Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Roger]

Chainsaws and suplexing trains, and THIS is how you repay them!

[R^2]

That's Lady in the back and Rest in the front. Lady only has 9999 HP, and each turn will either cast White Wind to heal herself and Rest, or Repose to totally kill a party member. Rest uses attacks that hit every target on the battlefield, like Meltdown, and Lady absorbs them to keep her HP high for White Wind. It's a clever combination.


Locke's presence in this tier was carefully planned. At this point somebody kills Lady with Ultima. Nothing absorbs Ultima.


There's something nice to be stolen from Rest, too. In the SNES version, you only got these prizes until the end of the final battle, then the game's over and who cares. In this version, there's postgame content, so you get to keep them.


Well, I've killed everybody else off, you know what that means. One last final attack from Rest -- it's Repose, which Terra evades -- and we're off to the next and final tier.

[Rico]

Whatever else might be good in Balance and Ruin, they absolutely butchered this piece.

This is perhaps an understatement. As much credit as zircon should get for organizing Balance and Ruin in the first place, he should be banned from ever writing an arrangement of anything ever again with that awful, self-indulgent, not-even-cleverly-arranged-or-disguised America in the middle of Dancing Fucking Mad, of all the pieces on the album.

[Brentai]

You're determined to make Terra the main character, aren't you?

[Friday]

The first time I played this I thought the bottom fight (Visage or whatever) was Kefka. I was actually surprised by how demonic and ripped he got. I remember saying "damn Kefka you been working out?"

[R^2]

Terra, Relm, Setzer, and Terra face off agai-- hey, wait a minute!

Yep, there are twelve characters present. And if you kill off every one of them, the game will need exactly thirteen to fill all the slots available. Since the game is a cobbled-together mess of bugs exceeded in severity only by the bugs in the original SNES version, the game goes HEY WHO DO I USE UHHHH YOU COME ON and fills the slot with the first character data it finds. So Terra gets to pull double-duty in this fight, battling alongside herself.

I'm pretty sure there's a fanfiction plotbunny in there somewhere.


Kefka, for his part, has gone six-winged angel. Only two are visible on the sprite, but models done in other media have him with six feathery wings and two bat wings. Eat your heart out, Sephiroth!




Kefka does that screechy laugh again and the final battle begins!


Man with the magic power of two Terras I bet I don't even need all this fancypants equipment. So Terra A unequips...


...and Terra B unequips. Because why have two Terras if you can't duplicate items or watch them make out (and the game does not include spritework of Terra making out with herself).


Kefka always starts the battle with Heartless Angel to drop everyone's HP to 1. So as soon as he gets a turn, he'll do Heartless Angel. He threatens that the end draws near and he's ready to use his ultimate attack, Forsaken, when he's around half HP.


I have two doublecasting Terras, Relm, and Setzer with Fixed Dice/Master's Scroll.






Everyone's at near-full HP. That's not post-Megalixir stuff. Kefka never got to pull of Heartless Angel. I think he got a counterattack off on Relm at one point, but other than that? The final boss never even got to move.

Aw yeah.

[A²]

Whatever else might be good in Balance and Ruin, they absolutely butchered this piece.

This is perhaps an understatement. As much credit as zircon should get for organizing Balance and Ruin in the first place, he should be banned from ever writing an arrangement of anything ever again with that awful, self-indulgent, not-even-cleverly-arranged-or-disguised America in the middle of Dancing Fucking Mad, of all the pieces on the album.

For what it's worth, someone on OCR expressed much the same, and here was his response:

Dancing Mad was not a track dropped for time reasons, even though it was one of the last ~10 or so completed. I chose the style I did (classic progressive rock) because I feel that other artists have remixed Dancing Mad to perfection in a more straightforward epic style with metal & orchestral elements. For example, the Black Mages' version, Prince of Darkness' 'Prancing Dad', and virt's original take on it, to name a few. I saw little sense in repeating the excellent work those artists have done, and instead chose to look at Uematsu's own inspirations; namely, bands like Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Yes, Genesis, etc.

Here are a few examples that inspired me. These may have been among the very same songs that influenced Uematsu himself when writing the original track. Just listen to parts of Tarkus and you'll hear what I mean!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TACC1z7hcA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgpnlLz7WR0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8f-Qb-bwlU

Regarding a change in tone, or the lack of 'malice', I think that may simply be the way we chose to cut down on the repetition + length of the original. Rather than sticking very closely to the long, dirge-like, baroque-inspired sections with heavy church organ and long solos, I sought to condense things into a shorter piece that had a higher average energy level. Again, other artists have done the full 12+ minute version very well and while I could have gone for that approach, I just don't think it would have been adding anything new or musically interesting to the world of game remixes.

I worked hard to create an interpretation of the original that switched up the rhythms, harmonies, and melodies in a way that I believe Mr. Uematsu would respect, given the type of source material that heavily influenced this arrangement; not to mention the cameos of "I Like to Live in America" and "Fanfare for the Common Man", two staples of ELP It appeals to the prog rock aspect of the original track over the heavily baroque and slower portions, and though I knew from the start that some people would miss those sections, I would definitely do it again the same way if given the chance.

Either way, I appreciate you listening to this piece and the rest of the album!

I...don't recall listening to B&R's dancing mad. I need to give the whole album a relisten.

[R^2]

You're determined to make Terra the main character, aren't you?

Nope, just setting up a bug.

My favorite bug.

[Roger]

YOU SAID THERE WOULD BE MAGIC KEFKA WHERE IS THE MAGIC

JUST TAKE A MAGICITE YOU YOU

DOUBLE TERRA

[TA]

Kefka, for his part, has gone six-winged angel. Only two are visible on the sprite, but models done in other media have him with six feathery wings and two bat wings. Eat your heart out, Sephiroth!

And presumably matching sets on the other side.

[Rico]

not to mention the cameos of "I Like to Live in America" and "Fanfare for the Common Man", two staples of ELP It appeals to the prog rock aspect of the original track over the heavily baroque and slower portions, and though I knew from the start that some people would miss those sections, I would definitely do it again the same way if given the chance.

The torrent came with liner notes on a lot of the tracks including that one. The problem isn't with his concept, it's that he executes those parts of it incredibly poorly. The America one I have the most problem with is just a straight 8-measure quote of the chorus played over the top. It's not a more obscure section, it's not separated, it's not worked into the pedal part, it's none of the many things that could have been done to make tribute while actually arranging the two pieces. It's just, "Haha, I can totally just play this right over the top haha!"

[R^2]

Cyan and Shadow run in, just so they can be a part of the escape sequence.




Terra morphs.






A few shards of magicite fly out of the party's possession...




...and disintegrate.

[R^2]

Music: Balance is Restored. As is typical of Advance ports of Final Fantasy games, they just didn't care about music sync with these long pieces. Read the posts at your own pace, and if you happen to get through all of them before the music cuts out... well, that's the opposite of what happens in-game, but whatever.


As the ending theme warms up, a book's pages start turning on their own.


Each character gets their own section of the ending as their leitmotif plays its part in the music.


In this case, Cyan, Celes, and Edgar are leaving one of the puzzle rooms, when the stairs collapse out from under Edgar.








Cyan waffles around a simple pressure plate for quite a while, examining it from every angle and possibility.

[R^2]

Setzer is next! Let's just ignore that the music has moved on to the leitmotif for the brothers Figaro by now.


Setzer's escape is cut short by a wall appearing in front of him, then a choice of passages to either side.


...so he flips a coin, whynot.




Better go to the right after all.


That left door looks awfully explodey.

[R^2]

In a vain effort to keep up with the music, some of the video scenes get a little rushed. Here the coin and table it's on start fading out by the time Sabin's name credits have faded in.


Edgar tries to jimmy open a door, when...


Collapsing girder! Good thing this muscle-head was here to catch the falling debris and keep it from crushing Edgar.






By raw stats, the moogle is stronger than you are. DWI


The guy can suplex a train and act as the central support beam for a critically-damaged manor house. One little girder is nothing, so Sabin throws it away offscreen and everyone escapes.

[R^2]

The tiny moogle figures dance around the tree, then hop off the music box and march away. Aww.




It's hard to tell because Mog's "arms raised" sprite looks like his hands are behind his giant moogle noggin, but he's hanging on for dear life when the floor collapses. That's twice that's happened to Edgar now; maybe he should be more careful!




Edgar finds a wall switch...


...that operates a nearby crane.


I didn't get the joke until Mog specifically denies he's an arcade crane game prize in this version.

[R^2]

As the moogle figurines approach the bone carving, the jaw of the carving falls open and the eyes light up. The first moogle in line stops so abruptly that the other figurines crash into the back of him and everyone falls over.








UMARO CARES NOT FOR YOUR BULLSHIT HUMAN CONCEPT OF "DOOR"


Setzer and Celes escape through the other passage, while Umaro enjoys another victory cry.

[R^2]

By the time Gogo's name is onscreen, his prop is already faded out. Sloppy.




Another collapsed floor, another scene with Edgar. Are you doing this on purpose?


It's not clear how Celes knows this in the first place.


Other than "We need a flimsy excuse for Gogo to do his thing."








Celes and Gogo stop for a moment once Edgar and Setzer escape.


Celes takes a step to the right to leave, and Gogo, still mimicking her, also takes a step to the right...




...and falls into the chasm.

[R^2]

Gau hops on a stone and rides it down the side of the collapsing tower. Which would be a grand shortcut if everyone were escaping to ground level, rather than trying to get to the airship hovering above. Oops!






Gau grabs Celes and flings her onto another stone, before riding yet another offscreen.

[R^2]

Locke's name comes first, but Celes's leitmotif is the first in the theme music.




Of course it is. Edgar's right there.






The music changes from Celes's theme to Locke's just as he dives for the save. Or... the perfect timing was there on the SNES version. At this point the music is somewhere around Shadow's theme.








As the floor threatens to continue falling, Locke drags Celes to safety. What a guy!