How have you all been? It's been a few years. I've been through a lot. I'd wager we've all been through a lot considering how the last few years have played out. I have missed you. I've missed chit-chatting about games. This blog has sadly been a place for random ideas and nothing concrete has come of it in a while. I miss my weekly rants, but especially my "Week in Review" column where I could muse about my weekly dalliances and accomplishments. It was a fun way to give random snippets of thoughts about current games I've discovered or revisited.
So what is this? Am I coming back or is this merely a tease? Honestly, I don't know. I just have the creativity bug biting me and I turn once more to TOP Gaming Blog to scratch that annoying itch it has left behind. I suppose we shall see how far it goes. If it goes no where at all, let me at least catch you up.
I started this blog almost 10 years ago when I had just moved to Maryland from Hawaii and was looking for an outlet to practice writing and (to some extent) meeting my own personal deadlines. It had a good run, but it fell mostly to the wayside after 2 years. I recently moved back to Maryland from Hawaii (again) so perhaps that's why I've decided to check in and dust off the old writing stomping grounds.
I'm talking to you.
I quit Final Fantasy XIV two years and two months ago. I keep track as if I am an addict, and perhaps I am. Since then I've hit quite a backlog of single-player games and stayed fairly clear of the dedicated, multiplayer time-sinks. Along that journey, I fell in love with quite a few games I'd love to deep dive into, including but not limited to NieR: Automata and the Yakuza franchise. I've actually spent a little over a year playing Yakuza 0 to Yakuza: Like a Dragon (including Judgment & Lost Judgment) and I have a lot of thoughts on the entire series to share. And I do mean a lot of thoughts.
I have to warn all who dare enter that this post is going to be emotionally charged. I actually wrote it a year ago. My wife went to the hospital for pregnancy complications and was told she'd be leaving with a baby - a few weeks earlier than expected. I only had a few days to process this information, which for reasons that will be explained within was complicated. I couldn't sleep and I was up all night writing and sorting through my feelings. This blog post is one of the results. I didn't post it because it felt unfinished, unrefined. I didn't mind putting my emotions out there for all to consume, but I did want to edit the writing before posting. I just wasn't brave enough to re-read it after it had been written. My new son turned one yesterday (May 4, 2016) and I felt it was time to revisit this and put it online.
- TOP
"キミの記憶" or "Memories of You" is one of the most important songs in my life. My Japanese is pretty bad, because I let it fall far into disrepair over the years, but for some reason this song spoke to me even before I transcribed the significance of every word and stroke of every character into my mind. I was listening to the soundtrack of Persona 3 one night and this song came on. It's peppy and upbeat. It's pretty and I've always enjoyed it since playing Persona 3 long ago. This particular night it was the English words that caught my attention because they play off a few lines from the game said by one of the characters. In particular, "I will never leave you" stuck out as one of the most meaningful moments in the game. It was then that I realized what the song was actually about and from that moment I had to know every word. As I began to unravel the meaning of the song, listening, reading the lyrics and translating them, I unraveled emotionally as well.
Since that night, I always turn to this song when I need to actually, truly feel my feelings. Even on antidepressants, the song manages to burn through the haze of emotional indifference to rip the true feelings from my heart and slap me in the face with them. I even wrote a poem that night several years ago about teardrops filling up the concave inside of my glasses - it wasn't a great poem so I won't share it, but I really liked the imagery of my tears falling onto my lenses. It was the first big release of tears since my son died. Several months had gone by and I had done my very best to lock it all away and bury it with mood altering drugs. I put on my brave face to "get on with life" and left a huge emptiness lingering inside. But that random, fateful night, this song dove into my heart and dredged up all that pain.
The very strange thing about this song among countless songs of love and loss in any number of other languages is that it's about a female android mourning a human whom she had grown to love over the course of the game. The nature of her love is fairly ambiguous - whether platonic or romantic - but it really doesn't matter. It's strange that this song and that relationship is what the developers chose to focus on when there were many, many other relationships in the game that could have been emphasized. It is a game about relationships, in fact. The reason the android is so meaningful is because she begins her chapter of the story without even realizing she's capable of human feelings. Over the course of the game, she comes to understand friendship and develop true, meaningful relationships with the people whom she had been alienated from her entire existence. She expresses her new-found feelings and then suddenly and unexpectedly (SPOILER) the character to whom she is enamored dies. This song is very much about how she processes this grief - something I try really hard to avoid, I think.
I think about Aigis a lot. I relate to this fictional android in several ways which emphasize why this song is so powerful in unsealing what I have buried deep inside. It explains why I can put this song on whenever I need some relief from the emotional pressure building up. As a robot, Aigis's lifespan is fairly indefinite. For her, this encounter with the characters of the game is probably only going to be a mere instant of her existence, but definitely the most meaningful time of her life. She forges a friendship that would teach her what it meant to actually be alive, and to be human. Then, that friendship abruptly disappears in an instant and Aigis makes the choice to live on and carry those memories of him forever (hence the name "Memories of You"). She could shut off her emotions and go back to being just a robot, or shut down completely and withdraw from living in a technical sense, but she makes the choice to go forward because of what her friend taught her about being alive. This choice to carry the memories forward is pretty similar to how I feel about my son, Rhys, who only existed for 6 weeks but changed my life forever. It was like a drop of water in the ocean of life experiences - six weeks out of 35 years seems so inconsequential. He never said a single word. We only made eye contact a few times. This tiny thing that existed in the blink of an eye had the power to change things forever.
I used to think I was a lucky person. It's silly really. I was walking around this planet thinking that I was someone who never really had bad things happen to him. The older I got the more bad things actually started happening, but I just clung to this mentality that I wasn't the type of guy that had truly bad things happen. I had friends who would witness me go through some pretty awful situations and wonder how I held my resolve, how I remained so calm and cool and collected about everything. When Rhys died, that perception of myself as a lucky person completely shattered. It was a few years ago, now, and for the most part the pain is just a dull ache instead of crippling stabs into my chest cavity - but the pain still exists. It's still in there in full, terrible form. There is such a tremendous amount of pain waiting to be unleashed by something as simple as a song about a robot and her dying friend - and it can hurt like the day it happened if I let it grow. It feels like I am now marked by this pain, that my soul is torn so deep that it defines me. In one terrible night, I transformed from that casual, friendly person who could bounce back from anything in stride. I was dismantled and crushed and replaced by a person who now knows he isn't lucky. He knows terrible things have happened and can happen again at any moment.
This weekend a new baby is going to be born. I've spent nine months hiding from it, pretending it's not real, trying not to look at ultrasound pictures or feel the kicks. I needed to pretend it wasn't happening, because I can't handle it. I have to handle it and I will handle it, but my emotions, my anxieties, my endurance is not ready for this challenge. I'm terrified. If anything bad happens again, I don't know how I will survive. This is true of my other two surviving children, as well, but they're already here. The risk of losing them in some sudden accident is already real and prevalent. I've been coping with that for years. I won't even get started about what I go through when leaving them with other people, or sending them on field trips. But it's not nearly the same as having another newborn - another precious, fragile, tiny life living in my house. Another defenseless human being that my wife and I are charged with taking care of.
That's not all and this is why I need Aigis tonight. I'm not ready to let go of Rhys. My rational brain realizes that I don't have to "let him go" and that he'll "always be here." I know that I'll never forget him, but I'm so tremendously scared that I will. I think I always have been. We didn't have enough time together. I can't remember the way he sounded. I can't remember the way he smelled. I remember how he made me feel - I mean, how happy I was to be around him and how wonderful it felt to hold him close, but that's the best I can muster. I don't want him to disappear forever. I don't want him to be buried so deep in my heart that I never let him out. I don't want to replace him with a new baby. I know he won't be. I get it. I tell myself a million times in the last two years, but it doesn't matter what my brain says will be true compared to how I actually feel. I fear the evanescence of my son every passing day. Sometimes it's so real and brutal and painful that I feel like he just died yesterday, but most times I feel like he was just a pleasant dream I had once and the longer I'm awake the less I'll be able to recall it.
Aigis chooses to live. She could shut down. She could go to sleep or simply reboot. She could erase her memories and her feelings, but because of what she learned and how she developed she comes to understand the value of life and living. She chooses to keep going and hold on to the memory. I chose this as well, but my memories degrade faster than a computer. I carry his memory with me as one of the very, very few people who even knew him in his brief existence. That burden is oppressive sometimes and what if I fail? What if some day I can't find the way he made me feel? What if I can't remember how he looked or how soft his skin was? Who will remember him if I don't? What if my new son terrifies me? What if I'm too afraid he'll die so I don't allow myself to get too attached? I know all this is stupid, because I've always fallen deeply in love with my children the instant we met face-to-face, but that scares me almost as much. How defenseless will I be if something bad happens again?
It's been roughly six weeks since I've written. I apologize. In order to be the very best, like no one ever was, I have been working really hard in school. I don't really have time in my schedule to write full-fledged articles, right now. Next semester will be even worse as I'm nearly doubling my work-load. I do not wish for TOP Gaming to go under, though. I'm planning to keep it updating with thoughts and opinions on a smaller scale. I would like to do some bigger, feature-length articles in the future when I have time to get them written. I hoped I could juggle everything at once, but unfortunately it is too much.
Today, I decided to list a few games on eBay. I'm planning to cut down my collection by (roughly) 50% in the coming weeks and months. I'm not big on trade-ins as anything other than a last resort. I'll be posting a link to my collection and a link to the games already up on eBay. Right now I just have Wii titles, but I'm planning to add a whole lot more.
Here's the deal, though. I want you readers to get first pick.
Let me know if you're interested. Some titles definitely aren't for sale, but please inquire in comments, Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr if you're interested in a game. I'll consider all offers. Digital copies obviously aren't for re-sale. All my other games are in great condition (the older they are the more wear the cases may have) and they all have original cases and manuals. I'm a bit OCD about taking care of my games.
Send me messages and offers if you see anything you like.
I won't be writing an article today due to my first college exam. I'm quite a bit anxious about it, so studying has taken up a considerable chunk of my free-time. I also need to start work on a paper about The Great Gatsby, so I'm not sure I'll have time to get anything up at all this week. Since TOP Gaming Blog will be quiet, I'd like to promote my two Tumblr projects which hopefully can fill that void for you.
Toki the Dragonborn - This is my picture blog of a new character in Skyrim. I recently learned how to take some pretty scenic screenshots, so I loaded up a bunch of graphics and game play mods to liven it up and enhance the shots. Then I decided to put them up in a short picture-journal format on Tumblr. You can browse through the pictures or read about Toki's adventures in his own words. It auto-publishes about 4/day this week so there should be new pictures every few hours.
Bunker Hill Bros. - This is a Tumblr account I share with my brother. It publishes much more frequently, mostly pictures (and a few mixed in articles) we find around the internet that really peak our interest. If you're curious about learning more about the Bros. then I suggest you check out our Tumblr. There we have a bit more freedom and flexibility to post not only about games, but also anime, manga, and comics.
I must apologize to all my friends, family and fans who have patiently been awaiting a new article since my TOP Ten countdown ended in August. I started this project in February, challenging myself to see if I could keep it going for a year straight and hopefully beyond. I failed this challenge and I failed any of you out there who consider yourselves TOP Gaming readers and fans. I am deeply sorry, and I hope once I explain briefly where I’ve been you can come to forgive me and we can push on into 2013 together. I’m looking forward for a fresh start to a new year as 2012 ended up being the worst year in my entire life due to personal tragedy. Mid-August a woman very dear to me who helped raise me alongside my own parents as one of her own children passed away somewhat prematurely and unexpectedly. She had lived a good life full of love and kindness and warmth but naturally I was sad that she was gone. I took some time off from writing to grieve and to go home to attend services. At that same time my third child and second son was born and although I was sad, he brought me great joy and happiness. He was happy and healthy for five weeks and then one unsuspecting evening my wife found him in our bedroom where he had been napping. His heart had stopped; he wasn't breathing. Although he was healthy as far as modern science can ascertain, he simply closed his eyes that night and did not open them again. I’m sure anyone can imagine, this destroyed the rest of the year for me. It’s only months later that I’m able to function again, reading and writing and speaking of his life and death openly. I do not wish to welcome the good, new year bringing all you wonderful people of the internet down into a depression. I simply felt I owed an apology, an explanation and a window into my life and my mindset as I push forward into 2013. My wife and I are coping. My two other children are too young to be too deeply impacted by their loss, thankfully. They are happy and they had a wonderful Christmas. Though my life and my spirit (if you will) have been altered forever, I am settling into what I consider the “new normal” and hopefully I can include blogging once again in my new routine. I felt New Year’s Day was the perfect time to get the ball rolling again. Although it's only symbolic, I am looking forward to starting a new year and leaving 2012 behind me.
This is where we live now!
My wife built us this mansion.
I wanted to take a moment to thank “video games” in general. As I’m sure many other gamers around the world can relate, gaming is an effective way to take your mind off the real world temporarily. While Superman has his Fortress of Solitude, I have video games. It’s safe to say that I have immersed myself fully and unconditionally into gaming like never before because when I am fully integrated into a fake world, the real one gets put on a back burner. I’m extremely excited to tell you all about the wonderful games I’ve played in the last four months, but I’ve played so many that I can only begin to list them here and perhaps break them down for you all sometime in the near future. So consider the following a big “Thank you!” to all the games (and their creators) that helped me get through the final months of 2012.
Tokyo Jungle is a truly quirky game. The basic premise is
that humanity has simply disappeared and the Earth is re-inherited by beasts
large and small. You may play either a carnivore or an herbivore in an attempt
to survive in this new age. You start small and work your way up to larger and
more powerful animals. You must eat, breed and avoid larger predators as you
try to survive on the streets of Tokyo. Successes
in survival mode unlock chapters in the story mode. Eventually you discover
what happened to humanity and why animals rule the roost.
Faithful readers may recall that I played through Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale a few months ago. I thought of that as a cheap, trial run to gauge whether or not I’d like an “Atelier” game. As it turns out, I like it very much. Somehow running a fantasy item shop, or alchemy shop in this instance, is extremely fun for me.The characters of this game are cute and endearing and the gameplay is very fun, but the game does lack a depth of story. There is no plot twist. You simply scramble to keep an Alchemy Shop running under threat of closure from the government.
Crusader Kings IIis like turning middle-ages Europe into a riveting historical drama akin to A Game of Thrones (without dragons). You select a nobleman and try to gain titles, prestige, land, and power all while trying to avoid assassination and weakening your family. Your primary focus is to keep your bloodline alive and thriving through a quasi-historically accurate rendition of Europe at the time. I haven't personally ventured outside of Great Britain and Ireland yet, but I have been crowned King of both Ireland and Wales in two separate games.
A friend of mine had been peer pressuring me to join him in Minecraft for some time. I had a blast
playing Terrariaso I knew some
aspects of Minecraft would appeal to
me. I turned to the man who convinced me to play Terraria to see if I’d like Minecraft
and as it turns out I do. I now play on a server with my wife and our mutual
friend. We’ve built several small homes, a mansion and a Nether base of operations.
Current projects include an arena for PVP and grinding out experience on
monster spawns and a fully automated farm and ranch for all our food needs.
FTL is
an amazing game. I don’t know how to express how much I adore it. You assume
the role of captain and crew of a starship. Each playthrough of the game
randomly generates a new star chart for you to explore and draws from a wealth
of events to randomly trigger at each destination. The events have varying
options depending on crew, systems and weapon capabilities
meaning each time you arrive at an event there may be new options for you to explore.
The meat of the game is the combat which relies on skill, timing and rerouting
your crew and power to various systems.
Pokémon Black 2 and Pokémon White 2
I don't remember their names even.
I had no interest in either of these games until a week before they were released. I realized they would be a perfect world to sink into with my wife and just play. I was right and it kept our attention for a while. Looking back on it, I don't remember much. I don't remember much about Pokémon Black, either. For some reason these titles of Pokémon are just glossed over in my memory. I did have fun and I beat the Elite Four, but after that I think I just walked away. I wanted to get into the Tournaments and face off against other region's Gym Leaders, but I fear I never decided on a dedicated team to do so.
I also owe a shout out to internet personality, RenDog, whose “Let’s Play Minecraft” series has helped me get through each and every day. His zest for playing games and optimism about everything is a great comfort to those of us watching and dealing with our own problems. Even through his own personal tragedies this year he continued to post videos on YouTube and let us into his life and world. It was inspirational, honestly, and I understand firsthand how hard it can be to not only push through your grief for the sake of your fans, but also include them in your life. I believe I’ve linked to him before and perhaps I’ll write a full article about his channel in the future, but for now I’ll leave you with a link to his YouTube Channel. I have to warn you to start any of his series from the beginning or you’ll be constantly threatened to have him shove video game objects up your butt-hole. You have been warned.
Thank you, RenDog, and I’m looking forward to all your videos in 2013.
I often listen to the soundtrack of Kingdom Hearts and it often causes me to cry. Certain songs of that game effortlessly trigger an emotional response from me and it wasn't until just the other day that I came closer to understanding why its so emotional. I have thought for years that Kingdom Hearts is just a very sad game and the sadness of its story was being recalled by the music. Now I think it goes quite a bit deeper than that and I am surprised that it took me so long to realize it. As I was listening, and responding emotionally, I was thinking about how to write this article. That's how I had this sudden insight to what the game and the music actually mean to me.
Kingdom Hearts is a collaboration with Square Enix (formerly Squaresoft) and Disney Interactive Studios. It successfully blended elements of the Final Fantasy series with characters and settings from various Disney worlds in an Action-Roleplaying Game experience that was unlike any other game of its time. Sora, the main character, is original to this series, but he is constantly interacting with Disney and Final Fantasy characters who encourage him or fight along side him. The game was released in September 2002 and since then I've played it from start to finish several times - which is indicative of an excellent game in my book.
Now to understand what I discovered about my connection to the game, you have to understand where I was in my life when I met Sora. September 2002 was the middle of the darkest time in my life. I was in a terribly unhealthy relationship. I had abandoned college and my dreams of studying Japanese because I was young and foolish. I had enlisted in the Air Force and was living in California, far away from my home in Massachusetts where I'd lived for 20 years and far away from Japan where I would have been studying abroad if I had continued my college curriculum. Due to the nature of the relationship I was in, I did not feel I had the freedom to communicate with my friends and family on the phone or by computer. I also did not have the freedom to pursue new friendships with my classmates and fellow service members there in California. I was extremely isolated and lonely. I was depressed, but I didn't know how to handle it. It was in this dark time when I met Sora.
Aladdin was my favorite Disney film growing up.
This first time playing Kingdom Hearts I was outrageously jealous of Sora. This 14 year old kid gets swept out of his humdrum life in Destiny Islands and begins exploring these fantastic worlds with characters I had adored since I was a child. I wanted to fight Jafar alongside Aladdin. I wanted to play mini-games with Pooh and Tigger that revolved around "hunny" and bouncing. I wanted to tree-surf with Tarzan and fly with Peter Pan as we crossed swords with Captain Hook. I wanted to summon Bambi, Simba, Mushu, Tinkerbell, and Genie. I wanted to swim alongside Ariel, whom I had been smitten with since first seeing her and hearing her sing when I was 9 years old. Sora was living this childhood fantasy and I was pretty miserable in my life. Although I was able to live this dream vicariously through Sora, I would have given anything to switch places with him. I wanted an escape from the darkness of my own life.
I'm 31 now, and still a bit jealous of this...
The second time playing Kingdom Hearts was around Christmas of 2005. I had decided to dust off the old keyblade in preparation of Kingdom Hearts IIcoming out in March 2006. This time was profoundly different than the last. It triggered a nearly opposite reaction, which I believe in part was because I knew the ending that was being foreshadowed, but also due to something a bit closer to my own heart. This time I saw Sora's journey more for what it truly was, and I found I was not at all envious of Sora. In fact, I felt quite sorry for him. You see, Sora and his two closest friends, Riku and Kairi, spent their days on Destiny Islands dreaming of finding an escape to another, more exotic, world but when they finally get their wish their own home is snuffed out by darkness. Everything they had known was cut off from them and they were separated. Sora spends the rest of the game trying to find his friends and restore the Destiny Islands. The purpose of his entire journey is to set things back the way they were after wanting them to change for so long.
Now, he does meet a wide variety of new friends along the way, and each relationship I believe makes him stronger, but he never gets to stay long and appreciate his new friends because he's so dedicated to finding Riku and Kairi and stopping the darkness from swallowing up more worlds. In this context, I saw that his friendships with the Disney characters were fleeting as he was always forced to move on to get closer to his true goal. Unfortunately this ultimate reunion with Riku and Kairi is marked by sadness as all three are separated again in order to protect the worlds from being consumed by Darkness. It's a very sad story and it's hard not to tear up when saying good-bye to the friends you spent so much time looking for.
What I discovered is that the music doesn't make me cry because Sora's story is sad.
It makes me cry because I am Sora.
You can see the resemblance best in this picture of me circa 2003.
When I play Kingdom Hearts or listen to its music now, it reminds me of how I felt about my life when I first played it. I was like Sora when I left behind the only home I knew, and also like Sora I was completely cut off from that world. There was no going back for either of us - at least not without fighting for it. We could only look forward and face what was ahead of us even though it was often unpleasant or difficult. Even if we could go back, everything about us was changing and different. Sora and I both grew strong and independent through these ordeals. Simply returning home and reuniting with our friends wouldn't erase the things we'd seen or the person we would become due to our various struggles in life. In essence that era of my life was my coming of age story, and in many ways Sora mirrors that time with his own trials against darkness.
When I left home at the age of 20, I thought I was an adult. I decided to leave college, get married, and joining the Air Force among other adult decisions of lesser impact. I realize only more recently that I was not. So Kingdom Hearts is symbolic of my own loss of childhood innocence and ignorance. The game and its music continue to be a subconscious reminder of how I suffered and endured to become the stronger, confident, more adaptable and happier person that I am today.
I chose to share this story about myself to illustrate how powerful music can be in our lives as well as how deeply one can bond with fictional characters and circumstances. It demonstrates that the best games have a combination of great music, good story-telling, and memorable characters with whom you can identify. These are exactly the types of games I seek out and enjoy most.I'm so shocked to discover just how emotionally invested I am in Kingdom Hearts. I'm grateful that I got to play such a great game and got to know Sora at a time when my entire world was changing so drastically, and I with it. It certainly helped me cope with my own life at that time. I can't promise Kingdom Hearts to have this powerful an effect on everyone, but I can promise that it is a game that may become timeless that everyone interested in gaming should enjoy at one time or another in their life.
This is the dreaded first post. What do I say to an audience that doesn't even exist yet? What do I even have to say that's worth reading? These are difficult questions every blogger must ask himself as he sits down to create a blog in his own image. I will admit it's not the first blog I have ever started, but I'm hoping that it will be one I become dedicated to as I share with the world my inner-most passions: video games!
Yes, I'm another guy addicted to video games writing about it on the
internet. I'm aware that this situation is not terribly uncommon, but
I'm embarking on a personal journey and any readers that stumble upon it
will have access to explore the world through the eyes of one avid
gamer with a vivid imagination (and perhaps a knack for storytelling). I
want to blog and I want to blog regularly, so it stands to reason I
write about what I know I can talk about for hours on end over prolonged
periods of time. I do enjoy many, many other things in life and there
will certainly be glimpses of that, but in order to maintain a steady
course I have chosen the topic that is the most consistent and
inspirational throughout my life.
I was inspired by Final Fantasyto start writing my own short stories when I was very young. I've been writing and creating stories and elaborate fantasy worlds ever since then and continue to this day as an aspiring novelist. I was similarly inspired to study and learn Japanese with what started as a desire to consume more games with interesting stories that weren't being localized in the United States at the time. That seed grew into a deep affection and respect for Japanese culture and ultimately turned my attention towards linguistics and world history as well. Video games have definitely influenced a great deal of my life and I'm not ashamed to admit it (anymore).
What can you expect me to post about? Aside from personal anecdotes from the past or present, I hope to write weekly about games I'm playing and my thoughts and feelings based on them. I enjoy a wide variety of games, but I'm typically drawn to Role-Playing Games (RPG) and any story-oriented action/adventure games. I also play strategic games like Civilization Vand there will probably be a fair share of Sims 3talk as it's my default "let's waste some time in a video game" go-to game. That's not to say I don't play the occasional First-Person Shooter (FPS) or sports game, but they are far and few between since their stories are not the draw to that type of game.
I will decide in the near future exactly what my personal deadlines will be - but I hope to write very regularly once a week about past or present games. I may write a personal review, or I may just reminisce about the good old days (as I see them sometimes). I think some of my core ideas and philosophies will begin to manifest as I delve into why I like a game or how a game has impacted me - and many of them have - which I'm excited to explore publicly.
It remains to be seen if the public is excited to read them.
