Articles

Sometimes, there’s just nothing better than a simple hack and slash. I’m not talking about something like the Devil May Cry or my beloved Ninja Gaiden series, what with their actual button combos and intricate game systems of different juggle states and their ‘strategy’ or 'thought put into the gameplay'. I’m talking about the classic arcade games of old. You get in there, mash on your buttons, kill a lot of stuff, and then go onto the next room/murder arena to likely do the same simplistic...

Oof, this took way too long. Don't worry, the next articles won't take as long. Please read the previous articles to catch up with my narrative. PART 5: THE DARK AGES After the outstanding success of both chapters, one could think that Nihon Falcom would be launched into the levels of Squaresoft or Enix, but nope. I don’t know how or why, but Falcom reached an impasse. Some key members behind the franchise left, leaving the Ys series in a bad spot. Ys III went through several changes before...

The feeling of disenchantment can be overwhelming. By mid-2010 I had mostly settled into my new existence as an adult just living on my own for the first time, but the shine had largely vanished from the whole picture, chipped away one disappointment and wake-up call at a time. It was actually amazing seeing just how much one's entire idea of how the world works can change when facing it alone: my days were no longer something to be glossed over (or skipped entirely if needed), turning...

What I thought the next chapter was going to look like. I remember because I see forgetting as one of my two deaths. I mean, what's a man with no past? I think it's little more than a shell parachuted into existence, barely above a single feather swept by a hurricane and taken where it doesn't want to go -- powerless to resist it, unable to stop it. But that lost feather may still give you the faintest outline of the whole story, even if it doesn't know it itself, like shards of broken...

Video Game Inspirations and Oddities is an article series that focuses on the creation and design phase of video games and their characters. In December of 1992, Final Fantasy V was released for the Super Famicom. FFV is notable for a variety of reasons, but in this article I will be focusing on a particular enemy that made its debut in the game. This particular enemy would become so popular that it has appeared many times since. This enemy is: Tonberry Final Fantasy VII Tonberry sketch...