Best Eps: Batman: The Animated Series – “Nothing to Fear”

In this feature I take a look at one episode that marks a high point in a television series. It’s not necessarily the absolute best a series has to offer (that’s always debatable), but it’s an episode that remains lodged in memory long after I first watched it.

Longtime Batman voice actor Kevin Conroy died on November 10, 2022. Conroy’s Batman is the best Batman, a hero who is tireless in his quest for justice, a man who has sympathy in his heart even for his greatest foes. I’d already planned on writing this article before Conroy’s death, but now this feels like a fitting tribute. A quick note – I always loved that Conroy portrayed Batman’s voice as his true self while his Bruce Wayne spoke with a put-on, airy lilt. It may seem a small thing, but it showed that Bruce Wayne was the man’s actual mask. That’s a big difference from the Batmen who put on gruff voices while in costume (see: Christian Bale). Okay, onto the meat of the article.

There are plenty of standout Batman: The Animated Series episodes, but I’ve always gravitated towards the episodes that shine a light on Bruce Wayne’s humanity and vulnerability. Right from the start “Nothing to Fear” puts Bruce on the defensive in the worst way. Dr. Moss, an older man who knew Bruce’s father, insults Bruce and says he’s shaming the family name. As if that’s not bad enough, Scarecrow drugs Batman with a fear toxin, and Bruce is immediately haunted by visions of his father echoing Dr. Moss’s words.

Scarecrow is an interesting villain for Batman because he uses people’s fears against them. Batman is an agent of darkness, and a big part of the reason he’s successful is he instills fear in criminals. That shared connection creates a nice symmetry within the episode. Scarecrow introduces himself in a grandiose way, proclaiming, “I am fear incarnate. I am the terror of Gotham. I am the Scarecrow.” More on that in a bit.

Bruce survives Scarecrow’s attack, but his mind is bubbling over with the fear toxin. He looks and feels terrible, and he confesses his visions to his butler/surrogate father Alfred. He tells Alfred his great fear of shaming the family name. And in his best moment of the series, Alfred says, “That’s rubbish. I know your father would be proud of you, because I’m so proud of you.” I love that.

Of course the Scarecrow continues his quest for revenge, and despite his mental state, Batman rushes to the rescue. The final fight takes place on a zeppelin, and while hanging precariously onto the nose of the airship, Thomas Wayne once again looms large and calls Bruce a disgrace. This is when Batman shows his mettle. He overcomes the fear toxin without an antidote, any tricks, and no superpowers. And then he speaks his best lines of the series: “No, you are not my father. I am not a disgrace. I am vengeance. I am the night. I am Batman!” Chills. And there’s that symmetry I mentioned earlier. His words call back to Scarecrow’s, but Batman’s ring true. He becomes Scarecrow’s worst nightmare and takes him down using his own fear toxin.

“Nothing to Fear” shows the resourcefulness and grit of Batman even when he’s at his worst. Because nothing can be worse for Bruce than enduring the cruel words of a father he loves and misses so much. And no one could have conveyed Batman’s emotions the way Kevin Conroy did. Rest in peace.

Other Best Eps candidates: “Appointment in Crime Alley,” “Day of the Samurai,” “Tyger Tyger”

Video Game Review: Final Fantasy VI

I regret missing out on Final Fantasy VI back in my SNES days. I would have fallen in love. Some of its story beats are familiar now, but that doesn’t take anything away from its status as one of the best titles in the series. If this were in fact the “final” fantasy released, the franchise would have gone out on a high note.

FFVI has a large, lively cast of characters, and two women – Terra and Celes – are arguably its most important protagonists. Terra is the only human who possesses innate magical abilities, and Celes holds the fate of the world in her hands at multiple points during the game. Unlike games like Final Fantasy VII and VIII, this game doesn’t depend on one main (and moody) protagonist to drive the story forward. FFVI is truly a team effort, and I had a tough time ranking my favorites heroes. For the record, my A-team ended up being: Terra (magic), Locke (strength), Celes (magic), and Shadow (strength).

Though I’d heard some information about FFVI before playing, I had no idea about its plot twist. Halfway through the game the unlikely band of rebels confronts the big bad Kefka, and they lose hard. The world is ripped apart, the heroes are scattered, and society as a whole barely survives. It’s such a dark time that one of the main characters attempts suicide. The World of Ruin reminds me of a post-apocalyptic novel setting, and its dark pall is nicely offset by moments of levity and love between the family of characters.

Not everything is perfect in FFVI. Though the characters are nicely varied, the Ultima spell is so powerful it makes all the other spells obsolete once it’s learned. Spamming one spell is not nearly as fun as learning an enemy’s weaknesses and exploiting them. An easy way to circumvent the issue would be to limit a character to using Ultima once per battle. On the flip side, the summons (which can only be used once per battle) are much too weak. Also, the characters only level up if they’re in the battle party, so it’s easy to allow less desirable characters to stagnate.

This is a definitely an RPG that benefits from at least two play-throughs. The plot’s not overly complex like Final Fantasy Tactics, but after reading up on the game (once I completed the story), I discovered plot points I didn’t even realize. Shadow’s connection to another character went right over my head. And Kefka sneaks into his role as the primary antagonist, graduating from unbalanced mage to world breaker. I didn’t expect that at all, and I should have taken him more seriously as a threat. He is, so far as I know, the only Final Fantasy character to succeed in his mission by becoming a god and taking control of the world. Really, even if you discover every secret the first time around, the story and characters are worth revisiting.

I completely understand why this is so many people’s favorite Final Fantasy game. It laid so much groundwork for future installments, and because of its gorgeous pixel art, excellent music, and timeless story, it’s aged very well. It’s a dark game, abound with themes of survivor’s guilt and depression. But like I said before, it’s a serious game that doesn’t take itself too seriously. The characters can act quite silly, and even Kefka can be entertaining when he’s not completely horrifying. It’s refreshing to follow earnest heroes who are trying their best, as opposed to seeing characters attempting to rally around a bad boy who thinks “…whatever” is a proper bit of dialogue. Sorry, Cloud. Not sorry, Squall.

Video Game Review: Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3

I thought I knew a thing or two about Super Mario platforming. I’ve played all the greatest hits, from the original Super Mario Bros. to Yoshi’s Island. But somehow Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 always eluded me. Sincerely, why didn’t anyone ever tell me how good this game is? It’s much better than Super Mario Land and is likely superior to Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins. Finally, after years of injustice, I bought the game and a Game Boy from GameChanger Mods so I could pillage and plunder as the dastardly Wario.

There’re a few things that make Wario Land interesting. Wario is a Gordon Gekko type gobbling up coins so he can build himself a new castle (unlike Mario, who is always “saving” a princess who clearly wants some space). Valuable treasures are cleverly hidden in certain levels, so exploration through backtracking is essential and much different from other, more linear Mario games. Finally, it’s just fun to play as the bullish Wario. Knocking down creatures, grabbing them up, and flinging them across the screen is always satisfying.

Maybe it’s because I’m getting older, but Wario Land occasionally challenged my skills, and a couple boss battles left me wondering how to defeat them. That’s not a bad thing; on the contrary, I appreciate the tension of running low on lives.

I’d recommend Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 to any Mario fan, which is pretty much everyone in the world. I loved having a reason to play my new chunky Game Boy, and the game is excellent, so I didn’t miss the lack of color at all. I know I’m very late to the party, but now I know how good it is to be bad. And fat. Wario is a pudge.

Key Character: Hunter

We all have favorite fictional characters. They can be inspirational, sagacious, heroic… or they can be relentless villains who are just so damn charismatic. In this feature I celebrate fictional characters who make their worlds much fuller.

The original Resident Evil is amusing by today’s horror standards. The characters are visibly blocky, and the game features some of the best worst voice acting in video game history. But for a kid playing back in 1996 it was a different story. The voice acting remained laughable, but the infested mansion held its share of scares. Chief among the frightful creatures is the hunter.

The zombies are the goombas of Resident Evil, common and easy enough to deal with. But during a certain mission the lead character is taken away from the mansion only to return to a surprise. The control is ripped away from the player and the camera shifts to a first-person view. A creature follows the player’s path, speeding toward the mansion and leaping past a ladder. A scaly hand opens the final door and the creature enters the same hallway as the player.

A hulking, reptilian-humanoid then stalks toward the player with razor-sharp claws clicking on the hardwood floor. Yeah, this was the scary stuff. My friend would hand me the controller when it became time to take down a hunter, because he regularly found himself insta-killed (beheaded, no less) by a slashing hunter. Even in death hunters are unsettling. Their screams before falling over sound like cats being put through a shredder.

One of the more interesting things about the hunters is they aren’t bosses or minibosses. After their great introduction hunters replace zombies in some areas that had been relatively safe. They are an unnatural disaster the player has to deal with until the end of the game. Sometimes when facing them it’s a smarter decision to flee to the next room. Even when the player is loaded down with weapons, hunters help keep the “survival” in the survival horror game.

The lickers replace the hunters in Resident Evil 2, and they are cool monsters, but they’re also a definite downgrade. There’s something about the deliberate walk of the hunter, its sounds, its hearty build and instant quickness. Nowadays there exist multiple variations on the hunter (I like the frogman that swallows the player in one gulp), but the original screeching killer is an undeniable classic.

Treasured Track: blink-182 – “What’s My Age Again?”

Our favorite songs are timeless. Even with years separating us from the last time we heard them, these songs call us back to a bygone era in our lives. Some of them helped us through heart wrenching breakups while others remind us of late nights spent with best friends. In this feature I reflect on the tracks that I’ve obsessed over in the past and always welcome back to my headphones in the present.

“What’s My Age Again?” changed my life, and I don’t mean that in a hyperbolic way. I’d enjoyed plenty of music before blink-182, but true music infatuation didn’t exist for me until I first heard “What’s My Age Again?” on the radio. Mark Hoppus’s song about a self-sabotaging man-child is such an easy story for a teenage boy to relate to, and the song is catchy as all hell. It sounds like pop music with an edge and rock music that hits with quick jabs. It’s pop punk, and blink-182 introduced me to it.

The song bubbles up with Tom DeLonge’s clean guitar picking, but it isn’t long until the distortion kicks in while Mark shows us what a bad boyfriend he is. The chorus is easy to sing along to, and it’s made better by Tom emphasizing the back half of lyrics. It’s also nice how Mark changes the chorus up depending on the preceding verse (making a simple song a bit more complex) as the story continues. I have a preference for the third chorus though, probably because of my grade level when I first heard it:

“And that’s about the time she walked away from me.
Nobody likes you when you’re 23
And you still act like you’re in freshman year.
What the hell is wrong with me?
My friends say I should act my age,
What’s my age again?
What’s my age again?”

I must have listened to this song thousands of times. During those formative years of my life I was more of a Mark fan (though I loved Tom too), and I wonder if that’s due to my first favorite blink song. “What’s My Age Again?” and Enema of the State helped me through the rough times of high school, and I’ll always appreciate blink-182 for that. I have a prediction that I’ll be writing another Treasured Track article about blink, because there are so many that had an impact on me. Alright, time to watch some naked men running.

Video Game Review: Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions

In early 1998 my brother and I had a debate over which video game earned the championship belt between two heavyweight contenders – the RPG Final Fantasy VII and the strategy RPG Final Fantasy Tactics. In the years between then and now, history has decided for us. The Final Fantasy VII universe has accumulated spin-off titles, an anime feature film, and it is being remade as another big budget production. Meanwhile, Final Fantasy Tactics remains relegated to the past, for the most part. I tried playing one of the Game Boy Advance spin-offs, but it paled in comparison to the original.

I haven’t played every Final Fantasy game. Seriously, who has the time? But I’ve played enough to feel secure in saying Tactics has to be one of the best Final Fantasy games, and overall it’s one of the best video games released during the original Playstation era. Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions is more of a re-release than a remake, but its improved translation fixes one of the main flaws of the original game. The battle system is still a bit overcomplicated for me to fully account for every detail (for example, characters’ zodiac signs affect attack damage), but in this case I’d rather the game be more complex rather than less.

The Tactics story itself is quite dense and hard to follow. The sense I had playing it the very first time was, “Man this is epic and cool but I don’t remember who that guy is and I don’t know who is betraying who.” Following the story is still challenging, but I liken it to reading a novel that expects you to pay attention and use a highlighter if you need to help yourself. The main character Ramza is a naïve highborn child who sheds the scales from his eyes as he grows, and his friend Delita is one of the most intriguing characters Final Fantasy has ever produced. He grows much faster than Ramza, playing the political game and using people so that he’s never used as a pawn again. Whereas many Final Fantasy games focus mainly on fantasy adventure, politics factor heavily into Tactics. The marriage of fantasy and politics sounds like a winning combination, doesn’t it? It’s no wonder Game of Thrones caught on like wildfire.

All this writing and I haven’t yet mentioned the combat. Unlike many RPGs, a button masher this is not. Units are moved across a map like chess pieces, placed strategically to inflict higher damage while avoiding attacks from opposing units. It’s addicting gameplay, and matches can extend to half an hour or more. Watching your black mage inflict a death blow just before a ninja is about to strike her down is one of the many small victories experienced on the Tactics battlefield. And thanks to the excellent job system, that same black mage can be transformed into a time mage, a monk, a geomancer, or whatever else you like for the next match. One of the only gripes I have with The War of the Lions is it includes special jobs that require absurd amounts of experience to attain.

I love Final Fantasy Tactics, and The War of the Lions is the best way to experience it. Anyone who enjoys RPGs, epic stories (seriously, I love the church vs. state vs. demons story so much), strategy games, board games, and anything awesome needs to play it. There’s no excuse either, because you can now play it on your phone like I did. Also, Delita is a character who deserves to be mentioned alongside heavy hitters like Cloud Strife. If that’s not enough of a selling point, Cloud also sneaks his way into Tactics as a playable character. There truly is no reason not to play this game.

If you’d like to know more about the game, or if you have already played Final Fantasy Tactics and want to take a trip down memory lane, here’s a great retrospective review by Resonant Arc.

Treasured Track: Foo Fighters – “Everlong”

Our favorite songs are timeless. Even with years separating us from the last time we heard them, these songs call us back to bygone eras of our lives. Some of them helped us through heart wrenching breakups while others remind us of late nights spent with best friends. In this feature I reflect on the tracks that I’ve obsessed over in the past and always welcome back to my headphones in the present.

Once someone asked me what my favorite song was. I thought it over before answering “Everlong” by the Foo Fighters. This was about fifteen years ago, and although I don’t have a single favorite song now (more like dozens or hundreds of them), I still like that answer.

The dreamy guitar riff that introduces “Everlong” is simple and unforgettable. It’s so simple a novice guitarist can learn it and play it back within minutes, but that doesn’t take anything away from it. Likewise, the introductory lyrics are not complex, but Dave Grohl delivers them with a smooth kind of conviction: “Hello. / I’ve waited here for you… / Everlong.” By this point in the song the dreamy guitar has been met by a second distorted guitar that somehow doesn’t sound dated (with “Everlong” being released in 1997) and drumming that’s never too far away from excitable drumrolls. I suspect “Everlong” wouldn’t be half as good as it is if not for the bridge which abruptly reintroduces the opening riff backed by Grohl’s mysterious whisperings.

I was surprised to find the song’s runtime is over four minutes. Really, “Everlong” is so good it always seems like it ends too soon. It wouldn’t feel right to call “Everlong” a love song, but it’s passionate and sincere, and it still rocks. Grohl didn’t have to pen a soft ballad to work through his emotions; that being said I’ve always preferred the full band version to acoustic renditions. “Everlong” is best when washing over you with full force.

Side note: I liked watching AMV videos years back (they’re anime clips spliced together with popular music), and the Tenchi “Everlong” video is one of the best. It inspired me to watch the Tenchi Muyo! anime recently – I recommend doing the same if you like weird, funny anime.

TV Review: Beast Wars: Transformers

I loved many cartoons when I was a kid. Spider-Man, TMNT, X-Men, G.I. Joe, Thundercats, Ducktales, Recess, and the list goes on. There was no other feeling in the world like waking up on Saturday and being excited to have some cereal and absorb quality animation. I loved many, but there was only one that I awoke before dawn to watch – Beast Wars: Transformers. Don’t ask me why, but Fox pushed Beast Wars to an early morning slot (5:30am or 6:00am), television purgatory. I’ve never been a morning person, so the fact that pre-teen Adrian set an alarm on the weekend (much earlier than his normal wake-up time for school) just to watch a half-hour cartoon speaks volumes.

Beast Wars begins with the Maximals and Predicons, descendants of the Autobots and Decepticons, respectively, crash landing on an uninhabited planet. Rather than transforming into vehicles, the Maximals and Predicons adopt beast modes ranging from a rhino to a pterodactyl. The two sides spend the series fighting for survival, and eventually, for the future of the universe. The full CGI animation was groundbreaking for the time, even if it looks dated today. But creators Bob Forward and Larry DiTillio never used the cutting edge animation as a crutch for storytelling. Not only did Beast Wars reinvigorate the Transformers mythology, it introduced us to distinct and interesting characters.

Within the first few episodes we see the smallest, mouthiest Maximal Rattrap openly disrespecting his leader Optimus Primal, at one point calling him a “chicken.” The youngest and most impulsive Maximal, Cheetor, regularly disobeys orders. And about half of the Predacons openly express their desire to overthrow Megatron and take control of their side. These conflicts help the characters feel real, with individual personalities, histories, and agendas. As an inexperienced battle commander, Optimus must earn respect from his crew, and he sums himself up in the pilot episode: “I will not give an order I would not be willing to do myself.” In a later episode he leaps headlong from an exploding island, and when Rattrap calls him crazy, Optimus responds, “Eh, sometimes crazy works.” He really does live up to the Prime name. But the stand out character would probably have to be Dinobot. He is a Predicon who joins the Maximals in their battle against Megatron, and he is Shakespearean in his desire to retain his honor while fighting for the winning side.

There’s a lot to like when watching Beast Wars. Many of the beast and robot forms still look super cool (like the half wolf, half eagle Silverbolt). The voice acting is excellent. The direction is better than I remember, with the camera emphasizing the action and violence of war as well as the natural world. Whereas Spidey couldn’t even throw a punch in his 90s TV series (due to silly restrictions), the Transformers are shot, blown up, and some are ultimately destroyed in important episodes. I won’t spoil anything here, but the setting is also an integral character. Even with their advanced technology, the transformers are perplexed by the mysteries of their new planet, including alien constructs that defy gravity and foreshadow an even greater threat.

Sadly, the overall quality declines after season one. Season one is the longest season, which gives it room to breathe and develop its characters gradually. Season two is still good, while the truncated final season and its big climax feel rushed. Worse still, the sequel series Beast Machines is a huge disappointment. But none of that takes away from the fun and excitement to be found on Beast Wars: Megatron spending time in a rejuvenation hottub with his rubber ducky; Rattrap constantly bickering with Dinobot; a gorilla flying on a hoverboard; infamous Decepticons returning to the battlefield. Sincerely, Beast Wars is the best. I just wish I hadn’t lost my transforming toys years ago. Well, that’s just prime.