Squeem, I Did It Again.
Dec. 20th, 2006 10:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nano_mooseI must warn you that I will take this opportunity to be hatin'. I – I can't be unbiased about it, I just can't. I restricted the bitching to parentheses, but there's a fair bit of it – I forgot just how stupid parts of this game are, sheesh. I am so, so glad Sands of Time eventually outsold it, and I am going to find the guy who put his own tattoo on the Prince and punch his lights out, because the music is his fault. Ugh. Spoilers behind the cut.
You remember all those times the Prince foresaw his own death? There's a reason for that. "He who releases the Sands must die." It's an ancient prophecy, buried in the past, before the Sands themselves were ever created. But the Prince's manipulation of the timeline meant that he escaped his death, rewrote the world – and the world is kinda pissed about that. You can tell by the giant monster pursuing him wherever he goes. It's called the Dahaka, the personification of destiny, the eraser of anomalies and it is going to kill him. It's his fate, after all.
(It looks like this. It's about three times his size, has lightning fast tendrils, and terrible speed and strength.)
Seven long years he evades the Dahaka, forsaking his kingdom to find a way to defeat it. In that time he loses so much of himself, becoming bitter and hardened, his desperation crushing out gentleness, his determination becoming ruthlessness. He stills holds Farah's medallion (for some reason) which allows him a few time powers, but it is not enough. (Basically it boils down to him looking like this and turning into every damn antihero cliché you can possibly imagine, down to his random exclamations of RARGH. Sigh. I forgot how much I hated that design. I would have much preferred it if he'd stayed like this, like he was in the early ads – mainly because hoods are really cool.)
As a last resort, he consults a Random Old Dude who apparently knows him (Old Dude hasn't got a name and is never explained, although I originally thought he was the Vizier). Old Dude tells him there is one hope, his last hope – the Island of Time. It's where one finds the Fortress of Time, the abode of the Empress of Time, who created the Sands of Time (and now you see why I hate the writing) and the location of several gates into the past, where he may rewrite his fate once again by stopping the Sands from being created. The Old Dude warns the Prince that it's a long shot and a bad, bad idea.
Well, it's not like he has anything to lose. He sails.
Aaaaand here is where the game starts, as his ship is attacked by a second boat, captained by a mysterious woman in black. The Prince attempts to fight off the attackers, even as his crew falls around him – and duels with the woman, Shahdee, a servant of the Empress.
(Words cannot express how much I hate Shahdee. She also RARGHs and wears an incredibly impractical outfit and has no motivation and is basically just ogle-material. God. Just look. How the hell is that armour?)
It is all in vain – the ship is wrecked, the crew lost, and the Prince swept away. But fortunately (or not) he regains consciousness of the shores of the Island of Time. There's he sights Shahdee again and pursues her, being pursued by the Dahaka in turn, but he discovers the beast is vulnerable to water and escapes it several times this way. He interrupts a fight between Shahdee and a woman in red – the Prince kills Shahdee, who's last words ("Fool! You cannot change your fate!") are strangely directed at the woman, named Kaileena. She claims she is a servant of the Empress and offers to help him in his quest. (I may as well tell you right now she's the Empress. It's really, really obvious.)
As he makes his way through the Fortress to the Empress' throne room, he is watched by a creature with blue eyes, sand curling off it like smoke. It hinders his progress several times, though it never speaks. But when the Prince encounters the Dahaka in a dead-end, it chooses to destroy the creature and leave the Prince alone. Perplexed, he continues his journey, enters the throne room and discovers Kaileena – who rages at him, furious at his refusal to die, railing against her fate: death at his hands. They fight. She loses. But the Empress has the last laugh: the Sands are, in fact, her essence, freed by her death.
What's a Prince to do? The Dahaka still pursues him. He discovers his last hope (I mean it this time, really) – the Mask of the Wraith, a magical object which allows its wearer to travel back in time and change their fate. When he finds it and dons it, he transforms into the Sand Wraith – that same blue-eyed, smokey creature that had been pursuing him earlier. Guess what! It's back to the dead-end, cornered by the Dahaka. But this time, it destroys his past human self, allowing his Wraith self to escape.
(Don't look at me, I just work here. I've thought about it for ages and I cannot understand how the hell that works. He should have ceased existing when he destroyed his past self. This is my biggest problem with Warrior Within – it makes a huge mess of time, completely ignoring the consequences for all the temporal shenanigans when the whole game was supposed to be about them. What the fuck, writers. As if the game wasn't stupid enough already. God, I knew I hated it for more than the incredibly shallow reasons.)
He returns one final time to the Throne Room and forces Kaileena into the present (and loses the Mask along the way, I forgot how). The ending can go two ways. If the Prince does not collect all nine of the Health Upgrades scattered throughout the Fortress, he fights and kills the Empress, and the Dahaka reappears to claim her body and the medallion. The Prince returns to his city, finally able to rest.
But the canonical ending, where he does, allows him to receive the Water Sword – the only thing capable of destroying the Dahaka. He pursues the Empress but refuses to fight her, although the Dahaka is more than willing to do that for him. They fight – Prince and monster – and he kills the beast. The two, newly freed, return to his city (and obviously use the opportunity for hawt secks. I hate the writers so very much) – but he receives a vision on the way there of the city destroyed, of Farah bound and bloodied, of a creature in hood and cloak - a thing wearing his own face.
"All that is yours is rightfully mine – and mine it shall be."
They arrive to discover the city in flames.
All right, with that out of my system, let's talk about Samurai Champloo!
It's set in feudal Japan with several deliberate anachronisms, and it can be weird and hilarious, touchingly poignant and creepily intense over the space of a few episodes. I love how beautiful it can be, too – the intro sequence is really cool in a way that few are. And I love love love the way the characters interact.
The first member of the little traveling group is Jin, a ronin in spectacles whose pure, uncomplicated mastery of his fighting style makes him deadly. He is well-educated, cool, calm and collected, with a near obsessive dedication to his honour (because in some ways it is all he has left). Everything about him flows – from his indigo blue clothing to his long, dark hair to his smooth, efficient sword-strikes. Jin rarely smiles and never laughs, but he is almost unfailingly polite and very practical. Also, bitter. Basically, he is the very epitome of class and civilization…
…And then you have Mugen. Mugen is Jin's opposite in pretty much every conceivable way not involving anti-matter. His fighting style is a weird, almost dance-like amalgamation of styles, wild and inefficient and capable of the most surprising improvisation. Mugen himself is a bundle of violent temper, instincts and intense hatred for authority of any kind; he snarls, yowls and bites; you could very simply describe him as feral. Though he claims he works for no one but himself, it is possible to get him to break this lone personal rule out of sheer bloody-minded spite. Uneducated (in fact almost completely illiterate), ill-mannered, often distinctly unhygienic, it's no surprise at all that's he a convicted criminal…
…So you have to wonder a little about Fuu's taste. Fuu is the protagonist, and she's not opposite to anyone. Although she does carry a pink-laquered tanto knife, she's pretty much incapable of actually doing anything with it, but she makes up for it with her iron-hard stubbornness and sweet-natured compassion. The fact that she gets captured a lot is probably because she's, well, fifteen. However, she charms unlikely people, has a completely bottomless stomach (she can even out-eat Mugen) and several interesting talents – such as her unfeasible skill with dice. She is evasive when asked precisely why she pursues the Sunflower Samurai. One would think she doesn't know herself…
Avatar and Samurai Champloo are attempting to cross themselves over in my mind. This shouldn't be happening. Their tones – not to mention ratings! – are completely different. Partly it is because it would be awesome to see The Clash of the Fluffy-Headed Rebels, i.e. Mugen and Jet, and also Sokka's Haiku Rapping does not help.
I don't have the time, Brain, sheesh. How the heck would it work, anyway?
You remember all those times the Prince foresaw his own death? There's a reason for that. "He who releases the Sands must die." It's an ancient prophecy, buried in the past, before the Sands themselves were ever created. But the Prince's manipulation of the timeline meant that he escaped his death, rewrote the world – and the world is kinda pissed about that. You can tell by the giant monster pursuing him wherever he goes. It's called the Dahaka, the personification of destiny, the eraser of anomalies and it is going to kill him. It's his fate, after all.
(It looks like this. It's about three times his size, has lightning fast tendrils, and terrible speed and strength.)
Seven long years he evades the Dahaka, forsaking his kingdom to find a way to defeat it. In that time he loses so much of himself, becoming bitter and hardened, his desperation crushing out gentleness, his determination becoming ruthlessness. He stills holds Farah's medallion (for some reason) which allows him a few time powers, but it is not enough. (Basically it boils down to him looking like this and turning into every damn antihero cliché you can possibly imagine, down to his random exclamations of RARGH. Sigh. I forgot how much I hated that design. I would have much preferred it if he'd stayed like this, like he was in the early ads – mainly because hoods are really cool.)
As a last resort, he consults a Random Old Dude who apparently knows him (Old Dude hasn't got a name and is never explained, although I originally thought he was the Vizier). Old Dude tells him there is one hope, his last hope – the Island of Time. It's where one finds the Fortress of Time, the abode of the Empress of Time, who created the Sands of Time (and now you see why I hate the writing) and the location of several gates into the past, where he may rewrite his fate once again by stopping the Sands from being created. The Old Dude warns the Prince that it's a long shot and a bad, bad idea.
Well, it's not like he has anything to lose. He sails.
Aaaaand here is where the game starts, as his ship is attacked by a second boat, captained by a mysterious woman in black. The Prince attempts to fight off the attackers, even as his crew falls around him – and duels with the woman, Shahdee, a servant of the Empress.
(Words cannot express how much I hate Shahdee. She also RARGHs and wears an incredibly impractical outfit and has no motivation and is basically just ogle-material. God. Just look. How the hell is that armour?)
It is all in vain – the ship is wrecked, the crew lost, and the Prince swept away. But fortunately (or not) he regains consciousness of the shores of the Island of Time. There's he sights Shahdee again and pursues her, being pursued by the Dahaka in turn, but he discovers the beast is vulnerable to water and escapes it several times this way. He interrupts a fight between Shahdee and a woman in red – the Prince kills Shahdee, who's last words ("Fool! You cannot change your fate!") are strangely directed at the woman, named Kaileena. She claims she is a servant of the Empress and offers to help him in his quest. (I may as well tell you right now she's the Empress. It's really, really obvious.)
As he makes his way through the Fortress to the Empress' throne room, he is watched by a creature with blue eyes, sand curling off it like smoke. It hinders his progress several times, though it never speaks. But when the Prince encounters the Dahaka in a dead-end, it chooses to destroy the creature and leave the Prince alone. Perplexed, he continues his journey, enters the throne room and discovers Kaileena – who rages at him, furious at his refusal to die, railing against her fate: death at his hands. They fight. She loses. But the Empress has the last laugh: the Sands are, in fact, her essence, freed by her death.
What's a Prince to do? The Dahaka still pursues him. He discovers his last hope (I mean it this time, really) – the Mask of the Wraith, a magical object which allows its wearer to travel back in time and change their fate. When he finds it and dons it, he transforms into the Sand Wraith – that same blue-eyed, smokey creature that had been pursuing him earlier. Guess what! It's back to the dead-end, cornered by the Dahaka. But this time, it destroys his past human self, allowing his Wraith self to escape.
(Don't look at me, I just work here. I've thought about it for ages and I cannot understand how the hell that works. He should have ceased existing when he destroyed his past self. This is my biggest problem with Warrior Within – it makes a huge mess of time, completely ignoring the consequences for all the temporal shenanigans when the whole game was supposed to be about them. What the fuck, writers. As if the game wasn't stupid enough already. God, I knew I hated it for more than the incredibly shallow reasons.)
He returns one final time to the Throne Room and forces Kaileena into the present (and loses the Mask along the way, I forgot how). The ending can go two ways. If the Prince does not collect all nine of the Health Upgrades scattered throughout the Fortress, he fights and kills the Empress, and the Dahaka reappears to claim her body and the medallion. The Prince returns to his city, finally able to rest.
But the canonical ending, where he does, allows him to receive the Water Sword – the only thing capable of destroying the Dahaka. He pursues the Empress but refuses to fight her, although the Dahaka is more than willing to do that for him. They fight – Prince and monster – and he kills the beast. The two, newly freed, return to his city (and obviously use the opportunity for hawt secks. I hate the writers so very much) – but he receives a vision on the way there of the city destroyed, of Farah bound and bloodied, of a creature in hood and cloak - a thing wearing his own face.
"All that is yours is rightfully mine – and mine it shall be."
They arrive to discover the city in flames.
All right, with that out of my system, let's talk about Samurai Champloo!
It's set in feudal Japan with several deliberate anachronisms, and it can be weird and hilarious, touchingly poignant and creepily intense over the space of a few episodes. I love how beautiful it can be, too – the intro sequence is really cool in a way that few are. And I love love love the way the characters interact.
The first member of the little traveling group is Jin, a ronin in spectacles whose pure, uncomplicated mastery of his fighting style makes him deadly. He is well-educated, cool, calm and collected, with a near obsessive dedication to his honour (because in some ways it is all he has left). Everything about him flows – from his indigo blue clothing to his long, dark hair to his smooth, efficient sword-strikes. Jin rarely smiles and never laughs, but he is almost unfailingly polite and very practical. Also, bitter. Basically, he is the very epitome of class and civilization…
…And then you have Mugen. Mugen is Jin's opposite in pretty much every conceivable way not involving anti-matter. His fighting style is a weird, almost dance-like amalgamation of styles, wild and inefficient and capable of the most surprising improvisation. Mugen himself is a bundle of violent temper, instincts and intense hatred for authority of any kind; he snarls, yowls and bites; you could very simply describe him as feral. Though he claims he works for no one but himself, it is possible to get him to break this lone personal rule out of sheer bloody-minded spite. Uneducated (in fact almost completely illiterate), ill-mannered, often distinctly unhygienic, it's no surprise at all that's he a convicted criminal…
…So you have to wonder a little about Fuu's taste. Fuu is the protagonist, and she's not opposite to anyone. Although she does carry a pink-laquered tanto knife, she's pretty much incapable of actually doing anything with it, but she makes up for it with her iron-hard stubbornness and sweet-natured compassion. The fact that she gets captured a lot is probably because she's, well, fifteen. However, she charms unlikely people, has a completely bottomless stomach (she can even out-eat Mugen) and several interesting talents – such as her unfeasible skill with dice. She is evasive when asked precisely why she pursues the Sunflower Samurai. One would think she doesn't know herself…
Avatar and Samurai Champloo are attempting to cross themselves over in my mind. This shouldn't be happening. Their tones – not to mention ratings! – are completely different. Partly it is because it would be awesome to see The Clash of the Fluffy-Headed Rebels, i.e. Mugen and Jet, and also Sokka's Haiku Rapping does not help.
I don't have the time, Brain, sheesh. How the heck would it work, anyway?
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no subject
Date: 2006-12-21 12:53 am (UTC)I... I want to laugh. At his hair. Because the rest of him as all hardcore and crap, and his hair is like, "I spend five hours a day making sure my hair has volume and lift!"See, but that original design is cool. Hoods are cool, and cloaks are cool, and he looks like he might actually, you know, have been somewhat witty.
If Warriors Within didn't suck so hard, I'd suggest you write a fic where Random Old Dude was the Vizier. I have no idea where you'd go from there, but you could... I don't know. Rewrite PoP2 so that it sucks less? Or something? I'm trying my very hardest not to laugh insanely at all the Titles Of Time, but it's very hard. I imagine if I was actually playing the game and had been expecting it to be good, I'd be throwing it out the window instead of laughing, though. And at least it wasn't so bad they had to explain that the Sands of Time controlled the Time of Time or something. ...That's just ridiculous, though, come on you guys. Can't we have one thing that's not "of Time?" Please?
WHAT. WHAT. HOW DOES SHE NOT DIE IN ONE HIT. Maybe the armor's not designed to protect her so much as to, I don't know, prevent people from hitting her in the first place because they're too busy ogling? Also, PLEASE, I would like there to be even one woman in this game that is not scantily clad. Or giant-breasted.
WRITERS. WHAT. Please stop being complete morons. Thanks. And I think I like the non-canon ending the best, where he doesn't return to his city with random Empress of Time chick for hawt sexxorz. Because. Blaaaargh. Anyway, seriously, I'm really glad I'm avoiding Warriors Within now, because I think I would have ended up filled with utter rage at the entire universe if I played it on my own.
I'm really curious about Samurai Champloo! And freakishly intrigued by the sunflower samurai, considering you've mentioned it, like, twice. Except! I don't think I'll watch it for awhile, because Thief came today and I want to go looking for The Two Thrones tomorrow, and I do not have time for anymore fandom things. WAAAAH.
(I don't sound nearly as excited as I actually was when it arrived. As soon as I can, I plan on going to try it out. Glee!)
no subject
Date: 2006-12-21 07:39 am (UTC)...I am never, ever going to be able to take the Prince seriously again. Also, ow, hot tea up my nose. I wish I could make an icon out of that. I knew the hair was silly, I just couldn't find the words to describe it. The hood would have been so much more awesome. A random note – when I showed my brother the ad with Hooded!Prince, he stared at it for precisely five seconds and then said "...Garrett?" (This was years ago, so I replied, "Who?" but the comment stands.) Man, someone's gotta tell those guys that giant boobs and swearing doesn't make something edgy. I mean, it's possible to make a game franchise darker without ruining it. Jak II managed. If it'd been up to me I would have kept the Prince's humour but made it blacker, because bitter humour is fun! And it's much better than losing it altogether. And, really, there are parts of it that don't suck. Heading into the Fortress for the first time is quite awesome, because you're standing at the foot of a staircase and the camera angles upwards to show it towering over you. The design of it is really cool and imposing - just so horribly misused.
(Angry!Prince: "I am the Prince of Persia - and the king of blades!
Nano:
Nano: Laugh, cry, kill spree. Dilemma.)
Actually, Shahdee is annoyingly tough to fight in the game itself. The explanation for the outfit was something like, she's such a brilliant warrior that she knows she won't be hit, but it still makes no sense because she gets stabbed about a dozen times. Shahdee is a representation of everything I have ever, ever hated about the way women appear in games. Which is weird, because I thought Farah was completely awesome (and sexier by, like, light years). She's concerned! And smart! And totally bitchslaps the Prince for being a moron!
Kaileena's a different matter, because she redeems herself somewhat in the next game (by, er, dying. It happens quite early, so it's hardly a spoiler). They at least make her outfit less LOL BOOBS.
YOU SHOULD BE CURIOUS. I can't tell you about him because it is a huge ginormous spoiler - what I've said is pretty much all you get, at the start. It's all Jin and Mugen get, too. They're not too happy about that. Although if you're anything like me you'll have it all figured out ten episodes early. BUT. I should allow you to bask in the awesome I have bestowed upon you. Provided you do not think it is awful or do what I did and forget that you can't roll.
(I really hope you enjoy it, and you MUST TALK ABOUT IT YOU MUST YOU MUST.)
no subject
Date: 2006-12-22 07:19 am (UTC)So much agreement with everything. Especially the humor thing, I mean -- seriously. That would have been so awesome if he'd had this bitter, black humor. Lack of humor? Eh, especially so if he had humor in the first place. And I'm glad to hear that it had at least some parts that weren't completely awful. And I can't stop laughing about the king of the blades thing. Oh man.
I can't decide if the fact that they tried to have an explanation makes it better or worse. I mean, on the one hand, they tried. On the other hand, it means they know it's ridiculous and needs explaining, and should have just fixed it. Farah was totally awesome, and I loved that she didn't go, "I AM SO SEXY" all the time, which is what most video game females do. ARGH.
(OH. That reminds me -- so I did the staring at her in first person thing? And the first time I did it, we were just outside of a room with monsters in it, so I figured it was a good moment. So she says, "What?" and the Prince replies, and she says, "What are you looking at?" and then a HUGE SAND CREATURE APPARATED RIGHT BEHIND HER and it freaked the HELL out of me. Not so much that he appeared, but that he appeared right as she asked what he was looking at. Anyway, OH MAN, it is so cool that the lines change as their relationship gets closer! Hee!)
But her outfit isn't that much less LOL BOOBS. Although you're right, it is better. Somewhat.
Forget that you can't roll? In... in Thief, or in PoP3? (It took me forever to figure out how to climb up things in Thief. Hold down the jump button, check. Don't just keeping jumping and creating noises for the guards to hear.)