In an almost unbelievable twist, I'm going to begin this blog with ACTUAL LEGITIMATE BLOGGING CONTENT. This is an event so rare that future blog historians will debate its veracity for eons - but one thing they will agree on will be that the selection of memes included was of the best possible taste.
REGULAR POINTLESS BLOG CONTENT CONTINUES AFTERWARDS SO LOOK DOWN THERE FOR CHANNEL NEWS AND STUFF.
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I saw something on twitter somewhen where people were talking about the 4 games that had the most influence on them. It got me thinking: gee wilikers me hearties what would then there be then those 4 stupidya vidya that gone done and thinged their stuff all up in here? I couldn't answer even a question as simple of this off the top of my head, so now I will spend upwards of 30 seconds thinking about it and tell you the cold, hard truth.
Final Fantasy VII/VIII
This is the first thing(s) that comes to mind, on account of me playing it(hem) a lot in the good old days. Yes it's cheating to have 2 games jammed into one slot, but I only squeeze to please, you understand.
I played FFVII to ~100% completion with all the obscure side quests and chocobo racing mastery, so I probably liked it or something. Actually I never defeated Ruby Weapon, and this was just barely before the time when looking up guides became easy, so I probably gave up. Now I can't actually think of any specific way in which the game influenced me so... Yeah this was a pretty good pick wasn't it? I dunno, I guess it was my first big, involving game experience, so that's why it sticks with me.
I remember discovering that the game continued AFTER YOU LEFT MIDGAR. I was like, whoa, that's crazy! For whatever reason I was completely okay with just the Midgar sequence being the whole game, and when I hit the world map I realised I was in for the real deal with this game.
And the answer the important question about this game: I actually didn't really care about Aerith dying, or find it very innovative since I hadn't played many rpgs, meaning the twist of having a character die meant nothing - in other genres they die all the time! I seem to recall being much more concerned with the fact that Cloud drops Aerith into a lake, into which she somehow sinks out of view despite it also being shown to be only a couple of feet deep (i.e. Cloud walks into the middle of it, then drops her). If I cried at anything, it was this continuity error. That's the sort of horrible kid I was, and probably still am.
As a pointless aside that I just remembered, I actually wished that FF7 was a book rather than a game. I was into books big time back then, but FF7 was like a totally different kind of thing that I liked in a different way. So I wished I could somehow combine the two media to get a combined effect. FF7 was probably the beginning of the end for me reading things, and now I can't read a book without constantly thinking how much cooler it would be if xyz was happening so I just gave up. Damn cool rpgs with your funky plots!
I think my second first choice, Final Fantasy VIII was much more influential on my tastes. Let me tell you this off the bat right now: I read ALL the FF8 fan fiction that existed at the time. I printed that shizz out into actual little books since I didn't have my own computer. I don't really remember them, but I'm going to boldly claim that they influenced me anyway. IS THIS HOW TO WRITE A BLOG POST?
I'm pretty sure I didn't understand the overall plot of the game (and that I still wouldn't if I played it today), but I really liked all the individual parts of it. I was like 200% invested in the Squall-Rinoa romance, even though I have it on good authority that it is the most awful and terrible thing ever. OMG they hugged! And I guess helping me along were the facts that the humans looked a lot more human than in 7, and that it was set initially in a school, a thing that I was also at. Hey, I have to wear a uniform too, sucks huh, you hang in there Squall <3.
I think Squall influenced me personally in that he's all about being independent, which I am in real life. Admittedly in the game I believe it's actually presented as a negative that he has to fight to get rid of, but at the time I was all like 'yeah that Squall he don't need no man' etc. and thought he was really cool for it. I remember a line in some fanfiction where it mentioned he would sometimes go for days without eating just to prove he didn't 'need' food. Now that's goddamned independent yo!
Also the music was best.
Rome: Total War
I should probably at least pretend to be influenced by the total war series on account of my 'profession'. Seriously though, I really liked the original Rome Total War. I had already been exposed to something similar through the too-good-to-be-true ps2 game Kessen II, but to have it in the super-cool Roman setting, and on a bigger scale, was something really worthwhile.
The game came with a big poster featuring a map of the game world. Since I couldn't play the game that much, on account of only being able to play it on my dad's PC, I used to study this map and identify all the points that were chokepoints - any point that was 3 tiles wide or less could be permanently defended with a fort. I was well into playing defensively, which I would later learn is the worst way to play. But I was pretty much playing for the role play and simulation aspect. I never finished a campaign, and would rarely even leave Italy - oh yeah, I always played as Rome.
With the advent of the Rome Total Realism and Roma Surrectum mods that made it really immersive and realistic, I played it like a billion more hours, again just doing not very much and enjoying the Roman commander simulator that it effectively was. This game no doubt gave me greater interest in the Roman world as a whole, and made me interested in military tactics/military history. You could say it made me interested in total war games in general too, although before having this youtube channel I only played empire once and shogun 2 once, so really they remained low down on my list as a franchise.
As mentioned in a previous blog post somewhere, the question of how to change my channel into a final fantasy 8 audio drama is one I must wrestle with every day.
Dynasty Warriors 4
Now here's the real stuff. I played an infinite amount of Dynasty Warriors 4 on the ps2. It all started with a demo of dynasty warriors 3 that I played with a friend over and over (had a 10 minute timer so would constantly reset it). I guess I just took to the hack and slash shizzle. Then at some point while browsing a CD electronic encyclopedia on the home PC, I discovered several stud articles on terms like 'Han Dynasty' and 'Cao Cao'. What the? THIS STUFF WAS ACTUALLY REAL?! Well that tears it.
Ended up getting DW4 and playing it to the point where I was surely the world's foremost expert on this 7.5/10 historical hack and slash. At some point this caused me to actually get the book and read it, which was a very good decision indeed.
As for its influence, it turned me into a three kingdoms fanboy of course, and got me interested in small unit strategy game design funnily enough. I used to make little board games using maps from the game where you would move a few units around and roll dice to simulate their fights. Yes, I had invented Fire Emblem, just a decade or so too late!
Now the consensus is that the DW franchise has been strangled and destroyed by its owners, but I still enjoyed Fire Emblem Warriors recently. Wait, is this actually an entry about Fire Emblem? Well even though I didn't play it until I was like 20, its spirit was clearly influencing me from afar all along, which much be why I liked it right away.
Star Ocean 2: The Second Story
I struggled to think of a forth one actually. I think after the top three-ish other influences become about even. But I decided to settle on Star Ocean 2 because I remembered something very influential about it: it made me interested in science fiction. The reason for that was actually quite tangential to the game itself.
In the game there was an encyclopedia full of general lore information and background. The setting for Star Ocean is a far future where humans, and other humanish aliens, travel about the galaxy on various adventures. If I remember right, they had an actual scientist of some kind consulting on the writing in order to provide decent explanations for how all the futurist technology worked. I found all this fascinating, and would sit there reading the entries on how exactly force fields worked and how they evolved over the fake history to adapt to changes in weapons technology. Most fascinating was the concept of 'creation energy', this modern (by the game's standards) invention that allowed you to pull energy from other dimensions (or something) for a brief moment to create crazy effects. And there was a whole load of cool alien species and history in there, basically mass effect before mass effect.
Now because the game's directors were ABSOLUTE HACKS all this cool sci-fi stuff had almost no baring at all on the game, and instead it was a traditional jrpg where you went about in a medieval-style society and killed goblins with a sword. I still liked it for a similar reason to FF8: the individual story scenarios were interesting, and I was all about the romance between Claude and Rena. Can't remember if it was actually terrible in retrospect.
I was then completely enraged by the sequel, Star Ocean 3. At the beginning you're actually living in the future scenario, using VR and teleporters and talking about space ships and shizz, just like I wanted it. Then it pulls a 180 and just says NOPE, throws you on a technologically backwards planet, gives you a sword, and points you at the goblins. I was so betrayed man! The game's opening shows all these beautiful shots of future earth, which famous landmarks from today preserved like trophies inside huge hyper-metropolises, with all the sci-fi-shizz you can want. Then the game... THERE'S A SPIDER IN THE MINE CAN A PLUCKY OUTSIDER HERO COME AND HIT IT WITH A SWORD WHILE SHOUTING 'DOUBLE SLASH!' UNIRONICALLY?!
In the second half of the game, if you get to it, it actually does become the game I was looking for, with you leaving the medieval setting and going into space for an adventure that transcends dimensions and twists the plot to absolute death with its hard-sci-fi existential crisis-inducing developments. WHY WASN'T THAT THE WHOLE GAME? ANY WHY ARE HALF THE CHARACTERS SO WEIRD LOOKING?! WAS ANIME TOO REALISTIC FOR YOU?! Ahem.
Okay look my actual pick is Star Ocean 3 because it taught me to never trust anything ever again. Top 10 Anime Betrayals, right here.
One day, in a later Star Ocean game, the main character was called 'Edge Maverick'. No redemption arc for the franchise seems possible.
Thanks for reading my 4 most influential games of all time. Well it was more like just me talking about 4 games. But it was 6 games. 'Devin played these 6 games'. That's what you have read. We all have regrets.
Here are some other game titles I remember playing a lot in the past: Gran Turismo 2, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Ocarina of Time, Jade Cocoon, Burnout 3, Kessen 2/3, the demo of some snowboarding game (SSX Tricky?) over and over, 1st gen pokemon, Alien Storm and Croc: Legend of the Gobbos. Most of these games are probably trash, but just had nothing else to play back in the days was buying those evil video games was tantamount to buying hard drugs. I think I actually borrowed most of these from other people come to think of it. #RepressedChildhood
NOW BACK TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED RANTING
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Hey did you hear that a new Total War comes out next week? All the COOL youtubers got early access and already played it... But I have been pre-souring my grapes for a while so I will tolerate the snub, for *turns on megaphone* the game looks boring anyway! *cries*
It does appear to be another walk-out of good of total war rome 2's game design and engine, in its later, attila/age of charlemagne form. Rumour has it that it removed many a feature even from that very sparse basepoint, probably on account of being given no budget whatsoever. With no fundamental changes, it's very much just like buying a new monopoly board with a different theme.
Maybe I'll get sent a free copy down the line, but for now I will take any excuse to not buy it so I can avoid forcing myself to play it just for 'work'. I already have enough issues with constantly running out of footage because I loath to 'waste' my weekends or evenings playing yet more shogun 2. Doing xcom has been much more fun! I have also been playing a ps2 game called Steambot Chronicles for This is Content, and it is easily one of my favourite games ever, so that has saved me from hating video games recently. I won't spoil the joy of that game here, watch my videos on it, coming soon!
Looks like youtube did some dead sub removal over the last few days, so I'm no longer closer to 20K than 19K. Sad face. As always, the mystery of how to better acquire subscribers awaits a solution, or more accurately a solution that somehow fits in with my current release schedule.
I was thinking a lot recently about really slowing down making videos in order to do more scripted reviews and analysis things like I did for Oriental Empires that one time. I like to watch that kind of thing, so I'm interested in trying it myself. Could even end up getting more views on just a few uploads that way, but where can I find the time to even try it? *Sighs, even louder than in previous blog posts*
Last bit of news: Godless tactics, the best game ever, continues on. Development is slow because really I just need to add written content and design things, rather than work on the engine or mechanics. Bit by bit I am building the world map, with the odd break to look for bugs. Still haven't actually played the game past the opening, since I'm still adding content I keep thinking it would be better to test it all from the very beginning once the experience is somewhat finalised. Oh I'm sure I'll be in for a rude awakening then.
I've gotta go now. Need to film Shogun 2. Urgh! Maybe just a little bit of Metal Gear Solid 2 first... it is a Sunday after all!
