Thursday, March 6, 2014
Review: Time I, or How I Came to Enjoy a CD with Death Growls
I don't really consider myself a metalhead and am by no means well-versed in any of the apparent 200 or so extant subgenres of heavy metal these days. So perhaps trying to write this review is not the greatest idea I've ever had. (Not having great ideas tends to be a recurring theme.) We'll see.
Thanks to the wonder that is YouTube, I'd been poking around and listening to various symphonic power metal: my interested had been piqued by stuff that sounds vaguely like somewhat edgier and at times drawn-out video game music. My musical background is heavy on what is generally termed "classical" music, but I also grew up during Square's SNES heyday, which still informs a good portion of my musical taste to this day
I still am figuring out what precisely I like and don't like within symphonic power metal, but along the way, I found Wintersun's Time I, which I've listened to about 25 times in the last few days or so. As I discovered after the fact, Time I had a notoriously long and protracted development history. Bear in mind as you read this review that I've been exposed to none of that or the associated hype, nor to Wintersun's eponymous first album.
Friday, May 17, 2013
5 consejos a quienes vendan internacionalmente desde México
Para la versión inglés véase / For the English version, see: http://tkd117.blogspot.com/2013/05/5-pieces-of-advice-to-those-selling.html
En los últimos meses he tenido el placer de hacer tratos con varias personas honestas y simpáticas, incluyendo luchadores enmascarados, de México. Las transacciones han salido bien, pero hubo detalles logísticos que tuvieron que irse resolviendo uno a uno. En base a esto, he ideado una lista de cosas que los mexicanos pueden hacer para ayudar a quienes queremos comprarles.
En los últimos meses he tenido el placer de hacer tratos con varias personas honestas y simpáticas, incluyendo luchadores enmascarados, de México. Las transacciones han salido bien, pero hubo detalles logísticos que tuvieron que irse resolviendo uno a uno. En base a esto, he ideado una lista de cosas que los mexicanos pueden hacer para ayudar a quienes queremos comprarles.
- ACEPTAR PAGO A TRAVÉS DE PAYPAL. En México, es común el pago por depósito directo, pero es difícil hacerlo internacionalmente, por motivos que expongo en un momento, y este método de pago se ve muy inseguro en otras culturas. PayPal sí cobra poco por ciento de ventas internacionales, pero probablemente vale la pena tener una cuenta, aunque sea raramente necesaria, porque mucha gente absolutamente se niega a pagar a través de depósito directo o transferencia bancaria. También solo se necesita revelar una dirección de email, no todos los datos bancarios.
- Cotizar en pesos mexicanos. Me es bastante divertido que mucha gente me cotice en dólares estadounidenses; supongo que es que saben que soy de los EUA y creen que es más fácil. De verdad, no es cierto. Los distintos servicios varian en sus tipos de cambio, y casi siempre son notablemente más bajos que lo publicado, así que o el comprador tiene que calcular un pago justo, o el vendedor tiene que aceptar un pago neto variable que depende de no sólo las fluctuaciones en los tipos verdaderos, sino también los que dan los distintos servicios. Si se da el precio directamente en pesos, los compradores internacionales deben poder apuntar a ese total.
(A propósito, aproximadamente 12 pesos, no 10, igualan un dólar actualmente.) - Saber la CLABE si de verdad prefieren depósito directo. CLABE es número estándar de 18 dígitos que funciona entre bancos por todo México, y muchos servicios requieren la CLABE para hacer transferencias que lleguen a México. Si no saben este número, llamen a su banco, o posiblemente revisen su cuenta por Internet. La mayoría de los compradores internacionales no pueden hacer una transferencia usando el número de 16 dígitos de una tarjeta de débito.
- Tener en cuenta que se necesitan muchos datos para hacer depósitos internacionales. Al menos para las transferencias desde los EUA, necesitamos saber el nombre legal completo, la dirección de residencia, y el número de teléfono del destinatario. No es suficiente saber solo el nombre. Si no se sienten cómodos proporcionando esta información, hay que elegir otro método de pago -- posiblemente por transferencia para recoger en algún lugar. De preferencia, véase el consejo #1.
- Luchadores enmascarados: pedirle ayuda a alguien de confianza. Aunque no crean, hay gringos que queremos comprar cosas chidas suyas pero sí queremos respetar su intimidad. En lo personal, no quiero saber su nombre, aunque estén dispuestos a revelármelo para los pagos. (Noten que PayPal revela el nombre del destinatario a cualquier persona que le pague.) Pídanle ayuda a alguien de confianza -- un pariente no enmascarado o un amigo íntimo -- para aceptar los pagos.
5 pieces of advice to those selling internationally from Mexico
Edit: For the Spanish version, see: / Para la versión español, véase: http://tkd117.blogspot.com/2013/05/5-consejos-los-que-vendan-desde.html
Over the past several months, I've had the pleasure of dealing with several honest, nice people, including masked luchadors, from Mexico. The transactions have worked out well, but there are logistical details that have had to be worked out each time. Based on this, I've devised a list of things that Mexican sellers can do to help those of us abroad who want to buy things from them.
I realize that this post is in the wrong language for its primary intended purpose; I intend to translate it to Spanish at some point, but it's still much easier for me to hash out my own thoughts in English. In the meantime, hopefully it at least gives some perspective to buyers in terms of things to think about. (And maybe some bilingual people in Mexico will find it useful until I can translate it.)
Over the past several months, I've had the pleasure of dealing with several honest, nice people, including masked luchadors, from Mexico. The transactions have worked out well, but there are logistical details that have had to be worked out each time. Based on this, I've devised a list of things that Mexican sellers can do to help those of us abroad who want to buy things from them.
I realize that this post is in the wrong language for its primary intended purpose; I intend to translate it to Spanish at some point, but it's still much easier for me to hash out my own thoughts in English. In the meantime, hopefully it at least gives some perspective to buyers in terms of things to think about. (And maybe some bilingual people in Mexico will find it useful until I can translate it.)
- ACCEPT PAYPAL. In Mexico, it is common to pay by direct bank deposit, but this is a pain to do internationally, for reasons I'll outline in more detail in a moment, and is seen as very insecure in other cultures. PayPal does take a few percent of international sales, but, if you want to sell internationally, it's probably worth having an account, even if seldom needed, because many people will absolutely refuse to pay by direct deposit or wire transfer. Also, you will only have to reveal an email address and full name, not all of your bank details.
- Give your prices in pesos. Somewhat amusingly to me, many people will quote me prices in US dollars, I assume because they know that I'm from the US and they think that this is easier. It's actually not. Different services will give different exchange rates, and most of the time they're noticeably lower than what published exchange rates say, so either the buyer has to do the math anyway to make a fair payment, or you're going to have to accept a variable net payment based on not only fluctuations in the true exchange rates, but also the rates that the different services give. If you give your price in pesos, international buyers should be able to target that amount directly.
(By the way, it's roughly 12 pesos = $1 these days, not 10 pesos = $1.) - If you really want to paid by direct deposit, know your CLABE. CLABE is a standardized 18-digit cross-bank number that works for transfers throughout Mexico, and many services require the CLABE for international transfers inbound into Mexico. If you don't know this, call your bank, or possibly check your bank account online. Most international buyers cannot make a transfer based on a 16-digit debit card number.
- Be aware that international direct deposits require lots of personal details. At least for transfers from the US, we need to know the recipient's full legal name, address, and phone number. It is insufficient to know the name alone. If you are uncomfortable giving this information, you'll have to make a different arrangement -- possibly money pickup somewhere. Much more preferably, see item #1.
- If you are a masked luchador, get someone trustworthy to help you. Believe it or not, there are gringos who want to buy cool stuff from you but do want to respect your privacy. I don't want to know your name, even if you're willing to reveal it. (Note that PayPal reveals the name of the payee to anyone who makes a payment.) Get someone trustworthy -- an unmasked family member or a close friend -- to help you accept payments.
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Miracle Warriors: Seal of the Dark Lord
Last night, I finished Sega's 1987 RPG, Miracle Warriors: Seal of the Dark Lord. The basic premise is that you have to find three companions and then, together as the Miracle Warriors, defeat Terarin, the Dark Lord.
Graphics/Sound
The graphics and sound are overall fairly nice for the time, but not outstanding. The enemy sprites and battle backgrounds are well drawn. A weak point is probably the overworld map tiles, which are merely functional.
The sound is fine, but mostly unremarkable. The boss battle theme does have a driving bass line that I liked, but I'm struggling to remember anything else from the game after I had played it pretty intensively for three days.
Text
The English translation of this game attempts to use Early Modern English constructs (thou, thy, ye, etc.), but like most games that do, doesn't get the corresponding verb conjugation right all the time. Amusingly (at least to me), although the game tries to evoke a medieval setting with that grammar, people and equipment names tend to be borrowed liberally from Ancient Greece (Iason, Argonaut, Titan's Armor, Kronos's Armor, etc.)
Mechanics
Traversing the overworld map is fairly standard. Combat is where things become nonstandard. You (eventually) have a party of four, but only one enemy is ever faced at a time. Turns generally consist of only one selected member attacking (and receiving the enemy attack) and receiving experience for a successful attack. The three exceptions to this are (a) that use of certain magical items prevents the enemy from attacking that turn, and causes all party members to gain experience simultaneously; (b) certain enemies can use attack-all spells (Flame or Sleep); and (c) enemies get a free attack on all party members if they block an attempt to run.
New party members initially join at one level below the lowest among your current party, so it makes sense to do as much work as you can with as few party members, but this will be impractical or impossible after a certain point.
Party members are identical in terms of available equipment and stats. They differ only in name and in a couple of mechanics:
There are two distinct currencies in the game, guilders and fangs. Items and services can be bought only with one or the other. There are merchants who will exchange all of your accumulated fangs for 50 guilders each, but this is generally inadvisable because fangs are needed throughout the game.
One interesting mechanic influenced by Western RPGs is that of character points or charisma. Winning most encounters increases character points by a certain per-enemy amount, but killing others -- such as innocent travelers or merchants -- will decrease character points. Certain places will refuse entry if the party's character points are too low. This is a fairly straightforward system in general, and it would be trivial to keep character points high except that defeating certain enemies will surprisingly decrease character points by a large amount, and yet doing so is sometimes necessary to progress the story. (Without giving away too much, the pretext for the storyline cases is that these guardians were put it place to protect against evil, and do not know that your party needs to progress in order to do battle against the Dark Lord.)
Other JRPGs of the era tended to place enemies solely by map location (and land vs. water). Miracle Warriors also takes type of terrain into consideration, such that the enemies encountered in the plains are different from (and generally weaker than) those encountered in forests, deserts, or mountains. This was a nice touch.
One final remark about game mechanics: As in Heracles no Eikou, equipment inherently has limited uses, but this mechanic is largely eliminated early in the game by hiring a blacksmith to travel with the party. The twist is that, in Miracle Warriors, it is possible to lose the blacksmith later in the game and to have to hire another.
Difficulty
Miracle Warriors depends heavily on the ability to interpret somewhat vague clues. This is standard RPG fare of course, but unlike other games of the era, Miracle Warriors tends not to bombard the player with clues that won't be relevant for the next half of the game (Dragon Quest II and Heracles no Eikou do this much more liberally), and as a result tends to be more linear. The main difficulty is finding new places in an overworld of which you can only see a 5-by-5 grid at a time.
In terms of combat difficulty, the game expects you to exercise good judgment and to attempt to run liberally, especially toward the beginning of the game. (In contrast, many JRPGs tend to make running much more optional.) The game has no qualms about placing Black Monks (one of the stronger enemies in the game, and difficult to beat without a healthy four-person party) throughout the entire overworld map.
The game can be saved anywhere on the map, and it's advisable to do so often in case an enemy decides to have fun with a sleep spell.
Overall, though, the game is probably of average difficulty for the era. It's not a cakewalk, but neither does it try to be extraordinarily vexing (by, for example, throwing nasty insta-death spells at you as in Dragon Quest II).
In terms of quality, it's an okay game, but the combat system is a little weird and repetitive. I liked Heracles no Eikou a bit more, but both have their faults. If you're a hardcore old-school JRPG fan like me, you may find this one interesting in the same ways I did, but given that Sega released Phantasy Star soon after this game, time is probably better spent playing that.
Graphics/Sound
The graphics and sound are overall fairly nice for the time, but not outstanding. The enemy sprites and battle backgrounds are well drawn. A weak point is probably the overworld map tiles, which are merely functional.
The sound is fine, but mostly unremarkable. The boss battle theme does have a driving bass line that I liked, but I'm struggling to remember anything else from the game after I had played it pretty intensively for three days.
Text
The English translation of this game attempts to use Early Modern English constructs (thou, thy, ye, etc.), but like most games that do, doesn't get the corresponding verb conjugation right all the time. Amusingly (at least to me), although the game tries to evoke a medieval setting with that grammar, people and equipment names tend to be borrowed liberally from Ancient Greece (Iason, Argonaut, Titan's Armor, Kronos's Armor, etc.)
Mechanics
Traversing the overworld map is fairly standard. Combat is where things become nonstandard. You (eventually) have a party of four, but only one enemy is ever faced at a time. Turns generally consist of only one selected member attacking (and receiving the enemy attack) and receiving experience for a successful attack. The three exceptions to this are (a) that use of certain magical items prevents the enemy from attacking that turn, and causes all party members to gain experience simultaneously; (b) certain enemies can use attack-all spells (Flame or Sleep); and (c) enemies get a free attack on all party members if they block an attempt to run.
New party members initially join at one level below the lowest among your current party, so it makes sense to do as much work as you can with as few party members, but this will be impractical or impossible after a certain point.
Party members are identical in terms of available equipment and stats. They differ only in name and in a couple of mechanics:
- One member has a strong advantage against a certain enemy.
- Another has the ability to open locks and is thus needed to progress the story. She is also the only member who can obtain critical hits.
There are two distinct currencies in the game, guilders and fangs. Items and services can be bought only with one or the other. There are merchants who will exchange all of your accumulated fangs for 50 guilders each, but this is generally inadvisable because fangs are needed throughout the game.
One interesting mechanic influenced by Western RPGs is that of character points or charisma. Winning most encounters increases character points by a certain per-enemy amount, but killing others -- such as innocent travelers or merchants -- will decrease character points. Certain places will refuse entry if the party's character points are too low. This is a fairly straightforward system in general, and it would be trivial to keep character points high except that defeating certain enemies will surprisingly decrease character points by a large amount, and yet doing so is sometimes necessary to progress the story. (Without giving away too much, the pretext for the storyline cases is that these guardians were put it place to protect against evil, and do not know that your party needs to progress in order to do battle against the Dark Lord.)
Other JRPGs of the era tended to place enemies solely by map location (and land vs. water). Miracle Warriors also takes type of terrain into consideration, such that the enemies encountered in the plains are different from (and generally weaker than) those encountered in forests, deserts, or mountains. This was a nice touch.
One final remark about game mechanics: As in Heracles no Eikou, equipment inherently has limited uses, but this mechanic is largely eliminated early in the game by hiring a blacksmith to travel with the party. The twist is that, in Miracle Warriors, it is possible to lose the blacksmith later in the game and to have to hire another.
Difficulty
Miracle Warriors depends heavily on the ability to interpret somewhat vague clues. This is standard RPG fare of course, but unlike other games of the era, Miracle Warriors tends not to bombard the player with clues that won't be relevant for the next half of the game (Dragon Quest II and Heracles no Eikou do this much more liberally), and as a result tends to be more linear. The main difficulty is finding new places in an overworld of which you can only see a 5-by-5 grid at a time.
In terms of combat difficulty, the game expects you to exercise good judgment and to attempt to run liberally, especially toward the beginning of the game. (In contrast, many JRPGs tend to make running much more optional.) The game has no qualms about placing Black Monks (one of the stronger enemies in the game, and difficult to beat without a healthy four-person party) throughout the entire overworld map.
The game can be saved anywhere on the map, and it's advisable to do so often in case an enemy decides to have fun with a sleep spell.
Overall, though, the game is probably of average difficulty for the era. It's not a cakewalk, but neither does it try to be extraordinarily vexing (by, for example, throwing nasty insta-death spells at you as in Dragon Quest II).
In terms of quality, it's an okay game, but the combat system is a little weird and repetitive. I liked Heracles no Eikou a bit more, but both have their faults. If you're a hardcore old-school JRPG fan like me, you may find this one interesting in the same ways I did, but given that Sega released Phantasy Star soon after this game, time is probably better spent playing that.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Heracles no Eikou: Toujin Makyou-Den
Heracles no Eikou: Toujin Makyou-Den is a 1987 Japanese RPG by Data East, very loosely based on the Twelve Labors of Heracles, although, like many RPGs, the game is ultimately a rescue mission: Aphrodite needs to be rescued from Hades.
In some ways, the game is better than its better-known competition of the era; in several others, it lags behind.
Graphics/music
The overworld graphics are functional and perhaps par for the course for 1987. That said, towns (but not houses, palaces, shops, etc.) are integrated into the world map, such there is no transition between town and field boundaries. This was pretty neat.
Heracles did have some pretty well-detailed enemy sprites for any game released on the NES, particularly for that era. There were some primitive battle animations -- nothing to write home about, but then again, better than what other JRPGs were doing at the time.
The standout track of the game is the main/overworld theme, which is actually pretty catchy, in my opinion.
Everything else is pretty repetitive and gets annoying after the first few hundred times that you hear it.
Battle mechanics
In this game, Heracles is pretty much a pure physical fighter by nature. There is an assortment of magical items to use, but there is no separate MP system. Heracles must expend HP to use them (a mechanics used in the much later SNES game Paladin's Quest). Depending on when you find/purchase these items, they can either be invaluable or largely useless.
The game had a limited-use weapon/armor system, which seems innovative for the first 1/5 of the game. Afterwards, to progress farther away from Athens, you pretty much need to hire Hephaistos, the blacksmith, to travel with you and repair your equipment after every battle, thus removing this mechanic. One battle mechanic that does stay throughout the game, and which tripped me up in my mid-game, is that there is a one-handed vs. bow vs. trident vs. two-handed sword weapon system. Certain enemies are vulnerable only to one or two weapon types, and anything other than a one-handed weapon disallows the use of a shield. Since Heracles goes solo, defense is paramount, and the use of a shield can make the difference between getting hit for 1 HP and getting hit for 30 HP. Midway through the game, I struggled to have sufficient defense when the enemies became stronger because I was using a two-handed weapon. Thus, I power-leveled quite a bit to make it through until I could reasonably revert to a one-handed weapon.
Nonlinearity and difficulty
The game is also very non-linear, even more so than Dragon Quest II. Lots of clues are given, and in no particular order. However, given the progression of enemy strength, there is, in hindsight, a more-or-less "intended" sequence of events that I deviated from quite heavily, which probably also contributed to my overleveling. If I were to play this again, I would definitely try a different order, knowing what I know now.
Inventory management is a huge problem in this game. There are 10 item slots, and, most of the game, you will need 8-12 items. This is also where the non-linear part can be painful, because can easily end up with a bunch of items that won't be used for about 3-4 subquests down the road. Note that I'm not really complaining about the nonlinearity of the game. I appreciate the challenge, but it can be tedious to figure out what else is dispensable and what isn't every time you find something.
One byproduct of the nonlinearity is that, if you're like me and train until you can comfortably handle the enemies in an area, the endgame will probably be extremely easy, since the final dungeon's enemies are no stronger than what had been encountered in various previous areas. On top of that, the game tops out at level 30, reached at something like 16,000 experience points. There is an easy-to-defeat enemy late in the game that yields 200 XP. For comparison, Dragon Quest I requires 65,535 XP to max out at level 30, and the most that a single enemy will yield is 115 XP. And even at level 30, the final dungeon is not a complete cakewalk in DQ1, as it is in Heracles. Even Hades, the final boss, was plinking me for 1HP per hit in Heracles, whereas you still have to be mindful of your HP against the Dragonlord in DQ1.
Then again, you could argue that not everyone will be at level 30, but it's pretty hard to be underleveled for the final dungeon if you were well-prepared for the previous areas, and, if you rarely run, you'll probably hit a sufficient level anyway.
Random-number generator hell
What I will complain about is the random-number generator (RNG), or more specifically, the probabilities based on it, in Heracles. I once had eight "random" encounters on consecutive steps, and in general the probability for a random encounter seems as if it's somewhere between 1/4 and 1/8, which makes it extremely annoying to get anywhere until you have (and use) the Holy Bell, an item that suppresses random encounters until the area changes.
Another probability that was set too high was the chance to miss, which seemed to be between 1/4 and 1/6. (By contrast, Dragon Quest I's chance to miss was generally 1/64, going higher for evasive enemies.) This led to rather drawn-out battles, and, in some cases, three consecutive rounds in which both the enemy and I missed.
If Data East had halved or quartered these probabilities, the game would have been more enjoyable, and, I think, generally a bit more balanced given its nonlinearity and the exploration required.
In some ways, the game is better than its better-known competition of the era; in several others, it lags behind.
Graphics/music
The overworld graphics are functional and perhaps par for the course for 1987. That said, towns (but not houses, palaces, shops, etc.) are integrated into the world map, such there is no transition between town and field boundaries. This was pretty neat.
Heracles did have some pretty well-detailed enemy sprites for any game released on the NES, particularly for that era. There were some primitive battle animations -- nothing to write home about, but then again, better than what other JRPGs were doing at the time.
The standout track of the game is the main/overworld theme, which is actually pretty catchy, in my opinion.
Everything else is pretty repetitive and gets annoying after the first few hundred times that you hear it.
Battle mechanics
In this game, Heracles is pretty much a pure physical fighter by nature. There is an assortment of magical items to use, but there is no separate MP system. Heracles must expend HP to use them (a mechanics used in the much later SNES game Paladin's Quest). Depending on when you find/purchase these items, they can either be invaluable or largely useless.
The game had a limited-use weapon/armor system, which seems innovative for the first 1/5 of the game. Afterwards, to progress farther away from Athens, you pretty much need to hire Hephaistos, the blacksmith, to travel with you and repair your equipment after every battle, thus removing this mechanic. One battle mechanic that does stay throughout the game, and which tripped me up in my mid-game, is that there is a one-handed vs. bow vs. trident vs. two-handed sword weapon system. Certain enemies are vulnerable only to one or two weapon types, and anything other than a one-handed weapon disallows the use of a shield. Since Heracles goes solo, defense is paramount, and the use of a shield can make the difference between getting hit for 1 HP and getting hit for 30 HP. Midway through the game, I struggled to have sufficient defense when the enemies became stronger because I was using a two-handed weapon. Thus, I power-leveled quite a bit to make it through until I could reasonably revert to a one-handed weapon.
Nonlinearity and difficulty
The game is also very non-linear, even more so than Dragon Quest II. Lots of clues are given, and in no particular order. However, given the progression of enemy strength, there is, in hindsight, a more-or-less "intended" sequence of events that I deviated from quite heavily, which probably also contributed to my overleveling. If I were to play this again, I would definitely try a different order, knowing what I know now.
Inventory management is a huge problem in this game. There are 10 item slots, and, most of the game, you will need 8-12 items. This is also where the non-linear part can be painful, because can easily end up with a bunch of items that won't be used for about 3-4 subquests down the road. Note that I'm not really complaining about the nonlinearity of the game. I appreciate the challenge, but it can be tedious to figure out what else is dispensable and what isn't every time you find something.
One byproduct of the nonlinearity is that, if you're like me and train until you can comfortably handle the enemies in an area, the endgame will probably be extremely easy, since the final dungeon's enemies are no stronger than what had been encountered in various previous areas. On top of that, the game tops out at level 30, reached at something like 16,000 experience points. There is an easy-to-defeat enemy late in the game that yields 200 XP. For comparison, Dragon Quest I requires 65,535 XP to max out at level 30, and the most that a single enemy will yield is 115 XP. And even at level 30, the final dungeon is not a complete cakewalk in DQ1, as it is in Heracles. Even Hades, the final boss, was plinking me for 1HP per hit in Heracles, whereas you still have to be mindful of your HP against the Dragonlord in DQ1.
Then again, you could argue that not everyone will be at level 30, but it's pretty hard to be underleveled for the final dungeon if you were well-prepared for the previous areas, and, if you rarely run, you'll probably hit a sufficient level anyway.
Random-number generator hell
What I will complain about is the random-number generator (RNG), or more specifically, the probabilities based on it, in Heracles. I once had eight "random" encounters on consecutive steps, and in general the probability for a random encounter seems as if it's somewhere between 1/4 and 1/8, which makes it extremely annoying to get anywhere until you have (and use) the Holy Bell, an item that suppresses random encounters until the area changes.
Another probability that was set too high was the chance to miss, which seemed to be between 1/4 and 1/6. (By contrast, Dragon Quest I's chance to miss was generally 1/64, going higher for evasive enemies.) This led to rather drawn-out battles, and, in some cases, three consecutive rounds in which both the enemy and I missed.
If Data East had halved or quartered these probabilities, the game would have been more enjoyable, and, I think, generally a bit more balanced given its nonlinearity and the exploration required.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Top 10 8-bit JRPG overworld themes
As I've played through a very large number of old-school Japanese
RPGs over the last several years, I've paid quite close attention to the
music. While there are lots of limits on what you can technically do on
an 8-bit system, I've always felt that enough themes have been able to
convey their intent even on a limited system.
So I've decided to make a list of my favorite overworld themes from 8-bit JRPGs. I've tried to find YouTube videos of the original themes, as well as, when possible, updated versions from a re-release or alternate soundtrack. Although I'm providing links to orchestrated versions, my ranking is based on my perception of the original 8-bit versions.
So I've decided to make a list of my favorite overworld themes from 8-bit JRPGs. I've tried to find YouTube videos of the original themes, as well as, when possible, updated versions from a re-release or alternate soundtrack. Although I'm providing links to orchestrated versions, my ranking is based on my perception of the original 8-bit versions.
Friday, April 27, 2012
Understanding «se» in Spanish
In Spanish, se has a bunch of different meanings:
Many will explain this as a fundamental difference in the Spanish thinks about verbs, in that certain verbs are inherently reflexive, even if, in English, we omit the reflexive pronoun. This makes sense at a certain level, and is pretty easy to accept: you just have to remember that, whereas a lot of verbs in English can be intransitive in form, but are semantically reflexive, these verbs in Spanish require a reflexive pronoun more often than not. Fair enough.
Then we come into the rule that le transforms into se before lo or la. This is usually explained on the basis of ease of pronunciation, and is another rule that can be accepted. It's just something to remember.
And then we come to the "passive reflexive" or "impersonal reflexive", from which we get se dice que, se sabe que, and sí, se puede. For me, this use of se was the easiest to internalize, because of the myriad phrases in which it's common, and which translate well to corresponding English phrases involving impersonal you or they that are probably just as common.
None of this should be new to anyone who's studied Spanish for a while, and I wouldn't be blogging about the various uses of se just for the sake of listing and explaining them, because that's already been done, and probably in more clarity than I just did. With the caveat that I haven't formally studied linguistics, the reason that I'm blogging about this topic is that I was curious how se came to be used as an impersonal pronoun, because this phenomenon of using the third-person reflexive pronoun as an impersonal pronoun exists in other Indo-European languages.
It turns out that this all stems from the mediopassive voice. With the usual caveats involving Wikipedia, its article on mediopassive voice is a decent introduction. Mediopassive voice was/is used for, among other situations, reflexive/reciprocal actions, cases where the subject changed its own state, certain stative verbs, and verbs that are semantically passive but not grammatically so (e.g., this sells well in English).
Over time, the distinct mediopassive voice as a separate conjugation became lost, and was replaced by the use of the reflexive pronoun. (My guess is that the reflexive made sense because the mediopassive involved many situations involving oneself). The Wikipedia article gives Spanish as a particular example of a Romance language that developed this, and explains why, for example, enojarse should not truly be viewed as a true reflexive verb, but rather as a mediopassive verb (although the wording in the article makes this point a bit unclearly). Another example that lucha fans might recognize is dice llamarse (says to be called) Here, se is better interpreted as a passive/impersonal construction rather than a true reflexive.
It's then logical to assume that the other impersonal constructions involving se (se dice que, se puede, se habla, etc.) were not too far of a leap from the original pure mediopassive voice.
Knowledge of how se came to be used in this way isn't necessary by any means to being able to use and understand Spanish effectively, because there are other not-too-difficult ways of remembering its usage. But understanding the rhyme and reason behind many of the seemingly disparate uses of se does involve going back and understanding a little bit of mediopassive voice and how it was used in older languages.
- Se hizo daño. He/she hurt himself/herself.
- Ellos se pelean. They quarrel/fight [among themselves].
- Se levanta la mano. He/she raises his/her hand.
- Se enojó. He/she became angry.
- Ya se lo dije. I told it to him/her already.
- Se habla español. Spanish is spoken.
- Se dice que... It is said that... / They say that...
Many will explain this as a fundamental difference in the Spanish thinks about verbs, in that certain verbs are inherently reflexive, even if, in English, we omit the reflexive pronoun. This makes sense at a certain level, and is pretty easy to accept: you just have to remember that, whereas a lot of verbs in English can be intransitive in form, but are semantically reflexive, these verbs in Spanish require a reflexive pronoun more often than not. Fair enough.
Then we come into the rule that le transforms into se before lo or la. This is usually explained on the basis of ease of pronunciation, and is another rule that can be accepted. It's just something to remember.
And then we come to the "passive reflexive" or "impersonal reflexive", from which we get se dice que, se sabe que, and sí, se puede. For me, this use of se was the easiest to internalize, because of the myriad phrases in which it's common, and which translate well to corresponding English phrases involving impersonal you or they that are probably just as common.
None of this should be new to anyone who's studied Spanish for a while, and I wouldn't be blogging about the various uses of se just for the sake of listing and explaining them, because that's already been done, and probably in more clarity than I just did. With the caveat that I haven't formally studied linguistics, the reason that I'm blogging about this topic is that I was curious how se came to be used as an impersonal pronoun, because this phenomenon of using the third-person reflexive pronoun as an impersonal pronoun exists in other Indo-European languages.
It turns out that this all stems from the mediopassive voice. With the usual caveats involving Wikipedia, its article on mediopassive voice is a decent introduction. Mediopassive voice was/is used for, among other situations, reflexive/reciprocal actions, cases where the subject changed its own state, certain stative verbs, and verbs that are semantically passive but not grammatically so (e.g., this sells well in English).
Over time, the distinct mediopassive voice as a separate conjugation became lost, and was replaced by the use of the reflexive pronoun. (My guess is that the reflexive made sense because the mediopassive involved many situations involving oneself). The Wikipedia article gives Spanish as a particular example of a Romance language that developed this, and explains why, for example, enojarse should not truly be viewed as a true reflexive verb, but rather as a mediopassive verb (although the wording in the article makes this point a bit unclearly). Another example that lucha fans might recognize is dice llamarse (says to be called) Here, se is better interpreted as a passive/impersonal construction rather than a true reflexive.
It's then logical to assume that the other impersonal constructions involving se (se dice que, se puede, se habla, etc.) were not too far of a leap from the original pure mediopassive voice.
Knowledge of how se came to be used in this way isn't necessary by any means to being able to use and understand Spanish effectively, because there are other not-too-difficult ways of remembering its usage. But understanding the rhyme and reason behind many of the seemingly disparate uses of se does involve going back and understanding a little bit of mediopassive voice and how it was used in older languages.
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