In class the other day, we read an article called Fandom as Pathology: The Consequences of Characterization by Joli Jenson. It’s about the stereotypes that society enforces on fans, the main one (or at least the main one I’ve had associated with me) being that they are lonely, pathetic losers who need to get a life.
As a fan of many things, you can guess that this way of thinking annoys me.
I’ve noticed that people’s views of me will change depending on what they know I’m a fan of. They’ll be a lot more impressed when I tell them that I like reading or that I play violin than they will be if I tell them I like video games. Apparently, liking literature and classical music makes me smart, refined, and mature. Liking video games makes me lazy, stupid, immature and, ultimately, a loser.
You know, video games aren’t as mindless as a lot of people think they are. Gamers know what they’re doing. There’s a lot of thought and strategy that goes in to becoming good at a game.
Point is, people tend to assign different traits to different fandoms. Like Pokemon? You need to grow up. Like Star Wars? Good luck getting laid.
I don’t get this. Why do the things you’re a fan of change the way people see you? Why can’t somebody who likes video games be as intelligent as someone who likes classical music? Why do people think that someone who likes Star Wars has no social life?
Look, I make tons of jokes about what a huge nerd/geek/loser I am and about how I don’t have a life. I’ve already made quite a few in past blog posts and I’ll probably make more in the future. However, these are, you know, jokes. I decided that instead of getting annoyed when other people call me a nerd and tell me to get a life, I should turn it into a joke. Laugh about it. I don’t actually think that all fans are people who don’t have lives, and I don’t think that about myself, either. I have friends and a social life outside of the fandoms I’m part of. And honestly, I never even considered myself a geek until other people started telling me I was one.
The stereotypes you get also depend on your gender. People seem to associate male fans with being more calm. Still losers, but much more rational than female fans, who people associate with hysteria and overly-emotional reactions.
I am female. I am passionate about the things I’m a fan of and I won’t say that I haven’t gotten a little… intense about them, but it’s not fair to assign this stereotype to only girls. I’ve seen plenty of male fans who have gotten as intensely passionate as I and other female fans have, if not more so.
In short, I think stereotyping fans like this is stupid. I see no difference between a female fan and a male fan, or between a fan of opera and a fan a fan of World of Warcraft. Fandoms are simply for fun, there’s nothing unhealthy about them.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to play some video games.
This entry isn’t for class, this is one I decided to do because I got Soul Calibur 5 the other day and I have a few things I want to get off my chest. It’s pointless and most people probably aren’t interested in hearing my far-from-expert opinion, but this is my blog and I’LL DO WHAT I WANT. That was a South Park reference, in case y’all didn’t get that.
Also, I’m going to assume anyone reading this has played the previous Soul Calibur games before and knows exactly what I’m talking about.
So, let’s start with the good, shall we?
Soul Calibur 5 has INCREDIBLE music. For most people, I’m sure music in a video game doesn’t really matter, but to me it matters a lot, probably because I’m a musician who grew up with a bunch of other musicians. Anyway, Soul Calibur games have always had amazing music, most likely the best game music I’ve ever heard, but this game really took it to another level. It might even be better than Soul Calibur 3’s music (which was jizztastic). I also liked that each character once again had their own theme music and stage, something that Soul Calibur 4 didn’t have.
The gameplay is also an improvement. The gameplay in SC4 was too slow for my taste. SC5 brought it back to the speed that previous games had. And they added some flashy new moves called “Critical Edges” (I guess they aren’t exactly “new” since Soul Blade and SC4 had stuff similar to that, but whatever). Basically, you have a gauge/super meter/whatever that fills up as you fight. You can use up your entire gauge on a Critical Edge, or use use up some of it for a Guard Impact or a “Brave Edge”, which adds a little extra punch to regular moves. I’m still trying to figure out how to really utilize Critical and Brave Edges effectively; it’s harder than you’d think.
Some people might be upset to learn that the amount of times you can Guard Impact are now limited thanks to the new gauge, but since I’m terrible when it comes to defense in fighting games (or any game, honestly) and can’t Guard Impact to save my life anyway, I wasn’t that bothered.
Now, on to the characters.
Z.W.E.I and Viola are different, to say the least. At first I wasn’t sure if they fit in Soul Calibur, but I actually like them. Particularly Z.W.E.I. They’re challenging and fun to use, definitely great additions to the cast.
I was disappointed to find out that three of my favorite characters, Taki, Seong Mi-na and Xianghua, wouldn’t be returning in Soul Calibur 5. Instead, we have Natsu, Taki’s apprentice, and Leixia, Xianghua’s daughter. Apparently Seong Mi-na isn’t good enough for a replacement (Xiba uses a staff, but his style is more like Kilik’s).
I ended up liking Natsu and Leixia more than I thought I would. Many of their moves are similar to Taki and Xianghua, but there are enough differences in their styles to make the new characters stand out. Although I still prefer Taki and Xianghua, and Natsu’s personality annoys me a little. She’s too… American for a ninja. Oh well, I guess I’ll get used to her. Or, if I can’t get used to her personality, I’ll just use the Custom Character I made with her style. I tried to make Tex from Red vs Blue… you can guess how well that turned out. Next I might try and make Sub-Zero from Mortal Kombat or Katniss from The Hunger Games. Can’t wait to see how much I fail at those!
Right, getting off topic. Again.
Soul Calibur 5 has two new protagonists: Patroklos and Pyrrha, Sophitia’s children. Sword-and-shield characters have never really been my thing. Personally, I find them a little boring to use. If you liked Sophitia and Cassandra, you’ll probably like Pyrrha and Patroklos. As far as their personalities go, Pyrrha is pretty cute, in a pitiful way. Patroklos is… well, I’ll get to him later.
There’s also Alpha Patroklos and Omega Pyrrha, which is basically them when they’re in posession of Soul Calibur and Soul Edge respectively. Omega Pyrrha fights pretty much the same way as regular Pyrrha, with just a few different moves. Alpha Patroklos fights like Setsuka… which makes absolutely no sense to me.
Can I just say that thanks to Red vs Blue, I can’t take the words “Alpha” and “Omega” seriously? Whenever I see Omega Pyrrha I can’t help but smile because I keep imagining what she would be like posessed by O’Malley. Clearly I need a life.
Since I brought it up before, I should probably talk about Character Creation. It’s pretty awesome, they added a lot of new features to it. Um, yeah, that’s pretty much all I have to say about Character Creation.
The graphics, as you’d expect in Soul Calibur, are superb. The stages look gorgeous, the characters are lovingly detailed (although I could do without the dead lynx on Patroklos’ shoulders) and their movements are fluid and beautiful. I felt the graphics were worth mentioning, but honestly, graphics don’t matter to me. I mean, I can appreciate nice graphics when I see them, but it won’t have an effect on how much I like the game. I’ve always thought that judging a game for its graphics is like watching porn for the storyline. Um, not that I watch porn or anything.
This is a long post, isn’t it? And so far, most of the things I’ve said have either been positive or completely off topic. There’s just one thing I need to complain about now, and it’ll probably be even longer. What do I want to complain about, you ask? The Story Mode. If you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t read this next part.
Okay, first, watch this trailer if you haven’t done so already:
Looks pretty cool, right? Cheesy, but entertaining, like most video game stories.
Well, turns out Story Mode was a let down. Where should I begin?
First of all, it’s only about two hours long. Tops. People who don’t play video games probably wouldn’t see anything wrong with this length, but for a gamer, a two hour story is short. Too short. A game’s story should be at least five hours long. Plus, only a handful of cut scenes were animated. The rest were storyboard sketches with dialogue over them. Seriously, Namco? Your game has amazing graphics. Why not put them to good use?
Wanna know how many characters you get to use in Story Mode? Three. Most of the time you’re using either Patroklos or Pyrrha, and once or twice you use Z.W.E.I. That’s it.Voldo and Astaroth are in the story for about thirty seconds total, not counting when you fight them. Viola has maybe four lines of dialogue. Nightmare appears randomly at one point and disappears just as randomly. Natsu, Leixia, Xiba and Maxi are in the story for a little bit and then, like Nightmare, randomly disappear. Ivy and Siegfried both have a small part in the story. Tira has a fairly big role in the story (which I was glad about, as she’s my favorite character) but she randomly disappears near the end and no explanation is given for what the hell happened to her. Most characters don’t appear in story mode at all. Hilde? Yoshimitsu? Raphael? Mitsurugi? Nope, not in the story.
I know that Patroklos and Pyrrha are supposed to be the main characters, but I thought we’d get to see a little bit of everyone in the story. I thought it would be like the story in the last Mortal Kombat game (which I think set a pretty high bar for fighting game story modes). Yes, Raiden was the main character, but lots of other characters were playable in it and they all got a little story or their own. Is it too much to ask that Soul Calibur have a story mode like that?
What was the point of introducing two mysterious, intriguing characters like Viola and Z.W.E.I and then not giving them any development? Yes, we got to play as Z.W.E.I a couple of times and he was in some cut scenes, but in the end, I knew nothing about him except that he’s got a rather snarky personality. What’s his story? Where’d the wolf demon thing of his come from? How does he control it? Will I have to Google him to find out?
Viola… I had so many suspicions about her, and I wanted to see if I was right. But I guess I’ll never know how she got that orb and how it works, or if she really is Amy with amnesia. And what the hell is with her dialogue? It’s all stupid stuff about the difference between night and day and stars shining and destiny and all the crap. She talks like a song from The Lion king. Ugh.
Patroklos is a bland and annoying protagonist. There, I said it. There’s nothing gripping about his personality at all. I like Pyrrha, but I’m not crazy about her. She spends most of story mode being Tira’s bitch anyway. And as I’ve already stated, I find sword-and-shield characters boring, and the fact that I had to play as one of them throughout almost all of story mode was pretty irritating for me.
I think Siegfried was a much better protagonist. I like him. Why can’t he be the protagonist again? Sure, he was really emo, but he had a far more interesting story and character than either Partoklos or Pyrrha. And even at forty years old, he’s hotter than Patroklos ever will be…. What? Girls can find video game characters attractive too.
I wanted other characters to have a bigger part in the story. I wanted to know more about Natsu, Leixia, and Xiba. I wanted to know what older characters like Yoshimitsu, Raphael, Hilde and Maxi have been up to in the 17 year gap between SC4 and SC5. Story Mode failed to deliver that. And there aren’t even endings after arcade mode or character profiles, so I don’t even get that to satisfy me (that’s what she said).
Plus, the story was pretty bad anyway. Maybe I’m only saying this because I didn’t care about either of the protagonists much, which made it harder to get into, but it wasn’t even good in a cheesy-but-entertaining way like most video games. It was just… cheesy. Cheesy and overly dramatic and stupid. The only good thing about story mode was Tira. That psycho can make anything good.
So, I guess this is all I have to say. Besides the awful Story Mode, it’s a good game. Great gameplay, fantastic music and, outside Story Mode, the dialogue is quite good (I like how characters actually say stuff after being Ring Outed now, it makes me laugh). If you’re a Soul Calibur fan, I would say try this game out. If you’re not a Soul Calibur fan, I’m not sure why you read my entire post.
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