DarkeSword

How is it a reboot? It references the previous trilogy in such a specific way. It's a sequel. It has Leia, Han, Chewie, and Luke, all played by their original actors, all older, decades later. Nothing is being rebooted (except maybe the Expanded Universe?).

It's okay.
Everyone enter this, it is a cool and interesting competition run by a cool and interesting person.

Hey guys, MindWanderer is starting a nice Castlevania compo à la DarkeSword/FenixDown (Mega Man and Final Fantasy Compos). It's buried under other compos and only 2-3 people already signed up for it. It'd be a shame not to have more contestants, especially seeing the number of people who entered Shariq's MM compos. Signups are closing in early January, so check it out quickly.
(@Mods: It's maybe a little spammy, but other compos started recruiting in Community, so I guess it's okay to do the same -- sorry if it's not okay. Plus I'd be a sad panda if no one enters it ;))

Darke I saw you at the MAG panel and thought you were a very handsome man.

Yes, it does, it's in the flashback. Go watch the movie again. In fact, that's why Luke left in the first place. Too much shame.

I loved the running gag with with Han finally discovering the joys of the Bowcaster.

I absolutely loved it. What an amazing return to form for the series, and in and of itself just a great movie.

Guys! We've created an OverClocked Podcast forum!
We're automatically pulling in articles from the RSS feed for the podcast to create threads, so any time there's a new episode, a new thread will be created. You can continue to comment here about the podcast, or if you have specific comments about an episode (such as secret song discussion or playlist recommendations for the next episode), feel free to comment in the episode's thread!

Guys! We've created an OverClocked Podcast forum!
We're automatically pulling in articles from the RSS feed for the podcast to create threads, so any time there's a new episode, a new thread will be created. You can continue to comment here about the podcast, or if you have specific comments about an episode (such as secret song discussion or playlist recommendations for the next episode), feel free to comment in the episode's thread!

I loved the running gag with with Han finally discovering the joys of the Bowcaster.

Man does no one remember that Kylo Ren was dealing with a fucking blaster wound during the last battle scene...?

"HOW COME HE SUCK SO BAD"

I'd probably fight like garbage too if I'd been fucking SHOT and was trying to like.. not bleed out, on top of dealing with what I assume is a lot of pain

This is the only dueling scene in the entire movie, and he has a handicap.  Of course he's going to fight like shit.  On top of that, we have no idea how extensive his training has been, and it makes it seem like he's had hardly any formal force training and is instead just very force adept.  I don't find this super hard to believe, since he's fully aware of his lineage and knows that the jedi/sith/force aren't just myths.  There are plenty of people who are good at something with minimal (formal) training because they're aware of their affinity for it and have fostered their talents.  There are plenty of musicians who fit the bill right here  

I saw yesterday finally and thought it was great! All of the new characters were really cool, and they interacted well with the old ones. It was pretty much everything I was hoping for, and I am excited for the next one.

i loved it. i thought kylo's performance was stellar - he's not some implacable foe (which we didn't need more of), he's this deeply conflicted dude who is not necessarily the strongest of jedi, or even the strongest dude. i mean, look at him, he looks like he should be cashiering at a discount shoe store, and he's trying to live up to this galactic badass. his acting was fantastic, if you recognize that being awkward and difficult to get along with and riding the struggle bus emotionally is good acting  (in this case, it totally was).
i love the concept of finn's character, as well as rey. i like that there wasn't one major character who realizes that they're going to save the galaxy and becomes awesome just in time to suck in the sequel. finn's groundwork is set for him to eventually be a hero, but they didn't need to make him blossom in this film, and that'll make it better when he eventually does. and rey's just phenomenal. great acting, great character, great job fitting the role and the actress, etc. i don't think it's strange at all that she was able to pick up concepts of the force quickly (it's not like they had her creating a lightsaber from scratch, the concept of imprinting your will on someone else is something everyone wishes for and 'practices' from young childhood), or that she was good at dueling since she had the stick and was obviously trained at it. once she remembered to draw from the force - which, according to ep 5, comes as naturally as breathing to someone who has the potential - her actions were fluid, defined, and not desperate at all. conceptually difficult to render on a screen but i'm sure that a well-written book would be able to make that be clearer without assistance.
someone else mentioned how lived-in the world felt. i think that's a great way of putting where the initial series succeeded and the prequels failed. they were so sterile, and here it was much more realistic that the areas had existed for a long time.
i loved it. i want to watch several more of it. i wish my thread (which started on thursday night!) was the main star wars thread though

OverClocked ReMix is 16 years old today! Like I said today on Twitter: "OC ReMix is 16 years old today. Older than YouTube, older than iPods, older than a lot of things on the internet. And we're not done yet."
What are some of  your favorite memories of OCR throughout the years? How has OC ReMix improved your life?

I like the secret song bit too. It's really nice when you recognize one of the songs that Bryan or Stephen brings. I actually played Aion for a little while and I adore that soundtrack, so when that Aion song came on I was like "YYYYEEEAAAAHHH!!!"

Helpful Review Forum Links:
ReMixes with the Least Number of Reviews ReMixes that Haven't Been Reviewed in a Long Time Added these to the first post as well.

Helpful Review Forum Links:
ReMixes with the Least Number of Reviews ReMixes that Haven't Been Reviewed in a Long Time Added these to the first post as well.

Just some thoughts about FFVII being multi-part.
A couple of years ago, Square Enix released the MMO Final Fantasy XIV. The game tanked hard because of a myriad of technical and game design flaws. It was so bad that Square Enix pulled the game offline and reworked the entire thing. They eventually released FFXIV: A Realm Reborn, which has been a very successful game for them.
A lot of the post-mortem talks about this game focused on the staff at Square Enix learning that they needed to shift the culture surrounding Final Fantasy games at the company to something that was more in tune with the player-base. SQEX has long been known as a studio that makes beautiful looking games, and that art culture was part of the reason the original FFXIV did so poorly. One example was flower pots in the game having just as many polygons as a player characters; this kind of hyper-detailed rendering of environment objects led the developers to limiting the number of visible player characters in-game, which made the game look pretty but empty, which is not what you want in an MMO. The failure of FFXIV caused the company to reevaluate their priorities, and they're much more interested in listening to the player base. The director of Final Fantasy XIV is still apologizing to players all these years later because he realized how important it was to make a player-centric game.
A great example of this culture-shift is Final Fantasy XV's Episode Duscae "demo." The game isn't coming out for a while, but Square Enix has this sample game that they've released that players are playing and reacting to. The developers are using this as a kind of beta for the game in order to influence design decisions. They want to get an idea of what players want, need, and like so they can calibrate the experience of the final game accordingly.
I think that this culture-shift is part of the reason they're taking a multi-part approach to Final Fantasy VII. I think they're going to release the first part, look at the feedback and player reactions, and take that on board in order to improve each new entry in the series. See what things players like, see what they don't. I think that the gameplay throughout the series of releases is going to evolve based on what players say.

Just some thoughts about FFVII being multi-part.
A couple of years ago, Square Enix released the MMO Final Fantasy XIV. The game tanked hard because of a myriad of technical and game design flaws. It was so bad that Square Enix pulled the game offline and reworked the entire thing. They eventually released FFXIV: A Realm Reborn, which has been a very successful game for them.
A lot of the post-mortem talks about this game focused on the staff at Square Enix learning that they needed to shift the culture surrounding Final Fantasy games at the company to something that was more in tune with the player-base. SQEX has long been known as a studio that makes beautiful looking games, and that art culture was part of the reason the original FFXIV did so poorly. One example was flower pots in the game having just as many polygons as a player characters; this kind of hyper-detailed rendering of environment objects led the developers to limiting the number of visible player characters in-game, which made the game look pretty but empty, which is not what you want in an MMO. The failure of FFXIV caused the company to reevaluate their priorities, and they're much more interested in listening to the player base. The director of Final Fantasy XIV is still apologizing to players all these years later because he realized how important it was to make a player-centric game.
A great example of this culture-shift is Final Fantasy XV's Episode Duscae "demo." The game isn't coming out for a while, but Square Enix has this sample game that they've released that players are playing and reacting to. The developers are using this as a kind of beta for the game in order to influence design decisions. They want to get an idea of what players want, need, and like so they can calibrate the experience of the final game accordingly.
I think that this culture-shift is part of the reason they're taking a multi-part approach to Final Fantasy VII. I think they're going to release the first part, look at the feedback and player reactions, and take that on board in order to improve each new entry in the series. See what things players like, see what they don't. I think that the gameplay throughout the series of releases is going to evolve based on what players say.

Helpful Review Forum Links:
ReMixes with the Least Number of Reviews ReMixes that Haven't Been Reviewed in a Long Time Added these to the first post as well.

Just some thoughts about FFVII being multi-part.
A couple of years ago, Square Enix released the MMO Final Fantasy XIV. The game tanked hard because of a myriad of technical and game design flaws. It was so bad that Square Enix pulled the game offline and reworked the entire thing. They eventually released FFXIV: A Realm Reborn, which has been a very successful game for them.
A lot of the post-mortem talks about this game focused on the staff at Square Enix learning that they needed to shift the culture surrounding Final Fantasy games at the company to something that was more in tune with the player-base. SQEX has long been known as a studio that makes beautiful looking games, and that art culture was part of the reason the original FFXIV did so poorly. One example was flower pots in the game having just as many polygons as a player characters; this kind of hyper-detailed rendering of environment objects led the developers to limiting the number of visible player characters in-game, which made the game look pretty but empty, which is not what you want in an MMO. The failure of FFXIV caused the company to reevaluate their priorities, and they're much more interested in listening to the player base. The director of Final Fantasy XIV is still apologizing to players all these years later because he realized how important it was to make a player-centric game.
A great example of this culture-shift is Final Fantasy XV's Episode Duscae "demo." The game isn't coming out for a while, but Square Enix has this sample game that they've released that players are playing and reacting to. The developers are using this as a kind of beta for the game in order to influence design decisions. They want to get an idea of what players want, need, and like so they can calibrate the experience of the final game accordingly.
I think that this culture-shift is part of the reason they're taking a multi-part approach to Final Fantasy VII. I think they're going to release the first part, look at the feedback and player reactions, and take that on board in order to improve each new entry in the series. See what things players like, see what they don't. I think that the gameplay throughout the series of releases is going to evolve based on what players say.

Helpful Review Forum Links:
ReMixes with the Least Number of Reviews ReMixes that Haven't Been Reviewed in a Long Time Added these to the first post as well.

Helpful Review Forum Links:
ReMixes with the Least Number of Reviews ReMixes that Haven't Been Reviewed in a Long Time Added these to the first post as well.

Well I mean, leaving all the technical solutions aside, being able to figure out the key of something is a pretty baseline skill you ought to have as a composer/arranger. Like when you listen to a song, can you tell if it's in a major or minor key? Can you figure out the tonic by listening to it? It also helps if you start thinking of melodies and chords not in terms of actual notes, but of scale degrees.
So let's say you have this chord progression: C major, A minor, F major, G major. Think of it instead as I, vi, IV, V (1, 6, 4, 5) in the key of C Major.
Let's say you have a melody, like the main title theme from Star Wars. That's in Bb Major:
Bb, F, Eb D C Bb, F, Eb D C, Bb, F, Eb D Eb C Instead, think of it in terms of where the notes are in the Bb Major scale. Bb is the tonic/root, or 1; F is the dominant, or 5; the other Bb when the melody goes up is the octave so let's say for the sake of this example it's 1+.
1, 5, 4 3 2 1+, 5, 4 3 2 1+, 5, 4 3 4 2 Now that you're thinking of it in terms of scale degrees instead of actual notes, it becomes easier to think about the song in different keys.
You're getting into your own head if you think about certain keys as "harder" or "crazier" than others as a composer/arranger. Keys are all relative, and they're only really "harder" if you're an instrumentalist who has some difficulties playing in certain keys because of the physicality required.
Next time you listen to a song, like for Castlevania or whatever, sit down and figure out the key just by listening. Find figure out if it's major or minor (if it's CV it's probably minor). Then find the tonic/root. There you are. That's the key.

Listening to this every week. The show is great. Canned audience laughter cracks me up every time.