Tag: final fantasy

Welp, I guess all of ‘Murica is just one giant FOOD SWAMP

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I remembered when I first heard of the phrase “food desert” it entertained me a great deal because whomever coined the phrase really tried to compare blighted, impoverished areas to like, the Mojave or Sahara deserts, gigantic wastelands of sand and heat.  And it immediately brought to my mind a desert in an early Final Fantasy title and of course I made a post about it back then, complete with the corresponding Final Fantasy screen grab.

But basically, food deserts were communities that were statistically past a certain distance threshold to the nearest grocery store or market where fresh produce and other perishable goods could be purchased, as well as just food in general.  And being so far from such then makes them the equivalent to floundering in the desert without edible resources.

In other words, it was basically used to describe rural areas or ghettos, where grocery stores don’t want to build in, because there’s not nearly as much money to be made there, regardless of the demographics of those areas that are conveniently zeroed in on as reasons for such invention of terminology.

Anyway, just today I learned that a new term was invented at some point: food swamp.

Kind of along the same base as a food desert, but except that in spite of the difficulty in being able to procure fresh produce and perishable goods, they have an abundance of options when it comes to fast food, prepackaged garbage food and other unhealthy options.

The irony is that food swamps can be used to describe, basically the same conditions that make a food desert a food desert: remote areas and/or ghettos that have the access issues when it comes to being able to get fresh, healthy foods, but in a lot of cases, they’re areas where there’s also an abundance of shitty fast food options.

So despite the fact that new terminology has been invented, the places that they describe seem to have a tremendous overlap.  Funny how things work out like that.

But more importantly, it allows me to once again use old school Final Fantasy screen caps, to best describe the words being used, and like the subject of the post says, given the criteria of what makes a food swamp a food swamp, I guess it really could be said that pretty much most of ‘Murica, is just one giant fucking food swamp after all.

An observation about the Final Fantasy VII remake

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I don’t think I’ve made any secret that I think that Final Fantasy VII is probably one of the most overrated games in the history of the industry.  Personally, VI is still my favorite among all that I’ve played, followed closely by IV.  But all pale in comparison to Final Fantasy Tactics. 

Regardless, just because I thought it was overrated didn’t mean that I didn’t play it; of course I played it.  Did all the stuff that all players back in 1997 did, breed chocobos so you could get a golden one, which was the only way to get the Knights of the Round materia which basically put the rest of the game on easy mode thereafter.  I beat Emerald Weapon, but was never able to beat Ruby, but by then my interest had already waned and I didn’t feel any real need to bother and try. 

Needless to say, the game didn’t really leave a long lasting impression on me personally, and I was always fascinated to why so many people thought this was the pinnacle of video games, and continued to do so for literal decades afterward.

So imagine my general ambivalence-resentment at the nearly decade-long song and dance of a FFVII remake being developed and released, that ultimately dropped over the last year, to which I was disgusted to find out that even that was still just a portion of the game, which people basically had to pay a full price for a part of a game, and a remake at that.  Obviously, I wasn’t going to shit on everyone’s parade who was ecstatic for more FFVII, but I was pretty irritated at the general low-ambition business model of remaking an old game instead of trying to develop and tell new stories.

Recently, I’ve been getting video suggestions for FFVII remake videos on YouTube and because I’m now a parent with low tolerance for searching and wanting to instead be presented, I’ve watched several over the last few days, because I was seeing things and/or characters that I didn’t recognize from the original version, plus watching gameplay videos satiates any curiosity I might have about the way the game plays or looks without having to commit the money or the time investment into finding out personally.

Clearly, because the objective of the remake is to drag things out as long as possible so they can sell individual chapters of the game at full MSRPs over a window of time, the remake has definitely taken some liberties to flesh things out tremendously, and give a lot more spotlight to characters that were definitely more tertiary in the original than they are now.

But in the process of fleshing things out more thoroughly, I’ve noticed that the game has taken the time to really inject some more personality and character into the individual core characters as well, and 23 years of technological advancement has given the visuals the ability to interpret stuff like facial expression and body language to do all the talking that the dialogue might not have been able to do itself in 1997.

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Yes, we are going to talk about poop

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In the very first Final Fantasy, Warmech was an enemy that could be randomly encountered on the long sky bridge preceding the fourth elemental fiend, Tiamat. Warmech was the strongest non-boss in the game, as it had a nuclear blast attack that attacked your entire party for a tremendous amount of damage, as well as health regeneration, lots of armor and strong physical damage output.

Subsequently, it rewarded you as if it were one of the elemental fiends if you defeat it, but the existence of Warmech was one-part easter egg, being a high-tech opponent in a world of fantasy, one-part completionist challenge, being such a difficult adversary, and one-part nasty surprise, because encountering one can only happen at a very inopportune time, right before another major boss fight.

It was deduced that the chances of encountering a Warmech on the sky bridge was approximately 3/64; which equates to roughly 5% of the time, but if you’re unlucky like me, you somehow manage to run into Warmech almost every time.

Anyway, there’s a sky bridge in my place of employment.

And there’s a Warmech that patrols it.

Continue reading “Yes, we are going to talk about poop” →

Re: Final Fantasy Meh-ven Remake

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Impetus: E3 announcement that Final Fantasy VII is being remade occurs, people lose their shit.

The most interesting thing about this whole thing is seeing just how much this is dividing up my friends list on Facebook.  As usual, it’s a tale of extremes, because either people are rabidly excited for it, or they’re fiercely hostile towards the notion of this FF7 being remade.  And then there’s the passive-aggressive bickering amongst the two factions, as well as people like me who are more fascinated with the social chaos of it all, rather than the actual news itself.

Frankly, put me in the camp that is less than lukewarm about this announcement.  I feel that it’s more or less a copout by Squeenix to dust off a classic, pretty it up, and re-release it, rather than y’know, trying to come up with something new and innovative and make one more tick-mark closer to the inevitable Final Fantasy XX, which will basically mark the end of video games as a whole.

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Oh, Square

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Long story short: Final Fantasy XV (fifteen(!!)) becomes the first Final Fantasy game in the franchise to have the trademark Cid character be a female.

Knee-jerk reaction: It’s sad to think that Cid, who has always been somewhat a symbol of integrity, importance and sometimes humor, has been reduced to a token pile of tits for this one.  I’m not saying that she’s not going to be possibly important, possibly humorous and possibly have integrity, but she’s still going to be paraded around like a pile of tits.

It’s seeing things like this that make me tell myself that I really wish the franchise would go with its namesake, and actually finalize the fantasy, and stop making them.  Obviously that will never happen, because the franchise is a veritable printer of money, but it’s still a sad state of affair that the series continues to go down this bumpy slope, even if it is reflecting and attempting its hardest to appeal to modern ideals.

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Red Mage lyfe

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The red mage reference in question here is that of Final Fantasy lore.  The class of character that was the definition of a jack of all trades; they could fight with weapons and equip actual armor yet they were capable of casting white and black magic.  Not to mention that in most every instance of the appearance of the red mage, they had an awesome red hat, often times with a feather in it.

Sounds appealing, being able to do a little bit of everything, doesn’t it?

The drawback to the red mage was however, is the fact that they were a jack of all trades – meaning that they were neither a king nor a queen of any of them.  Their fighting prowess had a ceiling far lower than that of any other class that specialized in fighting strength and abilities, and their speed and agility were vastly middle of the pack, and could go no higher.  When it came to casting spells, sure, they were capable of casting both white and black magic, but they eventually hit a wall with both, that they are incapable of surpassing, while white and black mages can continue on to learn a litany of spells exclusive to just them.

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You spoony weather!

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I am working from home today, on account of offices being closed due to inclimate weather.  It’s certainly chilly outside, and there’s constant rain falling, but it’s not exactly the Icepocalypse that the weather was condemning.  Supposedly the brunt of this current polar snap is going to be tomorrow, and that it will be no laughing matter then.

I can’t really complain though.  Given the embarrassment of massive proportions suffered by the city and state from Snowpocalypse a few weeks ago, I’m not the least bit surprised to see the state going the route of hyper-sensitive and preemptively reactionary as opposed to sitting on their thumbs and letting the entire state turn into the joke of the entire world all over again.

Speaking of jokes though, I couldn’t resist.  Feeble Tellah dropping the piddly Ice-1 onto the city for massive damage seems about right in my perspective.  When the day is over, it’s still going to be ice, and the State of Georgia will really never be able to prepare for it, aside from doing what they can to make sure people stay indoors and off the roads.

But at least I don’t have to change out of sleep clothes, and can relax a little bit as long as no assignments come through the work email.