Welcome to the Fantasy Zone
This Zone is dedicated to the lesser known elements of anime hosted by the cast of Victory Script.
What weapon is the best?
Who will win in this Death Battle?
Is this costume practical?
You name it, it's all covered here in the Fantasy Zone!
The console wars started back in the 90s when at gamings peak, Sega unleashed Sonic the Hedgehog, throughout the 90s with increasingly catty callouts between Nintendo and Sega through commercials, it would become a three way battle when PlayStation joined, Sega would bow out and XBox would take it's place and the current battlefield has been fought by Nintendo, PlayStation and Xbox since but at this moment in time, who is winning?
Let's review.
Nintendo Switch
Nintendo's surprise success with the Wii gave it more than enough momentum to survive the WiiU era and jump into the perfected Switch console at the cost of losing the Gameboy/DS line.
Nintendo has always had a strong IP line up which the other two don't have.
It's also very easy to develop for sometimes getting indie titles even before Steam, it's also the only console to still allow adult games, Sony outright abandoned them, more on that later while Xbox feels they don't need them.
Nintendo however has plateaued for a while, Pokemon being the indicator that the games are really not getting better technical wise with demands that Nintendo release a Switch 2 so it can even stand a chance, it's online gaming history still isn't any better either, but Nintendo can afford to bide it's time as the weaknesses of it's rivals are so much more prevalent than the Switch being underpowered.
PlayStation 5
Sony has had a weird track record since the PS2 became the best seller of all time, PS3 was underpowered and kinda just there compared to 360, PS4 was the best console of the last generation but then PS5 has literally screwed Sony over.
It's a white elephant of over priced hi-tech machinery that is becoming as absurd as a minimalist hyper car, the release of the Pro being the first nail in the coffin, the second being no exclusive games as everything it runs can be played on other consoles and steam, the third nail being the nine figure disaster that is Concord, anymore disasters and PlayStation are just going to crash out of the wars, the sad thing is, it's technically the best console through performance and despite sharing a library with every other console, they run much better on Sony's behemoth, losing the adult otaku crowd to Nintendo hasn't made it any easier either; they dropped easy million sellers like Senran Kagura in favour of Concord an expensive disaster.
Sony, are you okay? I can't tell if this is self sabotage or not because this isn't the PlayStation I know.
Xbox X-Series
Knowing that it needed a different approach, Microsoft decided it was easier to buy game companies to give it more games to play with along with a closer relationship with PC, this also allows it's only asset, Gamepass to thrive.
Technically it's the worse console, many of it's ports of games have a bad track record of not being able to even start and the transition between Xbone and X-series has been a little mishandled. It remains a solid middle ground between it's rivals.
Conclusion
Nintendo has the best IPs but lags heavily in the power department and badly needs an upgrade.
PlayStation is ultra powerful but there's nothing to play on it.
Xbox is pretty much gaming Netflix but is on a fine balance in terms of tech as well as games not feeling comfortable operating on the xbox.
It's easy for me to turn around and say, just get Steam but maintaining a gaming PC is astronomically expensive compared to the consoles.
Time will tell if things really do change as the next great shift in the market will come with GTA6's arrival.
Today we return to fact hunt and we go all video game trivia.
1. Sims has it's own language
Creator Will Wright in order to avoid repetitive dialogue, created his own language for the Sims to speak in game called Simlish, there's a long list of phrases that get repeated frequently and are easily translated into basic dialogue like hello and how are you.
2. Sega made an acronym out of Eggman
Not that long ago, Sonic's official page showcased the picture above.
Evil Genius Getting Mad At Nature.
Makes way too much sense.
3. Sega had a dirty secret
The Sega game Dynamite Dux likely has the dirtiest secret in gaming history, hidden for 30 years, it's only accessible through a hex editor replacing a piece a code with the word dirty to get an R-rated opening sequence, it's too raunchy here but Youtuber Larry Bundy Jr has quite a long video on it.
4. Craziest Castle
Crazy Castle has more licenses for it's game than pretty much any other game.
Looney Tunes, Ghostbusters, Woody Woodpecker, Mickey Mouse, Garfield, Hugo the Troll, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Universal Studios.
5. Creepy Console Sounds
When the original PlayStation couldn't load a disc, it would let you know with two different jingles called Personified Fear and Fearful Harmony, the sounds were built in a way to ward off hackers from using fake discs.
One of my fondest memories growing up is reading video game magazines.
Before the advent of the internet, we had all our gaming journalism through printed media, the hype would be screenshots and in depth reviews of each game with the most prominent ones certainly in my country, Gamesmaster and N64 Magazine.
Unlike today's reviewing media that's either deliberately pandering to sponsors, entirely biased based on certain social behaviours or just flatout boring, our team of wisecracking writers never took themselves seriously and usually wrote joke stories behind some of the games to hide the spoilers. Then you have Nintendo Power which needs it's own entry as well as Fleetway Sonic the Comic.
Nintendo Power had comics which has it's origins for Wario and Mario being childhood friends and when Peach crossdressed as Luigi bombing Bowser's castle.
Sonic's run in Fleetway was just as special giving some other early Sega properties a go around the same time as Sonic's prime in Archie.
There are some unique stories to come out of this as well which I'll display on my main page if you want to pick my next deep dive.
A brief summary of some memories there.
Damsels haven't really been a thing for some time, the most prominent one still being used today albeit less and less is Princess Peach, but when you really break it down, the damsel in distress trope really doesn't have as many entrants as you think.
Starting with the obvious example is Princess Peach.
By extension, all but Rosalina of the Mario franchises leading ladies have been in that role at some point, it only happened once with Pauline and Daisy both being kidnapped by other enemies.
With Pauline it's Donkey Kong the first and current, (It's complicated) in her defence it's very much a King Kong scenario, Daisy had to deal with Tatanga an alien invader with more than enough tech and army to take over Daisy's Kingdom of Sarasaland.
Going back to Peach, she's been shown at many points in her career as early as her 1986 ova appearance that she'll always try and escape herself, sometimes rescuing Mario instead, Bowser has an army, access to magic, very dangerous fortresses and is the strongest amongst a wider range of Nintendo villains, Peach just has an army of Toadstool people who are practically all pacifists, to spell it all out, her kidnapper is much better prepared than most.
Zelda is another one but there are more than enough moments in her canon where she directly or indirectly helps Link as well as shown to be pulling the strings in Link's quest, very rare that any Zelda is a damsel.
Despite her design and a role as many different princesses, Barbie has never been a damsel once as far as I can tell, an interesting fact is that Barbie is never depicted as married, this is because Mattel wanted those who bought the doll to decide themselves what Barbie should be. You actually have to kill a Disney Princess to make her a damsel as done with Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella is excused as hers is more abusive parent/guardian.
On to some examples of damsels who really shouldn't be damsels.
My favourite punching bag Fuko of Flame of Recca has been brought up more than enough times, she's gullible, has a bad habit of wandering off and getting trapped and wastes her powers leaving her even more helpless and she's supposed to be a fighter, Yanagi who does get kidnapped in the second half as she's only a healer amongst some really powerful people does a better job of being strong as she willingly allowed herself to be the offering in the tournament, has risked herself plenty of times to heal others and resisted Mori Koran for as long as she could before being sealed as a healing battery, she was even the catalyst for his defeat.
Bleach has both Rukia and Orihime, Rukia is excused as she had most her powers drained and was being sentenced to death, less damsel more prisoner.
Orihime has no excuse as her powers are often said to be more potent than most yet she proved useless with them on many occasions, she also barely does anything about her own kidnapping just accepting that Ichigo will rescue her.
A brief mention of Flute from Violinist of Hameln who often declares herself the most pathetic heroine in anime; Flute is practically She-Hulk compared to how useless Isanami is from Brave 10, Isanami will need her own entry to explain, if you thought I was too harsh about Fuko and Orihime, you ain't seen nothing yet.
On the surface of it, those who are often called out for being useless damsels are actually more than capable women who are up against opponents with better preparation and overwhelming strength.
Those who would slot into that role subvert it.
Those who shouldn't be a damsel in the first place are the characters that really should be criticised for this trope.
End
