I watched the 90s X-Men: The Animated Series back when I was in school with no knowledge of the comic books. While I haven't rewatched it so I can't vouch for how it has aged, I remember that at the time I really enjoyed it for having one of the few things animated television had at the time; an ongoing storyline. As it turns out, many of those story arcs were adapted from the comics, and eventually formed the basis by which I would judge every X-Men adaptation to follow. Also, as it turns out, the character I most fell in love with, was largely made up specifically for the animated series.
More specifically, since it was his job to get killed off in the first two-parter, they reinvented an old Marvel character who wasn't being used anymore and gave him the new code name Morph.
Yes, I managed to fall in love with a character who died in the first two episodes. I was really into shapeshifters so Morph naturally played into the character type I'd root for the most.
The show was still interesting enough though, so I kept watching. And then season 2 happened, and Morph returned as a mind-controlled antagonist. He later got freed from mind-control, but was still mentally messed up. And so going forward generally each season would have a Morph episode I'd look forward to as he dealt with his trauma, and then he'd be gone until the next one. I really liked those check-ins, even though by the final season I knew that a large part of the reason he was kept on the sidelines was likely that he didn't have a comic book equivalent that took part in many of the story arcs they were adapting.
Still, he was included in the send-off of Charles Xavier in the series finale, which made me happy to see that he was still considered in-universe as a core part of the X-Men.
Now, getting close to 30 years later, we have X-Men '97 which rather than reboot the series simply picks up where the original left off. Xavier is gone and the world entrusted to those left behind. (Though I notice they leave it as the Professor has passed away and not that he sailed away in a starship with his alien princess girlfriend as a way to try to preserve his life.)
I figured I would watch it at some point, since it looks like the animation team did an excellent job of recreating the feel of the 90s cartoon as we remembered it rather than what it actually looked like. The side by side opening comparisons on YouTube are a little unfair as the original opening was incredibly good and when you look at actual episode footage from the older show you can see it's much flatter than the new work by Studio Mir, best known for the Avatar series and the Voltron remake.
X-Men '97 was going to remain in the "at some point" like a lot of things in my viewing backlog, except that I did watch one of those opening comparison videos and noticed that there were two additions to the cast. The original X-Men, perhaps realizing they were dealing with a large cast of characters and an audience who are probably unfamiliar with most of them, had a neat opening sequence that would showcase a character (and their powers if possible) along with their name. This allowed viewers to gradually pick up everyone's names over time.
Morph, as I later realized, was not in this line-up, since he was introduced with the intention of being killed off, but since everyone was new to me, it was hard to recognize that his name was not among the deluge before he died.
But he is in the opening of X-Men '97. (And Bishop. Which I have a slightly harder time accepting for story reasons, but don't want to get into here.)
The new opening credits first show Morph as how we knew him back in the older series, before turning him into a blank slate looking humanoid rather like a doppelganger from Dungeons & Dragons, which has been a "I'm a shapeshifting creature with no actual identity" marker in other media before, so while I missed the more human look, I wasn't thrown by it.
It also looks like Morph is now non-binary. Not a problem, since being a shapeshifter able to assume either gender likely makes gender irrelevant, but it was a little jarring that I found out through the informational boxes played during the ending credits and not from natural dialogue (so far as I noticed).
I felt a little like Morph's long journey out of PTSD and back into the land of ready for action was glossed over, though I vaguely remember their return to the manor in the original series was also rather abrupt so this might not entirely be X-Men '97's fault.
Because Morph was introduced and killed off so quickly, in a way, X-Men '97 is the first time we're really seeing them when they're not dealing with trauma, and I'm not entirely sure they would have been my favorite now if I was a kid watching this for the first time. They're a little weird and a little inappropriate with their humor, but it's nice that having them alive gives Wolverine a buddy. The two were supposed to be good friends in the original, so failing to save and actually saving Morph were big character moments for Wolverine, but it was something that was said rather than told.
X-Men '97 makes sure Morph and Wolverine hang out and get to be the buddies they're supposed to be. Which is great.
But watching the two launch episodes also gives me another reason to understand why Morph was likely left to "recover" for the majority of the series. Now that they're part of the active team again, it's pretty obvious that Morph isn't that great at combat in a series where the majority of the showcase mutants are living weapons.
There are moments where they get to use their shapeshifting to great effect, turning into the mutant Archangel in order to fly, and others where it seems a little more forced. Basically, to make Morph combat-worthy, the writer uses them as a source of Easter eggs mimicking various characters from the old show, often giving them their powers as well. While this makes sense for Archangel, who has wings, it was stretching my disbelief a bit to see Morph turn into Psylocke and use her psychic blades, since this implies it's not just a physical mimicry but one that goes all the way down to the genetic level. At that point, what's stopping Morph from shifting into a double of Magneto and using all the power of magnetism?
(This actually reminds me of one of the old Morph episodes when Wolverine tries to hunt them down and a mentally unstable Morph turns into a rhinoceros while fighting him. Once the shapeshifting stretched beyond humanoid forms, one of my friends called bull on the writing.)
Still, I'm glad Morph's integration into the cast gave me the impetus to watch X-Men '97 since it was an enjoyable return to memory lane and I look forward to seeing what the rest of the series has for the season. I know there are a lot more characters than room to give all of them story arcs (hence retaining an updated version of the opening credits that lists all the key players in the cast and seems to be updated with every episode), but I hope Morph gets a bit of a spotlight for themselves. I feel like we still have a lot of catching up to do.
And also, I just really want to see Morph on an infiltration mission of some kind. That's what shapeshifters do best!
(Next Day Addendum: I ended up watching the 72 episodes in 35 minutes recap over on Screen Crush which does an amazing job of touching on every single episode of the original X-Men and I'd completely forgotten Morph had shapeshifted to use other mutants' powers in the past, and that they pretty much solo-ed Master Mold in one of their return episodes, so I take back that they would have been baggage for lack of combat ability. Now it's more of a question of why wouldn't you throw them at every enemy you've got?)
Monday, March 25, 2024
Monday, March 11, 2024
even if Tempest is a Fabulous Mystery Game
I love mystery games, as you may have noticed if you've spent any time reading here. My introduction to visual novels was the Ace Attorney series and since then I've enjoyed titles such as Danganronpa, Raging Loop, and Psycho-Pass: Mandatory Happinesss. I also enjoyed Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments, which if it hadn't been in 3D may as well have been a visual novel. Getting to the bottom of a crime-laden mystery is something I enjoy.
But when I heard that even if Tempest had trials where you use evidence to ferret out the culprit, I assumed it would be a half-baked mechanic, mostly because it's otome. Perhaps that's an unfair assessment, that media aimed at women would phone it in, but most otome games that come to the US are visual novels and if there is any gameplay beyond making choices, it's a relatively easy activity so the player doesn't get frustrated when the main point of the game is playing out a romance.
Both Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly and Collar x Malice require the player to shoot a gun sometimes, but one is extremely forgiving and the other is more of a matter of having good timing than good aim. As someone with notoriously bad shooter skills, those examples were not a downside for me, but being a mystery lover, a half-assed murder trial would garner a sigh of boredom at best and ruin my immersion at worst.
I needn't have worried.
After I finished my first high tension witch trial, during which I was afraid I'd screwed up so badly my protagonist Anastasia was going to be burned at the stake, I was actually discombobulated to come to the next scene and be greeted by Anastasia's love interest. In the midst of all the investigation, sussing people out, and going through my evidence list at the trial itself I'd somehow forgotten which genre of game I was playing.
After the initial surprise, I realized that this is a game that feels particularly geared towards me. I like Anastasia as a heroine. She's willing to do the years of hard work to forge herself into the person she wants to be. She plans ahead. She knows the object of her revenge and how to expose him, and she is willing to do whatever it takes to save the person closest to being family that she has.
So when Anastasia needs to bring down the Witch of Ruin as part of the bargain for her friend's life and her revenge, she barrels into the witch trial like hell on wheels.
Which is to say, she's a lot more action oriented than most otome protagonists, and clearly takes the lead in the investigations, even if her current man is tagging along. This makes her work well as the protagonist for a mystery game and she's just as motivated as the player to get these murders solved.
And from a game mechanics perspective, I was pleasantly surprised. Unlike Ace Attorney and Danganronpa, which also allow the player to visit a variety of locations, there is a limited amount of time to hunt down clues, which prevents the player from starting the trial with a full suite of information. You have a set of suspects marked by the Witch of Ruin, but only one of them has been turned into the witch's plaything, and I was given 11 hours until the trial began (appropriately at midnight). Each avenue of investigation had a time cost associated with it, so I wouldn't be able to follow all of them before the trial began, which as a mystery game veteran was rather unsettling.
It's okay to proceed without all the clues? I can't have all the clues? What madness is this?
And then the trial itself isn't really about establishing evidence or pointing out the flaws in another person's logic, though that can help. The witch trial is decided in the court of public opinion so even if you're completely correct, it won't mean anything if Anastasia is pissing off the 300 jurors so much that they're unwilling to believe her.
Though I don't think the trials are as freeform as they initially appear, I found I loved the format. Knowing that the right answer might not actually exist in my evidence because I didn't do that investigation added an edge to the presentation, and presenting the wrong answer usually doesn't result in the player being thrown back to the evidence list until they find the right answer. Instead, most of the time the game will acknowledge you chose poorly and the trial will move on, with failure being the result of multiple decisions over the course of the trial rather than a failing to present an obscure piece of evidence five times in a row at a single point in time. (I do like Ace Attorney but I don't like feeling obligated to save right before presenting evidence because I don't know which item out of twenty is the one I need.)
The trial even has decision points where you can choose to focus the debate around a particular person, and there is more than one option that will satisfactorily end the trial with the correct culprit being identified. As long as Anastasia does enough to shift the blame where she wants it to go (because it's court of public opinion), it's a win.
There are only two things that bothered me. The first is that when the game transitions to the evidence list, it doesn't let you back up and read the last line of dialogue regarding what you are trying to prove or disprove. Since most of the time the penalty is just a reputation hit and the trial moves on, it's not horrible, but being able to read the last line of dialogue lets you compare the evidence to what was just said and that's not possible here. Most other games with a trial system will let you do this. Worse, on the rare occasion you really have to pick a specific piece of evidence before the game will move on, you might find yourself stabbing in the dark for your second or third picks because you can't remember what you're supporting or disproving.
The second issue is that I think it's actually possible to hose yourself going into the witch trial on Zenn's route. (And spoilers ahead for the rest of this paragraph and the next.) I often went into witch trials with missing pieces of evidence, so I didn't think anything of it when I entered the Zenn route trial with the intention to falsely convict Crius of being the Membrum. But the problem was, I got far enough that Anatasia was ready for the killing blow that would "prove" his guilt and I didn't have anything. I kept trying one thing after another and none of my evidence seemed to be working. After about five tries using increasingly absurd pieces of evidence (eiT is not as obtuse as AA can be) and taking constant reputation hits, I finally gave up and loaded an older save.
I think there are only two ways to falsely convict Crius, either by revealing that he knew the first victim, or providing a motivation for killing the second. There are only four investigation leads at this point in the game, and the player has time for three, so in theory there's no way the player can leave without at least one piece of evidence to earn a conviction unless they purposely stop investigating early, but it's possible to do one of the investigations and not get the evidence based on a dialogue choice, which is what I'd done. I don't mind not having all the evidence necessary for a perfect trial, but having to restart the game from an earlier point in time because I can't finish the trial at all shouldn't happen.
End spoilers.
When the witch trials came to an end, there was still more story to go, but I realized I was a little sad that it was not likely many fans of mystery games (who aren't also part of otome fandom) would bother to play this game. The non-linear trial system that accepts multiple answers and provides multiple investigation routes without losing the thread of the story is quite frankly an amazing experience and I hope to see something like it again in another game. Unfortunately, with even if Tempest being an otome and the story wrapping up so witch trials will no longer happen, this is not a case where we would expect a sequel with those mechanics back in action, and Voltage, the publisher and developer, has never developed anything outside of otome so it's unlikely this mechanic would return in an unrelated title.
If you're interested in a game that will give you three solid trials and a pretty engrossing mystery that sometimes has romantic overtones, then I absolutely recommend this. It's a novel spin on the investigation and trial system.
But when I heard that even if Tempest had trials where you use evidence to ferret out the culprit, I assumed it would be a half-baked mechanic, mostly because it's otome. Perhaps that's an unfair assessment, that media aimed at women would phone it in, but most otome games that come to the US are visual novels and if there is any gameplay beyond making choices, it's a relatively easy activity so the player doesn't get frustrated when the main point of the game is playing out a romance.
Both Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly and Collar x Malice require the player to shoot a gun sometimes, but one is extremely forgiving and the other is more of a matter of having good timing than good aim. As someone with notoriously bad shooter skills, those examples were not a downside for me, but being a mystery lover, a half-assed murder trial would garner a sigh of boredom at best and ruin my immersion at worst.
I needn't have worried.
After I finished my first high tension witch trial, during which I was afraid I'd screwed up so badly my protagonist Anastasia was going to be burned at the stake, I was actually discombobulated to come to the next scene and be greeted by Anastasia's love interest. In the midst of all the investigation, sussing people out, and going through my evidence list at the trial itself I'd somehow forgotten which genre of game I was playing.
After the initial surprise, I realized that this is a game that feels particularly geared towards me. I like Anastasia as a heroine. She's willing to do the years of hard work to forge herself into the person she wants to be. She plans ahead. She knows the object of her revenge and how to expose him, and she is willing to do whatever it takes to save the person closest to being family that she has.
So when Anastasia needs to bring down the Witch of Ruin as part of the bargain for her friend's life and her revenge, she barrels into the witch trial like hell on wheels.
Which is to say, she's a lot more action oriented than most otome protagonists, and clearly takes the lead in the investigations, even if her current man is tagging along. This makes her work well as the protagonist for a mystery game and she's just as motivated as the player to get these murders solved.
And from a game mechanics perspective, I was pleasantly surprised. Unlike Ace Attorney and Danganronpa, which also allow the player to visit a variety of locations, there is a limited amount of time to hunt down clues, which prevents the player from starting the trial with a full suite of information. You have a set of suspects marked by the Witch of Ruin, but only one of them has been turned into the witch's plaything, and I was given 11 hours until the trial began (appropriately at midnight). Each avenue of investigation had a time cost associated with it, so I wouldn't be able to follow all of them before the trial began, which as a mystery game veteran was rather unsettling.
It's okay to proceed without all the clues? I can't have all the clues? What madness is this?
And then the trial itself isn't really about establishing evidence or pointing out the flaws in another person's logic, though that can help. The witch trial is decided in the court of public opinion so even if you're completely correct, it won't mean anything if Anastasia is pissing off the 300 jurors so much that they're unwilling to believe her.
Though I don't think the trials are as freeform as they initially appear, I found I loved the format. Knowing that the right answer might not actually exist in my evidence because I didn't do that investigation added an edge to the presentation, and presenting the wrong answer usually doesn't result in the player being thrown back to the evidence list until they find the right answer. Instead, most of the time the game will acknowledge you chose poorly and the trial will move on, with failure being the result of multiple decisions over the course of the trial rather than a failing to present an obscure piece of evidence five times in a row at a single point in time. (I do like Ace Attorney but I don't like feeling obligated to save right before presenting evidence because I don't know which item out of twenty is the one I need.)
The trial even has decision points where you can choose to focus the debate around a particular person, and there is more than one option that will satisfactorily end the trial with the correct culprit being identified. As long as Anastasia does enough to shift the blame where she wants it to go (because it's court of public opinion), it's a win.
There are only two things that bothered me. The first is that when the game transitions to the evidence list, it doesn't let you back up and read the last line of dialogue regarding what you are trying to prove or disprove. Since most of the time the penalty is just a reputation hit and the trial moves on, it's not horrible, but being able to read the last line of dialogue lets you compare the evidence to what was just said and that's not possible here. Most other games with a trial system will let you do this. Worse, on the rare occasion you really have to pick a specific piece of evidence before the game will move on, you might find yourself stabbing in the dark for your second or third picks because you can't remember what you're supporting or disproving.
The second issue is that I think it's actually possible to hose yourself going into the witch trial on Zenn's route. (And spoilers ahead for the rest of this paragraph and the next.) I often went into witch trials with missing pieces of evidence, so I didn't think anything of it when I entered the Zenn route trial with the intention to falsely convict Crius of being the Membrum. But the problem was, I got far enough that Anatasia was ready for the killing blow that would "prove" his guilt and I didn't have anything. I kept trying one thing after another and none of my evidence seemed to be working. After about five tries using increasingly absurd pieces of evidence (eiT is not as obtuse as AA can be) and taking constant reputation hits, I finally gave up and loaded an older save.
I think there are only two ways to falsely convict Crius, either by revealing that he knew the first victim, or providing a motivation for killing the second. There are only four investigation leads at this point in the game, and the player has time for three, so in theory there's no way the player can leave without at least one piece of evidence to earn a conviction unless they purposely stop investigating early, but it's possible to do one of the investigations and not get the evidence based on a dialogue choice, which is what I'd done. I don't mind not having all the evidence necessary for a perfect trial, but having to restart the game from an earlier point in time because I can't finish the trial at all shouldn't happen.
End spoilers.
When the witch trials came to an end, there was still more story to go, but I realized I was a little sad that it was not likely many fans of mystery games (who aren't also part of otome fandom) would bother to play this game. The non-linear trial system that accepts multiple answers and provides multiple investigation routes without losing the thread of the story is quite frankly an amazing experience and I hope to see something like it again in another game. Unfortunately, with even if Tempest being an otome and the story wrapping up so witch trials will no longer happen, this is not a case where we would expect a sequel with those mechanics back in action, and Voltage, the publisher and developer, has never developed anything outside of otome so it's unlikely this mechanic would return in an unrelated title.
If you're interested in a game that will give you three solid trials and a pretty engrossing mystery that sometimes has romantic overtones, then I absolutely recommend this. It's a novel spin on the investigation and trial system.
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