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Welcome! My name is Aquas. Here there are rants about video games, and probably some weird poetic shit scattered about about the shine on megaman's helmet or some shit. If you're bored, Karin will be around for a while, practicing her moves.

Tonight I had the pleasure of going to the Orpheum Theater in Minneapolis to see Final Fantasy Distant Worlds, a fully orchestrated, full choir, all exclusive Final Fantasy concert. I think it was some Philharmonic Orchestra, possibly? It was an amazing experience, I must say. One I don't want to forget, so while the concert is fresh in my memory I'm going to talk about each song that was performed in the concert, and some other moments related to the show.

I took the bus into the city to get to the Orpheum Theater and along my ride I noticed a gaming acquantince of mine who goes by 'Dance Dragon,' and was glad to see him. Before he got onto the bus I was trying to psyche myself up a bit more for the show and really just wanted someone to talk to about it. When he got on the bus it took me a second to realize who it was but then patted him on the shoulder and said, "Let me guess, Distant Worlds?" and he says, "Yeaaaah!" and does a homey style hand shake. We talk about the concert and some video games too untill we arrive in the city. This was my first time walking with him and he walked really fast, I thought he was really excited or something! Well, I was too except I wanted to smoke a cigarette before going in. People were flooding into the theater entrance at this point and I felt obligated to follow the crowd untill two female cosplayers appeared in front of Dance Dragon and I, one was I believe Rydia or Terra Bradford and the other I think was either Paine or Locke, I didn't have enough time to examine their costumes to make certain. Dance Dragon immediately asked them for a picture, and in that moment I jump into the frame to get my picture taken with these hot cosplayer babes! Yeah! I had a big grin on my face.

I find my seat and I'm located on the floor about mid center, a great seat that I had no complaints about. The acoustics felt right enough there throughout the show. But I was nearly sandwiched by couples, making me wish that I had a girl to bring with me to a fucking Final Fantasy concert. Apparently one of the chicks I was sitting by was into cosplay too, she liked to do the White Mage from FFXI... and let me tell you, she had the white mage aura or something.

The show began with Liberti Fatali and let me just say, my jaw was dropped when I heard the first few songs of the night. The emotion of the compositions in their orchestrated form seemed to ride on my face and change my expression periodically. The choir was exceptionally fun to hear for Liberti Fatali, and it all came together as visuals of the opening FMV from FF8 were projected largely onto the background of the orchestra. I hadn't seen that footage for a long time so it brought up some old memories as Seifer and Squall clashed swords on that grey plain.

I don't quite remember the order of each song throughout the concert so I'll touch on some of them that I thought were before the intermission.

1. FF I-III Medley:

This was a well arranged piece, each melody flowed into eachother very smoothly. Chocobo and Rebel Army were included, among others.

2. FF Series Main Theme:
It's the main theme in all it's glory, not much to say, it was awesome.

3. Swing de Chocobo:
This was a very fun performance, I think it was closest to FFX's chocobo theme. High energy and had the audience laughing at a backdrop of a sprite chocobo running back and forth, with the camera zooming in more and more. It was very joyeous to hear. I think it had a horn solo of some sort.

4. Dear Friends:
Very awesome performance that featured a classical guitarist of some notoriety... I had never heard of him. A bit touching.

5. Vammo Alla Flamenco:
Awesome, the guitarist did some pretty quick licks.

6. To Zanarkand:
This song has always touched me a little bit and even moreso in orchestrated version that I got a bit teary.

Come the 15-20 minute intermission, I was already blown away at what I had witnessed. Because of this I was in a pretty talkative mood and tried to converse with some of the smokers outside during the intermission. Which was fun. I inadvertantly hit on this girl by saying "If there was a flower girl out here, I'd totally buy a flower from her," walking through the entrance I then add, "if you get that reference," and she perks up and says "Thanks!" like I meant she could have been the flower girl, ha ha. She WAS wearing pink, like Aeris, however. (Erm, her boy friend had left before this point, lol)

Then I contemplated buying an alcoholic drink for the rest of the show but observing the $6 and above prices, I passed for a three dollar coke. Yay, coke!

The highlight song of the night was definetely 'Maria and Draco', the FFVI opera scene. They had 2 male opera singers and a female do the vocal leads of the song, just like in the game. They showed the scene in the backdrop, even with some of the gameplay where Locke is running back and forth and the cakewalk battles. Heh heh. The lyrics were indeed in English, which made it even more fun. They stood side by side, and Maria held Draco's hand mid-point into the song, and Draco made a blushing face. (Well, the real people.) It gave us a chuckle. And the other dude competing for Maria's love sings, "Noooooow, we must duueeeel." (Laugh.) It got a standing ovation, it was really brilliant.

Fisherman's Horizon was also pretty brilliant. The choir breathed a lot of life into the piece, and the arrangement was freshened up a bit from FF Concert 2002. One-Winged Angel, Opening - Bombing Mission, and Aerith's Theme had me laughing at the awesomeness of each piece. OWA was the last song played, and it triumphed the night over, definetely. Cheers were had all around.

At the end of the show, Arnie Roth and Mr. Uematsu gathered on the stage to gauge the audience's cheers for the next song to be added to the Distant Worlds Tour, all of them being battle themes. We were asked to speak with our cheers. Out of Jenova, Dancing Mad, Clash on the Big Bridge, Force Your Way and Battle with Seymour; JENOVA won the loudest cheer with Dancing Mad tieing in closely. I rooted for Dancing Mad the most, personally, but thinking about it, JENOVA would be fucking awesome to hear orchestrated and all.

Uematsu was sporting a bandanna and long frizzly black hair, he looked pretty damn cool. Unfortunately I was not able to meet him as the VIP tickets were all sold out by the time I found out about the concert. But also, the VIP tickets were double the price of a normal ticket, like $140 for ticket and VIP or something crazy like that. I wonder if it was really worth it for the 100 some folks that got those VIPs.

At the end of OWA Uematsu came onto the stage and yelled into the mic, "Arnie Roth!" I was thinking the same thing, heh heh. Arnie Roth is the conductor for the tour, he was a pretty cool guy. The place was nearly packed and I had a great time. I recommend any of you Uematsu fans, go to this concert! It really is splendid, and one of the best theater / concert experiences I've ever had. It was sex for my ears, basically.

I'll post the picture of me with those cosplayers on my blog eventually, so, 'till next time!

ffdistantworlds.com Minneapolis was only the first destination of the tour, so check if it will by you, too!

Mood: distant worldy
Game of the Day: persona 4 soon
Song of the Day: ffix

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It hit me tonight as I was out having a cigarette (I'm quitting for a new years resolution, honest!) while I was thinking about Star Ocean: First Departure as I've been playing that game lately. That I should submit some of my thoughts here because I felt more involved in the site last winter. Does that make sense? It's probably the cold.

I got Star Ocean: First Departure on release day being the star ocean fanboi that I am, but I haven't really been playing it a lot. And for what I do play seems to drag on a bit... I'm only 10 hours in! The gameplay is pretty easy and just now I've gotten all the skillbooks to learn all the skills so I can potentially be creating some cool items with freshly earned skill points. I'm also at the point in a game when I can go off the course a bit and recruit a few characters. I'm going to have a catgirl join my party, oh, joy. Peresi I think is her name.

The plot is like cliche after cliche even for a Star Ocean game... I mean, hell! A meteorite falls off somewhere all of a sudden, and you can decide to go check it out with the party, as you are prompted if you want to or not in a cutscene. You go and check it out and they're like 'OH! NOTHIN' HERE, SURE IS WEIRD.' Like, c'mon. I just found that funny because of the presence of the Sourcery Globe in Star Ocean 2 as another spherical object that has crashed into a planet. But it was pointless for me to go there and waste 10 minutes traveling the overworld and fighting / running away from enemies.

Granted, I'm still enjoying the game. The skills are growing on me, adapting it to the Star Ocean 2 battle engine was a good idea. But I want a fucking bunny or an airship or something already! Heh. In Star Ocean 2 the character will voice out "Come here Barney!" when it's supposed to be "come here bunny!" but Star Ocean 2 is known for these weird localizition quirks. Opera says "I'll turn you into a beehive!" in battle, for example is another weird one.

I think I'm out of stuff to rant about. I'll think of some games to write reviews for, guys. Mother 3, Lunar: SSSC and SO:DP have been on my mind to do.

Mood: aware
Game of the Day: star ocean
Song of the Day: Shoji Meguro - Normal Battle~Town~

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Hey! The translation of Mother 3 is out! Has been for almost a week. I advice you go to

http://mother3.fobby.net

or http://www.starmen.net

and get the patch, and begin playing Mother 3! It's a great game, especially if you're a fan of the series, or not. I'm gonna try to get a review up eventually. But you guys shouldn't pass this up.

Game of the Day: Mother 3

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Well, you asked for it, you got it!

Hope this convinces some people to play it.

Mood: accomplished
Song of the Day: EarthBound - Dungeon Man

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I have a long history with the cute, quirky gem that is... EarthBound.

Playing it when I was 10 years old, in the throat of childhood, was a magical experience. All the characters in the game had their own life that they were leading, and it gave me a sense of adventure as a little runt kid.

First a meteorite falling into the hill above my house. Then a bee from the sky telling me that I was the chosen one, a robotic man (known as the starmen) coming from 10 years in the future to stop Buzz-Buzz. The early death to the hero Buzz-Buzz of another timeline, when he is smashed by Ness' next door neighbor's wife. Showing that his bee form was not as strong as he had expected.

The weight of these events on Ness' shoulders, and acquiring the soundstone from Buzz-Buzz to gather up the melodies of 8 sanctuary spots to gain the power of the world. It was a journey I was gleed to take.

Anyhow, I've been playing EarthBound a bunch lately. Most of the reason being that Starmen.net, the huge "cult" community that follows EarthBound, has been having events to play the game. Speedrun attempts and the anual EarthBound Funktastic Summer Gameplay which I am half particpating in this year. Also, introducing a friend to the game recently has had me enjoying EarthBound again and again!

I was just listening to the Pink Cloud music from EarthBound and thinking about it and all and decided to write up this here post.

If you haven't played EarthBound (For the SNES,) I recommend playing it asap. Keep in mind, Starmen.net is finishing up the Mother 3 translation, which I am very excited for as a Mother fan.

Stuff!

Possible EarthBound review!

Mood: elated
Song of the Day: EarthBound tunes

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My favorite shooting series =D

Mood: fwoo
Game of the Day: tales of eternia (psp)

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Yep, it was shit-tastic before for the Brevity or Bust contest. But I've revamped it and fleshed it out, so that my 9 rating isn't so superficial.

Please check it out. :)

Hope you're all having a good day so far.

Mood: tweee
Game of the Day: Tales of the abyss
Song of the Day: machiena supremacy

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I got a few things to talk about in a post here. About a few games I've been playing in the mean time and about some video game soundtracks that I bought and other various shit too. I noticed the Star Ocean: Second Evolution ad on the front page. Heh, I'm pretty interested in that game coming stateside for the PSP, along with Star Ocean: First Departure, both which are predicted to be around probably before or when Star Ocean 4 will be coming out in the states. early '09? That's kinda how I see it. But anyway, I learned some stuff about those ports that is plenty of incentive for me to buy it when it comes out.

New voice dubbing, as if "I'll turn you into a beehive!" wasn't horrible enough localization of the playstation game, while being a fan of the original english dubbing. New character portraits portraying the new character and anime art style, expressing various emotions during regular dialogue. The battle system is revamped a bit, claude's normal attack can now be a 3-hit combo sort of thing, probably true with other characters as well. Recurring Star Ocean NPC Welsh will be available as a playable character now, too. Star Ocean 2 for me is characterized by its sense of atmosphere... the background art is really beautiful at times, the soundtrack brought the playstations audio to its maximum with real-sounding-flute samples and cymbal crashing triumphant overworld themes.

All sorts of things make Star Ocean 2 to me one of the best playstation RPGs, and is a welcome title in my library.

...But anyways...!

I've been playing Tales of the Abyss lately. Called all around my area to see if it was available, and found nothing. Thanks to the incredible resource that is the internet, I acquired the game surprisingly shortly and "backed it up" to my PS2. The beginning was pretty slow and I wasn't terribly impressed what I had seen, but I got about 16'ish hours into the game and I'm taking a stronger liking to it. The awkward character developement in the beginning helped build up to a "reality check" in the plot, so to speak, pretty well.

As I've been playing the game I'm actually following along with the plot, which I honestly have trouble doing when I play RPGs. In this game, they keep things pretty simple and it feels like a drama, where you know what's going to happen next, and when it does, you're thinking "Ahhh, well no shit!" But laughing at the same time at the corniness.

(Tales of Symphonia's story progression also gives me that dopey, childish vibe that the game's dialogue and events seems to
represent, and well, I wouldn't lie that Symphonia's battle was incredibly easy too. Saying that the game itself feels like it's suited for an RPG novice. But I can't rat on the difficulty too much because I was suckered into an 80-hour experience, a lot of time that I didn't expect to spend on the game.)

In saying that, Tales of the Abyss is a pretty high quality RPG. And I'm looking forward to playing it some more today.

~

The Music

I purchased Motoi Sakuraba's "Forest of Glass" album as well as Yoko Shimomura's "Best of Yoko Shimomura," an album of Shimomura's personal picks of her music found in video games, rearranged in some fancy german orchestra. I've heard Best of Yoko already and there are some fantastic tracks. Including a few legend of mana songs like Hometown Domina and the Holy Mana theme, just beautiful. Sakuraba's "Forest of Glass" is the first solo album Sakuraba has released since "Gikyokuonsou," a prog rock album released in 1999. I have not heard this piece of music, but I love Sakuraba's music just as much as I like Shimomura's and am looking forward to listening to it. Apparently its a complex piano heavy cd, but it sounds like some of the melancholy themes he would normally do in a video game. If what the review about this said is right about that, I will enjoy it. As a fan of video game music, I think that's what we want to hear, too. For instance, I loved Uematsu's "Phantasmagoria" album, a collection of calm songs that sound straight out of Final Fantasy games, which didn't sound anything like I had before, really. But the tracks are lovable.

Importing these new cds from japan is costing me roughly $30 USD for each one. But it's worth it, because I haven't bought any video game music legitly since I bought bootlegs of the Xenogears and Xenosaga soundtracks off of ebay (Hey, they look authentic enough!) and I want to support these amazing composers for further musical additions such as these and for all the hours of enjoyment they have given me, too. Look at that, I'm a thankful consumer!

Well, I've bored you folks long enough. I'm off to brew some coffee and play some Tales of the Abyss, before the work begins today. Take care.

Mood: fweee
Game of the Day: tales of the abyss
Song of the Day: mario galaxy ost =D

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Wilderness away,
I think I've had my day.

Falling gently into darkness
the grass with certainty
against my cheek,
(sudden brightness,
the sun shines again.)

Wake from the same dream.

And, well,

Noah looks upon me
in my last desperate pray.
The dripping moon,
the stars nudge into me their love,
the breeze is calm again.

(... I've been quiet with myself
in the rush of wrong pains,
what have I become...)

Wilderness away,
a shortcut through the hills.
If the sun shines that way...
well, I think I'll have my day.

Mood: whfww
Game of the Day: ADOM
Song of the Day: lom

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Well, I re-wrote all of what I had written for my review. Chopped off a lot and added some and it's vastly improved than what I would have originally submitted I think. Participating in the Brevity or Bust contest also helped me keep in mind my brevity when writing the review, even though it came out to about 1200 words. I like the game a lot, so naturally I had a lot to say, I suppose.

In commemoration of finally completing it, here's a mix tape of cool songs by Motoi Sakuraba, who composes the music for many Tri-Ace games.

http://aquas.muxtape.com

It doesn't work in firefox for me, but works in IE for me, so check it out if you happen to read my review, or just wanna listen to some sweet music. Hopefully I can keep up this rate of submitting reviews. I've got a couple ideas for other ones to do, perhaps rip apart an NES classic.

Cheers.

Mood: chipper
Game of the Day: cleopatra fortune
Song of the Day: drammatica yoko shimomura XD

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I finished a review for flOw on the PSP in the past two days. Because it's a really simple game, it was kind of easy to do. But it really deserves the love. It's been too long since I've posted something, so, glad to be back in the spirit a bit.

So I'm currently unemployed, need to find a new job. Oy. Late night...

I should be recieving Parodius Portables for the PSP and Metal Gear Essential Collection soon. Hip-hip hooray!

And I should probably play some more Odin Sphere soon... since I bought it new a while ago.

Mood: fwooo
Game of the Day: flOw
Song of the Day: ff9 - a face unforgotten

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Put in Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne in the PS2 tonight for a couple hours. I'm playing on a "backup copy" using swap magic 3.6 on my old block PS2. Well, I'm not sure if it's mine or my friends (who I traded with 'cause his wasn't workin' right with some game.) but I've since redeemed it by removing its faceplate and slapping one of the Lunar: Silver Star Story avatars on the side of it. Ripped off two big stickers off of it... heh.

Nocturne is a nice little game. It's atmosphere is genuinely distinct from other RPG series in the wake of its intro in which the old tokyo is then transformed into a new world... the world map that you travel on is bowl shaped because apparently it's part of a sphere that the world itself is in, funky, huh? And full of all your favorite mythical creatures and beasts.

Hmm...

I had a 25 minute battle with one of these guys who have "Candelebras" which are needed to be collected in the game... and the battle digressed into my party being whittled to death with various status afflictions. One of my ogre teamates was confused in the midst of battle and "withdrew himself," also under the confused ailment, a window will say "Oxy is feeling strange..." and then skip his turn. Stuff like this occasionally happens with other things in battle. Reminds me of the same kind of ways to skip turns in EarthBound, i.e. Mole is absentminded..., Pokey gets down on his knees., etc.

Another one of my recruited demon friends was expelled from the battle. Until that point I had been using that character to cast an anti-expel attack through out the course of the battle... but I let my guard down at one point and the character himself got expelled. This particular fancifully dressed Skeleton boss has a move that gives him 4 extra turns to do whatever he wants, it's called "Startle." The fancifully dressed Skeleton waves a burst of colorful light into the sky and begins to pummel me with a variety of attacks.

But it was the way I was gradually defeated which really stuck out to me as one of the game's signature moments. The battles require a certain momentum to maintain stability, when the tables can turn quickly in a battle with fresh opponents. Enemy demons will also call for help, and sometimes (I THINK) pick on certain party members, so they have some kind of ganging intelligence I think.)

The other key thing about this game that I enjoy is that you recruit demons, other enemies in the world to join you. This can be done by talking to them during battles and seeing how it goes, or you can have a demon with the seduce ability to lure someone in to your party. I had one of my fairy demon's seduce this red goblin type guy with a horn coming out of his crotch (very phallic) and his response in battle was literally, "That's some hot ass. Okay, I'll come with." Laugh out loud moments in this bleak RPG are very welcome. And the humor with the NPC's, many who are souls of a past life wandering around, is delightful and at the same time ironically painful. There's a city full of manicans who are harvested for their hatsuguchi (it's like MAKO in this game) and they appear to lead very down trodden, strange lives.

The soundtrack is really great too and also does a great job setting the mood. It does it's job well, I must say.

~

Hm. These here be the workin's of a new review.

Mood: groggy but rockin
Game of the Day: Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne
Song of the Day: Shoji Meguro - Large Map ~Real Universe~

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Mood: pensive
Game of the Day: gradius v
Song of the Day: nothin

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Been playing Gradius V a bunch lately. After clocking 30 hours into the game, I've achieved my 1cc with the game. That is, a one credit clear, as it is intended to be completed.

I'm consistently amazed by the shmup genre in the fact that it has the ability to rack up those gaming hours just as effectively and for sure as hell, more potently than a standard RPG game will rack up those hours. When the presentation is as top notch as it is in Gradius V, it's hard to deny that shmup's are the ultimate gaming genre. Thinking logically about why this is true, we take the fact that the genre is typically scrolling onto new areas, stacking up stimulii in this manner. The genre literally takes you somewhere, and that somewhere is often the redemption of a whole universe normally in the comfy time frame of an hour or half hour or so. The shmup games that Cave makes seem to be the best example of the "artistic shmup" with their breathtaking 2d graphics and bullet-hell patterns. Structurally, for the developers, the straight shot stage-to-stage paradigm of shmups allows for some great creativity. The genre's no-bullshit attitude sucks a player in right away with the shoot the fuck out of everything gameplay...

Man, I'm rambling and not making much sense. The point is, Gradius V is a work of art and is a masterful culminination of what Gradius lives towards. And I am thoroughly pleased with my experience with it.

.... la de da....

Been replaying Tales of Eternia on the PSP now. The graphics look great packed down on the PSP's screen. The game appears to breathe, and that's always a good sign!

Mood: cooky fucko
Game of the Day: gradius v, tales of etenia
Song of the Day: deerhoof - cast off crown

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Ah. Went out for a few smokes with my buddy, and somehow my computer rebooted itself when I was gone and I lost a bunch of edits and progress I made on the Star Ocean review... awww... and I'm getting so close to finishing it!

...*grumble*

Anyhow... pretty sure I'm gonna pre-order Crisis Core soon. And forsake the purchase of Patapon... is this a good decision? Well... Patapon looks neat and all, but it just doesn't seem like what I'm lookin' to play.

Anyone else got CC pre-ordered or are going to get it, anyway? It's really hard to resist this game giving its hype and what not.

Mood: bummed
Game of the Day: gradius collection
Song of the Day: sidescrollers (screwattacK)

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