Isn't all fantasy ultimately a ripoff off Lord Of The Rings and Conan The Barbarian? I dunno, I kinda liked that trailer. The completely unrestrained screams of the apparent female protagonist sold it for me. The bloodmage bits are very exploitation, but I've seen worse. Presentation, Execution. And, of course, gameplay. If you've got an awesome plot and a terrible gameplay, you're better off doing a movie than another Final Fantasy XIV.
Wait a minute.
This is the anime thread.
I've just noticed the thing in that trailer might not be a viedogame.
In which case, yeah, I'll give it a try, but I'm kinda biaised against CG that isn't for blockbuster movies... it always comes off as fake...
__________________
"Start slackin' off a little, then you slack off a little more, and next thing you know, you've turned all lazy and flabby"
Dragon Age has more in common with ASoIaF has more in common with The Witcher than the general commonalities of fantasy. Pretentious grimdarkness, first and foremost, as well as insanely complex politics that still boil down to "these are the Good Guys, this is the Bad Guy, the Bad Guy just happens to have a point underneath his moustache-twirling evil".
For Dragon Age and ASoIaF, that is. Never read The Witcher.
__________________
Spoiler
Character avatar of Rin is courtesy of Maestro.
Stealthy Snake avatar by Dawn Signum Zeichen Nachtgott by Tengu
SOS Banner by Gorbash Kazdar
Dragon Age has more in common with ASoIaF has more in common with The Witcher than the general commonalities of fantasy. Pretentious grimdarkness, first and foremost, as well as insanely complex politics that still boil down to "these are the Good Guys, this is the Bad Guy, the Bad Guy just happens to have a point underneath his moustache-twirling evil".
For Dragon Age and ASoIaF, that is. Never read The Witcher.
By using the word "pretentious", you seem to imply that the works do not reach the heights it pretends to. Also, I thought in ASoIaF "being Lawful Good equates being an idiot and dying a shameful death, unless you're Brienne, but then your life will suck forever" was the main moral? And, I dunno, I never thought Renly nor Stanley were good guys, they weren't mustache-twirling either, just to give an example. Same with Arya, Sansa... heck, even Jaime. As for the Eggman, Varis, besides being a shotacon (how does he do it?) he seems to be the neutral type.
Haven't played Dragon age past the bit immediately after the Harrowing, though. I hear it's great fun, but I really can't seem to get the hang of mêlée types
__________________
"Start slackin' off a little, then you slack off a little more, and next thing you know, you've turned all lazy and flabby"
Also, I thought in ASoIaF "being Lawful Good equates being an idiot and dying a shameful death, unless you're Brienne, but then your life will suck forever" was the main moral?
I do agree that the setting of Dragon Age isn't really as Grimdark as it claims itself to be. The Witcher setting seems to be way more Grimdark from what I've seen of the games (where most humans are all Bastard coated Bastards with Bastard fillings, everything looks like it stinks of defecation and misery and other races exist only to get stomped on and dropkicked by humans, which composes mostly of fat balding gits). The story is serious enough in tone, but the setting's not nearly as crappy as others. There's also at least enough decent characters to not make it look bad.
__________________
A well-placed bullet can stop anybody with an oversized sword.
In real life that is.
Everywhere else, you're screwed.
I wouldn't know about that. My family was basically a local version of house Stark, but then enough of us got killed and enough of our fortune got ruined or spoiled as a result of that that everyone is laying very very low and practicing their Lawful Goodness at an immediate, personal level, rather than try to fix things where it's not their business to.
In other words, it's a warning that needs to be given. The way everything blows up on everyone's face, good or evil, in that story, is not exactly realistic, but having the good people winning all the time just because people find downers depressing, especially when they rely a lot on dumb luck like in Star Trek, can give people the wrong message about how reality works. Being good is risky and dangerous, and can end very badly if you don't think things through.
__________________
"Start slackin' off a little, then you slack off a little more, and next thing you know, you've turned all lazy and flabby"
I'd say the main reasons that mitigate Witcher's grimdarkness are:
1. The author doesn't go out of his way to make his characters suffer.
2. His sympathies tend to lie with the good guys. Similarily, Geralt might claim he's neutral and doesn't like to intervene even when injustice happens, but he does so all the time anyway.
3. War or not, the books are surprisingly funny. Especially some of the short stories - which are more light-hearted than the novels, and which I prefer because Sapkowski is just much better at short form.
Why are we discussing fantasy novels in an anime thread now?
__________________
Siela Tempo by the talented Kasanip. Tengu by myself.
Banners:
Okay, to be completely fair, I only made it through a book and a half of ASoIaF before throwing the second volume against the wall and never looking back at the nonsensical pile of negative Deus Ex Machina. Suffice to say, I can at least state with authority that I didn't like it.
Dragon Age, on the other hand, had fun characters and relatively interesting gameplay and most of my problems with it were in the art style (blood started to lose all meaning to me around about Lothering) and everything in and around Orzammar. Every. Damn. Thing.
And we originally got on this topic talking about Dragon Age and how it's one of Bioware's less original titles (in terms of setting and tone, anyway) despite being like their second or third non-licensed one.
__________________
Spoiler
Character avatar of Rin is courtesy of Maestro.
Stealthy Snake avatar by Dawn Signum Zeichen Nachtgott by Tengu
SOS Banner by Gorbash Kazdar
^To be honest, I too gave up on A Song Of Ice And Fire after the stuff with Bolton and Frey and that nasty dinner what Brandon and his mom had. I sort of thought everything sucking for everyone that much was kinda over-the-top. It's not so much "pretentious" as "implausible".
BTW, anyone here a Berserk fan? When's that goshdarned new anime coming out anyway?
And see, while Berserk is tons darker than ASoIaF, it still manges to keep my disbelief suspended. Also the main characters are very sympathetic.
Never read the Witcher: the only thing I know about it is that there's a videogame, of which I've only seen the cover.
__________________
"Start slackin' off a little, then you slack off a little more, and next thing you know, you've turned all lazy and flabby"
^To be honest, I too gave up on A Song Of Ice And Fire after the stuff with Bolton and Frey and that nasty dinner what Brandon and his mom had. I sort of thought everything sucking for everyone that much was kinda over-the-top. It's not so much "pretentious" as "implausible".
Well, I'm halfway into the third book and so far I really can't find anything mayor that'd convince me to put the series away. So what, the good guys don't win all the time, neither do the bad guys. That's life.
Quote:
BTW, anyone here a Berserk fan? When's that goshdarned new anime coming out anyway?
Ha, and here I thought I had to bring the thread back on track!
I'm slowly catching up on last seasons animes... well, I finished C³ and have only one episode of Maken-Ki and Gundam AGE left, as well as half a season of Horizon.... Anything else I REALLY should watch given the time?
Quote:
Never read the Witcher: the only thing I know about it is that there's a videogame, of which I've only seen the cover.
That's what led me to the assumption it was much newer than ASOIAF.
There are good guys in A Song of Ice and Fire? I mean, there's like...one of the Starks at a time, and the occasional random other guy, but they all tend to die pointlessly and messily. Heck, even sympathetic bad guys who aren't Tirion tended to do that.
Whatever, this is off-topic and I'm probably just forgetting details in my memories of the overwhelming general feeling that nothing in that series would ever improve for anyone, ever.
__________________
Spoiler
Character avatar of Rin is courtesy of Maestro.
Stealthy Snake avatar by Dawn Signum Zeichen Nachtgott by Tengu
SOS Banner by Gorbash Kazdar
Well, I'm halfway into the third book and so far I really can't find anything mayor that'd convince me to put the series away. So what, the good guys don't win all the time, neither do the bad guys. That's life.
Littlefinger and Varis seem to be doing pretty well for themselves. For everyone else, it's not that they "don't win or lose all the time", that would be real life. It's that everyone's every freaking plan backfires spectacularly or just crumbles down anticlimactically in the most brutal and devastating way. NO ONE gets their way in that story.
And all of the Starks are Lawful Good, it's sort of their Hat. When a Stark stops being that way, it's usually because they want to distance themselves from the family.
__________________
"Start slackin' off a little, then you slack off a little more, and next thing you know, you've turned all lazy and flabby"
I feel so bad, right now. I read all the Aoi Hana translated so far after hearing pretty much everyone who ever read it praise it highly and I was so disappointed.
There are so many basic flaws in the craftsmanship of manga writing in it, but more importantly there is something deeply and fundamentally wrong and uncomfortable about how it treats its subject matter: Love and sexuality.
On the first end the art commits the worst flaw possible in any visual medium, being confusing. I several times had to stop for a while to try and look more closely to figure out who was talking to who and what was going on, which really breaks the flow of reading and any kind of immersion. More importantly the story is quite unfocused starting and dropping plots and subplots frequently and without a warning, sometimes taking a throw-away line up as important subject matter more than ten chapters later. Which again makes it confusing, but on a rather more fundamental level.
The really serious trouble with the craftsmanship, however, is in terms of characterization. While some characters, most notably Fumi and Akira, eventually get great characterization, it takes quite a few chapters to establish any characters beyond broad stereotypes. This not only makes for a start that can hardly be considered engaging, it also hurts when the main character's sole defining trait for the first nine chapters is spinelessness. On the other hand, some characters never get properly established, most notably Kyouko who seems all over the place and really unclear in where she is going or why she is doing it. This isn't helped by the author never quite getting around to giving a coherent explanation of the family drama that is at the heart of her subplot, though even with that established I think her actions would still be rather puzzling.
However, what truly made me uncomfortable was the way the main themes were handled. There is this sense of bleak pessimism to it where love seems to not really exist, only desire does that causes great pain when lacking the one you desire but no real happiness from having them. This might be somewhat distorted as some minor characters do seem happy with their lovers, but none of the characters getting any real attention ever seem to actually be happy with the ones they're with. In fact, the main characters just don't seem like they're allowed to be happy at all, something always contrives to come up and hurt them, seemingly never giving them a break.
Moving on to sexuality, a topic which is especially painful for me as a lesbian reading a story supposedly about love between girls, it's weird more than anything else. But this weirdness is in a way that makes me deeply uncomfortable and wondering what the author was thinking. For example, why is it so imperative for her to make so many characters first display desperate attraction to other girls, then suddenly drop it to be straight without a warning. There's no soul searching, nor is there any warning, it just kinda happens or hint that they're bi and they just happen to like that particular guy or feel like sleeping with a guy. Not just that, what is the point? Often their earlier attraction wasn't important to the story, so they could easily just have been straight all along or have had their sexuality be a non-issue. This is especially troubling given the author's decision to have had Fumi be in an abusive relationship at the very start of her puberty, something having some very unfortunate connotations given some older ides about the origins of homosexuality. It's probably just a cheap shot for drama, which isn't very good or tasteful storytelling, but it just comes off like the stereotype that homosexuals were abused as children. I can't help but feel that that is incredibly offensive to me as a gay women as well as to abuse victims being used like that.
Also this being said, I couldn't just write it off as terrible either and think that there was just something wrong with the people who love it, since it does do some great things. The recognition of how important sexual desire is in lesbian romance is great and quite rare in the usually chaste genre of yuri. When the story let's go of the drama for a while and just has Fumi and Akira be friends they're adorable together with a tasteful, complex relationship that is heartbreaking in how they want different things on it. These quiet periods also allow side characters and subtle characterization to shine, doing both really well giving a much more rounded approach to the story.
And that just makes it more frustrating. I so want to love it, but there are so many things I can't stand about it and wasted potential is far worse than when there was no potential at all.
But this weirdness is in a way that makes me deeply uncomfortable and wondering what the author was thinking. For example, why is it so imperative for her to make so many characters first display desperate attraction to other girls, then suddenly drop it to be straight without a warning.
It's a bait, probably. Like how it is often done everywhere else and later dropped as something like "it wasn't what you think it was" or similar nonsense.
__________________
Fighter, you cannot have nice things. This time because healing all HP with a long rest is overpowered.
Ooookay... so, Gundam AGE is not done with it's story arc yet and still I feel the need to state my discomfort with the term "X-Rounder". What the hell is an "X-Rounder"? Did someone watch too much X-Men but than was too scared to stick with the original term? I know, I know, newtypes had have quite a few different names but X-Rounders just sounds soooo silly to me...
Ooookay... so, Gundam AGE is not done with it's story arc yet and still I feel the need to state my discomfort with the term "X-Rounder". What the hell is an "X-Rounder"? Did someone watch too much X-Men but than was too scared to stick with the original term? I know, I know, newtypes had have quite a few different names but X-Rounders just sounds soooo silly to me...
Hu, why was I expecting a Tiger and Bunny clip there?
The thingis... I really think after coordinators and innovators which were both pretty weird X rounders is another notch less... something I feel I can take serious. Newtypes might not be awesome but it's at least neutral, it's... well, a new type of human. Period. No X region in my brain.
X-Rounders?
Sounds like a variant of baseball where everyone is on skateboards (shouting "EXTREME!" optional), or are robots and shoot the balls from arm cannons.
__________________ Minmaxboards are back up! But BG will be deleted soon; for reals. Last chance to save anything.
X-Rounders?
Sounds like a variant of baseball where everyone is on skateboards (shouting "EXTREME!" optional), or are robots and shoot the balls from arm cannons.
Careful don't want to give the AGE system more ideas... unless you do.
Me personally I'm souring pretty quickly on Gundam AGE. It was maybe tiding me over until more Unicorn came out. Now with fresh better Gundam... I find it harder to indulge the series.
X-Rounders?
Sounds like a variant of baseball where everyone is on skateboards (shouting "EXTREME!" optional), or are robots and shoot the balls from arm cannons.
RSS Feeds: 
Re: General Anime Discussion: Area 11
