Quarantine Control #47: The Master Fantasy Void

It’s nice that there’s a healthy balance of good and bad news regarding the seemingly perpetual COVID-19 pandemic these days, compared to the constant stream of negativity that came in 2020. But this simply means it’s a good time for people not to drop their guards. Cases and deaths are down, yes, but with schools, businesses, and sports venues reopening, there’s potential for cases to trend upward again. The better idea would be to keep all these places closed while the vaccine is slowly distributed, and pay everyone to stay home, but capitalism has other demands. This is all assuming the good news regarding the vaccine and its effectiveness won’t eventually be countered by new variants emerging that lessen the overall usefulness. Never underestimate the potential for unforeseen twists.

 

Geoffrey Barnes

I’ve been trying to finish four games in February for the Four in February fun, and completed a third one this week. It’s another short one.

Blaster Master Zero (2017)
Format: PlayStation 4 (also on Switch, 3DS, and Steam)
Episodes: One Video Game (with a sequel containing two numbers in the title)

I continued an apparent theme after finishing Shovel Knight by playing another NES-ish game: Blaster Master Zero. I say “NES-ish” because it’s another title that merely channels NES visuals, but it’s an even more obvious case than Shovel Knight in clearly being a title that couldn’t actually run on NES hardware. But like that game, this is fine when it channels the look and feeling of nostalgia well enough. Zero is a reboot of the original NES Blaster Master title, with visuals closer to a late-generation NES game compared to a mid-generation one like the original title.

As a reboot, it includes several elements from the original that made it a unique experience compared to other platformers of the time, though developer Inti Creates added gameplay enhancements to make it more palatable for a modern audience. It again stars Jason Frudnick as the main character, who pilots the Sophia tank. The adventure is divided into sections that include 2D platforming with the tank and, to a lesser extent, on foot, and overhead sections that solely involve Jason going on foot. The styles of the levels, following the trend, similarly resemble the original game’s. Zero isn’t as nonlinear as many Metroidvania games, but it’s not an entirely linear experience. It’s possible to travel back through the levels, though most of them, especially later on, have sections that can be entirely explored without the need to return with new abilities.

The key difference compared to the original, besides the updated presentation, is how streamlined it all is. The tank moves and shoots faster compared to the original, making the player more formidable despite key enemies getting similar enhancements. Jason can also shoot diagonally in addition to horizontally in overhead on-foot areas, further skewing the playing field in his favor. The map communicates where the player has explored and where they need to go in order to fully complete each area — a requirement for the true ending. The game makes sure the player won’t experience as many frustrations compared to notoriously difficult and obtuse 8-bit titles.

They might have gone a bit too far in the other direction, however. Encounters with normal enemies are largely a cinch. When they do provide problems, namely through smaller enemies that can crawl below the tank’s cannon, the game is often generous with dropping health pellets. Key enemies in the on-foot sections appear to be caught off guard by Jason’s ability to shoot diagonally, given how many of them can be easily dispatched by using such a rudimentary method. This isn’t to say it presents no challenge, as key sections later on can get a little tricky. But it was easier than I expected for an NES-like game.

Don’t think my acknowledgement of its lack of difficulty in several areas is a complaint. Shovel Knight showed me how my skills at some NES-style games have waned over time, due to a combination of age and especially not playing them for a while. I needed a game to give me a confidence boost afterward, and Blaster Master Zero largely did the trick. But only “largely” because seeing a bunch of other gaming types discuss how easy the game is was enough to take that confidence down a notch, though I do feel better. It helps that Zero is a solid game on its own.

Blaster Master Zero and its sequel (that I’ve yet to play) are far from the most appreciated titles from Inti Creates. Given its quality and reportedly that of its successor, they deserve more acknowledgement, even though it’s not the best game in their catalogue. (I’d put a number of Mega Man titles they’ve handled and Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon above it.) With this making two NES-style games in a row, perhaps I should make my last title a non-NES-type game. I should also make it short given how little time I have to complete a fourth game in February.

 

Angela Moseley

Final Fantasy VI (1994)
Source: SNES Classic (also available on other platforms)
Episodes: 1 video game

This week’s entry was inspired by Joseph’s promotion of Damage Control Live in last week’s Quarantine Control. I’ve been playing Final Fantasy VI for about three weeks now on Twitch (tune in Sundays at 8PM ET). Yet I realized I’ve never written a single word about this classic JRPG. So why not go beyond my livestreams and give my written impressions of the game?

Back in the early aughts when I sought various JPRGs to play I knew Final Fantasy VI was a game I had to try. It was extremely popular among other RPG fans and was one of Squaresoft’s last major RPGs before making the leap to the PlayStation era. In fact, I had played Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, and even Secret of Evermore before ever trying FFVI. Playing via emulator wasn’t the best way to experience this game, but I did make it as far as the breathtaking opera scene. For reasons I don’t even remember I stopped playing the game and never picked it back up—which I admit is a bad and frequent habit of mine. Worse yet, I would go on to play Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy IX, Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy II, Final Fantasy III (the DS remake), a good chunk of Final Fantasy XII, and Final Fantasy XIII, and half of Final Fantasy VII Remake before ever picking up FFVI again.

As I listened to RPGCast, Active Time Babble, and Axe of the Blood God (all great RPG podcasts), I couldn’t help but notice how much love Final Fantasy VI frequently received. It became a game with story beats that were constantly spoiled for me. Even still, I knew I had to return to this game someday. My desire to livestream a full JRPG led me to choose FFVI– It was long, but not unreasonable at 40-50 hours.

At ten hours in, I can safely say that when it comes to SNES JPRGs that are not Chrono Trigger, I am rusty. I’ve gotten so used to playing modern JRPGs such like Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse and Final Fantasy VII Remake that I forgot how frustrating I find random battles. They’re great for grinding, but are real distractions when lost and trying to find a destination. I also can’t say I’m a fan of the puzzles that require memorization, or the quick and precise inputs required to perform Sabin’s Blitz attacks. If I were a less lazy player, I’d probably practice until I got the hang of the Blitz commands.

If I weren’t streaming this game live and on camera most weeks, I’d probably keep a walkthrough with me to speed up the pace of some sections and learn how more obtuse characters work. On the upside, when Drew and the rest of the Twitch chat aren’t trolling me, I have been given helpful advice. Had I’d been playing on my own I would have never known (without looking it up) about some of the best enemy skills to acquire for Gau. I would not have known about taking Sabin, Edgar, and Locke with me in order to unlock cutscenes in the game. I might have stumbled upon some of Shadow’s cutscenes, but I certainly wouldn’t have gotten them all or known to look for them.

As for the game’s plot, I’m still early and haven’t even reached the World of Ruin. (Again, this was only something I’ve heard about via podcasts, I’ve never actually looked up what the ruined world looks like.) That said, I’m impressed with the ensemble of characters so far and I love how the story doesn’t actually focus on just one character. Having everyone split up and having their adventures told via playable vignettes has been a lot of fun. I love how we get a feel for each character, their motivations, and a taste of their backstory. This format was used to a degree in Final Fantasy XIII, but FFVI is absolutely a better story and game. It also scratches my itch for a big fantasy adventure and the steam punk elements are delightful extras. I’ve just scratched the surface of the plot and I’m delighted to know there’s so much more waiting for me as I play it in the weeks and months to come.

I’m looking forward learning more about Espers, the war of the Magi, and why Kefka is considered one of the best JRPG villains of all time.

 

Joseph Daniels

If there’s any kind of lesson learned from how the world handled COVID-19, it’s that we need to rethink how retail is handled.  Calling minimum wage workers “essential” just further exploits them, especially when companies couldn’t give two shits about whether their employees die from COVID or just some regular reason.  There definitely needs to be unions in the retail space.  If workers are going to be forced to work when it’s unsafe to do so because of the pandemic that literally everyone else except trained paramedics and other emergency workers are being told to work from home because of, then they should be paid a fair, living wage.  Being told that $15/hour is going to break a company’s bank and result in raising the price of everything is just insulting to workers who already can’t pay their bills at $7.25/hour.  And then recently, to hear a Republican claim that everyone’s sitting on historic piles of cash, so the economy really needs to reopen… what cash?!  Everyone’s still paying rent and buying food!  They barely have any cash left over from that, and anyone who would’ve spent it on going to the movies is instead staying home and spending it on Netflix because there’s nothing to do!  And bills don’t suddenly go away because there’s a pandemic, are poor people really chomping at the bit to go to Walt Disney World?  They’re just hoping they don’t have to go to the hospital for anything because that would bankrupt them!  And if the Gamestonk fiasco is anything to go by, the haves are deliberately doing their best to not only prevent the have nots from getting anywhere, they’re also trying to punish the have nots for playing the same games the haves play!

So this week, I discovered a podcast-style discussion show that I’d like to recommend.

The Generation Void (2021)
Source: …see below
Episodes: Ongoing

The Generation Void is a discussion-style podcast broadcast live which touches on topics both geeky in nature – Batman is the subject of a couple of the episodes – and pertaining to retail.  “The Retail Warzone” is a once-a-week broadcast under the Generation Void umbrella where they discuss various aspects of retail, like what will actually happen when the minimum wage is raised.  Otherwise, they host general talk episodes where they discuss whatever’s on their mind.  They’ve got barely any subscribers right now because they’re new, but if you’re looking to hear two gamer and movie geeks who have worked retail long enough to have a ton of war stories about it, this is a good place to check out.

But where should you do so?  YouTube is the best place to find it since everything’s on one channel, but several months ago, I declared I wouldn’t recommend anything on YouTube as long as their ads were too intrusive.  So where else is this show?  It’s all over the place, Spotify, Soundcloud, and so on, but it’s divided up on those platforms and so it’ll take a little bit of work to find all of the episodes, especially since the name of their show is also the name of a popular song.  Meanwhile, as I write this, YouTube is refusing to show me channels so I can’t even count the episodes in one spot.  The Retail Warzone has four episodes, but only two show up on Soundcloud and three on Spotify, and I don’t remember how many more episodes there are in general.  There’s also going to be one focused on paranormal topics starting soon, so take that one with a grain of salt for sure, about the same as if you were to listen to Coast to Coast AM.

Anyway, if you can get it to work, try out The Generation Void.  Although maybe wait until YouTube is working again.

 

COVID cases are down at the moment and people are being vaccinated, but again, don’t let your guard down. Given how closely a lot of people have followed the advice of medical experts thus far, there’s a good chance people will indeed drop their guards. If you’re reading this, be careful until it’s safe again — for dodging the virus, anyway.