jacquirebriggs - Tumblr blog

[jacquirebriggs]

hiya.

im nuking this tumblr this summer so follow me on BlueSky.

I will list my own website soon when I finally make it.

Also follow this thread where I make PSP styled sprites for my Crystal Story II fangame I will create in the future.

[jacquirebriggs]

People used to comment on web comics.

People used to comment on fanfiction.

People used to comment on fanart.

People used to comment on OCs.

I hate "content" culture.

I hate "consuming content" and scrolling immediately to the next thing.

People used to be excited about the art that other people created.

People used to want to share that excitement with creators.

I hate this future.

[jacquirebriggs]

Very fun time I have here in the last days, eh?

I said I was just gonna abandon Tumblr after New Year's Eve bar a few announcements and lurking. But now with this whole panic and chaos about Tumblr selling our data to AI.

Before you say "Glaze and Nightshade", I have like so many drawings and reposted art (like commissions) lying here and my sideblogs, it'll take forever and I heard both poisoning tools use up so much CPU that my old laptop will die upon running it.

So yeah, I'm very lazy and busy and I may delete this account or just wipe all stuff for good (not that my crummy drawings will be good for feeding AI) someday.

I’m just tired of these artist migrations,man. Felt like there is not one safe place I see all art in harmony.

also, I haven’t been drawing much lately, I’m busy with creating a game and making sprites.

[jacquirebriggs]

Me and the oldest flash game of my childhood.

[jacquirebriggs]

Exact how I feel when Many artists closed their Deviantart account for the exact reason. When people deleted their Art, chances are they’ll never be found anywhere ever again.

Unless it get reposted earlier and Pinterest’s and other sites that allows cross-sharing Art (Twitter and here) algorithm decides to smile on you.

even then, Pinterest also in hot water because of AI and reported rampant account deletions.

I want a Time Machine to rescue all the art that’s gone from the internet man.

i feel kind of selfish but i don't want people to delete their art from tumblr bc a) it'd be useless, they've already sold what they have to ai companies, and b) tumblr is one of the only functional websites to post and view art on anymore and fucking everywhere is selling data nowadays. man. at least there's an opt out button but it's only been introduced after they scraped all our shit. what a hellish world.

[jacquirebriggs]

[jacquirebriggs]

rebloghing even though I’m throughly inactive here. Just like DA.

I felt like it’s time to never touch this site again!

This shit is exhausting cuz Istg….

One more…

[jacquirebriggs]

Mortal Kombat Armageddon All-Stars is over

I should have said it last year. But yeah. It’s over and canceled.

One reason includes College has taken over me and I have a ton of work to do. That’s life and now I’m nearly 24, I couldn’t bear myself to continue that monstrosity I’ve started in high school. Look at the earlier episodes, my teenage self doesn’t know how to write a story and it has so many inconsistencies that are planned to rewritten in the future. With so many characters, it’s super overwhelming to get every pre-11 Kombatnt in one slide.

Another reason is I’ve moved on to other interests. I’ve cared so less about Mortal Kombat since 11 is nearing its zenith. I’ve watched MK1 videos but nothing is pulling me back. Not helping much is the game itself is a waste of money.

Third reason is I have little time to work on PowerPoint stories. Mass burnout. No longer interested in working on it. My ban from the Crystal Story server just lessens to motivation of me making more PowerPoint stories. Not helped by said college and I’m working on a game.

The next update would have been a double-episode drop with Episode 32B featuring the challenge fillin up loose ends of this lousy plot. The challenge is race up to the cliff to steal an egg from the Mechacrow Shang Tsung owns and then race back down to avoid getting vaporized by it. Chameleon was eliminated due to a rule they added.

Episode 35, a challenge where they cooperate to create the best monster and compete with others to destroy others. Kung Lao or someone irrelevant would have been eliminated.

I’m sorry to announce these news and I would love to finish the whole thing because I have real ideas for future episodes. But life and burnouts caught up to me and I have no more time.

I’m sorry.

I hope you can check out my stuff in the future despite broken promises…

Discord: heartofthedragoon

[jacquirebriggs]

follow me on BlueSky.

I ain’t here anymore.

[jacquirebriggs]

Final Art before the New Year. What better way to end it other than a group hug.

I have one operation in mind. Win Lan back.

[jacquirebriggs]

Have an art dump of all of my SFW drawings I never posted here as I decided to retire all social media forever due to loss of interest to continue posting. If you need my "alternate" artwork. I will post them on Pixiv/Rule34/NewGrounds or whatever.

I will finish one more drawing before the new year starts.

Go me for drawing all Crystal Story character before the years ends! WOOOOOOOO! I hope you are watching from your anti-socialness Lan...

[jacquirebriggs]

A Really Fair and Sincere and Proper Review of an 8-Bit Final Fantasy 4 port.

My Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLf09CtI2VGXoyA4U0ot9QyIIylm4AvIiU

Alright. I know this place is not the best for Video Game reviews, but I want to get this out to advertise my stuff on my channel and before I ghost the place for good. I did a review on this game already, but it was short and the words move too fast. This time, I am going to make a proper review on this bootleg I decided to play out of boredom while I was wondering what will be my next discord stream.

I present you:

Zui Zhong Huan Xiang IV Guang Yu An Shui Jing Fen Zheng

Like I said, this game is an unlicensed Chinese NEs port of Final Fantasy IV. That’s already a language barrier here The playable characters are the same as the original. The portraits are the same, just mushed up to NES Pallete. The NPCs on the other hand are a different perspective. Mostly due to their portraits. I believe they are taken from other games. Some I believe are from Megaman (The “Baron Soliders”), a Dragon Ball Z bootleg (Female NPCs, Scarmiglione, Cagnazzo), and some unknown Dark Fantasy Game (Golbez is one of them.) Can’t the bootleggers easily just take the Head Portrait sprite and make it the dialogue portrait and call it that? I can do it in five seconds. Besides, Golbez is armored from head to toe. Not unmasked lol. Also, why are Dark Knight Cecil and Kain’s overworld sprites are mixed up? Kain’s Overworld sprite clearly has dragon horns. Can they not tell the difference? I can go on about Scramiglione having Zemus’s sprite, Barbariccia having Bomb’s but this nitpicking will eat up most of the review. Let’s move on.

Music is the next thing I wish to talk about. When you hear Chrono Trigger music when you start the game, you know it’s a bootleg. Any music taken from Final Fantasy IV is near to nonexistent. The Battle Music for enemies is played on when you fight Bosses. Makes the bosses more irritating considering how long the mid to endgame bosses take to kill them. Regular enemies get a squashed-up sample of Final Fantasy II’s generic enemy fight. The FF2 chiptune is only the first verse over and over… while the FF4 music oddly has the full song for some reason. Did I mention both tunes distorts into monotone when I used a certain magic? (Google Translates says it is Psychic which attacks with a flashy gear.) I rather have the NES-fied FF4 battle themes like the other FF4 bootleg has. Hence why in later parts, I slapped Fanmade NES-styled FF4 music mainly because I am tired of hearing that same old sampling. FF4’s wide variety of music is for enchanting the setting and mood of the game. Since this is the NES, of course none of this exists. Instead, we got the aforementioned Chrono Trigger music in the start (and possibly the map and other towns?) and a very questionable music choice:

The Chocobo Theme in castle-related areas. This makes the scene with Golbez very hilarious, that I cannot take it seriously.

The story may be mostly the same to the original, but it differentiates as I play through the end. Before I cover the story, I want to talk about the battle system first.

Gameplay:

The battle system is simplistic. It’s not a clone of earlier Final Fantasy Games. You still have 5 party members at a time, but you don’t get any magic spells from the canon games. You have to equip a magic stone to use magic; only of a single certain element. This sadly locks the mages out of various elemental damage…not that it matters because of reasons I will go over. AoE Magic is unlocked so late and by the time you unlocked it, you will be only fighting one enemy at a time. Healing Magic is scarce. Only thing besides Asura summon is unlocked at leveling the light stone to 3 or 4 and it is outclassed. Nice. Unlike the Final Fantasy VII NES port created by the same company. It has summons. You get summons as you progress and talking to some guy on a sidequest story that he’ll go with someone on a honeymoon. Depending on how you time them, they can be useful for dishing out extra damage and makes bosses easier. This is where go to the biggest flaw: Level progression and zero enemy variety. You deal so little damage even at the endgame. You can keep attacking with your weapon and spam magic, but you’ll get nowhere on leveling them up. (Even then you must visit a store to upgrade them.) Late game is such a slog because of this. I know Chinese companies are known for making their unlicensed ports really hard, but there’s a difference between difficult and GODDAMN near impossible. The basic enemies are always the EXACT SAME no matter where you encounter them. The only think different are they scale with how far you progress Also, most of them are taken from FF3 (even a few of the bosses) with the occasional Toad and Goblin Enemies actually stolen from the original games and devamped for the NES. Scripted battles are eliminated. Wanna know which boss fights.

Story:

If Google Translate properly tells the truth, then the story is the exact same as the original FF4, just having various key event removed. The Other FF4 bootleg only cuts Optional Areas, Tower of Babil and Giant of Babil. This NES ports cuts most of the endgame areas! I pay respects to the lack of Leviathan and Bahamut summons. I don’t care if they’ll take long to unleash, still extra damage. Some events have been repurposed in other areas in the Rom’s limited area selection. The events in the Underworld area for example has been relocated to Mysidia without the Calcabrina fight. (That’s okay. That fight is so annoying for me anyway.) Because of this, the story at the end is way different compared to canon. To spoil:

Yang and Cid sacrifice themselves after you get Edge. Edward joins the party at the end instead of Kain. (If you’re not gonna readd Kain at the end, at least pick a character that is endgame worthy like…*points at Yang.) The ending is really different. After Fusoya and Golbez kill Zemus with Meteor, Kain appears out of nowhere and defeat them. Kain’s Hatred causes him to transform into Zeromus and he absorbs FuSoYa and Golbez to become unstoppable. Of course, until we slowly kill him. And then what happens next? Kain dies. Fusoya and Golbez are dead. There is no implication that Cid, Yang, and the twins survive. All it gives is Golbez’s spirit telling to forgive him as his soul moves with light and dark shining the world and then it boots you back to the title screen. With little fanfare. I wanna get mad because I like Kain a lot, but is parts of the story taken from the FF7 bootleg of the same company? This may explain it.

Difficulty:

I think we’ve reached the boiling point that I will review. Amongst the greatest sin of bootlegs: The Diffcultly. Bootlegs games are notorious for them being extremely difficult. This is no exception. Not getting helped by the tedious grinding system, either. There are two difficult gauntlets. The one in Baron ( I have to unequip Palom and Porom and set myself up for a hard time.), no breaks on Yang, Baigan and Cagnazzo. And the grueling hard Zeromus gauntlet. Yes, endgame is brutal. I must slow down the summons to beat Zeromus. Not helped by how much HP he has despite trying my best.

Overall:

I believe Kain becoming Zeromus is better than most of the whatifs in Alter Destiny (besides Rydia being antagonist to Cecil for killing her mother, but even then: everything else went downhill.) I still can’t forgive the grueling difficultly or the questionable choice for Kain’s replacement. Since this port is like a sister of the NES FF7 port made by the same company, the problems will be the same as of course. I could give it a 1/10 but it’s a bootleg, so it wouldn’t be fair and I’m reviewing this rom in the Dawn of 2024 for some reason. Let’s give a fair review in bootleg standards. I’ll give this game a:

3/10. 5/10 disregarding the brutal difficultly.

My gameplay of this thing: Here

Alright. I know this place is not the best for Video Game reviews, but I want to get this out to advertise my stuff on my channel and before I ghost the place for good. I did a review on this game already, but it was short and the words move too fast. This time, I am going to make a proper review on this bootleg I decided to play out of boredom while I was wondering what will be my next discord stream.

I present you:

Zui Zhong Huan Xiang IV Guang Yu An Shui Jing Fen Zheng

Also known as Final Fantasy IV: Light and Dark Crystal Conflict

Overall Setting:

Like I said, this game is an unlicensed Chinese NEs port of Final Fantasy IV. That’s already the language

Barrier here The playable characters are the same as the original. The portraits are the same, just mushed up to NES Pallete. The NPCs on the other hand are a different perspective. Mostly due to their portraits. I believe they are taken from other games. Some I believe are from Megaman (The “Baron Soliders”), a Dragon Ball Z bootleg (Female NPCs, Scarmiglione, Cagnazzo), and some unknown Dark Fantasy Game (Golbez is one of them.) Can’t the bootleggers easily just take the Head Portrait sprite and make it the dialogue portrait and call it that? I can do it in five seconds. Besides, Golbez is armored from head to toe. Not unmasked lol. Also, why are Dark Knight Cecil and Kain’s overworld sprites are mixed up? Kain’s Overworld sprite clearly has dragon horns. Can they not tell the difference? I can go on about Scramiglione having Zemus’s sprite, Barbarricia having Bomb’s but this nitpicking will eat up most of the review. Let’s move on.

Music is the next thing I wish to talk about. When you hear Chrono Trigger music when you start the game, you know it’s a bootleg. Any music taken from Final Fantasy IV is near to nonexistent. The Battle Music for enemies is played on when you fight Bosses. Makes the bosses more irritating considering how long the mid to endgame bosses take to kill them. Regular enemies get a squashed up sample of Final Fantasy II’s generic enemy fight. The FF2 chiptunr is only the first verse over and over… while the FF4 music oddly has the full song for some reason. Did I mention it distorts into monotone when I used a certain magic? (Google Translates says it is Psychic which attacks with a flashy gear.) I rather have the NES-fied FF4 battle themes like the other FF4 bootleg has. Hence why in later parts, I slapped Fanmade NES-styled FF4 music mainly because I’m tired of hearing that same old sampling. FF4’s wide variety of music is for enchanting the setting and mood of the game. Since this is the NES, of course none of this exists. Instead, we got the aforementioned Chrono Trigger music in the start (and possibly the map and other towns?) and a very questionable music choice:

The Chocobo Theme in castle-related areas. This makes the scene with Golbez very hilarious, that I can’t take it seriously.

The story may be mostly the same to the original, but it differentiates as I play through the end. Before I cover the story , I want to talk about the battle system first.

Gameplay:

The battle system is simplistic. It’s not a clone of earlier Final Fantasy Games. You still have 5 party members at a time, but you don’t get any magic spells from the canon games. You have to equip a magic stone to use magic; only of a certain elements. This sadly locks the mages out of various elemental damage…not that it matters because of reasons I will go over. AoE Magic is unlocked so late and by the time you unlocked it, you’ll be only fighting one enemy at a time. Healing Magic is scarce. Only thing besides Asura summon is unlocked at leveling the light stone to 3 or 4 and it’s outclassed. Nice. Unlike the Final Fantasy VII NES port created by the same company. It has summons. You get summons as you progress and talking to some guy on a sidequest story that he’ll go with someone on a honeymoon. Depending on how you time them, they can be useful for dishing out extra damage and makes bosses more easier. This is where go to the biggest flaw: Level progression and zero enemy variety. You deal so little damage even at the endgame. You can keep attacking with your weapon and spam magic, but you’ll get nowhere on leveling them up. (Even then you must visit a store to upgrade them.) Late game is such a slog because of this. I know Chinese companies are known for making their unlicensed ports really hard, but there’s a difference between difficult and GODDAMN near impossible. The basic enemies are always the EXACT SAME no matter where you encounter them. The only think different are they scale with how far you progress Also, most of them are taken from FF3 (even a few of the bosses) with the occasional Toad and Goblin Enemies actually stolen from the original games and devamped for the NES. Scripted battles are eliminated. Wanna know which boss fights .

Story:

If Google Translate properly tells the truth, then the story is the exact same as the original FF4, just having various key event removed. The Other FF4 bootleg only cuts Optional Areas, Tower of Babil and Giant of Babil. This NES ports cuts most of the endgame areas! I pay respects to the lack of Leviathan and Bahamut summons. I don’t care if they’ll take long to unleash, still extra damage. Some events have been repurposed in other areas in the Rom’s limited area selection. The events in the Underworld area for example has been relocated to Mysidia without the CalcaBrina fight. (That’s okay. That fight is so annoying for me anyway.) Because of this, the story at the end is way different compared to canon. To spoil:

Yang and Cid sacrifice themselves after you get Edge. Edward joins the party at the end instead of Kain. (If you’re not gonna readd Kain at the end, at least pick a character that is endgame worthy like…*points at Yang.) The ending is really different. After Fusoya and Golbez kill Zemus with Meteor, Kain appears out of nowhere and defeat them. Kain’s Hatred causes him to transform into Zeromus and he absorbs FuSoYa and Golbez to become unstoppable. Of course until we slowly kill him. And then what happens next? Kain dies. Fusoya and Golbez are dead. There is no implication that Cid, Yang, and the twins survive. All it gives is Golbez’s spirit telling to forgive him as his soul moves with light and dark shining the world and then it boots you back to the title screen. With little fanfare. I wanna get mad because I like Kain a lot, but is parts of the story taken from the FF7 bootleg of the same company? This may explain it.

Difficulty:

I think we’ve reached the boiling point that I will review. Amongst the greatest sin of bootlegs: The Diffcultly. Bootlegs games are notorious for them being extremely difficult. This is no exception. Not getting helped by the tedious grinding system, either. There are two difficult gauntlets. The one in Baron ( I have to unequip Palom and Porom and set myself up for a hard time.), no breaks on Yang, Baigan and Cagnazzo. And the grueling hard Zeromus gauntlet. The Tower of Zot streak comes close to being one of them. Thankfully, you can lose to Golbez when only Tellah fights him, but if you unequipped Kain and Rosa beforehand prepare for a very hard Barbariccia battle. Yes, endgame is brutal. I must slow down the summons to beat Zeromus. Not helped by how much HP he has despite trying my best.

Overall:

I believe Kain becoming Zeromus is better than most of the whatifs in Alter Destiny (besides Rydia being antagonist to Cecil for killing her mother, but even then everything else went downhill.) I still can’t forgive the grueling difficultly or the questionable choice for Kain’s replacement. Since this port is like a sister of the NES FF7 port made by the same company, the problems will be the same as of course. I could give it a 1/10 but it’s a bootleg, so it wouldn’t be fair and I’m reviewing this rom in the Dawn of 2024 for some reason. Let’s give a fair review in bootleg standards. I’ll give this game a:

3/10. 5/10 disregarding the brutal difficultly. It’s not the worst bootleg game. At least it can be finished without cheating if you’re determined. Unlike the other FF4, the three parter, where the game bugs out in the second part in Dark Elf Cave where you cannot move after entering. Someone I’ve watched have to do some hex editing on a save state to pull through. I’m pretty there’s something way worse that I won’t be aware of its existence.

Final Fantasy IV runs on the SNES system for a good reason.

[jacquirebriggs]

Crystal Story II tenth anniversary

Tristam: Sigh... So much for having a time of our lives. Guess I'm closing Mercenary Inc. in the next week or so. Let's eat...

*boom*

The Crystal Story II team bursts and lays all the loot they've carried, surprising Tristam and his allies.

Tristam: Ah!

Lina: Sorry! *eats a chunk of cake Did we scare you? That's what we get for busting in out of nowhere I guess.

Mari excitingly pulls a party popper.

Kaz: While you were mourning about your failure of a party, we created our own idea of a sidequest and look for another venue that's busy enough and has anything worthy to steal.

D: Luckily we found one that has all the exquisite items we need! *burp Sorry. I should learn better than to eat and run. My stomach... Ouugh...

Lina: Hope it is worth it! We even got two toys to keep that foolish cat across the neighborhood in check.

...

Tristam: Thank you! I wouldn't know what I'll do if I never hired any of you.

Kaeli smiles, Phoebe screams in victory and Reuben becomes enthusiastic again.

Mari: That's awesome! Let's celebrate! I can't wait to taste these new treats we nabbed.

Kaz: I'm testing this weapon after we're finished.

Lina: Not if I scramble with the music first!

D: Hey! Don't leave me behind! I'm still telling my tummy to settle! (Heh. Thanks for the collection, Matt. Have a happy birthday with your ruined venue.)

It's been 10 years since Crystal Story II is first released in Kongregate at November 12, 2013. I know it's known better in Newgrounds but that was a later submission (Feb 4, 2014). The Steam/Deluxe version is released in Feb 6, 2015. If this doesn't make me really old and emotional, I don't know what else will. I hope Lan does not forget, especially after past Discord drama. Please trust me...

[jacquirebriggs]

Reblogged for Halloween! The children took all the candy from our bucket.

What are you doing? Halloween in the summer? I know it’s out of season, but it was an unfinished project that was on hold for a long time. I could wait until this Halloween, but I want to finish my sketchbook and steer away from social networks. I’ll continue making Crystal Story love art especially with Crystal Story 2 turning 10 this year. Can you name all enemies I used there?This special pic is mostly inspired by the Charlie Brown Halloween Special Party. The apple bobbing gave it away.

Oh and Kaz is here too, but he got overthrown from Necropolis and thus he’s not invited and got a tomato thrown his face.

[jacquirebriggs]

videogames didn't get less weird, I've just seen too much to qualify stuff as weird by this point, but it sure has been a while since i last got jumped by a bunny in a pink pajama and got a carrot sword drop from it.

[jacquirebriggs]

Something I made for Lan's (creator of the Crystal Story series) birthday. It’s somewhere between November 11-16. That’s where Crystal Story II’s tenth anniversary is! I say I want to draw tons of things Crystal Story related and his game logo is no exception.

emmanuelsalvacruz.com/wp-conte…

I know he unfriended me on Discord and Steam, but I still care about him and see him as a friend. I still support him and his games. No matter when try to ignore me, I won't stop until it's over.

Especially I heard from a Discord friend that the server completely dead since my ban. I still care about him. His life and anything. I would love to meet him IRL someday. Just gotta move to California...

[jacquirebriggs]

Originally, this was going to be yet another vent depressing art where Z comforts me saying "I know how you feel..." and "I feel the same way as you..." Because I can sympathize with Z at this moment. But I want to give a confident positive vibe this time. An act of encouragement and possibly a good luck charm. I am about to make amends to an old friend and nothing will slow me down. I have to hope it'll go in my way and not the shit way.

Z belongs to Crystal Story II.