The Amazing World Of The Amazing World Of Gumball

Sure has been a long time since last blog, eh? Let's change that!

I've recently finished my binge of The Amazing World of Gumball, a cartoon that's currently airing on Cartoon Network and almost finished with its fourth season with two more seasons confirmed to come. It's hardly the only series I follow, but I did notice that it seems to get talked about less than other series I follow, which confuses me since it's actually really, really good. So what better solution than to ramble about it here?!

Amazing

I think the most immediately outstanding thing about the show is the art style, or art styles rather. I've seen some media that tries to blend different art styles but none as far as I know have done it as effectively and extensively as Gumball. Characters run the gamut between being animated in a variety of 2D styles, CGI 3D styles and even some live action bits such as chin puppetry and use of professional photography for the backgrounds. The mesh of styles works really well and gives the show a very distinct look as well as a highly diverse cast

Quite a cast

Of course just art style alone is no reason to watch a show. But while I think the show's style is great, I think the cleverness of the writing and the vast breadth of humour as well as other emotions the show manages to reach for are seriously impressive. The main cast is composed of Gumball, a blue cat, and his family consisting of pet goldfish-turned-adoptive brother and total sweetheart Darwin, younger sister and socially awkward genius Anais, and their parents, the lazy and silly Richard and overzealous and fierce Nicole.

Don't make her angry.

This must sound rather typical and for most of the first season their dynamics are the main focus of the show, with most episodes being set either at Gumball and Darwin's school where there's a whole bunch of other students and staff members, or at home. These episodes are still somewhat funny in their own right, they're nothing special but they're easy to digest and get through since each episode is only 11 minutes.

Then season 2 happens. Season 2 of the show really blew me away. While season 1 was funny in its own right, season 2 is when the show's art drastically improves, the writing becomes much more clever, Gumball and his family become more well-rounded characters and the show starts to do more unconventional episodes as well as focus a lot more on the world and side characters it has built up in season 1. The thing that I love about the show past this point is that pretty much anything can happen and it's all amazing. An episode where continuity suddenly catches up to the main cast as everything that happened in past episodes suddenly has consequences? Sure. An episode about a zombie outbreak parodying the horror genre? Yup. An episode about all inanimate objects in the show's city being sentient? Yes. There's even an episode that is a homage to Karate Kid in the style of poorly animated 70s cartoons.

And it's great.

Then season 3 happens. Season 3 manages to blow me away again. Just like with season 2, season 3 continues the trend of episodes having very novel concepts as well as exploring different parts of the show's world. The first episode is all about Gumball and Darwin's voices changing as their voice actors become too old to do a believable kid voice and the episode is a wonderful sendoff to the old voice actors and introduces the new ones all through a wonderful song. 

I really do love the show's songs, they're amazing.

But season 3 is also where the show stop being entirely episodic and subject to the Status Quo. Episodes start appearing that permanently alter the show's Status Quo and are part of more overarching yet also contained plots. A very interesting one which is actually going to be very important in the fourth season finale is the episode about the Void, where all the mistakes of the world inside the show are placed, such as concept art for the show, bad trends from the 80s, the Crazy Frog (?!), Clippy and minor background characters who got replaced and forgotten by the whole world. One of these characters, a background character from season 1 and 2 who barely had like 5 lines turns into a far more important and sinister character as the series progresses. I just love how meta that is, how this unimportant background character is so unimportant even in the context of the world that he just gets deleted and then later comes back unsure of what his role in life even is. Season 3 then ends off with easily one of my favourite segments of the show, where money problems faced by the main characters directly translate into the whole world of Gumball falling apart. It's a marvel to behold in its absurdity.

This blew me away.

Then season 4 happens. And season 4 is still great, the best so far in my opinion! I think that in itself is a feat, considering how many shows start to show signs of decay by season 4, but Gumball only manages to get more off-the-wall in season 4 as well as continue story threads established in season 3. Just the episodes that have aired the last two weeks are great. There was a great detective/crime investigation parody, an episode about violence in video games with an amazing moral and ending, an episode all about Gumball trying to get someone to slap his butt and an episode with a whole anime fight sequence guest animated by a professional Japanese studio, and from what it looks the season finale is going to be an epic two-parter closing off one of the series' running threads. My excitement for that episode is part of why I even wrote this blog, I had to get it out somehow! 

Butt.

Throughout all of this the show really does manage to impress me with how incredibly varied it is. The show has all sorts of comedy, in the first season much of it being slapstick which is sold very well due to the quality of the animation to a lot of surprisingly dark or even cynical humour, more so in later seasons. But despite that the series also knows how to have emotional moments or even whole episodes that are actually genuinely heartfelt or cute alongside being funny, and that just really impresses me. The show references things from a vast pool of things, be they old or modern, family or adult media, and out of all shows I've seen seems to be the most in touch with modern times when it comes to integrating them into its plots. 

I really do think the show is underrated, I think there's currently a renaissance of cartoons on TV and Gumball is easily among the cream of the crop, I just wish it'd get recognized more as such. Despite that, the show has done good enough to get 6 seasons, so it must be doing very well for Cartoon Network to renew it as such, which makes me happy since I'm certain the next two seasons will be just as good if not better than the previous ones!

Blogger Asterisk

This is a stupid idea. Here goes!

Asterisk: Blogger

Role: Aggro control and status/buff/debuff control.

Command: Blogging

Stats: HP - 120% MP - 80% Str - 80% Vit -110% Int - 110% Mnd - 110% Dex - 130% Agl - 80%

Equipment Proficiency:

S Rank on Firearms and Shields, B Rank on Bows and Knives, E Rank on everything else.

Specialty: Feed the Troll - Raise P. Atk, P. Def, M. Atk and M. Def by 25% while drawing aggro. This boost is cumulative with other boosts and can exceed the boost cap.

Lv. 1: Publish - Free - Standard physical attack, damage scales with stocked up BP. Draws max aggro for 5 turns. [0.8-1.8 power scaling]

Lv. 2: Echo Chamber - 1 SP - Any buff that is applied to you is also applied to the source of the buff.

Lv. 3: Copy - 8 MP - Place all status effects, buffs and debuffs from a character in your clipboard. You can only have one state on your clipboard.

Lv. 4: Paste - 1 BP - Apply a state from your clipboard on selected target. Status ailments have a 75% chance to be inflicted.

Lv. 5: Flamebait - Free - Standard Physical, fire-elemental attack damage on all enemies, 50% to inflict Berserk, Draws max aggro for 5 turns. [0.5 power scaling]

Lv. 6: Mr. Clipboard - 1 SP - Up to three states can be saved to the clipboard.

Lv 7: Flame Shield - 24 MP - Reduces aggro to a minimum and raise P. Def and M. Def by 25% to selected target. [Duration 10t]

Lv. 8: Cut - 16 MP - Remove all status effects, buffs and debuffs from a character and place it in your clipboard. You can only have one state on your clipboard.

Lv. 9: Feed the Troll - 2 SP - Raise P. Atk, P. Def, M. Atk and M. Def by 25% while drawing aggro. This boost is cumulative with other boosts and can exceed the boost cap.

Lv 10: Link - 32 MP - Link yourself with selected character, causing any buff, debuff or status ailment applied to either linked character to also apply to the other linked character. Status ailments have a 75% chance to be applied.  [Duration 10t]

Lv 11: Spam - 3 BP - Perform 5 consecutive actions from the Blogging skillset of choice. While Spamming Paste costs 60 MP instead of 1 BP.

Void Pyramid

VOID PYRAMID IS A GAME THAT EXISTS

See, it does.

It takes place in the Void Pyramid where you are because the Prime Pharaoh is such a meanie macmeanieface and you have to escape!! It's an RPG with heavy emphasis on exploration, knowing how to navigate your way through the pyramid and having a discerning eye to detail is just as important as knowing how to act in combat.

Oh Babi

Most of the game is spent inside the chambers of the Void Pyramid wandering around and examining the surroundings. While objects such as chests and enemies can simply be interacted with, many objects test your character's skill in thee areas, brute strength though Brawn, dexterity and nimbleness through Agility and finally your knowledge and technical prowess though Wit. These stats also assist in combat indirectly, Brawn giving a chance of instantly killing an enemy before an encounter can occur, Agility letting you flee from a fight which is useful while exploring high-level areas or to not bother with low-level enemies and finally Wits which increases the rewards gained from fighting monsters that aren't far below your level. Mostly you will be collecting consumable gear which assist either in or out of combat, Deben which can be used to buy stat upgrades or more gear and Artifacts which largely do nothing but affect your ending and should be your goal when playing the game next to escaping the Pyramid.

Become the Laser Lord

Aside from that there's plenty of enemies to cut down, but don't expect too much from the combat. Most battles are finished in ether one or two turns. For much of the first two areas I just focused on my Defense enough that I would only take between 1~2 damage per attack, it was only later on that I really had to focus more on attack and HP to keep up. Still, the combat being quick-paced is not a bad thing, it certainly feels like a conscious design effort and makes the Pyramid seem so much more brutal, the idea that late in the game any enemy can score a VITAL HIT to strike you twice and annihilate you, it really makes you want to use your items more strategically both in and out of combat.

Enemies should learn to avoid you. That was a pun.

I had fun with the game while it lasted! It's not a very long game, you could beat it in about a day or two, it took me just about 4 hours to get the golden ending and the game has some replay value in how certain elements of the Pyramid are randomizes and there's three different classes to pick from which affect some events in the Pyramid and your endings. I'd recommend checking it out here! 

The TALOS Principle

"Even the most faithful blogger cannot live without his blood." -Straton of Stageira

"If you can't use your imagination, you might as well be dead." Plenyope of Argos

I've just today finished another game, removing one game from my list of games to play which is already satisfying in itself, but more satisfying was the act of playing and eventually completing the game itself.

Meow

The TALOS Principle is a First-Person Puzzle game with a science-fiction philosophical bent. I think the less that is said about what the game is about is better, as a great part of the game is figuring out what is going on, why it is going on, where you are and what or who you are. Between exploring gorgeous worlds and solving 3-Dimensional puzzles there is plenty of time for contemplating philosophy and the nature of consciousness, morality and the like.

I can't say I've even been a puzzle game enthusiast myself, the only puzzle game I owned before my Steam Summer Sale binge was Tetris on the Game Boy, so I wasn't sure how I would feel about The TALOS Principle. I purchased it in the hopes of getting a puzzle game with a fair learning curve, fun gameplay and interesting narrative as well as philosophy. I'm glad to say that is exactly what I got!

Really it is quite pretty. The world, that is. But the robot also. <3

Most of the gameplay is in separated puzzle rooms where you need to use various tools, many of which you unlock as you progress, to get through increasingly complex puzzles to collect sigils (Tetris pieces). This is really the meaty part of the game, and I personally found the puzzle-solving quite enjoyable! The difficulty starts off nice and easy as you learn just how the world works, like how jammers can disable barriers as well as mines and turrets while you can use connectors to guide laser beams from a source to a destination. I'm far from a puzzling genius, but I found the game's difficulty curve to be very fair, it never felt like the game suddenly spiked in difficulty. It was very satisfying to complete all the puzzles using my own spacial thinking as well as using other forms of reasoning for a few levels that require you to think outside of the box. By the end of the game my mind had adapted to a lot of patterns which helped me solve the puzzles despite their complexity, which was a very satisfying feeling.

This is my jam.

Aside from the puzzling there is the philosophy, which takes the form of audio recordings, text files and discussions with an entity in the game questioning the nature of concepts as consciousness and morality. I actually really liked the audio recordings in this game, they seem like a common and rather trite trend in games these days, but in this game their existence does make sense and I found their contents very pleasing to listen to and think about. The same goes for the text files, their existence is justified and make sense, they range from rather dry philosophical texts and treaties by philosophers but there's also a lot of very human correspondence in these files which to me were the highlight, I found myself always wanting to read and find more files and often being moved in some way after reading them, or laughing even.

Aw yeah, reading.

More problematic and where my first complaint with the game is, would be the times when you are asked to present your own philosophies and have them questioned by a program in the terminal. These questions started off rather basic, such as "What is 2+2" and "What best describes a person", but as the game goes on it becomes rather clear that no matter what you say or do, it's wrong and the program always comes up with counter points to which you can only reply with predefined options. This makes it hard to actually insert your own nuances into the game and late enough in the game you can't make any claim without the terminal somehow twisting it into you somehow being a fascist dictator who wants to put bad humans in work camps or think rocks have the same rights as people or whatever absurd extrapolations it makes from what you say. When I finished the game a lot of this made more sense to me, but it felt frustrating after a certain point putting in options that either get twisted somehow or don't exactly represent my thoughts. Insightful, yes, and an opportunity to think about your belief, but it can still be rather annoying.

I am not amused by your shenanigans, Milton Library Assistant.

Aside from that I also found some of the optional collectibles to be too much of a hassle, a lot of them are cleverly hidden inside the levels and require you to think outside of the box to get them, while others are hidden in hard-to-find corridors or behind hidden switches. I'd say that if you play this game and want to get them all, do not hesitate to use a guide or walkthrough. I did and it saved me a lot of annoyance.

DAMN YOU YOU DAMNED STAR

All in all I am glad I got The TALOS Principle! For the amount for which I got it, about 13 euros, it gave me 28 hours of satisfying gameplay and intriguing plot. The game's base price is 40 euros, but during sales it goes down to as low as as 10 euros so I'd definitely say to check it out if the game's on sale!

This is very childish.