Phantom 2040: haiku for a hero

PHANTOM 2040

A cause, true and just
Hero most dependable
Why is he so sad?

Super Mario World: don't hide under your hat

Fear is a natural and instinctual reaction that keeps us alive, but also from living. It nips at a man's heels, clouds how he truly feels, and keeps him always on the run. But when we finally stop, turn, and stare down our Dahaka, they're never as imposing or insurmountable as they seem when out of sight.

Final Fight: inventory management

Love is like a phantom limb- it can be cut off but never removed. Our bodies function on muscle memory, and the heart is no exception. But remember that going through the motions is what got you in this wreck, and if you don't pull yourself out soon you're going to get burned. Loss leaves us weak in the knees with a hole in the gut, but it also makes us take stock. What's left is precious cargo- drive carefully.

Final Fantasy V: we just don't get it.

...let's give a resignedly warm welcome to Methossa! Long time contributor, first-time writer, Methossa is off to a bang by taking it straight to our favorite sacred cow. Show your love...

Final Fantasy V was the one iteration of the series from the SNES that didn’t come to the US. It’s said that the Japanese felt the job system would be too complicated for Americans to grasp, a vote of confidence that in conjunction with FF: Mystic Quest as our planned introduction to the series makes one wonder if they had ever heard of Might and Magic or Ultima,. The game came out many years back in America on the Playstation, with Final Fantasy Anthology, as well as a GBA port with an improved translation. After playing through it recently on the Playstation, I wonder if the only reason we didn’t get a copy originally is they were sure we’d call them out on their bullshit plot.

The crux of the problem is the game attempts to sell you on how close-knit your group members are to each other, but their handling of every potential bonding event between characters makes you hope they were trying to make some sort of statement about the genre to begin with. Your self-named character stands by the grave of his father, and one of the female leads comes to speak with him. Instead of opening up about an event from her childhood, she tells you that fathers are worthless as the main character pines for his dead family. You don’t really feel sorry for the lack of empathy, however, because the game looks at each opportunity to develop him as a person and conscientiously ignores it.

Galuf, the archetypical wise yet immature old man asks why he crossed over to Galuf’s alternate world when he might not be able to go home, and the main character explains how he’s deeply driven by the need to… “Well, I just felt like it. Felt like roaming.” How compelling. You learn that his father once fought with Galuf to save the world, it’s approached as a “Well that’s interesting” random coincidence.

The large disappointment is that you’re expecting a story, not a realistic portrayal of how people might react to similar events in real life. Galuf the office worker having worked with your dad? That’s nice. You tell a characteristically blunt person that you miss your dead parents? No sympathy. You make a life-changing decision just for the hell of it? Woo! There’s a reason fictional characters react differently to events than real people, fiction doesn’t have the space to develop the slow process of people becoming close to one another. You’re simply left with a generic game about nothing of any real consequence.

It’s a game about… nothing.

I puttered to around 70% of the way through the game ambivalent to what they were doing and why they were doing it. I was making my pirate into a bitching Samurai/Ninja, when all of the sudden I hit a somewhat sentimental moment. Galuf is battling this iteration’s incarnation of evil Exdeath, his daughter comes under attack, and he fights Exdeath, dying to save her life. I was surprised and momentarily touched. Then an eyebrow cocked up, and I realized they were trying to pull a fast one on me! Observe Tellah (FFIV) in the upper left, Galuf (FFV) in the upper right, Golbez (Villain from FF IV) in the bottom left, and Exdeath in the bottom right.

Taking off your glasses and lightening the hue of the armor
is the same as creating new characters.

In Final Fantasy IV, Tellah battles Golbez to avenge his daughter’s death, dying in the process. This was the point where redemption for the game became impossible for me. Sure there’s a villain behind Golbez who’s unveiled at the very end of the game, and Golbez never turns into a tree like Exdeath does, but ‘Old man fights another blue-hued villain bent on destruction because of something related to his daughter’. It’s like Back to the Future II without the wacky time paradox concerns.

After completing the game, I kinda wish I had watched this trilogy instead

The game isn’t without some good points or that it is without any original ideas. One interesting thing that’s fleshed out in this game is when the two worlds merge, you have the option to go through some extra dungeons for more powerful spells/equipment, or you can go straight to ExDeath. A similar gameplay technique is fleshed out in FF VI where in the World of Ruin one can fight the final boss as soon as you receive the airship, or you can go through a slew of dungeons to recover all of your characters and get some nice stuff. The job system also deserves some commendation as an interesting way of keeping you actively focused on your points and party set-up. The music is also as memorable and top-notch as you expect for a Final Fantasy game.

Even with these interesting characteristics, it’s hard to recommend Final Fantasy V with all the other options available unless you want to see the bridge between FFIV and FFVI. It can be beat in about 30 hours but the only engagement you’ll feel is from the job progression of your characters, and if this is your desire there are plenty of games which will give you an engaging story as well.

Back to work!

Welcome back to your home away from home, my fellow peons!
We missed you over the weekend.
Now sip your morning coffee and sing along!

A fat promotion should go to MrFiddle1 for this awesome rendition of The Office theme song.

Front Mission: The Agony of Choice

Doomeru was still in high school when PC games were worth mentioning, and you always knew he was playing Mechwarrior by the footsteps pounding from his subwoofer. Before our folks split dad bought him zoids from Forbidden Planet, which he assembled using instructions written in Japanese while watching Tootsie and The Great Dictator on Betamax. I, on the other hand, couldn't even manage a lego truck.

I've never understood the appeal of giant robots. They're slow, clunky, and make a lot of noise. I expect their insides have less leg room than tanks and smell like sweaty farts. But robots require even more love and care than cats or dogs, and nothing puts a smile on my face more than a good session of inventory management, so how could I say no to Front Mission?

Royd? My name is Royd? Are you kidding?

Even though it was ported to the DS last year, I don't feel this SNES classic can be fairly comared to present standards- Perhaps if they'd thought to let you skip animations this time around, but they didn't. Front Mission was all the rage in its day though, as was stock footage, so to judge it fairly, let me take you on a trip back through time...

...1995...A new era of global prosperity begins with formation of the World Trade Organization...Microsoft empowers a generation with the open-ended flexible information platform Windows 95...Justice prevails as a wizened jury of his peers acquits OJ Simpson...

Here I come to save the daaaaaay!

Yes, it was a period of great enlightenment in our history, far ahead of its most current games: Command & Conquer, Jagged Alliance, Worms, Warhawk, Warcraft II, Descent, Dark Forces, Chrono Trigger, Zoop, Tekken, Twisted Metal...Truly a simpler, more backward time for gaming...

Front Mission added a few new layers of complexity to typical turn-based combat. Players must make the difficult choice between developing their skills in short or medium-ranged weaponry, which are effective but allow for enemy counterattacks, or long-ranged weaponry, which are equally effective but don't allow for enemy counterattacks.

Get it off get it off!!!

Characters learn how to "aim" attacks from either medium or long range, but you get no control over which range they'll master, and no sign of which range it will eventually be. After spending the first half of the game firing blindly at your enemy, with no sense or strategy as to where you'll hit them, you get another tough choice of shooting at a target's legs, left or right arms, or body. Destroying a mech's legs makes it less mobile, but not immobile. Destroying a mech's arm makes it unable to use the weapon in their hand, but not the weapon in their other hand, or the weapon on their other shoulder. What was the other choice to shoot at? Oh, right, the "body." Destroying a mech's body makes it dead.

Then you have to choose which weapon to use. Every mech can carry an acceptable gun with infinite bullets in each hand, and a long-ranged launcher on each shoulder with superior firepower but limited ammunition. This might be an issue if you weren't accompanied by an ammo truck, and the combined arsenal of your eleven-mech squad didn't outweigh that of the entire Republican Guard.

The real fun comes between missions. That's when you take the constant supply of money you could never possibly exhaust and discerningly upgrade your mech by comparing a vast array of body parts to see which one is more expensive. You then repeat the process for every other character worth dragging along. Successively more decadent parts become available after each mission, but cheaper ones never drop off the list and there is no way to scroll through more than one item at a time, so this process only worsens with each passing day.

Continue buying progressively stronger bodies, or keep the one that makes you look like a big daddy? Oh the choices, the choices!

While your mechs are in the shop, you can also give them custom paint jobs to express their unique personalities. And considering they'll probably all have the same expensive parts, it'll be the only way to tell them apart. Until you run out of colors. Then it gets a little tricky.

My trip through time reminded me that it doesn't matter how big or shiny your suit is, but what's inside it. And if we are made up of the choices we've made, how do we begin to look when constantly presented with only one conceivable option? Much like all the other robots, I suppose.

sometimes I'm just not sure who I am anymore...

Haiku for the shepherds

At times we all must put our faith in a higher power, be it ethereal, corporeal, or corporate, deserving or not. For the whole is greater than the sum of its parts- though some parts greater than others- and faced with troubling tasks we look to leaders, be they beatific or beastly, and hope for the best.

And when the tide subsides we return to our nasty, brutish ways, living like our lives were as short as our collective memory. Sometimes I wonder whether there'd be less heroes and martyrs if such people considered who they were offering themselves up for. But then again I'm no hero. And certainly no martyr.

This week's haiku go out to our betters.

ACTRAISER

have faith in the lord
we can has prosperity
talk with poor grammar


angel overhead
urban planning director
scourge of giant bats


economic growth
is hindered by giant bats
prevent recession



just because you can
does not follow that you should
unless it is fun


progress requires
unfertilized embryos
i like omelettes


heavy weighs the crown
people are frail and foolish
vegetation dense


no good unpunished
look what they did to jesus
don't be a prophet

Final Golden Sunset Timberdukesons

Doomeru: what was that arcade we'd hit, that had the shooter where you rode in the mine cart?
Doomeru: it also had ridge racer and the hologram game

Sir Cucumber: that was the bridgewater arena
Sir Cucumber: and still exists

Doomeru: wow, no wai

Sir Cucumber: well remember it was an ice hockey rink
Sir Cucumber: god knows what it has now
Sir Cucumber: probably just cowboys of moo mesa

Doomeru: good game
Doomeru: i mean, any game would be good with the sunset riders format
Doomeru: hmm, what else could you shoehorn into that?

Sir Cucumber: timber.

Doomeru: with the bees?

Sir Cucumber: you'd just walk to the right
Sir Cucumber: and hack people's knees with your axe
Sir Cucumber: and then push them
Sir Cucumber: the first boss would be the shift boss
Sir Cucumber: chompin his cigar

Doomeru: marry me wif mah cigarz


Sir Cucumber: and it would go straight downhill from there
Sir Cucumber: then you'd have to fight robots
Sir Cucumber: and chicks with whips
Sir Cucumber: a couple guys that look like andre the giant

Doomeru: and a guy that can occasionally block, just to mess with you

Sir Cucumber: but not if you only hit him once
Sir Cucumber: when he walks onto your plane
Sir Cucumber: and then walked away, repeating the process until he died


Doomeru: we'd need a subway level

Sir Cucumber: and a guy on roller skates

Doomeru: would there be a baby lumberjack in a lumberjack droid suit?

Sir Cucumber: he would be the robot level boss

Doomeru: also need pyro. cause you know, for fags

Sir Cucumber: nah you could just have magic lumberjack buttlove power like when marge and homer stared at each other.


Sir Cucumber: why would they be fighting?

Doomeru: oh someone stole their trees.

Sir Cucumber: no one steals our trees...

Doomeru: and lives!

Sir Cucumber: it’s time to kick ass and cut trees
Doomeru: and i'm all outa trees.........

Sir Cucumber: oh, no, there's another one, just sprouted up out of
the ground.
Sir Cucumber: let me get that
Sir Cucumber: ok
Sir Cucumber: now i'm allll out of treees......


Sir Cucumber: do you think they could jump, or just shove?

Doomeru: just shove.
Doomeru: and you’d have to steal beef jerky from elves to replenish your health.

Sir Cucumber: So basically it would be golden axe without jumping, running, kicking, throwing, or riding animals and you could only use the dwarf.

Doomeru: yeah.

Sir Cucumber: okay.

Haiku for well-trodden tracks

I don't subscribe to meditation, much to mother's chagrin. I never could sit still that long without a controller in my hands. But I believe in the principle, and feel we can find it in our daily lives not through consciously not doing, but through consciously doing that which we do every day. The morning coffee and lolcats, followed forty-five minutes later by a productive bathroom break. Nine hours afterwards the smell of sauteing garlic, a beer from the very back of the fridge. Rinsing, drying, stacking dishes, stars on the porch with the day's single cigarette, walking the dog before bed. The small, simple, routine tasks and treats that take us through the hours between Bioshock and Call of Duty can be blessings if we let them. If we own them. They are the small keys that lead to the map, the compass, and the larger key, which open on our demons and our treasures, and we discover them over, and over, and over, and over.

This week's haiku go out to all our comforting rituals, no matter how mundane.

ZELDA.

i may be little
but i contain many hearts
hearts big as texas

have half a heart left
scared to enter the next room
needz mah red potion!

bullying chickens
yields feathered retribution
strength flies in numbers



link works so damn hard
yet the game's named after her?
the sex aint that good


great, now I'm a wolf
must howl in perfect pitch
girl ain't worth this shit


why can't the bitch learn?
you see a pigface you run.
it's just that simple.


tingle we should talk
you can't keep coming around
it scares the children


magic talking boat
please have mercy upon me
let me drown myself


magic talking hat
i think you would love my friend
magic talking boat


slashing at grasses
seeking rupees in the dirt
did you check the couch?


i wield tiny sword
and pointy little green hat
oh so fucking what

HAPPY ZELDA WEEK, EVERYBODY!

Thanks to Doomeru, his flower girl, Kn0thing, and Mr. Mooch for all your contributions, and everybody (anybody?) out there reading.

You're what keeps me banging my head against the wall.

Our Imaginary Friends: Link

Honestly I've never been a fan. The SNES one was pretty good but what else was I gonna play- SmartBall?

Perhaps I wrote this series off when I was killed by my best friend Dave at his Zelda birthday party, which rendered me ineligible to win the inflatable Silly Billy punching bag prize, even though there's no way he was at full hearts and I totally said from the start that I was gonna be Zora, who everyone knows lurks out in the safety of the water and you're really better off avoiding.

Maybe it was his creepy lack of speech. I mean, come on, Golgo 13 he is not...

Or maybe it was just when The Adventure of Link came out and it became unavoidably clear that he wasn't wearing pants.

None of this is to say I don't play them, mind you. I just never get from respecting them to, you know, enjoying them. Kind of like Metal Gear. Or the Beatles. Or Jesus.

Special thanks to Doomeru's flower girl for sending this image. I wouldn't have had the strength to make him myself. Now if we could just get Doomeru to send something this might start becoming an actual blog...

Make your own video game character at the South Park Studio and send them to us!

Haiku for chivalrous toughs

Street smarts and years of experience have taught me there are only two types of heroes in this world: those that are fighting to rescue their girlfriends, and those that are gay. Because ladies, if he's not willing to repeatedly jump-kick his way through hordes of thugs, karate masters, and at least 12 men twice his size to save you from captivity, then he's just not worth it and you should stop getting your stupid ass in trouble, skank. Last week went out to the do-gooders. This week is for the musclebound misogynists we all know and love.

Kn0thing starts us off...

FINAL FIGHT

knives are for cody
haggar only needs his pants
he's mayor of pain town


cruel aggression
it makes me drop to my knees
exclaim oh! my car


i am short of breath
can't extinguish dynamite
loan me a quarter


RENEGADE

mister K. don't play
look out for his backwards kick
he will sit on you


K is not afraid
to hit women in high heels
bitch had it coming


In lil' kim's embrace
mama with meat on her bones
die a happy man


DOUBLE DRAGON

jimmy comes along
not cause he's a good brother
hopes for a threesome


jimmy how could you
no need to be shadow boss
i would have shared her


THE ADVENTURES OF BAYOU BILLY

must be some mistake
i am not australian
now please let her go

Got your own haiku? Of course you don't. I'd ask you to post it in the comments or submit it to resignedgamer@gmail.com, but I know you won't.

Haiku for vigilantes of the night

We live in an unjust world. The strong prey upon the weak, the bold trod upon the meek, and you have to fight to make it right. You'll take a couple to the chin- the first will hurt like hell, but it won't kill you and the next won't be as bad. Those that pull the strings have more minions out there than you'd think, but they tend to look alike and follow recognizable attack patterns. Probability tells us that none who stand up can help from being beat down over time, and feel like they've run out of friends and quarters, but there's a chicken in that oil drum just over the horizon. Keep your fists balled and your wits about you and you'll make it. This week's haiku go out to all who've taken their licks and left a mark.

STREETS OF RAGE

secret syndicate
bribes municipality
time for fisticuffs


NIGHTSHADE

egyptian crime lord
thinks he's a batman villain
traps are for pussies


...and Doomeru rhapsodizes on
the two baddest crackpots ever there was...

PHANTOM 2040

skintight purple suit
I find justice in the streets
so tired, must sleep


BAD STREET BRAWLER

as the night descends
germans and dogs seize the streets
someone must punch them


a flat-topped hero
comes clad in yellow short-shorts
he will save us all


midgets wield yo-yos
but I do not flee in fear
my shirt is yellow

Got your own haiku? Post it in the comments or submit it to resignedgamer@gmail.com