Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 84)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we save the world (twice!), look at how to make a movie look great forever and then we burn things in the coolest way.

• First, we have SuperJeenius's Let's Plays of Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age.
  
  I'm not sure I made it clear ever, but this series of blog posts is based on all of the videos I've favourited and sometimes me-from-the-past seems set to make my job harder. This volume has been one of the problems where that's been the case. I found a bunch of videos in the list and I don't know why I liked them, so a lot of them got tossed. Then I had Episode 37 of Golden Sun: The Lost Age, which is interesting but makes no sense being halfway through the second game. So I don't know what me-from-the-past thought about this video or why it ended up in the favourites.
  
  I can say that both Let's Plays are very good and SuperJeenius's style makes a Let's Play very entertaining and engaging. So I'm going to throw the playlist for the first game in here and leave it up to you if you make it all the way to Episode 37 of the second game.
• Next, Adam Savage talks with Will on Still Untitled about the special effects on Blade Runner and why almost nothing else measures up.
• Finally, we get some slow motion action watching what happens when you drop embers into liquid oxygen, from Brady Haran and the team at Periodic Videos.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 83)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we look at the unexpected. Canada and the US don't have a straight border, and the barking dog actually bounces. Also we unexpectedly channel Hello Internet.

• First C.G.P. Grey, has an interested in weird boarders and even though it seems simple, the Canada-US boarder is a weird one. 
• Next Brady Haran has a video on Periodic Videos about one of the cooler demonstrations that they do at the University of Nottingham, the Barking Dog and how it doesn't work at all the way they thought it did. First we have the video itself then he shows the behind the scenes of how the video was made.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 82)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we get musical, argue with ourselves and then soar to greater heights.

• First, we have two entries in the ongoing chap-hop fight between Professor Elemental and Mr. B The Gentleman Rhymer. At some point I think I had a grasp on which videos were in response to which, but now we just have these two which are (as you might guess from the post) my favourites. Either way it seems these two have been at it a long time.
• Then to calm down a little, let's go with Brentalfloss (and some of his fans) to help Mario get to a date with Peach.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 81)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we ask some questions about the nature of the universe.

• First, what happens if you combine the awesomeness of the Duck Tales Moon Theme and Smooth McGroove? Well you get a lot of awesome in one place. Possibly enough to look at the asymptotic limits of awesomeness. 
• Next, what happens if Kristina Horner and her roommates get a bunch of costumes really cheap? This... apparently.
• Finally, what happens if the Internet talks about video games. Well lots of stuff, but here RinryGameGame looks at all the over analysis that happens.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 80)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we get stron, get angry and then get calm.

• First, Mr. Smooth McGroove would like you to know about his strenth. His STRENTH. His SUPER HUMAN STRENTH. 
• Next, Hank Green is angry. Angry about 17 different things at the same time. So he takes four minutes to let us all know.
• Finally, Brady Haran does an experiment while walking out of the earth's atmosphere. His trip to Everest Base Camp offers a chance to illustrate how the boiling point of water drops as you go up in altitude (even if the Professor has some critiques on his technique). It also offers one of the most beautiful and calming views of our earth.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 79)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we look at the Internet from its GIFability, its weight and its smoothness.

• First, Gunnarolla has noticed that Tessa Violet and Nanalew are so GIFable and he wrote a song about it.
• Next, Michael Stevens from VSauce talks at TED-Ed, looking to answer the question, how much does a video weigh and looking to see what asking that question means to us.
• Finally, for those of you who might have though that Mr. Smooth McGroove only communicates through the medium of video game sound tracks, he disproves this notion communicating through the medium of talk-singing.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 78)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we open our minds, feel the magic and try to bring down our evil overlords.

• First, Hank Green went and had a talk to a bunch of rad people about their sexuality.
• Next, Smooth McGroove takes us back to the magic mystical land of Zeal, singing the Corridors of Time.
• Finally, if you want to experience some real tension, Wil Weaton plays The Resistance with a bunch of very cool actors on Table Top.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 77)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, Smooth McGroove takes over, because who could argue with that!

• First Smooth ... Sorry Mr. McGroove covers the Stone Temple theme from Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.
• Next, Mr. McGroove takes us sailing across the seas with the Ocean Overworld theme from Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
• Finally, we learn the secrets of Charl, Mr. McGroove's faithful and ever present companion. Don't go out in the dark if you want to be safe...

Blog: Thoughts on Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

I recently finished playing The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD. It's a fun game and the HD update really brings it to life (although my nostalgia tells me that this is how good the game has always looked). I did find however that it has some very frustrating game design choices and at the end of the day feels like the first attempt of the developers to keep the franchise from stagnating, without necessarily understanding what parts they're tinkering with.

As a quick note it's worth pointing out that I have played all of the console Zelda games, except for The Adventure of Link and the last half of Majora's Mask (thanks N64 memory expansion and awkward Wii controls). I've missed most of the hand held Zeldas, but have played Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks and A Link Between Worlds. As such some of my feelings on the series may be biased.

Please beware of spoilers for The Wind Waker.

Things I Liked

The Wind Waker does an amazing job of instilling a feeling of the joy of exploration and adventure. Especially when upgraded with the HD graphics, sailing into the world with the music and the waves swelling under you, you feel like you're going on the adventure of a life time. When you spot a tiny island on the horizon and then sail for minutes to get up to it and watch the details resolve into a new adventure is definitely exciting. Even just the act of walking out onto the dock on Windfall or Outset islands provides you with a feeling that great adventure is about to commence.

Watching over home.

The environments of the game are also really good (especially in the HD remake). From the ocean itself and all the different ways it can be in different weather and different times of day to each of the islands which have a wide variety of styles supported by some really great music.

In the HD edition of the game using the game pad to manage the inventory took a little time to get used to, but I came to really like it. Having all of your potential tools laid out in front of you is helpful and having the game pad represent the map was also a plus. I do wish that the game would allow for a little more flexibility on the tools front also possibly some tool tips (I took a break while playing and was apparently in the middle of a delivery quest and never again figure out what the thing in my inventory was nor who wanted it). It would also be nice to annotate the map in the same way that Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks do.

The final thing that I really liked about this game is the end of the final boss fight. Ending the fight by stabbing Ganondorf through the head is an incredible feeling, although not one the game necessarily earns itself. I think that killing Ganondorf is more to do with Ocarina than it is with anything he does in this game Still being able to end the games on a definitive, we have truly defeated evil, note is really cathartic.

The final fight.

Oh an on a side note, the Wii U lets you take screen shots. It's a touch convoluted, but being able to take my own screens has made me very happy.

Things I Didn't Like

The number one thing I didn't like about the game was Z-targeting. In most of the other games in the series I've felt like Z-targeting has largely been intuitive. I'm targeting the things I want to attack and now it's easy to jump to the next thing or to switch out for other attacks. In The Wind Waker (and this may just be in the HD version, I don't remember the original controls that well) I seem to never be targeting the thing I'd like to target. In fact in several boss fights they seem to launch minions at you just to screw up your targeting, which suggests that the developers were aware of this problem as well. It makes the game incredibly frustrating at points and left me not wanting to play more on several occasions.

I also didn't like the dungeon / temple design in Wind Waker. I think the source of this is that the developers wanted to create a grander sense of scale, but this came at the cost of having fewer dungeons and a lot of unnecessary padding in the ones they did create.  They also tried to make the problems in the dungeons more dynamic, requiring you to use several tools together to get past obstacles. While the idea of putting on your iron shoes so you can push down a spring and then spring up to take flight with your leaf is cool, having to get all the items for that out of your inventory every single time you needed to go through a part of the dungeon is frustrating.

I've had it with these boots!

The game also has a weird hand holding pattern. Sometimes it's very aggressive, "hey look at these lights, now read a note about those lights, oh never mind we're just going to point out that you should hit these switches in order." Other times it's so subtle that you're note actually sure it's working. Having to use Phantom Ganondorf's sword as a compass is brilliant, but I didn't get it at all until I looked up a FAQ on the frustrating dungeon right after the lights.

I didn't like how static the world feels. As is usual with  Zelda games the story and world don't advance unless you come along and actually do something, but there seem to be lots of places where nothing ever changes. Maybe I missed it but there's a guy who arrives at Fire Roost Island and then just stands outside baffled by how to get in (despite the path you make). It would have given the game more life and more interest if you'd been able to see him work to become a mailman despite his hinderance of not having wings. Your grandmother changes a bit, but basically sits in her hut doing nothing for the whole game. Again a little bit of character arc for the NPCs would do wonders to make the world feel like you should care about it.

Even the ocean feels somewhat static, there aren't many other ships about on it and those that are tend to stay put attached to which ever island they're a part of the story. The static feeling of the game is also reinforced by the grid system in the map. There is one island in every square, every island has one thing you need to go find on it. It would have been nicer to be able go to some places where there were a lot of island and then others where there are very few. That way you get a little more excitement in exploration, especially if there are places that are dark and dangerous and places that are safer. At the moment "danger" seems to be spread very uniformly across the sea.

I also don't like that the game won't let me challenge Tingle to a duel. Take that your money grubber!

I happened to play some of Sunless Sea around the time I was finishing up The Wind Waker and definitely felt that the way that game handles the risk and reward of sailing is more rewarding than Wind Waker. There are aspects I don't think would fit, such after the islands that move after each rogue-like life, but definitely being able to arrive on "strange shores" would again increase the interest level of Wind Waker.

Things I Noticed

Finding treasure using treasure maps is fun and I like the game of going through the islands and trying to match the different coast lines to the map. It's also nice that you can be more or less challenged by the when you go looking for treasure depending on if you want to see the bright glowing spots or not. However actually picking the treasure up is rather frustrating since you have to get on exactly the right coordinate. Additionally the treasure feels a little lacklustre, other than pieces of heart you only get money and I ended up with thousands of Rupees that I didn't need to spend.

I think the game would have been improved with a fewer treasures to find but with a mini-game to be played when you're looking for them. Ideally this would give you more satisfaction and reward and you could ease the relatively frustrating part of trying to hit exactly the right point on a rolling sea.

Sailing home is always a pretty sight.

Things I'd Include in a Game

The biggest thing Wind Waker makes me want to include in a game is a dynamic world. The NPCs should have arcs and goals and generally be doing something. Everyone in Wind Waker (and honestly in lots of games, but especially Zelda games) is standing around. I'm not even sure they're supposed to want to to save the world even, since I don't know if anyone even knows he exists. Anyone on outset island is just wondering why you haven't rescued your sister yet.

I also want to make sure that  there's a feeling of adventure and exploration. This is a thing that Zelda games are usually very good at invoking, but the grid of islands system somewhat stifles. Being able to set off into the unknown and be rewarded, even if it's just with a view or a secret or a tiny piece of story, gives players a reason to keep playing the game and to keep exploring the world.

Setting out for adventure.

Final Thoughts

The Wind Waker feels like a fractured game. I feel as though they tried to stretch the world of Ocarina of Time into a bigger and more majestic environment, but stymied themselves by imposing rules that overly simplified exploration. I feel like they wanted to get away from the rescue the princess story line, but couldn't figure out how to have an epic quest without that motivator. I feel like the developers wanted to strike out into new story territory, but didn't feel like the could leave all the trappings of Ocarina of time behind them.  I feel like they wanted to introduce more dynamic combat, but didn't have the expertise yet to interactively allow the player to have control and all the cinematic drama at the same time. So while the game has some of the strongest style and some very good game play it never does it self the service of letting these things stand out.

I like The Wind Waker. It's a fun game to play and it has moments of absolute brilliance in game play and story telling. There are frustrating parts and the game is either longer than it should be or is missing a bunch of content, but it's still worth playing for those brilliant moments.

Yeah I always seem to wear ... hey! Wait!

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 76)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we have some happy times, some sad times, some calm times and some hope.

• First, Pomplamoose cover September by Earth, Wind and Fire for a little burst of happiness. And also beardlessness ... weird isn't it. 
• Next, in less happy times John Green talks about the Boston Marathon Bombings, but more so about finding hope in dark times.
• Finally the Pentatonix sing a version of the Carol of the Bells. 

Blog: Favourite YouTube Vidoes (Volume 75)

This volume of my favourite YouTube videos, is brought to you by boxes. And beards. And also Ze.

• First, with the all the power  his beard and cat can bring, Smooth McGroove blasts us with the theme from the Gerudo Fortress and then soothes us with the music from Dire Dire Docks.
• Now that we are empowered by beard and cat. Ze Frank sits us down for a talk about the creative life and reminds us of the fundamental truth, "If you want to be a writer, write."

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 74)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we virtually attend a very geeky concert.

• First, Mr. Alec Hamilton sings us a song of the struggles of the chemist and his fondest love. 
• Next, lonlonjp provides an interlude, playing the Chrono Trigger Main Theme.
• Finally, Random Encounters and Dodger play us out with The Eevee Song. 

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 73)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we crash into walls, learn to swear and then recover with a nice relaxing cat video.

• First up, Felicia Day learns to Free Run. By which I mean crashes into walls. Still looks like a lot of fun.
• Next, *BLEEP BLEEPING* Hank Green *BLEEPING* looks into *BLEEPING* curse words.
• Finally, we can check in on the Mean Kitties.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 72)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we learn things, end things and eat things. THINGS!

• First up, as you may have noticed John and Hank have a thing about discovering all the ways we're all wrong. Such a thing apparently that they (well John) made a whole show dedicated to it.
• Next, somehow I missed that both the Jeffs answer the dumb question I asked, so here's Jeff Mattas answering my question. If you want to see Jeff Cannata answer my question I posted it a while ago.
• Finally, Adam Savage and the crew at Tested.com make an omelette. Then Traci Des Jardins up omelettes them. 

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 71)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we do science in space, our business in space and then we rock out in a cave.

• First, Destin from Smarter Every Day talks about reflectors and the moon (and also poop) along with Henry from Minute Physics.
• Then, Henry from Minute Physics talks about space poop (and peeing) as well as reflectors with Destin from Smarter Every Day.
• Finally, Brentalfloss blasts us with Cave Story with Lyrics! Bang! Pow! I just watched a freaking video!

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 70)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we solve all of our problems, find some new ones and then look for answers in orbit!

• First, Hank, teaches us the 25 most important life hacks from Reddit. (Start keeping those good memories for next new years now!)
• Moving sucks. Cory, Mr. Safety, Williams reminds you to lift with your knees and to always think with portals!
• Finally, if you ever wanted to know if you can spin yourself while weightless then Destin from Smarter Everyday has your answer along with some help from on high.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 69)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos,  the Watsky - Vlogbrothers show continues!

• First, Hank points out that John is WRONG! (Also he makes up a song about Quarks and Amanda Bynes, which has stuck around). Warning: Puff levels are high.
• Next Watsky and Kate Nash give us a nice sonic kick in the ass. 
• Finally Hank has managed to find the Google history of a certain someone who lived...

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 68)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we look at juvenile behaviour in both humans and birds.

• First, George Watsky talks at TEDxSFED about how he found a place he liked, that time he threw up on a plane and the ses in his speech.
• Next, Hank Green brings us a dose of drunk bird science on SciShow.
• Finally, Hank ruins all those songs he just danced to. 

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 67)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we return to the Internet of old and looks to the Internet ahead, make a box and eat a game.

• First, Hank Green refreshes your memory on all of the Internet dance crazes you may have forgotten. Also reflects on a few potential high points for the vlogbrothers project.
• Next, Adam Savage makes a box. Why is this a favourite? Because boxes are awesome, this box is particularly awesome and making things is cool.
• Finally, Rosanna Pansino makes a chess board cake and edible chess pieces. 

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 66)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we sing songs of work and of drug stores and also laugh with the vlogbrothers.

• First SuriOokami composed some lyrics for the Earthbound Drug Store Song and then sang them! 
• Next we get the joy that is John and Hank together in the same room. Always a fun moment. (And hey, remember when video responses were a thing?)
• Finally, Watsky tells us the Moral of the Story of getting where you want to be.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 65)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we are strong like trees, get things done and rock out in the forrest!

• First off Laura Shigihara shows off why she's an awesome video game composer.
• Don't forget to check out the trailer for her new game Rakuen!
• Next from Weekend Confirmed, which feels way back in the day, Brendon Chung answers some questions about how (and why) to get things and discusses beginning at the end. 
• Finally, Watsky is Strong as an O-A-K.

Project Update Post

I've managed to get behind on projects again, mostly due to having research and teach commitments that need to get done with a higher priority. Still I've managed to get a bit done and in this post I'm going to update my deadlines to give myself something to shoot for again.

• Project 5 - SNES Coasters and Project 12 - Chrono Trigger Sprites
• I've had to hold off a little on working on these due to house sitting and wanting to make sure that I'm using the same iron while testing.
• The SNES Coasters have been holding mostly steady, but I've decided that I want to build and test one of the bigger size before making others since that way I don't waste quite as much if I don't like the size. 
• I'd like to finish and start testing the test SNES coaster by November 15, 2014.
• I spent a long time going through the Perler bead colours and discovered that I actually DIDN'T buy all the colours and I'm missing a few that might be helpful for the sprites. However I think I have enough on hand to make it through the small scale test.
• I've also done all the colour matching and think I have a plan for which colour of beads I'll use for each of the colours in the Chrono sprite.
• I'd like to finish a test block (just the colours) by November 15, 2014 and the small scale Chrono by November 30, 2014.
• Project 13 - Bubble Puzzle
• I haven't had time to start on this one at all yet, so I don't have much to report other than that I've decided to do a test with Unity that works well enough to shoot bubbles at other bubbles.
• I'd like to finish this Unity test by December 31, 2014
• Project 14 - Flash Fiction
• I also haven't made much progress on this one either so I think given that I'm still fairly early in November, I'm simply going to slide this back a month and hopefully put up my first piece by November 30, 2014.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 64)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we go back to my favourite dance / music / politician / mma fighter / thingy.

• One nice thing about working on my favourite YouTube videos is that it's a good reason to go an d check out the channels of people I don't favourite regularly and when I did my last volume on
  WORLD ORDER オフィシャルサイト, I, ended up with some more favourites.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 63)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we get music on a tea tin, posters made on three continents and the nerdfighteriest variety show.

• First, Laura Shigihara, gives us the Oolong cover of Schala's Theme from Chrono Trigger.
• Also check out the trailer for the game she's making! I'm excited!
• Next John Green takes a look at how the creation of a cool thing involved a lot of internet leg work and how copyright law's relation to that creation is complicated.
• Finally someone let John and Hank on the stage at Carnegie Hall. I guess there might be something interesting to watch in that (although I won't lie to you this video is 2 and a half hours long). Also the Mountain Goats show up and some guy named Neil something or other...

Blog: Thoughts on Breath of Fire

Nostalgia is a funny thing. There are a lot of games I remember a specific fight or a cut scene or a character moment, but Breath of Fire, I remember mostly for a cup of coffee... getting the morning off school in Junior High or High School and getting a fresh cup of coffee and sitting down to play.

Breath of Fire (yes that is a Fish to the left of the hero) - From Hardcore Gaming 101

Lately I've been feeling a pull to play a lot of the old games I keep kicking around and for whatever reason Breath of Fire was at the top of that list. I've play every entry in the series and found them all to be generally likeable if not quite outstanding.

On replay, I thought to myself that while Breath of Fire had some pretty significant limitations but since it must have been such an early SNES RPG that it's easy to forgive. The problem came when I started doing some research:

From the Wikipedia list, Breath of Fire was released in North America on August 10, 1994, just over 2 months before Final Fantasy III/VI was released and years after much stronger RPGS such as Secret of Mana, E.V.O. or Final Fantasy II/IV. It's out of place historically, but given what I've been able to gather from the Internet, it was a project with very limited support within Capcom. This is only in North America as well, I can't imagine how it must have been viewed in Japan compared to some of the RPGs that weren't released internationally.

The other thing to say is that despite the general problems with the first entry in the series, the rest of the games get increasing better (at least up to a point) and the series really manages to differentiate it self.

A dragon told me - From Hardcore Gaming 101

Overall I can't recommend playing Breath of Fire (at least on the SNES, I've never tried the 2001 GBA port), the story is mediocre and much of the game's length is in the form of compound fetch quests (aHaHA, I won't give you the thing until you go get this other thing from the guy who will want you do do something else for HIM! aHaHaHaHa). The combat system drags and when coupled with the very long (though sometimes interesting) dungeons makes for hours of vaguely tortured boredom. At least without a good cup of coffee and a free morning, you should probably give this a miss.

Things I Liked

There were a few things I generally liked about Breath of Fire. First, even though the story is not especially well crafted, I do like globe trotting RPGs and every location in the world is interesting enough that when you first get there you feel like it's worth exploring, even though most of the locals don't have anything useful to say.

Travel the world! Meet these people! They talk by flute. - From GameFaqs - Ofisil

I also liked that each of the characters in your party have a role outside of combat (on of the features they focused on to improve the rest of the series). Going into a dungeon? Better have your thief out so he can defuse the traps. Need to get though that wall? Get out the big guy. Running out of supplies? Bring out your hunter. Running out of money? Put the merchant to work. These all have plusses and minuses, but generally I like the way they add flavour to the game.

Beyond the main party, I also liked the once or twice when guest party members showed up. I like it particularly as an aspect of the story, having some extra people around who are not actually passive and incompetent around you and allowing you to do things with part of the party without having to change the difficulty. Mechanically (although less so in this game) it's also a nice chance to see more and different powers than your low level party might have.

The game also has an interesting tactic for dealing with your extra party members. One of your party can fuse several members together creating a character who is stronger than any of the separate members and has most of their abilities. In the late game this means that you can have seven of the eight characters in your party participating in big combat. The fusion system does produce one major question however: why do a monkey, a fox, an ox and a gold fish fused together form a floating green duck?

The dungeon design is also an interesting point for the game. When playing, it's awful, because the dungeons are long and the random encounter combat takes over every 4 steps on average. However, I do like that most of the dungeons make sense. When they're a ruined castle, they have rooms a castle might. When you're in a temple you have rooms a temple might. When you're in the great treasure store of the ancients there are traps and secrets hidden everywhere. I like this and I think that if the combat didn't drag the game down so far it would actually be a general boon to the game.

Another  thing I liked about Breath of Fire was the "surprise" extra HP on the bosses. Especially early in the game fighting down the super powerful boss, getting their HP bar to drop to zero and then having them stand up and laugh at you is pretty cool. That it happens on every boss throughout the game is a little silly and loses the effect, but for a one-off it's not a bad idea.

Finally I have to say that while it's frustrating that the game had to rely so heavily on them, I love all the extra maps and charts that Breath of Fire came with. I like that kind of stuff and actually needing to refer to the map or look up what an item will do. As I said the fact that you needed to within game was a bit of a draw back, but doing it was cool.

Things I Didn't Like

As I've mentioned by far and away the worst part of Breath of Fire is the combat. It's the worst of the old-style turn based combat. Swinging your sword causes a random amount of damage to the enemy, casting a spell causes a set of damage to the enemy. That's it.

For the whole game.

There is too much of this. Also she's not supposed to be blue ... I think. - From GameFaqs - Ofisil

There's a hint of a damage type system, but it's either glitched or not properly implemented because nothing ever changes. The hero can turn into several types of dragons, but the only thing to turn into is the one that will deal the most damage. To everything.

On top of that healing spells are cheap and your healer deals awful damage so even there the only question is how much damage to heal from the rest of the party.

The random encounters have another problem, they don't scale. The random encounter rate is set and you fight whatever is in the area. So if you're in an area with easy enemies, you fight them. Over and over again. And if there are enough of them then you can spend turn after turn dealing hundreds of times the health of the enemy but you can only hit them one at a time. Any kind of system to recognize that you're about to curb stomp the bad guys would have been great relief, especially given how much back tracking the game expects of you.

Another problem with Breath of Fire, but also one many RPGs of the age, is that clues about what's going on with the story are few and far between. If you weren't paying attention while plot was happening, or didn't understand, or heaven help you, you haven't played for a week, you're often left with no idea as to where to go next and there's no way within the game to get anyone to tell you anything. While I don't love some of the hand holding that modern games provide, Ni No Kuni's ever present plot instruction comes to mind, I think it's important to have something to give the player a direction to go if they're not finding it on their own.

Finally, as I already mentioned, for a game released this far into the SNES life, it doesn't look very good. The overworld sprites are not very detailed an animation though out the game is very limited. The combat sprites are nice and big, but are also oddly coloured compared to their overworld versions.

Generally I think a lot of the problems with this game come down to the size of the cartridge.  Breath of Fire was released on a 12Mbit cartridge which was significantly smaller than just about any other RPG released on the SNES before or after. I think generally this shows that Capcom was not willing to put much money into development or production.

Things I Noticed

One thing I thought was funny as I played Breath of Fire was how much I did and didn't remember about the game. There were a few dungeons that I remember the layout of perfectly having not played the game in at least a decade. Some of those were early but interestingly some were quite late in the game. At the same time there were parts of the game I had no recollection of at all (such as the fusion system) despite having used them before.

He's the first. Others will follow. Ryu - From Hardcore Gaming 101

Things I'd Include in a Game

I think the big thing to take away from Breath of fire is that if you're going to have a large group in an RPG make sure that they all have things to do. There are some games where you have a bunch of people sitting around because they're not as good as others and you don't have a reason to use them. While I might not always implement it the way Breath of Fire has, making sure that every playable character has a unique and required characteristic in gameplay is important.

I also always like to make sure that dungeons are reasonable, if a place was a place make it look like that place rather than just like a random assortment of rooms. I think this probably untenable in some situations but it's still an ideal I find important.

Finally I do like the bosses not getting knocked down when the "run out" of HP. If used sparingly I think that can give a game a little memorable spark. If overused, like in Breath of Fire, it gets uninteresting really quickly.

Final Thoughts

As I said in my introduction, there's not a lot of inherent reason to play Breath of Fire. Other games in the series are better and other games of the era are also better. I enjoyed it for the nostalgia and for some of the touches of the world, but that's about it. I'm glad it exists and I'll leave it there.

The End. Also that's a hell of a font.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 62)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we take a look at some cool and creative covers of video game music (surprise!).

• First we have Brentalfloss's Ballad of the Mages. The song is great, and the muppetry is awesome. One of my all time favourites (hence how it got in this list... I'm feeling super obvious today). 
• Next Brentalfloss sings of the love that a dinosaur who eats everything can have for a baby who fell out of the sky.
• Funny side note: I'm actually watching ProtonJon play Yoshi's Island right now.
• Finally Jimmy Wong puts together a great group of people to cover a medley of Legend of Zelda Music.

Project 14: Flash Fiction

A little while ago I had the please of listening to Neil Gaiman speak and read at my university. Unsurprisingly, this was really good and it was also inspiring.

I want to write and I don't write, which tends to be an impediment to getting anything written. So given this inspiration (months and months ago, remember we're fighting the procrastination here), I decided that I wanted to write a handful quick things to get myself going.

So Project 14 is a handful of Flash Fiction things. Basically, short 500-100 word pieces from some of the worlds that float around in my head. I'd like to do six of them and I'd like to do one a month for the next six months.

The first one is set on a space station and I plan to put it up here by October 31, 2014. (Sorry, it's not spooky).

Project 13: Bubble Puzzle

One of my favourite genres of video games is the "bubble puzzle," with games like Snood, Puzzle Bobble, Supermagical or even Zuma.

Puzzle Bobble - Taito 1994 - Image from the Games Database

I like that these games can either be very contemplative or very active. It's also easy to scale these games to be easier or harder based on speed and the potential number of combinations of bubbles. It's also possible to create interesting combination situations based on the kind of rules you apply to the game field.

I've definitely been feeling like I want to put more of my time into making a game again and I would also like the chance to explore some environments and tool sets for making games. So I've decided that Project 13, will be a Bubble Puzzle game that gives me a reason to get organized and make something fun.

Supermagical is the same but sideways - Image From Supermagical Blog

The Game

Basically the game will follow the simplest bubble puzzle format (such as Snood), where rows of bubbles will be pushed down from the top. You will have a dial and will have to shoot bubbles at the defending lines to push them back and defend yourself.

Stylistically I've decided (and I'm no artist so we'll see how this *actually* goes) that you will play a team of squirrels fighting against a bunch of robots.

Basically at each turn robots will produce a number of bubbles which will be pushed onto a line above the play field, once that line is full it will push onto the field. Meanwhile squirrels will dig up bubbles for you to shoot at the descending rows. Bubbles will stick together and will explode when more than 3 of the same type touch. If a bubble isn't attached to the top anymore then it falls to the bottom.

When bubbles fall to the bottom their power will be collected and you will use that power to turn off the robots. Once the robots are turned off, they'll stop producing bubbles of specific colours. Once the robots aren't making any new bubbles you win the round.

Snood - Image from Snood World

The Plan

I'm interested in making this game either in Unity or using an HTML 5, so before making too many further plans my first goal is to investigate these platforms (particularly finding an HTML 5 engine I like). 

My goal is to have played around enough to know what platform I'll develop the bubble puzzle game in by mid October 2014 (which we'll call the 16th).

Project 12: Chrono Trigger Sprites: Update

The Chrono Trigger Sprites are another project I stalled on.

One of the big concerns I ran into was figuring out what colours of perler I wanted to use. I had a sampler set of beads (which I made the test patch in the picture above from), which was a good starting point. I was able to create the original SNES Coasters out of that set, and I might have been able to start on the sprites, but there was one particularly large problem ... I can't figure out what colour (by name) each of these colours is.

So that slowed me down some, along with all the other usual distractions that lead to me not finishing a project. However I have now solved this problem, I went out (to the Internet) and bought myself ALL of the beads:

On the EK Sucess Perler site, they sell 1000 bead bags of every colour. I started to try to figure out what matched what I had already through the website, but then ended up just picking up one bag of everything they sold. Fortunately perler beads are relatively affordable and the promise of free shipping on large enough orders convinced me to just go ahead and do it. Sadly it turns out that that offer wasn't available to Canadians, but still at the end of the day a big box of perler beads appeared at my door, for not that much out of pocket. And now I know name of every colour of bead I have.

As a side note, I wanted to find a nice way to sort the beads that I had. Conveniently I found a screw sorter that happens to perfectly hold 1000 beads in each drawer and probably 3000 in the bigger drawers, which seems like a really nice way to be organized for a project.

Anyway, now that I have all the beads and I'm super organized, I'm out of good excuses not to work on the Chrono Trigger Sprites. So I'll bring the project back up and try to finish a Chrono in 20cm scale by September 30, 2014.

Projects 8, 9, 10 and 11: The Future Pack: Updates

The set of future projects that I wanted to write down but not start yet, also gets updating although I'm still not actually going to put a deadline on any of them yet.

• Project 8 - Space Station Simulation Game
• This is still on the back burner, although I have given it some more thought. I'm also thankful that SpaceBase DF-9 while similar is not exactly what I was thinking (although it may prove to be that it is what it is since it's hard to make a space station simulator the way I've imagined it.
• I'm not going to start on this project until I've taught myself Unity as an environment to work in and made a simpler game first.
• Project 9 - An Action RPG
• The Action RPG is still the game I would most like to make, but as with the Space Station Game I want to get a little more experience so that I can make something I'm happy with.
• Project 10 - A Sci-Fi Novel
• This is the future project that I'm least ready to start. Given that it's something I've been thinking about for years it's a difficult project to work on.
• Project 11 - A Fantasy Novel
• This is probably the project I'm closest to really attempting to start. At the moment I'm not sure how much time I have to dedicate to it, since there are some other things I'd like to do and there's still that pesky PhD to work on.

Project 7: A Hockey Card Game: Wrap-Up

I messed around with the mechanics for the hockey card game for a while but basically hit a point where I realized that designing a balanced and interesting card game is pretty hard. So until I get inspired to do the work to finish this, it's an abandoned project for the time being.

Project 6: 100 (days of) Sketches: Wrap-Up

Well, this is another project that's fallen off the face of the earth. It's been more than a year since I was supposed to update it and I haven't done that. I also didn't at the end of the day actually sketch on anything like a hundred days for those six months.

For now I'm going to let this project lapse, but I may revisit it when I feel like that's the direction I'd like to push my creative actions!

Project 5: SNES Coasters: Bigger, Better, Slightly Less Tippy, and Going on the Road

In my last update I finished making a set of 8 coasters using the exclamation blocks from Super Mario World.

I've now taken them out and used them in the real world and come to the conclusion that they're too small, as I suspected this in the last post. They've also suffered from a certain amount of cupping, all of which makes them a touch unstable. There has only been one major incident with spillage due to the coasters, but it still bugs me.

I've decided I want to try a couple of things, that will result in basically 3 mini-projects. 

• The first is that I want to make larger coasters, the current ones are 16 beads wide/tall and if I add an extra ring of beads they will end up being 18 beads wide/tall and that should improve the stability and make them a little more useable.
• The second is that I want to test mailing these. I'm tempted to start an Etsy shop and sell a few sets of these, although I'm not convinced that's something I really want to do. Either way a better understanding of how to mail these things around would be nice, so I'll make a second set of the larger coasters (assuming that the first batch come out right) and send them to a friend who thought they were cool.
• The third is to try a different pattern. There are some gifts I'd like give and I feel like taking a pattern from Illusion of Gaia, might be a good fit for the decor of the people to whom I'd like to give the gifts. Hopefully, I can end up with video game decor that doesn't look to video gamey.

So I'd like to finish the first batch of bigger coasters by August 31, 2014. I'll update about the other parts when I've done that.

Project 1: Fourth Season of the Blog

Happy Blog Start and End Day!

Yup, it's August 1st again and that means that the Third Season of the Blog draws to an end. It also means (as you might have guessed from the title) that it's the kick off to the Fourth Season of the Blog.

As a quick reminder this project is the Blog as a Blog part of the Blog. The Blog as a discussion of Projects part of the Blog is a separate thing, which I will post an update about shortly.

For the Blog as a Blog project, I didn't make my goal of a post every two weeks, although I've managed at least five posts a month since May, which I'm fairly happy with. I've also managed to refine my process for producing my favourite YouTube videos posts so that I can make them relatively quickly and painlessly.

I haven't done as well at other posts. I have a backlog of thoughts on video games posts that I'd like to put out there, but this season I only manage to produce two. I also haven't wanted to blog about too many other things since, I'm fairly busy and there's no shortage of opinions about things on the Internet.

Overall I'm happy to keep doing what I'm doing on the blog. For the time being (for the next year) my goal is still to put up two posts a week. Once I feel like I've worked out a system where by I can regularly put up content, then I'll think about expanding what I do.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 61)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we get back around to Christmas, chill out and celebrate the end of the rad!

• The first video is the Chemistry Christmas Tree from Periodic Videos. I love the community vibe of the University of Nottingham, School of Chemistry, and how you see students and researchers gathering together for a moment to show off what they love. (Also nice instrumental Christmas music)
• I love how the two halves of Pomplamoose make music thats just as awesome on their own as they are together even though they're in totally different genres. Here Nataly Dawn chills out and Dances.
• Finally, four rad dudes got together and made us the very final episode of the Totally Rad Show. (Warning, this is over an hour long!)

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 60)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we get to enjoy music in boxes and music about boxes and learn together.

• First we have a guy making music in boxes. No not that guy. This guy! Even if the song doesn't grab you the video magic will! 
• Next Brentalfloss and DemonTomatoDave wax (on and off) reminiscent about the first ever Gameboy Mario game.
• Finally, John Green goes to TEDxIndiianapolis at how we learn together and how communities such as YouTube can help draw people together to learn.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 59)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we borrow a theme song, escape a labrynth using graphs and ride on a (no longer) new rail line.

• The first video in this set is Pomplamoose's theme song for "Hey It's Pomplamoose" (Their live streaming show). Also, they talk about a live stream that we can't go to without a time machine. Also also, I think Jack might be hard to live with, "How did you even get drums UP there?"
• Next, Numberphile and James Clewett unravel some Choose your Own Adventure books.
• Finally, The City of Calgary (my hometown) put up a video of the trip in to downtown on the new leg of the CTrain which opened late in 2012. I still haven't actually made the trip all the way out myself, but this video makes me happy.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 58)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, Hank tells us 151 jokes. Not sure how I never favourited these before now. Possibly BECAUSE I'M DEAD. (But no.)

• I regularly tell the elephant jokes.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 57)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, Ze Frank tackles us with a trio of videos.

• First, Ze ask questions about questions about sex.
• Next, Ze reminds us of that time...
• Finally, Ze makes some sounds for us to listen to

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 56)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we go smart and old-school, celebrate a kilovid of vlogbrothers and guess Doctor Who.

• In the first video in this volume, composer / YouTuber Bulbamike renders the QI theme in 8-bits. Also he renders Mr. Stephen Fry in a slightly odd aspect ratio, but never mind that.
• Next, we wish John good morning for the 500th time. A lot has changed and a lot will change, but I'm always thankful that I have all of the things that Hank and Jon produce in my life. Also I can't figure out when I started watching vlogbrothers, but I'm happy to postdate myself to that very first "Good Morning".
• Finally, Karen Kavett remixes a Guess Who board into a Doctor Who Guess Who board. I can't say that I've felt I needed one of these, but the process of taking something and making it definitively yours is really cool.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 55)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, things are adorable, things are triumphant and things are sad. Also we've wrapped around back to that point I was doing Cool Things. (I gave that up, but still kinda keep the tradition going on twitter.)

• This volume starts with the introduction of Mr. Charlie McDonnell's Blippid Book. What's a Blippid Book? Well you'll just have to watch to find out, won't you! But you can rest assured Charlie was just as adorable when he was one as he is now.
• Next, Dodger tackles "They Bleed Pixels" which is a super unforgiving, but awesome looking platform. She never finished the game, but I really liked watching all the videos in this series since there's a lot of triumph when she beats the super hard parts. I also really like the way the wall jumps work in this game.
• Finally we have a memorial Coffee Time vlog by Dodger for her Papa, who sounds like a pretty amazing guy.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 54)

This volume of my favourite YouTube videos sings us a song, then doodles us some math and some art.

• First, Nataly Dawn (the less bearded half of Pomplamoose) sings to us about Areceli. 
• Next, ViHeart tackles the boredom  of parabolas and doodles her way to ... well, I won't spoil it...
• Finally TEKSTArtist draws the Holstee manifesto. This is your LIFE...

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 53)

This musical volume of my favourite YouTube videos will be with you in a minute, but it has some questions about your philosophy (and also your building codes).

• Brentalfloss opens this volume up with the BioShock song. I find it hard to believe that I started following him because he seemed like a smart guy who could play video game music. Now look at him. Interestingly he also just released the BioShock Infinite song, if you enjoy this one.
• Next, Hank Green has his annual wizard rock song from 2012 with some questions for the wizards. Given that these feel a lot like the questions I run across when I'm looking at video games, I feel a bit like this song is an anthem for questions. 
• Finally, Pomplamoose will be there in a minute. (Minute, minute). Out of their original songs, I think this one is my favourite. I also like the dance for busy people who might have to pee.