Let's Stream!

Oooooooooook! So I decided against finishing Mickey Mania right now, mostly because... well I'm on a huge Final Fantasy bender right now, so tune into my newly created LiveStream channel and watch me and two to three friends from the good forum of SydLexia stumble our way through Final Fantasy V!

Watch live streaming video from tardismanletsplay at livestream.com

Let's Play!

Right, so in the last few days I've been playing a crazy large amount of Pokemon and Dissidia 012 Prologus Final Fantasy (For the sake of my sanity, I'll be referring to it as Dissidia 2, much easier that way). This got me thinking that I totally ditched my two Let's Plays that I was working on before my neato little breakdown last year. One of which was a video Let's Play of Mickey Mania: The Timeless Adventures of Mickey Mouse and the other was a screenshot LP of the GBC game, MagiNation. Mark my words I'll do my very best to finish my video LP this weekend, but I may not be able to really get the MagiNation one done for a long time. So in the mean time, me and my good buddies from SydLexia (a neat little website that you should definitely go vi-oh who am I kidding, my only readers are from there) are going to be working on a video Let's Play of a game that shall be announced in the final part of Mickey Mania, so look forward to that! Or not! I dunno at this point I'm just a raving lunatic

The Senior Slide

Well, I'm back and not just to mock a friend of mine! At the beginning of the year in my Fiction Writing class I was supposed to write a short story as part of a group critiquing exercise. The only thing the professor gave us was a timeframe and a suggested page range. This excited me in ways I didn't know I could be excited so I went home and immediately got to work. One week later I held in my hands a 30 page tale of an awkward teenager named Dave Sorenson. I've got a paper to write for my Japanese class about the history of the sword Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi (Grasscutting Sword) so this may break my 5 month bout with writer's block and get me back into continuing the story of Dave. Anyways, here's the first part of my original story about Dave, "The Senior Slide."

The ground shook and an explosion rocked the Truce Administrative Dome and a look of panic overtook Dave Sorenson’s face. “Direct attack on Truce!” he shouted at the station director.

“Calm down! How bad is it out there?” the director calmly responded, directing Dave and his coworker, a man about the same age as Dave, to the large computer screen that covered the wall in front of them. A small red warning label appeared over Truce, then the city-dome of Porre to the south, then the mountain island that was called Sun Keep, then Medina, the town of the Mystics. Then in a final display, every city on the face of the Earth lit up with warning labels and klaxons blared throughout the superstructure of the dome.

“Porre, Choras, Medina… It’s all gone!” Dave yelled. Feeling another quake and hearing an explosion, Dave grabbed his workstation to try and support himself.

“We’re under attack, sir!” the coworker called out to the director amidst the smoke that was quickly filling the room.

“Get to the ShelterDome!” the director bellowed.

“Sir, we’re not leaving witho-” Dave started but was cut off by the ceiling collapsing.

“Get yourselves out of here, NOW!” Biting his tongue which had yet another objection about to leap from it, Dave looked at his friend and ran from the room.

“Ok Jeff, what’re we gonna do now?” he asked as he ran down the hall, pushing against the wall as another quake shook the dome. The command center they were just in was hit.

“We get the girls and go to the ShelterDome, hopefully they’re still in the break room,” Jeff responded, obviously calming down considerably now that he was moving and less likely to get crushed by falling debris or God knows what was attacking the entire planet. It started off as such a normal day; Dave and Jeff were going to meet their girlfriends at about 1:30 for lunch. He had been looking forward to it since he woke up at 4 AM for work, now it looks like they’d have to cancel their reservations at the café, if the café even had the molecular structure of a café anymore. At around 1:24, a massive earthquake shook the dome and next thing they knew, all hell broke loose. “Dave, look…” Jeff said, snapping him out of his head. He looked over at the television screen, seeing aerial shots of what looked to be some sort of colossal spiked shell above a lava filled crevice. Whatever that thing was, it came from inside the Earth and at that point he heard a panicked cry from the newscaster.

“Some sort of monster has come from the center of the Earth it caused unprecedented earthquakes all over the globe then it fired off a number of what looked to be beams of pure energy from each of its spikes. Right now no defi-OH GOD IT’S FIRING AG-” then the screen turned to static. The news crew was dead, obliterated by a beam from the shell.

“JEFF, COME ON!” Dave hollered, sprinting off in the direction of the break room. They made it there, not noticing the power going out. “WHY-THE-HELL-WON’T-THIS-BLOODY-DOOR-OPEN?!” he shouted, pulling the metal door manually, opening it a crack to hear the relieved shouts from inside.

“Dave! Thank God, what’s going on?” Kelli called through the barely open door.

“Some kind of attack, something from underground, we’re going to the ShelterDome now, where’s…”

“I’m right here Dave,” another voice rang out and a feeling of relief washed over Dave. She’s ok he thought to himself. What happened next was an intense blast of heat and two piercing screams of intense pain. A small beam of destruction hit the break room and the door was blasted off its guide, nearly crushing Dave and Jeff. The break room and everything in it was completely destroyed and there was no sign of the two young women that were once standing in front of the door.

“No… she’s not… AMELIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!” Dave screamed at the top of his lungs. As he collapsed to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably he could hear a faint noise from down the hall. It sounded oddly cheerful for the end of the world. Dave listened a bit closer and could make out the noise; it was the victory fanfare from Final Fantasy.

Dave Sorenson jolted awake, sitting straight up in his bed.

And now a guest entry from my cat

Meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow Nora sucks meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow I want to bite her meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow In conclusion meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow stay out of my house.

Fiction Writing, the First Two Weeks

So I'm taking a fun little class at Normandale called Fiction Writing, taught by Thomas Maltman. It's a fantastic class so far, I recommend it if you're at the school. Anyways when I showed some of the stuff I was working on to my friend, Bridget, (Obligatory plug here) she recommended that I post them here or some such rubbish. I thought it was a decent idea and I haven't really had any activity in here in the last couple months (due to either writer's block, laziness, or really just a total lack of desire to write) so here we are!

First one's a short one, from when we introduced ourselves to one another

8/24/2010

Danny was a young adult, 19 years of age. He was of average height and had a somewhat out of shape physique about him. Above his amber-tinted green eyes there was a mat of untidy brown hair, almost as if every morning he combed it then shook his head about just so it'd be perfectly unkempt. Usually clad in a pair of jeans and a shirt that depicted whatever video game he was playing, he was quite convinced that somewhere out in this universe there really was a fantasy world that contained all the wonder and magic of a Final Fantasy game (The first through the sixth, naturally, after that they try to get far too high tech-y)

Not my best work, but the professor liked it and in the end that's all that matters I guess (shrug)

Next up was taking a line from a book and writing our own story on it, mine was "Opportunities, my father says after I bail him out of jail" Enjoy. (Warning, some slightly inflammatory language about Canadians ahead)

8/26/2010

"Opportunities," my father says after I bail him out of jail. He didn't know how many christmas elves lives he had ruined by attempting to pass himself off as Santa. Most people's inner image of Santa Claus is a jolly corpulent man wearing red and giving out toys to children worldwide. My father is a wire thin middle aged man who tried to shake down a few elves wearing what he thought was a good enough Santa costume, despite the fact that the hat was purple, the clothes were green and his pants were blue jeans. When you consider that he's completely color blind you can't really blame him for his color choices but what kind of person runs up to a Christmas Elf at Eden Prairie Mall and shakes him wildly saying "THE BOSS IS IN TROUBLE, I GOT THE RUSSIAN MAFIA ON MY BACK, YA GOTTA HELP ME!!!" Whatever scheme he's planning next is flowing off his tounge like the speech of a politician, I yank myself out of my own imagination long enough to listen and I hear something involving "That cocky bastard over at the Pet's Mart thinks he's better than me just because he's a Betta Fish!" and I go back into my own mind, thinking if Pop actually gets prosecuted this time then it'd be best if I claimed I wasn't involved. Since Mom left us for "Not being able to take the insanity anymore" and moving to Vancouver or "STINKIN' CANUCK LAND" as Pop put it, he's been having some trouble here and there dealing with the fact that she's actually gone. Every day I'm struggling through my homework, I turn and see Pop trying to catch a squirrel in the backyard and I work just a little harder.

"First sentences are doorways into another world" -some random thing that I wrote down off the board in class

This last one is from Tuesday, where we were sent out around the school to observe people, take down their basic features, then make up a backstory for them. I happened to run into a friend of mine out in the coffee area, so I just "observed" her and this random old lady who was arguing with a cashier about Perkins, an obvious choice for a backstory, as everyone loves a curmudgeonly elderly person. Enjoy!

8/31/2010

Random person sitting across from me, wearing glasses, looks a little stoned. Wearing a grey striped sweater and writing Japanese in a notebook. Judging from the way she’s sitting there, she’s probably getting ready for a busy day of classes and a job as a small time car dealer after class. Yessir, that Laura Smits could probably get you the best deal on a Volkswagen this side of the Mississip. But behind that happiness and cheerful disposition, there is only tears and loneliness. Nobody can truly comprehend the painful solitude of a car saleswoman’s life. She may be able to get you a great deal on that van in the back by her office, but it won’t fill her desk with pictures of family members and friends.

Random old lady yelling at workers about to going to Perkins and waiting for something she leaves after getting a sandwich, a stark representation of life in America. Wearing old clothes from a time when her husband bought her anything she pleased, she now was spending all of her time waiting by the mailbox for her social security check so she could go and pay for her textbooks and hopefully have enough left over to get the Tremendous Twelve after class. As she would say “The food is delicious but there’s so much I just eat a pancake and a bit of the eggs, and take the rest home. That’ll be my breakfast for the rest of the week! Now, I gotta scoot home, ‘The Price is Right’ is on!”

There you have it, my first two weeks of Fiction Writing. I'll try to post my new assignments every couple of weeks, but until then, have a good day/night/nearest celestial body cycle!

Top 5 "Holy Difficulty Shift, Batman!" Bosses

At some point in every game, there's a moment where the difficulty'll randomly shift. Sometimes its an unbelievably hard beginning but you hit your stride and the rest of the game is a breeze. Most of the time, its that one point where you thought you were perfectly leveled, but then "So and so" comes along and wipes the floor with you. At this point, the player has a number of options ahead of them, they can play and play and pray to god they get a lucky critical or the boss misses nonstop, or you just get that lucky jump. Another is hopelessly level grinding until you crush the boss in question. The final option (my personal favorite) is to throw down the controller in a huff and proceed to write a blog entry about how stupid difficulty can be. Without any further ado, here's the top 5 "Holy Difficult Shift, Batman" bosses!

5. PINSTRIPE POTOROO: Crash Bandicoot

Pinstripe Potoroo is the fourth boss in the first game of the Crash Bandicoot series, and a stereotypical mobster. As the battle starts he pulls out a drum magazine Tommy gun and opens fire on Crash. The first nine times I fought this boss I barely managed to get out of the way of the gunfire, to say nothing of actually damaging him. Between his bursts of gunfire you're meant to spin attack him to deplete his five HP. In comparison to his predecessor Koala Kong who just throws rocks and explosives at you, you now have about 85 other things to worry about, marking the ramp up in difficulty that awaits the player in the back half of Crash Bandicoot.

4. TWIN DRAGON ZOMBIES: Castlevania: Circle of the Moon

Castlevania: Circle of the Moon is considered by many to be one of the best games on the Game Boy Advance, and has one of the best plots, castle designs, and it sports that classic Castlevania difficulty and music. Towards the beginning of the game you're fighting some simple bosses such as Cerberus and a transforming Necromancer with simple attacks. Then you fight the Iron Golem, which is a slow moving joke. After beating the crap out of a goat demon called Adramelech you have the displeasure of going through the Underground Warehouse. One of the hardest areas in the game, you have to fight through swarms of killer plants and other difficult enemies capping off with a 2 on 1 fight with the Dragon Zombies. Each with more HP than Adramelech, they begin with a co-operative barrage of fire breathing and head sweeping. If you manage to slay one of them, the other begins to feast on its corpse and regain up to 300 HP. Simply put, after defeating this guy, Death will seem like a cakewalk.

3. ATMA/ULTIMA WEAPON: Final Fantasy VI

Atma Weapon is encountered towards the end of the first half of Final Fantasy VI, introducing itself as a being of pure power and doing the whole "I'll kill you without breaking a sweat" malarkey. All good fun up until he starts blasting your party with top level magic. The previous boss, the Imperial Air Force had 8,000 HP, with 2 other parts and a rather significant dislike of Bolt spells, making him a simple boss when you dealt with the magic absorbing Speck. Overall a pretty simple boss. Then you hit the Floating Continent and at the end of a grueling gauntlet you have to fight this beast. Sporting 24,000 HP

and 5,000 MP you have two options, three if you're playing the SNES or PS1 version. Option one, wipe out his HP and pray that he doesn't cast Flare too much (Oh yeah, he casts Flare, and Meteo as well). Option two, teach Osmose and Rasp to everyone in your party and just slowly but surely drain his MP, when it hits zero, he'll die (Only option I've never done myself). This one may take even longer than the first option since each shot of Osmose only drains upwards of 80-100 MP. Between all three stages he's got a nasty arrangement of attacks including Meteor, Full Power, and the dreaded Flare Star. Overall, not a fight you'd want to slack on.

2. GANDOHAR: Two Worlds

Ah Two Worlds, where to even begin. Well, pretty much it was touted as the next Elder Scrolls game with a massive open world, a wealth of quests and two things Oblivion didn't have, mounted combat and an online component. When it came out the end result was a muddled buggy mess of a game. I hate this game with a passion, but I wanted to get that 370 point achievement for finishing the game, seemed like a laugh. I didn't pay that much attention to the plot, all I got was that I was assembling some kind of relic for these generic evil guys in armor and hoods. After screwing them over somehow I just go and hack and slash through their defenses and fight the two leaders of the order of Generic Evil Armor and Cloak People, Reist and Gandohar. They look exactly the same, apart from Reist having a green cloak instead (So pretty much I'm killing the Dark Knight versions of the Mario Bros.). Reist also has a move up his sleeve where he transforms into a large fire spitting demon that can kill a level 45 character in high end armor in two to three shots. So after luring him over to the respawn point so he can't recover his health between him kicking me around, I finally kill Reist and take my pimped to hell and back sword and see Gandohar just about to complete his generic satanic ritual so he can "become more powerful than the gods of old" or some bull like that. He draws in some sort of evil power and the fight begins. And by begins I mean he comes at me, I hit him twice and he dies. Credits roll, Generic Protagonist rides off into the sunset with his sister and I get 370 Gamerscore for putting up with this crappy little thing.

1. BALLOR: Final Fantasy Legend III

BALLOR!!!!!! If I happen to go prematurely gray, it's probably because of THIS lousy son of a good supportive mother. The previous boss is a creature named Agron which bombards you with Holy er I mean White, Acid, and other status based attacks. He's not too difficult, but Ballor takes things to another level. At least 75% of the time he'll ambush the party, kicking things off with Magma (200-400 damage to the party), and already you're hurting. His other attacks include Tail (around 600 damage to one character), Beam (400-700 to a single character), and Fla-no not Flare, Nuke (500-700 to the party), which makes surviving long enough to deplete his 34,000 HP quite a challenge. But I left off one major attack that this freaky little #$%^er has called DK Virus. Nearly anyone who's played a Final Fantasy game can remember fighting those bloody Malboros and their dreaded "Bad Breath" attacks. DK-Virus is about the same except he's known to slam the party with it and follow it with Nuke so any chance your healer has to recover the party is shot out a tube, because chances are they'll be dead after a shot of Nuke. The party's best chance at survival is keeping a heavy offensive up with the four legendary swords, Xcalibr, Masmune, Emperor, and Durand, all of which deal above 1500 damage a pop, Xcalibur in the hands of a good fighter can deal almost 3000 at times. Overall this boss is pure friggin' evil and I wish the most painful of punishments upon whoever thought THIS would be a good idea for a boss. Probably the same person that thought that Xagor would be an engaging final boss...

Well there you have it, five bosses that will either make you tear your hair out from surprise difficulty or laugh for hours on end on how pathetically easy they are. I got my rage at Ballor out so unless I do an LP of Final Fantasy Legend III it'll probably be the last time I mention him for a while. Next up I plan to review some Magic sets, some World of Warcraft TCG Raid Decks and the somewhat highly anticipated ArchEnemy game style of Magic: the Gathering. Have a granfantastical day!

Top 5 Saddest Fights Ever

After a 5 month delay, I'm back, never really got anywhere in The Belmont Legacy, thank you winter finals... and well, just lack of motivation. But now summer's here and I have nothing better to do apart from hopelessly pursue jobs and play games, so I'll probably be posting stuff somewhat regularly. Until I get the motivation to play Castlevania again (I'm predicting around mid-June), here's the first of many top 5 lists! First up, saddest boss battles ever.

These are the fights that really just make your eyes well up with tears and finishing them doesn't make you feel that good, you just leave it feeling like crap. Of course this list will entail some fairly heavy spoilers so thou art forewarned now!

5. FINAL FANTASY LEGEND III: Sol

Let's kick the list off with a game I played to death on Game Boy and finished twice (Friggin' Ballor). Final Fantasy Legend III is actually part of the SaGa series, but back in the early 90's, Square equated the Final Fantasy name with money in the US, so we got the title Final Fantasy Legend III instead of "The Ruler of Time and Space~SaGa 3 [The Final Chapter]" hooray for localization. You play as three children from the future and one village elder's daughter (Who tags along because, well, she has the hots for the male human, must be something about his 8-bit haircut, mmmmm Arthur). After a great and epic quest to save all of time, flying about in a time and space machine called the Talon, you go to a being called Xagor's palace to find a man named Sol who can help save the world from the Pureland Entity, which is currently flooding the planet. You battle your way through the castle, fighting a host of baddies and a few just sadistically difficult bosses (ballor...) all leading up to the pinnacle where you find Sol. He is possessed by Xagor, and begs you to kill him so Xagor can't be awakened and destroy the world. All the while, the saddest 8-bit music I've ever heard in my life is play as you simultaneously build up your party with your various status buffs and pummel this almost holy looking man with a spear with Excalibur and the Masamune. During this beating he begs you to do it quicker, saying that he can feel Xagor's power growing. Finally, after a number of turns Sol can't hold him in any more and with a final cry of "Hurry! He's waking up!!!" he is erased from existence, the final boss music boots that sad music out of here and you fight...

Oooooooooook then, ummmm, yeah... Sol kinda gets ripped apart by a tentacle demon and with the power of Excalibur, Masamune, two other swords nobody really cares about and your time machine you have to kill this... living hentai monster. I'm sorry but for the love of everything, look at this guy! If it wasn't for him beating the living crap out of me with above top level magic I wouldn't be able to stop laughing! You know what the worst part is? After you whack him around a bit he sprouts mouths all over his body! I love this game but between the difficulty curve shooting through the ceiling in the last dungeon (BAAAAAALLOOOOOOOR!!!!!) and the almost laughable monster design, I can't really complete this game now. That one wasn't that focused on the tragedy of the fight, but then again, when a Biblical looking character gets ripped open by a hentai monster, you can't wipe your tears for THAT long.

4. SUIKODEN II: Riou vs. Jowy

This fight I personally have not experienced, but I've read about it and saw an LP (Let's Play) on YouTube of it and while there's a happy feeling afterwards if you do things right, if not you'll feel like a bit of fecal matter. Throughout the whole game, your character (named Riou in the Japanese novelization) and your best friend, Jowy are pulled towards each other in a destructive war over a rune called the Rune of Beginning. You have the Bright Shield Rune and Jowy has the Black Sword Rune, and the rune desires to be as one again. Here's the rub, the only way they can be joined is if the other half is taken from the holder's dead body. After a long and bloody conflict between the Dunan Unification Army and the Highland Kingdom, it comes down to Riou and Jowy at the mark where their long journey began, a cliff by a waterfall. In the first 2 games, there are a number of one on one duels between the main character and some important antagonist. As Bastila Shan said in KotOR, "Nobody deserves to die, no matter what their crimes" and as such if you spare a great deal of these antagonists, you are typically rewarded. During these duels you have the options to do a basic attack, a desperate attack and a block. This works out in a rock paper scissors sort of motion, attacking breaks a block, desperate attacks overpower basic attacks, and blocks dodge and counter the desperate attack. In the duel against Jowy, in order to get the best ending you must simply defend against anything he throws at you, much like the fight against Cecil's shadow in Final Fantasy IV. What makes this fight tragic is what happens if you attack him just once, or if you defend, Jowy's begging for you to fight him just to end everything. It can go either way, but if you don't know what to do, you're in for one heluva downer ending...

3. CAVE STORY: Mutant Toroko

Cave Story is a fantastic little freeware/WiiWare platformer that is influenced by the Metroid series with its large world and run and gun style of gameplay, Castlevania with its multiple endings from the most minute of details, and a soundtrack inspired by the entire 8-bit generation. The plot revolves around you, a soldier who can't remember his past, waking up in a cave and encountering small rabbit-like creatures called Mimigas, who are being used by a sadistic Doctor. The Doctor (no not my namesake, he's probably pissed at this guy though) uses red flowers to corrupt the normally peaceful and, frankly, adorable Mimiga into horrifying monsters. The first Mimiga you befriend's name is Toroko, and she is one of the purest signs of innocence I've seen in my 15 years of gaming, so naturally she must die. About two or three hours in, the Doctor's two henchmen, Balrog and Misery capture Toroko and force feed her some red flowers, enraging her brother King, who hopelessly tries to fight and is brushed aside. After seeing this horror, you now must fight Toroko. The first time I did this fight, I was taken aback by what just happened for just the right amount of time for her to defeat me. Once you defeat her, there's no happy feeling, just a sinking feeling that you killed something pure.

2. CRISIS CORE: FINAL FANTASY VII: Zack Fair's Last Stand

Ah, Final Fantasy, such a heartless series of games, with characters possessing some of the worst backstories known to humankind, and this one's not even in the main series! Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII takes place in the years before the original game, as you assume the identity of Zack Fair, SOLDIER 2nd Class, and eventually 1st Class. Those who have played FFVII may remember Zack as "that guy who Cloud thought he was" and "Aerith's old boyfriend." Much like that one guy in the cantina scene in "A New Hope," Zack has a 30-40 hour adventure about his adventures and yet another retelling of the Nibelheim massacre at the hands of Sephiroth. The most memorable scene involving Zack was him desperately trying to get back to Midgar four years later with a near comatose Cloud, still being chased by the ShinRa security force. In FFVII, the scene is very simple, pretty much just Zack noticing they're right behind them and promptly being gunned down, giving me the impression (when I first saw it at least) that he was some sort of weakling. Upon reaching the scene I thought I was just in for a single cutscene of watching this hero I've built up in level for 28 hours get gunned down in an instant by a grunt who I probably could've taken out at level one. Boy was I wrong. Zack, fighting for his life takes on just about an entire army of ShinRa soldiers, all the while his DMW (Digital Mind Wave, a representation of his friends helping him even in the heat of battle) is slowly fading as his once perfect uniform gets riddled with bullets. Finally, you get to his last thoughts, of Cloud and finally his love, Aerith, and as he struggles to strike down just one more soldier to defend his right to live and Cloud's barely conscious body offscreen, I found myself holding back tears as I saw him finally collapse and a soldier coming up to him and dealing the final blow. I knew this moment was coming the whole game, but it couldn't prepare me for what happened. Some time later, Cloud, still somewhat groggy, wakes up and finds Zack's body with his iconic Buster Sword next to him. Zack hands him his sword, gives him as good a hug as he can muster and tells Cloud to live. Live for the both of them. Cloud, still in shock, takes this in a different way then Zack meant and steals his identity. He drags the Buster Sword into Midgar and after the credits roll, you see him jumping onto the train at the beginning of Final Fantasy VII, introducing himself as Cloud Strife, SOLDIER: 1st Class.

1. FINAL FANTASY VII: Jenova LIFE

This fight almost needs no introduction, but then again, there may be some people out there who have yet to play Final Fantasy VII, or read about it, or watch an LP of it on YouTube. At the end of Disc 1, your team chases Sephiroth to the top of the world, into the City of the Ancients, a forgotten race that party member Aerith/Aeris is the last of. She leaves the party in the middle of the night saying that she can take care of everything. You run through the city, finally finding her at the center, praying. Cloud, ever the spiky-haired bit of Silly-Putty that he is, is controlled by Sephiroth into nearly killing Aerith. He resists the momma's boy's influence and Sephiroth descends from who knows where and deals with her himself, stabbing her with his impossibly long sword. As her "useless" Materia that she keeps in her ribbon bounces off her body and falls off the pedestal, Aerith's theme begins playing, almost heart-breaking to hear now as Cloud holds her body and Sephiroth rants about how he'll do whatever he wants to do involving Jenova, Cloud has had enough. In a textbook Crowning Moment of Awesome, he interrupts Sephiroth MID TEXTBOX with "Shut up." He tells of how she'll never laugh, get angry, or do anything that made her human ever again, because of Sephiroth. He taunts Cloud and flies off, leaving a Jenova beast to fight, this one representing the LIFE stage, in comparison to BIRTH, fought on the ship, DEATH, fought at the crater, and SYNTHESIS, fought in the planet's core. During this somewhat difficult boss fight, Aerith's theme is still playing, and I remember when I first played, I was still reeling, partly because I was 8 and it was a bit much for me to handle, but mostly because in the right context, Aerith's theme is really friggin' sad! Even now I'm tearing up at the thought of fighting this fight, purely because of that bloody song.

There it is, 5 tragic fights, and all of them have but one thing in common, the music. Some people tend to write music off when looking at a game, thinking "It's just a game, there's more important things, like graphics! Screw sound quality, I want to be able to see every freakin' bit of stubble on Captain Price's face!" I heartily disagree, there's nothing that can influence the pace of a game, or the overall tone of any one scene more then the music that plays during a game. Without Aerith's theme playing during the fight with Jenova LIFE, it'd just be another battle with that blaring guitar filled boss theme, but with that melancholy piano it becomes one of the most memorable fights of all time. Now if you'll excuse me I'm off to listen to Aerith's theme and bawl like Toby Maguire in "Spider-Man 3!"

(That one guy in the cantina scene in "A New Hope?" His name's BoShek and he's Force-Sensitive)