Random Roar

 

I’m beginning to think that humans aren’t really supposed to live past thirty.

 

Recently, Dare changed the size of their Ruffles brand of chocolate-covered coconut.  It’s been downsized from 300 grams to 250 grams, the box’s dimensions were changed so that it actually looks like there’s more in the box, and the price – which was already above $4 here – was reduced by only thirty cents.  Ruffles are basically a scam now.

Dare also owns a type of cookie that I’d lost track of for two, maybe two and a half decades now.  The cookie had disappeared from Revelstoke and I’d since forgotten what it was called.  I’d always wished I could find it again, and a chance discovery yesterday finally reminded me that they’re called Maxi Fruits.  They were literally my favourite cookie growing up.  They were priced a little high as well so I didn’t have them often, but they were well worth buying back then.  I was more than happy to buy a box yesterday so I could see if they’re still good.

They’re awful now.  And they’re much smaller.  I’m not the only one who’s noticed this.

It seems like Dare is slowly doing to cookies what vulture capitalists are doing to newspapers, making them worse over time and trying to cut costs where possible in order to increase profits.  I don’t think Dare intends to discontinue any of the products they’re worsening, but if they get so unbearable that no one wants to buy them any more, Dare’s going to have some decisions to make, and that means they’ll have less products occupying space on grocery store shelves.

 

Are we really meant to have so much we can do in our spare time and so little time to experience it?

 

I can definitely see where criticisms of the current Star Trek franchise are coming from.  Admittedly, I’d been hoping Star Trek Picard would turn out to be similar to The Next Generation, except with a different crew since I’m sure not everyone would’ve wanted to be involved in a revival series.  In my dream series, the captain would go exploring different parts of the galaxy thanks to the better technology that Starfleet gained at the end of Star Trek: Voyager.  Instead, we got a darker series that loved to kill off established characters from the classic run of the franchise.

I am curious to see where it goes, but season one played out more like one overlong movie than an episodic television show.  Not that one overlong movie is necessarily bad.  Most of us here on the blog watch anime, and much of it consists of ten to thirteen episodes which follow a general storyline from the first episode and all the way through to the last.  Pacing isn’t as much of a problem in anime as it is in Picard.  Most of the people working on anime have experience telling a story within a specific amount of time, and know how to add episodes worth of content without making it seem like filler, or cut content to fit a smaller time frame and not make it seem choppy.

This is not to say that anime is perfect.  Far from it.  But Star Trek‘s show runners could stand to learn a thing or two from anime, if they don’t intend to have Picard play out like the more episodic format previous shows in the franchise followed.

 

How much do we really need in life?

 

Maybe we don’t need a Final Fantasy XVI.  Maybe it’s about time that Final Fantasy takes a long rest, maybe for good.  Once Final Fantasy XIV finishes its intended final storyline, the entire franchise should enter a kind of retirement where no new material is released for a while.  If there are still parts to the Final Fantasy VII remake that are in the planning stages at that time, then once Final Fantasy XIV is finished, everyone should focus on developing the last parts of the remake so that they come out in a more timely manner, then Final Fantasy should enter a long fallow season.

The more I think about how long Final Fantasy has endured and how the series has tried to innovate and change with each new entry and how those efforts aren’t always successful and have more often than not backfired, I wonder if there really is a place in gaming any more for new games in a series as long established as this one.

Something which the Retrospective series is going to soon start to explore is that there is a balancing act between artistic freedom and the limits of digital memory.  Certain games have been able to do a lot with the small space they have (the upcoming Dragon Quest IV article is a very good example), but other games have struggled a bit to work within those limits (there’s a popular fan theory that nearly all of Star Ocean‘s intended second half couldn’t be developed since the cartridge was already out of space, but there aren’t any reliable sources to back it up).  And when those limits are lifted, the limits of the consoles themselves will come into play, but once even those aren’t an issue, we get to the current generations where the sky’s the limit.  Final Fantasy turns from “is there room in the game and can we make it work?” to “who cares, throw it in!”

I recall a section of Final Fantasy XIII where players had to hop into a giant mech to get through an area and then I don’t recall if it ever came up again (incidentally, this is another reason why I’m replaying the games before I write about them).  It came complete with a tutorial on how to pilot the mech, so you’d think it would’ve been a bigger part of the game.  I can’t help but feel that in an older title, the developers would’ve cut it from the game if they couldn’t justify the space used in the cartridge.

 

The past should not be exalted at the expense of the future…

 

I suppose that, unlike with cookies or other consumable products like food and drink, we can always rewatch the shows we had growing up and replay our favourite games from long ago.

Aging boomers already have channels entirely devoted to the syndication of shows that were originally aimed at their demographic, like Diagnosis Murder, Matlock and JAG.  For my generation, shows like the CSI franchise are syndicating, and I can rewatch classic Star Trek whenever I want to see it.  Disney+ has nearly the entire Disney Afternoon available (I can’t imagine there’s a lot of demand for the Shnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show to ever see the light of day again).

Even if older software isn’t easily accessible to players like me, it’s always being re-released in one form or another. I acknowledge that games like the Spyro Reignited Trilogy and the upcoming Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne HD Remaster are great for new players to be able to experience old classics that they might not otherwise be able to find outside of emulation or eBay, and it’s great to have more people playing the games you liked to play.  But putting re-releases like these next to newer titles that are somehow missing that same magic just make it more clear for players like me that the golden age for gaming is not right now.

As I grow older and experience new things like The Lion Guard and Final Fantasy XV, I find myself preferring what came before, The Lion King and Final Fantasy IX.  I find myself wishing I could relive the food and drink of my youth without it being ruined by time and capitalism.  And I think we all wish there was a way we could pick and choose which progress to let happen and which we would rather do without.

 

…the future should not come at the expense of the past.