Card Collecting Part 3

Card Collecting Part 1

Card Collecting Part 2

When the following year came around, I collected the 1995 editions of all three sets. But I noticed something at this time – that I was doing it mostly solo, more or less. I didn’t know of anyone else personally who was collecting these sets, so I mostly had to deal with the card shop or just rely on my paycheck and lady luck. 

The 1995 Fleer Ultra X-Men cards had some new characters (the Generation X origin story had just finished in the comics) and some more history that the previous year’s set had omitted. Once again, these were painted by various artists, and had several sets of special cards. There were some plastic cards that were transparent and double sided, Sinister Observations (Mr. Sinister’s thoughts on various heroes), as well as something called Hunters and Stalkers, which came in 3 colors (like the Marvel Masterpiece set). 

 The 1995 Flair Marvel cards were similar to the previous set in terms of quality and art style, but it only covered the previous year’s worth of story developments. I felt like at least half of the set should have been devoted to other major Marvel storylines that didn’t make the cut in the original set, and have the other half be stuff from the past couple years. Like the previous set, this had Powerblast cards, as well as some new kinds called Chromium and Holoblast, and something called Duoblast, featuring 2 similar heroes with one on each side of the card. 

When the 1996 X-Men cards debuted, I was excited because they were all done by 3 of my favorite artists: Joe, Adam, and Andy Kubert (a father and his two sons), and every card was a chromium card. While I enjoyed the set, each successive collecting experience wasn’t quite as good because the information on the cards sorta covered the same ground each time (i.e., I wasn’t learning a whole lot) and it seemed like they were more focused on the recent events (which I had kept up on by actually reading comics by this point). One interesting idea for a set of special embossed cards was the set that had the "regular" version of a character, with another card showing the "Age of Apocalypse" version in the exact same pose. 

But one thing that sorta turned me off was that this set had one included card with a signature of one of the artists on it in gold foil. Neat, but it would be nearly impossible to collect a full set of 150 special cards when only 1 came in a pack. If I had perfect luck, it would have taken me 150 packs to finish that set, and I would end up with ten (10!) full sets of “normal” cards and like 3 full sets of the other special cards. Not worth it. The Hildebrandt Marvel Masterpiece set had done something similar and I didn’t appreciate the feeling of having something that was out of my budget to collect.

But by this time, I was reading more and more comics directly and sorta phasing out the card-collecting part of my hobby, so I finished the set and its special cards (none of the signature ones) and called it a day, so to speak. One special crossover X-Men event had each issue packaged with a special X-Cutioner’s Song card. I collected all 12 and added them to my collection. In order to prevent the rings from pinching the first or last pages, I used some extra card pages filled with some of the basketball cards my brother gave me (mostly low-level Portland Trailblazers cards) to be the sacrificial cards should something unfortunate happen. 

I started also buying something called Marvel Overpower cards, which was a collectible card game (think like Marvel’s version of Magic: The Gathering). I bought the starter decks and a few booster packs, but could never find anyone to play with so I just have them but don’t use them. Wizard Magazine, a publication about comic books and its related merchandise, packaged a special card for Overpower with their 50th issue. I bought one from 7-11, but it turns out that the card was either forgotten or stolen. So I surreptitiously took the card out of another issue a few days later. They also started issuing a special card with each issue and so I have a set of Wizard cards as well. 

Years later, when I discovered that some of these cards were being traded on eBay, I was able to complete my collection of the original 1994 Fleer set - the one Red Foil card I could never find. Then I found that there were a few other holes in my collections that I could fill using these online auctions, and sorta went a little overboard (as one does). But I finally completed everything and stopped the spending. The only things I don't have are the Silver X-Over cards (which I mentioned go for around $500 these days) and things like the giant cards that came as case toppers (meant for store display purposes, so I don't feel like those are "part of the set," but they often get listed with the cards).

I hung onto the full sets and have them nicely organized in binders, and any extra cards (including special cards) are safely stored in little boxes in totes in my shed. I should find something to do with them.

Card Collecting Part 2

Card Collecting Part 1

Once I had acquired a taste for card collecting, I wanted to keep going. During my frequent visits to the card shop, the owner would introduce me to new sets. The next one I had my eye on was the Flair Marvel set. Flair was an imprint of Fleer, and were their highest quality products. These cards were made/colored in Photoshop or some other computer program, used cardboard that was easily at least twice as thick, and had a very nice slick UV coating on them. Instead of coming in foil wrapped packs, these came in small cardboard boxes.

Like the previous set, there were 150 cards, but only 18 special foil cards. As I recall, I was able to get all of the cards without too much issue and only had to trade with a friend-of-a-friend once for a particular special card.

However, unlike the previous set, this one was not X-Men only. The set was a celebration of the biggest and most memorable events in the Marvel comics universe up to that point. Examples include character/team debuts, character deaths (like Gwen Stacy), crossovers, major stories (like the Phoenix Saga), and many other snippets of the 30 year history of these characters. These cards expanded my knowledge of the Marvel Universe quite a bit, and allowed me to feel at ease about buying a comic book in that I would probably know who a majority of the referenced characters were now. 

Around this time my mom became concerned about how much money I was spending on these silly little cards. I reassured her that I was being responsible - in fact, it was precisely because of these cards and how I hated being broke 28 days out of the month that I forced myself to learn how to budget. Anyway, my weak defense was that they were worth something and that I could sell complete sets to recoup the money for things like college or going to Japan. The concept of comics as investments had been in the news recently so I defaulted to that. She asked to whom and how would I go about doing such a thing. I didn't have an answer, but found one years later - eBay (though I had obviously overestimated their projected value and demand). 

The third set I collected was the 1994 Marvel Universe set. It had 200 cards in the set, with a variety of solo cards and 9-card page sets telling a complete story arc in one picture. This set had some holographic cards, and I happened to get one on my very first pack. There were only 4 of them, and I had spectacularly good luck getting those particular ones. Besides these there were the usual Powerblast cards, but these came in 3 varieties and were a pain to collect. Packs from Wal-Mart came in a gold variety, packs from a hobby shop (like the Card Shop) came in silver, and anyplace else had "rainbow" versions. The collector in me decided that I needed all 3 so I eventually did it. They also had something called "Suspended Animation," which were on transparent plastic and were double sided (it was supposed to emulate a celluloid animation frame). 

Another one I got was the Marvel Masterpiece set. These were a set of 150 cards that had the most popular and relevant characters that were in the stories in the comics from the recent years. Each card had more character history and facts on it, but what was unique was that the entire set was painted by the same duo – the Hildebrandt Brothers – so there weren’t various styles from card to card like previous sets.

There were 10 special holofoil cards, but they each came in three flavors (like the last set) - gold, silver, and bronze. Because I was chasing a complete set of 30 of these holofoils, I ended up buying enough cards to do almost 3 full normal card sets. I gifted one to my brother Matt, hoping he would use it to get more into the comics side of things (it didn’t work so well). There were also 9 other Powerblast cards that I almost collected 2 full sets of during my pursuit of the 30 holofoils.


With four full sets of Marvel/X-Men cards, I had spent quite a bit of time and money on them. They became like my pride and joy, and I pored over them for hours reading the information and admiring the artwork. I learned quite a bit about the characters, but learned that I quite like collecting things. I made sure to have them in the best kinds of binders using the best kinds of pages and other ways of preserving them so nothing became ruined. 

Card Collecting Part 3

Card Collecting Part 1

The thing that got me into buying, reading, and collecting comics is cards. And what got me into cards was my brother Chad.

I had always been interested in superheroes and stuff, but I tend to be an “all-or-nothing” kind of guy. When I decide to pursue a hobby, I’m all in. Which can be good and bad. Good because I invest deeply into it and become well versed and knowledgeable, but bad because I look at the time/money/opportunity cost it would take to be fully committed to something new, and often decide that it’s not worth the effort. Unfortunately, it’s like I’m gate-keeping myself out of something I could possibly enjoy because I don’t want to do it casually.

In the case of comic books, I often saw them at convenient store or department stores. But the thing that made me shy away from them (besides the actual price) is the number 162 or 459, and by those I mean the issue numbers. See, I had this idea that a comic book was one long, continuous story (I mean, it IS) and that beginning in chapter Two-Hundred-Something meant that I had missed tons of relevant plot points and character interactions in those past issues so I would be lost.

What I didn’t know about comics was that there are often just 3- or 4-issue story arcs, and that it’s easier to “jump in” to a comic book at beginning of one of those. I also didn’t know that a lot of good writers often summed up important past continuity points for newer readers. Had I known that, I probably would have started sooner. 

The other main thing that kept me away was knowing that there would be more characters that I was unfamiliar with. For example, from the various animated series I could probably have named 4 or 5 Superman villains. But someone like Brainiac or a place like the bottle-city of Kandor were unknown to me, and I would be lost when those kinds of things came up in conversations/stories. 

Watching an animated series is a good way of getting to know major characters, and especially when they’re made for an audience who is unacquainted with most of the world those characters inhabit. In the case of the X-Men, I had just an inkling of who they were from some past animated series (I think I had caught Pryde of the X-Men or seen them on a Spider-Man and Friends episode or something) and seeing a friend draw Wolverine in class. But I was excited to see it on Fox Saturday morning cartoons. 

You can hear this picture. 

So I started watching the X-Men animated series somewhat religiously and immediately fell in love with the concept of mutants and the themes they presented. But I wasn’t quite to the level of wanting to buy the comics, because I knew that there were more characters and past stories I was unfamiliar with. 

What got my foot in the door, as it were, was the 1994 Fleer Ultra X-Men card set. Somehow Chad had ended up with a few of them and I saw them. These things were gorgeous; instead of the usual pen/ink comic book drawings, these were painted by many talented artists. I read the bios and character histories on the backs of the few cards he had and decided that completing this set was a worthwhile endeavor. 

I started helping Chad collect the set, and discovered that a few of my friends also were collecting these so I had some people to trade with. Slowly we filled up pages with cards, and because I had access to more money due to my paper route, I could fill in the gaps more quickly than Chad. Besides buying new packs at department stores, we made frequent visits to the local sports card shop. They had all kinds of things there, but one valuable resource was that we could buy singles for a quarter or less to acquire cards that we hadn’t been able to get because of bad luck in picking packs. I started to also familiarize myself with the necessary accessories such as plastic protectors, sleeves, boxes, and pages that held 9 cards in a 3-ring binder. My other brother Matt helped educate me on some of the finer aspects of these things, having collected many, many sports cards (mainly basketball) in previous years. 

Along the way we got a few of the special cards and eventually got the whole set. Once we had them all and I had devoured the information on the backs, I felt somewhat educated in the world and history of the X-Men. But I had also discovered that I liked collecting sets like these. Once we had a full set, the journey was complete, and I sorta felt disappointed that it was over so soon (and by soon, it had been like 7 weeks). 

 I decided to start again. I wanted my own set in pristine condition and with matching, new card pages in a nice binder. I took some of the doubles that I had collected and placed them accordingly, and then bought a bunch of new packs to get me started. The binder I chose had a clear pocket so I could slip a picture of whatever I wanted into it. I made a drawing of one of the special sets of nine cards that all made one big picture when put together and colored it. 

 But in addition to the main 150 card set, I decided that it would be fun to get all of the special cards as well. That was going to be more of an ambitious endeavor, as there were several sets of special cards which were immediately identifiable by their foil backgrounds. Most packs of 10 cards had a fairly good chance of having one special card in them. There were 40 in total, but only 34 of them were reasonable (though still difficult) to collect. Each special set had something like a one-in-five or one-in-seven chance of having a card in a pack, but getting the right cards together involved a lot more trading and buying from the card shop. Overall, I would say I had fairly good luck at getting the cards I wanted and only had to trade for a few of the ones I couldn’t find in packs or at the shop, but when I traded cards I tended to sweeten the pot for the other party so they wouldn’t regret making the trade with me. Finally at long last I had all the cards except for one – and it was one that could only be found in Wal-Mart packs (they had an exclusive deal with Fleer at the time). It wouldn’t be until around 2007 that I would finally track down that missing card with the help of eBay. 

There were 6 others that were foil versions of some of the regular cards, but they were only in 1:11 packs from Wal-Mart, and I could never find any. These days a full set of 6 goes for somewhere between $400 and $600 on online auctions. 

After completing the collection, I found that I basically had enough doubles to have another full set of regular cards (with only a few missing). I bought the necessary pages and binder for them and gifted them to my son Avery years later. 

Once I had this set and a few others under my belt, I felt well versed enough in the X-Men (and Marvel) comic histories that I started buying comics, but that’s a story for another post.


Card Collecting Part 2

Card Collecting Part 3

I finally played Skyward Sword again . . .

This is a follow up to a previous post about having played Skyward Sword only once, even though I’ve played through every other Zelda game at least 3 times, and even some of the spin-offs multiple times.

My wife has slowly been making her way through the Zelda series, and has now completed everything except Skyward Sword and Breath of the Wild. Since I consider BotW to be a far superior game, I want her to play that one last. So we’re playing Skyward Sword together, and I’m using it as motivation to finally play it a second time, and after almost 8 years, I have a new and slightly different perspective on the game.


The Positive:

The tutorial went faster than I remember it going, but probably mostly because I didn’t wander into certain rooms/situations (like sword training or trying to find trinkets in the dorm rooms, or waste time talking to people) until absolutely necessary and I knew I could skip a lot of exploration because I already knew that it yields no items/treasures/side quests/etc. until much later in the game. 

The story is actually pretty decent, even if they dropped the ball on a few items of lore/continuity with other games. Link constantly running after his friend and getting involved with something bigger than himself and then finding out that he's the chosen hero is a common Zelda plot, but this added some good dramatic tension. Groose, in particular, has some good character development. 

The dungeon designs/atmospheres were also among some of the better in the series, and bosses like Koloktos, Ghirahim, and Demise were very satisfying fights. While I like the idea of Ghirahim being the anti-Fi and Demise's sword being the antithesis to the Master Sword, I feel like their impact as such is lessened because we never see Demise's sword again in "future" games. And because this new lore was ignored in the next game released (ALBW), the upside-down Triforce on the sword now makes it look like it belonged to Lorule. But this idea of twin opposing weapons was used in both Ninja Gaiden II  (the Dragon Sword and the Dark Sword of Chaos) and Harry Potter (Harry and Voldemort's wands) and I like the idea - I just wish it got developed further.

Some of my previous criticisms in my prior post weren’t quite as bad as I remember them. For example, there were a couple more musical cues from past games than I thought, and Fi doesn’t solve the puzzles for you quite as much as I remembered, even if she is like an overbearing Jewish mother telling you where to go and what to do before you even have time to make a decision. The final Skyloft dungeon with its interchangeable rooms was very innovative, and was kinda like a Zelda version of a review before a test.


The Negative:


A lot of what Fi says/does is sort of intended for players who are either brand new to the Zelda series, or just new to games in general. The whole game seems to be using the "training wheels protocol," and assumes nobody has ever played a game (ever) which is good for beginners but horrible for experienced players. For example, when a sign tells you that you should definitely not do something (like throw stones into a circle of rocks), gamers know to try it out. Or when dialogue hints that you should follow someone to a secret entrance, Zelda players know to follow that person. But when Fi pops out to explain that you should definitely try to throw the stone in, follow the person, or that there's an 90% chance that the dungeon boss is behind the big door, I just want to reach into the TV and yell, “No shit, Sherlock!” and it shouldn’t take 4 pages of unskippable dialogue to tell you as much.

I know there are video game tropes that are sometimes lost on new players and that the Zelda series has its own tropes (like how switches, torches, and block-pushing work). So there should be an option to mark that “I’ve played a video game before” and a “I’ve played Zelda before” that disables these unnecessary hints. In other words, there should be three levels of hand-holding and many hints/suggestions would be disabled for experienced games.

It takes soooooo long to get through text boxes. Every time you accidentally fall off of Skyloft, or try to buy something takes a while to get through. If you want something done multiple times, there isn’t a quick “duplicate this purchase/task” button. You have to read the entire text again (to be fair, this is a common thing I’ve complained about on games like Minish Cap or Wind Waker). Besides the useless text, there’s a lot of time wasted in showing you things like how the map works in excruciatingly slow detail every time a new section gets opened up. Like, I get it, OK? I don't need to be reminded what each bug is every time I get one. 

I’m still bothered by the Lore that’s ignored/changed, the fact that there was another Link before this one (Hylia’s Chosen Hero), and suddenly there’s a 4th goddess we’ve never heard about even though it’s supposed to be the first story chronologically. Somehow an ancient society in the Lanayru Desert had such good tech but is now lost (this continues in BotW - 10,000 years ago the Shiekah figured out how to make walking robots and lasers then somehow everyone kinda forgot how to make them). Link is given the outfit/hat with no thought of how “future” games address the issue. “Worldbuilding” isn’t something that’s taken into account much, as it seems that besides Aonuma, Miyamoto, and a handful of other top people, each Zelda game is made by a different team of programmers/designers. And it seems like this is the game where the Master Sword went from being the blade of evil's bane to being the sword that seals the darkness, and turns it into the ghost-containment unit from Ghostbusters. 

The Backtracking. Since the Gorko the Goron is able to show up in multiple places, it would be nice if all 3 areas got interconnected somehow eventually (or if there were a 4th and 5th region instead of re-using the same 3 areas). That would make it a little more “metroidvania-ish” and all the backtracking would be a little more justified (it seems like they were kinda going for this a little). The only problem is that the areas weren’t connected and the only real thing physically stopping Link from getting to some ledges/places was the hookshot. In other metroidvania style games, there are several obstacles that can be overcome, like wall hugging or double jumping. While I appreciate that the creators tried to make effective/efficient use of the same terrain while making each area like a dungeon puzzle, it just gets tiring having to retread the same ground with an additional challenge (Stealth, escort mission, itemless, etc.). Fast travel between bird statues would have fixed a lot of tedium and lessened the impact of the backtracking. I will say, however, that playing it less frequently (because Anne only plays a couple times a week) makes some of the backtracking seem less tedious. 

To top it all off, the boss rush mode is required if you want the last piece of heart and the best shield. I don't mind when games do it, I'm just not a fan of a boss rush mode in general. Most games just have the boss rush mode as a bragging rights thing, and skipping out on it doesn't impact the game. But this game forces you to do it if you want that stuff (which I do). So what it means is that instead of fighting Ghirahim and the Imprisoned 3 times each, it usually ends up closer to 6 times each (depending on the random bosses picked by the game). After feeling like it gets old having to re-tread the same 3 areas, having to do so with the bosses just makes it that much worse. I think if the three Imprisoned battles changed - like each time it became more human looking - it would have lessened the feeling of tedium and given a hint as to what it was. 

It seems weird that new races show up (kikwis, mogmas, parella [water people]) that don’t seem to be direct progenitors of other races, the way that Koroks are supposed to be evolved Kokiri and Rito are evolved Zora. This kinda goes back to the whole worldbuilding concept and working backwards from where they already had established lore. As a good example, George Lucas had the art designers “wedgie” out the capital ships on Star Wars Episode 2, and had other designs in Episode 3 that can be easily identified as the forerunners to Star Destroyers, X-Wings, and Tie Fighters.

For as few mini-games as there are in Skyward Sword, they aren’t as good/deep as other games. For example, not a lot of feedback is given during the duet with Kina. As simple as playing the harp is made to be, doing the song is really difficult. A meter like what Guitar Hero gives you would have been nice. And the skydiving one on Fun Fun Island seems to be based a lot more on luck than skill.

The following criticisms are still valid, but I don’t have much more to add to what I already posted: Skyfield is still empty, some of the bosses are kinda dumb-looking, and the enemy selection is rather small.

And for the amount people complain about the linearity of this game, the one part of non-linearity they put in actually had a game-breaking bug in it that required downloading a separate update channel for the Wii if it happened.

If I could remake the game . . .

I would give a left/right hand version choice for the sword (without mirroring the whole game) and a better UI experience (not so many stops/pauses to show bug inventory going up, faster shop dialogue, less pointless menu questions, etc.), and fast-travel between bird statues. These things should definitely be a part of any remake Nintendo does, and mainly falls in the category of “quality of life” upgrades. Just fixing these things (which would be easy and wouldn't involve having to re-program the whole game) would make it 10 times better. 

The Master Sword should have been forged from scratch, not already existing as the Goddess Sword which evolved. The “finding the 3 special metals” concept has already been done to make the Phantom Sword, so have 3 different swordsmiths each make a different part of the sword (handle, blade, and jewel or something) and have Link collect the 3 flames (that part doesn’t need to change) that are required to make the white fire to purify the metal and infuse the power of the Three Golden Goddesses in the smithy’s forge (which can be acquired in any order). And then have Fi enter the sword as the final step but sell it as a self-sacrifice before the final battle to give the sword its full potential/shine/beam. If Fi wasn’t so annoying it would be a bittersweet moment. This would all be much better than having the pre-made sword just magically change shape/color/size.

Discovering Hyrule for the first time should have been really cool. Seeing a few landmarks (Lake Hylia or spectacle rock), heck even MAKING a few landmarks (the forest draining could have been the start of Lake Hylia or Spectacle Rock could have been the last 2 remaining boulders from a large scale assault that Link was helping the Gorons defend, or something.

Make the timeshift stones a bigger part of the game, not just a specific dungeon/area. It was a really cool idea and was wasted on such a small portion of the game.

Conclusion

After playing through BotW, I now kinda see what they were going for but just didn’t do terribly well. My physics professor told me of a music experiment some people did where they took a whole bunch of popular songs and were able to figure out the common things, like a particular beat pattern, chord progressions, and such. After figuring out what people like, they constructed a song that had all the things in common. In theory, it should have been the greatest song ever. But it was pretty boring, actually. Meanwhile, a song put together of all the elements that weren’t so popular turned out to be somewhat more interesting. It kinda illustrates the point that, in theory, SS had all the Zelda elements there and by all accounts should have been the best Zelda game, while BotW was an open world game that was just kinda Zelda-ish and broke a lot of Zelda conventions, but was way better overall. I will say that a couple of areas where Skyward Sword shined were the weaker parts of BotW, namely dungeons and story.

Overall, I would say that the flaws overshadow the good parts. I was probably more disappointed that the game isn’t what it could have been, and disappointment is the gap between expectations and reality. I also get the feeling that there were high aspirations for this game but that they had to cut a lot of content, which is odd, given the long development time (5 years) between Twilight Princess and this one (from what I understand there are different teams that work on handheld and console games). I just wonder what else could have been.

But having said all that, a low-end Zelda is still about a mid-range game when compared to other games overall. If SS were a standalone game (not connected to the Zelda franchise) I probably would have been a little more accepting of it. But I hold Zeldas to a higher standard. The biggest reason for disliking it as much as I do is just the wide gulf between what I was hoping for/expected and what the final product was.

Update: Since the HD remake, I will add that it fixes almost all of the easily fixable problems, like UI/UX, skippable scenes, motion controls, disabling hints, and a few other things. Changing any of the story elements or lore would require a new game made from the ground up, so I understand why nothing of that nature was changed, but I very much enjoyed my third playthrough of it using a combination of motion controls and button controls. 



List of specific callbacks for the 25th Anniversary

In my previous post I mentioned that they tried including elements from past games, but I only listed the bad ones.


AoL: Goddess looks like Trophy (this one might be less intentional)

OoT: Headmaster Gaepora, the 6 symbols around the Sealed Grounds dome

MM: hand in toilet, swimming

OoA: Losing all items and having to refind them

WW: Whip/Grappling thingy, Groose catapulting Link was like what the Pirates did

FSA: Zelda breaking out of her crystal was similar to the captured maidens

MC: Mole Mitts, Gust Jar

TP: A “twilight” world where you collect tears, flamboyant colorful cannon man,
       double clawshots, final boss distracted by bug net, Gate of Time resembled the
       Twilight Mirror

PH: Revisiting the same areas/dungeons. Guardians chasing you around.
       Treasure hunting. Drawing on goddess wall. Tears collected look like
       gems P/W/C gems.