Quickfire Cleanup

The following is a series of short thoughts about a bunch of shows that I didn't have enough to say about to justify a full entry on the blog. As the percentage of free time I spend on anime increases but my free time decreases, this might be a recurring series. Note that very few of the scores I give are below 5, with most of them being higher than 7. This is because I'm only reviewing shows I completed. I drop stuff that doesn't hook me pretty quickly.

Ace Attorney
An adaptation of one of the greatest series of games. Starts off completely terrible, adapting the material way too faithfully to work as a show and with some shoddy art and animation, but picks up once we get into Justice For All, getting bolder with major changes to make the material work better in show form. Inferior in every way to the games aside from the fact that Turnabout Big Top is a lot better here (mostly because it's an awful case in the game). Overall, acceptable but unremarkable adaptation of remarkable material. 5/10 

Bakemonogatari
Weird as fuck. It took me a while to get invested in the characters and story, but physically watching this thing kept me hooked long enough that it eventually happened, and once it did I really loved it. Fantastically directed: makes the 90% of its running time that consists of characters standing somewhere and talking super engaging and exciting through visual style and framing alone. 8/10

Food Wars
Stupid, stupid fun. Nails the "non battle battle" shounen style. Consistently high production values as would be expected from J.C. Staff. Enough engaging and endearing characters to keep me hooked the entire way through. Vapid and substanceless, but enough fun that I really didn't care. 8/10

Girlish Number
I love seeing this thing take down the anime industry. Unfortunately it relies too much on the strength of its main character, who isn't really all that interesting or likeable. Its strong satire of the industry carries it a long way, but it's still brought down by a relatively bland cast of characters with the exception of the producer. 6/10

Haikyuu!!
Fantastic sports show. Led by a cast of likeable underdog protagonists, with the "non battle battle" shounen style polished to an absolute shining sheen. My favorite sports story, though I really haven't seen that many of them. Drags a tiny bit in mid-season 2, but the first and third seasons are phenomenal. 9/10 

Hibike! Euphonium
Conflicted on this one. Loved it upon watching it, but my opinion of it has steadily dropped since. Needs a rewatch, but my initial impression was incredibly positive, so I ranked it accordingly. 8/10

Konosuba
Everyone knows this thing is hilarious. I thought Season 1 was a bit overrated, but really loved Season 2. 8/10

Keijo!!!!!!!!
Fuck those exclamation marks. The concept (girls must compete in wrestling matches using only their breasts and butts) seems degrading, but it actually treats its characters with surprising respect. Fairly bland cast with a couple exceptions. Fantastic animation makes it worth a watch unless you're averse to fanservice. 6/10

Mahou Shoujo? Naria Girls
One of those "voice actresses doing improv and then we animate some CG" shows. Painfully unfunny, terrible audio quality, CG models look terrible. Slight redemption in that there's some OK concept art here and there. Only finished it because it's super brief, at 12 episodes that are 8 minutes each. LATER EDIT: Space Patrol Luluco is even briefer and is brilliant, which makes me like this less.. 2/10

Sansha Sanyou
Perfectly average, middle of the road "cute girls doing cute things" show. The cast of characters is pretty good, but the show struggles to do anything at all with them. Entertaining enough to pass the time with, but not really worthy of any attention given how crowded its genre is. 5/10

Tengen Tonpa Gurren Lagann
Considered a classic for a good reason. Gorgeous, inhabited by fantastically fleshed out characters, and with a plot that consistently increases in magnitude and stakes until it reaches entertainingly ridiculous proportions. Weirdly reminds me of The Wonderful 101 in that regard. Real good. 9/10 

The Seven Deadly Sins
A super generic shounen action series. Competent but unremarkable in every way. 5/10

A Tribute To The Golden Age of BioWare and Mass Effect

I love BioWare. From their earliest work in the Infinity Engine era, putting out the classic Baldur's Gate, to even their more modern and controversial work, being one of the few that will defend Dragon Age II and Inquisition, as well as thinking that The Old Republic was a great game before it went free to play (though I haven't played the recent and poorly received Mass Effect: Andromeda yet).

Everyone has an era of BioWare they consider the golden era. For some it's the time when they were the Baldur's Gate people, the hardcore RPGs that gave them their start. To others it's the advent of an EA owned BioWare, with the very solid Dragon Age Origins and critical powerhouse Mass Effect 2. I'm sure yet others will argue that they're at their best in recent years, producing games like Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age: Inquisition, which are less popular but have very entrenched fanbases.

To me, the golden era of BioWare is a very specific, relatively short timeframe where they were putting out the games I most associate with them: incredibly ambitious, quirky little RPGs with lots of faults that nonetheless revolutionized the industry. I am talking for the four-and-a-half year period between July of 2003 and November of 2007, when BioWare put out Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire and Mass Effect. It's hard not to admire the Bioware of this era: they're consistently putting out games that are very decidedly for the niche that loved Baldur's Gate, but aim in a different direction. This BioWare's more interested in world building and characters than they used to be, and are interested in coming up with unconventional gameplay systems that fit world they're setting their game in.

My writing of this piece has been motivated by my coming back to the first Mass Effect after half a decade since my last playthrough, shortly before Mass Effect 3's launch in March of 2012. Despite loving this game, I remember thinking it was the weakest in the trilogy at the time. It's held up magnificently, and there's a number of things to appreciate about it that I was simply too young and inexperienced to understand at the time, many of which I think are very indicative of games in BioWare's golden age.

It's strange, seeing how polished and massive the franchise became with the release of Mass Effect 2 to see how janky this first game is. The main combat system is incredibly clunky, attempting a take at tactical shooter action that isn't satisfying as a either a shooter or a tactics game, but that still remains very unique with its focus on activateable abilities rather than positioning and squad managment. Many things around it also suffer from jank: the clunky controls for the Mako tank that you're forced to drive through vast, uninspired alien landscapes that feel like they've been randomly generated, the repetitive rooms of bases on alien planets that serve as the meat of the side missions, and the simultaneously oversprawling and oversimplified nature of the leveling and equipment choices.

Despite the jank though, and despite the fact that a lot of this clunk makes the game less fun to play, one gets the feeling that it's put there out of a place of caring for the world and characters. Yes, it may not be much fun to play the awkward tactical combat, but it makes sense that this is how combat is for a small strike team of highly skilled specialists in this world: a lot of peeking around corners, waiting for the right moment to strike, managing your team's shields and surroundings as you wait for the engineer or biotic of the group to be able to use the ability that will tip the scale in your advantage before going on the offensive for a short period, whilst the enemies usually made hard to kill by energy barrier technology are vulnerable.

Even the much maligned Mako, which I still hate with a passion, feels like an inclusion in order to make the world feel more real. Whilst the Mako controls like crap and you are forced to waste entirely too much time driving through boring, empty worlds, I can see how this was intended to give you that space opera feel of adventure and discovery - "To go where no man has gone before" and all that. Even as I struggle with the controls and curse my bouncy space tank for doing a backflip because I dared to go mildly fast on a slight incline, there are moments when this works, when I get the feeling that I'm driving through uninviting, vast alien worlds and it is truly awe inspiring.

Hell, even the writing and worldbuilding, the usual reasons to play BioWare games, are somewhat janky. Take Noveria, for instance: it's meant to be a corporate planet, a nest of vipers, full of intrigue and backstabbing, where Shepard will have to carefully navigate their way through an intricate web of politics in order to achieve their objective. Instead, you talk to a guy, then talk to his secretary, then talk to a guy in a bar, shoot a few dudes, talk to the secretary again and are done with the "corporate intrigue" section of the planet. Mass Effect really tries: it's got a very ambitious idea of what its world is going to be and it goes for it hard. Most of the time it works really well, and even when it doesn't, it's entertaining. The plot on Noveria is disapointing because of how small and linear it ultimately is, but it's still a very good experience that feels tarnished by a lack of the scope that it promises.

This is what makes me really like Mass Effect. Whilst Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 are both polished to a shining sheen, with gameplay that feels great, tightly written character sidestories and fantastic worldbuilding (though I'd definitely be less charitable about their actual plots), they simply don't have the ambition of Mass Effect. They never aim for something as big as Mass Effect. Where Mass Effect clearly wants to be an actiony space opera that talks about big ideas and presents a galaxy that feels real and vast, Mass Effect 2 and 3 are both straight up sci-fi action stories set in a small number of tiny, well realized locales, with some of the best casts of characters in fiction.

Even having re-played a large amount of Mass Effect and gaining a massive amount of appreciation for it, I still think that Mass Effect 2 and 3 are both better games (this may or may not change when I re-play them). That said, it makes me feel a bit sad about them. Whilst both Mass Effect 2 and 3 are certainly at the top of their game, they're a sort of game that you get elsewhere. I can name a good number of sci-fi action games with a focus on story. Mass Effect is to date the only game I've played that feels like a space opera, like a somewhat actioned-up episode of Star Trek. It's the sort of clunky game design that isn't very polished but that's endearing in its imperfection and usually succesful at transmitting the incredibly specific feel it's going for.

Unliked a large amount of gamers, I don't think BioWare ever stopped making good games. Hell, the much maligned Dragon Age: Inquisition is my favorite of their games, and I even have a soft spot for what many would consider their worst in Dragon Age II (though I won't pretend for a moment that that game isn't massively flawed). What I think BioWare has stopped doing is making interesting games. You know exactly what to expect from them. But, for a brief four year period, you didn't. In four years time they put out Knights of the Old Republic, a flawed game that reinvented the RPG as we know it for good, Jade Empire, a game with a ridiculous, strange, and fantastic combat system and one of the most unique settings out there and Mass Effect, a brave and ludicrously ambitious attempt at bringing a completely different genre of sci fi into videogames. Their games had ambition, heart, soul. They were inventive, unique and revolutionary.

I love BioWare. I really love the games they're putting out to this day. They're a tremendously talented studio. But I miss old, pre-EA BioWare. I miss the insane bunch of maniacs that thought making a semi-open world space opera RPG with a tactical shooter combat system was a good idea. I miss that insane bunch proving against all odds that it was a good idea. BioWare is still great, but they're no longer visionaries, and that's kind of sad.