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superthatguy62 · 1 year ago

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top 5 ffs?

Oh, hello.

Just as a warning, I have yet to go through the post 5 FF games to a significant degree, so I'll be including some spinoffs:

5: Final Fantasy Explorers

I haven't played... well, any Monster Hunter-type games, so FFE was my first taste of it, and you know what? I enjoyed it. I played it on single-player, so it was essentially "Beastmaster: The Game" and the bosses were still fun enough. Also it probably has one of my top 5 favorite Big Bridge remixes and some of the music (particularly the general boss theme and Odin's theme) are highlights for me.

4: Final Fantasy Tactics

It clears the 'higher-than-you'd-expect' hurdle of me being able to actually play a decent amount of a strategy game and is generally fun to boot. I got up to Chapter 3 before the random encounters started kicking my ass enough to discourage me from continuing (though the fights towards the end of chapter 2 really tested my patience), though said encounters didn't help by me playing the PSP version with its magic/animation slowdown. By all accounts, I should probably go for the GBA/DS games since those lack permadeath (albeit with a very different tone plotwise), but I still intend to try out the PS1 version of the first game and hopefully not grind myself into a corner.

3: Final Fantasy 2

Yes, this. FF2's 'quirky' and 'complicated', but I dig the story, the gameplay once your characters actually get built up and just general setting. It's also to read the supplementry material and other notes on what could have been: It really shows that the devs were putting some thought into the story and its a shame how some elements didn't translate properly. It's the type of game where it gets better the more you know of how it works. That said the dungeon design alone holds this back fiercely, especially in the PSP's Arcane Labyrinth (Darkness floor, my beloathed). Speaking of which, the bonus content for this game is probably some of the better such content of these re-releases.

2: Final Fantasy 3

Wow, what a surprise.

FF3 is basically the video game equivalent of "it could be that deep" in my eyes. Because you don't have any of those fancy "Materias", "GFs", Magicites" or even abilities to carry over like in FFV and FFT, you need to team build your way through whatever the game throws at you. Again, FF3 is one of those games that gets better when you have more an idea of what to expect: Getting thrown into a mini-dungeon early on is annoying, but its less so when you have mages prepared ahead of time to either magic their way through or play "pass the Fire Rod that the devs conveniently added". The world isn't fully developed, but the nuggets you can find are interesting, especially the whole duality concept and the existence of the World of Darkness.

But this is also the same guy who has spent however many years obsessing over this game, so you know. Feel free to add some salt to this opinion.

As for why this isn't higher, it's because my image of this game has been ruined by my obsession, and there I feel there is no "definitive" version. All three versions are playable (yes, even the remake) and enjoyable (yes, even the remake), but all have enough pros and cons that I can't fully say one is better than the others. It's the kind of game that feels like it has yet to reach its full potential and I unfortunately don't think there are many people, at least in the west, who would care even if it did. 3's always been the overshadowed game. After all, FF5 is right there. And, oh hey, speaking of...

1: Final Fantasy 5:

Not quite a basic answer, but still a not-uncommon one, I feel. I was very late to the FF5 party, only playing it when the PR came out and not even experiencing it through osmosis like I did with FF6, and while my obsession with 3 means that it will never overcome that bias, I can easily see why people consider it to be the gameplay peak of the Nintendo-era, if not 6. It builds on what 1 and 3 started and the job combos can be fun to play with. That said, I'll admit that part of my ranking it so high is a particularly impressive mod known as "Custom Classes", which allows you to swap out basically all of the commands, meaning that you can carry over more than one skill between jobs. I haven't finished a full playthrough of CC yet, but between that and the reasons I gave for FF3, I'll be willing to give the edge to 5 over it.

Also, 5 gave us Gilgamesh and ExDeath (and indirectly eScape, and therefore The Twinning).

Honorable Mentions:

Dissidia (012): I don't know how to feel about this game. Settingwise: I love the ways it expands the FF1 mythos, but I hate how WoL is a manikin and what that implies for the rest of the FF1 party. It gave me my favorite portrayal of Garland, but it also gave me Onion Knight, whom I resent for sidelining Luneth's party in later crossovers. Even gameplaywise, I like the general gameplay, at least on paper, but I think I get far frustrated with it more than I would with a normal fighting game. Yet, I keep playing or get the urge to keep playing. Maybe it deserves to be on the list? Maybe it doesn't?

Final Fantasy VIII: I haven't gotten far in FFVIII (I finished the Dollet mission) but what I've played so far feels promising as far as my first PS1-era FF goes (some perfectionism on my part aside). Junctioning is an 'interesting' mechanic, but I think I like it. I need to get the hang of Triple Triad, but I can understand how people get hooked on it.

Final Fantasy Dimensions: Albeit with the mother of all asterisks: This is here mostly for the 'idea' than the execution right now. Like the other FFT games, I do have it ready for play, I just haven't gotten around to it, because when I play games on my phone, it's usually the gatchas that I'm stockholm syndrome'd to playing right now and it's rare for me to not be playing at least 2 at a time. At some point I do want to get around to actually playing it, but until it gets like a steam release or something, it'll be one of those "get to it eventually" type games.

Final Fantasy: Admittedly, it has been ages since I played through FF1 (relatively speaking) compared to every other game on this list aside from FFE, so I don't know how much mention it merits. But I'll put it here anyway.

#asks #Final Fantasy #opinions

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sincerely-sofie · 1 year ago

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So. I haven't drawn in a while. I'm pretty sure that would be because I've been playing The World Ends With You so much. For me though, the only way to overcome the art block is to destroy it from within by making Twewy art! For this piece, I tried combining Twig with Neku, Twewy's protagonist.

Based primarily on this sprite of Neku, except with my hyperfixations forcing me to combine them for some reason. A couple behind-the-scenes things:

I nearly forgot to add the tail, which, whoops.

The text at the top and bottom is a reference to Neku's speech during the opening of Day 1.

The eyes were the worst part to do for me, because I had to make them up from scratch and I couldn't quite capture the ambiguity or what not brought from the hair shadow in the original.

But apparently the hyperfixation is exactly that, a Hyper Fixation, because the worms wouldn't let me go until I made one of Twig as Shiki [Neku's partner for the first week] so uh here you go

Not much to note with this one aside from the dialogue here being a reference to something said by Shiki on day [5? 6? I can't remember], with Ark replacing what was Neku in the original dialogue. But yeah if you can I would recommend you play Twewy for yourself- just be aware the original on ds and final remix are vastly different experiences, in ways I am uneducated to inform you with because I have yet to play final remix I just know it has wonky motion controls, 2 player, and an extra hour or so of content, while also removing literally the entire partner side of gameplay from singleplayer [due to the removal of the second screen].

I HAVE NO WORDS. ONLY SCREAMS.

I'll definitely add that game to the list!!!! Thank you for the recommendation and thank you for the art!!!!!

#the present is a gift fanart #sofie answers asks

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game-boy-pocket · 1 year ago

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Happy New Year.

It was a pretty good year for my gaming hobby and being a Nintendo fan. As usual, I did spend a majority of the year just replaying games I loved, but there were a few new, and new-to-me games that I played this year.

Around this time last the year I was on a Rare kick, playing through all the Donkey Kong Country trilogy, DK64, Diddy Kong Racing, Banjo Kazooie, and Conker. and Mark Kurko's Snowglow Village remake, and this spilled into January.

The Rare stuff also lead to a N64 kick in general, as I found a few decent Mario 64 hacks that worked on real hardware, and I also finished a run of Kirby 64 I started a few years ago and abandoned close to the end.

I managed to make it through a short and easy but very charming Fievel Goes West platformer on SNES. I've got a lot of nostalgia for Fievel so, no regrets there.

I started going back and fourth between The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, and Banjo Kazooie - the Jiggies of Time, and it was interesting to visit areas of the game as Link only to come back to them as Banjo, this also marked the first time I ever replayed a full length romhack from start to finish.

I picked up several Super Mario World romhacks. Some of them worked out, others didn't, either because of romhack difficulty or hardware incompatibility, but it really was kind of a Mario year for me.

Smash Remix got some amazing updates adding Marina, King Dedede, and Goemon, among other things. I can't wait to see where else that game goes. But speaking of Smash Bros, I also discovered the Akenia build for Super Smash Bros Melee, and I was thrilled to play that game with some characters that came later in the series like Lucas, Diddy Kong, Charizard, Sonic, and Wolf.

And I cleared two Gameboy games for the first time, Donkey Kong Land, and Final Fantasy Adventure, hopefully I can get to their sequels in 2024.

From there I marathonned a ton of Mario games... the SNES version of Super Mario RPG ( little did I know a Switch remake would get announced later this year ), New Super Mario Bros U, Mario Kart 8, which I managed to get 3 stars on every cup and every difficulty rating, Mario Galaxy, New Super Mario Bros DS, and Super Mario Odyssey, all in preperation to hype myself up for the Super Mario Movie which, against all odds, was fun as hell and filled my little Mario fanboy heart with joy.

Also found mods for Wario Land and Donkey Kong Country returns that made both games far more enjoyable to me. Wario's default walking speed was increased, and Donkey Kong Country's motion controls were mapped to buttons.

Revisited Sonic Riders again, and sadly kind of realized it was not as good as I remembered, having only two grand prix that are largely copy pastes of each other with different lighting. Still prefer the concept of those games than sticking Sonic in a car though.

I discovered a pretty amazing Ocarina of Time hack called the Sealed Palace, which is a it obtuse, but still very good, and I really need to get back to it, I had nearly finished it but went on a hiatus when other things caught my attention. Will finish it in 2024 hopefully.

And one of the big highlights, I finally became the proud owner of an NES. My family had one as a child but it was more for my parents than for me. I mostly played NES games via Nintendo's re-releases or emulation.

Among the games I played for NES, the whole Mario trilogy, Zelda, Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, Final Fantasy 1, Dragon Quest 1, Metroid MOTHER, Kid Icarus, Super Mario Bros 3+, Mega Man 2, Kid Icarus, Duck Hunt, and I started up Final Fantasy 2, but have yet to finish it.

And in April I went to Super Nintendo Land. The experience was slightly soured for me but I had fun and got some cool merchandise. The actual ride was a little underwhelming though, and I didn't even get to go to the Toad Cafe.

In anticipation for the Legend of Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom, I replayed Link's Awakening, and Breath of the Wild, had a great time with both of them.

And then Tears of the Kingdom came along and completely absorbed my life for two months. I still miss playing it. Maybe i'll replay it sometime in 2024? It'll be interesting to see if my opinion changes at all, but so far, this one is in my top 3 Zelda games. It's not perfect, but honestly, mention any Zelda game to me and I can give you a laundry list of flaws for each of them, so a Zelda game not being perfect is old news. But it doesn't make them any less great. I think this one is just contentious because 1. it took 6 years, 2. purists of the old Ocarina Cone style of Zelda games are worried that they'll never enjoy Zelda again. They have my sympathies but honestly I don't ever want to go back to the old style of Zelda unless it's for a 2D game.

I actually tried to give Skyward Sword another try, I bought the Switch version, but like with every attempt to replay that game since it's launch, I just find myself really irritated by all the exposition that I just quit playing early on.

Against my better judgement I bought Sonic Origins Plus on Steam, and it has some performance issues. I really didn't need it, I love that Amy is playable but I kind of prefer her Sonic Advance move set, which fans had already modded into the genesis games. I think i'd rather just get an actual Sega Genesis to play these games on someday.

I finished raising every single digimon on my Digimon Version 20th v-pet, which is essentially like completing the "pokedex" but for digimon. Sadly not every virtual pet tracks that information, so I won't get to attempt that again.

There was a double dose of Ninja Turtles with TMNT II the Arcade game for NES and Shredder's Revenge on the Switch, I think a certain movie came out around this time of year that put me into a Turtle frenzy because I also started watching the cartoon around that time of year.

I am not mentioning every little NES game or hack I play but I want to higlight two excellent Zelda hacks called the Legend of Banjo and the Legend of Super Mario, which are exaclty what they sound like, Zelda 1 but with a Banjo Kazooie and Super Mario makeover respectively, both are very well designed and arguably a lot more friendly to players that aren't experts at Zelda 1, and do a great job at selling the illusion that they're intended to be Mario and Banjo games.

One of my big regrets for the year was Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3, Slime Speedway, which I bought because 1. I was done with the Mario Kart DLC and wanted more racing game, and 2, I was on a nickelodeon kick and was hyped up from the pre-release of Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2.

Slime Speedway is just not very well made. I am generally accepting of low FPS but two genres of games that shouldn't have them are racing games and fighting games. And it's very sad because I feel like NKR3 could be one of the better Mario Kart clones if it was better optimized and had less annoying sound clips... Nickelodeon All Star Brawl 2 was a good game but my hype deflated when I learned it would be cutting ELEVEN characters. Also the Switch version performs like ass but I really wanted to be able to take it to a friends house, so I didn't do the smart thing and buy it on Steam.

October is usually when I do my month long Halloween celebration of only consuming spooky media. But Nintendo and Sega had the nerve to plan big Mario and Sonic releases that month, interrupting my plans. But I did manage to slip in some spooky gaming, with Luigi's Mansion, an Evil Dead hack of Wanpakku Grafitti: Splatterhouse, and a Super Mario World Halloween hack, as well as a Kirby Halloween romhack. There was also the promising Super Mario 64 hack - Super Mario and the Monstrous Manor, but it seemed to lose it's spooky flavoring half way through, so I put it on pause for now and will come back to it in 2024.

I don't need to say much about Super Mario Wonder. It was wonderful. Easily the best 2D Mario in decades. It can definitely stand toe-to-toe with the original NES trilogy and Super Mario World. But Sonic Super Stars on the other hand? It's fine, but the bosses suck ass, especially the final boss, who isn't even interesting since it's just the Sonic 3 and Knuckles final boss again but without the Doomsday Zone sequence.

Super Mario RPG came out in November and it was a delight. My second time playing the game that year, I never would have seen it coming in a million years, but i'm so happy that it did. I already want to replay it.

I was put into the mood for Square RPGs, something I always felt like I missed out on growing up. So I started up Final Fantasy IV, which I played before, but never finished. I need to get back to it but I am officially at the point where I stopped playing last time, about to storm some tower in the underworld while the red wings are being distracted by tanks.

In December I started feeling Donkey Kong again and played the first two DKC games, and a few levels of Tropical Freeze, I thought i'd finally try out that new Funky Mode. I then realized that I was playing the exact same games around this time of year last year. Pure coincidence, but I do kind of want to play the rest of the Rare platformers...

I bought my first ever Mario sports game in Mario Tennis Aces, and I had a blast with it, though the adventure mode was surprisingly difficult, I have also bought Kirby and the Forgotten Land but have not really dug into it much. I guess my appetite for Kirby isn't what it used to be, that and my mood lately has been mostly on Mario. Maybe I should finish Yoshi's Crafted World, I got that in 2022 and have not played it at all this year...

Mark Kurko did his annual Christmas Romhack for Banjo Kazooie. I played it on Christmas Eve, and on Christmas Day, I replayed all his past romhacks. I think I might make that a new tradition, to replay all the christmas BK hacks, and whatever else I have. I found a decent Mario 64 Christmas hack as well, though it's only a single level.

And to cap off the new year, I started up a run of Animal Crossing for the Gamecube. I've been at it for a week and a half now. I am curious to see how long I can keep it up. But I have already found two NES games, and I kind of want to see if I can get the whole set and build an NES arcade in my basement, just like old times.

There's not much for me to look forward to in 2024 as far as I know, just the Mario vs Donkey Kong and Paper Mario TTYD remakes really, as I'm not too interested in the Peach game. But I hope we get some exciting announcements. I just am not ready for that announcement to be a Switch 2, I'm so tired of buying new machines.

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elektrontree · 2 years ago

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A Comprehensive List Of Rhythm Heaven Songs You Can Perform CPR To:

All The clappy trio games

Love lab

Pajama Party

All the Fillbot games

Remix 3 DS

Dog ninja

First & second contact

Blue bear

Screwbot factory (1&2)

Toss boys

Spaceball

Kitties

Remix 8 GBA

DJ school

Night walk Wii

Hole in one

Tangotronic 3000

Ringside

Remix 1 GBA

Karate man 3DS

Splashdown (1&2)

Tap troupe

Exhibition match

Space dance

Crop Stomp

Freeze Frame

Glee Club (3DS prequel and DS sequel only, NOT the OG one. OG Glee Club one WILL kill your patient)

Samurai Slice Wii

Super Samurai Slice

Remix 2 DS

#rhythm heaven #shit i legit don't kniw what other tags to add #maybe I should get my very own shitposting tag #long post

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real-total-drama-takes · 2 years ago

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Harold is either a god at rhythm games or fucking sucks at them

like she's either S tiering Toromi Hearts 2 on OSU! or he's stuck at remix 1 of Rhythm Heaven DS.

#td Harold

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puppys-rhythm-heaven · 2 years ago

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i feel like when making megamix they couldn't decide if they wanted it to be for people who already like rhythm heaven or people who are new to it. like. the fact that it's mostly returning games suggests the former. but the existence of prequels suggests the latter. baffling to me-

#puppy rambles #rhythm hell #megamix #tbh in my opinion megamix is best to play either first or last #the order i recommend playing the games is not accurate to the order i played the games also thinking about it #i mean it kind of is #i played fever and then i played tengoku set 1 and got frustrated with remix 1 #and then at somepoint i played ds up to freeze frame and felt bad for skipping so many games and stopped #and then i played the rest of tengoku. up to polyrhythm 2 that is-#and then i played megamix #and then i went back to ds #(on an actual ds emulator instead of no$gba-)#me playing tengoku was just cuz i did good at clappy trio in fever n was like ''i wonder if i'd be good at tengoku''#i was not good at tengoku-#i'm also pretty sure it took me an extended period of time to find the rom for the fan translation-

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7grandmel · 2 years ago

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Todays rip: 15/11/2023

Eterna's Cocoon

Season 4 Episode 1 No Album Release (Read More) Eterna Forest (Beta Mix) - Pokémon Diamond & Pearl

Ripped by dante

youtube

I've talked about it many times before, but a key part of what makes SiIvaGunner tick as a channel is the earnest passion displayed by each of its individual team members - its like a TV show with a zillion episodes, where everyone gets to be lead writer whenever they choose. There's no general consensus at play, beyond members being inspired to appease or go against the wishes at play - members are free to rip whatever they please that isn't on the banlist, so long as its of quality.

That is to say, that games like Final Fantasy XIII don't often get the due respect they deserve from the general public - its incredible parts oft overshadowed by the immense controversy surrounding its release and more questionable design choices. Yet there are people out there who love it - people like myself, and people like dante of the SiIvaGunner team. Dante's one of my all-time favorites, notably behind a rip similar in concept to this one, Four Ardain ~ Roaming the Route~. The soundscape of the DS Pokémon games are a favorite of the ripper, and there was even an entire Season 1 album lead by him utilizing the game and the sounds of Hiroyuki Sawano: SILVA GUNNER BEST OF SOUNDTRACK【B/W】. All of these disconnected interests aren't sown together with a narrative or obscured with a filter - Dante, like several other rippers, knows his interests well and uses SiIvaGunner as an outlet for them all.

All of that is to say, that Eterna's Cocoon simply makes me happy in its sincerity. Its remixing one of many hauntingly beautiful themes from Final Fantasy XIII - The Gapra Whitewood - into the instrumentation of a game whose immeasurable vibes I've already talked at length about on here. It's a rip that heals the soul, one that I'm always sad whenever it ends, for so many reasons. Because I love FFXIII, because I love Pokémon, because I love Gen 4's music, because I love this particular kind of music - and because I love knowing that dante, whilst making this rip, loved all of those things just as much if not more than I did. Eterna's Cocoon is such a perfect distillation of everything there is to love about SiIvaGunner's creators, and a love letter I'm happy to be the recipient of as a fellow Final Fantasy XIII fan. Never stop doing what you do, dante.

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athetos · 1 year ago

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top 5 videogame osts?

Picking just 5 is impossible so I’m going to go off and list as many as I want

Under the cut for obvious long reasons

Chrono trigger (SNES) - listened to this obsessively when I had the DS port (which is still imo the definitive way to play, just ignore the repetitive bonus postgame quests), yasunori mitsuda is a legend (he’s also one of the composers for dungeon meshi!). I cut my teeth learning to read sheet music in bass clef once I switched to bass guitar playing the soundtrack, I have essentially the entire thing transcribed on my ultimate-guitar (username XxThreeCheersxX, keep forgetting to hype my account up here but I’m a top 100 ranked tabber 😅) personal faves are those without the will to live (beautiful tritone bass slide makes me moan), the trial, and frog’s theme.

Castlevania: Harmony of Despair (PS/XBOX) - I have never played but know it’s a mediocre multiplayer game, however the soundtrack is fantastic, great rock and metal remixes of some of the most iconic tunes throughout the franchise. The series over all has some killer songs and composers who love funny time signatures so this is easily a “best of.” Castlevania Judgment, arguably an even worse game, also has a good soundtrack.

Undertale/Deltarune (many) - required to be on this list. Toby fox is phenomenal, so many great and memorable tracks. There is a reason megalovania is everywhere. Not a single bad song to be found, but personally my faves are fight against a killer queen, waterfall, world revolving, and undertale. Undertale especially is so impactful because they use an actual guitar on it and it just hits and makes it much more poignant. Fox is maybe the king of leitmotifs.

Dead Cells (many) - after putting so many hours into the game I only appreciate the soundtrack more and more, plus the option to have 8-bit themes is a treat. I love love the Bank theme and Fractured Shrines especially. Very tense and epic sounding. But the Castlevania dlc is phenomenal in so many ways and the music is no exception, always blows me away they’re doing what Konami wishes they could do in every aspect.

Donkey Kong Country 1 + 2 (SNES) - don’t get me wrong Eveline Fischer’s DKC3 snes soundtrack is pretty damn good but imo it doesn’t hit the peaks of David Wise’s ost. It kills me that the silly monkey platformer has some of the most beautiful and atmospheric music of all time. I’ve watched so many music videos on how he made the music and why it sounds so good… from the ambient and emotional aquatic ambience and bramble blast, to the epic final boss themes, that dark reprise of dk island swing in minecart madness, the jittery and unnerving tree top town, the foreboding welcome to krokodile island, the sweet and dreamy dkc2 ice theme… it has it all. Okay what the hell, I’ll mention wise’s remix of water world/aquatic ambience/(a special surprise) in the gba port of dkc3 (he had to redo the soundtrack for that port from scratch). And yes I’ll even throw in fischer’s best songs from snes dkc3 - her version of treetop tumble is way better and more somber than wise’s, water world is like you’re actually at the bottom of a lake and very moody, and nuts and bolts is a dirty rock song with a groovy bass. Good stuff!!!!

Grant Kirkhope’s stuff (many) - another favorite composer of mine, most famous for doing many rare n64 games like banjo 1 + 2, dk64, goldeneye, plus Mario rabbids 1 + 2 on switch and indie game yooka laylee. I’ve also watched many videos and studied many of his songs, he loves to use tritones and out of place dissonant notes not to make something creepy (well, sometimes creepy) but to make things whimsical and man it really works. Dk64 is my personal fav and seeing him reprise some of the themes for Mario rabbids dk dlc was truly special. I really want to do a write-up about the dk64 soundtrack on my site one day! There’s a lot of Easter eggs I’ve spotted that I haven’t seen many people mention! Highlights are creepy castle (it has the dk arcade start motif hidden!), frantic factory, and gloomy galleon from dk64, and from banjo 1 and 2, I love jinjo village, gruntilda’s lair, and banjo’s house blues.

Final fantasy x - most final fantasy games have good to great soundtracks but x is special to me. It’s my favorite ff game and the music really makes it all the more poignant. Zanarkand’s opening note is enough to make me tear up. The battle theme never grows stale unlike some other ff battle themes, besaid is calming and has the perfect vibes, the trials theme should be repetitive but instead feels very disconcerting and even claustrophobic, and auron’s theme is cool as hell. X-2 also has a good soundtrack, but I don’t think it’s quite as good as here.

Celeste (many) - Lena Raine’s soundtrack is phenomenal and the use of motifs is impeccable. Not a bad song in the entire game. Resurrections is my favorite as it’s a long piece that goes a lot of places and makes you drift along for the ride. The way Madeline and badeline’s motifs diverge is brilliant, matching what’s happening onscreen. I love how hesitant the piano in awake sounds, it makes it so heartfelt. Anxiety is dense and lives up to the title, Little Goth is less hesitant but darker… she just writes such beautiful melodies.

Metroid Prime (gcn) - they originally wanted Autechre, an ambient electronic duo, to do the soundtrack but things fell through for whatever reason so Kenji Yamamoto (who did Super Metroid) stepped up to take his place and god what a good soundtrack. Metroid music is very cool and I’ve made posts about it before, like how Metroid II has one of the most experimental soundtracks and kind of challenges the limits of the system and what can be considered game music, super Metroid has some of the most alien sounding songs thanks to weird time signatures and instrumentation. But Prime is crazy because they had the tech now to deliver Yamamoto’s vision. Magmoor Caverns is everyone’s favorite, remixing norfair, those drums just make me go wild every time. All the area themes are great and alien sounding, it’s a very isolating soundtrack, plus the boss themes and the space pirates and chozo ghosts themes are kind of terrifying in a good way.

Sea of Stars/Messenger (many) - 2 of my fav indie games with some of the most addictive songs. Sea of stars is a prequel so seeing variants of the messenger’s tracks was a true delight. Yasunori mitsuda also assisted with the soundtrack making some unforgettable pieces. I want to learn the majority of it on bass by ear!

Hollow knight (many) - somber piano and grand orchestrated pieces make this game go hard. The mantis lord battle is probably my favorite, it’s so majestic and fearsome and makes them a scary boss. I also appreciate the more ambient tracks around greenpath and city of tears. But the boss themes turn things up when needed to and makes a world feel even more alive, which is impressive.

Silent hill 2 (ps2) - Akira Yamaoka has such a great style to create heavy, melancholic or terrifying songs for the franchise but this game stands out the most to me, Laura’s theme and promise always move me no matter how many times I listen to them, very hurting electric guitars. I need to watch more vids on the games ost.

Legend of Zelda (Nintendo) - for this last one I’m not picking a specific game and getting into details for them all would be hard I’m already losing steam fast. So I’ll list my favs across the franchise. Ocarina of Time’s Gerudo Valley, Hyrule Field, and Lost Woods; Majora’s Mask’s Termina Field, Clock Town, and Stone Tower Temple; link’s Awakening’s Face Shrine; wind Waker’s dragon roost island, outset island and Gohdan’s theme; and tears of the kingdom’s colgera’s theme.

#customer support #I went overboard d<333 #ash.mp3

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demonfox38 · 2 years ago

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Completed - Pokemon FireRed/LeafGreen

Don't worry, guys. I know what I'm doing.

I suppose this will surprise nobody, but I always have some kind of portable game console in my purse. This is usually a Nintendo DS, given its ability to play both DS and Game Boy Advance games. In its carrying case, I have a few staple comfort games, like:

"Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls"

The Castlevania Double Pack (Containing "Harmony of Dissonance" and "Aria of Sorrow")

"Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow"

"Pokémon FireRed" and/or "LeafGreen"

Now, my copies of "Pokémon FireRed" and "Pokémon LeafGreen" were purchased second-hand online. (If you decide to go that route—don't buy Game Boy Advance games unless they show you the game's circuit board. No need to pay stupid amounts of money for a counterfeit.) Out of curiosity, I opened up both games to see how far the player had gotten. Both shared the same character name (Dylan), so I assumed that the owner had been trying to beat both games. "LeafGreen" had stopped just outside of the first gym, so I felt no remorse in wiping that one out. "FireRed," however? That one had literally stopped right before Victory Road. Like…what? He was right at the finish line!

So, I beat them both. Like, not simultaneously, but over the last year or so.

Damned if I didn't have a surprise struggle at the end!

You know, as someone who was in the target demographic for this series, I may be assuming that the reader (i.e., you!) may already know quite a bit about this set of games. But, that's a wrong assumption to make. If you are unaware, "Pokémon FireRed" and "Pokémon LeafGreen" are Game Boy Advance remakes of the original "Pokémon" games ("Red"/"Green" in Japan, "Red"/"Blue" elsewhere. There is a Japanese "Pokémon Blue," but that is both its own thing and the root code source for the international releases of the first "Pokémon" games. Yeah, it's like that!) Its existence is both an update/remix to the original massively popular game, as well as a way to implement catching Generation 1 and 2 Pokémon without making backwards compatibility to the previous Game Boy games. It's also now in this weird situation where getting Pokémon from the original games is technically easier than getting them from this. I mean, if you bought digital copies of "Red"/"Blue" and "Gold"/"Silver", anyway.

Look, man. Catching 'em all is a mess. And frankly, a lie.

I originally bounced off the Generation 3 "Pokémon" games because…well, frankly, I was pissed that there wasn't a Game Boy to Game Boy Advance transfer system. That, and I wasn't big on the ability system that was added in. Also, Gen 3 is slow and grindy. Like, I'm sure I'd have problems with Gens 1 and 2 if I went back, but I still have the tools to speed them up (i.e., "Pokémon Stadium" games, glitch knowledge, and a Game Shark.) Long story short, there wasn't a reason for me to play them then. Now, I've at least got a DS and some incentive to yoink Pokémon from these games using their backwards compatibility, if I wanted to do that. But, then again, that's relying on the DS to 3DS transfers working correctly, storage systems not being discontinued, etc.

Pokémon is suffering. Heartbreak, too. (Like, I'm sorry man, but your "Gold"/"Silver"/"Crystal" batteries are toast by now. Our teams are gone. Head to Lavender Town and work it out.)

What's the goal of "Pokémon FireRed"/"LeafGreen"? Allegedly, capturing as many of the little Pokéjerks as possible, then raising them into a fighting team to propel you through eight gyms and a final trainer gauntlet, proving your superiority at Pokéhusbandry. It's not a task you can accomplish alone. By trading with other people (or at least, other copies of the games), you can fill out your Pokédex and experience different styles of play, often at an accelerated pace. Hypothetically, you'd need three people coordinating with each other to successfully accomplish this task. Which, God knows I can't get that locally. But, I do have a Game Boy Advance, a Game Boy Advance SP, a transfer cable, and a terrifying knowledge of Excel spreadsheets, so given enough time, I can get a lot done on my own.

Look. I know I'm a Gen 1 Pokémon player. I know the stereotypes that come with that. But man, I can't for the life of me see where people would pick Gen 3 as their favorite Pokémon generation. At least 4 onward had Internet connectivity. I applaud 6's addition of Fairy type, if for no other reason than to make Dragon type trainers panic (and for The Pokémon Company to consistently freak out and hit the Steel/Dragon type combo button). "Pokémon Legends Arceus" is also the realest experience, man. Garbage boss fights, but such a cool loop.

What's my point? Well, Pokémon games are the best when you either have other people to play with or access to an array of cheating devices and/or services. Barring that, boy, are the older games a slog.

I grew up in Nowhere, Iowa. You think I had access to any of the specialty events that would unlock extra legendary and mythical Pokémon? I barely had access to people that would talk to me. I even lost access to a GameStop, so I can't even get them now. Regional-based special events are not in the cards for me. Like, obviously, don't cheat in competitive circles or against other people, but do what you've gotta do to fix the gremlins in your brain, otherwise. (There are many nice Discord servers to help you out with that, too.) Plus, cheating taught me hexadecimal and address/value manipulation! Just a little casual computer science course in the wild!

This isn't being much of an evaluation, is it?

Well, I think it helps you to know where I'm coming from, regarding my activities with these games.

If you were like the millions of kids that played "Pokémon Red"/"Blue" from 1997-2000, you can probably beat "Pokémon FireRed"/"LeafGreen" in your sleep. There are a few curve balls that you will hit regarding getting a drink to the Saffron City security guard and the whole Sevii Islands addition in the latter half. Otherwise, it's just rinse and repeat, but in higher fidelity. (I do think it's strange that they didn't modify the original Pokémon babysitters to have the breeding capabilities as well, but it's nice that there's at least one location where you can get your little critters to mash.) Moltres also gets moved out to a mountain in the Sevii Islands, so don't panic if you can't find it on Victory Road. Also, the game will give you a spin at nabbing one of the Legendary Beasts, so that's definitely worth saving a Master Ball for.

You know. Assuming the kid that previously owned your game DIDN'T ALREADY USE IT.

I can't go forward without discussing the agony that was hunting Raikou without a Master Ball. Like, I did it before in Gen 2, right? You paralyze it, False Swipe it down to 1 HP, then track it as it runs off via the Pokédex or whatever tools you have available for watching its location. "Pokémon FireRed"/"LeafGreen" has a critical bug with both Raikou and Entei that make hunting them especially miserable. If either of these two Pokémon use Roar, it will not only terminate the battle, but wipe them out from the game, forcing you to reset or lose them for good. Like, it's a 40-50 hour deep bug to find, but man, it's aggravating. Imagine not knowing about that and losing them to that oversight.

Also, fiddling with the moveset of various Pokémon did scratch me a little bit, at one point. Apparently, some funny guy thought having the higher-level Vulpixes in Route 7 losing their ability to use Ember was a good idea. Why did you think I picked them up before, Funny Guy? I got a Grass gym to beat and want a Fire type to do it with!

Whaddya mean I'm supposed to use a Flying type Pokémon? That's dull, man. (Although, I did have a fondness for Dodrio this time around. Hooray for the Runaway ability and getting through dungeons ASAP!)

...do I even bring up the one time I saw a shiny Pokémon and lost it because it was in the Safari Park, and I was stuck using that shitty system? Because that sucked, man. Not that I really needed another Nidoran♀️, but it's hard on a person to have that happen.

You know what I did like and ended up using quite a lot? The VS Seeker item. It was nice to go back and fight trainers. More XP, more money. Good. There was a particular set of Fighting-type trainers before Mt. Ember that I used to really drill up stats. So, thanks for that, game!

The weird thing about discussing this game is that I don't really want to talk about its functionality as much as I want to talk about reflections I had during the "LeafGreen" replay and finishing off the previous "FireRed" file. I mean, what can I say at this point? Game kinda slow, trades make it go faster, bugs not helpful, glad Bulbapedia exists. Got it. I'm going to use the next chunk just to reminisce about the passage of time. That may be more illuminating than anything else I can say regarding these games.

Gen 2 was so right to make both the Dark type and breeding a thing. Just a whole A+ idea there.

I don't get why people are freaked out by Lavender Town. It's a burial ground. Why are you surprised that there are ghost Pokémon here? You know what's actually screwed up? The Pokémon Mansion on Cinnabar Island. It's gutted, being actively picked over by thieves and scientists, and filled to the brim with goopy monsters that were likely created as a result of experiments with Mew and Mewtwo going horribly wrong. And there's a gym key in here. Why? Did Blaine put it down here as a gauntlet for warning other trainers, or did some other scientist drop it (possibly after getting eaten by a Muk)? Also, that power plant is nuts, too. Why did it get abandoned, anyway? Was it because Zapdos did something, or did it just like having a free lunch and roosted there?

Man, the political structure of the Pokémon League is bonkers. You'd really think there would be more complaints about the lack of access to the Saffron City and Cinnabar Island gyms. Get a gardener for Vermilion and Celadon, while they're at it. Not to mention the whole "oops, the final gym leader was a major criminal" fiasco. Is no one paying attention? Hello? Why does a ten-year-old have to act as the judicial system around here? I mean, it's all stuff to make gameplay happen, but I resent having to use Cut and Flash (see below.) Or, maybe I'm now appreciating more of the active role other trainers have in future games a little bit more. It's nice to have at least one other person go, "Wait a minute. This is dangerous. Let me help you punch this gang/cult leader/tech prick in the throat."

God bless the latter games going "You know what? We're done with HMs." Because man, I'm done with HMs, too. Surf, Fly, and Strength get a pass for at least being halfway decent in battle. Trash moves, otherwise. (Okay, Waterfall is fine, too. I just find it irritating to saddle my Water-type Pokémon with map moves.)

Man, how many of these monsters are part poison in this generation? 33? God. Entirely too much. No wonder Psychic types dominated this generation. Poison types even outnumber Water Pokémon here! (I mean, not by much. By one. But, still, that's weird.) Someone's gotta get the EPA on this region. Or, whatever the Japanese equivalent of the EPA is.

At this point, "Pokémon FireRed"/"LeafGreen" are games that are difficult to recommend, especially to anyone that was born after the year 2000. Technology's progressed far enough that you'll either have better access to the original version through a digital storefront or—more likely, what you want—better ways to get older Pokémon. Otherwise, it's cost-prohibitive and requires multiple copies/playthroughs to get even remotely close to the old end goal of a completed Pokédex. Even getting to the in-game special events now requires cheat devices. Not that I'm against that, but that's expensive too, man.

I mean, if you want to spend, like, $400-$500 dollars on cheating devices, consoles, games, and connecting devices for this particular experience, that's up to you. (Not that I spent anywhere around that; I've got an electronic hoard built up over the decades, remember.) But, honestly? Coming from a retro fanatic? You can get a better experience today.

By that, I mean you can probably still find a good copy of "Ultra Sun"/"Ultra Moon" and a 3DS for a half-way decent price. "Pokémon Legends Arceus," too. Maybe "Sword"/"Shield." I guess "Scarlet"/"Violet" also has DLC now, but geez. Not sure I'm down to spend $40 USD for that.

Pokémon is pain. Also, fiscally irresponsible.

#post game evaluation #pokemon firered and leafgreen

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