Grazing Rites

So after hearing a lot of negativity about how hard the end of Final Fantasy III was on the DS I beat it last night and thought I would share my approach.

First off, jobs. There are so many choices it’s really hard to know what jobs work best. This is what worked for me; all characters were around level 60:

Knight  (Front Row)
Magus  (Back Row)
Devout  (Back Row)
Dragoon (Front Row)

My Knight’s job level was maxed out at 99, my Magus was in the high 50s, my Devout in the low 50s, and I think my Dragoon was around job level 20 or 30. The first 3 classes are absolutely essential in my opinion, the Dragoon you can replace with the job of your choice (but not Geomancer, they’re just a waste of time at this stage). The Knight and Dragoon would be equipped with Crystal Armor (the second set of which you’ll find in the Crystal Palace).

One thing I want to make clear is that you can’t do it in one shot. You should make a couple trips, at least 3 before you make your final run so have a couple Ottershrooms. Take one trip to beat and get all the items from the surrounding maze, one to get to the Forbidden Land and get all of those items, and one to get all of the items from the Crystal Palace. It’s just such a long journey to get to the final boss you can’t waste time (read: resources) on your attempt to beat the game. This allows you have to some of the best equipment and magic as well as a pretty good supply of Phoenix Downs and Elixirs (however I didn’t need to use any of either in my final run) plus it levels you up pretty good.

Once you do all that you’re ready for your final run.

In the surrounding maze just use physical attacks. After a battle if anyone in your team is below 2,500 hit points (if you’re level is in the high 50s – 2,000 if you’re in the low 50s) use your Knight’s cure on them. At job level 99 your Knight should have 20 uses of cure so that should be plenty to at least make it past the outer maze without using any other magic.

Once you’re in the Crystal Palace you may want to step up your game with your Magus casting level 6 Fire and your Devout casting Aeroga.

The first boss, the dude you were sent to kill, you’ll want to hit reasonably hard – for magic you can throw the book at him because you’ll have your HP and MP topped up soon. I recommend the Knight and Dragoon using regular attacks (the extra turn trade-off with having your Dragoon jump is not worth it at this point), have your Magus cast Flare or Drain when his HP is low (say, under 2,000), and have your Devout hit him with Holy whenever your team doesn’t need healing.

After that guy’s dead you’ll face off against the Cloud of Darkness – this is not a battle you’re meant to win so don’t even try. Just set everyone to regular attack and wait for death. Once you die there’s a REALLY long cut scene after which you will be fully restored. Once revived step forward one room but then stop.

Before stepping in the last teleport there are four directions you can head in. Each one will lead you to a different room with a trapped box containing ribbon helmets and a boss. After each boss you defeat (but NOT each box) you will again be fully loaded in HP and MP. The bosses are obviously harder than the boxes so go for the box first in each of the four rooms. Your first 2 ribbons should immediately be equipped on your Magus and Devout. If you have Crystal Helm on your Knight and Dragoon hold off on equipping them with Ribbon until right before the final battle.

3 of the 4 rooms are totally intuitive but the bottom-left room is confusing and easy to get lost and waste resources so I’ll tell you exactly where to go. First go all the way to the left and head up and follow the path, which will lead you to the trapped box. Be a little conservative with your magic while fighting these trapped boxes – just use level 6 Fire and Aeroga and also Drain and various cures as needed. Know your effective levels of cure so you don’t waste stronger magic when you don’t need to. The first cure gets you about 500 HP if focused on one individual, the second cure gets you about 1,000 when focused on one person, everything above that will pretty much max everyone out even when shared. Equip the ribbon if you’re Devout and Magus doesn’t have one each yet and then head back down. Then take the next closest opportunity to go up, that teleport will take you to the boss where you’ll want to use your strongest magic like Flare and Holy. Then you’ll be topped up on HP and MP and you can head back to where you started in that room to teleport out.

It is absolutely critical that you complete all four rooms before heading on – it’s not just for the ribbons but the dark warriors you free and crystals you destroy that make the Cloud of Darkness manageable. The particle beam weapon will no longer do max damage to you if everyone’s wearing a ribbon and the 4 dark warriors give you their power (something that happens in the preceding cut scene).

In my personal experience the final battle with the Cloud of Darkness gets progressively harder but should be manageable at the levels I’ve mentioned. So start off hitting it hard with Flare and Holy, and have your Dragoon jump whenever he’s at full hit points. Ignore the snakes, when you kill the green lady cloud thing they die too so just pretend they’re not there. Things intensify near the end, so once that you notice things getting a little harder (you’ll start losing more hit points when attacked), have your Dragoon switch to regular attacks and have your Devout pretty much dedicated to healing your team. Keep using Flare whenever possible, Drain when needed.

You may have a couple of close calls and one of your team might be dead by the end but this strategy should be enough for you to beat the game. Good luck!

So with Blaster repaired once again (third time’s the charm?) I have returned to planning for the forthcoming road trip. Yesterday I booked the last hotel and did a bunch of research regarding restaurant locations but today I thought I’d get a sneak peak at the set list for the concert.

I hit up Google and found some interesting things at various sites.

The first place I checked seemed to indicate a cover of Coldplay’s ‘Viva La Vida’…intriguing…wouldn’t that be a treat?

The second site I went to had ‘Do I Have To?’ in the set list. Wow. That would be so awesome. Chill up the spine awesome. I LOVE that song. It was like my favorite song for two separate 9-month stints. Seriously, I started my day with that song for a year and a half, just not consecutively. I would absolutely love to see Neil sing that live. Not as much as ‘If Love Were All’ or ‘In Denial’ (if Kylie was available) but it’d probably make the Top 5…Top 10 at least. It’s just one of those songs you can put so much personality into and make so many choices with – it IS a wonderful song but it could also be a fantastic performance piece. It’s almost a heartfelt Neil Simon monologue. Although I suppose the same could be said of ‘If Love Were All’.

Before getting my hopes up I figured I should get some confirmation. Heck, even if I could get it confirmed the North American tour begins today – for all I know the set list could be radically adjusted for the different audience. Off to Wikipedia I went.

Unfortunately Wikipedia included neither ‘Viva La Vida’ nor ‘Do I Have To?’

Here’s the Wikipedia set list:

*** Spoiler Warning ***

Heart (Intro -contains elements of More than a dream)
Did you see me coming?
Pandemonium / Can you forgive her?
Love Comes Quickly
Love, etc.
Building a wall
Go West
Two Divided By Zero
Why Don’t We Live Together?
Always on My Mind
Closer to Heaven
Left to My Own Devices
King’s Cross
The way it used to be
Jealousy
Suburbia
All over the world
Se a Vida E (That’s The Way Life Is)
It’s A Sin
Being Boring
West End Girls

I’m not too upset at the prospect of losing ‘Do I Have To?’ when ‘Why Don’t We Live Together?’ is included, it being a close second with a similar sound.

‘King’s Cross’ is such a beautiful song, I’ve loved that forever – Jon can attest to that. I recall pestering him about it during a Create Writing class in high school once.

Although I caught it in 2006 I’ve excited to see ‘Always on My Mind’ on the list…it’s just such a fun song.

‘Closer to Heaven’ should also be nice.

And ‘Jealousy’, what a performance piece that is – just check out the video.

‘Se A Vida E’ is also fun.

I’m less than thrilled about the closer being ‘West End Girls’ though…not just because it’s one of my least favorite songs they do but the whole wrapping the tour up with their first hit renews my concerns about a potential retirement.

I could also do without Go West – the 15 minute version in 2006 more than sated my interest in that song for awhile.

I believe ‘Being Boring’ is the beginning of the encore which could be cool.

So I’m pretty excited about the set list on the whole, it seems a bit more promising than the 2006 list in terms of seeing some less-mainstream favorites of mine.

Now I wonder what sorts of awesomeness the Merch table will have…?

And more than that, what the hell am I going to say to them when I meet them? Ask them for a song to be added to the set list? No, that takes lots of prep and they probably get that all the time. Tell them about a particular song that meant something special to me or got be through a rough time? No, they probably get that all the time too and it’s just a little too trekkie. Beg them to never retire? No, don’t want to put the idea in their heads if it wasn’t. You know, my sister would probably be helpful with this dilemma…

If I don’t have a plan I’m going to turn into a blubbering mess…this is not good. Heck, that’s if I don’t faint.

This is silly. I had intelligent things to say to Noam Chomsky and Michael J. Fox, why is this so hard? (song reference unintentional) I did alright when I had a chance to chat online with Michael Dorn, Jeri Ryan, and Robert Picardo. Heck, Nathan Fillion recently responded to one of my tweets.

I think I’m going to frame the autograph though. I’m a minimalist (pun accidental) and consequently my walls are pretty bare at home. I have the Educated Derelicts picture, a movie poster from Generations, my degree, and a family portrait up on the walls, that’s about it. But their autograph is a huge enough deal to be framed and mounted.

24 days from now I’m be driving to Portland down the I-5.

25 days from now I’ll be driving from Portland to the Six Flags in Vallejo.

26 days from now I’ll be spending the day at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom.

27 days from now I’ll be in San Francisco having my birthday dinner at the Hard Rock Café and staying at the Hyatt.

28 days from now I’ll meet the Pet Shop Boys.

29 days from now I’ll be driving from San Francisco to Grant’s Pass.

30 days from now I’ll be enjoying the Oregon Coast. I’m still not so sure where I’ll sleep that night.

31 days from now I’ll be on my way home.

Christ, doesn’t anyone understand that I’m busy and exhausted? It used to be understood I was unavailable this time of year - when did that change? 3 bloody days in a row of people getting me to do extra stuff when I’m already running way past the red line - I guess at least when I collapse I’ll know I didn’t let anyone down.

The first day was a timing thing. The second day was a special request. The third day, well that’s just crossing the line into a new paradigm isn’t it? I make a couple exceptions to the rule and now suddenly the rule doesn’t freaking exist anymore.

This is what I get for equivocating. Compromise is apparently the mother of a new crappy status quo.

Could we all just pretend that I’m out of town or something? Stop saying I’m working fair, say I’m in Alaska or something. I might as well be.

It’s not that I don’t care. It’s that I simply can’t.

Cannot.

Not able to.

This is miles away from not wanting to or not caring to.

If I was in Alaska I bet you’d understand. Probably wouldn’t ask in the first place so you wouldn’t be disappointed.

Kirk said if something was important you make the time – but I’m certain he didn’t mean in the middle of a crisis.

Let’s all just pretend that I’m going to Alaska until Labor Day. I’m not going to Alaska because I don’t care about you or what you have going on. It’s my job. I’d say let’s all pretend I’m in hospital but then you’d be inclined to visit.

I’m time and energy poor right now. Bankrupt even.

Idling for me right now is running at about 110%, and then as things happen I ramp up from there. That means when I’m not doing things that absolutely need to be done I should really try to spend my precious few free seconds in bed either watching TV from decades past or sleeping.

I’ve noticed I have a shorter fuse than usual lately. This is because I can’t get any bloody down time. If I’m not working it’s some other damned obligation. How can you have a sense of humor about something when you can never step back from it?

Pretend I’m in Alaska with no phone and no internet connection. For the love of God please. If I didn’t need my phone for work I’d change the voicemail greeting to reinforce this fiction.

I’m sorry. It’s just part of what I do – who I am really – that there is this period of 3 to 6 weeks a year that for all intents and purposes I do not exist to the outside world. I have gobs of free time in the winter though. Contact me then, we’ll do whatever you like.

So after defragging my SDHC card and re-flashing my ROM with an update my PDA still seems to have issues playing some videos with the sound properly synced. First like a year ago it happened with an episode of Sarah Jane, then a few NewsRadio episodes more recently, and then a Doctor Who episode. Well yesterday it happened again with a Hustle episode and for whatever reason it kind of pissed me off. Straw that broke the camel’s back and all that. So despite being super busy on multiple fronts I made the time to attack this issue.

I had been using Divx Mobile to play videos on my PDA but this had some drawbacks of its own, for example the software ‘expires’ like 2 or 3 times a year requiring it to be reinstalled – this does not inspire confidence. It wasn’t even that they were after a cash grab to register or anything; they just didn’t seem to think their software had longevity or perhaps they hope to one day replace the freeware with a commercial version and didn’t want to kill the market. But after all this time they have yet to launch a commercial product, perhaps because it isn’t quite good enough?

I had looked for alternatives to Window Media Player Mobile 10 because of the library periodically corrupting and had no luck so I wasn’t overly optimistic when I went searching for an alternative to Divx Mobile but I was in for a surprise.

It’s called The Core Pocket Media Player or TCPMP for short. According to Wikipedia it was discontinued in 2007 but it’s still available for download and it seemed to resolve the issue with the episode of Hustle. I’ve only had it for a day so I can’t fully review or evaluate it just yet but I’ve already run into my first bug – selecting exit from the program freezes my PDA however closing it from the Running Program List seems to work fine. Also Windows Media Player Mobile 10 seems to lag when TCPMP is also running.

So I’ll probably still keep Divx Mobile but now when it doesn’t behave or if some day it no longer functions I’ll have a backup that seems to work well enough. One thing I already prefer from the TCPMP interface is that a single tap stops the video, Divx Mobile takes like 3 taps – I’m sure the difference seems inconsequential but when you notice the bus has arrived at your stop at the last minute and you need to put on sunglasses or deploy an umbrella anything to save some precious seconds is nice.

The TCPMP interface is blissfully simple, reminiscent of Media Player Classic for desktops and yet seems to have tons of options. This is how software is meant to work – simple layout, does its job all the time, and plenty of user control. If only Microsoft could grasp this – we don’t want a pretty interface, we want a simple, clean, intuitive interface that gets the hell out of the way yet leaves you in the driver’s seat.

Apparently this thing is also good for handling mp3s too so I may have just found an alternative to Windows Media Player Mobile 10 as well.

If you’re interested The Core Pocket Media Player can be found here:
http://www.hpcfactor.com/downloads/tcpmp/
Skip past the RC version and go for TCPMP 0.71. Download the one that has ‘setup’ in the title.

Sorry for the lack of blog entries of late. Those of you that know me know this is the busy season at work. To tide you over feel free to follow me on Twitter – this time of year it’s hard to post more than 140 characters at a go anyways.

http://twitter.com/CoW_mAn

Recently my PDA had begun to turn on me.

The first sign of its satanic possession was constantly having to rebuild the Library in Media Player – why do you have to do this ever anyways? I don’t want a freaking library; I just want to listen to my mp3s on shuffle. Yes it is somewhat nice on incredibly rare occasion to listen to albums but I could do that myself. I’d rather trade that feature I use maybe 3 times a year for stable functionality and perhaps less resource hogging. And what really sucks is there are next to no alternatives – there’s no winamp for Windows Mobile 6 Classic for example.

Then came D Day when it decided I was not allowed to view the most important file on my PDA. Literally thousands of files, maybe even tens of thousands, and this one file gets corrupted. No amount of effort or trickery could save it.

These two problems made me think that perhaps the SD Card was degrading. It was cheap and looked like the casing had seen better days.

Then a Doctor Who episode refused to play in sync and eventually sputtered into uselessness.

I had had enough. I was ready to shell out $40 to get a new better quality SD card with double the capacity but for reasons that are extremely complicated I wasn’t able to do so yesterday so I took to troubleshooting the problem from home.

I scanned the SD card for errors – nothing reported so that wasn’t the problem. I tried re-installing divx mobile player, no dice. I tried defragging the SD card, it needed it desperately (some files were in well over 200 pieces) but that didn’t solve the problem either.

Frustrated and grasping at straws I thought I’d check to see if a new ROM update was available. Now I had done this several months ago when I first encountered this rebuilding a corrupt media player library problem and it didn’t look as if anything new was available but now there was such an update – and it was well over a year old. Very strange, but all indications were that it was a genuine update that applied to my PDA. If nothing else it promised to improve my WiFi and would likely clear out some of the junk that accumulates over a year and a half of use by restoring it to factory settings. There was virtually no concern about data loss as I keep everything on the SD card rather than cluttering up the device itself.

After reloading everything it didn’t take long for me to get all my settings back to my preferences. I still couldn’t open the file and no matter what I did, and trust me I tried everything; I could not get that Doctor Who episode to play properly. Now this was not completely unheard of – there was an episode of Sarah Jane Adventures that similarly frustrated me quite awhile ago.

It responded a little faster and seemed to use less memory and looked a little sharper but I still couldn’t access my file – it was time to accept that it was in all likelihood gone forever.

So far this ROM update hasn’t been as groundbreaking as when I updated the ROM on my old PDA all those years ago but it still seems to be a nice breath of fresh air into my beloved device.

I also loaded up an episode of Hustle to double check its video playback and it worked perfectly so I suspect there might be something subtly wrong with the Doctor Who file.

Now the question is: do I still shell out $40 for a 16 GB SDHC card? It probably won’t fix any particular problem beyond space limitation but I have grown fond of the idea of doubling my storage over the last couple days. With 16 GB I can have ALL of my mp3s plus a bunch of videos (including some to amuse the kid when the need arises) and pictures.

All units involved in operation ‘Final Fantasy’ stand down. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, nevermind I don’t want to talk about it.

Thanks for your help everyone. Sorry.

Awhile back, I can’t be terribly specific because I lose all sense of time this time of year; I had a bit of a date night that went rather well.

First we went to Watermania which I had never been to be and were reasonably impressed with the facilities. They seemed polite and prompt when a locker ate a quarter. The wave pool is somewhat small compared to others but serves its purpose well enough. The slides are decent for this type of facility and there’s tons of lap, diving, and deep end space plus 2 whirlpools, a sauna, and a steam room. On this particular night we were having a thunderstorm which made for some interesting views out of the windows.

After swimming we were pretty hungry and weren’t sure if there was enough time to get a proper meal before the movie we have planned to see but then when we went to buy tickets we saw the showtime was actually about 20 minutes later than their website had lead us to believe so we figured that would give us enough buffer to go to the Old Spaghetti Factory in Richmond. We might cut it a little close but we figured real food was worth the risk.

Upon arrival we saw that a massive large group had taken up a huge portion of the restaurant – this was a concern but we journeyed on. Little did we know that we were in for the best and most expedient service we’d encountered in months. Not since La Spaghetteria have we encountered the speed, skill, manners, sense of humour, and sense of calm urgency that our server, Nathan, provided. He almost literally bent over backwards for us, particularly when one of us left their Blackberry behind. We filled out positive comments cards and to ensure they got to the right people with the appropriate importance I mailed mine a day or two later. We ended up having tons of time before the movie started.

Lastly we went to go see Transformers 2 in IMAX which was great although I’ve already blogged about that AT LENGTH so I’ll spare you the rehash.

So in conclusion Watermania is pretty good and the Old Spaghetti Factory in Richmond is super awesome OMG go now.

So my message to Care Point Medical, posted in my blog entry ‘closed/no doctor/quota reached‏’, received a reply:

“Thank you very much for your feedback.

I would like to start off by apologizing for any inconvenience you may have experienced.  As you may be aware there is a shortage of doctors in the lower mainland.  During the summer months and especially the long weekends it is much more challenging keeping all of our clinics open their regular hours.  We try to make sure that we have at least one of our clinics open in each area of the lower mainland.   Unfortunately due to unforeseen circumstances such as illness, family emergencies and such, we are not always able to keep the clinics open their regular hours.

Unfortunately we are not able to change our website daily, so we have each clinic post a note on their door stating early closures.  I understand how frustrating it is when you have a sick child and are try to access a doctor, so may I suggest that you contact the clinic of your choice to see if they are open and/or still accepting patients.”

After some back and forth and some very pointed questions on my part I finally got answer regarding quotas…

“The quotas are enforced by the Ministry of health (Medical Services Plan).”

So the Ministry of Health (Medical Services Plan) is limiting how many people clinics can see in a day. The ministry responsible for helping people is limiting how many people can be helped. So in some instances it’s not a lack of doctors or supplies or nurses but the government saying they’ve helped too many people today, they must stop helping people now.

Is Care Point a private company? Is this a public versus privatization battle I’ve stumbled into or is it just stupid provincial bureaucracy or budget cuts care of the BC Liberals? The investigation will continue but probably not until the fall as I am getting very busy at work.

Accountability for this travesty will not be forgotten.

Ever feel like a bunch of Lilliputians are pushing you towards a cliff?

It just seems like the unending stream of external problems is, well, unending…and perhaps even intensifying.

First the car needed an oil change, then the check engine light came on, then the speedometer died twice. After a month of delays we finally got around to that oil change once we realized we had to book an appointment at the place that said no appointment necessary. The check engine light went away but now Mindi is nearly certain that the car is screwed in some significant and costly if not terminal way. It seems okay to me but I’m just about the farthest thing from an expert there is. Common sense approaches, like asking the price before paying for something, doesn’t seem to apply in the automotive world. I think I just need to accept that my annual recharge-the-batteries-at-Cultus-Lake trip just isn’t going to happen this year. Every time I think I’ve found a day that works the car screws me, maybe if I stop trying to go the car will stop conspiring against me. It doesn’t want to go there and I just have to accept that, why should I tell it otherwise?

The federal government wants some paperwork and receipts regarding our taxes, they gave us a limited timeframe to provide them and while the source of the receipts is willing to provide them we seem to be encountering a variety of delays that is making me nervous. First the letter didn’t make it clear if they wanted receipts or not – after finally getting a hold of them by phone to discover we did need the receipts there was a language barrier delay and now the source of the receipts wants to check all their numbers first. The deadline looms and in the face of all these other little problems may be far too easy to forget and since we have to do it all by mail there could be extra delays we may never know about…until it’s too late.

The government recently lowered our daycare subsidy, by only about $14 or some such but it’s approaching zero awfully fast.

The provincial government, whom I did not vote for, is instituting a new tax next year that will save businesses tons of money by making people pay more for everything from a haircut to a meal out. Oh and during the last election they ran partly on a platform of not instituting that exact tax. So unless this is stopped a lot of necessities are going to start costing a lot more next year and of course the tax rebate is based on a household income not an individual income (like 2 wage earners means only 1 consumer or something) so we won’t qualify for assistance although individually we both would.

A visit from Mindi’s friend some time ago convinced her we have a problem with moisture and we needed to buy a dehumidifier despite no problem I can point to but her friend let us use hers. I can’t say I’ve noticed a difference except that our towels dry slightly faster when left out. Then the heat wave struck which was agony and there’s virtually no place we can put an air conditioner. Then the heat wave ended now we have to return the dehumidifier which near as I can tell was only good for gathering grey water. There does appear to be a slight humidity problem in the kitchen but I think that has more to do with how often we have pasta and how frequently we leave a sink full of water sit for days on end.

The kid got pink eye and the medicine was cheap and OTC which was a pleasant surprise but it’s nearly impossible to administer. The medicine seemed to work quickly but then he seemed to get some kind of heat issue inducing vomiting. Now that that has passed he has a bit of a cough and Mindi wanted to keep him home today. I’m not sure if she has any sick or vacation days left to spare – if not that means a loss of income.

Mindi was sick the other day and has to see a specialist about her eyes; she only just finished paying off the two new pairs of glasses she bought last winter. They were nearly $600 – will this mean they need to be replaced less than a year later? Who knows?

For once I seem to be the only one perfectly healthy but that doesn’t mean I’m not contributing to the squeeze. I’m trying to keep my new year’s resolution of seeing a dentist and after much searching and sticker shock and some serious help from a member of my staff I think I found a place but now need to coordinate schedules and actually book a visit.

So near as I can tell the government, the environment, our health both medical and dental, and the car is all trying to push me over a cliff. And conveniently each of these problems seems to have one goal in mind, attacking my savings. The thing is, I had plans for those savings.

And throughout all this I’m trying to plan a proper road trip vacation. Of course I scored great deals by pre-paying but those are all non-refundable and with the car apparently super questionable I’m feeling increasingly stupid about the vacation. I spent too much on the concert tickets, I spent too much on the hotel in San Francisco, and pre-paying for so much under normal circumstances would have been very smart by getting us deals and lessening the financial blow by spreading it out over time but right now I just feel leveraged and backed into a corner. I’ve put nearly $1,000 into our vacation already and despite waiting to repair the car the last time before moving forward on any of that I am now once again staring into the abyss.

A wire, a sensor, a solenoid (whatever that is), and apparently a potentially crap transmission stands between me and my vacation that I’ve pretty much already paid for. A car that I’ve put about $3,000 into might not last a year apparently. I swear if I don’t get a year of use for every grand I’ve put into that thing I’m out of the car owning business for awhile. I’ll wait until there’s an electric car I can buy outright. I’m fine taking the bus and my family will just have to be as well because at $3,000 a year it will bankrupt us in short order. I was rather lucky with the timing of buying this car with a healthy tax return and some investments paying out – I cannot make that happen again. The hat is empty of rabbits.

And as if all of this wasn’t enough it’s the busy season at work. The time of year when I need a little support from my family and a vacation to look forward to in order to get me through the rough patches my sources of strength have turned on me along with the government that should protect and the environment that should nurture. And they all want money or threaten the taking of money.

I’ve taken economics, calculus, and political science – I like to think I’m a great observer of trends. Trends can tell you what’s happened, what’s happening, and what is likely to happen and that knowledge can protect you and provide for you if properly harnessed. Right now the trends seem to point to me being pecked to death by ducks. Any one problem I could squash with my thumb – problem is I only have 2 thumbs and a small army of problems of various sizes. It’s like Voyager fighting the Kazon – Voyager was hugely superior technologically but the Kazon just outnumbered them and wore them down to the point that they lost their ship for awhile. I don’t even want to think what the real world outcome of that metaphor would be.

A Primer

In the North American experience Final Fantasy began with Final Fantasy on the NES which I was aware of but never played. Then later came Final Fantasy II on the SNES and later Final Fantasy III also on the SNES both of which are two of my favorite games of all time. Then came Final Fantasy VII on PC and PlayStation. That’s right; in North America we counted 1, 2, 3, 7 in the Final Fantasy universe.

This is where I stopped playing largely due to the painfully linear nature of Final Fantasy VII as well as the changes in play control that seemed to take a lot of the fun out of it and make it less like a Final Fantasy game and more like something it wasn’t, some kind of sick cross between the boring parts of Star Trek: A Final Unity and Street Fighter which on the surface sounds great but in execution was very frustrating.

Beyond playing the old titles Final Fantasy the series was largely dead to me for nearly a decade. I had heard about other games, the entry-level Crystal Chronicles made for young children, as well as the movie but none garnered any of my interest.

Along the way I discovered that the beloved games from my youth, specifically Final Fantasy II and III were not what I thought. Final Fantasy II was actually Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy III was actually Final Fantasy VI, there were several more games that had only been released in Japan that I never knew about at the time. That explained why the series suddenly jumped from III to VII, they were trying to bring the titles in line with the Japanese titles for consistency which given the internet made sense.

But wait, did this mean there were more Final Fantasy games from a time before they messed it all up with Final Fantasy VII? I supposed so but I shrugged it off figuring they would be in Japanese only and therefore unplayable to me.

A Sequel

In May 2009, nearly a decade after my hands had last touched new Final Fantasy content for the first time I received an e-mail from Nintendo, they were releasing a sequel to Final Fantasy IV on WiiWare and the characters seemed oddly familiar. A little looking and I discovered that Final Fantasy IV was actually my beloved Final Fantasy II - a sequel to one of my favorite games of all time 15 years later, who would have thought it possible? Only by virtue of the Wii and it’s fantastic appreciation for retro gaming. I downloaded the first installment of the game and was taken back to the world I knew so well. Familiar characters and places with slightly updated game play…it was perfect if a little short but then I discovered it was going to be released in chapters and more content was on the way. A great business model in a recession, keeps the cash flow coming. Final Fantasy was once again alive…and smart.

A Marathon…or two

Next came the Mario Marathon, a fantastic event I’ve written about before, which inspired the internet to open their wallets for charity, dust off their old games for fun, and perhaps try it themselves raising $29,000 for Child’s Play in the process. I had more or less decided to finally give up on my hatred for 2-D game franchises gone 3-D and try Mario 64 on Virtual Console. There was a Sonic marathon that last I saw never made it to $100 but a group called The Speed Gamers who apparently had been doing marathons for quite some time began the Final Fantasy Marathon which eventually made over $50,000 for Autism.

I wasn’t about to subject my family to watching yet another video game marathon especially when this cast of characters was frankly much less entertaining. But it did provide be some valuable information about the Final Fantasy franchise including seeing some game play of games I had not played before as well as information that apparently all the old Final Fantasy games released in Japan were now available in English on one system or another. The older titles that interested me most were available either on the Nintendo DS or its predecessor the Game Boy Advance which the DS is backwards compatible with.

The missing Final Fantasy games could be played. Mario 64 needed to take a back seat.

Final Fantasy III

At the mall with my family not long after the Final Fantasy Marathon I snuck away to see what was available. How much could a used Game Boy Advance game cost anyways? Well my search of old Game Boy Advance cartridges came up dry but Final Fantasy III was released for the DS itself. $30 new or $20 used it was a steal. Still being the pragmatist that I am I was happy to grab a used copy.

Unaware that the DS version was a remake rather than just the original game on a handheld the second I popped in the game I was blown away. The full motion video opening was stunning and the music was fantastic – it really was a thing of beauty. Now keep in mind I have like 4 games for the DS: New Super Mario Bros, Star Trek Tactical Assault, Mario Party, and now Final Fantasy III so I wasn’t very familiar with the DS’s capabilities. Clearly I had underestimated them. The last handheld I owned was the original Game Boy. Then I began the game…it was 3D. Crap, up against my comfort zone a little sooner than I expected. How could I hope to explore every nook and cranny in 3-D while being attacked and on such a tiny screen? Well I’ve been playing it for a couple weeks now and I’m still not certain I haven’t missed anything and I’m still not thrilled about the zoom-in-to-see-secret-stuff idea which I simply refuse to use but that doesn’t stop it from being a hell of a lot of fun to play.

The use of the 3-D graphics is a little self-serving at times (i.e. fancy graphics for fancy graphics’ sake rather than adding anything to the game, game play, plot, etc.) particularly during the battles as the added camera angle changes and pans make the battles take much longer but it is impressive the first few times and tolerable at worst. The story’s pretty good, the job system takes a little getting used to but my recent replaying of Secret of Mana on Virtual Console made it seems a little less strange.

Overall this is the best $20 I’ve spent in months if not longer. When there’s a heat wave I can turn off everything and play on the couch or on the bed. When Mindi’s watching soulless reality TV I can go play in the yard. It’s engrossing and it’s a lot of fun. If you ever loved any Final Fantasy and you have a DS of any kind you must get this fantastic game.

The Future

There are still more chapters forthcoming for Final Fantasy IV: The After Years (the sequel to Final Fantasy II in North America and IV in Japan). In fact…*checks* three more chapters come out TODAY! They are also planning on releasing the original versions of Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy III on Virtual Console – I don’t care if I finish III on the DS just to start over on the Wii, I WILL play that game. Then on September 9th the final part of The After Years will be released. I will continue to keep my eyes open for Game Boy Advance Final Fantasy cartridges; particularly at EB and then if HST is enacted at yard sales. I do still plan on giving Mario 64 a try and I also plan to download The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past on Virtual Console somewhere down the line. I figure that should be plenty of gaming awesomeness to take me to New Super Mario Bros Wii this holiday season. Beyond that, perhaps I may give Final Fantasy VII or further games in the series a try or perhaps try my hand at the dreaded Mario Sunshine.

Oh yes, the glory days of gaming are here again. Once just a dream, now a reality.