Thursday, May 23, 2019

The Long War

Painting black always seems to take the longest, right up until I start painting orange... Anyway, first black highlight is done and the second has been started (outside edges and air intakes). Once I finish that I just have the corner and point highlights for it.

[Hackaday] Go Back In Time With A Laser Cut Wood 3D Printer Kit

Go Back in Time with a Laser Cut Wood 3D Printer Kit

Interview: Jeff Ronne, Tron Deadly Discs

Greetings and welcome to my hopefully new feature, interview episodes! First up is Jeff Ronne, who was the programmer for Tron Deadly Discs from M Network. I really enjoyed talking with him and I am grateful to him for his time. He's an interesting guy and also one of the few programmers at that time who programmed games for multiple systems. If you have any comments, you can email them to me at 2600gamebygame@comcast.net, or leave them on the Facebook or Twitter pages. Thanks so much for listening!

Jeff Ronne on Quora
Takeover on Intellivision Lives
Tron Deadly Discs on Intellivision Lives
Tron Deadly Discs episode

Storium Basics: Card Spending And Refresh

Welcome back - today, as we continue discussing the basics of Storium, I'm going to spend a little time on the concept of Refresh.

First, though, a bit about card spending: As you play Strength and Weakness cards, you'll notice they become unavailable for selection on future plays. Even once you reach the end of a scene, you'll find you won't have the cards that you already spent available to play again.

This is how Storium manages helping you tell the ups and downs of a character's tale. As you spend Strengths and Weaknesses, they become unavailable for use. You don't get any of them back until you've spent all of them. That is, you have to spend all your Strengths and all your Weaknesses before you get any of them back.

This is another reason I've said it is best to not play Storium tactically—the system is geared towards storytelling, and in storytelling, characters have ups and downs. This is actually really cool for developing a character arc, but that's somewhat beyond the basics - for more on that, see the links below.

So, say that you've spent all your Strengths and all your Weaknesses...now, it's time to Refresh.

At the beginning of the next scene, you'll get to Refresh your cards. When you click the button to do so (which replaces your button for writing a move), you are presented with a list of all the Strengths and all the Weaknesses that you've played in the game so far. You select some of each, and those become your new hand of Strength and Weakness cards. Simple as that!

Note that the number of cards you get to refresh is determined by settings for the individual games

But though it's a simple concept, don't just rush through.

This is your opportunity to define what is important in your character's story now. That may not match up with what was important in the beginning. Refreshes are a great way to show how your character has changed, or to show what elements of your character are stable. Pick the cards you want to focus on for the next chunk of the story.

Take some time to really think it over - what is important now? What do you want to say about your character now? Who is your character now? That's what a Refresh is about - not who you've been, but who you are now. Who you are going to be as the story moves forward from this point.

So...sure, who you are now might be just who you were in the past - you might just pick your starting Strength and Weakness, maybe something closely related to them too, and call it a day. But maybe things you've revealed about yourself since then have become more important. Maybe your Toughness was central to your character at the beginning, but since then, you've become focused on Leadership and Empathy, like I mentioned last time.

This is the point where you get to show that...so take some time to think it through.

And remember: As with character creation, pick cards you want to play...not just cards you're willing to play. Just like at the start of the game, you want to pick things that excite you about using them. These cards are the things you will have in your hand, so they're the things you will have to play before you can Refresh again. So make them things that you want to play, not just things that you grudgingly put in your hand again.

For more on Refresh, see the below posts - but please be aware that since I wrote some of these, the Refresh rules did change somewhat. The philosophy still applies, but some of the mechanics will sometimes be a bit different. In particular, I believe you can now pretty easily choose to get rid of your starting Strength / Weakness in a Refresh because - if I'm recalling correctly - you can now choose any card multiple times in a Refresh. In the old days, that wasn't the case, so you'll see references here for how it will take multiple Refreshes to get a starting card out of your hand.

Similarly, these were written before custom card settings were a thing.

Still, I believe the philosophies discussed here can be helpful:

Great Ideas: Easy Resource Management (Storium)

Okay, that one is just about why I love the way Storium handles card spending and Refresh.

Establishing Character Arcs
Character Arc vs. Game Arc
No Card Play is "Wasted"
Character Development Through Wild Cards
Refreshing Cards - "What's Important Now?"
Situational Strengths and Weaknesses
Building Character
Choose Cards You Want to Play
Build Towards Something

Top 7 Interesting Facts, Tips, You Need To Know About Assassin's Creed Odyssey | Pro-GamersArena

Assassin's Creed Odyssey has at long last arrived, And this one additionally is cherished by gamers and if the surveys are any sign, you'll likely need to play it. In spite of being another progressive passage in Ubisoft's about yearly arrangement, Assassin's Creed Odyssey has figured out how to bring enough new frameworks and stuff to befuddle new and veteran players.

Related Article: Assassin's Creed Review, Gameplay.

There's a considerable measure to do in this one, and not every last bit of it is simple. While Assassin's Creed Odyssey pursues a sensible trouble bend, there are as yet a couple of things you can do to help streamline your 50 or more hour trek through Greece.

So here Pro-GamersArena has compiled the top 7 Interesting Facts, Tips, you need to know about Assassin's Creed Odyssey before playing.

1. You better Choose Exploration mode instead of Guided mode. (Tip)

In Origins, the rash of unattractive, covering map symbols had been diminished by a lot, yet in Odyssey, it's gone altogether. Rather, the amusement offers you a decision comfortable start: would you like to play in "Exploration" mode or "Guided" mode? Guided mode is the Assassin's Creed maps as you've constantly known them, while Exploration strips away relatively every symbol, leaving a wonderful, clear guide reasonable for well known guide exercises like route. Rather, delineate are supplanted with bearings: the scoundrel camp is on the eastern bank of Kephallonia; the Spartan post is north of Mount Geranaia. Which appears to be extremely fascinating and extraordinary while playing.

Antiquated Greece is huge. Each method of transportation has a type of auto-run highlight that truly proves to be useful. On horseback or by walking, squeezing Z will get your character running so you can grasp your hands off the console, while Space Bar does likewise for water crafts. Steeds, specifically, are reasonable for this: hold Z for a minute and after that press E, and your steed will auto-pursue streets to explore directly to a guide marker. In any case, it doesn't imply that you depend on that as I would prescribe you to utilize it just when fundamental however I am certain that you will scarcely utilize the alternative as you wouldn't wanna miss anything of excellent Greece.

2. You get to choose to play as one of two characters. (Fact)

Ubisoft Quebec's last game in the arrangement, Assassin's Creed Syndicate, let players control a couple of twins, Jacob and Evie Frye. You're ready to control a male or female legend in Odyssey, however you won't skip between them as the story pulls you forward. Rather, you play as either Alexios or Kassandra toward the begin till the end. While there are some inconspicuous contrasts in their exhibitions and how the voice on-screen characters convey their lines, you don't have to struggle with the decision from any waiting feeling of FOMO.

"Everything is open for the two characters," says innovative chief Jonathan Dumont. "It's considerably more of a recognizable proof for you, for how to relate and associate with your character. That is the reason you have the decision." Unlike Jacob and Evie, who inclined toward battle or stealth, players can shape their character as they see fit. On the off chance that you need Kassandra to crush faces in with a club or have her adhere to the shadows, it's your call.

Regardless of who you ultimately choose, your role in the world is the same.

3. Use Sparta Kick to punt high-level enemies off anything tall (Tip).

Now and then, you will confront foes which are extremely intense or hard to execute as the foe may have an Elite modifier or a harmed hatchet or some damn thing that can truly make it difficult to slaughter them. I'll cut and wound them all I need, however my individual assaults simply don't do much harm. The best activity here: kick them off a cliff. Oh Yeah !!!

That's how you do it !!!

One of the main capacities I opened was the Sparta Kick, an "legendary kick" that indulgences adversaries in reverse. Above all, the Sparta Kick is amazingly fulfilling to utilize. When, I was in a contributed fight a marble quarry when an abnormal state, world class Spartan officer came smashing down on me. Urgent, I kept running up the laborers' platform, wavering hazardously over the abyss of the open quarry pit. At the point when the leader ascended to slaughter me, I kicked him off. Sword: 300 harm. Kick: 600 harm. Falling a few hundred feet to his demise: 20,000 harm.

Get Assassin's Creed Odyssey at a discounted price from Amazon.

4. Use fire to damage more.

There's an extremely forceful fire framework affecting everything in Odyssey which I will recommend you to use, as adding fire to your assaults is an insightful move. As it not just include consuming harm that stacks after some time but at the same time it's excellent group control. A few foes break and run when they're hit with flame, so in case you're amidst a significant battle, lighting everybody ablaze can disperse the horde a bit.

Hitting somebody with a flaming sword, while cool, won't consequently set them ablaze. There's a fire development detail that is unique in relation to foe to foe and may even rely upon what sorts of shield they're wearing. It takes a couple of hits of fire to extremely set somebody consuming. On the off chance that you need to benefit from your searing assaults, search for inscriptions or rewards that expansion "fire development." The higher your fire development detail is, the quicker you'll set your objectives ablaze.

5. Islands Of Adventure (Fact)

Our hands-on experience occurred on a couple of islands, Delos and Mykonos. It included a little more than twelve unique missions, led on a shockingly convoluted questline. It took around five hours to see that storyline through to culmination. "We needed to reflect what it might feel want to be on the odyssey of Odysseus, where he goes on islands and he doesn't realize what he will discover," Dumont says. Ubisoft Quebec needed players to experience an assortment of littler, local storylines amid their voyages, while additionally conveying a bigger scale experience.

6. Try to stay neutral in the war to get the best loot (Tip).

Odyssey happens amid the Peloponnesian War when Athens and Sparta were super, duper distraught at one another and were extremely exceptionally impolite about it. To trigger a fight, you need to irritate the parity of intensity by taking out the locale's national pioneer. The pioneer is intensely monitored by the entirety of his watchmen and extremely rich, and a toe-to-toe battle will be outlandish. Rather, you need to relax him up by executing his lieutenants, taking his cash, and consuming his armed force's provisions. When you cause enough mayhem, the attacking group, regardless of whether its Sparta or Athens, will begin a fight.

There are constantly opposite sides to each fight, it is possible that you can be an aggressor or a protector, here additionally you're allowed to join the assaulting or safeguarding side. The main contrast is that the assailants will have a significantly harder fight and much better plunder granted for progress. It doesn't make a difference which side you pick, however regardless of whether you've been killing Athenians throughout the day to blend up inconvenience, you can offer the Athenians help in the fight with the end goal to acquire some benefit.

7. Take Help Of Ikaros (Your pet Eagle) to scout and spot enemies (Tip).

In Assassin's Creed Odyssey too you have an extremely helpful and brilliant pet Eagle named Ikaros, and utilizing him as a scout will be commonplace to any individual who played Origins. Send Ikaros up and glance through his eyes to stamp adversaries, spot money boxes, alert flames, caught creatures, detainees, and so on. Having a constant guide of a camp makes it much simpler to sneak in, for a certain something. For another, spotting foes ahead of time can fill you in as to whether any of them have rewards or capacities that would be useful for your group. Additionally, utilize Ikaros to investigate adversary skippers and authorities. They'll more often than not have a type of direction reward pertinent to your ship, and all the more critically, they're probably going to be genuine rats in a battle. In the event that you detect a decent applicant with Ikaros, you can make arrangements to take them alive.

Ikaros' spotting is additionally valuable in underground natural hollows and tombs, however you can't utilize him underground. Rather, utilize him before you enter the surrender and have him fly over the highest point of the mountain. He can in any case spot things underground (Told you, he's a significant hawk), and the guide markers will enable you to discover your approach to heaps of plunder in the befuddling labyrinth underground.

The Imitation Of Motoko

SPOLIER ALERT: Plot details for Ghost In The Shell new and old follow.

America's Ghost In The Shell film would be an otherwise forgotten reboot, like Robocop or Total Recall, were it not for the controversy around its casting. Ghost In The Shell, like the recent Ghostbusters remake, will be remembered more for the discussion around its casting, than for anything in the film itself. Not that the remake merits such discussion, but as far as live-action anime adaptations go, it's an important milestone.

The greatest enemy of this film is time. The original Ghost In The Shell anime movie came out in 1995. At that time, the idea of cybernetic bodies, sentient A.I., and manipulated memories still seemed shocking and prophetic, but now, after movies and shows like The Matrix, Westworld, and Ex Machina, anime like Macross Plus, Tehxnolyze, Serial Experiments Lain, and Psycho Pass, and video games like Persona 3, Metal Gear Solid 2, and Final Fantasy VII, these same ideas, presented in such a standard, deflated fashion, seem stale and oudated to a modern audience. Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima made this point in an essay for Rolling Stone, "In 2017, one cannot simply whisper, "The net is vast and infinite" and hope for the same impact that such as statement had 22 years ago when it was uttered by Motoko Kusanagi to such great effect. In 1995, the internet was a mysterious, brave new frontier; today, it's a known quantity. Smartphones are glued to our hands and we are constantly connected. For us, the net doesn't feel vast or infinite."

This is why the Ghost In The Shell television show, Stand Alone Complex, succeeded in keeping the series fresh. Instead of retreading old ground, it explored all the elements of society and humanity that would be affected by advanced cyborgs and sentient A.I. The American adaptation breaks no new ground in delving into the implications of a future we're already halfway towards. It's instead a washed out version of a more ambitious and striking film. We all know the famous scene of the garbage man who learns that his memories of a wife and daughter were implanted by the Puppetmaster. The film took its time to establish his memories and took its time in revealing them. After the initial shock of learning this man had no family, there's another, subtler shock of knowing how vulnerable cyberbrains are to hacking. In the remake, the scene is played by rote, but the garbage man isn't established as well prior, so we have less sympathy for him. Also, due the film's new priorities in direction, we don't think much about the implications of it.

Now, this isn't say one couldn't feasibly remake Ghost In The Shell. After all, while the original film has aged better than other anime classics like Akira or Perfect Blue, it isn't without room for improvement. The two major flaws of the original Ghost In The Shell are character development and the lack of Internet. Characters aren't fleshed out in the original film because that film was more about ideas than characters. We're more interested in the possibilities of Ghost In The Shell than in any of the individuals who inhabit it. The film also failed to see the supremacy of the Internet, which as absorbed so much of man's modern life. Lain, with its Net obsessed plots, feels far more relevant to our social media smartphone age. Even The Matrix, which took Ghost In The Shell as an inspiration, delved into the allures of virtual reality.

The American remake fails in both of these areas. Being a paint-by-numbers rehash of the original film, it decides not to take advantage of all we know about the Internet, smartphones, and social media. So it already feels dated-on-arrival. The other members of Section 9, outside of Motoko, Batou, and Aramaki, are given little more than cameo roles, with some like Togusa being near unrecognizable. Again, this isn't a far cry from the original, except that the remake is now a Bourne Identity knock-off, with Motoko trying to discover the truth about her past. This, again, doesn't work, because Motoko's past isn't why people like Ghost In The Shell, and Motoko's character is too poorly written and acted in the remake to make us care.

One would expect Scarlett Johansson to fit naturally into this role, having played Black Widow in the Marvel movies. She would just need to mime that performance here, as it had the right amount of iciness, humor, and camaraderie befitting Major Kusanagi. For some reason or another, her performance is dull and uninspired. The intent here may been to mimic Motoko's doll-like demeanor in the original film, but such a performance in live-action requires a subtlety and intrigue clearly out of ScarJo's range. Ghost In The Shell also runs a great deal on sex appeal, the original manga creator does hentai now (sadly none of it of the Major). Needless to say, ScarJo is the right actress for the job. Her sexiness, however, is undercut by the skin suit, which looked really hot in the anime, but looks really silly in live-action.

While we're on the subject, of ScarJo, we may as well get to the casting controversy that has dogged this film since its announcement. Many accuse the remake of whitewashing, saying that the role of Motoko Kusanagi should've gone to a Japanese-American actress. On the surface, this makes sense, given that Ghost In The Shell is a Japanese story set in Japan. Yet the remake is an American film, so the casting of someone of Japanese descent isn't necessary. It is common thing to take foreign stories and adapt them to your own culture. Throne Of Blood is based off of Macbeth, but Kurosawa didn't cast Scottish actors and set it in feudal Japan. Ponyo is based off of The Little Mermaid, yet is set in a Japanese coastal town and not Denmark. The British novel Fingersmith set in Victorian Britain was adapted in South Korea as The Handmaiden, set in Japan-occupied Korea. Bollywood has also remade god knows how many Western films and recast them with Indians. The West has also done this before with Japanese films. America remade The Seven Samurai as The Magnificent Seven, while Italy remade Yojimbo as A Fistful Of Dollars.

Now it could be argued that America has a more racially diverse population than either Japan, India, or South Korea, and thus, more of an obligation to be diverse wherever possible. Unlike The Magnificent Seven, there is little distinctly "American" about Ghost In The Shell, thus not casting a Japanese woman carries less justification. In any case, even if this remake had a more "American" context, "American" doesn't equal "white." So it behooves us to show that the Japanese are also a part of America, whenever their culture is concerned.

However, there's good reason to believe that ScarJo was cast for more economic reasons than racial ones. Anime is still something of a niche medium, and few outside of it know Ghost In The Shell. To sell science-fiction on film these days, star power is needed. Do you think anyone would've gone to see Minority Report if it didn't have Tom Cruise? Would as many people have turned out for Looper if Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis weren't in the starring roles? ScarJo is a sexy action star with a history of sci-fi roles, so it made sense from that perspective. I've no doubt that there are plenty of capable Japanese-American actresses working in Hollywood today, but would they attract the same numbers to the box office? With a niche anime product like Ghost In The Shell, Paramount Pictures wouldn't take the risk. Maybe they should have, maybe they should've worked harder to court Asian-American audiences, but one can't help but understand the underlying calculus.

I would not refer to Ghost In The Shell as a case of whitewashing, especially when you consider the subject matter. Ghost In The Shell is set in a more globalist future, where you could get a Caucasian named Kusanagi or a Japanese named Killian. The director of the original film, Oshii Mamoru, echoed this sentiment in an email to IGN, "The Major is a cyborg and her physical form is an entirely assumed one. The name 'Motoko Kusanagi' and her current body are not her original name and body, so there's no basis for saying that an Asian actress must portray her. Even if her original body (presuming such a thing existed) were a Japanese one, that would still apply." However, a lack of diversity is still an issue in Hollywood, and let's not pretend that whitewashing of Asians still isn't a problem. The film 21 based on the true story of Asian-Americans who made millions off of casinos by counting cards, cast white actors in the leading roles. This is a gross disservice to history that misleads audiences about the basis of the story. The film The Last Airbender cast Aang, Katara, and Sokka as white, even though in the original cartoon, Aang refrenced either Chinese or Tibetan origin, while Katara and Sokka refrenced Inuit origin. The solution is two-fold: get more Asian-Americans involved in the film industry, and criticize whitewashing whenever we see it. We might not always agree, but debate on these matters is preferable to silence.

That being said, Paramount and Dreamworks should've stuck by the new casting and moved on. Instead, they tried to appease the critics, and reshape ScarJo as a Japanese woman. The first shade of this came with reports that the studios considered digitally altering ScarJo's eyes to make her look more Asian. In a word, yellowface, but gratefully this never materialized. The filmmakers did something far worse, when they revealed that ScarJo's Major was originally a Japanese woman put into a Caucasian cyborg body. This half-hearted attempt at appeasing Asian-American critics feels more like a slap in the face with a wet fish than an olive branch. As Japanese-American actress Ai Yoshihara told The Hollywood Reporter, "Major's backstory is white people trying to justify the casting" (Sun). Further, the film missed out on a great opportunity. The concept of switching races by technological means is a titillating one. Rachel Dolezal aside, if we get to the point where racial skins can be put off and on like clothes, it raises a number of difficult questions about the idea of race itself, and how both society and the individual would approach. Of course, no such questions are explored in this schlock, because apparently Americans are too stupid for such things.

Many have praised the special effects in this film, which is warranted. The special effects, for the most part, are serviceable, with highlights being the robo-geishas and the lively city. And yet it fails to be awe-inspiring. The original anime film thrived on detailed realism, while this one often devolves into the realm of video game cutscenes. The city, even, is miniscule in comparison to the metropolis of Blade Runner 2049. Indeed, I thought a great deal about Denis Villenue's worthy sequel throughout my viewing of this oatmeal. They were both released in the same year, and deal with many of the same themes: the disappearing boundary between man and machine, the unreliablity of memory, and the persistence of inhumanity amidst technological abundance. The difference is that Blade Runner 2049 treats these concepts with the nuance, depth, and ambiguity they deserve. In any case, star power saved neither film from losing money at the box office, but only one will be remembered by future generations.

We get complaints about all the superhero films that come out nowadays, but little appreciation for how consistently decent they have become. In this decade alone, The Avengers, Captain America: Civil War, Logan, Wonder Woman, Black Panther, The Guardians Of The Galaxy, and Deadpool, rank among the most entertaining, imaginitive, and talked-about films of their respective years. Even the bad comic book films, like Suicide Squad or Iron Man 3, at least carry some visual resemblance to the source material. It took a lot of failures before we got to this point, and likewise, I think it'll take a long while before we can get consistently decent anime films.

Three major Western anime adaptations that come to mind are Dragonball Evolution, Speed Racer, and Death Note. Dragonball is such an off-the-wall anime with magic, aliens, androids, and super-powered fights, that a live-action adaptation would either look ridiculous or detached. The latter was the inevitable result, in a film that was little like the anime, had ugly special effects, and cliche-ridden plot that can't stand on its own. The film's writer, Ben Ramsay, even apologized to fans. I'd like to think that a proper live-action Dragon Ball would look like Kung-Fu Hustle. Speed Racer isn't much more engaging than its cheesy source, but the heavy amount of ice cream color CGI can certainly make it garish to viewers. The film has its fans, but the material is too extravagant to cull most anime fans to its side. Netflix's Death Note has camp value, for sure, with so much emo angst that I expected a cameo from Gerard Way. This film, like the live-action Ghost In The Shell, fails to utilize the core concepts within an American context. Further the rivalry between Light and L that was the meat of the original series is sloppily handled here. Lakeith Stanfield gives an interesting, though inconsistent performance as L, while Willem Dafoe steals the show as Ryuk. Death Note also suffered from a casting controversy, since Light Yagami, now Light Turner, is Caucasian. No controversy ensued over L being played by Lakeith Stanfield, because it wouldn't slice to accuse a black actor of "whitewashing" (even though it's kinda the same thing). Keep in mind that before the Netflix film, there already were several live-action Death Note movies from Japan with all-Japanese casts. In that context, is it really so bad for one Death Note film to have a Caucasian Light?

Now the Japanese have also made live-action anime films, and they suffer from the opposite problem that the American films do, they're too reverential. The characters all too often look "exactly" like the anime characters, which has the effect of making everyone look like cosplayers. This leads to another point of praise of the modern superhero film. The character costumes never look exactly as they do in the comics, which would be ridiculous. Instead the costumes are adapted to fit a live-action setting. The only great live-action anime films were Death Note: Light Up The New World and the Rurouni Kenshin Trilogy. Light Up The New World, still shamefully without Western release, tells a new story using the basic Death Note concepts. It does so with convincing special effects, inviting new characters who aren't cookie-cutters of the originals, and twists and turns worthy of David Fincher. The Rurouni Kenshin Trilogy is the gold standard of live-action anime, though much of that is due to the original setting, which fits perfectly within Japan's jidai-geki genre. It keeps true to the heart of the story, with over two hours of space to properly develop the characters, and impressive sword choreography. Honestly, anyone attempting to adapt anime into live-action should watch the Kenshin Trilogy.

Live-action anime adaptations need to fly somwhere between the worship of the Japanese and the sacrilege of America. Anime is more popular globally than its ever been, and it's inevitable that Hollywood's going to exploit that niche however it can. While we haven't quite reached the sweet spot, the American Ghost In The Shell is a step in the right direction. Whatever you think of the film, it deserves some credit for faithfully recreating scenes from the original film. Characters like The Major, Batou, and Aramaki look more or less like their anime counterparts. Kawaii Kenji's wedding chant from the original even reappears in the film's end credits. This is far more accomplished than either Dragonball Evolution or Death Note in being faithful to the anime. The filmmakers clearly enjoyed Ghost In The Shell and sincerely tried to adapt it.

Let's get back to that wedding chant. It is haunting and transcendent, but here, it feels woefully out of place. There is no marriage of woman and machine in this adaptation, and here lies the rub. It mimics the syle, but none of the substance. The original could border on the pretentious, but it at least carried some feeling of intellectual engagement. Nothing doing here, where you start to question if the lines were even read over more than once. One such line goes something like, "We are not our memories, but what we do." This line is so insipid because everything we do is shaped by our memories. The line should've been reshaped as, "Your life is less about your past, and more about what you do with it." The live-action Ghost In The Shell is enslaved to the memory of the anime. It replays old memories, but does nothing new with them, dwindling in its own nostalgia.

Tuesday, April 2, 2019

The Art Of Video Games: Persona 5

SPOILER ALERT:

Plot details for Persona 4 and Persona 5 follow.

"Who am I?
Am I not unique?
Maybe I'm not here at all."

Maybe I only speak for myself here, but I'd like to think that for a lot of JRPG fans, Persona 5 was everything we thought Final Fantasy XIII was going to be. A game that would advance a series we all loved onto the next-gen console, offering a new, but familiar battle system, as well as utilizing the engine to create an immersive storytelling experience that would have been impossible before. While FFXIII can hardly be called the worst in that series, it failed to live up to promise of that E3 2006 trailer, which boasted a fast-paced Matrix style gameplay and a gripping narrative. Battle in FFXIII was underwhelming and automatic, while movement was linear to the point of absurdity. The plot sloppily meshes elements from FFVII and FFX, but lacks the clear character motivations that made those stories interesting. Indeed, Lightning, the game's flagship character, was simply a gender-flipped Cloud, who lacked any of the latter's complexity. One could well fear the same happening with P5. It had a lot to live up to. Not only did P4 grow to be the most acclaimed game in the series, but further launched the Persona brand into the gaming mainstream, becoming, for many, their introduction into the series. A proper follow-up would be no easy feat. So what's most surprising about the reception of P5, isn't how well it met expectations, but how far it exceeded them. P5 is hardly a year old, and Famitsu readers have already voted it the greatest game of all time, with a Metacritic score that surpasses all others in the JRPG genre but Final Fantasy IX and Chrono Trigger.

Whereas Persona 4 built upon and expanded the foundations of its predecessor, Persona 5 deconstructs them. P4 was pure escapist fantasy, it starred a Gary Stu protagonist who everybody loved in the Japanese equivalent of Bedford Falls. P5 starts you off branded as a criminal who is met with stigma and suspicion by everyone, even your guardian. Igor's Velvet Room, once luxurious, is now a prison cell, and his assistants, once alluring, now cold and threatening. Instead of sleepy, rural Inaba, you maneuver through the hustle and bustle of modern Tokyo. Inaba was the home you always wished you had, whereas in Tokyo, you feel as though you don't quite belong. P4 felt very rooted in Japanese traditions, from Amagi Inn to the Shinto-inspired Personas. P5 feels more international, with Personas inspired by rebels from around the globe, one of the main characters being of mixed ethnicity, the addition of a Christian church, and a school trip to Hawaii. The narrative is also structured differently than that of the previous entries. It begins in media res, as you sneak through a flashy casino, only to be apprehended and brutally tortured by the police. You were sold out by one of your friends, and Prosecutor Sae Nijima will lead your interrogation. The bulk of the game consists of you recounting those events to her, though the story will occasionally flash forward to the interrogation. Doing this provides enough curiosity about where the story will go, but creates enough anticipation as to how it will get there.

In P4, you explored the psyches of your friends, but in P5, you explore the psyches of your enemies. In the Metaverse, which can only be entered by using a Navigation App on your cell, a person's desires can get so distorted that a Palace can be created. These Palaces, much like the dungeons of P4, are manifestations of how these people view the world. Kamoshida, a former gold medalist, sees the high school as his castle, while the gangster Kaneshiro sees Shibuya as his bank. It should be of little surprise that these distortions echo the Seven Deadly Sins, with the sexual abuser Kamoshida representing Lust, the plagiarist Madarame representing Envy, and the ruthless CEO Okumura representing Greed. Your goal, as a Phantom Thief, is to steal away their "Treasure", or the manifestation of their deepest desire. Kamoshida's Treasure is the gold medal of his former glory days, whereas Madarame's treasure is the painting he's always tried to copy. Of course, the Treasure will only manifest once the owner of the Palace feels as though this desire is threatened. You create this sense of threat by sending their conscious self a "calling card", warning them of the oncoming theft. A successful heist yields a "change of heart" in the Palace owners, during which they are made to feel bad about their crimes and openly confess for repentance. By doing this, the Phantom Thieves hope to reform society, but unlike P4's Investigation Team, which sought to validate the law, you work to change things outside of it.

Art by Soejima Shigenori. Used for education under "Fair Use." All rights to Atlus.

The aesthetics of P5 make it stand out leaps and bounds ahead of any previous entry. This is the first Persona to explicitly use the cel-shading of anime games, and the menus have such style that they seem to pop out like the word bubbles in a manga. All throughout there are shades of Lupin The Third, Cat's Eye, Mission: Impossible, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Cowboy Bebop, Marvel, DC, and Ocean's Eleven, all of it brought to life with an opening animation that is reminiscent of the elegant ice skating in Yuri On Ice!. More than any other Persona, you have enough space to breathe and explore your surroundings. You can walk through the crowded city streets of Shibuya, travel through a rather accurate representation of the Japanese train system, and go on dates or outings at parks and planetariums. Even little things, like the loading screen, show silhouettes of the citizenry, going about their daily lives. You can even listen in on other people's conversations. The music from longtime composer Shoji Meguro takes on an acid jazz feel, with "Last Surprise" and "Rivers In The Desert". While songs like "Beneath The Mask" can also properly shift the mood into a more relaxing tone when you return to the coffee shop.

The gameplay is, by far, the best out of any Persona, or even any turn-based JRPG. As always, your days are divided between crawling the dungeons and forging Social Links, now called Confidants, with your friends. The dungeons are where P5 really shines ahead of what came before. In previous Persona games, the dungeons were the same repetitive hallways in search of a staircase. In P5, exploring the interiors of each Palace presents a completely new experience, ranging from Kamoshida's Castle to Kaneshiro's Bank to Futaba's Pyramid to Okumura's Space Factory. Instead of charging right in, the game takes a note from Metal Gear Solid and encourages success through stealth. Thieves, after all, aren't known for walking through the front door. To do this, you can hide behind various boxes and pillars, slipping in a whirl to the next hiding spot, before getting the jump on the enemy. Needless to say, preemptive strikes are far easier this time around, but require no less skill to select the right spots and routes through each challenge. Similar to The Last Of Us, you can also turn on a second sight that allows you to see hidden enemies, small crawlspaces, and of course, treasures. Sometimes, you'll need to solve various puzzles to go onward, which can range from literally going through paintings in Madarame's Museum to figuring your way through the airlocks in space. While not exactly Zelda level in their construction, they added some needed variety to the game. Indeed, tussling various enemies one-on-one in Sae's Casino reminded me a lot of Battle Square in FFVII's Golden Saucer.

Art by Soejima Shigenori. Used for criticism under "Fair Use." All rights to Atlus.

Battle is the traditional JRPG take turn with the series' traits of switching Personas and All-Out Attacks. Even so, it's still impressive to see old attacks like Agidyne in flashy high-definition. Guns are also thrown into the mix, and are very effective against most enemies with wings. Your party's Personas have also evolved quite a bit, in P3 they were Greco-Roman monsters, in P4 they were legendary kami, and here, they are cartoonish rebels, drawing on history, literature, and myth, from Ryuji's Captain Kidd to Joker's Arsene Lupin to Morgana's Zorro (how Atlus got away with using Zorro without violating any copyrights is an interesting question). They can also be quite stylish, from Makoto's nuclear motorcycle to Futaba's massive UFO. P5, though, also brings back an option in battle from the pre-P3 games: negotiation with the Shadows. This adds a new strategic layer to the fight, as you can request enemies for items, money, or even recruiting them into your party as a fellow Persona. All this, of course, is achieved on whether or not you say the right things, as the wrong words can open you up to attack. Some enemies will even take your party members hostage, and a refusal to comply will lead to their instant deaths. Persona fusions are still an important feature of the Velvet Room, but you can also sacrifice certain Personas to add experience and abilities to others, or even transform them into items. The fusions themselves are newly gruesome, carried out by guillotine execution, at the hands of Igor's two assistants, Caroline and Justine. Much like P4, the bosses take on exaggerated versions of a person's darkest psyche. So we have King Kamoshida drinking glassfuls of women, Kaneshiro running atop a giant piggy bank, and Sae rolling die in a giant roulette wheel. Sometimes, you'll be asked to send one of your party member's off to find a weakness in the enemy while you distract them. An enjoyable instance of this was in aiming a giant catapult at a flying sphinx to send it down where it was vulnerable. Once you defeat a Palace, it disappears, so grinding will have to be done at Mementos, which is a subway metaphor for the Jungian collective unconscious. As opposed to P3's Tartarus, where the goal is to ascend, Mementos is a long, burrowing journey to the center of the Earth. You ride around Mementos in Morgana's bus form (a cute reference to Totoro) changing the hearts of many, some of whom even tie into your Confidants.

Confidants are the new Social Links in P5, and as always, make up some of the best parts of the game. You get to spend your time hanging out with one of your friends at a ramen shop or in the mall, and learn a little more about them in the process. This goes beyond your fellow students to include the weapons seller, the pharmacist, and even your teacher. Friends who want to hang out will contact you through texting, a modern touch that makes the game more realistic. Some Confidants, of course, can only be advanced when one of your five attributes reaches a certain threshold. Fortunately, there are a multitude of ways to do this, from reading books on the train, to crafting lockpicks, to relaxing in the bathhouse, to watching films either at home or in the theater, to even playing an older video game consoles.

P5 recycles many of the character archetypes we've come to expect from this series. Ryuji is the loud-mouthed best friend, (Yosuke/Junpei), Ann is the young model (Rise) who always tries to keep the loudmouth in line (Yukari/Chie). Haru is the soft-spoken heiress to a family business and conflicted about her responsibilities (Yukiko). Makoto is the student council president, all too naive in the ways of the world (Mitsuru). Akechi is a young detective suspicious of this group's connection to all the weird goings-on (Naoto). Morgana is the cute, furry mascot with a shady past (Teddie). Those who break new ground are Yusuke and Futaba. Yusuke is both a caricature of the "tortured artist", while at the same time a sincere aesthete. He is equal parts insightful and clueless. Futaba is the geeky shut-in, who is great with technology, whose dialogue makes her a walking Ernest Cline. Of course, as always, even the archetypal characters are more interesting than the surface level. Ryuji is a former member of the track team, who is quick to let his emotions fly loose. One such incident was when he attacked Kamoshida and cost the track team their success. Between Junpei and Yosuke, Ryuji comes off as the most likable asshole, given his passion for helping out the track team, despite their dislike of him. Ann has a rather serious subplot in how to relate to Shiho, a victim of sexual assault, which, I imagine is more common an issue than one may think. Haru's introduction as the "Beauty Thief" with Morgana is endearing and humorous, but her character doesn't get too much attention after that. Makoto is very much like a young Mitsuru, though they're both technically the same age, I'd argue that Makoto's maturation starts at an earlier stage. Whereas Mitsuru starts off caring about SEES and spends most of the game learning how to express it, Makoto starts off as hostile towards the Phantom Thieves, but warms to them the more she learns. Morgana talks a lot more smack than Teddie, and is always ready to keep the team in check. This time around, you won't be irritated with bad puns, but by incessant orders to go to bed.

Trying to remain monogamous is P5 should be considered a form of torture under the Geneva Conventions. Most, if not all of the girls in this game are not only cute, but have irresistible personalities. How can you not fall in love? There's the goth doctor, Tae Akemi, who has a twisted sense of humor, using you for her experimental medicines. She can be awfully cute when she refers to you as "guinea pig." There's the journalist Ichiko Ohya, who is equal parts high-spirited and alcoholic. Her mood swings can be an annoyance, but her youthful energy is so very attractive. Then there also the shogi master, Hifumi Togo, who's warm and sweet, but also humorously melodramatic in the midst of a game. I eventually chose Sadayo Kawakami, though I didn't intend to, but intention means little as far as romance goes. I was moved by her desire to be a better teacher as well as drawn to her slyness. It can be easy to dismiss those won over by Kawakami as wanting to play out dominance fantasies, but I think what draws many to her isn't the maid, but the woman underneath trying to climb through. So while P5 has the best romantic selection out any other entry in the series, it's a a crying shame that they still didn't include a homosexual option for female or gay players, who are a significant subset of the game's audience. I mean, even I would've been tempted to date Yusuke.

The stories in Persona games revolve around themes. P3's was death. P4's was truth. P5's is justice. Modern society in the game is depicted as fundamentally corrupt and unjust, run by adults who either participate in the corruption or stand by and do nothing. So it falls upon the youth to revolt. It's hard to look at P5 and not think of the upsurge in youth protests, from Zucotti Park, to Tarhir Square, to Ferguson, to Hong Kong, to Caracas, to Kiev. This may not have been intentional, but it's hard to keep out of mind. Like P4, P5 is a high school fantasy. Whereas P4's fantasy was an idealization: with dependable friends, a cute girlfriend, and enjoyable festivals, P5's offers "just desserts" never served: what if you were able to stand up to all the adults who mistreated you in high school? As Julie Muncy wrote in Wired,

"You're old enough to see these evils clearly, but not yet old enough to do anything about them. Many adults will write off anything you have to say on account of your age, and often the ones doing the harm are the ones who ought to be protecting you in the first place. That awareness leads not just to frustration, but to a profound, inescapable feeling that the entire world of adulthood is corrupt beyond functional repair. Persona 5 senses this, it understands it, an it offers its teen heroes weapons."

The game's director, Katsura Hoshino, also acknowledged that this was a superhero story more in line with "the West", (further belaboring the contrast to P4) as it's focus was more on fighting individuals from within society, then invaders from outside of it,

"I'm going off on a tangent here, but I think that traditional Japanese superhero stories tend to be about fighting off invaders from outside their society, while Western ones focus on fighting against villains and misfits that come from within it. There's a sense of society being responsible for creating the evil, and such a setting let's the audience's imagination run wild, like "it could've been me." For instance, doesn't the Joker from Batman make so valid points that resonate with you?"

Yet while there is much in the way of discussion over the moral quagmires of youth rebellion, there isn't quite enough exploration of its consequence. It's similar to how Dirty Harry romanticizes an officer who takes the law into his own hands, while refusing to address the consequences of denying suspects Miranda rights. We see all the time how self-righteous groups which operate outside of the law quickly lose focus and turn sour. Anonymous fought the wrongdoings of Scientology and Stubenville, but was also prone to antisemitic jeers, as was made evident when they made cyber attacks on Israeli sites on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day. Wikileaks exposed corruption in governments around the world, from aiding the Arab Spring in Tunisia to exposing the secret killing of Iraqi civilians by U.S. forces, but the group has also been careless in leaking private info that has little to do with the public good, while its founder, Julian Assange, has been credibly accused of rape. Antifa, while taking a stand against the resurgence of fascism in America, isn't shy about its disdain for democratic norms and institutions, with questionable tactics (at best), of preemptive violence and destruction of property. It is true that lawbreakers can be heroes, but even lawbreaking in the pursuit of justice can go too far, and this reality isn't given the weight it deserves.

Visualizing the moral grey area of forcibly changing people's hearts could've added greater depth to the game. This isn't to say that the actions of the Phantom Thieves aren't justified, but that they should come with few consequences. Changing hearts is tactic far more invasive than Anthony Burgess' "Lodovico Technique." As in A Clockwork Orange, Alex DeLarge was brainwashed into associating his vices with pain and disgust, but heart theft erases the impulse for vice altogether. It reminds me of the Star Trek episode, "The Enemy Within", in which Captain Kirk is split in two, with one Kirk being purely docile and other being unrestrained id. While the "evil" Kirk was a nuisance, he at least had ambition, which is more than could be said for "good" Kirk, who was too castrated to lift a finger. The point of the episode was that although the id can commit great evil, it is needed to a certain extent to function properly as a human being. Lust and Envy, when taken to extremes, are clearly terrible, but both, when used judiciously can foster healthy romance and productive competition. Yet we never see the change of heart cause any negative consequences to the targets. Imagine if Madarame lost any impulse to create or if Kaneshiro became so loose with money as to fall bankrupt? Given Persona's roots in psychoanalysis, I was surprised not to see these intricacies realized. While it can be argued that changes of heart also occurred in P4, those were done willfully. They changed after being confronted with their own weaknesses and accepting them. This felt more realistic and enriched character. In P5, only Futaba undergoes this type of change, which made her palace among the most memorable. This is not to say, of course, that the Phantom Thieves deal with no negative consequences at all. The so-called "Phan Site" is a clever incorporation of social media into the game, showing how easily opinions can change, and how popularity on these forums affects personal motivations.

Your preconceptions of various tropes in Persona, from the role of Igor to the multiple endings, are played with here. When I began P5, I was irritated with the change in Igor's voice. In prior entries, his voice carried a sophisticated and foppish quality, whereas now, he sounded far too demonic and menacing. Usually, towards the end of a Persona game, when the chips are down, Igor comes in, right at the nick of time to give you the strength to triumph. Instead, Igor orders his servants to kill you, which they refuse, revealing the best twist in any Persona, that "Igor", this time around, is not only an imposter, and the final antagonist, Yabolveleth.

Then come the alternate endings. As any Persona veteran knows, choices you make near a certain point in the game can affect the outcome. You'll often be put into a morally compromising situation and be asked to make a difficult decision. In P3, it was the choice between fighting death or resigning to it. In P4, it was the choice between vigilante murder or yielding to imperfect justice. In P5, you are asked whether or not to sell out your friends or take the fall. When Akechi fires a bullet into your head and your friends are off returning to their normal lives, it dawns on you that you may have said the wrong thing, and now you're stuck replaying the last scene in your mind, thinking, where did I go wrong? Of course, this is just the game misleading you, but I appreciated it keeping the uncertainty on edge. It did strike me, though, that this series is probably the true fruition of those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books we all read as children.

Where this disrupting of tropes didn't work, however, was in the stunting of the precious character moments we've come to appreciate from Persona. While the plot and character are exceptional, especially as far as most games go, they didn't surpass P4's perfect chemistry of character interaction. I think back to the camping trip, the king's game, the cooking contest for Nanako, and the school festival costumes. In P5, it seemed they wanted to take these moments and have them fail in unexpected ways. It rains during the fireworks festival, the school trip to Hawaii amounts to little, and the school festival is more focused on plot than character. This subversion could have worked if it brought our characters to unexpected places, but instead, things just end there and circle back to the plot. In the Hawaii trip, for instance, there's a moment when Mishima gets sick and Ann gets locked out. I thought this was a set-up for some great comedy, but instead it becomes a shiny balloon that deflates just before it can pop.

Since we're on the topic of lost potential, we may as well get to the game's antagonists. Masayoshi Shido is an aspiring Prime Minister who was behind the incident that got Joker arrested. For a Persona antagonist, he's surprisingly generic, and his palace can get rather tedious, though the boss fight is satisfying, and would've worked well as the finale. Shido and Yabolveleth exist as statements on conformity, particularly in Japan, and need for individualism. A fine message, to be sure, and conveyed splendidly by no less than Satanael himself. Yet these two lack any intimate connection with the cast, so these boss fights lack the emotional investments they deserve. This could have been fixed had the game focused its attention more on one other character, Goro Akechi.

Akechi, like Naoto before him, is an ace detective who finds himself in opposition to our heroes before joining them. The twist is that Akechi had sided with Shido, his father, the whole time, and was responsible for various assassinations throughout the game. At the game's start, you are told that one ally will betray you, and for many, the one spent all his time critiquing the Phantom Thieves was an obvious choice. That said, Akechi could've been superior to P4's Tohru Adachi, had he been allowed to develop more of a rivalry with Joker, and his criticisms of their tactics given more serious consideration. Some have drawn parallels between Joker and Akechi with what was probably a direct inspiration, Sherlock Holmes and Arsene Lupin, while others have noted that Death Note's Light Yagami and L seem more apt, since their rivalry deals more directly with justice, and not simply a clash in methods. In Death Note, Light is given a notebook in which he can kill whomever he wants by writing their name down. Under the pseudonym "Kira" he pursues justice on his own terms because he doesn't find the law sufficient. L opposes Kira because of his belief in the justice system and allowing even one to subvert its norms could only undermine its effectiveness. Their rivalry is entertaining for its stratagems, moral implications, and most absorbingly, L's friendship with Light. Had Akechi been allowed to develop something similar with Joker, his betrayal would've been all the more heart-wrenching. Further, Akechi could've been a more nuanced character, had his concerns about the Phantom Thieves actions led to any real consequences. I could think of no better reason for Akechi to turn against his comrades after seeing their ideals fail. While P5 does a good job of demonstrating injustice from within the system, through Akechi, it could've done the same for injustice from without. Instead, we get an info dump about his daddy issues before he flips into a psycho.

As much as I enjoyed the climax of P5, it dawned on me just how tiresome of a cliche that deicide is becoming in JRPGs, even in a game as fresh as this. For only so many times can one reiterate, in the exact same way, that religious dogma is the opiate of the masses, until the critique becomes an opiate in and of itself. If killing god is to remain a staple of the JRPG, then it has to either nuance god or make god personal. In Final Fantasy VI and Final Fantasy VII, both Kefka and Sephiroth end up as gods, but they aren't just transparent stand-ins for philosophical commentary. Kefka and Sephiroth both had relationships with the protagonists throughout, and had affected them personally. So meeting them at the end, even as gods, was heightened with the anticipation to dispatch justice at last. Yaboveleth, however, has no such relation, he's just another god to be slain.

It would've been serviceable enough if P5's problems resolved themselves after the defeat of Yabolveleth, but game goes on, making us confront the legal fallout of what Joker's situation. It wisely forces the Phantom Thieves to overcome a situation with their wits instead of their powers. The whole sequence of seeing all of those whom you've bonded with attest to your good character is a new retelling of the "power of friendship" trope often used to defeat the final boss. It also cements to us the difficulty of "rehabilitation" in the eyes of society, prisoner or otherwise.

On a small note, some have critiqued the gay couple who chase after you at random spots in the game as a lazy stereotype of homosexuals. While they're a minor part of the game, I can't help but share some of the irritation. Persona is known for its complex characters, so why are we still getting cheap comedy villains? In P4, there were three: King Moron (ha ha, he's ugly!) Miss Kashiwagi (ha ha, she's old!) Hanako (ha ha, she's fat!). Even P3 makes a gag out of a trans woman hitting on you at the beach. There were always moments when I expected the other shoe to drop, and we'd learn something new to change our assumptions, but alas. That's not to say these characters couldn't be funny (in P4's case they often were), but it's just, I don't know, for a series that critiqued fat shaming through Ai Ebihara, explored homoerotic desire through Kanji, and even introduced the wise-cracking drag queen Lala Escargot, the continued use of these stock villains feels beneath its reputation. Oh, well.

This will be the last Persona game with director Katsura Hoshino, who first brought the series to global prominence with Persona 3, shepherded it into the halls of excellence with Persona 4. Whatever the future of this series, I imagine that Persona 5 may signal the end of an era that has fundamentally changed the way we think about JRPGs. A series that showed us that the everyday social activities of high school can be just as enthralling as fighting monsters in the dungeons of a faraway kingdom.