Chances are, you’ve either seen, heard, or experienced the epic adventure that is Final Fantasy VII. And those of you who have probably also heard about the FFVII PS3 graphics engine demo test that quickly sparked a desire in all of us (yes, even you) for a FFVII remake on the PS3. However, the dreams of such an occurrence were dashed…until I read Kotaku’s recent article about FFVII’s director pondering a FFVII remake. Kotaku closes this article with a good point:

With the remake-happy way Square Enix is going these days, you can bet there’s eventually going to be a FFVII. Reassuring to know that Kitase wants to do it in-house with the original team.

We’ve already seen a few old-school FF remakes, and Square Enix seems to be enjoying their Kingdom Hearts high. Why do you think this is? Because we are now seeing a similar trend that I brought up in my New Slayers Season: Should We Care? article. What we now have are loads of old-school gamers wanting an FF remake, while new-school tweens are pining for more Kingdom Hearts. What I love to see is that not all old-school gamers see the need for a “timeless” classic to be stripped of its vintage value as expressed by a user comment made in Kotaku’s article:

…Why do people want or need a remake so bad? Final Fantasy VII was an excellent JRPG, which is now timeless enough to still be played and enjoyed today even by younger audiences who’ve never even been old enough to play FFVII back in 1997. The game’s popularity is already beyond question, yet people still aren’t satisfied? I’m sorry, but I’ll take some new titles over something I’ve played ten years ago with prettier graphics. The World Ends With you is a beginning sign of Square-Enix trying to be the creative Squaresoft of old again; let’s not take another step backwards.

Am I the only one seeing a slighted contradiction between the last two sentences? Here’s a prime example of a conflicting issue that might reside in many old-school players who long for the Squaresoft days, and yet see no need for the past to be reborn. My [hard] question to you is this:

Do you think Square Enix would become a crowd-pleaser by creating a FFVII remake, or would they really be regressing by remaking an already groundbreaking game?

I look forward to at least one constructive reply, though that might be asking a tad too much. ^_^

IF= { lazy } THEN= { image taken from DarkMirage }

I’m a pretty big fan of the first of three VOCALOID2 creations, Miku Hatsune (初音ミク), in terms of her physical appearance and moé appeal. So much so that the other day, I started imagining creating my own fan site. However, this so-called fan-gushing was without much regard to her voice in general, as I was under the impression that they were one in the same. After researching some of her songs, however, I decided that I wanted to write something brief about Miku, as I had fallen in love with not just her adorable, post-future style, but with her voice as well.

I have to shamefully admit I was a bit confused about how so users were easily obtaining mixes and generating that content on Nico Nico Douga. It was only until I decided to write this entry that I discovered that Miku isn’t just a computer-generated synthesized voice only accessible by Yamaha, put to an anime-style character. For those in the West who don’t know, the VOCALOID2 series was indeed created by Yamaha and the third-party company, Crypton, but the marketed software, VOCALOID2, uses preset, tuned pitches capable of producing varying tones centered around a particular style given the type of voice. Miku Hatsune is the name given to the J-Pop-type voice used in the VOCALOID2 Character Vocaloid Series. The voice originally belongs to Saki Fujita.

I’m really impressed to find out that Nico Nico Douga was a big contributer to Miku Hatsune’s popularity, and the VOCALOID2 software in general. Without greater fans than me, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy such lovely user-generated mixes that use Miku’s sweet-sounding voice. I wish I had that kind of time and interest on my hands. I do adore the Miku’s character and the “magic” of her voice, so here are a few visual culture sources that I have come across that are all about Miku Hatsune.

Miku Clips

My current favorite song by Miku

NicoNico Vocaloid Animation

Lucky*Star OP w/ Vocaloid CG

Miku Links

• MikuFan.com: A Hatsune Miku Fansite
• YouTube: MikuFan
• http://www.mikumiku.info/
• DarkMirage - VOCALOID2’s Hatsune Miku
• More about VOCALOIDs

Do you like Miku Hatsune (or VOCALOIDs)? Tell us why or why not!

Hey, I know that since we all here believe in sharing our ideas I thought I might as well post my own thoughts on the Blu-Ray system.

Long ago, and even still a little bit now, when the battle between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD was still raging on I was very against the Blu-Ray sytem. Mainly because I’ve been a loyal owner of DVDs and a DVD player since nearly 3 years ago and I was/am afraid that DVD’s won’t be compatible with Blu-Ray system. *owns a very large collection of films on DVD*.

Although , I also have to agree with fatestaysmart about what he has said about how each generation is beaten by the next best thing (VCR lost to DVD, DVD lost to HD DVD, HD-DVD lost to Blu-Ray) and did even when I didn’t want to believe that Blu-Ray would win the fight. As I have accepted that Blu-Ray has won I’ve seen that it’s actually not that bad, It can hold much more space than DVDs can and , of which, means that you space/neat freaks out and about in America can have a nice, clean, small collection of DVD’s. It’ll also probably mean that DVD’s/Blu-Rays will be packed with loads of special features and things that are longer, etc. And movies won’t be so limited to how long they are (Lord of The Rings, etc) and can be.

I’m sure you people who obsess over what systems have the best graphics and sound are in total love with the Blu-Ray right now because of it’s great surround sound/ speaker sound and it’s graphics (or whatever they call it in the electronics industry…).

So, yeah, thanks for reading. And I hope you liked my views on Blu-Ray..! Bai bai