The Other Side of the Fourth Wall

Warning: This contains some spoilers of One Piece episodes, albeit over a decade old. Previously, I did a blog entry on how short title can be more effective and memorable. This time, I'll look at long titles, and some of their shortcomings. For starters, works with long titles are almost never referred to by their full name. For example, My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead To Doom is commonly called Hamefura(an abbreviated version of the title in Japanese), or Bakarina(a nickname for the kind but dimwitted heroine). While there are various types of short titles with various meanings, long titles are almost invariably a summary of the work itself. Take, for example, the story of Moll Flanders, the full title of which is, " The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, Etc. Who Was Born In Newgate, and During a Life of Continu'd Variety For Threescore Years, Besides Her Childhood, Was Twelve Year a Whore, Five Times a Wife [Whereof Once To Her Own Brot...

Giving a name to a work of fiction serves a variety of purposes apart from giving a name to the work. They also grab viewers' attention, and serve as a first impression of sorts. As such, short titles can often be the most memorable. Some of the titles are rather simple, and can refer to the protagonist, the setting or some object or plot element.  For example, Naruto refers to the series' orange-clad ninja protagonist, My Hero Academia refers to the school that the series is set at, One Piece is the fabled treasure that pirates are seeking and Sword Art Online is the "game of death". In these cases, you can instantly tell what the title is and how it's relevant to the work. The source of the title doesn't always have to be obvious. For example, Kingdom Hearts' namesake is only revealed toward the end of the first game, while the Chrono Trigger is only introduced near the end of the game, around the time the endgame quests become available. Short titles ca...

I decided to round out the AI retellings of the modern Persona games with an AI retelling of the fifth game. Unlike the previous two, I decided to start with the prologue sequence in the casino, rather than when Ren reaches Tokyo. Surprisingly, the scenario ended up being relatively plausible this time, except for the lack of Metaverse elements (which would be difficult for the AI to understand) Again, I put the prompt and all the other parts I manually inserted in bold, and put footnotes in parentheses. You are Ren Amamiya, known to your friends as Joker. You are a 16 year old Japanese high school student and are the leader of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts. You and your friends recently pulled off a heist in a casino, and have learned that the police are on their way to arrest all of you. In order to make your escape, you have offered to serve as a diversion. You scamper across the chandeliers and catwalks above the main floor of the casino as you try to make your escape from the pol...

 Nowadays, Harvest Moon isn't the only farming game franchise, let alone the only farming game, but back when it was first released on the Super Nintendo in 1996, the idea of a farming game was rather surprising. Gameplay The game is about you, a young farmer, being given your grandfather's farm and being expected to get it up to shape within two and a half years; each season is 30 days, and the game lasts until the end of the third summer, so that's 300 days. Your primary source of income comes from planting crops, which involves tilling the soil, planting the seeds, watering the seeds on a daily basis and harvesting them. You can also raise cows and chickens for milk and eggs, and supplement your income by harvesting herbs. The nearby town has much of what you need, from seeds to farming equipment, although you'll have to raise the money to purchase such equipment. Unlike most RPGs at the time- or even most video games in general that don't involve an arcade-style...

Map design is important to strategy games, especially the Fire Emblem series. The series has had a variety of maps that vary from mission to mission, and game to game- some are small, while others are large, and some are simple while others are complex. Fire Emblem Gaiden, which was remade as Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, has especially poor map design, and I will rank the ten maps that I believe are the worst in the game.  I will evaluate maps based on the final criteria, ranked in order of importance. Difficulty : Whether a map is too easy, too hard or just right. Terrain : Whether the terrain provides a reasonable challenge or unnecessarily hinders the player. Bland and nondescript maps aren't very good, but they are unlikely to get on this list. Enemies : An important part of map design is the enemies- the number of enemies, the strength of each opposing unit, the types of foes, and their placement on the map. Objectives : Whether the map design favors the objective ...

You may remember that a little while ago, I decided to see what Persona 3's story would be like if AI Dungeon was telling it . This time, it's Persona 4's turn. This time, I decided to do some things differently. First, I had the AI remember some things. Your name is Yu Narukami. You are a 16 year old boy. Dojima is your uncle, as well as your mother's younger brother. For the following year- April 11, 2011 to March 21, 2012- you will be living in Inaba and attending school at Yasogami High School. You are a second-year at Yasogami High School. Second, I decided to take a more active role in shaping the story, choosing Yu's interactions; like the prompt, they will be in bold. I will occasionally use the Undo/Retry feature if the story gets too far off track, to the point of forgetting where it's set or who the characters are. Once again, I will include footnotes. Without further ado, let's begin. You are Yu Narukami, a second-year Japanese high school boy. Y...