World of Final Fantasy

The State of the Gamer: 10/22/20

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<–The State of the Gamer: 10/8/20           The State of the Gamer: 11/5/20–>

A weekly post updated every other Thursday detailing my current gaming projects.  I have an account at Grouvee, which is a site you can use to keep track of your backlog, so please feel free to friend me there!

What I Purchased

  • The Lion’s Song – $5.99 ($0.04) @ Nintendo eShop

What I’m Playing

Title: Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight
Series: Etrian Odyssey
System: Nintendo 3DS

Cover of Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir KnightDate Started: 9/7/20

I’m at the boss of the 4th stratum now and I need to do quite a bit of leveling before I take her on per the suggestions.  I want to try to take down one of the stratum’s FOEs especially since there’s an ingredient I can get from it.  It’s been a few day since I’ve played though.  I lose a little bit of steam if I don’t have a direct path forward, and really all I have to do is grind the FOEs on lower floors in order to level up.

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The State of the Gamer: 10/8/20

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<–The State of the Gamer: 9/24/20           The State of the Gamer: 10/22/20–>

A weekly post updated every other Thursday detailing my current gaming projects.  I have an account at Grouvee, which is a site you can use to keep track of your backlog, so please feel free to friend me there!

What I’m Playing

Title: Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight
Series: Etrian Odyssey
System: Nintendo 3DS

Cover of Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir KnightDate Started: 9/7/20

I made it past the third stratum’s boss Scylla, and also found out how to pronounce her name.  I always thought it was said “SIGH-luh,” but in (at least the game), they pronounce it “SKY-luh” or “SKILL-uh” (I forget lol).  Okay…according to the interwebs, I was more right with the “correct” pronunciation.  The “c” should be silent since it’s next to a “y,” but then again the name is from Ancient Greek, but more importantly the game devs can take liberties.  Anyway, I was able to beat her the second time around after I looked it up.  I should’ve realized the ice block puzzles on the way up would’ve factored into the boss fight.  There are four of them you can hit her with, which takes her HP of around 23k down by about half.  She was still pretty challenging even though she has a set pattern.

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The State of the Gamer: 9/24/20

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<–The State of the Gamer: 9/10/20           The State of the Gamer: 10/8/20–>

A weekly post updated every other Thursday detailing my current gaming projects.  I have an account at Grouvee, which is a site you can use to keep track of your backlog, so please feel free to friend me there!

What I Bought

  • AVICII Invector – $19.99 @ Nintendo eShop
  • Tales of Vesperia – $14.99 @ Nintendo eShop

What I’m Playing

Title: Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir Knight
Series: Etrian Odyssey
System: Nintendo 3DS

Cover of Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold: The Fafnir KnightDate Started: 9/7/20

I’m on the third stratum now.  I forget what it’s exactly called, but it’s an ice one to the fiery stratum before.  I got my ass handed to me by the Fire Demon boss of the second.  Well…not so much the boss as the Fire Cubes it summons.  If they explode, they take out your entire party.  I’m already on the second floor of the frozen stratum, and I love how each floor has it’s own gimmick with the FOEs (stronger enemies you can see/avoid).  The 11th had these Ambush Wolves that changed direction every third step and that was the only time you could see them.  Now the 12th has these dragons that sleep during the day but are awake and moving at night.  You’d think “Aha!  I’ll just explore the labyrinth during the day!” but there’s a mission where you have to collect these flowers that only bloom at night.  You can find their locations during the day and mark them, which is what I’m doing.  There are also slippery floor puzzles to map and figure out, so my plan is to explore/map the floor as well as find the flowers when it’s safe then pick them up at night once I know where they are.

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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 – Ready, Willing, MAGIC

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Final Fantasy Friday

Today should have been a Character Assessment post, but I didn’t get home from Target until 8:00.  After some brief aerobics, I looked at my to-do list, and there’s a lot left on it.  Those assessments can take upwards of four hours, and I haven’t even picked a character for my next one yet (though I don’t lack for suggestions from all of you lovely people).  I also have numerous creative projects going on, so it would just be better for me to save my assessments for a less hectic time.  I’m not giving up on them; they’re just being shelved for a while.

As for the biweekly questions, those aren’t going anywhere, since I have plenty that can be answered fairly easily, and I’ll try to post some of my more elaborate ones.  For this week…

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Final Fantasy Friday: Someone Grab a Cane

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Am I still going to do this in he midst of my 30 Day Video Game Challenge?  Yes  Yes, I am, but since we just had a question that dealt with the same thing across the scope of video-gamedom, I’m not going to use the same response, and I should make a caveat that no one else can either, but I think only Cheap Boss Attack picked the same character I did (“the” Tama ughhhhhh), and he’s a resourceful guy who’s played more Final Fantasy and Squeenix games than I have anyway  So this week’s question is…

Who is the most annoying character?

As much as I love Final Fantasy IV, it has some of my least favorite main characters.  I’ve already expressed my disgust of Edward, rolled my eyes at Edge, and applauded Porom for whacking her brother Palom upside the head numerous times.

I forget whom I was in a conversation with (a common occurrence), but we were discussing how difficult it is for child characters not to be annoying, and it’s true.  I don’t find children particularly annoying, no more so than I find particular adults, but child characters are either overly precocious, overly hyper, or a combination of both.  It’s difficult to write children/youths, which is ironic since all of us who are adults have lived through that experience.  Because we view that age through the lens of (often) rosy nostalgia with a mind more mature, it’s harder to put ourselves back in that place.

I’ve written a few child characters.  One in my original novel whom I’ll admit now is very annoying and lately in the Northern Lights flashback with Sephiroth and Aeris.  With the flower girl, I did some observation of three year old behavior and asked some of my parent friends, so I’d like to think I portrayed her as more than an annoying, little brat.

So on the subject of annoying, little brats, whom do I find to be the most annoying character…

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30 Day Video Game Challenge: Day 6

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Day 1

<–Day 5                                                                                                                    Day 7–>

Day 6: Most annoying character.

If you’d asked me this before I played World of Final Fantasy, I probably would’ve said Edward from FFIV, Yuffie from FFVII (Aeris from Crisis Core is another possibility, but I rant talk about her later this month), possibly Navi from the Legend of Zelda series, though I never really found her that annoying, and Tingle was way worse, but hands down the most annoying character I’ve ever come across is Tama from WOFF.  Omfg, she is so goddamn annoying, and I was lucky enough to play the game in Japanese with English subtitles.  I can’t imagine listening to that voice the-all the time, ugh (and yes, she throws random “thes” into her speech in what I’m assuming is supposed to be a cute quirk.  It’s not).

Not. At. All.

Tama does become fairly useful later in the game, and she’s integral to the story.  This doesn’t justify or make up for how annoying she is.

What character did you want to throw through a wall?  Let’s bemoan this together.

<–Day 5                                                                                                                    Day 7–>

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Final Fantasy Friday: The World of Final Fantasy

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Title: World of Final Fantasy
Series: Final Fantasy
Genre: RPG – Fantasy
Developer: Square Enix
Platform(s): PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita
Release Date: October 25, 2016
Date Bought: October 21, 2016
Date Started: November 5, 2016
Date Finished: February 19, 2017
Play Duration: 106 days/200+ hours of game play
Price: $59.99

world-of-final-fantasy

Shares Paradigms With: His Dark Materials, Doctor Who

“Time can be rewritten…” -Doctor Who

“The past can be forgiven, the future be rewritten…” -Trans Siberian Orchestra “Anno Domini”

World of Final Fantasy was first introduced during E3 2015.  It preceded the FFVII: Remake announcement, was touted as “Final Fantasy Cute,” and I of course completely forgot about it.  I didn’t think of it again until a year and a half later when Cheap Boss Attack  posted about the demo and said the magic words: “Pre-ordering World of Final Fantasy will give you immediate access to the Sephiroth summon…”  I dropped the required $60 and received my game in the mail on the promised date.

Gameplay

The central hub of World of Final Fantasy is Sylver Park and its surrounding environs, which includes the main characters’ room and a small mall (that will nonetheless be used quite frequently).  The Park itself is where most of the action commences; therefore, I consider it to be the most integral section.

You’ll be seeing this Gate a lot.

That Gate itself leads you to the eponymous  “World” of Final Fantasy, which is called Grymoire, and of course you have the ubiquitous Save Point that also serves to heal you and cure all status ailments (I love that they started doing that with Final Fantasy X, though I’m sure there are some fans who are annoyed at the lesser difficulty and making tents obsolete).  If your characters are defeated in Grymoire, they’ll be pulled back to Sylver Park with earned experience and gil intact.  The only time you’ll get a game over is if you’re beaten inside a threshold, which I’ll talk about below.

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The State of the Writer: 5/14/17

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<–The State of the Writer: 5/7/17          The State of the Writer: 5/21/17–>

A weekly post updated every Sunday discussing my current writing projects and where I stand with them.  This will include any and all work(s) in progress (WIP) be they creative writing, essays/analyses, or reviews of any type.

Project: Story
Title: The Broken Rose
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Fanfiction (FFVII) Novel
Current Word Count: 268,651
Prior Word Count: 268,653
Word Difference: -2
Status: Editing
Progress: Organizing notes & prepping 1st edit of Chapter 10

Last night turned into this morning with an until 4:00am editing prep session.  Fueled by a juice made from magic beans, I organized my notes for Chapter 10 and skimmed the chapter for any blatant issues.  I already know I’ll probably have to split the chapter since it’s over 30 pages and not very well organized.  I also already know I’m going to cut a lot of things out and fix/alter ideas I had while writing that don’t seem to stellar now.  While the above picture of the Great General isn’t the one I’m going to use for the cover, it might end up being one where his one wing is featured, since the last chapter ended in a scattering of feathers.

When I have extensive notes to incorporate into a chapter, I don’t always know the best way to go about it, so last night was a bit of a brainstorming session.  I decided on this order of operations:

  1. Skim the chapter for blatant issues.
  2. Review and organize notes.
  3. Complete the first edit.
  4. Integrate notes into the chapter.
  5. Write full chapter summary and summary to post.
  6. Complete second and any subsequent edits afterwards.

It all looks so neat and tidy, but editing can be such sloppy work.  So far I’ve done steps 1 and 2, and I’m hoping to work on 3 tonight.  With any luck, I’ll do as much of a cut as I did in Chapter 8, leaving me with 4000+ less words to worry about.

Also, because I’m editing and posting this piecemeal, I often still go back and fix up chapters that have already been posted.  Critiques and revelations can come at any time, so I am planning on reposting chapters that have been reedited/corrected, and I’ll let you know when I do.

Quote:  “Your feathers, master…they’re so soft, and they smell so good like you.  It’s like in between your lovely scent dwells and slightest movement will breathe that glory.”

Project: Game Review
Title: World of Final Fantasy
Status: Scheduled
Current Word Count: 5591
Prior Word Count: 5154
Word Difference: +437

world-of-final-fantasy

This has been completed and scheduled for (Final Fantasy) Friday.  It should be up first thing that morning, but I’ll probably still do my weekly FF question.  I suppose this could be the question though: What did you think of World of Final Fantasy?  We’ll see.  Technically, it should count as an FFF post, and you can’t accuse me of being lazy since I’ve been working on the review for over a month 😉

What are you currently working on?  Is it a creative writing project, essay, review, or something else?  Have you just started something new or are you wrapping up a long term project?

<–The State of the Writer: 5/7/17          The State of the Writer: 5/21/17–>

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The State of the Writer: 5/7/17

/ The Shameful Narcissist / 16 Comments

<–The State of the Writer: 4/30/17          The State of the Writer: 5/14/17–>

A weekly post updated every Sunday discussing my current writing projects and where I stand with them.  This will include any and all work(s) in progress (WIP) be they creative writing, essays/analyses, or reviews of any type.

*****Warning:  Discussions of rape as it pertains to The Broken Rose.*****

Project: Story
Title: The Broken Rose
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Fanfiction (FFVII) Novel
Current Word Count: 268,653
Prior Word Count: 268,665
Word Difference: -12
Status: Editing
Progress: Posting Chapter 9

Posting a chapter is a days’ long project.  I’ve done so here, on AO3, and Deviant Art.  Only tumblr is left.  Even though I don’t use tumblr as often as I used to, I still like to keep up with my posting there, since it’s a decent repository for fanfiction. Just in case you’re curious.  This is how long it took me to edit each chapter so far:

Chapter 1 – 5 days
Chapter 2 – 33 days
Chapter 3 – 31 days
Chapter 4 – 2 days
Chapter 5 – 10 days
Chapter 6 – 53 days
Chapter 7 – 43 days
Chapter 8 – 42 days
Chapter 9 – 43 days

Total Editing Days – 262 days
Average Num. Days per Ch. – 29

Why am I like this?  I’ll try to remember to put the editing duration for each chapter.  I don’t know why I’m such a numbers junkie, but I just love facts, figures and excel spreadsheets.  It’s also boggling my mind that I’ve spent nearly a year in editing o.O

Chapter 10 is going to be another long edit like Chapter 8.  There’s a lot of chaff to weed through, and I’ll probably end up cutting out quite a lot.  If I’m lucky, I’ll get to start that tonight or at the very least prep it.

I received a very nice email through my WP contact feature from someone who was only mildly familiar with the name Final Fantasy.  She liked the fact that I threw in bits and pieces of the back story, since she was then able to understand more of what was going on.  She also had a critique I 100% agree with and thought of previously, but was either too lazy or too forgetful to remedy.

Aeris wouldn’t call what happened to her “rape,” because rape denotes a violation and a crime.  While she obviously hated what she was subjected to, it occurred for so long that she would lose all sense that it was a violation.  It would just become part of her horrible, torturous life, and what constitutes a crime is utterly contingent upon the society in which the crime occurs.  Since the “society” she was forced into saw her as property, what they did to her wasn’t criminal (to them) even though it was obviously wrong.  Absolute right and absolute wrong aren’t contingent upon any societal mores, and hurting anyone in such a way is a clear violation of human rights.

That term “rights,” (which I attempted to define in Chapter 9) is often misunderstood.  People often think that rights are granted by ruling bodies, but this is erroneous.  Rights are protected by ruling bodies, and how they’re given is much more philosophical and up for debate.  Most people agree that all living beings have the right to not be tortured or abused, and all people should have equal rights; however disagreement springs up at the extent of rights people should have.  I have some pretty strong opinions about this, but I don’t want to get too political, so I’ll leave it at that.  The main point is I had Aeris using the term “rape” when she wouldn’t see it in that connotation.  The better term would probably be “use.”  That both better encompasses how she would comprehend it in addition to paralleling with both her and Sephiroth’s past.  I’ll have to go back at some point and edit again, and I do need to repost some chapters, as I’ve done some work on them since initially posting.

Quote: “I’m a monster, Aeris.  You didn’t see them.  You didn’t see their faces.”  *They forget what I am.  They forgot what I did, but I’ll always remember…*

Project: Game Review
Title: World of Final Fantasy
Status: Editing
Current Word Count: 5154
Prior Word Count: 4405
Word Difference: +749

world-of-final-fantasy

I think I’m all but done with this review save for the edit.  I am debating whether I should add something in, something very interesting I found when I was looking up Shelke’s origins.

She’s originally from Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus, and like everyone else in the FFVII universe, she has a horrifying back story.  I’ve heard a lot of bad things about Dirge, but the more I read about it, the more involved, in depth, and heartbreaking the story sounds.  The Shinra messed up so many people, and it puts a bit of a pall on the fact that everyone considers them “good” in Advent.  I agree that they’re no longer involved in human experimentation or doing things to harm the planet, but that’s really only because Sephiroth killed the president, the world was nearly destroyed by meteor, and geostigma occurred, so that served as their wake up call.  It’s also possible that Avalanche succeeded in at least informing enough of the population about what they were doing, which would be a PR nightmare, and the demand for a better energy source forced them to examine and alter their methods (I don’t have much faith in large corporations to just up and change their profitable platforms on a whim, call me skeptical if you wish).  Anyway, what happened to Shelke was not only monstrous, but what she gained from it reminds me of something else.  I’m debating whether or not I want to discuss that in the WOFF review or save it for when I (eventually, you know in twenty years) watch and review Dirge.  We’ll see how I feel during the edit.

Project: Book Review
Title: The Mabinogion Tetralogy
Author: Evangeline Walton
Status: Planning

After nearly a year, I finally finished this compendium of Welsh myths.  I’ll be working on the review this week and probably at least setting it up tonight.

What are you currently working on?  Is it a creative writing project, essay, review, or something else?  Have you just started something new or are you wrapping up a long term project?

<–The State of the Writer: 4/30/17          The State of the Writer: 5/14/17–>

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