Digital Submission

Not really sure whether this is worth writing about, since my understanding of it is shaky at best, but I am going to have a stab at it regardless.



Isn't region locking a load of contrived horseshit?


My main area of region locking interest is games, I am not hugely into films, and tend to find that even though there is usually an unnecessary gap between releases in different areas, most films tend to be available globally. I don't really know enough about it to have stated that so confidently, but there we go.


My gripe is with games. My first run-in with region-based troubles was with Xenogears. I received a copied Xenogears disc as a young man, which is very naughty, until you consider that it wasn't available in the UK, and hasn't been released here since. Chipping the PS1 was a common occurrence (as I remember, at least), and it seems that as consoles become more complex it has quieted down, although it is sure to be popular amongst certain circles regardless (tech whizzes, criminals etc). Chipping enabled you to play games from other regions, although the main aim was to play cheap, copied games (I imagine).


With the internet now morphed into an all-powerful being, such retro naughtiness as copying discs has quieted down in favour of emulators which can play a huge catalogue of games on a computer, rather than having to muck around with the guts of actual consoles. Official console releases and OS updates are often implementing blocks that are trying to keep pace with hackers/modders/whatever they are called nowadays who are developing these emulations. I discovered this while looking for a port of Xenogears which was playable on the PSP. Playing PS1 games on the PSP has become a very simple thing thanks to the PlayStation Store, which enables customers to buy downloadable versions of the game, fairly cheaply aswell, which can then either be played on the PS3 system or sent to a PSP.


The system is there, officially there, for these ports to be done and for Sony and friends to make money, rightfully so, out of it. I have recently, as I'm sure I've mentioned, purchased Final Fantasies 7 through 9 in this way, and I have enjoyed the experience of playing them through again very much. I was doing some research earlier on, looking into what other RPGs have made their way to the PS store, so that I could enjoy more retro delights on the go. I looked down a frankly gargantuan list of old titles that have been released, which included Wild Arms (1 and 2) and Xenogears. I was delighted. Genuinely fucking delighted. I was excited that I'd get to play these games, and buy them legitimately, since I actually could.


But I can't. Because the duopolising fuckpowers of the trans-Pacific Sony twins (Brett and Shinji) hate anywhere that isn't North America or Japan. The amount of downloadable games released in Japan and the US is so staggeringly skewed compared to the stuff they've put out over here it's actually ridiculacious. There is no issue of physically making and transporting these games, even if a particular game isn't expected to sell particularly well, surely there's benefit of putting it up there? Surely the effort of making a game available in the European store isn't so restrictively high that there's a chance Brett and Shinji will make a loss on it?


I realise there are other issues, such as, in some instances, complicated rights/royalties involved which means that more care is needed with releases in different areas. Also, some areas of the world are slightly more squeamish and so games are modified so that they get, ironically, butchered versions of games with all the scowling digitally modified so that all the characters are smiling a plastic smile. But surely the vast majority of games aren't so steeped in unwieldy small print?


All of which doesn't really explain why there are less games on the European Playstation store. It's likely that the US and Japan are markets which make more money for the bastard twins, but maybe if you put more games on the store you'd make more money.


My argument has collapsed under the weight of its own infantile impotence. I look like a peuce-jowled parody of a South Park internet gamer as I write this. Arse.


Release Xenogears as downloadable content in the UK you bastards. I jest wants to pleh mah geeeem! AH WANTS TO PLEH MAH GEEEEEEEEM!!

XENOSAGA WAS OVERRATED, GIVE ME FEI FONG WONG!

FEI FONG WONG!

FEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEI FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG WOOOOOOOOOOOONG!!!!!!!!!

P.S. I am old enough to know better.

Nostalgia-mounting RPGs

Over the last year I have played Final Fantasy VII and VIII on the PSP, having downloaded them from the aether (PlayStation Store) and uploaded them to a memory card inside the device. I am now doing the same for Final Fantasy IX. We are living in the future. WELCOME TO IT.

When these games first appeared they were on a number of discs each, they were the colossal RPGs of the PS1 era, the solid, shimmering jewels in Squaresofts Final Fantasy crown, before multiple spin-offs cut the jewels a few too many times, and the jewelocity became stretched far too thin. That's right, jewelocity. Final Fantasy X is perhaps the last of the worthy Final Fantasy titles, although an unfortunate twist near the end and a frustrating spin-off tarnishes its sheen. I never played XI, for at the time of release playing online felt like an impossible pipedream, and though I enjoyed XII it was for the gameplay rather than the story. I am currently stalled in XIII, having grafted through 20 hours of linear corridors, and finally being allowed out into a world which is numbingly vast, in an unfortunately tedious way.
It is possible that VII through X are as flawed as newer output, and I simply gloss over this using the magical power of nostalgia. Regardless, I am very much enjoying this playthrough of IX, the cartoonish medieval feel of the story is delightful. Having it in a portable medium is probably key, I doubt I'd commit to several hours in front of the TV using a console, but somehow playing it on a handheld device tricks you into believing that it isn't 3o'clock in the morning.

Having seemingly huge PS1 titles re-issued as downloadable releases is an excellent process, its just a pity that it doesn't stretch to releases such as Xenogears, which, as it was never released in the UK, is unlikely to appear in the British store. I had feared, when the newest generation of consoles appeared (PS3/360/Wii) that old-school RPGs (or perhaps JRPGs more specifically) would die out, in favour of family-friendly minigames masquerading as full games, or an endless stream of shiny FPSs. Thankfully, that hasn't really happened, and new RPGs do appear with a fair frequency, and though on the consoles they tend to be trying something a little different (which is a good thing, even if it means a few games mess up), I am glad that classic formats are still being worked in the handhelds. RPGs were, for me at least, never really about the graphics, and the gameplay is also a measured fixture which lends itself well to a handheld format, where button-bashing or fast sequences aren't ideal, whereas the story and tactical nature of the battling is more fitting. Even the relatively basic graphics are more aesthetically pleasing on a smaller screen.

I think my funny has dried up this week, this is another fairly dry examination. Rather than bail out of this I am going to see this entry through to its tedious, unamusing conclusion, if you are looking for laughs I urge you to abandon this entry post haste, lest my position as Visconte de Hilariare be forever compromised in your eyes.

The amount of hours I have spent grinding away on role-playing games is no ones business. Final Fantasy VII and Pokemon Red were the first nails in a coffin which is now shut with so many nails that the coffin itself is more iron than wood. The soundtracks to franchises of Wild ARMs, Final Fantasy, Breath of Fire and Xenogears swirl on a neverending MIDI loop in my mind, and the plinks and plonks of Pokemon, Final Fantasy Tactics and Dragon Warrior Monster vibrate in my forearms.

Playing through the first stages of Final Fantasy IX I was delighted by the presence of the Rufus Welcoming March, a track originally composed for FFVII, which was clearly added to the game in order to delight empty nerds such as myself. "I was delighted".

However, as futile as it may feel to have sunk quite so many weeks into RPGs, I think there are important and valuable life lessons to be learnt from them.

RPGs reward the player for putting the work in, the main format of levelling up means you have to work to get better. Often in the actual games this takes the form of some quite tedious grafting (unless the battling system is done well, as in FFXII (my opinion)), but the overall ideal is quite practical, it essentially boils down to: if you want to do well, work hard. This is at odds with what usually gets touted in anime (and in a number of idealistic/simplistic stories) where an individual will be able to battle through and succeed simply on the basis of him/her being particularly just or good. The disillusionment from these stories is something I'm planning on looking at in more detail, so I will leave it for now. Suffice to say, having been attacked for no reason by two brainless gimps I can conclusively deny the inspiring second-wind that seems to infuse those who are in the right. Either that or I was the baddie in that situation, which is impossible as I am the main character.

So it seems I am regressing of late, I have reacquainted myself with wrestling, started playing late 90s PS1 RPGs again and having shaved this afternoon I realised I had chosen to go shave down to sideburns, which were my original choice from back when bumfluff was first gracing my cheeks. After work today I am going to go slide down the banking on a piece of cardboard. That, of course, is a fabrication for comic effect, but I will do it soon, film it and it will become a sketch. I am not old enough for my puerility to be a starkly comic contrast, I just look childish. To such claims I would retort "I know you are, but what am I?".

I would love nothing more than to waste the entire evening tonight playing through Final Fantasy IX, but there is much editing to be done for the podcast tomorrow, and given that really I should also have edited one of our sketches by now, it will be a shocking betrayal of our hardworking DIY ethics to let the podcast slip aswell.

This will be the 26th week in an unbroken chain of slapdash audio silliness that we have released, our dedication to silly buggery has spanned around half a year, at this point it feels that our efforts are either highly admirable, or utterly delusional. The day they stop being released is the day we stop enjoying them, and there's not even a whisper of that point as of now, so admirable it is.

I am going to play Final Fantasy IX as well though. I can play it on the toilet. The future is indecent.