MIDI Week Singles: "The Sunleth Waterscape - Overseas Version" - Final Fantasy XIII (PC)

 

"The Sunleth Waterscape - Overseas Version" from Final Fantasy XIII on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, & PC (2009 - 2014)
Composer: Masashi Hamauzu
Vocals: Frances Maya
Album: Final Fantasy XIII Original Soundtrack Plus
Label: Sony Music Distribution
Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Square Enix 1st Production Department

This song has a few layers to it that I wanted to talk about before I get into the whole of the song.

First, this is an arrangement of the main theme for Final Fantasy XIII, "The Promise," which likely has a lot going on with it in terms of deeper meaning for almost all of the characters in the story.  So we are going to move on from that analysis which could likely be its own entire article

Then, there is this specific arrangement of the song.  For the first minute, the melody is played on a solo piano accompanied by an EDM track.  This by itself works perfectly fine as an overworld theme that might exist in any top-down open-world JRPG.  The beats might be a little too upbeat for a traditional turn-based JRPG (the first half of the Final Fantasy series), but it does work.  Then add onto that how linear the level design is in Final Fantasy XIII and I find this song to be a perfect theme for running through a semi-tropical forested area fighting off bouncing ghost-like creatures and frogs.

But then, just about a minute into the song, the singing starts.

Having played through most of the numbered Final Fantasy games between 1987 and 2009 (when Final Fantasy XIII was originally released) I do not know if there has ever been a song with lyrics played as an overworld theme (of sorts).  This track plays in the Sunleth Waterscape, Chapter 6 which features Vanille as the controllable character, and that kind of made the fact that there was singing in this stage more palatable.  I have not done a deep dive into the lyrics and I am not great at lyric interpretation, especially when I am only half-ish-way through the game, so we are going to skip over lyric analysis.  I specifically chose the "Overseas Version" of the lyrics because that is what plays in the copy of Final Fantasy XIII purchased through Steam and is what I am used to hearing.  So then there is the comparison between the different lyrics that I am not about to make.

And then! There are parts of this song, around 1:28 that for whatever reason remind me of a song or two from The World Ends With You, specifically "Someday," and "Calling."  I bring this up because I hear it every time I listen to this song and because the battles in this game are so different than other JRPGs I have played, reminds me of the drastic and successful approach to battles in The World Ends With You. 

So I have all of these elements going on in my head when I hear this music, which at first seems like an odd choice for background music for a JRPG, but I find that it actually works really well.  The only downside though is that I thought having two enemies in the Sunleth Waterscape, specifically, the Scalebeast and the Wyvern in the same zone and be alternate monsters to fight/avoid seemed a little overkill.  Which is to say that getting through the Sunleth Waterscape took me a while to do because not only is the stage pretty long distance-wise, but including two tanky monsters made this stage drag on longer than I felt like it should have; all the while, this music is playing, which again, I did enjoy.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

The Price We'll Have To Claim

First Impressions: Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary (PC)

Halo: The Master Chief Collection - Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary (PC)

Release Date: November 11, 2014, November 15, 2011, November 15, 2001

Publisher: Xbox Games Studios, Microsoft Studios

Developer: Bungie*, 343 Industries, Saber Interactive

So then I finally started Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary.  And I felt, kinda meh.  Again.  

But first.

I turned off HD textures and turned on the original soundtrack and sound design because why not.  Since I am playing on PC, I used mouse/keyboard controls and obviously, I inverted the Y-axis on the mouse.  Once I actually started, maybe because I was not playing on a CRTV, I had a better idea of what I was shooting at, but I still felt lost and confused by the layout of the Pillar of Autumn, and apparently, it has been a question for some time as to what is supposed to go where in terms of geography.  The second stage, Halo, has you primarily driving the Warthog around hilly regions rescuing space marine survivors of the Pillar of Autumn, but the levels felt ill-designed for a vehicle, often requiring me to drive so slow so that the vehicle would not tip end-over-end any time I drive over a ledge.  In the third stage, The Truth and Reconciliation, I had to start over after getting, maybe, 2/3rds of the way through after a recent patch somehow erased my save/quit file; but honestly, I was down to a single bar of life anyway, so maybe it was a good thing.  But this stage is more of what I did not like about the first stage: a lot of spaceship corridors that felt more maze-like than actually functional.

Since this is a nine-year-old collection of games where I play a particular version of a 12-year-old game which is an HDification of a 22-year-old game, let us keep things semi-brief.

Stage 1: Pillar of Autumn

I enjoyed the introduction to Master Chief, although plenty of questions still exist about the character, which will (maybe?) be revealed in time.  The layout and getting lost is something that I think will stick in my mind about this opening level.  There were a couple times when I backtracked through rooms of Covenant corpses just to make sure that I had not missed something.  And then there was the area where you are running through service ducts and I ended up doing some backtracking there as well.  I did like that at times there were other soldiers who were also firing back with varying degrees of accuracy and effectiveness, but I understand the feeling that Bungie was going for with allowing the player to feel like they were the ones to (kind of) save the day.

I was a little distracted by the vocalizations of the Grunts, with their high-pitched exclamations of surprise any time I shot at them.  The only thing I can think of is that they were there for comedic effect which did not really feel to fit in with the rest of the level design.  I also could not tell how/why they were speaking English and I am not sure if that will ever be explained.

Stage 2: Halo

For the most part, I enjoyed this stage going from the confined feeling of the Pillar of Autumn to the open sky/atmosphere of the Halo.  The stage itself was varied enough in locations through having Master Chief explore/defend outside and underground environments.  I did feel that I bumbled my way through again, getting lost a couple of times and not knowing where to find a particular switch/button to extend a subterranean bridge.  I was a little annoyed to discover that Master Chief is susceptible to fall damage after jumping off of a battlement to avoid enemy fire so that I could approach from the ground up.  But no, when I landed I apparently landed hard and took a significant amount of damage, but thankfully I knew where there was a health pack that I had intentionally avoided earlier.

I feel like the Warthog was supposed to be the showcase for this level with its open rocky fields and bounding hills, just asked for this military jeep to be driven at full speed, launching yourself into the air and landing amongst a platoon of grunts and elites.  Except I did not like this level as much because of the Warthog.    Trying to drive anywhere quickly often resulted in the Warthog tipping over, or just barreling into boulders because I was going too fast and the turning radius was probably more realistic than I wanted it to be.  Because the Warthog is used heavily here, the level felt very sprawled out, in that you could run from one objective to the next, but it would take you an obscenely long time.  I did appreciate that you could pick up two additional marines, again with varying degrees of effectiveness.  In the end though, not being able to drive the Warthog how I felt it was supposed to be driven, in the right environment, hampered how I view the entire stage when I look back at it all.

Stage 3: The Truth and Reconciliation

As previously mentioned, I ended up having to replay about 2/3 of this stage because something happened after an update and I could no longer continue the game from where I had previously saved and quit.  So I restarted with the assault on the landing pad so that I could access the Covenant ship to rescue Captain Keyes who had apparently gotten captured at some point off-screen.  My biggest issue with this stage was nearly identical to the Pillar of Autumn, in that the layout and the reasoning behind the layout of the ship was confusing.  I know that I could easily chalk it all up to being of alien design so there are going to be aspects of the floorplan and construction that were not intended for the human mind to comprehend.  I just found the countless rooms and corridors to be very uninspiring and I might as well have been shooting enemies in a series of connected warehouses on Earth.

I probably could have finished this stage about 10 minutes faster because I could not, again, figure out the button/switch situation to unlock the brig cells towards the end of the stage.  Because this is the future, the button/panel was a holographic image projected into the air above a console that you could only access from one side, which was not the side that I tried multiple times to do anything with.  It was only after I had backtracked about 1/3 of the way through the stage and then doubled back again that I realized I could be on top of the dias that the computer panel was on and then click the button that unlocked the cells in the brig.

It is interesting playing this game, kind of.  During the first three levels, playing as a super soldier military juggernaut singlehandedly taking on the waves of Covenant footsoldiers while blaring futuristic military jargon was belted out through your radio gave me a little bit of PTSD with the state of the US in 2001 and the following eight years of George Bush's Gulf War Part II.  I think this might be the first military first-person-shooter I have played (I did play through two SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo games on the PSP but that was 3rd person, and I did start Spec Ops: The Line but only played about 15 minutes in before my previous laptop kept crashing in the same place multiple times), albeit a futuristic science fiction military.  But, I cannot say that I am overly excited about playing as a character who is woken up out of cryogenic cold storage and within minutes, is shooting creatures left and right.  I know that that is literally the same thing that happens in DOOM (2016), but for some reason, I can wrap my head around being excited about shooting demonic creatures with a tongue-in-cheek approach compared to these aliens in this futuristic hyper-militaristic vision in Halo.  I genuinely think that some of these feelings of anxiety around my perception of the people who were gung-ho first-person military shooters in the early 2000s have biased my feelings about playing this first Halo game.  This is something that I will be working through during this entire playthrough (and likely the series).

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

Was verbirgst du mir?

P.S.  The screenshot from inside The Truth and Reconciliation about the button, I grabbed from the IGN Halo YouTube walkthrough of the stage (you can see it at 27:37) because I wasn't about to go back through the entire level just to get a picture to show what I meant about not recognizing the button as a button.

P.P.S.  I will also not be surprised if either this game or future games in the series turns this overarching story into essentially what Titan A.E. was about, which I still feel is a lot better movie than many people gave it credit for.

P.P.P.S.  And no, I am not going to actively hunt for achievements in this collection of games as there are 700 across all five games, with a decent amount having to do with multiplayer goals.  I am not about to try and get the "Win 100 Multiplayer Matches" or the "Earn a Total of 250 Double Kill Medals in Matchmade Games."  I know the multiplayer in the Halo series is a fan-favorite feature, but ain't nobody who writes for Stage Select Start got time for that.  That also sounds like a chore.

MIDI Week Singles: "Installation 04" - Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary (PC)

"Installation 04" from Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary on Xbox 360, Windows, Xbox One, Xbox S/X (2011 - 2020)
Composer:  Michael Salvatori, Martin O'Donnell
Album:  Halo: Combat Evolved Game Soundtrack
Label: Sumthing Else
Publisher: Xbox Games Studios, Microsoft Studios
Developer: Bungie, 343 Industries, Saber Interactive

To be clear, I have only heard "Installation 04" at one point in Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary so far, and that was right after rescuing Captain Keyes during which he relates exposition about what he believes to be the true purpose of the Halo and why the Covenant Armada is trying to access it.  Despite my overall feelings about the game, it was a pretty cool moment to hear this music that I have been aware of for maybe 10+ years for the first time in-game.  True this song does creep up if you stay on the menu screen long enough, but at times it seems to pull specific pieces from the soundtrack randomly and I do not feel the gumpshun to stick around and hope to hear this particular track.

As I am currently just beginning Stage 4: "The Silent Cartographer," I am still not certain what "Installation 04" specifically refers to as the title of the song was changed from its original title, "Halo" when Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary was released back in 2011; again which makes sense when this song first cropped up in the game.  But, because the music played during a cutscene that did not last the whole 4:22 of this song, I do wonder how the repeat of the monks singing comes back with the slightly strange electronic bleep-toc sounds in the background.  And then there is the solo piano (@ 3:47) that seems like it should be played after some realization that the UNSC were really the baddies all along and Master Chief has to come to moral terms with his actions since he was forcibly taken out of [deep freeze name].

It is a pretty great title theme song though.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

Auf in die Gischt

My Journey to Halo: Combat Evolved

First off, a little housekeeping.

My First Impressions will be solely for the PC port of Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary included in Halo: The Master Chief Collection.  We will get there eventually.  In theory.  I hope.

The second bit of housekeeping.  I did play Halo: Combat Evolved on the original Xbox back when my older sister, The Shramp, and her husband who we will call Gary (which is not his real name, but if you've played Pokemon Red/Blue and know a bit of my history with Pokemon Red, you will understand this long-winded reference) were still living in NorCal.  I played using The Duke and I very likely inverted the controls on the controller too, or I may not have, I do not remember the control customization options.  What I played was very minimal, being only the first stage, "The Pillar of Autumn" and a little bit of the second stage, "Halo" because I remember driving the Warthog around and getting a little lost.  I remember not being overly taken with the game mainly because I could not tell what it was that I was shooting at.  The Grunts and Elites that populate the Pillar of Autumn looked like colorful blocky amorphous blobs that shimmered, occasionally made squealing and grunting noises, and occasionally shot back.  The combat felt fine but did not feel evolved from that of Perfect Dark (released just over a year earlier in June 2000).  I honestly do not remember what I was expecting going into the game, and I probably just played it because I had not played anything on the Xbox at that point.  I could probably also blame The Duke for being an uncomfortable controller.

The third bit of housekeeping is that I (along with umteen millions of others) loved the buhjeezus out of Red vs. Blue over at Rooster Teeth which Dr. Potts and his roommates introduced me to around mid-2004.  I was a fervent downloader of the RvB series in whatever format I could get it in (QuickTime I recall having a very tiny viewable file), keep in mind this was in the years before YouTube existed.  I watched the series regularly and multiple times until the end of Season 9, then I caught most of the episodes of Season 10, and then I sort of fell off the wagon.  I might try to catch up before the series finale starts, or I will just watch it after it comes out.

When The Master Chief Collection was released on PC in 2014, I had thought it would be fun to play the games from the perspective of Red vs. Blue characters but never got around to it because. . . reasons I guess.  And then in 2021, Unraveled did an episode about all of the Halo novels and that re-piqued my interest in the series, never really realizing how much lore there was outside what had been cherry-picked for the RvB series.  I nearly started reading the books and then playing the games in the in-world chronological order but stopped because I was (and still am) knee-deep in unplayed Switch (and now Steam Deck) games, and I had not purchased a Smach-Zero yet (because Steam Deck was not a thing).

Most recently I watched the trailer for the final season of Red vs. Blue: Restoration and because the Steam Summer Sale was still going on, I plunked down $9.99 (minus however many cents I had in my account from selling duplicate Steam Trading Cards) and bought the collection.  After feeling the frustration of an hour-plus download of the 39 GB, I jumped into Halo: The Master Chief Collection, deciding to play the original Halo: Combat Evolved rather than the chronological Halo: Reach (shocker, I know).  But, that I could not do because the game only downloaded/installed Halo: ODST for whatever reason, which I have read is what it does by default.  For all other games you have to manually install once the game launcher is open.  So that was another 30-45 minute download.

So then I finally started Halo: Combat Evolved.  And after a while, I felt kinda meh.  Again.  But that is for Friday.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Whisper in My Ear

MIDI Week Singles: "Decide in the Eyes" - F-ZERO X (N64)

 

"Decide in the Eyes" - F-ZERO X on the Nintendo 64 (1998)

Composer: Naoto Ishida

Arranged By: Taro Bando

Album: F-ZERO X ORIGINAL SOUND TRACK

Label: Nintendo 64 Sound Series

Publisher: Nintendo

Developer: Nintendo EAD

While not at all a controversial choice for a MIDI Week Single, there is a little bit of contentiousness saying that neither of the Big Blue tracks in F-ZERO X were my favorites.  The first Big Blue occurs in the Jack Cup and is the tube-track where for half of the race you drive on the outside of a cylinder where it can become very easy to lose your sense of direction especially if you are trying to hit the boosts and forget where exactly the tube stops and the road starts.  Big Blue 2 in the Queen Cup is a shorter race that involves sharp hairpin turns and a track that loops and double backs on itself, all of which I find rather uninteresting.  And that was it.  "Decide in the Eyes" (aka "Big Blue") only occurs twice in the entire game, although the X-Cup does randomly pull songs for the procedurally generated tracks, I am only counting the four primary Cups.

The music from F-Zero on the SNES composed by Naoto Ishida, here arranged by Taro Bando is a worthy successor to everything that made the original song great.  Pretty much all of the elements are there, just with an improved sound chip and a more aggressive take to match the fact that there are 29 other racers on the screen at the same time and matches the energy on the rest of the soundtrack.  And of all of the arrangements that "Big Blue"/"Decide in the Eyes" has made over the years in Super Smash Bros. Melee and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (although I do appreciate the use of a saxophone in that arrangement), this is still likely my favorite take on this theme that is about as ubiquitous as "Mute City" is with the F-Zero IP.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

Ya verás, cuándo vuelvas aquí

P.S.  I should also mention that the song that is on the official soundtrack, and not the one in the game, was recorded in stereo and of better sound quality.  There are plenty of articles about the sound quality of the music in the game and how all of the audio was mixed to mono to help save room on the cartridge so that the game could maintain its (still) impressive 60 fps.

One Mechanic All Rhythm Game Should Have

[Yeah, I know that that is a bit of a clickbait title only half worthy of sites like Game Rant, but that was what my brain came up with when it wasn't boiling in my skull pan, so that is what we decided to go with.]

I like Beat Saber, although I do not know if I would say that I am a Beat Saberer. . . Beater Saber . . . I don't know what people are called who are stupid-good at Beat Saber, but I am not one of those.  I would say that I am comfortably decent, able to do most songs in Hard mode and a handful in Expert.  This is all on the Quest 2 with the standard grip so maybe I could improve my performance if I changed my grip.  Or just played more.  The other rhythm game I play in VR is Ragnarock, which I have talked about here and there.

My issue with both of these games has nothing to do with the gameplay itself but with the settings and the way that you select the music that you play and listen to.  In both games, you can choose which song you want to play and then select the difficulty, which is often reflected in the number of beats per second.  When you are finished with that song, you choose another song with the keyword being "you."  This often leads me to only playing a few of the songs I already really like and not looking at any of the other dozens of available songs.  In multiplayer matches, each player selects which song they want to play and then the computer selects which song everyone will play, but that is even limited in Beat Saber to the songs your account specifically has access to, otherwise, you can only observe and not participate; which becomes increasingly likely as more and more artist/label packs are released.  Ragnarock thankfully does not have this issue as you can play any song anyone chooses that the game randomly selects even if you have not purchased one of the DLC packs.    Ragnarock will also randomly choose a song for you if a song is not selected by anyone, even when no one else is playing with you in multiplayer.  This is the closest you can get to randomized play, assuming that other people are also logged in and playing with you.

But what both games need, and really all rhythm music games if they do not already have implemented, is randomized play.  In the case of Beat Saber and Ragnarock, you could select what difficulty you want the game to pull from, be it from a range or a specific difficulty, then you click "Play" or whatever the equivalent is and play.  When the song is over, you can select either to play the next randomly selected song or to exit back to the main menu.  Sure there could be additional settings like choosing from a specific album, selecting a group of albums from the start, or altering the difficulty setting after playing a song, but I was just trying to think of the barebones version that could be implemented the easiest; as if I know what I am talking about when it comes to VR games development and UI.

The point of all of this is, is that I want a "Random" button so that I can play a rhythm game solo (without having to depend on multiplayer) with a randomized track listing so that I can play songs that I either am not as familiar with or songs that I am just too afraid to pick on my own because of their respective difficulty.  Or because I do not like them.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

But I Know What I'm Needing

Emulator Hour: Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack (INT)

 

Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack

Systems: Intellivision

Release Date: 1979

Publisher: Mattel Electronics

Developer: APh Technological Consulting

First off,  I did not alter or rearrange the title of this game, it really does say "Blackjack & Poker" when you boot the game up, but the official title is Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack.  Even the box has the full title, and I can only assume that the title was shortened because it would have otherwise been too long to fit on the start-up screen.  But as to why the games are out of order is beyond me.

I will be the first to admit that I view this game through heavily deep rose-tinted glasses and over the years I have talked about this game potentially being one of the first video games I ever played.  After replaying this game (granted not on an Intellivision system but on an emulator through my browser which is why the images will be presented in a widescreen format, and not formatted to fit your screen), I still think that it is a really fun poker game with simple rules and a dealer who is not out to destroy your bank account.

Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack is made up of four standard casino card games, Five Card Draw, Five Card Stud, Seven Card Stud, and Blackjack.  You play through one hand of one game and then you can choose whichever game you want to play next, using the same amount of money that you selected you would start out with at the very beginning of the game.  I love that there is a random/Dealer's Choice option otherwise I feel like I would only play Blackjack or Five Card Draw.  I cannot say how fairly the dealer plays in that I am unable to count cards to figure out if the cards are shuffled after each hand or house frequently if at all, the house cheats.  I do become a little suspicious though when playing Blackjack and two hands in a row I was dealt cards totaling 12, then received a 10 or a face card on a hit.  Luckily you can jump into another game immediately so do you not have to dwell on whether or not the game cheated.

In this iteration of the game through Archive.org, you use the 10-key number pad and unfortunately, the number row keys do not function, so there is that limitation right off the bat.  Secondly, you need to know how the overlay card for LVP&B is laid out to know what number does what, which is where having a second screen, be it a second monitor or a phone screen comes in handy.  But even then, the 10-key is reversed compared to the overlay which is close to the layout of the keypad on a phone.  I have noticed a quirk or two that may or not be a bug due to emulation, or if I just pressed the wrong button at the wrong time, but on at least two occasions, I accidentally dropped my hand playing Five/Seven Card Stud when I thought I was raising.

Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack is where I learned how to play each of these card games, probably around the age of 5-7, although I did not learn the finer points of the games until much later.  The beauty of this game is that it feels like it was designed to be fun, not punishing the player.  If you end up being bankrupt, you are almost immediately prompted to enter a new amount to start playing again.  There are no leaderboards, or high scores to hit, just an arbitrary amount to start with so that you can somewhat accurately ante up, bet, or raise along with the dealer (or other players if you are playing a two-player game which I have not figured out how to do on the Archive.org emulator).  

I would not go into this game, especially in this day and age, expecting a robust poker simulator, just a fun early iteration of four three poker games and Blackjack.  And even though the emulation from Archive.org is not a perfect one visually, and does not allow (that I could find) for button remapping, just seeing the game, hearing the shuffling of the cards, and even the overlay, brings a flood of nostalgic memories of summer vacation in the San Bernadino mountains for a few weeks until 1992-93 when the house my grandparents rented changed and we no longer had access to the Intellivision.   

                   

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

Been Down, Isn't It A Pity

MIDI Week Singles: "Ace of Spades" - Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 (NGC)

 

"Ace of Spades" from Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 on the GameCube and nearly everything else that year (2001)
Composer: Motörhead
Album: Ace of Spades
Label: Bronze
Publisher: Activision O2

Developer: Neversoft

It's this song.  This is the song.  It was used during the opening demo for Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3.  

There is literally nothing I could say about this song musically that hasn't already been said by people more knowledgeable than I, so I will just leave this song here for everyone to enjoy.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

Never Submit

P.S.  The Kid and I came up with an in-house rule that whenever we play blackjack, anytime you are dealt the Ace of Spades, you immediately declare it and you automatically win that hand.  There might be additional rules if we are drinking, but I can't remember exactly what those rule(s) are.

Tinkering with Nintendo Switch Hardware

 

Let me give you an invaluable pro-life tip.

Apple juice and electronics, not good bedfellows.  Yes, I accidentally moved a pillow while lying on my bed that shifted in a way that knocked over about 2 oz of unfiltered apple juice onto my bedside table (because I need to wash down that oh-so-delicious Alvesco before going to sleep).  A few droplets of juice managed to find their way to the Joy-Cons on my Switch messing with the joystick, the menu button, and the up button.  I tried doing some rudimentary cleaning around the affected areas, hoping I would not need to take apart the Joy-Cons to clean them, but the joystick continued feeling a bit gummy.

On a completely separate note, but still related to the topic today, almost a year back, one of our Joy-Cons suffered a traumatic injury and the entire joystick broke off of the Joy-Con unit.  This will come to play later in the article.

So I decided that if I was going to dig into the guts of the Joy-Con controller, I might as well just go ahead and buy a pair of Hall Effect joystick replacements so I would not run the risk of sending off the Tears of the Kingdom Joy-Cons to Nintendo when the joysticks inevitably fall prey to drift and getting back a mismatched pair of black and neon blue Joy-Cons in return.  In short Hall Effect, joysticks use magnets rather than additional physical components to realign the joystick.  Or I could be wrong, but there's the Wikipedia article about it, which is better at words than I am.  

I bought the pair of joysticks from GuliKit on Amazon, which seems to be the Internet's go-to for Hall Effet joystick replacements for anything that comes with analog joysticks.  I was also happy that the kit came packaged with the necessary tools to make the replacement like the tri-head screwdriver, plastic tweezers, and a guitar pick-like tool to wedge apart pieces.  In the end, I did not need the additional screws that were packaged and the joystick caps I am not sure if I will do anything with those, at least not on the TotK controllers as they do not visually mesh well together.

Before digging into the Joy-Cons, I did watch a tutorial from Hand Held Legend's YouTube page which did a decent job of explaining and showing the steps to take out the old joysticks and installing the new ones.  I was a little annoyed that there was not an extended zoom-in when each of the ribbon cables was pulled out of their respective slots.  Additionally, when he was reassembling the Joy-Cons, the video was sped up to the point of not being useful.  Sure, he said, "Do the process in reverse to put it back together," which is all well and good except for trying to slide in a .25mm thick ribbon cable into a .30mm* wide opening with a pair of plastic tweezers while praying to Iwata that you do not damage the money end of the cable caused a bit of anxiety on my part.  And I started with the right Joy-Con which has an additional ribbon cable delicately placed over one of the screws to take out the joystick which inevitably got in the way of trying to insert the ribbon cable for the joystick itself.  I did step away from trying to insert the ribbon cables at one point because my hands started shaking and I sank into frustration.  I obviously did get the cable to reconnect, although I will be honest in that I was not 100% satisfied with how it looked, but it appears to have at least been enough.

I should also add that while I was up in there, I did do some isopropyl alcohol swabbing and drying to clean out as much of the apple juice residue as I could get.  Although later that night, I did realize that I had forgotten to clean more around the menu button, but more on that later.

The second Joy-Con replacement went considerably faster, partly because I had already one successful joystick replacement under my belt, but also because there was one fewer ribbon cable to deal with.  I do want to add/confess, that I know that I should have disconnected the battery while working on the Joy-Cons, but I did not like the way Hand Held Legend pulled on the wires in his video and I could not tell if I should pull up or pull out.  I was fearful that I would end up pulling in the wrong direction and somehow permanently damage the wires to the battery so I left the battery connected.  When I have done work on my various laptops to replace screens and upgrade RAM, I have disconnected the battery, so I know the importance of disconnecting a power source from an electronic device while you are working on it, I was just afraid of potentially doing more harm by tugging on those oh-so-delicate wires.

I know that is probably not advised, but I do own up to it.  

There was also something that I did not disconnect because the video glossed over the "disconnect the connecter at the bottom."  Like the battery, I could not tell how I was supposed to disconnect whatever that little connector thing was and how I might reconnect in the "just put everything back the way it was" phase.  And because I could just move it out of the way, I just left it connected.

Then I reconnected the reassembled Joy-Cons to the Switch, and in the main menu screen, was able to move the cursor around with both joysticks, pressed several buttons to make sure that they all functioned and it seemed like everything was kosher.  So I jumped back into Tears of the Kingdom and Link proceeded to run off a cliff of his own volition.  I let go of both Joy-Cons, and Link was running.  On his own.  Without me touching the controllers.  This is the definition of Joy-Con drift, and the Hall Effect joysticks I had just installed were supposed to be the end-all to this problem.  I did have a momentary moment of panic and I thought that I had somehow screwed up the ribbon cables or maybe had dropped a Junior Mint in the works while closing it up; that's a Seinfeld reference for all you Gen Zers.  Then I realized that I had not calibrated the Joy-Cons, which is something not mentioned in the tutorial but seemed like something I should do.  Sure enough, the joystick was drifting like a drunken circus monkey.  So I went through the process of calibrating both joysticks and thankfully, that seems to have worked.

One concern that I have not touched on was something that I had read about Hall Effect joysticks, being that they require more power to operate, because of the magnets apparently, and may incur more significant battery drain than analog joysticks.  Having now used the Switch for a full week with the new Hall Effect joysticks, I will say that I have not noticed any significant battery drain issues.  This is a purely unscientific opinion as I have no data to back my opinion up, but someone out there might have information to add to this, one way or the other.

The other concern that I have is that by replacing the joysticks, I have effectively voided the warranty on the Joy-Cons.  So in the future, if I have legitimate concerns with the Joy-Cons, they will not fix the Joy-Cons.  I did feel a little anxious about this, but since the only reason I have sent Joy-Cons back to Nintendo to be fixed in the past has been for Joy-Con drift, I felt a little better having (successfully) repaired the issue myself.

I might still be able to have my second pair of Joy-Cons replaced, one of which is the one I mentioned at the beginning of this article.  I used one of the joysticks from the OLED TotK Switch to replace the broken joystick.  It is an original part from Nintendo, although not specifically from that generation of Joy-Con, so I guess we will have to wait and see if that breaks the warranty when Joy-Con drift inevitably happens on those.

So for the time being I am very happy with how the replacement process ended up.  I have noticed a little stickiness on the up button on the left Joy-Con and I did have some connectivity issues with the Menu button on the same left Joy-Con, but I cannot be sure if that was from the apple juice or my own tinkering; the issue is that the Joy-Con disconnected a few seconds after pressing the Menu button, which happened three separate times the first night, but has not happened since.

Still, I count this as a success.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

Und die Prophezeiung wurde wahr

*P.S.  I do not actually know how thick the ribbon cables are.

Monthly Update: August, 2023

 

Yes, I am still playing The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and although I am not at the 220-hour mark that one of my friends is currently at, I did just clear the 150 hours.  What is surprising to me about this, is that I spent about 120 hours in Breath of the Wild, and by that point, I was ready to be done with the game and wanted to move on.  Here, I just finished the second temple out of, I think, four.  I know part of this is that I find the shrines in TotK a lot more satisfying to play through than the shrines in BotW and, it has been a while since I played BotW, but it definitely feels like there is a lot more to do in terms of side quests.  I also like the mechanics and functionality of the Ultrahand more than the Sheika Slate.  I also enjoy that there is less sense of urgency in "finding/rescuing Zelda."  I recall being a little worried about Tears of the Kingdom having too much emphasis on building and essentially being Minecraft in the Zelda Universe, that you would need to build all kinds of crazy shit to succeed, but that has not been the case at all for reasons that I will get to when I eventually get to writing my Game EXP article; look for it this Holiday season.  

I also want to throw out there that this is probably my favorite Legend of Zelda trilogy. Of all time. And yes, I count Age of Calamity as canon with Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.

In other games, I finished the main story in Celeste and will likely write an article about that, although I am still trying to decide if I want/need/have to play through "The Core" level before writing because I am 100% certain that there will be people who tell me that I have not actually beaten the game unless I finish ALL THE LEVELS.  Except that I have had nothing but positive interactions with the Celeste community.  It would be as if the entire Soulsborne community was made of Solaires and Siegmeyers.

I am also plodding along in Icewind Dale Enhanced Edition, although I hit a bit of a progression wall in the form of three trolls and four wraith spiders.  I have tried eeking them out one at a time, but when one triggers, it seems like they all trigger and come a-charging.  They get a whiff of blood and then I die shortly after.  At the moment, my one mage (an Invoker) does know two third-level spells, Dispel Magic and Haste, but does not know any offensive spells, which is not great in a game that is very combat-heavy.  Maybe I just need to make the 80-hour trek back to Kuldahar and see if I can buy a Fireball or Lightning spell from Orrick the Gray and then hope for the best?  (I of course wrote that before the section where I had to go up against four spellcasters and six bloody trolls).

Earlier in the month, I saw a trailer for Part 2 of The Witcher Season 3 and thought, "I'm sorry what?"  I was not aware that the third season had released, which either means that I am not tapped into Netflix's marketing demographic, or that advertising for the release of Season 3 was almost two months into the WGA Strike and with the SAG-AFTRA strike two weeks later, it might have gotten lost in all of the entertainment news hubbubs.  And speaking of strikes and diminishing residuals for writers, WGA/SAG-AFTRA members, maybe this will be the kick in the taint that streaming services (looking at you Disney+ and to some extent Netflix) need to start releasing more of their shows on physical media (thankfully the Castlevania series received a physical release of all four seasons, and I have reason to hope that this will continue with the new Castlevania: Nocturne series), especially the Star Wars series.  I want to say that I have read somewhere that one of the reasons Disney has not released their Disney+ shows on physical media is to keep subscription rates up, but I know at least for myself, that I would be more likely to rewatch season 7 of The Clone Wars or rewatch season 1 of The Bad Batch if I could just pop on down to our basement to put on an episode to watch with The Squire.  But right now, I would have to either plunk him down in from of a laptop and I am trying to limit the amount of small-screen time (laptops, phones) he experiences during the day, or buy a Blu-ray player capable of logging onto Disney+. Plus, The Squire likes to play with Legos and Amiibos while we watch episodes of Star Wars Rebels, and I try to keep things consolidated there in the basement.  This could end up being its own article so I am going to stop now.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Instrumental

MIDI Week Singles: "Bloody Road" - Skull Fang (ARC)

 

"Bloody Road" from Skull Fang from the Arcade (1996)
Composer: Hiroaki Yoshida
Album:  No Official Release
Publisher: Data East
Developer: Data East

I "watched" a longplay of Skull Fang and I could not find out where in the game "Bloody Road" takes place, but more on that towards the end.  Then again, most of the music from the game was often difficult to hear and quickly faded into the background once the shooting started.  The shooting started within seconds of the level starting, often before any enemy fighters appeared on screen.  Music in Skull Fang, and largely a lot of arcade games, feels ancillary to the rest of the soundscape in the game, often the sounds of guns and explosions given a higher priority.  All of this is somewhat forgivable as you might have 20+ other arcade games and their sound effects, along with ambient arcade noise to contend with so you have to decide what you want the player to focus on.  The music, or the effects of the game.

Which is still all kind of a shame considering how much there is going on in "Bloody Road" and just how good all of the parts are in this song.  I am not a drummer, but to me, the drums, for the entire song, sound like they are having the time of their life.  The melody, on whatever that digital instrument/guitar is supposed to be, is just pure carrying the action blazing goodness.  There is not one part of this song that I would change and the more I listen to it (obviously while writing this article, so I am a bit biased), the more I just love everything about it.

It is interesting though, that "Bloody Road" was originally written for Vapor Trail which was a similar top-down shmup, but I found that I did not vibe with the original version at all.  I found the main melody to be very tinny and hard to hear over the deeper and louder rhythm guitar sound.  I could only imagine that the melody would come across more as a vibrating sound rather than what you are supposed to be listening for when actually heard in an arcade.  I think that is another reason why I love the arrangement in Skull Fang so much more, that the melody instrument has been cleaned up and the melody is clearly defined, where it feels like it now exists as a song, not just additional sound to compete with itself and the rest of the arcade.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
No Buzz, Not Even From 500 Pounds of Folgers