Yay E3. My opinions in particular can be rather baseless, but they’re opinions and I’m not trying to persuade otherwise. This E3 was a joke. The only person who seemed comfortable with themselves on the stage was Cliff Bleszinski. Oh, and I almost forgot Mr. ‘Kevin Butler’, but he’s just silly. (In a good way.)

First off, I’m already miffed at Nintendo flaunting how much crap they’ve sold. You can watch the Nintendo conference anywhere – just google it or go ahead and visit your favorite site for gaming media. They’ve sold more? Good for them. I couldn’t care less if they sold 15 million more units than the PS3. But aside from that, the Nintendo conference had Reggie and his fellow corporate buddies speaking to me like I was an idiot. Sure – they have to speak to an audience with a wide range of journalists and just.. people. The way they spoke and delivered their wares seemed that there had to be some applause after everything they said. I felt annoyed after watching the Nintendo conference, uninterested with Microsoft, and angry at Sony. And the 3DS announcement was underwhelming; please get an English speaking person next time, Nintendo. Even then, I don’t think that would have improved it, so I’ll count my blessings for now.

The only thing that made me happy from the Sony conference was Portal 2, and Gabe’s few opening statements were pretty funny. And as much as I may be excited to see another Dead Space 2, I was hoping for a different game. It wasn’t in the conference, but I’m also on the lookout for FFXIV, since I’ve played FFXI and actually stuck with it for a while to realize it’s probably the best Final Fantasy game I’ve ever played.

And meh to Microsoft. Please enjoy the picture of Sakuya watching Ryuu getting his arse kicked.

The "new" Hatsune Miku

The image above is of the “new” Hatsune Miku designed by Crypton Future Media which graced the cover of the box for the virtual idol’s second release entitled “CV01 Hatsune Miku Append”. Crypton is widely accepted to be the leader in the VOCALOID world when it comes to vocal quality and merchandising, so when Crypton made the unexpected announcement that they would be changing the pictures for all of their characters with the new releases, people were generally displeased.

It is not the fact that the image has changed that makes this so big a deal, it’s the principle of the matter. Put simply, Crypton made an unforgivable mistake. They forgot that their entire operation is 100% community-driven. In the VOCALOID world, making a change in what a character looks like is tantamount to changing the words to a national anthem. It’s true that it may not be that big of a deal on the outside, but it changes the heart and soul of the thing. Crypton’s decision to change what Miku looks like came without researching how the community would react, and now they feel the consequences. Sales of Hatsune Miku Append, though expected to be high due to very advanced technology and sound-quality, came short of what was expected and now Crypton has some serious decisions to make.

The main problem VOCALOID fans now face is, “Which one is the right one?”, and to a lesser extent, “what about the old images?” Crypton’s misguided move has possibly made tens of thousands of fan-created images incorrect, and more than this actually causes damage, it makes the community feel less attached to Miku, which is terrible news for Crypton indeed, given that their largest income comes straight from the people’s love for the virtual singer.

I understand that playing hardball in the business world is necessary, especially when it involves idols (virtual or not). But this is not the normal business world; this is a business that took off after a joke video that became an internet meme, and is supported entirely by a cult following. There is really no margin for error.

For now, the question remains unanswered, “Does this mark the beginning of the end for Crypton and Miku?” Possibly yes, and possibly no. Crypton still has enough income to stay afloat after a haphazard mistake like this, but if they continue with their previously-stated plan to re-design all of their VOCALOID characters, who knows what could happen?

Close-up of the new “Hatsune Miku Append” Figure

Eh?

When hearing Japanese from various sources,  you can eventually listen in on the language itself. I call this listening comprehension. The better you get at listening comprehension, the more the words form separately in your head. This mostly leads to actually understanding the words itself as opposed to a foreign language being unintelligible technobabble.  An obvious source for many people is anime. But can anime alone be enough to improve listening comprehension?

I honestly just experienced an odd thought while watching the latest episode of K-ON!! (Episode 10). It felt like these characters finally sounded like they were supposed to. If I were to say it another way, I was able to hear a broad range of noises and intonations more numerous in episode 10. Why only now? Would it be that they (the voice actresses) really only just now were able to flex their character voices? Or was it my listening comprehension improving? Yui and company suddenly sounded like themselves, and not like voices that were tailored to fit the characters.

It’s a hard sell. It can’t just be because of anime – I had chosen to broaden my audio sources of Japanese to radio stations, talk shows, and news coverage, increasing my exposure to casual/formal and faster speaking Japanese people. Anime has the language slowed down because of whatever reason. For the most part, anime has proven itself a rather weak tool from which to increase your listening comprehension to the Japanese language.

It's Houkago Raep Time!

But are shows that are made for entertainment sufficient tools? I’ve met two guys that came from Italy, and their English was quite spot on. Other than maybe studying it in a regular environment and with traditional methods, they had also watched American cartoons and sitcoms. A primary source of their learning was The Simpsons. I thought it was ridiculous, but thinking about it more made me realize the writers for The Simpsons didn’t hold back when it came to language usage. It was apparently a very good place to learn English in the way that Americans use the language, and is also challenging due to the type of humor that is used. How much of English subtext understanding could be learned this way is anyone’s guess. But the fact remains that the show The Simpsons is actually a good English secondary language learning tool.

So how good of a learning tool would a show like K-ON!! be? You’d learn how to talk like a high-school girl whose lines were written by ‘professional’ staff, that’s for sure.

My listening comprehension is probably less than average, but this last episode might have been me leveling up. The idea is that anime is a good stepping stone, but that alone won’t get you to fully understanding Japanese dialogue. If you didn’t grow up with the language, it just becomes that much harder to appreciate the acting. The different language increases the chances of you not caring, because you don’t fully understand it. I know I don’t, and there are limits to how much I’m able to enjoy anime in Japanese. I find myself doing the obvious and picking the English track when the quality isn’t terrible enough to make me grit my teeth, and picking the subtitles with the least amount of literal translation, preferring English that simply reads better and faster.

Small shout out to CoalGuys, for being coal, and having silly translations that read better instead of being way too literal.

“What is Yume Nikki trying to tell us?”

Our All-encompassing Theory Explained

To begin, a few important things should be addressed: 1) This series obviously contains major spoilers about the plot of Yume Nikki. It is best to finish the game completely before reading this, or to watch one of the many walk-throughs available on YouTube or NicoNico Douga. 2) Since the true nature of the game can only be speculated upon, this has been titled as a theory, rather than an explanation. These ideas are merely the observations and connections made by the staff here at maserbeam dot com and should only be taken as such, regardless of how chillingly-correct and insightful they may be. 3) If you subscribe to the theory that the game is just weird for the sake of weirditude, then you have no imagination and should not be playing Yume Nikki.

The First Conjecture: Throughout the game’s entirety, Madotsuki is lying comatose in a hospital ward.

The Evidence:

• The Toriningen (Bird-Humans) can, without a stretch, be seen as an over-exaggeration of medical staff rushing about wearing surgical-masks and eye-protection.
• Hostile Toriningen will send Madotsuki to areas that are inescapable.
• The ability to have the same dream repeatedly with no change in information is nearly impossible and is far more likely to be an aspect of one over-arching, deep state of unconsciousness.
• Madotsuki can fall asleep in exactly three seconds in the real world, even after repeated terrifying nightmares. This is not a likely ability to have in reality.
• In the dream world, her only task is to seek and find 24 effects which are randomly scattered.
• There is a room directly accessible from the Number World that is filled entirely with white beds (mostly occupied by people who have had their faces covered by the sheets). This room is also home to one non-hostile Toriningen who appears to be overseeing these beds. If one is lucky when checking a certain cupboard in this room, they will be able to see Madotsuki as a ghost.
• The room with the white beds is the only way to access the small room in which the Severed Head effect is found. This room is filled with hostile Toriningen and a guillotine.

The Resulting Extrapolations:

• Both the real world and the dream world in Yume Nikki are two layers of a dream world inside Madotsuki’s subconscious while in a comatose state.
• Madotsuki’s subconscious uses the two layers of the dream world to come to terms with things she has suffered in reality.
• The 24 effects represent 24 different aspects of her mind that she must come to terms with (by collecting them and owning them, thereby being able to use them without hindrance).
• Madotsuki is afraid of dying while being operated on, as shown by the Guillotine Room (Surgery Ward) adjacent to the Bed Room (Coma Ward) and the fact that any hostile Toriningen can send her to an inescapable area (Death).
• Madotsuki does not think she will survive, as shown by the ghostly image of her hidden in a cupboard in the Bed Room (imminent).

That’s all well and good, but why does it matter?

For years, interviews have been conducted with comatose patients who have woken up after days, or even years of seemed-lifelessness. Many of these patients tell similar stories of lucid dreams in which they were completely aware of what was happening, but were unable to wake up from for whatever reason. Sometimes, when in lighter cycles of sleep, these dreams can be affected by outside input, such as the voices of doctors or family members in the room, or the sounds of other patents.

If you interpret the entire game of Yume Nikki as one such dream, it helps to validate and even make sense of the eerie worlds, seemingly-random events, twisted characters, and disturbing monsters. When seen as a struggle to overcome an unmentioned recent trauma, the motif of finding things and gathering them all together doesn’t seem as random as it first appears, but rather, it makes sense that this would be the normal course of action to take for the mind of a young girl.

In the image above, there’s a trap. It’s the left most character in the light green sports bra. Why else would I use a header like “There’s a trap in my soup”?

In the past few years, there been an emerging population of trap characters almost every season. A large population will watch these series and fall into this trap. A typical reaction: “Wow, what a feminine character. She’s so cute, I’d fap to her. What you say! Oh god no.” Reminds me of my first experience with it. But first, there are some people who haven’t encountered a trap and don’t know what it is.

A trap is a character that dresses up or disguises themselves to look their opposite sex, and functions as an excuse for the artist to draw them as such. Initial reaction to such a statement is, “But that’s a cross-dresser.” It’s correct, but in practice, not what it really is. A trap must be perceived as their incorrect sex. Visual gender neutrality is important, as it is the difference between being a cross-dresser or successfully existing as a trap. So is androgyny the only quality needed? In some cases, yes. But the usual trope is that the trap must maintain the façade until they’re exposed. The most common reaction to traps is to feel incredulous. Additionally, sometimes a character is so visually arresting as their opposite sex, the others only acknowledge the trap appearance and do not recognize the trap when they dress normally.

Traps are hardly rare nowadays – numbers are steadily creeping towards the hundred(s) mark. Often times there’s a token trap character for everyone to either fall in love with, or to actually fall in. A recent one that goes by the name of Hideyoshi, pictured at the beginning of this entry, from the series Baka to Test to Shokanjuu. But there’s an interesting exception for Hideyoshi. The other characters know he’s a boy, but because he is drawn with a feminine face and silhouette, they refuse to acknowledge him as a guy. Why? It’s because he’s so pretty! Just.. pool episode, go watch it. You’ll either want to burn your eyes, or you’ll join the ranks.

The character on the bottom is a male. So if you were watching Kaicho wa Meido-sama up to this point without knowing that, you entered the trap. Who knows if you’ll recover to your original self or become forever cursed (like the rest of us)?

I tend to forget there are those who’ve watched anime and don’t know what traps are. Not everyone knows these things off the bat when I talk to them about anime. So in a way, finding someone who has fallen for a trap is satisfying because I get to educate them about something anime related, and see their faces that say, “Wait. Am I turning gay?” But this brings up an interesting point. Should you be wary about feeling gay for a character that you thought was pretty? Going by reductive logic, being attracted to the opposite sex isn’t bad, even if it’s a trap. Why else would one have felt attracted to one?

If there’s ever a time to actually start worrying, it’s that you are attracted [even more] after you realize it’s a trap.

I recently had an epiphany regarding how to gauge the amount of moe an animu series will emit at varying points in time, and what the effects are on the afflicted.

The word at hand is moentgen, a portmanteau – bastardization to some – of the words moe, and roentgen. A roentgen is the measurement of radiation. I believe most everyone understands where I’m coming from. To pound it home, here’s the complete rundown of the concept.

It is believed that one experiences exposure to moe after some time has passed. This is typically delivered via the monitor or TV, during the broadcast of an anime episode. Other sources include movies, and OVAs, but such anomalies do not occur very often. Some instances indicate very weak moe emissions, while others are incredibly hazardous amounts of moe emissions. Actual radiation behaves in the same way. Or rather, moe emissions act too similar to radiation. The concept of moe radiation adopts three terms universally accepted for radiation measurement, and are replaced as follows:

* moentgen (pronounced mō-ent-gən):
The moentgen measures the energy produced by moe radiation in a cubic centimeter of air. It shall be abbreviated with the capital letter “M”. A millimoentgen, or “cM”, is equal to one one-thousandth of a moentgen. An exposure of 50 moentgens would be written “50 M”. Note: cM is derived from chibi-Moentgen, for the sake of a more accurate abbreviation due to the location and culture moe naturally occurs.

* Rage:
Or, Moe Absorption Dose, recognizes that different objects that receive the same exposure may not absorb the same amount of moe energy. Rage measures the amount of moe radiation energy transferred to some mass of material, typically humans. One moentgen of moe radiation exposure results in about one rage of absorbed dose. One could say with enough MADness, it will induce rage.

* Hng:
The HNG is a unit that relates the dose of any radiation to how strong a viewers’ reaction derived from that dose. To relate the absorbed dose of specific types of radiation to their biological effect, a “moe factor” must be multiplied by the dose in rage, which then shows the dose in HNG. For cute rays and moe particles, 1 rage of exposure results in 1 HNG of dose. It was once believed that the Wave Motion Cannon was powered by moe particles.

I do believe we can now accurately measure future occurrences of moe emissions. And the process of measurement shall be explained further in a later entry, after I watch some more anime to hone this system down. Pray for my safety, for I shall wade through waves of moe emissions and blow outs to recover valuable data.

Source of copy pasta – http://www.stevequayle.com/ARAN/rad.conversion.html
And thank you nse (pixiv) for drawing a wonderful Yui image, which was taken from danbooru. Like usual.

I think most people would understand that the post title of this entry is referring to Final Fantasy 13.  It’s been lambasted for being a linear experience. But why is it suddenly reasonable to judge a game on it’s linearity? I think about the games that were purposely linear, and those that simply end up as being linear. There isn’t much of a difference between the two ideas. One is done on purpose and the other one is accidental.

So which one is FF13?

In any case, FF13 looks like it’s combat is okay. The story is always up for interpretation, debate, and nerd-rage. And the graphics are alright. Any of the silly short phrases a gamer would spout to defend or lambaste this game are as follows:

• Gameplay is king.
• Graphics aren’t everything.
• I played it just for the story.

Talking like that just tells me they’re pricks that don’t like gaming discourse. In particular, the three main facets of gaming we seem to stress upon so much can bring down the enjoyment of the rest of the game. It doesn’t matter if the story is great; a shitty gameplay system and horrible graphics would have me burn the disc in disappointment and anger.

I side-stepped the question “Is FF13 linear on purpose, or accidental?” because I haven’t played the game. But it’s safe to say FF13 is linear on purpose. And at this point, we can’t do anything about that. None of the Final Fantasy games were ever non-linear. Having additional side-quests doesn’t make a game open world. A story is an even bigger obstacle to game design that prevents a game from being non-linear, especially if the developer(s) in charge has a specific vision.

Two games I can think of at the moment that are linear on accident are Infamous and Red Faction Guerrilla. Both games focus on free-roaming and emergent gameplay. The desired result is that no gamer would have the same experiences as the other. Infamous and RFG get pretty close to letting a player progress through the story out of order simply by having an explorable world that doesn’t try to hamstring the player for deviating, but fall short. In the end, these games were linear. Why are these games linear? It’s because there’s a clear intended goal for the player. But even that as criteria would dig up other games that would have to be stamped as exceptions. There’s an intended goal for the player in Morrowind. But that doesn’t stop a player from jumping directly to end-game and beating it in less than 5 minutes. Sure, that’s going from Point A to Point B. That alone still doesn’t stop us from tagging Morrowind as being non-linear.

Any of the games I’ve mentioned all have good graphics. To reiterate that in a more interesting fashion: Games with good, great, or excellent graphics have a presentable image and informative visual system for the player to enjoy the game, and do not detract from the experience. Graphics alone don’t make a game good, but graphics alone can make a game unplayable, despite gameplay and story.

I don’t really remember where I was going with this, and I’m just going to say that a lot of gamers liked Zelda: Ocarina of Time, a linear game.

So what’s your experience? Do you play the game because of it’s characters, even if the story is shitty? Have you played a game with sub-par gameplay, but has great graphics? Was the story so truly great, that even horrible collision detection wouldn’t deter you?

* Screenshot from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl, a game that’s better than FF13.