WhatATravesty's Musings

He/Him WhatATravesty was taken, unfortunately. Here is where I'll talk about games, movies, music, manga.

[whatatravestymusing]

I love collecting Switch games, but I hate the "sea of red" you get from putting them on a shelf, spine out. The bright side is that it incentivizes having a smaller collection so you can display games cover out.

Lord knows me and my fellow Switch collectors can do with having a slimmer, curated collection.

[whatatravestymusing]

I am obsessed with the game Sorcerian. I can't explain it.

[whatatravestymusing]

This is just my opinion.

A pet peeve of mine in RPGs (specifically in high fantasy adventure oriented rpgs) is the ubiquity of the BBEG. I've seen many GMs go "oh the BBEG in my campaign...", I've seen plenty of memes referencing the BBEG and their attached tropes, I've seen articles about BBEGs. It bothers me because I feel like it makes people think a BBEG is necessary to HFAO RPGs, which isn't the case.

I especially am not a fan when the BBEG is explicitly the reason why a character sets out on adventure. I much prefer intrinsic motivations for PCs, since in my experience this is more likely to get the player more personally invested (I feel compelled to explain myself at all times. I understand that the majority of the time, there needs to be an inciting incident for a character to want to risk their lives as an adventurer since the vast majority of people would rather keep their safe option of inheriting the family business, but your village getting pillaged is just too little agency for a PC. In my opinion).

Don't have a BBEG for the sake of having one or because you feel obligated to do so. For a heroic adventure, placing an emphasis on rescuing or protecting people might be the route to go. For instance, drakes have been pushed out of their normal habitat and are threatening a local village. Your players repel a wave of drakes from the village, rescue villagers who were carried away, and journey out to resolve the root of the problem (which could be anything, I trust your creativity). For non-heroic (but not evil) parties, why is a BBEG even necessary?

Small point, but call your BBEG your antagonist. You spent a long time and a lot of effort building them up and incorporating them into your world. Give them the respect your creativity deserves.

My goal here is just to make you think. I may have more say on this topic and probably will later.

[whatatravestymusing]

My number one priority when writing Pathfinder campaigns is to put as many colorful, magical orbs in as I possibly can. When I played Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup for the first time, I was absolutely defeated to learn that the Runes of Zot you collect provide no mechanical benefit. To rectify this, I changed the Runes to orbs and scatter them around my Pathfinder world for my players to find and they do provide mechanical benefits, as well as satisfying everyone's innate need to hold spheres.

Here's your adventure inspiration for the day: Ophidian Orb

[whatatravestymusing]

Today, I'm thinking about the game Zero Gunner 2, an omnidirectional shoot 'em up, developed by Psikyo. It's one of those cases where every single aspect of the game really speaks to me. For one thing, it has my absolute favorite aesthetic style of shmups, which is everything being some sort of overdesigned robot. As much as I like Mushihimesama and Twinklestar Sprites, there's just something I like about the mechanical designs of Zero Gunner, Donpachi, and Raiden. Skeleton Realm would call it a "shmup, classic style", at least in terms of looks.

I say in terms of looks because what really got me hooked on Zero Gunner 2 was its controls. You play as a helicopter and as you move you stay in the same direction and you need to hold a button to rotate your helicopter. I have never played anything like it. It adds a layer of engagement to the movement and to the memorization of patterns. The helicopters you pick (of which there are 3) each of a different ancillary attack the may function independent of the direction your ship is facing. It is definitely the core of the game.

Polygonal Dreamcast games also fill me with a warmth I have a hard time describing. Zero Gunner 2, the backgrounds to Marvel vs Capcom 2 and Capcom vs SNK 2, Soul Blade, Skies of Arcadia. This extends to the other 6th gen consoles as well, but the Dreamcast has the best track record of colorful, interesting looking games. Gamecube comes *this* close, but the licensed games hold it back overall.

But what really prompted me to think about Zero Gunner 2 was Matthew Matosis' Meta Microvideos (https://youtu.be/PGv4ixLllWo) and how he discusses some pieces of media can be more appreciated the more media you engage with. I don't think I would like Zero Gunner 2 if I haven't been playing shmups for years before hand. Similarly, I love the Atelier franchise because of how fresh it felt compared to other JRPGs I've been playing for years. Especially compared to Trails of Cold Steel, which I really, really detest.

Everything you've experienced adds to how you view art, that's something I need to keep in mind.

[whatatravestymusing]

I was at a (relatively) nearby retro game / gunpla / general anime merch store that has quite an awesome arcade as a part of it. Mostly Japanese games. I played something a have never seen before called Too Spicy, a light gun game by Sega. It really dominated the arcade, it was two giant yellow and black cabinets and they were super loud, the exact kind of thing I'm looking for.

The gameplay was like an advanced Time Crisis. Instead of just a panel to get in and out of cover, there were two pedals you used to move between different pieces of cover and when you weren't aiming at the screen, you would hide behind cover. Honestly, it did feel pretty odd since you were supposed to use only one foot for the two pedals and the travel distance was just slightly too far.

Where it differs from Time Crisis is that you select a character to play as, each with a different weapon. Instead of fighting off multiple mooks at once, the levels I got through played more like John Woo duels, with you fighting a single opponent and the game promoting you move between pieces of cover since some can be destroyed (which is very cool).

The cover system is what made the game, and Sega knew it. One of my favorite things game devs do is when they know what their central mechanic is, and they run with it. One level took place on a cargo ship and most of the cover was comprised of shipping containers which slide across ship, leaving you exposed. Love it.

But honestly, what I liked the most was that I was able to play a game that I enjoyed but would never been able to find. It was a wonderful surprise and it makes me immensely happy there are still interesting games out there I haven't played yet.