Dragalia Lost: Character Roles

August 24, 2020TheRoyalFamily Leave a comment

I’ve written previously on some of the issues that Dragalia Lost has with its story, especially how much potential is wasted. Well, here’s some more. There are all these characters, and yet so very few are used in the story at all, particularly the main story. So here I’ve sorted them out into their various story roles, as I see them. At least roughly. These are distinct from the gameplay roles the units have, as that’s a lot simpler and sometimes completely different.

As it wouldn’t be much of a blog post if I didn’t have any discussion, I’ll give some explanation, since the categories are sometimes a bit weird.

General basically means leader of lots of soldiers. I’m sure most of those up there aren’t actual Generals, but you know, heads of state actively leading armies is close enough. Also included were the leaders of knightly orders like Eli (leader of all the Paladyns) and Lief (head of the main knightly order of Alberia), since I figured that’s close enough.
Knights and Fighters/Warriors is admittedly a bit of an arbitrary distinction. I figured knights were the fighters that also had more minor leadership roles, especially if they were elite warriors, or otherwise distinguished. Characters described as junior knights in-game I listed under Fighter for that reason. Knights also include trainers like Celery or Raymond.
Mage is pretty much what you’d think. It includes, but is not exclusive to, battle mages. Fortune tellers count as mages I guess.
I included all the ninja characters under Assassins, because that’s what ninjas are supposed to be (and that aesthetic continues in this game), even if those characters are theoretically in the bodyguard role, protecting against possible assassins.
Researchers includes everything from lecturers to mad scientists. Basically the nerds.
I put Catherine under Merchants because I figured she was rich for a reason, and I didn’t want a category of one otherwise.
Adventurers are like your typical RPG PC – someone who travels around doing various things for various reasons, often taking jobs from various people. Most of the characters described as mercenaries fall here. If a character just travels looking for fights, I put them under Fighter, though.
Treasure Hunters are different from Adventurers because they’re just after one thing: treasures. The reasons and means are different, but that’s what they’re about.
Entertainers includes any of the arts, in addition to just entertainment. So we’ve got a painter, a writer, some dancers, and even a fireworks guy.
Servants include all sorts of domestics (like chefs), as well as bodyguards and couriers.
I separated out Detective, since that seems like a very particular role of investigation + pursuit + fighting, all in one profession.
Civilian is a broad category. Mostly it’s just random NPC-types, villagers for the most part. Basically people that would have no real job in a RPG party. Includes everyone from random kids to dispossessed nobles that don’t have any particular skill. Surprised this category is so large, since this is an RPG after all. But as I said, the gameplay is divorced from the story pretty heavily here, and the characters can have fun stories separate from the main story.
Dragon was just for those role-less dragon characters. (Faries count as dragons I guess).
The Fire Emblem characters were hard to categorize. They’re hero characters in their own games for the most part, and I guess fill other roles there. But here they’re just kinda there, fighting Euden’s enemies, without their normal crews. Very odd.

Star Trek Picard: A Belated Review

August 23, 2020TheRoyalFamily Leave a comment

This is really late, and nothing I say here will be terribly original, but I have to be honest.

I hate this show.

Not just because it’s low-quality, but because it actively, purposefully takes a massive dump on Trek and its fans. STD was bad in just about every way besides sfx (and even those often looked bad, but that was art direction, not poor quality), but Picard was worse. The writing is bad, the effects were not great, the directing was often poor, and the story itself is garbage.

It’s too bad, too. The show didn’t exactly start strong, but it wasn’t terrible either. But taking a full 30% of the show on the basic set-up (without leaving Earth) was a bad move, even if that stuff was some of the best stuff in the show (a low bar, to be sure). And that wasn’t even the end of the set-up, either. No, four of ten episodes happened before the adventure proper starts.

And then things go downhill, fast. The entire fifth episode was a joke which feels more at home in a SyFy original than Star Trek (moreso than the rest of the show). That would have been bearable, if they didn’t literally destroy the legacy of Trek out at the end of the episode. And things got even worse after that. With only one sort-of quality episode after the third (unsurprisingly, the one where we get good guest-stars, and the one without the vast majority of the Picard-original characters), the show just goes from one mess to the next.

It doesn’t help that this show feels cheap. Despite being supposedly one of the most expensive shows in the history of television (there are rumors that a bunch of funding was diverted to STD S3, which I can believe), things seem so simple and basic. The space shots are sparse. The sets, especially the main ship set, are cheap. The props are even more out of place than the sets, especially as the show goes on (they literally use a standard, unmodified park table as the “meeting table”). The lack of ship designs in a Star Trek show is atrocious – in any large fleet scene, there are three separate ship designs, even the one time there are two opposing fleets!

*Also note the standard, unmodified folding park chairs in the background.*

As far as the overall story goes, it’s pretty trash. The initial mystery is fine, if starting with an incredibly dumb premise. Having the two stories, one of the Picard gang, and the other on the Borg ship, was fine in concept, but the execution didn’t work, because the characters in the Borg plot were not the sort that people want to watch: you have an alien ship, in alien territory, with lots of ethical implications as to what they’re doing, and yet that is all just background to soap opera drama.

Actually, that’s a good illustration of the entire show: all this possibly-cool stuff going on, and it’s all merely non-context to poorly-written melodrama. This didn’t need to be Trek: it could have been any modern sci-fi drama if you changed the names. Hell, change it to fantasy, just replacing the spaceships with waterships, and Borg with zombies (that would actually fit the state of the reclaimed Borg better…). Literally the only stuff that requires some knowledge of past Trek is the Borg stuff, and the characters of Locutus, Riker, Data, and Troi. (Maddox and Picard may as well be completely different people.) And as far as the character knowledge goes, the only Trek you’d need to watch was the movie Nemesis – it’s clear that’s the only Trek any of the main writers watched in full (they skimmed First Contact too, for the Borg stuff). All the rest of the Trek references could have been gleaned from wiki articles.

All of that is sad. I had some small hopes for the series at first, but they were all dashed to pieces. It’s dreck, and insulting to fans like me on top of that. STD could at least be slightly excused by being a prequel, but this is a direct sequel to Nemesis, and should have at least been somewhat respectful of that. It was marketed to TNG fans, and yet there’s nothing there for them.

Star Trek Lower Decks Episode 3 Review

August 22, 2020TheRoyalFamily Leave a comment

I just have to say, this is the best Star Trek since Enterprise.

Not that that’s a hard bar to get over. Like, the bar is digging into the ground. But still, it’s nice to see improvement. And improvement this is. I don’t know if the show will keep this level of quality (probably not), but I hope it does, or even keeps improving.

This episode is “OK”. (Last one was “Meh,” the first was “Bad”.) There were scenes (plural) here that are funnier than the entirety of the last two episodes combined. This was not a laugh riot by any measure, but it had some good gags. There’s still a bit too much of that modern ironic-absurdist humor that I’m not terribly fond of (I like my absurdism old-fashioned), but at least most of the rest of the humor feels appropriate for a Trek show.

A big part of the success of this episode is that there is simply Mariner. Sure, she is still the Mary Sue; even though she gets taken down a peg, she’s still completely right in everything she says (it’s only that someone outdoes her at her own shtick, after giving a lecture – to a superior officer – about her shtick). Also, Boimler is able to do his thing without Mariner being right there. Part of the problem is that Mariner absolutely overshadows and humiliates Boimler in every instance, so him being without her lets him shine in his own way. (Now, if they’d only let that happen with her.)

I also appreciated that the show lets the senior staff not look like a bunch of baffoons (excepting the captain). Ransom, the XO, might be a Kirk/Riker knockoff, but he shows how he was able to rise in rank. The rest of the senior staff also shows their competence, in smaller ways.

Continuing

August 21, 2020TheRoyalFamily Leave a comment

Today’s Blaugust prompt is from JamiesVlogUK:

What piece of content would you most like to have a sequel or reboot?

There are two easy answers for me. The first, as you might have guessed from the top picture, is Deus Ex. That needs another sequel. Or rather, Mankind Divided needs to be finished. Squenix thought they could jump onto the “episodic” game bandwagon, and deliver, at most, 2/3 of a story, with some added multiplayer game modes to keep the players satisfied. This didn’t work. No matter how good that piece of a story game it is, it’s not complete, and this time the players didn’t bite. Which led to Squenix basically cancelling the series. Which sucks, because Mankind Divided was the first Deus Ex sequel to even come close to the first game.

The second is going to be a little different: Star Trek. Star Trek needs to be rebooted. But, you might say, it’s been rebooted once, maybe twice in the last decade or so. True, but it’s all sucked, and sucked hard. Only the first reboot film, in 2009, at least managed to be fun while sucking, which means watching it wasn’t a chore. Maybe Lower Decks can bring back the feeling of real Trek. (I hear the latest episode might actually be decent; the clips I’ve seen are funnier themselves than the last two episodes put together, at least.) But I want a return to form: sci-fi shows set on a military space thingy where the future is hopeful, but weird and dangerous stuff happens. Also having good writing and characters would be good too. We don’t have any of that now.

Bang Dream Band Profile: Poppin’ Party

August 20, 2020TheRoyalFamily 1 Comment

Poppin’ Party could be considered the “main” band of Bang Dream. They’re the first band you meet, they’ve got the most story, and really they’re the reason the game even exists (Kasumi’s voice actor was already doing music for the company, so they decided to make a game about girls’ bands.) As such, they’re probably the least-defined band out of the bunch. Musically, it’s all over the place: they’ve got some rockin’ stuff, but also some really sugary pop stuff. If you’ve ever listened to K-On’s music, HTT is a good match for Poppin’ Party (PP) (it wouldn’t surprise me if the characters are a good match too; the two bands have a lot in common…).

To tell the story of PP would be to tell the story of the game, so I’ll quickly summarize. Kasumi follows a trail of stickers into Arisa’s house (yes, into her house), which doubles as a pawn shop. Inside the shop’s storage there’s a Random Star guitar; Kasumi, who’s obsessed with stars (the stickers were star stickers), must have this. And what’s the point of having a guitar if there’s no band? So Kasumi, despite never having played before, strongarms a few weaker-willed individuals (like Arisa) into her band. Of course they aren’t any good at first, but they have passion, and that’s what counts in anime. They eventually become a sort of “mascot” band for their neighborhood, and the local concert venue.

And now for the girls:

Kasumi Toyama

Kasumi, the leader and founder of Poppin’ Party, is, to put it simply, a complete idiot. She’s the girl version of a typical shounen manga protagonist: bad at school, headstrong, loud, brash, stubborn, friendly to a fault, full to overflowing with energy, rushes into things without thinking, and comes up with all sorts of silly ideas. Being an idiot, she often doesn’t realize how difficult things will be, until she’s hit some point of discouragement, where she falls apart. But being simple, she’s easy to put back together too, and gets right back up to try something else. She’s also got an almost irresistible force of will, which helps her get her way more often than not, when she can’t give good reason for a thing.

Kasumi is both the vocalist and rhythm guitarist for PP. She’s the only one who had no experience whatsoever with her instrument, so she’s the one that had the furthest to come. However, if nothing else, she has determination, and she puts in the effort to get to an acceptable level. She is also the main lyricist, which explains why the songs are so all over the place musically – she basically goes with her whims.

Arisa Ichigaya

Arisa is about the exact opposite of Kasumi. Where Kasumi is the Fool, Arisa is the Straight Man, in traditional manzai comedy fashion. Arisa is incredibly smart, top of her class, despite rarely coming to school (because she had no friends, so why bother?). Arisa pretty much just wants a normal, quiet life, but then she always gets caught up with a bunch of weirdos and antics. She tries to keep her feelings to herself, but she’s as easy to read as Kasumi, and often ends up blushing when caught trying to act cool. Sche puts on airs of being a proper young lady, demure and polite; despite that, she doesn’t suffer fools well, and often has outbursts when crazy stuff happens – usually aimed at Kasumi, the likely cause of such crazy stuff.

Arisa is the keyboardist for the band. She learned how to play piano as a child, but she hasn’t kept up with it. She’s the type that always likes to be extremely prepared and in control, so her lack of skill is always nervewracking, on top of her usual shyness. She also acts somewhat as the manager for the band: Kasumi is always half-planning stuff, and Arisa likes to be sure in every detail, so she takes care of those things. (Also doesn’t hurt that her basement is the home base for the band.) While she doesn’t like to admit it, she really cares for the band, and goes the extra mile for them.

Rimi Ushigome

Rimi is just one giant ball of anxiety in a small frame. She’s extremely shy, quite nervous, and takes a long time to make decisions for herself. So naturally, she got swept up in Kasumi’s tornadic energy. She’s also kinda dumb, which doesn’t help matters (though not anywhere near Kasumi’s level). However, she likes what she likes, and is very willing to let everyone know: chocolate coronets, horror movies, and music.

Rimi is the bassist for the band. Her older sister is the bassist for another band (Glitter Green), who taught her the basics on how to play. Even so, she’s not too skilled at the start, and much like Arisa, gets incredibly nervous during performances. Even so, she was the first one to say yes when Kasumi wanted to form a band, and is always excited for both practice and performances.

Tae Hanazono

Tae can be summed up in one phrase: space cadet. She’s never really all there. Sometimes she seems like a complete idiot, while others she’s the wisest one in the room. Usually the former, though. She’s always ready to go along with Kasumi’s ideas, often confusing the situation even more (much to Arisa’s consternation). If ever there was a non-sequitur that didn’t need to be said, she’s there to say it – usually about rabbits.

Tae is the lead guitarist for PP. She’s the only band member who’s particularly skilled with their instrument, having played guitar since she was a child. However, she never joined a band before PP – she preferred to watch; in fact, at the start of the game she’s working for a concert hall. She joins PP after tutoring Kasumi for a while, convinced that there was something special with her, some special feeling with the band.

Saya Yamabuki

Saya is the Normal One. While Arisa tries to be normal, Saya actually is. In fact, she’s so normal, I don’t have much to say about her. She’s not dumb or smart. She’s grounded and centered. But she doesn’t really perform any role in the dynamic of PP. She’s just kinda there being pretty. Her parents run a local bakery, which means she’s often left taking care of her younger siblings. In fact, this makes her the last member of PP to join up – she felt her family responsibilities would interfere with the band.

Saya is the drummer. She was actually a drummer for another band in the past, but she quit after a family incident (which, again, made her extremely hesitant to join with PP). Her role in the band mostly seems to be getting treats for parties and practices. It’s funny, she basically gets an event that’s all about her, and yet she still doesn’t make much of an impression to me.

Hobbies, Wanted

August 19, 2020TheRoyalFamily Leave a comment

Today’s Blaugust prompt is hosted by Ace Asunder:

Tell us about some of your hobbies outside of the realm of your specific niche.

I’m guessing that’s talking about hobbies I don’t talk about here on the blog. Uh…

So let’s change the prompt around a bit! I’m going to talk about a hobby that I want to get into, but haven’t because of lack of time or money, or laziness (usually this). And that’s cooking, and baking in particular.

I like cooking. It’s something I’ve enjoyed doing for some time. But I don’t do it very often. Thing is, when I’m actually needing to eat, I don’t want to cook. It’s like my enjoyment goes out the window, fleeing from me like some sort of scared bird. But when I’m not hungry, I also don’t want to cook, since I don’t want to eat – and I don’t particularly enjoy eating reheated food either. Nor do I like making basic “meal” foods, like the stuff you make from a box. Not that I’m bad at that, but it’s just not fun. What a pickle. So I either eat out or do frozen stuff (which fits with my diet, but it’s not fun, and I’m almost too lazy for that).

I also don’t mind baking, generally. Just mix stuff up, put it in the oven, and let it take care of itself. Well, sometimes. Breads and pastries require more effort, and I’m lazy. But they taste sooooo good, and there’s a lot that I”ve never tried before, that you have to pay real money to get at a bakery.

So, at present I just watch cooking shows on the internet. Sure, the food looks good, and it makes me hungry. But then I look at the prep, all the ingredient, and I balk. As I said a couple days ago, this past weekend some siblings came by for breakfast (they were passing through the area after a vacation). I was thinking of what I could make, and I thought, I’ve always wanted to try the big fluffy pancakes you see in anime. So I looked up some videos, and it’s pretty simple. But I don’t have a mixer, and you have to make a meringue (which I’ve never done before), and then it’s a bit finicky to actually cook, and excuse after excuse. So I just did french toast, which was good and fun, but not new or exciting.

So, that’s something I want to get into. Just need to get a stand mixer, a hand mixer, a bunch of ingredients, a pot or three…

Dragalia Lost Chapter 15 Review

August 18, 2020TheRoyalFamily Leave a comment

(Naturally there will be spoilers, especially for the most recent main story chapters.)

Sometimes you can have a good story, but it’s undermined by poor writing. The opposite can also be true – a bad story can have good writing. Today we’re going to look at an example of the former, in the newest addition to the main story.

To bring everyone up to speed, all you need to know is that The Great Evil, Fantasy Satan, (officially, The Other) was defeated, and Zethia was saved. Except then she was kidnapped pretty much immediately, and now Euden and friends going to get her back (conveniently, the kidnapper told them where to find her). Turns out that said kidnapper, Nedrick, is the boss of the Agito (the super-powered bad guy group of evil), has it in for Euden.

Now the big reveal comes (to Euden – the players have had this information for months): Euden isn’t the natural-born prince, but was adopted after the king’s seventh child died soon after birth. There’s some other stuff too, like Valyx (one of the other princes) gets turned into an Agito temporarily, everyone gets beat up by the agitos, and so on. But the big deal is supposed to be how everyone, and particularly Euden, reacts to the fact that Euden isn’t who he thinks he is.

Naturally, pretty much everyone except Euden is fine with it, because they are his friends. Euden is at first shocked, as one would expect, but he eventually gets over himself and gets back to work.

My overall reaction is a big Meh. There isn’t any real revelation here that we didn’t already know. There’s no big character stuff that we couldn’t already guess. There isn’t even a whole lot of character drama, besides what I’ve shown above. As far as worldbuilding goes, the only thing we get is the reveal of the last Agito in-game, and just what is up with them (the masks are magitech that brings out base emotions while simultaneously really buffing their stats.- basically turning people into monsters).

That, and there were two bits where the writing really took me out of it. The big one was during the reveal – why would anybody as smart as Nedrick (who had everything figured out) think this would change much. Sure, being told you’re adopted, when you thought your parents were your birth parents, is a big deal. But that doesn’t effectively change anything here: as Euden correctly points out above (though he does it to himself, when he should be saying it out loud), he’s got the dragon blood, so no matter what, he’s in. And, from Nedrick’s (and everyone else’s) point of view, he was officially adopted anyways (says so right in that book), so he’s got claim as much as anyone else. All the official stuff he’s done is just as legitimate as it always was. And all his friends there literally heard Alberius – the founder of the kingdom – tell Euden that he was the true heir to his power. And of course, that doesn’t change how his siblings feel about him – the older ones presumably know, and Zethia is the last person who would care (and now it’s not incest anymore…). As we see, Nedrick’s plan isn’t to usurp Euden’s place, even he did want to kill him, so I don’t see the point.

Second, back earlier Ciella tried to sow conflict in the heroes by implying that Eli had a secret that could ruin their friendship (it’s that she already knew about Euden’s situation, that’s all). As if friends didn’t have secrets from each other. This is a thing that comes up a lot in media for teens (or is written like such, as many jrpg’s are). The fact that this worked, even a little, upset me a bit, and took me out of the story. In a somewhat smart move by the writers, Euden at least dismisses this, saying that Eli will tell them in her own time, but it’s not important at that moment. Of course, if the writing were actually good, someone (I’d say Shanon, both for in-character reasons, and because she’s the one that got the idiot ball here) would point out that even friends keep secrets from each other, and that’s perfectly ok.

(We also have the fact that Brunhilda forgets she’s a dragon, and jobs in her human form; but that’s usually the case, so I’ll just ignore if for now.)

So yah, pretty middling new chapter that didn’t live up to the hype. Though I guess they never do. Even though there were a few easy fixes to the writing, overall this is basically a filler arc, right before the start of the next part of the adventure.

Who Do I Want to Meet?

August 17, 2020TheRoyalFamily Leave a comment

Today’s Blaugust prompt comes to us from Bhagpuss of Inventory Lost:

If you could meet any person you look up to, who would it be?

And I have to echo his response:

No one.

Now, my reason is completely different. I don’t want to meet anyone I look up to. I’m already awkward enough meeting people I already know, let alone complete strangers. Meeting someone I look up to would just put me so out of whack that I’d completely waste the opportunity. Hell, I do that enough with people I’ve known for quite a while.

And it’s not a lack of confidence, or social anxiety (well, not just…). I’m just bad at that whole “conversation” thing. Just yesterday, I had breakfast with a couple of my siblings who happened to be passing through town. I am quite comfortable with them, as one would expect. But still, the conversation was a bit awkward and forced. Not through any strain in our relationship, but just my lack of being a good conversation partner.

So yah, no meeting heroes, or even just people I admire.

BUT…there are some people I’d like to talk to. Not just random conversations, obviously, but about topical stuff.

You.

Well, not you, specifically, necessarily, but the general type of person who would come to this blog. If you’re here, it’s because you share some interest with me. Probably video games, maybe Star Trek. Something we could talk about. I’d say some of the people I follow on Twitter or Youtube would be fun to talk to, too. Maybe not in person, but on a podcast or stream maybe. I often have delusions that I have something meaningful to say about a particular topic, and it’d be nice to do it in a somewhat more personal manner than this blog.

Quick Sunday Musical Interlude: Queensryche

August 16, 2020TheRoyalFamily Leave a comment

Some months ago I got a new car. It came with Sirius satellite radio, something I’d never experienced before. Much to my surprise, unlike the traditional radio with its broad genre stations, the Sirius stations are often quite specific. While there’s an Oldies station, there’s also a whole Beatles station.

I looked through the station list, and one stuck out to me: Ch. 39, Hair Nation. Hair metal all day, erry day. I love me some classic rock, and I figured some stuff I’d like would be there, but, like most folks, I generally made fun of the whole concept of hair metal. Still I tuned in.

And it’s been the only channel I’ve listened to the whole time.

There were a lot of familiar tunes there, but also some new stuff. Queensryche was one of those new ones to me. If there was one band that was exemplary of that hard metal sound back at the start of the 80’s, it would be them. And also hair, I suppose. I’ve listened to a bunch of their stuff on Youtube by now, and it doesn’t stay that way. But I still think they’re quite good overall. Below is probably my favorite of theirs.

Lower Decks Episode 2: A Short Review

August 15, 2020TheRoyalFamily Leave a comment

This episode is better than the last one. It’s funnier (I laughed twice). Mariner is slightly less annoying. This is far less of a parody and more a straight comedy. If I must give a rating, it’s Meh. (Last episode would be rated Bad.)

Again, Mariner is the worst part of the episode. As I said, she isn’t as annoying, but she still is. Her major character flaw from the first episode, her dangerously impulsive nature, is gone. Now she’s merely a free spirit. But she moves extremely squarely in Mary Sue territory. The only time she does something strictly wrong, it’s [spoiler] not actually wrong, but just helping her buddy out.

The other thing that continues to bug me is that they keep Boimler (or whatever his name is) as the buttmonkey. It’s one thing to take the uptight prick down a peg or two, but he isn’t that. They just won’t give this guy a break. His main job just seems to be making Mariner look better by comparison. He’s obviously also supposed to be in the straightman role, but the point of the straightman is that they are usually correct/right, and that never happens for this character.

I still don’t know who this show is for. The humor is quite immature, and not particularly smart. Not that this is a bad thing in and of itself (that top pic is one of those times I laughed), but CBS is trying to market this show as a proper Trek show (not the for-kids cartoon), and Trek fans skew older, more mature. It’s trying to catch that Rick and Morty audience, but they won’t want to watch this, I’d bet. It’s too Trek, and we know that isn’t very popular right now, despite all the money being thrown at it. Once again, it’s clear that Trek fans made this show – you can’t make the above pic by just skimming Memory Alpha (which is how STD and Picard were written). But other Trek fans don’t really want to watch this either.