Darklink42

Well, in the game it's the giants who are the guardians of Termina. I wasn't sure whether that was getting into spoiler territory, given that it's something the player is supposed to put together through exploration and gameplay. If it's not too spoilerific, I'll add some specificity.

Good point, I changed it to "Unlike the monsters of the forest." New edits below. Edit: Nice catch on the capitalization, by the way. At first I was using lower case to differentiate. Didn't even think about whether all of them would be capitalized or not. Edit edit: Dafydd's edits implemented, with additional edits to be added pending discussion of the second point raised. (Now added)

One of the tough tricks with the Skull Kid is that, as far as Majora's Mask is concerned, is that the player doesn't learn all that much about who he is and why he does what he does until near the end of the game. I did some rearranging though, to give Link a little less focus and the Skull Kid, along with the race he belongs to, a little more. Here's take two: Edited with Dafydd's suggestions from below.

Alright guys, I'm finally back. I've been following the thread closely, and I'm glad you haven't lost your edge for editing. I'm also terrified. William Faulkner might have said "Kill all your darlings," but they are darlings for a reason. It's been awesome to see this thread explode with good edits and activity as well. Also, Mirby, I hope that you won't be too discouraged to come back to working on bios later, if you don't pick up Protoman again. These guys are DAMN harsh, but I've never known them to be widely off the mark or purposefully unkind or cruel. I figured that out when I submitted my first draft of Vault Boy way back, and they sniffed out my lack of effort (not implying that's the case with you, far from it) like a pair of bloodhounds tracking a rabbit. Each of these bios ends up taking a tremendous amount of work, even when it feels like you've finally got the pattern down and shouldn't have to worry about the wall of edits you got the first couple of times. I encourage you to stick with it, you've put up some great bios so far. I really like your K.K. bio in particular. It doesn't get easier to write these, but the I think you'll find that the critiques, after a while, get a lot easier to roll with. Without further ado, I give you the Skull Kid rough draft (I probably screwed up the format a little bit, my apologies in advance): Skull Kid "Hi! Do you think my face is kind of plain?" Although he is the main antagonist of The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, the Skull Kid made his debut in the prequel, Ocarina of Time. In that game, he is introduced as a member of an impish race, also called skull kids, who dwell in the mysterious Lost Woods. They are said to be formed from children who wandered too far into the forest and breathed the forbidden air. Unlike other monsters of the woods, skull kids don’t appear to be evil, merely mischievous. Only when brought into contact with adults will they turn violent, displaying a child-like fear that is the last remnant of their former lives. Their trickery can tend towards cruelty, but in the end they’ve helped Link, the Hero of Time, on his quests more often than hindered him. The Skull Kid would make friends with Link during the events of Ocarina of Time, trading music and masks during the hero’s childhood. What began with a chance musical jam near the entrance to the Lost Woods, however, would later force Link to undertake a quest in an alien reality closely related to his own: Termina. Some time after Link completes his quest in Ocarina, the Skull Kid ambushes a wandering salesman and steals a mask of great evil and mischief. Known as Majora’s Mask, it changes the Skull Kid, making him more evil and granting him access to dark magic, which he uses to drag the moon from the sky above Termina in order to destroy the world. He also ambushes Link, stealing his possessions and later transforming him into Deku Link. Although the people of Termina, and Link himself, have reason to fear and hate the Skull Kid, his fairy friend Tatl retains a different theory. She believes that the mask is controlling the forest imp, enhancing his anger and loneliness in the absence of his friends. Whatever the case may be, it’s up to Link to navigate Termina and the nuances of time in order to set things right. Selected game appearances Nintendo 64 Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time(1998 ) Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (2000) References Zelda Wiki- Skull Kid Zeldapedia- Skull kid (race) Zeldapedia- Skull Kid (character) Hyrule Historia- Pg. 84

Just as long as they go more towards the first one and not the sequel. Zoda's Revenge was...not good.

And with the choice to implement those practices, consumers continue to have the ability to lay blame where it belongs for bad decisions: the people who publish them. There's always room to screw it up, but I like this move personally. For now, it shows that Sony's got some teeth they're willing to bear to keep consumers from getting control yanked out from their playing and buying decisions.

For all the talk of the Link to the Past Sequel featuring brand new areas, it's interesting that all they've shown is rehashes of areas from the first game. I'm still hopeful, but that kind of makes me nervous.

So much awesome!

I'm still not buying a new console, but this actually makes me think about it. Looks Gorgeous, especially with no sign of the cartoon cutscenes.

You know, I'm sure there's a catch somewhere, but the idea of getting access to free games simply because I already have the gold membership for the 360 is fairly appealing. That being said, my bulldozer full of cash is a little low, so I don't think I'm getting the Xbone anytime in the next year or two. That price point hurts, especially when you consider that accessories and games would add about $150 bucks, at the very least.

We don't have any remixes from this awesome, and hilarious, series? I have a lot of really fond memories playing both 2 and 3, and the soundtrack features heavily in those recollections. I've always been a particular fan of , , , and the . That being said, most of the songs are great, and it'd be cool just to see this series get some remix love.

Damn. I hope they don't release KH 3 for PS4 only, even if that would make sense as far as their track record goes. I haven't even had the money to buy a PS3, and have gotten lucky on the handheld department. On topic: FF13, for me, fell flat for a couple of reasons. For one thing, the linearity was a killer. After being able to run around in fairly large regions in many of the previous games, constraining a game series known for exploration to hallways is, and remains, an awful decision. Getting to the planet and the open space 8-10 hours in (at least) was worse. I might not have liked it, but I got used to the linear system in place, only to have it yanked out from under me, and then once that was done, once again have the open world yanked away. The second thing that killed it for me was the weapon crafting. I was under the impression I was a gamer, not a facking alchemist. I gave up even bothering with any new weapons at about the time I realized I was never going to gather enough junk to make anything but the weapons I was using worth while. There wasn't even an incentive to try. Finally, I liked the sense of taking down massive creatures, but therein lay the problem: I couldn't. Maybe I didn't pick up the right methods of gameplay along the way, but trying to get through mandatory mini-boss battles before the main baddie a la FF1-4, in this case was nearly impossible. I gave up trying about the 8th time one of those elephant things stomped my whole party to death long before I made a dent. I really felt let down that the game didn't do a good job of teaching me the mechanics necessary to take on that level of mandatory challenge. I guess I'm an oddball in saying that I kind of liked Snow and Sazh. Snow made sense to me, some of the time. And while Sazh's freakout mid-game was contextually weird, that I felt was a fault of the localization. Who I didn't like was Lightening. I get that she's a "Strong Female Lead," but that's all she is. In a funny sort of way, she reads to me as a hyper-masculine woman (Not to say I don't like that she reads that way, but rather that I wish she was more complex in addition to being so). Her surliness just comes across as awkward and out of place, and she struck one note consistently for me throughout the game: "Must destroy, must kill, must complete the mission." She had, to my memory, three or so scenes of interesting human emotion, and then backpeddled right back into "kill the new thing" as soon the opportunity presented itself. Not all the heroes of previous games have been perfect, but they at least had changes of character motivation or broad realizations happen to them that stuck. Lightening never gave me that impression. Here's the thing. I'm one of those seemingly rare folk that liked 12, and there's a reason for it. The grindy bits were obnoxious(the lore, however, almost made it worth it), but the characters and their motivations were interesting to me. I liked the political intrigue. I liked Balthier's attitude under pressure, and that his past was relevant to what was going on. I liked that even the side characters had complex motivations and pasts, like Reddas and Ondore. Every character, even the occasionally unlikable Vaan and Penelo, felt like they had a place in the story. The world, such as it was, made sense too (don't get me started on the Occuria ex machina though.) 13 never even got close to that for me. I was always looking up related story things in the logs. Worse still, despite the written exposition, I was still left with questions I couldn't figure out the answer to. Even towards the end game. All of the motivation and intrigue felt weirdly rushed, despite taking so much time to get to. What's our focus? Nevermind, go find this thing. What is a focus? Let me explain with some flash backs. Why are we fighting? Don't worry, just run over there and fight. What is Ragnarok? We might explain that later, but here's a bit of awkward development with Hope first. Why is the leader Fal-Cie two wholly different creatures, why is he both helping and fighting us, and for that matter, what is the deal with this whole Fal-Cie thing anyways? Up to the point where I got, none of that is all that clear. So if 15 ends up being a new entry, I want to see the series return to form a little bit. I don't think it a deal-breaker that SE tried something new, but for me personally, it didn't work. Let ambition be fueled by actual success, not potential success (I.e. don't reach for a trilogy+ before you know if the first one will take off the way you plan.) De-complicate the interlocking gameplay systems a little bit, and take the time to make it work together. Simplify the story telling and world building so it all fits in one (main) game. There's always room for spinoffs, or side plots later. Bring back exploration, for the love of Ifrit. And, on a personal note, dial back on the child(ish)-sidekicks a little or make them more than a static character in a dynamic world. The Onion Knight from 3's portrayal in Dissidia, for example.

Has anybody called dibs on Skullkid?

Really digging that flute in ELM. Count me in as a subscriber.

One more for fun: If you listen hard, da' boss is workin' his tunes. Tension is thick here.

Can I post about Humble Bundles? I know lots of people know about them, but the weekly deal this week is Alan Wake and I'd really like to recommend this series to anyone that hasn't tried it yet. It's got really good, in-depth stoytelling, some legitimate scares and creepy atmosphere, and gameplay that, while admittedly not the best, is still solid and fun. I care a lot about this series, and I'd like to support it as much as I can so the team will be able to make the sequel they want to make for it. http://www.humblebundle.com/weekly (there are 6 days left on this) They threw in everything and the kitchen sink on this one. Not that I assume most people will be as into the series as I am, but there's an insane amount of stuff from behind the scenes and based on the Alan Wake universe, including DRM free copies of the game, DLC, and it's psuedo-sequel for (your price here.)

http://www.redbubble.com/people/ninjaink/works/8528842-materia-girl?p=poster It's more expensive than I'd like (and a lot of the stuff on the site was, more or less) but I'm a big fan of the this one and the Metroid one they have.

For these things, I'll wait; eardrums prepared to be rocked. A delay is fine.

My favorite was when Hawkeye, the mostly armorless berserker, would take a (admittedly rare) no-damage hit. Exactly like Hector, 4x as badass. Plus Hawkeye's dodge animation was literally one frame of him slightly shifting before dealing out axe-death.

The code should appear at the top of the screen (above the already present text) once you enter the code and press submit. Confused the hell out of me the first two times I did it too.

1. Felix (Golden Sun) 2. Marth (Fire Emblem) 3. Q*bert

I too know the horrors of owning FF13. I got it on Xbox, and will be glad to send it back to the hell from whence it came. Same with Ninja Gaiden 2, while I'm thinking about it. Other games: The original Timesplitters- Wow, this game is rough. Not as in difficult, but as in how did the sequel become so awesome based on what was in this game? It looks ugly, it plays ugly, it's just not that good. FF8- Eh. The award for most recent worst game: Assassin's Creed 3. Maybe it's because I can't access Live and therefore patches, but this game is crap. It is, fresh off the line, made far more difficult by what isn't finished. Not unbeatable, but frustratingly unfair. Movies: The Guyver 2- Yeah, it has David Hayder (solid Snake) in one of his few acting roles. It's still a pretty terrible movie. The first one is worth mentioning, but I don't own it. Kung Pow: Enter the Fist- If I had a guilty pleasure, this is it. It is so ridiculously bad, and many of the jokes are stupid, but I keep watching it from time to time anyways. Dark Knight Rises- Actually, no. I like this movie. I'm not joining the hipster movement that says I can't like it, even if the end twist was somewhat anti-climatic. The Golden Compass- Someone said "You read the books right? Check out the movie, see if it's good." My response after viewing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCJGauIwzEU

I enemy AI, spawn boundaries, and pop-up in Rainbow 6: Vegas 2 were hilarious. I spent hours laughing at them as they lined up, one by one, to go down a ladder so that their corpses all piled up on one another. Less hilarious, but still funny was eliminating all enemies in one area, only to realize that no one else would spawn until I walked past certain lines, where they'd pop into existence right in front of me.

This. I always get paranoid that a game is going to pull that old trick where you have to only have certain equipment, or you're forced to use only the starting weapons, so I just keep them for as long as I have the space.

This is just a great sentence all around. Nice one Polo.