Return, rebirth, whatever
- August 22, 2000 - Chris Jones
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed
within this column are those of the participants and the
moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the
GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive
material afoot. You better get back, man, because I am a
Pantera's Box you do NOT want to open! Don't say we
didn't warn you.
Fun things that happened to me while I was gone:
- Got half a bottle of Tilex dumped in my hair.
- Worked 5 hours by myself in 105 degree heat trying to load my truck, only to discover that everything wouldn't fit.
- Drove 800 miles to find out the power and water weren't on at my new apartment; had to blow nearly a hundred bucks to stay in a hotel room and shower for the night.
- Soon after, got locked out of said apartment. Had to spend $60 to get a locksmith to let me back in.
- I'm a Teaching Assistant for an 80x86 assembly language class. I don't know how to code x86 assembly language.
- Found out cable costs $40 a month out here. Hello, broadcast stations!
- Drew subbed for me, and did an excellent job, but now that his stint is fresh in everyone's mind, it'll be more obvious than ever that I don't have half the wit he does.
- The Mac version of Front Page is horrendous, so I'm coding this by hand in SimpleText. I can do it, but it's a pain in the ass.
- The movers I hired to move my couch, TV, etc. will be here a week after they said they would. Currently the only place to sit in my apartment is a plastic lawn chair I went out and bought. This also leads us to the real coup de grace:
- Because I have no TV, I have no Playstation. Because I have no Playstation, I have not yet played Chrono Cross, although the game is sitting two feet from me, and has been for the past five days.
So you see, it has not been an terribly entertaining couple of weeks for me. The only two things in my favor are that with karma this bad, things are bound to turn around eventually, and this: Neal Stephenson has signed on as a technical advisor to Paul Dini's new live action Batman Beyond film. Damn that's cool, on the level of the Uematsu/Billy Corgan thing, except this is actually happening and was totally unexpected. Maybe things are looking up already.
Onward.
| Die Mother 3, die, die, Mother 3! (See, it's an Office Space ref... never mind.) |
| Yo Chris,
So Mother 3 is finally dead. This doesn't come as a huge surprise, because
even if it had come out in Japan, there was only a .0005% chance that it
would've come here anyway. However, who is to blame for something like this?
Is it Nintendo for having it developed for the 64DD, then for the N64 or is
it the producer and project leader for not getting it out on time? Imagine
how much money the big N must have lost on this game over the last few
years...
--The Steve |
I'd tend to chalk this up to the fact that many developers, game and otherwise, just don't know when to call it quits. Sometimes this can be a good thing but more often than not it just means additional stuff gets tacked on to an already shaky substrate. Often this kind of product gets released to the public and work begins on a ground-up redesign immediately, but sometimes the software just collapses under it's own weight and that's probably for the best. Mother 3 should have been dead and buried along with the 64DD, in my opinion - and now they can make a really kickass version for the Dolphin.
| Is it Amano or a woman-o? |
| The Steve had a letter about those early design sketches for FFIX. I, in fact, remember them quite well. I had the picture of the guy and girl as dragoons (or whatever, it's been awhile). Knowing you, I figured you
might be up to leaving some chaos in your wake.
I don't know how you feel about Amano, but I absolutely loathe his
character renditions. I hoped the artist responsible for the concept sketches would have done the mug shots and other artwork. Alas, I was disappointed to
see Amano's hideous androgynous portraits in a recent EGM. Once again, we get Garnet who is clearly dark brown or black haired in game... yet has blonde hair in the sketch. The sketch of Garnet is even more infuriating because it looks just like Celes from FF6. Zidane looks like Locke with blonde hair, no bandanna, and a tail. Vivi looks dreadful indeed... Amano turned cute little Vivi into a hideous blob of colour that's supposed to somehow be a black mage.
So now it's there for the taking Drew. An old debate, but one that never got enough support from the people on my side... the anti-Amano group. You can print my letter and leave poor Chris to deal with the wake of rabid Amano fans eager for my blood. Or you could delete it from your mailbox.
I leave it to you.
~gaspump
PS: And I absolutely loved the character art in Final Fantasy 7. Maybe
it's because the drawings actually looked like the characters. |
I too remember that character art: I've got it as the wallpaper on my PC laptop right now.
My best guess as to what happened with the art is this: those were concept sketches, designed to show off some battle system ideas they had at the time. Once the groundwork for characters was laid (and remember, we only saw the prelims, there were undoubtedly further evolutions of the form) the characters were turned over to Amano and he did his thing. The 3D guys then tried their damnedest to render what Amano had done in software, although as you point out, what we ended up with is pretty far from Amano's work.
So why does Square bother with Amano at all, then? I think it's two reasons - name recognition and creative suggestion. Amano is fairly well known, and it lends a definite cachet to Final Fantasy to have him as the character designer, regardless of if a large portion of his work actually makes it through unchanged. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if the programmers actually did get a lot out of Amano's work - it's tremendously evocative, if looked at in the right perspective. Like you, I kinda prefer art that looks like what it's supposed to be representing, but Amano's funky drawings may be just what a graphic artist needs to design the "cute little Vivi" you're so fond of.
Regardless, I don't think their needs to be much of a debate between Amano and anti-Amano people. By and large the actual characters in FF games don't look like Amano's work, and I don't see that changing anytime soon for technological reasons. On the other hand, Amano looks to be associated with the series for a long time to come, so his fans get the pleasure of seeing his takes on their favorite characters. Everybody's happy, which is always good.
| Ryu vs. DTs! Fight! |
| Heya Chris, I just had a quick question. Have you ever drank beer while playing a video game? Anyone out there ever drank a beer and played games at the same time? I just had to ask, last night I drank a twelve pack while playing Marvel Vs Capcom 2 (I only have 4 charcters left to 'buy'). I don't know what in the hell possessed me to start drinking, but I just did.
Man I got pretty trashed last night. At the end of beer #11 I was shouting at my TV screen every time I lost (which happened quite a bit), but I was having a great time (wierd, huh?). Oh, in case you couldn't tell, i am still reeling from the beer (Last night was 33 minutes ago from the time I wrote this letter). Man, I gotta quit rambling...
Justin Bohlman, Viva Corona!
|
I don't much drink - I tend to notice a deterioration in my motor skills fairly quickly, and it's not a feeling I enjoy. That said, unwinding after a hard day with a Shiner Bock and Chrono Cross sounds pretty damn good. Just remember: beer kills brain cells, and if you kill too many you may give up on Square for Aaron Spelling.
| And here I thought she was the ckick from Batman... |
| Sup Chris.
Princess Jemmy was talking about the origins of harlequin, and seeing as how
I'm armed with a book, and more importantly, nothing else to do, I thought
I'd clear this thing up. Harlequin (or Arlecchino) was a stock character
from the 16th century Italian improvised street theater known as commedia
dell'arte. He was a stupid but hungry low-status male clown who often spoke
in comic gibberish. he wore a patched costume which eventually evolved into
the diamond-patterned harlequin suit.
Lord God, I've got too much time on my hands.
-Signore Iago |
I haven't even seen the Harle in question, aside from a few brief shots in the CC trailer, so I'll avoid comment.
| Made in Japan, I think |
| Welcome back, Survival Machine...
I'm a little confused on this one topic. Are virtually all games made in
Japan? I mean, if a game like Perfect Dark is the sequel to goldeneye, it
couldn't have been made in Japan. I'm only aware of two games actually being
released in America; Shadow Madness, and Secret of Evermore.
-SC4000 |
An awful lot of games are made in Japan, and virtually all RPGs with the exception of the two you just mentioned. However, in other genres the US and Europe do have a small stake in things: Turok, Goldeneye, and many sports games are non-Japanese in origin. Rare, who is a major ace in the hole for Nintendo, is British, and the recent Ecco the Dolphin game was developed by a French company, I believe.
| Well, duh... |
| Chris,
First of all, welcome back. To be honest, I was a little freaked out when I
came home from camp to find Drew hosting the column... I feared the worst.
But after digging through back editions of the column, the truth came to
light, and I discovered you were coming back, and there was much rejoicing.
Right then... moving on. Later this week I'll be out on a software/hardware
shopping spree, and I plan on picking up 2 games and a DexDrive (thanks for
turning me on to this magical little device). Now, my question. I've been
in a RPG drought... I've been forced to regress to playing Chrono Trigger
for the umpteenth time. Of the 3 RPGs I want (Vagrant Story, Legend of
Mana, Chrono Cross), which two do you think I should pick up? This decision
could very much change history, so choose carefully. I ask you because you
are the double agent, and you know best. Thank you ever so much.
--Brian W. |
Sniff... dammit, man, you have no idea how much a simple "welcome back" means to me in my fragile emotional state... aw hell, com'ere and gimme a hug! Or not.
From my perspective, it's pretty simple: Legend of Mana is a pretty good game with beautiful graphics, but Vagrant Story and Chrono Cross (from what I've heard) go to 11 on the goodness scale. They're definite must plays for now - save LoM for later. Other opinions may vary on this, but probably not by much.
| I love you too, man |
| You're back.
*awkward pause*
Yay.
-Agent X "i'm excited...really" |
Agent X is just upset because he finally thought he'd knocked me off and gained sole claim to the Agent name, but I'm harder to kill than a... thing that's really hard to kill. Look, what do you want, it's my first day back, alright? I'll come up with more bizarro references tomorrow, promise.
Closing Comments:
I'm too tired to think of a topic for tomorrow, so just send me whatever you like, but remember: no CC spoilers, or I bust heads. See you tomorrow.
-Chris Jones, battered but alive |
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