I don't typically like corporations. If a single store or small chain sells something I need, I will gladly pay a little extra so that Walmart doesn't get any of my money. Just like a good liberal, I look into the practices and history of companies that I intend to buy from, and weigh whether or not I can ethically live with myself for supporting them. I shop at Target frequently despite their hazy past because of all the charity they do, and my childhood neighborhood in Chicago has directly benefitted from their donations. I don't eat at Chic-Fil-A (I have once) because of the way they shit on their employees, refuse full-time positions so that they can dodge health insurance, and their CEO hates queers. Yes, they do a lot for the community, but it's a list of pros and cons, and the cons are numerous.
Amazon is another company that my fellow bleeding Democrat vaginas have been screaming at me to stop patronizing. I understand that they have taken over American retail as we know it and are secretly investing in a drone delivery idea, but Amazon is too convenient to hate. I know it makes me an enormous hypocrite, but for fuck's sake, the Destiny PS4 bundle I bought yesterday will be on my doorstep TOMORROW. The PS4 Destiny bundle isn't released until tomorrow, and Amazon can have it in my house on the exact day it comes out. For free.
Can Target's online service do this? Sure, but the overnight shipping would be a 30$ charge. Amazon included the delivered-the-day-of-release shipping option for free because they know nobody else can offer that. Yes, that is corporate strong-arming but holy shit is it convenient for me. Just like every hard-working tax-paying American, my morals are only preceded in importance by my money.
Here's Mulder driving a 1993 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera
Just like the dad from A Christmas Story, Fox Mulder (who has been my inspiration for so many years) is an Oldsmobile guy. I know you're sitting there thinking, "How in the world could you know that?", but I assure you I watch A LOT of X-Files, and I love spending time doing investigative reporting on matters that nobody gives a fuck about.
Here's an Oldsmobile Achieva, driven here by Skinner who is possessed by Mulder's brain in a body-switch
I suppose it's possible that it is all a coincidence. Mulder and Scully criss cross our nation frequently, and these could all just be rental cars. Or, they could be a sponsor of the show. Those are rational and logical conclusions to come to, and thus have no business being included in any X-Files discussion of any kind. Fox Mulder is an Oldsmobile man, and he doesn't let impossible distances and impracticality stand in the way of a smooth, dependable drive.
Mulder driving an Oldsmobile Intrigue
He's even driving a 1998 Oldsmobile Intrigue in the X-Files Movie! Wake up America!
EDIT: After posting my theory, I was emailed a tip from an anonymous source; this video.
Oliver's first day of school included parents in the classroom for the duration of the day. We shuffled in, and I sat down in a chair made for a 4 year old next to a giant toy castle that I desperately wanted to play with. The kids all gathered together as the teacher called roll call for the first time in their tiny lives, and us parents watched on, most seemed apathetic, others seemed like this moment absolutely must be on Facebook, and just a couple of us, myself included were watching in awe as our kids got excited about being taught something.
Oliver was outstanding. He recognized his name and put it on the paper apple tree. He correctly told the teacher that 5+3=8, and when asked to talk about himself to the rest of the class, he spoke of his sister and living with his mom and dad. Oliver played with the viking castle with me for a couple minutes before asking to go play with the plastic tools with a couple of the other kids. I let him go, leaving me to shoot the little fake cannon at some barbies that I had set up.
I don't like the other parents. I hear them talking behind me, it's all about social media and celebrity gossip. I hear a mom speaking about how she's been a single mother for 7 years, and the dad she is telling this too is nodding, struggling to seem interested, just like he did when we exchanged boring whatevers earlier. There's a fat mom chasing her daughter around, taking pictures with her cellphone, never letting the little girl actually play. This is my son's first day of school ever, but this is also a new reality for me too. It won't just be picking up and dropping off, I will be a member of some classroom parent group for the next 2 decades at least.
Oliver wanted donuts after school, I said sure. He had 5.
It took me 30+ hours to complete Final Fantasy 2, and now that I'm a couple of hours into FF3 I realize just how tragic the previous adventure's leveling system truly was. My FF3 party levels up when they accumulate enough experience points, and their magic damage is determined by statistics, not by how many times they have been cast in battle. I feel like I have emerged from 30 hours of hard labor within a copper mine, and a fellow rescued prisoner greeted me with ice cold water and brotherhood. I am enjoying Final Fantasy 3 more than I should be because of just how awful FF2 was.
This is the first game that Square ever used their "job system" for. While the job system is better known in installments like FF5, FFX-2 or the Tactics games, it began right here, within FF3. You can switch your job on fly in this game, just like later Final Fantasies, but FF3 lays the groundwork for so much more. If you play FF3 and then return to FF9 for instance, you can see the ability system stealing from this earlier piece of the franchise. I love games that are historically important for the industry, and while largely unplayed and unknown, FF3 has a lot of ideas new to that time.
I have been unable to completely confirm this, but I personally have never seen an earlier game use a specific class that gives you unique options outside of battle. IF you have a thief in your party you can unlock this door.
Ship battles though! The worst idea that you can program into an RPG other than losing HP as you walk (Lunar) is giving you random battles as you sail around the world map. I know that FF4 does away with them so I'm taking comfort in this being the last game that makes this mistake but fuck, it is aggravating.
The final dungeon in Final Fantasy 2 is called Pandemonium, and I now consider it to be one of the most challenging sections of any old school RPG. Pandemonium is a 10 floor dungeon, but you had to traverse an 8 floor dungeon called the Jade Passage to even get to Pandemonium, with no rest stops or towns or even access to a save point in between. So basically, FF2's endgame is a gargantuan 18 floors of the most difficult and punishing random encounters that the bestiary can provide. Add to this the fact that items don't stack, limiting you to a 50 item inventory and Pandemonium turns into a punishing test of resource management.
Like most retro role playing games, Final Fantasy 2 has an unreasonably high frequency of random battles. For 18 floors, I counted my steps between random battles and the furthest I went without fighting was 6 steps, and that only happened twice. The fights are brutal, just see above. This is a random battle that I received probably a dozen times in Pandemonium. 3 Fenrirs, 2 Frost Lizards and a Great Malboro. Final Fantasy vets would immediately go for the Malboro, fearing it's ability to inflict you with any and every status effect within the game, but the Fenrirs are the deceptively deadly ones. They cast Muddle, a status effect that makes you attack your own party, you know, the party that you've been building up all game, the ones with all of the ultimate weapons? It's a terrible handicap that makes you spend elixirs and ethers post-battle.
The final boss is the Emperor, and you start to see some of the foundations for the more memorable moments in future Final Fantasy games. The final asshole is an Emperor just like in FF4 and FF6, the airships and steampunk themes start creeping in, and the final battle is in space! The Emperor here is tough, but I used a Blood Sword, a strategy that not all retro Final Fantasy fans use, but I swear by it. Every Final Fantasy game released before 7 has some version of a Blood Sword, a relatively weak weapon that heals the user the equivalent of the damage it deals. The damage output of these swords becomes obsolete quickly, but I find wielding one, (especially in a game like FF2 that allows your characters to dual-wield) slightly tilts the math in your favor. Firion never requires healing, ever, he restores every turn, leaving me with just the burden of managing three party members' hit points instead of four. Firion is in charge of resurrection too, as he is the guy most rarely killed. Also, I suspect this but have found no confirmation, but I think The Emperor is designed to go after the party member with the highest HP, so I had very little trouble with him. He damaged Firion every turn it seemed, and I was able to keep his health at a comfortable level.
Just like the original Final Fantasy, FF2's real final boss is the dungeon you must defeat in order to get to the final boss. The Emperor survived just eight rounds against a team that I wasn't particularly confident in.
I know for certain that I will never play Final Fantasy 2 again. It is in no way harder than FF1, but the original has so much history behind it, the story of how it saved one of the most influential game developers from going bankrupt. Final Fantasy 1 is important, FF2 wasn't even released in the United States until well after Final Fantasy 8 had come and gone. FF2's stat system sucks, it's too easy to exploit and almost forces a player to give up on offensive magic altogether. I will however, take a little credit for beating what is probably the worst game in the entire series, twice.
I've talked about how genius the Pokemon Trading Card Game Online is before, because of it's level playing field. You can't buy cards with your silly Earth money, you can only buy randomized packs with coins earned from within the game itself. Yes, you can exchange promo codes found in real packs of Pokemon cards that can be exchanged online, but again, it only provides you with a randomized pack of cards, nobody automatically gets anything, and I love that.
I've been battling my way through online ranked matches, buying a new booster pack every time I scrape 100 coins together, and tweaking my deck here and there every time I get a new card good enough. My last booster pack happened to have my very first EX card, Tornadus. I got super fucking excited, immediately planning on how I was going to make him the keystone of the deck. However, if you look close enough, you'll quickly realize that Tornadus kinda sucks. Jet Blast is a move that requires 4 energy and only deals 60 damage, the output increases by 30 for each Plasma energy attached to him. I have 2 Plasma energy, and thats after 25+ booster packs. I decided to leave him out of the deck, he's more trouble than he's worth.
Then like beautiful serendipity, I opened another booster pack 100 coins later to discover a Kyurem EX card. It's unbelievably powerful, and just like every EX card, it's hard to maintain. I threw him in the deck and switched some stuff around to make it a lightning/water theme.
This new deck led by Kyurem EX is now 2-0. As you can see here, I got Kyurem EX out early against Physicist77, a guy with a much better record than me. I settled in, got a couple energy retrievals, and started picking his Pokemon off one by one.
Kyurem EX was never knocked out, and stayed healthy for enough turns for me to get a Blastoise powered up on the bench just in case. I never needed him.
I am so excited about this new deck I've compiled. The versatility of Eevee along with a Master Ball and my new mighty Kyurem makes me extremely confident for the next tournament coming up.
A video game's soundtrack might not be the most important aspect of the experience, but it certainly isn't the least important. Some of the greatest games and the moments within are defined by the music that accompanies them. Final Fantasy and Nobuo Uematsu are pretty much the supreme overlords of video game music, so I wanted to share my absolute favorite tracks from across the franchise, and hopefully help some of the newer gamers aware of some of the masterpieces that preceded them.
10: Quina's Theme FF9
When you wander into the marsh and meet Quina for the first time, this music takes over the scene completely. Every time I did a QTE about Quina or saw a clip from Quina's past, I would get so excited to hear this badass music. Tribal drums plus monkish chanting with a sprinkle of keyboard silliness. It fits Quina perfectly.
9: Mysidia FF4
Final Fantasy 4 was for a long time my answer to the "favorite video game of all time" question, and this is the best tune from that epic game. It's a town of wizards, of random townsfolk who have been changed into pigs and toads. It's silly, catchy, and a necessary distraction from the slaughter Cecil brought Mysidia in the game's beginning.
8: Cosmo Canyon FF7
Final Fantasy 7 is all about fast paced plot development, grueling boss fight gauntlets and the beautiful moments of peaceful serenity in towns between all the action-y parts. When you arrive at Cosmo Canyon, you have just survived the Gold Saucer prison and watched Barrett's best friend die. Junon was a debacle and you had to fight Sepheroth's 1000 mom reincarnated as a lump of sentient flesh in the bowels of a rusty cargo ship. Also, your car broke down in the middle of the desert. Cosmo Canyon offers relaxation, great stores with powerful weapons, and greets you with this awesome ass song. I love Cosmo Canyon, putting my feet up and watching the gang get together around the fire to discuss their next move. This song represents the last great feeling of hope, because after Cosmo Canyon is Nibelheim.
7: The Republic of Bastok FF11
In FF11 you get to pick your starting city, and I picked Bastok, the city of industry. This song plays the second you login, and as the cityscape unfolds in front of you, this song kicks in and you are filled with ambition. The 3 starting cities are in competition with each other, and it always seemed that us players from Bastok were consistently the most successful. I credit the Bastok theme song for that.
6: The Landing FF8
Final Fantasy 8 has the greatest soundtrack in the history of video games. It is a work of art, and every track perfectly describes the images that run along side the music. The Landing is a heart pounding orchestral power that makes Squall's first military deployment that much more tense. I love this song.
5: Crossing Those Hills FF9
It's the overworld music, the song you hear as you traverse the landscape, going from town to dungeon, or chocobo forest to treasure location. I love the way this track makes you feel as if the FF9 universe is infinitely massive.
4: Blitz Off FF10
Somehow, someway, Uematsu developed a song for Blitzball that actually sounds like it's underwater. Amazing.
3: Shuffle or Boogie FF8
This is the theme for the best FF side-distraction ever, the Triple Triad card game. This music plays in my head when I pull up next to someone at a red light. I think of this song when I feel challenged by someone, or whenever I play any card game whatsoever. Another monumental song from such a monumental OST.
2: The Sky City Of Bhujerba FF12
I love peaceful town music, Bhujerba's theme from Final Fantasy 12 is so serene. Bhujerba is a very unique place, a city floating amidst the clouds, and exploring it for the first time while hearing this music wash over you is a gaming moment I will never forget.
1: Besaid FF10
This is my absolute favorite piece of music that Nobuo Uematsu has ever produced. FFX has a lot of island-y music, and Besaid's is the perfect theme for an island town. It's slow-paced and elegant. Besaid is the first town in the whole game, and it immediately makes you feel the pain that Spira as a whole has been suffering with along with that stark optimism that these islanders feel despite all of the heartache. When you think about what a video game's song is supposed to do, like make a boss fight feel more epic, or to help the player mourn the death of someone, Besaid's theme music is supposed to accurately represent what the town is all about. Mission accomplished.
(I know that I only added a single retro song to the list, but let's be truly honest with ourselves, midi chip bullshit cannot stand toe to toe with full orchestras. Get over it.)
