Tales of Symphonia, [almost] level one

Something's happening. That looks like Paris.

It seems I'm about to play an anime game. There's a tree. A guy with a sword. A fairy in fire. Rock giants – where's Thor? – and a whole lot of giant eyeballs.

And spiky hair.

A field. It reminds me of the opening of A Goofy Movie when Roxanne is calling for Max in his dream and he has to run across the field. I don't think that's going to be the same thing for this video game. I mean, it should, but I'm not playing A Goofy Movie: The Video Game.

I'm playing Tales of Symphonia, a RPG game that puts an emphasis on story with anime graphics.

There's a feather falling into a forest pond and now we start... Wish me luck, world.

Thankfully, because my friend has already played this game, my current experience level is 10x the starting level. Which means I can do things that I wouldn't normally be able to do. I've got a leg-up. Is that gamer terminology? Probably not. Is it sports related? Who knows.

Note to self: look up where "leg-up" comes from.

Google tells me "leg up" is to give "assistance in mounting a horse or high object."

It's from horseback riding! Of course! (Is that a sport? ... Note to self: look up if horseback riding is technically a sport.)

Ooooh! Someone's narrating to me. He sounds handsome. Or old. Or boring. No, he sounds kind of boring. But I like that I don't have to read. Gives me a break from when I have to read other things, you know like magazines or take-out menus.

A tower that reaches to the heavens? So Babel was completed in this world? Is this alt-earth or something? Perhaps a Fringe-like situation? Or maybe Once Upon a Time, with Jefferson getting mad at Emma for being so arrogant as to think their world is the only one.

YESSSSSS! My name is Lloyd! I love the name Lloyd. It's so unassuming and ordinary and hilarious. It's like having a punchline for a name.

(Lloyd Dobler from Say Anything.)

"How do you manage to sleep standing?" the professor asks me.

Turns out I'm a narcoleptic character.

And I'm wearing a dazzling red coat. Not to be confused with a redcoat.

If I'm part of this class, why exactly am I standing sleeping in the back holding buckets of water? If I'm the class dunce, then do the proper thing and throw a cap on my head and put me in the corner, but turning me into the water boy when everyone knows I have a sleeping problem? It seems odd. What if I drown in the well? Foolish Professor Raine!

"Settle down," the professor says to me, the sleeping water boy who said "What is that?" and the Chosen One who turned her head toward the window. Seems like a fairly strict classroom environment. No emotions allowed! Silence only! All explained in a very soft tone of voice!

So the regeneration of the world is upon us and these people are taking a very British approach to all of it. Keep calm and carry on with your studies in your classrooms – even the Chosen One, Colette. There's no need to make a big deal or change voice intonations to  show enthusiasm.

Even when I was in school and there was an earthquake, students made a big deal out of it. And this is the regeneration of the world. Seems like they'd at least get a half day.

The one student in the class tells me we should leave everything to the professor and wait here.

"I have a feeling I'm not supposed to leave everything to the professor and wait here," I say out loud.

"Ah, so you learned our lesson from Zelda, eh?" my friend tells me. And it seems I have. Look at that! Personal growth!

This Chosen One is easy to persuade.

Lloyd: "Colette, you're coming too, right?"

Colette: "...Huh? Um, okay."

Pssh. What a pushover.

Colette: "Are you curious about it?"

Lloyd: "Of course!"

Colette: "Okay, then I'll be curious about it, too."

What is wrong with her?

"Colette and Genis joined the party." Woooot! It's gonna be a party now! Party hats all 'round! Oh wait, that would severely mess up the video game hair. No party hats, guys! Sorry!

It seems this game has borrowed the Italian Job definition of "fine": freaked out, insecure, neurotic and emotional.

I'm now learning how to battle things that randomly come up to me in a field and most of the things look a lot like the misunderstood dragon in How to Train Your Dragon but then in battle I'm up against a wolf, an eagle and a rabbit. These are tricky shape-shifting dragons, but more importantly I'm not sweating and freaking out and pressing all kinds of buttons. I know which button to press and I press it. And I move while pressing it. I'm so impressed with myself.

Oh, except that apparently I'm not pressing the right buttons because these little battles are slowly killing me. Whoops.

Maybe I should learn how to use my shield.

As we wait to head into the temple, Genis and I feel the need to take the time to tell Colette to smarten up and act a little more like a Chosen One and a little less like an idiot.

In so many words.

The pastor floats down the stairs as if he's fake-walking on an escalator and then drops in front of us.

I feel like this story is about to get a touch more interesting.

I'm given the choice to accompany Colette into the temple or to wait for her outside, and I feel like if anything is going to happen, I should probably accompany her and be a hero or whatever.

It's exhausting.

I'd much rather go home and put my feet up.

I would probably be a terrible hero. I fear I'd be the Ed rather than the Shaun of the story.

"I get nervous when Lloyd's not around," Colette says. Aww she's in love! Or co-dependent. Or I'm choosing the right options to make this girl fall in love with me. Heroism is an attractive quality.

Colette just fell into what looks like a giant Once Upon a Time Pandora's box. She just fell, standing there.

After throwing some boxes through the holes in the ground in the wrong spots and then continuing to battle Mr. Rock by jumping into his arms (again, damaging myself as I seem wont to do), we eventually get some Sorcerer's ring and make it through the temple and now an angel Remiel is telling us how he's going to help Colette get to the heavens as the seventh Chosen or something.

I care less and less about this story as I play it.

"From this moment, Colette becomes the Chosen of Regeneration."

And now I just want to watch Doctor Who.

It also seems as though Colette may be going through a small identity crisis since she just found out the guy who looks to be about twelve in the village isn't her father – it's this floating angel dude with a hat that could have been borrowed from the costume department of Frozen.

Well, maybe she's okay. Colette: "I'm all right. I was just a little surprised, that's all."

Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my GOSH! What is Professor Raine doing to that boy and why is the music so peppy? They're getting spanked? Is this ... is this happening?

Professor Raine: "...You're next, Lloyd. Are you ready?"

... I'm so sorry, Lloyd. I tried to make you run. I didn't think you'd be kicked in the face by your teacher!

ACROSS THE ROOM!

What the sorcerer's ring is going on?

Good news, though. The regeneration of the world is cause enough for a half-day!

And once everyone gets back to the village, Lloyd gets to endure the awkwardness of (a) being told by Kratos that he'll just get in the way and he's an insolent, annoying child and (b) that he forgot about Colette's birthday and the necklace he was going to make her. Thankfully she's dumb enough to believe his lie that it's almost done.

Stupid girl.

Also, this "dog" is annoying. It just whines over and over and over again. And why does it have ears like some kind of desert animal with a dip-dyed tail?

Shut up, Noishe!

A Desian tells Marble, the old woman, "Hey, old hag! What the hell you doin' over there?" And I'm suddenly scandalized by the language and then my friend tells me it's rated T. T for inappropriate language and subject material that may not be appropriate for younger audiences – like human ranches.

And to see if Marble's okay after the Desians come and get her, I run with Genis to run up to higher ground and see what's happening.

The old woman is being whipped.

I think I'm too young for this subject material.

That awkward moment you find out how your mother died because your dwarf father yelled it at you and then swung to punch you in the face and when you run out of your house, you see Colette, Genis, Professor Raine and Kratos all standing there, having overheard everything that just happened.

I love that people here think in ellipses and grumble like Charlie Brown characters. I can only hope that if humans evolve to have speech bubbles above their heads, this is how we would communicate.

And after a fight against a boss that looked like a giant asparagus creature that turned out to be old lady Marble in a town burned down by Desians, I was banished and saved the game.

Interesting almost-first level.

Interesting and do-able.

And also terrifying.

I mean, human ranches? And old women who are whipped and then turned into asparagus creatures because of the exspheres that aren't put on their hands properly? And banishment and burned villages and ... and ... yet I'm intrigued and wouldn't mind continuing one day.

Or not.

Google's Doctor Who game

Can we just take a moment to appreciate Google?

As a recently converted Whovian, I find it thrilling to see the BBC's treasured show being so celebrated here on North American search engines. (I was going to say "soils" but nothing really ever happens on soil anymore. It's all online, so we should start looking into language and idiom adjustments to reflect that.)

How excited was I, then, to find that Google had turned its theme into a Doctor Who game? Your choice of Doctor has to go through Dalek, Cybermen and Weeping Angel-infested obstacle courses and slowly collect the letters of GOOGLE. Not only that, but when you did die, you aren't forced to restart the entire game because the Doctor regenerates in one long cyclical train of eleven (soon to be twelve) – and yes, I did die so much that I went straight through all eleven and started back again with Mr. William Hartnell. But it's okay! Because you just keep going.

Although, there were certain things about this amusing pass-time that gave me pause (or anxiety).

First of all, the directions. It felt so much like SuperMario RPG that I was getting more than a little frustrated. Am I going left right or straight? Who knows because my brain can't keep up with this tilted lifestyle so I'm left wandering back and forth and jumping into the exterminating whisk of a Dalek. Good thing the Doctor keeps regenerating and has thrown out that twelve-regenerations-per-Time-Lord thing.

Secondly, I worry about the level of stress I get from playing these games. Even after I realize that I can regenerate countless times, going through each of the eleven faces, I find myself panicking when I can't run away from the super-speedy Cybermen fast enough and I end up hiding under the portcullis of a castle. And then when that spike in heart rate occurs, all that I've learned about directions goes flying out the nearest window (browser window – adjusted idioms). I start to freak out, unable to control the terror running straight from my mind to my fingers, and I'm running in circle-squares (remember the SuperMario RPG child who ran in circle-squares?) and eventually succumb to death at the hand of one of my most feared, most relentless and most overused enemies. (Seriously, every epic battle for the Doctor inevitably includes the reincarnation of one of these things. Speaking of their ability to come back to life and reproduce, whatever happened to the Doctor's daughter a.k.a. the tenth Doctor's real wife a.k.a. the daughter of the fifth Doctor?)

Thirdly, there's one particular weakness I found with the Daleks – at least in this game. I get that they learned how to climb stairs, gave themselves a paint job and can pivot their heads 'round while Rory tries to return their eggs, but in this game, you can stalk them just by merely walking at a safe distance behind them. Do they have technology to sense the presence of those behind them? You'd think they would have evolved (or upgraded Cybermen-style) to have some kind of 360 degree camera which, I recently read in CBC, now exists. If Kickstarter can create that, why can't the Daleks? I feel like they're now just one step away from Sontaran's version of kryptonite. To quote Donna Noble, "Back of the neck!"

But at the end of the day, who really cares? I loved it. But I may have loved it more because of my attachment to Doctor Who. I'm sure if it was a game that was any other theme, I would've been bored within seconds and given up. I wonder if I would enjoy video games more if I had a sentimental attachment to the story/characters/etc. The answer is obviously a resounding yes, but it's up to my friend to take that "a-ha!" moment and give me a game to play.

Random short story: The last fight in Avengers, through the eyes of an average office worker

I know, I know. You must look at this and wonder what on earth that girl who's bad at video games is trying to pull. Well, I wrote a random short story from the perspective an office worker during the Avengers fight after watching Avengers twice in two weeks along with Thor, Thor 2 and Captain America. Let's just say I was on a particularly strong Marvel kick surrounding the release of The Dark World. And since audience crossover between Marvel comics (and subsequently Marvel movies) and video games seems to be quite high, I thought it was worth sharing.

"So there I was, minding my own business, just trying to get a coffee to get through the day and—"

"How long is this story?"

"What?" I asked, surprised at being interrupted.

"How long is this story?" the nasally voice asked again. I looked over in the direction of the interruption and I saw Jon poking his head over his computer.

"I just started.”

"Yes, but I'd like to know how long it's going to be so I can decide whether it's worth it to find my headphones and tune all you people out."

The few people who had removed themselves from their desks to come hear my story awkwardly stared at their feet as I glared at Jon. "You might want to find your headphones," I said simply.

"Good," he nodded. "That's all I wanted to know. Carry on."

I rolled my eyes and animatedly continued where I left off, "—just trying to get my coffee so I could find a way to survive another dull day, you know? And then—"

"One more question," Jon said loudly, talking over the presumably dull music that was pounding into his ears, "do you have to do this right now, right here?"

"Yes!" I said, exasperatedly. "Why?"

"Because some people are trying to work."

I looked around and the only people still sitting at their desks were... well, just him, actually. "No, you are just trying to work and it's not like there's anything pressing. All our summer projects finished last week," I reminded him. "So what exactly are you so busy working on?"

"The next season."

"Next season? Why would you start on next season when we all know this is our lull week?" I rolled my eyes again at the eagerness of this fool. He always worked twenty steps ahead of everyone else and then complained when we couldn't keep up. It wasn't my fault he hadn't learned how to pace himself in this job. "Can't you just turn up your music? This is a good story. And it's getting less good every time you interrupt it."

"Fine," he said gruffly, as he slouched back down to look at his computer screen.

"Okay, so after I got my coffee to bolster me up for another day in the office, I heard a yelp outside. Me and the barista—"

"The barista and I," interrupted Jon.

"—Me and the barista," I continued, "looked outside and saw a woman cowering under one of the patio tables, fearfully looking up at the sky. We both looked at each other and I slowly walked to the door. I opened it and asked her if she was okay, but she wouldn't respond, so I carefully walked outside and looked up and that's when I saw it—"

"Why would you go outside?" Jon asked.

"I thought you weren't listening," I snapped back at him.

"If this woman is clearly terrified for her life, why would you enter into a situation that would make you equally afraid for your life?"

"Because she may have just been overreacting," I offered.

"And was she?"

"You'd know if you shut up and let me continue with my story."

He waved for me to continue as if he was the queen.

"So I go outside and—"

"Why would you think she was overreacting?" he quickly asked.

"What?" I fumed.

"Why would you think this woman was overreacting about something?"

"She might've been afraid of birds or something," I answered. "Plus she looked a little—“

"A little what?"

"A little skittish."

"In what way?"

"In the way that she was a tiny little blonde with doe eyes and a naive face. She looked like the kind of person who would scare easy," I said quickly. Looking at Marie, the little blonde girl with doe eyes from finance, I added, "No offense, Marie." She shrugged a response, confirming my suspicions of her meek temperament. "Now, Jon, can I please continue my story?"

Again, he regally waved for me to go on.

"So I slowly go outside and peek into the sky from under the awning. I can't see anything and I look at her and she points a shaky finger, so I go out a little further and—"

"I thought you went outside, looked up and saw it," Jon said flatly.

"Yeah, I did, but first there was the awning and the shaky finger," I replied.

"But you didn't say that the first time."

"I know, but I'm saying it now."

"So which is true?"

"I swear to God, Jon..."

He waved before I had to ask permission to continue again, and as he waved my fingernails dug a little deeper into my palms.

"So I peek out from under the awning again," I say more quickly, hoping the speed of my words will stop him from interrupting me again, "and that's when I see it – there's this guy flying around that new tower, but he's not in a plane or anything, he's just this dude in a metal suit of some kind and sparks are flying out from his hands and feet and he's flying up."

"No way," Marie whispered, entranced.

"Way," I said with a smile, glad to see that someone was intrigued by my story.

"So he's flying up there and I look over and see some storm in the sky – the sky is totally blue, but then there's this great big grey cloud forming to the left, so I head back inside the coffee shop and explain this to the people inside and they all run out to see the guy in the metal suit, paying no attention to the freak storm forming in the clear blue sky—"

"Which tower?" Jon asked.

"The new one," I mutter quickly.

"The Stark Tower?"

"Sure."

"As in Tony Stark's tower?"

"Tony who?" I ask.

"Tony Stark," Jon said to the collection of blank faces. "Please tell me you guys have heard about Tony Stark."

"Is he that guy that's always in the news?" Geoffrey from sales asked.

"'That guy that's always in the news'?" Jon returned, shocked. "You mean the guy who has made himself into some kind of superhero? The one who has built the world's first self-sustaining energy mechanism that keeps him alive? The one who went from weapons manufacturing to the green energy business and has built that 'tower' that’s been on the cover of practically every business, eco-conservationist and news magazine in the last few months?"

Again, blank faces.

"Does no one read the news or watch the news or pay any attention to anything??"

I looked to those gathered around me, so glad not to be the only one out of the loop. Marie then added, "Was he on Celebrity Jeopardy last week?"

Jon hung his head in exasperation.

"Oh! Oh!" Priya piped up, "Is he the one who did that skit with Stephen Colbert? I saw it on Buzzfeed and it was hilarious!"

Jon's head sunk a little lower before I added, "Ohh yeah! My friend sent me that one! Is that the one where he pretends to be a tower and Stephen Colbert does an auto-tune rap about the Tower of Babel?"

"Yeah! That guy!" Geoffrey added.

I paused in thought and then said, "I guess it makes more sense why he was a tower if he's the one who built that tower thing."

I could hear the clash of keys as Jon's head smashed onto his keyboard.

"Well, anyways, as I was saying," I said as Jon was indisposed, "I walked the couple of blocks to work, occasionally looking back up at that tower, but I didn't see him again, so I came in here and told you guys."

"That's crazy. You saw a guy in his own flight suit? I wonder what he was doing," Marie said quietly.

"Maybe he was testing it," Priya added knowingly. "I mean, if he has such great technology for making that super tower, maybe he uses it as some kind of weird testing sight for his random inventions."

"Yeah," Geoffrey added. "But it seems unlikely that the authorities would let him do tests like that. I wonder if anyone called it in."

"Well, I'm sure people saw," I said. "I mean, it's a Tuesday morning and there were people in the office buildings and stuff, so I'm sure one of them saw. Someone probably called it in."

"Still," Priya said. "It would've been cool to see a guy flying around in a metal suit."

"Iron," Jon mumbled through his squished lips. "It's iron."

"Well," Priya scoffed. "I highly doubt that. Do you know how heavy iron is?"

"Yeah," Geoffery added. "Have you ever seen an iron gate or an iron fireplace? That stuff is way too heavy to be flying around the sky."

"It's true," I added quickly. "I have a cast iron skillet at home that I rarely use. It's just so heavy!"

"I think you're mistaken, Jon," Marie said, quiet as a mouse, while we all suppressed laughter at the sound of Jon's head hitting the keys again.

"Anyways," I said, glancing toward the window that gave us a pretty ordinary view of the building across the street, "I wonder if we'll see any more of our flying neighbour."

Geoffrey walked right up to the floor to ceiling glass and squinted at the edge of the Stark Tower that he could see between two other buildings a couple blocks away, a collection of screams in the street, however, had us all running to press our faces against the glass. Jon stayed at his desk.

We couldn't see anything in the streets, except for a woman pointing at the sky and screaming, when we tried to angle our heads, all we could make out was the growing grey cloud in the sky. Suddenly we saw it – there was something coming out of the sky. I felt my heart leap into my throat at the thought of an airplane flying into downtown Manhattan... again. None of us had been in NYC for that event twelve years ago, but that didn't mean we weren't keenly aware of it. Our employee handbook outlined the safest escape plan for such an emergency, with a route that led to the nearest subway station.

I glanced back at Jon with a worried look and he asked what was going on. "There's something in the sky," I said. He quickly came over to the window as the something was followed by other somethings and soon we realized these weren't planes. They were...

"No," Jon whispered. "Couldn't be."

"Where are they coming from?" Geoffrey demanded.

"What are they?" Priya added, leaning in closer to the window.

Suddenly one cruised right by our window and the entire floor jumped back in surprise. Suddenly, Jon went into floor warden mode and told everyone to head to the stairs. I started to walk toward the bright red sign, but saw that no one else followed. I looked to Jon who was raising his voice at the collection of employees who leaned back toward the glass, trying to figure out what was flying through the air.

I put one hand on the stair door handle and waited for people to respond to Jon. He went up to them at the window and told them to step back – we all had to get out, but they were too engrossed in what was happening outside and I didn't want to be the one who left all her coworkers behind in a crisis, so I stood ready to open the door when they all would rush over. As more and more things kept coming out of the storm cloud, more and more people came to the windows. Suddenly I heard a crash and the muffled sound of broken glass. I looked up to see the building across the street being scarred when one of the things smashed into it. I ran over to try and get a better look, but all I could see was grey metal and an armored being splayed across their floor. I could see the panicked faces of those employees that I never paid much attention to and found myself screaming at them to get out. The high-pitched urgency in my voice seemed to connect with those in my vicinity and as a herd of dress shirts and pantsuits ran past me to the exit.

Jon's nasally voice took on a tone of authority as he reminded people not to panic, but to head down the stairs to the meeting place. Unfortunately, no one seemed to listen to him as screams echoed through the stairwell while Jon and I took the rear, running out of the abandoned office. With dozens of people clamoring to move their way down the stairs, I felt like a sheep heading to slaughter, hoping against hope that image wouldn't be prophetic.

Finally at street level, they found they were greeted by several police officers, corralling people into groups before being led across the street and to the subway. They worked with speed and efficiency, their very presence calming the crowd that gathered into a hushed state of obedience. From the giant windows, we saw the things fly close to the ground and then, suddenly, there he was – that Stark guy Jon was talking about came flying up behind him, and shot him down into the street. The cops pushed us all back further into the building, until they knew it would be safe to get the next group across the street.

As I waited, I could see the thing clearly through the recently washed floor to ceiling windows on the ground floor. Jon leaned toward me and looked, too.

"It can't be," he said again.

"It can't be what?" I asked, my eyes refusing to move from the creature that was shot dead outside.

"Aliens," he whispered.

Normally, I would have scoffed at the over-active imagination of the annoying guy I shared a desk clump with, but this time I couldn't.

"Last year," he said quietly, not wanting to share this news with those around us, "in New Mexico, there was an incident. I have a cousin down there who sent me some photos. There was a storm cloud, just like there is today, and people came out of it – people and... and things."

"Like these things?" I whispered back.

"No, different things, but still... things."

The bark of a police officer telling our group to run pulled my gaze away from the creature as we cowered and ran for the subway entrance. The foreign whizzing sound of the things flew above us, but we didn't have time to check until we saw one crash-land, right in front of us. We all jumped back, suddenly exposed and uncertain of where to run. There it sat, blocking the entrance to the subway. At first we thought it might be dead, but we didn't know how long to wait and we certainly didn't want to stand in the middle of the street like sitting ducks, the police officer sensed this and kept us running across the street, ready to rethink his plan of the subway entrance. He was on his walkie-talkie checking with his colleagues when suddenly the creature began to move and stand. I felt its cold stare as it reached for the weapon it had dropped. As it bent down, a blur of red, white and blue crashed on top of it, a circular shield taking it out at the back of the neck. We all stood and stared, helpless, as this man jumped beside the creature's flying contraption, and easily picked it up and moved it – clearing a way for us to head down the stairs. Suddenly more creatures landed on the street and he told the cop to make us run as he held them off, fighting back. I was frozen, my knees unable to move for fear they'd give out when I felt the warmth of someone's hand in mine, beckoning me to join the group. It was Jon and he had a look of certainty that I decided to hold onto as we made a run for it.  

Secret of Mana for SNES, prologue

“What game is this?” I ask yet again. This little back-and-forth seems to be the same each time, but there’s really no other way to begin. She has a plan for introducing me to the gaming world and I’m not one to question such a genius as hers, or so she has me believe.

“Secret of Mana,” she says. “Not double-N 'Manna.' Mana, which was thought to be the building blocks of life.”

“Of lice??” I recoil in horror at the thought of building blocks of lice.

“Of life!” she impatiently corrects me.

Oh… That is much better. Images of lice being built up harkens back to elementary days of humiliating when students would sit at their desks while the teacher would inspect our scalps like a sober monkey. Even at the time, though, I questioned the hygiene of such a system, especially because she used the same pencil on each scalp. You’d think cleanliness would dictate a new pencil for each inspection, but I digress.

And so we begin.

“The official English names are Girl, Boy and Sprite, as in the beverage,” my friend patronizingly explains to me, mostly because she doesn’t think I know what a sprite is. Normally she’d be right. But I had to read some crappy first drafts of fantasy novels in a novel writing course I took, so I was at least given a crash course in fantasy characters and lingos. Most of them I forget, but I’ll never forget sprite. Mostly because it is like the beverage.

“That’s the sexy video game hair,” she says matter-of-factly.

“There’s sexy video game hair?”

“Yeah! This guy has it, Crono from Chronotrigger, Cloud from Final Fantasy VII and Link, but he has a cap on.”

I had no idea this was a thing. I’ll be looking out for it on my future endeavours. I don’t think any of the Jeopardy contestants had sexy hair. Sexy glasses, sure, but I think their hair was forgettable at best.

I have low self-esteem today so I decided my character will be called Pretty. For no other reason than I would like to be addressed as “Pretty” for the next umpteen minutes/hours.

“Pretty Randi!” my friend’s cousin shouts out.

“He’s a pretty boy!” I add, quickly clarifying the meaning of the word randi and feeling like I’m part of the in-crowd of nerds who understand what randi means.

“Randi with an ‘i’, too,” my friend points out.

“He’s wearing cotton candy colours. Something sweet about him, probably.” Indeed there is something sweet about him. The something sweet is that I’m playing him. Not like I’m taking advantage or tricking him, I’m just pretending to be him, but not in a cross-dressing fashion, not that there’s anything wrong with… Oh, forget it.

What follows is some running commentary by yours truly; running commentary that I hardly understand.

“Their names are Timothy & Elliott? How cute!”

Timothy: “There’s a ghost around!”

“Am I about to pounce on them??” I ask nervously.

“No,” my friend assures me.

“AM I WEARING PANTS?! ...OH! That’s an arm! I definitely thought that was a bare butt.”

“What are you…oh, you’re falling. I thought you were doing some kind of Bollywood dance.”

A ghoooooost!

This game is awesome.

Randi found candy in a box. This is the start of a very strange story…

“Who’s that knight?” the screen asks me.

I respond with a shrug and a non-committal “I dunno.” And suddenly the room is laughing at me.

“Usually when someone points out someone else, you should go talk to them,” they patronizingly explain. I’d be upset, but I really need these explanations. 

“Go into the shop. Not the inn. The shop.” I have a feeling that my friend may be a much more patient person than I originally thought. Her teaching me to play video games is akin to trying to get a child to pretty much understand anything. I have reverted back to a childlike state of, not innocence, stupidity.

“Is this the same guy from the pub?”

“Yes, it’s the same shopkeeper in a turban doing a dance. It’s not racist at all,” she says.

“Riiiiight.”

So I was going to buy myself a kick-ass bandana, but it turns out I was short on some money, so I had to go kill some rabites and then steal some more forest candy by shaking treasure boxes and I got enough to get myself a brand new bandana! A flashing one! A flashing blue one! I’m the coolest Boy/Randi ever!

After I got my super sweet bandana, some villagers started getting all up in my business. (This is me slowly turning into a thug.) And they were all like, “Hey bro! You’re a stupid face who took the sword out of its stone (...wait...is this a Disney copyright issue?) and you brought monsters into the village, ya jerk!” (I may not be a good thug.)

And the short story is that fat kid Elliott chased me around the lawn before eventually standing in a soft spot in the ground and dropped through into a dungeon. My friend was worried I’d die because I kept getting hit by gem missiles and acid breath. (Apparently, it’s called “LEVEL ZERO! LEVEL ZERO!” I realized this after she kept yelling “LEVEL ZERO” at me.)

And after I saved the moron Elliott who dropped through the ground in the first place and defeated the boss in my first try, the villagers got up in my business again and ran me out of the village. Before I left, though, they had a moment of remorse and told me to help myself to the treasure in the basement.

More candy.

I worry about who actually came up with this candy-as-currency system. Was it a child who made this game or an adult who has a fascination with treasure chests full of candy in the forest and in basements? I’m hoping for a Big situation on this one, because the alternative is slightly disconcerting.

Oh yeah, and there’s just a random, spastic lady walking around their basement. I’d like to teach her how to use the stairs, but I’m not sure the game is advanced enough for that kind of lesson. If only I was Abed who could hack the game and use it to my advantage.

After some wandering around the Water Palace with Jema and opening up random staircases in what I consider to be Harry Potter fashion (calm yourselves, Potheads) I end up running into Luka and then asked where Luka was.

Facepalm moment.

It’s like when you call your friend and ask for your friend but it’s your friend on the phone! But it’s worse. Jema got pissed off at me for making that mistake but I was all like, “Calm down, man.”

(That’s a lie. I’m not one to say “Calm down, man!” And I doubt I’ll ever transform into that person.)

And then Luka laughed like Santa Claus.

(That is not a lie.)

Luka: “The ebb and flow of water brings me news from around the world.”

What a hippy.

So now I’m supposed to head to Gaia’s Navel?

“Gaia’s Navel, eh?”

“Yeah, as in the Earth’s bellybutton.”

“Suuuuure. Sure,” I say, slowly nodding.

“For a moment the seed and the Mana sword became one,” the game says.

Ummm…

“Now the Mana power from the seed will be sent only to you and your sword.”

Uhhh….

How about we just stop here?

Banjo Kazooie for N64: getting through Mumbo's Mountain (not a euphemism)

“I hope this video game is not beyond your capacity," my friend says, setting up the Nintendo64 in preparation of my frustration.

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve touched a controller. It’s not like I’m jonesing for it as some video game nerds would be, because as we all know I’m not a video game nerd. A nerder. A gamer? A video gamer? I wonder how many brains I’m breaking as I’m trying to explain this.

“This is the one I was telling you about the Jiggies and the Jinjos," my friend shouts at me from across the room.

I’m worried about what I see. Puzzle pieces. A … monkey bird? A bear with a bird in its backpack? Okay. It’s like Dora the Explorer, but not at all. Dora at least teaches you a proper language.

"Press the Z button." Z? Where’s the Z button?! There's a small moment of panic when I can't find the Z button. It's at the back, as I was told after looking for it with very little motivation to actually find it.

“It’s got quite a long intro which, if you miss, is available on YouTube.”

Is this Oz? Nope, but there is a witch. Wow. Okay, so I don't want to alarm anyone but she's currently screaming out, “WHO IS THE NICEST LOOKING WENCH?” Yup. This is the game I'm currently playing. I have a feeling it's not going to go really well.

Why did that witch just pick her nose and throw it with a rather loud sound effect of booger-landing. Is this a messed up version of Snow White? What is happening?!

This witch reminds me of someone. Someone particularly witchy with a distinct witchiness about her, but more like a lower-class witch as opposed to the graceful ones with sparkly shoes. Who does it remind me of? Oh right ... Latrine.

She is not speaking words. To quote Emma Stone in Easy A, "Sounds. Those are just sounds." I understand her pot of boogers more than I understand her. This witch is one walking witch stereotype.

"Hey blonde bear girl!" I shout as things get more confusing. "You’s gonna die! Is that mole in a Jeff Goldblum-esque pile of ... you know?"

Tooty?! Her name is TOOTY?! I want to punch this bear in the face. And not just because her name is Tooty. Although I did have a pair of her leggings with the stirrups in the ‘90s and they were incredibly comfortable.

Does this bird just always sit in a backpack? Dear bird, you can fly. Why are you strapped inside a backpack? FREE YOURSELF! That bear is a doofus.

Why will Tooty need bigger underwear, Grunty? Does being ugly mean you suddenly wear granny panties?

There’s a lot of hate and stereotyping and anger between these characters.. "Short-sighted mole"? "Goggles"? "Geeky"? "Specky"? "Beaky"? "Worm breath"? "Feathery butt"? "Chick legs"? "Short stuff"?

I mean I get it, these characters are the worst, but you'd think they'd be on the same time.

"Bird brain"? "Bottle boy"? These two are in love. 

"Buzzard"? "Squinty"? "Feather face and Bogeyes"? This is an elementary school yard kind of love.

Suddenly Kazooie is insecure about how she’ll look? She’s got a developing crush on Mole. She doesn’t want to look silly in front of him. This is textbook crushing!

“Wearing glasses and a silly grin?” says Kazooie to Boggles. That’s akin to Lizzy telling her friend Charlotte that Mr Darcy has a quizzical brow. These two are so gonna get it on in an inter-species way.

Also, the honeycombs remind me of the aliens on Sesame Street. “Yupyupyupyupyupyupyup. Rockrockrockrockrockrockrock.”

How easy is it to get to the witch’s lair? It’s in this guy’s backyard and his stupid sister has never seen her on her broom before? I call either idiocy or foul. There’s no way they don’t see her when she’s out getting milk or boogers or whatever goes in her cauldron.

This bear isn’t very reliable. He’s super excited to be on this adventure while his sister is fearing the impending ugliness that will ruin her naïve little life.

“Grunty admits that she’s a hog, she really needs a big hot dog.”

What the what, witch? We get that you need to get some, but why must you do so by laying traps of jigsaw puzzles that are possibly too easy to solve.

This camera is messed up. Apparently, according to nerd friend beside me, the maker of this game always struggled with the camera in their games. Silly Rare.

So after all that work of collecting skull tokens and music notes and honeycombs, I go to a weird shaman who turns me into a termite. I know that strength-to-size termites are probably stronger and more powerful than bears and I’m certain that Sheldon Cooper would be able to make a case for their power in the same way he vouched for the Army Ant over the boring panther, but that doesn’t mean it makes me feel fearsome. Although it makes me feel a little less like a bumbling idiot named Banjo whose cousin is probably Yogi.

Also, the sound effects of its little insect feet clicking on the ground make me feel ill. Bugs are not cool.

So now that I’m a termite I guess that means I can be accepted in the termite hill and climbs its walls to get to the nest up at the top. The only problem with this is that the camera doesn’t make sense for you to be moving around in this polygon formation climbing and jumping from landing to landing as it spirals up, which means falling down is very easy. So easy, in fact, that after dozens of tries, I give up and give the controller to my friend who gets me to the top of the mountain.

After I got through Mumbo's Mountain alive, I moved on and met Brentilda, Gruntilda's sister. Doesn't she seems like a b.... witch. First, she sneaks into her sister’s house uninvited, then she calls her an old hag, then she decides to tell some stranger all of her sister’s disgusting secrets. Kind of mean, “nice” sister! How would you like it if Grunty shared some of your secrets? A sampling of Grunty's dirty secrets:

1. Brushes her teeth with tuna ice cream flavoured toothpaste.
2. Washes her hair with rancid milk.
3. And she gets her clothes from Saggy Maggy’s Boutique.

This sounds like your sister is on welfare and you should be nicer to her, you mean girl.

My friend instructs me on the way to turn. “And left, through the … Demon Door.”

“I love me some Demon Doors.” It also sounds like a good name for a band. "Please welcome to the stage, The Demon Doors!" It'd be more amusing if they were a mild-mannered hipster band instead of what they sound like they'd be, a group of angry metal heads. It'd be like the hilarity that is the Barenaked Ladies.

“Okay, you’ve technically finished level one so you can stop playing if you want,” my friend says. “But you have to save and continue to see what happens.”

Spoiler alert: you get a guilt trip.

Because you didn’t continue on your quest to save your sister, she gets turned into a monster and the witch gets turned into a beaut. And by a “beaut” I mean a proportionally confusing woman with long legs and a leather mini skirt. Tooty, on the other hand, gets turned into a gorilla of a bear.

And I’m fairly certain whoever came up with this game was experimenting with some recreational life enhancements. Or drugs. I think they might've been on drugs. That's what I was trying to say.