Shake it Baby! (Let's Rework... Duke Nukem)

Hail to the king, baby.

   I was going to give this post more time and thought, but really, my ideas on the subject of Duke Nukem are more suited to an enthused ramble anyway.

 So let's go with that.

 (This is going under a cut because it's not particularly safe for work. It's probably going to be the crudest thing I ever put on here.)

Let's Rework... Final Fantasy VIII - Part Nine

 Before I get started on the post proper, I thought I'd quickly let you know that I have an editorial about folk heroes up on Fission Mailure.

 Let's Fix the Menu System

 Since I've had to wrestle with the menus so much in preperation for the fight with Ultimecia, I've ended up with a few ideas on how to streamline the process of junctioning.

 Yes, if you take my advice and start your proper junctioning regimen from the beginning of the game you probably won't have this problem, but there are still times when you get new characters in your party and you need to assign them junctions. Like when Rinoa joins you, or you end up having to tow Irvine around.

 On top of that, there will also be times when you'll need to do overhauls of magic and junctions because you've gained access to better spells.

 When you get the mid level magic refine ability, for example, or access to Wizard stones.

 Not to mention that you may just want to change how you have your characters set up because you don't like how you did it before.

 Suggestion number one:

 The Magic Pool

 I mentioned this in the first Let's Rework post, there needs to be a repository for spare magic, because you're not always going to have space for all of th spells you want on your varying party members.

 In addition to this, it could functionally work as an MP restoring item if the player is allowed to draw directly into it.

 I maintain that this would make the junctioning and magic system more enjoyable to use because you could swap out a full century of spells for another without playing musical SeeDs.

 However, there is a potential alernative that could work fine by itself.

 The Ability to Discard Magic

 I searched for a way to do this, but I couldn't find one.

  Sure, you can refine it away, but what about if you have a number of a spell not divisible by the number you need to refine it up to the next level? You have to refine items into that round nummber and then refine up, and that's a waste of items and if you're maxed out, then it's pointless.

 Just have a discard option, or if you want it to be difficult to do, have it be a GF ability. Maybe have a side quest to get the GF in question, or an item so it can be learned like the Devour ability.

 Heck, have a shop run by a little old lady that's the only way to discard magic. Call it 'Gytha's Magic Emporium' or something. I don't care how it's framed, I just want the ability to discard magic.

And just in case I missed how to do this, I'd like it to be made clear to the player because I've been playing this for ninety goddamn hours and I didn't notive a way to do it.

 The Ability to Refine from the Junction and Magic Menus

  I keep referring to sorting all my characters out as 'wrestling with menus' because you basically have to go back and forth constantly between the Magic menu and the Ability menu to refine magic from items or refine magic from other magic.

 Adding a basic option at the top of the magic menu of 'refine' which lets you pick a spell and refine it into other spells or other spells into it would be fantastic.

 It would save a lot of time.

 It would save even more time if you could also do this in the Junction menu, since you do need to have a good amount of any spell junctioned to one of your stats pretty much all the time.

 I've seen other people complain about the micromanagement in this game, and there is a fair amount, but what makes it a more frustrating than what you do in Final Fantasy: Tactics Advance 2 is that there's about five different menu options that you need to dive into to customise characters. In FF: TA2 you could do it from the varying menu options, but you can do most of what you need to in one fell swoop at a shop and the other menu that you need covers multiple things too.

 Micromanagement isn't necessarily bad, as long as it's streamlined and allow big changes to be made quickly in an intuitive fashion.

 Speaking of, one of the other changes to make the micromanagement more intuitive would be...

 The Ability to Assign GFs from the GF Menu (and Use Abilities)

 Or, to have a look at GF skills and stats from the Junction menu.

 I have had to write down the things that I needed to make sure all my characters were well rounded out with abilities because I needed to look at their abilities in the Junction menu, go through the abilities that the GFs had in the GF menu and then go to the Item menu to teach any abilities that were needed and then go back to the Junction menu to junction the GF to the character. Oh, and if I didn't have the item, I needed to go the Ability option to call shop, get whatever it is I need and then use another ability to refine it into something else if that's what has to be done. I was forgetting what I needed to do because the method is so convoluted.

 So allowing the player to assign GFs from the GF menu would cut out several steps, folding the Ability menu into the GF menu would also make this a lot easier and a heck of a lot faster.

 Heck, it would also be great if they gave us...

 The Ability to teach Abilities from the GF Menu

 Same principle, really.

 Hmm, that's all I can think of on that front for the moment.

 The next FF8 post will be about fighting the Omega Weapon, and it will have a special twist!

Let's Rework... Final Fantasy VIII - Part Eight

 I got my scanner working!

 I know what I did, but I don't know why it worked, so don't go asking.

 Right, back to the reworking.

 So, Seifer!

 Um, his coat's fine, but aside from that his top half is ridiculous.

Nngh.

 Irvine has much the same problem. The waistcoat with nothing underneath it just doesn't... look right.

 Does Nomura have something for teenage boys' midriffs or something? Because that's really creepy. (More creepy than the constant lady leg showing and less creepy than the fact I'm sure you can see Selphie's knickers in this game.)

 Though the idea of a waistcoat works well for Seifer's design, compared to Squall's rebel without a clue get up, a more formal and professional look would work well.

 It both fits and clashes with his actions and personality in game.

 I came up with three designs for his outfit to go under his coat, two with waistcoats and one for a more casual look.

 I also dealt with his trousers. The trousers in this game really date it.

 Yeah, the colour of his waistcoat is off, but I can live with that. Just imagine it darker.

 Also, yeah, he does kind of look like Balthier's Germanic son here. This is also a thing I can live with.

 I like all three, but I think my preference is number one, because it provides a contrast to Squall's angsty band of casually dressed Scoobs.

 (Although, let's be honest, number two looks the best. I seem to have a knack for adapting Final Fantasy designs into long sleeve t-shirts.)

Guest Post: Murphy's Perfect Dragon Age Game - Final Part

 Doug had some serious internet problems yesterday, which is why this post is going up today.

 We’ve talked about - most everything, at this point, and now it’s time to finish this series by talking about the possibility of branching endings. This has always been a bit of a sticking point with Dragon Age games, as they have tended to have branching beginnings and fairly narrow endings, but this is a hypothetical one, so let’s go crazy.

 Let’s say there are four endings. A Terrible ending, a Bad ending, an Okay ending and a Good ending, depending on how much prep you put in before you go to the final mission. So a little like the last Mass Effect game, except this one will pan out with something a shade more interesting than different flashy coloured lights.

 So, let’s say your final mission is a siege of Nightmare’s stronghold, where he’s preparing his ritual to become an Old God. You’ve got your allies, and like Mass Effect 2, you have to assign certain party members to certain tasks, based on their skills.

 The Terrible ending would be the one that happens if you both do almost no preparation and if you make all the wrong choices during the final mission. Essentially, an ending which is as difficult to get as the Good ending, but because it requires that you be aggressively terrible at it. In this ending, your entire party dies, and Nightmare becomes an Old God, ruling Tevinter and expanding his armies out across the world. This ending would be non-canon, obviously.

 The Bad ending, meanwhile, would be one that happens if you either do very little preparation, make a lot of bad choices, or some combination of the two. Your siege is successful, and you defeat Nightmare, but a lot of your party is dead and his ritual has irrevocably damaged the fabric of reality, causing demons to spill through into Tevinter. With your armies devastated and the Imperium in disarray, it is in no fit state to fend off a demonic invasion, and the coming months and years will be difficult, if the Imperium even survives.

 The Okay ending would be one that happens if you’re good, but not quite perfect. Your siege is successful and you defeat Nightmare, but a few of your party members die and again, his ritual has torn open reality, and demons are spilling out. But your armies are okay, and the Imperium is strong and ready to face another war. While the coming months will be difficult, the Imperium is ready to face the threat under your leadership.

 The Good ending, taking place if you do a lot of prep and make all the right decisions in the final mission. While reality is torn open, you successfully manage to fend off the waves of demons coming through and close the rift. With you as their leader, the Imperium looks towards a brighter dawn, one of, hopefully but not necessarily, reform. All of your party survives. 

 And that covers just about everything one might expect from a Dragon Age game, apart from all the things it doesn’t. I’ve enjoyed writing these posts a lot, and should the mood take me might do so again with a different game series. 

In the meantime, feel free to look up the previous posts in this series, or eye up Reecey’s Let’s Rework posts for Final Fantasy VIII.

Guest Post: Murphy's Perfect Dragon Age - Part Five

 Sorry this wasn't up yesterday, we had a synchronised brainfart.

 So, we’ve talked a lot about plot, setting, characters, but this is a hypothetical game, so let’s ramble about gameplay a bit.

 This will probably be a short post, because I thought Dragon Age: Inquisition’s gameplay was pretty great, and it would fit a story about becoming the Archon of a kingdom perfectly.

 So I do envision some kind of war table mechanic, somewhere where you can dispatch your advisors to do missions, open up new areas, and locate sidequests; this would go along with your regular RPG gameplay, in which you and three party members go traipsing around righting wrongs and suchlike.

 As in Inquisition, your origin could cause slight changes in what war table missions you receive. The judgement mechanic should make a return too, because everyone loves judgement.

 But I think there’s much to be learned from another set of Bioware games here - I’m thinking of Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3. Specifically, I’m thinking of having your final mission and ending be affected by the sidequests you complete, the peoples you recruit to your side, and the resources you gather.

 (But not the weird time limit thing that both games had.)

 So, you can dash through the main storyline and come out the other end with the bad ending, where you win a Pyrrhic victory over Nightmare; or you can devote time to sidequests; having your advisors improve your connections, resources and army; and forging alliances, and as a result head into the final battle with that much more on your side, and get a better ending.

 Another thing I’d institute is some slightly more involved battles between armies. So if, during a sidequest or main quest, you’re called upon to take a fortress, you can prepare beforehand by giving orders to direct different parts of your army to a choice of a few different objectives before you head in with your party, with the result being some changes in how that particular siege plays out (ie; ‘We’ll send our army to sabotage their giant demonic war machine instead of to open up a passage beneath the walls’ meaning that you have to lay siege to the gate rather than sneaking in, but your boss battle near the end is that much easier).

 Possibly these pitched battles could also involve an Origins-oid mechanic where you have two or three armies you can briefly call upon in combat.

 (Also, healing spells. We didn’t have those in Inquisition, and they need to make a reappearance.)

 But the Dragon Age gameplay has always been pretty good, and there aren’t many adjustments that can be made to it.

 Join us next week for the last in the series!

Guest Post: Murphy's Perfect Dragon Age - Part Four

 Last week, I started on your followers/allies for this hypothetical Dragon Age game of awesome, and it involved a lot of pushing to get characters from previous games involved in the advisoring and warrioring action. Now it’s time to finish off companions and look at the rogues and mages that would be in your party.

 Rogues

 Varric Tethras: What? Everyone loves Varric. He’s been in two games already and his popularity has yet to wane even slightly, and since he wasn’t a romance option, he’s arguably a more viable option for this list than some of those who showed up in the last post (hello, Cullen). Varric’s great, everyone loves Varric.

 In terms of what he does, he’d probably fulfil much the same party role as he did before: One of your long range hitters, with some extra focus on laying traps.

 Skoll: Here’s something that has been circling fandom: What if there’s a red lyrium version of Fenris somewhere? With red lyrium now absolutely everywhere as a result of Corypheus, this is definitely now a much more distinct possibility, and it’s hard to believe some enterprising magister wouldn’t want to try an experiment in that regard.

 Thus is Skoll created. A human slave, she has the same strange markings as Fenris, bar that hers are of red lyrium, resulting in powerful phasing powers (and other strange abilities besides), but making her dangerously mentally unstable, especially as the red lyrium spreads throughout her body.

 I am imagining a character very much in the vein of Jack from Mass Effect 2. Abrasive, dangerous, extremely distrustful of Tevinter and people in general, and with the possibility of being a liability if she gets out of control. She’d function as your party’s assassin, using twin daggers and semi-magical abilities to get close to enemies, do massive damage, and then flit away again.

 Yvonna Urvellan: This list is a bit elf short right now, so here’s an elf. Specifically, an elvish Grey Warden, because this list is also a bit Grey Warden short. No nonsense, rather bewildered by how Tevinter-y everything she is (being from Orlais, where things are much more sensible), and steadfastly devoted to doing good in the world, and defending it from Blights.

 I realise this sounds a bit like Blackwall, but Blackwall was boring, and I’d hope this character would be a shade more interesting. I mean, for starters, she wouldn’t have a beard, and also, she’d talk about things other than how awesome being a Grey Warden is.

Mages

 Illyria Aquila: We have precious few characters from the Tevinter elite so far, so here’s Illyria! The eldest daughter of a Tevinter magister, Illyria is a keen Old God enthusiast and worshipper who takes umbrage at the blasphemy of a demon trying to assume the power of her deities, and also may or may not have an agenda towards Old God worship becoming more acceptable in Tevinter.

 Illyria is privileged and deeply entrenched in Tevinter society, which might provide a nice contrast to all the downtrodden people and foreigners we have filling out the cast, and provide a good opportunity for conflict.

 In terms of combat, she’d probably tend towards destructive schools of magic, and her specialism would be along the lines of inflicting status effects and utilising a few heavy damage spells, like Dorian’s Necromancer class.

 Gwydion Hylanda: More elves! More elves. A slave freed to join the Inquisition, Gwydion could be a powerful elven mage, with his characterisation going one of two ways: The obvious route of an angry slave who hates his slavemasters, or the more nauseating route of a slave who has been stockholmed into thinking that his lot in life is a good one, and that slavery is great. Horrible as it is, we know slaves like that have existed in slave-keeping countries, from time to time.

 I think if it were the latter, he’d have to undergo a character arc where he realises it’s not okay.

 Gwydion would be a healer type (we direly need to bring back healing spells), whose specialisation, Druid, would focus on healing, shielding and buffing his allies. The ultimate support mage, essentially, since our mage line-up is very attack heavy.

 Eligos: So we’ve had a spirit taking material form and slowly becoming human in Cole, and we’ve seen a spirit transforming into a demon in Justice, but I don’t think we’ve ever seen a demon transforming into a spirit, and I feel like that’s a storyline that could have a lot of potential.

 In a world rapidly going mad, a magister performs a blood sacrifice of his slaves to summon a powerful Pride demon. It possesses the body of one of his slaves, killing the magister and offering its services to the Archon, because Maker knows it doesn’t want one of its powerful, rival demons becoming an Old God.

 Eligos could be tricky, cunning and manipulative, but also a font of knowledge about demons, the Fade and Thedasian history. Over time, Eligos’ exposure to humanity could start to transform him for the better, causing him to become less Pride demon and more Wisdom spirit. For his specialisation, a Summoner class that allows him to summon your stock enemy demons to aid the party for a limited period of time would be nice.

Guest Post: Murphy's Perfect Dragon Age - Part Three

 So, we’ve looked at our lead character, our villain, and the setting, so let’s talk about advisors and companions - in this instance, specifically only the mages of the latter. Advisors, like the ones in Inquisition, will be specialists who remain at your base, but can be interacted with like party members and utilised in war table missions to procure resources, influence or items. Companions, meanwhile, will be combatants who join you as you go out and blow people up and/or hack them to death.

 So, let’s take a glance at some ideas for ones in Dragon Age, specifically your three advisors and your three warrior-class companions.

 Advisors

 

  Magister Aurelia: Mention of her and her hastily-picked-out name was prominent in the last post, and it makes sense to have her as an advisor. A shrewd but eccentric Tevinter magister in control of a large estate, she would take the role usually filled by Josephine: That of a skilled diplomat who uses her influence and negotiation skills to achieve what she wants, with maybe a bit of subterfuge now and then.

 As a close acquaintance of your character, she would potentially also be your most trusted advisor, and in conversation there could be reminiscing about the good old times. Obviously, not a romance option. I mean, in some origins, she would be your mother.

 Morrigan: Eh, why not? She functionally became one of your advisors in Inquisition, if only for a short time, she’s a fan favourite, and she could easily fulfil the role that Leliana held in Inquisition (Leliana herself, alas, cannot, as she might be Divine Victoria).

 Morrigan is skilled at subterfuge and has honed her skills at the Orlaisian court, and as a mage would have at least some societal capital in Tevinter. She’s slipped into courts before and ingratiated herself to a monarch in order to further her plans, so there’s no reason why she can’t do so again.

 Commander Grattius: A rather gruff, older non-mage, Grattius would have been the garrison commander for the previous Archon, and gigantically distrustful of the new one. It seems like it would be nice, after all, to have an advisor who doesn’t like your character: Every advisor in Inquisition was a generally cordial, pleasant person, after all, but that won’t always be the case when dealing with an inner circle of experts.

 Grattius would fulfil the role that Cullen fulfilled in Inquisition, solving problems with the application of soldiers and martial forces, and pursuing missions related to building up your army.

Warriors

 

  Ser Cullen Rutherford: What? I, like many people, really like Cullen. I was quite disappointed that despite being a capable fighter and templar, he was an advisor rather than a companion in Inquisition, so let’s rectify that with Dragon Age: Hypothetical. That’s what fanfiction is for, after all.

 Sent from the Inquisition to provide aid to the new Archon, Cullen would join you in battle as a warrior with templar abilities, with a greatsword as his main weapon. He would be a romance option (for men and women, as there are sound files indicating that Cullen was intended to be bisexual), but only if you didn’t import an Inquisition save file in which he was romanced.

 As a whole, he’d be suspicious of you and Tevinter, and provide a Ferelden viewpoint on things, probably being one of the characters who gets into arguments more often.

 Raetia: Tevinter is Roman/Byzantine, so it makes sense that they’d have gladiators. Raetia would be a freewoman gladiatrix, specialising in a sword and shield, who is recruited by your Archon due to her unparalleled skill in the arena.

 Raetia probably adores Tevinter culture, and goes in for it entirely. She’s a celebrity, after all, and a freewoman (and possibly a noble) do something she loves doing. While she might come into conflict with other party members who point out how brutal her career of choice is, she’s hardly going to care: It’s not her job to care, and everyone she faces would kill her if they could.

 Her specialisation would be Guardian, focusing on defence and taunting: Essentially, your tank. She’d also be your only warrior who starts out with a specialisation in sword and shield.

 Karasten: A Qunari infantry commander sent to assist the new Archon. The Qunari have been skirmishing with Tevinter for decades, but they aren’t stupid. They know that a demonic quasi Old God is bad for everybody, including them, and we know that the Qunari, while they may not like playing nice with others, are entirely capable of it.

 Playing nice doesn’t mean playing nice, though. Karasten would be eager to discuss the Qun with people, but outright scornful of Tevinter culture, seeing it as base, low and decadent, filled with corruption and people losing their way. Expect many suggestions that everybody should die. Like Jaavik in Mass Effect, only multiplied by a factor of a thousand.

 His specialisation would be Reaver, like Iron Bull’s, with many of the same abilities.

 Next week we’ll finish up on companions by covering your Mages and Rogues.

Guest Post: Murphy's Perfect Dragon Age - Part Two

 In the first part, we talked about setting, a villain, and a villainous plan for best-selling game Dragon Age: Hypothetical. But here’s something that’s really important: A hero. Who can heroically do things and have a heroic title like ‘the Grey Warden’ or ‘the Champion’ or ‘the Inquisitor.’

 So, here is my suggestion:

 The Archon.

 Now this is a slightly difficult one to pull. The Archons are the rulers of Tevinter, usually coming from a small group of family lines, and always human mages, which kind of scuppers a multiple class and race system.

 But let’s glance back at the villainous plan. A demon of enormous power and age has been born on Thedas as an abomination of unimaginable power. The unwilling sacrifice of slaves and magisters alike has resulted in the death of the Archon and many of the most influential people in the Imperium and rocked Tevinter. The Venatori have taken arms in all out civil war under the banner of a demon.

 In this chaos, one figure has become praised not just for their early heroism, but for displaying the powers associated with an Old God: Nobody knows where or how they got said powers, only that they displayed them during the event that we’ll term the Sacrifice. Similar to the Inquisitor, only a lot more, er, unholy.

 With the backing of several powerful magisters, several influential members of the Chantry, and the people, this person is made the new Archon, intended to rule as a figurehead during the Tevinter Civil War.

 So, let’s take a look at possible origins for this Archon.

 Human Mage: The child of a powerful magister - we’ll call him Magister Aurelia - who has been raised in luxury and full knowledge of their magical power, and is said magister’s rightful heir.

 Human Warrior or Rogue: The child of Magister Aurelia, again, but they have no magical ability, making them the black sheep of the family. They’ve been passed over for being the heir, with that honour instead going to a younger sibling.

 Elf or Qunari Mage, Warrior or Rogue: Former slaves (and a Tal-Vashoth, in the case of Qunari) of Magister Aurelia, who were freed by her three years prior to the story and have become her right hand attendant. While this courts controversy, Aurelia is known as a particularly odd magister, and the player character has gained a surprising amount of respect and privilege.

 Dwarf Warrior or Rogue: Originally from Orzammar, a close advisor of Magister Aurelia, who has been granted Tevinter citizenship as a free person. They have gained much respect from the nobles of Tevinter.

 Over the course of the story, this player character would ascend to being Archon, and have to accrue influence and military might. They would also discover the source of their mysterious Old God-y powers - specifically, that they aren’t Old God related at all, but demonic, stemming from experiments Magister Aurelia conducted on them without their knowledge - experiments which are derived from rituals performed by the ancient magisters who entered the Golden City, and which form the basis of Nightmare’s attempt to become an Old God.

 Next time, I want to look at companions, both in terms of who you take in your party and three advisors who will stay at your base, so tune in then. By which I mean read.

Guest Post: Murphy's Perfect Dragon Age - Part One

 I spent most of the day making kimchi, so here's a guest post from Murphy at Fission Mailure.

 As you can tell, it's the beginning of a series of posts on this subject.

  Sometimes (often), I play games and my immediate thought is ‘Man, I have great ideas for what another game in this series could involve.’ Most recently, this happened with Dragon Age: Inquisition, and so I have decided to share with your what my great ideas are in a series of posts.

 How long will this series be? I have no idea. Probably not all that long, there is a limit to how many ideas I have.

 But here’s the first installment, looking at setting, a villain, and a villainous plan.

The Setting.

 I think the choice is pretty obvious here. It has to be the Tevinter Imperium. The place has loomed large in the games ever since Origins, but we’ve never had a chance to visit it. As a place where mages rule and the Templars are functionally just their non-magical army, Tevinter would be entirely different from anywhere else we’ve seen in the Dragon Age series, and would certainly raise some interesting questions regarding the morality of the Circles and the Templars.

 But let’s also throw the Anderfels in, as well. After all, there’s another frequently mentioned place that we’ve never visited, and that’s Weisshaupt, the headquarters of the Grey Wardens.

The Villain.

  If you’re setting a game in the Tevinter Imperium, that means mages, and mages almost always mean demons. Surprisingly, demons have yet to be used as the main villains of a Dragon Age game, usually being underlings or neutral (but hostile) parties, possibly because the existence of a demon powerful and sinister enough to stand on equal narrative footing with the archdemon or Corypheus is debatable to say the least.

 There is one candidate, though, of the demons we’ve already seen: Nightmare, the ancient fear demon in Corypheus’ employ, who the party tangles with in the Dragon Age: Inquisition quest ‘Here Lies The Abyss.’

 Nightmare doesn’t resemble any demon we’ve seen before, manifesting to the party as a spider the size of a town, with an anglerfish-like lure shaped like a run-of-the-mill fear demon. You never actually fight him, either: You fight his lure, instead, despite statistically having more firepower on your side at that point than at any other part of the game, since your party is assisted by both a high-ranking Grey Warden and Hawke. It takes all six of you to successfully kill a relative insignificant part of him, and the party is forced to simply flee out of the Fade rather than face Nightmare properly.

 Nightmare also has a personality very well-suited to being a main antagonist. He’s well-spoken, urbane, seems to be able to read people’s minds to pick up their fears, and he has no qualms about taunting your party with it in Inquisition.

 It wouldn’t be at all outside of the realm of possibility for him to tempt some Venatori mages, now lost and confused (and, most importantly, scared) after the death of their leader/god, to worship him and, eventually, summon him to inhabit the body of some powerful, willing Tevinter magister.

The Plan.

 

  Dragon Age games oft revolve heavily around the lore of Old Gods and Blights and, well, dragons. It’d be ridiculous for a game set in Tevinter, former worshippers of the Old Gods and purported cause of the Blight, not to involve that in some way.

 My original ideas mostly involved guff about collecting ancient artifacts, but while doing research I encountered the materials for a much better plan. The Silent Grove introduces the idea of Great Dragons, ancient sleeping dragons who, from all description, are not so dissimilar to Old Gods - and how drinking their blood can grant enormous power to somebody.

 There are an undisclosed number of Great Dragons still alive (although there’s at least one), so it wouldn’t be inconceivable to have Nightmare as a villain hunting down Great Dragons and draining their blood for himself, as preparation for a ritual involving some ancient Tevinter (or Elven) artifact, potentially another Magrallen (an artifact also introduced in The Silent Grove), along with a whole lot of blood magic sacrifices and red lyrium, in order to transform himself into an Old God.

 That goal alone would probably garner him no shortage of followers in Tevinter, and it would also place the rest of the world at massive risk. Not only would it mean there’s now an insane Old God of Fear at the head of Tevinter, it would also immediately draw the attention of the darkspawn. It could potentially draw the attention of the darkspawn even before he tries performing the ritual, with them being drawn more and more to him the more Great Dragons he drains, triggering a miniature Blight in the Imperium.

Let's Rework... Final Fantasy VIII - Part Seven

 My sleeping pattern has been a total mess over the last week or so, which has severely affected my work schedule.

 So, here's a quick post re-exploring the problems with Squall's scar and how these problems could be fixed.

As you may remember from the very first part of the Let's Play Log, Squall's scar is pretty much never mentioned at all after he gets it. Neither is Seifer's.

 Which is really odd, if you think about it.

 Heck, I'm going to highlight how weird it is by presenting an example of how you do a large facial scar in fiction:

This asshole

 Okay, you can't see it from this angle, but Francis York Morgan does have a large scar on his face.

Observe

 Numerous characters bring this up. Not every character talks to him about it, but it is stated by one of the other characters that his scar is the object of rumour and gossip. Even if they aren't talking to him about it, they are talking to each other.

 This is something that Final Fantasy VIII sorely lacks. After the initial admonishment from Dr Kadowaki, there is not one mention of Squall's scar ever again.

 Look at it, it's in the middle of his goddamn face, there is no way that anyone with fully functioning vision would ever miss that.

Gosh, he has a tiny mouth

 This is equally true of Seifer.

 For both of them, this is a defining design feature.

 Think about it, in Kingdom Hearts, that series' version of these characters both have the scars that you see here on the original versions.

 Except, there's one big problem with that.

 If these two don't know each other, how the hell did those versions of them end up with the matching scars?

 Remember, they got them at the same time in a stupid fight they had where Seifer inexplicably tried to kill Squall.

In Kingdom Hearts, Seifer is a child who lives in a world far away from those Squall has been known to inhabit and ther was no hint as to how he got his scar.

 Returning from that tangent, the method of these two getting their scars is ridiculous.

 Seifer and Squall don't like each other, they've been at loggerheads for some time. So it is rather baffling that they'd be sparring together in the first place.

 After the fact, we only see Squall in the infirmary getting his cut treated. No one mentions Seifer's and after this point, no one mentions Seifer's either.

 There are a handful of people who would bring these things up for certain.

 One, Edea. She was their caretaker, if one of your wards came to you with a massive facial scar after you hadn't seen them for years, wouldn't you ask what had happened or show concern?

 Two, Ellone. This is a woman who considers herself Squall's sister, yet she never asks what happened to his face either.

 Three, Rinoa. She comes up to Squall and says he's the hottest guy in the room, but doesn't bring up his scar even once. Not even a 'cool scar'. Additionally, she never brings up Seifer's scar either. This is even more ridiculous as she used to date this guy, so she clearly cares about him and knows what he's supposed to look like.

 Four, Irvine. He was raised with Squall and Seifer and yet shows no concern at all over his pseudo-family members showing up years later with clear facial injuries.

 Five, Seifer. At no point has he shown anger at Squall for scarring him, neither has he mocked Squall for his scar. Seifer is a bully, I can't believe that he wouldn't use this against someone he does not like.

 Aside from these five, there are a handful of named characters who would likely bring it up and background characters who probably would mention it at some point.

 In the world of VIII, scars like that are demonstrably rare, which would make Squall and Seifer's scars a point of interest.

 Although, that said, the fact that facial scars are rare in this world is confusing in its own right. There are wars, resistance movements, monsters wandering around... why aren't there more people with facial scars around?

 Which is the clear explanation for how Squall got his scar.

 He got it while fighting a monster.

 Heck, you could even make it part of the story by having him be cut in the scripted battle with  Ifrit.

 His scar may look cool, but part of what makes scars cool is the stories behind them.

 'I got this scar in a fight against a demon' is a better story than 'I got this scar in a cock measuring contest with a childhood rival'.

Let's Rework: Final Fantasy VIII - Part Six

 This post was initially intended to be about redesigning Rinoa and Seifer, but while I was redesigning Rinoa I realised that there's a lot to talk about. So Seifer will get a post to himself when I'm done with the next gameplay day.

 Let's Redesign Rinoa

 I've found redesigning Rinoa to be more difficult than either Selphie or Squall.

 It's hard to really put my finger on why, I think it falls between not really liking her design, and not really hating it either.

 It's bland, at best.

 It doesn't have any elements I particularly hate, either. There's no panty shots or hideous jackets to fix, the closest thing to either of those is this weird piece of fabric around her waist that I spent the last few years thinking was a skirt.

I think I can see where the gusset of her shorts is

  On closer inspection, it doesn't appear to be a skirt. Or, if it is, she's definitely not wearing it as one.

 It serves a visual design purpose, it's there to break up the black, but I can't see why she'd be wearing it.

 She's still dressed in a sensible fashion (more so than Selphie and her miniskirt), but it looks really odd.

 I've had a hard time working this into my design, and I'm not totally sure that I've kept the essence of her character design in my reinterpretation.

 Also, I gave her a pony tail because no one wants hair in their face when they're shooting razor sharp chakram from their wrist.

 As you can see, I really hated my first attempt and abandoned it partway through.

 I went for a sportier look for Rinoa because she's a civilian who would probably think that sportswear would be a good idea for combat.

 Speaking of design choices informed by character, I'm mildly surprised that they didn't utilise the fact that she's rebelling against her father more in her design.

 There's a lot of ways in which this could be achieved. These include, a punk look, a hippie look, a sexually provocative look and many, many more. Her father is a general, there are so many ways that she could dress that would make a man in his position embarrassed.

 As it stands, she's dressed in a very bland way that says nothing about her character.

 Heck, her mother was a lounge pianist turned singer/songwriter, why is there nothing of that in Rinoa's character design? For a girl who distances herself from her father, seems to partially blame him for her mother's death and uses her mother's surname, she has no visual indicators in her design that she was ever particularly close to her mother.

 She doesn't wear the same colour nor does she wear a keepsake of her mother's (that I know of at this point in the game).

 I know that not everyone does wear a keepsake of a dead parents, but this is an easy way to show her connection to her mother and help make it more clear why she's at odds with her father.

 Rinoa's design is bland and shows a wealth of missed opportunities.

Guest Post: Murphy Reworks Final Fantasy VIII Again

 Another Day, Another Prospective Main Character  

 If you’ve been reading the Let’s Rework post, you’ll know that there’s a positive gaggle of characters more suited to being the main character than Grumpy Lion Bro. So, following in the grand tradition set by Seifer, Fujin, Zell and more, here’s my contribution: Laguna.

 Yes, I know, he’s sort of a deuteragonist anyway (he’s not, really, he barely shows up). Yes, I know, by the time the main party is doing their thing, he is old and crusty and would not know how to be ‘down’ with ‘the kids’ and their ‘muzak’.

 Well, to this I say: This is a story about time travel and amnesia.

 I think you know where this is going. Have the protagonist of the game be a teenage Laguna who has travelled forward from the past, quite possibly from a world ruled by Adel. He has no memory of his life before appearing near Balamb Garden, but he is a very competent combatant with a gunblade, and while he’s not a SeeD, he kind of falls in with that group, with Quistis, Zell and Selphie.

 This serves three purposes: One, it streamlines the plot. The time travel elements, which otherwise only really to start to poke their heads into the story in a meaningful way over halfway through the game, are instead set up subtly in the beginning, and are very relevant to the characters.

 Two, plot twists! Plot twists that actually mean something! Think back to VIII’s actual plot twist, that the party all knew each other from an orphanage, save Nina. That fell totally flat as a plot twist, it was more annoying than anything, because there was almost no emotional impact to it. Oh, my, these people who are all friends were at a previous time all friends. In the same place. And Edea was their matron.

 But try this on for size: The gang has been having their minds sent back in time to the exploits of an older Laguna, Kiros, and Ward, and then they discover that the leader of their party, whose name is unknown (giving you a great reason to pick it for him), is Laguna. The implications are staggering: Somebody has travelled through time. Laguna now knows his future, and so does everyone else - they know that he’ll experience tragedy.

 Three, tragedy! Imagine teenage!Laguna has a romance with Nina, and then you discover who he is. Now you know that he won’t be able to stay. Their romance must necessarily come to naught, because Laguna has to go back to his own time. He has to do all those things which they’ve seen, and there’s no way around that.

 But apart from those three reasons and the intricacies of a time travel plot, there’s another reason why you might want Laguna as a main character, as well: He’s fun, and he’s charismatic, and he’s personable.

 Much like Zell, Laguna is an energetic, friendly character who can draw an audience along. It’s difficult to form a bond with a main character who is sulking all the time, especially because if they’re the main character then you’re necessarily always having to watch them sulk and ennui about. A character like Zell or Laguna is a lot more interesting to spend time with, because they’re more lively, they do more, and they’re more fun.

 So, that’s my entry into the ‘who should be the main character of VIII’ stakes: Laguna Loire, ridiculous time-travelling soldier.

Let's Rework: Final Fantasy VIII - Part Five

 Snce I'm going to be busy this month with NaNoWriMo, I'm cutting the FF8 posts down from three days a week to just Tuesday and Thursday. Sorry.

 Now, here's a question:

 Why isn't Zell the main character?

 "Wait a second," I hear you ask, "haven't you asked this same question before? Also, where are those Seifer and Rinoa redesigns?"

 Yes, I have, four times.

 (Also, when I get my printer to work again, gosh. You're so reasonably patient and annoyed when not provided with what you were promised. How can you live with yourselves?)

 So, what makes Zell such a good candidate for the role of protagonist?

 Well, for starters, he's actually one of the best designed characters in the game.

 I know, he looks ridiculous, but he looks ridiculous in a way that efficiently shows his personality and interests. Hell, some people do still dress that way.

 He dresses like a surfer or skater dude from the late eighties/early nineties, and surfer/skater fashion really hasn't changed much. It's bright, colourful and practical. All things which Zell's outfit has.

 Contrast this with Squall, who's outfit in VIII is so bad that he's designed in a noticably different way in Dissidia and Kingdom Hearts. Actually, in Kingdom Hearts, Squall dresses more like Zell.

 It's still VIII adjacent in design, but it looks a lot more like Zell's jacket with the short sleeves.

 Hell, Sora dresses like Zell.

 Which, in hindsight, explains why Selphie lives on Destiny Islands in those games. She's friends with a Zell Expy.

 Frankly, Sora does half the job of arguing why Zell would make a better main character than Squall for me. He's bright, he's cheerful, people like him and he's the kind of person who loudly emotes and talks to other characters.

 In a similar vein, Riku does a decent job of explaining why Squall would be better as a side character. His type usually are, being a man of few words with some kind of emotional issue it better suited to a character who doesn't have to lead a plot or a team. Especially when said emotional issue isn't part of the plot, as it really isn't for Squall.

 Another reason why Zell is a better choice is this:

 

 He demonstrably knows what kind of world he lives in and knows things about it.

 He's also the main victim of Seifer's bullying.

 Squall isn't Seifer's rival, Zell is.

 It's kind of the problem I had with Ron Weasley and Draco Malfoy in Harry Potter, it's hard to take a purported rivalry seriously when someone other than the main character whos rivalry this is supposed to be takes it so much more seriously than them.

 Prior to his turn to the dark side, and excusing that stupid and pointless sword fight in the opening cut scene, Seifer never seemed to care much about Squall and Squall didn't care much about him.

 I'm starting to suspect we got a protagonist switcheroo at some point and they never managed to clear up all the evidence.

 It would help explain why we get a section playing as just Zell in the prison sequence if he was originally the one who was meant to be put in solitary and then playing hero. He also has that 'heroic sacrifice' moment.

 Somebody had a reason for Zell to be given more consideration than the others, and I wouldn't be surprised if that was because he was either originally meant to be the protagonist or because someone thought he'd make a damn good one.

 Whoever they are, I definitely agree with them.

Guest Post: Murphy Reworks Final Fantasy VIII

 Let’s talk about my major bugbear with Final Fantasy VIII, tone.

 Tone is important. Without a clearly defined tone, a story rapidly grows boring, and when the tone shifts too much, the story can feel sloppily put together, like about seventy different writers decided to do a round robin, and one of them was a George R.R. Martin enthusiast and another a children’s writer from Utah.

 VIII has a tone problem, and by that, I mean that it often juxtaposes two totally opposite tonal styles with very limited success. Take the Timber section of the game: Three child mercenaries have been sent to assist a resistance movement in kidnapping the leader of a sovereign nation - that’s some pretty heavy stuff right there. Already you have ethical questions being raised: Is it right to be sending what are essentially children out to do this job? Is the entire garden system inherently corrupt and immoral? Is the resistance movement correct in its goals? What are the political and ethical implications of kidnapping a world leader?

 There’s a lot of potential there.

 Except then you reach your mission, and with the force of a speeding train, the tone has shifted: Because this is a wacky resistance movement (a wacky resistance movement where two of its members have had their fathers executed in front of them - there’s that tone clash again), where the leader will yell at her hired killers that they’re ‘meanies’, and insists that this entire convoluted kidnapping plan is just ‘so she can talk’.

 It’s jarring. The two tones are completely at odds with each other, and it’s painfully obvious why: The writers wanted child mercenaries going around doing mercenary things, but they also wanted them and their employer (Nina, in this case) to be absolutely morally correct, instead of occupying a grey area. They want the wacky anime-ish humour because playful and virtuous heroes, and they also want ‘badass trained from childhood killers’. But those two things do not work together.

 Another example of this is when Zog and Nina arrive on the Ragnarok. They are adrift in space, everyone nearby is dead, and they have just unleashed monsters onto the planet. Marvel as this gets brought up approximately never, and instead we get hijinks with Nina floating into Zog’s lap. Because the writers wanted a romantic moment, and they needed both the ‘moon monsters’ plot point and a conveniently empty spaceship.

 There’s nothing wrong with any of these extremes, incidentally. Totally virtuous heroes are fine. Anime-style wacky hijinks are fine. Playful romantic subplots are great. Child mercenaries are fine. Spaceships full of corpses are good. Monster tides, sure. But when you mash them together in such close proximity, they become very offputting.

 Especially as this doesn’t have to be a problem. Take Final Fantasy X, a game which combines ‘the inevitable cycle of death’ with ‘underwater football hijinks’. These should jar horribly. They don’t, because the writers knew how to tie those two things together realistically, in a way that made sense for the characters: Because when Tidus is rambling about underwater football in his ridiculous asymmetrical shorts, he’s doing so in a manner that rings true as the reaction of a teenage athlete thrown suddenly into a horrible world. When Yuna is listening to him, it rings true as the realistic reaction of a young woman who has never really had a chance to live but knows she has to die.

 Not to mention, they know the time and the place for it: When Yuna is sending the spirits of the dead, Tidus doesn’t chime in with how he bets dead people would make great blitzball players, and when Tidus is about to play blitzball, Yuna doesn’t wander into the locker room and remark upon the inevitability of death. There’s a constant awareness in the script of how each side of the plot affects the tone, and how to balance out each extreme so that you don’t have massive tonal shifts.

 It doesn’t ring true in VIII, though. There is no balance there, no sense of appropriate timing. Those extremes are thrown together sloppily and juxtaposed lazily, and worst, the more light-hearted end of the tonal scale is used to try to mitigate the darker end, to try to squeeze out the ‘cool’ elements of it while drowning out the actual darkness.

 It doesn’t work.

 So here’s my suggestion: Let’s just not bother. We’ve made our child mercenary beds, let’s sleep in them.

 That means Nina has to act like someone who’s aware that she’s hired mercenaries, rather than acting like a child given three playmates - and whether that awareness means horror, distaste, reluctance with kindness, or just a businesslike neutrality, it can go either way. It means she needs a plan for Deling that doesn’t involve just chatting with him. At least plan to ransom him, for god’s sake. It means that when Zog and Nina arrive on the mechanical dragon stuffed with cadavers, they might need to mention a few times that dozens or hundreds of people have died and that they might be next.

 But that doesn’t mean there can’t be humour. Soldiers still make jokes, after all, even ones from magical garden schools. Resistance leaders can still be flirty and coy. Hijinks can still result from characters doing ridiculous things.

 It just means that that humour can’t be used to try and make the audience forget that there are some dark implications to what they’re seeing. Own it. Own the fact that Cid Kramer is basically pure evil. Relish it.

Let's Rework: Final Fantasy VIII - Part Four

 I know I said I'd redesign Seifer and Rinoa, but another prospective protagonist has popped up since then.

 How many people have we asked this question about by this point?

 We asked why Seifer isn't the main character, why Rinoa isn't the main character and why Selphie isn't the main character.

 This decreasingly exclusive club has, as of Part Forty Three of the LP log, gained a new member.

I need to work on mouths.

  Why isn't Fuujin the main character?

 As noted in the LP Log, she's almost everything Squall is supposed to be.

 She's tough, she's cool, she's a woman of few words and she's interesting.

 I know barely anything about this girl and I'm already really interested in her back story.

 Is there a reason she only talks in single word, all-caps, sentences?

 Has she had a hard time getting on in life if she can't help speaking like that?

 How did she become friends with Seifer, and when did she start banging Raijin?

 How was the Disciplinary Committee chosen?

 Is she an orphan or is there a couple where one of them only shouts and the other one only speaks in single word sentences out there somewhere?

 Who is Fuujin? What happened to her eye? What did she see?

 Honestly, I do find a lot of Squall's back story quite dull. It's based on a handful of tropes that were overdone forty years ago.

 He's an orphan, he's got a long lost father he never knew, he has a childhood rival who turned evil, his long lost father is in a position of wealth and power, he has a parent that turned to the dark side, he has a destined path and he has, of all the tropes to use in a fantasy setting, amnesia.

 It's practically a miracle at this point that he wasn't a swineherd or something.

 There's little to no subversion here.

 The only tropes here that could be seen as subversive are the fact that his father is a president and not a king and that his parent who turned to the dark side was an adoptive mother and not his biological father.

 And the time travel thing does not count as 'subverting the trope of destiny', the entire concept of destiny is that the future has a set path. It doesn't matter whether the prophecy comes from soothsaying, oracles or popping into a magical blue box, if someone has seen the future and it cannot be changed, then that is still destiny.

 Are we all clear on this?

 Good, although we'll probably go over it again when it comes up in the Let's Play.

 The thing about Fuujin is that because we know so little, we can formulate a past for her that doesn't go down a check list that was published in Sci-Fi and Fantasy Hacks Monthly (The leading periodical for authors with no imagination. This month's lead article: Mary Sues, and how to get away with them by giving them testicles).

 We can give her two living parents!

 Although, considering that there's been a war on, one or less would be more accurate.

 We could have a character who struggles with the amnesia instead of it just being hand waved away when it's no longer considered interesting enough to hold onto the player's attention, or something cooler comes along to distract the writer's.

 *coughcoughMoffatcoughOUATcoughcough*

 'Why isn't Fuujin the main character?' is something of a different approach to the one I've been taking so far in these posts. Usually I talk about changing the plot, but in this case I don't think substantial changes would be necessary.

 You could keep a lot of the same basic plot, just move Fuujin into the party instead of one of the other characters. I'd have to say either Quistis or Irvine.

 I've said this before in the let's rework, but I'm still not seeing much need for Quistis to be in the party past the point where Balamb is saved. She should be in charge of the Garden, since she's a child prodigy with more experience with being a SeeD and having authority over teens and children.

 As for Irvine, he's evil and I hate him.

 Ditch him after the prison and have done with it, that's what I say.

 I'd still push for a large plot change, but I wouldn't argue that it's really necessary for having Fuujin as the protagonist, it's just the culmination of my disgust towards one character.

 Cid. Cid is evil and I hate him.

 He is the worst character I've ever seen.

 Right now, I hate him more than I hate Reed Richards.

 His behaviour towards Squall is reprehensible.

 Part of the reason I think Fuujin as protagonist would work really well is that since she's had such a tightknit and loyal friendship with Seifer and her boyfriend, she'd be less likely just to stand to one side and watch while Cid emotionally abuses Squall like everyone else does.

 Since Cid is so horrid, it would be nice to see him turn out and out evil and get his ass handed to him by the teenage boy whose life he's totally ruined. It would be extra nice to see him turn out to be completely and totally wrong about who the 'destined SeeD' really is.

 Also, speaking of friendship, the 'Seifer's been executed!!!1!' plot point would actually have weight since Fuujin would have good reason to be upset. Unlike Squall, who has very little reason to be upset and the fact that he gets so upset makes him look absolutely ridiculous, Fuujin could be genuinely distraught.

Not like this, I don't even know what this is supposed to be.

 It would also be much more interesting for the main character to be someone that Seifer genuinely cares about, rather than someone he dislikes at best. This would provide conflict for both Seifer and Fuujin, as they're torn between their friendship and their current loyalties.

 Also, arguing before/during a fight would be the perfect opportunity for Fuujin to have extended dialogue and speak in proper sentences. Because arguments in violent situations are the perfect opportunity for a teenage girl with a voice like thunder to yell at someone.

 (By the way, one of Squall's most criticised character traits is that what feels like over half of his dialogue is run inside of his own head. If Fuujin was the protagonist, then it would make sense for her to be running an internal monologue since she seems to have genuine difficulty expressing herself in a normal and healthy manner.)

 The conflicting loyalties angle would work really well, as if Raijin had gone off to find Seifer while Fuujin was stuck with Squall it would provide a tension between the two of them.

 Woo! Romantic tension!

 (I will die with that ship. If Nomura came out and said 'Raijin is gay' without immediately following it with something like 'and Fuujin is actually a transman who likes to dress in very subtle drag and is cool with feminine pronouns' I would just stab him.)

 So, how would we pull off making Fuujin the main character in a plot that resembles the canon one?

 Simple, just have her pass the SeeD exam and be sent off on the Timber mission with Squall. Personally, this wouldn't present a problem to me, as it would be a great excuse to have a four person battle party instead of a three person one, but if it does become a genuine issue, it may be necessary to replace Zell or Selphie in that part of the story, instead having them come in at a later point.

 Of course, it could also work to have Fuujin go along with them as back up, someone who can't be used in the battle party until after the part in the train where Squall, Selphie and Zell all randomly pass out. In which case she could easily bully her way into becoming one of the playable characters because she has no interest in being left by the wayside by a bunch of narcoleptics.

 It would be best of she was never dragged into the past with Squall and Co., which would make sense, as Ellone wouldn't have ever met Fuujin by this point, and would likely be incapable of dragging her into the past at all.

 Phew, that's a lot of things to be considering.

 Before I wrap this up, I'd like to show you a design I came up with for protagonist!Fuujin.

 Her regular design isn't really that bad, it's just that it could do with being more visually interesting if she was to be the main character.

 Since she does resemble a pirate, I decided to base her outfit on the outfit of an Admiral during the Golden Age of Piracy (aka, the period The Pirates of the Caribbean is set during).

 During my root around for reference/inspiration, I found this portrait:

Dat wig.

 This guy is Sir Cloudesley Shovell, and he was the Admiral of the Fleet and a Member of Parliament for Rochester. He was born in 1650, joined the Royal Navy at the age of fourteen, fought in several major naval battles, became a favourite of Queen and was a great benefactor for both the church of St. Paulinus and the city of Rochester before his death in the Isles of Scilly (pronounced 'Silly' and called Enesek Syllan in Cornish) at the age of fifty six in a tragedy that also claimed the lives of both of his step-sons.

 I really liked his jacket, so I used it as inspiration for Fuujin's mild redesign.

 Also, I think that his entry into the military at a young age and his tragic death at sea works well for Fuujin's nautical design.

 And he has a vaguely weathery sounding name. It fits, you can't really have thunder without clouds.

 So, there you go, my manifesto for why Fuujin would make a better main character than Squall.

 Or at least a damn good party member.

Let's Rework: Final Fantasy VIII - Part Three

 So, what are we doing today?

 Today we're going to...

 Redesign Characters

 Let's face it, they kind of need it.

 Especially Squall. You all know my hatred of his usual outfit.

 It looks awful, and really started the long running joke that fifty percent of Nomura's brain is composed of belts.

 it also doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense. Squall's based on a lion, right?

 So why does he have a fur collar that looks like a ruff? Wolves have ruffs, not lions. Lions famously have manes.

 The fur does not help with the lion motif, it just detracts from it.

 So, that's the first thing for our list: the fur has to go.

 We also need to fix his trousers, because the weird baggy trousers he has in VIII are so bad that they redesigned him with more normal looking trousers.

 A similar thing needs to be done with his trousers.

 As for the things that won't change... Well I did decide that certain aspects of the original character design had to remain the same. In Squall's case it's his necklace, black trousers and belts.

 As for his face and hair, I'm pro shorter hair on Squall, it makes him look girlier, and I like that on him.

 So, with these as the rules, I sketched a couple of ideas down using Fashionary templates.

 As you can see, I came up with three different shirts, three different kinds of trousers and three different kinds of shoes.

 I'm quite happy with all of these ideas, and I think mixing and matching the top halves and bottom halves would go well.

 I've decided that, regardless of the design I eventually choose for his trousers, they'll be black denim rather than leather. It's classier this way.

 I also designed three jackets.

 My favourite is number one, which is supposed to be a SeeD cadet uniform jacket that he's customised. Partially this is because it's only part leather, but mostly because it actually has him wearing at least part of the uniform. I've been quite frustrated at how Balamb Garden has a uniform, but how there is no requirement to actually wear the dame thing.

 It would also give more emotional significance to the jacket, which wouldn't go amiss.

 There is one problem, though.

 I like the shirts far more than I do the jackets, so I'm more than a little tempted to drop the jacket altogether.

 If you guys have any ideas or opinions on this, be sure to let me know in the comments.

 So, from a difficult design to one that was much simpler, as I knew exactly what I wanted to do with Selphie.

 To be honest, I like her dress. But it's so short and impractical for what she's actually doing that I felt I needed to give her something of a redesign.

 Our brief here is a much simpler one: Do something to prevent her knickers from being exposed should she fall over.

I also decided that a darker shade of brown would go well with her colour scheme, so the additions I made were in that colour.

 I'm perfectly happy with all of these. If Square came up to me and said they would pick one of these at random and put it in a remake, I would be a proud creator regardless of which one got chosen.

 As for my favourite design, I think I'm a little torn between four and six, but I'm very interested in what you guys think. Which one's your favourite?

 As you can see there are a few more design decisions to make, but once those decisions are made I'll be doing a picture of these two in their redesigned forms.

 (Also, I'm sorry if this is kind of incoherent. I'm very tired and kind of lightheaded right now).

 In the next part of Let's Rework FF8, I'll be redesigning Rinoa and Seifer. So keep an eye out for next time!

Let's Rework: Final Fantasy VIII - Part Two

Part One

Okay, so we started off with the biggie. Now for something perhaps a little less controversial?

 Today we're going to talk about game play. More specifically, one aspect of game play that has managed to become something of a bugbear.

 Junctioning.

 I have been having no end of trouble with this. If you've been keeping up with the let's play log, you know that I've repeatedly failed to reassign junctions after a forced party change.

 So it won't be much of a surprise to you that the second change I'm going to suggest is...

Rework the junction system

 And I do mean rework it. I don't actually hate the core concept of it, really this is a problem of execution.

 One of the main complaints I've heard about this game is the way that a character's stats are heavily dependent on their magic. So there's a strong disincentive right there for actually using magic.

 Which is a real problem.

  Now, I don't mind the linking of stats to magic. I actually quite like the base concept.

 However, there is one issue I do have that I believe I've come up with a relatively simple and elegant solution for.

 In many ways, sorting out which characters have what magic and in what amounts is a complete pain in the neck. Especially when you consider that as you move on in the game you tend to have higher level spells attached to stats, as well as a greater need to use them in battle.

 It becomes something of a necessity to have spares of these spells just floating around, but in the actual game the only way to have them do so is to attach them to a charater that you're not currently using.

 What I propose, therefore, is to have a seperate pool of magic. Maybe a hundred or two hundred of each spell can be stored in the max., but even this small amount would be something of a boon, as it allows the player to be properly prepared without having to juggle magic around.

 Now to move onto a bigger personal bugbear: GFs.

 I really do keep forgetting to rejunction everything, but I do somehow get the impression that this isn't what Square was actually planning for the player to do.

 I genuinely get the impression that you're intended to spread the GFs relatively evenly throughout the party. However, I don't really see any indication that this should be the case in game, and there's definitely no incentive to.

 Here's an incentive: each character can only have a certain number of GFs.

 At the moment, you could very well have all the GFs junctioned to a single character. This is not conducive to building a well balanced squad.

 The fact that you're not going to have things well balanced is problematic in situations where you're expected to swap between characters quickly. It's also a really big problem in one of the later boss battles.

 Having a maximum number of GF slots for each character forces the player to have an evenly balanced party and have to think their strategies through a bit better.

 It also comes hand in hand with a greater incentive to seek out new GFs, as the number of slots would logically go up with the number of available GFs.

 Also, since there would be characters who leave the party permanently if I got my way, it would be a good idea to have some kind of reminder that their junctions are now free. Especially since the reworked system has a magic pool that their magic could be put into, instead of waiting for a new character to conveniently pop up with their stuff.

 So, in summary, it's not a terrible idea for a system, but the magic needs to be made more accessible and less confusing to use, and the GFs need to be more heavily restricted to promote strategic thinking and also to prevent the dance of the rejunctions.

 Next time we'll be looking at more character related things, so there's that to look forward to. Remember to sharpen your pitchforks!

Let's Rework: Final Fantasy VIII Part One

I think part of being a fan of something is that you have the desire to make it better.

 At least, according to you.

 My friend Kelly does this sometimes, and so does William Shatner.

 This is the primary purpose of head!canons, although sometimes the urge goes beyond filling in a hole or winning a No Prize.

 Sometimes you want to take the thing you're a fan of and totally rework it so that it becomes everything you want it to be.

 Which is what this series of posts is going to be about.

 After playing Final Fantasy VIII for two or more hours a day over nine non-consecutive days, I've come up with a number of things I would do to the game to rework it into something I'd be proud to sell on the mass market.

Thing the First:

 Change the main character

Sorry, Squall/Leon fangirls, but he's got to go.

 If you've been reading my Let's Play Log at all, you'll know that I don't like him. He's bad at his job, he has no friends, no one really cares about him, and it's impossible to tell romantic progression from just regular old character development.

 I've been with this guy for roughly twenty two and a half hours and I still prefer nearly every other character over him.

 Especially Seifer who is more interesting and, despite being a bully, is actually nicer than Squall.

 Seifer has friends!

 And don't give me the old 'oh, no, Squall's like Mr Darcy. Squall Darcy is what they call him, that's why he's so unlikeable. He's just shy and proud. He'll improve!' routine.

 Fitzwilliam Darcy has friends.

 Squall Leonhart doesn't.

 So, if you're not plotting my murder, you're wondering who would be the main character.

 Good question, but a little flawed.

 Because I'm going to give you two.

 If you didn't see this coming, well, I'm surprised.

 Considering that Seifer is a character who is just as flawed as Squall, if not more so, and is more likeable in universe, it would make sense for him to be the protagonist.

 He has wants and needs and a place in the world outside of his teacher wanting to jump his bones for no fully explored reason.

 Again, I'm twenty two and a half hours into the game and I have no idea what Squall wants. He had the desire to become a SeeD, but now what? Everything he does is just following orders, and all his internal monologuing fails to have him place any sense of importance or identity on doing that.

 Seifer's dream is weird, but it's there and I can identify with that.

 Also, speaking of wants and needs, Rinoa has those too. She has them in spades.

 She wants the independence of Timber and possibly to get back at her dad. Although I'm not sure at the latter part of that, she clearly doesn't like him and that's a feeling I can empathise with.

 Some of us have shitty parents.

 Considering that her goals set the game in motion, wouldn't it make sense to cut out the middle man and just have her be the protagonist?

 Besides, she's clever. She's the one who worked out that Zell knew his way around the prison, after all. Being the protagonist would allow her to be even cleverer because there would be no reason to misogynistic-ally dumb her down to stop her overshadowing a male character.

 Since they both have good reasons to be the protagonist, it makes sense to use them both.

 Besides, these two have history together, so a reunion later in the game would have more weight. Especially since their history basically denoted them as an 'it's complicated' by the time Seifer is believed to be dead.

 So, how would it work?

 I propose a game of two halves.

 One half as Rinoa, one half as Seifer.

 Keeping his story line of going with the Sorceress would lead to an interesting scenario where the player plays as two opposing forces and both halves of a romance.

 Sure, we've see things like this before, but I think it would work really well here.

 But what of Squall?

 Well, he can still be in the game, but I'd want him to go through his character development far faster and leave the party once Balamb Garden is under attack.

 The character arc would end with him being a good leader who returns to his home Garden to help protect the students. Romance is totally unnecessary for this arc.

 So, there it is, part one of my manifesto.

 I'll definitely continue this series of posts as I already have a decent number of ideas to rework this game.