirrels which are deceivingly powerful. Getting an airship is like a Final Fantasy rite of passage in every game. They let you easily zip around wherever you want to go in the entire world. All those side quests with the scary monsters to fight are now within your grasp…if you dare.

A is also for….

"I forsee myself kicking ass."with its giant feet.

You wouldn't imagine anything holy coming outta this thing.

Alexander – the gigantic machine-like summon that lays down a holy smack down.

And probably crushes stuff with its giant feet.

Auron – the grizzled, sword wielding guardian who always has a word of wisdom in Final Fantasy X.

B is for…

"I eat enemy faces for breakfast, with a side of orange juice."

Bahamut: Sometimes he comes in different varieties, like “neo” or “zero”, but mostly he’s just the intimidating dragon summon and/or boss that’s appeared in almost every Final Fantasy game. Sometimes he just up and joins you, sometimes he makes you play a trivia game because he’s been stuck in the cave watching too much Jeopardy lately, and sometimes he battles you to test your worth. That’s because Bahamut takes his services seriously – he knows he’s awesome, and he’s just not going to work for just any loser who stumbles upon his cave – and he doesn’t care if you were just looking for a quiet place to use the restroom. His non-elemental attack, Mega Flare, deals a lot of damage and you never have to worry if the baddie is gonna absorb it, or be immune to it, or laugh in your face in the midst of it. You can always count on the king of the dragons to swoop in and deal some serious damage. His motto? Bahamut – kills stuff dead.

B is also for…

You can't poison anyone in any normal sport. Not legally.

"Greedo didn't shoot first."

Balthier – the loveable and suave sky pirate who charms everyone who plays XII, all while drawing more than afew comparisons to Han Solo.

Blizball – the very popular (and seemingly only) sport in X that is played underwater. Somehow the players don’t require any kind of breathing device and can practice by simply tossing a ball around on a beach. Oh, and getting poisoned during a game is commonplace. Still sounds better than soccer.

C is for…

Ass kicker and tea connoisseur.

Cid – If someone asks you who your favorite Final Fantasy character is, you’re totally safe if you just answer Cid. There’s been a Cid in every single Final Fantasy game in some capacity. Sometimes he’s playable, other times he’s just trying to help you from the sidelines, and other times he just wants you dead – not all Cids can be perfect, I guess. Here’s a Cid crash course – memorize this list and you can impress plenty of people, like…uh…okay, no one. You don’t need to memorize anything when you can access Wikipedia from your phone.

• Cid (FFI) – Consistently referred to without ever bothering to show up. Just like your friend’s new girlfriend.
• Cid (FII) – Basically runs a taxi service. Somebody has to cart your party around.
• Cid Haze (FIII) – Airship creator extraordinaire.
• Cid Pollendina (FIV) – Another airship related Cid – this one is the airship designer for the Red Wings and he’s also the first Cid who is playable at all, although only for a little while.
• Cid Previa (FFV) – Multifunctional scientist who gives you answers about everything from airships to crystals to what those two chocobos are doing if they’re not fighting.  He’s often assisted by his grandson named Mid. What kind of horrible naming tradition do they have going on in that family?
• Cid Del Norte Marquez (FFVI), Inventor of Magitek armor. Oh, and you can kill him by not feeding him enough yummy fish. Dude demands high quality sushi.
• Cid Highwind (FFVII) – The only fully playable Cid, and probably the most well known and popular. Cid is a pilot who was supposed to go into space before his friend/maid/girlfriend/verbal punching bag Shera screwed up. He also enjoys a spot of tea.
• Cid Kramer (VIII) – Quite possibly the worst Cid ever. The headmaster of Garden, when he’s not complaining or hiding he’s putting some rookie student in charge of everything. Because that’s what a responsible school official should do in times of crisis.
• Regent Cid Fabool IX (IX) This leader of Lindblum spends most of the game as an oglop and later a frog after committing some martial indiscretions.  He also gives you airships, so he’s continuing that tradition.
• Cid (X) The fully competent and never transfigured leader of the Al Bhed, he’s also Rikku’s dad. And he shows up in an airship.
• Dr. Cidolfus Demen Bunansa (XII) – Researcher, rich guy, and – spoiler alert – Balthier’s estranged dad. Oh, and he’s a villain. And you kick his ass.
• Cid Raines (XIII) – General and quite possibly the youngest Cid ever.

What can we look forward to in future Cid’s? I’d put my money on something involving airships.

C is also for…

Screw this. Let's just make it into jewelry.

Aw, they're cute when you're not forced to breed them.

Chocobos – These large birds come in black, red, green, blue, gold or standard yellow. They race, dive, fly, run over mountains and rivers, dig for treasure, eat grass, mate, enjoy special nuts, hang out in forests, dodge birds, and cry out kweh! These sometimes loved and sometimes loathed creatures are a staple of the Final Fantasy universe.

Crystals – So many of the early Final Fantasy games have plots that revolve around crystals (often named after elements) that I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the stories were chosen by reaching into a hat filled with ideas of various stuff that could happen to crystals. Stolen, broken, exploded – enough! They’re pretty but they are not an endless source of entertainment. Thank goodness they finally moved on.

D is for…

Princess Machete would have been more bad ass.

Dagger – And I don’t mean the weapon – I mean the Princess formerly known as Garnet from IX who takes the name of Zidane’s weapon on as her alias. She even uses one to chop all her hair off. Good thing Zidane’s wasn’t carrying a musket. Because that would have made an unfortunate nickname. And it’s definitely useless for dramatically cutting your hair while standing in the wind.

D is also for…

Too bad there isn't a stop for the hospital.

Don't worry, in this game death isn't forever. Most of the time.

Death – I’m talking about the spell here, not all the characters who’ve kicked the bucket. It’s a standard spell in the Final Fantasy repertoire – especially the infamous LVL 5 Death. Either you’re laughing ‘cause it’s harmless to your party, or you’re screaming in agony because every single member of your party has a level that’s a multiple of 5 and it’s game over.

Deling City – The capital of the evil Galbadia from VII, it’s best known for the series of buses that take you around the city – from the shopping arcade to the hotel and even General Caraway’s house. What you say? It’s not normal for a military leader’s house to be easily accessible via public transportation? Well, how else are the hookers gonna get there?

E is for…

"I hurt everybody, stupid!"

Espers or summons, GFs, eidolons – whatever the game feels like calling them. I’m talking about your summoned monsters here, the pals you call in to do battle for you when you’re feeling a little overwhelmed or need some extra firepower. They’re only actually referred to as Espers in VI (where you can find one called Crusader that hurts the enemy AND you. Not a popular choice…) and XII (where they were sadly kind of a pain to use and I only summoned them the one time the game made me) but a summon by any other name is a still a badass looking monster/sexy goddess/robot/other assorted creature that shows up when, uh, summoned, to lay the smack down. My favorite summons? Well, you can’t discount trusty old Bahamut, who I gushed about above. And of course there’s the infamous Knights of the Round, which is well worth the chocobo breeding hell you must endure to acquire it. Also, any time a giant cactus wants to show up and toss a bunch of needles in my enemy’s face I’m fine with that too.

E is also for…

Turbo means it's better.

Also enjoys throwing herself parades.

Edea –The evil sorceress turned reformed orphanage matron from Final Fantasy VIII. How the hell did Cid Kramer nail this awesome lady down? Also, why does she never change out of her sorceress outfit after changing her ways?

Ether – You’re ready to heal up your party with a nice refreshing round of curaga, only to discover you used up the last of your MP summoning Ifrit. What’s a mage to do? Why you down a trusty bottle of ether, of course, and get that MP count back up. You might wanna use it sparingly though, because it’s not easy to get in every game.

F is for…

Looks a little too much like Edward from FF VI.

Faris – You want cross dressing? Final Fantasy V’s got you covered. Faris is a girl posing as a boy. And a pirate. You’re not kept in the dark about her true gender for too long, which has to make main character Bartz feel a little more comfortable about his sexuality considering how quick he is to lust after her. But if you think the surprises with Faris end with the whole male-pirate-is-actually-a-woman stuff, think again. She’s definitely the most interesting character in the game and it doesn’t hurt that she kicks ass.

F is also for…

This is gonna end in pain.

"You kids shut up or I'll turn this castle around!"

Figaro Castle – Anywhere Edgar from Final Fantasy VI reigns as king is automatically awesome, but the fact that it can bury itself underground makes it one of the coolest castles ever.

Flare – This high level spell might look like it’s fire based, but it’s actually non-elemental. Take that red dragons breathing fire in my face!

G is for…

Nobody at my school had a gunblade.

Garden – With three convenient locations in Balamb, Trabia and Galbadia, Garden is the place to get trained to become a sorceress fighting mercenary. In Final Fantasy VIII all the main characters have something to do with Garden, whether they’re students, teachers or mercenary hiring resistance groups. And while it might just seem like just another school with a cafeteria that’s consistently out of hot dogs, how many schools do you know that can turn into a boat? Less than five, I bet.

G is also for…

Ugh, who invited Gilgamesh!?

Unfortunately, he probably smells.

Gau – When you’re desperate for team members, you’ll take any weirdo that wanders out of the woods. Guess that explains Gau, a wild boy you basically bribe with food to join your party. Sure, he’s not the most eloquent speaker, but he’s still endearing. Plus he can learn enemy skills.

Gligamesh – This sword enthusiast keeps popping up in the series, often to be annoying. He appears as Exdeath’s persistent flunky in FFV, even though the guy treats him like crap. In VIII he shows up to replace Odin, and he’s a pretty poor replacement if you ask me. Instead of having a summon randomly show up to kill everything, you get one that randomly shows and maybe might kill everything if he feels like it. XII is by far the worst encounter, as you traipse after him through the dangerous mines in order to fulfill a quest and strip him of every last piece of his awesome Genji armor. Plus his dog likes to bite you, and who knows if his shots are up to date.

H is for…

A face not even a mother could love.

Hojo – Are you grossed out just by the mere mention of that name? You should be. Hojo is a character in Final Fantasy VII, where he serves as Shinra’s head of science research and development. So he’s the resident mad scientist basically. Emphasis on the word mad. And he’s not nice to look at either. Without spoiling massive amounts of the game (How have you not played this yet? Go play right now. I’ll wait. I’m not doing anything for the next 60ish hours anyway.) Hojo is in some way responsible for most of the bad things that happen to the characters in the game, either indirectly or by literally screwing with their DNA and/or affixing a claw where a perfectly good arm was. He’s not racking up too many fan club members is what I’m trying to say. I don’t think anyone approaches the end of this game going, “Oh man, I hope I don’t have to fight that cutie scientist guy! He’s a sweetie!” Heck no. More like, “I can’t wait to beat the crap out of his already revolting face.”

H is also for…

Oh, how this spell would be abused if it were real.

No, it does not make you high.

Hi-potion – A health potion that restores more than a potion. That’s why it’s a “hi” potion. Not because it’s greeting you. The boost you get from it varies from game to game, but usually it’s around 500 HP.

Haste – A spell that makes everybody speed up and attack faster so you can beat the crap out of the baddie before he even knows what hit him.

Coming up! More spells and summons and places and stuff!

Click here for more info!

I joined a burlesque troupe here in Madison, Wisconsin, this spring, called Foxy Veronica’s Peach Pies. My burlesque name is Daisy Chains; I picked it because I wanted to have a first name I could use on its own, independently of the last name. And it’s pretty cute. I’ve developed a persona to go with my new stage name: a sassy, kittenish goofball. (And wouldn’t you know, that’s a huge part of my real-life personality!)

When I first thought about doing burlesque, my mind raced with images of sequins, feather headdresses, and glamorous fringed corsets. I couldn’t wait to try on these ridiculous, over-the-top costumes and style myself into a sassy, witty persona. It soon became apparent, however, that most burlesque troupes don’t have a wardrobe filled with gorgeous costumes for the taking. As it stands, burlesque is very DIY, craft-intensive, and time-consuming. It is awesome.

If you are in need of a hobby that combines dance, crafting, and being a showgirl (or boy!), burlesque might be for you. However, it takes more than that. Burlesque takes a great deal of passion–you shouldn’t attempt it if you don’t really want it.

Burlesque is multi-faceted. The dancing and choreography is one thing, but that (usually) comes after costuming. Costuming itself takes up a good part of my week.

Jo "Boobs" Weldon

For anyone who wants to get into burlesque, I highly recommend The Burlesque Handbook by Jo “Boobs” Weldon. She teaches the reader how to make pasties, dance with a feathered fan, take off a glove, and more. Neo-burlesque, the kind of performances you are most likely to see at a modern burlesque show, is Jo’s specialty, and she goes into detail about how you can become a sensation.

And if you don’t actually want to be on stage, but you like crafting, there are plenty of burlesque troupes throughout the country who would absolutely love to make use of your services. All the girls in my troupe are professionals in their everyday lives–real estate agents, nurses, theater directors, hairstylists, etc.–and finding time to sew sequins on things can be hard. Your efforts are appreciated!

While costuming and crafting are pretty nerdy, you can also nerd it up with your creative choice of song. I do a number to ‘N Sync’s “It’s Gonna Be Me,” where I play a Justin Timberlake-obsessed superfan. It’s not a song that people usually associate with burlesque, but the way I perform my character makes it fit.

Basically, if you’ve ever done cosplay and wanted to do more, you should consider burlesque. There are nerd-specific burlesque shows and troupes all over the country! In September, I’m performing at Geekesque Burlesque, a nerdy burlesque show here in Madison. I’m also working on a “pixelated princess” number for my regular shows.

For more information about burlesque, check out Jo Weldon’s blog, Daily Burlesque. And if you want to see me as Daisy Chains, “like” me on Facebook!

In this special Fourth of July episode, Nevin and Brandon recount what Paul Revere actually did on the night that started the Revolutionary War. Not only do they disprove some common misconceptions, but also address the recent truthiness of Sarah Palin.

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New episodes every fortnight on http://www.blip.tv/LaughingHistorically

FOUND HIM!

I’m pretty sure this is the exact sentence that came out of my mouth while I was browsing the Apple App store the other day: “I really don’t need any more games for the iPad…ohmygod they have one with Waldo!” Did I download it? Considering I have an excess of credit from a recent birthday and it was on sale for ninety-nine cents, you bet I did. I’m a sucker for a little elementary school nostalgia. And Waldo more than does the trick.

No. This article will not wait while you try and find him.

There's a whole Waldo gang! Even an evil Waldo! He looks like the love child of the Hamburgler and Wailuigi.

Found him again! This game is easy.

Win Win Official Movie Poster (2011)

Win Win

Directed by Tom McCarthy

Starring Paul Giamatti, Alex Shaffer, Burt Young, Amy Ryan, Jeffrey Tambor, and Bobby Cannavale

Release Date: March 18, 2011

For me personally, comedy movies are a slippery slope and I usually end up either not seeing them or not really enjoying them that much. I think this is probably attributable to the fact that the majority of them seem to either be the same Judd Apatow movie (even though I like a lot of his movies) shoveled out every year or a stupid studio comedy that is extremely forgettable and is not subject to repeat viewings. One thing I’ve noticed in the last 3 or 4 years, is that there seems to be a trend of comedies that are more daring than the kinds I mentioned above. Some common themes that these movies seem to share is the use of dark humor, shying away from gross-out humor, and more of an emphasis on satire, sharp dialogue, and performances that aren’t forced.

I personally started noticing this when Little Miss Sunshine came out in 2005. Before that time in the early 00s, independent comedies like that would perform well, but well-enough to recoup it’s budget; the mass audience wasn’t clamoring for them. The massive success of Little Miss Sunshine was both unprecedented and a welcome surprise to the genre, whereas in the early 00s, movies like American Pie or any movie ever made by Jason Friedman and Aaron Seltzer (Disaster Movie, Meet the Spartans, etc) dominated box-office sales. The success was magnified  tenfold when it was nominated for four Academy Awards (winning two for Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor in the case of Alan Arkin). It’s my opinion that this success allowed Hollywood to be more receptive to indie comedies than before and advertise them more heavily in hopes of emulating the success that Little Miss Sunshine had. Since then we’ve had outstanding comedies  like Juno, Superbad, Up in the Air, Cedar Rapids, and more. My point is, is that Win Win is another one of those movies and a fantastic one at that.

Mike Flaherty (Giamatti) giving Kyle (Alex Shaffer) pep talk before a match

Win Win is a story that revolves around Mike Flaherty (Paul Giamatti) who is both an attorney-at-law and, along with his friends Stephen Vigman (Jeffrey Tambor) and Terry Delfino (Bobby Cannavale), one of three coaches for the wrestling team for New Providence High School in New Jersey. Luckily he lives with his supportive wife (Amy Ryan), and two daughters. He deals with much stress in his life due to the natural stress of his job, the fact that his wrestling team is one of the worst in the state, and the fact that his practice may go under if his financial problems don’t get fixed. One day, he is in court representing Leo Poplar (Burt Young), a very wealthy elderly man who is entering the first stage of dementia. Unfortunately, the State of New Jersey finds him unable to care for himself and they are unable to find his only surviving relative to take care of him, his estranged daughter Cindy Timmons (Melanie Lynskey).

Mike comes upon a perfect legal loophole and offers to become the man’s guardian which results in him getting $1500 a month, but he puts Poplar  in assisted living in order to not have to deal with him. Things become much more complicated when Poplar’s previously unknown 17-year old grandson, Kyle Timmons, shows up on his doorstep hoping that he can live with him. As the story goes, his mother (Cindy Timmons) is a drug addict who is currently in rehab, and in an effort to both escape his mother (whom he despises) and find some other place to live; he runs away. Feeling bad for the boy, Mike lets Kyle stay with him until he can sort everything out. Flaherty eventually discovers that Kyle was a wrestling champ for his high school team and his skills turn the team’s reputation around and turn them into winners. Everything is all fine and great, until Kyle’s mom shows up out of nowhere (seemingly released from rehab) and is flat broke. Her very presence could possibly jeopardize everything that Mike has going for him…

Although the story itself may sound very extensive and a little complicated, the way that this movie handles the multiple narratives is practically seamless and very impressive. The following consists of my pros and cons for the entire movie. As I stated before, the plot itself is well-crafted, fluidly consistent, tough (by tough I mean it doesn’t resort to maudlin or sappiness), and very thoughtful both in structure and in execution based on Tom McCarthy’s excellent directorial skills. Another thing I greatly admire about the picture is how it doesn’t assume that its audience isn’t stupid and doesn’t have to recap or pull any cheap tricks to keep the audience focused on the film. Instead it favors sharp dialogue which allows the humor to naturally blossom around the plot, instead of the plot being written in such a way to where it is a slave to the comedy.

The Cast of Win Win - From Left to Right: Paul Giamatti, director Tom McCarthy, Clare Foley, Alex Shaffer, Amy Ryan, and Bobby Cannavale

Probably the highlight of the film is the cast and performances which are equally both outstanding in their own ways. Paul Giamatti is one of my favorite actors (in my top 10 easily) and he doesn’t disappoint as he electrifies the screen with his very presence all the way through in a sharp movie like this. Movies like this one and Sideways  fit his acting style and temperament very well when he vies for a comedic role. Burt Young still proves that he still has his acting chops; his main claim to fame being Paulie in the Rocky series (the last time being Rocky Balboa) and he is hilarious all the way through. One thing about his performance that particularly struck me is how he takes his role as a man with dementia seriously and isn’t playing it like he is a shoo-in or half-assing it to get a paycheck. If Malcolm McDowell were in this role, that might have been the situation. Much to my surprise after I got out of the theater, I learned that this was Alex Shaffer’s first ever performance in anything (no movies, no TV, not even any commercials) and I must say he did a great job portraying the troubled role of Kyle Timmons with a spot of credibility and authenticity; I hope to see him in more things as he has a natural talent he can polish if he keeps at it. Melanie Lynskey surprised me in that she played a very good heavy who is just as fallible for her actions as Mike is, but is only trying to do what she thinks is right for her and her son (much to the chagrin of everyone else). I’m used to her being more of a protagonist (as opposed to being a protagonist) having watched Two and a Half Men (before Charlie Sheen became the mayor of Crackity Crack Town) and Up in the Air. She does very well in these indie comedies and I hope she continues onward as she has got a good thing going in that regard.

Even though 85% of this movie is great, there are some flaws and they need to be addressed. One thing that very quickly got on my nerves was Bobby Cannavale’s character of Terry Delfino. He seems to be out of place with the movie as it is essentially like randomly throwing a goofy Seth Rogen-esque character into the mix of an otherwise great dark comedy. I understand that he fulfills the role of comedic relief, but Jeffrey Tambor’s character does that just fine and the contrast between the two was very distracting and I found it to be grating. There quite a bit of pop-culture references that threaten to date the movie (e.g. Wii Golf and Star Wars: The Forced Unleashed) and that is a pet peeve of mine as I want most movies to be accessible by audiences X years from now. I’m very unsure about this next criticism, but I felt like the editing was very clunky and haphazard, but I’m not sure if that lies on the quality of the print that was shown or if the editing is just like that? Regardless, I found it to be very jarring and I think they could have easily fixed that considering how fluid and well-paced the story is. Something that took me by surprise is how quickly the movie ended, I’m not going to allude as to what happened or spoil anything but I thought a little more time could have been padded in to fix a few things. The ending itself however is great and very different from standard fare, which is the way I like it when watching films. But these are all just tiny little flaws in the beautiful suit of armor that is this movie and they are not distracting to the point of detracting from the experience.

Win Win is one of those comedic gems that comes around every once in a while that is both enjoyable and intelligently written with character and story in mind, instead of resorting to every old trick in the book to force the audience to laugh, which I personally am getting more and more sick of as time goes on. Overall I give Win Win 3.5 stars out of 4. Everyone will find something in this movie to enjoy and if you want to see a different kind of comedy than the standard fare we get every 2-3 months, I cannot recommend it enough. Win Win is aptly named because you get something good out of it, no matter who goes to see it.

Mortal Kombat, a series started in the early 90’s, stamped its place in video game legendry with Scorpian’s spear, Sub Zero’s freezing, and a 4 armed behemoth named Goro.  Mortal Kombat ruled the arcade game world just as home gaming started to reach a level that could compare to arcade game play.  By the time Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 was released, the home video game market had blown up, and arcade games began falling by the wayside.  MK answered back with Mortal Kombat 4, and the introduction of the 3d fighting system.  And so the series continued, and unfortunately hadn’t released a respectable title since 2002 when they released MK Deadly Alliance.  (Mortal Kombat’s venture into 3D gaming however was far better than Street Fighter’s, who released 1 title, and the game was so awful it was unplayable.)  However in April of 2011, in conjunction with the release of an online series based on the Mortal Kombat Universe, Mortal Kombat (2011) was released, and as an MK nerd, I’m happy to say it is arguably the best console game they have ever released. 

Bringing back the old fighting system from the 90’s, Mortal Kombat (2011) does away with the 3D fighting, which seems like a minor thing, but in actually changed the game play completely.  In simplest terms, in 2D the only way to gay away from Scorpion’s spear was to block, jump, or duck.  In 3D, characters could also Side-Step.  So 3D gaming provided an entirely different element of strategy.  However, what it also did was drastically overly complicate the fighting system.  What also over complicated the fighting system in previous MK released was the “run” ability.  Basically this was just a chance to make a mad dash towards your opponent and pull off a combo.  With those two elements gone, Mortal Kombat (2011) had the framework for the original fighting system in place.  It then added a fun element of a gradually increasing power bar (much like in the recent Street Fighter releases), which allows you to power up enhanced power attacks, a combo breaker, or at full charge, a devastating X-ray move (which is basically a mid round fatality that takes massive damage…usually 40-50% of health).    

A huge highlight of the game is the single player storyline.  In most titles of Mortal Kombat, the single player is picking a character, and playing through a series of increasingly difficult opponents until you reach the two bosses (in the first, Goro and Shang Tsung).  In Mortal Kombat (2011), players have no choice on which character they play as, and play through a story switching between all the earthrealm warriors.  The story also takes place on al alternate timeline, so the story begins during the Mortal Kombat tournament from the original MK release.  The story does a fantastic job at explaining character origin, as well as build storylines around all the earthrealm warriors (even one’s like Striker who I never particularly cared for in the other games).  They created what I would describe as being one of the first satisfying storylines in fighting game history.  Most fighting games have a 30 second story, 15 before the fight, 15 when you beat the bossman.  But don’t worry, if you’d just rather pick a character and fight 10 people until you fight a boss, you can do that to. 

The game also includes a host of unlockables, including information on second fatalities, alternate costumes, and artwork for fatalities, damage, and board concepts.  Another bonus is the addition of the Challenge Tower, including fun mini-games from the original arcade series light “Test your Might” and “Test your Site.”  The game also features a complete move list for quick reference at any point in the game (which I found to be a huge help in the story since it constantly switches characters on you), and the addition of tag battles, a handy feature since next gen systems feature a minimum of 4 controllers. 

What really surprised me about Mortal Kombat (2011) was that after I beat the game, I felt something I’ve never felt when beating a fighting game…satisfaction.  The storyline really wraps you into the game and makes you interested in the story.  No other fighting game I’ve ever played has done that, or for that matter, tried.  But beneath that also exists a revamped throwback to what as a fantastic game.  Mortal Kombat is a must own for any fan of fighting games, even for those gamers who loved the old series, but were disillusioned by everything after 1996.

I have never been to Hawaii in my entire life, as a side note. Neither have I seen a tiger shark. I have also, quite obviously, never been oystering, or whatever it’s called. Just wait: you’ll see how I thought you killed oysters.

I love this little unfinished piece. It makes no sense, overall, since I definitely didn’t plan out the plot. I’m proud that I only misspelled three words: colossal, humongous, and cartilage. I love how creative my little brain was. (At the time, I think I was reading a lot of adventure books and I was obsessed with sharks because I was terrified of them.)

Whenever I move, or clean my apartment, I find the bright teal book I wrote Pearl Point in, all those years ago. I re-read it, laugh hysterically, and put it back. This time, however, I decided to share it with the world, because it is sort of awesome in a terrible way. However, I’m really annoyed that I didn’t finish it. It ends on a cliffhanger, and I don’t remember why I stopped writing, or where the plot was headed.

Did you ever write grand novels when you were little? Do you still have some of them? I want to see.

And now, for your reading pleasure: Pearl Point. I have reproduced it exactly as it is in my little blank book. Read it aloud for maximum effect.

******

Jenna looked over the edge of the rocky cliff. She sighed and remembered the past two years. It had been hard for them all. All meaning Paul Toanakan and Jenna Toanakan. Two people–one half dead and one ready for anything. She, Jenna remembered, was the adventurous one. Paul, her believed-to-be-gone cousin, had been bitten continuously by a tiger shark. The memories were painful.
It had all started one summer day on a Hawaiian beach. Jenn, with her long, black, shiny hair and skin like toasted coconut, had wandered a little too far from home. “I can’t go any farther,” Jenna sighed, “because of that colasall rock.”
Jenna gathered up all of her strength and threw her gear (water bottles, etc.) up to a ledge. She then took two leaves and two strips of bark. Jenna stepped on each leaf and her feet stuck on the sap. Then Jenna attached the bark on with sap. She had made mountain climbing shoes!
Hair in her eyes, hope in her heart, Jenna climbed and climbed. She finally got to the ledge. Jenna pulled out her sleeping bag and laid down.
*
“Jenna!” Jenna sprung up as she heard her name being called. “Jenna!” The voice bellowed again.
As Jenna got up and looked around, she saw, on the white sand, dark brown lines. A sign of oysters, Jenna though. For a moment, Jenna’s mind was on the oyster bed. Then she caught herself and started wondering about the voice.
“Jenna!” The voice sounded again. Jenna recognized the voice and called out, “Father!”
“Father!” Jenna called again and again. But, to no avail, her father couldn’t see or hear her.
She ran down the cliff, getting a scratch in every possible place. But, it was too late. Her father had given up.
Jenna darted around the huge boulder. Her eyes flashed to the wiry mess on the beach. “An oyster net!” thought Jenna. She picked up the wire jumble and headed towards the water.
Jenna dipped the net into the clear, shining water. An oyster, annoyed at being disturbed, opened his shell and closed it on top of the net.
*
Secretly smiling, Jenna pulled up the net. “One oyster,” thought Jenna. With that, she took a big stick and beat the oyster to death.
Once the death progress was complete, Jenna opened the oyster. Her eyes were as bright as lightbulbs. The pearl was humungus! With a shaking hand, Jenna reached down and picked up the pearl. It glowed like Jenna had never seen before.
“A couple more of these and my family can be rich!” thought Jenna. She looked ahead quickly as if to see if anyone was watching her.
As Jenna looked towards the setting sun, she saw a man swim out past the sign that said, “WATCH OUT FOR TIGER SHARKS!”
Jenna thought nothing of that because pro divers always went out and came back with huge 300 pound tiger sharks. The skins were used for clothing and handbags. Jenna shivered, realizing that her bikini was made of tiger shark skins.
*
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” screamed the man. Jenna ran to her gear and got a spear just in case of a shark attack.
But the man was silenced. Blood floated in the water. Death was in the air.
Jenna tiptoed quietly over to where the blood was floating and stared into the eyes of a tiger shark. This enormous 300 pound box of cartalige smiled and showed bloody gums and teeth.
Jenna gave a courageous shriek and plunged the spear into the shark.
The man who got killed by the shark was named Paul. Paul Toanakan. Jenna’s cousin.
*
Jenna was the only one who saw Paul being killed so of course everyone accused her. “Don’t do this! I didn’t kill Paul!” That was Jenna’s cry every night.
At last, she was old enough to live away from home. Jenna decided to live at Pearl Point, the place where she had caught the oysters. On the other side of the huge rock there were rock ledges big as houses and caves attached.
The ledge could be a porch. The cave could be her house. And all the little ledges inside the cave could be shelves. One big ledge inside could act as a bed. Yes! thought Jenna. I’ve got it made!
*
Jenna set out for Pearl Point that afternoon. The rock was on the far side of the island and would take all afternoon to get there.
Once Jenna got there, she made another pair of mountain climbing shoes and dipped them in melted plastic.
She then tied a rope to her suitcase so she could pull it up.
Tying the rope to her waist she climbed the rock. A sudden burst of pain came to her foot. As she looked down, she saw that her foot had been cut by a sharp stone. She knew that there could be an infection so she quickly scurried up the ledge that she had chosen.
When she and her suitcase were both in the cave, Jenna took an old T-shirt from the suitcase. She wrapped it around the deep cut until the pressure was so great, Jenna had to loosen it. Stepping lightly on the injured foot, Jenna quickly hobbled over to the ledge which she thought was suitable for a bed. She laid down, not caring about how hard it was. As she drifted into a deep sleep, she thought she heard a man scream, “Help me!” in a deep, strangled voice.
*
Jenna woke up to see that one of her favorite T-shirts had been stolen. A trail of bright red blood went from her suitcase all th way to the edge of the cliff. Looking over the edge, she saw nothing. Except a man. Wait! The man left a trail of blood which was dripping from his arm. To stop the bleeding, the man had wrapped Jenna’s Flamingo Club T-shirt around his arm.

Saving? What Saving?

There's your time down the toilet.

As a kid, my parents didn’t buy me too many video games. I guess they wanted me to play outside and junk for some reason. But I did have the original Super Mario Bros, of course, and I spent many happy afternoons navigating Mario over Goombas and through pipes, under bricks and blocks and over the heads of those evil, murderous Hammer Bros. I probably would have spent a lot less afternoons doing any of those things if I didn’t have to start from scratch every freaking time I popped the cartridge into my NES. Since I was a little kid when I was first playing these games, I wasn’t very good. That first level where the Cheep Cheeps keep trying to take your head off was seriously the bane of my young existence. Simply beating one of those levels when you’re six and still struggling with your coordination is a big deal. So after you’ve been struggling past all those suicidal Cheep Cheeps, who wants to start over? Well, there was no choice to be had back in the day. It was play till you lost all your lives/got tired/mom called you for dinner and then plan on starting allllllll over again the next time you get a hankering for some plumbers and turtles. Imagine if you could have saved? I would have beaten the game a lot faster. I might have had time for other things. (At least I like to think so.)

Can you imagine if games were still like this? If every time you loaded an RPG you had to start from the beginning again? You’d be playing the same game for months, skimping on sleep and leaving your system running 24/7 until it bursts into a ball of exhausted mechanical flames. I don’t even want to think about a world where you still could never save in a game. I’m getting queasy just thinking about it.

Continue?

I know I don't have to specify which creepy faced freak I'm talking about.

Speaking of the NES, there was this little game called Bomberman where your goal is to blow up bricks trying to find the door to the next level. (And God help you if you blow up that door by accident.) During your journey you have to avoid a bunch of the creepiest looking enemies you will see in any game – including this one thing (there is no better term) whose smile basically steals your soul. These nasty suckers and their alien looking pals are out for your blood. Your only defense is to trap them with your bombs and blow them up, which isn’t easy when they’re constantly on the move. When you eventually fail and lose all your lives you will find you are free to continue…if you grab a piece of paper and a pen and jot down the ridiculously long continue code. I remember yelling at my poor sister many times to grab anything that could write – pencil, crayon, blood, whatever – and scribble down this code so I could pick up where I left off. You had to be quick because they weren’t leaving that code up on the screen for you to copy down at your leisure. So it was always a mad dash to get that ridiculous sequence of constants copied down before it disappeared. (Why I didn’t have paper and a pen always handy when playing this game is also questionable – maybe I was just always optimistic that I wouldn’t need it because I was going to beat the game without dying this time. Yeah. Let’s go with that.)

At least this one's short.

The continue code drama is true of Zombies Ate My Neighbors as well – a great SNES title where you need to rescue babies, cheerleaders, photo snapping tourists and the like from the clutches of the undead. If one too many zombies chomp down on you or all the archeologist dudes and random dogs are killed, it’s game over, man. But hark! All is not lost! Because you get a continue code you can use to keep going! But even if you do manage to get it all down (and legibly), you lose all your items when you restart. This is kind of important in a game where a single key can mean the difference between failure and defeat. As far as I’m concerned, continue codes are basically as bad as not being able to save at all. They’re good only once and then you wind up starting over anyway. And that’s not counting all the times you miss, lose or copy down the code wrong. I’m very glad I don’t have to see continue codes in games anymore, because I’m still seeing them in my nightmares.

Memory Cards

In case you forgot already.

I never thought memory cards would make this list. For a long time we all relied on our precious plastic cards to keep our game data safe. During the PSX and PS2 era, it was the only saving game in town. (Okay, the PS2 did have a hard drive, but please don’t tell me you were stupid enough to spend money on it like I was.) When you wanted to save all you had to do was choose an open slot, and then let the game do it’s thing. If there was no open place to put the data, it was either time to start deleting save files from those games you knew you were never going back to, or head to the store for a new one. When I heard the PS3 was going to rely mostly on a hard drive to keep the save data, I wasn’t thrilled. At the time I was thinking: a hard drive in my system isn’t portable. What if I want to bring my save to a friend’s house? Well, as this article is about saving innovations I DON’T miss, my thoughts on the issue soon changed. Why? Because I realized – hey, I’m an adult. Am I going to need to bring my saved game to my friend’s house after I take the bus to their house after school? No. And how many times had that happened in my life previously anyway? Not many. Also, you probably had multiple memory cards over the life of your PSX and PS2.

Because those monkeys weren't going to catch themselves.

You ever forget where a file was and then have to find it? Because it’s a pain in the ass, and goes something like this: “Is it on this memory card?” Flip, flip, flip. “Nope. Next.” Flip, flip, flip. “Nope.” And repeat until you finally find it or you remember you actually deleted it in favor of your new Ape Escape 2 file. Of course the new systems still give you the option to save to an external memory source if you wish, but not all files will transfer over, so that’s something to keep in mind. (I’m looking at you, Rock Band.) So while I can’t say that I ever really hated memory cards, I can’t exactly say that I’m missing the experience.

Unlike those other aspects of gaming that have evolved over the years, I’m not sure where saving can really go from here. Downloading directly to some kind of file in your brain? Maybe. But I think that’s a long ways off. In the meantime, I’m fine with the way things are now, especially when I look back and see what we as gamers had to suffer through over the years. As long as the industry has learned from it’s mistakes and promises to never, ever show me another continue code ever again – I’m good.

Episode 32: Guiltier Pleasure Books

Click here to vote for Emily Asbury in Neil Gaiman’s American Gods Audiobook Contest! You can vote once per day!

Books in this Episode (click to buy):

• Playboy (1-year auto-renewal)
• The World According to Twitter
• A Short History of Nearly Everything: Special Illustrated Edition
• In Cold Blood
• Atlas Shrugged

In this episode, Brandon and Nevin tackle the history of probably the most confusing Holiday ever conceived, Easter. How did bunnies, eggs, and peeps end up being involved with the holiest day in the Christian Calendar?

Like us on Facebook.com/LaughingHistorically and for more episodes: http://www.laughinghistorically.tv/

First, the picture above is the best thing I have ever seen. I couldn’t stop laughing for a good three minutes. Anyway, after much research I can confirm and proudly state Easter is the weirdest holiday. Everyone thinks Christmas is due to the odd rituals, but trust me Easter takes the peeps. First and foremost, all Christians know Easter as the day Jesus died. That is, however, completely incorrect. Most historians and Easterologists (no that profession doesn’t exist) concur there is no exact date, but rather just days. Think of Rebecca Black’s instant classic Friday. To which Friday does she refer? No one knows…Like Jesus’ death. Yep, I just make a comparison between Jesus’ death and Rebecca Black. I’m awesome.

So, lets go over what makes Easter super duper freaky.

The Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ

Let’s be straight about this. Easter is a holiday that celebrates the zombification (an actual term) of Jesus Christ. First he is dead and then he is alive. Regardless of Divine Intervention, the dude came back from being stone cold dead. If I were the Romans, I would have peed my pants when I saw that…BRAINS and HOSTS!

The Easter Bunny Is Just Disgusting

Like Christmas, Catholics believed the best way to spread Christianity is by embracing some of the native customs of the Pagans in Europe. Hence, why we put lights and balls on a pine tree in the winter. Weird. But the Pagans were polytheistic and believed come spring they need to honor the goddess Eostre and this chick loved bunnies, a lot. Why you ask? Well, because bunnies are fertile and love reproduction. So, the Easter Bunny comes to our house to give us chocolate, which is an aphrodisiac,…Remember the Easter Bunny from Bill and Teds? Yeah, that’s an accurate portrayal. Hide yo kidz and hide yo wife, cause the Easter Bunny is comin’

Eggs?

As expected, eggs are not a Christian tradition. They are actually an Egyptian and Phoenician symbol and belief the world was sprung from a gigantic egg. Therefore, eggs are recognized as the birth of life. How this connects with Christianity? I understand Christ was born again, but people tend to neglect the fact that most importantly, he died first. Based upon this logic, I believe we should honor Easter not by dying eggs, but celebrating it in a Halloween style holiday. Just imagine going to Church as a Sexy Nurse. I think this would end well…

Random Fact: Edward I of England showed an expenditure of eighteen pence for 450 eggs to be gold-leafed and colored for Easter gifts. Edward was probably on a strict egg protein diet to become jacked like the Situation.

]]> http://www.themoderndaypirates.com/pirates/2011/04/twfh-dont-eat-those-easter-bunnies/feed/ 0 Nevin First, the picture above is the best thing I have ever seen. I couldn't stop laughing for a good three minutes. Anyway, after much research I can confirm and proudly state Easter is the weirdest holiday. Everyone thinks Christmas is due to the odd rituals, but trust me Easter takes the peeps. First and foremost, all Christians know Easter as the day Jesus died. That is, however, completely incorrect. Most historians and Easterologists (no that profession doesn’t exist) concur there is no exact date, but rather just days. Think of Rebecca Black’s instant classic Friday. To which Friday does she refer? No one knows…Like Jesus’ death. Yep, I just make a comparison between Jesus’ death and Rebecca Black. I’m awesome. So, lets go over what makes Easter super duper freaky. The Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ Let’s be straight about this. Easter is a holiday that celebrates the zombification (an actual term) of Jesus Christ. First he is dead and then he is alive. Regardless of Divine Intervention, the dude came back from being stone cold dead. If I were the Romans, I would have peed my pants when I saw that...BRAINS and HOSTS! The Easter Bunny Is Just Disgusting Like Christmas, Catholics believed the best way to spread Christianity is by embracing some of the native customs of the Pagans in Europe. Hence, why we put lights and balls on a pine tree in the winter. Weird. But the Pagans were polytheistic and believed come spring they need to honor the goddess Eostre and this chick loved bunnies, a lot. Why you ask? Well, because bunnies are fertile and love reproduction. So, the Easter Bunny comes to our house to give us chocolate, which is an aphrodisiac,…Remember the Easter Bunny from Bill and Teds? Yeah, that's an accurate portrayal. Hide yo kidz and hide yo wife, cause the Easter Bunny is comin’ Eggs? As expected, eggs are not a Christian tradition. They are actually an Egyptian and Phoenician symbol and belief the world was sprung from a gigantic egg. Therefore, eggs are recognized as the birth of life. How this connects with Christianity? I understand Christ was born again, but people tend to neglect the fact that most importantly, he died first. Based upon this logic, I believe we should honor Easter not by dying eggs, but celebrating it in a Halloween style holiday. Just imagine going to Church as a Sexy Nurse. I think this would end well… Random Fact: Edward I of England showed an expenditure of eighteen pence for 450 eggs to be gold-leafed and colored for Easter gifts. Edward was probably on a strict egg protein diet to become jacked like the Situation. http://www.themoderndaypirates.com/pirates/2011/04/being-enslaved/ http://www.themoderndaypirates.com/pirates/2011/04/being-enslaved/#comments Wed, 06 Apr 2011 00:21:03 +0000 Jessica http://www.themoderndaypirates.com/pirates/?p=8812

I firmly believe that I am falling in love with cinematic games. Graphics have never been better, Guillermo del Toro is hard at work on a trilogy, and although Alan Wake wasn’t as successful as it should have been, I believe it was a great example of a game genre that I have started calling Cinematic. If you take out the long strolls through the woods fighting possessed lumberjacks with a flashlight and a revolver, Alan Wake would have made a great, twist-happy film. The narrative was as engaging as any movie, but because it wasn’t a movie, it stumbled under the interactive and varied pacing of a player controlled game. The writing, although a tad abstract, seemed more expansive than the game mechanics allowed it to be, and if you didn’t soar through the entire game in one sitting a lot of the emotional investment tactics were lost.

Imagine yourself sitting at a campfire with a group of friends surrounded by towering trees and flickering shadows. You are listening to someone tell a totally gripping and terrifying ghost story. But partway through the story, the narrator gets up to eat dinner, go to the bathroom or hell, even leaves for work for eight hours and then comes back to continue the tale. The tingling, anticipatory feeling is sort of lost at that point and the story starts to look jumbled and confusing. Luckily, Enslaved doesn’t have this problem. Loosely based on an old Chinese allegory and co-written by Alex Garland, the literary genius who wrote 28 Days Later and The Beach, Enslaved’s narrative also has a cinematic quality about it, especially because the story is so much more engaging and fluid than the more interactive, mechanical elements.

Enslaved introduces you to Trip, a technologically inclined teenage girl (who also happens to be a ravishing redhead), and Monkey, a Neanderthal-like giant of a man that she takes prisoner via a headband intended to control slaves. Trip and Monkey live in what appears to be a post-Apocalyptic New York City, and bear marks and scars to support the hardships associated with it, but since a large part of the game looks like it takes place in New Mexico, I am going to assume that the United States split up the middle during the war against the machines and overlapped. After a devastating plane crash they both survived, Trip now needs to be escorted home to her village beyond the Wasteland (New Mexico), and has forced Monkey to protect her along the way via the headband.

Normally, escort missions are tedious and dull because following someone around means walking at their slow, NPC pace, but fortunately, as an AI partner, Trip is pretty nimble on her feet and the two work together extremely well. As the story progresses the two characters build a relationship that becomes tenderly dependent on one another, both physically and emotionally, forcing the player to invest the same way in them as you would while watching any great film. Cut scenes are delicious and highly anticipated. I won’t spoil anything, but a few of the intense moments of peril or decision making between the two made my romantic heart jump into my throat. I cared about the culmination of their journey just as much as they did, even though I wasn’t anywhere near the rust-covered landscape they are traversing. The writing is fantastic, and the voice acting even better. After playing the lugging, half-English, half-American, all horrible, monster that was Arcania, it is absolutely refreshing to listen to the banter between this unlikely duo.

Enslaved is set in a world where, absent of most humanity, Mother Nature has begun reclaiming the landscape. Whereas other games along the same theme show desolation, this one blooms with green grass, and red flowers wrap around old lampposts and creep up crumbling cement structures. Tiny blue butterflies flit about all of old New York and trailed alongside Trip and Monkey for awhile in the first few chapters. There is a serene beauty in the stillness of an abandoned concrete jungle that Enslaved captures perfectly. And because of their isolation, it becomes easy to imagine captive becoming captivated and vice versa.

So, cinematically Enslaved is wonderful. It has a protagonist, mechanical villains, a quirky damsel in distress, a captivating plot and an ending I didn’t see coming for miles. I actually teared up in Chapter Thirteen. But, just like Alan Wake, it’s beautiful qualities get bogged down in its mechanical and game play aspects. Monkey moves like a dream, but can’t jump off of a four foot platform unless you are standing in a particular spot. The camera lets you control it completely half of the time and gives you tunnel vision the other half, which is infuriating. The game requires you collect ‘tech orbs’ which are glowing red balls spread throughout the landscape that function as currency to upgrade your combat skills, health, shield and weapon, but every time you go off the path to wander around collecting them all, Trip is constantly calling out “Let’s get going, Monkey”, or “Come on, Monkey.” Um, I would, but the game wants me to incessantly collect these things, so I’ll be there in a minute.

The combat switches between melee bashing and tactical area clearing and is consistently simple; Monkey uses an electrified staff that stuns and bashes mechs from here to next Tuesday. His staff also has two ranged settings, electricity to stun and plasma to fire, which is actually fun and handy. Most of the central movement is platforming, which is ridiculously easy unless you are standing on something that is crumbling underneath you (remember, post-Apocalyptic). I found the most interesting trick up Monkey’s sleeve was his Cloud, a quick little hover board that could glide over toxic water and pebbled ground with ease. I am not ashamed to admit that I whooped a couple of times while sliding across the water under the bridge in Chapter Five.

With only fourteen chapters, Enslaved isn’t terribly long-each one takes about an hour or so. Despite my problems with the camera and some of the controls, I was quite satisfied with the experience and would highly recommend anyone with a love for quality story-telling and character development in video games to spend a day with Trip and Monkey on their journey to the west.

For more of Jessica’s writings, check out her blog at: http://www.itallstartedwithchronotrigger.com

So I picked up my 3DS last Sunday like a lot of other people. But unlike a lot of other people, I don’t pick up any games. Why? Well, none of them really appealed to me. (Because… A. I suck at anything involving flying B. Want to pick up the new Lego Stars Wars for the PS3 at some point C. Do even football fans want to play it on a handheld? D. Not into fighting games. E. Fool me once, Nintendogs…)

Shown here: what actual dog ownership is like.

Anyway, with no actual game to play, I explored what the system had to offer. One of the games that comes with it is called Face Raiders. What is Face Raiders? Basically you snap a picture of your face, which the game then uses to create creepy versions of yourself that come breaking out of the walls of the room you’re sitting in and attack you. They also laugh creepily at you from a slit that might not necessarily be where your actual mouth is. There’s something that just feels wrong about flinging balls at little helicopter type contraptions with your mug on them. Oh, and I tried to Google image search the game so I could give you an idea of what it looks like if you’re unfamiliar, but – I’m sorry – you’re on your own if you have a strong stomach. All that turned up in my search results were a bunch of images suitable for a horror movie. Seriously, I’m pretty sure one of them was of the melty faced guy from the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Thanks for that, Google.

No. No. I will not do what Google image search does. Enjoy this adorable bunny picture instead.

The worst part is that the pictures taken by the system’s camera are not at all flattering in the first place. And once the system snaps the photo it immediately judges your sex and age – which can be horribly inaccurate based on the amount of light in the room. The first time I tried it, it judged me as a young female, which is accurate. The second time I tried it, however…I was sitting in very dim lighting. Huge mistake. Because not only did the game say I had an infant face…they also said it was male. Yup. A male infant face. I don’t think it gets much worse than that. Unless it called me melty face from Raiders straight out.

Yeah...no... Still not going there. I decided this picture of a baby otter was more appropriate. And adorable.

Am I the only one who doesn’t want my face used in a game? I wouldn’t even be thrilled if it was being used for a hero, nevermind some Viking-helmeted boss creature I’m beating to death in my own living room. Games are supposed to be a departure from reality. That means I don’t want my face anywhere near any of the characters. And you can keep my living room out of it too. Because now I’m only waiting for some horrific dreams where I’m under attack in my house by little flying aliens that come out of the walls and look like vaguely evil versions of me. Or Arnold Schwarzenegger. Because I also used a photo of him off the cover of a magazine just to see if it would work. And it did. Oh, it did. And it was the most nightmarish of them all.

I TRIED TO WARN YOU!

Check out more of Lauren’s stuff @ her blog, Sephiroth’s Tutu.

Episode 31: Turn the Page and Cough

Books in this Episode (click to buy):

• The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman
• My Anxious Mind: A Teen’s Guide to Managing Anxiety and Panic
• Salary Tutor: Learn the Salary Negotiation Secrets No One Ever Taught You

聖剣の（凡例：ファイナルファンタジー外伝 (Legend of the Holy Sword: Final Fantasy Gaiden) - June 8, 1991 (Japan) - November 1, 1991 (USA & Canada as Final Fantasy Adventure)

Hello fellow geeks and welcome to the next installment of the Far From Final Fantasy series. In this installment, I’m going to cover a game that is not only important to Final Fantasy, but to the company of Square as well: Final Fantasy Adventure. First off, I have to get some meta out of the way. If you read my article on Final Fantasy III, then you’ll remember that I said that I was going to write this article as a test run to see if readers would like  it if could review one core FF  game and then three games (made by Square or Enix) that were either tangentially or directly related to the series. I came up with this concept mid-way into writing the article on Final Fantasy II, and I found it very challenging to pick and choose from over a hundred titles. In the end, however, I opted on writing about this game next. While researching as much as I could about the game, in addition to playing it for quite a while, I was stunned to find out that this was actually the first game in a series that is loved by a  number of RPG fans: the Mana series (that Secret of Mana is apart of). After learning that, I realized that the similarities this game has to the Mana series is unmistakable, but I ‘ll get into that later. But without further ado, let us actually begin this article.

Believe it or not, this game was actually in the pipeline for Square long before they ever considered making Final Fantasy, however this was a time before Square faced imminent bankruptcy in late 1987. Square trademarked the the name Seiken Densetsu (roughly meaning Holy Sword Legend): The Emergence of Excalibur in early 1987 for use in a future game project for the Famicom Disk System.

The Famicom connected to the Famicom Disk System

As an aside, I feel I should explain what the Famicom Disk System is. In Japan, the console that eventually became known as the Nintendo Entertainment System over in the States was known as the Famicom (a portmanteau of Family Computer). With few exceptions, it was essentially identical to the NES. When the Famicom exploded in popularity at an all-time high, so too did game developers’ ambitions. They wanted to make bigger and longer games, but the measly amount of memory in a Famicom cartridge was not enough. To sate developers’ needs, Nintendo released an add-on known as the Famicom Disk System. This was an add-on you attached to the bottom of the system and from then on, you could play Famicom games written on a Famicom Disk. A Famicom disk was essentially a floppy disk that would allow you to read and write data on it (whilst in America we had battery back ups or password systems). Because of this, it was now possible to both save your game or make a game that could span 2 or more disks. Interestingly enough, many of the games we got in America were actually released on the Disk System first. Titles that originally called the Famicom Disk System home were The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, and Castlevania I; to name a few, but I digress.

This project was going to be an RPG that would have been made a year after Enix made Dragon Quest (April 1986); the latter of which both sold like hotcakes and subsequently opened the possibility to have RPGS on a console instead of a computer. It would have spanned a whopping 5 Disk System disks which is almost unthinkable as no game had ever, and still has not, needed that much physical media. Hironobu Sakaguichi gave the project to an employee known as Kazuhiko Aoki where he would have produced it. You readers might not know Aoki’s name, but you’re most likely familiar with his work. Aside from doing various odd-jobs on several Final Fantasy games, his biggest claim to fame is being the main producer of the legendary Square & Enix collaboration known as Chrono Trigger. The most important developmental aspect of this game featured the debut of a developer who would become both essential and invaluable to most of the future Final Fantasy games: Yoshinori Kitase. This was his first actual project on Square and he was the one who wrote this story. This man would later go on to be the writer of the masterpiece of Final Fantasy VI and director of games such as Final Fantasy VII, VIII, and more. Currently, he is head producer of Square-Enix after Hironobu Sakaguchi left Square-Enix in the late 00′s, but that’s a story for another day.

When the fiscal monster known as  bankruptcy revealed its ugly head in October of 1987, Square immediately pulled the plug on the project…just after they both advertised and approved the game for pre-order. Customers immediately had their orders canceled and refunded, along with an appropriate letter of apology to each and every person who pre-ordered the game. Aside from the apology in the letter, a postscript made of suggestion of using their refunded money to buy a game that would be released in December…Final Fantasy.

Lets skip ahead to early 1991 where Square is now a company to be reckoned with, they were in no danger whatsoever, and could practically do whatever they wanted with all the yen they were raking in. Around this time, they had become somewhat proficient in making games on Nintendo’s wildly successful portable system, the Game Boy. Previously, they had released two Game Boy RPGs (The Final Fantasy Legend and Final Fantasy Legend II, both of which will be reviewed) that had a fair amount of success. Square’s next project was also on the Game Boy and it was called Gemma Knight. Originally it was going to be a stand-alone game unrelated to Final Fantasy. Although nothing is known about how this came about, someone must have suggested to revive both the name and the concepts of Seiken Densetsu and make that on the Game Boy.  By fusing both Seiken Densetsu and Gemma Knights together, the finished product was Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden which was released in Japan on June 8,1991.

By far the most iconic shot of the game

A Sample of FFA combat

The story of Final Fantasy Adventure is very easy to explain because, on the whole, it is a very simple story so I’ll try to keep the focus on it at a minimum. The story chronicles the adventures of a hero and a heroine fighting against the Dark Lord of Glaive and his sorceror assistant, Julius. The Dark Lord and Julius seek to destroy the immortal Tree of Mana at the top of Mt. Illusia. The Tree of Mana is the life-force of the hero’s world and said world would die should the Tree be destroyed. It’s up to the hero and the heroine to triumph over all their adversities, defeat the Big Bads, and save the world from destruction. The hero was once enslaved by the Dark Lord as a gladiator, and was forced to fight beasts solely for the entertainment value for the citizens of Glaive. Through some rushed plot (its hard to follow because of how quickly things happen), the hero escapes and meets a girl who has some mysterious connection to the Tree of Mana. Eventually, the hero learns he is the Gemma Knight (i.e. The Chosen One) who will wield the Mana Sword and protect the Tree of Mana from the Dark Lord. For the time, its fair to say the story was fairly complex, but at the same time it sort of suffers in that regard due to how cliched this kind of story has become in modern times. A lot of the elements that would be recurring themes in later Mana games all had their first appearances here: the Mana Sword, the Tree of Mana, the Mana Forest, Mana-exclusive monsters (Rabites, Chobin Hoods, and Mushbooms; to name a few), and more.

Even though it had the name Final Fantasy in the title, its connection to Final Fantasy is very loose (but then again most spinoffs are the same way to some extent). Just by looking at the screenshots, most gamers will immediately make the distinction that this was obviously inspired by The Legend of Zelda, which might or might not be true. However, for the record, Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (the first Zelda on Game Boy) was not released until 2 years after this one was. One could possibly make the argument that Link’s Awakening took some influence from this; but further elaborating into that would completely derail this article.

Julius, the Sorcerer and lackey of the Dark Lord.

Now, if any of you readers are familiar with the Mana series, then most of you probably know that, at its core, the Mana series are traditionally action-RPG games. Despite the fact that this is the first game in the series, it bears little resemblance to its descendants which was probably due to both the limited space Square had to work with on the Game Boy and the fledgling series not finding its own voice at the time. By today’s standards, the gameplay is nothing special and fairly straightforward: you have a top-down view of the game map, you control a hero in the cardinal four directions, you face monsters that give you gold and experience points when defeated, and you go to towns where you can either rest in inns or buy stuff at shoppes. Because this game, in my opinion, is essentially a hybrid of The Legend Zelda and Final Fantasy, I find that the only way to give a  fair & complete review of this game is to note the similarities that this game that this game has for each one. Lastly, I’ll go into aspects that are unique to this game alone.

Here are a few of the similarities this game has with The Legend of Zelda. This game is on only one map (with the exception of the various dungeons) that is fully interconnected with each and every area and transitioning to each one is seamless which is rather nice and fluid; especially considering this is on Game Boy. Again, like Zelda, the battles are not random encounters on an overworld, they are fought in real time and require reflexes instead of tactical thinking to win and you can use a variety of weapons to slay your foes such as a sword, spear, axe, and so on. Puzzles are abundant in this game, ranging from simple switch puzzles to devilishly hard ice cube puzzles. Although some Final Fantasy games have instances where solving puzzles are required to move forward, this is a trait more commonly associated with Zelda than with Final Fantasy. The last trait I’ll talk about regarding similarities to Legend of Zelda is the charge bar. As everyone who has ever played a Zelda game knows, you can get a more powerful attack if you hold the attack button and charge your sword up. The same principle applies in this game as well…only it isn’t relegated to the sword; every single weapon has a devastating charge attack when fully charged.

Now that I’ve got the Zelda similarities out of the way, I’m going to go into the Final Fantasy similarities right now. As I mentioned before, an overworld and random encounters do not exist in this game; yet it still retains enough to where I would kinda accept it as Final Fantasy title. Like in Final Fantasy, you had HP and MP to keep track of and to make sure it didn’t drain. The MP is used exclusively for magical spells that you learn throughout the course of the game; some of which include Nuke, Sleep, Ice, Cure, and so on. Even though switching between weapons and items is a hallmark more related to Zelda, what Zelda usually doesn’t take into account are statistics such as strength and defense; which is exactly what Final Fantasy Adventure does. Like Final Fantasy, you also have an array of items ranging from various medicines which cure status conditions such as petrification or poison (even one where you turn into a Moogle) to various combat items such as fireballs or ice scrolls (which cast Fire and Ice respectively). What really makes this so close to Final Fantasy for me personally are the various cameos of creatures that show up in this game. You’ll all be pleased to know that Moogles are not the only creatures present, but the ever-popular Chocobo invades this world with it’s awesomeness and convenient ability as a horse. At one point, you can get to own  a Chocobo with cybernetic legs, appropriately dubbed the Choco-Bot.

A Choco...Bot?! DUDE SIGN ME UP!!

Since I have finally gone over the comparisons between the two, I’m gonna get into the two major traits that make this game unique than the previous two games I compared. Like in most Final Fantasy games, many weapons come into your possession as time goes on and more monies are earned. Unlike Final Fantasy however, many of the weapons you possess have an secondary function. Examples: tall grass will prevent you from going forward unless you have a scythe, stumps menace you unless you have an axe to chop them away, and some cliffs are unreachable unless you have a chain whip to attach onto conveniently placed poles which pull you across. While you could say this is yet another Zelda trait, many of the items that do things like this aren’t always used as weapons.

Using an axe to clear away rubbish

Actually, one of the more game-changing aspects about this game isn’t necessarily characteristic of the game or even the series itself; I’m talking about the entire Game Boy platform. This was among one of the first Game Boy games to save your progress ever (albeit in only one slot). Before playing this game, I as a gamer, originally gave that accolade to Metroid II: Return of Samus; needless to say I was pleasantly surprised and relieved I didn’t have to use an archaic password system. While game-saving may be an after-thought on most portable systems nowadays, you have to remember that this was a time before memory sticks and even save slots via battery backups were the norm (both on the GB or on the NES), so something like this must have been a big selling-point in the portable market.

On release in both Japan and America, it gained unanimous praise as being an innovative Game Boy title like no other. At that point in time, no Game Boy title had pushed the boundaries as far as this one had and I really have to give it props in that regard. To this day it still is given a lot of praise as one of the better games on the original Game Boy and there have even been requests of a remake on the DS (or the 3DS more recently). In Europe however,  the story was a little different. It wasn’t that the game did not have any success (far from it), its that it couldn’t be called Final Fantasy. No Final Fantasy game at that point had ever been released in Europe, so Nintendo had to retitle the game to make it marketable. The name they eventually chose was Mystic Quest which isn’t really the best choice in naming and if you’re a Final Fantasy super-fan, you’ll know why I said that. To the uninitiated, the name “Mystic Quest” is always associated with a game that is often considered the Blackest Sheep/Bastard Child of the Final Fantasy series: Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. I won’t comment on it now, I’ll save it for an upcoming article. Suffice it to say, I have a lot to say about that…that…creature. If any of the youngsters want to play this game and not be blindsided by the age of it, there is a way you can do so; on the GBA no less.

Sword of Mana - Final Fantasy Adventure's Enhanced Remake

In 2003, Final Fantasy Adventure was given an enhanced remake on the GBA that a lot of you might know as Sword of Mana. It’s a much more tolerable way to play the game, especially since it has much more in common with other Mana games (the enhanced power bar, the ring menu, etc). I’ll review Sword of Mana at a later date, but suffice it to say; its a great game and you should all play it.

Here are my closing thoughts on the game. Throughout this article, it might sound like I’m being dismissive of the game; but that really is not the case. In all honesty, I don’t think this is a bad game at all, I just think this game has not aged very well at all. Portable gaming has evolved by gigantic leaps and bounds and what defines portable games are now completely different than they used to be over 20 years ago.  This game is a time capsule; by that I mean that this was one of the granddaddies of action-RPGs and it shows due to how…by the numbers it is. I’m trying to be as subjective as I can be on this, but since more Action RPGs have come out and have done more innovative things with the genre, I can’t help but feel neutral towards it. Overall, I would rate this game about 3 stars out of 5. It’s a good game, but it isn’t the kind of game a modern gamer would really get into. I’m sorta split between whether I’d recommend it or not. I think I ‘ll settle that by saying to just play it for a few minutes to understand where not only Action RPGs, but where portable gaming was back in the early ’90s.

That’s all the time we have today If you enjoyed this article or have feedback on how I can make this series better, leave some comments or send me an e-mail at geoffino04@gmail.com or tweet me at lordyupa12; I’m all ears. Also don’t forget to check out all the other fascinating and fun articles present on this site as there are a lot to go through. Thank you for reading my article(s) and farewell until next-time.

Next time I’m to cover a game in the Final Fantasy series that seriously needs no introduction as it is one of the few games in the series that is widely considered to be one of the masterpieces of the entire series…yet one that I’m sure that a lot of modern gamers have not played yet. Not only that, it is the very first Final Fantasy game that I ever played and one of those games that one can hold the deepest nostalgia for.

Next Time:  One Borne of a Dragon…Bearing Both Darkness and Light… – (Final Fantasy IV – Super Nintendo Entertainment System/Super Famicom)

Part 2, now with wayyyyy more cat! Enjoy!

In this episode, Brandon and Nevin discuss animals who have valiantly served their countries throughout history, drinking and smoking their way into legend. Its history, but funny.

Watch this week’s EXTRA episode… Top Secret CIA Spy Cats

For the original post this episode was based on, click here.

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In this extra from Episode 04, Brandon and Nevin discuss the top secret CIA experiments to turn cats into spies.

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I blab about some stuff I did at C2E2, point at a cat, and generally act a fool. Enjoy!