The Other Side of the Fourth Wall

 Around Christmas 2017, I watched Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi in theaters, and wasn't quite sure what to think. It's possibly the most divisive entry in the entire Star Wars franchise, not just the sequel trilogy, for a variety of reasons, although some people are viewing it more favorably in light of last year's The Rise of Skywalker. Having watched the movie a second time a few months before seeing Rise of Skywalker in theaters, and having seen it for a third time this Christmas, I will take a look at the movie- both the overarching film and each of the three main characters' storylines- with the benefit of hindsight. The Film In General The Last Jedi still has much of what made the franchise great- plenty of exciting action, excellent special effects and a story that takes the heroes and villains across the galaxy(I especially enjoyed Crait, with the red dirt beneath the white salt seeming like blood spilled during the battle). Despite that, it's a departure

 When you see one of the infamous "walls of text"- a large chunk of text without paragraph breaks- do you think "This passage is such a pain to read?" I certainly do, but I also think, "The person who wrote it isn't very good at organizing their thoughts." Throughout my time in school, I was taught that each paragraph in an essay or other informative piece (a review, a news story, etc.) should be for a specific idea. Whenever I wrote an essay, I would write outlines in which each paragraph would contain one of my main points, and each sentence would either support or explain that point. By the time I had my outline finished, I generally knew what I wanted to say and even had a good idea of how long it would be, and the only thing left was to actually write up my piece. A wall of text has no such organization. Rather than organizing their thoughts into the right categories and logically linking them together, the writers of such walls of text simply kee

 You may have heard of "jumping puzzle" sequences in video games, often by gamers who are rather frustrated with them. I will look at some of the reasons why they are often disliked, and how to do them better. The first reason why jumping puzzles are often disliked is because they often require extremely precise timing. Often, the only way to successfully make a jump is to push the jump button at the last possible second after a running start, which often happens in games with relatively little air control, such as first person shooters. Even in games with better jump mechanics, such as Super Mario Bros., the problem can still persist; in World 8-2 of the original Super Mario Bros., there is a wide gap that can only be crossed by bouncing off a Bullet Bill or by landing on a platform with a running start, passing over the gap between it and the adjacent platform and then jumping with excellent timing. The second reason is that it isn't always clear whether any given jump

 Every game series begins somewhere, and Ace Attorney is no exception. Considering how much the series has changed over time, it can be surprising to see the story's more humble beginnings, which are best represented in the very first case, the aptly titled The First Turnabout. From a gameplay perspective, the case is essentially a tutorial, especially since it's Phoenix Wright's first case as a defense attorney. This is reflected in a few aspects of the case. The game has the Judge quiz Phoenix, and by extension, the player, on three facts about the case- the name of the defendant, the name of the victim and the cause of death. The former is obvious, but the latter two require you two check the Court Record, serving as a way to introduce that feature. The culprit, Frank Sahwit, is shown to you in a flashback detailing the moment of the murder, and is the only witness besides the defendant who takes the stand. Only a handful of other cases did this- the second case of this

The harem series is a genre, most often associated with anime, manga and light novels, that gets a bad reputation for various reasons. To some people, the idea of multiple women throwing themselves at the male protagonist borders on sexism(admittedly, there are "reverse harem" stories with the genres reversed), or reeks of wish fulfillment, but there's another problem not everyone has considered. When there are multiple contenders for the hero's heart, who will win in the end? One could argue that finding out is part of the fun, and I can understand that. However, many stories tend to have one of three outcomes, each with its own pitfalls. Outcome 1: An Obvious Winner Sometimes, the outcome isn't much of a surprise. The winning candidate turns out to be the one who was obvious from Day 1, assuming you were paying attention. So where does that leave the others? Perhaps they're simply there to add color to the story, or to mislead the reader into thinking they h

 It's generally hard to find any Bakuman readers who like Miura more than they like Hattori, since the latter seems to be better at his job and has a better rapport with the main characters. However, having Miura take over as Muto Ashirogi's editor was a good move for the story, and this post will explain why unpopular characters can still play vital roles in their respective stories. First, here's some context. Hattori helped guide Mashiro and Takagi through the process of getting their feet in the door at Shonen Jump (or "Jack," if you watch the anime). They have talent, but they still need to hone their skills and learn the ins and outs of Jump before they can get published. If they hadn't gotten a good editor to guide them through this process, they likely would never have succeeded, and they have Hattori to thank for it. Enter Miura, who takes over as their editor just after their first work, Detective Trap, gets published, despite not having played any r

 By now, most video games are too long to complete in one sitting (unless, of course, you're a speedrunner, but getting to that point requires countless hours of practice and many playthroughs), so it's a given that they need to come with methods of saving your progress. Save features are practically universal, and often, games have an auto-save system. But many older games did not feature such a system, and instead had to find workarounds, such as passwords. The concept is simple. At certain points(often when you run out of lives), the game would give you a password, ostensibly the proof you had reached this point, which you would then have to write down for later use. By entering the password, you would then be able to get back up to where you left off. It wasn't the most elegant solution, but it served its purpose, ensuring that players who ran out of lives or had to quit could pick up where they left off. As a bonus, it was possible to hear about certain passwords from