Final Fantasy 2: Story and Leveling

Two of my favorite franchises in video games are The Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy. The two have several things in common. They’re both extremely popular and long-running series. They both tend to shun traditional sequels, kicking off each title with a different setting and story. They also both have a second entry that tried something drastically different and ended up as the black sheep. I played both black sheep years ago, gave up in frustration, and eventually revisited each of them for reviews.

But upon further examination, their similarities dry up. The Legend of Zelda may hit the reset button almost every entry, but there’s a lot that stays the same. Up until its most recent title, the biggest criticism anyone could level was that it was formulaic. It dealt in presenting new lands, challenges, and incremental tweaks. Iteration rather than innovation. But Final Fantasy?

The most you can say is it stays roughly within the same genre.

And then there's the spinoffs, which are often ARE different genres. For better or worse.

Breath of the Wild Hard Mode

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Breath of the Wild. Only mild story spoilers, but a bunch on mechanics.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a phenomenal game, but it features a fair few new features for the series. One such feature is paid DLC, set to deliver extra content at a later date. Among the bullet point promises shot out of a pre-release press image is hard mode, set to release this August. A number of previous Zelda games have had this, down to the very first, but with varying levels of alteration. Most just raise a bunch of damage numbers, but others feature more drastic changes and sometimes even brand-new content.

We have no idea know what hard mode for BotW involves yet. It probably won’t be anything special. But given that the game occupies the majority of my free time and waking thoughts, I thought I’d engage in some baseless speculation/suggestion. Here are some things that could make Breath of the Wild more difficult in a way that’s engaging and worthwhile. But! There’s a catch: I’m going to try and get as much possible out of the least amount of effort. I’m sure there’s not an avalanche of resources going into hard mode. Obviously it would be preferable if they added new content, and redid all the enemies, and changed all the puzzles, and altered all the mechanics, and basically just built an entirely new game. But no one does that*, and it’s also more interesting to write under constraints rather than just say “Make Everything Better”.

*That I know of. If you’ve got a game in mind, I’d be interested to hear about it.

Let’s start with the obvious:

Pepsiman Review (Sponsored Content)

Greetings to all my readers, new and actual. I’m here today to announce an exciting new prospect for all of us* here at Genericide Entertainment! We’re expanding our horizons and shifting paradigms into an incredible new avenue of fresh possibilities and dynamic opportunities. In other words, we’ve gone corporate! That’s right, Genericide Entertainment is now ad-sponsored content! This is sure to be an exciting new era of community connection, exciting innovation, fan-author synergy and exciting new realms of quality products. I’m excited. But before I could embark on this exciting new journey, I needed to get a sponsor in the first place.

*Me

This was difficult, since these days long-form text articles are about as lively as your favorite Everquest server. Most of the focus is on YouTube channels, a fact I was happy to exploit until I remembered I don’t have one of those. Unfortunately both Crunchyroll and Audible required I have at least 5 subscribers before sponsoring me. Despite my best efforts, they were not swayed by a potential 5 subscribers. Loot Crate was though. Expect the unboxing video to come up whenever I can figure out how to work my phone’s camera.

Oblivion Adventures Part 22: Stealing the Show

Last time on Oblivion Adventures, our morally murky mercenary marksman tried to get a leg up on the competition. It didn’t go so well. Now, a mere, er…eight months later, the story continues…

The Waterfront District of the Imperial City leaked in more ways than one. Beyond the solid stone walls of the district proper, buildings oozed out towards the shore like urban sludge. It wasn’t the only way this shantytown resembled sludge. The living arrangements were only homes by technicality, local vernacular was 90% beatings, and its citizens bathed about as much as they paid rent. But for some unfathomable reason, this wretched hive of scum and villainy had a fairly nice little garden squirreled away between a few of its hovels.

Note I’m using some artistic license here. The GAME calls it a garden. I call it a hilariously tiny backyard without a single god damn plant in it.

It was here that a hooded figure loitered, propped up against the city wall. S’razirr was no stranger to waiting. Epic tales of heroes and vagabonds painted a picture of smooth, continuous action. Non-stop adventures of rescues and battles, close calls and suspense, hedonism and danger. The Khajiit snorted. Even as a child he’d known it was a load of imp’s gall. But exactly how much hadn’t hit him until his first time on all night watch duty in the bowels of a musty tomb. Eventually the boredom gets so oppressive even the threat of hungry undead monstrosities can’t keep you on edge. No, the vast majority of adventuring was dull as mud. It had to be. There were only so many things to kill or be killed by. And even if you knew exactly where and when to find them, everyone needed to sleep.

Genericide Update: Chateau de Frog Vomit

Summary: Oblivion post next week.

Being sick sucks. Obvious, but true. Especially if you’re like me, and never seem to do it halfway. I’m either poppin mad hangtime with my crew in total envy of my rad bad attitude, or I’m…wait, hold on a minute. Wrong homonym.

Being sick sucks. Obvious, but true. Especially if you’re like me, and never seem to do it halfway. I’m either so pure surgeons use my spit as a disinfectant or my body is holding together like a realistically portrayed zombie and my mental state is plummeting down a garbage chute into the bile ducts of a demonic toad.  The only upside to illness is it gives you a convenient excuse for not writing blog articles.

Genericide Update: Little Orphan Jimjerroo

The Gist: Bad MMO article coming soon; Oblivion article coming soon+1.

And so, I triumphantly return once more to the noble tradition of filler blog updates! That’s…that’s a thing that can be triumphant, right? And noble? I mean, not that noble, obviously. It’s not like I’m saving any starving orphans with these filler update posts. Although then again, who am I to say? Perhaps poor little orphan Jimjerroo, already driven to depression by his hilariously stupid name, only needed one more obscure filler blog post to keep on living. And that blog post is mine.

If that were the case, which for simplicity sake we’ll just say it definitely is, why then this blog post would be conclusively proved to be the best thing ever. Proved so conclusively that it would require a frankly excessive amount of italic text. Yeah, what can I say? I’m just a natural humanitarian. The Red Cross should really be allocating more of their budget in getting me to write about how JRPG stories are a load of butts. It’s just the most logical way to save mankind.

Cold Smokes and Metaphors, Part 2

11:16 PM, December 24th. South Personificationsburg, Abstractia.

Shifty Simmons was leaning back onto an alley dumpster, entangled in a moth-ridden trench coat three sizes too large for him. He held a stack of bills in his hands, passing them back and forth like a deck of playing cards and taking in the crisp yet crumpled scent of Legitimately Acquired legal tender. Sighing contentedly, he stuffed the bills back in his pocket and smoothed down the dusky patchwork spider web he called hair. As he rose back to his intimidating peak of four foot ten, I decided to speak up.

“Evening, Sim.”

“AH!” Simmons jump earned him more hang time than an 18th century pickpocket. The landing, however, was a mere 3 out of 10.

“D-D-Donny! What a s-surprise!” he wheedled like a clarinet filled with equal parts phlegm and sawdust. “What, ah, eheh, brings you to my neck of the woods?”

I stepped out of the shadows and rolled my eyes, vision glowing with a six pack of cigarettes rubber-banded together.

“Please, Sim. Even you can’t be that dense. Why does anyone come to you?”