The concept of a “tearjerker” is usually not associated with the medium of video games. In the realm of films, literature, and music, the tag is assigned to works that fit the bill either as a point of interest for those who want to expunge their emotions or a disclaimer if someone wants to keep their cheeks dry and cheery. Music is in a class of its own as the sonic art form tends to delve into one’s emotions more intimately no matter what the artist’s intentions were, or at least to a broader extent of the medium’s potential. For the narrative-focused mediums of film and literature, the writers must make a meticulous effort to direct their audience into flooding their living spaces with salty saline through the events of the story and the context of the character’s interactions. Since a large number of video games include traditional narratives with personable, dynamic characters, why isn’t anyone excited and or worried that one will cause them to be impacted by vulnerable feelings of overwhelming sadness? Well, video games had to evolve to achieve this sensation, as the earliest few eras of gaming were far too primitive to intermingle the narrative weight that would induce crying with the gameplay. That, and the inherent feeling that comes with playing games should be of elatement. After all, that is the primary objective of playing a game of any sort whether they be digital or not. However, video games possess a deeper layer of interactive complexities that games like hopscotch, gin and rummy, and all sports do not. Video games are art, goddammit, and one effective trait of fine art is the ability to make its audience cry. Emotional instances are known to pop up across a select few video games, but one game, in particular, was foretold to destroy the spirits of everyone who played it: indie developer Freebird Studio’s 2011 title To the Moon.

Already, the plot premise of To the Moon should slightly moisten the player’s eyes. An old man named John Wyles is lying on his deathbed, and his last wish before he passes into the eternal ether mirrors the fantasies expressed in early 20th-century cinema: a trip to the moon. Even in the fictitious realm of video games, there is no Make-A-Wish foundation for privileged senior citizens to fulfill such fanciful dying desires that only a handful of people on Earth have ever experienced. However, an organization called Sigmund Corp. can work around the expenses and general feasibility of this grand request by planting artificial experiences into the patient’s brain as they lie there comatose. Two doctors appointed by Sigmund Corp named Neil Watts and Eva Rosaline are on call to execute the mission by visiting John’s mansion and applying an apparatus to him while he lies in bed. Integrating these fake memories into John’s fading consciousness is quite the ordeal, so Neil and Eva must brew some coffee for the all-nighter they are about to undergo. As we speak, there should be at least a few choked-up throats upon reading what To the Moon’s narrative has to offer. The concept of death is an uncomfortable, bittersweet topic that will constantly nag us with feelings of dread throughout our time on Earth. The concept of death and dying is arguably the most universal human fear that crosses all cultural boundaries, even if the scattered earth civilizations have their interpretations of the inevitable. Because death and its implications are such a prevalent force while we are living, we do not need any context as to who John was as a human being to empathize with his critical condition.

To the Moon’s premise hardly sounds like something a triple-A studio would produce, so expect the game’s presentation to display the minimalistic trappings of an indie studio. Specifically, To the Moon was developed with RPG Maker, a computer program downloadable by the general public to craft their own RPG games. To the Moon isn’t working with a modest sum of resources: it’s something any schmuck with Windows 7 could’ve conjured up in one afternoon. In all fairness, despite how cheap and unprofessional the base software of To the Moon’s development sounds, the final product could still ultimately prove substantial if the developers know how to work around the constraints of a pail bucket budget. Besides, I’ve always stated that any modern game rendered in the pixelated past of the medium always possesses an endearing quality, and To the Moon is no exception. With the pixelated format the game works with, To the Moon’s graphics strike a balance between cherubic and sublime. The chibi characters in the foreground contrast with the often picturesque displays of the backgrounds. Look at the sight of the nearby lighthouse peaking over the cliffside where John’s mansion is located and you’ll understand the visual dichotomy I’m attempting to illustrate. It’s beautiful but carries a sense of melancholy. Like most indie titles from the 21st century that use pixels as a driving force of their artistic direction, To the Moon still looks crisper and cleaner than what the big boys of the industry were working on in the later years of the previous century. It’s telling how far the medium has progressed when a program as accessible as this one outperforms anything made with an enormous budget only two decades prior.

Despite the name of the software that To the Moon was created in, the game is not an RPG of any sort. Our two protagonists fight a squirrel on the rocky road up to John’s house in a turn-based format, but this is a one-time snarky, ironic joke to throw off the expected precedent. No, the developers figured the tasteful way to gamify a story where an old man meets his timely demise is to render it into a point-and-click adventure title. With the conjoined Inception-esque apparatus, Neil and Eva can fully access every memory and experience from John’s storied life, or at least how John recalls them. Their objective is to redirect the course of John’s life through their minor alterations, simply by subtly or unsubtly passing the idea to visit the moon while he still had time. Neil and Eva know that timeliness is essential considering the host of the simulation could perish at any moment, so their first attempt is to grab him a few months before he’s bedridden to relay the idea. Unfortunately for them, John’s twilight years were rather occupied with other worries, such as aiding his dearly departed wife River when she was in hospice and how to feasibly move a grand piano up and down a flight of stairs. John is too long in the tooth to be considering the improbable goal of space travel, so Neil and Eva are forced to delve further into John’s past to find him at a more impressionable age. The rewinding process through John’s life is how the game implements the interactive point-and-click elements. To dig deeper into the strata of John’s life, Neil and Eva must find a memento whose resonance will serve as a portal to an earlier memory. Commonly used mementos include a bag that John carried around and a stuffed platypus plush owned by River. To activate the memento, Neil and Eva must find five pieces of contextual evidence behind the memento found in the same scene, usually after the conversational section between John and another person is finished. Oftentimes, the substance behind the gameplay in a point-and-click adventure is solving puzzles to progress, giving the player a hint of interactivity that will keep them engaged. To the Moon offers something in the same vein, but it's far too elementary. The five pieces of context needed for the memento are hidden in plain sight, and the area where they are all located is confined enough that finding all of them will most likely take a few minutes at most. When the five pieces are all assembled at the chosen memento, the player is transported to a puzzle section where they must align a picture by a 5X5 grid. This simple task will also prove to be quick and easy, as there is no time limit and no penalties for accidentally making the image less coherent. I always worry when narrative-focused video games sacrifice gameplay to fortify the story, and To the Moon is another example that will continue this concern.

Alright, so if To the Moon’s gameplay is effortless so as to not distract from the foreground of the narrative, certainly the game compensates with solid characters that drive the story’s intrigue. John, for example, has circled around the sun enough times to have experienced plenty of amazement and hardships, so traveling down the rabbit hole that is his entire life should ideally be interesting, right? Actually, John’s life is realistically mundane. In fact, the man led a pretty insular life with the same people. He married his high school girlfriend, proceeded to stay acquainted with his best friend Nick into adulthood, and has been kept company by his caretaker Lily, and her two children after his wife passed into old age. Upon exploring John’s past, it seems as if his wife, River, is the fascinating one by comparison as we learn about her diagnosis of Asperger's and how it correlates to why she obsessively makes origami bunnies that are strewn all over John’s basement. We never know what John’s former occupation was and how he could afford a countryside estate that overlooks a lighthouse. Whatever it was, I’m sure it was incredibly boring. It isn’t until Neil and Eva have to connect the bridge of John’s past to his early childhood that we discover that John’s existence hasn’t always been so spotless. For some reason, the time before John’s teenage years is obscured in a hazy shield of blankness, for his time-consuming beta blockers in the military (which is only explained through exposition and not experienced firsthand) have blocked it from view. After forcibly pushing past the impediment, we learn that John is suffering the trauma of losing his twin brother Joey in a pedestrian car accident when they were still in grade school. To retain some semblance of Joey’s presence on this earth, John subconsciously adopted all of his quirks such as his adoration for pickled olives. He also gained Joey’s fondness for the Animorphs books series, which means that this old geezer is a decrepit millennial, and the modern-day in this game is in the later decades of the 21st century. Thanks for making your target demographic (me) fret over their mortality, guys. Uncovering the pinnacle turning point in John’s life that shaped his present-day demeanor suddenly makes us invested in him and adds some spice to the humdrum future events we’ve already witnessed.

Where To the Moon has characters who have the personalities of a wet sock, the game also features those on the other end of the spectrum who are a bit much. Neil Watts, the male half of the Sigmund Corp duo, is…how do I put this nicely? He’s a real prick. He’s impatient, obnoxious, rude, and treats the job he’s doing with such callousness that it is practically offensive. In sensitive fields such as the one he specializes in, it’s understood that one has to harden their heart to deal with the heaviness of death. Still, Neil presents himself with such aloofness that he comes off as a clod. The game is somewhat aware of Neil’s flawed personality through his dynamic with Eva, the straight (wo)man on the job. She constantly reprimands Neil for his buffoonery not playfully as a couple with brewing sexual tension or as a younger brother, but as a colleague who is wearing her patience thin. She has no hang-ups about announcing that Neil cheated to gain the position he’s in or insulting him right to his face. Mulder and Scully, these two aint, only because the Mulder here is an absolute cretin. Is Neil intended to be the comic relief? He certainly isn’t the rock of the protagonist duo keeping things together, so I suppose the developers intended to be the sportive source in a game revolving around heavy subject matter. Still, there isn’t anything funny about constant pop culture references or acting like an immature child when prompted to perform the most menial of tasks. Neil strays too far with his clown persona that it creates tone issues for To the Moon.

I was fully ready to rant about how To the Moon did not deliver on its promise of an emotionally impactful experience all because of Neil’s shenanigans until the end when the game managed to save itself. Reaching back into John’s earliest memories at a carnival where he meets River for the first time as a little child. When River expresses curiosity about the stars and the moon when she’s gazing up at the night sky with John, an alarming realization hits our protagonists like a ton of bricks. The reason why they’ve been having difficulties directing John towards his dying wish is that it was never his wish to begin with: it was River’s final wish that he was fulfilling for her. When our protagonists finally understand John’s motive, a conflict in ethics arises in the decision to erase River from John’s memory. By some miracle, I found myself agreeing with Neil’s stance to let things be and leave the misguided man’s memories alone, while Eva continues to press that it should be done for the sake of the mission like a cold-hearted bureaucrat. I couldn’t believe I was siding with the fuckhead that had been pissing me off to no end for the past few hours, as I shared his devastation when River had vanished from John’s high school days in the blink of an eye. Because John never went on that first date with River, this leads him through a “George Constanza abstinence directive” where he focuses on his studies to become an astronaut now that the possibility of having sex is gone. Once he succeeds and NASA gives him a grand tour of their facility, another recruit named River is there to join him on their mission to tour the moon. Also, this time alteration saves his brother, Joey, somehow. In the ideal timeline that Eva created, he marries his true love after their time spent living their wildest dreams. However, the player does not witness their moon expedition firsthand, for John in the real world flat lines and fades to black. John is buried alongside River next to the lighthouse, and Neil and Eva are given another call for a new patient. By the skin of its teeth, To the Moon yanks out an ending that sincerely tugged at my heartstrings.

I’m not going to be okay for a while now, and To the Moon is to blame. For the longest time while playing To the Moon, I was skeptical of its potency to turn on the waterworks as I had anticipated. Sure, the inherent plot of the game was sad enough to support it initially, but the impact became muddled in too much quippy dialogue from a certain character who almost ruined it entirely. With great patience, I pulled through and experienced the game pulling a buzzer-beater of an ending that made me forget about all that annoyed me beforehand, climaxing the intricate story superbly in something effectively heartwarming. Are the game’s characters a lot to be desired? Without a doubt. Is the gameplay so simple that a chimpanzee could do it? Absolutely. Is everything wrapped up in a package that is perhaps a little too contrived and convenient? You betcha. Still, the gaming medium needs games like To the Moon to prove its narrative potential.
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While I'm at it, the story here is better than Inception. There's your hot take for the day.

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Attribution:// https://erockreviews.blogspot.com

Ever since the release of Super Mario Galaxy, I had always wondered how all of the successive 3D Mario titles would meet it at eye level. After all, what could possibly match the grandiose scope of freely flying throughout the infinite reaches of the universe? Logically speaking, absolutely nothing expands beyond it. While I tout Super Mario Galaxy as Mario’s finest outing across all of his mainline games, putting the plumber in a setting with an indescribably vast breadth where no one can possibly fathom its parameters peaks the franchise conceptually. My worry was that Nintendo had inadvertently squeezed the potential out of their most valuable asset, splurging all the remaining possibilities of a 3D Mario adventure into one intergalactic romp. I’m not considering the sequel to Super Mario Galaxy as proof that Mario hadn’t stagnated because Yoshi is not substantial enough of an addition. Actually, the fact that the green dinosaur was the only crumb of innovation they could implement to Galaxy’s formula is empirical evidence to my claim that it couldn’t be surpassed. The array of Mario games that followed Galaxy decided not to succeed it, but instead to ape the pre-3D classics with a polygonal coat of paint almost as a creatively bankrupt safety net. Super Mario 3D World for the Wii U, on the other hand, is technically not another 2D Mario game rendered with polygons instead of pixels. Still, considering the game features a grid-based world map and narrowly linear levels that all end by climbing a fucking flagpole, it’s a wonder how they could convince anyone that it wasn’t of the same ilk. When Super Mario Odyssey was released as the Mario representative to showcase the new Nintendo Switch console in 2017, I still remained skeptical despite hearing that it reverted back to the collectathon format and that it was receiving the same widespread acclaim not seen since Galaxy 2. It turns out that Super Mario Odyssey still doesn’t attempt to triumph over Galaxy’s magnificence, but that is actually what makes it all the more substantial.

Of course, Odyssey begins with the same general conflict premise as Galaxy. Then again, it just wouldn’t be Mario anymore if Bowser wasn’t swiping up the princess like clockwork, which means my Stockholm syndrome for Mario’s severely overused plot device is finally settling in. The unique context behind Odyssey’s princess-napping is that Bowser realizes like Beyonce that if he likes Peach, he should put a ring on her as a binding, inescapable bond of holy matrimony seen as a steadfast contractual obligation by the law. When Mario confronts Bowser on his decorated ship flying over Peach’s castle in what is the most abrupt introduction to any Mario game thus far, the boomerang swing of Bowser’s white, snappy wedding hat knocks the wind out of Mario and sends him zooming across the skies. He leaves his trusty red cap in the wake of his humbling defeat, which Bowser crushes with the force of his hefty reptilian foot as a finishing blow to Mario’s ego. However, losing one of Mario’s most personal items is more fortuitous than one would think. Mario manages to crashland on “Bonnetown” in the Cap Kingdom, a peculiar place so expressionistic with a whimsically eerie atmosphere that it’s a wonder that Tim Burton’s name didn’t appear in the opening credits. Cap Kingdom is also populated by a society of wispy, ghoulish caps that possibly could serve as substitutes for Mario’s misplaced clothing item. Cappy, the floating pale creature who has somehow retrieved the torn remnants of Mario’s old hat from Bowser’s ship, volunteers to be the new blocker of the sun’s rays to Mario’s dome because his younger sister, Tiara, has also been forcibly taken by Bowser to serve as Peach’s crown during their eventual wedding ceremony. By fusing his ethereal body with Mario’s old cap, Cappy and Mario are now a dynamic duo on a mission to save Peach and his sister from glorified legal enslavement. I suppose the call to adventure is glorious for Cappy but for Mario, it’s just another Tuesday.

While Mario isn’t roaming the cosmos once again, the “odyssey” portion of the title still alludes to a glorious journey nonetheless. Mario is limited to the land this time around and all of its oxygenated, gravitational barriers, but this does not mean that Super Mario Odyssey is a conceptual compromise. The key element from Galaxy retained here is that heightened sense of romanticism that comes with Mario setting off on an adventure. Somehow, for a franchise whose protagonist has soared through the infinite reaches of space twice over, Odyssey’s scale still seems wondrous while sticking to an earthly environment. There is something bourgeois about sailing the skies in a steam-powered vessel in the shape of a red top hat that is granted to you on a convenient whim, a fanciful privilege only rewarded to the king of video games. Mario is a modern-day Philleas Fogg, and the premise of flying around the circumference of the entire world that was once far-fetched when Around the World in Eighty Days was written still retains that sense of spectacle and majesty despite the technological advancements we’ve contributed to air travel. The same could be said for Mario’s personal experiences, finding exhilaration in this venture even after exploring the final frontier. Somehow, for a franchise where one title was vacation-themed, Odyssey exudes a greater atmosphere of laidback breeziness than when he set foot on Isle Delfino. 3D Mario still sustains the elation of traveling abroad, which means Mario is still shirking whatever responsibility he left in the Mushroom Kingdom two decades prior. Is Peach his mistress, or did living with Luigi become intolerable?

The world that Mario is circling via a mechanical, quasi-steampunk piece of formal wear on his quest to rescue Peach is actually the one where the Mushroom Kingdom resides. Unless someone has mapped out the location of Sarasaland or Isle Delfino and determined their geographical placements in relation to the Mushroom Kingdom, Odyssey marks the first time where the player can discern the distance between Peach’s fungal domain and the areas outside of its jurisdiction. Instead of shelling out gobs of money for their wedding like your average poor sap, Bowser uses his kingly persuasion and or strongarm tactics to steal the precious artifacts from the various kingdoms to use as trinkets during the ceremony (wedding cake, soiree bouquet, etc). In the interest of sticking it to Bowser and restoring balance to the upset kingdoms he’s impolitely pillaging, Mario acts as the NATO-esque ambassador from the Mushroom Kingdom and retrieves all of the stolen items rightfully belonging to their defenseless neighbors.

Since Odyssey’s progression involves skimming across the longitudinal plane of an entire planet, one can assume that the seventeen different areas of the game showcase an eclectic range of level themes and topographies. Before you also assume that this premise allows the developers to delve back into the typical fire, ice, desert, etc. world roulette that the Super Mario series created and every conceivable platformer followed, Odyssey seems slightly more clever than to pass by with the bare minimum. Sure, the kingdoms arguably resemble the base elemental motifs that ran the genre into the ground with exhausting overuse. However, a pinch of personality will perk up any and all overused tropes. For instance, the explorable district of the Sand Kingdom, “Tostarena,” borrows inspiration from Latin American culture instead of the ancient Egyptian standstill. A plaza of vibrant, colorful buildings resembling modern Mexican architecture is contrasted with an array of mythically ancient Aztec pyramids and pillars in a dry wasteland of baked red sand. “Shiveria” in the Snow Kingdom looks like a hostile bank of frigid tundra on the surface, but underneath the raging frost is a civilization of rotund, white furballs whose habitable society exudes warmth and comfort. I suppose the closest Odyssey comes to rendering a fire-themed level is the Luncheon Kingdom, with its boiling lake of Pepto Bismol serving as the scorching hazard that surrounds the area. Anyone who would find this gaudy, splotchy kingdom appetizing is either a cartoon alien or they're on some seriously potent dope. I don’t trust that this kingdom has a pleasant aroma of food from Cappy because he doesn’t even have a fucking nose! The highlight kingdom in my personal opinion is the swinging urban “New Donk City,” meant to resemble America’s city that never sleeps. Among the goofy and brainless Sims refugees that populate this city, its less disturbingly realistic mayor should tickle anyone who is knowledgeable about Mario’s history. Mario’s old squeeze Pauline all the way back from when he was coined as Jumpman has moved on from being snatched up by Donkey Kong to a position of prestigious political power. Seeing her after a quarter of a century is like bumping into an old girlfriend from high school, and whether or not her success is life-affirming or a source of envy is a matter of individual perspective, I guess. Overall, Odyssey’s crop of kingdoms is beaming with life and energy, but there are a few duds in the mix. Some are relegated to bounded boss arenas, and the aquatic theming of both the Lake Kingdom and the Seaside Kingdom is redundant. They could’ve been integrated with the elegant mermaid society of Lake Lamode hidden underneath the surface of the carbonated beachfront of Bubblaine like how the “Steam Gardens” of the forested Wooden Kingdom juxtaposed the shadowed core below the mechanized hiking trails above.

Mario’s recurring objective, whenever he docks his aircraft on the ground of any of these levels, is to gather an increasing abundance of fuel to further power his ship. Fuel for the aircraft is harnessed via obtaining power moons that are in the shape of multicolored crescents, a Mario celestial collectible that has also been split in half. A certain milestone of power moons collected also forms another fold of the sail that hoists the ton of top hat machinery up in the sky, suggesting that it can travel to greater lengths with every new addition. That quantity of power moons needed to expand Mario’s trajectory is the primary goal of each level, as the player will be locked onto the current level until the quotient is met. Another collectible also found scattered around the field beside the standard coins is a subsidiary purple currency that tends to be aligned in packs of three and is specifically shaped for each kingdom. Mario cannot convert the darkened currency into gasoline to feed his ship’s engine; rather, they are exchanged to purchase items at a gift shop featured in every kingdom. Mario can change his attire with a hat and torso clothing combo, plant a sticker with an artistic postcard design to decorate the exterior of his aircraft like the back of a laptop screen and spruce up the interior of it with assorted knickknacks. Filling the space of the inner chamber with each level’s memorabilia is a neat way of signaling progress in the game, and mixing and matching Mario’s outfits is just darling. For those few who campaigned against Mario’s sombrero and poncho combo calling it “cultural appropriation,” get a life.

Super Mario Odyssey cuts the approximate number of total levels featured in either of the two Super Mario Galaxy games in half. Despite how this seems on the surface, Odyssey is not a skeletal 3D Mario game compared to its predecessors because of its direction. The growing linearity that both Galaxy titles sought to pursue for 3D Mario’s evolution has been scrapped entirely for Odyssey. Instead, Odyssey adopts a free-flowing open design across all seventeen levels. It’s a fortunate circumstance for Mario that his eccentric vehicle’s fuel source is plentiful and commonplace across all of the kingdoms, so the lengths he must undergo to sustain geographical movability are not arduous in the slightest. In fact, Mario can simply walk a few meters from where he parks his aircraft and find at least a couple of power moons. Odyssey provides a myriad of assorted ways to obtain its main collectible, so many that I have to limit the examples for the sake of brevity. Red doors marked with a dapper, golden top hat symbol are entrances to enclosed, traditional platforming sections where a power moon will be rewarded to Mario at the end, with another often obscured to the side rewarded for diligent searching. Some of these doors are locked behind bouncers who won’t let Mario in until he’s wearing the appropriate outfit, so the clothes are also functional as well as fashionable. Sending Mario down the iconic green pipes will transport him to a section that restricts him to the 2D axis, resembling his spritely self during his early pixelated days. I particularly enjoy these brief swathes of 2D platforming as the pixel art rendered here is so crisp and clean. Mario ascends up the New Donk City equivalent to the Empire State Building entirely in his 8-bit form in a sparkling, 25-year tribute to the classic Donkey Kong game, and the game arguably peaks in quality with this section alone. Minigames, or at least sections that I would consider to be minigames, involve matching the paces of a circle and placing the correct pieces of anatomy on a drawing of an enemy or ally. While these feel like glorified sobriety tests, the fact that they are featured shows the extent of how the game diversifies the objective of finding the power moons, ensuring that it never risks getting stale. Do you want to know what the best part of the collection process is? The pesky boot-out system that plagued the non-linear playgrounds of Super Mario 64 has been omitted entirely, so Mario can collect past the required amount of power moons to his heart’s content. The main quest that each level presents involving the retrieval of stolen goods is merely a suggestion that can be glossed over in favor of other objectives. Finally, Odyssey realizes the potential of 64’s level design after all of its immediate successors practically abandoned it.

Odyssey’s main gimmick is also greatly utilized while Mario explores each level for power moons. Cappy isn’t merely a talking hat to help Mario navigate through uncharted territory with the occasional factoid and quip: he’s as integral to Odyssey’s gameplay as F.L.U.D.D. was in Sunshine. If there is one extraordinary aspect that the already splendorous Galaxy was lacking, it’s giving Mario the ability to possess all sentient beings that surround him. Odyssey gives credence to all the conspiratorial whack jobs wearing tinfoil hats because, without their odd, makeshift headwear, their autonomy is fully squelched by Mario after he flings his hat off of his head onto theirs, with an additional mustache to signify Mario’s presence in their minds. This marvelous addition to Mario’s gameplay isn’t only used a handful of times for a small selection of NPCs: it's necessary to gather the majority of power moons per level. Ever wondered what it would be like to control a number of Bowser’s henchmen? Well, Odyssey unveils that hypothetical possibility, by letting Mario fling frying pans furiously as a hammer bro, break open cages with the charged force of a Bullet Bill, and stack Goombas to attract a female one situated on a perch. Friendlier NPCs can also be controlled, such as a clueless dad in New Donk City who can’t drive an RC car to save his life and a winged lizard who can glide to the ledges of pillars in Tostarena and the isolated islands of the remote Lost Kingdom. Mario can man mobile weaponry such as tanks and slingshots, and force inanimate objects that are obscuring power moons out of his way. For a brief period, Mario can even take control of the enormous T. Rex sleeping in Cascade Kingdom and rampage through its prehistoric waterfalls destroying all of the rock formations that surround it. Must I list more examples after this one? The ability to do so was practically a selling point for the entire game, and I was completely sold on this unique piece of gameplay innovation.

While the massive range of individual objectives per level preserves the player’s intrigue in Odyssey’s gameplay, it ultimately trivializes the game’s difficulty. Thinking of ways to scatter the power moons and implement quirky methods of earning them was probably too ambitious for the developers, so their creative juices evidently ran dry as they started to half-ass the process. Mario can earn a power moon by sitting on a bench with some lonely SOB in New Donk City, twirling his hat on several glowing spikes, and one power moon is purchasable in the section of each kingdom’s gift shop that accepts regular coins. When earning the main collectible boils down to simply purchasing it for a paltry 100 coins, does it really feel like an achievement? Is this the best the developers could come up with to meet some kind of power moon quota? Only a handful of power moons are legitimate challenges that require a reasonable level of platforming skill to obtain. To compound on Odyssey’s ease, all Mario loses when he dies is a measly ten coins. I understand that perhaps a numbered life system wouldn’t work in this open environment, for there isn’t even a hub to eject Mario to upon exhausting all of them. Still, maybe I’d be more incentivized to act cautiously if the penalty of death was a bit steeper. The areas of each kingdom tend to be fairly spacious, so perhaps Mario should be teleported back to the ship as a reasonable punishment and wipe away the whole checkpoint system. I understand that Odyssey places a heavy emphasis on liberal exploration rather than narrow platforming tasks, but lifting the weight of challenges across the board to foster this direction made me disillusioned with the gameplay at times.

I can’t say the game’s various bosses provide too much of a challenge either, but at least they share the admirable levels of diversity and creativity that the high points of Odyssey bestow. Initiating a boss encounter is usually not done by stumbling upon them like a regular power moon. They tend to be integrated with the primary objective looming overhead, and the incentive for defeating is earning a three-piece power moon pack instead of a single one. A recurring encounter found floating menacingly over many kingdoms with their miniature, flying boat are the Broodals: a quartet of anthropomorphic rabbits hired by Bowser to coordinate a slew of things for his wedding. While all the thuggish bunnies exude a rough and tough, low-brow urbanity like they’re an unused gang from The Warriors, each individual Broodal fight couldn’t be any more different from the next. Mario even fights their equally trashy mother a couple of times, who walks around carrying a chain chomp on a leash as the Mario universe equivalent of a middle-aged housewife pampering a pit bull terrier. Other bosses are endemic to the particular world they reside in, such as the stone face of Knucklotec in the catacombs of Tostarena, Mechawiggler scaling the sides of the tall buildings of New Donk City, and Cookatiel flapping its wings over the Luncheon Kingdom’s Mount Volbono volcano. The Ruined Dragon of the forsaken Ruined Kingdom is so photorealistic and darkly intimidating that it’s as if Mario crossed the metaphysical video game boundaries into Dark Souls. While none of the bosses were perilous duels that tested Mario’s might, integrating the possession mechanic into most of these boss battles is an appreciated factor of their high engagement. I especially enjoy using Knucklotec’s own fists to sucker punch him, and shooting the balls off of Mechawiggler’s body with tank shells.

Lest we forget Bowser’s role as the primary Mario antagonist among the crowd of secondary bosses in Odyssey. Similarly to the Galaxy games, Bowser is fought a handful of times before the climactic moment that results in returning Peach to safety. Also like Galaxy, Bowser’s fights are basically the same as the first with additional variations to his attacks to throw Mario off the sense of familiarity. The first fight that Bowser engages with Mario is a detour into the small, secluded Cloud Kingdom, and we’re meant to believe that his final fight will take place at his feudal Japan-themed castle, which is the most inspired depiction of Bowser’s fiery fortress we’ve seen in ages. The true climax where Mario finally conquers Bowser is set in a cathedral erected on the edge of the moon. Talk about a destination wedding! After barging through the towering ivory doors to yell “I object!” like any maverick wedding crasher would, Mario kicks Bowser’s white tuxedo-wearing, neatly combed hair ass so hard for his latest attempt to secure Peach as his property that the cathedral starts to crumble around them. In order to survive the wreckage, Mario does the unthinkable and passes his cap onto Bowser. Yes, for the last segment of Odyssey’s story, the player controls King Koopa himself as the only reliable physical force available to break through the falling debris, and he’s as fun to play as one would expect. Odyssey’s ending may not form an emotional lump in my throat as Galaxy’s did, but the epic closure of racing to the other side as Bowser is satisfyingly epic. Plus, the “bro moment” between Mario and Bowser when Peach rejects both of them as potential lovers at the end is hilariously tender and unexpected.

Flying to the moon to halt Peach’s horrible fate as Bowser’s lawfully wedded wife wrapped up the story of Odyssey nicely, but the game itself is far from over. The first step of Mario’s epilogue is finally returning home to the Mushroom Kingdom after an extensive period away. However, Mario will be working overtime here as the modern rendering of Peach’s castle and the yard surrounding it serve as an entirely new area with power moons aplenty. In addition to the power moons earned through exploration, portals strewn throughout the castle grounds transport Mario to fight the game’s bosses again with a dash of extra challenge seasoned in. Green series staples such as Yoshi and Luigi can also be found roaming the area, and their brief inclusions are enough of a presence so Nintendo doesn’t think to legitimize Odyssey with a whole new sequel where they hog more of the spotlight. What really extends the length of Odyssey to overflowing proportions are the space cubes littered across every single kingdom in the game. Now, when Mario bats these mysterious multidimensional shapes with Cappy, they ignite into the sky and create new power moons that are integrated with those left over from the base game. Engaging with the cubes doubles the amount of power moons per level, meaning that Odyssey’s epilogue is extended to the length of the entire game that the player just finished. One may dismiss Odyssey’s post-game as a case of ludicrous padding. Yet, I genuinely still yearned to collect more power moons after I defeated Bowser, and the flood of supplementary power moons quenched my thirst for more content. Besides, I can choose to collect as many additional power moons as I please at my own pace, and I’m not a strict completionist. For those who are, Odyssey certainly has their work cut out for them.

After a lengthy period of lackluster releases unfitting for Mario’s golden reputation, the Italian pride of Nintendo finally fired on all cylinders with Super Mario Odyssey. By returning to form via the 3D platformer format that used to mark a gigantic release for the plumber, Mario reworks what was perceived as insurmountable by Galaxy’s high standard by tweaking the knobs of collectathon gameplay to something completely untested in the franchise. I’m almost ashamed to admit my short-sightedness in assessing how doomed the attempt of any subsequent 3D Mario game matching Galaxy would be, for basing the core design in a strictly non-linear playground where the player has the freedom to explore without any constraints seems like such an obvious solution. “The possession mechanic” that drives Odyssey’s appeal is so unconventional that no one could’ve anticipated its incorporation into the gameplay, but we’re all delighted by its inclusion. Odyssey is a tad too facile for my liking, even for a series as accessible as Mario. Because of this, I can clearly state that I prefer the format of the previous 3D Mario platformers where earning a main collectible felt more gratifying. Still, Odyssey is more than worthy enough of being uttered in the same respects as its predecessors, something that couldn’t be said about the immediate Mario titles before it.

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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com

Don’t you hate those people who ask your opinion on a certain topic just to respond by telling you that you’re wrong? Take these awkward snobs with a grain of salt, for their patronizing way of conducting what is intended to be subjective discourse is ultimately another shot to their feet in their potential social circles. Still, where do they get the nerve? If one of these people asks me what the greatest JRPG of all time is (a rousing inquiry for sophisticated young adults, to be sure) and I answer with Paper Mario, Persona 5, or any of my other favorites that fit the genre description, I’d be sure to receive a look of smug derision and would be duly informed that the correct answer was Chrono Trigger. While I do not entertain endorsing the notion of an objective best across any form of media, the fact that tons of people have credited Chrono Trigger with this title-holder designation is certainly riveting. What is especially astounding is that even people who were born after Chrono Trigger was released are among the ones championing it as the pinnacle of the JRPG genre, and this is the same demographic of gamers that whinge incessantly when Zelda games don’t feature voice acting and when checkpoints aren’t as charitable as a soup kitchen. I don’t mean to generalize (especially upon realizing that I fit the demographic that I’m admonishing), but I never expected those who grew up with 3D graphics to laud a pixelated game on the SNES with such glowing praise in a million years. After finally playing Chrono Trigger when all of the veneration became too widespread to ignore, I think I’m now one of the annoying people who would bolster Chrono Trigger as the king of the JRPG genre to all of those even remotely interested in the gaming medium. Well, okay, I’m not entirely certain that Chrono Trigger has smitten me to that extent. Still, Chrono Trigger is an all-around impressive feat for the JRPG genre.

To think that what is the supposed magnum opus of the JRPG genre was initially going to be another brick in the sky-scraping wall of Final Fantasy titles. Whether or not one actively plays JRPGs, any and all gamers are aware of Square’s series for its synonymity with the genre. Because Final Fantasy is one of the founding fathers of the JRPG genre, its idiosyncrasies molded the facets that everyone associates the genre with, and some gamers like myself tend to find Final Fantasy somewhat disagreeable. The acquired taste of the turn-based combat mechanic is not my core discrepancy: it’s the presentational aspects of Final Fantasy that resonate an uncomforting sickened feeling inside me. Final Fantasy tends to be overwrought with gooey proverbial cheese dripping all over the dialogue and narrative arcs, confounding saccharine melancholy with profundity. To throw off my appetite even further, all of the cornball narrative elements are supported by a presentational flair so bombastic that it’s libel to make me laugh instead of weep as intended. Final Fantasy is the equivalent of a video game soap opera and the fact that the series has run as long as the airtime tenure of any standard daytime television serial hilariously strengthens this comparison. For all following JRPGs rooted entirely in fantasy, the highfalutin balderdash of Final Fantasy has unfortunately seeped into their foundation. This is why I prefer “domestic JRPGs,” my own patented term to describe games in the genre that intermingle fantasy elements in a domestic setting to keep the tone level-headed. Because Chrono Trigger was developed by the same studio as Final Fantasy and bears all of the fantastical hallmarks of that series from a first impression, I readily assumed that I wouldn’t be singing the same high praises for Chrono Trigger upon playing it. Instead, I’d be rolling my eyes constantly as I would with any of the titles in Square’s trademark IP. However, while Chrono Trigger is thematically ensconced in the realm of pure fantasy, the game has a narrative ace up its sleeve that piques my interest: time travel. This tried and true science fiction trope always serves as an intriguing plot device, even though the logic behind it is completely fallacious. Still, centering the plot of Chrono Trigger around the concept of time travel is not what inherently makes the game so exceptional. Hell, Final Fantasy often uses time travel to invigorate its plots or premises. However, Final Fantasy tends to romanticize the idea of time travel and its otherworldly implications as a video game defined by extravagance naturally would. Chrono Trigger differs from its bigger brother at Square by tapping into the existential implications of time travel as its thematic ethos, which makes the premise all the more substantial.

Time is of the essence in Chrono Trigger, which is precisely why the game wastes very little of it in the expository introduction. Like all great adventures, they all begin with our hero waking up to a brand new day in the comfort of their own bed before venturing off to the uncharted beyond. Crono, the spiky-haired teenage hero in question, is suggested to spend his day at The Millennial Fair by his mom for a joyous time playing carnival games and engaging with the other lighthearted attractions on display. This event is held every millennium in the land of Guardia to both celebrate the kingdom’s inception and commemorate the victory of a war held here that took place four centuries ago against the monstrous mystics. Immediately as Crono enters the fair, his skull smacks right into that of a blonde girl named Marle, who insists on following Crono around the fair like a desperate date once he returns her pendant she spilled in the head-on collision. Once Crono and Marle humor the teleportation device built by Crono’s precocious tech-wiz friend Lucca, the process goes awry and sends Marle through a portal that materializes due to the converging power of her pendant and the energy of Lucca’s machine. Once Crono dives into the portal to follow Marle, he finds himself in a comparatively underdeveloped Guardia: 400 years in the past during the peak of the Mystic War that the humans in Crono’s time were speaking of in retrospect as a historical milestone. As an act of oppositional aggression, the mystics have abducted Guardia’s human queen Leene, and her regal cabinet has mistaken her for Marle because she’s a dead ringer descendent. To ensure the human’s triumph over the mystics hasn’t been warped by his sudden disturbance, Crono and Lucca must stay here in the past to proactively rescue the queen and preserve the state of the future. Despite how tempting the strongman game and soda chugging contest are, ignoring the distractions the fair provides and staying on the linear progression path will see Crono fighting imps in Truce Canyon in about five minutes tops. It’s refreshing to see a JRPG prioritize catapulting the player into the action as opposed to a hefty majority of them that take a millennium to get going.

Chrono Trigger is also breathtakingly gorgeous. I realize it’s a surface-level commendation for a game that I’m touting as the cerebral savior of the traditional JRPG game, but I’d be absolutely remiss if I omitted this aspect from my review. I’m a staunch defender of pixelated graphics and their aesthetic legitimacy, but even I had no idea how heavenly they could look until I played Chrono Trigger. Pixel art’s strength is in its endearing quality, but that sense of endearment does admittedly stem from a rough-hewn jaggedness that still persisted with 16-bit graphics. Somehow for a game on a pixel-based console, Chrono Trigger’s visuals are practically free of blemishes. It’s a lucky teenager with silky, clear skin surrounded by a school of peers whose faces are still riddled with acne. The expressive humanity that is often diminished with such a rudimentary rendering of gaming visuals is not compromised, showcased as early as the fun house attraction in a Millennial Fair tent when Crono plays Simon Says with a clone of himself. Lucca’s Gato robot with his own attraction at the fair isn’t displayed here to showcase the combat before Crono is forced to fend for himself as intended: his early encounter is really to show off the gleaming sheen of his red armor that is so crystal clear that Chrono can practically see his reflection as he’s fighting it. The Guardia Forest situated between the royal estate and the mainland guarding the castle like a grassy moat is serenity incarnate, and I’d meditate in its natural glory for the whole game if I reasonably could. A scene as insignificant as the construction site of the Zenan Bridge in the Middle Ages still presents a marvelous backdrop of a shining horizon contrasting with the dark clouds engulfing it, beaming over the still river water. The sublime scenery presented here is a single tear-inducing sight. I’d send it as a postcard to all of my close friends and relatives, rejecting further engagements with them if they couldn’t appreciate the beauty that I’ve generously shared. The overworld map is rendered more one-dimensionally because it serves as a spatial middle ground that connects all of the intricately detailed places of interest. Still, even with the chibi-sized characters moving around the map with the same directional rigidness of a checkerboard piece, the backdrop of the map is still a divine depiction of the enchanted land of Guardia that sends the same awe-stricken tingles throughout my entire body. I always stated that it was a dumb decision to abandon sprite animation almost entirely in favor of stampeding toward the arguably more obtuse-looking early 3D graphics in the next generation. However, I now consider that the industry might have collectively peeked at Chrono Trigger and unanimously decided that no other game could best its pixelated beauty.

Regarding Chrono Trigger’s key gameplay attributes that the astounding presentation supports, the game is a tad less orthodox than the average JRPG churned out from Square. If you’re one of the fussy few who is turned off by the inorganic flow of turn-based combat found across most if not all JRPGs, Chrono Trigger’s approach to the genre’s distinguishing mechanic should quell the complaints from the dissenters. To accent Chrono Trigger’s combat system, I have to bury my sense of shame and inform you all that I was forced to redo the entire introduction at the fair. An imp at Truce Canyon kicked me in the back of the head unexpectedly as I was scrolling through the battle menu and the blunt impact killed Crono on sight (my health was already low because I fought Lucca’s robot for some silver points). I accidentally gave the green, chrome-domed twerp his golden opportunity to smite me because it hadn’t occurred to me that Chrono Trigger’s combat was running in real-time for all combatants. Chrono Trigger’s unique approach to turn-based combat involves slackening the polite parameters that all parties must abide by amid battle, instead opting to have a free-form fling with limited barriers. The player’s handicap that complies with the game’s lenient rules is a white bar that fully depletes after choosing an option from the menu. Once the action has been executed, the selected character will be completely inactive until it regenerates, which can either be an instant charge or a lethargic build-up depending on the character. This cool-down period, of course, leaves them vulnerable to enemy fire, commencing the opposition’s “turn” during battle. I’d debate the issue of whether or not Chrono Trigger’s combat is entirely fair, considering the enemies tend to assault Crono and friends with a barrage of pain and status afflictions seemingly without being tethered by the same regulations. Spamming disastrous spells every two seconds will become a harrowing reality to endure with the bosses in the later period of the game. Still, every enemy’s superior stamina is just another engaging facet of Chrono Trigger’s combat to put into consideration when facing them. Chrono Trigger adds an appreciated frenetic spark to the dry and tired turn-based system with minute adjustments, and the higher energy emulates something more akin to realistic combat without fracturing the JRPG base.

The way in which Chrono Trigger conducts the leveling-up mechanic also splices up the JRPG tradition. While the character’s physical attributes grow stronger in small increments with every level as usual, the game also tracks the accumulation of “tech points,” a separate system that increases in tandem with the standard leveling. After battles are won, the tech points will go towards learning special abilities for Crono and his presently chosen array of pals. For instance, the first ability that Crono can unlock with tech points involves a “cyclone” move that involves using his sword as a makeshift helicopter propeller, and the “slash” move swipes Crono’s sword on the ground as he flings the friction it creates towards enemies as a projectile. These special moves are an asset to targeting multiple enemies, preventing swathes of vulnerability with more enemies on the field. Crono can really expand the blast radius of his offense with his magic maneuvers that also coincide with tech points. Once Chrono and the majority of his partners are trained in the art of witchcraft by the furry mage Spekkio at the edge of time, the player will practically never revert back to regular attacks with these characters. The magic powers between Crono, Marle, Lucca, and Frog run the gamut of electricity, ice, fire, and water respectively, so it's an eclectic range of elemental forces. Chrono Trigger’s true innovation involving the tech points is unlocking “dual techs' which allows Crono to combine his special maneuvers with that of one of his partners, provided both of their bars are simultaneously full. To no one’s surprise, the elemental flair added to Crono’s cyclone and deadly single spincut move proves far deadlier than when executed plainly. But the dual techs don’t only serve to enhance Crono: any two of Crono’s partners can also converge their special abilities to great effect, even Robo and Ayla who are respectively both too primitive and too technological to execute any feats of magic. Any magic user can still slather them in elemental energy for a lethal combination of power. Depending on the roulette of characters in battle and, of course, if their bars are fully prepared, executing a “tri-attack” combines the special offensive properties of three characters to create total devastation. The partner characters can only earn tech points if they are often following alongside Crono for an extended period on the field, so the player is encouraged to change up their party roster frequently. The synergy between Crono and his friends is mechanically deeper than the cast of playable characters in any JRPG beforehand, and mixing up the roster to see the varied extent of the dual techs never ceases to be interesting.

But how can one possibly juggle the collective experience of six different characters at once to maximize all of their individual proficiencies? Well, I did say that a specific character had to be present in the roster to earn tech points, but I didn’t state this was also necessary for overall experience points. Only three characters can teleport through the time rifts at once, an instance of time continuum bylaws fabricated by the developers as a convenient loophole to limit the party. When Crono collects a number of adventurers that exceed this limit, the extras are stored as benchwarmers in a mystical mezzanine ostensibly suspended above the infinite ether of time itself. While the holdovers are here suspended in tranquil nothingness playing cards, Pictionary, or whatever to alleviate their boredom, somehow their idleness will still translate to gaining experience. Sure, any partners fighting alongside Crono will gain as much experience as our protagonist, but all of the other partners sitting around twiddling their thumbs will amazingly be trailing behind in levels ever so slightly. When I realized that my absent party members were not deprived of experience points upon returning to them at the end of time, I was relieved beyond belief. A prevalent insecurity common among JRPGs is their pension for having the player undergo painstaking grinding sessions to artificially pad out the length of the game. For once, Chrono Trigger is a JRPG that is confident in its estimated runtime and does away with what I consider to be the most unappealing aspect of playing a JRPG. If only Chrono Trigger set an example for future JRPGs in this regard. On the whole, it’s yet another merit of Chrono Trigger’s general accessibility. Healing items for both health and magic are always in abundance whether or not the player is proactively opening every chest on the field or buying them in bulk at the shops across any period. The gold currency needed to purchase these helpful wares is rewarded in surprisingly hefty quantities after every battle, and the player can possibly heal themselves and their entire party at once with a “shelter” item whenever they spot themselves on one of the various save states that are generously placed around every enclosed area. The player will never become attached to one basic weapon or armor accessory because the game will consistently provide new and improved models and fashion for all characters. One might gather all of this information and make a deduction that Chrono Trigger is as revered as it is because it’s so accessible to the point of being effortless. However, Chrono Trigger staves off being baby’s first JRPG by inflicting dire punishment for mistakes during battle, with enemy damage totaling up to numbers in the hundreds if the player isn’t honing their battle strategy. The diverse defensive properties across all of the enemies also require risk-taking and observation to always keep the player on their toes.

With a game so manageable, why would Crono need a ragtag team of time travelers to provide an extra elemental kick to his sword swings? One of Chrono Trigger’s greatest strengths is the rich level of depth and personability found among all its characters, especially those with elongated exposure in Crono’s RPG party. If an RPG party is intended to be an eclectic Breakfast Club band, Chrono Trigger’s primary cast is as diversely colorful as a rainbow. Firstly, Marle is not the typical damsel in distress like the game establishes her in the beginning. Sure, her hyper-feminine demeanor fits the bubbly blonde female trope like an elegant opera glove on a starlet’s arm, and discovering she’s Guardia royalty doesn’t aid my point. However, Marle’s dissatisfaction with high society and reject her regal birthname of Nadia as she tells her kingly father to stick it where the sun doesn’t shine shows more autonomous spunk than her dainty upbringing would normally warrant. For context, Marle isn’t rebelling against her family because of teenage angst, for that wouldn’t be atypical for her gender or age. She’s infuriated that her family's cabinet sentenced Crono to be executed by the state for simply bringing her home from captivity and the trial beforehand where this sentence was decreed cherry-picked from the trivial actions Crono committed in his brief stint at the Millenial Fair in the introduction. Being judged for the most minor of misconduct during this sequence was genuinely appalling and hair-raising, and I’m glad Marle sided with justice rather than the comfort of her privileged status.

Existing in the same “modern” period of Guardia as Crono and Marle is Lucca, the only partner character that already has an established relationship with the protagonist prior to the events of the game. If you ask me, the brainy, asexual girl trope is as overused as that of the girly-girl, and placing Lucca alongside Marle practically exudes a stark Velma and Daphne dynamic far too commonly seen among groups of characters (that involve women in the first place). While Lucca’s backstory isn’t as involved as Marle’s, frequent visitations to her house and interactions with her dad for Lucca’s armor upgrades give Lucca a human warmness that the aloof, calculating character trope she falls under usually rejects. Witnessing how her mother lost her legs in an industrial accident and the palpable trauma from Lucca’s reaction is genuinely heartbreaking.

Reaching beyond the confines of modern times allows Crono to expand his party past two neighbor girls to seriously wild possibilities. The most paradoxical pairing in Crono’s party is Ayla and Robo, two characters whose interactions are so absurd that their close proximity that Crono has caused with his time philandering should fracture the space-time continuum into itty bitty pieces. Ayla is a cavewoman from the ripe dawn of human civilization, while Robo is a clanking bucket of bolts from humanity’s bitter epilogue. Ayla is aggressive and blunt, solving her problems by hitting them like an ankylosaurus while Robo is neutral and impersonal as one would expect from someone programmed with artificial intelligence. The commonality these characters share is they are both fishes out of the water from the absolute parallel of ponds, and their exposure to modernity fosters domestic growth for both of them. Lucca’s character arc intertwines with that of Robo in that their mutual mechanical aptitude evolves into pure, platonic affection, a result unexpected with these two particular characters.

By far, the most complex and tragic of Crono’s posse is Frog, an anthropomorphic amphibian who daylights as a knight in the queen’s service during the Middle Ages. Like someone who carries the honor of this noble duty, Frog is loyal to a T and will happily die to protect the monarchy that governs his land with unbridled enthusiasm while speaking the king’s English with full affectation. If he does, it wouldn’t be as tragic as what actually happened to him. Until the game’s halfway point, the player will probably wonder if seeing a talking frog means that hopping from period to period has had a dizzying mental effect on Crono and his friends. We discover that Frog was once a human named Glenn who initially joined the queen’s service in the fight against the mystics to toughen up his overly sensitive interior alongside his best friend Cyrus. Once Cyrus is fatally stricken by the Mystic leader Magus, the dark fiend transforms Glenn into a frog as an adjunct act of cruelty. Once we’re privy to Frog’s backstory, we come to understand his tentative quirks and empathize with his willingness to destroy Magus.

From a certain perspective, one could argue that the setting of Guardia is the unspoken champion of complexity across all of Chrono Trigger’s characters. As the game progresses, every bandage that obscures the fascinating history of the fantasy land is unraveled, peeling back the mystique by visiting the six notable periods. How Chrono Trigger’s story progresses is the accumulative gathering of more context on Guardia’s past, present, and future, and is brilliantly constructed in a non-linear fashion where each period has a primary arc that is completed incrementally in conjunction with all of the others. Because Chrono Trigger’s plot hops around like a cocaine-addled rabbit, it’s imperative to discuss each period individually from the least amount of insight to the most.

1000 AD is the year of Guardia’s present day, and all seems a little too well. For those pedantic types, yes, 1000 AD in reality’s timeline is still smack dab in the Middle Ages. In Chrono Trigger’s timeline, their victory over the mystics in 600 AD allowed their Renaissance period to ignite much sooner. Because Guardia got a head start, their period of humanistic prosperity is far more advanced if Lucca’s robot and the steamboats floating in their harbor are any indication. Some might point out anachronistic errors, but Guardia is ultimately still a fantasy world not confined by historical accuracy. Besides, the wooden, old-world aesthetic of 1000 AD with the prevalent technological advancements here strikes a wondrous, timeless ambiguity that somehow fits, emulating that brand of Hayao Miyazaki magic found in the worlds he creates for his films. The aura here is elated like a Miyazaki world because everyone has let their guard down for 400 years. Celebrating the milestone of winning the war seems redundant because every day here seems like a celebration of the peace and prosperity they’ve earned. That is, the cheerful and nonchalant attitude is only felt in Leene Square where Crono, Lucca, and Marle reside along with their fellow humankind. One boat ride from Leene away on the island of Medina is the district of the mystics, who are still simmering over their defeat four centuries ago and are waiting for their day of retribution. The atmosphere here is one of disquieting tension, establishing that the conflict between the humans and the mystics is far from over and will be a recurring conflict throughout the game.

Reverting back to the climactic peak of the Mystics War back in 600 AD gives Crono and pals more insight into what actually occurred that allowed them to live in peace, especially since the onus to facilitate that outcome is now on them because of time adulteration. The one distinctive signifier that separates Guardia in the Middle Ages from the present is a hazy mist engulfing the land, and the wooden architecture across all civilizations is also less refined. The prevalent fogginess probably represents that unrest is ubiquitous during war times, which is then expounded on with every scene in this time period aiding the war effort with intense bouts of combat. Here, we meet the Mystic generals that the modern-day mystics practically lionize: Ozzie the portly, green tactician, the purple, sword-wielding Slash, and the non-binary Flea. With the ominous Magus as their commander, taking down these four major figures of the Mystic War is paramount to bringing about a better tomorrow for mankind. Upon restoring the mythical Masamune sword that Cyrus once owned, the climatic segment of the war where Crono and pals infiltrate Magus’s intimidatingly spooky castle to defeat him and his cronies is a harrowing highlight.

Restoring balance to the timeline in the Middle Ages is not where Chrono Trigger ends as some probably expected from the beginning. The valuable information we learn from visiting prehistoric Guardia before it was named as such is that primordial versions of both the humans and mystics have been waging war with one another since unicellular organisms emerged. Between the untamed Pangea jungles and sites of active volcanoes lies the conflict between Ayla’s tribe of unadorned Neanderthals and mystics with dinosaur phenotypes called the Reptites. The Reptites antagonize the primitive humans to secure their place at the top of the proverbial food chain, for their leader Azala is aware that the cataclysmic comet that wiped out the dinosaurs is approaching and wishes that her non-human ilk reign supreme in the future centuries. Of course, Crono assures the opposite when his party defeats Azala, setting the human-dominating precedent that will persist for millions of years into the future.

For those whose history knowledge needs to be dusted off from their high school years, the colossal impact of the meteor slowly but surely led to the blisteringly brutal and fallow ice age that rendered the earth in a seemingly perennial blizzard. From each time period so far, we’ve only seen a skewed perspective that the humans are the moral heroes and the mystics are just incorrigible scoundrels. During the coldest era of the earth’s history when the mystics evidently scurried elsewhere, we get a taste of the humans acting maliciously towards each other. When Guardia is frozen over, human society is split in two. The impoverished half of the human race are referred to as “earthbound ones,” staving off the harsh effects of their permanent winter underground wearing nothing but rags caked with dirt as a defense. Meanwhile, on the total opposite spectrum, the Kingdom of Zeal shadows the frostbitten earth in a chain of islands suspended in the sky. Not only is the weather outside not a concern here, but the scientific and or technological accomplishments of this erudite society dwarf anything found in present-day Guardia. Besides the obvious class imbalance, an unattractive, elitist attitude against the downtrodden earthbounders persists among the Zealites. Despite their illustrious image and scholarly repute, the people of Zeal are downright rotten. The Queen of Zeal’s power trip is so potent it verges on psychosis, and her assistant Dalton is a strong contender for the most unlikable douchebag in gaming. Revealing a malevolence among the people of Zeal provides a nuanced perspective that aids how the player perceives the age-old conflict between humans and mystics.

Alas, all of the fighting amounts to nothing as eventual ruin takes over in the only future period of Guardia the player can explore in the far-off time of 2300 AD. To escape the corrupt law of the present day after Crono’s trial, Crono and pals jump into a time warp portal to a strange land that barely resembles the once glorious kingdom of Guardia. Somehow, even with the frigid dark ages as an available window of time to peer through, Guardia in the 24th century surpasses it in squalid depression. Guardia is depicted in a state of total apocalyptic stillness, with a current of dust eroding away from what was once the prosperous foundation of futuristic Guardia blustering all over the land as violently as the gusts of dark age snow. All of the color is muted in a muddy brown, and all erected modern structures have completely collapsed into the streets below. The civilization remaining in this vacant hellscape resides in a series of domes, a marvel of architectural innovation before the apocalyptic event occurred. All they do to pass the time is lie around in the musty smog of each dome’s interior waiting for a fatal hunger pang brought upon by the everlasting famine to put them out of their misery. In addition, the robots they’ve built, Robo’s models, are planning a robot uprising against the poor humans in the assorted factories located in between the domes. Stating that Guardia’s future is bleak is the understatement of the century. However, I suppose it’s not all bad considering this is where Crono and the gang uncover the Epoch, a flying time-traveling aircraft built by the time guru Belthasar that renders the drag of warping through each time portal obsolete. The Epoch is so cool and convenient that it should be uttered in the same respected breath as the Starship Enterprise and Millenium Falcon for iconic science-fiction vessels. Then again, that street race mini-game against the rogue robot Johnny here is the most objectively flawed aspect of the entire game, so the future all around still sucks out loud.

However, the various feuds between the varying two factions across Guardia’s history are not what eventually doomed it. All of the conflict was merely a distraction masking the true culprit of Guardia’s demise: an eldritch monster named Lavos who exists to parasitically absorb its chosen planet’s life force and render it desolate and barren. Apparently, Lavos’ plans to suck the earth dry is a longcon scheme, for its arrival is actually the asteroid whose impact ushered in the dark ages. In what is the earliest instance of Y2K hysteria across all media, Lavos awakens from its slumber beneath the planet’s crust in 1999 AD, flooding the world in inescapable destruction and leaving it forevermore in the state we see in 2300 AD. Knowing its devastating potential, the governing officials of Zeal attempt to abruptly summon Lavos to harness its power. Naturally, this attempt to flirt with incomprehensible energy goes horribly awry and blows the Kingdom of Zeal to smithereens. Crono ends up saving his friends from the almighty force of Lavos by sacrificing himself, causing the origin point of the time portals from the immensity. Lavos is a truly, terrifyingly intimidating cosmic force in the size and in the scope that the narrative establishes for him, making the player wonder if stopping him to save the future is a futile task.

“Did the developers just pull an Alfred Hitchcock and kill off the main character far before the falling action of the story?” I asked myself in complete shock after what had just occurred. Once the player picks themselves off their feet and control Marle as the primary party member, the dire implications of this change start to sink in. The final portion of Chrono Trigger is what I like to refer to as the “sidequest extravaganza” because the game can either end with finally tackling Lavos for real by either traveling to 1999 AD directly or finishing off the remnants of Zeal by dredging through the Black Omen dungeon which eventually leads to a more manageable Lavos encounter. Or, the player can engage with seven separate sidequests to prolong the game to a fifth of its initial length. I highly suggest humoring these sidequests not only because they reward the player handsomely with the best weapons and gear, but also because they provide essential closure to the arcs of each partner character. Glenn lays his buddy Cyrus to rest, Robo halts the computer menace, and the chancellor that sentenced Crono to the guillotine is revealed to be the direct descendant of the game’s first boss on a secret revenge mission during Marle’s sidequest. After all, the player should ideally be incentivized to prepare thoroughly to fight Lavos, and his four-stage fight will wear on the player even with the most efficient gear. How much the player is willing to do during the final stretch will also coincide with the ending they receive, and there are an impressive number of outcomes. It’s outstanding how much the player’s decisions here will affect the game’s resolution.

What resonates with me upon finishing the final section of Chrono Trigger is that our protagonist, Crono, doesn’t matter. Crono is intended to be the heroic avatar that is destined for glory, giving the player that sense of gratification. However, he disintegrated before our very eyes and the game still continues without him as par for the course. Hell, Magus, who turns out to have always been campaigning against Lavos and not for supporting his return because of what happened in Zeal on that fateful day, makes for a fine Crono surrogate if the player doesn’t allow Glenn to decapitate him to avenge Cyrus. Simply incorporating Magus as an ally is an insult to Crono’s memory, but only if you stubbornly persist with the idea that Crono is the focal point of the story. One of the endgame sidequests is a roundabout excursion to resurrect Crono, putting the clone from the fair in place at the pinpoint moment of Lavos’ attack on Zeal. Even though he returns, he no longer has a solid spot as the unchangeable leader and can be swapped out for anyone. We start to wonder what the ancillary mute is doing here among a group of characters who are vastly more interesting than he is. The inconsequential impact of Crono’s death on the plot conjures up the idea that perhaps nothing matters. The endless power struggle between those who reside on this planet will ultimately prove a stalemate because time is a cruel mistress that will end everything eventually. Time is a relative constant that waits for no one, not even those who are deemed important. It is the grand extinguisher across the cosmos. Chrono Trigger doesn’t romanticize the premise of time travel like other JRPGs: it treats the concept with honesty, causing uncomforting thoughts and feelings of one’s own mortality to creep in. It’s a scary byproduct of really effective art.

Chrono Trigger was a labor of love between three Japanese industry giants, and the goal of their painstaking efforts was to create something extraordinary that would blow the balls off of every gamer who purchased it or they would get a money-back guarantee. Well, call me a eunuch because this customer, along with several hundreds of thousands of people, is satisfied completely. By all means, Chrono Trigger should’ve alienated myself and other JRPG sticklers because of its inherent Square makeup and the fantasy premise and setting still scream that it's a Square game. However, beneath the surface, Square takes all that I find fault with Final Fantasy and commits an act of defenestration with it, starting anew from the ground up. Chrono Trigger takes turn-based combat to an unparalleled heights of involvement that is as smooth as a Guinness stout, all while trimming the fat of grinding found in most JRPGs to a sleek and slender accessibility that will still not deter the genre’s biggest enthusiasts. In an era where gaming narrative was still elementary at best, Chrono Trigger provides a story with charismatic characters handling an intelligent story involving the convoluted premise of time travel with no plot holes to be found. Goddammit, no wonder why Chrono Trigger is lauded so innumerably: the game is void of any flaws. Given that it’s a product of an era where we were still tolerating the primitiveness of a relatively new medium, the fact that Chrono Trigger supersedes all of its contemporaries to this degree is astonishing beyond words. In the almost three decades it's been since Chrono Trigger was released, the cruel mistress of time still hasn't depreciated its masterpiece status.

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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com

In all honesty, I don’t feel all that confident or comfortable assessing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Why am I plagued with a looming sense of apprehension? Well, to be frank, it’s because I’m white. I’m not only referring to the fact that my skin pigment lacks so much melanin that I cannot physically tan, as the sun’s rays have always transferred searing burns to my skin instead of a radiant, golden sheen. I’m alluding to all of the cultural factors of my ethnic background that have molded my general upbringing whether or not I actively engaged with them or was aware of their status quo alignment in American society at the time. I grew up middle class on a street with three churches of differing Christian denominations, my music of choice was a variation of rock/metal music, and my dad votes Republican. And yes, I was an avid watcher of The Simpsons (a strong white signifier according to Aqua Teen Hunger Force). My background and the one that comprises the cultural iconography of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas are as contrasting as fire and ice, which is why attempting to delve into the substance of the game’s narrative, characters, and real-world parallels may result in a vortex of ignorant poppycock. The cold comments on modern urbanity in Grand Theft Auto III affect all city dwellers, and the neon-lit Vice City is arguably more akin to the nostalgic recollections of 1980s pop culture from an Anglo-centric descendant demographic, albeit of a certain age. San Andreas, on the other hand, draws its influences from a specific facet of American culture that is almost alien to myself and several other gamers, and should probably be approached with a modicum of sensitivity. Still, I have to discuss San Andreas, for it would be detrimental to my reputation as a comprehensive video game critic if I never even uttered a single word on this monumental achievement for the interactive medium. San Andreas is the most significant entry in the infamous Grand Theft Auto franchise, arguably the most exceptional title on the basis of quality, and a titanic benchmark for the burgeoning open-world genre.

A gangster’s livelihood is neither fun nor glamorous, or at least that’s what I’ve come to understand. The gangster genre of fiction in film and literature gave us a glimpse of the seedy underbelly of society to elicit a great vicarious thrill for all of the good-natured, god-fearing common folk. The highs of gangster life verge on euphoria, but every piece of mob media assures their audience that the repercussions of this lifestyle can be cataclysmic in more ways than one. While the allure of the criminal life is strong, one can still ignore the enticing criminal riches and intimidating swagger that come with it, unless you’re The Sopranos who argues that a mafioso lifestyle is a damning, dominant genetic trait for certain ethnicities. Also, all of this pertains to organized crime. A facet of the gangster world that is just as ever-present as Italian guys in their pinstripe suits and loafers carrying Tommy guns around are the street gangs predominantly run by African-Americans in impoverished urban areas, a harrowing result of the American government’s war on drugs and racial systemic oppression. Unlike the mafia, the excess and glamor of street gang life are far less extravagant, but the ramifications are no less disastrous. Still, the conditions of the streets where gang violence occurs are so bereft of any legitimate economic prosperity that it seems like flirting with danger is the only way to make a living. The vicious cycle of drug-inflicted murder in America’s ghettos among young black men was the subject of John Singleton’s 1991 film, “Boyz n the Hood,” and its breakout success gave the rest of the world insight into the Afro-centric state of depression. Despite how sincere Singleton was with his film, several insubstantial imitators came out of the woodwork like Menace II Society and Juice, along with an influx of “gangsta rap” music emerging from Los Angeles which expanded to other parts of the country as the decade progressed. Like its GTA predecessor Vice City, San Andreas is a time capsule that intentionally oozes the motifs and atmosphere of the raw and grimy scene of urban decay when it was ubiquitous in mainstream culture. I’m actually surprised that it took until the franchise's fifth entry for Rockstar to revel in its thematic potential. While San Andreas is intended to be manic fun like any GTA game before it, the game offers enough tact and subtle substance in its narrative to prevent the act of making mayhem in its culturally sensitive setting seem tasteless.

Enter Carl Johnson (aka CJ), a young, twenty-something black man who is seen returning to his hometown of Los Santos after a five-year stint in Liberty City. He absconded from his birthplace because his younger brother Brian became another statistic of gang violence, and he returned to Los Santos under the unfortunate circumstance that his own mother had also fallen as a result of their environment. Before he arrives at his old stomping grounds, he is intercepted by two C.R.A.S.H officers named Tenpenny and Pulaski. They blackmail CJ by threatening to pin the murder of fellow officer Pendelbury, who was actually killed by the two when he attempted to call public attention to their prevalent corruption within the force, on him unless he becomes their indentured servant. Carl reconnects with his brother “Sweet,” his sister Kendl, and a plethora of other familiar faces upon his arrival. He’s been away for so long that his old homie “Big Smoke” rashly tries to bash his face in with a baseball bat, confusing him for a common thief upon not being able to recognize him. Now that the gang's back together, Sweet orchestrates a revenge mission against the rival “Ballas” gang in purple on the speculation that they’re responsible for his mother’s murder, and CJ is the muscle of the operation. Rockstar has decided to continue their streak of setting the scene with the protagonist returning to the streets after a long hiatus to draw parallels between the player’s unfamiliarity and the protagonist’s refamiliarization. The only difference now is that CJ isn’t returning after any time behind bars, mussing up the traditional introduction a bit. Still, the opening sequence of San Andreas splendidly establishes the tone of the setting along with the characters that reside in it, mostly through natural character interactions as opposed to overt exposition.

Judging from how his return is received, CJ gets even less respect than Rodney Dangerfield. His long absence from the dilapidated cradle of civilization he was born into has made him detached from the rough and rowdy gung-ho attitude that all ghetto denizens live by to survive. Or, at least that’s a concern that his brother Sweet and other various acquaintances vocally express regularly. His neighbor and fellow gangbanger Ryder, especially, keeps calling CJ a “straight busta,” which I can infer from context clues means that he’s calling CJ a “lameoid” or a “poser.” All of his family members consistently give CJ a hard time, but Ryder has the gall to disrespect CJ right to his face. I am appalled at the audacity of CJ’s friends and relatives for treating this man with such blatant contempt because he’s a glowing instance of the continual evolution of Grand Theft Auto protagonists. San Andreas is far more character-driven than any of the previous 3D GTA games. CJ, our newest mischief maker in the realm of chaos that is the GTA world, supersedes the stigma of a simplistic avatar character that Claude had unfortunately established for any future GTA successors. Tommy was a stark improvement on Claude with a voice and a clearer background but let’s be frank, his brightly colored Hawaiian shirt carried his character’s charisma. CJ is as animated as a Tex Avery cartoon. He’s confident to the point of being arrogant, he isn’t afraid to shout at those who provoke his ill temper, and he’s quite diligent when it comes to enacting all of his destructive, illegal deeds. Still, he shows compassion and respect to those that he is loyal to, namely his older brother Sweet who gets himself trapped in many perilous pinches as an executive gangbanger, and CJ must provide his aid to protect him. GTA’s protagonists have been upgraded from emotionless psychopaths to a wavering, complex sociopath. Hey, it’s still Grand Theft Auto at the end of the day. Don’t expect CJ to be Levar Burton from Reading Rainbow. Most of all, CJ is uproariously funny. Because he’s brash as can be, he combats all social interactions with hilariously candid and loud retorts. The characters that I enjoyed from the previous two GTA games were the secondary characters seen through sparse interactions via cutscenes, but San Andreas marks the first instance where the protagonist is a strong contender for my favorite character in the game.

But the ostentatious CJ isn’t simply caterwauling at blank NPCs just because he enjoys the booming sound of his own voice. San Andreas’ greater emphasis on character relationships and interactions is a two-way street between CJ and those that he is close to. I’ve briefly stated that CJ’s loved ones and acquaintances give him heaps of grief, but the amounts of spurning vary in loads and stem from different perspectives. Sweet, CJ’s older brother, is fiercely dedicated to the feuding struggle between his hood and the rival Ballas gang around the perimeter. If the conflict between the Families and the Ballas were comparable to war, Sweet would be General MacArthur, patrolling the streets with a towering sense of pride as a de facto five-star ranked warrior. You can imagine why he’d be disappointed in his brother for abandoning the cause for half a decade. Meanwhile, CJ’s sister Kendl, expresses a disgusted resentment for all the senseless violence that her brothers are aggrandizing. She’s so deliberately detached from the Grove Street insularity imposed upon her that she’s dating Cesar, the leader of the Los Aztecas Hispanic gang, much to Sweet’s chagrin. The close allies around the block that support Sweet’s cause are OG homies Ryder and Big Smoke, the lieutenants that directly assist Sweet with missions of defending the reputation of the Families. Ryder is an amoral degenerate who brandishes his angel dust cigarettes as casually as if he were smoking tobacco. Gang activity seems to be a perfect outlet for this unfeeling soldier of death and destruction. Big Smoke, on the other hand, is more akin to a comic relief character. Whether it be his artery-clogging order at the Cluckin’ Bell drive-thru or his incoherent musings on life, Big Smoke is quite lighthearted for a man who regularly murders people. It must be a law for all rotund supporting characters across all fiction to be somewhat jovial. Non-affiliated characters from around the block include aspiring rapper Jeffrey “OG Loc'' Cross, the celebrated MC whose fame OG Loc covets named Madd Dogg, drug dealer B Dup, and his drug monkey Big Bear. While these supporting characters exist on the outskirts of Grove Street affairs, their existences are still influenced by the same destitute state of urban life. Up until now, GTA’s approach to character interactions was becoming acquainted with strangers, and the overarching goal of the protagonist’s relationship was still constricted by business. When every supporting character already has a history with CJ and some are composed of his family and friends, their personal chemistry heightens the dramatism of both conflict and moments of mirthfulness.

San Andreas extends the enhanced dynamic between the protagonist and the other characters with the game’s main antagonist(s). The opposing force that is making CJ’s life more of a living hell is LSPD officer Tenpenny and his crony Pulaski. One strong facet of hood-related media is the presence of a corrupt police force that puts the already underprivileged members of society under further subjugation. The constant slaps in the face the boys in blue inflict on individuals of the impoverished African-American community especially sting when they are from people of the same skin color who are perceived as traitors to their own kind, as portrayed with Officer Coffey in Boyz n’ the Hood. Not only does Tenpenny not share any kinship with those he undermines, but he treats them as pawns in a game he manufactured by abusing his power as an officer. He’s sitting pretty as the king of the streets, and he’d go to horribly despicable lengths to maintain his tyrannical reign. Pulaski is like Tenpenny’s attack dog lackey, enforcing Tenpenny’s demands with bellicose strong-arming. I’d say he represents the bad cop delivery to Tenpenny’s good, but they’re both rotten to the core. A major strength of Tenpenny as a villain is his confident control over CJ. One might question how Tenpenny could simply snatch CJ off the streets and make him indebted to serving them when their blackmail against him is baseless, but it’s terrifying to realize that this is the extent of influence he has over everyone that falls under his jurisdiction. Unlike the distant main antagonists of the previous GTA games, Tenpenny is an omniscient force of evil who appears periodically to rub CJ’s face in shit and remind him that he’s his bitch.

If CJ isn’t going to receive the respect that he so duly deserves, the player can assure that he eventually will, gosh darn it. How can the player prevent future acts of harsh criticism, insults, and other forms of impoliteness from being dogpiled onto CJ from all angles? The amount of respect stemming from the general perception of others is actually something that can be improved on, the top of the increasable statistics in the quasi-RPG mechanic that San Andreas introduces to the series. Given that San Andreas is relatively grounded in reality, albeit a warped one, and is set in 1992 and not 1092 (AD), the RPG attributes displayed here are all domestic. By pulling up a side menu, the player will see five gray bars that coincide with either a physical or personable attribute. These attributes range from subjective, intangible concepts like respect and sex appeal to the measurable fat, physical stamina, and muscle content of CJ’s body. Throughout the game, the player will be either actively or inadvertently increasing these stats, with a variation of pacing and methods to maximize them. CJ can visit the nearby gym to lift weights and become shredded immediately, provided he’s harboring enough fat to burn so his hard work doesn’t atrophy away (always remember to visit your local Cluckin’ Bell to refuel!). Other attributes such as respect are boosted in microscopic increments by completing missions or gaining gang territory. Don’t be discouraged by how disastrously low CJ’s sex appeal is and the immovability of its pitiful status for the vast duration of the game. Eventually, expensive clothes and driving around in a bodacious automobile will shift CJ into an irresistible, suave casanova this side of Shaft. Additional to the five featured in the menu are also a plethora of alternate stats. Excess shooting with any type of firearm will increase their caliber and spread, and driving around the map in between missions will ensure that CJ will gain a tighter grip on swerving around, thus preventing unfortunate accidents. The RPG elements are an oddly genius way to enhance the player’s engagement with the protagonist. A recurring theme in the GTA series is climbing up the social and economic ladder to glorious prosperity, and incorporating RPG character attributes alongside the protagonist’s narrative growth is a finely complimentary gameplay mechanic. The player will notice the shift in how CJ is perceived by the NPCs based on the stats at hand, even in a negative light if CJ eats too much and plumps up like a Christmas ham. Truthfully, I wish Rockstar had introduced something of this nature in GTA III. Claude was a vacant blueprint similar to a base character from an RPG, making him an ideal contender for role-playing customizability. Still, this staircase thought evidently works just as effectively for a personable character like CJ.

The RPG mechanics are just one of many ways to immerse the player in the world of San Andreas. An argument could be made that a game in which the player is free to cause cathartic amounts of chaos to their heart's content doesn’t need additional perks to enhance the experience. Nevertheless, San Andreas incorporates a plethora of new activities to spruce up the sandbox. Firstly, why is sex appeal a relevant factor in a game revolving around gang violence? Certainly, CJ isn’t trying to bed any of the homies. CJ needs to exude the manner of a debonair gentleman to impress the ladies he can take on dates. After saving a fellow Ganton girl Denise from a burning building during a mission tasked by Tenpenny (that CJ burned down in the first palace, mind you), the expression of her gratitude towards CJ is to become his girlfriend. But Denise isn’t merely a status symbol so CJ can brag about getting a little action on the side to Big Smoke. CJ has the option to occasionally court her whenever she can fit into his demanding schedule. CJ can show Denise a good time by entertaining plenty of the fun new features the game offers, including a rhythm-oriented minigame on the dance floor where CJ can flaunt his sweet dance moves. If Denise is satisfied with CJ’s efforts to woo her, she’ll return the favor by offering him “coffee,” leading to a cutscene depicting an outside view of her house with screams of pleasure echoing overhead. If you’re of the appropriate age demographic to play a Grand Theft Auto game, I shouldn’t have to spell out what is happening behind these closed doors. If CJ goes on enough dates to the point where their relationship is super serious, maximizing their relationship status will earn CJ the reward of a pimp suit. While CJ should be grateful, other girlfriends can give him the privilege of retaining all of his weapons and body armor after being wasted or busted by the cops, a GTA player’s dream finally come true. Normally, I wouldn’t condone adultery but here, I recommend discretion to reap all of the benefits. Another extracurricular activity that coincides with another of CJ’s stats is conquering the rival gangs that pollute the streets of Los Santos with drugs and whizzing bullets that are as precipitous as rain. Outside of the missions, CJ has to approach and kill three Ballas or Vagos members standing in districts with their respective gang colors on the map. This act of aggression will trigger a gang war where hordes of them will ambush CJ in three waves. Once they surrender, the territory will be CJ’s for the taking, painting Los Santos green like a St. Patrick’s Day parade. If acting as a one-man army in the line of fire sounds scary, CJ can recruit a posse of generic Family members to help wipe the Ballas off the map. Other activities verge more on leisure such as billiards, basketball, casino games, arcade games, etc. I’d even count the new ability to ride a bicycle as a merry little lark. Admittedly, none of these activities are as thrilling as blowing off the heads of pedestrians, but the fact that CJ can still engage in these mundane minigames helps the world of San Andreas mirror reality a tad clearer.

For more serious engagements with San Andreas, the game offers as many quality-of-life enhancements as it does frivolous distractions. I’ve bleated on and on about how shooting combat in the past GTA games is an awkward, imprecise process that involves more tension than necessary. To expand upon the life-saving targeting system, the player now has a reference to the amount of health an enemy has with a declining color-coded indication. CJ can also shuffle between arrays of enemies with the back trigger buttons to mow down multiple enemies with quicker efficiency. CJ can also execute a dodge roll and aim at the gas tank of a car to immediately blow it to smithereens in a fiery inferno. However, the location of this spot on any car is as elusively nanoscopic as the clitoris, so any occurrence in setting off this makeshift bomb was a stroke of dumb luck. I would execute a total face turn on GTA’s combat system if CJ could duck and cover behind walls and scaffoldings instead of merely crouching, but at least San Andreas marks the first GTA game in which encountering a gang of enemies firing at me from all angles didn’t make me feel like a sitting duck, causing me to take passive precautions to survive. CJ is also thankfully the first GTA protagonist who can swim and no, I’m not pointing out the irony of this milestone. How the developers didn't consider that the first GTA character who should've been granted this useful ability was Tommy, who resides in a city surfaced below sea level, is befuddling, but this other staircase thought comes much appreciated nevertheless because CJ is still in close proximity to the Pacific coast. One slight regression to the GTA gameplay is that CJ’s health and body armor are displayed with bars instead of percentages. I prefer having a pinpoint accurate reference to the state of my character’s being so I have a better understanding of how to approach dangerous situations. Still, complaining about this slight change is but a nitpick. Overall, the greater accessibility with performing the combat and CJ’s apt mobility make for the most capable I’ve felt in a GTA game so far.

Because CJ seems to have a higher battle acuity, progressing through San Andreas’ story through the missions is a smoother excursion. I’d need an extra pair of hands to count how many times I failed most of the individual missions in both GTA III and Vice City, but I copped a clear victory on my first try for every other mission in San Andreas. Tis’ a blessing that CJ is such a talented killing machine, for the total number of story missions in San Andreas exceeds double digits. Objectives in San Andreas tend to revolve around the GTA standard of mass murder and driving with frequent deviations to keep things interesting. One frequent element that pops up from time to time is the necessity for stealth. Missions where CJ channels his inner Solid Snake that come to mind are stealing a war veteran’s weapon crates as he sleeps in “Home Invasion” and “Madd Dogg’s Rhymes” where CJ must ransack Madd Dogg’s mansion using only a knife to dispatch his roaming guards, boosting the potential rap career of his corny and untalented hood acquaintance OG Loc. Still, San Andreas’s difficulty curve compensates for its lack of rigidity by stacking individual missions with multiple objectives or expanding the scope of one objective to epic proportions. “Reuniting the Families” sees CJ rolling through the halls of a hotel defending his homies from a SWAT team ambush that intercepted their plans. Then after wall-to-wall SWAT officers fire at CJ in enclosed spaces, CJ has to shoot down a police chopper on the roof and then blaze through dozens of police cars pursuing him while he makes a getaway with Sweet, Big Smoke, and Ryder. “Wrong Side of the Tracks” involves CJ and Big Smoke biking all the way past the Hollywood Hills following a train with four Vagos members trying to escape. This mission is infamous for not only its length but Big Smoke’s wonky upward shooting that the player has to rely on the unstable accuracy of to succeed. On a positive note, Big Smoke’s AI is far tighter here than in any instance of cooperative missions with an NPC in the previous games. If it were, say, Lance Vance on the back of that motorbike, the mission would turn from disagreeable to impossible. While scraping through some objectives by the skin of my teeth just to have another to contend with before completing a mission made my brow sweat like I was under interrogation, I appreciate the constant stream of climactic missions that San Andreas offers. Every mission in the game is all killer with maybe the occasional filler. There definitely aren’t any missions where CJ has to race to four phone booths or sit and wait to spend over $300 at a strip club, that’s for sure.

For as grandiose as the missions in Los Santos are, the surprising thing is that they aren’t even situated at the halfway point of the game. If the player opens the map in the pause menu, they might question why 75% of the map is obscured in an unopened blue and perhaps realize that the unexplored areas are not situated in the Los Santos zip code. The state of San Andreas encompasses lands that greatly extend past the parameters of CJ’s home city, which should be an exciting prospect for those who salivate at the soaring breadth of a game’s map facilitated by the open-world genre. As wondrous as exploring beyond the reaches of CJ’s hood of Los Santos is, the starting point of CJ’s San Andreas odyssey couldn’t have been started under less felicitous circumstances. Before CJ meets up with Sweet to dispatch a high-ranking unit of Ballas, Cesar calls him to show him something urgent. CJ is shocked beyond belief to find out that both Ryder and Big Smoke are working for Tenpenny in his syndicate to sell out the Families alongside the Ballas, the same syndicate that coordinated the drive-by that killed CJ’s mom. In his attempt to reach Sweet and save him from the trap Tenpenny has set up, everyone is taken into custody by a fleet of police helicopters. Instead of sharing a cell in prison with Sweet, CJ is bagged and driven to the southwest wilderness of Whetstone by Tenpenny, who threatens to harm Sweet if CJ returns to Los Santos. The “Green Sabre” mission that unfolds the game’s most crucial turning point in the plot has a devastating outcome. CJ’s world is completely shaken and disturbed in a state of irrevocable disrepair. All CJ can do now is reshape his life in his new environment and even though things seem awfully grim, CJ’s relocation has given him a golden opportunity. CJ’s story as a Grand Theft Auto protagonist isn’t only defined by financial growth, but a personal one through broadening his horizons past the deficient confines of his unfortunate birthplace.

Alas, CJ’s journey of self-discovery must begin below his former status as a Grove Street gangbanger. In order to hoist himself up by his bootstraps, CJ has to contend with surroundings outside of his comfort zone. I can’t think of a starker fish-out-of-water scenario for this black city slicker than residing in the podunk wooded area up north, where his racial background makes him stick out like a sore thumb among the unsophisticated white farmer folk, who drive tractors and only use their guns to shoot wild animals. CJ is proverbially naked and afraid in what is the antithesis of his normal setting, so he feels inclined to find anyone out here who is affiliated with his riotous way of life for comforting familiarity. Unfortunately, Cesar recommends somebody whose criminal tempo runs faster than even CJ’s. Cesar’s cousin who he hooks CJ up with is none other than Catalina from GTA II, yet another instance of Rockstar revitalizing a character from a previous game and seeing them at a different point in the series canon timeline. CJ and Catalina form a Bonnie and Clyde bond with one another where the two rob every bank and place of business in the rural vicinity, with the striking difference of the Bonnie character in this dynamic calling all the shots with Clyde scared shitless of her. We can infer from her role as GTA III’s main antagonist that Catalina is a deplorable person, but the amplified narrative and character interactions seen in San Andreas allow us to see the full extent of her loathsome personality. Catalina isn’t a firecracker: she’s an entire fireworks show firing off all at once and crippling all those in the blast radius. She’s an inexhaustible beacon of rage and rancor whose source of scorn is self-generated. She makes bunny boiler Alex Forrest look like Mother Teresa. She’s also the reason why the mute button was invented, for she nags and disparages CJ every five seconds they are together. This section is perceived as the weakest in the game, but I appreciate how it depicts how dire CJ’s life is here with Time Magazine’s contender for craziest bitch of the century, giving greater impact to his downfall in Los Santos.

Once Catalina leaves CJ for Clyde, who still doesn’t utter a single word, it’s time to head on up north in the 1967 Volkswagen Camper van belonging to aging hippie “The Truth” to the American free love mecca of San Fierro. This fictional depiction of San Francisco, while sharing the urban architecture of Los Santos as opposed to the wild woods of Angel Pine and the surrounding areas, is essentially just as alien to CJ. The steep, slanted streets of this fellow San Andreas metro are not covered from head to toe with loitering gangbangers ready to aim their AKs at CJ once he crosses their peripheral lines of sight. The friendlier atmosphere of the baked bay area sounds lovely, but CJ is still flying solo. Because the exposure that comes with lacking support is discomforting, the facet of CJ’s journey of personal growth explored in San Fierro is fraternizing with people who aren’t of the same skin color and don’t share the same upbringing. Specifically, gathering a whole new gang of people to take down the Loco Syndicate, the drug distributors who supply Big Smoke with his biweekly load of crack cocaine, his incentive for selling out CJ and Sweet out to Tenpenny. To put a hurtin’ on CJ’s former friends, CJ establishes connections with all walks of life in San Fierro. Wu Zi Mu, aka Woozie, is the blind leader of a faction of San Fierro triads who employs Carl in the interest of using him to combat the rival Vietnamese Da Nang gang. For having a leadership position in a crime organization, Woozie is calm, level-headed, and extremely polite. However, the mere mention of the Da Nang does tend to rile him up a bit. Zero is the owner of an RC shop in San Fierro, and seeing him and CJ interacting with each other during the cutscenes is as unnatural as the sun and moon sharing the same sky simultaneously. CJ has found his polar opposite in every way imaginable. To gain Zero’s valuable electronics expertise, CJ must vanquish his intellectual rival Berkley, who is constantly giving Zero grief with his weaponized RC equipment. Next to Catalina, this pasty, timid dork tends to draw the most ire out of gamers. Gaining his shop as an asset only requires the completion of three missions, but they are definitely the most bizarre and demanding missions that San Andreas has to offer. “Supply Lines…” is even a prominent contender for the hardest mission in the entire franchise. If I were CJ, I’d just hire somebody working at Radio Shack and leave this pathetic nerd hanging by his underwear where he belongs. CJ also finds himself in close quarters with his Loco Syndicate enemies as a tactical maneuver, which includes the brazen, purple Jizzy the Pimp and the prickly T-Bone Mendez. At first glance, circling the map to the various mission markers to conduct business with these strangers mirrors the impersonal interactions found in GTA III. On the contrary, CJ forms a genuine camaraderie with the people he meets in San Fierro, playing video games with Woozie in between hunting down the Da Nang and cracking jokes about the absurdity of Zero’s predicament with Berkeley. Cesar, the man whom CJ previously judged because of his ethnic background, starts to form a deeply compassionate bond with him as they work on building their San Fierro garage. In an ironic twist of fate, Cesar, a man from across the tracks in the no-man's land of Los Santos, shows CJ more loyalty and respect than anyone who runs with the same colors.

After dismantling the syndicate’s drug operation and getting revenge on that mark-ass trick Ryder, CJ ventures across the Golden Gate bridge beyond the coastline to the scorched wasteland of the desert, along with the sin city parallel of Los Venturas to traverse. In the gambling capital of the USA, the overarching conflict is Woozie’s casino business venture being eroded away by the competing one controlled by the Italian mafia. To halt the suckling straw of greed and ensure the success of Woozie’s new livelihood, CJ and his pals from San Fierro methodically conjure up the scheme for an elaborate heist mission in the rival Caligula’s Casino. A balder, yet no less stressed out Ken Rosenberg and a neutered Kent Paul also return six years after the events of Vice City to join the ranks of CJ’s new friends. The heist mission “Breaking the Bank at Caligula’s” is the climactic finale that closes this chapter of San Andreas but up until then, CJ isn’t twiddling his thumbs in the planning room waiting for further instructions. What this section of San Andreas showcases for CJ’s journey is the grander scope of what he is capable of. Acting as the tail gunner in a police car chase as wild and adrenaline-pumping as that of To Live and Die in LA with the Grove Street gang is thrilling as is, but CJ’s new compatriots squash the missions of Los Santos into small potatoes with their extravagant assets. Mike Torino, a seedy, borderline insane government agent, grants CJ full access to his hangar of fighter jets and compromised commercial airline planes to zoom around the skies of San Andreas, enacting feats of espionage that even Solid Snake would shy away from. Any mission involving flight is a hair-raising affair, with the fear of crashing and burning always a distressing possibility because the plane controls require substantial proficiency to prevent CJ’s fiery demise. Flight school sucks, but the courses are warranted. “Black Project” sees CJ humoring The Truth’s scattered-brained conspiracies, believing that there is a government project housed in the deep catacombs of the highly secured Area 69 facility located in the desert. Only a damn fool would even spit near this alert quarantined zone where guards would call an airstrike on a fly that buzzed over it, but CJ does the impossible and yoinks a jetpack financed by more American tax dollars than anyone could fathom. The “Saint Mark’s Bistro” mission entails CJ flying all the way to Liberty City on a hit job assigned by Salvatore (yes, the same Salvatore from GTA III) and flying back in one piece, and I’m still in disbelief of the country-wide scale this mission covers. CJ starts San Andreas with acts that would make him an un unnamed statistic but outside the realm of his hood, he performs stunts that would define him as public enemy #1 on all of the San Andreas headlines.

Even though CJ is out of town cultivating growth and wealth, it becomes time to end his adventure by clicking his heels and repeating “There’s no place like home.” When CJ finally returns to Los Santos, however, he repossesses Madd Dog’s mansion that was foreclosed on him and houses himself and his new allies there to aid Mad Dogg with the production of his big musical comeback. Sweet is even released from prison, so the story of San Andreas seems as if it's neatly wrapped up nicely in a pleasant bow. However, Sweet’s transgressions upon hearing that CJ has forsaken his hood yet again to gallivant off with non-affiliates touring the state of San Andreas means that closure is still out of reach. That, and the non-guilty verdict given to Tenpenny after good-natured Officer Hernandez blew the whistle on his vile ass erupts into a city-wide state of utter chaos that mirrors the historic events of the 1992 LA riots. To restore (relative) balance to the hood, CJ must bring Tenpenny to justice by exterminating him, along with Big Smoke as an auxiliary act of personal retribution. The “End of the Line” mission in which all of this transpires is a five-act endurance test that had me breathing heavily out of sheer tension by its completion. All's well that ends well when CJ looks over the deceased body of his uniformed oppressor and says, “See you around, officer.” The line gives me chills every time I hear it.

Understanding San Andreas comes with the realization that Sweet is the game’s main villain. Tenpenny is the flower of evil acting conspicuously above the ground, but Sweet is really the root of CJ’s problems. Like a strict parent, no matter how much money CJ earns or how far he climbs up the chain of command in life to better himself and his family, Sweet is unsatisfied with CJ’s success if it conflicts with his own perspective of success; dominating the Los Santos gang terrain as an unrelenting foot soldier. Near the beginning of the game, wiping out the presence of the Ballas and Vagos gangs was something to take pride in because it was the pinnacle of achievement for the narrowly bounded world which our protagonist was born into. After broadening CJ’s perspective by traveling abroad, initiating outside connections, and accomplishing insurmountable odds that make those around him awe him like he’s Superman, returning to the origin point to reclaim lost gang territory feels unsatisfying. Grove Street and all the baggage that comes with it is beneath CJ at the end of the game, which is why reverting back to being unappreciated and unpaid like at the start is undignifying. Sweet is an irritating anchor who is tying down CJ and the rest of his family to a life of squalor, but he’s still a sympathetic antagonist in a pitiable sense. Sweet has drunk too much of the thug life kool-aid supplied to him by the systemic restrictions of his background. He’s been fed lies of honor and loyalty that come with sticking to his literal guns, but the game proves that Sweet’s convictions have little basis in reality. Eventually, his stubborn, myopic dedication to the life that has been chosen for him, even when CJ gives him an avenue out of it, is going to kill him and cause even more grief for the Johnson clan. Using the juxtaposition between CJ’s success and Sweet’s propensity for lying in the dirt, San Andreas presents the viewpoint that gang life is tragic and unnecessary, which is how the game prevents itself from existing as a case of glorification despite gamifying it.

GTA III, Vice City, and San Andreas act as a loose trilogy of games from the franchise, sharing the designation of being developed for the PS2 console as early stepping stones for the open-world genre before it reached its mechanical peak in successive gaming generations. While the varying years, stories, settings, and central characters slacken the connection between the three games, I’m still going to reference it to convey that Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is the The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of this GTA threesome. It’s the entry that dwarfs the previous two by catapulting the open-world design built from their framework into the stratosphere with ambition so remarkable that it is unbelievable that it was capable of being presented on the PS2. Admittedly, the shoddy graphics and compressed audio are a humbling reminder that it shares the same system as GTA III and Vice City. Still, Grand Theft Auto was never intended to be pretty: its allure has always been associated with the thrill of vicariously simulating the freedoms deemed too taboo to execute in real life. GTA: San Andreas offers so much content on one game disc that it transcends the initial novelty of committing acts of unspeakable violence that it could potentially supplement one’s real life entirely to the digital realm of gaming. For those who want substance behind the slaughter, San Andreas provides an insightful narrative arc into the dynamic life of a street gangster arguably more riveting and substantial than the hood movie that inspired it, created by a team of British guys whiter than I no less. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is absolutely incredible on all fronts and is truly when what we wished for the open-world genre came to fruition.

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