Why I Don't Care about Amiibo's

Nintendo are a smart bunch aren't they? A bit slow sometimes though...especially when it comes to change that's forced on them, rather than change they can control like the smart phone situation. Amiibos are a result of Nintendo looking at Skylanders and saying, hey...we can do that! Amazing that it's taken them this long to come up with it, though it's not like they haven't dabbled in this sort of idea before with their Card Reader attempts. Clearly though, people like tiny statues more than a pack of cards that unlocks otherwise useless game additions as not to alienate people like me that don't want a tiny statue so I can re-skin Kirby in his game or whatever. I don't buy skin packs in games for 99 cents, why would I spend $13 dollars to do it?

That's the short of why I couldn't care less about Amiibos. The long of it is a bit more nuanced, and much more personal than practical than my short reason. I'm not writing this to convince anyone, by all means please go out and enjoy your tiny statues, it doesn't affect me in the slightest. Frankly, I'd prefer people did buy them so Nintendo can keep making my favorite games. 

 So...wait why am I writing this? I guess I hate fads, especially bad ones. I also consider myself a gamer who sees the funds he has in increments of "games." For instance, 5 Amiibos is the value of 1 AAA game. 3 of them is worth more than half of a game. Putting myself in my own shoes standing in front of a store shelf littered with tiny statues of Mario, and Super Mario 3D World and not wanting to leave the store spending more than $60 the choice is clear as day to me, and any other choice is baffling to borderline offensive to my senses. Clearly, I am choosing to get the Mario game. In the game Mario can do so many more things than take up desk space, that alone trumps the uses a tiny statue can provide me.

Obviously, taking the game centric view that I have about it that I do, the conclusion to buy a game is always the choice and the only choice and not everyone is like that, which again is why I am perfectly fine with people buying Amiibos if they want them. Though, the other layer to this is the fad craze that rubs me completely the wrong way. Nintendo is doing what Nintendo does and making the Amiibos in limited quantities to drive up demand. I can't blame them for this successful tactic, and I won't, but they have been...well...way too successful at it this time. These Amiibos have become another Beanie Babies as many have noted. The thing that irks me most though, is this time we KNOW what they're doing and people are still buying into it like moths to the flame. When the Beanie Baby craze happened there wasn't the internet telling us we're all stupid, we just had Fox News bringing that revelation and after they did that, the Beanie Baby madness stopped. Instead, these Amiibos were PREDICTED to do this to people, and it's still being written about on other gaming websites as it happens. People are being straight up informed their stupid lizard brains are being manipulated into buying these silly things and yet, they're still all the rage. I'm not sure whether I should be annoyed by the very effective marketing that's taken place here, or the collective masses who are most likely going to have buyers remorse years later much like the Beanie Baby collectors did.  

But, I don't really care about them and I'm pretty sure they don't want me to care about them while they enjoy their tiny statues, I'll use my money on things I want. That's how the market works after all, but I can't help notice the sheer amount of manipulation going on here to get people to think they want something they otherwise wouldn't want. It's the pet rock scenario shaped like a cute little Pikachu or Mario...god dammit they are cute aren't they...NO no...must regain control, yes...ahem where was I? Yes, so the point of all this blather I guess is to serve as a bit of a warning. As someone with a marketing degree, who's seen this all before, really ask yourself if what you want are tiny statues, or if you are being told you want tiny statues. If you don't really care either way, that's fine too, ignorance can indeed be blissful as they say, there's no actual harm here after all. Unless of course these things are a massive terrorist brainwashing plot conceived by Nintendo to rule us all! Think about it...follow the money...etc etc

*Nintendo: Allah Akbar!*

Final Fantasy Type 0 Review - Do You Hear the People Sing?

Final Fantasy Type 0 is not an ordinary Final Fantasy game of recent years, because this game is actually good, a big departure from the last 10 years of FF games. It still has some flaws, some kinks it needs to work out, but overall it is pretty good fun. You also have to tone down your expectations a bit as this was originally a PSP game, so graphically it's not the best. But let's go over this one a bit. Also, you should be checking out my stream as I played the whole thing on Twitch =) twitch.tv/acefondu


Graphics:

As mentioned the graphics aren't great, it's a PSP game blown up and retextured quite a bit to make it even remotely viewable. This isn't your ordinary HD release though, you can tell they put a lot of work into making the game workable for the big screen. There's only so much you can do though, and its hardware origins shine through with jaggies abound. It's perfectly tolerable though, and the frame rate never dips unlike the FF15 demo that came with the game which runs at a consistent 15FPS...Still, there's nothing here to impress graphically speaking except of course, some of the jaw dropping cutscenes that are done in CG.

Story (spoilers): 

There's not much to say on this game's story unfortunately, and mostly I have a negative opinion of it, however the game does contain some of the best scenes I've seen in recent Final Fantasy memory. There are three scenes in particular that bring a bevy of emotions in the beginning, middle, and end of the game. They are so powerful, and so moving that they make the otherwise completely boring plot tolerable. The ending of this game is probably my second favorite FF ending ever just behind FF9. Again, that's not to say the story was good though sadly.

It mainly revolves around Class Zero a group of students who have been tasked with stopping one of the three kingdoms from gathering all 4 Crystals to take over the world. It's told very dryly, with some very basic politics, and weirdly your own commander hiring one of your group to spy on the person that gave your team power.

No one's actions besides the evil empire kingdom makes any sense at all. Namely, the two characters you meet at the start of the game Rem and Machina who are essentially the main characters of the game. They join Class Zero to fight the good fight. Machina is tasked with spying on Class Zero (even though he's told this later as some kind of "revelation" to him (how the hell did he forget?). Machina never really seems to care about this, and this plot NEVER goes anywhere meaningful either. His main concern is to protect Rem at all costs who is dying from what appears to be a minor cough...., and he gets...well decidedly evil while trying to do so. Think Anakin Skywalker going Dark Side to learn how to be powerful enough to stop people from dying. Anyway, so Machina is hateful toward Class Zero even though they try to help him, he's just VERY mean overall and later becomes a l'Ce in hopes of gaining enough power to save Rem. This, again, never really goes anywhere. He ends up FIGHTING against Rem and stabbing and killing her at the end...which he then cries about....after HIS mask comes off....so I guess his mask made it so he couldn't see who he was stabbing? It's very unclear and another point against characters performing actions that don't fall in line with their character or just don't make any sense at all.

Anyway, he turns Crystal as l'Ce sometimes are want to do and that ends up saving Rem after they come out of Crystal stasis like...a few hours later. That's when the ending starts, and I'm not going to give it away, the game does that for you leading up to the final battle anyway, but I cannot recommend seeing it enough. It's very well done and the whole thing reminds me of Les Miserables if you've ever seen that play. Class Zero are the Students, they just are, 100% the same feeling. It's quite good.

I will point out one other aspect to the story I thought was a missed opportunity. Machina was clearly made out to be a villain, yet Class Zero never confronts him, you never fight him. Yet we really should have, it was a huge missed opportunity.

Gameplay: 

This was the most solid aspect of the game. The gameplay is very basic yet very deep. All 12 characters from Class Zero have a special way to play, they are ALL very different and fun. Everyone gets skills that suit their class type, Trey can rain arrows with his bow, Cinque can use her mace to cause an Earthquake, King shoots stuff with guns...etc. You'll find use for each of their unique move-sets throughout the game. Or you could play the way I did and discover Ace is good for every situation and wrecks everything in his path. The game is decidedly too easy if you over level any of the characters. Also, don't worry about over leveling for the final area all the enemies are level 16 for some reason...and you'll likely be in the high 30's by the end.

This brings me to the biggest complaint I have about the game. The end boss is effectively a QTE battle. It's not...really QTE....but you can't die, yet at the same time you're supposed to die. It makes sense for the story but as a gameplay element it makes no sense why you don't have a real fight at the end. If you play it you'll understand. There's literally no reason they couldn't have made this a legitimate battle. So yeah, this game falls prey to horrible boss sequences newer games seem to be doing these days for no reason at all. From Dying Light, to Far Cry 4, and Shadow of Mordor, developers have no interest in making final bosses anymore, even if they've made perfectly serviceable bosses earlier in the game. So it's not like they're incapable of making good boss fights, it's just that...they don't want to? Lazyness, budget concerns, I dunno why this trend continues but it's getting on my last nerve.

Music: 

Amazing, get this soundtrack, one of the best FF has produced in years. It's that good.

Final Thoughts:

Type-0 is in unorthodox game with its mission structure, strange time limit system between missions where each thing you choose chops off a certain number of hours leading you to "mission day," and paradoxically a terrible cast of characters surrounded by absurdly well directed scenes that make you want to care about them ever so slightly. This is the closest we've moved forward in the FF series since the dark ages of 12 and the 13 series to having something feel 'epic' again and filled with emotional value where the characters are invested as much as the player again. Kudos to them on this game overall. It's steps in the right direction, not leaps and bounds, but, certainly, it's good enough.

*FF Type-0....it's good enough*