Final Fantasy IV Advance Diary, Week 1

Only real men keep running diaries of RPGs they play

In all its handheld glory!

    I'll provide some brief back story here, but I really wanna keep these entries fast moving, punchy, and just not as verbose and rambling as many of my other posts. As you may or may not know, I've never played Final Fantasy IV (known as Final Fantasy II on the SNES. But you knew that) before. It's considered a classic of the RPG genre, and most people will say it's just a step below the god-like VI (also haven't played). Here's where I'm gonna run into flaming troll hate: Final Fantasy VII was the first FF I ever played. Hell, the first one I ever even heard of. I know, I know. It doesn't hold a candle to VI. Sephiroth is no Kefka. It's wildly overrated. Blah-de-fucking-blah. It was an amazing game for the time (still damn fun now), and while I had some familiarity with turn-based RPGs (Breath of Fire being the first one I had ever played), I wasn't in love with them, and FFVII changed that for me. Maybe it's not the best game in the franchise, and I'm willing to allow that, but it holds a very special place in my heart. Not to mention my dad and I obsessed over it when we got it. Some of the best memories I have.
    Enough of that mushy shit. After VII, we played VIII. Great, but not quite as good. I remember feeling let down with VIII. Then IX came out. Then X. I assume you guys know how to count up from seven? The point is, going forward, I played all the games that came out. I never reached back to the past to play the older ones. That stops right here.
    Now, traditionally, when I beat a game, I do a "B-LOG SLAYING" write-up. Generally, these are long, and they can take me days to write them. Imagine me, keeping pages upon pages of detailed notes about this game, only to write a 10,000 word post on after I beat it? Not to mention, that post would take me a full week, or longer, to really bang out. That sounds very un-fun to me. I've figured out a great way to circumvent that rigmarole: just do weekly "diary" entries! I generally play on my lunch break, for anywhere between 45 minute and an hour. Once I finish my daily play session, I make some notes, and that's that. So probably every Thursday, I'll upload those notes here. I'll try to include story progress, general thoughts, cons/pros, and I'll still go over the bosses. I haven't decided if this is completely in lieu of a "B-LOG SLAYING", or if I'll compile a much shorter one afterwards, from my various diary notes. I'll probably do that.
    So, venerable readers, follow me through the amazing world of Final Fantasy IV!
    [Note I'm also going to include the date of each day, and even how long I played during that day!]

DAY 1 (12/8/14. PLAYTIME: 0:00 TO 0:57)

 

    Today I got through the intro, and got to play a bit. Right off the bat, I like the story: a once-noble king is suddenly murdering (annihilating is a better word) innocent people, all to procure mystical crystals. In fact, you start the game by murdering some innocent people. He even dupes the main character (Cecil is his name. God, great name) into killing an entire village of people (save one little girl). Pretty fucked up, really. I'm very interested to see where the story is going to go. Overall, I greatly enjoyed my first hour with the game. This game session probably had the least amount of time of me actually playing the game, because it sets up story, and there's lots of dialogue to get through. Here are some additional thoughts I had for my first hour (all of a sudden, I'm in love with bullet lists):

• The graphics are great. They look spectacular on my Gameboy Advance SP. Compared to screenshots of the original, definitely an improvement
• Cecil is fucking fast. When you're running through dungeons/towns, he moves like he has no time to fuck around. I personally love this. 
• There are lots of random encounters. I'm okay with this, as I sort of expected it. It can get tedious, but it can be overlooked
• Finally, at the very end of my session, I got access to the Chocobo summon. It's pretty cool

BOSS:

Mist Dragon:

Very misty indeed

    This is the first boss of the game, and as such, he's a piece of cake. My strategy was to just whale on him with both Cecil and Kain (god I love these names). He will occasionally turn to mist, and during this time, it would be a bad idea to attack him. If you do, he will unleash a decently powerful attack in response. Otherwise his normal attack is laughable weak. So, when he's mist, just defend or heal as needed. Nothing to worry about here.

I just thought this guy looked ridiculous. Look at those teeth

----------------------------------------------------------

DAY 2 (12/9/14. PLAY TIME: 0:58 TO 1:40)

    I spent my entire almost hour just running through an underground waterway. Right at the end of yesterday's session, I rescued a little girl named Rydia (the one from the village. I may or may not have inadvertently murdered her mother. Whoopsy...). At any rate, even though she's a little girl, she kicks ass. She's a summoner who can also use black and white magic. Unfortunately, I believe she's level one when you get her. It's easy enough to level her though. Also, at the beginning of this cave, I found an old sage named Tellah. He's an old man with big glasses and crazy white hair. I love his look. He also uses black and white magic, but he's much stronger than Rydia (considering he's level 20 when you find him, makes sense). They can be very strong using their magic, but their MP gets depleted pretty quickly. And with few ethers, it kind of puts me in a crappy spot. Do I use their magic and wreck everyone, or not use it, conserve it, and essentially have them be useless in combat? I do a little of both. Once I get the chance, I will need to keep a health amount of ethers on hand. A few miscellaneous though:

• This session wasn't nearly as story intensive as yesterday. It was almost all just running though this dumb cave. 
• Still LOTS of random encounters. Breath of Fire level!
• I like the animation on all the magic so far

BOSS: 

    Actually, no bosses today. I know I'm very close to one, though. And, according to the characters, he's got eight tentacles to boot!

----------------------------------------------------------

DAY 3 (12/10/14. PLAY TIME: 1:41 TO 2:27)

    Okay, big day today. It was the exact opposite of yesterday, really. In less than an hour, I fought two bosses and saw an entire castle full of people get massacred. Lots of story going on, so let's go over it: I started from the undergound cave and almost immediately fought the boss here: the octomammoth. I killed him easily enough and made my way to Damcyan, which appears to just be a castle. Even though it looks like a town from the world map, all you can go into is a castle. The king and his Red Wings (some specialized military unit, of which Cecil used to be a part) bomb the castle and steal another crystal. You get to witness the destruction. Tellah's daughter, Anna, is killed. She was there with her boyfriend/fiancee Edward, who happens to be a prince. Tellah disapproved of his daughter running away with a bard (they didn't know he was a prince). Tellah leaves in a rage, to find the new leader of the Red Wings. He leaves your party. But don't worry, because Prince Edward joins! He sucks. Hugely. Where Rydia and Tellah had magic/summons, he has...a harp? He doesn't have magic, persay, but he can "sing" during battle, which I believe deals a random status effect to an enemy. He can also "heal", which heals everyone in the party, which is nice. Too bad it's only for 14-16 HP. When Cecil has 300+, this is not at all helpful. Finally, he can "hide". Yup, he runs off the screen. I assume he can't be attacked during this. He also can't do anything else. He's completley worthless so far. 
    Anyway, after this happens, you go (on a hovercraft!) and find the antlion cave. It holds the sand ruby, which you need to cure your good friend (girlfriend?) Rosa of desert fever. You get to the end, kill a goofy-looking antlion, get the sand ruby, and leave the cave. That's where I shut it off. Phew! This session had lots of fighting and lots of story. Overall, it was great. While I didn't get much insight into what the hell the deal with the king is, there's a possible new foil in Golbez, who is the new leader of the Red Wings. Hopefully the next session is as intense as this one. So, notes, shall we?

• kind of disappointing that there are two cave-type dungeons in a row. They are aestethically basically exactly the same. At least the antlion cave is short
• As I said, Edward sucks. What a garbage character
• So far, it's been more of the same: random encounter heaped onto random encounter. Still very enjoyable though

BOSS:

Octomammoth:

Look at this psychotic bastard!

    He's pretty easy, even though he kind of looks intimidating. It seems magic doesn't hurt him (mine only did one damage), but summons, and espeically physical attacks, do. In fact, Cecil's physical attacks were much more powerful than normal. At any rate, Tellah is relegated to a healer/buffer in this battle. My strategy was to whale on him with Cecil, have Rydia summon Chocobo, and have Tellah heal or use blink when necessary (I believe blink makes it harder for enemies to hit you. This is great to use for Rydia and Tellah, because Octo here does decent damage to them. When blink is active, he usually misses). With this strategy, I was able to fairly easily overcome this many-armed goofball. 




Antlion: 

Speaking of goofballs...

    He looks less like a menacing foe and more like someone swiped the rest of his drugs, and he's not handling it well. But, he's also pretty easy. You no longer have Tellah, so his strong black magic (or even his white magic if you wanna use it) is gone. No matter though. I used a similar strategy to Octomammoth: physical attacks with Cecil, Chocobo with Rydia, and basically just let Edward sit, useless as a sack of trash. I ended up using his "heal", because while it sucks for Cecil, Edward has so little HP that 16 is a decent amount for him (even for Rydia, although she's right on the cusp of not benefiting from it anymore). That's all I did until he was dead. Again, pretty simple. I love his look though. I mean, just look at that bastard!





    Okay, folks, that's all for this week! In general, I'd like to get 3-5 sessions in a week. This week was only three. I plan on blogging hard next week, so it might be a little light. Don't worry, I'll be playing almost every day anyway, so the blog posts won't be far behind! Thanks for reading, and hopefully you enjoyed this little slice into Final Fantasy IV Advance.

Simpsons Season 26 Review: Super Franchise Me

Super Lame Me!

 "Super Franchise Me"

    This episode. *deep exhale*. What a letdown this episode is, after the relatively great (compared to the other two episodes I’ve watched thus far) “Wreck of the Relationship”. The story is actually kinda decent, but man, it’s just not funny. There were two things I really took away from this episode, and unfortunately, I feel they are two issues that plague these newer episodes of The Simpsons: firstly, side characters. This show, besides having amazing main characters and great-to-amazing secondary characters, there are also the side characters. People that will show up, sometimes for only one joke, for ten seconds for one episode, and it’s hilarious. There are three old-time side characters in this episode, and I think they are all godawful this time around. Of course, I’m talking about professor Frink, Gus, and Cletus. Thinking back to the “golden era”, these characters could pop up, like I said, for maybe one singular joke in an episode, and it would be very funny. I don’t mind giving maybe a tiny bit more time to these characters for episodes, but giving them more than one minute of screen time is too much. And now, some 20+ years after these characters were first introduced, they have been pushed to their obnoxious, exaggerated extremes. Gus is a one-joke pony: he’s a pathetic loser who can’t hold a job. It’s funny for a few throwaway jokes. Not funny for even a few minutes of screen time, having him work with Marge at her sandwich shop. Now, Cletus, the once-great send-up of extreme hillbillies, is just very, very annoying. I find him unbelievably grating. Finally, we have Frink. Firstly, why does he need a job at a sandwich shop? But that’s not my problem. My problem is the reliance on him just making those stupid noises after he talks. Hell, he’s only in this episode briefly, and the joke is specifically about him not being able to talk normally. It just isn’t funny anymore. And they take it way too far. Whereas in the better episodes, he might have mumbled on with his weird noises for one or two seconds. Now, it’s like four or five. I say: boo! Finally, this isn’t a problem that is relegated to side characters. Main characters, like Moe and chief Wiggum, are specters of their former hilarious selves.

     Secondly (boy, that was a long paragraph), I feel like they really just extend jokes/gags waaaay too far. There’s a part where Homer continually feeds Santa’s Little Helper bread crust. It’s not funny. And as it goes on, it’s even less funny. Makes me think of Family Guy (yikes!). There’s a part where Homer reminisces about a time he drank free-refill fountain soda. He just drinks and drinks. Where it was once funny when Homer just ate an endless mound of brownies that George Harrison pointed out to him is funny, this is just annoying. “Annoying” is a word I’ve already used twice (minus this time). I bet I’ll use it a few more. This episode really just bugged me. There’s even a gag about Mr. Burns being attracted to a cardboard standee of a motherly sandwich person. It’s not a long joke, but they go back to it at the end of the episode, and it’s probably less funny than the first time. Besides all this crap, this episode was just not that funny. I feel like I’m really eviscerating this episode, and I don’t think I was this critical of the Krusty premiere. I would say this episode is a smidge worse, but they are both pretty sub-par. I guess I got a little excited about that damn boat episode. Oh well, if nothing else, I know the “Treehouse of Horror” episode this year is at least 2/3 good.

    This episode has Ned realizing Homer has been stealing his electricity. He’s using Ned’s power to keep a large freezer (which he also stole from Ned) in his garage that is host to a large amount of meat. When Ned pulls the plug (both figuratively and literally), to avoid the spoiling of all the meat, Marge cooks and it all and makes sandwiches with it. Once those sandwiches become a hit at the school, Marge is offered an opportunity to open a Subway-style sandwich shop. The rest of the episode is just the hijinks and shenanigans of the Simpsons family trying to manage the shop. Once it gets successful, an “Express” variation of the same sandwich chain opens across the street. At the end, everything remains status-quo, as it always does in the Simpsons’ universe. Again, the story was okay, with no real B-story. But, this being a mostly Marge-centric episode, it was pretty weak. So far, through three episodes, we’ve had them center on Krusty/his dad, Bart/Homer, and Marge. Take a guess which one was the best, and which too were not that great? Let’s place the focus on FUNNY characters!

    Now is the time I talk about the couch gag. Fortunately, it’s the shortest one yet. Unfortunately, it is dumb and stupid. It’s just a strange song played over scenes in Springfield of various residents doing things, all in a watercolor-esque painted style. I’m sure this is a reference I’m not getting, but I’m not compelled enough to even check.

    Overall, this episode was not good. It had some good sight gags that made me chuckle, and exactly one quote I thought worthy to write down. Even this isn’t anything amazing. Oh well though. There are what, 19 more episodes in season 26? I’m going to remain very cautiously optimistic. But I'm still giving this episode a big ol' fat...

4/10

Let’s check out the all-knowing and omnipresent bullet point list:

• Ned has a VCR rewinder [important note: we actually owned one of these as well. What the FUCK was the purpose?]. He also has a DVD rewinder
• Ned's freezer that Homer stole is a "Freezerino". Made in Okily, Dokahama, Japan. Maybe the funniest gag of the whole episode
• During a short montage, Homer reads both "Time Passers" and "Can't Focus" magazines
• It seems there was an abundance of short flashbacks or thought bubbles. They all suck
• It's good to see that, after 26 years, they still take jabs at Fox
• My other favorite sight gag was Marge putting up a "first dollar earned". It's a dollar bill in a very nice frame. It pans out, and she has eleven one dollar bills hung up in a similar fashion. First through eleventh dollar earned
• Marge's voice really annoys me in this episode. She is very nervous/anxious/sad in this episode, and her voice, because of all that emotion, really just bothers me
• Homer's pants fall around his ankles. Marge then proclaims she's going to Moe's. Homer gasps very deeply, and his pants come back up from around his ankles to his waist. I greatly enjoyed this
• The prehistoric sandwich bit at the very end is sort of amusing
• The only quote I liked this week:
• Ned (inspecting his power usage): "Why, that's a higher power than even I believe in!"

Probably the funniest joke in the episode

    There you have it. A very disappointing episode in an overall disappointing (young) season of The Simpsons. Tune in soon for the next one! Thanks for reading

Shane Remembers... (12/5/2014)

Happy birthday, ya old bastard!   

    Since the Playstation just turned 20, I'd thought I would celebrate by showcasing a random assortment of PS1 games I loved as a kid. The well of memories for my "Shane Remembers..." posts is starting to run dry (don't cry, though. It'll be okay). I suppose a guy with an AWFUL memory wiring specifically about stuff he remembers from 10-20 years ago was not my best idea. I'm cheating a little bit this week with at least one game that's on my official backlog. I still have enough content for at least three weeks, and I'm hoping to wrack my brain for more relevant stuff. Once I finally run out of stuff to remember, I'll think about altering what this weekly post is all about. But, we'll burn that bridge when we get there (then forgot that we got there and burned a bridge. As long as I don't have to write about it years in the future, I'll be good) 

Picture courtesy of retroboyadvance

MEDAL OF HONOR (PS1)

    I'm not, nor have I ever been a huge fan of first person shooters. But if there's one thing I dislike more than first person shooters, it's war games (or war movies. Or war TV shows. Or war books. War in general I find awfully icky). However, I LOVE this game (and most of the pre-PS3 ones). This very well may have been the first FPS I ever played. Back before they were all about jacking off all over your Internet friends while you mindlessly shoot people for an accumulative 555 hours without any kind of story. Ahem. Anyway, there was something very satisfying about killing Nazis. It wasn't gorey, but it still made you feel all patriotic inside. I especially LOVED those missions where you had to sneak around, disguised in German clothes. One suspicious move and your were toast. And you always needed your papers. God, I want to play this game right now. Throw Battlefield 4 out the window and track down a copy of the original Medal Of Honor, ya meatheads! 

Picture courtesy of emuparadise

 ARMY MEN 3D (PS1)

    Boy, for someone that just spent time complaining about hating war, I probably shouldn't have started off with two war-centric games. Anyway, this game is much less realistic and not at all serious like Medal Of Honor. You play as green army men, and you gotta take out the tan ones. I don't have the vivid memories of this one like I do with MoH, but I put many fun hours into this game. It had a fun story, but I'm pretty sure I was quite partial to the two-player death match sort of mode. It wasn't a traditional death match, and instead may have been a capture-the-flag deal, but I honestly don't remember. What I do remember is a bedroom-type level, and that was a favorite to play in. There were several sequels after this, but I'm not sure I played more than one or two of them. This one, and probably the immediate sequel, still stand out as fun games to me. 

Picture courtesy of gamefaqs

EXCALIBUR 2555 A.D. (PS1)

    This is a game that, as time goes on, I'm becoming more and more convinced only my dad and I have ever really played it. And for good reason. Let me take you back to the glory days of the Playstation. As I've expunged on before, we (basically) didn't have the internet. Again, this was probably 1996/1997. My dad would make it a habit to go to Toys 'R Us, once a week it seemed, and just buy a random PS1 game. Was it gonna be good? Was it gonna be horrendous? We couldn't know until it was purchased, brought home, and played. That's how I was exposed to games like this one, One, Nightmare Creatures, and Overblood (coming up soon!). This game stars a descendant of Merlin, I think. I give this game props for having a female (I think she's supposed to be a teenager too) lead. Even nowadays, it's pretty rare. Anywho, you go through thirteen-or-fourteen stages, with the simple goal of getting to the exit. There are puzzles to figure out, things to retrieve (aren't there ever with this game), and naturally, enemies to kill. Here's how a basic level goes in this game (not specific examples, necessarily, but a general gist):

1. Talk to someone
2. They have something you need (let's say, a keycard). In order to get it, they tell you something they need (and let's say, a medical kit)
3. Wander through the level. Encounter a locked door.
4.  Meet another NPC. He has the key to that door. But he needs booze
5. Wander around. Find the booze. 
6. Bring it back to the booze-needing NPC. Trade it for the key. Go through the locked door.
7. You find cheese
8. Find another NPC. He wants you to find his pet rat
9. Find yet another NPC that is blocking a doorway. In order for him to move, you need to bribe him with something
10. You find grog. Bring it to the guy blocking the doorway.
11. He moves, and inside you find a rat-hole.
12. Place the cheese down, the rat comes out. Hopefully you found a rat cage throughout the level
13. Catch the rat, and bring it back to his owner..
14. Monotonous stuff
15. Tedious stuff
16. Backtracking stuff
17. Monotonous stuff
18. Monotonous and tedious stuff
19. Boss fight
20. Backtracking tedium makes you question your very soul's essence
21. Eventually, you get the medical kit, trade it to the guy all the way back at the beginning, and then you can leave the level with the obtained keycard.

    Okay, I've taken some exaggerated liberties in my overlong example, but this game really is one GIGANTIC fetch quest. But, it holds a strong nostalgia within my heart, so I like it. I own it, and I plan on playing through it again some time. Final fun note: even though it's on Playstation, it uses a password system!

Picture courtesy of emuparadise

 OVERBLOOD (PS1)

    Told you it was coming up soon! Again, like Excalibur above, this was a game (I originally wrote, "guy". Kinda funny?) that my dad bought on a whim. Also like Excalibur, it's pretty primitive and does not come close to standing up to the test of time. However, I still like it. It probably stirs up more good emotion in me then Excalibur does. It's essentially a sci-fi adventure game. You wake up from a cryogenic sleep with no memory. The game tasks you with figuring out what the deal is with that. It relies on puzzles mostly, and there are very few instances of action (there are probably a dozen, or less, fights in the game). Graphics are bad, voice acting is bad, controls are bad, but it's still so good. A sequel even came out, but it was never released here in the states. I need to get my hands on a copy somehow.

Picture courtesy of wikipedia

INTELLIGENT QUBE (PS1)

    Almost like the one that got away. I rented this game once, and every other time I ever played it was on a demo disc. Remember when Playstation magazines came with demo discs? God, that was the best part of getting those magazines. In retrospect, I really wish I had all my old demo discs. I played the hell out of this demo, and I thought it was an amazingly creative puzzle game. It's tough to find puzzle games I like, so this was a revelation. Of course, nowadays it's pretty pricey to find CIB (that's industry talk for "Correct Instance of Box"*). Why wouldn't it be? One day, I'll get this game complete. And I'll play it. Then I'll get frustrated because I can't beat level two. Then I'll put it away, never to be played again. Life is funny like that. Oh, what is this game about? Pushing colored blocks and making sure you don't get crushed/fall of the edge into the abyss. It definitely stares back hard in this game. Also, let me say how much I love the spelling of "cube" as "qube", making the initials of the game IQ! Genius!



    Thanks for reading another (hastily put-together) "Shane Remembers..." This one is probably my best yet, because these are all games I owned (besides the last one, of course), and I played them a lot. So I actually have some tangible memories of them, as opposed to games played for a total of 75 minutes. Check back next week for another great installment!


**Just kidding, it stands for, "Complete In Box". You're welcome

Simpsons Season 26 Review: The Wreck of the Relationship

Lemons: extra sour

"The Wreck of the Relationship"

    Here we have the second episode of season 26 of The Simpsons, entitled "Wreck of the Relationship". I'm very happy to report that I think it's a MAJOR step up from the premiere. I actually enjoyed this episode quite a bit. Now, let's not get carried away here. It was good, but it still just doesn't have what classic Simpsons used to have. This isn't a beautiful season 6 episode, let's say, but it's definitely better than at least a few season 14 episodes I can think of off the top of my head ("Barting Over" and "Dude, Where's My Ranch?" specifically come to mind). Hell, maybe more than a few. Perhaps a review of season 14 would be fun? Eh, another day, another day. We're here to talk 26. Back to this episode, its story is better than the Krusty-centric premiere (although not by much), but this episode has something the previous one didn't: honest-to-goodness laughs! Can you imagine? The main story here has Bart and Homer at their wits' end with each other, mainly due to Bart's continued disrespect of Homer. Marge, at her own wit's end with the both of them, signs them up for a week at sea, on a ship (called the Relation Ship. Har-dee-har-har) that is used to work out father/son relationship problems. Ned, Apu, and Cletus are there as well. Does Ned REALLY have problems with Rod and Todd? I didn't find myself caring (or even really believing) about the other fathers/sons on the ship. What about Milhouse and his dad? Hell, they should have let Krusty's dad live, and they could have thrown them on this boat!

Bart's on a boat motherfuckers, don't you ever forget (still relevant?)

    [note: please ignore all the damn clutter around my desk. I watched most of this episode on my lunch break, and I'm too damn lazy/busy to crop this picture correctly. One day, maybe, I'll go back and re-crop ALL my pictures. Ugh]    
    This episode is another seeming retread of old topics. Like I said in my previous post, it's probably incredibly difficult for them to come up with believable familial situations that the Simpsons as a family haven't already gone through. So while this Bart/Homer story is decent, the B-story I actually liked. The premiere's B-story was pretty shitty, but this one, about Marge controlling Homer's fantasy football team (and also being abhorred about all the trash-talking messages all the other teams send Homer), was good. I'm pretty biased towards fantasy football, so I'm not sure if this skewed my opinion at all. Still, it generated some good laughs. Overall, this episode had me chuckling throughout (still nothing laugh-out-loud funny, but we're getting a little closer I think). It's a HUGE step-up from the last episode. If the season carries on at this pace, I think I'd be pleasantly surprised, and pretty damn pleased. Not to shit on season 14, but if every episode for 26 is like this one, I'd definitely rank this newest season as better than 14. 14 rubs me the wrong way, I guess. I mean, "How I Spent My Strummer Vacation" is great, but you need to search high and low for more that are that good from that season.
    I'd like to briefly discuss the couch gag. I don't think I'm going to do this weekly (hopefully not, anyway), but this one is another long, obnoxious one. It's not as long as the bizarre premiere, but it sucks way more. It has Scratchy on the couch, about to be axed by Itchy. He's saved by the Simpsons, and then he lives at the house. He gets increasingly more aggravating to the normal residents of the household, until they just bring Itchy back, who murders Scratchy. It's long, really not that funny, and just dumb. Full disclosure: I have never really been a huge fan of the couch gags, but at least the bad ones from the "golden era" were a few seconds long. Now, the bad ones are 60+ seconds long. Ugh. 
    Anyway, in summary: slightly better story than previous episode; funny jokes that don't stretch too far (long couch gag notwithstanding); and in general, it's entertaining! I feel good giving this one a solid...

6/10

    There was more to like about this episode than the previous. Let's bullet point it:

• Perv Hunter Web Filter
• It's probably just me, but I find it so strange that Homer (and the whole family/town) uses current technology, like iPhones and Macs. We are a long way away from Homer not even knowing what the internet is. But, it makes sense really. When the Simpsons started, the internet, and home computers, basically weren't things. 
• Homer's fantasy football team name: Somewhere Over the Dwayne Bowe. Actually laughed good at this one.
• Martin beating up Nelson was sort of amusing
• The fantasy football trash-talk messages at the church was funny. Especially Lovejoy doing it too
• I really enjoyed the short montage of Bart and Homer on the boat doing various things
• Also, the over/under knot-tying conversation between Bart and the captain of the ship was great
• Great callback to the signed Tom Landry hat Homer bought waaaaay back in "You Only Move Twice". Marge wears it during her own fantasy football montage.
• There's a part towards the end when there is a big storm brewing. Homer is swabbing the deck, and a wave crashes onto the ship and he disappears with it. Another wave crashes onto the ship, and he re-appears. I really enjoyed this for some reason.
• "Disgraced Captain forced to sell accordion" - a dreamed-up newspaper headline
• Homer: "Pssh, milk! That's for babies and old guys who can't sleep at night because of what they did in the war." Great quote from Homer.
• Marge: "Homey! Homey, the fantasy draft just ended! I got you five kickers! It is called football, right?"

    Check back hopefully tomorrow or Friday for the next season 26 episode review. 

Simpsons Season 26 Review: Clown in the Dumps

"All animals can scream"

"Clown in the Dumps"

     Welcome, welcome! I'm here to talk about season 26 of The Simpsons. I am a huge Simpsons fan. Perhaps you didn't know that? Well, I've loved The Simpsons for a long time, since I was probably five-or-six years old. I would religiously watch them every Sunday night. It was the best thirty minutes of the week. As the years went on, and as I got older, I started to realize something: The Simpsons, a show which once could absolutely do no wrong, was starting to do some wrong. As the season numbers climbed, the quality fell. I watched every season in its entirety, every Sunday, until probably season 16 or 17. Since then, I've only seen a handful of new episodes from those seasons onwards. I know they haven't been great. Some I've seen have been downright BAD. It sucks when a beloved show starts to show its age. Unfortunately, they started showing their age ten years ago. However, I've decided to tune in to the newest episodes. I know I'm very late, but I'm going to do a weekly write up of the newest season of the Simpsons, its 26th. I believe I can give an interesting perspective on these episodes. So, if you're jaded on the Simpsons, but you want to know what's going on with them recently, tune back in weekly (most likely the Mondays after they air). Since I'm I think seven episodes behind, I will try to post several this week, to try to catch up. Anyway, enough jibba-jabba. Let's watch this shit (that was harsh. It's probably not shit, right? Right?)



    It seems, as the Simpsons go on and on, they feel the need to make their couch gag segments longer and longer. Not just longer, though, but more obnoxious and dumb. This episode, the premier of season 26, has an incredibly long couch gag. In fact, I timed it. From the start of the couch gag, until the opening credits (before the episode starts), is 1:43! Remember when couch gags were four-or-five seconds long? And sometimes they were creative and funny? Well, at any rate, I actually really like this opening. It is incredibly long, but it's so UNBELIEVABLY  bizarre and nonsensical, it's pretty entertaining. It's The Simpsons in the far future!




Marge Simpson!

    Let's get down to the real meat of the episode: it centers around the death of a Springfield resident. Apparently, this fact had really been played up, and a lot of hype was created in the days and weeks before the premier. Who could it be? A main character? Wouldn't that be exciting? Even an integral side character? Character deaths have worked, to varying degrees, on the show before. I was unaware of any of this hype, however. I didn't bother paying attention to season 26 until a few weeks after it started. So, who died?

... 

... 

... 

..? 

 Ugh, Krusty's dad, Hyman Krustofsky. What a huge letdown. This is a character that has only been in a few episodes, and I personally find him to be a very weak character. Hardly worthy of the hype, pre-episode.
    Okay, so a character dies. A barely-there character. How is the episode itself? Unfortunately, it's not great. The main story of Krusty grieving his father's death while also trying to figure out who he himself is, and if his father ever respected him, is DECENT at very best. It really just screams of retreading old ground. It's very hard for the Simpsons, in their 26th year, not to retread old ground, but at least do it with a better character. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Krusty. One of the show's strongest characters. However, episodes that focus on him I generally don't like. And episodes that focus on him and his father's relationship I really don't care for. Even going back to the "golden era", season three episode "Like Father, Like Clown", where Rabbi Hyman Krustofsky is introduced, is bereft of many laughs. One of my least favorites of that season. Back to the current, the main story has a little bit of heart at least. The B-story, which shows Lisa being very concerned for her own dad's health, really just sucks. There are no laughs, or real emotion, to be had.
    This is a pretty crappy premiere. I'm not sure what I really expected from this episode. Honestly, not much. I expect very little from The Simpsons these days. It's damn tragic, actually. I'm hoping maybe the upcoming episodes will be a little better than this one (I've watched two others so far. I will say the Halloween episode is actually fairly decent and creative). I mean, a bad premiere doesn't spell disaster for the entire season, does it? I personally dislike the premier to season five, "Homer's Barbershop Quartet". Perhaps one of my least favorite "golden era" episodes. [Note: I'm going to continue using quotes around the phrase "golden era", because I don't think anyone can completely agree exactly what era that was. For me, personally, I'd say seasons 3-9 are my "golden era". Seasons 1 and 2 are good, and 10 is good (11+ have good episodes as well, but that's definitely when the downturn happened), but 3-9 are basically all gold. They could do no wrong in that time.] So, with all this rambling, I'm going to summarize my feelings in a brief few words: few laughs, sub-par story, really bad B-story, lame character death. Bam, that's all you need. I'm going to actually rate these episodes, so I'm going to give it a...

4/10

    But, have no fear! All is not lost. There were actually a few good things about this episode! Here is a rundown of the random notes/quotes I wrote about this episode:

• Firstly, isn't Krusty illiterate? How does he read the teleprompter in the beginning?
• I also thought it was funny that Krusty laments that everyone thinks he's past his prime. Sure sounds an awful lot like a certain TV show past its prime in its 26th season...
• Sideshow Bob has a very brief, but good, cameo. I liked it
• I actually laughed a bit at Krusty solving the Rubik's cube in like three seconds, hoping it would occupy hours of his time
• Also, Bart trying to show Krusty every episode of his show was funny. Especially Krusty's decades-long running gag (unintentional running gag, that is) about celebrities sitting on people
• The Jewish Heaven segment is kind of clever.
• Also, Rodney Dangerfield sitting next to Jesus in the Super VIP section of Jewish Heaven was a nice touch.
• The only quote I thought was worthy of including:
• Krusty: "No no no no, I don't deserve the pre-recorded applause of children long-gone."

    I hope you've enjoyed reading about the premiere episode of the 26th season of The Simpsons. Hopefully we can have some fun this year. That's a big HOPEFULLY, unfortunately, but what the hell, I'll give them one more benefit of the doubt!

The sign reads, "The Whole Store Is a Complaint Department"

Shane Remembers... (11/28/2014)

Mostly Bugs Bunny!

Picture courtesy of emuparadise

BUGS BUNNY: LOST IN TIME (PS1)

    Hey, another game I used to always rent as a kid! Noticing a theme, here? My sister and I really enjoyed this game. In fact, I've been wanting to buy it recently, but I'm pretty sure, for a complete copy, it's pretty expensive. At any rate, even though the graphics aren't great, and I'm sure the gameplay doesn't hold up anymore (even back then I remember being irritated by the semi-crappy controls), it's still holds a special place in my heart. It had a large varieties of levels and environments, and there was a lot of stuff to try and find per level. Not the best game, but you could find way worse.

Picture courtesy of wikia

BUGS BUNNY: RABBIT RAMPAGE (SNES)

    See my opening sentence for the game above. I've been wanting to play this recently as well. Luckily, cart only this game is dirt cheap. I remember it being pretty hard too. It's a simple platformer with all the Looney Tunes characters. The graphics were pretty good. I don't think I ever made it very far in the game, but I always remember the snowy opening level. And when you boot the game up, Marvin the Martian says, "Boom" in his dumb voice. There is also the saloon level, which maybe was the level following the snow one. Again, I don't know how good this game is now, but it's still probably decent.

Picture courtesy of wikipedia

BUGS BUNNY: BIRTHDAY BLOWOUT (NES)

    A rare NES game I actually remember playing the hell out of. I wonder if we owned this at one time, or I just rented it several times? I honestly don't remember much from it. You control Bugs, and you run through levels, and you...jump? Sure, why wouldn't Bugs jump? Why the hell did I play so many Bugs Bunny games? I don't ever remember being a huge Looney Tunes fan. But I did have a Bugs Bunny stuffed animal, so maybe I just really liked him? At any rate, I wouldn't mind playing this again, just for nostalgia's sake. 

Picture courtesy of wikipedia

TOY STORY (SNES)

    Okay, I don't think I can talk about any more Bugs Bunny games. But, staying on the cartoon theme, Toy Story is a movie I hold very near-and-dear to my heart. It came out nineteen years ago, so I was eight when it came out. I remember the game being tough. What licensed SNES game wasn't? I don't remember much beyond Woody being the main character. There are side-scrolling sections, and there is at least one section (maybe more?) where you have to drive the RC car around. I remember this being frustrating as hell. The graphics were good too.

Picture courtesy of gameoldies

SKULLMONKEYS (PS1)

    This is a bizarre game. VERY bizarre. It's a platformer that uses a claymation style animation throughout, and it really looks great. It's full of weird enemies and bosses. It really has to be played to understand how crazy it is. Check out a playthrough on Youtube or something! As is common for platformers, there's lots of stuff to collect, and lots of jumps to make. I'm pretty sure this game is pretty tough too. You guys love my descriptions of these games? My memory is so bad. Why did I decide this weekly post would be a good idea? Anyway, my copy doesn't fully work. It gets to a certain point in the game, probably half way through, and freezes. It's pretty disappointing, because I'd love to play this to completion. Anyway, if you can find a copy, get it!




    Sorry for the extreme lateness of this post. I promised last week that Thanksgiving wouldn't delay this post being put up on Friday. Eh, I was awfully wrong. Hopefully, I can still have a brand new one up on this Friday. Thanks for reading!

Songs from Frozen, RANKED

Do you want to read a list?

    This is the second of two posts about my two-year old daughter, Kara. Well, it's not about her necessarily, but it's in honor of her. Yesterday (edit: her birthday was four days ago!) was her birthday (and some dumb holiday called Thanks-something-or-other), and I put up a post about her favorite TV shows and movies. I have a follow up list today: it's all about the songs from the movie Frozen. I'm sure this hasn't been done to death, right? At any rate, this is the definite ranking of the songs from the hit movie, based on the official soundtrack. There's nine total songs, plus an (dis)honorable mention.Sorry for the lateness of this post. I really wanted to have it up Friday, but I just didn't get to it. I blame that on laziness. Also, I listened to the soundtrack for this movie at least three full times yesterday, so today I am locked in and focused. Let's skip through a magical snowy wonderland of music!

9. "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?"

    Originally, I had this one at number seven, but listening to it so many times yesterday, I can safely say this song blows, and it's the worst one featured in the movie. Luckily it's over with in the first ten minutes. It's a very overrated song, and really, it's just so damn sad. I wanna be happy watching a kids' movie, dammit! I would file this song under "annoying".

8. "Fixer Upper"

    Man, this song sucks too. The trolls are the worst part of the movie, so it's only fitting they have (almost) the worst song. As I wrote in my notes: "This song blows. Trolls blow. The end." I'll briefly expand upon those deep thoughts: the trolls are annoying and unfunny. Their voices kind of annoy me too. Nothing about these little rock bastards is any good. Especially that little girl.

7. "Reindeer(s) Are Better Than People"

    This song is pretty dumb, but it has a silly charm to it. Also, it's like fifty seconds long, so it can't be that bad, right? No trolls at least.

6. "In Summer"

    This is Olaf's big number. He's generally a pretty likeable (and actually occasionally funny) character, and this song has a few kind of funny lines (the whole theme of the song is clever too). Overall though, this one leaves me cold (HAR HAR!!!)

5.  "For the First Time in Forever (reprise)"

    This one is shorter than its counterpart, but still good. It starts off a little slow, but really swells to a great ending (great visiually during the movie too). I like the back-and-forth singing of Anna and Elsa. I wish more of the songs had that dynamic. Anyway, pretty neat song.

4. "For the First Time in Forever"

    This one is a fun song. Basically the opposite of "Do YOu Want To Build a Snowman?". Boy, what a fucking dumb downer song that is. This one here is also quite famous (for fuck's sake, they are ALL famous), but thankfully it's quite a bit more listenable (and catchy!). Has a few funny lines too, which is always a plus.

3. "Let It Go"

    This is THE song from the movie. Everyone knows it. Everyone sings it. It's definitely over-played and overrated,  but it's still plenty good. This part of the movie has some great imagery, and the lyrics to this song convey that well. Lyrically, probably the best song in the movie. Elsa has quite a voice to boot.

2. "Frozen Heart"

    While most of these songs are HELLA overrated, this one is underrated. In fact, I didn't care for this song the first 25 dozen times I saw the movie. But it really grows on you. It's short, foreboding, and interesting. It's also sneaky-catchy. I love the group grunt towards the end too: "HA!" (but not like, "ha ha, that's a funny joke"). Maybe it could be spelled, "HUH!" Anway, this song rocks the house.

1. "Love is an Open Door"

    I really like the dual-vocals in this song. This is the only song Prince Hans sings in, and maybe because if people heard his wonderful voice too much, they wouldn't believe he was such a dick. Again, like the reprise of "First Time in Forever", I really like how Anna and Hans go back and forth. This one also has good (and some funny) lyrics. All in all, I could listen to this song six or seven more times before I despise it for all eternity.




    There you have it, folks! If anyone tries to tell you that "Love is an Open Door" isn't the best song, or if they tell you "Frozen Heart" sucks, you have my permission to deliver the haymaker of all haymakers to their dumb jaws. But, as I look at this list, I feel like I'm missing something. After all, I only have nine songs listed here, but there are ten on the CD? Time for an honorable mention:

Honorable garbage mention - 10: "Let It Go" (Demi Lovato version)

    ABSOLUTELY FUCKING HORRENDOUS.


     I hope you've all enjoyed this! Again, Kara, if you read this in the future, don't mind the cursing, and thank you for allowing me to listen to these wonderful songs a total of 88,574 times in the last two months.