FFIX

Games Alive: 1980-2017

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The Well-Red Mage asks: “What’s your favorite game every year you’ve been alive?”  I’m one of the last to answer, because I’m always late to these types of parties.  I’ve seen plenty of “Favorite Game” posts, but never one quite like this, and it was both challenging and enjoying to put together over the last two months.  I’m one of the oldest people to respond, meaning I have quite a lot of years to go through, so without further ado…

1980 – Pac-Man

This one was more difficult than I’d like to admit, but there weren’t too many games I could draw from at this point in time, which led me to this classic among classics.  I wasn’t very good at this game, but if you stick your finger in your ear and wiggle it around, I think you’ll hear something familiar 😀

1981 – Donkey Kong

Donkey Kong game coverBack when Mario was merely Jump Man and Pauline was a kidnapping victim, long before she was the mayor of New Donk City, there was this arcade classic.  I was better at this than Pac-Man; I’ve always been better at platforming than avoiding random enemies.

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Final Fantasy Friday: Creepy Caverns

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Final Fantasy Friday

Hat trick of creep this week.  Bonus: it rhymes, too!  Also  reminder that this will be the last Final Fantasy Friday post until December.  I’m going to make an official announcement post about what’s going to be suspended throughout November, but I figured a reminder in the final one isn’t a bad notion either.

I’m currently recovering from anesthesia.  No, I didn’t get bionic limbs (though I did ask for them), just something weird but simple that required your favorite Narcissist to be knocked out.  Never fear, I woke up even more beautiful and amazing than ever, and when I returned home, there were offerings to my greatness at my door.  The peasants do love me ♥

I usually try to tie the week’s question with something going on, and I suppose waking up from brief, medically induced unconsciousness could be considered coming out of a dark cave so….

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Final Fantasy Friday: The Key of Creep

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Final Fantasy Friday

In case you haven’t noticed, I am doing a sort of Halloween themed question series for the month of October, and quite a few motifs in Final Fantasy lend themselves to the frightening.  Per that vein we’re going to explicitly talk about musical motifs in asking…

What is the spookiest music?

Let me attempt to find the creepiest song in my most well known games.

Opening with Final Fantasy IV, I think “Golbez Clad in Dark” is a really safe bet.  I mean, it has both the villain’s name and dark in the title!

It goes along with the “Tower of Zot” music, too.  I have to give mention to some of the moon music: “Another Moon” and “The Lunarians.”  Anything (literally) otherworldly is a good bet for insta-eerie

For Final Fantasy VI I think it’s definitely the “Fanatics Tower.”  Discordant harmonies and regimented drumbeats are always good for a scare.

I’ll throw in “Omen” as an honorable mention, though it’s not particularly scary to me, it still follows a “horror” pattern.  Plus it sounds like gothic church music, which is also what I say about parts of “Dancing Mad,” making a nice musical bookend in VI to go along with VII’s visual and musical one.

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Final Fantasy Friday: Humanity Is Overrated

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Final Fantasy Friday

Personally I prefer cats…or dogs…or rats…or a teakettle, but this post isn’t about my rampant and growing misanthropy, but rather…

Who is your favorite non-human/non-humanoid character?

I have to throw in the caveat of “non-humanoid,” since you sneaky Petes could easily throw in Fran as your favorite non-human character.

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Final Fantasy Friday: Character Crush

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Final Fantasy Friday

One of the best things about being a fangirl or fanboy (though they apparently have nuanced differences beyond suspected gender, which I’ll explain momentarily) is our ability to crush on anyone (and sometimes anything).  Hell, the term “fangirl” is now a verb meaning (among other things) to flail wildly, crush, and/or obsess over a character, and this is one of the areas the two terms have slight differences.

While fanboy and fangirl should only denote the gender that the particular person identifies as, their meanings go a bit beyond.  Fanboys are usually the ones who nitpick, weed out, and formulate theories about their favorite works and characters.  They argue over what’s canon, what’s head canon, what’s non-canonical, and what’s just plain crackpottery/tinfoil.  Fangirls stereotypically freak out and flail over their crushes, write fanfiction, swoon over pictures, and create and disseminate gifs and fore mentioned pictures.  Both fanboys and fangirls cosplay, and fanboys seem to be more connected with fanart as fangirls are connected to fanfiction (this could also be why fanart is held in higher regard than fanfiction, something I continually critique and that you can read more about here).

By these definitions, I am both a fanboy and a fangirl.  The difference is pretty sexist if you ask me, where fanboys are implied to be more interested in the narrative, characters, and foundation whereas fangirls are portrayed as more vapid and insipid.  This is sadly common where things girls and even women like are viewed as less valuable (e.g. fanfiction, romance novels, boy bands, etc.), and they’re often mocked for it.  If they try to be more “fanboyish,” they’re accused of being “fake geek girls,” *rolls eyes* and the accusers will then force them to prove their devotion in ways that would never be demanded if they were male.

So…I got a little bit ranty and venty.

Enough venty to hold all the coffee

My point was being a fan of any type usually means you have at least one crush, and Final Fantasy plays host to so many beautiful people, you have the crème de la crème from which to choose.

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Final Fantasy Friday: The Final Act

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Final Fantasy Friday

Even the most epic stories must eventually come to an end.  Even The Neverending Story had a final page, and I suspect even the freemium Brave Exvius will eventually come to a halt.  Stories rely on their endings for resonance.  You can’t truly talk about them until you know where they end up and how all of those threads draw together.  So with that in mind…

What is your favorite Final Fantasy ending?

A story doesn’t have to have a happy ending in order to be satisfactory.  In fact sometimes a happy ending is woefully misplaced.  The ending should fit the narrative.

In light of that, this is a really .hard question for me to answer lol.  FFVI was the first Final Fantasy ending I ever saw, and I absolutely loved it.  It was so joyful, so full of hope, and I remembered being inspired by it for days afterwards.  It perfectly exemplified and  framed the theme of hope in the game and could very well be the reason my favorite stories are the kinds that are dark and sorrowful with a joyous conclusion.  This bleeds into writing, as well.  Oh, I’ll make my characters (often literally) crawl through hell before they can bask in the light.  They have to earn their happy ending.

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30 Day Video Game Challenge: Day 19

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Day 1

<–Day 18                                                                                                              Day–20–>

Day 19: Picture of a game setting you wish you lived in.

This is the final scene from Super Paper Mario.  I’d never leave that hill…but if I had to have a city to go back to I’d choose…

…the Lindblum Theatre District.  I like the arts, but if I was feeling more in the need of technological advancement, I’d have to go with…

…the Citadel from Mass Effect.  Yes, I’m aware some really bad things happen there (hell, bad things happen everywhere), but I’ve had ideas for a vast, technologically advanced city of the future for a long time, and the Citadel is literally a gigantic metropolis in space.

Where would you reside in video game land?

<–Day 18                                                                                                              Day–20–>

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30 Day Video Game Challenge: Day 8

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Day 1

<–Day 7                                                                                                                    Day 9–>

Day 8: Best soundtrack.

Noooooo!  The impossible question D:  There are so many good soundtracks, and I believe I addressed this question before myself on one of my Final Fantasy Fridays.  There I named FFIV as the game in the franchise with my favorite soundtrack, but VII has many honorable mentions, VI is the game that fully got me into soundtracks in the first place, and Final Fantasy in general just has amazing music.

You can’t talk about soundtracks without bringing up Legend of Zelda, because Zelda is just as good as Final Fantasy when it comes to the music.  Most of the songs on my YouTube writing/editing playlist are from those games.

This medley has gotten me through many an editing session.

This is the best version of Kakariko Village you’re ever going to hear.

This is the most serene song every composed.

This is obviously just a sampling of wonderful music.

So what game has the best soundtrack?  Ironically, impossible for this music lover to answer.  I can hear the merit in any great composition.  Not only that the music perfectly fits whatever mise en scene it’s been written for.

What game/game series do you think has the best soundtrack?  Discussion time!

<–Day 7                                                                                                                    Day 9–>

30 Day Video Game Challenge: Day 5

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Day 1

<–Day 4                                                                                                                    Day 6–>

Day 5: Game character you feel you are most like (or wish you were)

I’ve answered this question before in my Final Fantasy Friday: To Thine Own Self Be True post.  It sums it up better than I could ever repeat.

Let’s discuss.  You can comment on this post or the FFF one.  Doesn’t matter to me 🙂

<–Day 4                                                                                                                    Day 6–>

Final Fantasy Friday: A Grand Introduction

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A Final Fantasy (et al) post to welcome you to the glory of Friday (if you don’t have weekends off then may this hopefully brighten the midst of your work week) with more located here!

Last week I substituted a review for my typical post, which I’ll probably opt to do every now and then when I have a review prepared.  Now we’re back with a typical question and discussion, and this one was garnered from the extensive discussion on my Un-Final Fantasy post.  I’m sorry I don’t remember who mentioned it, but if you’re reading this, let me know in the comments so I can give credit where it’s due!

Which Final Fantasy would you recommend to a series newcomer?

I’d want them to start with either Final Fantasy IV or Final Fantasy VI like I did with the latter.  Now that I’ve played IV, which I like a little bit better, I’d want them to start with that one since it’s earlier and the first Final Fantasy with a cohesive story, deep plot, and well developed characters.  Final Fantasy VI has a simpler, more straightforward story line, but it’s a huge fan favorite and manages to have enough plot for all 14 possible characters.  This might also be a good reason to start a newbie there.  Some people argue that VI exemplifies the series, but I’d have to disagree a little bit since VI has a simpler plot than the rest with a more blatant and straightforwardly evil villain whereas other games go into more depth with motivation and background.  VI did set an example for the JRPG world, and there would be numerous attempts to duplicate the magic it created.

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