No cookies for Squenix.

You know what's an affront? This is a-huh? Well, yes I-oh, yeah that's a-and what's that? Oh...oh God...ok, lots of things are affronts, but what I'm referring to specifically is this:

See? An affront. Now picture it with 
thumbs covering 45% of the screen.

Holding the rest button while hitting the
power button is a kind of nerd shibboleth. If 
you get it, congratulations. Also, you're old.

I mean how could-huh? I should explain and brace yourself, because we're going to get in the weeds here so if you need to bail out, now's the time. Just be sure to hold reset while you do. Anyway, this is the mobile version of Dragon Quest III. Dragon Quest III is a great game and if you were an indoor kid in 1992 it's what you did with your summer vacation. And, like any grown-ass adult who was an indoor kid in 1992, I can be counted on by game companies to re-buy Dragon Quest III every time they re-publish it. No matter how badly they screw it up. See the above mobile version. 

It, like a lot of publisher SquareEnix's mobile versions, was released inexplicably in a locked portrait orientation in flagrant disregard for how human eyes work. But it didn't stop at aspect ratio, SquareEnix, or Squenix if you're in a hurry, also love to screw up the graphics. They kept the pixelated backgrounds of the 16-bit version, but replaced the character sprites with that gross art style they use in mobile games and Facebook ads. It's the actual worst.

Incidentally, who's coming up with these scenarios and are they on a watch list?
Because they probably should be. This is some Saw level sociopathy.

I guess the sepia tone is to make it
look like a video game from the 1880's?

The good news however, is that grown-ass indoor kids like myself will soon be able to pay Squenix again for another version of this game. And this time it's remade in the style of Octopath-swear to God, this is the actual title-Traveler. That game, an homage to early 90's Japanese Role Playing games, used a tilt-shift-ish filter to make everything look like a model or a diorama. And then it washed everything in a weird sepia tone, which I totally hated, but hey, it was better than that mobile game nonsense.

Fine, they can have a cookie, but 
it's going to be one of those cakey 
grocery store ones nobody likes.

The absurdly, yet descriptively titled Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake eschews the sepia thing, and that's great. But it still doesn't excuse the fact that Squenix has time and time again leveraged the Death Star ventilation shaft that is gamer nostalgia to get us to buy and re-buy (and yet rarely replay) the same game four or five times, just because there's a shiny (or tilt-shifty) new version. They don't get a cookie for finally re-releasing a game in an art style that isn't objective garbage. They should have known better and done it this way it in the first place.

Huh? What's that? No. No, I can't just not re-buy it. Gamer nostalgia is a serious condition, and I'll thank you not to judge. 

Yes, I know democracy is crumbling around us and the world is spiraling
into madness and this is the kind of thing I'm railing on about. But I can be upset 
about more than one thing at a time. I contain multitudes. Of bitterness.

Today in seriously? These people...

Texas, amight? Texas lawmakers have passed and shameless hypocritical shitmerchant Governor Greg Abbott plans to sign a bill that will let any rando carry a gun. No license, no training, no background check. 

"Finally, this new legislation will allow all Texans to easily get their hands
on a gun to defend themselves from the other Texas, who can easily get
their hands on guns. And might I add: Yeeeeee-haaaaaw!"

-Texas Governor Greg Abbott, nailing it

"Guuuuuuuns!"

-Republicans

Because freedom something something. The law, which in typical Republican shitspeak they call "Constitutional Carry," does away with the "unnecessary impediments" according to proponents. Opponents, including law enforcement and a majority of Texans, decry it as a reckless move that will only endanger more lives. Like, what kind of sociopaths look at the epidemic of gun-related violence in America and says, I know, more guns! Mooooore guuuuns! Well now we know: Republicans. 

Yeah, Republicans simply don't give a shit anymore. All because their dumb, sexual-assault enthusiast gameshow host lost an election. Two if we count popular votes (and I do). But surely voters can simply vote them out next election and-oh, wait, no. No, they can't. 

"Look, if the founding fathers didn't intend for one party to seize total
control through coordinated redistricting and voter suppression, then they 
shouldn't have made Senate Minority leader the highest office in the land."

-Some guy 1.2 million Kentuckians voter for, obstructing 

the agenda of a President 81 million Americans voted for

Three! And he's never won a 
popular vote in his life. 

These very same Republicans are also passed a plan to cut polling places from Democratic controlled districts in the state and move them to Republican controlled districts so that their backwards, racist party of dumbs can stay in charge. It's a move happening in states all across the country and if the many legal challenges don't stop it, we're pretty screwed. And since Republicans have appointed a shitload of judges (including three Supreme Court Justices), it's not looking great.

Pictured: The GOP.

They're using this ill-gotten leverage over the will of the electorate to pass anti-choice legislation (most Americans are Pro-Choice), roll back what little gun-restrictions we already have (most Americans support stricter gun laws) and to pass even more voter suppression measures to make it even harder to get rid of them. They're the electoral equivalent of a staph infection. The only thing I take solace in is that the story of America is the story of people fighting against the oppression of conservatives. 

The Revolution, the Civil War, the labor movement, Civil Rights, Women's liberation, abortion rights, marriage equality, trans rights, every time it's progressives versus conservatives who want to control other people's lives. It sucks and it's a struggle, and the fight can drag on and look hopeless, but we eventually win, right? Usually?

It's also the story of Star Wars, World War II and Footloose.

Do-over of the Fates

Finally, after more than a year of brutal critical and fan backlash, Disney has fixed The Rise of Skywalker! Can you believe it? The film can finally be-huh? No, they didn't fix the ending. But they did-what's that? No, the story still makes no sense-wha-oh, no Carrie Fisher's scenes are still awkward and difficult to watch.

Yeah, and they still rip off The Goonies.

"You mess with the bull, and
you get the horns. Ho-ho!"

But they did finally get rid of some of the dumb blue color correction. So there's that. At least I think they did. Someone had Tweeted some comparison shots, but the post has been taken down and the account was deleted. Same same for another Twitter used who posted about some captions that added names to the "ghost Jedi" scene, where the voices of dead Jedi tell Rey to, you know, to Jedi or whatever. So what happened? Did these changes even really happen? Did the Twitter users run afoul of Disney's legal people? And are they ok? Because I take my unpaid job that no one asks me to do very seriously, I did some research (meaning I opened the Disney+ app and fast forwarded to the scenes in question) and, I don't know, Maybe they did? 

It's hard to tell without something to compare it too, but Harrison Ford and Adam Driver's scene on the Death Star ruins (the one most of the stories about this point to) does look a little less blue than screen shots I find online. And the captions in Daisy Ridley's scene do identify which Jedi's voices are being heard, but I don't know if that was always the case. 

I would have said "cackling maniacally," but I suppose
the captioning people must know what they're doing.

While were at it, maybe no more climactic
showdowns where characters tug'o'war an energy
beam back and forth until someone explodes?

And look, I'm all for un-color-correcting movies. If I may slip into my habit of curmudgeonry, one of the things that makes recent genre movies inferior to older ones is the over reliance on things like quick cuts, CGI, and flooding every shot with a color. Especially in something like Star Wars where you need to feel like something on screen is real, making every shot blue takes you right out of that. But is this a thing they're going to be doing from now on? Streaming service adjustments and retcons as a matter of course? And is this a good thing?

Like, there is not a single person in the world who would agree that the Special Edition versions of the Star Wars movies are better than the original theatrical releases. And if there is someone saying that, they are wrong. Objectively. 

I rest my case.

When the VCR ran out of whale oil, we'd go
outside and play with our hoops and sticks.

Ok, but just for the sake of argument, let's say it's because I'm one enough to remember when crappy VHS copies were the only versions we knew for years. Which is to say, quite old. They were still good movies to begin with. Rise of Skywalker was not. So it could be that I just have an objection to fixing something that doesn't need fixing. But how far would be too far? The Special Edition Star Wars movies didn't change the story, and neither do the changes that Disney+ may (or may not) have made. But what if they did? Would that be weird?

"How dare you!"

-Some troll.

Like, what if they took out the bit about Palpatine being Rey's grandclone or gave Rose something to do other than wikipedia research on the Star Destroyers? I'm not saying that listening to internet trolls is a good idea. In fact, no one should ever listen to internet trolls. For every Sonic The Hedgehog movie, there's-well there's half a dozen Rises of Skywalker (it's like mothers in law). But still, I can't say I'd mind a cut of Episode IX that wasn't a confusing hodge-dodge of missed opportunities and storylines that went nowhere. 

Looking at you, CD Projekt Red...

For awhile now, video games have had the option of post-release patches, DLC, and in some cases do-overs. Final Fantasy XIV was so bad, SqaureEnix just straight-up apologized and remade the game. But with movies it feels different somehow. Maybe it's because a game is an interactive experience that changes every time you play and so change is part of it. But it seems like the expectation with a film is that once released it should remain unchanged, right? 

Is a better, more satisfying conclusion to the Star Wars series worth the confusion of multiple versions? Or the compromising of the director's artistic vision? However misguided or unsuccessful it might have been. What if Disney just went and remade Episode XI? A Do-over of the Fates, if you will. I mean, they won't. Of course they won't. That's not how the film industry works, but still, I'd watch it.

Also, they couldn't just do that to the heroes who write Wookiepedia 
who are already juggling Legends and New Canon. People have their limits.

Yoga, once a no-go, is a-go-go again

I mean, if anyone's going door to door
hocking religion like it's a lawn service...

Do they not get this is why the rest of us think they're a bunch of backwards, kinda racist dumbs? I'm genuinely asking. Because did you see this thing about how yoga was banned in Alabama schools? Well it was. Until now anyway. According to NPR, Governor Kay Ivey signed a bill yesterday that lifted the ban first implemented in 1993 because of yoga's connections to Hinduism which jittery Alabamans feared would convert their kids. Which, I mean, have you ever had a Hindu evangelist try and convert you? Because I don't think that's a thing they do.

But before you go and assume this is another example of the Satanic Panic Bible thumpers overreaching and legislating their values, it totally was. You assumption is well-founded. A conservative Christian group called The Eagle Star Star Star Forum of Alabama pushed for the ban in the first place and have been vocally opposed to the ban's repeal. 

The Eagle Star Star Star Forum of Alabama:
"We love the shit out of America"

Do I even have to tell you that this is
Becky Gerritson? Because of course this 
 is Becky Gerritson. Of course it is.

"If this bill passes, then instructors will be able to come into classrooms as young as kindergarten and bring these children through guided imagery, which is a spiritual exercise, and it's outside of their parents' view. And we just believe that this is not appropriate."

-Becky Gerritson, director of 

TESSSOA, asking if someone 

won't please think of the children

Ok, it's not completely harmless, but 
they don't teach fire spitting and 
teleportation until at least high school.

Gerritson's objection then, however misguided, is that spiritual exercises have no place in public schools. Which ok, I kind of get what she's going for there, but I don't think she knows what she's talking about. I mean, in seven years of taking yoga I've never been brought through guided imagery, but what do I know? And technically yoga does have its roots in Hindu culture. So maybe she has a point? Obviously yoga's not dangerous, but then that's not what she's arguing. She's arguing that school should be a secular environment and that- 

Oh, wait her organization is a political action group whose values are explicitly Christian. Ok, not Christian Christian, but that Red State, Evangelical kind that thinks Jesus loves rich people and is pro-death penalty. So, white Jesus Christian.

"Ted, I'd like you to meet Jesus Christ our new CFO. He's got some new
ideas about how we can double our Q3 numbers with a little creative accounting.
C'mon, he's going to tell us all about it at this new strip club he knows."

-Some business guy

Becky? No? Nothing to say? Interesting.

Weirdly, nowhere on the TESSOA website does it say anything about opposing school prayer or removing "Under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance, so in many ways Becky can shut the hell up about the dangers of guided imagery. Anyway, who cares? The ban is over and now schools can do yoga in gym class. Hooray, the good guys won. Except they kind of didn't because like everything today, conservatives have to stick in some shit sandwich clause to make sure their precious, precious worldview isn't shaken by anything too, you know, ethnic. 

Fine, I've never been hypnotized
in a yoga class...that I know of.

Yup, Republicans tacked on an amendment that says that all instruction be limited to things like stretching, twisting and balancing and that  "[c]hanting, mantras, mudras, use of mandalas, of hypnotic states. guided imagery, and namaste shall be expressly prohibited." Again, I know that maybe different instructors have different practices, but I've never been hypnotized in a yoga class. And "namaste shall be expressly prohibited?" Like it's vaping. You don't namaste, you say namaste. It's like yoga aloha and it's not going to convert your damn kids.

And just in case your xenophobia alarms weren't already going off, the amendment also says that  "[a]ll poses, exercises and stretching techniques shall have exclusively English descriptive names." Because the term "shavasana" is the first step on a path the leads to meth and voting for Bernie Sanders. Which, I mean, holy shit, these people. 

Sometimes I think conservatives are 
just looking for things to culture war over.

I am become Rooney, complainer of things

Am I just getting old or-ok, fine, yes. Linear time. We're all getting old. But what I'm asking is am I personally just getting, you know, old. Like, in that way that olds are always complaining about how things were different or better in the past.

Has it come to this?

Do the people who buy calendars know
about smartphones and the internet?
If they don't, should we tell them?

First let me clarify that I don't mean old in the sense of biological age. There are plenty of people who are chronologically old but are still able to embrace new movies without winging on about how-yeah, this is about a movie. Specifically The Batman. Yeah, I'm having opinions about a movie that I not only haven't seen yet, but is also like nine months off. Because the internet, that's why. What I'm getting at is have you seen the shots of the Riddler in this movie? An image from a calendar has leaked and--yeah, I know, a year into this pandemic and this is what we're reduced to. Zooming in on leaked images of tie-in merchandise to catch a glimpse of a character from a comic book movie. Remember when humans walked on the moon and cured polio? Welp, here we are.

Yeah, I can't make anything out from that either, but luckily for us there's also been some footage of the movie and this is the Riddler as played by Broadway actor Paul Dano:

He's not so much riddling here as he is wrapping
his murder victim's corpse in duct tape. Fun!

Do not bring back the lycra.

The comparisons being drawn are to the Zodiac Killer or the villain from the Batman comic Hush, and yeah. Gone is Jim Carry's green lycra and the question mark suit Frank Gorshin wore, instead Dano's Riddler is straight up serial killer. And again maybe this is me going through some early onset curmudgeonry, but I wish these movies would lighten up. I'm not saying bring back the lycra, not literally I mean, but maybe bring back the lycra, you know?

Pictured: two guys who maybe
took Batman way too seriously.

I'm just over grimdark comic book movies. It's like every movie pitch must be starting with "what if we did a superhero movie but dark and gritty?" Things like Invincible and The Boys I kind of get. Like, I'm not watching that shit, but I get that they started off with a violent and cynical premise. But Batman is about a billionaire who puts on tights and battles theme crime, he's not Serpico. If every superhero movie is trying to subvert superhero tropes doesn't that subversion at some point become a trope in itself? A tropeception, if you will (but don't).

Sure, this movie is months away and I've only seen like a two-minute clip, so what am I even on about? And I also think a lot of the Marvel movies are kind of dumb, fun, but dumb so please, take my opinions with the requisite amount of salt--that is to say, all of the salt--but there's got to be something between campy CG nonsense and Joaquin Phoenix's incel Joker shooting Robert DiNero in the face, right?

What I'm saying is that they put the Joker on kid's pajamas
and lunchboxes so maybe take it down a notch?

Today in space cars with poor handling:

Can we talk about the Mako? Huh? Right, sorry, it's a Mass Effect thing and-wha? Right, sorry, I keep forgetting that you're a responsible adult. Look, this is going to be about a video game-yes. Again. You knew what you were getting yourself into when you clicked on this.

Pictured: what normal, sociable adults do with their leisure time. I assume.

Can you believe all the FPS's? That's
 got to be what? 8K? 9? A ton of K's!
And look at all those rays. So traced!

Anyway, like I was saying. There's this remastered version of the Mass Effect trilogy and I, despite having played through these games years ago, am going to be devoting an embarrassing amount of time to replaying them. Like, an amount of time better spent picking up an instrument or learning another language. Again, you knew what you were getting into. So this version of the games, I'm told, is enhanced over the originals in terms of graphics and performance but I can't tell because I'm not able to distinguish things like frame rates. 

But whatever, the games look good for being fourteen years old. There's also some improvements in game play and load times designed to bring them up to more recent standards and that's all super but what I want to discuss is the Mako. Which still sucks.

I'm sure I'm far from the first person to make this observation 
this but it really is objectively the worst thing ever.

Above: every goddamn
planet in Mass Effect. 

Allow me to explain. The Mass Effect games are RPG/shooters in which the player is the captain of a spaceship and as such, ends up landing on planets. Planets with rough, mountainous terrain. Like, crazy rough, hence the Mako, a tank/car/ATV mode of transportation which is mercifully only in the first game. I say mercifully because driving it is a floaty, frustrating mess and the planets you have to navigate around are full of vertical topography and this military grade shopping cart with a broken wheel is woefully inadequate and I just want to ask why.

Pictured: the main character strolling past
one of the many flying cars at headquarters.

This always sucked, but with the rerelease it seems like a missed opportunity to fix this part of the game. I mean, give us a helicopter or a plane or something. A jet pack even. Anything. These people live in the future, shouldn't everything hover? Or even if they just flattened out the topography a little it would have gone a long way towards making the driving a less infuriating experience. I flipped it over yesterday and spent, no lie, four full minutes trying to right it again. 

I should be clear that I actually do have real life concerns and that I don't sit around fretting over the ill-conceived control scheme of a fictional space car, but I ask you:

How even is this ok?

Yeah, but Altered Beast?

Pictured: hubris. 

Do you know what word I cannot stand? Franchise. Not like a Tim Hortons or the right to vote, but in the sense of content or IP's. Which are other gross, corporate words that I can't stand, but that's a whole other thing. Anyway, I mention this because of the news that Sega's bringing back some old and mostly forgotten ugh...IP's, including Altered Beast. Ok, some explanation is in order. Sega, those of you who enjoy a rich social life full of outdoor activities might recall, is the video game company that was a rival to and at times bigger than Nintendo for a few years before suffering a spectacular and an almost comical collapse into irrelevance.

But for people like me--that is, grown ass adults who still care about video games--they're also a developer who, despite no longer selling a console of their own, hasn't actually gone away and one that still publishes games. Some of which are pretty good. 

And others in which Sonic the Hedgehog turns
into a werewolf because ideas are hard.

Pictured: leveraging IP's.
Not pictured: shame.

Last week, the company published a slideshow entitled Fiscal Year Ended March 2021 Results Presentation which, needless to say, is tedious and the very death of joy. But amidst the financial nonsense was a page called Utilization of IP Assets which describes the active and inactive IP's the company holds and laying out a plan to money off of them via remasters, remakes, and reboots. Which, ok, sequels, spin-offs, reboots, that's how the video game industry works. And movies. And television.

But what caught everyones attention was the mention of the specific "dormant IP's" they'd like to exploit. Crazy Taxi, Shinobi, Jet Set Radio, and other series that fans--and no one else--have been asking for more of for ages. And also Altered Beast. And that's super, but now that I'm like, a cynical adult, I find myself asking why that is. Like, why do we care about video game series, not why are they even talking about Altered Beast in 2021, but while we're here, why are they talking about Altered Beast in 2021? 

I mean, bear baiting used to be popular, but 
it doesn't mean they should bring it back.

They're just doing they're job, which for
some reason involves standing on rooftops

And what even is a video game series? Movie series are usually narrative continuations or share characters, but that's not always true or necessary with games. Final Fantasy's sequels rarely carry over the world, characters, or story. The Final Fantasy-ness is contained in the themes and gameplay. Assassin's Creed jumps all over the place in terms of setting, but they all have a common theme of revenge, parkour, and murdering innocent guards.

I mean...

So what are we there for when we get in to a game based on the title? More of the same gameplay from the pervious installment? Take Crazy Taxi for example. It was a good game. In it, you drive a taxi. Crazily. But that's it. There's no real story to speak of, so any new sequels or remakes are either going to be just more Crazy Taxi, or something else entirely that just shares the same name. I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing. Super Mario Bros. 3 was just more Mario, and Mario 2 was a totally different game from 1 or 3, but was arguable the best one (let's argue). So what then makes a game series a series? Like, at some point it seems like the only requirement is the addition of sequential number (Roman or Arabic) or a subtitle. Usually involving either the word "origins" or "the rise of."

I guess where I'm going with all this, is that it seems like kind of a leap to assume that because something like Shinobi or Panzer Dragoon was a successful...ugh...IP in the past, that it can be again. But then this is a Fiscal Year Results whatever and I don't know anything about leveraging franchises. What I do know is that nobody wants more Altered Beast.

I feel like there's a "don't wise fwom your gwave" joke in
here somewhere, but I'm better than that (no I'm not).

Bastille Day can't come soon enough...

So earlier this week the California Department of Transportation or Caltrans if you're in a hurry, along with Santa Cruz law enforcement cleared out dozens of people and their tents from an encampment where many of the people have been living for up to a year. 

"Where are they supposed to go? Great question. We're working
with our community partners to-holy shit! Look behind you! Quick!
No really, I swear, you're not going to- just, just turn around before-"

-City Officials shortly before running 

off while everyone's backs were turned

Sorry, that's unfair. It's a yacht so
big that it has it's own yacht, and
 that yacht has its own helipad.

The city had a hugely disproportionate number of people experiencing homelessness before the pandemic; something like twelve hundred people or 2% of the town's total residency of 64,000. And I can't imagine it's any better now. To make matters worse, the plan now is to pass a city ordinance banning outdoor camping within city limits, leaving city residents asking reasonable questions like, "Where are people supposed to sleep?" "How can a ban like that even be enforced?" and perhaps most importantly "What do you mean Jeff Bezos is buying a yacht so big it has it's own yacht?" 

According to Bloomberg Wealth--a news outlet for people who refer to how much money they have as wealth, instead of, you know, rent and food--the yacht is supposed to be 417 feet long and cost over--are you sitting down? Because sit down. It's supposed to cost over five hundred million dollars. Of money. 

Pictured: Not Jeff Bezos' new yacht. There are no pictures of his new yacht,
because rich people have something called NDA's which are like legal cloaking
devices that let them do shit that nobody's allowed to talk about it.

I mean, how do they think
this is going to end?

Now, I know what you're thinking, and no, we can't just roll out the ol'guillotine and start head-chopping our way back to an equitable system. That would make us monsters. But with each passing outrage, it's becoming harder and harder to say that. In 2020, while millions of people were busy losing their jobs and trying not to get breathed on by maskless MAGA goons, billionaires got a trillion dollars richer. That's a real number by the way, it's not like a kajillion. They sucked a trillion more dollars out of the world, and $70 billion of that went to Bezos personally. 

So my question is what the actual? Fuck that is. What the actual fuck. Again, I am 100% not advocating some kind of violent class war, but this is completely unsustainable, right? Like, did I mention there are half a million homeless people in the U.S.? And that dozens of them just got evicted from an empty lot? Meanwhile, a guy who made his fortune running other businesses out of business, and who asks his employees to shit in bags to save time, is buying a yacht that has its own yachts (with a helipad). Something has got to give. 

There is nothing, literally nothing one person has done or could
do that would justify them having 185.7 billion dollars. Nothing.