Cutting Room Floor 9: Rejected Characters Depot II

Well, you know how we are with bandwagons. JRM's latest blog post reminded me that I've got a few characters in the reject pile. Unlike JRM, I usually can't completely rule out a character or plot unless I made a replacement character/plot that fulfills the same purpose (Clippy instead of Cedric the owl) or if I do something that contradicts what the rejected thing would have done (Ariel as a dark knight instead of an archer). There IS a possibility some of these characters may show up in some form, but the most likely fates for them are Fite Club cameos or simply being on display here.

Chatzy Madness Volume 90: Knuckles - The Chuckling

RubyChao: sheep wraps up every single character for the year, working on a lengthy epilogue for each one
RubyChao: he looks at the date when he's done
RubyChao: May 1st, 2014
Jumpropeman: XD
Saberwulf: *sad violin music*
M Sheep: Just when I think I'm out
M Sheep: THEY PUT ME BACK IN

---

The Deleter: minecraft modding has reached the point where you now make the machines to make the machines you need to make machines
The Deleter: an ouroboros of whining and mental disorders

---

The Deleter: whenever anyone types "wanker" i read it in sniper's voice nowadays

---

The Deleter: GO STANLEY
The Deleter: GO WITH GEMMA AND BE A FAMILY MAN
The Deleter: I AM SO DRUNK RIGHT NOW
The Deleter: MORE PORT

Chatzy Madness Volume 73: I Can't Stop Clicking Alpacas

M Sheep: Butt cookies everywhere!
M Sheep: ....
M Sheep: Well, there's something I thought I'd never type
Gooper Blooper: they go straight to your butt
Cornwind Evil: Simple Butt Fun

---

Jumpropeman: the end raid on the society is going to be one amazing clusterfuck of awesomeness I bet
Harpy: if it isn't, then we cannot call ourselves kobbers
SteelKomodo: you expected anything less, JRM?
Jumpropeman: it will be like an anime where everyone reveals their super secret hidden techniques
Jumpropeman: and Krillin will be on the sidelines gasping the whole battle

---

Jumpropeman: so I was catching up on last year's RP some more
Jumpropeman: and I had a misread that made my eyes bog out
SteelKomodo: oooh boy
Jumpropeman: Raw asks "...Pit, how old are you again? And what have you done in life besides work for Sintendo? And besides Daisy, how many girls have you dated?"
Jumpropeman: Pit says "Twenty-five. Don't listen to Dirk when he says forty, he's lying. As usual." he's talking about age, but I thought he was talking about girlfriends
Jumpropeman: I thought Pit was a pimp, and Dirk was playing up his bro's lady count
Gooper Blooper: haha
SteelKomodo: XD
Harpy: Pffft
SteelKomodo: man, how HIGH do you even have to BE just to DO something like that
Harpy: you have to be dirk
Harpy: you have to be so high, you become 2012 Dirk

GB's 100 Games: 16-11

We've now reached the games I consider permanent classics. Two are from my childhood and early teen years, but the other three are all relatively recent. Two of them I just played last year. Even though I sometimes feel concerned that I'm losing touch with video games and sometimes go long periods without playing one, games like these remind me that there's no getting off this train I'm on.

Today's update is brought to you by Saralex and Liberty Medical.

Cutting Room Floor 7: Garland Edition

ColorChange: Question for Goops: is there a cutting room floor for the Garland fight?
GB: There is quite a bit of stuff that got left out
GB: Partly because of general circumstances not coming up
GB: And partly because so much insane shit was happening at once I just had no time
ColorChange: Ah
ColorChange: Show us D:
GB: Well
GB: The biggest thing that didn't happen is based off this foreshadowing from the bar
GB: 2 months ago - Mystery Knight slays the Great Ahriman of Earthgift Shrine
7 months ago - Scrap Metal Dug Up by Dr. Unne - Believed to be a Piece of the Legendary Omega
14 months ago - Infamous Scarmiglione Found Dead Outside Hellfire Chasm
3 years ago - Mysterious Purple Tentacle Washes up on Beach
5 years ago - Phantom Train Off the Rails - Mystery Challenger Derails the Fearsome Ghost
8 Years Ago - Graveyard Desecration - Corpses Litter Corneria Cemetery, Sword Marks on Local Grave
SteelKomodo: CORNERIA NO D:
SteelKomodo: WHERE'S STAR FOX WHEN YOU NEED THEM
SteelKomodo: (i may have made this joke before)
GB: See, Garland didn't kill Sarahdad
ColorChange: Wait, didn't we fight a few of those summons?
GB: We did
GB: But look at the last line
GB: This is from after we fought the summons, when Zeph and Gloria were doing research in the bar
ColorChange: . . . I don't like where this is going ;A;
GB: Garland didn't kill Sarahdad
GB: But he might have killed a necromancer along the way
SteelKomodo: ;^;
ColorChange: . . . Oh god what
ColorChange: No no no no no that's too sad
TheDeleter: well
GB: The idea was that he would go to the gravesite, summon the necromancer, and kill Zombie Sarahdad so he could summon Sarahdad
TheDeleter: that's terrible
GB: (It would probably have been the necromancer from Castle Crashers)
SteelKomodo: in the words of Orson Wells, "Why, that's terrible!"
GB: But due to having literally no time to write anything long like that during the fight Garland just beat the shit out of the girls instead
ColorChange: Ouch
GB: Next, here's a few unused summons Garland did not bring into any fights
GB: http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a135/Kracko/Zoofights/Golem.png
GB: http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a135/Kracko/Zoofights/Odin.png
GB: http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a135/Kracko/Zoofights/Rubicante.png
GB: http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a135/Kracko/Zoofights/SteelGiant.png
ColorChange: Oh fuck the All-Father
SteelKomodo: aw shit, I could have had Saxton Hale deck Odin in the face
SteelKomodo: "Don't you know you've been replaced by the globe-encompassing power of AUSTRALIAN CAPITALISM?!"
GB: At some point, Electra was going to do this: http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a135/Kracko/Zoofights/ElectraCharge1.png
SteelKomodo: she still needs to do that
SteelKomodo: swear to god
GB: There's also this guy: http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a135/Kracko/Zoofights/GreenNinjaFFTMugshot.png
SteelKomodo: NINJAS =D
GB: This ninja was going to be working for Garland as an assistant
GB: maybe
ColorChange: RAIN YOU FIEND
GB: In truth I was confused about what his alliance would be
GB: I think at one point he was actually a concerned Mysidian coming to warn people about Garland, but he's one of those weird Japanese types who only gives up information if you prove yourself worthy
GB: So yeah, didn't know what to do with him and I had more than enough characters running around anyway, so he got dropped
ColorChange: I was going to have this be Zephyrus' swan song, but with Antoinette already dying I figured it'd end up just feeling like a repeat. So I axed it.
ColorChange: Oceanus would've lived to see the fight's end if he didn't deal with the fearsome foot of the tractor.
GB: Also, there is a major villain possibility for Browny if he ever does anything prominent again
ColorChange: So I had to emergency-draft Wheatley for a slow speed boat chase
ColorChange: . . . I read that as Browny being a major villain
SteelKomodo: ^
SteelKomodo: D:
GB: I saw that wording too. No, he doesn't have it in him
ColorChange: So now instead of Zephyrus becoming a corpse, he becomes a mechanic
ColorChange: Lets hope he can figure out how to fix a deadbro!
GB: He dropped off later in the year because people kept joining the police force and I wanted to do things with all of them together
ColorChange: D: Browny
GB: Browny was also very difficult to make a strong character out of, it seemed like
GB: He's so formal

Final Fantasy Tactics Custom Case

The spine needed to be a tad bigger, unfortunately, but I think this still turned out pretty good for a first try.

See the label in detail here (not 100% complete).

Next time: A Four Heroes of Light custom case!

The Changing of the Gang - Part One

For years they had had an agreement. You stay in your district of the city, we stay in ours.

Maybe it was because of the new, grittier atmosphere that seemed to fall over the city on New Years Day. Maybe Blade had grown some ambition.

Maybe it was Maybelline.

But whatever the reason, the Excite biker gang, long the only bikers in Manhattan, were now on the backpedal from an invasion by the Storm Bikers of Brooklyn.

Excite Red chanced a quick look over his shoulder. They were still there. Five of them. These five were the highest-ranked members of Blade's gang. Two wore yellow, two red. Leading them was Blade himself, clad in green. And they all rode matching-color bikes.

Red thanked his lucky stars that his bike was faster. Blade's men were more physically powerful, and their bikes were almost an extension of their body, even in combat. Red had a chance if he could get to where his lackeys were - they'd have a numbers advantage. Alone, however, all he could do was run.

---

Blade's shining eyes glared out from under his helmet. The Excites were always cowards. They only picked a fight when they knew they could win. Blade hated people like that. For a long time now he'd considered the Excite gang beneath him. Not worthy of his time.

But with the new decade came new challenges. Anyone could see that crime had gone up in the city - not to the point of a living hell, for sure, but you used to be relatively safe walking home at night. Generally your biggest worry was running into that idiot who girly-ran while shrieking about how he was a vampire. Nowadays, however, you were less likely to be accosted by 80's references and more likely to just get mugged. Probably they'd learn a hard lesson in reality when the pack of crazy supermen who watched Zoofights came rolling back into the city, but until then it was open season. Blade had heard rumors that a few of the "kobbers" as they were called stayed behind, with one even specifically going after the punks and gangs. Crime may have risen elsewhere in the city, but in Manhattan it was surprisingly low.

Blade loved a challenge.

But if he wanted to face this defender, he's have to sweep out the rabble and set up shop here. That was why he was driving full throttle towards the terrified Excite Red.

Blade reached down at his side with one hand and felt the large lead pipe he kept hooked onto his bike. He couldn't wait to use it.

---

(MINOR CHARACTERS WOOO. Blade didn't even make an appearance last year, but he was referred to by one of his lackeys when Excite Red went too far out of bounds in his attempts to escape Sarah the first time they met. The Excite Bikers, meanwhile, were one of the very, VERY few villains of ZF6 to escape death (they died during the Tiamat fight, but that was only their shadow clones). Here, the two groups are serving as a deep and complicated metaphor. >_>

I'm not certain if this is a one-shot or not. In case it's not obvious, I fucking love Streets of Rage. For me, Streets of Rage 2 in particular is very nostalgic and very 90s, and its urban, violent, and over-the-top settings and characters lend themselves well to Zoofights.

In other news, I FINALLY finished Final Fantasy Tactics after not playing it much in the last several weeks. A very entertaining game, although I had to apply some headcanon to make sense of the ending.)

FFT - Meet The Team

Tomorrow it will have been one month since I started FFT. I'm pleased with this game's length - I've played it almost every day since I've gotten it but I'm still not finished (although it looks like the end is near). Here's a rundown of the 11 dudes that make up my squadron. The first job class is their primary one, the other is their secondary. (Character spoilers up to and including Chapter 4 below)

Alex (Ramza) the Monk/Squire lv45
Aw yeah, the little midget is a powerhouse. Got a problem? PUNCH IT IN THE FACE. Also making him one of my best guys is that I gave him the Auto Potion reaction ability, so he automatically heals 70 HP every time he's hit. Add onto that Punch Art, Scream, Cheer Up to boost the Brave of fellow units, and probably a hidden strength bonus from the idiot hair and you have an invaluable party member. Which is good considering he has to be present for every storyline battle.

Orlandu the Holy Swordsman/Archer lv43
While I appreciate the brokenness, it's too bad he kind of made Agrias and Meliadoul worthless. I think I'll mostly avoid using him unless I run into a hard battle, so I can have fun with my favorite units instead of just throwing Orlandu at everything and winning.

Meliadoul the Divine Knight/Chemist lv42
Woah. This chick (in addition to having a cool design) is a powerhouse against standard enemies, able to destroy their equipment 100 percent of the time AND deal heavy damage. It's too bad she's mostly powerless against monsters and guys with Maintenance. Still, I like her and I've been using her a lot since I got her. I've considered giving her Jump to make her similar to Izlude,but she'll need a lot of job leveling in random classes before I can do that.

Agrias the Knight/Holy Knight lv38
Man, why is poor Agrias' attack so low compared to the other guys? Ah well, she's still useful.

Leopold the Lancer/Time Mage lv38
LeoBRO here was recruited in the library and proved to be a very capable warrior. His Jump skill and tanking ability made him indispensable for the boss fights against Izlude and Wiegraf later in the library. Despite having less MP than Sarah after healing a Big Bar Brawl's worth of King of Beasts patrons, the two casts of Haste he gets are invaluable and go great with jumping since it works better the faster you are.

Sarah the White Mage/Summoner lv36
As you probably guessed, as soon as I could I recruited a generic named Sarah, made her a Chemist, leveled her until she could class change to "Priest", and left her like that forever after. Yayyyy *muppet arms*. Yesterday I decided to experiment with making her secondary job Summoner instead. The power of the summons seems a little lacking despite a Faith of 70. Hmm. She's also leveling in Punch Art nicely thanks to Alex, and I may try her out as a white mage that punches stuff because that's hilarious.

Elizabeth the Black Mage/White Mage lv33
Elizabeth gets the coveted "died the most times" award. Enemies just will not leave this black mage alone. She has been useful from that start, especially in Chapter 1 when most enemies had no answer to a long-range magic attack. Lately she's been less of a force, but is still a common pick for storyline stages.

Stella the Mediator/Chemist lv28
Of course Stel-Stel is present. She generally comes along for every non-story battle so she can boost stats. She's also kept around in case something worth recruiting shows up, which is rare.

Ariel the Thief/Squire lv26
Getting into a random battle one day, I saw a white mage on the enemy team. I decided to recruit her with Stella in hopes that she'd keep her nifty green robe (she didn't, darn). I made her an Archer for a while since I'd never raised one, then decided to try out the Thief class. She's going to be a ninja, and in fact already has the qualifications, but I wanted to get more JP in Thief so she can be a thieving ninja (She's a Squire so she can get JP from just sitting and Accumulating over and over). It bugs me that so much good stuff is only accessible if you steal it, since I focused on magic users for the majority of my playthrough up until I started getting some decent physical guys.

Gloria the Lancer/Squire lv23
Another low-level character I'm trying to make something out of - in this case, a Dancer, mostly for novelty I guess.

Mustadio the Chemist/Engineer lv16
I kinda stopped using him early on because I had Alex, Agrias, and a handful of generics. He was invaluable for the fight at the Golgorand Execution Site, though.

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN - Josephine the Summoner/Chemist lv15
Extremely valuable in the first two chapters of the game, I eventually stopped using Josephine. When the time came to make room in the party for the onslaught of characters that join you in Chapter 4, Josephine was the hardest to let go, but she was sadly unlikely to ever be used again. I also ditched Boco for being laughably useless, the trio of generics you get from Agrias because I was more attached to my own guys, and Rafa and Malak because Cornwind said they sucked and I didn't see anything that would make me go for them over my current suite of monks, swordsmen, mages, and lancers.

PERMANENT DEATHS - None. Nobody dies on my watch.

AWESOME IDEA - There should be a battle where you get to use your entire party. 16 of your units versus a couple dozen enemy units. That would be awesome. Unfortunately I'm pretty certain the max number of dudes you ever get on your side in one fight is seven (five units and two guests, for the few times you have two guests at once)

Gameplay and Story Segregation

(Spoilers for the end of Chapter 3 of FFT below. No specific names given, though.)

Sometimes I'm able to overlook when a story treats an event as being a big deal when it could easily be stopped in-game, but this was stretching it a bit.

Event: Friendly NPC is shot by a gun.
What Happened: They died.
But the Problem Is: Guns do like 40 damage a hit.

Event: "Protect the NPC" mission begins (different NPC).
What Happened: Game Over the instant the NPC is out of HP.
But the Problem Is: Sarah is right there.

Event: Dead NPC from earlier is still dead.
What Happened: Second NPC mourns dead NPC.
But the Problem Is: SARAH IS RIGHT THERE.

I tell you, I would freaking love it if a dramatic death scene was interrupted by a character walking over, using a Phoenix Down, and saying "Quit your whining, sheesh." Sort of like what happened at Zoofights during the fourth Lord fragment fight.

Pech: *triess to do emotional death sscene*
Meat Boy: Nope.avi *potion*
Pech: Welp.

"I had a good feeling!"

Oh hey, finally found a use for the two knights and squire you get for free at the start of Chapter 2 - I sent them off on the Bar propositions. I'll probably command my other generics to try other propositions, too. I love it when generics get lines, so even if all I can get out of Sarah is "This is the way!" it's better than nothing.

In other FFT news, I fought an orator who took a REALLY LONG TIME to decide his strategy. The first few turns were fine. Then his third or fourth turn came up... and everything stopped. Music kept playing, dudes kept walking in place, but he wasn't doing anything. I actually thought the game had frozen. I was just about to reset when he abruptly moved and attacked with his knife. His next turn after that was much the same. I had to have been waiting for a solid minute for this derp to take his turn. He was probably trollfacing at everybody as they all walked in place.

Alex: GET ON WITH IT
Orator: Ehhhhhhhhhhhh... okay.

Sarah Saves The Day

Problem: Nasty boss on Final Fantasy Tactics who plans to off the entire party with the Death Sentence status. The clock is ticking and his HP is kept a secret so I can't tell if I can do enough damage!

Solution: HOLY HIS ASS, MOTHERFUCKER. After a punch from AlextheSquire (who knows kung fu) and Gloria and Josephine (black mage and summoner) firing off quick attacks, Holy dealt over 200 damage and ensured the boss was put down in time. Victory milkshakes ensued.

Also, happy belated birthday HarpyKuro. :D

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.)