We go to Olympus Colosseum, and I somehow make an Ayn Rand joke…

To fill out what was left out of this series, after we finish up in this world, we return later to participate in more tournaments and eventually kick the crap out of Hades. Later, Sephiroth appears, but that’s not canon. We don’t come back here, so I might as well get it out of the way for completion’s sake.

My “Ayn Rand’s Parasites” comment might seem completely out of left field, but it’s more fitting than I’d like it to be. Frankly, the companion AI is stupid. Most players will start off by removing every item from their allies’ inventories because they’ll likely waste them in a stupid way.

Or at least, they might if they don’t spend of most of a given boss fight knocked out. By and large, the player (as Sora) will be doing all of the work. On top of that, your party is unable to deliver a finishing blow. The fatal hit *must* come from Sora, or the boss will keep attacking.

So while it’s nice to have party members, you’ll rarely think about them.

In this episode, we grow small to visit Wonderland.

Just to make our respect for her clear, we want to point out once more that the voice actress, Kathryn Beaumont, is still voicing the same character that she’s been voicing since 1951.

Also, get used to me saying “I actually really like this boss fight,” because I end up saying it a lot over the course of this series. Each one of these boss fights has it’s own gimmick that separates them from the others. As a result, each one of them feels fresh and interesting, even if you’ve played the game multiple times (like I have).

To appropriate an overused phrase, “It’s like Dark Souls”.

I want to talk about content ID. Starting from 2:25 and ending at 3:17 of this episode of Hitman (2016), I hide in a coffin in a morgue, attached to a church. During this time, an angelic song plays in the background.

Imagine my surprise when I found this shortly after I uploaded the video (it was unlisted at the time, like most of my videos are pre-release).

Yes, the song was from legendary composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and it was copyright claimed by a group called Atmosphere TV (or, more accurately, a bot on their behalf).

None of this will be new or interesting if you are one of those people who knows how YouTube works and what it is like. But it’s more evidence that their ecosystem is broken in a severe way. I uploaded this video a month ago and got the dispute filed the day after, when I saw it was made. But that still gives Atmosphere TV 30 days to respond.

I have a day job and don’t make money off my YouTube content, so this doesn’t affect me personally at all. For someone whose livelihood comes off YouTube, this would mean that the claimant has 30 days to just mooch off their content and bleed them dry without having to do anything beyond saying that Mozart is owned by them.

YouTube does have a process (and from my experience testing it, not a bad one) to scrub the song from the video, but I shouldn’t have to scrub my video of public domain content just because someone else falsely claimed to own it.

YouTube, fix your broken system.

Our time in Sapienza comes to an end…

The episodic nature of this game is pretty unique. Until this game came out, the only time the episodic model was seen was in the likes of Telltale’s adventure games and others like them. Developers didn’t try to use that model in other products. Alan Wake had “episodes”, but it was still one full retail game on release.

When this game was first announced, everyone was weary of it. Not only did Absolution fail to stick the landing, but the business behind this game was so scatterbrained that it seemed like IO and Square Enix didn’t know what they were doing.

But it works…

As it turns out, each level is big enough that it can stand of its own. I spend a good 2 hours on my initial run in each level, and so far I’ve spent more playtime in this game than I have in all my playthroughs of Blood Money combined.

There’s usually just enough content in a level, plus all the Escalation Missions, Contracts, and Elusive Targets, that there is a lot of replayability on offer. By the time you’re completely done with Hitman, there’s some new piece of content just out on the horizon.

Even for someone like me, who only plays one “main” game at a time, I can fit it into my schedule my dedicating a weekend or a little bit of time to Hitman, then going back to what I’m actually playing as my “main” title.

I scorned them before the Hitman Beta for how they planned to roll out this new game, but not only do I respect IO for sticking to their guns, I think it resulted in a much more engaging product overall. It makes me wonder how else an episodic model might be applied to improve a game. It’s possible Hitman is in a unique position to use it, since the games were always more about gameplay than story. However, I find it hard to believe that Hitman is the only such game.

Our recounting of the Kingdom Hearts series continues as we destroy the Destiny Islands and beat up Final Fantasy characters.

In this episode, we compare Sora and Riku to Naruto and Sasuke. This is a more apt comparison then we expected it to be in the episode, and we actually end up making that comparison again several times in the primer for Kingdom Hearts 1.

Sora, like Naruto, is a naive teenager whose simple charm gives him an almost supernatural aptitude for gaining and maintaining friendships with other people. They both tend to get in way over their heads, but still manage to save the day against all odds.

Riku, like Sasuke, is wiser than his friend. Though there is a sense of friendship, this friendship is as competitive as it is cooperative. Although Riku and Sasuke start out superior to their rivals/friends, the fact that their friends keep getting better, stronger, and happier leads to a growing jealousy and sentiment. This causes them to turn on their once friend, and now enemy.

The difference being that Riku only needed one game to get over it, while it took Sasuke an entire series to do the same.

Fuck Sasuke.

After our fabulous performance in Paris, we head to Italy for some much a needed vacation… and murder.

After this episode, I looked up the use of the Modern Lethal Syringe, just in case I had missed a good, or at least an interesting, use for it.

Unfortunately, my conclusion seems to be the consensus. The modern lethal syringe only exists so that even if the player can’t find good lethal poison in a level, that they still have a valid method of complete challenges for taking care of targets with poison.

But this renders the weapon redundant in a few ways. Most missions have a poison vial somewhere in the level. I have personally found a vial in every level aside from Sapienza. So even if the syringe wasn’t there, I could still get poison kills.

And speaking of Sapienza, leveling up to level 11 in Sapienza nets players the infinitely more useful Lethal Poison Vial. Instead of having to directly inject the poison into a target, like with the syringe, the poison vial can be used on food and drink, to kill targets when the go for a snack. This will almost always be a more discreet action, take less effort, and put the player in a better position to complete the contract.

There’s nothing wrong with having a few items that aren’t very valuable, and the game isn’t made worse with the inclusion of the lethal syringe. It just seems odd to have it there at all. In any circumstance where it would make sense to use the Modern Lethal Syringe, it would much more sense to use either your bare hands (and free up that slot for another item with more utility) or the Fiber Wire (which as we’ll discuss in the next episode, is also fairly worthless).

Welcome ladies and gentleman. Interactive Friction returns once more. Sam and I have a new idea for a series, and today we’re excited to share it with you.

And now, for a funny little diversion.

Though this episode does show off a little bit of what I was talking about last episode, in truth this was just an excuse to have a little bit of fun.

In case anyone thinks that Hitman is a serious game for serious people, show them this episode. Trust me, it’ll teach’em.

We… look…. FABULOUS!

The feedback loop for this game is one of its smartest systems, because it encourages exactly the kind of behavior gives the player the best possible “Hitman” experience.

Players start with a single entrance point, and a single location they can smuggle an item into, along with some starter equipment. This gives them enough to successfully complete the level the first time (they could even do Silent Assassin if they are attentive enough, but that’s unlikely).

But then, once they’ve completed the level, they gain experience in that level for the challenges completed on the way (and since killing the target the first time is it’s own challenge, this is guaranteed). They go up in their “Mastery Level” for the stage, and gain new weapons/items, new starting locations, and new places they can smuggle equipment in through.

Knowing that more bonuses await, they are encouraged to replay the level, and find more unique kills and opportunities to complete challenges. This process is made easier both because they already know the level layout from having played it previously and by having new items and starting points to work with.

Then they complete new opportunities, gain more bonuses, and the loop continues on. Since Hitman is a series that thrives on players who love to explore and discover, encouraging this behavior through it’s challenge/reward system gives the player the best possible chance of enjoying the game.

It’s genius, and it’s so bizarre to think that the genesis of these challenges is Hitman: Absolution, of all the games.

Ladies, gentleman, and all other persuasions, we at Interactive Friction are pleased to announce our new project. That’s right, Sam and I are back at it!

Welcome…. to Kingdom Hearts.

A long while back, Sam and I were talking about how he didn’t really understand the plot to Kingdom Hearts, while I did. So, in anticipation of Kingdom Hearts 3, we decided to do a series on the plot of the series, such as it stands.

We couldn’t have anticipated what a colossal undertaking this would turn out to be. Ultimately, the recording of this series is ongoing and it will likely be the most ambitious Interactive Friction project to date.

The idea will be to release new episodes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, starting next week. To accommodate this, the Hitman (2016) LP will transition to a Tuesday/Thursday schedule.

Get excited, guys. This is going to be quite the ride!