Tag: video game

Hitting the Arcade

There is a lot you have to put up with when you become a father. Apart from the “old” commentary, your joints handing in their warranties (this could apply to the post-30s in general), and a lack of adequate sleep, there is also the reality of becoming slower.

That last point couldn’t have been more on the nose than when I hit the arcade with my 5-year-old daughter. This was her first visit, and it started off great. I was feeling all the emotions a father would have, reliving his childhood at the arcade. This time around, I was experiencing it all from my daughter’s perspective. The bright and colorful lights, the loud noises, the assortment of toys, what more could a kid ask for? Here was an occasion where I could have some quality father-daughter time while my wife could relish the peace and tranquility of shopping by herself (after nearly four years of “family” shopping).

The last time I set foot in an arcade was in the late 90s. There was a single, solitary store in my hometown. Admission was not cheap back then, but thanks to my strong performance at school, my father felt I deserved a treat. The hour or so I spent there is a gem of a memory. Coin tokens were a sweet memento of the 90s arcades. The idea of having to win coins to play more, and just the feel of it all, was pure awesomeness. Unlike today, when there are filters on the games that populate an arcade, the 90s had some questionable choices. My personal favorites were: Street Fighter and, of course, Mortal Kombat.

Neither of which I would allow my daughter play at her age.

So, entering the arcade now in the 2020s, I felt a little like a man out of time. Coins weren’t the favored currency. We now just had to load up a card with money. You win coupons and tickets that are automatically synced to your card, which you can then exchange for goodies. That last part was something I didn’t know, and I spent five minutes walking around the arcade machine and looking for an opening where the tickets fell through.

The selection of games at the arcade we hit up was much friendlier and more well-rounded for the 5-10-year-old age group. My daughter’s favorites were anything that involved claw machines. She was also damn good at it, far more than I ever was. I was very happy for her as we walked around with a generous collection of toys and plushies she had won from these machines. That happiness eventually turned to dread with the lesson I soon received.

It was a “I have tasted my own medicine, and it is bitter” scenario. I don’t consider myself too competitive when it comes to video games, but I apparently have a sadistic personality (according to my wife) and get the greatest pleasure in rubbing it in on my opponents through trash talk. Now, that side of me never popped up with my daughter. Even on my wife’s suggestion to try out a racing simulator, I was going to go easy on her. After all, seeing your child win and be happy is the best. Right? RIGHT?

Well, it is, until she whoops your ass, wipes the floor with you, and turns the sass on. The racing simulator was nothing too special, and the controls were simple enough. You had the steering wheel, the ignition, the nitrous button, the pedals, and whatnot. Once the race actually began, it was like I was facing a mirror reflection of myself. Never have I heard my daughter laugh as maniacally as she did, killing me on the track. Forget about going easy; I had to get serious. Annnddd, I still lost. Somehow, my daughter had, within minutes, perfected a technique that had taken me a lifetime: smash all the buttons at once.

The worst part of it all was getting it thrown back at me.

“Haha, Appa, you lost. You are too slow.”

Sigh. Anyways, lesson learned. Being humble can take you far in life. I graciously accepted my defeat. My wife, of course, couldn’t help but rub it in. It was well-deserved. All in all, though, I had a blast. It IS awesome to see your child be better than you in things, and it feels great…

Kengan Ashura – The Art of Fighting

When you are sick, and your immune system is busy waging war while you feel like crap, the best motivator can be watching someone else getting beaten up for a change.

That didn’t come out right. Let me try again.

First and foremost, I do not condone any form of violence, but whenever I’m sick, I find my favorite pastime to either involve watching or playing action-oriented anime OR button-smashing fighting games.

In the past, during an episode of viral fever, my wife (then girlfriend) stocked me up with electrolyte drinks, snacks, and soups, then left for work, expecting me to get some good rest. She returned to find me sitting on the couch, surrounded by the very same, playing God of War on my PS3. I actually finished the original trilogy that one week while I was sick.

  • What can I say? It was a sick game.

This was when I was in my 20s. Now, after breaching the 30s, the warranty on my body parts has reached its final days. Video games don’t come as easily now. The fingers cramp up, and the shoulders ache. So, I’ve chosen the easy way out: Netflix. If you haven’t caught up, this is why I couldn’t bring myself to publish a post last weekend.

Now, being sick is as much a physical battle as it is a mental one. For a guy with allergies and nasal inflammation, catching a cold is never fun. It helps to get motivated, and what better way than to immerse yourself in an imaginative world of martial arts fighters. So with watery eyes, I looked down my Netflix playlist and got down to rewatching a classic: Kengan Ashura.

The Kengan Ashura series premiered on Netflix in 2019 and concluded in the summer of 2024. I was a latecomer and only got around to watching it in 2023. The series remained incomplete, and unable to contain my curiosity, I ended up reading the entire manga while waiting for new episodes.

Long story short, as far as action-oriented anime within the combat sport/martial arts genre goes, Kengan Ashura ranks among my top favorites. What makes the Kengan series unique in its genre is the protagonist’s journey. The traditional Japanese fighting anime trope usually involves a main character with little to no skill. This individual has to work hard to get to the top. Add a pinch of “power of friendship” and a “genius rival” to push him forward, and you have a classic shonen fighting anime script in your hands.

For those older anime fans (like me) who have grown tired of this formula, Kengan is a breath of fresh air. The crux of the plot unfolds in a high-stakes underground martial arts competition to determine the chairman of the Kengan Association. Corporate CEOs sponsor fighters in brutal, often no-holds-barred matches, with the winner deciding the new chairman or taking control of the association.

  • It’s anime Gladiator y’all…minus the swords, the slavery, and a few other things.

Our protagonist, Tokita Ohma, is battered from the beginning, and not for lack of skills. Ohma is a prodigious martial arts talent, but his tourney is a brutal struggle with a healthy dollop of bodily injury, psychological damage, and lots of pain. At some point, you feel like you are watching an 80’s rear-wheel drive Pontiac driving up an icy hill without any snow tires. On several occasions, the audience is left to wonder when Ohma will gas out.

  • Get used to this…

Of course, there is a reason why Ohma is putting himself through this literal hell. I won’t spoil that particular plot thread, but what I did love is the throwback to martial arts characters from old-school Hong Kong shaolin cinema of the 80s and 90s. Ohma is a warrior, and he wants nothing more than to better himself on that path. How he gets to achieve this, and if he does, is the story, and one with a surprise ending. By the end of the series, you can clearly tell that Kengan Ashura has a lot more to give, with hints peppered throughout the series of a wider universe to explore.

Kengan Omega, the official sequel, while certainly great, personally does not touch the same peak as its predecessor.

Nevertheless, Kengan Ashura is perfect as a one-off. Aside from the writing, the art is highly applaudable. The artist Daromeon goes to great lengths to convey dynamism in the fighting sequences.

As a student of figure drawing and anatomy, I greatly appreciated the breakdowns and inspiration I found while going through the panels. It is rough work, but it flows perfectly. The anime uses 3D CGI, with mostly static 2D backgrounds, while the character models and action are in 3D. While a few may disagree, I felt this was perfect for showcasing the martial-arts choreography required by the manga.

Last but not least, Ashura is also one of the few manga in which side characters receive great characterization. A tournament-style progression to the story also makes it easy to keep the cast tight and involved at all turns. This provides ample screentime for everyone’s favorites, barring a few cuts here and there in some fights.

That settles it! Now, while I continue the good fight against my cold (almost back to 100%), Kengan Ashura awaits new readers. I highly suggest giving it a chance, and if you are not so much into reading, the anime is a respectable adaptation you can enjoy on Netflix. Until next week, toodles!

Retro Gaming: NES Classic Edition Review

My first experience of a video-game involved assisting a prince, hailing from Persia, on his mission to defeat his enemies and reunite with his beloved princess (third-wheeling taken to the next level). I achieved this while sitting on a plastic chair in a makeshift computer room built out of the lobby of our rental home in India. Not too shabby for a kid.

In retrospect, I count myself lucky that my parents were able to afford a computer, albeit secondhand, with such technology being a luxurious commodity in the neighborhood we lived in (this was around the early ’90s). A few years later, my parents would purchase their own home, and following my eighth birthday my father would gift me a SEGA Genesis Console. The console came with several game cartridges detailed with vibrant pictures and game titles.

Each cartridge supposedly held 1000000 titles. For a kid who loved video games, this was jackpot. I was awestruck. I realized that even if I were to play all day long, I could never finish all the games. Instead, I decided to finish them one at a time. Sadly enough, the console itself wouldn’t last the challenge, crapping out a few months down the road. A decade later, I realized that this console was a bootleg version of the original. I should have known better especially since the 1000000 titles in 1 cartridge was pure hogwash, but 1000000 repetitions of the same 30 games (I have to give props to the varying permutations they used to make it seem that there were actually 1000000 games).

A perfect April Fool’s gift for your kid…I wonder if my father had been planning the same. 

None of the games even belonged to the SEGA platform but instead originated from the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) console, otherwise known as the Family Computer or Famicom. Fast-forward to 2019, I would go on to purchase the small bundle that is the NES Classic Edition. Sold at a very reasonable price, the miniature version of the original Famicom, comes loaded with 30 classic Nintendo games (I made sure) in what is a retro blast from the past.

The original NES as launched in 1985 (Left), and the NES Classic Edition (Right) released in 2016.

My father once stated that I would eventually grow out of video games. He was partly correct. My current half-life playing a game on a console/PC is about 30-45 minutes before my brain switches off. It wasn’t the same with these classics though.

In modern gaming, one has the option to selectively spawn at particular levels and save their progress through a game. Things weren’t the same in the ’90s, where failure in a game literally meant you start again from square one. I’m guessing those countless failures contributed to my inherently stubborn nature to successfully finish any job that I’ve started be it household cleaning to actual experiments in the lab.

In that sense, the NES Classic Edition, provides a bout of nostalgia for all the 80’s and early 90’s kids who wish to re-indulge in the fantasy worlds that made our childhood. An added bonus is offered in tempering our unchecked anger when our character fails a jump and falls under the screen only to resurface back at Level 1.

Yeah…not gonna make that one alright. 

The NES Classic Edition remains available largely through Amazon for 100 USD (make sure to purchase the ones distributed by Nintendo and not by other third-party distributors) which offers the lowest price rates compared to other retail outlets such as BestBuy, GameStop, or Walmart.

Along with the classic NES controller (extension cords have to be bought in addition), the NES Classic Edition does offer a few updates. One can now save the game using suspend points with four slots allotted for each game, thus allowing one to save a perfect run for as long as it lasts with no danger of losing your progress. My personal favorite feature of the NES Classic Edition console is the option to switch between three different display filters:

  • CRT Filter: makes your display similar to that of an old TV, with its characteristic scan lines.
  • 4:3 Filter: the original NES game look
  • Pixel Perfect: each pixel is displayed as a perfect square providing a vision of the game exactly as it was to be visualized.

So, for those “old-time” gamers in my audience, and for those who are just as much interested in having a peek at the ’80s and early ’90s gaming landscape, give the NES Classic Edition a try.  It is no E.T. (the game) so I can guarantee you will enjoy it! For those who swing with SEGA or PlayStation, the classic variants for these consoles have also been released with preloaded representative games of their genre.

All in all, my review of the NES Classic Edition console is 5/5 in what is a fun ride through the past, and perfect for passing time during that lazy afternoon over the weekend.