Detritus of the Mind

Day off equals time for another list!  I've been enjoying lots of videos about nostalgic gaming lately, and it made me think that there's a bunch of franchises that I'd love to see get a new entry.  I don't mean another brown & grim "reimagining" - I mean a proper revival.  Some are existing series that have strayed far from their old format, and some just sort of vanished.  There's some series that I would welcome another entry in even though I think they've reached a good end point (i.e. the Mother series), and there are some that I haven't played enough to really judge beyond a single game (such as, I've played Chrono Trigger but not Chrono Cross, so I can't weigh in on it at all).  Others I'm not sure I'd want another game but I would like to see the characters again (such as wanting to see Liddell as DLC for a Disgaea game but not necessarily wanting a sequel to A Witch's Tale - although I'd happily play it if it sh...

Okay, Part 1 was Gripe-a-palooza.  Part 2 is the stuff I liked, and I’ll try really hard to make it more than just fannish gushing.  Also, as part of my Shift to Positive, I’ll be offering a Mea Culpa for some initial knee-jerk reactions in the past, since my revisits have changed my impressions. As I said before, SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS for stuff that’s mentioned. BEST TV SHOW: Steven Universe:  “If every pork chop was perfect, we wouldn’t have hot dogs!”  Promoted largely because it’s from the first female original-show creator in Cartoon Network’s history (which surprised me, since they usually want to avoid acknowledging females in any way), it is a damn fine show.  Steven himself is a refreshingly sweet & dorky change of pace from the usual sassy & wiseass kid hero (which you do get a break from on Gumball & Adventure Time), the Gems all have great personalities & work well as his surrogate family, his supporting cast is growin...

Ah, 2013.  It was another year of pointless stress but what do you expect for adulthood?  It was the year I got back into anime, the year I finally figured out how the hell Tumblr works, the year I belatedly got hooked on Pokemon.  Everything outside of pop culture was trying extra, extra hard to make this a bad year, but the balance was otherwise such that I managed to stay sane. Like last year, I have decided to break this down into two parts, and since this is the year I made the choice to try & be more positive, I’m going to get any negativity out of the way in this first entry.  So here’s my disappointments & one bafflement for 2013. (Please note that video games are not on this list.  There weren’t a lot of new games that came out that interested me – so that will be the Disappointment for 2013 for gaming – and the ones that did interest me were on the 3DS, which I just got for Christmas (whoo-hoo!).  So games are benched for this year, a...

Most people would list the worst run in any of the X-books to be Chuck Austen’s Uncanny X-Men run, and they’d be right.  But for personal reasons (because I have enough sense to avoid stuff written by a dude who rolled up from Penthouse of all places), I find that Louise Simonson’s run on New Mutants to be far more infuriating and upsetting.  Her run took a book that proved teen books didn’t have to be just soap opera and could literally do anything, and turned it into a generic mishmash.  Worse, it undid a lot of the good that the early days of the book had created. Granted, some of the stuff isn’t on her head.  I really do believe her now that the decision to kill off Doug Ramsey was her trying to call fans’ bluffs.  The dropped ideas at the end of her run thanks to the coming of Liefeld, when there were actual interesting new concepts & plots introduced without explanation, are not her fault in the slightest – in fact, if they worked at all, it’s pr...

You know how every action has an equal and opposite reaction?   Well, every list of favorite team members has an equal and opposite list of characters I don’t like.   I apologize if it’s a bit heavy with DeFilippis/Weir characters, but remember what I said about it being hit or miss; my absolute favorite characters they handled will be largely addressed next week, when I talk about everyone’s favorite frenemy team, the Hellions. 5. Wither: He has the rare distinction of being one of two Hellions I dislike as well.   He’s one of those characters whose whole schtick is the reason the X-Men franchise has a reputation for wangst; yes, his powers sucked, but that was literally all there was to him – he had destructive powers & he hated them.   He was so absorbed into hating them that he failed to notice when something not crappy (i.e. Mercury was inexplicably smitten with him) was approaching him, and he only went along with Selene because all she cared abou...

Looking back on my history with the X-books, I realized that pretty much both of the seminal gateways to the world of the X-Men were bound to the New Mutants.   The very first comic I picked up was Uncanny #281, that atrocious issue where the Hellions (among many other established characters) were killed off by the failed villain team the Upstarts.   Later, when I discovered the franchise’s golden age in the 80s, it was through the storyline where Kulan Gath turned New York into a fantasy land thanks to Classic X-Men; in that story, most of the New Mutants were his minions, while Warlock was among the handful of heroes fighting to free the city.   Probably not the best place for a newbie to come into the X-books in either case, but these two initial intros were what led to my fascination with the New Mutants. But being fond of something for its place as an early introduction is one thing; my love of New Mutants is more than nostalgia.   During Chris Claremont’...

Yep, it's another response to the latest episode of Major Spoilers' Top Five, this time addressing dated things you can't help but love, even if they don't hold up in the light of the modern day.  I've spoken before about how I find nostalgia to be somewhat poisonous, but that is because I don't look back at things & think "This sucked! Why did I like this?" to "What about this still appeals to me, even though my tastes have changed?"  All of these things are stuff that I loved unironically & without any meta-knowledge as a kid but now have to approach with weird to define mental caveats.  So here are my Top Five Dated Things I Still Love 5. Cadbury Crème Eggs:   Ah, every dentist's favorite Easter treat.  I used to inhale these things as a kid, but some time in the last decade they just became unbearably sweet to me.  The flavored varieties like the chocolate cream & the dearly-missed orange cream weren't as much of an...

Everyone who's a pop culture nerd should at least know of TV Tropes by now, right?  How they've created a handy-dandy guide to different archetypes, stock plots, and storytelling devices that is both informative and entertaining?  As a would-be writer, sometimes reviewing it can help with a story point or character beat that you're having a hard time defining, or it can help you avoid a potentially awful turn.  But not every trope has a name.  In fact, several of my personal pet peeves go nameless when they occur a lot and really need to be called on the floor for how awful they are.  So here is my first Bottom Five, unofficial tropes that drive me absolutely nuts. 5. All Aliens Are Invaders:  In every single movie or TV show built around aliens on right now, they are usually faceless, personality-free, unknowable destroyers & invaders.  Even when they try to give them a motive, it's usually no more than "they're taking our jobs stuff".  I...

The latest Top Five podcast from Major Spoilers covered cartoons you think don't get the love they deserve.   This is, obviously, a topic near & dear to my nerdy little heart, so here's my list.  I'm basing this on size of fandom, staying power, & availability as well as my own love. 5.) Super Robot Monkey Team Hyper Force GO!   A loving tribute to 70s/80s sentai anime, this is the only series on this list that I haven't seen in full.  But what I saw was so impressive that I resent I can't legally see more or own it in a nice set.  It's got giant robots, it's got cute monkeys, it's got a boy hero with an awesome scarf who falls in love with an android girl, it's got freaky-ass set pieces, it's got an art style that seems to have inspired others in its wake... how could this fail?  Maybe, even though it made the full 65-episode run, it was just too unique to succeed. - Following: Small but loyal.  I've never met anyone, but hell, so...

I'm doing this week's entry a little earlier than normal because I have a very busy weekend ahead of me.  So this one will be shorter than the rest. After writing up last week's entry and thinking again what a disappointment the game was, I started thinking of the Jobs/Crowns that initially made it seem like an innovative game and not a frustrating mire.  So I picked my top five of Jobs from The 4 Heroes of Light that I would like to see attempted in another, better Final Fantasy game (ideally, as part of a sequel to FFV). 5.) Merchant:   The whole point of the Merchant class is to get more gems; they have a slight boost to their stats, just enough to keep them from being ridiculous, but they really just serve to make your party richer.  Just convert the "gems" acquisition to gil & you're good to go.  This is not as greedy as it sounds, especially if you have any Jobs that use Gil Toss abilities. 4.) Alchemist:   If you're like me & you...

Last month, The Game Heroes had their countdown of their five favorite Final Fantasy games.   I agreed with all of their choices, but it got me thinking of which five games in the series would be on my list and why.  So using my experience with the franchise, I present my own list of my Top Five Final Fantasy Games.  (Please note that, with all games using Job Systems, if Summoner is available, then it is automatically an honorable favorite job.) 5.) Final Fantasy X-2: Girls’ Night Out Adventuring - Why Others Dismiss It: I’m willing to bet lots of people who’ve never played it hate it just because Spoony hated it (as recent events have proven, Spoony has some serious issues, so I no longer consider his opinion worthwhile).   More fairly, though, I’ve heard complaints about the plot (especially the fairly unlikable Lenne & Shuyin) and the ridiculous amount of fanservice.   Both of those are perfectly valid. - Why I Like It: I’m sorry, haters, I ca...