Reconsideration of Final Fantasy rankings

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s widely perceived that Final Fantasy III/VI (which I will refer to as “6” from here on out) is the most popular Final Fantasy in the series. In fact, although I can’t find the source off the top of my head, but it was widely shared over the span of last year, that 6 won a fan-vote tournament of which FF was the most popular of the series.

Me, being the contrarian type that typically pushes the brakes and tends to lean away from things that are popular after over-analysis and trite reasoning sometimes, kind of scoffed at the notion. It was kind of a no-brainer, since it really was going to be either 6 or 7, but for what it’s worth, I’m simply glad that 7 didn’t win. Personally, my favorite has always been 4, with my rationale being a level of challenge that seemed to be missing in every FF afterward, and the fact that it really was one the first FF I ever had, when it was released for the SNES as Final Fantasy II.

For whatever reason, I was having an emo-ey morning where I was thinking about how much of a loner I am, and then I began to hear the theme of Shadow from 6 in my head, because he’s also a loner, and well the spaghetti-western style of his theme ruled. From there, I began to think about Shadow’s character, and then the mental snowball began rolling and now I have seven Final Fantasy Wikia tabs open in my browser reminiscing about 6 outright.

But it got me thinking about a lot of little things about the story of 6, and then I began to conclude that the story itself really wasn’t that deep, but when it came to the myriad of individuals available in the game, 6 really had a wealth of quality in character development. Suddenly, I’m prioritizing mentally, if 6 really might be the best Final Fantasy of them all.

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Real Men Don’t Wear Small update: Triple-A minors trip

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After what’s felt like quite a while in between baseball trips over the 2013 season, I’ve finally updated my ballparks website again.  Unfortunately, it isn’t a Major League ballpark to take off of the list, but it’s instead four Triple-A minor league ballparks visited and covered.  If this keeps up, I’d have to consider breaking off a section for just the International League, but then again, I’ve said the same thing as it pertains to the teams in the Carolina League as well as the Southern League.

The problem with “The Problem With…” Posts

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The short answer is that they’re almost always hypocritical in nature.  Often times the impetus of a Problem with ___ is the fact that the person writing it is in disagreement with something that is fairly commonplace in the time in which it was written.  They just don’t like something.  They’re compromised and biased against it.  Hell, I’m 100% confident that I’ll write something in this post that directly contradicts something else I’ve ever said if there was any of my seven readers who would be so dedicated to try and find said contradiction later on.

Anyway, a number of my Facebook friends have been sharing this particular link, where a blogger is pointing out that there is a problem with cosplay celebrity.  Here’s the very first sentence of the entire post:

My husband and I are both 501st.

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RPG logic in real life

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A funny thing happened while I was out in New York once.  My friend and I went out to the small town of Auburn, to try and catch the last of the minor league games we had planned to see, but several hours prior to the game, it began raining, and raining steadily.  At this point, it really began to look like the game was in jeopardy, but since we had come such a long way, we wanted to wait as long as possible, or for the team to officially cancel it before we made our next move.

There was a little bit of frustration as the rain continued to come, and make it look obvious, but not being from the area, we still weren’t completely sure on whether or not to get the hell out of dodge yet, or wait on.  But at this point, we needed a place to kill some time and not putter around out in the rain and waste gas.  So we went to a nearby bar.

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(Upstate) New York state of mind

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It’s kind of weird for me to mentally go back in time a little bit to be writing this post, but it was a pleasant enough of a trip to where I knew I was going to eventually write something about it, but time permitting, I simply didn’t have the opportunity to write when I got back.  However, being the reminiscing nerd that I am, I actually jotted down notes and blurbs about my recent travels through upstate New York that I figured I wanted to address when I had the opportunity to.

As for all the pictures I took in New York and Pennsylvania, I’m not sure how many people would be remotely that interested in what were primarily baseball photos, except for maybe some scenic stuff in Rochester, but anyway, I actually back-dated the posts to the dates of their original trips, and posted them as well.  Obviously, they’re also available in the “photos” section of my site, but to be perfectly honest, I’m not entirely sure how many people actually use that function.

The weekend prior to the insanity that was Dragon*Con, I actually spent four days traveling through upstate New York, on my annual baseball road trip with my boy Huzzard, a tradition that has gone on strong for the last six baseball seasons now.  In lieu of an expensive Major League road trip where we could see like, one new ballpark in a major city, we decided to traverse the lesser-driven roads of America and see several minor league ballparks, which we both tend to agree are more rewarding, and frankly more economically efficient.

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Dragon*Con 2013 Parting Thoughts

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Overall, I can say that Dragon*Con was a pretty good time, and about what I expect out of the D*C experience on a yearly basis.  I got to see and hang out with a bunch of people, I took a lot of pictures, and I shared good food and drink with decent folks.  Sometimes I think it’s a little absurd that I dump a ton of money into doing such things, but eh, it’s once a year, why the heck not?

A couple of notable things happened during my weekend – like spending most of Friday night at the hospital because one of my friends called me and explained his dire need to go to urgent care out of the blue (nothing severe, but still necessary).  Then there was the ironically good sense of mind I had on one night to decide to sleep on the floor that prevented me from getting puked on that makes me realize how lucky I was on one evening.  And then there’s the always fun instances of watching a fellow nerd decide to handcuff himself in proposed matrimony that always is a joyous occasion at D*C.  Hospitals, puking and engagements, oh my.

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Dragon*Con 2013 Pictures: Sunday

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Oh, Sunday night of Dragon*Con, the last night of the convention we so look forward to for an entire year.  Often times it’s the night we let the most loose, and for some of us (me) it’s the night we tend to get the drunkest.  Fortunately for me, there was no Four Loko in the house this year, so there was absolutely no way I was going to get a retarded drunk as I had gotten in previous years.  However, I did have a snazzy mason jar full of peach moonshine that I was sharing shots with, with several friends and acquaintances, and it appeared to go over pretty well with everyone.  I will definitely have to make a stop for more of this the next time I am passing through South Carolina.

A funny thing happened on Sunday of this year’s Dragon*Con.  In all of the years that I’d been attending, I couldn’t remember a single time when it actually rained substantially during the convention itself.  Maybe a morning drizzle or some light sprinkling, but never before had I seen a year where there was some spontaneous torrential downpour, and people fleeing into hotels and anywhere they could get refuge from the rain.

But anyway, this is a picture post, so I’ll keep the words to a minimum.  I’ll see about putting down my thoughts of the convention as a whole at another time perhaps, or unless I do it before posting this one on a timer, but forgetting to go back and delete this paragraph, lol.  Whatever happens, happens!

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