tighter packed with stuffing

Fat found this plushie seat on Play-Asia, tho' it be unclear what he was looking for when he found it. He introduced his discovery with the words:

The description here Gives me the jibblies, but sorta makes me smile?

It's complicated.

The description in question being, I presume,

Plushes usually sit on your lap as you watch TV or sleep in your arms on your bed. To return the favor, the Dokodemoissyo cats are letting you sit on them. Heavier than normal plushes and tighter packed with stuffing, these plushes work well as TV stools, as especially for children or petite people. Place them in front of the TV screen and bounce on their heads when you see something exciting.

Mirror the cats' moods when you sit on them, smile happily or be hysterically happy, after all, these cats are here for just that, to cheer you up.

It is a bit odd, and I see where he's coming in. I replied that the diagram was perhaps more jibblies-istic.



A curious diagram to western eyes, for sure. It all makes more sense in terms of 18-mat tatami apartments, course.

-d.d.

idolizing yr kills with Suda 51

Two of the most interesting writers on these 'nets are Leigh Alexander and Alex Kierkegaard.

Alexander says this:

a glorious exercise in simultaneous reverence and irreverence

Kierkegaard says this:

This game fucking sssssssucks and I fucking hated almost every moment I spent playing it.

Predictably, they're both talking about the same game: No More Heroes. As far as reviews go, Kierkegaard wins on points, mainly for the above sentence, perhaps the greatest opening sentence in the history of reviewing. On the other hand, Alexander is right: No More Heroes is an absolutely fabulous game. I just finished it, and turned right around and started a new campaign on Bitter (=hard).(1)



Reviews abound for this piece, and I don't care to rehash them. I just want to heap a little praise on the best game I've played in 2008, and point out two things nobody seems to have mentioned much.



The first is that while this is a savagely violent game, with blood fountains that'd make Samurai Assassin's creators blush, a lot of the boss battles feature genuine emotional content. Yr protagonist, Travis Touchdown, is a complete prick about most of these moments, which actually only adds to the feel. --I'm at great pains to avoid the dreaded SPOILER here, but I will say that the final cutscene of Holly Summers touched me more than any videogame moment in my career.(2) And there's a lot of laughs, as well: the game intro is presented like a movie, a Tarantino movie, actually, and there's a couple lines in it that brought forth my trademark gleeful cackle. Quite a few lines and gags brought this forth, all the way to the end of the game.

The second is that the game is simply drenched in women. The plot is driven by Touchdown's (desire for a sexual) relationship with the delightfully batty Sylvia Christel. A couple of the best bosses are women, and the best cutscenes, pre-and-post-fight, involve these characters.(3) You buy your weapons from a contemptous Doctor Naomi, and if it's not clear already, this little game is going to inspire some seriously pervy cosplay.



I suspect strongly that these two game elements are related.

A couple other notes. There's a set of cat-interactions--not quite minigames--that I think are an explicit nod to Shenmue. Then there's a couple minor features that are absolute trademarks of Grasshopper Manufacture (Suda 51 & Akira Ueda, afaik), a couple features I am a HUGE SUCKER for. One is a whole lot of visual character customization.(4) Nearly 100 shirts, a dozen jackets and pairs of jeans, a bunch of belts, a couple pairs of sunglasses. I spent around 27 hours on the game, and a surprising portion of that was playing dress-up with Travis. Another killer feature is on display with the customization: huge inventories of items, many with flat-out-funny item descriptions. It's these little touches that make Grasshopper originals must-buys for this kid.

Anyways, this game was thoroughly fun to play, and masterful at doling out rewards. I dunno if I'll play a better new game this year. If I don't, I won't be sad in the slightest.



-Fat(5)

1.
Well, admittedly I did start it up on continue mode, so that I have all the unlocked stuff. So it's still pretty easy.

2.
The emotional content is accessible because of a beautiful localization job--the script (translations) and the voice acting are both outstanding. The game is admittedly unpolished in some other areas, as every review proclaims, but the work in these areas is without fault.

3.
No offense, Destroyman, but you just don't rate next to Shinobu, Bad Girl, or the SPOILER. Rest In Peace, Holly.

4.
Confidential to Suda 51: accessorizing is important. Changing belts and sunglasses is crucial, and I'm glad you built this in. (Jackets, shirts, jeans, anybody can do this--it's yr attention to accessories that makes us know you love us.) But man...it's gotta be the shoes. I want to change Travis' shoes! Next game, you best make this happen.

5.
Okay, okay. The Eurogamer review is excellent. And it occurs to me that I was led to Alexander's work by the most interesting writer on Kotaku these days: Maggie Greene. Worth noting.

I leveled it !

Wanting to fire up the teal GameBoyColor my little sister had willfully disowned, but only possessing her carts of Ms. Pac-man and (an nonfunctional) Super Mario World DX, I snagged the Dragon Warrior I + II comp for 10 bucks.

As I mentioned in passing last time, Dragon Warrior (I) was 1 of those rented-for-the-weekend NES system and 1-3 games experiences from the early 90s. For reasons I cannot remember I had in my possession a copy of Nintendo Power featuring a walkthru or a map or something for DW, and, thinking myself clever as these "D 'n' D" sort of matters, attempted to fetcheth myself the legendary hero (and blood relative) Erdrick's ("Loto" in this restored GBC version) legendary armor from the ruined village of Haukness.

'Course, as experience w/ Phantasy Star II has now thoroughly schooled me, the challenge of these reptilian RPGs lies exclusively in the LEVELING. Leveling for experience and leveling for cold hard cash.¹ To further "challenge" (and frustrate), while the random encounters are somewhat frequent, the rewards tend to be low - enjoy wandering around for 3 hours!²

So... Dragon Warrior handed my ass to me on a platter when I was 14. I would gloat how the tables had turned this time around, but the GBC version's been tweaked so leveling's not quite so much the grind.

The result's that you can beated Dragon Warrior in prob 10-12 hours. There are only 2 dungeons and they too have been easy-fied.³ I even made significant progress with DW regulated to the video-game equilivent of bathroom reading. Next thing I know, I'm all like 'hey I have ALL the items & all the spells', and, with little else to do, I hit up the final dungeon.⁴

So, yeah, the world of Dragon Warrior is set to right. Despite the easiness, it was still more fun (and more difficult) than Lunar Legend.⁵

-d.d.


¹ See also, Adventure Log, No. 3.
² I will!
³ As I have learned from playing Phantasy Star II on the original Genesis cart, these old-school RPGs derive their difficulty from

(A) Random encounters that don't net you large EXP rewards in exchange for the time vested to run into these same encounters in the first place. Even moreso w/ Gold. The lack of monetary rewards is so slim and the cost of equipment so high that the acquiring of capital quickly becomes the central herculean task of the game, w/ leveling a convenient positive byproduct of income.
(B) HUGE dungeons that are not, like more modern RPGs, essentially rudimentary puzzles, but rather infuriating complex mazes akin to those paper placemats you colored on at the family restaurant as a kid. Littered w/ random encounters, the dungeon crawl becomes a death march - a slow calculated-risk slog to see if the party can reach the end of the dungeon w/o running out of healing spells or potions.

.In the easy-fied GBC version of DW1, random encounters net you either more exp or gold than usual, so leveling & income collection rewards come at less effort (or with less annoyance, depending on how you look at it).
⁴ DW1 has, like, 2 dungeons of any consequence in them. 1 of these is the final dungeon and the other one I sorta stumbled around 'til I found what I was looking for.
⁵ I Beated It!

Live & alive @ PAX w/ the Fat Contradiction (Day 1)

here follows txt dispaches filed by Fat Contradiction, in attendance @ PAX2007:

Fat's well. Well HUNG!! Well, he's well-hungOVER, anyways. I'm gnawing on a breakfast, and abt to miss a panel on Japanese gaming culture: Mimosas FTW!!

- 10:22 a.m., 8-25-07

dark clouds out on the horizon (fevered, my hands feel like 2 balloons). The Adonal Foyle era has ended. The Oakland Warriors are poorer for the loss.

- 10:39 a.m., 8-25-07

Gum cosplay; photo secured!!

- 4:05 p.m., 8-25-07

Winding down I think. Another run thru the main exhibition hall, then prolly done for the day. Liquor awaits!!
-5:04 p.m., 8-25-07

Crazy but hilarious Metroid girl costumery - photos obtained! Also...I has one SECRET. Possible further updata (im)pending.

- 6:08 p.m. , 8-25-07

Update. I have pwned nary a noob. 'Adamantium' played a dozen matches of Metroid Pinball 'gainst me. He sent many metroids onto my screen, playing valiantly, and with honor.

- 7:54 p.m., 8-25-07

And I absolutely TAXED that delicious candy ass eight times! Taste my mastery, nimrod, like yr supple mother did this morning! Wipe the SUCK off, loser.

- 7:59 p.m., 8-25-07

Seriously, tho. Nice game, dude.

- 8:00 p.m., 8-25-07