Final Post of 2023

This year might have presented its challenges for many, but for me, it brought forth a plethora of positive moments. As this marks the final post of 2023, I wanted to make it special by recounting the nerdy highlights that I am grateful for. While I might have overlooked some events, the essence of this post is to emphasize that this year has been remarkable, notwithstanding the trials, and that amidst adversity, there were still moments of joy. 

1. The Year of Sanderson:

   One of the standout nerdy moments of the year was the "Year of Sanderson," during which Brandon Sanderson not only published four secret project books, and Defiant, but also surprised us with a novella he had written in college. You can read about the Secret Projects on our blog posts from throughout the year.

1. "Tress of the Emerald Sea" blog post by Michael
2. "The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England" blog post by Rob
3. "Yumi and the Nightmare Painter" blog post by Michael
4. "The Sunlit Man" blog post by Michael

2. The Boy and the Heron:

   Another unexpected delight was Hayao Miyazaki's release of a new film, The Boy and the Heron. Known for animated masterpieces like Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro, and Howl's moving Castle. Miyazaki had previously declared retirement. The announcement of The Boy and The Heron was a pleasant surprise, and the movie lived up to expectations. The dub cast featuring Christian Bale, Dave Bautista, Willem Dafoe, and Mark Hamill added to the enjoyment.

3. David Tennant's Return for the Doctor Who 60th Anniversary:

   In a unique turn of events, David Tennant reprised his role as the Doctor and assumed the role of the Fourteenth Doctor. Notably, Catherine Tate also returned as Donna for these three Doctor Who specials, creating excitement among fans. The specials are available for streaming on Disney+. 

4. The Super Mario Bros. Movie:

   Personally experiencing this movie in theaters left a positive experience. Surprisingly well-made, the film boasted a great dub cast, an enjoyable Bowser's Peach song, and a decent plot. If you haven't watched it yet, you're missing out—it's a highlight of 2023. 

5. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom:

   Shifting focus from books and movies, let's not forget the highly anticipated game release of the year: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Serving as a sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, this game merges the mechanics of its predecessor with elements of Minecraft, offering an open-world experience where players can construct anything they desire. It's a brilliant fusion and well worth the wait.

 

Looking back, what nerdy highlights from this year brought you excitement, and what are you eagerly anticipating in the coming year?

LDS Geeks Podcast #4: First Doctor Companions

Round two on my discussion with TJ about the First Doctor era. This time we're talking about his companions and he had a lot.

--Spencer

The Price of Heroism

Breath of the Wild has already been discussed to death on other media outlets, it being the flagship game of the Switch, one of the best games in the Zelda franchise, and one of the best games of all time. Today though, I want to talk about something I realized when I beat the game. 

Ahoy, they be spoilers ahead. 

The Heroes' Journey

A quick recap on the story of Breath of the Wild: 

Link wakes up in a tomb (been there) and finds out he's been asleep for about 100 years. In the interim Hyrule has gone to crap due to the castle being taken over by Calamity Gannon, a giant ghost-pig monster that has dreams of ending the world. He's being held back by Princess Zelda's magic, but her strength is starting to wain so Link has to get his life together and start saving Hyrule. 

Along the way he's got to get armor, stamina, weapons, hearts and giant magicpunk robots operational to take the enemy down. He also needs to collect photos on his magic tablet that will help wake up his memories of his life, particularly his love of Zelda. 

I Have Priorities I'm not Lazy

Now the game has two endings. The true ending is if you beat Gannon and regain all your memories, and Link and the princess will live happily ever after. Now I'm not a completionism in video games... Or anything really.... I take what I like then leave the obsessive collecting to those with more patience. The part I skipped was collecting all the memories, because I just didn't care I was having fun fighting monsters and doing the puzzles. When I got the incomplete ending though the scene went as follows: 

Link and Zelda stood on the plains, Gannon defeated, and Zelda asks if Link remembers her. Link looks awkwardly at her with Zelda looking disappointed and saying "Oh". The fade to black happens and the game is over. 

Self vs Others

So pretending I'm not lazy let me rewrite the story based on the alternate ending. Link wakes up and is told he is the legendary warrior. As he adventures he sees the land devastated by the darkness unleashed by Gannon. He is driven by his quest to free this land that he vaguely remembers. He's told that he could restore his own memories, but the question is why? The memories have no combat value. They have no access to a secret weapon. They only provide a distraction from the main quest, a quest that already has enough distractions in it with all the people Link is trying to help and little leaf critters he finds. 

In this version, Link sacrifices his memories for the good of the kingdom. He's focused solely on saving Hyrule and its people, and he will figure out his own life once that is over. 

I like this version of Link a lot more than previous versions. Now I fully understand that Link is supposed to be an avatar on which we are meant to project ourselves onto, hence why he never really gets a voice or a personality. In fact in writing this blog I've had trouble keeping the tenses straight and not referring to Link as me, because I was the one making the choices for Link and not him. That being said I projected onto my Link a hero who wants to save the kingdom no matter what, not just potentially sacrificing his life but sacrificing his own sense of self, his own sense of identity. Link thus has a reason to be a blank slate, because he chose his kingdom over himself. 

Happy Ending? 

The argument against this is "What about Zelda?" She's been waiting 100 years for Link to show up and help put Gannon in the ground, and now she's got a blank faced elf and a wrecked castle to deal with. Where's her happy ending? The thing is, this may be the only way they can have a sincere relationship. From the flashbacks we get (well that I did unlock during the story), we see that their relationship was completely based on their quest to stop Gannon. With him gone though they can build a real relationship based on who they are and not what purpose they serve. 

So I say this is the better ending because they get to start fresh. They get to have a relationship with each other, and not always planning a war. They get to be a real couple, and I have no doubt that the two could go on their own quest to fill out Link's photo album, making new memories along the way. 

Gratitude and the Inner Batreaux

While playing the video game The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword I guided Link through a graveyard to try to find a lost little girl.  Turns out this lost little girl was just playing with her demon friend.  The demon introduces himself as Batreaux.  Batreaux says that he can turn back into a human if enough Gratitude Crystals are formed.  Gratitude Crystals are formed when good deeds are done and people feel appreciation for the good deeds done for them.

Batreaux the demon is... a strangely happy demon.

What's interesting is that while Batreaux is still a demon, there are many dangers in Skyloft at night.  The domesticated Remlits (cat creatures) are aggressive and territorial at night.  Bats will attack you and so will glob creatures.  When enough Gratitude Crystals are collected, Batreaux turns back into a human and the dangers that once plagued Skyloft are gone.  Even the Remlits become docile and friendly.

In my own life, I've come to see how I need to express more gratitude to get rid of the spiritual dangers in my life and keep my own inner demons at bay.

The challenge for me when it comes to expressing gratitude is that I want to give my negative emotions a voice.  If I'm disappointed, sad, or angry about something, I want it to be known.  The thing about whining or murmuring is that the viewpoint is focused on negativity and it's prideful.  When I whine, I want my viewpoint and pain to be known and I want to share my misery with someone else.  I'll feel cheated if someone else doesn't see it how I see it and refuse to feel better because of it.  I used to think that any expression of pain and negative emotions had to be murmuring.  Thankfully, I was wrong.

What I've found is that negative emotions and pain is important to be felt and expressed.  What makes mourning different from murmuring is that there's a greater perspective in place.  Mourning loss acknowledges any hurt feelings I may have.  When I mourn I'll allow myself to cry and yell without judgment.  I let the feelings take it's course.  What I've found is that when I allow my feelings to be heard, I'll have peace and that's the perfect time for me to choose to express my gratitude.

It's easy for me to feel like the world is against me and that the cards are stacked against me.  The thing about gratitude is to recognize my trials as blessings and express gratitude even for the smallest blessing in my life.  About two years ago, I got into a card accident that totaled my 2006 Scion tC.  I love that car.  The car was affordable and pretty hot too.  I was so sad that I lost the car.

Human Batreaux looks... the same.

Looking back, I can definitely see how it was a blessing in my life.  Since then, I got a bigger and more practical car that has been wonderful to me.  My Toyota Matrix helped me to move up to Utah with all of my stuff.  If I still had my Scion I would have had to sell most of my artwork and get rid of most of my stuff.  At the time, I was very unhappy that I lost an awesome car.  Today, I'm thankful to even have a set of reliable wheels and made the smart decision to buy a reliable vehicle.  There's a lot of students and people my age that don't have any wheels at all.

Like many of the more inspirational posts that I write, this post is almost more for me than it is for you, the readers.  In Zelda, Batreaux just wants to connect with other people but won't be accepted in his demon form.  In some ways, murmuring puts walls between us and other people and denies us real connection with them.  Expressing gratitude and thankfulness for what we are blessed with in our life humanizes our inner Batreaux and allows us the freedom to make real connection.

I have a lot to be thankful for.  I have a great internship, a solid job, a promising future, and loyal family and friends.  Yeah, I can have a bad day from time to time.  I'm grateful for the opportunities those days bring to help me appreciate the good days and things in my life.  I hope you find some inspiration to find the blessings in your life and change your own inner demons.

 Verily I say unto you my friends, ^afear not, let your hearts be comforted; yea, rejoice evermore, and in everything give ^bthanks; (D&C 98:1)

-Stephen

Video Game Music - Battle Music

Over the years, I've played many different video games.  One of my favorite genres is the role-playing game.   The stories, the growth and development of characters, the exploration of a new world (or worlds) has all been something that has intrigued me and pulled me in.  For me, music is one part of a video game that can either make me really love the game, or make me want to pull my hair out every time I play the game.

I decided to write up a post dedicated to battle music from various games.  By battle music, I mean the music for generic battles.  In RPGs, those could be called 'random battles'.  For other games, I would define it as music that is played when fighting enemies that aren't considered 'bosses'.  In no way do I intend on covering each possible song or even each genre.  I do plan on making more posts on this subject in the future.  Feel free to leave a comment if you have a song you feel like should be represented in one of these posts.

I believe that good video game music should be engaging and interesting.  It should be something that helps me indicate that I'm actually in a conflict of some kind.  Some of the best kinds of battle music actually help me wake up and focus more on a more tense moment in the game.  That being said, battle music shouldn't be annoying.  If the music makes me not want to play the game further, or makes me want to run screaming from battles, than the music probably isn't as good.  Also, if the battle music should sound like battle music.  It shouldn't sound like a walk through the forest or like a party (I guess unless the battle takes place at a party).

Disclaimer/rant: although the music from all of the games I will share is clean, the games themselves may not be.  Sadly, I wish that game designers could produce games that were entertaining without having to rely on immodesty, crude language, immorality, or gratuitous violence and gore.  [/endrant]

The first song comes from a game called Ultima III: Exodus known to me as "Exodus Ultima".  The game was released in 1983 on multiple platforms, including the 8-bit Nintendo (ah, nostalgia).  I remember being charmed by the game's overworld and overworld music.  There was a lot of places to discover and things to discover.  However, the battle music itself became fairly repetitive over time.  The same music was played whether I was facing one of the weakest enemies in the game, or even the final boss of the game.  Looking back now, I wonder how I handled listening to the music over and over again (arguably, I've probably been spoiled by the excellent music in today's games).  Here's a video of the music (you may not want to listen to it for very long, to avoid taking sanity damage):



The second song comes from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time released in 1998 on the Nintendo 64 (and re-released on other platforms later).  This was probably one of the first games I remember playing where 'situational' battle music was used.  When I would approach an enemy, special music would begin to play to indicate the tenseness of the situation.  At first, I really liked it, but later I would find the music to be somewhat annoying when every last little bat would trigger the music, or if the music would only play a few seconds because it actually started playing after I defeated the enemy.  The game couldn't keep up with how fast some enemies died.  Other than that, it is a decent piece of music.



The next song is the main battle theme from Final Fantasy X (released 2001-2002 depending on where you live).  Final Fantasy X is a game that I've only recently had the opportunity to play in the last few months.  I have to say that I enjoy the battle music from the game.  Some things that I don't like is that the music feels oddly repetitive.  It also feels like it isn't very consistent with itself.  I've often wondered if the music designers took the same melody and did it with multiple instruments just to make the game music last longer. Other than that, the music is alright to listen to for long periods of time.



The next piece of music comes from the video game Bayonetta (released 2009-2010 depending on where you live).  Bayonetta is a very over the top, action game.  Although the music is top notch, it's one of the games that inspired my previous rant.  The music in the game is beautiful.  It features a number of different battle songs.  I opted to pick the one that sounds more like battle music, and less like a 'girl power' song (although I recommend listening to "Riders Of The Light" sometime).  The music is entitled 'The Heavies' and is generally played when battling tougher opponents.  In my opinion, the music does a good job at indicating the dangerous nature of the enemies being fought.  Heard outside of the game context, the music seems to be a bit too tense, over the top, and loud (I've found it's useful for staying awake on late night drives).



Shifting away from console games for a moment, the next piece of music comes from the game Skyrim (released in 2011).  I have to say that I've highly enjoyed the immersive nature of Skyrim.  The music in the game is beautiful.  Skyrim also features situational battle music, like Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.  I've found that the music either does one of two things: it starts playing after I've slain the last opponent, or it starts playing and lets me know that I'm in for a long a drawn out battle.  Sit back an enjoy a piece of high quality battle music (Skyrim also has at least two other battle themes):



I hope you've enjoyed today's sampling of battle music from video games.  Feel free to leave comments, share this post with your friends, or post about battle music that you would like to see covered in possible future posts.