Western RPGs Vs. Eastern RPGs

I'm not sure where this argument began, but it seems like the recent console generation has a fascination by this on-going debate of which sub-genre of role-playing game is better. For most of my life, I've always just referred to these games as what they were, RPGs (Role-Playing Games), but now there is a schism within the community not unlike the turf wars of Biggy and Tupac. One side cries western superiority waving around revolvers while wearing cowboy hats and eating apple pie, the other cries eastern superiority while jumping around in ninja suits with Hello Kitty cellphones and pocky. With a group that has gotten along so well for so long, what has happened to stir this unrest?

Who freakin' cares how it started, lets get down to which one is better!

The big argument around jRPGs right now is that they offer no choice when progressing through the plot. Playing through them turns out to be one straight path to a boss battle, then off again on another straight path. First off, jRPGs have had a choice system in place for a long time. Final Fantasy 7 allowed you to go on one of four possible dating scenarios, Final Fantasy X-2 let you choose either the Youth League or New Yevon, Chrono Cross allowed you to save Kid or leave her to die, Persona 3 and 4 allow you strengthen social links for characters you wanted and Final Fantasy 13 allowed you to choose to play another game. Sure they didn't impact the plot too much, but it still allowed you to play through different scenarios of the same plot.

Maybe these choices aren't thrown at you at every conversation, but to deny that they're there is a flat out misconception. And besides, what's so great about choosing your own adventure. Sure, I can see the appeal: picking options that reflect who you are instead of how the writer chose to make the character, spending hours customizing the facial proportions of a character that will turn out hideous anyways, and seeing different angles to the same plot, but that doesn't mean having little or no choice is something that's bad. If a story is solid and the characters are well done, it doesn't matter. Having choice in a story doesn't automatically make a game better, it means you have to be forced to make a decision between the nice answer, the marginally nice answer, the douchebag answer, or the John Dimaggio (look him up) answer every other sentence. Is anyone really ready to make the claim that a choice-your-own-adventure book can hold ground with the likes of Lord of the Rings or Tarzan of the Apes?

Western RPGs are so chocked full of game play goodness that you have to let the game load every time you pretty much move anywhere. Dragon Age: Origins is a big offender of this (one for PS3 and I assume 360, I can't make any claim against the PC version), and I managed to clock several load times at 30 seconds. Go ahead, do nothing but stare at a static screen for 30 whole seconds. Now do that every 5 minutes for about 30 hours. I'm not sure what makes wRPGs have to load so much, but I'm not convinced that any of them are worth the constant waiting. Is it the big areas? Nope, Final Fantasy 13 had huge areas too that were much more detailed. Is it the dialog trees? Perhaps. Is that a good enough reason? For me, no. Nothing from the game play has convinced me that western RPGs are superior. They certainly don't push the graphics to their respective consoles limits.

Dragon Age, Oblivion and Fallout 3 don't look that good. I've seen characters pop in and out, textures glitch and flaws throughout all 3 games. Final Fantasy 13 sucked in many regards, but one thing it has done better than most any other current generation RPG is let the player be immersed in the game. There was nothing technically jarring about that game that distracted me. The flaws of the game were purely from the designers' vision and not the technical details. How can I get into a game that makes me look at a loading screen for so long? It's like having a giant, neon sign that flashes 'YOU ARE PLAYING A GAME' in front of you. A great game like Silent Hill 2 will draw you in from start to finish and making you feel like you're involved with the world and its characters. Wait, involved like you matter in the game? Yeah, that's right. Games have been giving players that sensation without an encyclopedia's worth of choices for years now. True involvement comes from well-executed atmosphere and brilliant story telling. (Yeah Silent Hill did have some choices that brought you to different endings, but it wasn't executed via dialog trees). That's not to say Fallout 3 or Dragon Age didn't have great stories, they did, especially Fallout 3. I was impressed. But it's the loading that kills it for me.

On the flip side, a bad story can turn a game into something painful. Star Ocean: First Departure has been brought up in a court of law for causing insanity and driving murder motivations. I'm like 99% sure of that. I can go through an entire game and bear loading times to a point, but if the story sucks, you might as well have made a first person shooter.

But penning a work comparable to that of Shakespeare won't save you if your voice acting is terrible. wRPGs and jRPGs share a common ground that, for the most part, none of my main examples really lack in this department. Fallout 3's voice actors all seemed very into their characters and helped the immersion, same with Tales of Symphonia or Final Fantasy 13 (except for Vanille who is a huge cluster of terrible all by herself). Terrible voice acting, a la Resident Evil for the PS1, feels like someone verbally punching you in the face or serving you a helping of a suck sandwich, or was it a Jill sandwich? And there are some terrible voice acting jobs in some lesser-known jRPGs as well as old wRPGs.

The best thing about Final Fantasy 13 was the game over system, as in, there were no game overs. You were never thrown out of the game for more than a few seconds when being defeated. In which case, you'd be brought right back to where you were before the battle started. That was in the back of my head each time I died in Dragon Age each time I was slaughtered by a group of mages. All I could think about was how long ago the auto-save decided to kick in, which sometimes turned out to be over an hour ago and why couldn't I just start before the battle commenced? Western RPGs for all their claims of evolving over the years really hasn't broke away from different interpretations of save points, which is an aging game design (yes, both sub-genres have used save points, but FF13 was the first to try something else that I'm aware of).

The argument that has stood the test of time, before all this choice system crap has always been about the characters. All jRPG characters are androgynous 12-year-olds running around in second-hand designer clothes that come with more belts and zippers than there are threads. While their outfits might not be that bad (except for Lulu's as seen in the black outfit above, that outfit has oh-so much wrong, and oh-so much right at the same time... ahem), most usually just commit the crime of being non-functional and asymmetric. While this may be cliche, are wRPGs really any better?

Let's see, you have the heavily armored warrior, the leather-clad rogue and the robed mage. The warrior looks like a tank with arms and legs, the rogue looks like Aragorn and the mage looks like a peasant. Why exactly is exciting about these clothing designs? Nothing really. In fact, they're pretty dull most of the time. The exception being World of Warcraft, a game which dared to have mages look awesome instead of someone who fell out of a renaissance fair. And at least jRRGs outfit each class evenly and fairly (except Final Fantasy 1). How many wRPGs start off with the default armor sets and then just heavily favor the heavy armored classes throughout the rest of the game? Every enemy drop and treasure casket has tons of armor for warriors and the like, but what about my mage? Is there anything that can make them look intimidating or.. you know, magical? I guess these armor choices are more realistic, but I doubt that's something a game with dragons, magic, elves and unicorns really needs to be focused on. No I haven't seen a unicorn in a wRPG, and yes, I count that against them.

Back to the characters themselves, jRPGs have a tendency of making their characters look... pretty. Often times you'll play a game with yourself trying to decide whether the character you're controlling is male or female, and sometimes the voice actor isn't enough to sway you one way or the other. I admit, this does cause some continuity problems when matching up the character to their physical limitations. I doubt a 120lbs. person could walk around with a 5ft sword all the time. Western RPG characters may be brick houses of muscle and masculinity, but at least it makes sense when they lift a 60lbs. great sword. Japanese characters also have the habit of defying physics either by jumping ridiculously high, surviving deadly falls, or having their hair stick straight up constantly. To this I say, the westerns are right here. These traits are ridiculous. I know these are supposed to be fantasy worlds, but it still doesn't make sense or match how the characters are... characterized. Why doesn't everyone in jRPG land jump 50ft in the air? Why is it always just the main characters? What makes them so special? I'd rather have my characters  be realistically awesome than improbably awesome.

A minor inconvenience that I've noticed from both sides is the inappropriate use of menus. JRPGs have menus and they're not that fun during combat, but at least they function well when needed for checking your inventory or status of characters. I don't know why wRPGs make this the most complicated part of the game, but I subscribe to the idea that simpler is better. I don't need to be trudging through menus and sub-menus and sub-sub-menus to do what I want to do. JRPGs have no problem getting all aspects of the game down to one main menu with a simple interface. It actually took me about an hour to figure out how to use a health potion in Dragon Age.

Also, who decided that limited inventory space was a good idea? I usually fill up my wRPG inventory in the first 20 minutes of the game. JRPG inventories are unlimited; I don't constantly choose between what items I can carry with me. Oh, that's right, wRPGs love making you choose things. I usually pick up every possible item I can, because, unless I've played through the game, I have no idea what good an item will be later. And, of course, both genres have to include weapon degradation. The difference is, jRPGs did this 20 years ago and realized it was a bad idea (except Fire Emblem, but they made it a core part of the combat, so it doesn't bother me as much), wRPGs are doing it now like it's a good idea. It's not.

Finally, to the battles. The epicness that defines RPGs as... epic. Massively awesome boss monsters and horde armies against your band of misfits. The Japanese take on this is everyone deserves to have a turn, and you must wait that turn while enemies beat the ever-loving piss out of you. I'm not sure what makes jRPGs turn even the most ferocious beasts into perfect gentlemen the moment a battle screen turns up. Suddenly, instead of charging at you at full steam, they calmly wait until your turn is finished before punishing you. While turn-based combat may not be the most exciting form of battle, it does allow one to exercise their brain a bit. Turn-based it all about the strategy, planning out each move to precisely counter your opponent, like a more awesome game of chess. WRPG battles on the other hand... suck. Both Fallout 3 and Oblivion suffered from clunky combat. Instead of calculating moves, they're more about spastic flailing of what ever weapon you're holding. While frantic, which is good for combat, it's also not very satisfying. Battling in Dragon Age was good, unless the auto-save function turned on before the start of the battle, then it became more like a battle between the save feature and the processor. For this, I usually just side with jRPGs since the battle mechanics are usually very refined, wRPGs treat them as an after-thought.

So at the end of the day, which one is better? The answer for me is neither. Both sub-genres offer a great deal to gaming and both have their strong points. I've found that the better RPGs are ones that embrace aspects of both. A game like Demon's Souls (I pronounce it Demon Souls because any English-speaking person will never pronounce that double 's' sound in the middle) which takes the action of western games and the calculating tactics of eastern games and combines them to make something very playable (unless you account for the difficulty level). I don't think western RPGs need to be overly realistic and I don't think eastern RPGs need to be so absurd. Remember, the point of these games is to escape into a fantasy world, not a rip off of Tolkien or an LSD trip. If I had to choose? JRPGs. Why? Two words: Chrono Cross. The greatest game ever.

Anime Review: Shuffle!

Shuffle! is probably one of the most disturbing harem animes I've ever seen. For those who aren't anime-savvy, harem is a genre which there is one male character surrounded by a bunch of female characters. A popular example is Tenchi Muyo! However, the male lead never settles on which one he wants to date until near the end, and it's always the childhood friend. So, what we get in between is a series of unfortunate events and misunderstandings, the first of which was choosing the watch this anime. What makes Shuffle! so disturbing is that the first half of the series lead you to believe that you're in for a cliched ride. One that you've seen before over and over with slight variation. But be warned, this anime is nothing short of a rapid decent into madness.

Around episode 3, the anime introduces the King of Gods and the King of Demons and their respective daughters. Before this, we have our male lead, Tsuchimi Rin who has been living with his cliche childhood friend, Kaede, after their parents were taken in the same, unexplained-until-episode-18 accident, although Kaede's dad is still alive. Where he is in all this mess, I haven't a clue. And in true harem fashion, nether one of them has had the initiative to really taken their relationship beyond friends even though they practically are husband in wife. But why would they disturb the balance of their friendship when that gray area can be abused to insert more female characters, which, will no doubt, result in some wacky situations.

At this point, the series is rather mind numbing; you don't suspect a thing...

Skipping back to the Kings and their daughters, there exist 3 realms in this anime's universe: the demon's realm, the god's realm and the humans' realm. The Kings have brought their daughters to the human's realm so they can pursue their love for the main character whom of which they've only met once before. Back when each of them were small, they found themselves in a less than dire situation in the human realm (not sure why they were in the human realm to begin with), which Rin helped them out and thus, they've always remembered him and fell in love with him. Because apparently no one else has shown them that much kindness up until this point and all it takes for these girls to fall in love is one simple act of kindness. Their goal is to marry him, and whoever he marries, he becomes the king of that realm, even though I doubt he's qualified to rule over an entire realm. The demon daughter is Nerine and the god daughter is Sia, and both are pretty boring to begin with despite not really being human. They look like humans but come with elf-like ears and magic powers, which are only used for the occasional property damage and overreaction scenes. Sia happens to have the adorable quirk of bashing people with randomly generated chairs. How cute.

Ranting zone warning: what is up with characters causing untold amount of property damage and personal injury to the other people in these animes? Shouldn't this be a problem? How have these people not been arrested? Nerine manages to strip a concrete roof off the school and she isn't even punished for this! Why does every anime treat this like it's no big deal? I understand that perhaps it doesn't strive to be realistic, but are people in this society really okay with magical girls running around and blowing half a city block up every time they overreact to something? Who pays to repair the houses and streets that are decimated? Shuffle! actually does explain why no one is making too big a deal out of it; her dad has a team of wizards to fix it. No, I didn't make that up. Her dad, the King of Demons, has a team of wizards to fix whatever damages Nerine inflicts on the town. Amazing. You never actually get to see the team of wizards so really they might as well not exist at all.

As far as characters go, they all have a personality close to that of a rock for most of the series. Not even an interesting rock. A normal rock you could find anywhere. Several of the girls fall victim to 'cliche anime girl' syndrome by being overly shy and succumbing to illness whenever the plot runs out of stuff for them to do. I really wish I would've kept track of how many times a girl randomly falls over and passes out due to an illness. And its never a slight fever, or an 'I need to lay down' illness. It's always one that makes them pass out cold only to wake up in their bed. If I passed out from a fever, someone better take me to a hospital! I want to know what magical healing powers these beds have that people just ignore common sense and think, 'oh, I better bring them home and put them to bed. That'll solve everything'. No, that doesn't solve everything. These people need to see a doctor! Speaking of healing powers, some of the girls have healing powers. Did they use this on anyone while they were sick? No.

Even the Kings are poor characters. All they do is fill in the background with something comical when the events in the foreground aren't interesting enough. Neither one of them really embodies what you'd think of when you hear the words 'god' or 'demon'. They're both rather silly for being kings of an entire realm, and it also seems they really don't have anything better to do than sit around while their daughters chase around our male lead. The anime even goes out of its way to show them doing mundane things that really have no relevance to anything. These scenes could've been of Aerosmith performing live on the moon to a crowd of cows and it would've had just as much impact on the plot.

One of the characters, Primula, was actually written to have the personality of a rock, or as I call it, Rei Ayanami syndrome. Just blatantly being indifferent to everything around her (except cats) and thus really could be replaced with some sort of furniture piece if you put a dress on it. Actually, the anime does its best to draw some questionable attention to her, which, in this country, would result in a felony charge. I'll leave it at that.

The only character I actually liked was Asa Shigure. Unlike the rest, she felt like a human being. She too likes our protagonist, but expresses it in subtle ways. Wait... subtly?... in and anime!? Yeah, it's there, but just barely. She teases the character in a reasonable manner, even though she has 3 other girls to compete against and she's isn't exactly winning the race (I'd actually place her in last). So she's never that over-the-top, but you can feel her inward struggle. Out of everyone, she's probably the most identifiable, even though she has neon green hair done-up in the Lain style.

I would also like to note that one of the minor characters has heterochromia, Mayumi. Not really significant, just random. She's also the target of the running 'flat-chested' jokes. Because there has to be one as deemed by the latest harem quota of stereotypes. The rest of the supporting cast really don't add anything to the anime, nor have any qualities that would make you remember them.

The main character himself isn't even that interesting. Why all these girls like him, sans the daughters (who's reasons are very questionable to begin with) and the one he's been living with, is really a mystery. In true harem fashion, he gets all this attention without really doing anything at all. In fact, he stands around the entire anime watching as these girls try to prove themselves worthy of his love. What exactly has this idiot done that makes him so incredible? Why shouldn't he have to prove his love to them as well? Idiots. It's interesting to note that his voice actor is the same as Kyon's from Haruhi, and they look similar. They also sit in the exact same seat in class. I've seen way too many animes when I'm making connections like that.

One other thing I have to address is the obsession random groups of guys have on some of these girls. Every now and then, Rin will be ambushed by a club of guys that are devoted to idolizing one of the girls who want to marry him. Anytime he seems to get close to one of the girls, these guys show up and beat the living daylights out of him. This really has no point being in the anime and was probably added for some more comic relief. Also, one of the clubs has the initial of KKK. They even go out of their way to call themselves that. Someone in japan should've fact-checked that before finalizing it...

Episode 9 is the obligatory 'go to the beach' episode which only serves the purpose of having more fan service in a concentrated area. Throughout the episode you'll get to experience the entire girl cast in their bathing suits as well as everyone doing mundane, beach things. Of course, what is a beach episode without some hijinx. The cliche scenario of one girl losing her top and dragging the lead male into the situation happens about halfway through and is met with misunderstanding and embarrassing moments as predicted. The episode isn't without it tense moments though. Our main character and Sia-chan manage to accidentally cast adrift while sleeping on beach mats deep into the ocean, barely within eye-shot of the island they were on. How this exactly happened with the weight of them on the beach mats, the reach of the tide of the ocean and the attention of their entire group is beyond me. If someone I was with was sleeping on a beach mat and the tide was close enough to actually carry them away, I'd think that would be one thing I'd take notice of pretty quickly, or at least think about while I was busy doing whatever it was the rest of the entire cast was doing.

Something in this anime seems quite off at this point.. but you don't know what...

There is one episode that gets a little serious when one of the girls is mistakingly thought to be engaged to Rin due to everyone's stupidity. This makes all the eligible female cast examine their feelings and the feelings of their rivals in a sobering look at how competition for someone's love means someone's heart has to be broken (a fact that should've dawned on them all at the beginning, but these characters are slow). Of course, this one serious episode comes and goes, seemingly forgetting all about the drama that could've ensued.

Or does it?...

If this were a silent hill game, you'd be hearing war sirens as your surroundings slowly degraded to rust and decay at this point; deformed figures crawling their way out of the darkness. Your flashlight is your only friend.

Halfway through the series, episode 12 exactly, the story decides that it's done being a typical harem anime and starts focusing in on the secrets behind certain girls. The secrets slowly reveal a troubling past that each of the girls has had to live with, but has never really surfaced until this point in the story. The transition is so abrupt that it doesn't feel natural. It's like someone just flipped a rail switch and decided that this train was going to a new destination. One of the goals of the new story arch is to get you to be more emotionally attached to Primula as a character, but since she has zero emotion or personality, it's like trying to be emotionally attached to a stapler. All the while, the rest of the cast does their best to stand around and look depressed while, ultimately, none of the obvious plot holes in this story are addressed (internal rhyme scheme ftw). This is also the only point in the story you actually see any of the other realms. Very disappointing.

One by one the dominoes fall...

Soon a few of the other girls gradually reveal something they've been hiding the entire time, but the treatment is just poorly handled. Key Animations, they didn't do this anime, is a famous for harem animes that have girls with secrets, and the story gradually moves from one to the next, fleshing out their respective stories in a natural manner; it's this pattern that Shuffle! tries to replicate, but does a terrible job.

Primula's story arch takes about 3 episodes to start, develop, climax and disappear without a trace. The conclusion isn't satisfying nor does it really make sense, all it did was add in some more padding to the series before going back into a seemingly facade of harem nonsense. Primula really doesn't have much of a role in the anime after this. Considering the anime worked hard to give her some extra attention, she gets thrown aside by the plot really quickly, which makes her arch seem very cheap.

Nerine's past was covered during Primula's, so she too felt like she was short-changed by the plot. The less I explain what happens with her the better. I'm not sure I can make sense of it enough to write about it.

Moving on to Sia.

Nerine, in a fourth wall breaking moment, tells Sia that its her turn next. Ominous. Her turn to do what? Reveal her past? Is Nerine really calling attention to the fact that the plot is systematically going through each girl's personal story with all the subtly of a elephant flying a jet into a nuclear power plant!?

Further into the darkness, this anime goes.

Sia's story gets my personal attention for ripping off Evangelion, right down to the camera angles and sound track. Not only that, but it has the most bat-crap-dumb reasoning I've ever heard in an anime. From what I gathered, her back story is supposed to make you more endearing towards her cause of wanting to be loved by Rin, but it comes off as really really really really REALLY insane. This girl isn't charming or cute, she's psychotic in a very alarming way. She no longer lives on planet normal, she's across the galaxy in another region of crazy. The fact that Rin doesn't turn around and run screaming from this girl is a testament to his own stupidity.

The very last thread of sanity has just snapped...

Finally, we get to the childhood friend, Kaede's turn. All signs point to this character being the one who Rin will finally choose, so I guess this is who we root for now. But what really startled me about her back-story is: she's probably the most psychotic one of them all. After her mom's accident, she lost the will to live and thus had to be admitted to a hospital to be looked after. In an attempt to snap her back into reality, Rin confesses that he was the reason his parents and Kaede's mom died. His reasoning is because, if he hadn't asked them to come home, they wouldn't have gotten into the collision which killed them. This isn't the truth, it was actually Kaede's request that sent them on the trip that got them killed, hence why she probably went into shock. Rin was just taking the burden so she could live with herself. I guess she completely forgot about how it was her and not him because, upon hearing this, she returns to the world and greets Rin's confession with a firm choke-hold. She literally tries to strangle the life out of him. What the heck... And it doesn't stop there. Remember, they now have to live together with her father. So during all this, she's coming up with ways to ignore or inflict pain upon Rin out of sight of her father. And Rin, being the idiot he is, takes it all without saying a word to anyone. She even goes as far as to injure him with an exacto-knife. What is wrong with this girl?! What kind of child plots out one's misery like this? Are we supposed to be feeling sorry for her? Because I don't.

What's really weird is that her actions don't reflect any of this until it's time for the plot to focus on her. It's like this series had no foresight. So why Rin is actually living with this person for so many years is beyond me. The writers don't clearly address a resolution to make these two the friends they are. Kaede's psycho-lever is thrown into hyper-drive when she starts getting jealous because Rin is hanging out with Asa more for some reason in the later episodes. Kaede goes from a character that would make you say, "I wish she would do something" to "oh my god, what is she going to do!?". I could almost hear the last sane thread in her head snap in one scene as she was stirring a pot full of...nothing. Kaede then becomes an intense character to watch as everyone one of Rin's action pushes her a little further into her own madness. Why the hell wasn't this anime focusing on this the entire time? It literally could've been made as a horror anime instead of a harem and been one-hundred times more engaging to watch. And even after Kaede flips her psycho-switch, the characters still hang around her like she's normal. Either they're incredibly stupid, or they're just as crazy as she it. Oh wait, some of them are! Rin even has the audacity to tell her "she hasn't been acting normal recently." Wow, way to take notice of your surroundings there Rin. Have fun being murdered in your sleep by the mayor of crazy town.

There is no escape...

What's probably the most disturbing of all is how the anime handles these mentally unstable characters. There's really no resolution for any of them to get better. The anime ends with Rin finally choosing of them but they all still love him and actively pursue him. This isn't a healthy mentality, these people need help. This anime lures you in with a false sense of security; spoon-feeding you cliche after cliche. This is probably one of the most horrifying animes I've ever seen, and I'm honestly disappointed. I kinda wish the plot did a better job of fostering the themes and settings because, despite being so disturbing, it was really engaging. The first half really sets the contrast meter high when all hell breaks lose. But the execution was way off. There were unneeded story elements and characters. It seemed like it had the hardest time focusing on what it wanted to do that it just threw everything in without any real structure. The realms and the Kings are never really fleshed out or taken advantage of; and ultimately weren't needed. The last 3 episodes could've been cut out as they did nothing but tie up some pointless loose ends.

What this anime succeeded in doing was creating a scenario where the affection of almost all the girls in the anime drove them all to their own madness. I've never seen an anime do that before, and that's what I was most impressed with. I wish they had focused more on that, because that's where all the best dialog came from, that's where all the best scenes were. It's a shame it took so long for this anime to get to this point (around episode 17). If it cut the cliche in half, removed the plot involving anything to do with gods or demons and slowly reveal each character's insanity a little more slowly, this anime would've been amazing. But it just fails at so many critical points.

The animation is nothing special, nor are there any particularly impressive moments. At least it has some hand-drawn feel to it. I've always appreciated the charm that comes with that. There were some profile and three-quarter turn shots that could've been handled better, but overall, it's average. The soundtrack didn't do much to accent the situations the anime threw at you. This was a big element lacking in the second half; the score failed to capture the sinister nature of some of the dialog between characters. These scenes could've been made much more intense with the proper atmosphere.

I could only timidly recommend this anime. There's so much wrong with it, but some of that wrong is what makes it so right.

Back in My Day... Board Game Edition

I'm probably a bit young to start sentences off with 'back in my day...', but the world is changing faster now than it every has before as far as culture goes and well, I can't help but look around at all that has changed and feel that some aspects of today's society now are overlooked and shoved aside. Of one aspect in particular I would like to bring attention to are board games.

But wait, board games are still around. I just went into target and saw an entire wall full of them. Classic games like Chess, Monopoly, Risk, Scrabble, Stratego, etc, right in the middle of the rest of the games. Clearly not being shoved aside or shunned. This observation is most correct, but it is not this type of board game I'm referring to. No, the type of board game I have in mind are games that dare you to cross treacherous terrains, narrowly escaping volcano fireballs, spiked pits and carnivorous creatures that lurk around every turn. I'm talking about the adventure board game.

Hitting its peak in the 90's, the adventure board game was at the forefront of commercials for children 10 and above. It's true that most of these games took some time to assemble to play, but once the challenges stood high and the anticipation reached it's climax, we let the plastic figures and dice do the talking. I will also make mention of a few other games that aren't of the board variety. But they occurred in the same time period and carried the same spirit.

Though not all of these games are extinct, I know Dungeons and Dragons is still apart of certain sub-cultures, but I want to focus on the lesser,  no-so-hardcore game that were aimed at kids.

CROSSFIRE

Yeah, Crossfire. Though I would define it loosely as a board game (very loosely...), no dice, no mountain, no spiky death traps, who doesn't remember that awesome commercial. Just seeing that box brings back the jingle about getting caught up in the rush. Though not seen traditionally as an adventure game, it was just as exciting. The game itself was simple, load the beads into the gun and fire at the two pucks that moved around on the playing field. The constant reloading and firing made this game more intense than it appeared. This was a personal favorite of mine back in the day.

FIREBALL ISLAND

Now this is what I'm talking about. A volcano, fireballs, traps, 3D terrain, everything else that was in the introduction, this game embodies the 90's adventure board game. This was no candyland adventure, this was a game where the dice was between you and death. Usually games like this involved seeking out some coveted treasure, often a jewel, and then trying to return to safety while other players pit against you and your plight for the prize.

MOUSETRAP

While not adventurous at first glace, this was a different flavor of adventure. Is this a board game or a theme park? Look how many moving parts this game has, all arranged precisely to do one thing, catch a mouse. What an absurd contraption. Clearly over-complicating the act of catching a mouse, but who cares? It was fun. Slowly build the diabolical machine along the way until, finally, one player found themselves underneath the trap area. Turn the crank, watching the boot hit the ball, watch the ball roll, you get the idea. If all goes well, your opponents found themselves captured by the red net by the end of it. There was some cheese involved, but who really cares, the fun was setting it up and watching it work. Very few board games had a payoff like this one did. Slowly constructing this trap, letting the tension build up, then finally the last piece would be in place and the fun commenced. And that's Mouse trap.

FORBIDDEN BRIDGE

Probably the most played from my childhood, Forbidden Bridge. Another game which involved crossing a treacherous terrain to claim some jewel at the other end. The problem with games like these would be, they would come with so many pieces that were easy to lose. I know by the last time this game was played, more than half those jewels were gone to some unknown regions of the house (might still be there). One of the added benefits of this game was the bridge actually moved when you press down on the idol's head. Who dares cross it?

MIGHTY MAX

Again, another non-board game, but still awesome. Mighty Max was a pocket-size adventure before the advent of Pokemon and akin to Polly Pocket, its female counterpart. Mighty Max involved a bunch of themed, pint-sized play areas full of perils. This toy actually had a cartoon to go along with it which, I remember watching through and through. As I recall, it was only 1 or 2 seasons, but I still remember the ending since it was a looping plot that returned back to the first episode.

Unfortunately, that's all I could think of, but I think you get the idea. Maybe it's because I've long outgrown the shows these commercials would appear between, or maybe video games have replaced these adventure games, but as far as I'm concerned, back in my day, board games were awesome. They don't really make them like this anymore.