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UPDATE: 12/31/06
I updated Q&A.
I'll end 2006 with another sketch for The RAU Gallery.
To 2007...and beyond...
I added the following to Videogame Music Downloads:
Battle Clash - NEW! 1 song
Dragon View - NEW! 4 songs
Final Fantasy 9 - NEW! 4 songs
Mega Man X3 - NEW! 1 song
Over Horizon - NEW! 8 songs
...wait for it...
Breath of Fire - NEW! 14 songs
Earthbound - NEW! 16 songs
Mega Man - NEW! 5 songs
Updatey goodness, yo!
Another RAU Sketch, just in time for Christmas!
I added a new song to the Poetry Preserve.
And another one!
Throw another sketch on The RAU Gallery!
Donkey Kong Country 2 - NEW! 10 songs
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask - NEW! 3 songs
Willow - NEW! 6 songs (which finally gives me something for the "W" page).
My life's gotten ridiculously busy lately. I have to work a lot of overtime now and I hate to keep promising reviews when they never seem to come. So I'm going to declare a temporary hiatus from review writing as of now and I don't have any real ETA for when I'll get back to it. I'll continue to update sections that are easier for now.
Final update for today: I added another sketch to The RAU Gallery, but be fair-warned that it's really long. It's actually a remake of a sketch I wrote for the forums awhile ago, but even if you saw it there already, I had to change it quite a bit to make it work.
Faxanadu - NEW! 6 songs
Ogre Battle 64 - NEW! 8 songs
Super Mario RPG - NEW! 12 songs
I also split up the Image Arcane Switched at Birth? into two pages and added a new one at the end of the second page.
EDIT: I also did as I promised for the Game Ending Songs article - I went through and labeled whether or not they were on the original Top 50 and if I would still agree with having them on there now.
Mystery of the hidden initials in The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants solved! Although I normally don't update the Cameos Database anymore, I did for this special occasion. You can read about it here. (You'll have to scroll down a bit or search for "Simpsons" in the text.)
The further adventures of Dr. Calzoun in a new sketch for The RAU Gallery today!
Sidenote: I'm also going to eventually list the Switched at Birth? section in the sidebar again, too, but I have to write up submission guidelines first. Right now you can still find it in the Museum.
I've linked the Game Ending Songs article in the table to the left. I had relegated it to the Rec Room, but I keep getting people emailing me to ask where it went. Since it's been one of this site's most popular articles, I just decided to make it easier to find again. Others have told me they wished I had some indication of what the original Top 50 were (as I have expanded and changed the article, doing away with the Top 50 format). What I might do eventually is go through the article and label (somehow) all the ones that made the original Top 50. I'll have to do that when I get more time...my life's been rather busy lately.
Yup. I wrote another sketch for The RAU Gallery!
There's another sketch in The RAU Gallery!
Added the following to Music Downloads
Blast Corps - NEW! 3 songs
Final Fantasy 4 - NEW! 19 songs
UPDATE: 12/8/06
Thanks go to Crawl and 1000 for pointing out that the dialogue on the RAU sketches messes up on certain screen resolutions, and while I haven't fixed it on the existing pages yet, I was inspired to write a new one as a result.
Finally, the Music Updates
Castlevania 3: Dracula's Curse - NEW! 11 songs
Final Fantasy Tactics - NEW! 2 songs
Terranigma - NEW! 2 songs
EDIT: Holy crap! I just added another Image Arcane SAB! Throw another one on the "I Can't Believe I Didn't See it Before" pile.
I have three updates today.
First off is an addition to the Arc the Lad Switched at Birth?. I think I may have inadvertantly discovered what inspired Bebedora's crazy design.
Next is an addition to the Image Arcane Switched at Birth?. It seems the kitties of Image Arcane are constantly being reunited with their long-lost kin on that page.
Finally, I added to Documentation of Game Glitches screenshots of the Albert Odyssey Read Error Glitch, and also a section on Little Ninja Brothers (NES), which isn't really a glitch, but is yet another discovery of an unused object.
I'll have more music updates soon. I also apologize for the lack of reviews lately. I like to keep the last one I wrote in the recent updates, but I realize that Rockin' Kats review link has been up there for seemingly forever. Hopefully, it'll get replaced by Killer7 and/or Legend of Mana soon.
I have two awesome updates today. First of all, I added the following to the Game Music MP3 Downloads:
Super Mario World - NEW! 4 songs
I also added a Kirby's Dream Land 3 Heart-Star FAQ to the Game Guides section. I wrote a guide on this long ago on a sheet of notebook paper, but I think it might have been lost in the apartment fire/flood. I redid it as a visual guide.
The following was added to Game Music MP3 Downloads:
Kirby's Dream Land 3 - NEW! 3 songs
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - NEW! 10 songs
Mega Man X - NEW! 5 songs.
I've actually been sitting on the Zelda 3 songs for awhile now because they were originally intended for a Rec Room article that's still sitting about 1/4 finished on my harddrive. I also added the KDL3 and MMX endings to the my Game Ending Songs Article.
I also now have a Site Directory under the Miscellaneous section in the table to the left. I used to have a site directory before, but I got rid of it because it was too disorganized (which caused some confusion), and because I hadn't kept up with it after I moved to my own domain.
I moved my Game Music MP3 Downloads Pages and split them up by letter. That section was getting too large and unmanageable the way it was. I reserved pages for "J", "U", and "W", even though I have nothing on those pages right now, because eventually I will. I didn't reserve a page for "Q" because I can't think of any games that begin with "Q" that have music I'd want to put up. The following was also added:
Breath of Fire 2 - NEW! 9 songs
Chrono Trigger - NEW! 8 songs
The Legend of the Mystical Ninja - NEW! 5 songs
Yoshi's Island - NEW! 4 songs
There's also a brand-new sketch in The RAU Gallery, so be sure to check it out!
I made some changes to Adventures in Site Tracking. It's been renamed "The RAU Gallery", and I've decided to use it for better things than just poking lighthearted fun at goofy internet stuff. The first four sketches are based on some that I originally wrote for the forums, but even if you saw them there, I had to change quite a bit to make them work as stand-alone sketches, so there's a lot of new stuff.
More musical updates:
Brutal: Paws of Fury - NEW! 3 songs
HyperZone - NEW! 2 songs
Legend of Mana - Added "Calmly Traveling", "Cliff Town Gato", "Legend of Mana", and "Song of Mana". Note: Those last two are streamed and I ripped them directly from the game. So if you already have the PSF, you might want to download them to make your soundtrack complete. Also, "Irwin on Reflection" had some distortion in it, so I converted another mp3 with no distortion and replaced the old one.
A few more musical updates:
Abadox - NEW! 3 songs
Legend of Mana - Added "Memory of Running", "Mystic City Geo", "Leading into Prosperity", and "The Excitement of Both of Us". Cleaned up some more of the descriptions.
Added StarBLaSt.org to the Links page.
I had said earlier that I was stopping music updates so that I could work on my reviews, but lately I've been putting reviews on hold in favor of playing Legend of Mana. I'll say right up front that it's not that good of a game, but it has an addictive quality simply because of how much crap there is you can do in it. I've been sort of working on-and-off with a review of Killer7, but I'm thinking now I'd like to review Legend of Mana first. However, there are times when I don't want to get into playing it because I know I have to leave or do something else in a half an hour or so, and it seems the easiest thing to do in that time is to make some more mp3s and upload them. So, that's why I have these available for today's update:
Kyuuyaku Megami Tensei - NEW! 1 song
Legend of Mana - fixed some of the song descriptions (I'll have more stuff available here soon).
Metroid - NEW! 3 songs
Pocky & Rocky - NEW! 2 songs
Secret of Mana - Added "Eight Ringing Bells" and "The Oracle"
Stunt Race FX - NEW! 4 songs
There seems to be some confusion over who actually wrote "Fighting of the Spirit" from Tales of Phantasia. I wrote that it was my favorite Motoi Sakuraba song, but I'm being told it's actually a Shinji Tamura composition. Well, I decided to credit both composers' names to the music for that section, which I should have done in the first place, but didn't because for some reason I never noticed that the game had two different composers before. I also added an mp3 of "Desolate Road" there.
I've added the following to MP3 Downloads:
Legend of Mana - Added "Nostalgic Song", "Pastoral", and "Those Who Are Shining"
I might hold off on music updates for awhile because I want to try getting some reviews done for this site. I'm about halfway through a couple of them and I've been spending all my spare time ripping and uploading music instead of working on those reviews.
I'd also like to officially announce that FlyingOmelette.com's forums will be moving off of ezboard in several months. Although I've been reluctant to move from ezboard for many reasons, I am not happy at all about being forced onto this new Yuku service. I have actually already installed new forums right here at FlyingOmelette.com (some who peruse the forums already know of its whereabouts), but they are not ready to become public. Another reason for the move is that these forums come with the domain, so I don't have to pay anything extra for them and they're ad-free (unlike ezboard, which can easily cost over $100 for the renewal of the ad-free service).
When will the change happen? I have CSC service on the ezboard until May 2007. I would like to hold out at least until then. But if we get forced onto Yuku sooner, the change may occur sooner. Right now, count on May 2007. That will give me plenty of time to "learn the ropes" of the new forums, change the design to match the site, add forums, appoint moderators, etc.
This is a huge change for this site and community. We are one of the oldest ezboard communities that is still thriving (I wouldn't be surprised if we are THE oldest one). We were there practically since ezboard was first created, the Game Pond played a role in the explosion of its popularity, and we've survived through many changes and events, such as the departure of ezboard's original creator, Vanchau Nguyen, and the 2005 hacker attack. But I and many other members of the community feel this change is for the best and is perhaps a bit overdue.
Life Force - NEW! 7 songs
I updated Q&A and I added a picture of me and my old car to About FO.
Chrono Cross - Added "Scars of Time"
Emerald Dragon - NEW! 2 songs
EVO: Search for Eden - NEW! 4 songs
Dragon Spirit - NEW! 16 songs
Legend of Mana - I fixed some of the descriptions for the songs and modified the intro paragraph. Since having finally played a little of the game, I was able to identify where some of the songs occur.
Puss n Boots - I replaced the "Game Over" MP3 with a MUCH better version. The previous version had some problems due to poor emulation, but they've all been fixed. If you already downloaded it, I strongly recommending replacing it with the new one.
Xenogears - NEW! 5 songs
Zanac - Added "Area 8", "Area 12", and "Game Over"
Zelda 2 - NEW! 1 song
Rally's Checker's Rapcat
I didn't upload that video to YouTube, but it's about time SOMEONE did.
Chrono Cross - NEW! 3 songs
Secret of Mana - Added "The Dark Star", "The Wind Never Ceases", "Prophecy", and "Into the Thick of It"
Tactics Ogre - NEW! 2 songs
Donkey Kong Country - NEW! 2 songs
Plok - NEW! 2 songs
I added a Glitch FAQ to the Knights of Justice Shrine.
I've got several updates in store for you today:
Thanks to a note forum moderator CB007, I realized I had neglected to upload the Illusion of Gaia "Memories" mp3 on the MP3 Downloads page. I have no idea how I missed it, but it's been fixed.
We have a new SAB article entitled "Son of Switched at Birth?" It's a little shorter than a typical SAB installment, but I don't want it to just sit around on my hard drive forever.
Added one more to the Image Arcane/RAU SAB page, courtesy of forum member Magical Yard Gnome.
I made several updates to the Knights of Justice Shrine. First of all, Guide Part 5 and Oddities were updated with information on the Staff of Life mystery. Oddities was also updated with a new SAB submission. Finally, even though I earlier said I wouldn't, I added the Ogre's Lair music to the Downloads Page, but just don't say I didn't warn you that it wasn't much of a song. Note: If you'd rather just have the SPC of that song, you can now get it from SNESmusic.org. Yesterday, I informed them it was missing from the SPC set and gave instructions on how to find it, and they graciously dumped it and added it to the set. (My disturbing amount of knowledge of this game actually came in handy for something.)
Finally, I updated the Favorite Game Ending Songs Tribute article with some information on the discrepancy in the Ys 3: Wanderers From Ys staff roll ending credits song and a new mp3.
The Super Nintendo Super Shire has become CodieKitty.com and I changed all the links accordingly.
Alundra - Added "Jess's Theme", which I promised to do a long time ago in the Q&A.
Final Fantasy 6 - NEW! 9 songs.
Mega Man 2 - NEW! 3 songs.
Secret of Mana - NEW! 5 songs.
Super Metroid - NEW! 5 songs.
Tin Star - NEW! 2 songs.
I'm still working on that SAB page, but I'm hoping I'll get a few more things I can add to it before I put it up. In the meantime, I added some more stuff to the Image Arcane SAB. Yeah, I know everyone's probably less interested in seeing my own dumb coincidences and more interested in seeing everyone else's, but I want to hold out on that SAB page just a little longer. Of course, once I put it up, that's when I'll suddenly find a bunch more. That's how it always works, doesn't it?
Made the following changes/additions to the MP3 Downloads Pages:
ActRaiser - Made a section for this on Page 1, but all the mp3s were carried over from the ActRaiser Rec Room Feature. Since I have no idea when I'll ever update the Rec Room again, I thought I should move the MP3s to the main downloads page.
Batman - NEW! 2 songs
Final Fantasy Mystic Quest - Added "Battle 3"
Illusion of Gaia - NEW! 3 songs
Ironsword - NEW! 1 song
Thunder Force 3 - NEW! 2 songs (this marks the first time I've put Sega Genesis music in that section).
The link to the Level 5 Theme of Axelay ("Burning") was incorrect. The mp3 was there, but I had the link going to the Level 3 Theme instead. It's been fixed.
I also added the following to the downloads pages:
Mischief Makers - NEW! 1 song
Puss n Boots - NEW! 1 song
Skies of Arcadia - NEW! 1 song
More movie capsules:
The Emperor's New Groove - Um...this was like the movie version of the Laws of Cartoons topic from our forums. No, really, the entire plot is one long string of cartoon cliches. To be fair, about half the times it actually uses the cliches to make fun of them (ie, when David Spade mocks the "crumbling canyon wall" or when the villains arrive before the heroes and they acknowledge that it makes no sense). Those scenes provide some of the funniest moments in the movie, but other times it feels like it's just using them for the hell of it or because the writers couldn't think of anything else to use. The bottom line is, it's good to see once, has some laughs and nice animation, but I still feel there's room for the definitive great animated film. (PS. The scene where Pacha swings by the pumas on the vine left me in stitches.)
The Graduate - Okay, the AFI waaayyyyy overrated this movie by placing it at #7 on their Top 100. It's not that it isn't a good movie and deserving to be somewhere on the list, but in the Top 10? Geez! The plot is basically this: Kid comes home from college, loafs around, has an affair with an older woman, and eventually wants to marry the older woman's daughter. That's it. And I've gotta love how in so many of these movies, people get married after one date and they only barely know each other. There are some funny lines of dialogue and the ending is downright hilarious, but it seems like an awful lot of buildup just for that moment. I also found the directing to be a bit confusing: Sometimes it's hard to tell where the current scene is taking place because some of the sets look very similar and the camera is always zoomed in so close to the actors, you can't really see the details of the rooms. Bottom line: It's good, but not one of the Top 10 Greatest Movies of All Time, at least not in my book.
As promised, I updated the third page of the Videogame Music Downloads with the following additions:
R-Type 3 - NEW! Four songs
Rygar - NEW! Five songs
Secret of Evermore - Added "Dog Maze" and "Flying"
Ys Book 1 & 2 - I changed the titles to match those in the PSF set and added "Noble District of Toal"
Zanac - NEW! Four songs
I updated the second page of the Videogame Music Downloads with the following additions:
Kartia - Added "Crisis" and "Divine Protection"
Might and Magic - NEW! Three songs
I updated the first page of the Videogame Music Downloads with the following additions:
Arcana - Added "Dark Castle Bintel" & "Shrine for the Worship of Chaos"
Axelay - NEW! Five songs
Gradius 3 - NEW! Four songs
I'll soon be updating pages 2 and 3 with a barrel of great stuff. Ever since I first got on the internet, it had been a dream of mine to have a site that would showcase all of my favorite videogame music and I'm finally making that a reality.
And now, another movie capsule:
Rear Window - Great performances, great story, action, drama, intrigue, mystery, and even some humor (Hitchcock was really good at the romantic comedy angle, even though it's not what he's often given the most credit for). It's a close call between this and Psycho for title of "My Favorite Alfred Hitchcock Movie". The mystery is presented in such a way that you can easily imagine that maybe something is going on, or maybe it's nothing, even all the way up to the final moment of reveal, which I'm glad I never had spoiled for me despite the number of times I've seen this movie parodied. It also gets pretty damn suspenseful towards the end. The set, despite being basically just an apartment complex, is simply amazing, and you literally find yourself wanting to look in those windows as much as Jimmy Stewart's character does, because it's so easy to get caught up in what's going on behind each one. Highly recommended.
I updated the Videogame Music Downloads Page again. This time I added:
Arcana - 5 songs
Final Fantasy Mystic Quest - 3 songs
And now some more movie capsule reviews:
Poltergeist - I liked this more than A Nightmare on Elm Street, and I think it's a fair comparison because they're similar movies (both even have a scene of a woman getting tossed around her bedroom by an invisible force and another scene where a woman gets a grey streak through her hair). There was more tension, better acting, and a better payoff at the end. Some scenes are a little confusing and perhaps drawn out a bit too long (like that whole "Go into the light...no DON'T go into the light!...Go into the light!...No, you said DON'T go into the light!" bit), but overall the story moves along at a pace in which you never know what's going to happen next, but you keep wanting to know. And the special effects, before the era of CGI, are pretty damn good.
Resident Evil - Holy smokes, this movie was bad, and there's no way for me to go through everything that was wrong with it because then this capsule would threaten to turn into a full-length review. Let's just say it's not particularly faithful to the games (who are all these people? Where's Jill Valentine? Where are S.T.A.R.S.?), it's slow-paced, it's painfully obvious how they did the special effects with the zombie dogs, and the main monster (a Licker) was so badly CG-animated it looked cartoonish. The movie is not scary in any sense of the word, but what's far worse is that it's actually quite boring. Mostly because none of the characters are developed at all and therefore, I just didn't care what happened to any of them. In fact, this movie is so similar to director Paul W.S. Anderson's Alien vs. Predator that it felt like I was watching the same exact movie, only with zombies in place of aliens. Resident Evil Zero has a plot involving a crossdresser who sings faux-opera to leeches, and it still manages to be better than this movie.
I realized I had forgotten to put "Return to Podunk" under the Secret of Evermore section of the Videogame Music Downloads Page, even though I already had it on the Ending Songs Tribute article. I took care of that, and I also put up four new songs for that game: "Dark Castle", "Pirate Theme", "Queen Bluegarden", and "White Castle Town". I also put up a new song for Ys Book 1 & 2, listed as "Ys Voice" in that section (MP3 courtesy of Crawl and 1000).
In addition to all of that, I have 61st Scrapbook Page.
I actually started working on another SAB page, but I don't have quite enough material yet for a full article. But if I don't find or get sent anything else within the next few weeks, maybe I'll just put it up as is.
Major update to the Videogame Music Downloads Page. The following sections have been added:
Castlevania: Circle of Moon - 2 songs.
Chocobo Racing - 2 songs.
Dragon Quest 6 - 1 song.
Ninja Gaiden 2 - 3 songs (this marks the first time I've put NES music in that section).
Secret of Evermore - 8 songs.
I've added a 60th Scrapbook Page, featuring both new sketches and old stuff.
I also added Dion Falkor and Preston Abirok to the Image Arcane Who's Who section, and I completely changed Lizaki's description because I FINALLY figured out the perfect place to put him in the future version of the series where he'll fit right in and won't undermine anyone else's role.
I added Garfield: Permanent Monday to the Links Page.
I don't review movies, so what I'll do instead is post some thoughts on the movies I've recently seen in the site blog:
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy - This movie was a lot funnier than I thought it would be, especially considering that I've never liked Will Ferrell too much in anything else I've seen him in (particularly Saturday Night Live). Like many absurd comedies of its type, some jokes just don't work, but it moves past them pretty quickly, and when it is funny, it's very funny, with the scene of all the anchormen having a street brawl easily being the best part.
Mean Streets - I sort of liked this movie, but it's not Martin Scorsese's best work (that would be either Goodfellas or Taxi Driver), and it was a weird experience watching it. The problem is that I found Johnny Boy to be completely unlikable (although Robert Deniro was great in the role - the character is clearly intended to be unlikable and he made me REALLY dislike him), but I started getting annoyed with Charlie (Harvey Keitel) about halfway through the movie, too, for continuing to put up with all of Johnny Boy's crap. I wanted to slap Johnny Boy for being a jerk and slap Charlie to make him wake up, dump that loser, and stand up for himself. And the ending was so abrupt that it leaves you not knowing what's going to happen - will Charlie see the error of his ways or will he just keep allowing Johnny to take advantage of him? For that matter, does Johnny die or what? Don't get me wrong, it still has a lot of splendid performances and great scenes (especially the "mook" part), but it's weird watching a movie when you want to punch both main characters the entire time.
A Nightmare on Elm Street - I might have to agree with Crawl on this one when he said that it's more effective if you see it when you're younger. Well, I suppose I can't say for sure because I didn't see it when I was younger, but I can imagine it might've been more effective then. It was okay, and Tina's death scene was the best/scariest part, but I thought the ending was really cheesy.
MORE FUN WITH THE WORLD'S WORST WEB COMIC!
Wow. Been awhile since I've updated. I'm working on a few things but lately I've needed a break from this place. I haven't done this in awhile either, but...
Another update to the Downloads Page. I added a section for Killer7 with 5 mp3s.
This week on FlyingOmelette.com, I've added 10 new MP3s for Ogre Battle to the Downloads Page. I've had the PS1 version of Neo-Overture available on the Favorite Game Ending Songs article for some time, but I ripped and uploaded a better version. (I think the old one was ripped at only 80 kbps, so the quality wasn't as good as the newer one.)
In gaming news, I just finished Killer7. I beat the normal mode, the Killer8 mode, and the Hopper7 bonus round. I'll probably be reviewing it soon.
I'll probably add another Scrapbook page soon seeing as how I have a few new drawings to add to it, as well as a handful of older things...
You know the danger level is RED and approaching DEFCON 5 when there's a 90%-naked guy hanging on the wall and the floor is covered in flowers.
(Should it even be mentioned that DEFCON 5 is normal peacetime?)
The problem with the four new Albert Odyssey mp3s that was mentioned here earlier has been fixed. Feel free to download and be amazed.
I actually got it done. I added some Albert Odyssey mp3s to the Downloads Page The new songs are Balan's Fortress, Dragonmen Shrine, and Graveyard of Ages, and I replaced the mono Radoria's Castle mp3 with a stereo version. If you already got the mono version, I highly recommend replacing it with the stereo version because it sounds much better. The difference will astound you.
I added Chefelf to the Links Page.
I might have some more updates later today, but I make no guarantees. I'm thinking of finally putting up some more Albert Odyssey mp3s, but I'll need to find my copy of the game and find the cables I use to record game music to my PC directly from consoles. I also need to play through part of the game so that I can get two of the songs I want. Somewhere I have a save file at Valerian's Castle, so I need to play past that part and get to Balan's Fortress so I can get the music from that area, and then continue playing past that to Radoria's Castle to get the music from that area (at which point I can finally replace that terrible mono mp3 with a sparkling new stereo version). There are a few other areas' music I'd like to add, too, but those won't be as difficult to get. Albert Odyssey is a pretty fast-paced RPG, but the loading delays between battles slow it down a bit so I don't know if I'll get this all done today, especially since I have a few errands to run first.
Okay, so mine's actually red in color, but I just bought one of those. I made an announcement awhile ago saying that I wouldn't be buying any of the next-gen consoles. Now I REALLY mean it, because most of my "leisure" money will go to making payments on my new ride.
But as I had originally said in that announcement, it won't affect this site since I have enough games in my collection to last a lifetime. Of course, if you come here expecting reviews or information on games for the XBOX360, Wii, or PS3, you won't find them. I know most visitors of this site already realize and accept that I mostly cover games for older consoles, so I'm not trying to be redundant or condescending, but occasionally, I still do get people wanting to know why I don't cover newer consoles, and now more than ever I have a solid reason.
Speaking of updates, I have a small one for today. I added some new songs to the SaGa Frontier section of the Downloads Page. The new ones are Battle 3, Last Battle Red, Margmel in Ruin, Opening Theme, and Shingrow. Eventually, I'll have some more stuff for that section...
I did some major tinkering with the Image Arcane & RAU Who's Who pages. The following changes were made:
Updated information for many characters. Some information was either outdated, incorrect, or too vague. I'm also trying to jot down new ideas for the characters as I think of them so that I don't eventually forget them (anyone who's actually read through any of the IA-related pages should have a pretty good idea of just how good I am at remembering details about my characters.)
I also added a few new pictures here and there, too, so that the tables would look better for characters with longer descriptions.
Removed some characters whose names I could not find, such as the bullfrog and the light mage. I do not want every single creature and unused character design I've ever drawn put in the Who's Who; only those that had names and specific roles.
The "penguin" was renamed to "Kog" and moved to the "JKL" section. (I found out what his name was when I discovered a pog with him and his name depicted on it.)
Added some characters that were missing (like Salvus Lidsun, Gaelia, Max Komodo, Hermes, Rex Cardinal, and Torque).
I removed some questions from the Q&A that weren't necessary and updated some of the others. I removed Dragonia from the list of continents because I decided to drop that part of the storyline. I actually had decided that a long time ago, so I don't know why Dragonia was even mentioned.
Also, the description of the RAU was inaccurate. I actually created that series BEFORE Image Arcane, not after it, although until IA characters were added to the roster, the strip was not named and it was even more random in nature. Essentially, before IA came along, the RAU was a collection of random, unrelated comic strips I wrote all throughout elementary school. In fact, one sketch I recall debated the meaning of "RAU" - it officially stood for "Rare and Uncensored", but someone else argued it could just as easily be "Random and Unrelated".
Added a document that explains the differences between the preliminary episodes of Image Arcane and the main series.
Revamped the color-coding system. Some characters are now more neatly classified by their group affiliations.
I've changed the name of the Dark Mage School of Grimmora to "Mage University of Grimmora". Uh, it really made so sense that it was called "Dark" Mage School when it was founded by a Wind Mage and a Fire Mage. This change also makes it more clear that the school is treated more like a college than a high school or elementary school, even though many students begin their education there when they're still quite young.
I'm trying to clean up all incidents of where I referred to Chance as "Chancey". Although occasionally sometimes his friends call him that to tease him, I've kind of grown to dislike that nickname almost as much as he does and would prefer if his standard canonical nomenclature could simply be "Chance".
I updated the Game Ending Songs Tribute pages. The following songs were added that previously existed elsewhere on the site:
Indiana Jones & the Infernal Machine
Little Ninja Brothers (converted midi)
Metroid (converted midi)
Radical Dreamers (converted midi)
Ys Book 2
The following additions are completely new to the site:
Ganbare Goemon Mononoke Sugoroku
Terranigma
I added a 59th Scrapbook Page . As promised, the first half contains a bunch of pictures that I had drawn for an advanced cartoon class that I took sometime around 1995. Just don't say I didn't warn you about how frightening some of it is. The second half contains more old storyboard stuff from my archives, but I also went into a little in-depth explanation of the history of Nucleo and Cory.
I added a section for SaGa Frontier with 15 songs to the Downloads Page. I also slightly reorganized that section and gave it a new look.
Also added a link to GSHI to the Links page.
I added "The Realm of Gigs" to the Links Page.
Finally, I added two more pages to the Scrapbook.
Page 57 contains all of the most recent sketches I've done, and a handful of stuff from my older archives.
Page 58 focuses primarily on unused or abandoned character designs. There are lots of weird monsters and cartoon animals here.
I'll be adding a third Scrapbook page soon. I have a stash of artwork from my Advanced Cartooning Class that I took many, many years ago that I've been reluctant to post because I think most of it is hideous, but eh, might as well bite the bullet. After all, few things are more hideous than that "Ninja Nucleo" and I posted that.
ROCKIN' KATS REVIEW
I updated the Links Page. I added AnimevsGames.com and updated the descriptions for sites whose content had changed, outdating my previous descriptions.
I also added Last Sunset to the Poetry Preserve. I don't write poems/songs too much anymore, but every once in awhile, inspiration hits me. It was hard not to be inspired with all the crap I've put up with over the past few years at my job, which is sort of what that song's about.
Yesterday I spent the day at Cedar Point. I still think the Raptor is the best ride they have there. Unfortunately, they took out one of the water rides (Whitewater Landings) to work on a new rollercoaster. I only hope it's as good as the Raptor, otherwise, what's the point? I wonder if the upkeep on water rides costs more than normal coasters...
I also saw Toy Story 2 recently. (Now the only Pixar movie I haven't seen is A Bug's Life). I can see why IGN called it the #1 animated movie of all-time - not because I agree with it, but most likely because it contains numerous videogame-related jokes and references, as well as other jokes that gamers can appreciate (like that "Mint in Box" thing). And it's one of the few times I've seen videogame-related material in a movie that didn't use them to make an anti-videogame sentiment. However, I didn't think the movie came close to topping the first Toy Story, but that one just had SO many advantages in being Pixar's first film.
Oh, numbnuts! I was going to finish my Rockin' Kats review tonight but I was so tired, I came home from work, ate dinner, lied down on the bed for a few minutes and completely conked out. I'd finish it now that I'm awake again, but I don't want to write it while feeling half-asleep.
So instead, for tonight,one more recent sketch:
Young Nucleo McRaven and Image Arcane
A few days ago, I came down with a really terrible head cold. I had a fever and a sore throat for a couple of days and it seems likely to be a sinus infection. I have no idea how I got it. Crawl and I visited a zoo right before it happened, so I'm guessing that I got it from someone there somehow. I later found out that a lot of people at work have been sick with it, but I was on vacation so it couldn't have come from there. Must be something going around town. I am starting to get over it now and I took all kinds of precautions to keep it from traveling into my bronchial tubes. That ALWAYS happens when I get sick, but through the magic of Google I learned a few things to help prevent that and it seems to have worked so far.
Because I've been sick, I haven't been able to do much. I started playing Killer 7, but haven't gotten far and it's a difficult game to understand. Therefore, I didn't want to play it while being sick because I wouldn't be able to concentrate on it. I started that Rockin' Kats review, but likewise, it's hard to stay focused on it.
So basically, I turned to my other hobbies for awhile. One is goofing around with old save files from games I've beaten before. I discovered that Azalea's name is corrupted on my copy of Might & Magic:
It looks like two Japanese letters have replaced the "AL" in her name. Weird.
The other hobby is drawing IA stuff. I didn't think I'd be able to stay focused on drawing anything at all for very long, but I surprised myself and did quite a few new sketches. For anyone who's interested...
Despite being only half-mountain devil, Cory has some cat-like instincts
Argument for why Nucleo should probably get pants that actually fit him
Cory is an endless source of amusement
This one's overflowing with cuteness so view at own risk
Christopher's caught himself a mountain devil
This is either the most ridiculous thing I've ever drawn or the greatest
Now that I'm starting to feel better, I'll probably pick up the pace here again, but aside from that Rockin' Kats review, I'm not sure what to work on next. Crawl's been playing the NES Might & Magic, and that's sort of got me wanting to play that game again, but I had wanted to make a shrine for it the next time I did that, and I was planning a different game shrine first. I guess we'll see how I feel about things in a little while.
Oh, and I also saw the Steve McQueen movie Bullit for the first time. Good movie with some great chase scenes, but I thought that all the scenes with his girlfriend were pointless and they could have been excised without affecting much at all.
The Midi Conversions Page has been updated again. I've given the page a complete makeover and updated with the following stuff:
Doom Castle for Final Fantasy Mystic Quest
Battle, Map, Shop, and Title Themes for Might & Magic
3 new Snake Rattle n Roll midis
SNES version of Ballacetine Castle for Wanderers From Ys
Added the Chapter 5 Maps to the THE MAGIC OF SCHEHERAZADE SHRINE. I also added a link to a website containing an MOS Manga to the Art Page, courtesy of forum moderator SethraShnoo. The Shrine is pretty much complete. Sethra also submitted some glitches and oddities that I'll eventually post, but I need to try them out first.
Future plans for this site include an upcoming review of Rockin' Kats (which I recently finished) and farther off into the future, another game shrine. I need to take a break from shrine-building for a little while. It's really fun doing them, but after two in a row, I feel burnt out on it.
I'm also going to start working on the character profile pages for Image Arcane. I think there are only four up on the site right now (Aurora, Eddy, Kin-Liu, and Tomi), but without even looking at them, I know they'll need to be completely redone. I'm constantly brainstorming new ideas for the characters as well as slowly remembering old details I had forgotten, so I'm guessing the descriptions will be outdated already. I'm also working on redesigning and refining the characters so that they won't look as bad as they do in a lot of the scrapbook pages. I'd also like for the profile pages to be more "complete". Instead of just explaining a little bit about the modern versions of the characters, I'd like to include their history in the series. (I tried this once before, but it was so sloppily put together, that it got really confusing. I'll try much harder to organize it this time.)
The Midi Conversions Page is finally updated! I've added the following stuff:
Ending theme for Contra (carried over from the Game Ending Songs article)
Ending theme for Dragon Warrior (also carried over)
Battle theme for Final Fantasy Mystic Quest
Crystal Corridor theme for The Guardian Legend
Level 2 (Version 2) for Heroes of the Lance
Battle Theme 4 and Boss Theme for Hiryu No Ken
Blast Furnace and Credits Theme for HyperZone
Dungeon 1 (Version 3) for Legacy of the Wizard
Ending theme for The Legend of Zelda (also carried over)
18 new midis for Little Ninja Brothers
All midis for The Magic of Scheherazade carried over from the Shrine
Title theme for Maniac Mansion
Ending theme for Radical Dreamers
3 new Wanderers From Ys midis
We have more Adventures in Site Tracking!
Still working on the midis...I'll have some more stuff available later...
Thank you so much, forum moderator James FP, for sending me the link to a website that has the Little Ninja Brothers NSF! Awhile ago, I had requested that if anyone knew where to get it, to please send it to me or email the link, and thankfully, James remembered. If I wasn't already in a relationship with someone, I would kiss both you and the person who made that site. A virtual hug will have to do. You've made my day.
You know what that means...Little Ninja Brothers midis will be on the way soon...(And I'm still working on those Chapter 5 MOS maps.)
I've updated Documentation of Game Glitches with information on the following games:
Blaster Master
King Arthur & the Knights of Justice
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
The Magic of Scheherazade
I also reorganized the section slightly to make it easier to read.
THE MAGIC OF SCHEHERAZADE SHRINE is almost complete. Pretty much everything is done except the Chapter 5 maps. Here's a rundown of everything that's new:
Added Hassan to Characters.
Added Kaji and Scheherazade to NPC's.
Added all remaining monsters and the boss Goragora to Monsters.
Added L. Armor, Isfa, and Legend to Items.
Added new spells and updated existing information for Spells.
Oddities has a lot of new information. Added three new references, a section for glitches and weirdness, and updated the information on the reference for "Mooroon".
Added a new page of Screenshots.
Added Chapter 5 of the Guide. The Guide link on the index of the shrine now goes to a Chapter Listing Page.
Fixed the information under Counselor's Corner Screw-Up #2 on the Art Page. Okay, so I got it slightly wrong, too. I forgot that the Fire Palace and Yufla Palace are two different places. I was still more right than they were, though, because neither palace is under the lava cape. And I didn't leave out the entire step of getting Rainy to join, either.
Once I get the maps done, the shrine will be complete.
Despite the fact that I know it will raise the ire of some folks, this is something I wish I had started years ago
I didn't mention it yesterday but I updated Q&A. I will not be including Q&A amongst the updated articles at the top since I update it once or twice a week anyway (so long as I actually get emails to reply to).
In the last blog entry, I had mentioned my thoughts on the differences between a "professional" Top 100 list and personal lists. I've been told otherwise - that there is no difference, no matter how you try to defend it. Well, just to illustrate that I'm not the only one who feels that way, I happened to notice the July 31st entry in film critic James Berardinelli's Reelthoughts, and even though he's specifically talking about movie lists, everything he says there could just as easily be applied to game-related lists, too. I personally agree with pretty much everything he said, especially the part about "safe choices" because I was going to say something very similar to that before I even read his article. That's another problem with "professional" lists is that you're never going to learn anything from them. It's futile to read a professional Top 100 with hopes of finding some rare gem you may have missed out on, because it's always the same games, the same ones you hear about all the time, and in the rare cases that something quirky is included, they usually fall into one of two categories: (1) Games that are so rare that they go for exhorbitant auction prices, few people have played them as a result, and the lore surrounding them has elevated them to a "legendary" status that they don't necessarily deserve. (2) Games whose only redeeming quality is the quirkiness and once you get past that, there's no substantial gameplay or challenge to remain interested in.
Anyway, I usually don't clean up the blog until the end of the month, but since this one ran extremely long, I'm going to clean it up in a few days.
I've updated my Links Page. I'm generally quite bad about keeping that thing updated, but I've tried getting around to returning links to all sites who have done the same for this one. I also added a few links to sites I've heavily relied upon for resources, such as Zophar's Domain and SNESmusic.org.
Another thing of note is that I decided to re-link Roger Ebert's site. You might know that awhile ago I had a small tirade against him going on here, mainly because I couldn't visit his site without it annoying me in some way, but all things considered, removing the link was probably going a step too far. (And then of course, right after that, he ends up in the hospital, so now I really feel like a jerk.) But it seemed like every other game-related site on the internet had something to say about that videogame controversy, and it felt odd to me that no one else brought up the points that I did. Regardless, I don't think Ebert's entirely to blame. I certainly know how some gamers can get if you say something they don't agree with and some of his comments were likely a knee-jerk reaction, something which almost anyone can fall victim to, including myself, which brings me to my next subject:
I've temporarily removed the Message Board Rules and Site FAQ. Note that in the case of the forums, this is not an invitation to a free-for-all. I just need time to rewrite both of those sections so that I don't sound so cynical and mean-spirited in them. The particular things I had complaints about that I wanted to address. This is gonna get kind of long, so bail out now if you don't like long-winded blog entries...3...2...1
1. In the Site FAQ section, I was told that I was being a jackass about the "Top 50 Ending Songs" issue. It was a combination of a knee-jerk reaction to some backlash I had received for that article and a general frustration with the arbitrary nature of what becomes popular on the internet. I threw that article together as quickly as I possibly could just for fun and never particularly thought of it as being one of my best. I was completely unprepared for the attention it would receive, and thus got a bit annoyed by things I probably should have just ignored. I was reminded of a few times when certain articles on other sites would get posted on every single message board and blog in existence and the only thought that could go through my mind was, "I know someone who wrote an article just like this years ago, and it was better. Why didn't it get this kind of attention?"
I did not mean to upset anyone who had linked the list for enjoyment or was just expressing their opinions on its content (including dissenting ones), and I apologize to anyone I offended. But know that it was not you I was aiming that tirade at anyway. It was the people who felt it necessary to write me things like "WORST. SONG. EVER!!", or "THIS game should have been #1!" I find the idea of telling someone what their opinions should be highly disturbing. I actually did listen to some of the things that I was told "should be #1" and they were nowhere near on par with what I had originally picked for that slot. I can't imagine someone who was being objective about it and not just wanting to see their favorite game win, (repeat, favorite game, not necessarily the one that has the best ending song), would honestly believe they were better, unless that person just has bizarre musical tastes. And if you have bizarre musical tastes, then you should probably understand why others might not agree with your #1 pick.
There were also the "professional" sites that were sensationalizing it as "The Top 50 Best Game Ending Song s of All Time!" when the title was clearly "Flying Omelette's Top 50 Favorite Game Ending Songs". Some people will argue there's no difference between a "Best of All Time" and a "Favorites" list, but I disagree, especially since I knew when I wrote the article that there were likely other great game ending songs I hadn't yet heard that would be more deserving of being on it. Indeed, within months of writing it, I discovered the ending songs of Radical Dreamers and Resident Evil Zero (ironically, neither of them had been suggested.) But if I waited to write the article before I've heard every game ending song in existence (or even just those that are well-known as being supposedly good), then I would never have been able to write it at all.
Suffice it to say, I'm really happy with the reworked version of the article. I think eliminating the "Top 50" format will clear up confusion, and it allows me to offer even more great ending songs for your listening pleasure without compromising existing entries. And, no, I don't feel it's a cop-out either since I'm still not shy about saying which ones I think are the very best. =)
2. In the Forum Rules section, some people felt I was being too "uptight" or "elitist" about certain things. The reason why I say I sometimes bend the rules for longtime regulars is not because "they're my friends and I favor them and therefore they can do whatever they want". It's because they've been around so long that they're experienced in knowing how and when to appropriately handle certain things. They know what's acceptable behavior and what's annoying or disruptive. Example: Posting a link to a topic on another message board that relates to the discussion is usually okay. But starting topic after topic (in the main forum, no less) with links to topics on other boards while saying, "OMG! Look at THIS!" and "LOL! This person got BANNED!" is not okay.
3. That "Mayflower" thing: This is in NO WAY implying that if you want to make a post about, oh, say Pit being in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, that you have to search every page of the forum, find a moldy old thread that relates to Kid Icarus or Super Smash Bros. in some way, and post about it in there. (Yes, there are message boards that are like that. Ours isn't.) But if we *just had* a 40-post discussion of "OMG! Pit in Super Smash Bros. Brawl!" and that topic is still on the first page of the forum, then there is no need to start a new one just yet. Otherwise, we'd have a million people starting new topics of "OMG! Pit in Super Smash Bros. Brawl!" Awhile ago, when Majora's Mask was first announced, the message board I used to frequent at that time actually got FOUR NEW TOPICS in one day announcing, "OMG! MAJORA'S MASK!!!!" After the fourth one, the admin kindly asked for people to please look over the forum once to make sure a topic with a similar subject to what you're about to post hasn't already been started, to which she was given replies of, "Well, excuse me! I don't READ every TOPIC!" No, of course not. And with that kind of attitude, we shouldn't have to read yours, either.
4. The "Welcome Me Back" issue: I clearly stated that you would not be disciplined or banned for making these kinds of posts. I simply requested (but perhaps not as kindly as I could have) that you not make them, and to instead reply to the ongoing "Game Progress" and/or "Life Progress" with an "I'm back" message and quick rundown of what you've been doing. I personally don't feel it's too much to ask. You don't know what it's like to have "Billy" screaming at you because "Johnny" got welcomed back by 20 people and "Billy" only got 2. But a suggestion for those who choose to ignore my request and post them anyway: If you don't get that many replies, try replying again and saying hello back to the people who welcomed you. I've consistently noticed that those who do that get more replies than those who post once and disappear again.
One other thing before I go. I realized that sometimes my recent updates can get lost amongst the blog entries, so in addition to announcing and listing them here, I'll also include the most recently-added or updated articles at the top of the page, too, just below the banner. That should make them more quickly and easily found.
MIDWAY PRESENTS ARCADE'S GREATEST HITS: THE ATARI COLLECTION 1 REVIEW
Get caught up on the site updates now if you haven't already because I'll soon be cleaning up the mess that is this site's blog.
We have Chapter 4 Scheherazade Maps!
All that's left now is Chapter 5. I'll begin work on that eventually but lately I was feeling a bit burnt out on shrine-building. Usually I'll throw together a Scrapbook page when I need a break from normal site updates, but I'm running low on usable material in my archives...
I took a break from working on the Magic of Scheherazade Shrine because I really needed to update the Top 50 Game Ending Songs Article. Actually, at the risk of sending my bandwidth through the roof, that article has been completely reworked into this:
FO's Favorite Game Ending Songs Tribute
A rundown of the changes:
New layout that I essentially copied from the Poetry Preserve (because I wasn't using it for anything else and it looks nice.)
Entries are no longer numbered. All games listed in alphabetical order by title. The reason for this change is so that I could update the list with new stuff without having to worry about removing old ones. And also so that I can add stuff any time I want as opposed to waiting until I have exactly 50 more things to expand it into a Top 100, or something like that.
31 new games complete with downloads and screenshots have been added.
All SPCs have been removed as I felt they were unnecessary.
Some existing entries were updated with new mp3s and/or midis.
Commentary updated and corrected. Added in some composer names that were missing.
Now that that's done, I'll continue work on those Chapter 4 maps of MOS and I'll get to covering the final Chapter 5 afterwards. I am also about 3/4 of the way through another game review, so that should be coming up shortly, too.
I also updated Q&A.
"I'm Crazy Hammer-Head! And I want some candy! I don't have a normal head, I got a damn hammer growing out of it! Now, give me some crazy candy, dammit! Ow-ooo, this hammer makes me crazy!"
Updated THE MAGIC OF SCHEHERAZADE SHRINE with all information pertaining to Chapter 4. Updates include:
Added Guibibi and Rainy to Characters.
Added Feisal and two townspeople sprites to NPC's.
Added new monsters and the boss Salamander to Monsters.
Added Holy Robe, Crystal, and Rostam to Items. Finally got that damn key sprite! Fixed the Ring sprite.
Added two new references to Oddities.
Added Chapter 4 of the Guide.
Will work on Chapter 4 maps next...
Added Pukin and Mustafa to Characters.
Added Mohammed, Cimaron Tree, Supapa, and Roxanne to NPC's.
Added new monsters and the boss Troll to Monsters.
Added R. Armor, Cimaron, and Kashim to Items. Fixed the Rod sprites and added the Horn sprite (still working on getting the Key sprite).
Added a 56th IA Scrapbook Page. Still working on those MOS maps...
Added Gun Meca, Supica, and Epin to Characters.
Added Zainab, Lah, and Ishutal to NPC's.
Added new monsters and the boss Curly to Monsters.
Added M. Boots, Stardust, and Dragoon to Items.
Added three new references to Oddities.
I am busy working on the Chapter 2 Maps, but those always take a little longer.
I updated the SWITCHED AT BIRTH? WTF EDITION article with a couple of things that got omitted. This happens every single time I put one of these things together, but there was an entry that I added, but accidentally deleted somewhere along the way. I added it back in (it's the one with Sabaron), and I also added another update to the MOS/SMB2 Saga courtesy of forum moderator, CB007. Finally, as a bonus, I added...well, I don't want to spoil it, so just look at the next-to-last one.
Also added ONE new entry to the Image Arcane SAB courtesy of forum member, CataTonic9.
Also updated Oddities 23 with more information on the Chaz/Roddy comparison courtesy of forum moderator, Codie Martin, and I changed the picture of Chaz to a better one.
I added a few things to the MOS Oddities Page. I updated the part about Coronya's name, thanks to some additional information from forum member, Magical Yard Gnome. I also added information on two more references found in Little Ninja Brothers.
SWITCHED AT BIRTH? WTF EDITION
Took a break from doing the Game Shrine thing today and put together another SAB page.
I also added THREE new entries to the Image Arcane SAB.
THE MAGIC OF SCHEHERAZADE SHRINE
I had been talking about doing this for years. Even started the project once before a long, long time ago, but quit and lost the files when my Acer PC died. However, doing the KOJ Shrine got me back into the groove of things, and this I hope will be one of the most complete sites this overlooked NES RPG/Adventure hybrid gem will get.
For right now, most of the information in the Shrine, like the Guide, Maps, Items, Spells, Characters, NPCS, and Monsters, is only what's found in the first chapter of the game. As I continue my replay, I will add more as I complete each chapter, just as I did with the KOJ Shrine. I am simultaneously replaying this game on my NES and an emulator to be sure I don't miss anything.
I added scans of the Knights of Justice box art to the Downloads Page. Thankfully, my box for that game survived the apartment flood.
Completely proofread and fixed all typos I could find in the Knights of Justice Shrine. At one point, I had said to go east in Crownhorn Village, but I actually meant west. Thankfully, that was the only incident of reversed directions I could find. I also updated Part 7 of the Guide with information pertaining to the Staff Piece glitch.
I was proofreading my Knights of Justice Shrine and noticed I had forgotten to put the Gold Coins on the Items Page. Probably the reason I forgot it was because it's pretty much identical to the Cloak of Death in both the way you obtain it and what it's used for. I also fixed up some typos and inaccuracies on most of the pages except the guide. I'll be doing that later...
I brought this up a couple of times before, but now I've got something to add:
Am I the only person who thinks some kind of conspiracy is going on here? Same pose with the arms, same big open smile, and these are all time-traveling cats!!
Um, okay, apparently I was also bitten by the time-traveling cat phenomena. Look at this drawing of Harken I did about 20 or so years ago (before I would've known of the existence of any of the others):
Arms in almost the same pose, mouth is shaped a little differently but it's still wide open, and he not only travels through time, but he can manipulate it, too!
It's like that ending to Chrono Trigger where you screw around with time and everyone ends up being a frog...only someone screwed with time and now everyone's a large-mouthed cat.
I have begun work on another huge site project, but it's too early to make it public.
The Knights of Justice Shrine is complete!
The remaining maps were added to the Maps Page, and a second page of Screenshots was added to the Gallery.
I may eventually add more to it if and when I find appropriate things to add, but for now I'll consider it done.
It was a real blast putting that shrine together. I feel like I now know more about that game than anyone on the planet besides the people who actually worked on it (and I'm still trying to decide if that's a good or bad thing.)
I'm thinking of putting together another game shrine, but I won't announce anything until I'm sure...One advantage I had with Knights of Justice is that I actually started making the shrine years ago, but never finished it. Thankfully, even though I've gone through three computers since that time, I managed to keep all the files I created for it. I had already taken screenshots and had a lot of sprite images of everything up to the quest with the four elemental keys, so that was a huge part of the game done already, and I already had most of the front page design all done (including the background, title, and the section images.)
But if I start another shrine now, I'd have to start from scratch, so it'll take me a little longer to get going since I have to design everything from the bottom-up.
The Knights of Justice Shrine is ALMOST complete! The following was added/changed today:
1. To Characters: Added all remaining characters, including all the people in the Dark Forest, Morgana, and King Arthur.
2. To Downloads: Rearranged the section slighty. Added a section for external links and moved the link to the SPC site to that section. Also corrected the descriptions on some of the mp3s. "Quiet Forest Trail" was labeled as being the Dark Forest music, but that was incorrect. The Dark Forest reuses the Swamp of Zagar music.
3. To Enemies: Fixed the Green Knight's sprite and added the Ghost Knight and Morgana.
4. To the Guide: Added an index page with links to all the other pages. Added Quest #8 and the Ending Sequence.
5. To Items: Added the remaining items, all of which are found in the Dark Forest.
6. To Oddities: Added lots of information on various things, including unusued dialogue and items hidden in the ROM, and the meanings of the names on the tombstones.
All I have left to update are the Screenshot Gallery and the Maps sections, but I am out of time for tonight.
I added in those missing Maps. We're getting down to the wire here. There's only one quest left to go and the shrine will be finished...
All information pertaining to the 7th Quest of Knights of Justice has been added to Enemies, Characters, Items, Screenshots, Oddities, and the Guide.
As usual, I'll add the new maps later. They always take a little more time and I hate to hold up the entire update until they're done.
I have awarded the Golden Ridely to two more extremely well-deserving videogame websites. They are Hardcore Gaming 101 and The Video Game Museum. Both excellent sites to check out if you haven't already (and if you haven't, what, are you living under a rock?) They are plentiful resources for information, screenshots, and downloads pertaining to a wide variety of games and game series, new and old.
I added the missing maps for Quest #6 to the Maps Page for Knights of Justice.
I cleaned up the Q&A section. I archived questions 61-80 and added one new one.
More Knights of Justice Updates:
All information pertaining to the 6th Quest has been added to Enemies, Characters, Items, Screenshots, Oddities, and the Guide.
I fixed the map of Castle Vilor. I had forgotten to mark the direct route to the boss. I also fixed the note about the Blaise and the Crownhown Bakery in Part 5 of the Guide. (Apparently, his request for the Staff of Life is something from a quest that didn't make it into the final cut of the game.)
I am working on the maps for Quest #6, but I don't know if I'll have them done before the night is over...
To the Knights of Justice Shrine, I have added scans of the Nintendo Power Epic Center issues that covered the game to the Downloads Page, including both the interview and the walkthrough for the first half.
Other revisions to the Knights of Justice Shrine:
The Knights Page had some factual errors on it. The following was corrected:
I had said there was no real difference in the strength of the knights despite what their stats say. I have since learned that this isn't true. There are differences, but they are so subtle it can be hard to notice them. Trunk, for example, does have the best defense as he took far less damage from Warlord Viper's attacks than Arthur did.
I had said that the knights are often described as using projectile weapons they don't actually use. I had said their only projectiles are their shield attacks. Actually, the descriptions ARE of their shield attacks! I never actually noticed this before, but Lug does indeed fire a football when you use his shield attack, and Brick does indeed shoot a brick from his chest. In fact, it seems very few knights actually use the shield for the shield attack, as many of them fire it from their lance or their chest!
The following corrections were made to the Items Page:
I had said that when the knights gain both their key and their shield, they are granted unlimited shield attacks. This is actually only true for certain knights, like Breeze. For others, they gain something else, like higher defense or attack power.
I removed the note about the unlimited shield attacks being "useless game design" since even though you almost always are controlling Arthur, a simple method for using unlimited shield attacks is to take Breeze and switch to him when enemies are onscreen (this strategy was also added to the Knights page).
First of all, it was pointed out to me that Cartoon Corner appeared to have disappeared from the site. Actually, the index and the articles all still existed, but when I changed over to the new format, I neglected to link it in the table to the left. That's been done.
I fixed that problem that was causing a huge amount of nasty blank space at the bottom of the updates in this table.
Forum Rules has been slightly updated. I added a section on policies regarding the invitation of other people to the forums.
I also now have a brand new Site FAQ. I would like all visitors, new and old, to take some time to read through it, especially if there is anything that's been on your mind regarding this site lately. Maybe it'll be answered in there.
Work continues on the Knights of Justice Shrine, but I have no new updates at the moment.
Phew! Took me two nights to finish it all, but I added all the information pertaining to the 5th, and thus far the longest quest of Knights of Justice to the Shrine. New material has been added to Enemies, Characters, Items, Screenshots, Maps, and the Guide.
I added the missing maps for Quest #4 to the Knights of Justice Maps Page.
I decided to upgrade my Knights of Justice Guide to include more screenshots. I figured, that's the one major advantage I have here over most FAQ sites, and it worked really well for the Blinder's Way section, so I may as well go ahead and do it for the others. It also really helps if you're still having trouble finding an item, even with my directions and crude maps, if you have a screenshot of exactly what you're looking for.
I have added all information pertaining to the fourth quest of Knights of Justice, except for the maps. I will get to the maps a little later. But new material has been added to Enemies, Characters, Items, Screenshots, Oddities, and the Guide.
Wow! I've noticed that if you search "Knights of Justice FAQ" on Google, mine is the first result that comes up...already. And it's not even finished! When it's all finished I will create an index page for the guide that will let you directly skip to any of its sections. I'd rather wait until it's all finished to make the index so that I can link all the pages to it at once, as opposed to updating it every single time a new one is added.
I'm too sick to work on the Knights of Justice Shrine for now, although I promise I will get back to it once my flu is gone. But I felt like updating today anyway, and even though I already got one update in, I felt like that was cheating because it was actually already done several days ago. All I had to do was upload it. So, since I've been drawing a lot more lately than usual, I put together a new Scrapbook Page. The first two sketches I did within the past two days, but the rest is all old stuff.
I added the mp3s to the Knights of Justice Downloads Page. I also decided to link the Knights of Justice guide, as well as the Kid Icarus level guide and the Arc the Lad 4 final boss FAQ to my Game Guides Page, because even though they're available elsewhere on the site, you'd have to dig through the shrines to find them. This way, if you're only looking for the guide, you can go right to it from there.
I finally fixed that problem that was causing the left table to drop down with the updates.
I've got a really bad flu goin' on here, so I'm taking a break from the Knights of Justice Shrine for now. I'll be uploading the mp3s soon since they're already made and that takes little effort on my part. I can just sleep while they're uploading.
Anyway, I just wanted to point this out:
Ebert's Review of Garfield 2
This is a perfect example of what I was talking about earlier. 1. Gimmicky review technique that makes reading it a chore. 2. Seven paragraphs in before he actually starts talking about the movie. 3. Another instance of Ebert picking on another critic's opinion by completely dismissing it and not addressing it:
"One of Roeper's complaints was that I was animated and all of the other characters in the movie were "real." Do you have any idea how a statement like that hurts an actor who has worked all of his life as a media cat? Yes, Richard Roeper, I was animated. Read my lips: I am a character in a comic strip. What Roeper should have done for perfect consistency is complain that Dennis was not animated in "Dennis the Menace."
Uh, dude...He's not complaining that Garfield is animated. He's complaining that he's the only thing that's animated. Garfield has always been a cartoon character in a world of cartoon characters, in both the comics and the TV shows. Why isn't the whole movie animated? What if Lightning McQueen was the only thing that was animated in Cars?
And of course, this movie ends up in the "recommendations" column. Remember, boys and girls, if you don't want to see Garfield 2, it's not because it could possibly be an awful movie. It's because you're an uncultured idiot who was raised on videogames.
Well, it's been a year. Everyone in the community knows what it means when someone says "It's been a year" without saying what it's been a year since. That's right!
THE FORUM RULES ARE BACK!
I always hate posting this thing because I know it only gives attention to them, but what can you do? I'm outvoted.
I've come down with a flu, so work on the Knights of Justice Shrine might slow down for awhile. We'll see...
For the Knights of Justice Shrine, all information pertaining to the third quest has been added to Enemies, Maps, Screenshots, and the Guide. Yes, it took me two nights to do it, but I finally mapped Blinder's Way.
I also updated the KOJ Oddities with some mysteries involving the Blinder's Way map and the case of the missing Brick. I realized I had forgotten to put the Pendragon Shield on the Items page, so that's been added in. I also fixed the map of the Eastern Forest. I realized that the "unreachable gate" I was seeing was actually just the gates that surround the cellar door to Gruesome Keep.
I added some stuff to the Knights of Justice Oddities page. Some amazing SAB's and a strange French jewel.
The Knights of Justice Shrine has been updated with all the information pertaining to the second quest. There is now new stuff in the Characters, Enemies, Items, Maps, and Screenshots sections, as well as a new guide page that covers everything up to beating Warlord Bash.
Because someone just had to go and do it...
KNIGHTS OF JUSTICE SHRINE!!
...and I figured it might as well be me.
To be perfectly clear, this part of the site is a Work-in-Progress. I'm currently replaying the game on both an SNES and an emulator at the same time. As I complete the quests, I will add more to the shrine. Right now, the Shrine's content pretty much only reflects what's in the very first quest as far as enemies, maps, items, characters, and the walkthrough go. To reiterate, it is NOT finished, but I will continue to work on it as I play the game.
Other than that review of the Midway Arcade Classics Collection I promised, I won't be working on too much else for the site until this project is finished, and as you can see, it's a huge project.
Well, that's weird...if I have too many updates visible, it forces the table to the left down...Why is nothing in this world ever perfect?
Um, oops. Top 50 Game Ending Songs Part 2 was missing the Japanese version of the Arc the Lad 4 ending song. When I changed over from WMAs to MP3s on the downloads page awhile ago I forgot to fix that. It's taken care of. I also updated Q&A.
I centered the tables here so that the page would look better on higher resolutions.
My site got throttled last night due to the fact that my bandwidth limit was never increased to reflect my total limit. In other words, I have a limit of about 2100 GB per month, but my throttling was still set to the old limit at 274. What's causing the sudden spike?
Yep. Another newsfeed service picked up that Top 50 Game Ending Songs article. I thought the entire internet got their fill of it already the last time that happened (and it's in need of being updated now!!), but here we go again. I'll have to keep an eye on my bandwidth totals until the hype dies down again.
FlyingOmelette.com now has a new design. I was getting tired of scrolling up and down or having to click the links at the top to reach the site sections, especially when the blog entries ran long. However, the old design gave me more freedom with the blog, so I'm not sure what I can do to compensate for that. I might just have to post smaller pictures. We'll see...
I moved the Top 50 Favorite Game Songs article to the Rec Room. I moved all old updates to the Update Log. I'm not going to be applying this design to any other existing pages, but I might apply it to future pages.
Update: 6/12/06
I updated Q&A and added a 54th Scrapbook Page. I don't have that many pictures on this page because a lot of them are really large and I compensated for the loading times by including fewer this round. I mainly wanted to get some better scans of pre-existing images up now that I have a better scanner.
Battlezone on ZSNES:
Uh yeah...the other 5 games on the Midway collection run fine, but that one's just messed up. The game itself actually works, but it's rather cumbersome to play with those lines all over the screen. I'll have to use my capture card and my SNES to get a screenshot for that one.
I still think Missile Command has the best single "Game Over" screen. Few things are scarier than those giant block letters telling you in no uncertain terms that all of humanity has just come to an end.
I made a few more updates to the MP3 Downloads Page:
Added a section for DoDonPachi with SIX songs.
Added a section for Vagrant Story with ONE song.
That's all I'm going to be adding for now. DoDonPachi was a little difficult to do. With the exception of the Final Boss Intro Theme, the tracks run for about 6-7 minutes each. Despite how good the music is, it's a little tiresome to listen to them for that long. So, I cut them down to two loops in Sound Recorder and added in fadeouts with Encounter2003.
Okay, I didn't quite get my updates done yesterday because I'm still on dialup and it took all day to upload the mp3s. Here's everything I got done:
To the MP3 Downloads Page:
Added "The Day of Departure" to the Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits section.
Added a section for Castlevania: Symphony of the Night with FIVE songs.
Replaced the wmas for the two Eternal Darkness songs with mp3s, courtesy of Codie Martin. "The Gift of Forever" now also contains the "Ram Dao" music at the end.
Added a section for Legend of Mana with NINE songs. (Highly recommended!)
Added "I am Impact!" to the Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon section.
Added a section for Radical Dreamers with TWO songs.
Added a section for Tales of Phantasia with ONE song.
Added the Ys Shrine music and the Ys 2 Canal music to the Ys Book 1 & 2 section.
To the NES Midis Page:
Section has been renamed "NES and Super NES Midi Conversions" because I've started to add SNES midis (converted with SPC2MIDI).
Added a section for King Arthur & the Knights of Justice with TWO midis.
Added a section for Legacy of the Wizard with FOUR midis.
Elsewhere on the site:
Updated Q&A. (The latest answer contains an entire tutorial on converting NES music to MP3s.)
Archived the May updates to the 2006 log.
Mad Leader Mystery solved by site reader Rey Calavera! It appears our masked Marvel villain is the Grim Reaper from The Avengers. That certainly looks like him. But he doesn't have green skin, so maybe the artist did copy it from the drawing book after all. I still wish I could find a picture of Lor (who does supposedly have green skin) for comparison, but for now I'll say the book is closed on this. I'll have some more updates later today, including Q&A, more game music downloads, and possibly some Image Arcane stuff. I'm also going to begin work on a feature for the Midway Arcade Classics Collection (SNES) soon.
Update: 6/9/06
One more update on the Mad Leader situation (sorry that this is borderlining on "obsession" at this point.) I found another picture of that same character in the same "How to Draw Marvel Characters" book:
(And I thought I sometimes drew my characters in ridiculous poses...)
Anyway, he has a skull and crossbones on his chest. I Google searched Marvel characters that fit that description, but the only two I found pictures of (Black Terror and Crossbones) don't look anything like this guy. However, this website has a description of a character named "Lor" from Mystic Comics #4:
"Lor (Mystic #4; Blue Blaze foe) - green-skinned hangman with a skull-and-crossbones-laden tunic; works for Dr. Vortex."
I couldn't find any pictures on-line of this "Lor", but that certainly sounds like our "mad leader". But if that's the case, then the Infiltrator artist must have copied the face from that comic book because you can't tell from the B&W images in the drawing book that he has green skin. Mystery solved? I hope...
The Infiltrator saga continues...Deathamster provided a screencap of the Mad Leader from the Commodore 64 version of Infiltrator 2 (which is actually the same game as Infiltrator for the NES. The "real" Infiltrator 1 was never ported to the NES, apparently.) This picture looks even closer to the mystery Marvel villain because, as DH pointed out, it's not squished over as much:
We've definitely ruled out the possibility of this being coincidence. Either the person who did the artwork of the Mad Leader owned that Marvel Book or he/she owned the original comic that it came from (assuming that it came from a comic book and wasn't just a generic design done specifically for the drawing book.)
Um, okay, WTF is going on here? Did every NES artist own this same damn book?? Look at this guy from Wrath of the Black Manta and another mystery Marvel villain who was located on the opposite page as the Mad Leader dude:
I'm going to have to scrutinize this book more carefully...there could be more SAB material waiting in there...
I've got a major WTF on my hands here. I don't have enough material to post another full page yet, but I've found what I think might be the most bizarre case of SAB I've ever seen...anywhere. Awhile ago, on this oddities page, I was making fun of a game called "Infiltrator" for the NES. In particular, I was poking fun at how ridiculous the game's main villain looks and his goofy name ("Mad Leader").
I'll get back to this in a moment...
Now, I have a bunch of old drawing books, and I was going through some of them tonight. One of them is a Marvel Comics book, which I've never really used that much since I don't draw in that style, but anyway...I thumbed through it for the heck of it, and...found this...
I don't have a clue who he is, but he appears to be the Mad Leader...
I don't see anything in the copyright information for Infiltrator that indicates it's a Marvel product. Likewise, I've run Google searches on "Infiltrator", "McGibbits", "Mad Leader" and tried to find any association with Marvel Comics and found nothing. Does anyone know anything about this? This is really weird...
I added a 53rd Scrapbook page, and I added ONE new entry to the Image Arcane SAB page, courtesy of site reader and forum moderator, Deathamster. (Thank you for that one, DH, that made my day.)
I think Puttycat should become the official mascot of FlyingOmelette.com. What do you think?
Puttycat has been added to the Image Arcane Who's Who section, and I also added a picture for Sol.
Random Weird/Funny Links to Check Out:
The Star Wars Ice Cream Maker Guy
Stuff On My Cat.com
I added a 52nd Scrapbook page. Some of the stuff on this one received water damage in the flooding at our old apartment.
I updated the Image Arcane Who's Who section:
Revised the introduction a bit.
Changed Christopher Pigeon's name to Blooper, since that's more appropriate, and moved him to the "A-B" section.
Added a picture for Droma's entry.
Fixed the color-coding for some entries.
Added new entries for Cynoss, Emmel, Feline 9, Ghestov Sal-Yun, Hirochi Tomasaro, Ninja Starling, Ogrin Dovekie, Skiva (no picture), and Victor Markino.
SWITCHED AT BIRTH MARK 2!
Three scrumptious new entries from myself (okay, actually, two, since one of mine was duplicated from the Image Arcane page), and a ton of reader and forum member submissions. These are all pretty good, imo. I didn't post every submission I got because the page was running long, but I might include some of the omissions in a future update.
Speaking of which, if you posted something in the submissons forum awhile ago that never got posted to the site, it might have been wiped out in the hacker attack. Also, if you emailed me something awhile ago that never got posted to the site, I might have lost it when the motherboard on my Dell PC blew up. Therefore, if you'd like to submit it again, feel free to do so. I can't guarantee that it will absolutely make it onto a future page, but I'll at least re-review all submissions.
I added TWO more entries to the Image Arcane SAB page. I couldn't help it. These were staring me in the face when I was making the last few scrapbook pages.
And speaking of my SAB curse, I'll be working on another normal SAB page soon.
I added a 51st Scrapbook page, which I was actually going to do last night, but ran out of time. I also eliminated those sentences about not posting older stuff from the first scrapbook page, because I pretty much broke that vow long ago.
I added a 49th Scrapbook page and a 50th Scrapbook page. The 49th page is a little different. It explains the Great Elemental Spirits of Phainein and their links to the world's different species. The 50th page goes back to the traditional type.
D REVIEW
I also added some more game ideas to the archives, but I don't remember which ones they were. I'll try to keep better track next time.
I guess this means I'm officially off hiatus, but non-Scrapbook, Q&A, and Game Ideas-related updates may still be slow coming. ~FO
I've added a new section to the Museum, it's an archive of game ideas from the Port Saiid forums. I basically took over my page from Deathamster's Nest and Crawl's page so I could keep them updated. I also added a "miscellaneous" page for game ideas from my forums that were never posted to DH's Nest. I'm not completely done with the archiving process yet. I still have quite a few things to add. But it's a lot of tedious work, so I'm taking a break for now and uploading what I've got so far. ~FO
Wow. It's been a few days. Still pretty much on hiatus, but here's what I did today:
Q&A was updated.
The Image Arcane SAB was given ONE new entry submitted by site reader & forum member Junus Crowe.
Added a 47th Scrapbook Page and a 48th Scrapbook Page.
I think I might end up combining the Sketch Gallery with the Scrapbook. My original intention for the sketch gallery was to use it for newer stuff and incomplete sketches that are too old to finish now. But I didn't really stick to that plan and I think it has too little content spread out over too many pages.
In gaming news I just finished D for the 3DO. I would post comments on it, but I want to review it, and because the game is so short, I think that posting about it here would just make the review seem redundant. Once that review is posted, I'll officially be off hiatus. ~FO
I added a 46th Scrapbook Page. I really want to start getting back into gaming soon...
The following updates were made to the site today:
The Image Arcane SAB was given ONE new entry.
Links was updated. I changed the URL to Crawl's site.
Update Log 2006 had all the stuff from April moved into it.
We also have two new winners of Flying Omelette's Golden Ridley Award of Excellence. They are FryingBear.com and Sweetbee's Game Hive. Check them out now if you haven't already as they are two of the best videogame humor sites on the entire internet (as well as having excellent humor for stuff that isn't game-related, too.)
Just as a reminder, the previous winners of the award have been (in no particular order):
Super Nintendo Super Shire
NES Horsemen
FantasyAnime
Videogames101
The OPCFG
NES Player
David Wonn's Unique Glitches
Congratulations to all winners! Keep up the excellent work! ~FO
I removed the Admiral Ackbar thing from yesterday's update. I only put that one there as a joke entry, but it was suggested to me that the IA scene I was poking fun at was too serious for it to be funny. Maybe I should take that as a compliment. I pretty much thought that all my old scripts and artwork were too goofy to take seriously and that "It's a trap!" dialogue made it seem even more unintentionally funny, but eh, I sometimes have a cruel sense of humor and laugh at the most tasteless things, but I can't expect everyone to be the same way. I can certainly understand why someone might look at that picture and think it wasn't funny.
Edit: I just replaced it with TWO much better entries! ~FO
Still on hiatus from the gaming front, although I only have a few boxes left to unpack at our new place. In the meantime, I added THREE new entries to the Image Arcane SAB Page. (Have no idea what the heck it is with Professor McRaven.) ~FO
I'll try to keep Q&A updated even during the hiatus because it's rather easy, especially since I do have home internet access now. Another reason I have to keep up on that is because that email address deletes messages after so many days and I don't have it set to archive them to a folder first.
Also, Crawl's site has moved to http://crawl.flyingomelette.com. It is now a subdomain of FlyingOmelette.com, so I changed the link below. (I'll change it on the links page later.) ~FO
I also added a whopping FIVE new entries to the Image Arcane SAB Page!
I decided to take a break from unpacking and organizing the house tonight because I'm going to have a big day at work tomorrow and I don't want to be thoroughly exhausted. So I put together a 45th Scrapbook Page. It's mostly really old stuff, so it isn't drawn very well, but some of it's really hilarious.
I also found that infamous picture of me holding the Burmese python around my shoulders and re-scanned it. I added it to the About FO Page with a short explanation of the event that transpired.
If you've read through my Image Arcane stuff, you may be aware that the characters Christopher Pigeon (aka Blooper) and Christopher Paladin were based on a real-life pet pigeon that we owned, also named Christopher. While unpacking stuff I inadvertantly stumbled across a photograph of him taken several years ago:
Unfortunately, since this was taken after his legs had gone almost completely bad, you can't see the feathers that made it look like he was wearing baggy pants. You can, however, sort of see his blue "overalls". I also apologize that he's cut off at the edge of the photo, but every time my mother takes a picture of something, that's what happens.
Unfortunately, the real Christopher Pigeon passed away sometime in 2005, but he was about 20 years old when he did. Quite remarkable considering the problems he had with his legs. Like the desert elf prince, Christopher was funny and mischievous. And like Blooper, he sat around a lot. Although I gave one origin for Blooper's name already, there was actually another reason for it: The real pigeon made noises that sounded like "bloop". And he would bloop whenever you walked past his cage. It didn't matter what time of the day or night. If you walked past him in pitch darkness at 3 AM, he'd start blooping. Christopher Pigeon may be gone, but his memory will always live on in Image Arcane and the R.A.U.
Just an update on what's going on with us. We finally have internet access at home, but it will still be awhile before I can begin regular updates again. Our new HP computer is fine, although that Dell that blew up on me awhile ago was on the floor and got soaked. I'm not real concerned about it though as its hard drive needed to be restored anyway.
Our XBOX just passed the test and the information stored on the hard drive seems to be intact. I just purchased a replacement for the Turbo Duo. I also bought my Arc the Lad: TOTS guide off of Amazon.com again since they still had new copies. I'll probably get my Super Mario 64 and SaGa Frontier guides from there, too. The other ones, I'm not sure what I'll do at this point. Unless someone has a copy of the Super Metroid and the Link's Awakening guides they're willing to part with and would like to strike a deal with me for them, I might have to forget about them.
I'm not sure exactly how many people feel about me using this place for my Image Arcane stuff (although I used to have a note in the About FO section that said I'd eventually start doing that, but I doubt few people read or remembered that anyway), but right now I'm glad I did. One of my archive boxes took a soaking. Only the stuff on the very bottom of the box got wet, so I was extremely lucky I didn't lose more. There were only about five things at the most that got wet that I really cared about, but they were all scanned. I don't think anything was too badly "ruined". Most of it was still in black and white, and those things didn't get ruined so much as they turned blue. Some of the stuff that was in color simply had its color washed away.
As for our new place...I like it more than the old place because its bigger and we really desperately needed more room. Our old apartment had pretty much become a shoebox. There are a few things, though, that annoy me, and just because I like to complain:
We can't just walk out the back door and go for a walk in the park anymore. We'll have to drive to the parks now.
Whoever designed the kitchen needs to take more lessons. We had to push the refrigerator back because you couldn't open the dishwasher. Every time you open the oven door, it bangs into one of the drawer handles.
The one and only downstairs phone jack is in the single worst spot I can think of to possibly put a phone jack. We have to run the cable up over the downstairs bathroom door frame.
The laundry machines are a quarter more each here, but at least the walk to the laundry room from our place is nowhere near as long as it was at the old apartment. I don't care about the expense so much as the difficulty in obtaining that many quarters, especially since they STILL don't have a change machine here!
We had a convenience store and a mailbox right across the street from our old place. Now we have to drive a ways to get to either.
The good things about this place are:
It is much bigger and we really needed the space.
We have two bathrooms. Thank goodness.
We have our own private little fenced-in patio.
There are lots of birds and animals around here. I'm always seeing and hearing mourning doves and robins. And this morning I opened the door to take out some garbage and there were chipmunks running around our patio. I also saw a bunny under a tree.
Even though I'm slightly farther away from my workplace now, for some reason it now takes less time to get there. I think it has something to do with the traffic that was on the road we lived off of before.
We're closer to a gas station than we were before. I hated it when my car needed gas and I had to figure out where the closest place to go was.
The dishwasher is bigger. The problem with our old dishwasher is that it would fill up about halfway through the week. I hated that.
That's about all I can think of for now. I estimate at least a month before regular updates will begin again, but right now I'm making no guarantees. ~FO
Those of you who peruse the forums already know this, but for those who don't, FlyingOmelette.com is on hiatus right now and I have no ETA for when I'll start updating again. The apartment complex that Crawl and I lived in caught fire and we were forced to move out to another place. Although the fire did not reach our apartment, we had massive flooding and water damage. We lived in a basement apartment, so when the fire fighters doused the flames, that's where all the water ended up. We are in our new place now, but it's going to take time to unpack everything and get settled in. Luckily, most of our possessions were salvageable. So far, it seems the only casualties are my slimline Playstation2 (I'm thinking of buying a PS2 that's premodded to play imports as a replacement), the battery in my copy of Secret of Mana, the battery in Crawl's copy of Super Mario Bros. Deluxe (GBC), and possibly Crawl's TurboDuo (the HuCards might still work, but the CD player doesn't run.) I also lost some strategy guides and I'm hoping to get replacements. They include:
Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits Official Guide
SaGa Frontier Official Guide
Super Metroid Official Nintendo Player's Guide
Super Mario 64 Official Nintendo Player's Guide
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening Official Nintendo Player's Guide
Street Fighter 2 Turbo Official Nintendo Player's Guide
I lost a few others but I don't care about those ones. I think the Arc the Lad and SaGa Frontier guides will be easy to replace, but I have a feeling those official Nintendo Player's Guides will be much harder. ~FO
Q&A was updated. And, yuppers, I put together another Scrapbook Page. Lots of old storyboards featuring Christopher and Nucleo in these last two installments.
Oh, yeah. I haven't done this in awhile, but...
MESSAGE BOARD POSTS OF THE DAY
I put together another Scrapbook Page. I haven't abandoned the Q&A. I'll try to get to it within the next few days. ~FO
Every time I put together an oddities article, this always happens. One of the Rambo pictures and paragraphs was missing from that section, although I know I had put it there earlier. I must have accidentally deleted it somehow. It's been fixed. I also got rid of the "OWNED" in the animated gif. ~FO
I finished up that new Oddities Article. I apologize in advance to everyone that will offend. ~FO.
Documentation of Game Glitches has been updated with a new one for Super Mario 64 DS (thanks to Crawl and 1000).
Well, what to say. I started writing up a new Oddities page, but upon getting to the end and re-reading it, I thought it was lame. I guess it should come as no surprise. It's not any worse than any of the other Oddities pages, but that's the problem: I think a lot of the Oddities pages are really lame now. Either I had a much different sense of humor back when I put them together or the overall joke of pointing out strange or funny stuff in games has gotten old. I'm not sure what I'll do with the article at this point. Maybe once I'm feeling better I'll be able to think more clearly on it.
Okay, so I was told the picture of Talon Kyradius below looks "effeminate". It's not that I think there's anything wrong with having an effeminate character, but that particular character is not supposed to be. (I wouldn't care if someone said that about Cody Decker, for example, because he sort of is.) I don't think he looks any more effeminate than 90% of anime males, and don't even suggest I go back to using the old version unless you want a random inanimate object hurled in your direction. But I fixed a few things and added Cory (his love interest) to the picture, whom I'd planned to add in from the beginning (that's why he's looking over to the side like that, he was looking at Cory.)
Talon Kyradius & Cory McRaven (2)
I'm not really sure that's much of an improvement. Maybe he does still look effeminate, but I'm not really the best judge of this. I do remember one time commenting that Blue on the cover of SaGa Frontier looks undistinguishably like a woman, and I was told that I was wrong and that Blue looks "very masculine". So, I guess it's just me...I'll try to fix Talon's design again, but since I don't have any real clue about this sort of thing, I'm not sure what I can do.
Here's another recent drawing I did of Professor McRaven. It's not finished, but I'm not going to be able to finish it:
Professor McRaven
Contrary to what it looks like, nobody is playing a sadistic game of "Simon Says" with the professor, it's just that the completed image was supposed to have his daughter Cory grabbing him from behind. I actually do have a completed version of the image, but I was told it looked like they were being "romantic" with each other. I TOTALLY DISAGREE that that's what it looked like, but since it was the very first comment I got on it, I decided not to post it. I'll probably erase Cory out of the original image and just leave it like this.
It's not my intention to impress anyone with my skills, but I swear I'm losing any and all confidence I may have had in them. (Not that there was much to begin with.) ~FO
I've finally completed my editing spree of all the Switched at Birth? pages and put the section back up in the Museum. The 2 newest SAB articles have been linked there as well. All the old articles now have new commentary and I went through them and removed most of the ones I didn't agree with. There is one type in particular that I really don't like and I won't accept anything like this in the future:
Two characters who look nothing alike, but "you have to play the games to see the similarity".
Most of the times when I get submissions like this, it's characters from two different fighting game series. The only thing I can imagine is that the characters are similar because they have the same special moves. I'm sorry, but I find those types of submissions lame. I don't think there's a fighting game in existence that doesn't have a least one character who can throw a Hadouken fireball knock-off or do a dragon punch. And just because two people can learn how to do the same martial arts moves (fantasy or otherwise), that doesn't mean that they might possibly be related to each other.
My updates are probably going to become a little less frequent for awhile because I'm dealing with some health issues. I'm going to see a doctor tomorrow and I'm just hoping they get me on something soon to make this problem go away. Aside from the pain and discomfort it's causing me, I'm also tired all the time and can do little more than sleep. I haven't even played any games in a long time (other than sporadic escapades with Super Mario 64 DS) because I'm just too tired to concentrate on anything for very long. I have, however, drawn a few more modernized versions of some Image Arcane characters.
Talon Kyradius
Talon has always been a tricky character for me to deal with. I didn't list him on the profiles page because I wasn't sure I was bringing him back. After thinking over the storyline and Talon's previous role in it, I decided he was far too important to the story and significant to the theme to drop. However, there was no way in hell I could keep him in the series with his old design (seen here in the bottom middle row), which looked like a young Nucleo with Bazil's color scheme...which not only sucked terribly but carries a disturbing implication if you think about it (and I have no idea what I was smoking during my Minerva Project days to lump him in with the CRASHER villains like that). I think the new design is a 1000% improvement.
Honen Calzoun
Honen's design hasn't gone through as much evolution as some of my other characters, but there's still a little story behind it. His simplistic design was the result of me needing a villain who would be quick and easy to draw multiple times. The original design of Honen was a green creature in a ninja-like outfit. For some reason, I decided I didn't like that design too much, so I changed him to be a more nondescript being. (He ended up looking like an evil snowman as a result.) But I wasn't really 100% happy with that version, either, because he looks too comical. Yes, he does exist mostly for comic relief, but he IS actually a psychotic little character who also has a certain vulnerability, and I just found it hard to get a feeling of those traits from that version. This new design is a cross between the old "ninja" Honen and the newer "snowman" Honen. I'm happier with this one for now, although I might eventually break the tradition of not knowing what he's supposed to be because I'm getting tired of dumb gimmicks like that. ~FO
I added mp3s for "Requiem" from Akumajo Dracula X and the Carrot Castle Theme from Kingsley's Adventure to the Downloads page.
I'm not sure what's going on here, but the King's Field, Earthbound, and Metroid ending midis were missing, too. I've put them back up, but I have no idea why they disappeared to begin with...
Okayyy...The Arcana Ending midi was also missing from the Top 50 Game Ending Songs article. It's been put back up. ~FO
I just did something I thought I'd never do. I went through all the old pages of the Update Logs and fixed all the links so that they now work again (provided that the pages or files they link to actually still exist on this site. I didn't bother with anything that no longer exists.) I even restored all the missing pictures in the blog entries that had visible images. So now when people find this site through searches that lead to the Update Logs or if anyone just wants to read through them, they won't be greeted by nothing but broken links and images.
One of the Ninja Gaiden Mine Field midis was missing from the Top 50 Ending Songs article. It's been put back up. ~FO
I finally updated the Downloads Page with the new music I had been promising for about a month now. I now present to you a barrel of high-quality songs from Akumajo Dracula X: Chi no Rondo (the TurboDuo version, NOT the SNES one.) Enjoy!
I also split up my Update Logs into separate pages by year so that it'll be less confusing. I didn't know it until recently, but I'm actually missing most of my 2000 updates and all of them from 1999 because I didn't save my update log from GO.com. It probably wasn't much anyway. I don't think anything that existed on my GO.com site even exists here anymore. ~FO
Just a minor note. I'm not adding any commentary to the Aliens SAB Page because they're all pretty much self-explanatory, since everything on the page is either an Alien, Alien Queen, Alien Egg, Facehugger, or Space Jockey look-a-like.
I also want give a big thank you and round of applause to everyone who submitted to the two SAB articles I posted yesterday. It was the first in a VERY long time that I actually felt good about putting together SAB pages. I laughed quite a bit during the whole process, which is also something that hadn't happened in a while. Thanks to your high-quality submissions, you've actually made SAB fun again, and I think the "Return of SAB" page especially is one of the best we've had in years. ~FO
The Top 100 has made a return, but with a huge disclaimer at the beginning, and the section has been relegated to the Museum, as I had stated before that it would be until I get a chance to update it.
I added a couple more to both of the new SAB pages that I had forgotten about until they suddenly came back to me. Sorry that my memory seems to work in spurts. (Stupid ezboard hacker!)
I held off on posting some entries to the new "Return of SAB" page (below) because I thought I'd save them for a future page. Well, the truth is I don't really know if and when I'll ever do another SAB page, so I went ahead and added them. So if you already looked at the page before I added this note, you might want to check it again (and some of the ones I added are pretty damn funny.) I also added one I forgot to the Image Arcane SAB and increased the size of some of the small sprites on the suggestion of Crawl.
Since I have the day off from work today, I thought I'd do a little something with the site. I'm still busy editing all the old SAB pages, so I don't have them all on-line yet. However, in honor of the event (and since I have the time today), to the dismay of some and to the joy of others, I decided to put together two new SAB pages.
The Return of Switched at Birth!
This one is composed of various high-quality entries found by both myself and some of the forum members. I've gotten a lot more strict about what I'll accept, so I hope you'll be able to find at least some resemblance in these comparisons.
The Image Arcane Switched at Birth!
I have to wonder if any of the artists who created the characters present in the SAB pages have ever looked through them and maybe gotten a little steamed at the suggestion that they either ripped someone off or got ripped off. Well, just to prove that NO ONE is safe from it, here are various look-a-likes for my own character creations. ~FO
Something is wrong with the subdomains on FlyingOmelette.com. They're coming up as 404 errors or "Cannot Find Server", and when you try to view the directories, it looks like nothing's there. However, when I use FTP to examine the folders, it looks like everything still exists (I do have a copy of the Deathamster's Nest website on my harddrive in case something goes wrong so don't panic.) This problem only appears to be affecting the subdomains, as the main site here is working fine. If the issue isn't resolved by the time I get home from work tonight, I'll contact Dreamhost about it.
Edit - Just to confirm: The files are definitely still there. I just made another backup of the Deathamster's Nest site in case the one I already have is outdated, and the files all downloaded through my FTP program just fine. I don't know why the Dreamhost server is having problems with it, but the same thing is happening with a subdomain I set up for Crawl a few days ago.
Edit #2 - Okaaayyyy....Now it looks like the subdomains are working again. So I guess I just typed all of this for nothing. Actually, I think that messing around with the folders with the FTP program might have been what did the trick. I noticed the Dreamhost status page mentioned a server problem, but said it had been fixed. Whenever that happens, I usually have to meddle around with my site a bit to get it to start working again. It's as though the server needs to be "reminded" that the site is there. Anyway, I'll keep a check on things, and if there are any more problems, I'll contact them about it. ~FO
On the Downloads Page I had noticed that the Albert Odyssey mp3s for Cirrus, Cornelius, Overworld 1, Overworld 2, and the Title Theme were all ripped at 80 kbps. I uploaded new versions that are ripped at 128 kbps, so they should sound a little better. And no, that's not the major update I was planning for that section, that's still in the works... ~FO
Normally, when I remove anything from my Links page, I don't cause a big commotion about it on the front page. This time, I will, because my reasoning for this one is a little stronger.
I've removed Roger Ebert's site. Many of you may be aware of the videogame "controversy" that was all over his website a few months ago. You probably think that has something to do with this decision. Well, maybe. But I've actually had a bigger problem with the site that's run longer and deeper than that. Even before all the videogame stuff happened, I had been telling Crawl that if Ebert was a videogame reviewer instead of a movie reviewer, he'd be no better than all these "professional" outlets that give 8's, 9's and 10's to everything. For the past year and a half or so, almost every movie he reviews gets somewhere between 3 and 4 stars and if you look over at the right column where it says, "Ebert Recommends", it's EVERY movie he's recently given at least 3 stars to...which is usually pretty much every movie. I'm not sure if he's in charge of putting movies in the recommendations column or if a site editor is, but whoever it is has forgotten that the point of recommending something is to be selective. Not everyone gets to see movies for free or has enough hard-earned cash to go see every movie. The only things he gives less than 3 stars to are movies you could tell coming a mile away would be terrible, and even then he'll give them scores of 2 or 2-1/2 when it seems like they deserve even less. The quality of those reviews is another issue. Whereas in the past, reading an Ebert 2-star or less review was a real joy (I own and love his "I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie" book), I can't honestly say that's true anymore. There were several recent reviews that were so terrible, I couldn't even get through them (in particular was one where his mind kept wandering onto other subjects, although I can't remember now what movie that review was for.) I'll be the first to admit I have a lot of really crappy old 8th-grade-level reviews on this site, but at least I can actually get through them.
There are other things about the site that don't sit well with me. I didn't like that article where he picked on other critics who didn't like the movie "Crash" as much as he did. Just like many disagreements of that kind I've been involved in, he didn't even address the issues that those critics had with the movie. Ditto on his complaining about people not wanting to see the "King Kong" remake and not-so-subtley implying it's because they're idiots. It reminds me of how when I say I don't like Zombie Ate My Neighbors and give 10 concrete reasons why, someone replies with something like, "The game is creative and you just have no taste", which does absolutely nothing to counter any of the reasons I mentioned, let alone give any insight into what's good about the game or why someone should be expected to like it. This type of behavior is to be expected of random morons on message boards, not highly-educated Pulitzer-prize winning film critics with massive popularity and exposure. About the only thing readable on Ebert's site anymore (besides his older reviews) is that Emerson Blog.
So, there you go. That's why I took the link down. Another reason for me to post this rant about that particular link removal is because I've offered up a couple of alternatives in its place: Qwipster's Movie Reviews and ReelViews. These are pretty much the two movie review sites I frequently visit anymore. Unlike Ebert, these two reviewers know how to use the entire star scale and are much more exclusive about giving out their highest score. (And, for those interested, they are also more "videogamer-friendly" than Ebert's place.) ~FO
I've been slowly and quietly continuing my work on editing the SAB pages, and I just had to point this out...I finally got to the page I was getting the most flak for, which is this one. Now...I removed 2 I totally didn't agree with. But I really _don't get_ what the big problem is. Most of the others are rock solid and I've seen far more questionable stuff on other pages. The only thing I can think of is that the members of Psycho Le Cemu don't use costumes that look exactly like the game characters they're cosplaying as, but I believe it's because it's their own personal interpretations of the characters (sort of like how nobody on Captain N looked exactly like their videogame counterparts.)
I can understand why people would disagree with some of the past entries, but if you seriously find it necessary to practically take up arms against me over THAT particular page, then you really need to reassess yourself.
I added a 42nd Scrapbook Page. That and the 40th Sketch Gallery page were actually supposed to have been added right before my computer blew up, but I never got around to it until just now. I also have a half-finished Rec Room article that was being written right before that happened, so hopefully I'll finish that up soon, too.
I also noticed the gif of Trailbreaker spinning like a top was missing from the Transformers Animations page, so I added it in (although I did have it on the Favorite Autobots article.) ~FO
There are a few websites I've been following lately that have inspired me to pull the Golden Ridley Award out of retirement. I'm not sure right now if I'm actually going to present it, but if in the case I do and you own one of the sites that receives it, please be aware of the following:
1. When I give out my award, it's my personal award for excellence in videogame-related web design, originality, and quality of written content. Our opinions do not always have to match up, but at least some retrogaming focus is preferred.
2. It's not the "FlyingOmelette.com Award", it's the Golden Ridley. You are under no obligation to display it with a link back to this site because it's not even related to this site. My URL is not even displayed on the award, and since I started giving it out back when I was still on Geocities, it would've had the old ugly Geocities URL on it if it did.
3. If you want to display it, you are free to do so. I do not care if it's on the front page, or wherever. That's up to you. Whenever I gave out the award in the past, all I ever said was "You've won!" followed by a brief explanation of why. I never told anyone where to display it, or to link it back, etc.
4. I'm saying this because some people were under the impression that I was only giving out the award to get my site linked on the front pages of other websites, but nothing could be further from the truth. I was unaware when I started the award that some people would give awards to popular websites as a means of promoting their own. Popularity of the site has nothing to do with my decision to give out the award.
I made a slight update to the Drakkhen Oddities page, and I also added a 40th Sketch Gallery page. I also took down the MP3s from the Albert Odyssey Gallery and replaced them with a simple link to the Downloads page. I plan to add more Albert Odyssey stuff eventually, and I don't want to have to update both pages when I do so.
More to come... ~FO
I'm working on doing some minor updates to the site. Fixing up pages here and there (like how I left out a critical letter "S" on the Reviews listing page, which resulted in me declaring that I reviewed a non-existant NES version of Samurai Shodown.) I also cleaned up the links page, because of a number of people who contacted me for link exchanges, but failed to uphold their part of the bargain! I've given everyone plenty of time, so if you didn't reciprocate a link by now, your site's been taken down. Updates to occur in the future:
1. I still have that update to the Music Downloads page waiting in the wings.
2. Now that the "fad" of Top 100/200/8021490148 GAMES OF @LL TIME!1!1!1!1! lists is over, I'm considering putting back up my Top 100. However, I'm going to relegate it to the Museum until I'm ready to update it, as the list is sorely in need of it.
3. I'm also working on editing the old Switched at Birth? Pages in preparation to put them back up again. Although I still think some of the complaints I got about that section were dumb, I realize that I did make a number of mistakes with it. The foremost mistake is that I did not make it very clear when something was MY comment and when something was a SUBMITTER'S comment. I'm busy correcting this on all the pages. As I go through and add in the commentary, I'm also taking down any I don't agree with, as well as ones that aren't "videogame-y" enough for my liking or are too repetitive. It's not necessary to point out every single time Akira Toriyama rehashes one of his character designs. It's also getting too far away from the series' roots to have all these submissions where it's real people who have nothing to do with videogames that kinda, sorta, look vaguely alike. Please note that this does NOT mean I'll be opening the section up to submissions again. For now, it will continue to exist only as an archive.
For those not interested in Image Arcane, you can stop right here.
Anyway, I got to thinking about that "generic anime" comment regarding Professor Nucleo Amadeus McRaven (whose name gets more complicated every time I think about it), and I looked at this picture I drew awhile ago. At the risk of getting my throat torn out, I can maybe kinda see why someone would think that. I drew that picture after coming out of years of "retirement", and I'd pretty much lost all knowledge of how I used to do things. That image really has "genericized" the character. However, on a technical level, it's still better than a lot of my old crap, but I needed to reach a compromise - a version of the character that is drawn well, but remains true to the style of the original. This is what I came up with and I must say I'm quite happy with it:
In the old picture, it's like I tried to hide everything about him that wasn't human, and even did weird things like make his face and arms longer and more slender so that he appeared more "human" (I didn't like his nose or ear, either). In the new picture, I equally emphasized what isn't human about him, gave him the proportions of the original version, and stylized things that were bad about the previous picture. The results are that he now looks more the huffy cat-like demon that he's supposed to be and less like Fred Flintstone (although he's starting to remind me more and more of Firebrand, but what can you do?)
Sometimes characters need to go through complete redesigns (my old versions of Deuce, Tomi, and Talon were pure crap, Jack's oldest designs just didn't work, Ghestov's was utterly ridiculous and I still haven't come up with a new one, and Sesa and Chance were almost impossible to tell apart), but apparently 'Cleo wasn't too far off from what I wanted and I think this is one of the few times that the results on paper were exactly what I had imagined in my head. Until I can get quirks like this ironed out for all the other characters, though, it'll be awhile before I can write a comic strip with them. ~FO
Added a new section to the Downloads Page for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, with lots of new songs.
I have one more major update planned for that section, but after that, it might be awhile before I add anything else. I'm sure I've given everyone plenty of stuff to keep you busy for awhile, though. ~FO
Happy April Fool's Day. As usual, no jokes here. I'm just hoping this month won't be as crummy as the last two have been.
More updates to the Downloads Page:
I replaced the Neverending Story Ivory Tower WMA with an MP3 version.
I added a new section for Alundra with 6 of my favorite songs from that game.
I added a new section for Super Mario 64 with my 3 favorite SM64 songs.
I added a new section for Mega Man X6 with an mp3 of "I-D-E-A", courtesy of Codie Martin.
I credited all composers' names underneath the game titles in all cases where I actually know their names.
The Kingsley's Adventure Abbey theme was missing a fadeout. Thanks to Codie for pointing that out. I uploaded a corrected version. ~FO
Yesterday, I had up a small diatribe about the Switched at Birth? section of the website. I said that I was really growing to hate that section of the site, but one thing that it sort of made me feel better about was all the times people pointed out to me that Prof. Nucleo McRaven looked like Fred Flintstone. I had agreed that there is vague resemblance, but it was unintentional because I never even noticed it until it was pointed out to me. I had tried several times to redesign the character, but I was never able to come up with anything I liked. I explained in that update yesterday that the SAB section made me feel better about the situation since it proved, in my eyes, that no matter what you draw, chances are something or someone somewhere in the world will look like it, and there's no sense worrying yourself into a coma over it.
Then I was told that the SAB section doesn't prove that at all. It just proves that if two characters look alike it's just because they're generic anime.
That pushed me over the edge.
I deleted the entire section. I'm fed up with it. In all the years I've been running this site and for all the sections that have come and gone, I have never grown to hate a section more than that one. I'm sick of going into my site tracker every day and seeing that all the pages that get the most hits are nothing but SAB pages. I'm sick of the idiots at places like Myspace trying to leech the pictures instead of getting their own image hosting like everyone else. I'm sick of defending the reason I ran that part of the site over, over, and over again. I am sick of saying, "It was just something silly and fun to keep the site updated during the long periods between game reviews" over and fucking over again. I am sick of being made to feel like I did something really wrong/stupid/amoral by accepting reader submissions, and I'm sick of whenever I question why it was wrong, I only get answers that suggest it's self-evident. And most of all, I'm just tired of the whole idea. After doing about 40 pages of it, the overwhelming feeling I get is, "Yeah, yeah, they look kinda similar. So do a lot of things. Big deal."
Let me tell you something about Prof. McRaven. He's a kind, gentle little character. He has a lot more patience than I do. He deals with Chance's prejudice, Christopher's pranks, Cory's temper, Deuce's stubbornness, Tomi's loud mouth, Jack's angst, Crow's crankiness, and Chester's stupidity, amongst other things, without ever skipping a beat or losing his cool. But just remember that before you accuse him of being a "generic anime design", he could rip your throat out. Not saying he would. But he's capable of it. Keep it in mind.
You can all start taking bets now on how long it is before I do the same to the Cameos Database. ~FO
I noticed that the "Goddess", "Knight", and "Bride of Heathen" mp3s from Kartia were kind of low in volume and hard to hear, so I re-uploaded new versions that have increased volume. Sorry for all of this tinkering. I hope I'm not annoying people who may have already downloaded them. I'll get this stuff right eventually. ~FO
I added three more mp3s to the Kingsley's Adventure section of the downloads page. They are Bad Custard's Theme, Judas's Theme, and the unreleased Sylvester's Theme. Also, since I beat the game, I found out the name of the music composer is Alastair Lindsay, so his name has been credited on all the mp3s.
There are a few more boss themes, unreleased boss themes, and an ending theme in RAW format on the game disk, but I'm not going to bother uploading those unless someone really, REALLY wants me to because I'm not as fond of them as the ones I have up. ~FO
OOPS! I forgot to add a fadeout to the "Taking Up Arms" mp3 in the Kartia section. I've since uploaded a corrected version with a fadeout added in. I apologize to anyone who downloaded that already.
So, I beat Kingsley's Adventure. The game was good up to a point, but then it screamed "rushed to completion" and "out-of-budget" with flashing neon lights. Reggie's Castle, which is the fourth dungeon of the game, was really long and difficult. Actually, a decent level with lots of tough jumps and puzzles. (I hadn't seen challenges of that caliber since Alundra 2.) But when I got to the final area of the game, there was no dungeon. It was *just* the final boss, and he wasn't even as difficult as Reggie! I beat him on my second try.
It's kind of a shame because the game had a lot of momemtum going with that fourth dungeon, but then just fell completely flat after that. I suppose I'll explain more in detail in a review, eventually, but the overwhelming impression I got is that the game was more ambitious than what they were capable of squeezing out. But since I finished that game, that means I'll soon have some more music available for it. Another hint that the game wasn't finished is that three of the RAW music files on the game CD are unused (apparently boss battles for characters named CRAB, SYLVESTA, and SVEN). And if you look at the GAMEDATA file in Wordpad, you can find text for battle with a character named Waldo (who might have been the alter-ego of SYLVESTA) that doesn't exist in the actual game. ~FO
MASSIVE update to the MP3 and WMA Downloads Page! A rundown of the changes:
Split the section into three pages, alphabetized by game title.
Replaced the Albert Odyssey "Aria" WMA with an MP3 version. Added proper ID tags to the existing MP3s.
Replaced all mono Albert Odyssey mp3s with stereo versions (except Radoria's Castle because I can't find my save file that was close to that part of the game.)
Added the music for Chestoria, Gadel, Gigarl, the Harpy Forest, the Sad Song, the Four Holy Towers, and Valerian's Castle to the Albert Odyssey section.
Replaced all mono Alundra 2 mp3s with stereo versions.
Added the Ending Credits song, and the music for Dragonia and the Seagull Ruins to the Alundra 2 section.
Replaced all WMAs for Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits with MP3 versions of the songs.
Replaced all mono Arc the Lad mp3s with stereo versions.
Added Bloody Battle, Drakyrnia, Occupied Sulfas, The Flying Castle Lower Floors, Theme of Arc the Lad, Trial, and Wandering Soul to the Arc the Lad section.
Replaced the mono Dark Savior "Lonesome Soldier" mp3 with a stereo one.
Added Deadman's Castle and the FMV Sequence theme to the Dark Savior section.
Replaced the two mono Kagero mp3s with stereo versions.
Replaced the mono Kartia "Landscape" mp3 with a stereo version.
Added Bride of Heathen, Goddess, Knight, Knight of Liberty Toxa, Procession of Saints, Taking Up Arms, Theme of Toxa Classico, and Troublesome Hero to the Kartia section.
Replaced the mono King's Field ending theme mp3 with a stereo version.
Added a new section for Kingsley's Adventure with 6 new songs.
Replaced the mono Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon theme song with a stereo one.
Added Goe Goe Spark, Rescue the Feudal Lord, Sunset, and The Journey Begins on Mt. Fuji Road to the Mystical Ninja section.
Replaced the Panzer Dragoon Saga ending song mp3 with a MUCH higher-quality version. Took down the WMA.
Added Above the Excavation and the Title Theme to the Panzer Dragoon Saga section.
Added a new section for Ys Book 1 & 2 with a TON of downloads courtesy of Crawl and 1000.
In any case where I can, I'm phasing out the WMAs for several reasons. The first is that my new computer has given me the capability of creating mp3s that are the same quality as the WMAs, but at a slightly smaller file size. (MP3 conversions on my old computer often didn't sound very good.) The second is that I'm not sure if things like iPods can play WMAs, and I know sometimes people like to put game music mp3s on them. ~FO
I just noticed something really bizarre about Super Mario 64 DS. It has a new feature called the "Rec Room" where you can play mini-games after finding enough keys. That, of course, is also what I called the newest section of my website. That's not all that weird, because a rec room is a rec room after all. The thing I find strange is that the font used in SM64DS is nearly identical to the font that I chose for that section's banner, which makes it seem like a homage, although it's only a coincidence since I didn't even know SM64DS had that feature until I played it yesterday. I'm not going to change it, though, since I don't mind if people think it's a homage. I'd only mind if it seemed like a homage to something I didn't like. ~FO
Yesterday was my birthday and Smooshy Woosh bought me a Nintendo DS with Animal Crossing and Super Mario 64 DS! I'm surprised at how well Super Mario 64 plays on that system, and how good it looks, too.
Lately, I've been playing a Playstation game called Kingsley's Adventure and as it seems my luck to have things like this happen to me, I discovered a major glitch in it. I recorded it in the Documentation of Game Glitches, and if you plan to play that game, you might want to read that as a precaution. ~FO
Since the Working Designs company went out of business and their respective website has gone down in flames, the links I had on the Albert Odyssey Gallery were all dead. What I did was retrieve some of the pages on the web archive and put them up on my own domain. These changes include:
1. I archived all of the Fargasta maps. Unfortunately, the web archive didn't have the maps for Level 4. The only copies of them I was able to find are the Google cache's thumbnails. This means the Level 4 maps are much smaller than the others, but there's nothing I can do about it unless web archive eventually makes those maps available.
2. I archived the wallpaper that used to be there, too, although I had to snag a copy of it from RPGamer.com, since the web archive was also missing that.
3. I did NOT bother to archive the screenshots and videos page because, not to sound snotty or anything, but I think the screenshots in my review and gallery are better anyway, mostly because they're much larger. And I don't think enough people would be interested in seeing videos of the game to justify using my bandwidth for them. (To be honest, I never actually downloaded the videos, so I don't even know what they were. The game has no FMV sequences, so it was probably just clips from the gameplay itself or an ad.)
DISNEY'S CHIP N DALE RESCUE RANGERS 2 REVIEW
How's that for an update?
You know, I think it's hilarious that my computer fucking blows up, leaving me unable to update for about a month (and the shortest month of the year at that), and then my car breaks down at the same time, and already people are screaming, "OMG! FO doesn't update anymore! All she does is rant in her blog!" Yadda yadda.. I just took a look over the history log from 12/05 to the current month and I made a number of really substantial updates to various sections of the site, including (but not limited to) NES Midi Conversions, the Image Arcane Sketch Gallery & Scrapbook, Q&A, Documentation of Game Glitches, the Kid Icarus Shrine, a whole new Rec Room section with three brand new articles and tons of music downloads, the discovery of an unused dungeon tile in A Link to the Past, and a major update to the Azure Dreams Shrine. (Plus, I felt it necessary to explain why I wouldn't be buying any of the new consoles since I often get questions about why I don't review or feature modern games.) But since the updates aren't hurr hurr, Cameos, or hurr hurr, Switched at Birth?, I guess they don't exist, huh? (I'm really beginning to hate those sections of the site.)
And really, who doesn't rant in their blog?
*kisses the site tracker*
Anyway, added Mike Matei's submission to the Kid Icarus Fanart section, which you might have seen if you read the Q&A.
I archived the Q&A questions 41-60 and updated the main Q&A page. ~FO
More updates to the Azure Dreams Shrine. I added a section for Music Downloads with a selection of 10 mp3s from the game and a bonus track. I also made a few corrections:
1. I had earlier said I'd never seen Kou get the "angry" status, but it turns out you just have to use a Zoneseed on him to increase his critical hit rate. I never use Zoneseeds on Kou, so that explains why I never saw it before. I'm still uncertain of the "blind" status. The AdNoctum spell never seems to work on him, but it might be possible for him to attain that status if you use an item that causes blindness on him. I've never personally tried it.
2. I changed where I said "LuminaSeed" to "LumiSeed" just to clear up any confusion.
That should be all for the Azure Dreams Shrine for now. ~FO
Added screenshots of the Japanese and American version of the title screens to the Azure Dreams Shrine. I have one more update in store for that section that I'll hopefully get to in a few days. ~FO
I'm almost finished with a replay of Azure Dreams for Game Boy Color, and in honor of the event, I've updated my Azure Dreams Shrine! I've made the following changes:
1. Added Wumpi to the list of Familiars (although she cannot be gotten without a Gameshark.)
2. Added Beldo to the list of "Other Enemies". (I missed this one for the longest time because I knew what to do against Beldo from playing the Playstation version of Azure Dreams, and if you do that, you'll never actually see his battle image.)
3. Added the "Many Faces of Kou", which shows all the different status screen faces for all of Kou's possible status ailments (some of which, apparently, didn't make it into the final cut of the game and can only be activated with a Gameshark.)
4. Added Beldo's profile shot for when he's fused with Kewne and the painting of Maisoul to a new "Miscellaneous" section.
5. I added some notes on acquiring the harder-to-get familiars. This is because I realized I had forgotten a lot about the game in the few years since I'd played it, and in trying to figure out how to get some of the fusion-only monsters again, I realized that none of the existing FAQs for Azure Dreams GBC have been updated since 2001, and they're all missing critical information on the fusion-only monsters. ~FO
I was getting tired of that red grid background so I changed it back to the old one for now.
There are some areas of this site that need an overhaul. I'll eventually want to replace all those mono MP3's on the downloads page with sparkling new stereo ones that sound much better. The problem is just simply finding time to re-record and upload everything again.
I'll try updating this site again more when I'm not feeling so angry, upset, and depressed about the situation with my car. Same goes for the Image Arcane Project. ~FO
The good news is that I got back all the files I needed from the Dell computer, so I don't have to make another massive backup. The bad news is that once again I'm starting to feel at odds about this site. There are a couple of things I want to get out of the way right up front:
I have had an extreme amount of car trouble over the past year. Each time something goes wrong with it, the problems get worse and worse. Frankly, I'd be surprised if that car lasts another year. I want to start putting money away so that by the new year, I can make a down payment on a new car. What this means is that I won't be buying any new game systems (and probably won't be buying many more games for the systems I already own.) Even before all the car trouble started, I didn't have any plans to buy any of the new systems. I feel like I've already collected more games than I'll ever be able to complete in my lifetime and if I feel it necessary to collect more, there are still tons of things I could get for the systems I already have. And I'm not too keen on the idea of spending hundreds of dollars for some frivolous graphics updates and gimmicky controllers.
So the bottom line is, if you come to this site expecting information on anything for the XBOX 360, Playstation 3, or Nintendo Revolution, you'll be disappointed. There aren't any reviews for anything on those systems at this site and there likely never will be.
Even if someday after my new car is all paid off, I look back and decide that I missed out on some good stuff by not getting the new systems, I can always get them later and play "catch-up". I didn't get an NES until sometime after Super Mario Bros. 3 was released, and I still managed to amass an impressive collection for it. And the internet, with its auction sites and places like Amazon that sell used games, makes it even easier to collect older games than it was back then. ~FO
I got the Dell computer back. It needs to have a restore done on it to get Windows to run again. Although that means I'll lose everything on the hard drive, I had a back-up done and I got back everything I needed. Once I transfer all the files to this PC, I'll be ready to start normal updates again. ~FO
Well, the good news is the replacement parts for my computer have arrived (and they got here sooner than I expected.) Now I have to run the computer and the parts over to the repair shop to have it all cleaned and put together. In the meantime, I'll be keeping my fingers crossed in the hopes that the hard drive is safe, and if it is, maybe in about a week I can start regular updates again (whatever that would even mean for this site).
In the meantime, I have updated the Links page. If you requested a link exchange, it's been done. I also updated Q&A.
I have updated the Q&A. I'll try to keep up on that if nothing else, although I won't be able to archive the old questions until everything is straightened out, so if the page starts taking a long time to load, and you've already read the old questions, you might want to stop it halfway through.
My computer crapped out on me. The updating of this website will cease until I get it fixed. I have a new computer, but I'll need to get the old one fixed (or at least find out if the hard drive can be salvaged) before I'll be able to continue further updates of FlyingOmelette.com. Until then, we are on hiatus. For now, just enjoy this group picture from Image Arcane that I'm still working on:
I was experimenting with the Skull Woods Dungeon Bumper glitch for The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, mentioned at David Wonn's Site, and I found what looks to me like an unused background tile:
I don't recall seeing that skull anywhere in the game. But since these glitched-up levels are pulling graphics from the Skull Woods dungeon area, I'm guessing it might have been originally intended for use in that level. ~FO
I finally came up with a name for the new site section that focuses on my favorite games. I'm calling it "The Rec Room" in honor of the first place I ever saw a videogame and played an arcade game. There used to be a restaurant down the street from where I lived that had a room with arcade games in it. It was known as the "Rec Room", which of course, is short for "Recreation Room". The Star Fox article and a new one for ActRaiser, as well as all future favorite games featurettes, will be found in that section.
Along with showcasing my favorite games, I've also added an article to that section that delves with the other end of the spectrum. It's arguably the most controversial article I've yet put on this site, and I mulled for several days over it, wondering if I truly wanted to upload it or not. I'm not usually a mean-spirited person and it's not really my goal to offend or upset people, but the main reason I put it up was because I felt it was time I finally got my thoughts on Star Fox 64 out on the table. I also thought some parts of it were too funny to let go to waste. What is it? Well, if you really want to, you'll just have to go and see for yourself. ~FO
I'm going to change the name of the Great Games Feature for two reasons:
1. It's too close to what Crawl called his Great Games feature on his site.
2. I'm probably going to showcase some games that I don't necessarily think are "great", but they're amongst my favorites for other reasons.
I'm not sure what to call it yet, but "Favorite Games Feature" is too lame, so I'll put up an index page when I've figured it out.
In the meantime, I updated Documentation of Game Glitches. I figured out how to curtail the Kasandora town glitch in ActRaiser, so that's been updated, plus I added a few more for that game. I also added in a few for Kid Icarus that I had forgotten about until I just recently looked through my Shrine again. ~FO
I've decided to do something a little different with this site. In place of the Top 100 will be a "Great Games Feature", where I'll showcase some of my favorite games of all time. There will be descriptions, screenshots, official artwork, and music downloads for each game featured. It's basically what might happen if you combined the Top 100 with "Game of the Month". I begin this project today with a featurette on Star Fox, which as you may recall, used to hold the #1 spot on my Top 100. I just have a couple of words of warning:
1. I don't have an index page yet. I'll work on that when I've actually got more than one featurette up.
2. This page was designed for 800 x 600 resolution. I don't really like using anything higher than that because the pictures and text all come out too small for me. However, I did take a look at it in 1024 x 768 resolution and tried to fix some of the bugs that occurred. It still doesn't look as good to me in that resolution, but it's not a complete disaster. I'll take another look at the page from my work PC tomorrow and see if there's anything obvious that needs to be changed.
3. I took a look at the page in Firefox and didn't notice any difference in the way it looks in Internet Explorer. Occasionally I've gotten complaints that pages on this site didn't look right in Firefox (or other browsers). Now, I'm all for there being competition with Microsoft and all, but when you design something and it looks fine for years in the browser you use, then suddenly people start using a new browser, and it doesn't display the site correctly, so they write you to complain that the problem is with you and not the browser...well, I can't be the only one who finds that annoying. ~FO
I updated Documentation of Game Glitches with a new one for LandStalker. (If you plan to play this game you might want to read that before attempting the final dungeon. It could potentially cause you to lose a lot of progress if it happens.)
Other than the Image Arcane/RAU Scrapbook and Gallery, I've been really bad about updating this site lately. I am about 1/4 of the way through a review of Eternal Darkness, and I hope to work on that more this week. Since I finished LandStalker I'll need to find something else to play now. ~FO
I've taken down the Top 100 Favorite Games List. Why did I take the Top 100 down? Two reasons:
1. Right now, Top 100 (or 200) "Games of All Time" lists seem to be a fad with certain gaming magazines and websites, and I'm getting rather burnt out on discussing them. I don't feel anybody's stupid list is worth getting into a discussion that will eventually degrade into personal attacks because "x game isn't on the list" or because "you put x game on the list and that means you have bad taste". I see myself doing it and then I always want to kick myself afterwards. No list is worth feeling that way, and right now, I don't want to be part of the whole fad.
2. The list has problems, particularly around the last few pages. It's been so long since I've played a lot of those games that I don't know if I'd still want to have them on my Top 100. I had a couple of experiences where I replayed a game I had on my Top 100 and found I didn't like it anywhere near as much as I used to. The two most prominent examples were Solaris (2600) and Legend of the Mystical Ninja (SNES). Solaris seemed really impressive for a 2600 game, but I felt it shot itself in the foot too many times with things like reversing your controls and refueling (both of which may have been more tolerable if the game had continues...which it doesn't. I beat it on an emulator with a hacked ROM that gave you unlimited lives, and I can't imagine ever beating it any other way.) And as for Mystical Ninja, I still like it, but I would have liked it more if it had more focus on the action scenes than the towns. If I kept it on my list, I'd probably move it down quite a bit. I imagine there are probably other games on that list I would feel that way about now, too.
I'm also debating whether or not to eschew a definitive list in favor of a generic "List of Games I Actively Like" in alphabetical order (as opposed to the order in which I like them). Something like that would be easier to update, as adding and removing stuff would be a simple measure of plugging it in or taking it out, as opposed to having to rearrange the whole list. And if I like a game, I can just slap it on there. I don't have to worry my brain into a pretzel thinking, "Gee, I liked this game, but do I REALLY want to put it on my Top 100? And if I did, where would it rank?"
In game progress news, I'm at (what I think is) the final dungeon of LandStalker. The whole beginning of this game was a whole lotta' nothing, but it gets better at the exact point where you have to solve a bunch of puzzles in a crypt. That, actually, has been my favorite part of the game so far. The later dungeons have more mazes and puzzles, and are more challenging overall, but it still annoys me that much of the game's challenge comes from simply not being able to tell where stuff is floating in the 3D isometric perspective. Games like this need shadows!!! (But at least this one has a battery save.) ~FO
I made some updates to the Kid Icarus Shrine. First, I added all my midi conversions to the Music Shrine, including a new one I converted just this morning of the title theme. I also updated the Miscellaneous page with a theory to the possible origins of Captain N's Princess Lana. ~FO
Zee Flyeeng Oomelette-a keetchee needed cleun-up. Tuu muny updetes oon zee frunt pege-a. It ves getteeng ell sqooeeggly veeggly. Bork bork bork!