The Other Side of the Fourth Wall

Death is inevitable in video games. Perhaps your health ran down to zero after failing to dodge one attack too many. Perhaps you missed a jump and fell into a bottomless pit. Or perhaps you ran out of time or failed some other objective that caused you to lose without your character dying. So how do games punish you for failure while also giving you a chance to try again? I will look at this trope through the Super Mario Bros. franchise to show how extra lives gradually fell out of favor. For much of gaming history, extra lives were the way to give you a limited number of chances to beat the game. Every time you died, you lost a life, and if you lost all of them, the game would end(unless you had a continue, which would enable you to resume play with a few extra lives). Many games would offer the chance to obtain extra lives or continues, whether by obtaining rare items (e.g.1-Up Mushrooms), many common items (e.g. coins) or a certain amount of points. In Mario's first games- D

If you are familiar with Fire Emblem, you may know of the Support system, in which units fighting alongside each other leads to enhanced performance, friendship and even love. There are many different pairs of support partners, but some units cannot support, which leads to a few missed opportunities. This blog entry will show some characters who I think should be able to support with each other, starting with general examples and going into specific games. The list is by no means complete, and I may eventually post a second volume if I come up with more ideas. General Any "Avatar-sexual"   units/units with only one support chain and other units.  One of the joys of support conversations is that different interactions bring out different sides of a character's personality, or different parts of their backstory. For example, in Three Houses, Ferdinand's supports with Hubert contrasts their relationships with Edelgard, while his supports with Mercedes go into what

If you follow serial works of fiction, like a comic strip or a TV show, you generally expect new content at regular intervals, and may be disappointed or upset if the content does not arrive at the designated time. Said occurrences have become more common during the coronavirus outbreak; for example, the One Piece anime has gone onto hiatus, and the manga is coming out less often. For this reason, I will spend this post discussing release dates. Back when I started this blog not very long ago, I had considered doing one post every weekday, but quickly realized that this pace would not be feasible. Instead, I decided to try to make one post every five days. To put it simply, I made the change because I had no desire to make promises I could not keep. Essentially, a regular update schedule can be thought of as a promise to your readers, who will understandably become upset if you end up breaking that promise. Perhaps some fans have a sense of entitlement when it comes to their favori

Minor Bloom Into You spoilers follow Localizing foreign media is far more complicated than just translating it from the original language, although there are many stories that struggle with even that. Localizers must make the work understandable to audiences, while still retaining the spirit of the original to the greatest extent possible. These two conflicting goals present problems when it comes to translating aspects of the work that are unique to its original language, such as puns or other idiosyncracies of the language, not to mention cultural aspects. Bloom Into You is a lesbian romance story that would almost certainly be very different if it were not set in Japan. This from the main couple, Touko and Yuu, being a "senpai" and "kohai" ("senior" and "junior") to the idea that "romantic" friendships between girls are a phase in adolescence and nothing more. One key aspect is how the characters speak to each other, and I will e

You may recall that one of my first posts on this blog was about how to write reviews well . I would like to revisit a similar subject this time, more specifically the topic of writing fan fiction reviews for sites such as FanFiction.net and Archive Of Our Own. Most of what I said in the previous post still applies, so please take a look at the review for the basics on content and length. However, there is one important point about writing fan fiction reviews that does not apply to other kinds of user reviews: These reviews are for the benefit of the authors, not prospective readers. Some readers read the reviews, but mainly to see what other people thought about the fic, rather than for help deciding whether they should read fic. Most reviews are specifically addressed to the author, and written as feedback on the work. With that in mind, here are a few more specific pieces of advice. Try to focus on constructive criticism : If you strongly dislike a work, it's fine to m

Some Fates and Three Houses spoilers In this entry, I will compare Fire Emblem: Three Houses with Fire Emblem Fates; the latter was the previous new Fire Emblem (Shadows of Valentia was a remake of Gaiden), which is why Three Houses is most often compared with Fates. Fates was divisive for many reasons, and I will concede that Three Houses is a better game in most qualities. However, I appreciate many of the things Fates did well, and will highlight those areas in this post. The choice of allegiance feels more personal In Three Houses, you will choose which house to teach almost immediately after meeting the three house leaders, and getting a cursory introduction to the rest of the students; talking to the house leader will have that person explain each student's personality and skillsets, while you can walk around Garreg Mach and talk to the students yourself. Unfortunately, there's relatively little information at the time, and less reason to care about the house and s

I remember getting Super Mario 64 along with the Nintendo 64 on the day they first came out, back when I was in elementary school. As fun as the game was to play back then, it's easiest to appreciate in retrospect, even though many other games have expanded and improved upon the formula. Many games tend to struggle with a balance of linearity and open-endedness, but Super Mario 64 establishes a happy medium in the first few minutes. You begin with Mario across the bridge from Peach's Castle, and, obviously enough, are directed to go inside the castle. Once inside, you will learn about how Bowser used the power of the Stars to seal the castle, and how Mario must explore the worlds inside the paintings to claim that power. Your first destination is Bob-Omb Battlefield, and to get the first star, you can follow a relatively straightforward path to the top of the mountain. After running, jumping and fighting enemies, you must defeat King Bob-Omb to claim the star. Of course, yo

Spoilers for Fire Emblem: Three Houses follow In Fire Emblem, Three Houses, your most important decision comes near the beginning of the game. After the prologue, you, the son of the mercenary Jeralt, end up being hired to teach at the Officers Academy at Garreg Mach Monastery, and must choose one of the game's eponymous three houses to teach. Your choices are the Black Eagles, which consists of students from the Empire of Adrestia, the Blue Lions, whose students are from the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, and the Golden Deer, which is for students from the Leicester Alliance. Your choice determines which of the game's three Lords you will fight alongside, which other students join your army and which route the story will take (There is an additional choice in the Black Eagles path, one that I will discuss later). Unsurprisingly, people have strong opinions as to which path is best. My personal choice is the Black Eagles route, which is known as Crimson Flower, and I will discus