He's baaaaaaaaack! After a week in the clean Maritimes air, I have returned to my homeland with a slew of new neuroses and hatreds to inflict upon you, my faithful readers. My eight days off have swelled up a great fountain of bile and disgust within my breast. I'm swelling up with negativity, I tell you. So, to celebrate my return, I'm plunging a massive sword into my chest, and letting it all splatter out, as though I was a walking, talking pus pocket. ... okay, fine, so I had a good time. The weather was quite lovely (except for Sunday, which boasted an onslaught of freezing rain and high winds). The people I met were extremely friendly. I ate a lot of seafood, and have concluded that I actually do like shrimp, despite what my parents have insistently drilled into me for years. And, best of all, I was able to just plain relax for the first time in a while. Able to hang out and argue about cream cheese in Great Canadian Bagel. Able to suck down rivers of black coffee. Able to fall head over heels for a young woman who lives hundreds of miles away from me, and just enjoy the infatuation. In short, I was able to just live for a week, and it felt fantastic. I should try living more often. All that aside, I've got a juicy batch of letters to sift through and answer, so enough about me already. It's time to get down and dirty. | FFVIII action figures | Ok. I'm a little confused. Since this is a small letter...just print it, alright? In a news column, it says there will be two versions of FFVIII figures. cheap ones (June) and expensive ones (Sept.). What the hell's the difference between them? |
Okay, the difference is that cheap ones will less expensive in terms of price and quality of materials (cheaper plastic, et al.), probably shorter, and thinner. They'll probably be packaged in bubble packs. The more expensive ones will be bulkier, made of heavier and sturdier material, 6" tall, and probably be in individual boxes. If you've seen the Metal Gear Solid or, better yet, the Spawn toys from McFarlane toys, I gather that the expensive FFVIII ones will be of similar quality. GIA will be having further coverage and hard stats (heights, list prices, etc.) fairly soon, including some photos of the suckers. Should be nifty. | And the Zelda vs. FF verdict is...? | OK, it's time to settle the Zelda ending / FF prologue music question onceand for all. Here are the two themes transcribed in C major. (The lowercase"b" is a flat.) FF C F G C Bb Bb A G F E F Zelda C C F C F G C G Bb A G F C D F FF, cont'd G F F E Zelda, cont'd G F F E D C Comparing the two melodies, it's clear that there are striking similarities,but they're by no means identical. And the way the two pieces develop iscompletely different: the Final Fantasy prologue is a simple AAB form whilethe Zelda ending is more complex. The character of the pieces is alsodifferent: Zelda's ending has a parade-like quality, while Final Fantasy'sprologue is more of an anthem. Verdict: It's not plagiarism. I wouldn't be surprised if Zelda's composerhad the Final Fantasy theme in mind; then again, I wouldn't be surprised ifit was a coincidence. -- Mr. Saturn |
Ta-daaaaaaaaaa! A warm round of applause, please, for Mister Saturn. I dearly hope the HTML looks right, with all the notes lining up and so forth. In final analysis, I concur with Mr. S' conclusion. I've cried plagiarism when it comes to gaming music before, and had my head handed to me. Most of the music makers have a lot of integrity, and wouldn't rip one another off. The most likely explanation is coincidence, but barring that, it's entirely possible that both are inspired/borrowed from a piece of classical music, which is a fairly common practice. It's homage, not leeching. | Masks and intestines | Doesn't is just PISS YOU OFF when some ass hole impersonates you on the internet? -Mr. Splat-. |
Well, thankfully, it's a damn tough job to impersonate yours truly. I mean, do you have any idea how hard it is to be as insenstive, inflammatory, and snarky as I am on a daily basis? Acting like Allan is a leading cause of heart failure, lung and breast cancer, male pattern baldness, and getting slapped by angry dates. Beware. More seriously, yes, someone has impersonated me on the Internet, and it pissed me off mightily indeed. Especially since they linked my name with a teen porn site. Smack was laid down, an account was revoked, and the bugger was apparently sent to military boarding school by his parents. Ain't life sweet? Basically, someone impersonating or parodying me is okay by me so long as it's in fun. If you start associating my name with something seriously wrong, I'm going to rip your guts out. | Don't cry for me, mitochondria | Ok, after thinking about this one for about five minutes and rewatching someof the movies off the two CDs, I've come to the conclusion that Madonnaprobably has her eyes on playing Eve. They look similar, sing and get tosteal quite a few of the scenes. I guarantee you the only way she even heardabout the game was some close friend mentioned off hand that they look verysimilar. She then looked into it and said, "ooh, a vehicle for an actionmovie with opera singing, I could do that." (Remember her other operaticmovie, do the words "Don't cry for me Argentina" ring a bell?) As to whowill play Aya, that's a whole other problem. But after reading yesterdaysletter I had to chime in. Thanks! -Zach |
I suspect you're right. Madonna tends to be over-ambitious in terms of choosing her acting roles, but I somehow doubt she's pining away to play Aya. Eve sounds like the most likely candidate, if she indeed will play a role in the film at all. Alternately, she might simply dub over the songs done by Eve, plus additional songs on the soundtrack, while not actually appearing in the film at all. Considering that she's picked up the rights, she'll almost certainly do a song or two for it, but I wouldn't bet the farm on a starring role just yet. | Siras? | Check it out, I stumbled onto quite a few nintendo registered domains(Internic's search thing showed that they were all registered by NOA)These all seem to have weird code names for the titles (Unless you alreadyknow something about a project titled Siras) Could these be somehow related to the n2000 machine? Perhaps a gamingnetwork? You can run the following sites through Internic to verify myclaims. Check it out, oh wise agent. siras.com siras.net siras.org e-siras.com e-siras.net e-siras.org riqa.com riqa.net ereturns.com ereturn.com 2return.com 4return.com in64.com All registered by NoA, all have sub-servers. Gaming network? Hell, that'd besweet. |
This is very curious, and don't have the faintest idea what it means. I remember when AV found that Square had registered ehrgeiz.com, and I laughed at him, since there was no way they could be making a game with such a stupid name. I laughed then. And I was proven dead wrong. The big N has something related to return and Siras in the works, and I'll be damned if I can guess what it is. Judging by their track record, a gaming network seems unlikely - they're not the type. A secret project? A piece of hardware? Red herring? I just don't know... | FF8 hatred, in absentia | I was sitting around in a moderately bad mood thinking: "What to do, what todo? Oh I know I'll bitch about FF8!" So here we go! The following isbelligerent, one sided, solely my personal opinion, and profane. All peoplewho've never seen a cuss word before should close their eyes. Right off the bat I just have to say. I despise the very idea of the cardminigame, and the fact that I've heard it's pretty vital to getting good itemsandupgrading weapons just makes me even pissier than I already was. I've neverliked any mini game in RPGs. Like in Xenogears and the battle arena. Ineveronce went to the battle arena after it was no longer necessary. If I everwant to play a fighting game (although I don't see why the hell I would) I'dgo out and rent a game designed for that purpose. And if I wanted to playsome silly ass card game that looks like a cross between solitaire andMagic:The Gathering, I'd shoot myself. Then there's the whole magic and junction system. From what I can tell itmean's there's going to be cloning in the Final Fantasy world once more.Apparently the only ability all the characters start out with is fight!Thereisn't even armor. It seems the only thing about the characters you can'tmakethe same is Squall's pitiful excuse for a sword, but I'm not sure what'smorelaughable and unlikely: Squall's "Gunblade", or Cloud's "Buster Sword." Imight also mention the similarity of pressing a button to get a strongerattack with the gunblade to Beyond the Beyond's retarded smack the buttonsfora bonus system, but I won't go any more into that. What else to abuse... How about the poor angst riddled son of a bitchteenagehero. The determined but troubled little boy with secrets in his past is outto save the world, thank the lord! Yeah right. I wish Square would stopgivingus main characters that are both whiny and mentally incompetent. Then there's the technology. I will admit some people do indeed like thetechnology, I don't. In my book technology, swords, and magic should neverbeallowed to mix. Putting fantasy elements with things like cars and computersalways irritates me. It makes a story go from being fantasy to laughableshit.Not to mention how absurdly illogical it is for guns to exist, and yetswordsare the most powerful weapon. When those two combine as such my suspensionofbelief usually dies within seconds. You can still see it in the corner overthere. See that little pile of ash, that's what FF VII did. I'm sure if this gets put in the column many people will want to scream,yelland bitch at me. If they want to tell them to send any complaints toRandom999@aol.com. Maybe that'll save you a little bit of time. I doubt it,but who knows. - Random999 |
I'll step aside for and note that Random999 is entitled to his opinion, though I question the wisdom in ranting on and on about a game that he hasn't played. I guess the "innocent until proven guilty" rule doesn't apply here. Plenty of this is subjective, and thus useless to debate. I don't, personally, have any difficulty with advanced technology in RPGs, and actually appreciate the change of pace. I am concerned about the continued trend of universal power sets for characters in the FF games, as I've said before, and FF8 seems to continue the frustrating trend. I very much wish that we'd have distinct power sets for each character, for gameplay balance's sake if nothing else. The card battle complaints are pretty flimsy, though. Quite honestly, can anyone not name a game where a mini-game is helpful to getting all the items? They've had these sorts of things all the way back to Ultima and Dragon Warrior days, with trips to Casinos netting you GP and special items. Bashing FF8 for having Card Battle is unfair. If you tar and feather CB in FF8, you're slapping games as varied as Dragon Warrior IV and Zelda: TOoT with the same stroke. I was going to try and argue your points, but as you say, you're in a bad mood, and are belligerent in your comments. If anyone else feels like refuting his points, especially anyone that actually bothered to play the game, feel free to write in. As for me, I'm giving him a chance to voice his opinion, and leaving it at that. | Resemblance and the Kefka Esper | A question-- Grey in FF Movie supposedly looks like Brad Pitt (I haven't seen stillsof Grey yet). Edya in FF8 looks like Miranda Richardson. Is there anyreason Square has these two characters look like certain actors? Another question, one I've asked before but you didn't answer-- Is it possible that Kefka is an Esper? See my prior letters for myreasons for thinking so. - Blackjack Gabbiani |
I suspect that Square is just trying to get a certain look for the various characters, for dramatic purposes, and for easy reference, reporters associate them with famous people like Brad Pitt. I doubt Square went "let's design a character who looks like Miranda Richardson." They went "let's design a character who looks like this" and, upon completion, went "hey, that looks like Miranda Richardson, doesn't it?" It's finding links in existing object, not recreating it on purpose. Secondly, I don't think Kefka's an Esper. He's linked to the Espers, was imbued with their power, moreso than any other person on the planet, but it's still an artificial infusion of their power. This is explicitly stated by a few people in Vector during your visits there, in the bar, and elsewhere. So no, I don't think he's an Esper, since we're told he's not. | Pass me that heroin, would ya? | In first, I think planethalflife.com should not allow such disgrace in itsletters department as to the event of March 3rd in which vestal review FinalFantasy Part Ocho of the videogames.com, not the pcxl.com one because thatwould be a contradiction. When Jeremy looks at me from over there, he looksscary as poop. My chair rotates on a discus plane overload. I forgot aboutthis letter I'm sorry but now I'm back and remember what i was going to say.I was talking about Saint Elisha of Elevators who manufactured monkey organsand things like that. You little bit. Yoshi won when he and Mario shot atPrincess on the Tightrope because they went to the school and could seeJeremy and Elisha at school in the letter column and when they do they'llMario's hat really covers his eyes unnecessarily and shadows them greatly.Overhead projectors are NOT what they appear, give me the Chameleons. OK??It's Right here just as I said it was Gin 'N' JuiCe. Ciggarettes. He'stalking about Chameleons and gin n juice cigarretes Jokes he's typing whatI'm saying there it was a premonition of what I was saying. Six in themorning. House of God and Yes to the three and BOKE A smowl. In secondaryconclusion, only the men of Mars can beat the women of Uranus when Saturn isin alignment with FFVIII. Thus Vestal, conclusionally, is now unable toreview FFVIII because it would be an atrocity of bias and good taste indrapery. Yours Truly and Yet Sincerely Love, Me, the Magical Magician of Oz on the Boys of the Hood Overly Painfullyfunny. |
You said an armful, that's for sure....
Closing comments Sheesh. I get back, and I'm already doing extreme late-night updates. How sucky is that? Ah well. With a solid flow of letters over the next day (hint, hint, take the goddamn hint), I'll update earlier tomorrow, I promise. And that, I believe, should do it for now. Ciao, all. Pax. - Allan Milligan | | | |
