Buying Final Fantasy XV Was a Mistake: Everything About It Is Awful

(via Gadgets)

Final Fantasy XV has been out for a while now, and I only just recently got around to playing it. The game is open-world, and while that is hardly a new concept for Final Fantasy, the current technology and graphics allowed for some really impressive visuals, as well as a large number of fun side quests and optional dungeons. And… that consists of the good things I have to say about this game. Final Fantasy XV was in production for a long time—I remember first seeing videos and articles for it back in 2009–10. In the past decade, the story definitely went through a number of weird changes, and it sure as hell shows. I was aware of some shitty things about FFXV even before it was released. The game writers decided not to include playable female characters because they thought having them would change the dynamic of the male characters as they take a road trip across the world. Literally every Final Fantasy game is about a bunch of characters traveling the world, but this time, there’s a car involved, so I guess it must be different.

Oh, wait, no it’s not. (via PlayStationTrophies)

But the problems in Final Fantasy XV go well beyond blatant sexism—although there’s plenty of that to go around too. I hardly thought the story would be perfect, but this game was a decade in production. I expected it to at least have some solid characterization and worldbuilding, but even that seems to be too much for FFXV to handle.

Spoilers up ahead.

Throwback Thursdays: The Sword of Shannara

Fantasy is big money now. Everyone is looking to the hefty fantasy tomes of the past for inspiration for the next Game of Thrones, with mixed success. The appearance of Terry Brooks’s world of Shannara on the small screen thanks to MTV is just one example of this.

When I first heard that the show was being made, I decided it was time to finally reread The Sword of Shannara, the 1977 book that introduced me to Brooks’s expansive world, and which I first read in my grade school’s library. Real life intervened, however; a season of the show has come and gone, and I only just sat down with my battered old copy of the book last week. Unfortunately, my reread left me mostly confused and concerned for the tastes of my elementary school self, as The Sword of Shannara is an odd mix of utter tedium and story beats lifted directly from its more celebrated contemporary, The Lord of the Rings.

Spoilers for the novel below.

Sleepy Hollow: “Ragnarok” Review

Wow. Have you all seen the Sleepy Hollow finale? I have, and I’m not pleased. Spoilers after the jump.

The Walking Dead: “No Way Out” Review

I did not want to watch this episode. “No Way Out” really tested my tolerance for this show because everything bad happens in it. The Walking Dead has been struggling with its storytelling for quite some time. It’s clear that the writers are having trouble coming up with new and interesting conflicts, because they’ve resorted to rehashing older storylines. Except it’s somehow even worse than that—those storylines have lost all meaning and are damn near impossible to get invested in anymore. The Walking Dead has devolved into a pointless mess of plotlines that it’s not at all committed to keeping up with, and “No Way Out” illustrates that perfectly.

Magical Mondays: That Time in The Inheritance Cycle when Elves Didn’t Steal Babies

The Inheritance Cycle is one of those series that is just filled to the brim with bad idea after bad idea. While that was rather apparent when reading the first three books, it didn’t occur to me just how much the author had no idea what he was doing until the last book. Like other fantasy narratives, the mechanics in The Inheritance Cycle are based on numerous myths, fairytales, and folklores. But one of the many problems with The Inheritance Cycle, however, is that it has no restraint. It doesn’t know which myths to use and which ones not to. It also doesn’t help that, once again, the story relies on telling and not showing.

We can see this in numerous instances, from the morality between the good and bad guys to how magic works to the roles dragons play in the narrative. The Inheritance Cycle has many common fantasy tropes, but it doesn’t utilize those tropes to the best of its ability, or at all. Instead, they become pointless instances in the story that rise up out of nowhere and have no impact on anything. A perfect example of this is when the series introduced changelings in the fourth book, Inheritance.

Why Are You Sad That There’s No Female Doctor?

Much of the internet has feels (this blog included) about the lack of female Doctor. I personally do not have such an opinion simply because Moffat has proven time and again that he is incapable of writing a decent female character, specifically his female companions.

Too frequently Moffat treats his female companions like an audience for the Doctor: that they should just smile, nod, and take everything that is given without question. It’s getting to a point where the Doctor is hero-worshipped by his companions as opposed to the companions balancing him out. I’ve discussed before how the companion’s job is to, in a sense, keep the Doctor from losing control of himself. Eleven, in my opinion, has had too much freedom and not enough checks. And it is the writers who didn’t give us strong female companions.

I also think that Clara and Amy are too similar when you get right down to it, and that I can most definitely attribute to poor writing. Our first female companion is Amy, a plucky Scottish girl with a supposedly impossible problem, a crack in her bedroom wall that keeps following her around. And then we have Clara, a plucky English girl with a supposedly impossible problem: multiple lives/existences. For me, they’re just way too similar in initial concept. I honestly don’t think that Amy had much of a personality while she was a companion and so far Clara hasn’t exhibited much of a personality either. Amy’s personality came out in her relationship with Rory. And when you need a male character to give your female character personality, that’s wrong. And I blame Moffat.

Now I know a lot of you are saying “What about River? She’s got a personality!” right about now, but Moffat hasn’t exactly done her justice either. First, he made her entire world revolve around the Doctor, just like the other companions. Then, Moffat couldn’t even figure out a way to work in her sexuality to the series for goodness’ sake. If that doesn’t demonstrate an inability to write, well then I don’t know what does. Not to mention if you’ve ever seen something else with Alex Kingston (the actress who plays River Song), such as her guest starring roles in NCIS and Upstairs Downstairs, you know she plays practically the same character every single time. So any personality River has I attribute more to Kingston as an actress than to Moffat’s writing ability.

So we have three female protagonists and three failures for decent character writing. One could say that Moffat is bad with characters in general, but Moffat can write a good male character. Take Rory for example. So many people liked Rory more than Amy simply because he had a stronger character that was much better written. So it’s only the ladies who are suffering from bad writing, not the gents.

Now imagine if Amy was the Doctor. Or Clara. How boring would Doctor Who be? It would be a snoozefest! I’d go so far to say a female Doctor under Moffat’s leadership would kill the show. For more information, check out this link to Saika’s Tumblr and a plethora of discussions on the topic.

What do you think? Am I spot on or losing my mind? Let me know in the comments!

Thoughts on the ‘Smash’ Premiere

A while ago I posted about this show after viewing the preview for the premiere. At the time, I was concerned for the show in terms of its story and character development but cautiously optimistic on a few counts. Now that the full premiere has aired I have a bit more to say. As is often the case with special two-hour episodes, the premiere was really just two episodes stuck together; the second episode even included its separate title card so there was no mistaking the fact. Both episodes had their strong points, but they had some glaring problems too.

‘Smash’ Season 2 Preview

The NBC show Smash is a show that I almost feel I like out of sheer force of will. I want to like it so I do, despite frequently being let down by it. Well, Smash will be returning for its second season on Tuesday, February 5 but a 44 minute sneak peek of the premiere is available on the channel’s website here. I’m looking forward to the premiere and following the show for another season, but there were a lot of issues with the show in season one, primarily due to its characterization and story development.

If you’re unfamiliar with the show, it follows the creation of a musical from conception to Broadway opening. The majority of the series, however, follows the personal lives of the people involved in the musical, from the creative team to the cast and this I believe is detrimental to the story. It’s not that the show couldn’t or shouldn’t focus on the characters’ lives outside the musical (though obviously I, personally, would like to see more focus on the theatre side of the story) but the problem is that the characters are so poorly written.