Melbu Frahma

Fun fact: I actually lost touch with OCR for a short while shortly after I found it when my laptop melted down and died, and totally forgot the name of the website and couldn't find it. But after eight or nine months, I was tooling around on Last.fm, and saw a suggestion for Reuben Kee - Ascension to Cosmo Canyon, and wouldn't you know it, I had found my way back to OCR just like that. I finally registered a few months later. Haven't left since.

Oh, definitely. And with the shyness - realizing that there really were people out there who shared my weird and unusual passions helped a lot and allowed me to feel more comfortable around the average person I met, and the music was just so damn good that I just couldn't stay sad. The arrangements by VHD, Reuben Kee and zircon were particularly strong in influencing my mood at the time. I'll always be grateful to OCR and its artists for that.

My wife and I yard and estate sale all the time (she really, really, REALLY enjoys it, and I occasionally find something cool), and I've never really had that kind of luck myself with gaming stuff. About the only thing I ever found was two years ago, when I came across a mint, in-box copy of Pokemon Silver, never opened. It really comes down to the area you're in. Different regions of the same city will oftentimes feature different things, as do different regions of the same state, and pricing is often different too. Around us, for example, people love to get rid of glassware for 10-25 cents per glass, whereas sales ten minutes down the highway from us expect $5/glass for duplicate glasses. So I suspect that a lot of it's just luck on the part of the people who find that kind of stuff.

In my case, I was going through a period of severe depression/loneliness my first year away at college, had just gotten out of a bad quasi-relationship, and had been looking for things to fill up my time with to help avoid dealing with those issues. I was tooling around on Youtube late one night, looking for something or other to do with Final Fantasy 7, when I came across one of the music videos for the FF7 album competition ( ) and fell instantly in love with the music to it. Plus, I thought the video was pretty cool. (I hadn't seen Advent Children yet.) From there, about a week later I found my way to the VotL website and loved the music, once I screwed up the courage to download it; about two weeks later, I went looking for the main OCR site and found it. Took another week for me to start perusing the mixes on the site, and another three months before I was brave enough to start reading the forums as a guest. (I think I was afraid it was a scam or I'd somehow end up owing the site money if I registered... I was really paranoid and uber shy back then, in addition to the loneliness and depression.)

I swear, I saw a post by DjP somewhere once discussing his views on potential Christian-based Remixes... but I can't remember where. A discussion about vocal Remixes, maybe? So frustrating, not being able to remember. Of course, I could be imagining that. But seriously, I'd post your remix w/lyrics in the Workshop, and then make a post with the link to the Workshop thread in the Christians thread if you're particularly wanting Christian eyes on it to help refine the lyrics. And I think a Christian Remix would be great, personally. I actually have a coworker who's a deacon who's repeatedly asked me to keep an eye out for any Christian ReMixes that might pop up on the front page, so he can share them with the two small groups he leads. (Or Phoenix Wright remixes, but those are for himself.) So it's definitely a possibility.

Is there any other kind?

O_O ...I know what I'm doing for the next 1:14:14.

I enjoy Seananners and Jesse Cox. Totalhalibut isn't bad, either. Used to watch Yogscast, but I kind of grew out of them.

Mass Effect. Or Pokemon. Also, do you have to be the main character? Or can you be a supporting/NPC? (I. E., could I live through FF7, but as Red XIII?)

I second this sentiment wholeheartedly.

Because it was too award-winning. Obviously.

My favorite thing about the new version is this, pretty much. Although all of the new stuff is pretty sweet too.

Yeah, I could stomach E if they went with that, but F seems the clear choice.

There's definitely a lot of good points in here. For myself, as purely a listener on the site, I've always thought it odd that OCR doesn't do more promotion outside of the site itself for the talented remixers that submit here. Having said that, I've always thought OCR does do an excellent job of promoting contributor's music within the site (mixposts to promote albums, allowing contributors to post albums in the forums, linking to other cool things the remixers have done when mixposts go up, etc.)

Judging on the front page (and I may be wrong, it's hard for me to tell the gold bold apart from the gold regular text), there's 3 "Near Completion" and 2 with substantial WIPs, so I imagine Fishy's waiting on at least the three near completion.

Nice trailer!

Personally, I've always preferred longer games - I like getting my money's worth, and a game that I paid $60 for had better have way more than 10 hours' worth of story content to it, as I play mostly for story. That's a small component of why I've never wanted to get into CoD or its like - too much spent for too little singleplayer experience. I do think a lot of games are being extended past the amount of content that makes sense for the title, or having too much superfluous additional features added, in attempts to justify $50-$60 price tags, and that's a practice I'd definitely like to see stopped.

Oh, I know you would've. And I'm definitely pumped to hear this much Cid, all in one place.

Exxxxxxcellent. ...though I'm still a little said there's no Tactics Cid.

Which is really and without serious question true, but the problem is, is there really any way to 'fairly' decide who is 'ready' for violent media that isn't just as arbitrary? For me, personally, it's not a matter of being uncomfortable about it; nor will I ever tell someone else they can't play the games I don't want to play. (For crying out loud, I'm the guy who thinks they didn't make the graphic scenes in Game of Thrones graphic ENOUGH to really capture the essence of the books, and who can sit through a particularly horrifying/disturbing scene without ceasing to eat my dinner.) It's a matter of finding nothing redeeming in the experience for me, on a personal level, to be able to take away from it - I wouldn't enjoy the gameplay/mechanics, the story wouldn't intrigue/enlighten/educate/provoke thought/move me, and it wouldn't be something that I'd want to have a discussion about with someone else five years, one year, six months, or even a week from now. There's no purpose for me, as me, to play a game that's all gratuitous violence without deeper meanings or an amazing storyline that makes sense with the level of graphicness or something more to recommend it than "yay, murdering innocent random people is fun." That's not to say others don't have the right to enjoy it, or find something in it for them. But there's nothing in the experience for me, and I refuse to waste my precious time, money, and personal investment in something that is just that, a waste, for me.

The only kind of video game violence that really bothers me is the kind that glorifies violence for the sake of violence, that treats it as some sort of amazing way of life. The actual extremity of the violence in question will never bother me, in something like Spec Ops, where the developers are trying to make a point, or in Last of Us where given the environment and the desperation of the situation it makes sense, and it's not glorified. The actual violence being displayed doesn't bother me then, whether it be a heart being shoved out the back of a chest with a sword, a brain-splattering large caliber headshot, a slow ritual disembowlment, what have you. But I will never play, nor want to, a game that treats it as "Woo! Violence! Eff yeah! Let's go murder some people just for the shits of it, woohoo!" Others can support that kind of game if they want, and I support their right to, but personally I find it distasteful and want nothing of it. Unless, of course, that attitude is used satirically.

The most moving piece of music I've heard to date. Bravo, fine sir, bravo.

Oh, I personally don't care much - all of the themes I'm most hoping to hear are definitely from numbered installments. I was just curious because I didn't see it specified anywhere. Did Ramza have his own theme? I must be forgetting something. Well, that's as good of an excuse as any to go replay Tactics from start to finish! But you're right, I'd totally forgotten about Delita/Ovelia/Cid. I forget about non-player characters sometimes. Good call. Actually, I'm going to retract my earlier statement, and say I wouldn't mind seeing Ovelia's Worries (her theme) get used. Still, definitely Brandon's compo, and if he wants main series only, there's plenty of amazing character themes to choose from.

Unless, of course, everyone chooses Red XIII's theme. Then it's, like, a 7.9% chance. Which actually reminds me. Are you only accepting main series character themes, or are non-main series (Tactics, Legends, Dissidia) accepted? Granted, the Dissidia themes are mostly the same as the originals, and I can't think of a character theme from any of the other non-main series... so maybe that's kind of moot.

Very cool stuff. I wish he'd figured out a way to make the text at least a touch bigger, though. And I gotta agree with Dhsu, I feel like a Youtube channel w/basic videos would be better for this, at least at reaching the general masses.