A few bits of business to clear up before we wade into the letters for the day. - He appreciates it, but please stop sending me offers to bear AK's children. No more offers of hot sex, no more poems of adulation. I'm not an answering machine for AK and his sexual escapades, thank you kindly. - For those that asked, I primarily stayed in Halifax during my little trip, and visited the campuses of Mount Allison, St. Francis Xavier, Acadia, and the University of King's College. In the event that any of you readers live out there, and I return, we'll do lunch, all right? - My sister's birthday is tomorrow. This has nothing to do with anything, but I figured I'd say so. - I don't give stock tips. - And yes, I do know what the leper said to the whore. Beyond that, a quiet enough day. I made the critical error of eating the complimentary beef meal on my flight back, though, a decision I was regretting for most of yesterday, but things seem to have calmed down considerably now. So, with my stomach now ironclad once more, and my limbs full of vim and vigor, it's time to MAAAAAAAAAMBO! | Being one with the chicken | If you were a piece of chicken, what kind would you be? Leg? Thigh? Breast?*wink, wink" -Legion007, John Doe No. 6 |
Pish. If I was a breast, what would I do? Fondle myself? That's just not kosher, m'boy. If I was a piece of chicken, I'd probably be the wishbone. Something that people leave on a paper napkin for days until I am brittle and dessicated, and then pull me apart with a sickening crack for good luck. It's a pretty accurate recap of how most of my blind dates have gone, so it'd be the part I'd do best as, I think. | Final Fantasy in Xenogears? | Hey Allan-- Welcome back! Just one question: if you look at the back of theXenogears package in the copyright area, why do you suppose they listthe Final Fantasy copyright, since Final Fantasy is not mentionedanywhere on the package? -tony |
You are correct. A possible explanation proposed by GIA's own Fritz Fraundorf is that the legal indicia was directly copied over from a previous game, probably Parasite Eve, which featured a demo disc with FF8 on it. Consequently, they probably copied ot over to the next game released, Xenogears, and just reprinted the copyright information without checking it over too carefully, switching Xenogears and Parasite Eve, but leaving the FF in by accident. | Parasite Eve is a book, too | Welcome Back, Double Agent Allan! Everyone has been talking about the Parasite Eve movie will be based onthe game, but it seems people are forgeting about the book. A month or soago on MSNBC (the TV channel, not the super slow website) they mentionedMadonna's Japan obsession and her interest in the movie and book, but didn'teven mention the game (idiots that they are). It's certainly possible that the movie will be based on the game, but it'sjust as possible that it's based on the book. --Lakupo |
You're absolutely right. Frankly, it's a lot more likely that Madonna would be basing a film project on the book, rather than the game - she doesn't strike me as the Tekken type. Adapting a favourite Japanese novel seems more up her alley, despite the shoo-in role for her in the person of Eve in PE the game. Whatever the scenario, though, she'd certainly do a single for the soundtrack. Mr. Splat wrote in to contemptuously inform us all that the Madonna/Parasite Eve thing is just a rumor, but frankly, while it's not official by any means, it's been bandied about in enough places, with enough confidence, that I don't discount it completely, and hey, it's just a letters column. We need no facts here. Only discussion. :) | Alundra and Zelda music | With all the discussion of Zelda's end-theme being like one of the FFs' intro,I've decided to throw yet another music "coincidence" up for y'all. Have youever noticed that the Zelda field music bears striking (that's anunderstatement) resemblance to the Alundra music? I'm not sure if it's the samecomposer or what, but I thought I'd just bring that up. Oh, and welcome back! --magius |
As with the previous example, I strongly suspect it's sheer coincidence, and similar inspirations at best. Or, alternately, you could go with the following letter-writer's opinion on the issue of musical originality. | Everything's been done and beaten to death | [This shows that I was actually the only one awake through those AP Music Theory classes in school] Well, how can I explain this? Basically, in essense, every single piece of music in existance has already been done before. And before you scream out "Why?! How?!", let me just say this: when a musical composition is being composed, it seems that there is an infinite amount of things that you could do to start off a piece of music. But then you have to factor in the rules that music should at least follow. There goes about 1/2 of the possibilities there. By the time you choose your instruments and the first two chords, it's been done before. Whether it was from a video game, a musical composition by Bartok, or an old folk song from around the early 11th century, it's all been done before. Besides, both songs are great. Who cares if they sound like each other, anyway? ^_~ - Dark Paladin (or the person who should be getting himself to class) |
Has everything truly been done, in music, in writing, in art? It's a pretty depressing notion, but especially when we're discussing classical-style composition, I suspect that at least most everything has been done before, and inspiration and homage have blurry lines indeed between them. Consequently, we get the "hey, song X sounds a lot like song Y" over and over again. So I guess I agree mostly with Dark Paladin here, though the romantic in me still holds out hope that not every piece of music has already been written. | Giving FF8 a hug | I am in an even worst mood than this weirdo for extreamly personalreasons (no it isn't a sob story about how I lost a girlfriend) and Isee this airhead's letter and decided to let out some steam. 1. The card mini-game. Before you bash it, TRY IT!!!! It can be a littlefrustrating at times but is a good diversion from to much RPGing. It isquite entertaining and deep for a mini-game. Which is probably tocomplex for your puny mind to comprehend. I mean, are you even a gamer?If so what the hell you doin bashing the greatest RPG in an RPG site? 2. The magic and juction system: it is not more stupid cloning ofcharacters as you think. You get abilities from Guardian Forces.Guardian Forces like materia gain abilities as they gain points.Guardian Forces are unique in the abilities they can potentially have.Guardian Forces do NOT, I repeat NOT, duplicate meaning only 1 steal perparty. 1 morph per party. 1 Bahamut per party!!! Armor is taken away byuse of juctioning. Juctioning gives you extra defence making it morestrategic in how you handle your magic. Do you waste a spell and causeyour character to lose 1 defence point to kill a wimp? NO! 3. Gunblade... have you even played Mario RPG? It's like that and only 2characters have that ability. 1 being Squall and the other being... wellit is obvious but I won't spoil it for those who are deliberatlyavoiding any and all information even as minor as this one. 4. Cloud's Buster Sword is not unlikely. Ancient Chinese martial artistsdo practice with swords not to much shorter than that to build strength. 5. You got a problem with people who have tough lives? Come here and letme bitch to you about how this type of thing effects people. (see myintroduction). 6. Technology... I agree that it is a little out of place but it makesfor truly wonderful and beutiful CG graphics. 7. Swords are stronger than guns. Guns have but range. Fatality occursif you aim in the right spot. Same with swords. However if i aimed a gunat a persons shoulder, do you think it will do more damage than if Ijust sliced the guys arm off? Not sure? Fine. Let me shoot one of yourarms then slice the other one and you tell me which your more likely todie from. Besides, in a world where magic enhances physical ability,does a contiual flow of extreame power beat out a small burst of power? RPGer |
I think it important to note that, in the FF world, guns simply aren't the same kettle of fish as they are in real life. Expecting realistic levels of effectiveness (i.e. instant fatalities) is sort of ridiculous. I mean, we're talking about worlds where you can toss solar systems are people to beat them up. Consequently, I think of guns as being just another weapon in RPG worlds, not the revolutionary invention they are in real life. The rules are different in the RPG world. Shrug and go with the flow, I say. | Ratings and the Report Card | First off, a warm and hardy embrace welcoming you back to the treacheroushell-pit that is the letters column of GIA. |
Why thank you. It's nice to be back in the pits of hell. Second off, I thought of taking legal action against you for postingthat letter by Me, the Magical Magician of Oz on the Boys of the HoodOverly Painfully funny. It hurt me to even glance at it. Seriously. |
If you don't want to see it printed, don't send it. As it stands, that was such a bizarre letter that I nearly had a stroke laughing at it, so I wouldn't be too embarrassed by it. :) Third, and quite seriously off, What do you think of sex and violencein the video game industry? Am I mistaken in thinking that sex isthought of as somehow worse and far less acceptable in public thanviolence? That's sickening. Do you honestly think Thrill Kill wascancelled because of it's laughable excess gore or because of the S&Mreferences and humor? What do you think? |
It's a long-standing fact that sex is considered much more of a taboo topic in the US than anywhere else in the world. Nudity on TV is totally permissable and not even blinked at in most parts of the globe, but nearly banned in North America. Some Italian soap operas get especially racy. By and large, North America is a much more paranoid, conservative area when it comes to subject matter in entertainment. Consequently, the subject matter we see in video games is constrained to avoid protest from parent's groups and angry politicians. Which, to my mind, is a damned shame. Thrill Kill's cancellation doesn't bother me very much, since I found it to be a pretty lousy game, but it represents a total failure of the game ratings bureau. We have these rankings for subject matter in gaming, but companies don't dare earn them in any way except excess gore. That being so, why have the blasted ratings at all? In my ideal world, the ratings system would actually be effective and in serious use. We could see some risque material in games, marked appropriately to stave off too much protest. There's something cosmically wrong about an industry where it's okay to dismember someone, but it's forbidden to have sex. But, alas, we'll probably never see that day. Fourth, have you seen the Video Game Report Card by Senator Joe Libermanand his cronies? It's disgusting, it honestly is. 13-17 year olds bythier standards can't play Flesh Fest, Starcraft, The House of the Dead,Unreal, Bio Freaks, Duke Nukem: ToK, Grand Theft Auto, Metal Gear Solid,Mortal Kombat 4, and Tenchu. Give me the biggest fucking break you can. |
Oh lord, not Lieberman again. The man's playing Joe McCarthy to Super Mario. Doesn't the man have anything vaguely useful to do with his time? Of all the issues he could spend his time harping on, he's bitching and moaning about a self-policed industry on the basis of flimsy statistics, anecdotal sob stories and a moral high ground he's carved out for himself. What a waste of a human being. The only solace I can find is that, quite honestly, he's sort of stuck now. Paper tiger or no, the gaming ratings system supposedly keeps highly violent games away from impressionable young minds. Consequently, he can blame video games for anything he wants, but he's in no position to actually change them. HA HA.
| Someone who actually played FF8 | Needless to say, Random999's letter got me a little angry. Havingactually played the game, I feel the need to inform and correct people wnenit comes to trashing Square's latest RPG. Everyone is entitled to theiropinions but just plain ripping on stuff that's not even right gets to me,so here we go! *Ahem* Okay, the cardgame is just a minigame! I realize thathe doesn't like minigames but the way they engineered this sucker is reallynice. Instead of a bunch of half assed minigames they've made onedefinitive, could be a game of its own, well engineered distraction.Whenever you get sick of killing and exploring (never!) you can sit downwith a random townsperson and have it out for hours! Whether it's in a pubor on the beach, there will be some stranger with cool new cards to meet!With local rules in each town, different styles and a clever AI, the game isjust sweet. Next, the junction system. Yes, you start out with just "fight"but all you have to do is equip one of the two guardian forces you start outwith and you have draw, item, and use magic. So there's no real problem withgetting started. True, the armor has been removed but it took me a longwhile before I even noticed or cared, the GFs can be equiped and reequipedto get varying stats and elemental junk. More than one GF can be equiped aswell so you can mix and match your armor and magic bonuses, very cool ideain my opinion, much more customization. Now for the whole Squall and Limitsection. The limits are interactive, sorry, if you want to really kick someass you're going to have to put some work into it. It's kind of refreshingto have to really interact during a fight rather than just sitting back andwatching the whole time. And with all those GF animations that you're goingto see over and over again, you will be dying to smash some buttons and getthe old blood pumping. The reason RPG and hollywood screenwriters chooseangst ridden heroes is because most of our little world is populated withthem. Nothing in life is ever as simple as just being "good" or "evil." Thisgame has a lot in the way of friendships being broken and mended, childhoodrivalries and old emotions being dug up and a good deal of treachory andhuman emotion. In other words, they really wanted to write a dynamic storywith living people. I think AV described this in his videogames.com review,FF8's people live and breath on the screen. They're much like the charactersin Evangelion in the way they have to overcome personal problems to getalong, kinda like the real world we live in. Finally, the whole technologydebate. I think it was best put in Starship Troopers "He can't push atrigger if you've cut his finger off." Squall's gunblade is only used by thefinest of the Garden, he has more control and attachment to the sword thanany soldier has with their gun. Simply put, unless you're packing a nuclearweapon or kryptonite, your going to be in several pieces if you run intohim. He had to earn that weapon, and trust me, it's pretty damn powerful. Ithink anyone who's taken Karate or Sword Fighting knows what I mean when Isay "sometimes a gun just doesn't cut it when it comes to style andcontrol." As for why the technologies are side by side, that's why it's afantasy game, it's something other than our world. Illogical will always winin the realm of Final Fantasy, it's why we play them, we can do stuff that'sjust nuts in our world. What belief did he have? Okay, he doesn't believeguns and swords can exist at the same time, but airships are just fine?Whatever... After having played the game, I can easily say that although itis different from the others, it still accomplishes what Square had in mind,allowing you to visit a very strange and exciting place and be someone otherthan yourself for a few sweet short hours each day. By the way, I'm going to Hawaii for a week so I plan to do some seriousliving Allan! It's going to be great! -Zach Stroum |
There ya go. Someone who's actually played the game, sounding off on it. A nice change, and spoiler-free, no less. Have a ball in Hawaii, Zach. But please, in the future, PLEASE take the time to paragraph your letters properly. I was nice and did it for you this time, but it really makes my life, and other reader's as well, a LOT easier if you break things up. More readable, snappier, and good grammar besides.
Closing comments Today's pro-FF8 day. We'll get a bit more down and dirty tomorrow, but I want the give the chance for some FF8-owning-and-hating writers to send in their thoughts on the game. I know you're out there. A lot of this stuff is quite subjective, which makes for iffy letters material, but we'll see how tonight's batch of letters turn out, I guess. Oh, and request for help time: does anyone know of a site that has Popful Mail information on it, perchance? - The Double Agent | | | |
