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December 2006 Critique -AND- Year In Review |
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This month's items are the Elemental Hair, Winter Rose, and Flame Sword!
And they said we would like them...
And they were right. Initially, I thought "OMG! WTF?! Fantasy Items on Gaia?!" I'm well aware that there is a petition going around for more fantasy items in the site feedback, so this should calm them down until the next item update. However, I'm not to keen on the choices. Especially since they were toting this month's letter as the best value of the year. But we will save the group critique for after the individual critiques (as well as something extra special!).
Hair in the Wind
Instead of releasing more wigs, they decided to release one item with eight different modes (two for each gender). Works for me I guess, but the Wig Petition is probably going to want more out there. Why the Salon is not all that popular, you wonder? It's because Vennessa doesn't offer hair like these.
The default element is fire. The first version appears to be the male version while the second appears to be the female. Both pretty much turn you into Disney's version of Hades, only without the balding complex of James Wood. Now, you would think that the flame hair would be great to use with the Pheonix Circlet. Fire bird, fire head. Can't lose, right? Well, apparently there are layering issues that will probably be fixed between now and three months down the line. Where the bangs are for either version tends to vary depending on what other hat or head item you want to wear. Circle goes over the wig, Ninja Head Band goes under, the new Alien Antennas go on top of the wig, the Fox Ears sit nicely in the middle where they should be. But one thing is for sure: Wearing a hat with flame hair sucks.
The second element in the list is wind. The male version is shorter than the female version, similar to the fire element, but it's hard to actually distinguish which is suppose to be which to be honest. To the best of my ability, the male version is the one that sweeps upwards and the female version is the one that sweeps downwards. Either way, your hair turns into several nice swirls of clouds. Much to my surprise, the Solar Headdress works well with this wig, but you will have to deal with layering issues if you intend on using the version that goes downward. Similar to the fire version, items tend to go on top of the hair even in places where it is obvious that the hair should go above the item. Another nice surprise is the fact that the male version also works well with the O RLY Hat thanks to the lack of a strange layering glitch involving the hat brims. However, that much white limits what you can wear from the neck down. Then again, so does the female version. This element requires a lot of white clothing, actually. Mostly of the flowing kind.
The next element is earth. Here, things start to become drasticly different. The male version features a short cut of green hair that is similar to that of Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop and emulated by Mugin from Samuari Champloo... but with twigs and three baby chicks nesting in it. Think Miss Crabtree from South Park, only more stylish. Normally, hair this spikey would look good under a hat, but very few hats that I own work well to cover up the little chicks thanks to the addition of the twigs in the design. But the Golden Laurels match it just fine. The female version of this element is similar to the design of Disney's representation of Mother Earth in Fantasia 2000. Here, you get long flowing green hair that slowly turns into vines. You even get your own tiara made out of twigs automatically! And as an added bonus, you get seveal friendly bugs such as butterflies and dragonflies. However, as nice as this mode is, there are several problems with trying to find something that matches with it. There are not that many green items in the stores that I've seen that match with the earthy nature of this hair style. In fact, even some of the brown clothing items don't match with it. This mode doesn't suffer from a
hat glitch, but to be perfectly honest, you shouldn't wear one with the female version of this hair. It just makes you, your hair, or your hat look ugly.
The last element is split between two states of water. The male version features an Elivs-style cut molded out of ice. It even features a small chip of ice on your shoulder! Symbolic? Perhaps. Female avatars will like this mode, mostly because of how well the Ice Tiara works with it. It doesn't form a hair style so much as it forms a new kind of Ice Crown. However, this mode is pickey when it comes to hats. It seems to favor those with wide brims like the baseball hats or even the Guppy Fishing Hats. And for those of you that saw Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, you'll be happy to know that, yes, you can wear this wig with the Santa Hat and still look pretty swanky. The female version of this mode features the liquid state of water in the classic woodblock print style of wave design. Those of you who know anyting about Japanese printmaking know what I"m talking about. Hell, any of you who have been into a decent Japanese resturant know what I'm talking about! This mode is the single-most dramatic hair ever designed out of the bunch. And you have the ability to pick between two matching color sets. Granted you are limited to between blue or white, but it's still better than the other seven versions in this item's menu. If played right, you can become the ruler of the seas of Gaia!
Overall, there is only one decent hair style in this item. The others are probably going to tickle the fancy of other people in one way or another, which is a good thing. But personal prefrance aside, this item wasn't really needed. We really chould have used just regular hair stylings of these in the Salon to take all the extra gold out of the system instead of causing an inflation on an item. But for what it's worth, at least it was designed nicely.
A Rose by Any Other Name
It's pretty obvious from the get-go that the Winter Rose was designed to replace the rare female rose that was given out around Gaia's first birthday. What makes this item better than the original is that it is unisexed. Value will not drop for the original red rose, as it is a female only item, but at least us guys can finally wear a nice flower on our tuxedo. And with that, I pretty much end my critique on the default mode of that item.
Moving on to the next mode you can wear this rose, Upon My Lips mode is only to be taken advantage of when you want your avatar to tango. Or hit on a Gaian in a really cheesey fashion that will result in you getting slapped in the face by a paper fan pulled from the mystical fourth-dimension pocket. It's not a mode I see as being used very often, to be honest.
A mode I can see being used a lot is Grand Bouquet. Here is probably the first item that actually requires a specific, two-hand position combination in order for it to be on your avatar simply because of how large it is. This mode is ideal for anyone that wants to dress up as a bride. It is also a mode that may put Rina out of business. It is bigger than pretty much all of her Deluxe Bouquets you can make at her shop. For guys, however, I don't know how you would use this short of dressing up in drag and being the male bride in a gay wedding.
Speaking of weddings, this flower comes in a Dress mode! That's right, male and female avatars can wear a very flowery dress of the purest white, complete with rose petel frills towards the bottom of the dress. It's a nice competition for the Elegant Veil, as you don't have to buy three of it to make a decent dress. It comes in once nice and neatly designed gown for anyone to wear. Incidently, it also matches the Elegant Veil rather nicely. In fact, putting the glove mode of the veil on with the Floral Gown completes it in my opinion. The only draw back is that, as with most white items, there is a different shade of white in both items, making it impossible for them to match. Well, almost.
Flora Crown Mode is suppose to make you want to buy a second item, as this mode appears to match the dress in a nice alternative to the Elegant Veil. But if you have one, you don't need the other. There are better ribbons out there to match the dress. In fact, the crown itself is rather big on even the male avatars head.
Nest of Thorns mode is another one of the modes that falls into this same catagory. As the name suggests, your avatar is wrapped by rose vines from head to hip and down to your wrists. But I do not see how anyone can make this work with clothing. If anything, anyonw wearing this mode will have to use as little clothing as possible for the top half of their avatars. Girls should take advantage of this mode and cosplay as Poison Ivy, however. That seems more viable as an option for this mode.
Rosy Cap is pretty much that. The Rose becomes a giant hat. And to be honest, it makes it look like you are wearing the same hat as the old design of Strawberry Shortcake before she got her modern look. Nothing much really to say here except good luck trying to get something that will make the hat look good. Probably the Angelic Parasol, but even that's a stretch.
Keeping in line of a giant rose, Thumbilina mode is one of those modes that is just generally strange but in a cute way. There is nothing special about this mode initially. It's just your avatar standing in the middle of a giant white rose. But what happens when you sit down? Why, the rose closes up and all we can see is your head! Cute! I can finally look like a Cabbage Patch Kid, only without the cabbage! Fun! Should be interesting what kind of strange combinations between this mode and the various masks available in Gaia.
The last mode I'll mention is the mode I believe will be used a lot. It is the anime staple of the rain of rose petals. This device is used normally when someone of great beauty or love lust comes on screen. Normally, it's a slow motion running sequence or a full body scan of the romantic sort often accompanied by lens flares in the most grotesque amount of overuse ever deviced by the production team. Expect this on a lot of Gaian hotties. Hell, I plan on using it a few times myself when I'm in something blatently sexual like my Dancer Set or even in an outfit where the majority of my clothing is skin tight! You get the general idea of how this will be used.
Overall, the variety of the item doesn't really help win this item any points. It is nice to have one if you absolutely must have one of the modes, but that is where I would stop. There are more white dresses out there now for the girls of Gaia that you could pick from that are just as nice as the gown included with the rose. But if you do get one, at least it isn't entirely useless as an accessory.
Lair, Lair, Pants on Fire!
Did we really need a fire sword? Seriously, did we? We already have the Fire Gauntlets and the flame whips. But wait! Nearly 60% of the modes are for back wings!! And everyone's been wanting more back wings, right? Weapons that are back wings worked for the Angelbow and Deamonbow, so why not?
I'll tell you why not. Because in order to get the wings, you need to buy two. That's right. One sword only gets you one wing. And none of the wings look all that impressive by themselves. You can mix and match the wings to create some interesting designs, however. But in the end, you will still need two just to have the wings.
As a sword, it's pretty much standard game. You can hold it and duel-weild it in each of the hand positions just like any other item.
And just when you thought this item was going to get boring, the artists sneek in a new mode! a** on Fire! mode (or @$$ on fire! as it is labeled), is one of those rare modes that is suppose to be comical. While it is from the back of your avatar, it isn't from the front. Yes, your a** is on fire, but the lack of a decent "yell" mouth expression will make you want to buy the Gonk Emote Mask or something similar to the expression you are going for. Frankly, the Shocked Emote Mask looks more appropriate for this mode. This mode could be funny in so many ways, but the fact that the sword is still there by your avatar's feet takes it back several notches on the Laugh-o-Meter. It would have been a better design if the sword wasn't there and you just had to deal with a flaming hot a**. And I don't mean that in a sexual way.
There's not much really that this items has to offer, especially given the whole advertising about how great this letter will be because we have three items to pick from. If there had to be a runt of the litter, it's the Flame Sword. This item really chould have waited until the new year to be released, as it offsets the other two, which have a greater deal of flexibility.
Year in Review
Well, instead of doing my normal closing, I decided to take a look back at this years items and give a retrospect on them given how much time has passed between their release and their current state. Most people believe that this year's item sucked. Let's find out if I agree with them now!
January brought us the Angelic Parasol and the Sword of Aegis. Both of which I rarely use if ever. Both of which I also rarely even see being worn these days.
February brought us the Chyaku Norisu Scarf and the G9 Laptop. The laptop is especially unique as it was the first and only item so far to be both an avatar item and a Gaia Home Furniture item. The CN Scarf also recently was revived in use thanks to the Resistance Mask that was released with the last event that is going on. However, out of the two, the CNS has outlasted the laptop, both in frequency in use and in how often I see other people wearing it.
March brought us Moochi and the Demonbow. Both still in high demand because of their various if singular appeal. By that I mean they only have one use for anyone that wants them. Moochi because it's a cute dog, Demonbow because it is the closest thing to Demonic Back Wings at the moment.
April saw the release of G-BOT and the Sun Staff. Personally, I didn't like the Sun Staff then, and I still don't like it now. The G-BOT, on the other hand, has only been used a few times to cosplay as a robot. Other than that, I rarely see it on any avatars as I lurk the forums.
May brought forth the Angelbow and Chain of Command. The Chain I'm seeing less and less of, which evidence enough that the modes offered are rather difficult to pull off. The Angelbow, much like its dark counterpart, is still in a good state of demand. After all, it is still the only thing that closely resembles Angelic Back Wings.
June gave us the G-Blade and the Dark Halo. Surprisingly, no lawsuits from Disney or Square were announced, as the item only lasted about a week or so before only the dedicated Kingdom Hearts fans decided to keep them on their avatars forever. The Dark Halo, on the other hand, has pretty much disappeared from all avatars I've viewed. The exceptions go whenever someone needs a halo over their head or wants to be that freaky purple eye. You would think the claws or even the sexy top would be seen more often, but that isn't the case now.
July gave us the Katana and Elegant Veil. Both of which are in pretty good demand. The katana moreso than the veil, naturally. But, then again, that was to be expected when the item was released.
August gave us Gwee and the Angelic Microphone. Both of which I don't see any more. I've tried using the Angelic Microphones with the new Alien Antennas, but they didn't line up in a way that looked niced. I can see why nobody wears them any more. At least not as frequently.
September brought the O RLY? hat and Mythrill Armor. The armor fell off the face of the planet as a set, but still exists as small parts and avatar accents, but that's about it. People finally got the message that the set sucks and wearing more than two or three made your avatar look like a block. The O RLY? hat was made into a real life hat, so the demand for the pixel version must be fairly high, espeically among female avatars I've noticed.
October saw the release of Shadow Spirit and the Pixie. Both of which are still being used, but infrequently. More often than not, the Pixie is in its default mode while the Shadow Spirit is in the Grim Reaper mode.
And for those of you who forgot, last month gave us Momo the Monkey and the Mini UFO. Both of which I don't seem to run into as often as I thought I would a month later. They did make the UFO have a special feature for a while, but if they haven't taken that away from us by now, then I wonder why I'm not seeing more avatars in Kart mode. In fact, I see more Child Support mode than any other mode of the UFO. Come to think of it, I see the baby Zurg more often than I see the monkey.
Overall, this year's offerings have been pretty weak. The high points were few and far between, mostly involving items of high demands such as the katana and the top two most wanted back wings. Everything else just felt like filler items. Whoever said that this year's set sucked was right. Even with these last three items, that doesn't help carry it out of the gutter any, you know?
Well, here's hoping next year will be better... and will NOT include three items per letter.
 Zeek Slider · Sat Dec 16, 2006 @ 08:47am · 9 Comments |
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