Xenogears: The First Five Villains

Villains. Can't live with 'em, can't have a good story without 'em. Seriously, without a villain, a game is either about solving puzzles or playing sports, and even those games sometimes have bad guys at the end.

Your evil mileage may vary.

Putting together a villain is complex. There are varying degrees of villainy and each one is right or wrong depending on the situation. You wouldn't pit Murky and Lurky up against The Punisher any more than you would let Hannibal Lecter loose on Sesame Street.

Five! Five fava beans! Ah-ha ha!

Having a villain suited to the hero is the foundation of a well-crafted tale. Superman, the god struggling to become a human, needs Lex Luthor, the human desperate to be a god. The pro and an versions of a story's tagonist naturally need to be at odds over some aspect of the story, but their reasons for being so are the stuff separating the boring stories from epic tales.

Of course, what's most important to creating some real drama is driving home the point of exactly how the hero and villain of a story match up. Some like to see evenly matched opposites, like Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty, or Captain Picard and that evil clone of Captain Picard from Star Trek: Nemesis.

The only way to beat Picard is with more Picard.

Others prefer it when the hero is hopelessly outmatched and has overwhelming odds to fight through. Then there are those stories where either side could be right, it's all a matter of perspective as to who the bad guy is. Villains run the gamut from hideously evil to morally ambiguous and every stop in-between. That's why what matters in establishing this is how the villain is portrayed in relation to others. Now, I'm only a few hours in to my new playthrough of Xenogears, having finally grabbed a moment to beat Suikoden III for good and all a few weeks ago,  and I can tell you already that this game has done its antagonists up better than most of the games of the last decade even tried to.

Let's spend a little time discussing some of the bad guys of the Xenogears world, and how with a few select scenes the writers made them come to life.

Poll Dancing

Check out the hot new addition to the Backlog on the right-hand side of the page!

Ayn and I both have a glut of titles to get through and we want to hear from you regarding which ones we should go through and write about next. So you, our loyal readers, get to pick which games get the Backlog treatment, meaning a lot of (hopefully) witty observations about the gameplay and story replete with humorously-captioned pictures.

For Ayn, choose between;

 

Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne, the only game so far I've attempted and given up on. Can Ayn muscle through where sanity demands you quit?

 

Star Ocean: The Last Hope, a game that will hopefully redeem the Star Ocean series after what happened in SO3. Or will it (it probably won't)?

Baten Kaitos Origins is . . . a game that was made, that's undeniable. Ayn is offering to play through it for you, and if nothing else that tells you how dedicated we are to what we do.

People have called Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together the best remake of the oft-revisited game. Would you like to see what Ayn has to say about it?

As for me, I'm making an offering of three of the titles still left on my Almost Got 'Em list. So would you rather read about my exploits playing through . . .

I've already got a game going on Xenogears, so any thoughts on the matter, not to mention eventual completion, would come a lot faster than the other games on this list. Just sayin!

 

Of course, then there's Lunar: Silver Star Story complete, a game I actually have beaten without realizing you can still die after the last boss.  Can I redeem myself and not march Alex to his death with a second playthrough?

 Finally, the always love-it-or-hate-it Final Fantasy VIII is up on the Backlog block. Will I collect every card? Will I make sense of the story? Will I give Angelo a hilarious name? It's up to you!

So there you have it; your list of choices for what you'd like to see from us next. Voting ends in a week, and we can't wait to see what you decide.

Until next time, you decide what we keep playing.

AGE: Suikoden III and the Lost Generation

                                                                                                                                          Gamer Limit

When I first began seriously building my video game collection, I was happy if I could keep $1,000 in the bank at any given time. Now I could re-buy my entire collection ten times over and don't have the time to play any of them. So while I had intended to get through my list of Almost Got 'Em titles this summer, I ended up not even making a dent in the last game I was playing, Suikoden III. However, with what I had played and what I remember from my first attempt at scaling its heights (and Ayn's subtle threats of physical violence if I didn't post something while he's on vacation), I've got enough material to tackle one more post about Suikoden III and how it represents a void in the overall Suikoden narrative that may never be filled.

One of the enthralling things about the Suikoden series has been the lore of the world it takes place in. The creator of the series, Yoshitaka Murayama, originally conceived of the second game first. When he was greenlighted by Konami to make a game for them, he decided to put his grand vision on the back burner to test out the waters with a prequel to his concept. So Suikoden, the game so good it was the whole reason I bought a Playstation in the first place, was the game Murayama made because he needed to prepare the world for what he really had in mind.

"4 stars? It's a start."

And what a story he told! In the span of two games Murayama gave us the Toran Republic and the City-State of Jowston. The epic retelling of the classic Chinese tale The Water Margin with its rebel alliance and domineering empire and impenetrable Death Star.

It's a trap!

Through two games, separated by three years of in-game time, a tale was woven of stalwart heroes and tragic villains, of powerful runes and ancient civilizations, of love, sacrifice, triumph, tragedy, all while making a moving statement about the human condition. Suikoden I and II introduced us to the concepts which were at the heart of Murayama's vision; a saga about a world with 27 True Runes as the focal point of not just magic, but the tragic wars and inspiring heroism that envelop their owners, and the power of the hearts of 108 heroes joined together to change the world.

When Suikoden II was released, it thrilled many players almost right off the bat by not only revealing the fates of two heroes from the previous game who had vanished at its conclusion, but then adding them to your party. This set the stage for discovering that the world would be full of previous "Stars of Destiny" still shining 3 years later. Not only that, but people and areas only referenced in the first Suikoden were now revealed in full, building a whole new layer to an already fantastic story. When Suikoden III was released, taking place a full 15 years after the first sequel, it not only followed suit, but introduced more children than either of the two previous games, hinting at another big time jump and a thrilling new adventure in store for all the fans of the series in Suikoden IV.

And then that never happened.

Every Mario game needs to begin with this.

You know, most, if not all, Mario games, really don't have any sort of prologue.  It's just Mario on his merry way to save Princess Peach/Toadstool.

However, the webcomic Ctrl+Alt+Del captures how every Mario game SHOULD begin:

http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20120720

...As I look on my shelf of games, I'm suddenly tempted to play Super Mario Galaxy.

Tales of Trolldom

I've been doing a few short posts here and there about Tales of Graces F.  I recently finished the game about a month ago, which considering standard RPG length, as well as..well, the nature of this blog, is a pretty remarkable feat.  While I do want to talk some of the games merits later in this post, the bulk of what I'll be writing about -- which to forewarn you, will be potentially spoiler-heavy in some parts -- deals with the title of this post:

Tales of Graces F has some of the biggest trolls in an RPG I have seen in quite some time.

Even better?  They all travel with you at some point.

If you haven't finished the game, or plan to play it and are adverse to spoilers, then be warned before you continue.  If you've finished it, or simply don't care, then read on:  If you're in the first category, I'm sure you'll be nodding along.

The Motion of the Ocean

The other day, I booted up Star Ocean:  The Last Hope for PS3.  I'd long heard mixed things about the game, but among the many things that stood out, one was evident, which I credit an old linkshellmate from FFXI mentioning:

The main character's name, Edge Maverick, sounds like a porn star name.

Naturally, I decided to share this with my good friend:


Nick: That's cause it just may be the worst SO in the series.
...Well.. it's a fight with 3 but still...

Ayn: Plus the main character's name sounds like a porn star.
Edge Maverick.

Nick: ROFL
It does!
Edge Maverick is ready to plow you good baby.

Ayn: He's ready to venture into the depths of space.
Where no man has ever gone before.
His rocket's ready for launch.

Nick: BLAAASSSSST OFF

Ayn: LOL.

Nick: That is a terrible name and now I can never forget this.

Ayn: My work here is done.

Edge Maverick: The name of a porn star, or a pro wrestler? You decide (and feel free to leave a comment!).

Something Worth Adding to Your Backlog

Many gamers look forward to Steam's summer sales to score good deals on games that they'll likely never get around to playing in the same year.  While I'm admittedly more of a console gamer than a PC gamer, and really only acquired steam because my purchase of a box copy of The Last Remnant required me to do so, I nevertheless respect the service.

However, even without The Last Remnant, Steam is worth getting simply for this:  Ys Origin.

While there's always the possibility that we may land Origin as a Playstation Vita port years down the line, I think it's worth supporting XSEED's venture onto Steam by purchasing this title.  It's already cheaper than when it came out a few months, and quite frankly, it's a steal at 12 bucks.

No, Steam's not paying me to do this, although my enjoyment of the Ys series has already been documented.

While this sale allegedly ends on July 23rd, stuff on Steam is always going on sale.  Still, I wouldn't delay purchasing it too long, as what I've played of it (mainly to test how well my laptop outputs to an HDTV -- wonderfully I might add) shows a promising game.

As icing on the cake?  The soundtrack is just as good as, if not better (hey, it's hard to beat "A Searing Struggle") than Oath in Felghana.