The Wonders of Generic Units

Aren't generics great? I'm not just talking about Final Fantasy Tactics, I'm talking about stuff in general. I think generics make for great possibilities when it comes to fanfiction, world building, and roleplay. Think about it: You've got an established character design you get attached to over time as it fights for you, that frequently has no personality of its own. You are then free to come up with your own interpretation on the design, creating a character who is simultaneously original and familiar.

Take a look at some of the characters we had fun with back at Zoofights. A surprisingly large chunk of them were generics given personality: Sarah, Celestia, Skeiron, Spy (although, in-game, for a generic he has a lot of personality), Stella, James, Erebus, Pech, Del, and Jonesy, to name the most frequent. Plus there was Alex, who was a similar idea except based off a single character instead of a unit, and also Zephyrus and Oceanus, who show what happens when you take a character with absolutely no personality and assign him a shockingly deep one.

One of the things I like about the original Final Fantasy is how you're able to put your own spin on the characters and story with your imagination. The archetypal example is of course 8-Bit Theater, and a lot of FF1 fan work falls into the same routine. Hell, even I did it once. But last summer I made my own interpretation of the tale, creating one of the longest-running subplots in the process. I mention this because a month or two ago I came across a fanfic that was a retelling of FF1 with personalities for the Light Warriors and Fiends. The writing quality was average but it had some very original ideas. What I found interesting about it was that its interpretation of the Fiends - it was a bizarro version of what I did for Zoofights! In the fanfic, Lich, Marilith, and Tiamat are all friendly, and the true villain is Kraken, who is manipulating everything behind the scenes. In Zoofights, Lich, Marilith, and Tiamat were all rotten to the core, but Kraken turned out to be a pretty nice guy (and ultimately he's the only Fiend to survive Zoofights). And that's why I like FF1's creative potential - two wildly different interpretations of the characters that both manage to work.

Oh, and I reached a stage on FFT that presents a drastic jump in difficulty and is apparently infamous for doing so based on what I've read. TIME TO GRIND.

(Minor FFT Spoilers) CLASS WARFARE

1 percent of the population owns 99% of the gold. Occupy the Thieves' Hideout.

(Good riddance Algus you jackass)

(Also I now have a certain orator on the squad, hooray. Hey, Harpy, is there a way to make her speechcraft more accurate? The hit rates are kinda abysmal)

The Zodiac has a sick sense of humor.

Okay so the good FFT news is I've gotten Sarah properly into the party as a white mage and she's been a great help so far.

The bad FFT news is that, thanks to me hiring her as a Chemist before seeing Harpy's comment about Zodiac signs, I've wound up with Alex and Sarah having bad chemistry.

(In all honesty it doesn't seem that huge a deal since I made Alex's secondary ability "Use Item" and had my black mage double up with white magic, but it still feels wrong. If only you could just change the names of generics I coulda made my other Chemist the white mage.)

Another Petition and First Thoughts on FFT

Figured I should link this.
http://torrentfreak.com/white-house-petitioned-to-investigate-mpaa-bribery-120122/

I got my PS1 memory card in the mail this morning, and after checking that it worked I started up a file on Final Fantasy Tactics. First impressions:

-I remember Harpy mentioning on Zoofights that she likes woobies (hence Rain X Stella, and why bad things happen so frequently to Alex). The first thing I'm shown upon starting this game up is the statement that Ramza was forgotten by history in a church coverup. That's pretty woobietastic all right.
-Oh jeez you can rename Ramza. No points for guessing what my brilliant name change was.
-"Rad". I love Engrish.
-After playing so much Disgaea and La Pucelle, I am NOT used to the control layout of FFT. Pressing down makes you move southwest instead of southeast, with all the other directions rotated to match. Took me three times as long to play thanks to that. Gah!

Now to get one of these generics made into a White Mage as quickly as possible.

What Have I Become?

"What is it?"
"Aside from being a PlayStation game? I dunno. Help me flip it over."

"...Are you freaking kidding me."
"SQUEEEEEE ALEEEEEEEEEX"

Widow Maker begins looking through the instruction manual. 

"Lessee here...  'Ramza Beoulve' has two successful older brothers serving in the military and sports a sword, an ahoge, and an inferiority complex."

She notices some fine print.

"'This is a true story. Some names have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved.' Welp."

(Dammit, Harpy, look what you made me do.

Now to wait for the memory card to arrive. Derp.)

Mario Kart Wii Ported to the iPhone!

...Wait, what?

UPDATE: Official trailer has been taken down, haha. I've got a mirror up now.

UPDATE 2: Mirror taken down by a copyright claim. From Nintendo. Hahaha! Here's another mirror. Wonder how long it'll last.

Obligatory SOPA Post

Hey, you know what would be wiped off the internet if the Stop Online Piracy Act passed? Zoofights. Even disregarding all the folks roleplaying as existing characters, you still have Ironichide's mixes to target. Also I linked to Space Invaders once.

Can I get my fellow Americans to take a sec and sign up at whitehouse.gov to sign the petition?

http://wh.gov/DfY

If nothing else, it won't hurt.

Also, here's Hitler reacting to SOPA. Not certain whether to classify this as "SOPA is so terrible even Hitler is disgusted" or "If you're against SOPA you're with Hitler". >_>

And... (taking a page from RedSpy) Funnest fact: This is not the first time Hitler's been mentioned on my blog.

UPDATE: I found another site for anybody - including people from other countries - to sign!

SECOND UPDATE: Apparently there's been an amendment that mostly neuters SOPA, making it much less extreme and dangerous. I'm going to leave the rest of this post up just in case there's any hidden problems and/or to be on the safe side.

Toy Review - Moguera

This is Mobile Operation Godzilla Universal Expert Robot Aero-Type, or Moguera for short. Based on a giant robot from space called Mogera that attacked the Earth in the old film The Mysterians, this updated manmade version appeared as a major "character" in Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla. Moguera is actually a piloted mecha with no artificial intelligence or sentience of its own. Although I rather like him, he's one of the more frequently ignored members of the Godzilla cast.

The Moguera figure is nicely detailed and accurate to the film, two details which are true for the vast majority of Bandai's toys (there's a reason I have so many - these guys know their stuff). There are two minor issues with this figure I'd like to point out, though. Firstly, the waist doesn't turn, although there's a seam there. Since the real Moguera can turn its waist around and it's a fairly natural movement for a robot shaped like this, they missed out on some neat posing opportunities by leaving out this ability. The other issue is that, at least on my figure, the feet have become a bit warped, so the toy does not stand perfectly flat on his feet. This may just be an issue of age, however, since this toy is over a decade old. It's another solid effort from Bandai, and a worthy choice for fans of the robo-penguin.

Toy Review - Kamacuras Gashapon

"Dufe, what the fuck is a gashapon"
I'M GETTING TO THAT HOLD ON

"Gashapon" is the Japanese term for "vending machine toy". You know vending machine toys, right? Those little trinkets found in capsules, and you get one by putting in a quarter (or, nowadays, a couple of quarters) and turning the crank to claim a randomly selected prize. Well, vending machines are big in Japan. The Japanese people absolutely love 'em, and part of that is their appreciation of surprises. Apparently, not knowing exactly what you're getting is a big thrill there, because even some non-vending toys are sold in "blind boxes" - identical, non-windowed packages that could contain any one of several possible toys.

But you don't need to go to blind boxes for a quality random product - since vending machines are so popular, their offerings are a lot more interesting than what we get in the USA. Instead of tiny rubber frogs, sticky bugs, and superballs, Japan's machines offer some pretty cool prizes - not the least of which are these highly detailed miniature models by Bandai.

Godzilla gashapons are generally not for playing with - to fit in the vending machine bubble, they come in pieces. Perhaps you've seen the "3D Puzzle" toys? Not only is that exactly how most gashapon figures work, but some "3D puzzles" actually are gashapons, imported from Japan and upgraded to shelf items because our vending machines aren't fancy enough.

But enough about gashapons in general - what about this one? What we have here is Kamacuras, a praying mantis monster that is known for speed if not durability or might. He is smaller than most Godzilla gashapons because he came with a second monster - Kumonga the spider. However, I only have Kamacuras because I bought him off the internet separately.

For being so small (he's about an inch high and two inches long), Kamacuras is very well detailed and accurate to the film the toy inspired - in this case, Godzilla Final Wars. He stays together perfectly well, although if handled a lot he will usually split in half and you'll need to reattach his thorax to his abdomen.

Good Kamacuras toys are hard to come by. This is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to get the mantis into your collection.