30-Day Video Game Music Challenge Day 21: Frustration

“Music you associate with frustration”

Ahoy, Me Hearties! Let’s talk about fan translations

Arr! Today be talk like a pirate day, so let’s talk about the fuzzy boundary between piracy, popularization, and preservation.

I’m all for creators being able to profit off their work, and not about to defend people who pirate content just to get out of paying retail price. And some media is a lot harder to justify pirating than others; I can’t think of an acceptable reason to pirate e-books, for example. (It’s also a bad idea because you’re more likely to get malware than the correct book.)

Final Fantasy VII’s corporate dystopia is coming true, and Trump is Rufus Shinra

Read this, especially if you’re a Final Fantasy fan in America.

http://www.avclub.com/article/20-years-after-its-release-final-fantasy-viis-trum-248762

Personally, I never thought FFVII’s ending was saying that humanity was gone, though, only that Midgar was abandoned.

Awesome Music Thursday: Wanderer of Time

I’ve recently discovered the Final Fantasy Vocal Collections, which are exactly what they sound like; vocal versions of music from the Final Fantasy games.

And the world of balance theme from Final Fantasy VI has always been one that stood out to me:

That’s just beautiful.

Final Fantasy VII Remake is not a remake of Final Fantasy VII

After the hype died down, Final Fantasy VII has never really been my favorite game in the series in the first place, but there’s no denying that it’s an extremely popular one that’s rightly considered a classic, and I’ve been saying for years that it made no sense for Square Enix to avoid it when choosing which older games to remake. So when they said they were remaking it for PS4, my reaction was “Finally!”.

And now they’ve gone and ruined the one thing that might have redeemed them for all the other crap they’d done over the last decade or so.

F is for Fantasy

I consider Project Quintessence to be primarily science fiction, but it does have fantasy elements. It’s just, the “magic” and golems are given “scientific” explanations, making it more soft sci-fi. And with the modern setting, it’s closer to urban fantasy than fantasy fantasy. A story that was primarily set in Ertiada’s world would be much closer to what people mean when they say “fantasy” without qualifiers; a fictional world that has things that aren’t possible in reality.

Video Game Challenge Day 20: Worst Minigame

“Worst forced minigame”

Specifying “forced” because the more optional something is the more ignorable it is.

Final Fantasy X has some truly terrible ones that are only semi-optional, though, considering you have to play them to get the celestial weapons. The lightning dodging one is just ridiculous.

But my least favorite of all is completely required; the “make Bowser sneeze” minigame in Mario and Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story. Actually, the giant Bowser battles are pretty bad too, or at least excessively hard compared to the rest of the game.

Top 21 craziest anime/game hair: 21-16

Hair in anime and video games can be any color of the visible spectrum and defy the laws of physics.

This is my list of 21 of the weirdest, most unrealistic, or just plain crazy examples of hairstyles in anime, manga, and video games.

(It was going to be top 20 but then I remembered an obvious one and didn’t want to take anyone off the list.)

#21. Cutie Honey

Though her original incarnation technically wasn’t a magical girl, this android is close enough to be considered the prototype of the “magical girl warrior” subgenre that includes Sailor Moon and Pretty Cure.

And she’s on the list because she’s a girl with the same kind of sideburns as every other Go Nagai protagonist.