EC2151

I like the ol' Turn-Based and ATB style RPGs myself. Stuff like the Lufia games, Golden Sun, Final Fantasy V... Modern examples are hard to come by, because people don't seem to enjoy these types of games as much. However, a good one for last-gen is Skies of Arcadia for the gamecube (originally DreamCast but the GC is much better). Great music, great story, fun battles... it's everything you love about classic RPGs. The cherry on the cake is that the hero is not, like most of the RPGs of its time, a whiny little 'stoic' bitch with a dark and mysterious past. He's just a guy who enjoys life, and that's a nice change of pace. That's a good shot, even though it is by no means a 360 game. Don't get FFIV: The After Years. Just don't. Hmm... other RPGs... There ARE the Paper Mario games... Some of the newer Tales series games might be up your alley. Final Fantasy IX is always a good bet. Though X might be too. Most RPGs I can think of are on portable platforms these days. Sad. If there can be a really good Turn-Based RPG for a main console, I'd buy it in a flash.

In my own opinion, this is the best (ie my favorite) mix that has been posted on this site in a good long time. It's just pretty damn great in all ways considered. "You deserve a medal, doc!"

This game is indeed overlooked and lots of fun. Great music, and really damn fun boss fights (like the Spider, or the samurai guy...), and of course, simply beautiful graphics and art design. If this type of game was being made in 2D's heyday, it would have been hailed as a masterpiece. Now it's more "Not 3D with guns so it sucks" or, more accurately "Not Carnival Games so it sucks" Which is reflective in the sales. It's kinda sad. I never got to beat Momohime's story (played only Kisuke on Muso before giving the game to my brother before he left for college cuz he wanted to play it), so I had a fairly easy time... Until I played Momohime on Shura, and was consistently getting my ass kicked (that Wheel.... FFFFFFFFFF-).

I will jump on the bandwagon here and say Amazon, just because you'll usually find any and everything. You want Harry Partch's Delusions of the Fury? It's there all right (though for some reason my copy never arrived and I had to get a refund... but that was an isolated mistake). You want Terry Riley's The Book of Abbeyozzud? Oh yes it's there. You can do well to just really use Amazon for the most part. I don't buy CDs often, but when I do, it's usually of music not found easily in regular venues, and Amazon is the place to go. Plus, if you get the Prime membership, 97% of the things you look at have the option of being delivered to your address in two days, no matter what, and free. Very useful.

The last time an Australian made a difference, he was a sniper who threw a jar of his own urine at a French spy and proceeded to shoot him.

The last time an Australian made a difference, he was a sniper and he pushed a cart to a check-point.

I find that often, if I try to jump into things without having some sort of plan, I flounder around after one or maybe two good ideas. I haven't done jack shit in a long time, but then again, schoolwork does pile up. The composer John Adams says that if you are really into the whole music thing, then dry spells are just that: spells that come and go. I just wait it out until a good idea finally puts itself into my head. I've been meaning to buy myself a recorder for the longest time, because sometimes I get a good idea on the piano. Of course, when that happens now I just quickly sketch it in my notation book, but having a recording really does help, because if not I am stuck playing the same things over and over again until I "know" a song, focusing on nothing else.

Usually I find a lot of the more trance/techno mixes kinda uninspired, but I was very pleased with this one. Good with the weaving in and out of different melodies.

a pirate i was meant to be trim the sails and roam the sea

^^^^ "Almost killed that Imp almost killed that Imp a few more hits a few more hits a few mo- No! NO! FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FUCK THIS GAME FUCK THIS STUPID ASS GAME FUCK THAT FUCKING SHIT IMP AND HIS FUCKING CHEAP ASS ATTACK! FUCK FUCK FUCK"

Man, sheet, man, we all know that the 360 ain't got games, man. Halo, man, more liek GAY-LO, and all that shit... Gears of War? Man, that shit TEARS of WAR. You hear me, I'm talkin' bout dat PS TRIPLE. Da PS TRIPLE.

Only girl character? There was Maria and Melissa from KitKnightmare, at the very least, whose themes are rather sexy.

I always new Isaac was a nude modelist at heart. Probably why he let people push him around so much on that spaceship.

Forgive me for asking, since I's be n3w and a11, but who ARE the Bad Dudes?

The only thing I'd say to that is that ever since OoT, most of the 'main' Zelda games clearly show and reference events that transpired in previous games... WW is obviously the biggest case of this... It HAS to be sometime after Ocarina, that much is certain... And then you have the direct sequels and whatnot... but that's getting off topic. I hope they fire 96% of the folks who designed the dungeon bosses (keep the ones that programmed Blizzeta, that one fossil, and Ganon)... Eh... In fact, just remove the people who thought Armogohma and Argorok where in any way a good idea. Those people should not be let making Zelda games.

To quote Colonel Landa: "That's a Bingo!!!!!" Remember when FF mages sucked at combat and didn't have a buckle fetish? EDIT: Well to be fair, I guess that was only ever the case in like I, III, and like IV. Cuz in every other game you could basically customize the shit out of everyone to be dual-wielding ninja mages who could dual-summon Mega Flare while casting quick every turn.

Magic cards, anime, swords, school uniforms, and stylized guns. Yup, they're going after North Americans, alright.

Though this is kinda pedantic (that the right word?), in MM it really did feel like the things you did affected the whole game world. In this way was it enjoyably unique.

Like I said a few posts above, Knights in the Nightmare is bullet-hell meets FFTactics (though it can't obviously be as rigorous as Touhou and the like). Though it's hard to figure out what's going on, you can get the jist of it in this boss fight. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8glyhrnIYA Skip the first 30 seconds or so Suffice to say, you're that little ball of light, and on top of ordering your units to attack, you have to dodge everything the boss throws at you, which gets ridiculously extravagant. Though of course this vid is played by somewhat of a 'pro'; it's incredibly difficult. Extremely satisfying though. EXTREMELY satisfying for the 'hardcore' gamer in all of us.

Culex is tough, but not that tough. I never used the lazy shell on him, because I never found the lazy shell until the advent of the internet. I just had my party a high enough level (mid-20s, about), and then took out the Green Crystal (since its status effect attacks will destroy you if left unchecked), and then just focused on having Peach heal constantly with the Bowser and Mario (or Geno and Mario for Geno's Boost, which is quite indispensible in some cases) taking out the crystals before going on to Culex himself. Using one or two Rock Candies to even out the field helps too. It's really not all that difficult, though as a kid, I couldn't believe bosses could be that hard.

And no one reads the list, so people are just posting the same matchups again and again. Bravo folks

If you haven't figured it out, just send in one cook. One cook. The chicken will die instantly. And then, the Onii will die with it. Easy money. They gave me trouble too. Never forget to bring a cook into new lands! The last boss of LKS (a Wii game you should all play because it is funny and amazing and a beautiful game with beautiful music WHY DIDN'T ANYONE PLAY IT) took a solid 3-4 hours trying to beat. It takes practically 20 minutes to be able to start HURTING the last boss, and then he can wipe out 60% of your army in one attack, if you're too close. If you lose your soldiers, you are dead. He is a hard fuckin' final King, and the fight with him is extremely and entirely fitting. LKS ONE OF BEST WII GAMES OF 09 Here's another game I like to talk about with an insanely hard last boss: Knights in the Nightmare, Melad Margus. As an added "Ha ha, fuck you", the item that weakens... her? it? is easily missable in the first level of the 30 hour game. And every boss after the second boss is incredibly difficult, requiring many tries. Knights in the Nightmare is like FF Tactics meets Touhou, no lie. It's pure bullet hell with certain classes attacking distinctively (My favorite being the Assassins... cuz they were all hot). Every time you're hit, you lose time from your turn to attack. The final boss's attacks all fill up nearly the entire screen, pins you down to where you can't move, and sends even MORE shit your way. Turns are usually 60 seconds long uninterrupted (this is a lot of time). The final boss usually ends it in 3 seconds. Oh, and you only have like 15 turns to kill her. Have fun with that one. Needless to say (actually, I do need to, considering the sales of the game) it was one of the most challenging, engaging, and all-around fun DS games I have played in a long time, and in my eyes, the most original DS game of 09. Great music, great story, great artwork, and the game gets to be beautiful boss fight after beautiful boss fight. It's still as tough and as frustrating as nails, though. Nails being shot into you, that is. Every extra boss in FF5 was a ballin motherfucker... I beat them all, and yeah, you use a myriad of techniques against NewNewDragon just to keep you ALIVE TO attack... and they usually fail... Or how about the room FULL of Omegas? Not fun. Hard sons of bitches, definitely. Hard hard HARD sons of bitches. Though FF5 is the only FF outside of 1 (which is just always fun) that I've beaten more than once.

I ain't going to be no mentor, kid, but I'll say this: Now that i actually now what I'm working with, I can actually say something instead of making a reference to Karate Kid. Soundfonts? They're like limited samples, which means that in your current state, these will be the things you'll make your songs out of. Look up DarkeSword's soundfont page. It contains a large amount OF soundfonts for you as a beginner to use. On top of that, if you're into piano, and want a really really good drum soundfont, try searching for the soundfont poprockband-233. It's a free download and I can't recommend it enough. Well, you download these soundfonts, and what do you do? Well, you go back to DarkeSword's page. There's a program called SFPack. Download it. Without it, the files you have downloaded mean nothing. After that, put the sound fonts into the SFPack, run the program, and if you're using FL Studio, just drag the packed files into FL Studios little sidebar, and you'll have yourself a whole new slew of instruments to use! That's the first step, getting your instruments. ------------- The next step is this: -Finding the REAL mentor. Hint: It's you! Say you now have your soundfonts. Now here's what you do. Open up the piano roll, or the sequencer, or whatever it is, pick the selected instrument you want to work with, and start putting in notes. Put in anything. Put in a riff that you think up of on the spot. Just dick around in the program. Keep on doing this, just simply putting notes in, adding a few more instruments here and there, adding notes for them... Do that until you have a semblance of a song. Your first attempt should NEVER be a song you have already thought up, or a song you have played yourself and like. If you try to make it now, it will sound like shit, regardless. Just mess around until you have something short and simple. That's it, and then your good. Render it, export it, whatever. Pat yourself on the back. Now, when you're feeling up to it, make another song. You'll be free of some of the anxieties the first song brought about with your lack of knowledge, but many questions will still loom large, since you only really know how to place notes. This time, try fiddling around with a few of the knobs around your program (DAW), and see what they do. If they effect the sound, see if you like the way they mess with the sound. If you do, keep it. If not, just change it back or mess with something else. In this method, through fiddling around, your own innovation, your own spark, your own creativity teaches you faster than any person over the internet as I am. Just keep at it, and night will come and morning following, the second song. And look upon what you have made and say that it is good. On a slightly less Jewish note, here is the first song I ever made when I tried out FL Studio: Testy Trial I quite literally considered it a test and a trial running through an unfamiliar program. This was made with the methods I listed above. Now (if you'd like lol, I'm only trying to illustrate a point) this is one of the latest songs I made: Organ Grinder It's much more complex in EVERYTHING. Because every time I open up FL, the now-DAW of my choice, I try to tweak something new, try some new facet on top of what I already know in order to make things sound better. You'd do well to do the same. ------------- The final step, is, listen. Not just to your own music and judge, but to other people. Listen around on this forum, and on others. See if they talk about the programs you're using. If they are, see what they have to say, and see if you can learn from it. Post your works and works in progress on the forums for others to listen and enjoy. Hopefully a fellow musician will offer a word of advice... After releasing about 15 songs of my own, a musician on another forum said "I really like these, but they'd sound a whole lot better if you used filters." And then, I asked "What are filters?" He proceeded to tell me at length what they are and how to use them and even which ones I should use for the type of music I'm making, and I thanked him very much for his help and expertise, revelling in my newfound knowledge. In return, I commented and critiqued the tracks he posted whenever he did, and I find him to be quite the competent musician (especially compared to jag like me)... But the point of that all is that you ask for help, and that you give back when you can. Visit the original mixes section. Post in those topics so starved for posts. And many won't return the favor. But some will, and they'll help you for it. ----------------- The point I'm trying to make with all this is that you got to 1) Experiment for yourself... Messing around on your programs will make songs that you haven't even thought up of at this moment yet, and 2) Find and don't be afraid to ask for help. If you get those two points down, you'll begin a slow, yet satisfying ascent to better skill at making digital music, and then, being able to finally express your larger musical ideas without the encmberances of making a band, getting a studio to record, or any other such things (I still write down a lot of my musical ideas on paper, though... I need to buy a recorder myself).

I kinda miss the turn-based dungeon-crawling FFs of yore, like 1-6/9(kinda)... XII's battle system didn't really work out in the long run, and while it's story was a change of pace in the right direction, it was only a change of pace until that one Holy Mountain, and then everything fizzled out lacking a real direction. I'm skeptical of an even more real-time action orientated FF (due to 12), but I'm sure the production values will be through the roof, and the story... Well, in my humble opinion, a lot of games in general, in the wake of 3D have focused a whole lot more on eye candy than story, FF no exception, but I am sure I won't be disappointed. Now I just have to convince my future roommate to buy it for his 360.

I will be your mentor. Your first task is to wax my car. After that, a few montages, you'll be a pro.