Eyes on Transistor

Hey, Supergiant Games has been getting a lot of attention with their latest release.  Apparently, Hades is a good game.  So I thought today, we’d take a look at… something completely different.  

A while back, we took a look at Supergiant Games’ first published effort, Bastion.  I like the game, a lot. And I wrote a lot about it, once! Today, we’re going to follow up on that, by taking a look at their follow up, Transistor.  

Transistor is a pretty obvious spiritual successor to Bastion, working off of the same DNA while really doing its own thing.  In Transistor, you play as a woman without a voice using a sword that is also her lover in a world that’s cyberpunk as all hell and maybe is inside a computer or is a virtual reality thing or something to fight beasties that are probably computer programs gone wrong.  Uhh… it gets a little weird when you phrase it all out like that.  Let’s start over.

In Transistor, you find yourself in the city of Cloudbank, a city where absolutely everything, down to the weather is democratically determined, and as a result, has a bit of a problem with constant meaningless change and mediocrity.  Whatever’s the lowest common denominator catches on the most, and never sticks around to make an impact.  Nearly everyone is registered and set towards two determined goals, and individuals rise and fall all the time with barely anyone caring.  You play as Red, a popular singer and maybe something of an activist who’s become ‘the voice of the people’.  The local illuminati, the Camerata, who want to break Cloudbank out of that democratic quagmire it’s in, attack you, trying to stab you with the titular Transistor.  Your romantic partner, a mysterious man who’s somehow entered Cloudbank without anything about him being registered, takes the hit for you, and his soul is absorbed into the Transistor.  And then the Camerata take your voice somehow.  You escape, get your hands on the Transistor, through which your boyfriend is still able to speak with you, and then you get attacked by computerized beasties as a result of something called the Process running amok.  So, there’s the background of the game.  In much more accurate and describing wordy-things this time around.  

It’s never especially clear what exactly Cloudbank’s nature is, what’s outside of the city, etc.  The game’s short on details in general.  We’ll get into that later.  Anyways, programming themes abound, which does lead to the impression that it’s all software.  Most of the potential interaction points are highlighted using what looks like code, all your moves are code terms, your enemies and so much about the setting are computer terminology, Red, at least, seems rather adept with programming language, etc.  It overall gives the piece a somewhat surreal tone.  Visually and auditorily, the world hear is very somber.  Colors are high contrast, but very muted, and the music, although nearly as good as we heard in Bastion last, are much less solely listenable, serving more to set the mood in combination with the story and the game, rather than standing on their own as great listens.  Between that, the game feels a lot more lonely and oppressive than even Bastion’s post-apocalyptic romp with less characters than this game did.  The music, they do some really interesting play with that I have to commend them for.  Red, your character, is a singer, and you can unlock some of her songs.  Moreover, even though she lost her voice, she can still hum, and will do so along with the background track at the press of a button.  So you get your lead pretty heavily involved in the game’s soundtrack, hearing her voice where you can’t hear her otherwise.  It makes for a really interesting tour through the game’s soundtrack.

Project G-Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975)

More Memorable Title: The last one of the original series OR The one that’s not Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II

Here, we come to it, the final, ultimate movie of Godzilla’s Showa era. And for that matter, the one that brought back Godzilla’s original and best regarded director and composer. In fact, this was director Ishiro Honda’s end to an extended break in production, and reportedly the guy was so into being able to work again that he was taking on way more tasks on set than usual for someone in his position, leaving some of the staff with nothing to do. Its script was picked through a contest, and was scriptwriter Yukiko Takayama’s first produced effort. Positioned as a direct sequel to the previous Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, it also takes a markedly more introspective tone, using its sci-fi elements to explore thoughts of what it means to be human outside of just the form one’s body takes. Ishiro Honda seemed to regard this film highly, feeling it was very refreshing and injected new life into the Godzilla model.

It was also an absolute bomb, in its day. One of only two Godzilla films to sell less than a million tickets, and, depending on whose reports you’re using, is the least profitable Godzilla film in history. On the contrary, it’s also one of the favorites in the series for a lot of people now. But it didn’t really come out of a good environment. The Japanese film industry in general was experiencing a downturn in 1975, giant monster movies in particular were dropping fans all over the place, and it’s coming off a time where the Godzilla franchise wasn’t exactly clear on what type of film they were wanting to make. First the series was psychological horror, then it was fun monster movies with heavy, thoughtful themes and undertones, then it just threw ideas at you for a while, then it was simple kid-friendly movies, then it was adult oriented ultra-violent for its day stuff, then it was… this. So it was a little hard to follow the throughline unless you were a big giant sexy nerd like myself Except they didn’t really have those in the 70s. So rough sales time in there.

But hey, lots of people like it. Does Aether as well? Let’s find out.

The film opens up with a montage of the Godzilla against MechaGodzilla fights from last time. No mention of King Caesar, however. Brother has just been memory holed. Cut to a year later, and there’s a submarine searching the sea floor where Godzilla dropped MechaGodzilla to try and find his remains. Because apparently nobody thought that they should go check out the big giant alien monster up until now. So the submarine gets there, and then there’s this lady on the shore who’s watching them with her magic eye. And then some giant fishy monster starts beating his tail, which causes a whirlpool that forces the submarine up to the surface. And then said fish monster pounces on them, and drags them back down. Where they get destroyed.

Looks like that was an Interpol sub, and now Interpol is investigating what just went down. With a whole bunch of people who aren’t particularly creepy. After last movie, I would have guessed they had those. They call in Dr. Loverboy, a marine biologist, to help them figure out what they’re dealing with. When he heads in for the meeting, he’s greeted by Inspector Average. The two of them are old college buddies, thus elegantly avoiding the need to spend time building a relationship between them. Anyways, the Interpol captain then plays the sub’s final transmission, where the captain’s screaming something like “Oh my God! We’re getting attacked by a dinosaur!” Then Dr. Loverboy deduces “You know, perhaps they were attacked by a dinosaur.” This is why he gets paid the big scientist bucks.

Vaccine Adventures

We’re going to interrupt your regularly scheduled broadcast this week for more talk about dumb life stuff. You know, real life. That place where you keep all your video games when you’re not playing them. And we talk about it, because as I’ve mentioned many times before, this is not a video games blog. This is an Aether blog. And Aether’s life has been too busy to talk about video games lately. So we’ll talk about life. If you don’t like it, go complain about it in the comments of the last YouTube video you watched.

Your main man got the COVID vaccination over the weekend. And lets talk about that for a bit. Most medical professionals in charge of saying things say that you should get whatever COVID vaccine is offered to you, as soon as it’s offered to you. And the rollout for who’s getting the vaccine is kind of messed up. So! I didn’t take that advice at first. This isn’t the first time I’ve been offered the vaccine. As I’ve mentioned in previous life posts, I work for our local government, the same local government in charge of getting that vaccine out in our community in the first place. In fact, that department basically shares my workspace. So I get so see, somewhat second hand, some of the weird things that ends up going on in getting that vaccine out. And there’s some really odd complications there. But that’s besides the point.

So I had an earlier opportunity to get the vaccine. After they finished the phase where they were getting all the top priority people vaccinated, but before they started the second phase, I got notice that I should go in for a vaccine. And I didn’t. I was struggling with the morals of that at the time. I’m young. I’m strong. I don’t have any major risk factors. And I didn’t want to take a spot from someone who was more at risk than myself. It would be great to be safe from COVID, liberated from some of the overhanging worries we’re all facing in this situation, more able to operate in public and I didn’t want to add to how messed up the distribution of it was. And it was messed up. In talking with people about my conflicts there, I learned that there were plenty of folks in the medical system who never had any contact with patients yet still leveraged a technicality to get them in, or even that there were people who took that opportunity at my own organization, yet still announced they would refuse to come into the office or have any public contact no matter how many safety measures were in place. So yeah, essentially, I wasn’t wanting to be another of those delaying the virus from getting to the people who, at least in my view, needed it more than me. I reached out to a number of people I know and trust, and people informed on the whole vaccine distribution timeline and goals, and what not, and every single person, down to a one, told me that they understood my ethical complications with it, and it was really for the best that I just went ahead and got it. And again, this is not from people who are selfishly minded. If it’s offered, you need to take it. Apparently, that holds through.

So the next time, when the Public Health department told me that a newly eligible category for the vaccine applied to me even though I wouldn’t have applied it to myself, I trusted the judgement of those I talked to earlier and went and got it. I got the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which I imagine is going to be the most available vaccine as the rollout continues. Mildly less effective than the Pfizer and Moderna ones, which is putting some people off, which is somewhat ridiculous. Take what the vaccine that’s offered to you. It’s herd immunity that’s going to get us out of the danger we’re in now, not one person having a 10% higher chance of protection. Anyways, J&J is a one shot vaccine. Everyone makes a lot about the side effects, which were significant. Had a fever and chills the same night I got the vaccine. And lightheaded. That’s a side effect that’s apparently common but nobody talks about it. That stuck with me for a couple of days.

And now, so far, not much is different. People congratulate me for being vaccinated. As if it’s something I earned by merit and not by luck of being in a job that fell into the right category. I know a lot of people look at it as a sort of status thing, when it’s really not there. Although, I supposed with recent CDC guidances, it is making us something of a separate class of people as far as social distance requirements ago. Either way, the most important part is that I’m one more step to us kicking this COVID’s ass down to the annals of history alongside the Black Plague, Spanish Flu, and all these other massive outbreaks that are barely a thing now. So yeah. Everyone, get your vaccines, when you get the chance. Let’s fight this back together.

You’re the Only One, One World, One Love! The Persona 3 Retrospective, Part 6(d); Characters-Fuuka and Aigis

Fuuka Yamagishi

The Priestess

Starting here, every Persona game is going to have a member of the party that doesn’t become a playable character themselves, but rather frees up your mission control member to focus on combat.  In this game, that’s Fuuka.  When you get Fuuka, you really get Mitsuru.  Fuuka just takes Mitsuru’s place as the voice in your ear.

Anyways, Fuuka is demure, shy, and physically very small.  She apparently spends a fair amount of time in the hospital, and that’s where Akihiko and Mitsuru first come to realize her potential to use a persona.  However, she doesn’t seem to be especially sickly.  She’s also revealed as missing a lot of school, although not due to illness.  Her parents are relatively average folk among a family of high achievers, and out of jealousy of their more successful siblings, put a lot of pressure on her to succeed and raise their social standing.  At school, she’s rather horribly bullied by the local ganguro girls, culminating in them locking her inside the school gym and leaving her there.  Anyways, the game doesn’t make it clear, but I imagine that all her time out sick is really time trying to escape from the stress she’s facing at both school and home.  If that’s the only place she has that’s safe for her, I can see why she’d be finding herself there with frequency.