I don’t remember dragon warrior 2 being that bad. Maybe it’s a ROM issue, maybe young me was more comfortable with a constant grind.
3 is special. It shows it’s age, but it’s very very good.
4 is a little more uneven, but I think it’s the first RPG to change your perspective/main character across the story. Also it has the best story of any JRPG I have ever played.
The first four dragon warriors/quests were surprisingly ambitious.
DW is one of the first console RPGs.
DW2 is in many ways the template for a generation of RPGs, with progressively gathering party members and opening up the map via gaining new travel modes.
DW3 is still amazing. The party creation and job system is done better than most other attempts at it. And returning the old world was so cool.
DW4 had a true multi-perspective narrative with a detailed story. Unlike anything else that had come out before.
Later DW/DQs stopped innovating as much and stagnated, much as the entire JRPG genre feels stagnant.
I disliked Avatar in theaters, but chalked it up to wearing glasses and seeing it in 3D. I figured with the colors desaturated and the uncomfortable double glasses set up that I just made a poor choice of format.
About 4 years ago I decided to rewatch Avatar at home without the 3D gimmick.
It was worse. Everyone acts in ways that seem to serve the plot not their motivations. The heroes were all devoid of personality and a rigid unsmiling caricature of duty and honor that there was nothing likeable about them. Jake Sully has no personality other than being mystified by the world. The tall smurfs just stare longingly, tell Jake he’s dumb and sigh about the importance of the Earth.
The villains were so over the top on their moustache twirling I liked their bravado so much more than the heroes. After an hour of Smurfs telling us trees are very important in a condescending way, I wasn’t against blowing up a tree.
The battle at the end made no sense. Why the space faring race didn’t just drop a some rocks on the site is baffling to me. Why didn’t they use their range and technology advantage? They just ran as close as possible to people with spears.
I think it’s just a little too heavy handed for me, and feels like many aspects of the plot weren’t thought out.
For sure it looks fake as can be, but compared to video games (of the time) it was amazing.Look at some screenshots of MechWarrior 2 or Descent and compare to B5.
At the time B5 had some of the better CGI, it’s just that amazing CGI in 1993 was awful.
The worst B5 episode is probably the technomagus one, and I was going to argue, but you are very right.
Andromeda is so much worse than B5.
The old is more important than limited funds. I remember reading an interview from JMS where he mentioned B5 was about $1 million an episode. Which after accounting for inflation is about $2 million an episode in today’s money. The BSG remake was at about $1 million per episode.
I can tell you in 1995 the CGI on B5 was pretty great.
The best sci-fi series to feature Zima!
That was aggressively awful.
Sure, but there is a world of difference between 1700 and today, and an even bigger difference between today and space faring civilizations.
I think the idea that changelings had universally negative experiences is crazy.
It reminds me of the future Borg from Voyager.
I love that episode.
And the moral of “I can get stuff just by asking for it!” Is a real lesson.
I agree with their politics, I just feel that plot took a hit to allow them to soapbox more. Aliens lost what made them alien and became humans with make up.
My issue isn’t the message, to me it felt like the lecturing of DISCO with fart jokes.
I was really disappointed with the most recent series of Orville. I feel they moved from social commentary to being preachy and smug.
The biggest example of this is the time travel episode in season 3. You have someone who has established a life and has kids and real character growth, who wants to be able to live the life they established after being abandoned for 20 years. On the other hand you have Seth McFarland saying that it’s bad. There isn’t any real discussion of what right is, it’s just McFarland saying that he’s right and then circumventing any resistance. It ends with McFarland being smug he did the right thing and having no self reflection on the damage he did.
To be clear, I’m all about social commentary in my sci-fi but I feel like anything interesting is diluted to make it a closer parallel to earth. The Moclans went from a unique all male species, to having a rare minority that allowed for discussion of trans rights, to in season 3 being 50-50 split and a tired gender war trope.
I think the Orville has gotten lazy and moved further and further away from having interesting plots to talk about big ideas and moved more towards character driven drama and lazy hamfisted commentary.
She was meant to be a foil against Data, but came off as hating him.
I think it’s because Brent Spiner was so damn charismatic as Data.
Like SNW or DISCO?
The only thing he did that was questionable was set up 4 shifts. That’s a big change and having engineering work around the clock is a bit of a dick move.
“the soulless agents of orthodoxy!”
Not exactly, they look like earth octopus but are backwards and ungrateful. They have built no statues to bajoran fishermen.
Coherence - a great small film.
Gattaca - fun sci-fi film that feels ignored
Moon - fantastic performance from Sam Rockwell
Primer - confusing but the best time travel movie ever
Dark City - I love this movie. It has problems, but it’s such a cool ride
Existenz - very matrix like but unique and surprisingly good
The institute - not sci-fi per say but a really cool documentary
I think the later DQs are enjoyable, but they feel stagnant.
It’s my problem with many games. Rarely does something new come along. This is likely a function of age alongside growing up when video games were new and completely different ideas and genres were formed. There is still innovation, but I feel JRPGs haven’t had anything new in a long time.