Did I accidentally click something when I signed out? What the crap happened?
...and I thought somebody liked me. :c
...and I thought somebody liked me. :c
4.13.2012
Elephant... Rule? I guess?
Sorry, I couldn't bring myself to just use one of the same two pictures floating around. So here's the big purple tyrannosaur.
I was watching this SNL episode the other day when update came on, and Seth Myers said something about the "largest feathered animal" next to a picture of what looked like an orange Dilong. I was like "neat, another feathered tyrannosaur. THAT'S interesting enough to make weekend update." I don't remember the joke either, because it wasn't very good, or because drunk uncle was so good the rest of update seemed like a waste of time by comparison.
Just today, I got the urge to look it up (which made me remember how pissy I get when a new extinct dinosaur makes the news and everyone describes it in what I like to call "retard language," and conveniently forget that the animal actually has a fucking NAME), and it took a while for it to register, but I'm now realizing that, at something like 9 meters long, this MIGHT actually be a big deal. I think.
Let me take you back in time, back before Tianyulong. The world was a very different place. People lived in sin and shunned the sun, dangerous mutants roamed the land in droves and science was no more sophisticated than banging two sticks together. These were truly the dark ages, when it wasn't immediately apparent that Ornithischian "quills" and Theropod feathers had a common source.
Back then, people still ran around like a chicken with its head cut off every time they found feather impressions in the extremely detailed Chinese rocks that I believe have to do with lakes and mud or something... well, I'm not an armchair geologist, you know.
Anwyas, so Dyzio is regarded as some bullshit about... I don't even remember, it's bullshit, though. "Feathered dinosaurs" isn't redundant yet, and generally the only dinosaurs that people admit to having feathers are the ones from China with impressions of them, because I guess logic is optional in cases like these. And I'm talking about the time when feathers weren't just limited in known specimens, but obviously in range. Maybe this will be a surprise to some of you, but maniraptorans are MOST dinosaurs by an overwhelming majority. The fact that all the little tropical feathered specimens from Cretaceous China happen to be... except for maybe one or two (and remember we're in a time machine, so they haven't found Guanlong yet) all maniraptorans shouldn't surprise anyone. Most folks interpreted this to mean only Coelurosaurs have ever had any kind of feathers (we knew about pycnofibres, but, again, the world before Tianyulong was a scary, dark place where nightmares live).
On top of that, all of the feathered dinosaurs at this point weren't very big. Maybe like 2 meters long for some of the raptors, but that's it. Because of this kind of attitude where, instead of interpreting this information to mean that a lot of different lineages of dinosaurs had feathers, they interpret whatever specific dinosaurs they find with feather impressions on to have feathers, and every thing else to be some sort of Jurassic Park-mutant-chupacabra-abomination-from-hell. Naturally. It was around this time I became aware that, aside from the more logical "we haven't found feathers on a carnosaur (remember, Dyzio doesn't count for contrived reasons), so only dinosaurs from the base of the earliest fuzzy one should have feathers (coelurosaurs)" there was what I like to call the "Elephant Rule."
See, in our post-Tianyulong age of enlightenment with free podphones for everyone where you can download your mother over a D6 FTL ADSFASDFGADF connection, it seems obvious that, in an environment where mostly the smaller, more delicate animals survived and/or attract attention, clearly that doesn't mean that ONLY animals of a certain size have feathers. But back then, there was this idea that, like Elephants aren't particularly hairy animals, feathers have a purpose in heat regulation, and above a certain size they aren't really necessary. Fair enough. Only, mammals aren't dinosaurs. It sort of makes sense, but a Loxodonta is only like 2 meters tall, maybe 3, and there are living dinosaurs that big that are covered in all kinds of feathers. Still, the notion that there is a size threshold where feathers stop serving any purpose and perhaps risk the danger of overheating has been something a lot of folks are expected to assume for the good of the country.
You might be able to tell that I never really liked that idea. Fast forward to our utopian post-Tianyulong society with hive-minds and floatr and mammoth-cloning and here I am looking for why no one has come forward about feathered sauropods. Logic dictates the earliest sauropodomorphs, at the very least, MUST have had some sort of hollow integument roughly analogous to pycnofibres, proto-feathers, and ornithischian quills. But alas, where are the fuzzy Panphagias? Even I sort of have to admit, as an endotherm myself, that at a certain point being fuzzy is a death sentence, especially in the Cretaceous, but what IS the limit? The sky? If you ask me, that's kinda too lame, but I suppose a fuzzy Amphicoelias MIGHT be a little out-there.
But then comes along Yutyrannus, at 9 meters long, which is the biggest fuck you to the elephant rule I've ever seen. Motherfucker isn't even "just some quills on the arm" ala Concavenator, he's straight up a giant Dilong.
So, all of that was basically to reflect on this:
0.7m - Tianyulong (Jesus allegory) & Sinosauropteryx (orange compsognathid)
0.9m - Sinornithosaurus (Dave)
1.6m - Dilong (first fuzzy tyrannosaur)
2m - Argentavis (~8m wingspan), Psittacosaurus, Velociraptor
2.2m - Beipiaosaurus (therizinosaur)
3m - Guanlong (second fuzzy tyrannosaur)
3.6m - Dinornis (largest moa)
6m - Concavenator (only arm quills?), Dilophosaurus (Dyzio is beyond fuzzy)
9m - Triceratops (only tail quills? [yes, there are skin impressions for the rest]), Yutyrannus (beyond fuzzy)
So the only trend I can see here is that Ornithischian quills don't really follow the same rules as straight-up Theropod feathers. Other than that, it seems weird that a 9 meter long tyrannosaur is completely fuzzy while the 6 meter long Concavenator "only" has arm quills. In fact, I don't believe that in the slightest. Doesn't it make more sense to say that all they saw of an integument where the scaled belly and feet, and the quill nobs, and then took a exclusionary attitude and said that's all there is, rather than using deductive reasoning and saying "hey, carnosaurs had feathers too... maybe we should check out Dyzio again."
Meanwhile, a chinese tyrannosaur turns up, and nobody questions it... double standard, or hypocritical? You decide.
Anwyas, the point here was to just look at the "elephant rule" and what evidence there is to support it that I know of. So far, what we know about endotherms (me included) says that at some point a heavy coat is going to boil you alive, and that dinosaurs aren't mammals, so we can't expect it to work exactly the same, and so far we have not found a definitive limit for theropods, although it seems like Triceratops really is the elephant rule for ornithischians. That said, I don't REALLY expect advanced thyreophorans under 9 meters long to be particularly fuzzy, but you get the idea.
Feathers: I could have told you this stuff years ago.
Next up: Did Amphicoelias have advanced flight feathers? Inquiring minds want to know!
4.04.2012
Shin Megami Tensei III is a pretty good game...
A hell of a lot better than the first two. Wow those were terrible. And for the record, I'm not blaming it on any of the difficulties with the translation Aeon Genesis did, I'm blaming it on the fact that it's impossible to recruit demons (THE WHOLE POINT OF THE GAME) and not five minutes in you have absolutely nowhere else to go.
But those easily fixable problem were totally fixed in SMT3, and then some. In fact, other than the usual flaws inherent to the whole series (Cerberus = three heads. a five year old could tell you this.) there is only one thing I can find to bitch about: the camera angle. First person is not only doable, but pretty mainstream by 2003, so I don't understand why the vastly inferior third person camera was picked over what every other main series game (and more than a few spin-offs) had used.
But, when the only thing you can find to bitch about is the camera, and it isn't because it kills you, then you've got a winner.
So, for those of you who don't know what the Shins of Megaman's Tenuous grap on reality games are about, let me give you a little crash course:
Digital Devil Story is a late 1980's Japanese novel wherein some crazy Japanese kid writes a program to summon demons. But in a very, VERY loose definition. Case in point: Loki comes out of his computer and starts boning his teacher, and blah blah blah the kid (Akemi Nakajima) summons cerberus and has to set right what he once set wrong. If you're interested in a Japanese novel about Cerberus fighting Loki, there is a translation done by a fan floating around on a blog somewhere. I've never read it, but then again, I don't really care.
The story of MegaTen as most know it begins with a late 1980's VIDEO GAME (that's right, they skipped the movie phase and went straight to the game, an unprecedented move and one I can only think is mirrored in the Splinter Cell games) with a first person(!!!) viewpoint, wherein the player character (unambiguously Akemi Nakajima) must dungeon-crawl his way through some sort of dungeon that Loki is in.
The real kicker about the game, though, is that you don't just get Cerberus. You can actually talk to any demon you happen to run into, and try to negotiate with them into leaving, giving you items or money, or, and remember this is the late 1980's, get them to join you as your minion.
And maybe I wasn't clear on this earlier, but these demons are not new flashy modern characters, but the oldest of schools. "Cerberus" isn't a codeword, it's like, you know, Cerberus. The "demons" of the series are pre-existing gods, monsters, and heros from mythological cycles all over the world from all different eras. Fenrir, those cool Dogu statues, Quetzalcoatl & Tezcatlipoca, occasionally Cthulhu & Nyarlathotep, Sedna, Mara, Arachne, Yurlungur (as a rainbow serpent, but explicitly not Wanambi), Buer, Metatron, Dagon (yeah, it's Yog-Sothery Dagon, but still shows some Ugaritic love), Asherah & Anat (see, told you), Christine (the killer car), and FUCKING BAPHOMET all rear their heads at some point in some game in this huge labyrinthine franchise.
And you collect them and make them fight for you. Like Pokemon.
To drive home how cool this concept is, here is what kind of roster I'm currently looking at in SMT3:
Baphomet
Arahabaki (a slit-eyed, spaceman type Dogu)
Lilim
Succubus (totally not overkill, Succubus inherited an ice-type move, plus she's like level 37)
Uzume
High Pixie (don't laugh, she's the starter and if you keep her around she becomes Queen Mab)
Take-Minakata
Xuan Wu (the tortoise/snake from the ssu-ling? cardinal direction chinese guardian things)
and some others...
I mean, that's just cool. And remember, this is prior to even the earliest planning stages of Pokemon, but my post about the totally ludicrous bullshit "pokemon vs. digimon" war that never existed except in the heads of stupid children from the late 1990's will wait for another day. Just want to point out quickly that POKEMON is the rip-off. And it isn't ripping off digimon, it's just SMT for kids.
Anywhichways, after two Megami Tensei (means "Rebirth of the Goddess") games on the NES (first person games on the NES? Take that, id software :P), they made the jump to Super Nintendo with SHIN Megami Tensei. You might be aware that "Shin" which translates in english to "true" was used in context of video games as "Super" was here. They stuck that on a game for Super Nintendo to differentiate it from the predecessor or just make it seem better. Most consoles have a version of this phenomena, like "64" as a suffix, "Advance" as a suffix, cleverly inserting the initials "D.S." into the subtitle, stupid stuff like that. Shin Megami Tensei would of course mean "Reincarnation of the TRUE Goddess," but not literally. Sort of.
At any rate, the Super Nintendo games apparently catapulted the series to greatness or something, because ever since then "Shin Megami Tensei" was the headliner the whole damn media empire was labeled as. Sometimes referred to as "MegaTen" to acknowledge the pre-SNES titles and the books (which was a trilogy? There were definately two), Shin Megami Tensei was still the name plastered over a slew of spin-offs and assorted paraphenalia from 1995 or so onwards. And man, there are TONS of spin-offs.
So usually now if you say "SMT" or "MegaTen" it's like taking a shot in the dark. A little ironic since at first the series had a very simple chronology:
1987 - Megami Tensei (based on novel)
1990 - Megami Tensei (sequel to first game, takes place in post-apocalyptic setting)
1992 - Shin Megami Tensei (unrelated to original novels or timeline, same formula, etc.)
1994 - Shin Megami Tensei II (sequel to first SMT, like you would expect)
1994 - Shin Megami Tensei If... (side story to SMT in a high school, in slightly different timeline, Tokyo isn't destroyed)
1995 - Old Testament Megami Tensei (enhanced remakes of MT1 & 2)
...and then it all went to hell. There were turn based strategy games, standard fantasy setting, top-down gameboy rpg's, and fucking persona where you can't even recruit demons, making that whole series overpriced firewood.
The confusing part here isn't that the series branched out, as this is what successful video games do, but that the games that weren't branching out, the actual next SMT games, were considered spin-offs.
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner and Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers are a pair of "spin-off" MegaTen games that play exactly like the originals, are apparently in the same timeline as SMT If..., and what's more, Soul Hackers is seen by fans as a true classic. I don't understand the logic behind this, I'm not gonna lie, even though the "Devil Summoner" sub-series eventually developed something unique (it's not turn based in DS3 and 4), saying that it took 9 years for a sequel in the main series is a little bit more than a little misleading.
At any rate, there was definately a gap between DS2 and SMT3. Persona is to blame for this. Yes, I'm aware that Persona 2 is the only SMT game to feature Hastur, but you don't summon monsters in that game, you make them... "personas" or something. You can't recruit them, and that's retarded. People latch onto the things because they're just oozing with weeaboo pheromones, and the ramifications of Nyarlathotep being Hitler are lost on dumb shut-ins, but whatever. That's not what I'm talking about, I'm talking about collecting all parties involved in Ragnarok so you can use them to kill god.
SMT3 is way different in the best of ways. You can really feel pokemon's influence here. It used to be that demons, unlike human characters, never gained experience. The only way to make existing minions stronger was to fuse them into higher-leveled ones. Here they not only gain levels like pokemon, they not only learn moves as they level up, but they EVOLVE like pokemon too. It's a little odd at first, but I don't think Lilim evolving into Lilith is really too at odds with the mythology of them. Lilim's are basically Lilith born from parthenogenesis, correct? Makes sense. Some stuff is a little weird, but none of the very few evolutions are very far from acceptable.
Leveling monsters up and gaining new skills is important to the psychological appeal of these games. If you were forced to fuse the lower leveled ones, you would never be able to pull together a dream team which is what really drives the collection and training aspect of pokemon. The inheritance of skills from fused demons also plays a big role, and makes demons customizable in a way leveling up alone wouldn't allow. All this means that you can put together any party you want, any monsters you want, and tailor their skills to fit any situation.
In the original games, if you could ever manage to recruit a single fucking knocker, you were limited to what skills they had, and your choices of monsters, and therefore skills, was limited to what you could run into. This sort of limitation is understandable in the early stages in a monster-collecting game, but those same limitations are going to follow you in SMT1 & 2. A short glance at a strategy guide for one will show that there are some bosses where, outside of grinding, you're bottlenecked into catching specific demons to fuse in order to get a hold of specific skills. I don't think I'm even half way through SMT3 yet, and thanks to the flexibility of the demons and the "demonic compendium" (Bill's PC), I have so many options it's not funny. In a series that has a widespread reputation for being fuck-you impossible hard, this is a VERY good thing.
But catching them all isn't your only priority (and that really is a priority, at first your limited summon-bank makes it look otherwise, but with the demonic compendium and the ability to summon any demon you've ever owned at any time, "catching them all" is a pretty good idea), another thing that SMT games are well known for are their dark themes, post-apocalyptic settings, philosophical quandaries, and heavy-handed aesops. Maybe.
One of the core elements of the series from at least the first Shin Megami Tensei is that the world (keep in mind, Japan blah blah isolationist blah blah xenophobia blah blah sun revolves around Tokyo bullshit) equals very over and YOU, a dumb kid, is going to use your demon summoning powers to carve the path of the new world order and reshape the remains as a paradise on earth, or a cesspit of murder and mayhem. Except not really.
SMT games use an alignment system identical to D&D. The primary division isn't between good and evil, however, but between Law and Chaos. Each game shows these paths in different ways, but they remain more or less consistent throughout the series. Typically, the Law path will be one devoted to creating a world where god (as in YHVH, the classical jewish/christian/whatever god) reigns supreme and the just live peacefully without fear. Of course, if you know anything about that particular deity, or indeed about christians or... fuck, religious people period, you're aware that this is a REALLY horrible fate. The upside is peace and order, the downside is living in a totalitarian military state where freedom and individuality are snuffed out like embers in the night. A world where good and evil are as concrete as the streets the angels slam your brother's skull into when they find out he used to think Metallica was pretty cool. In some, it can be as dark as only a kingdom for God and his angels, and sometimes is as light as "we totally wanted an honest to goodness peaceful paradise for all, but we're extremely naive, and don't realize Metatron is kind of a dick."
The chaos path is only slightly better. For what it's worth, they do have the right idea. This will usually take the form of a return to pre-human natural structure. We live and die by the might of the sword, to put it in a poetic way. At worst this is a bastardization of "might makes right" where demons are trying to compete with earthlings on the same level, and of course a bear can't kill Fenrir, so that' not exactly fair. They also, in the games, tend to focus on the "might" part, implying it to mean pure brute strength rather than an ability to adapt and survive. Of course, there are versions where literally nothing but demons exist, which is fine in some respects, since, again, these apocalyptic scenarios are mostly contained to the greater Tokyo metropolitan area. They can have it, I guess. At best, for example the chaos path in SMT4 (subtitled Strange Journey and without the "4," but it's been pretty explicitly stated that it isn't numbered because of the localization confusion this would cause) is straight up a return to nature for humans. Demons give us an ultimatum, and we lose the computers for swords and subsistence off the land in a very direct way. Not a bad idea, it doesn't remove your "humanity" and isn't cruel, but does serve to limit us in a way that is blah blah blah it's the hippy ending, and it's justified.
Then there's the neutral path. This, on one extreme, is the path where the protagonist paves the way to a new kingdom of freedom and individuality. Pain and suffering exist, but are dealt with, and not in a ridiculous overcompensating manner. Perhaps there is a new democratic government. Maybe humans go on living as they have, but form a pact with the demons and live peacefully with them. Maybe things go back to how they where, and the demons are sealed back into their hell hole. The other extreme is to simply tell all the other alignments to go fuck themselves, and reject everyone. Maybe nothing changes at all, and you're just stuck in post-apocalyptic purgatory. From compromise to nihilism, the neutral path is generally considered the "canon" path for various reasons.
This creates problems in gameplay. Demons also have alignments, and depending on what alignment you have, you won't be able to recruit demons on the far end of the spectrum. With limited potential for demons, this is pretty harsh, and usually means picking anything but the neutral path is probably a death sentence. Oh yeah, you really need to know what ending you want because of this. That's right, you need to choose a preset number of actions whether or not you agree with them in order to fall into one of the paths and play the game a certain way. On the surface, the philosophical aspect sounds pretty intriguing, but when it affects gameplay to the point where you can't get such-and-such item or weapon or whatever unless you agree with Yama the chinese judge of the underworld, then shit is clearly not what it said on the tin. Like so much in these games, GREAT idea, piss-poor execution.
SMT3, thankfully, doesn't have this problem. In place of the three static paths are "reasons." The following might be a bit of a spoiler, but basically the way it works is that there are three philosophies you can choose to follow that resemble the law/chaos/neutral paths but... aren't. They certainly don't affect what demons you can recruit either. Angel and Lilim on the same team? I've done it. So follow whatever you feel like makes sense. You know, like a Silent Hill game or something. I THINK I've been in situations by now in the game that have affected my ending, but I don't even care. I just answer all the questions honestly and I'll see what I get, which is EXACTLY what I expected in the first place, and SMT3 gets it right.
Even better, those three paths don't represent neutral or chaos at all, really. Actually, you aren't forced to agree with anyone. You can just tell them all to go fuck themselves. Or you can agree with Lucifer... I think? There's a lot of endings, and I really don't know what causes what, and that's EXACTLY how I want it to be.
So for all intents and purposes, Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne is the gateway game of the MegaTen series. SMT4 on the DS is a classic first person, alignment driven game that shares far more in common with 1 & 2 than SMT3 does, but it's a modern game, which I'm assuming means leveling up, skill swapping, and general playability. Also it doesn't assume Tokyo is the center of the universe, but Antarctica is, which is entirely accurate, as Antarctica is the most amazing place ever.
There's also the Devil Summoner games to think about, as 3 and 4 were localized here and are a few years old on PS2, perfect games to pick up for 10-20 dollars at a Game Stop. These two, Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army and Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon take place in 1930's Japan, is an timeline where the... I wanna say Taisho... era doesn't end in 1926, but goes on longer than it did in the real world, alleviating some of that militaristic drive the country picked up in early Showa times that would eventually cause them to make really dumb foreign policy decisions. Your character is a "Raidou Kuzunoha," a title, not a personal name, who is magic and can summon demons somehow. Shit goes down and you gotta save the day. Two things about these games that are the most important issues:
1. It isn't turn-based. YOU ACTUALLY GET TO FUCKING PUNCH DEMONS!!! FUCK YES!!!
2. 1930's JAPAN!!! Come on, bitches, you KNOW that shit is beyond hype.
I've heard you can only summon one demon at a time, and yet I've seen videos on youtube with Alice and... I think a Succubus summoned at the same time. So, maybe it's just one in the first, but more in the sequel. What's more, you can sort of guide their actions ala Digimon World, but generally they act on their own. So it's suddenly less like playing with pokemon, and more like having creatures with actual personalities ride into battle by your side. When you ride into battle with Alice and Baphomet... well, suffice to say, these games look pretty fucking awesome.
And what of the translated SMT1 & 2? Well, there are three main problems that kept me from enjoying those games:
1. Can't recruit demons no matter what I do
2. Don't know what anything is
3. Don't know what I'm supposed to be doing
I'm hoping that after enough experience with SMT3 and hopefully some of those others I have an interest in, my absolutely befuddled flopping around can be limited, if not eliminated. Nothing in the game tells you what anything is or does, so seeing a special move named "Mabufula" is just that. You have no fucking clue what that means, and no one is going to tell you. So some familiarity there should totally help, but what about the other things?
Well, eventually I'll have to cave and check out a walkthrough, which is kinda lame, but whatever. I've done it before and I can do it again. They ARE from the 1990's, of course, so this sort of thing should really be expected. But here's the kicker: I've heard that the reason I can't recruit any demons in SMT1 is because I alloted the points all wrong and I don't have enough of something or another to negotiate, which is a problem a walkthough might could help me with (but it doesn't change the fact that allowing the player to make the game impossible to win at the FIRST POSSIBLE INTERACTION is the single worst design choice in the history of video games), but the problem with that is, in SMT2, where your stats are chosen for you, I have the exact same problem. So the stats seem to be a copout. I would be interested in picking these games up again and seeing if I can't make more sense out of them, but this is a fatal flaw, and if I can't get around it they're too fucked to even think about.
Anwyas, I thought I'd post something, because I noticed I had two new followers. Not sure how that happened, but whatevs. Unlike youtube, where there's 30 people following me for no readily identifiable reason, here I can actually post stuff sometimes without any hassle. So, here you go, a wall of text about demon summoning games.
For the record, Aboriginal is the best pre-modern mythology, because it a) accurately describes landmarks from tens of thousands of years ago, making it obnoxiously old, and it's spread ORALLY, b) the myths are, because of this, based mostly on geology rather than entirely focused on creation myths or central sun gods, and c) Megalania god vs. Rainbow Serpent. That's just cool.
Aztec and Norse jostle for second. Goetic and Voodoo are up there, too.
But those easily fixable problem were totally fixed in SMT3, and then some. In fact, other than the usual flaws inherent to the whole series (Cerberus = three heads. a five year old could tell you this.) there is only one thing I can find to bitch about: the camera angle. First person is not only doable, but pretty mainstream by 2003, so I don't understand why the vastly inferior third person camera was picked over what every other main series game (and more than a few spin-offs) had used.
But, when the only thing you can find to bitch about is the camera, and it isn't because it kills you, then you've got a winner.
So, for those of you who don't know what the Shins of Megaman's Tenuous grap on reality games are about, let me give you a little crash course:
Digital Devil Story is a late 1980's Japanese novel wherein some crazy Japanese kid writes a program to summon demons. But in a very, VERY loose definition. Case in point: Loki comes out of his computer and starts boning his teacher, and blah blah blah the kid (Akemi Nakajima) summons cerberus and has to set right what he once set wrong. If you're interested in a Japanese novel about Cerberus fighting Loki, there is a translation done by a fan floating around on a blog somewhere. I've never read it, but then again, I don't really care.
The story of MegaTen as most know it begins with a late 1980's VIDEO GAME (that's right, they skipped the movie phase and went straight to the game, an unprecedented move and one I can only think is mirrored in the Splinter Cell games) with a first person(!!!) viewpoint, wherein the player character (unambiguously Akemi Nakajima) must dungeon-crawl his way through some sort of dungeon that Loki is in.
The real kicker about the game, though, is that you don't just get Cerberus. You can actually talk to any demon you happen to run into, and try to negotiate with them into leaving, giving you items or money, or, and remember this is the late 1980's, get them to join you as your minion.
And maybe I wasn't clear on this earlier, but these demons are not new flashy modern characters, but the oldest of schools. "Cerberus" isn't a codeword, it's like, you know, Cerberus. The "demons" of the series are pre-existing gods, monsters, and heros from mythological cycles all over the world from all different eras. Fenrir, those cool Dogu statues, Quetzalcoatl & Tezcatlipoca, occasionally Cthulhu & Nyarlathotep, Sedna, Mara, Arachne, Yurlungur (as a rainbow serpent, but explicitly not Wanambi), Buer, Metatron, Dagon (yeah, it's Yog-Sothery Dagon, but still shows some Ugaritic love), Asherah & Anat (see, told you), Christine (the killer car), and FUCKING BAPHOMET all rear their heads at some point in some game in this huge labyrinthine franchise.
And you collect them and make them fight for you. Like Pokemon.
To drive home how cool this concept is, here is what kind of roster I'm currently looking at in SMT3:
Baphomet
Arahabaki (a slit-eyed, spaceman type Dogu)
Lilim
Succubus (totally not overkill, Succubus inherited an ice-type move, plus she's like level 37)
Uzume
High Pixie (don't laugh, she's the starter and if you keep her around she becomes Queen Mab)
Take-Minakata
Xuan Wu (the tortoise/snake from the ssu-ling? cardinal direction chinese guardian things)
and some others...
I mean, that's just cool. And remember, this is prior to even the earliest planning stages of Pokemon, but my post about the totally ludicrous bullshit "pokemon vs. digimon" war that never existed except in the heads of stupid children from the late 1990's will wait for another day. Just want to point out quickly that POKEMON is the rip-off. And it isn't ripping off digimon, it's just SMT for kids.
Anywhichways, after two Megami Tensei (means "Rebirth of the Goddess") games on the NES (first person games on the NES? Take that, id software :P), they made the jump to Super Nintendo with SHIN Megami Tensei. You might be aware that "Shin" which translates in english to "true" was used in context of video games as "Super" was here. They stuck that on a game for Super Nintendo to differentiate it from the predecessor or just make it seem better. Most consoles have a version of this phenomena, like "64" as a suffix, "Advance" as a suffix, cleverly inserting the initials "D.S." into the subtitle, stupid stuff like that. Shin Megami Tensei would of course mean "Reincarnation of the TRUE Goddess," but not literally. Sort of.
At any rate, the Super Nintendo games apparently catapulted the series to greatness or something, because ever since then "Shin Megami Tensei" was the headliner the whole damn media empire was labeled as. Sometimes referred to as "MegaTen" to acknowledge the pre-SNES titles and the books (which was a trilogy? There were definately two), Shin Megami Tensei was still the name plastered over a slew of spin-offs and assorted paraphenalia from 1995 or so onwards. And man, there are TONS of spin-offs.
So usually now if you say "SMT" or "MegaTen" it's like taking a shot in the dark. A little ironic since at first the series had a very simple chronology:
1987 - Megami Tensei (based on novel)
1990 - Megami Tensei (sequel to first game, takes place in post-apocalyptic setting)
1992 - Shin Megami Tensei (unrelated to original novels or timeline, same formula, etc.)
1994 - Shin Megami Tensei II (sequel to first SMT, like you would expect)
1994 - Shin Megami Tensei If... (side story to SMT in a high school, in slightly different timeline, Tokyo isn't destroyed)
1995 - Old Testament Megami Tensei (enhanced remakes of MT1 & 2)
...and then it all went to hell. There were turn based strategy games, standard fantasy setting, top-down gameboy rpg's, and fucking persona where you can't even recruit demons, making that whole series overpriced firewood.
The confusing part here isn't that the series branched out, as this is what successful video games do, but that the games that weren't branching out, the actual next SMT games, were considered spin-offs.
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner and Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers are a pair of "spin-off" MegaTen games that play exactly like the originals, are apparently in the same timeline as SMT If..., and what's more, Soul Hackers is seen by fans as a true classic. I don't understand the logic behind this, I'm not gonna lie, even though the "Devil Summoner" sub-series eventually developed something unique (it's not turn based in DS3 and 4), saying that it took 9 years for a sequel in the main series is a little bit more than a little misleading.
At any rate, there was definately a gap between DS2 and SMT3. Persona is to blame for this. Yes, I'm aware that Persona 2 is the only SMT game to feature Hastur, but you don't summon monsters in that game, you make them... "personas" or something. You can't recruit them, and that's retarded. People latch onto the things because they're just oozing with weeaboo pheromones, and the ramifications of Nyarlathotep being Hitler are lost on dumb shut-ins, but whatever. That's not what I'm talking about, I'm talking about collecting all parties involved in Ragnarok so you can use them to kill god.
SMT3 is way different in the best of ways. You can really feel pokemon's influence here. It used to be that demons, unlike human characters, never gained experience. The only way to make existing minions stronger was to fuse them into higher-leveled ones. Here they not only gain levels like pokemon, they not only learn moves as they level up, but they EVOLVE like pokemon too. It's a little odd at first, but I don't think Lilim evolving into Lilith is really too at odds with the mythology of them. Lilim's are basically Lilith born from parthenogenesis, correct? Makes sense. Some stuff is a little weird, but none of the very few evolutions are very far from acceptable.
Leveling monsters up and gaining new skills is important to the psychological appeal of these games. If you were forced to fuse the lower leveled ones, you would never be able to pull together a dream team which is what really drives the collection and training aspect of pokemon. The inheritance of skills from fused demons also plays a big role, and makes demons customizable in a way leveling up alone wouldn't allow. All this means that you can put together any party you want, any monsters you want, and tailor their skills to fit any situation.
In the original games, if you could ever manage to recruit a single fucking knocker, you were limited to what skills they had, and your choices of monsters, and therefore skills, was limited to what you could run into. This sort of limitation is understandable in the early stages in a monster-collecting game, but those same limitations are going to follow you in SMT1 & 2. A short glance at a strategy guide for one will show that there are some bosses where, outside of grinding, you're bottlenecked into catching specific demons to fuse in order to get a hold of specific skills. I don't think I'm even half way through SMT3 yet, and thanks to the flexibility of the demons and the "demonic compendium" (Bill's PC), I have so many options it's not funny. In a series that has a widespread reputation for being fuck-you impossible hard, this is a VERY good thing.
But catching them all isn't your only priority (and that really is a priority, at first your limited summon-bank makes it look otherwise, but with the demonic compendium and the ability to summon any demon you've ever owned at any time, "catching them all" is a pretty good idea), another thing that SMT games are well known for are their dark themes, post-apocalyptic settings, philosophical quandaries, and heavy-handed aesops. Maybe.
One of the core elements of the series from at least the first Shin Megami Tensei is that the world (keep in mind, Japan blah blah isolationist blah blah xenophobia blah blah sun revolves around Tokyo bullshit) equals very over and YOU, a dumb kid, is going to use your demon summoning powers to carve the path of the new world order and reshape the remains as a paradise on earth, or a cesspit of murder and mayhem. Except not really.
SMT games use an alignment system identical to D&D. The primary division isn't between good and evil, however, but between Law and Chaos. Each game shows these paths in different ways, but they remain more or less consistent throughout the series. Typically, the Law path will be one devoted to creating a world where god (as in YHVH, the classical jewish/christian/whatever god) reigns supreme and the just live peacefully without fear. Of course, if you know anything about that particular deity, or indeed about christians or... fuck, religious people period, you're aware that this is a REALLY horrible fate. The upside is peace and order, the downside is living in a totalitarian military state where freedom and individuality are snuffed out like embers in the night. A world where good and evil are as concrete as the streets the angels slam your brother's skull into when they find out he used to think Metallica was pretty cool. In some, it can be as dark as only a kingdom for God and his angels, and sometimes is as light as "we totally wanted an honest to goodness peaceful paradise for all, but we're extremely naive, and don't realize Metatron is kind of a dick."
The chaos path is only slightly better. For what it's worth, they do have the right idea. This will usually take the form of a return to pre-human natural structure. We live and die by the might of the sword, to put it in a poetic way. At worst this is a bastardization of "might makes right" where demons are trying to compete with earthlings on the same level, and of course a bear can't kill Fenrir, so that' not exactly fair. They also, in the games, tend to focus on the "might" part, implying it to mean pure brute strength rather than an ability to adapt and survive. Of course, there are versions where literally nothing but demons exist, which is fine in some respects, since, again, these apocalyptic scenarios are mostly contained to the greater Tokyo metropolitan area. They can have it, I guess. At best, for example the chaos path in SMT4 (subtitled Strange Journey and without the "4," but it's been pretty explicitly stated that it isn't numbered because of the localization confusion this would cause) is straight up a return to nature for humans. Demons give us an ultimatum, and we lose the computers for swords and subsistence off the land in a very direct way. Not a bad idea, it doesn't remove your "humanity" and isn't cruel, but does serve to limit us in a way that is blah blah blah it's the hippy ending, and it's justified.
Then there's the neutral path. This, on one extreme, is the path where the protagonist paves the way to a new kingdom of freedom and individuality. Pain and suffering exist, but are dealt with, and not in a ridiculous overcompensating manner. Perhaps there is a new democratic government. Maybe humans go on living as they have, but form a pact with the demons and live peacefully with them. Maybe things go back to how they where, and the demons are sealed back into their hell hole. The other extreme is to simply tell all the other alignments to go fuck themselves, and reject everyone. Maybe nothing changes at all, and you're just stuck in post-apocalyptic purgatory. From compromise to nihilism, the neutral path is generally considered the "canon" path for various reasons.
This creates problems in gameplay. Demons also have alignments, and depending on what alignment you have, you won't be able to recruit demons on the far end of the spectrum. With limited potential for demons, this is pretty harsh, and usually means picking anything but the neutral path is probably a death sentence. Oh yeah, you really need to know what ending you want because of this. That's right, you need to choose a preset number of actions whether or not you agree with them in order to fall into one of the paths and play the game a certain way. On the surface, the philosophical aspect sounds pretty intriguing, but when it affects gameplay to the point where you can't get such-and-such item or weapon or whatever unless you agree with Yama the chinese judge of the underworld, then shit is clearly not what it said on the tin. Like so much in these games, GREAT idea, piss-poor execution.
SMT3, thankfully, doesn't have this problem. In place of the three static paths are "reasons." The following might be a bit of a spoiler, but basically the way it works is that there are three philosophies you can choose to follow that resemble the law/chaos/neutral paths but... aren't. They certainly don't affect what demons you can recruit either. Angel and Lilim on the same team? I've done it. So follow whatever you feel like makes sense. You know, like a Silent Hill game or something. I THINK I've been in situations by now in the game that have affected my ending, but I don't even care. I just answer all the questions honestly and I'll see what I get, which is EXACTLY what I expected in the first place, and SMT3 gets it right.
Even better, those three paths don't represent neutral or chaos at all, really. Actually, you aren't forced to agree with anyone. You can just tell them all to go fuck themselves. Or you can agree with Lucifer... I think? There's a lot of endings, and I really don't know what causes what, and that's EXACTLY how I want it to be.
So for all intents and purposes, Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne is the gateway game of the MegaTen series. SMT4 on the DS is a classic first person, alignment driven game that shares far more in common with 1 & 2 than SMT3 does, but it's a modern game, which I'm assuming means leveling up, skill swapping, and general playability. Also it doesn't assume Tokyo is the center of the universe, but Antarctica is, which is entirely accurate, as Antarctica is the most amazing place ever.
There's also the Devil Summoner games to think about, as 3 and 4 were localized here and are a few years old on PS2, perfect games to pick up for 10-20 dollars at a Game Stop. These two, Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army and Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon take place in 1930's Japan, is an timeline where the... I wanna say Taisho... era doesn't end in 1926, but goes on longer than it did in the real world, alleviating some of that militaristic drive the country picked up in early Showa times that would eventually cause them to make really dumb foreign policy decisions. Your character is a "Raidou Kuzunoha," a title, not a personal name, who is magic and can summon demons somehow. Shit goes down and you gotta save the day. Two things about these games that are the most important issues:
1. It isn't turn-based. YOU ACTUALLY GET TO FUCKING PUNCH DEMONS!!! FUCK YES!!!
2. 1930's JAPAN!!! Come on, bitches, you KNOW that shit is beyond hype.
I've heard you can only summon one demon at a time, and yet I've seen videos on youtube with Alice and... I think a Succubus summoned at the same time. So, maybe it's just one in the first, but more in the sequel. What's more, you can sort of guide their actions ala Digimon World, but generally they act on their own. So it's suddenly less like playing with pokemon, and more like having creatures with actual personalities ride into battle by your side. When you ride into battle with Alice and Baphomet... well, suffice to say, these games look pretty fucking awesome.
And what of the translated SMT1 & 2? Well, there are three main problems that kept me from enjoying those games:
1. Can't recruit demons no matter what I do
2. Don't know what anything is
3. Don't know what I'm supposed to be doing
I'm hoping that after enough experience with SMT3 and hopefully some of those others I have an interest in, my absolutely befuddled flopping around can be limited, if not eliminated. Nothing in the game tells you what anything is or does, so seeing a special move named "Mabufula" is just that. You have no fucking clue what that means, and no one is going to tell you. So some familiarity there should totally help, but what about the other things?
Well, eventually I'll have to cave and check out a walkthrough, which is kinda lame, but whatever. I've done it before and I can do it again. They ARE from the 1990's, of course, so this sort of thing should really be expected. But here's the kicker: I've heard that the reason I can't recruit any demons in SMT1 is because I alloted the points all wrong and I don't have enough of something or another to negotiate, which is a problem a walkthough might could help me with (but it doesn't change the fact that allowing the player to make the game impossible to win at the FIRST POSSIBLE INTERACTION is the single worst design choice in the history of video games), but the problem with that is, in SMT2, where your stats are chosen for you, I have the exact same problem. So the stats seem to be a copout. I would be interested in picking these games up again and seeing if I can't make more sense out of them, but this is a fatal flaw, and if I can't get around it they're too fucked to even think about.
Anwyas, I thought I'd post something, because I noticed I had two new followers. Not sure how that happened, but whatevs. Unlike youtube, where there's 30 people following me for no readily identifiable reason, here I can actually post stuff sometimes without any hassle. So, here you go, a wall of text about demon summoning games.
For the record, Aboriginal is the best pre-modern mythology, because it a) accurately describes landmarks from tens of thousands of years ago, making it obnoxiously old, and it's spread ORALLY, b) the myths are, because of this, based mostly on geology rather than entirely focused on creation myths or central sun gods, and c) Megalania god vs. Rainbow Serpent. That's just cool.
Aztec and Norse jostle for second. Goetic and Voodoo are up there, too.
1.25.2012
I'm Glad KOM is Dying
Just in time for the series to be over, Kingdom of Monsters finally managed to piss off it's last semi-fan by KILLING Minette and Mallorie, the Battra Twins.
Fuck you, Ciaramella. Fuck you and your stupid fucking face. Those two were the best thing to happen to Godzilla since Biollante. You're a faggot, and I hope your family dies in a fire.
As if that wasn't bad enough, there's none too subtle hints that the series will end with Space Godzilla, the absolute worst thing about the entire franchise, just showing up out of fucking nowhere for no fucking reason. Which would be the worst thing ever. Worse than Hitler.
Yeah, I went there.
So, I'm done defending this piece of shit. They started off really strong, but with weird stuff that made you go like "...wtf?" thrown in, like Japan just up and deciding a nuclear weapon is the only reasonable course of action against Godzilla when the monster has only been around for a grand total of five fucking minutes. The political satire is magnificent and hilarious. It's on par with Godzilla vs. King Kong for sure... you know, for the first couple of issues. Then the Lady Gaga expy shows up... with almost no resemblance to the real life Lady Gaga, which turns something that should have been topical and funny into something mean-spirited and insulting. Fact is Lady Gaga isn't hard to parody, but she's also not hard to understand. Her motivations, interests, and art are all put out in public display, and she's obnoxiously famous. There's no reason to paint a caricature of her that's just fucking wrong. There's no god damned excuse for "Girly Yaya." That was just awful, and it took away from Minette and Mallorie pages.
THEN of course there's issue 4, where we meet the second worst thing to happen to the series: Sgt. Steven Woods. WHO THE FUCK IS THIS GUY? I hate this smug asshole who thinks he can look down on everyone and everything like HE'S got all the fucking answers. "Everyone who isn't me is stupid and hates America." Go fuck yourself, author tract insert mouthpiece, you don't belong here.
And then I would try to rationalize this horrible, jack ass of a character with utter disdain for all humanity for all of the most selfish reasons (making him a hippocrite, by the way) by drawing comparisons to GMK. But I can't do that anymore, because logic and emotional backlash are fighting back.
You see, in GMK, groups of rebelious teens are shown to be responsible for awakening Baragon and Mothra. Dialogue from old timers tells us that it's all the younger generations fault that monsters are destroying Japan, since they don't have any respect for their elders or something.
But let's take a closer look at that. First of all, Baragon and Mothra are the GOOD guys trying to SAVE Japan. Heck, in KOM Girly Yaya was trying to stop the military from attacking Battra's egg, which would have ALSO saved the world from Battra hatching, making Wood's nonsensical hatred of her even more... bad. Another thing we notice about these supposed wild rebels in GMK is that they are NOT harmless teenagers by any stretch of the imagination. These are horrible monsters in their own right that harass and terrify people at night on motorcycles weilding chains. These people are straight up BAD guys. The group who inadvertantly summons Mothra are trying to CRUSH A PUPPY UNDER A ROCK.
Say what you will about whiny kids who didn't get a phonepad for decemberween, at least they don't FUCKING MURDER PUPPIES.
The last point here is that while many of Wood's complaints about the general cultural nosedive the U.S. has been taking is legit, the stuff we see in GMK is an exaggerated way of dramatizing the generation gap in Japan that is a hell of a lot more complicated than just "kids are evil." It's not at all coincidental that the third guardian monster, King Ghidorah, is awakened by Yukijiro Hotaru commiting suicide in Aokigahara. GMK makes a hell of a lot of nods to problems affecting Japan that are usually ignored or blown out of proportion. Suicide and the generation gap are very real dimensions of Japanese society, as are the war crimes commited by Japan in WWII and earlier, which is, of course, the reason Godzilla appears in that movie in the first place.
So, comparing the two, we have GMK, which weaves in all these ideas but never takes a stance, although the combined might of the tortured souls from WWII war crimes seems to wipe the floor with the other crap, yet never comes off as too pretentious or heavy handed, and certainly doesn't presume to have any answers...
vs. Kingdom of Monsters, where Sgt. Steven Woods spends no less than 8 pages telling us why, because the U.S. has a very high standard of living, we're all a bunch of filthy maggots who, if given the chance, he would willingly let die in the radioactive flames of Godzilla's nuclear beam because we like phonepads... but HE'S not the bad guy, and I'm supposed to SYMPATHIZE with this piece of human trash?
nuh uh. It doesn't work like that.
And, of course, to top it all off, in issue #5 we get new "art" by an, I'm assuming mentally challenged individual who's indecipherable scribbles (and I'm being NICE here) wouldn't look out of place in Maddox's new book.
...who then continues to piss out the worst drawings by an adult I've ever seen for the REST of the 7 remaining issues...
Oh right, and then Kumonga shows up for all of one panel. Can't forget that bit of gold.
Point is, KOM took my seemingly endless faith in it and just ran it into the ground as hard as it could as many times as it could.
So where does IDW go from here? It's obvious what they're thinking if you've seen that incentive to "preorder," which, by the way, is not something you can do with comic books, Legends #4. But, let's just take a look at some of the options available to clear the air of that awful stench that was KOM.
1. Only hire ADULTS who are actually capable of drawing to, you know, DRAW the comic books. I don't know if "Santos" is one of the writer's kids or a hobo they found outside the building, but he's not a professional artist, that's for DAMN sure. Fire him and get a professional please. Here are some options:
- Matt Frank
- Frank Parr
- Art Adams
- Phil Hester (the guy's good, why did you replace him in the first place?)
- Geoff Darrow (but have someone else colour it, enough with the green crap)
- Literally ANYONE else. Shit, I could do better.
2. Biollante. The starting roster of 13 is ALMOST perfect, but Space Godzilla a.k.a. the worst big screen monster of all time just sticks out like a sore thumb. How much stupider can you get? To top it off, GvsSG is the WORST Godzilla... no, worst Toho Kaiju film of all time. At least Zilla was designed by Tatoupolis, you know? Space Godzilla is just something we need to all make a pact with each other to forget ever happened. The movie, the monster, everything. Let's just pretend that fucking thing never existed. PLEASE. More importantly, this is the slot Biollante was supposed to be in. I can't have been the only one who took it for granted that they would have gotten Biollante. Seriously, why don't they have Biollante? This needs to be fixed A.S.A.P..
3. Godzilla vs. Transformers. Duh.
4. Instead of these one shots that go nowhere, why no just make the damn series? Matt can clearly handle the concept of a one-shot the best, so just let him do all the ones where the story can be contained. Legends #2 was boring. Do a mini-series following Legends #3, since they are basically begging you for it with that ending. The team behind #4 seem to want to do the same, so why not do that too? Next time, rather than starting 5 independent stories with series potential at the same time, maybe just make sure the one-shots are actually contained stories? Then you can launch new series based off of the effectiveness of a creative team rather than which one had the largest sequel hook. Idunno, just seems like common sense to me.
5. Movie continuity. Kinda sick of starting off being dumped into the middle of a world who's rules I don't know with every single fucking issue. Please take some sort of effort to make the "legends" continuity, as it were, make sense. I never know when anything is supposed to be happening, or how I'm supposed to react to the introduction of a new character. I mean, since I know Miki from the Heisei timeline, her taking the time to visit some kid in the U.S. should be a HUUUUUUUGE fucking deal, but no one seems to know who the fuck she is. A little background goes a long way.
6. Specifically, someone needs to make a comic out of Godzilla X Biollante. You know what I'm talking about. At the coda of GMMG when they show us the huge vault of G-Cells (and presumably other monster tissue as well), and then in GXMG with that rose... and of course they manage to successfully clone Achelon in that same year, so... Biollante, plz?
All in all, I'm glad they're mixing it up after the first year. They've got so many oppurtunities available to them now, maybe after a year it's time they actually start USING them. I hate the idea of an "ongoing" series in the first place. You can't tell a story if it has no ending. Sequels are one thing, but in the middle of KOM I felt so lost and confused and there was just no direction at all. Dark Horse's stuff NEVER felt like that. They went from story arc to story arc, always with a clear sense of direction, never meandering around with characters you absolutely hated.
Because really, as a writer, one should understand that you actually can't go into a story expecting it to just go on forever. That's just not how it works.
Fucking hell I'm glad KOM is over.
R.I.P. Minette and Mallorie "The Battra Twins" 2011-2012
1.05.2012
Godzilla Continuity part 10: The "Legends" Timeline
This should be purty easy and quick.
1954: Godzilla
1955: Godzilla Raids Again
1956: Rodan
1961: Mothra
1964: Godzilla vs. Mothra and Ghidorah the Three Headed Monster
1967: It is possible some iteration of Son of Godzilla without the titular character happened here, but I'm waiting until Kumonga's spotlight issue to be sure.
1971: Again, It's possible Godzilla vs. Hedorah happened in some capacity but without the superhero Godzilla, but I'll wait until Hedorah's issue to say anything.
1972: Godzilla vs. Gigan but with the following exceptions
- Anguirus attempted to take down Gigan AND King Ghidorah by himself and was rendered unconscious
- Godzilla arrived seperately, and probably never interacted with Anguirus, but beat both monsters on his own
1978/1979: Godzilla sinks a Russian nuclear sub and grows from 50 to 80 meters.
1984: Return of Godzilla with the obvious exception that Godzilla has been previously seen many times between 1954 and now. Miki's parents are killed in this rampage.
1989: Godzilla vs. Biollante more than likely happened, but this time around Miki actually WINS her fight with Godzilla, gains notoriety in the U.N.G.C.C., and begins a successful ESPer institute in Japan.
1991: The Return of King Ghidorah (2nd ver.) wherein the real King Ghidorah comes back from space to harass Earth once more, but is defeated by Godzilla after sinking Shindo's secret nuclear sub, bring Godzilla and King Ghidorah roughly the same size as each other.
1992: Possibly the first time Battra appears.
1993: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II with exceptions in that Baby Godzilla is never born, It's the surviving 1956 who appears and not the Adonoa one, who becomes mutated and enlarges to near-Godzilla size in the same way. Super Mechagodzilla is not completely destroyed, but there is something that happens that causes his further use to be taboo.
1995: Destroyah forms the same way as his original appearance. Godzilla doesn't die, and Junior isn't even there. Godzilla kills or nearly kills Destroyah, who either escapes or there is a second one later.
1999: Surviving monsters begin to live in the Ogasawara Islands, causing the place to be dubbed "Monster Island." Residents include Godzilla, Mothra (the adult surviving twin from 1964), Anguirus, Rodan (the surviving one from 1956), Kumonga, Battra, and King Ghidorah, who is amazingly more mellow these days.
2004-2010: The events of Godzilla Legends #3 pan out, Titanosaurus goes to live on Monster Island in the aftermath.
2010: Rodan's egg is found. From Godzilla Legends #2.
2011: Godzilla: Gangsters and Goliaths and Godzilla Legends #1
2012: Godzilla Legends #2
In a nutshell, that's what it looks like right now. Of course, as the last two issues of Legends have yet to come out, and IDW will surely add to this in other miniseries, hopefully including the conclusion of the stories seen in Godzilla Legends #1 and of course #3, I will either edit this entry or make a new one... depends on how I feel.
Godzilla Continuity part 9: Dr. Rex Sumerall in comic form...
Godzilla Legends #3 pretty much demands that I start taking the IDW "Legends" timeline (as I'm calling it) seriously. Why? Cuz Miki. Yeah yeah Mugal was in it too and he's still an alien but whatever. Miki's the real star of the show. No, not Titanosaurus, Miki. Go figure.
Anwyas, here's the thing. The MOST LIKELY course of action that's going to happen is the Legendary movie GINO 2 will end up being... well, GINO 2. There's little I've heard that will save it at this juncture, and what I have is unsourced rumors. As well, the original out-the-door date of sometime this year looks like a lot of bullshit, and current dates have it set as late as 2014. That's a the 60th anniversary. Currently the longest Godzilla has gone between movies is 9 years, between 1975 and 1984. Waiting from the 50th to 60th anniversary will not only break a record, it will mean that, if the legendary thing IS GINO 2, and there's a very good chance it will be, then that means Toho will have missed an anniversary. That, or they rush one out the door just to have it done. Either way, that will be the day Godzilla dies. Hence my sudden fascination with Guilala.
...and the comics. Godzilla will have to take the walk of shame off his movie monster throne and go somewhere else. Oh, he's not going anywhere, he's Toho's biggest baby. But where will he go to? These IDW comics were my guess, and now after the early Kingdom of Monsters, Gangsters and Goliaths, and this new Legends series, I've made a good bet. There is of course, the inevitable Godzilla/Transformers crossover. This MUST happen. It isn't negotiable.
...why is Godzilla green?
Ok, so it's important. But if it's on the same level as the films, Godzilla's primary medium, we need to talk about continuity.
The Kingdom of Monsters continuity hasn't really extended beyond it's pages yet. We know that the Tunguska event is somehow connected with Rodan and KG has been up in the Himalayas for a long time. That's all there is to that. As for the books themselves, they work out a little something like this:
1-5 or so take place within a few weeks, maybe a month of each other
6 takes place long enough after that to have built Mechagodzilla
the rest take place a few months afterwards, when the U.S. government moves underground
All in all, I'd say the earlier stuff (up until issue six or maybe including it) take place in 2011 while the rest occurs in 2012.
So that's that.
Gangsters and Goliaths take place in a different continuity, and we aren't given any explicit background about it either. And it's clearly not the showa timeline, since it features a G-Force made Mechagodzilla, and a King Ghidorah that's still alive. I'm assuming, of course, the book takes place in 2011.
Just to make things waaaaaay more complicated than they need to be, the writers felt it necessary to include a whole shitload of monsters that don't add anything to the plot. Anguirus, Rodan, Battra, Kumonga, and Titanosaurus appear in the comic in bit roles for no fucking reason. Honestly, Mechagodzilla didn't really even need to be there. Which is a shame because minus the clusterfucked cast of kaiju G&G just screams mid-60's Godzilla movie in the best of ways. It's a lot like Dogora, actually, which is one of my favorite movies ever.
Oh yeah, Battra and King Ghidorah on Monster Island... because that makes sense @___@
So, before getting into the legends stuff, let's break down what G&G shows us:
Godzilla: Clearly alive. Absolutely no reason to assume it's junior. Probably the second, Lagos Godzilla. We have no idea of his previous actions, only that he exists now and isn't particularly seen as the 1970's superhero.
Mothra: The fairies are called "Elias" mostly, but say they go by many names, which serves to lend a bit of "everything counts" attitude to the comic, which we'll get into more with Legends. NO IDEA what generation of Mothra this is, only that it's fully grown already.
Rodan: Nothing known. Showa look to it. Lives on Monster Island. Roughly the same size as Godzilla.
Anguirus: Same as Rodan, only not QUITE the same same as Godzilla (this will be important later).
Kumonga: Same as Anguirus.
Titanosaurus: Same as Kumonga, except, from what I can tell, about Godzilla's size ala Rodan.
Battra: Only seen in Larva form, doesn't seem to give a damn about Mothra or anything else, so it's not safe to assume this resembles the Heisei Battra in any way, shape, or form. Furthermore, whereas the Heisei Battra Larva stood nearly as tall as Godzilla (despite him being 90 meters LONG, not tall =/ ), this one seems quite small. It just acts like all the other useless monsters in the comic.
King Ghidorah: Not particularly safe to assume it's like the Showa version. It's certainly not dead like the showa version. We DO know that KG attacked Tokyo 20 years before the events of the comic. Assuming G&G takes place in 2011, that makes it 1991, the year Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah came out, but not the year it took place. So assuming that movie is canon to this comic isn't safe either.
Mechagodzilla: It's pretty much exactly the same as the Kingdom Mechagodzilla, that is to say, the heisei Mechagodzilla but with a built-in Garuda. So, it's like Super Mechagodzilla... without needing to combine. Notable in that it was once used as an anti-Godzilla weapon, but apparently it worked like crap, and even though the thing works perfectly fine, no one at G-Force thinks to use it even when there are 6 kaiju loose in Tokyo. So, i'm thinking it's pretty much EXACTLY like the Kingdom Mechagodzilla, because as the thing was fully operational, I don't see what else could be done to make piloting a perfectly fine super-mecha so taboo.
Monster Island: It exists. Monsters that live here do so of their own volition and with only Mothra's stern nagging to keep the peace. There is no government involvement, so DAM definitely never happened. No Gabara is visible, so it's probably not just the dream world. :P
The Legends mini-series does something a little different: every issue is a completely new almost-the-same continuity. Both G&G and Legends have clearly taken an attitude about the timelines that states "everything happened but not really I guess." Because of this, I'm choosing to synchronize all the Legends issues not only with each other, but with G&G as well. Why? I just told you: because everything counts until it doesn't, and nothing says it doesn't yet.
Go back to the Showa or Millennium timeline parts if you're confused about this seemingly anti-logic. But the basics behind the timeline of Legends and G&G seems to be, simply, this:
Assume everything from all the sources happened until we show you something contradictory. Don't worry about which Mechagodzilla exists in this timeline... we'll tell you when it's important. Also, both of them do, so that's not even an issue.
...pretty much.
Not pictured: every other monster IDW can currently protray.
So let's go through the Legends one by one (there's three so far) and see what we can find out about this nebulous, fan-wank universe.
LEGENDS #1
Anguirus: This is interesting... Anguirus is shown being completely dwarfed by Destroyah... and slightly smaller than the King himself. It appears that Anguirus is retaining his 60m height, which makes him half the size of Destroyah and a little more than half the size of Godzilla. Also, this is important, we're told that Anguirus has lost every battle he's ever fought, and moreover, we're SHOWN three of the battles. The first being a run-in with "kaiju alpha," Godzilla, in what appears to be Gyakushu-Goji form. It's clear what Matt's trying to say here. We also see Anguirus getting bloodied by Gigan and dropped by King Ghidorah. DAM didn't happen, but stock footage from that fight did appear in Godzilla vs. Gigan, so it's very close to counting. We also see Anguirus do his rolling thunder attack, something he never did in the showa days.
Destroyah: Same size, only seen in it's final form. Declared second only to Kaiju-Alpha in power (this is Godzilla, by the way). Assuming the events of the first movie took place, it still means that there is prior knowledge of Destroyah, meaning either it survived it's first appearance or this is a SECOND Destroyah. However, the events of Godzilla vs. Destroyah can't have happened because "kaiju-alpha" is referred to as both the 1955 creature and the current Godzilla... so Godzilla didn't die, and that REALLY isn't Junior.
Godzilla: It's becoming clear that at some point Godzilla must have increased in size. Also, with Godzilla exuding such an aura of fear, he was clearly not a super hero in the 70's. So, how did Godzilla vs. Gigan play out in this universe? Anguirus couldn't even team up with Godzilla, because the humans in this story are surprised Godzilla didn't attack him. And these guys are professional monster-fighters, they'd have a record of Godzilla and Anguirus teaming up, and they DO know about Anguirus's battles with Gigan and King Ghidorah. I'm thinking maybe Anguirus got trashed up a bit when the initial signal tape played, and then was unconscious by the time Godzilla got there. In the late 70's, a russian nuclear sub is sunk by Godzilla, and he reaches his current, heisei-scaled size. Something like that.
Gigan: Matt is trying to tell us we should acknowledge GvsG as more or less canon. Hence, Gigan is a Nebula M Cyborg kaiju who kicked the shit out of Anguirus, but couldn't handle Godzilla. Did Zone Fighter finally kill him in this timeline? I wouldn't think so.
King Ghidorah: So, now we know that, at least in some capacity, King Ghidorah enacted his role in GvsG in this timeline. This makes him the showa iteration, but also softens him a bit. See, the original showa KG was a super terro-beast that was too powerful for even the Garogans to handle. Here, as we assume the super-hero shenanigans of the 70's didn't happen, and KG didn't die in 1999, we have a confused, lonely space monster moving from world to world destroying for no reason but not particularly enjoying his life. Once he comes to earth, he tends to stay here. Sure, he may have been chased off once or twice, but we know he lives on Monster Island now, and is content to live there, even if maybe Mothra has to tell him what-for every once in a while.
Normally, it would be hard to tell just from the shape of the teeth... but those sure do look like fangs to me. but maybe I'm dead wrong, either way the homage is obvious.
So far, the Legends series has been telling us that a vast assortment of random, applicable movies count, but each time they drastically change the story and mix up the elements so that the end result, the story we're seeing in the comic, is both referential and a fresh new take. I'm totally digging the shit out of it. Moving on:
LEGENDS #2
Here we only see Rodan and a baby Rodan. This time he looks like the Heisei one, but there's no reason to believe he's a different creature or a different size.
We know that the egg was found 2 years before the rest of the events of the comic. We see the baby Rodan hatch at the end, and the adult fly it back to Monster Island with it (and that kid as well). There isn't much to go on about when the story takes place here...
So, if you want an explanation about why the G&G Rodan is showa-based and this one is heisei-based, you could say that the baby Rodan in this comic is the adult in G&G. But, of course, there's no real need to do that. Each of these are effectively stand alone stories, and I don't really expect the art to match up 100%.
Basically, though, we do know there are two Rodans. So either the baby in this one IS the adult in G&G and the previous adult died, or this comic happened in 2011 or so and the baby is still too young to go out and knock over buildings. OR it happened AFTER G&G. It would need to be 2 years later though, so 2013 at the earliest.
This is the weakest of the three so far and it has the least amount of impact. So it's not much of a big deal.
And now we get to...
LEGENDS #3
Miki: She says she's fought off Godzilla SUCCESSFULLY before. Now, maybe she's exaggerating her "victory" in Godzilla vs. Biollante, but then again, maybe she's not. Furthermore, despite us already knowing Destroyah is a known entity in this timeline and did NOT kill Godzilla (we are shown this again in a referential panel in this issue, lest you think I'm implying something that isn't there), but Miki's main plot in GvsD is that she begins losing her powers and connection to Godzilla and Junior. Here, she's totes on her game. What's more, she's an adult. We can say that an altered version of her battle with Godzilla happened where she won in 1989, and this is present day, given her current age. Why so long to act on the fact that supers exist in Godzilla's world? Well, considering that there wasn't a serious institute until the 1990's in the heisei timeline while there was already an espionage branch of ESPies in 1974 in showa times, this isn't really a question that I feel deserves an answer.
Mugal: The plot of TOM if unfolding NOW, so obviously this guy has no past in the timeline.
Titanosaurus: No origin or anything given, I LOVE him in this comic. You really get to see him, just... freak the fuck out. He really is just a peaceful dinosaur. If only those darn monkeys would leave him and Tristan alone. :c
Mechagodzilla: See what I mean? There's three Mechagodzilla's now. Two of them are alien. Maybe that means continuity with G&G is broken? Pffft, whatever. As much as we want to see it, remember using Mechagodzilla in this timeline is taboo for nebulous reasons, so the G-Force and alien Mechagodzilla's wont even meet up anyways.
I could put this together in an actual timeline, but for right now i'm tired. Other than the actual timeline we have... the Dark Horse comics and the video games to cover, as well as the Mothra Series (which is important because it includes, obviously, Mothra, but also Fairy Mothra and King Ghidorah, and was a source of a lot of "pfft, yeah right"s about word of god regarding the heisei timeline before GFW happened).
See you then?
Prolly will, actually.
12.25.2011
Godzilla Continuity part 8: The branches of the heisei tree
HE'S FROM THE FUTURE WHERE THE PAST NEVER HAPPENED!
So, after I posted that part about millennium continuity, I went back and started reading the previous parts.
Weeeeellllll...
I made some mistakes. I also noticed that I never elaborated on the actually splitting of the showa-heisei split timeline. I want to address that now. I'm going to start by giving a brief rundown of the relevant events that carry over into the heisei timeline, but start from the Showa one, and then work our way through each of the branching series of events.
-12,000: Mothra and the civilization that worships them are present in some form
1944: The Lagos Island Godzillasaurus saves a Japanese Garrison from an American naval fleet.
1954: Godzilla - confirmed mutation of Odo, Lagos, and a female Godzillasaurus. Odo Godzilla is killed by oxygen destroyer. Minilla's egg layed here. Angilosaurus on Iwato Island also affected. Adonoa Island's Pterasaur population is also affected, but in a mostly detrimental way. The last clutch of unmutated Godzillasaurus eggs were also laid there.
1955: Godzilla Raids Again
1962: Godzilla vs. King Kong
1964: Godzilla vs. Mothra, Ghidorah the Three Headed Monster
1965: Godzilla vs. Monster Zero
1966: Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster
1967: Son of Godzilla - mutations of already gigantic mantises, Kumonga has been living on Solgell all this time. Minilla's egg emits a magnetic field to call it's parents, and hatches 13 years later.
1971: Godzilla vs. Hedorah
1972: Godzilla vs. Gigan
197X: Godzilla vs. Megalon
1973: Zone Fighter
1974: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla
1975: Terror of Mechagodzilla
1999: Destroy All Monsters (present here are Baragon, Manda, Gorosaurus, and Varan, who have origins not connected to Godzilla)
Put simply, that's the showa timeline, now let's look at Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah. That movie shows us that the timeline diverged in 1944, and, for the sake of Final Wars, it's better to assume that in most cases that's the only divergence, as some events will need to carry over for lack of any other explanation. However, instead of just going and putting up the whole heisei timeline, let's do something else.
Remember that cause happens before an effect. Arrow of time and all that. The future that Emi, M-1, and the racist Americans come from is NOT the future that follows the end of Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah. How the hell could it be? The events of the film are a result of the future presented at the end of Godzilla vs. Biollante, and Emi even tells us as much in the movie.
I realize some people have a really hard time thinking this way, so i'm gonna break it down as much as I can.
See, the Futurians are going back in time to alter the past, creating a new timeline where they replace Godzilla with a monster they can control. This means that, in future they leave to come back to 1992 in, everything that has already happened still happened (or else they couldn't time travel to it), and that their monster, King Ghidorah, has not yet been created.
However, we've got a bit of a snag here and the blame falls squarely on Omori's sloppy writing: if it's the timeline they went back into to change, it should mean that the Lagos Godzillasaurus has not yet been teleported, and they should be in the showa future, and not the heisei one.
There's still a way around this. Causes always happen before their affects. 1944 happens earlier than 1992. Go ahead and look it up, it's true. So one could easily say that by traveling back to 1992, their actions in 1944 already happened. But then they would still already have needed to happen for Emi's future to even exist, so it's still not a real explanation.
At any rate, here's what the timeline Emi originally came from looked like, direct changes in red.
-12,000: Mothra thwarts an invasion by Xiliens and Gigan, but dies in a drawed battle against Battra.
1944: The Lagos Island Godzillasaurus saves a Japanese Garrison from an American naval fleet. Emi, Miki, M-1, and others come back from 1992 and teleport the dinosaur to the bottom of the Bering Sea, where it stays in suspended animation.
1954: Godzilla - confirmed mutation of Odo, and a female Godzillasaurus. Odo Godzilla is killed by oxygen destroyer. Angilosaurus on Iwato Island also affected. Adonoa Island's Pterasaur population is also affected, but in a mostly detrimental way. The last clutch of unmutated Godzillasaurus eggs were also laid there.
1967: Gigantic mantises left untouched by humans, Kumonga has been living on Solgell all this time.
1974: Okinawa's stone guardian sleeps through an uneventful year.
1978: Russian nuclear sub sinks in the Bering Sea, mutating the second Godzilla.
1984: A volcanic eruption awakes the second Godzilla, Return of Godzilla
1989: Godzilla vs. Biollante - Godzilla never recovers from the A.N.E.B. and presumably dies
1990's: Without Godzilla around, and having invented a render nuclear weapons useless, Japan experiences an unprecedented economic boom, and in the decades to come, becomes the richest nation of Earth.
2032: Xiliens plan conquest of Earth with a monster army possibly including Anguirus, Manda, Zilla, Hedorah, Gigan, Ebirah, Kamacuras, and Kumonga. Mothra may have helped humanity. Keizer Ghidorah is their trump card, but the advanced technology of the future is able to thwart the aliens. Keizer Ghidorah's cells, and M base, are used to create telepathic, genetically engineered designer pets called Dorats.
2204: Eco-terrorist group E.U.O. steals the MOTHER time machine and loads up with three dorats, planning on sending them back in place of Godzilla to create a monster that can me controlled.
Yes, I added stuff. Thing is, though, i'm trying to fill in holes with things that make logical sense. Keep in mind that an altered final war scenario where Mothra and the Gotengo take down Keizer Ghidorah without Godzilla isn't canon or anything, but it would be a cool fanfic :P So yeah, lots of that are just fanwank designed to make the timelines more coterminous with each other.
So, the plan to erase Godzilla is a massive failure, and the futurians are actually responsible for creating the heisei Godzilla in the first place. Go figure. Their presence and the creation of King Ghidorah creates a new series of events, where Godzilla is purposefully revived to combat King Ghidorah. In this timeline, Godzilla is completely indestructable with current technology, and the future that Emi returns to in order to build Mecha-King Ghidorah is NOT the one she originally left. In this timeline, Glenchiko's bullshit story about Godzilla completely destroying Japan in his original hometime actually does happen. Let's look at what went down, with changes in blue this time:
-12,000: Mothra thwarts an invasion by Xiliens and Gigan, but dies in a drawed battle against Battra.
1944: The Lagos Island Godzillasaurus saves a Japanese Garrison from an American naval fleet. Emi, Miki, M-1, and others come back from 1992 and teleport the dinosaur to the bottom of the Bering Sea, where it stays in suspended animation. In it's place Emi lets three Dorats free.
1954: Godzilla - confirmed mutation of Odo, and a female Godzillasaurus. Odo Godzilla is killed by oxygen destroyer. Angilosaurus on Iwato Island also affected. Adonoa Island's Pterasaur population is also affected, but in a mostly detrimental way. The last clutch of unmutated Godzillasaurus eggs were also laid there. The Dorats fuse together and mutant into the significantly larger King Ghidorah, possibly as a result of the M base, but due to the peaceful nature of Dorats, it remains dormant for nearly 40 years.
1967: Gigantic mantises left untouched by humans, Kumonga has been living on Solgell all this time.
1974: Okinawa's stone guardian sleeps through an uneventful year.
1978: Russian nuclear sub sinks in the Bering Sea, mutating the second Godzilla.
1984: A volcanic eruption awakes the second Godzilla, Return of Godzilla
1989: Godzilla vs. Biollante
1992: Futurians from 2204 arrive with a plan to erase Godzilla from history. It turns out to be a trick to place King Ghidorah into the timeline and destroy Japan before it becomes too strong and mass produces the ANEB that crippled efforts to create a monster in their own time. However, Colonel Shindo, a survivor from the 1944 incident, revives Godzilla with a modern nuclear sub, increasing Godzilla's size and power allowing him to completely destroy King Ghidorah.
late 1990's: Godzilla has become far too powerful for any force on Earth to stop, and proceeds to turn all of Japan into a nuclear wasteland devoid of all life except some Shokilas and Godzilla himself.
2032: Xiliens plan conquest of Earth but Godzilla is just WAAAAAY too fucking much for them to handle. Keizer Ghidorah manages to die a quick and agonizing death. It's possible Godzilla had a meltdown at this point. Keizer Ghidorah's cells, and M base, are used to create telepathic, genetically engineered designer pets called Dorats.
2204: Emi time travels from 1992, asking to use the corpse of King Ghidorah to create a cyborg and send it back to 1992 in order to stop Godzilla from completely destroying all of Japan. She is successful, and Mecha-King Ghidorah time travels from here back to 1992.
So, I mentioned Godzilla's possible meltdown because fighting Keizer Ghidorah is a good place to do it, and Keizer Ghidorah HAS to die, and we know that in the 2204 where MKG is built, Godzilla has not been lauded as a hero or anything, so thwarting an alien invasion would need to be eclipsed by a direct consequence which does far greater damage.
So, finally MKG gets back to 1992, and manages to stop Godzilla and create a new timeline where Japan has access to fancy future tech. yay! This is the showa timeline proper, and it looks something like this (changes in green):
-12,000: Mothra thwarts an invasion by Xiliens and Gigan, but dies in a drawed battle against Battra.
1944: The Lagos Island Godzillasaurus saves a Japanese Garrison from an American naval fleet. Emi, Miki, M-1, and others come back from 1992 and teleport the dinosaur to the bottom of the Bering Sea, where it stays in suspended animation. In it's place Emi lets three Dorats free.
1954: Godzilla - confirmed mutation of Odo, and a female Godzillasaurus. Odo Godzilla is killed by oxygen destroyer. Angilosaurus on Iwato Island also affected. Adonoa Island's Pterasaur population is also affected, but in a mostly detrimental way. The last clutch of unmutated Godzillasaurus eggs were also laid there. The Dorats fuse together and mutant into the significantly larger King Ghidorah, possibly as a result of the M base, but due to the peaceful nature of Dorats, it remains dormant for nearly 40 years.
1967: Gigantic mantises left untouched by humans, Kumonga has been living on Solgell all this time.
1974: Okinawa's stone guardian sleeps through an uneventful year.
1978: Russian nuclear sub sinks in the Bering Sea, mutating the second Godzilla.
1984: A volcanic eruption awakes the second Godzilla, Return of Godzilla
1989: Godzilla vs. Biollante
1992: Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah
1993: Godzilla and Mothra
1994: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II - Investigation on Adonoa Island yeilds an unmutated Godzillasaurus egg and draws the ire of one of (if there were more than one) the Rodans living there, who were not aware the egg is a nest parasite. The egg is the current Godzilla's second cousin.
1995: Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla
1996: Godzilla vs. Destroyah - Godzilla Jr. becomes the third Godzilla.
1997: Godzilla has a south seas adventure, meeting Anguirus and either a reconstituted or second Rodan, and the female Godzilla, with which he lays Minilla's egg.
1998: Okinawa is defended from Godzilla, who is clearly not as peaceful as he was when he was younger.
1999: The Gotengo is built and has a decisive battle with Godzilla, finally sealing the monster away in Antarctica.
2032: Godzilla: Final Wars - Keizer Ghidorah's cells, and M base, are used to create telepathic, genetically engineered designer pets called Dorats.
2204: Unknown, but this is the future Emi returns to after dropping Mecha-King Ghidorah in the past. There may not even be an E.U.O. in this future.
So that's that. The ever changing face of the heisei branching timeline. There was much unconfirmed guessing included, but it was only there to make events seem more hinged on the actions of the time travelers. I have no idea how the heisei Kumonga or Anguirus actually came to be, but these are my best guesses. I covered my attitude about this in the part dealing specifically with the ramifications of GFW on the rest of the heisei timeline.
Ok, that's all, bye. =/
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