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Mario & FFVIII & Sora AI

9 months ago1,922 words

Some rather brief (ha) thoughts about Super Mario Bros. Wonder, the Super Mario RPG Remake, Final Fantasy VIII, and a new video-generating AI called Sora. Those things are all related, right??

I didn't have the Counselling class this week due to half term, though next week I'll have both that and an anxiety help group thing on the same day, which should be interesting.

I've been working a lot on Dreamons, hoping to get to a point where I can write a long post about the current state of it and what it even is at all, ideally including some short gameplay demo like I've posted previously (the last one was 9 months ago apparently??). I was hoping to use this week to do that, but...

I'm currently working on some features that are half-finished, so I'd prefer to finish those first. And there are some other things I've been meaning to write about for a while, so I want to use this post as a dumping ground for those unrelated thoughts so I can get them out of my head.



I recently played a couple of Switch Mario games: Wonder and the RPG Remake.



I got Wonder because I don't think I've actually played one of the 2D Mario games since World back on the SNES (which I loved and which inspired me enormously), and people seemed to be raving about it as if it was the greatest 2D Mario by far or something. A few years ago, I played Odyssey as my first 3D Mario game since a DS port of Mario 64 many years earlier, and had a great time with it, so I wondered whether this might be similar.

I enjoyed it well enough, but it didn't make all that much of an impact on me, unlike Odyssey. I think it's largely about timing though; I played Odyssey while recovering from brain surgery, ages ago, and regard it with fuzzy nostalgia now. Maybe I'll feel the same looking back on Wonder in the future.




The only thing I really wanted to even comment on was how I love the Mario games' abstract-ish approach to environments. I adore the geometric patterns and bold colours on these rocks, for example. They're not remotely realistic, but - to me at least - they're better than realistic, and I find them inspiring. I spent much of my playthrough ogling the environment!



I also played the Mario RPG remake, which is what I meant to buy first but curiosity about the Wonder hype led to a last-minute rethink.




I first played Mario RPG via emulator in either my teens or early twenties, though I don't remember it standing out in my mind like the Final Fantasy games did, for whatever reason. It had such a feeble impact on my mind that much of this one was completely unfamiliar to me... though I suspect it would have been very different if I'd played it many times as a child.

I felt much the same about this remake, really. A sort of 'eh' response. I didn't not enjoy it, but nor do I plan to adorn my walls with enormous posters of the game's cast and scenes that I'll weepingly wank to every night.

Something I've been thinking about a lot while working on Dreamons is what makes a turn-based JRPG battle fun or not, so I was paying attention to that. The battles in this were just a case of pressing Attack over and over, and they had a timing-based potential damage boost not unlike MARDEK's (I think I played the original just before MARDEK, so it wouldn't surprise me if it was a direct inspiration). While you had other skills, the MP equivalent (flowers) were shared between the party and in short supply, and the skills were barely more powerful than regular attacks, so they never felt worth using.

I remember this just-use-Attack 'strategy' being the case with most JRPGs back in the day, and it's something I've been trying to avoid in my recent games, especially Dreamons. Whether or not I've been successful will be determined by others, though.



I quite liked that the areas were made up of dioramas floating in a void, even external ones (though I couldn't find any screenshots showing those with edges), as it's something I've been doing in Dreamons. I never liked the isometric angle though, especially with jumping involved.



I finished both of those a few weeks ago (and meant to write about them back then but the Counselling course distracted me), and since then I've been playing the (barely) Remastered version of Final Fantasy VIII!




Final Fantasies VII, VIII, and IX were huge and important parts of my childhood, and I've been meaning to revisit them as an adult for ages. I replayed VII and its remake... recently? (I have ∞ a post about FFVII from 2 years ago ∞, but can't remember when I played the Remake. Feels like last year though?) I wanted to play VIII next, but took forever to get around to it due to something like fear about it not being as good as I remembered and spoiling the fond memories I had of it.

(I didn't even know there was a remastered version, and only found out when looking to see whether I could buy a port on Steam. It's about as much of a 'remaster' as the billion re-releases of the 2D Final Fantasies, though; only minor things like texture quality seem to be different. I find it... interesting seeing very-low-poly models with fittingly clunky animations but oddly high-resolution textures.)




Once I got back into it, though, I was surprised by how familiar so much of it is for me. For whatever reason, I think I played VIII the most as a child, though I also wouldn't say it was my favourite exactly. I think I just replayed the earlier bits over and over, and must have got to the end only once or twice. I used to do that with games a lot back then, and I miss it. Now they almost feel like some chore to get out of the way as quickly as possible so then I can move onto the next one in the ever-growing pile.




The feeling of being immersed in the game's world still intrigued me this time around. Little things like being told I've got time off my student duties until a dungeon-romp exam later - during which I could run around some quaint seaside village - awoke some dormant fascination in me; I think this game was probably the first time I encountered fantasy-fied school life, maybe. And as I was in school at the time, of course I dreamed of how I might go and battle my way through dungeons with swords and sorcery instead of doing dreary maths lessons or whatever.



I loved the card game, Triple Triad, as a child, to the point where I'd design my own cards in Paint and print them out. Maybe I still have those in some box somewhere, unseen for decades... I expected to be less intrigued by it this time around, but surprisingly still found it compelling. Though the most frustrating parts of this run have been trying to win rare cards despite obnoxiously brutal regional rules that the AI opponents are able to take perfect advantage of. I love how you can challenge NPCs to card games at completely inappropriate times, like in the middle of a dramatic crisis situation, or meeting up with a character you've spent half the game pursuing and the first thing you do is challenge her to a card game! Completely absurd, in a good way.

I love the monster designs too; they're all rather inventive - far moreso than 'Lava Goblin' and 'Orc Chieftain' or whatever - with a consistent design style, and there are very few palette swaps, due to the levelling-up-with-the-player mechanics.




I think FFVIII tends to be not-well-regarded, in large part due to quirks of the battle system maybe? But I've always avoided hearing what the community thinks of these experiences I hold so dear because I don't want them spoiled by others' dissatisfaction. Personally I prefer the battle system over VII's due to a greater number of options beyond just spamming Attack, though the main thoughts I have during combat are about how I might enhance my stats later with drawn magic, and nothing's felt like an actual threat. I suppose it all appeals more to the desire to collect than the desire to overcome a challenge.

Anyway, I could write a whole post about just that game, though I'd prefer to keep most of my thoughts about it to myself since the memories I have of it are so dear to me. I've been enjoying replaying it again since probably my childhood, and I feel I've been in a better state of mind recently because of it (though it might also be that other factors have left me in a better state of mind, and because of that I'm enjoying it).



I imagine most people reading this will have already seen the annoucement of the new video AI thing which is for some reason called the same thing as Kingdom Hearts' protagonist? If not, here's a short video:



I have such mixed feelings about AI these days. I'm amazed by the technology, but I can empathise with the artists who abhor it as it's likely to render much of their skillset obsolete. I definitely feel that whatever it is I even do these days is threatened by what this will soon become.

(I regard things like this as stepping stones rather than final products; in a year, it's going to be even more phenomenal than it already is, then what about in two years? Ten?)

Not really worth a separate post about, though. Bleh.



I've been very scattered for the past few weeks, no real regular routine, though hopefully I'm moving past that now that getting out of the house isn't such an unfamiliar experience? So hopefully I'll be able to get back on track with finishing and posting creative stuff soon!