Monthly Archives: June 2020

I still can’t stop thinking about “Return of the Obra Dinn”

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Warning: this article contains spoilers for “Return of the Obra Dinn”

Return of the Obra Dinn on GOG.com

It’s been a year and a half since I first played the hit indie game “Return of the Obra Dinn” and I still can’t stop thinking about it. It has become one of my favorite games in recent memory and there’s nothing else quite like it. The visuals are unique, the soundtrack is great, but the gameplay really sells it. You investigate a ghost ship and determine what happened to it using the Memento Mortem, a pocket watch that reveals the last things a person heard and saw before their death.  Once you correctly identified three people and their cause of death, the journal given to you will lock their fates in place affirming your deductions.  Through these death scenes and context clues, you are able to piece together the Obra Dinn’s story and (mostly) figure out what transpired.

I first became aware of this game through one of my favorite Youtubers, Game Makers Toolkit, who did an episode on detective games. At the time, the game hadn’t been released yet but he commented on it and thought it would likely be a good mystery game. Turns out, he was right! He, and other reviewers, praised “Return of the Obra Dinn” and awarded it for its unique and fun gameplay. After I saw his 2018-best-of video, I decided that it was time I tried it out as well.

To say the least, this is one of those games that I never knew wanted until I played it. I love playing mystery games.  I enjoyed all the Phoenix Wright and Professor Layton games, full-motion-video games like “Contradiction!,” “Her Story,” and “The Shapeshifting Detective,” visual novels like “Danganronpa,” and the unique mix-and-match setup of “Tangle Tower.”  The list goes on. But of all the games I played, I honestly think “Return of the Obra Dinn” is my favorite mystery game despite it’s very nontraditional-Mystery Genre setup.

Return of the Obra Dinn review - The Verge

First, there are many things that a mystery game should excel at for its audience like

  • It should give you clear question(s) for you to solve and work towards
  • You should be able to collect and analyze clues and determine their importance to the mystery (some games only give you the bare essentials while Sherlock Holmes gives you waaaaaay too much useless information)
  • You should work for your answer without spoon feeding it (unlike Phoenix Wright)
  • It should give you a wide range of possible answers that you can systematically eliminate (many Layton games don’t even give you the option to figure out the crime).
  • It should make it hard to guess the correct answer but at the same time not make it too frustrating (“Contradiction” was unfairly hard)
  • Plot twists are welcome but shouldn’t be so far left field that there was no way you could’ve guessed the correct answer (Layton is a frequent victim of this which is why normally he answers the mystery and not the player)
  • It shouldn’t overly criticize the player for mistakes or wrong answers (the full-motion-video Sherlock Holmes games made me feel dumb)
  • And if there are any fantastical elements, it should be constrained to a very strict, easy-to-understand rules (which “Danganronpa 2” miserably failed at)

This is a very tight rope to balance and it’s easy for one of these key features to disappoint the players.  With few exceptions, “Return of the Obra Dinn” excels at these standards.

  • It gives me a clear question: “What happened to the Obra Dinn its crew?”
  • It allows me to analyze a whole suite of clues that are neatly arranged like the crew list, the ship map, the sketches, and of course, the memories.  Using these pieces of evidence, I can make reasonable assumptions on who is who.
  • The watch has some clear usage rules (find a dead body and activate the memory) if there’s another dead body in the person’s memory you can reactivate the watch again and see that corpse’s memory.  The watch and journal follow their stringent rules tightly but still find creative outlets like the watch’s effect on dead animals (or beasts) or the journal documenting the disappearance of certain souls.
  • Speaking of the beasts, they themselves do not confuse the cause of death and make it very clear what transpired (strangulation, spiked, and etc.).  If there is some debate of the cause of death there can be multiple right answers (e.g., a seaman died from a cannon blast that was pointed to them by the kraken’s tentacles, yet the cannon was lit by a another seaman, which one is the murderer?  Both answers are correct in this case)
  • I love that I don’t have to answer a series of multiple choice questions.  I want to be in control of this detective story and I don’t want the game tell me I’m ready to solve it.  Throughout the whole game I have to answer just two questions for all sixty souls, “Who is this?” and “What is their fate?”  The simplicity makes the game satisfying to solve.
  • I don’t feel stupid while playing the game.  In fact, if you play it smartly, you can have two souls that you’re positive on, and then work on a harder third soul and play around with the names until you land on the correct answer.  Even so, when you have an incorrect entry, the game doesn’t ring an incorrect buzzer or deduct points (it straight up doesn’t have any).  It’s the story that matters and that’s it.
  • Granted, there is some guessing, especially near the end of the game for the countless seamen but by then you are pretty close to solving it all and sometimes you just need to rearrange names a few times before you get it right.  Even then, this guessing doesn’t feel cheated as, well, of course you’re not able to get everyone’s name 100% correct since it’s not like they say their name out loud when they die…
  • And probably my favorite bit in the game is the “Eureka!” moment.  Hearing that string instrument gave me such joy as well as seeing my hard work deductions turn into correct answers.  God it’s so good.
Return of the Obra Dinn Announced for Consoles | Gaming Instincts

God this whole scene was crazy…

“Return of the Obra Dinn” left an impact on me that no other mystery game has come close to touching.  I wish I could magically forget and replay it just so I could have those satisfying “Eureka!” moments.  I did replay it again recently and it was still satisfying to solve as I forgot the countless souls on board and only remembered a few key clues.

Game Maker’s Toolkit said it best that many mystery games use realism to try to create the perfect mystery game but that perfection leads to awkward gameplay and makes it hard to fully enjoy the game.  But “Return of the Obra Dinn”‘s contrived setting changes the traditional Sherlock Holmes formula and completely restructures the mystery genre.  I’m hoping that other mystery games follow suit and gives us something exciting and different.  “Her Story” and “The Shapeshifting Detective” both are standouts that change the formula and excel in their new gameplay.  Hopefully other games follow suit but in the mean time, I’m hoping for a sequel to “Return of the Obra Dinn” in a different setting!  That would be awesome.

What do you think?  What has been your favorite mystery game and why?  Love to hear your answers!

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Are Long Columbo Episodes Worse Than Short Ones?

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TL/DR: There is no significant different of quality between long (90+ minutes) Columbo episodes vs short (~70 minutes) episodes.  Lower rated, long Columbo episodes seem to suffer from pacing issues but the higher rated ones do not.

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Gee…you remind me of my…uh…cousin Nickolas…and he could never…uh…finish his story.  He would always go on tangents and thought patterns and will keep yapping and before you know it, it’s bedtime!

I’ve become a big fan recently of the Columbophile blog and if you’re a Columbo fan like me you should check it out!  The author goes through each Columbo episode and really dissects the strengths and weaknesses of each episode without being too critical or fawn-like (with some understandable exceptions).  The blog also has a lot of interesting trivia on the Columbo guests, episodes, and scenery so if you can’t get enough Columbo you should really check it out!

I’ve actually started a habit recently where after I watch a Columbo episode I read what the Columbophile thought of it and I started noticing a bias the author seems to hold for the longer Columbo episodes.  You see, some Columbo episodes are about 70 minutes long while others are about 90 minutes long.  Although there are many good Columbo episodes in the 90 minute category (e.g., Forgotten Lady, Any Old Port in the Storm, A Friend in Deed, and etc.) a common complaint the Columbophile has about some of the episodes is the predominance of filler and padding scenes, and the sometimes lethargic pacing.  This makes sense given that the 70 minute episodes have to be smart about their pacing and choose their scenes carefully whereas the 90 minute episodes can take their time and flesh out the story.

But is it too fleshed out?  Is there too much inconsequential scenes, padding, and filler in these episodes?  After I watched the Candidate for Crime episode, which is about 98 minutes long, I noticed there were scenes that seem pointless like the traffic stop scene, the dentist scene, and other scenes which seem way too overdrawn like the initial investigation scene.   Even Columbo seems more…Columbo-ey than usual.  After I noticed this, I read Columbophile’s opinion on the episode and sure enough, they agreed with me; this episode was padded out.  If these scenes were cut, this already good episode could’ve been top-tier.

So that got me thinking; Are the 90 minute episodes overall worse than the 70 minute episodes?  And is the padding detracting the quality of them?

A Lieutenant's best friend: Columbo and Dog | THE COLUMBOPHILE

Fans of my blog know that I like to do statistical analysis on trivial subjects and this was going to be no different!  I want to compare these two groups of episodes and see if there was a difference in quality.

So first, I went to IMDB and focused solely on the 70’s era seasons which is widely regarded as the Golden Era of Columbo.  I then divided the episodes into two groups; 70 minutes and 90 minutes.  I then applied the IMDB rating to each episode and calculate their average with a confidence interval of 95% and compared the two groups.

Results
The average IMDB rating is as follows
70 minutes rating: 7.5 + 0.1
90 minutes rating: 7.7 + 0.2

Overall, the results were the opposite of what I expect!  The 90’s group was rated slightly higher than the 70’s group which makes sense as we see a lot of high quality episodes in the 90 minute group (e.g., “Any Old Port in a Storm”).  The 90 rating would’ve been 7.8 if it wasn’t for it having the worst episode in the 70’s series, “Last Salute to the Commodore,” with a 6.5 rating.  Regardless, these results are so close to each other that they’re not significantly different (there’s an overlap in their confidence intervals).  What does this tell us?  To me, this says that there is no relationship between an episode’s time to its overall quality.  Viewers do not think that long episodes are worse than short episodes.

From this, I think that the Columbo writers were, for the most part, able to craft stories well enough without them feeling too padded, slow, or boring.  They were able to effectively use their time to write necessary scenes that help the plot move forward.  In fact, only 6% of the 90 minute IMDB reviews complained about an episode’s padding, filler, or slow pacing.

This got me curious though and I wondered if low-rated 90 minute episodes had a higher amount of pacing complaints compared to high-rated episodes.  Perhaps one of the reasons reviewers gave a lower score was because they found it boring, slow or packed with too many filler scenes.

Columbo Rating to Episode Graph

Average rating of 90 minute Columbo episodes compared to the number of reviewers complaining about the pacing or padding.

So I compared an episode’s IMDB rating with the percentage of pacing complaints and made a scatterplot graph.  I found that there was a mild relationship between an episode’s quality with the number of reviewers complaining about its pacing.  A low-rated episode (like “Last Salute to the Commodore”) will have more complaints about its boring scenes, padded content, and slow pacing compared to high-rated episodes.  As an example, one reviewer for the above-average episode “Troubled Waters,” rated at 7.8, said that no time in the episode was wasted.  Then you have episodes which may have filler content but reviewers commented that they actually enjoyed these scenes and thought it added more depth and character building to Columbo’s world.

Overall, while I do agree that there can be pacing issues with 90 minute Columbo episodes, I think, and apparently so do other people, that these padded scenes do not negatively detract from the overall experience.  When I have a criticism, it’s usually directed at the story or the characters rather than the episode’s story progression.  For instance, the “Last Salute to the Commodore” could’ve been jazzed up by more interesting characters, a less-annoying Columbo, and a more cohesive storyline.  Pacing issues were just one of its many issues that this episode suffered from.

Thank you for taking the time to read this inconsequential article!  I hope you found it mildly interesting and again, please check out Columbophile when you get the chance!

Episode 14: Gorp Gorp…Or…The Tamaranian Festival Of Berating Drapery

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In this episode of “Mary and Andy Geek Out” we finish Season 3 of Teen Titans and discuss episodes “Can I Keep Him,” “Bunny Raven…Or…How I Learned To Make A Titananimal Disappear,” and “Titans East” part 1 and 2.  We talk about the lovely relationship between Starfire and Silkie, the cleverness of the Beast Boy lamp, and Brother Blood’s unhealthy obsession of Cyborg.

Best Pokemon Games for an Electric Type Run

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If your favorite Pokemon type is Electric then I bring some good news for you as there are some great Pokemon games to do an Electric type run.  Admittedly, a Monotype (or Single Type) Run for Electric Pokemon can be hard as it ranks among the worst for movepool diversity and they can be quite rare but there are a few games out there that take care of this problem. So let’s take a look at which games are the best, the worst, and which Pokemon you should have on your team.

Rules

  1. Only Pokémon of a certain type may be caught and trained.
  2. You must catch the first Pokémon available of that type if your starter does not match that type (you’ll then have to disregard that starter).
  3. You may train a Pokémon that evolves to said type as long as you do it ASAP.
  4. No trading allowed.
  5. Mega Pokémon count as long as you Mega Evolve them as soon as they appear on the battlefield.
  6. Only Pokémon caught before Elite Four are counted.

Monotype Chart Version 2.03

Best Pokemon Games

For the Electric type, you want a team that’s more about diversity and less about weakness coverage, so while there are a few teams early in the series that may be immune to Ground attacks, the Pokemon you’d train would be very restrictive.  As such, B2W2, XY, USUM, and SWSH are your best bets.  These teams favor Pokemon who can learn different move types and are available early which is very crucial for your team.

If you were to twist my arm I’d pick SWSH although B2W2 is my favorite for personal reasons (Magnezone, Eelektross, Ampharos, and Galvantula is a winning combo with a Mareep pre-first gym).  SWSH has the most diverse Electric team out of any of the games and these Pokemon are strong; two fossils with great type combos (Arctozolt and Dracozolt), an amazing rock star (Toxtricity), two bugs (Vikavolt and Galvantula), a  form-changing poltergeist (Rotom), and a host of supports (e.g., Jolteon, Pincurchin, and Boltund).  This team is pretty great and you get a bunch of them well before the first gym thanks to the Wild Area.

Worst Pokemon Games

Many Electric teams straddle the line between bad and okay and while their potential isn’t as poor as the average Ice or Ghost team…they’re still not good.  The worst Electric team is probably Pokemon Crystal.  Mareep, for some reason, is not available in that game.  In Gold and Silver you can catch one just after the first gym but here they are gone and you’ll catch a Magenmite instead after the second gym.  This drops your team diversity below six Pokemon as well.

People make fun of Diamond and Pearl for their lack of Fire Pokemon but the same can be held true with Electric which has the lowest Electric diversity with just three Pokemon!  And it’s just a horrible team setup; Pachirisu, Raichu, and a Luxray.  Yeesh.  At least Crystal had Lanturn.

Electric Pokemon Teams

Red, Blue, Yellow, and FRLG
Ideal Team: Raichu/Pikachu, Electrode, Electabuzz (Red, FireRed), Magneton, Jolteon, Zapdos
First Pokémon: Pikachu in Viridian Forest or Pikachu as a starter in Yellow
Covers weaknesses?  Yes

Gold, Silver, Crystal, and HGSS
Ideal Team: Raikou, Ampharos (G, S, HG, SS), Magneton, Lanturn, Electrode, Jolteon
First Pokémon: Mareep via Route 32 after first gym (except Crystal which would be Magnemite Route 38 after the second gym). Via Pokewalker Magnemite (Suburban Area at 1000+ steps), Elekid (Suburban Area at 5000+ steps), and Voltorb (Town Outskirts at 3000+ steps) are available.
Covers Weaknesses? No, Ground is not neutralized.

Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, and ORAS
Ideal Team: Manectric, Magneton/Magnezone, Lanturn, Galvantula (ORAS), Jolteon (ORAS), Eelektross (ORAS)
Optional: Minun/Plusle, Electabuzz (ORAS), Zebstrika (ORAS), Electrode, Luxray (ORAS)
First Pokémon: Electrike, Plusle, and Minun can be caught at Route 110 after the second gym in ORAS (as well as Magnemite by Horde).  In RSE you can skip the second gym by giving Steven the letter, take the boat to Slateport, and capturing your Pokemon on Route 110.
Covers Weaknesses? Yes for ORAS but in Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald, Ground is not neutralized.

Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum
Ideal Team: Luxray, Raichu, Jolteon (Platinum), Rotom (Platinum), Magnezone (Platinum), Electabuzz (Platinum)
Optional: Pachirisu
First Pokémon: Shinx in Route 202 before the first gym
Covers Weaknesses? Only in Platinum, in Diamond and Pearl the Ground type is not neutralized.

Black/White and Black 2, White 2
BW Ideal Team: Zebstrika, Emolga, Galvantula, Eelektross, Stunfisk, Zekrom (W)
First Pokémon: Blitzle via Route 3 after the first gym
Covers weaknesses? Yes

B2W2 Ideal Team: Ampharos, Magnezone, Electabuzz (W2)/Jolteon, Emolga, Galvantula, Eelektross
Optional: Zebstrika
First Pokémon: Mareep via Floccesy Ranch before first gym
Covers weaknesses? Yes

X and Y
Ideal Team: Heliolisk, Lanturn, Rotom, Magnezone, Ampharos, Stunfisk
Optional: Manectric (Y), Jolteon, Pachirisu, Raichu, Emolga, Dedenne, Electrode, all the other Rotom forms
First Pokémon: Pikachu via Santalune Forest, before 1st gym
Covers weaknesses? Yes

Sun, Moon, and UltraSun, UltraMoon
SM Ideal Team: Vikavolt, Golem, Magnezone, Raichu, Oricorio, Electabuzz
Optional: Togedemaru, Jolteon, Lanturn
First Pokémon: Pichu and Grubbin via Route 1
Cover weaknesses? Yes
Note: You can get an Alolan Golem via in-game trade at the Tapu Village Pokemon Center, you will need a Haunter.

USUM Ideal Team: Vikavolt, Graveler, Magnezone, Raichu, Oricorio, Electabuzz
Optional: Togedemaru, Jolteon, Lanturn, Ampharos, Manectric, Dedenne
First Pokémon: Pichu and Grubbin via Route 1
Covers weaknesses? Yes

Sword and Shield
Ideal Team: Vikavolt, Toxtricity, Wash Rotom, Galvantula, Dracozolt, Arctozolt
Optional: Manectric, Jolteon, Other Rotom Forms, Boltund, Raichu, Morpeko, Togedemaru, Pincurchin, Heliolisk
First Pokémon: Grubbin by random encounters (10%) via Route 1.  Yamper will follow soon after on Route 2 by overworld (5%).
Covers weaknesses? Yes

MVP (Most Valuable Pokemon)
Unlike other types, there’s no one Pokemon or group of Pokemon I can point to and definitely say this is the best and you need to have it on your team.  Electric Pokemon are boosted or hampered by their availability, stats, abilities, type combos, and move diversity, so saying one is the true MVP would be foolish.  So instead, I’m listing seven great Electric Pokemon alphabetically.  There are many others that can be included but I didn’t want to go overboard.

Ampharos Pokédex: stats, moves, evolution & locations | Pokémon ...

Ampharos
Ampharos is a Pokemon that becomes better and better as the generations progress mainly thanks to the variety of moves it can learn!  Starting with just Fire Punch and Iron tail (by TM), Ampharos took an upgrade and acquired new moves through standard level up!  By Gen 4 it can learn Power Gem and Signal Beam and by Gen 6 it can learn Dragon Pulse!  And with a nice 115 Special Attack and hefty bulk, this is an Electric Pokemon that can survive hits and deal them back!  Ampharos’ is held back by its scattered availability but at least its pre-evolution Mareep is usually found early in the games.
Available in: GS, HGSS, B2W2, XY, USUM

Galvantula Pokédex: stats, moves, evolution & locations | Pokémon ...Vikavolt (Pokémon) - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon ...

Bug Pokemon (Galvantula and Vikavolt)
Galvantula and Vikavolt neutralize your Ground weakness which is nice but they’re here because of their moves, abilities, and stats.  Starting with my OG Galvantula, you gotta find one with Compound Eyes ability because that will increase his accuracy which means you’ll have a Thunder attack with 91% accuracy!  Paired that with Bug Buzz and Energy Ball and you have a fast spider that can hit a lot of Pokemon at least neutrally effective.  Galvantula is frail though so get him out of there with Volt Switch!  Vikavolt is much slower but makes up for this with its bulk and higher Special Attack.  It also has that sweet Levitate ability!  It can also learn Energy Ball as well as Air Slash which is great.  Both of these bugs as such can be a soft Ground counter but be wary of Rock moves!
Available in: Galvantula in BW, B2W2, ORAS, SWSH and Vikavolt in SM, USUM, SWSH

Eelektross (Pokémon) - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon ...

Eelektross
Electric Pokemon are among the worst types for Physical Attackers favoring Speed and Special Attack instead.  Fortunately, Eelektross has an impressive 115 stat for Physical Attack (and a very nice 105 for Special Attack) so if you want a brute then get this guy!  Eelektross is also one of the best Electric Pokemon for move diversity with such moves as Flamethrower/Fire Punch, Crunch, Giga Drain, Aqua Tail, Brick Break, and Rock Slide.  If you really want to be smart you teach it Coil (ups Attack, Accuracy, and Defense), and teach it Drain Punch, Wild Charge, and Superpower.  It’s a risky but fun moveset!  (Also helps that Eelektross’ Levitate Ability pairs nicely with Aqua Tail and Giga Drain).

Biggest setback is you need to train its first stage, Tynamo, up to Level 39 before you can evolve it and then evolve it again with a Thunder Stone.  Also…Elektross is uncommon so unfortunately you won’t run into them often.  Even in Generation 7 you can only catch one after the Championship which breaks the rules of the run.  Bummer.
Available in: BW, B2W2, ORAS

Lanturn (Pokémon) - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon ...

Lanturn
The Light Pokemon will be a shining beacon for your team.  Lanturn carries moves that very few other Electric Pokemon have namely Water (Surf and etc.), Fairy (Dazzling Gleam), and Ice (Ice Beam and etc.) type.  Water and Ice are especially nice if you’re in a pickle against some Rock and Ground types but it comes with the risk of being OHKO’d by an Earthquake or a decent Mud Bomb.  You also have some interesting move choices to consider like Aqua Ring, Confuse Ray, Scald, and Thunder Wave to debilitate your enemies and the Volt Absorb ability could be used to regenerate your health by friend or foe.  Unfortunately, Lanturn is hurt by a below average Special Attack (76) and doesn’t have a way to raise it through Calm Mind and such.
Available in: GSC, RSE, HGSS, XY, ORAS, SM, USUM

Magnezone (Pokémon) - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon ...

Magnezone Family
Although Magnezone and its pre-evolutions have a 4x weakness to Ground attacks it’s a really good defensive Pokemon with among the highest stats for Defense and Special Defense for Electric Pokemon and its Steel combo gives it the most resistances and immunities out of any Pokemon. In fact, it’s the second strongest, non-Mega, non-Legendary Electric Pokemon, just behind Electivire (but Magnezone doesn’t need to trade to evolve!).  It also has a beastly 130 Special Attack so teaching it Thunderbolt and Flash Cannon will do massive damage to many foes.  Unfortunately, it is really limited by its move diversity.  It’s basically going to be those two types and that’s it!  Sure it can learn Signal Beam but many Electric Pokemon can learn that so it’s not too special.  At least it’s quite common!
Available in: Magneton in RBY, GSC, RSE, FRLG, HGSS and Magnezone in Platinum, B2W2, XY, ORAS, SM, USUM

Rotom Pokédex: stats, moves, evolution & locations | Pokémon Database

Rotom
One of my favorite Pokemon ever, Rotom is a must have member due to its moves, ability, and crazy form changes!  By itself, Rotom is fine and having one on your team in Platinum is pretty fun!  Very few Electric Pokemon can learn a strong Ghost move and paired with its Levitate ability gives you a soft counter to your Ground foes.  However, the main reason Rotom is here is its forms which you can access in later generations.

Rotom’s five forms changes its Ghost type to match its new form (e.g. Heat Rotom becomes Fire/Electric) and gives Rotom a biiiig stat boost which makes Rotom a very nice tank with great Special Attack stats (105).  You can also learn some devastatingly powerful moves for each form which are Overheat, Blizzard, Hydro Pump, Air Slash, and Leaf Storm.  This gives you some much needed move diversity.  As you can tell, some of these moves have some trade backs like low accuracy (Blizzard/Hydro Pump) or drop of stats after use (Overheat/Leaf Storm).  You still get that Levitate ability though so for an Electric team a Wash Rotom is great because your immune to Ground attacks and can deliver a STAB Hydro Pump!

But man Rotom is a pain to catch.  I mean seriously.  A lot of times it’s after the Championship like Diamond/Pearl and USUM.  And sometimes it’s on a specific day (Tuesday in XY), a specific time (Platinum), or a specific weather condition (SWSH).  And getting the forms are harder with the only legitimate way to get them before the Championship is in XY or SWSH.  You really have to work hard if you want a Rotom.
Available in: Platinum, XY, SWSH

Episode 13: Agro British Beast Boy

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In this episode we review Teen Titans Season 3 episodes “Revolution,” “Wavelength,” and “Beast Within.”  We talk about the weird tonal inconsistencies of that weird Mad Mod episode, Aqua Lad being overly dramatic, and the episode that launched a thousand Beast Boy/Raven ships.