Yes, I'm a bit behind the curve. Yes I had said I was going to provide a review of Super Mario RPG for Nintendo Switch. Yes that was several months ago. Yes, I've been procrastinating once again. That's only because I've been playing that along with a few other titles. So, here's a quick review of SMRPG as well as a couple other titles I've burned through over the last two months as well as a quick look at other games I'm currently playing in the mean time. I'm not reviewing all of them, just mentioning them. Take a look!
Several months ago I was approached by another member of my church to participate in a Christmas program for another local church. This individual had performed there in the past and was asked this year if he knew of any other men that would be willing to sing in a men's ensemble. We would pick whatever music we wanted and would practice on our own until the dress rehearsal before the night of the performance. Well, I agreed and this person originally wanted to just do one song and then we had a suggestion of a medley thrown at us. Not a bad proposition, but this same member who approached me decided that two songs would be enough.
Not on my watch!
I then had a random idea to then write a medley for us by taking about five different songs and smashing them together. Why? No ide! I'd never done anything like that before, but I had already committed to it and so over the course of a few nights I hammered on out in MuseScore and came up with the rough draft of the medley's you have linked above. One is an arrangement for men's trio, while the other is for quartet. Why did I write two arrangements? I dunno. The trio turned out well enough but I wanted to have a four-part harmony version as well.
Anyway, the order of songs is as follows: Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!, Joy to the World!, Silent Night, Mary, Did You Know...?, and Oh, Holy Night!
I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed arranging and recording them.
As you all know, I am incredibly punctual and timely with many of my reviews and not at all a procrastinator. Sea of Stars came out just...okay so it was three months ago and won indie game of the year. I'm not here to say that it doesn't deserve that accolade, but just how good of a game is it?
The combat is pretty solid though I did feel it starting to wear on me by the end of the game, the soundtrack is decent and is better than I remember it being which is mentioned in the video. Veteran video game composer Yasunori Mitsuda helped compose some of the tracks for this game which is appropriate considering how much the game borrows from Chrono Trigger (something that becomes very apparent in late game areas and enemy designs) and Super Mario RPG. The story is generally good but has some questionable decisions that I wasn't a fan of. I'm not saying they don't work as part of the overall narrative, but that doesn't make me not raise an eyebrow. After all, why would you choose to do something that essentially undercuts another goal you're trying to accomplish? Then again, maybe another playthrough will clear this up for me because I may have been misinterpreting some things.
Generally speaking, I was happy with the game despite some of its flaws. Perhaps one of the biggest flaws was that it doesn't quite live up to the standards and reputations of the games that it was inspired by. Then again, perhaps that's my own nostalgia and love for these games that has tainted my perception of Sea of Stars. In all honesty, it's probably better than I'm giving it credit for, and perhaps another playthrough will help me to adjust my perspective. Who know. Is it worth playing? Absolutely.
For my full thoughts on the game, watch the video above.
I have not kept it secret by any stretch of the imagination that I have changed my theological views drastically over the years, particularly over the two decades. One of the areas that was impacted the most in my early twenties was the area of eschatology. Was there such a thing as a Pre-Tribulation rapture? Was Christ's kingdom going to be a literal, physical kingdom that we had to wait for? Was there any point in polishing the brass on the Titanic if it's going to sink anyway?
For clarity, that last sentence is an analogy for whether or not the church should even bother trying to transform the world if it's doomed to failure anyway. A common theme amongst many prominent Dispensationalists.
This time of year, we often sing the hymn "Joy to the World", which has anything but a defeatist attitude towards the Kingdom of Christ and the reign of Christ over the earth. Why? Didn't Isaac Watts understand how hopeless things were until Christ returned? Fortunately, Watts lived at such a time when this view of history and the idea of a secret rapture as an escape hatch to avoid dealing with the world didn't exist. So, what did men like Watts believe? In order to understand why Watts had such an optimistic outlook, there is one place we need to look and one place only: the holy scriptures themselves. What did Christ actually teach about His own kingdom? What prophetic statements are made about Kingdom of God that we can hold to. Is there a reason to be optimistic about any of it?
Today's lesson examines just that. Yet, with as much scripture and as much ground as I tried to cover, there is still much to say about the subject, but I did my best to lay out the fundamental principles for why the beliver should have an optimistic outlook on the Kingdom and why that hope should spur us on in our fulfillment of the great commission.
I've always been a fan of Egar Allen Poe's work and one of my favorite memories growing up was finding an Illustrated Classics edition of several of his works. The illustrations captivated me and I tore through that book several times. "The Cask of Amontillado" being a personal favorite. Speaking of burying things in the walls, "The Black Cat" is another great story of his that I first heard as an edited speech for a fine arts competition. I hadn't thought much about it for years until I read "The Cats of Ulthar" by H.P. Lovecraft. So, with it being spooky season yet again, I decided I would try my hand (or voice) at doing a reading of "The Black Cat".
The story is decent length and certainly captures the spirit of Poe's work. Even more interesting is that the narrator had some of the same issues Poe had, alcohol addiction being the main one. Even more interesting is the way that Poe actually includes some decent theology in his narrative:
I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart -- one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such? This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself -- to offer violence to its own nature -- to do wrong for the wrong's sake only -- that urged me to continue and finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute.
Later on, the narrator says the following of himself as a person:
And now was I indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere Humanity. And a brute beast -- whose fellow I had contemptuously destroyed -- a brute beast to work out for me -- for me a man, fashioned in the image of the High God -- so much of insufferable woe!
In the former selection, we have a very astute and very accurate depiction of man's inherent nature. We often plunge into sin precisely because we know we aren't supposed to. Not to spoil the story, but the next section in the story has the narrator commit an action which he says would:
...so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it -- if such a thing were possible -- even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.
Even though he realized and admitted that this was something worthy of the damnation of his soul, there would still be no way to place it far enough away from God's mercy. Of course, that mercy is only properly availed of through repentance, but notice the equal description of "Most Terrible God". People frequently talk about the "fear of the Lord" being simply a term for respect and awe, which it certainly does mean. However, simply put "fear means fear". It can certainly include the aspects of respect, awe, and reverence, but it will never not also mean "fear". After all:
And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. (Matthew 10:28 NASB2020)
In the second section I copied, the one about being made in the image of God, the point the author makes is that this cat, a mere beast, was being used to torment and punish someone who was made in the image of God. He had fallen so low that a lesser creature was being used to show him the depths of his evil. When you understand the biblical basis behind what Poe was writing, something which was certainly opposed to the views of Transcendentalists like Thoreau, the words take on a great deal of poignance. Even though Poe's life was less than exemplary, especially concerning how he died, even he didn't seek to rationalize and promote his own vices. He very much seemed to recognize the evils of addiction and alcoholism and did not portray it as anything but that.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed this little foray into the text and scriptural basis for what is in the story, and hope you enjoy the reading of the story as well.
It's no shock to anyone who has been following this blog or knows me in person that I am a huge fan of the Final Fantasy series. So, it should be no surprise that as soon as Final Fantasy XVI came out, I bought it day one. I had that thing on pre-order and was excited to dive into another fantasy world, this time produced and directed by none other than Naoki Yoshida, director of Final Fantasy XIV, the critically acclaimed MMORPG with an expanded free trial which you can play through the entirety of A Realm Reborn through the award-winning Stormblood expansion up to level 70 for free with no restrictions on playtime!
I played through the demo a week or so before the main game launched, and after playing through the full-release, most of my thoughts are still the same, with some additions. First, the battle system is still fun and the game definitely leans hard into the Devil May Cry style that, well, the combat director of Devil May Cry designed for this game. It's easily more of an action game than an RPG. It would be more appropriately described as an action game with RPG elements tacked on. Unfortunately, most of the abilities are sort of useless once you get the best skills around the mid to late game. The serve a purpose earlier on and depending on your playstyle you may get some more mileage out of them than I did, but there were a lot I just never bothered with. I'm not sure if that holds true with other games in this genre, but it seemed sort of pointless here and I wish there had been greater variety or utility. This same lack of depth is quite apparent in the "crafting" system, if it can be called that. Most materials you get just from doing the MSQ so you don't really have to go out farming for materials. As long as you do the MSQ, hunts, and side-quests, there isn't anything to worry about. You'll have everything you need.
The main focus, of the game is, of course, the story. This is a very story-heavy game and the dungeons and main quests are where the game shines brilliantly. The characters, overall, are engaging and fun to see on screen. Some are better than others, but most are rounded out enough to feel like real people. One villain in particular was always a pleasure to see on screen, and not just because she was hot and exuded a sort of dominatrix vibe (well, two villains did this in different ways). Honestly, I think a lot of guys find the quasi-domineering but feminine thing very attractive even if the person is on the wrong side of things. There may be red flags, but if you're colorblind or love the color red, it's not a problem! In all seriousness, I hated to see one get killed off so early on, and the other wasn't on screen often enough as far as I was concerned. Neither had enough screen time for me, and I think that's also a testament to how well the characters were portrayed in the short time they were there.
Side-quests were a let down too but they definitely follow the sort of standard MMO style sidequest of kill/gather "x" number of things and return for a reward with very little in the way of story or world-building. It's a shame since there are definitely some quests that are well worth it for those exact reasons, especially in the latter portion of the game. Unfortunately, the game doesn't do a good job of incentivizing sidequests, but there are some gems within the list of them.
Music is as good as to be expected from Masayoshi Soken, meaning it's epic and everything you could want.
There's a lot more I could say but that's what the video is for. One note I forgot to mention in the video is the pacing of the story. There are definitely some pacing issues and I think most of that has to do with the writers trying to drag out the drama and hopefully make they payoff bigger. For example, there is a meeting between to very important characters that is teased frequently during the game around the time there is the second time-jump in the story. This is a huge deal plot-wise. However, they drag it out and tease the player with this reunion for far too long. They even do the trope of both people being in the same building but miss each other by seconds. It is supremely frustrating and the one thing I hated about playing through it the first time. The payoff was great, I just don't know if it was worth giving everyone story-telling blue-balls to get there.
Anyway, I have more to say in the video but over all I'd give the game a B+. There are some great highs and lows in the story that really hit hard, and there is a lot of fun to be had with the game. However, there are some design and pacing issues that hold it back from being best of the best. At best, I'd be willing to give it an A-, but it's not S-tier. We'll see what the DLC adds later on.
So, I've finally gotten around to detailing my thoughts about Diablo IV up through the first season. It's been a rollercoaster to say the least. Started out strong, then after the campaign it sort of fell off. Then there's the tragedy of the 1.0 patch which nerfed everything into the ground. Of course, things have been slowly rebuilding and getting better again since then but it's been a long road (even though it's only been just shy of three months). Season 2 is right around the corner and I wanted to give a breakdown of what has been happening.
To briefly summarize: everything got nerfed including exp. People then started complaining that this was Blizzard's way of making more money by essentially using Stockholm Syndrome against their player base and hoping to extort more money out of them via battlepasses. Of course, battlepasses only give glamors and emotes as well as some premium currency you can use in game for...wait for it...more glamors. So, all of it is totally optional, but that doesn't stop people from venting their spleen about how evil and corrupt Blizzard is. That may be true, but the battleapss system as it stands now doesn't prove that since you don't actually need to buy one to play either the base game or the seasonal content.
Then of course there is the story which is pretty good overall but has some questionable decisions as far as what happens. Some of the characters go full Patrick Star and make some of the most idiotic decisions I've ever seen. Then the story ends on a cliffhanger which, in retrospect, is pretty par for the course for Diablo.
Let's see, what else was there? Well, there's the usual bugfixes and patches that happen with any live-service game, but the biggest complaint has been the lack of endgame content. I agree, I just don't know what else they could do that they haven't added to previous games in the past. By that, I mean that the endgame content is almost identical to a lot of what was in Diablo 3 and that game didn't have any of this stuff at launch. In fact there's more endgame in D4 at launch than any other one, but for some reason it just doesn't feel as fun at times. It could be the itemization but I'm not really sure. The campaign and levelling up until 70 is fine, but after that it's sort of "meh". Still, if you're a fan of the series I'd recommend giving it a shot. Things will be improving more over time I'm sure, and maybe Season 2 will add a lot of stuff that feels like it should have been there in the first place. The devs seem to be listening and want to do better, but time will tell.
