Chrissy

A childhood love currently on hiatus (it’s just a video game)

 Posted by on Tue, 9/13 at 11:54pm  Uncategorized  No Responses »
Sep 132016
 

The topic I ~read~ about is the Kingdom Hearts video game franchise.

I’ve been a fan of the Kingdom Hearts video game series ever since my brother talked me into getting Kingdom Hearts II the summer before starting high school. The franchise started before I was even remotely interested in video games, as seven year old, in 2002, and, to be honest, I still haven’t even played the first game of the series. Kingdom Hearts is basically set in an alternate world where the multiverse theory is law, and its inhabitants are a mix of classic Disney and Final Fantasy characters, with a few original characters thrown in as well. The plot has been described, fairly, as convoluted and pretty difficult to follow along with, given the many side stories and prequels and confusing lore that make up this story. But, usually, fans of the game are willing to look past the ultra confusing plot because they love the characters and the games so much.

After a few years of not playing, I picked up the most recent installment of the series, Dream Drop Distance (which came out four years ago), as news of and rumored dates for the hugely anticipated Kingdom Hearts III started circulating. For context, Kingdom Hearts II came out in 2005. Though there have been numerous games released in between the second main installment and the (still) anticipated third, they’ve strayed off the main plot, only explaining backstories and histories, and, mostly, just bringing up increasingly more unanswered questions and leaving fans either more eager for the third main installment or steamed out and uninterested.

Perhaps due to this, Dream Drop Distance (DDD) has received pretty polar mixed reviews, with some fans hating nearly everything about the game — the plot, the fighting, the controls, the new features, the bosses, etc. — and other fans defending the game for all that it’s worth. The main dispute has to due with the game’s different feature of “dropping” between the two playable characters. In simple terms, the game forcibly switches you between two characters once a meter runs out. Honestly, when I first started playing, this turned me off from the game, and I went a few months without picking it up. I was stuck on a boss level on both characters, with never enough time to defeat them before “dropping,” so I could relate to the fans bashing the feature mercilessly. However, once I went back to it, starting from the beginning, I understood how to work around the feature and even came to like it once I knew why it was there. I think that’s whats missing in most negative fan reviews. They’re so frustrated with something new they don’t understand that they don’t make the effort to understand it, they just play and get angry when it happens and then rant about it on the internet.

Anyway, the creators of Kingdom Hearts revealed trailers for KHIII at the most recent nerd summit that is E3, but there still isn’t an official release date. And given that it’s only been a few months since I finished my last KH game, I’m not sure if I quite feel the level of frustration fans that have been waiting four years (that’s a whole college experience for some people!!!) for the next game to come out, even more so if they absolutely hated DDD. I am of course annoyed that there is no official release date for the game. Though I played the side stories in between, I started KHII when I started high school, and I won’t be playing KHIII until I’ve graduated college!!!

http://forums.khinsider.com/dream-drop-distance/171766-why-i-think-dream-drop-distance-bad-kingdom-hearts.html

http://forums.khinsider.com/dream-drop-distance/207349-discussion-wasted-potential-dream-drop-distance.html

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/09/25/how-kingdom-hearts-iii-will-grow-up-with-its-players

http://www.cnet.com/news/kingdom-hearts-and-when-judging-a-game-by-its-cover-goes-so-right/

If you’re rly bored (or rly interested!!!??) and have 20 minutes to spare:

 

Curiosity: bad for pets, good for writing

 Posted by on Fri, 9/9 at 12:12am  Uncategorized  No Responses »
Sep 092016
 

So, the majority of the writing I’ve done for school, both public and paid for, has seen me struggling to reach the minimum page count around 2 in the morning, fighting against the urge to drop my face to my keyboard and give it all up. I’ve had more late nights accompanied by my screen’s white-word-processor light than I can remember. Not that the thought is revolutionary, but I might have had an easier time blowing passed the minimum if I had had better motivation than reaching a deadline and passing the class.

Of course, those things are very important and certainly motivated me enough to get the work done and done adequately enough to pass the classes, but I never really gained much out of it other than the experience of writing.

Both articles seem to hammer in the idea of curiosity. Curiosity in order to better writing strategies and outcomes. This is a lot easier to think about than it is to carry out, though the authors do give you ideas on how to spark a sense of curiosity, and Reid goes as far as to explain and list examples of exigency. I could identify with Reid’s list, thinking back on what I can remember writing. I can understand why my teachers and professors would stick to the formula, since formulas are easy to follow, easy to grade, and everyone needs to start somewhere with writing. Neither is there much a high school teacher can do to get students interested in Shakespeare or Jane Austen enough to ask them to write about what specifically, personally, or urgently interests them, if they were never interested in the first place.

Ballenger’s advice on making categories and asking questions about those categories reminded me of the broad to narrow way I’ve had teachers explain on how to come up with a thesis, even though I know that’s basically the opposite of the sort of writing Ballenger is writing about. But it did get me thinking, and, as I skimmed, a part of my mind got ahead of myself into making those categories, and I started thinking of one specific thing that interests me, and I got to asking myself why would it be so interesting to me in the first place, and I got to getting curious about why I specifically would be interested in that.

I’m not sure if that train of thought was Ballenger’s goal, but that’s how it worked for me, and, a bit unexpectedly, I guess, and maybe a bit clichéd, their advice actually worked in getting me curious enough about something to research.

I suppose it does make sense that posing questions would drive curiosity. Since you’d then want to find the answer to the question. I’m, ah, curious to know if this sort of thought process worked out for anyone else.

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