LoZ Skyward Sword

Taking a slight mental health break after massive amounts of play time racked up on Skyward Sword to write a review thus far. And by review I mean gush about how much I fucking love this game. Ocarina has a metric fuckton of nostalgia points in its favor, but it is in serious jeopardy of being bumped to down a peg as the best Zelda game. There is not a single vista, hill, cloud, stream or structure that isn’t spectacular to behold. As far as environments go, I don’t see any Zelda dev team doing any better. From what I can tell I’m a bit short of halfway plot-wise, and I’ve logged 60 hours. I yearn to explore every bit of environment presented; which is revealed or accessed in a bit-by-bit fashion that never seems to be enough. It’s going to be hard to say much else with any sort of specificity without actually revealing something, so just assume all the follow are spoilers.

The combat controls are as intuitive as ever, but the increased sensitivity of the Wiimotion plus controller (looks much better in gold) adds as true realism to the fights. One of my loves has always been executing a one-man raid on a camp of moblins, taking out scouts with arrows, creating destroying their hovels with some bombs and taking out the last few all at once with the sword of evil’s bane. SS does not fail to quench my blood-lust in this sense, some new and tougher incarnations are litter about in certain areas, and the opportunities for creative kills are still there. But what really gets my inner Leonidas going is the plus control’s call for precise motions in order to execute specific sequences necessary to get the tough baddies down. When faced with upper-tier enemy, a specific sequence of steps and precisely angled slashes are the difference between savagely smearing the blood of your fallen enemy across your face, and removing a sharp implement from your own spleen. This can cause bad timing to lead to untimely death, in fact I found the first two temple bosses to be hard as shit initially. The first is your resident throw-away bad guy Lord Ghirahim, whom you fight right off the bat to: a) introduce him as a character b) introduce you to frustration and c) ultimately provide useful input as the experience makes you a more patient and precise swordsman (which is really the point of the first large section of the game, turning an unsuspecting youth into a chosen hero). I also have to mention this douche because Japan has outdone itself with this villain. I’ve seen plenty of anime, I’ve worn women’s clothing, I’ve seen a man with a big sparkly navel piercing that says “bitch”, this is the fruitiest character I’ve ever fucking seen. Imagine a gay dude, make him as pale a drowning corpse, make him more gay, dress him in skin-tight clothes with a fruity Dracula cape, make him more gay, complete the look with super-emo purple eye shadow and a giant diamond earring, then MAKE HIM MORE GAY. You have just imagined Lord Ghirahim. He teleports, summons a sword and creates other magical happenings with fruity gestures and a flourish of diamond-shaped visual distortions. This is important to note, the diamond magic. This mage is so gay HE’S POWERED BY ARGYLE! Not that there's anything wrong with it, it's just spectacular to think that there is not a non-Japanese person not named Tim Burton who could come up with this character. Did I mention the lizard tongue?

^Proof of concept^

In other combat related observations, the difficulty of the early bosses, while enraging at first really does develop your instincts as a hero. I developed quickly from seeing a giant scorpion emerge and yelling "Oh Shit!" to encountering a huge, four-armed skele-warrior and yelling "Let's do this! LEEEEEEEEEROOOOOOOOOOOOOOY!" The game then becomes that much more enjoyable when a hideous freak that's supposed to be intimidating starts some shit, I pwn it whilst barely taking damage and I can't help but pump my glorious gold Wiimot "What now, bitch!?!"

Despite looking a bit like rip-off of a certain blue-peopled movie that was a rip-off of Fern Gully, the flight is great. You get all the freedom and excitement you free from previous incarnations of galloping across Hyrule Field or sailing through a windblow sea, only far more hardcore; because your crazy ass jumps off a fucking cliff to get scooped up by a bird-monster that comes at your beck and call to whisk you away. Then once you reach your destination, you jump off your sky-beast and nonchalantly and parachute directly onto the spot you need to be.

And now I rave about the equipment, I'm at the point where I have obtained all possible necessary weapons and utility items, so I can speak to them as a whole: EPIC. Slingshot, which is upgradable with a scatter shot, barely worth mentioning. The bow takes annoyingly long to obtain, but has a charge-up/zoom in aspect that maxes out the amount of fun you can have bulls-eyeing switches and sniping moblins. The lame rope and claw given to us by the Windwaker has been replaced by a personal favorite of mine with nearly the same functionality but makes you fell like Indiana Jones, yep, and fucking WHIP! Grab hooks and swing, grab switches and pull them, steal items from enemies, tame lions, whatever you want, all done with a satisfying whipping motion and cracking sound(complete with a temple and enemy and furthers the fantasy in you head that you are Dr. Jones, I could practically hear Short Round). And now the best: Ever wish you could somehow scout over a ridge or across a canyon to see if you could make it there? Ever wish you could easily grab some rupees or hit a switch that landed on a cliff? Ever wish you could just snip the stem of a Deku Flower or web of a spider and get them out of the way? Ever wish you could call in an airstrike on ranged enemies out of reach? PROBLEM FUCKING SOLVED! Introducing a robotic beetle that's steampunk as hell that launches from your wrist. Scout and hit switches from distance, snip spider webs and send their smug asses dropping to their doom, upgrade the pincers and pick up fucking bombflowers! That's right, friends you are now able to stand in one spot and clear and entire area without taking a step. Instead call on you freaking medieval Predator drone and drop it like it's Libya up in here! Ideal for shutting the hell up some annoying frog-things that like to live in lava and sinky-sand and spit crap at you. It's rude and it deserves hell-fire from above. More later, it's time to play more.

I Think I'm a Troll Now

With more spare time on my hands lately I've spent some time on Omegle. Being able to chat with random strangers, ask them questions and answer theirs provides endless opportunities to mess with others in a consequence-free environment. This seems speak directly to many aspects of me as a person. The smart-ass in me really enjoys giving snide answers to honest questions and turning shameless internet sex talk into a ridiculous situation. The psychologist in me loves trying to come up with just the right phrasing for a question to elicit the reaction I'm looking for, experimental social psychology in purity. Thought I'd share some of the exchanges worth keeping, more later.

Love

"What we actually are is the most humble of all humble things, that in which everything arises. That is the light itself. Nothing is more ordinary, common, everyday than that light; we have known nothing except that. Love is the discovery of myself (the light) in the other; the recognition of the Silence that I am in the other. That is love. Love cannot be given to anyone, you cannot get love; you can't make water wet, because water is wetness. Neither can anyone give you love, no one can receive love from you, you can only recognize love in yourself and you can recognize love in others.

The moment that it happens, there is naturally no other anymore, because you indeed recognize in other, in the most literal sense, notice well, in the most literal sense; yourself. I never speak to anyone except myself, and you never hear anyone except yourself. I cannot underline enough how literally true this is. Love is to recognize yourself in the other, in what you unjustly saw as 'an other' until that moment. But it is yourself that you see there because there is only one Self. There is only one light. There is only one love. The recognition of yourself in the other, of the Silence that you are in the other, of the light that you are in the other, that is what we call love.

It is not a question of giving, it is not a question of receiving, it is a question of recognition."

-Wolter Keers

On Faith in Humanity

It's hard to believe that having some of the most disgusting sentiment I can imagine hit my ears could actually affirm my own faith in humanity. My head is spinning right now and for once I am devoid of any outlet or distraction so the purpose of this blog is once again relevant. A girl came into work tonight, waited patiently in line then hit me with an unusual, but not altogether unreasonable request. She had credit card information written down on a paper, account number, expiration date, code on the back, everything; and asked if she could pay that way since she lost her debit card and had that info from her credit card given to her from her mother in New Hampshire. I didn't have a single reason to doubt what she was saying, being a psychologist (in theory) I'm often fascinated by things like subconscious cues that giveaway liars (not that I'm any sort of expert but I know the basic ones that an expert liar would train against). I gave her the ok and she shopped for about 20 minutes, spending most of the time in the far aisle, dairy cooler and produce cooler (I paid slightly more attention to her whereabouts since she was pretty cute. creep, creep). After ringing her up, I was halfway through entering her information when the perpetually frustrating micro-manager whom I sometimes call boss (you don't want to know what else I call her) sees whats happening and immediately takes up her typical position looking over my shoulder. She demands an explanation, we oblige. She asks the girl for some I.D., a basic precaution I admit that I overlooked, and lets me proceed: Declined. We try twice more with the same result, which visually worried the girl. She asks me why it's not going through and tells me it just worked elsewhere. The only information I could give was the one word the machine gives me: Declined. It should be noted that while we were trying to run the card she took a pair of bottles of Gatorade and other items out of one of the plastic bags I instinctively put them in and relocated them to her backpack which she kept on the floor afterwards.

[Courtesy page break]

My manager informs the girl that we can't let her take the stuff and multiple things happen at once that are a jumble in my mind: my manager clears the register the void the order, the girl leaves (already on the phone to sort out her money problems), the would-be purchase is moved aside, and I hurriedly start ringing up the considerable line that has formed. As I clear the line, Miss Mis-manager decides to scrutinize the declined credit slips, receipt and un-purchased items and discovers two things rung up that are no longer present, two of the three drinks (the two that she put in her bag). I recall watching the girl leave as I'm being cursed for not keeping track of this and "letting her steal" but didn't notice if the timing worked out that she might have taken the time to put the things she wanted to buy back. The boss lets loose a tirade about how the whole story stunk to begin with, how I should've somehow let her know in secret that I had a "suspicious character" in the store and other unreasonable retrospective criticisms that I absorb on a daily basis. She orders the items put back and barges off. The last item I return to the shelf is the third Gatorade in the far aisle, I find the shelf completely full, none missing save the one I'm holding which fits perfectly in the front row. This convinces me of what I had in the back of my mind the entire time I was being given a talking to, she did put them back and before she left. A bit later the subject is breached again and I point out this observation in defense of the girl that has now been vitrified (newcomer to my vocabulary, thank you Portal 2) as a shady con artist; and then the disgusting thing happened.

In response to my emotional and deductive defense of this girl, I'm rewarded with another lecture. I'm told that everyone is a crook. I'm told I'm naive for giving anyone the benefit of the doubt. I'm told I'm to never trust another person with a similar story, or believe a similar "sob story", "I don't care if she cries". I heard this girl vilified alongside greedy telemarketers, Wal-mart, and E-bay (apparently "a scam"). I'm told I won't get anywhere if I let honest looking people take me for a ride. This woman often takes it upon herself to give the younger generation with whom she works unsolicited advice that is always half-baked and usually terrible as far as advice goes; but I found myself particularly outraged that this time her advice was to treat everyone as a heartless criminal waiting to happen. After a brief period of directing disgust towards that entire sentiment, a relieving thought hit me which is what I really wish to share out of this long ass story. I am so thankful that I have faith and trust in my fellow humans. I love absolutely everything that has happened in my life to give me the outlook I now possess. Often I overstate and over think how badly things are when I've had a rough day, and complaining is one of my most indulged pastimes. But I can't imagine how hopeless and wicked the world is to someone who looks into the souls of others and sees only blackness. How exhausting is it to safeguard yourself from the potential attackers that constantly surround you? I choose to automatically trust the strangers I meet everyday and as a result I'm rewarded everyday by the friendly regulars that I know by face and buying habits, if not by name. I don't intend to ever give up this habit. And if a tough life, or long line of hurtful people bring me to the point that I view most people as evil rather than good, I sincerely hope that I am old, cancerous, or otherwise close to death, because I can't see myself living that way. I greet new people as a friend by default and thereby I am, more often than not, received as such. I wouldn't have it any other way.