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Valis
Dec 27, 2014 14:46:59 GMT -5
Post by lthammy on Dec 27, 2014 14:46:59 GMT -5
First of all, I wasn't singling anyone out. Second of all, as far as I could make it out, it seemed like a response to vetus more than me. Beyond that I saw your lips moving but I couldn't make out what you were saying. As for what I was saying about the "progressive" slant of the site, it's just an observation. Most of the time it's not clearly evident, but if you get something like the Valis X article or a thread about Polygon's asinine Bayonetta 2 review that's when it seems like crusading. Also, I'm just kind of curious, if someone were to write an article about the Rance series (where the hero is borderline glorified for being a rapist), would it even get published here if it didn't constantly admonish the creators for making light of rape? Probably not. But if that's the editorial mandate so be it. Anyway, I just pray to God that there's less political drama this year, it brings out the worst in everyone. I think it's really hard to address Rance without acknowledging its attitude towards rape, if just because it paints the author by failing to address it. Let's be clear. There's nothing "borderline" about that series. At the end of the original Rance, the main character rapes the villain, which causes her to fall in love with him and stop being evil. That's straight-up glorification of rape right there, or at least glorification of the hero through rape, which isn't much different. Maria Custard's another major example of the same thing. Sure, the series portrays rape differently at other times. You sometimes have it played for comedy, like Okita Nozomi in Sengoku Rance. The villains usually have it played for horror. If you don't mention that there's rape in the series, you're misrepresenting it. A core part of the series is that it's a male power fantasy. If you don't elaborate on what the rape is like, you're leaving the readers to assume - perhaps assume that it's worse than it is. And since it's something that's likely going to generate an emotional reaction, it's going to damage the credibility of the whole if you can't approach it properly. "Politics" and "subjectivity" are often codewords for "people talking about things that upset me". There's no reason why a game can't be praised for what it does well. Even with the Rance series, you could mention how the scenario writer for most of the series is a woman. You could talk about how women in the series are all varied characters, having all range of competency in all sorts of things and even having varied attitudes to the hero. You could talk about how it sometimes plays on its the power fantasy aspect, treating Rance as a whining, pathetic (if legitimately dangerous) manchild. That's positive stuff! And every article is going to be subjective, if just because music, art style, story, gameplay and all the little things that make up a game can't be reasonably tied to any objective metric of quality. Sorry for the off-topic. EDIT: Looking forward to that Knights of Xentar article. That game is hilarious. Unique implementation of autobattle, too.
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Valis
Dec 27, 2014 16:16:57 GMT -5
Post by Joseph Joestar on Dec 27, 2014 16:16:57 GMT -5
FWIW there's a Dragon Knight/Knights of Xentar article in the posting queue. I think that's her (Atma) too; she's been pretty busy with her work though. KX3 on pcs is a fantastic game though. First of all, I wasn't singling anyone out. Second of all, as far as I could make it out, it seemed like a response to vetus more than me. Beyond that I saw your lips moving but I couldn't make out what you were saying. As for what I was saying about the "progressive" slant of the site, it's just an observation. Most of the time it's not clearly evident, but if you get something like the Valis X article or a thread about Polygon's asinine Bayonetta 2 review that's when it seems like crusading. Also, I'm just kind of curious, if someone were to write an article about the Rance series (where the hero is borderline glorified for being a rapist), would it even get published here if it didn't constantly admonish the creators for making light of rape? Probably not. But if that's the editorial mandate so be it. Anyway, I just pray to God that there's less political drama this year, it brings out the worst in everyone. I think it's really hard to address Rance without acknowledging its attitude towards rape, if just because it paints the author by failing to address it. Let's be clear. There's nothing "borderline" about that series. At the end of the original Rance, the main character rapes the villain, which causes her to fall in love with him and stop being evil. That's straight-up glorification of rape right there, or at least glorification of the hero through rape, which isn't much different. Maria Custard's another major example of the same thing. Sure, the series portrays rape differently at other times. You sometimes have it played for comedy, like Okita Nozomi in Sengoku Rance. The villains usually have it played for horror. If you don't mention that there's rape in the series, you're misrepresenting it. A core part of the series is that it's a male power fantasy. If you don't elaborate on what the rape is like, you're leaving the readers to assume - perhaps assume that it's worse than it is. And since it's something that's likely going to generate an emotional reaction, it's going to damage the credibility of the whole if you can't approach it properly. "Politics" and "subjectivity" are often codewords for "people talking about things that upset me". There's no reason why a game can't be praised for what it does well. Even with the Rance series, you could mention how the scenario writer for most of the series is a woman. You could talk about how women in the series are all varied characters, having all range of competency in all sorts of things and even having varied attitudes to the hero. You could talk about how it sometimes plays on its the power fantasy aspect, treating Rance as a whining, pathetic (if legitimately dangerous) manchild. That's positive stuff! And every article is going to be subjective, if just because music, art style, story, gameplay and all the little things that make up a game can't be reasonably tied to any objective metric of quality. Sorry for the off-topic. I used the term "borderline" because as you said later, he's definitely not portrayed positively (Sill and others are always talking about how horrible he is). It's just that the games show him being successful in using rape as a punishment or for personal gratification, and if there's ever any consequences they're played for laughs or otherwise blown off. Secondly, I never said to avoid talking about rape or the consequences of putting that in a game, so I don't know where you got that from. The reason I asked that question was that like you said, those games and the motives or themes behind them are a lot more complex than something like Valis X, and it deserves a little more discussion than just "this guy rapes women, so it's shit." I would hope that someone writing an article about them would manage to talk about the good with the bad, because they're quite interesting and enjoyable games in spite of what people think of the subject matter. And my comment about politics was with regards to how it turns into a pissing match and thread lock whenever someone brings up this shit here on the board. Which in retrospect is fine I guess because we've gotten some hilarious threads out of it recently.
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Valis
Dec 27, 2014 16:43:37 GMT -5
Post by Weasel on Dec 27, 2014 16:43:37 GMT -5
And my comment about politics was with regards to how it turns into a pissing match and thread lock whenever someone brings up this shit here on the board. Which in retrospect is fine I guess because we've gotten some hilarious threads out of it recently. Sadly, that really seems to be a fact of life around nearly any internet message forum anymore. Doesn't matter what the board's main subject is. The second someone brings up an Important Social Debate, tempers break, tensions rise, the epithets fly thick and fast, etc. etc. I don't like to see that happen, and I have been occasionally accused of trying to "censor" things when I discourage such arguments early on, but I only make that effort because I don't like seeing friendships and respect lost over things like that.
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Valis
Dec 27, 2014 17:03:47 GMT -5
Post by Malev on Dec 27, 2014 17:03:47 GMT -5
Retronauts name-dropped the article in the most recent podcast: www.retronauts.com/?p=938They do touch on the whole Valis X thing, mostly how the company fell and essentially tramped up/whored out the franchise. Me? It's not so much that there's a 18+ VN of Valis, but moreso an official one made around 15 years after the series was thought dead. One that from the looks of it is merely "...and then they fucked" scenario-- this case, a "they got fucked". Maybe not as harsh as other flimsy plot excuse adult VNs (e.g. Taimanin Asagi*), but any fan of the franchise would probably be irked that this is what happened to the series after it's long hiatus. It's like a whiplash compared to the mere base sexy fanservice the game had. I mean, by comparision, Nintendo has had to send C&Ds to certain Pokemon fanwork that they felt harmed the brand too much due to its content (most recent involving very dark poke-lovin'), and that's a teeny fraction, a few drops in an ocean of the more adult stuff, whether nuanced or not, people do with the characters and story of Pokemon. I'm fairly certain Valis had some naughty doujin stuff made based on it, but never would you suspect that the publishing company would make something akin to some of the seedier sort of fan wank material. Even if it was merely adding a kind of "Hot Coffee" easter egg, or made the rape a kind of BAD END, it'd seem out of place for an official game. Also personally, I see Valis X more closer to Spoony's BETRAAAAAYAL!! reaction to the new X-COM and Ultima IX than any harsh critique of gaming/society/whatever. It is touchy though, especially since the game appears quite shallow in many regards. As more personal ideas, I have kicked around the idea of an YWK article about how bad Ethnic Cleansing is as a game and how its offensive content is ramped up to absurdity, but I'm not sure how well such an article would be taken with its subject matter no matter how it's handled. * I haven't actually played or really seen too much about the series, so if there actually is more to the plot and theme than just "girls get fucked royally", I apologize.
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Valis
Jun 23, 2015 18:55:05 GMT -5
Post by starscream on Jun 23, 2015 18:55:05 GMT -5
Was looking through some Japanese computer music info recently, which is why I noticed this in the article concerning Valis 1: The Sharp X1 version also uses the exact same graphic tiles and plays the same as the original, but the music consists only of Game Boy quality bleeps and bloops.This sounds like no FM-Board was enabled, if it's turned on in an emulator, the music get's notably better.
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Valis
Jun 23, 2015 21:47:44 GMT -5
Post by ReyVGM on Jun 23, 2015 21:47:44 GMT -5
Wait a sec, why does it say I created this thread but the first post isn't even mine? I used to think "____ company is raping the characters of my childhood" was a stupid fanboy exaggeration but in this case they LITERALLY ARE. Oh Rasa, if only you knew back then what mobile was going to do to our games.
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Valis
Jun 24, 2015 4:17:54 GMT -5
Post by derboo on Jun 24, 2015 4:17:54 GMT -5
Was looking through some Japanese computer music info recently, which is why I noticed this in the article concerning Valis 1: The Sharp X1 version also uses the exact same graphic tiles and plays the same as the original, but the music consists only of Game Boy quality bleeps and bloops.This sounds like no FM-Board was enabled, if it's turned on in an emulator, the music get's notably better. Oh, yeah, that mix is actually pretty neat! Added clarification and a stream for the music comparison.
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