Faxanadu (NES) -- Any fans here?

[esteban666]

Back in the day, my grandma would go into a store and blindly grab an NES game when she was getting one of her many grandsons a gift.

Well, one lucky day, shortly after Faxanadu was released, I opened up my grandma's latest gift (it was either xmas or a birthday) and I said, "What's this?" I had never heard of Faxanadu before.

Anyway, I had a blast playing Faxanadu. I wish there were many more "platforming adventure" games like this. I know Faxanadu is far from perfect, but I think it is a swell little game nonetheless.

So, what other "platforming adventure" games do you folks recommend (personally, I refer to this genre as "action-RPG platformer", but that's a mouthful)? For example, I purchased Sorcerian PCE CD hoping it would be like Faxanadu, but I haven't gotten too far in the game. Also, I don't mind if games are "lite on the RPG elements" ...

Thanks in advance... and feel free to share any trivia / history of how Faxanadu fits into Falcom's oeuvre. 

[Seldane]

I like Faxanadu a lot. It was the first game I ever bought with my own money. I was on vacation when I bought it, so I had it for a couple of days before I got home so I couldn't play it. The tension was killing me! I kept looking at the box and noticed it said Falcom on it.

I didn't know they were behind it but when I noticed, I was overjoyed. I was crazy about Ys back then as well.

When I finally got around to playing it, I was convinced it was related to Ys, because I kept finding lame similiarities, like how you die (you fade away in a "grainy" way). Really dumb, actually. Hehe.

It annoys me when people keep saying Faxanadu is part of the Dragon Slayer series; it isn't. Faxanadu is short for Famicom Xanadu and it is like The Legend of Heroes III, for example. It is a continuation to a game in the Dragon Slayer series, but that doesn't make it part of that series.

Yoshio Kiya (a former Falcom employee -- the director of all the Dragon Slayer games) had nothing to do with Faxanadu. It wasn't even developed by Falcom. Hudson licensed the franchise and made their own game. Just like they did with Ys IV The Dawn of Ys.

Similiar games to Faxanadu (for NES) are Battle of Olympus (highly recommended!), Castlevania II: Simon's Quest and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.

[MarkMack]

Ah, that really brings me back.  I remember how the game felt so unique when compared to a lot of stuff released at that time.  Back then I really couldn't even find the words to describe that "genre," but I know I thoroughly enjoyed Faxanadu, Castlevania 2, and the original Metroid to name a few.

[esteban666]

I like Faxanadu a lot. It was the first game I ever bought with my own money. I was on vacation when I bought it, so I had it for a couple of days before I got home so I couldn't play it. The tension was killing me! I kept looking at the box and noticed it said Falcom on it.

I didn't know they were behind it but when I noticed, I was overjoyed. I was crazy about Ys back then as well.

When I finally got around to playing it, I was convinced it was related to Ys, because I kept finding lame similiarities, like how you die (you fade away in a "grainy" way). Really dumb, actually. Hehe.

It annoys me when people keep saying Faxanadu is part of the Dragon Slayer series; it isn't. Faxanadu is short for Famicom Xanadu and it is like The Legend of Heroes III, for example. It is a continuation to a game in the Dragon Slayer series, but that doesn't make it part of that series.

Yoshio Kiya (a former Falcom employee -- the director of all the Dragon Slayer games) had nothing to do with Faxanadu. It wasn't even developed by Falcom. Hudson licensed the franchise and made their own game. Just like they did with Ys IV The Dawn of Ys.

Similiar games to Faxanadu (for NES) are Battle of Olympus (highly recommended!), Castlevania II: Simon's Quest and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.

Ahhhh, yes, I remember all too well how it felt when you couldn't play a game right away. It felt like an eternity! I had to share NES with 2 younger brothers, so we devised a "time-sharing" plan to try to keep things fair.

Anyway, thanks for explaining the Hudson - Falcom connection. I've always wondered about it. Just to make sure I got it straight: Hudson developed Faxanadu, correct?

Have you played any of the Sorcerian games? I think someone here mentioned a particular game in the series -- but said it was lackluster. I don't know much about the series, myself, but the PCE game always intrigued me.

Ah, that really brings me back.  I remember how the game felt so unique when compared to a lot of stuff released at that time.  Back then I really couldn't even find the words to describe that "genre," but I know I thoroughly enjoyed Faxanadu, Castlevania 2, and the original Metroid to name a few.

Similiar games to Faxanadu (for NES) are Battle of Olympus (highly recommended!), Castlevania II: Simon's Quest and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.

Yeah, all great games. Maybe a Faxanadu was released on GB or GBC? (Wishful thinking). I just wished there was a follow-up. As you can imagine, I would have loved a PCE CD version of Faxanadu! OK, I'll stop daydreaming now.

[Seldane]

Anyway, thanks for explaining the Hudson - Falcom connection. I've always wondered about it. Just to make sure I got it straight: Hudson developed Faxanadu, correct?

Yes. Falcom weren't involved in it at all.

Have you played any of the Sorcerian games? I think someone here mentioned a particular game in the series -- but said it was lackluster. I don't know much about the series, myself, but the PCE game always intrigued me.

I haven't played any Sorcerian scenario that much. I don't like it though. Never have. At least the music is awesome (Yuzo Koshiro composed the original scenario music -- not in the others).

The PCE games is the first scenario. Technically, there's only one "real" Sorcerian game since the others are "expansions" to the original. There's Pyramid Sorcerian and Sengoku Sorcerian, to name a few.

The Dreamcast game (Apostle of Sevenstar Magic) is a remake of the original, but heavily modified, of course (it is in 3D).

Yeah, all great games. Maybe a Faxanadu was released on GB or GBC? (Wishful thinking). I just wished there was a follow-up. As you can imagine, I would have loved a PCE CD version of Faxanadu! OK, I'll stop daydreaming now.

Nope. Faxanadu only got released on the Famicom and the NES (worldwide). There's a really poor Faxanadu remake for PC available. Download it here. The only "Falcom" games on the Game Boy are Dragon Slayer (developed by Epoch) and Dragon Slayer: Dorasure Gaiden (also developed by Epoch).

Me and a friend was working on a new (overhead view) Faxanadu game a couple of years ago. Never got much progress though. We at Frozen Utopia has some slight plans to remake Faxanadu for the PC Engine someday. We'll see what happens with that though..

[esteban666]

Anyway, thanks for explaining the Hudson - Falcom connection. I've always wondered about it. Just to make sure I got it straight: Hudson developed Faxanadu, correct?

Yes. Falcom weren't involved in it at all.

Have you played any of the Sorcerian games? I think someone here mentioned a particular game in the series -- but said it was lackluster. I don't know much about the series, myself, but the PCE game always intrigued me.

I haven't played any Sorcerian scenario that much. I don't like it though. Never have. At least the music is awesome (Yuzo Koshiro composed the original scenario music -- not in the others).

The PCE games is the first scenario. Technically, there's only one "real" Sorcerian game since the others are "expansions" to the original. There's Pyramid Sorcerian and Sengoku Sorcerian, to name a few.

The Dreamcast game (Apostle of Sevenstar Magic) is a remake of the original, but heavily modified, of course (it is in 3D).

Yeah, all great games. Maybe a Faxanadu was released on GB or GBC? (Wishful thinking). I just wished there was a follow-up. As you can imagine, I would have loved a PCE CD version of Faxanadu! OK, I'll stop daydreaming now.

Nope. Faxanadu only got released on the Famicom and the NES (worldwide). There's a really poor Faxanadu remake for PC available. Download it here. The only "Falcom" games on the Game Boy are Dragon Slayer (developed by Epoch) and Dragon Slayer: Dorasure Gaiden (also developed by Epoch).

Me and a friend was working on a new (overhead view) Faxanadu game a couple of years ago. Never got much progress though. We at Frozen Utopia has some slight plans to remake Faxanadu for the PC Engine someday. We'll see what happens with that though..

Wow, a PC remake of Faxanadu -- I love learning about versions I never knew about. Do you know if there were any differences between the Japanese and North American versions of Faxanadu? I read a Wikipedia article that listed a few things (i.e. religious symbols were removed for the NES version)... but I'm more curious about the gameplay itself.

Finally, thanks for all of the info (i.e. on Sorcerian) -- you cleared up a bunch of things I was wondering about.

[NightWolve]

Yeah, I rented this game in my NES/TG-16/SNES rental years. It was an exceptional game from the NES period and I enjoyed beating it. I can't say I remember many details of it though since it's been so long. I know had a map from some gaming mag I remember using or something.

(i.e. religious symbols were removed for the NES version)... 

You know, I didn't know they were doing that till recently. I learned of this first from that thread over at your PCENGINFX forums. Then I read a review from D-Boy I believe talking about Lufia and how they completely censored out the churches and priests turning them into something completely neutral. The only censoring I ever hear complaining about is for sexually explicit scenes and whatnot and so you're left with the impression that that's mostly what is targetted for censorship. I guess not! So there are secular liberals in localizations censoring out things they don't like after all and I guess seeing such things isn't appropriate at ANY age according to them. Heh. That would've been pretty dirty had they done something like that for Castlevania games.

[Seldane]

Yes, they do usually take away religious aspects from Japanese games. Illusion of Gaia is another game that got censored a lot.

Remember those people in Africa? Well, they didn't starve to death -- they're cannibals. They ate each other. This is not mentioned in the English translation.

Anyway, a difference in the Japanese version is that you have to input your name before the game starts, rather than being unnamed like in the English version.

[esteban666]

Yeah, I rented this game in my NES/TG-16/SNES rental years. It was an exceptional game from the NES period and I enjoyed beating it. I can't say I remember many details of it though since it's been so long. I know had a map from some gaming mag I remember using or something.

(i.e. religious symbols were removed for the NES version)... 

You know, I didn't know they were doing that till recently. I learned of this first from that thread over at your PCENGINFX forums. Then I read a review from D-Boy I believe talking about Lufia and how they completely censored out the churches and priests turning them into something completely neutral. The only censoring I ever hear complaining about is for sexually explicit scenes and whatnot and so you're left with the impression that that's mostly what is targetted for censorship. I guess not! So there are secular liberals in localizations censoring out things they don't like after all and I guess seeing such things isn't appropiate at ANY age according to them. Heh. That would've been pretty dirty had they done something like that for Castlevania games.

Yeah, Nintendo really had a clear policy on what content was stricken from North American releases, and it set a precedent for the industry, I think, and other companies followed suit, as well. These companies were doing this before Lieberman and the backlash against Night Trap.

In the Castlevania series, they changed some of the imagery (i.e. removing Christian crosses / crucifixes and replacing them with tombstones, IIRC). I wouldn't have known about this if it weren't for some articles in Electronic Games (issues from the early 90's) that examined this issue. Personally, I think that Nintendo was worried that they might offend Christians.

Genesis, for example, had a game called DJ Boy (I rented it back in the day... it was a roller-skating beat-em-up)... and they changed some graphics (i.e. original Japanese version had an Aunt Jemima-esque boss (or bosses)).

Maniac Mansion, awesome LucasArts game, was censored for NES (they got rid of boobies, amongst other things).

Also, in some RPG (NES or SNES), you could go to the pub and get drunk... in the NA version, you would get "woozy" from having eaten too fast (or something like that).

I can't recall the details too well, but you get the general gist of things.

Probably the most famous (and radical) change occurred with Capcom's Bionic Commando (which featured Nazis and swastikas in the Japanese storyline and sprites).

Pretty crazy...

[NightWolve]

In the Castlevania series, they changed some of the imagery (i.e. removing Christian crosses / crucifixes and replacing them with tombstones, IIRC). I wouldn't have known about this if it weren't for some articles in Electronic Games (issues from the early 90's) that examined this issue. Personally, I think that Nintendo was worried that they might offend Christians.

So they did do this ? Well, as a Christian, it "offends" me precisely because they did do it. What it does is makes it controversial; it "dirties" it up, in other words, like it's pornographic or something. This is what Marxists do. This is the what ACLU does. Got a little cross on your county seal? Well, ACLU to the rescue! They spotted one recently on a 50 year old LA county seal, threatened a lawsuit to force its removal and subsequently succeeded. Anyway, I suppose though to be fair, I ought to include some of the Protestant branches that share the same desire to censor such symbolism with crosses given past anti-Catholic sentiment. I don't think they're as vehement about it now as they once were though. Then there's Israel where I read recently that they don't use the plus sign ('+') in mathematics for fear of teh Jesus, so they've been substituting something else for it... Heh. Are we gonna have to take it that far some day too??

[Seldane]

In the Castlevania series, they changed some of the imagery (i.e. removing Christian crosses / crucifixes and replacing them with tombstones, IIRC). I wouldn't have known about this if it weren't for some articles in Electronic Games (issues from the early 90's) that examined this issue. Personally, I think that Nintendo was worried that they might offend Christians.

So they did do this ? Well, as a Christian, it "offends" me precisely because they did do it.

Well, you aren't supposed to know that they censored it. Nobody is. "The cross was never there." And therefore, nobody gets offended. At least, that must have been their plan.

[NightWolve]

Well, you aren't supposed to know that they censored it. Nobody is. "The cross was never there." And therefore, nobody gets offended. At least, that must have been their plan.

Well, now I do know. When that happens, "nobody gets offended" goes out the window. It's rather obvious that if you don't/didn't have access to the original (or learned of censorship by some review), you'd never know what was or wasn't censored. But when you do find out, albeit years later, you can make your judgment about the company, who's doing the censorship, their motives, etc. and respond to them in kind, either positively or negatively, depending on if you approve or disapprove of what was targetted for censorship.

I mean, if word didn't get around about censorship in games, you wouldn't have all those gamers complaining about this or that having been censored that they would've preferred remain... Word is getting around, so it will and does offend eventually, if not now. And if you wind up offending more people than you please with what exactly it is that you're censoring, you're gonna need to rethink it.

[SkyeWelse]

Oh yeah, I was a big fan of this game. That was of course once I realize it existed. I remember playing it all in one sitting without sleep when I first rented it back when I was young enough to be able to do that sort of thing. lol

It was an incredibly fun action-rpg that offered a pretty decent challenge to it as I recall. I remember it being fun just to kill the monsters for the money they dropped in a similar fashion to the "lunchmoney" that the bullies had in River City Ransom. Something about collecting loot drops that bounce around all over the place that have to be collected hit home with me for some reason.

I also later found it interesting that the world of Faxanadu was part of the "Captain N: The Gamemaster" cartoon universe. I had never even known it was really a game, just thought that world tree world was something the creators had made up, but then after playing the game there was a definite "aha!" going off.

I can't remember all that well, but wasn't Faxanadu one of the first rpgs of its time to actually change the character sprite with what you had equiped? Like the helm, shield and swords. I think I remember the character looking pretty hoss by the end of the game in full gear.

Oh and I new here sort of. I found this forum after visiting several sites that seemingly all lead here back to Nightwovle's abode. Big time fan of the Ys series. Nice to meet you all.

-SkyeWelse

[jeremy_i]

Hello,
my name is Jeremy and I'm from Germany.
I'm glad that I found some people who know
and enjoyed 'Faxanadu' as well.
It was also my first Game on NES. I remember how I spent hours in front of it and also writing awful long mantras on empty video-casset-boxes
Sometimes I make up my mind how a PC remake
should look like. I think this would be an exciting work!

Greetings

Jeremy 

[esteban666]

In the Castlevania series, they changed some of the imagery (i.e. removing Christian crosses / crucifixes and replacing them with tombstones, IIRC). I wouldn't have known about this if it weren't for some articles in Electronic Games (issues from the early 90's) that examined this issue. Personally, I think that Nintendo was worried that they might offend Christians.

So they did do this ? Well, as a Christian, it "offends" me precisely because they did do it. What it does is makes it controversial; it "dirties" it up, in other words, like it's pornographic or something. This is what Marxists do. This is the what ACLU does. Got a little cross on your county seal? Well, ACLU to the rescue! They spotted one recently on a 50 year old LA county seal, threatened a lawsuit to force its removal and subsequently succeeded. Anyway, I suppose though to be fair, I ought to include some of the Protestant branches that share the same desire to censor such symbolism with crosses given past anti-Catholic sentiment. I don't think they're as vehement about it now as they once were though. Then there's Israel where I read recently that they don't use the plus sign ('+') in mathematics for fear of teh Jesus, so they've been substituting something else for it... Heh. Are we gonna have to take it that far some day too??

Hahahhahahaha. I've got to look into the "+" plus sign thing because that just seems too crazy! It surely can't be that bad .

Anyway, to get back to the issue at hand, I'd make a distinction betweeen "art" and "government": I think government agencies (including schools) and the services they provide should strive to be neutral, non-denominational territory.

Art, on the other hand, shouldn't be censored. The problem is that video games are rarely, if ever, considered art. Video games are simply commodities to these companies, products that are "re-purposed" for different markets to ensure an adequate return on investment. I wish publishers sought to retain the integrity of their "art", but they don't. I know it sounds corny to speak about pop culture as pop art....

This is not to say that developers / publishers don't have a responsibility for the products they sell (since so many kids play them).  A delicate balance between commodity and art.... so if you have a game that is racist, sexist, etc., it shouldn't be censored, but it should be put into context so that consumers can make informed decisions. I don't know the best way to achieve this, but censoring is never the soluion. I'd rather see a title "restricted for sale to adults only" than for it to be censored.

[JoeQuaker]

So there are secular liberals in localizations censoring out things they don't like after all and I guess seeing such things isn't appropiate at ANY age according to them. Heh.

Don't go blamimg the "liberals" and the anti-Christ heh. In stark comparison, take Dragon Ball Z for example... instead of censoring Christian symbolism, the Shinto and Buddhism angle was toned down considerably for the American audience. I really think the main cause of censorship in most games is what the game companies percieve to be "political correctness" for one purpose alone, money.

On the main point... yeah I remember ol this old game, and would be nice to play a newer version of it. I'm also longing to play a fancier version of another old falcom-type game for NES, "Legacy of the Wizard" AKA Dragon Slayer IV - Drasle Family. However I admit I've yet to actually sit down and finish the old ones...

[NightWolve]

Don't go blamimg the "liberals" and the anti-Christ heh. In stark comparison, take Dragon Ball Z for example... instead of censoring Christian symbolism, the Shinto and Buddhism angle was toned down considerably for the American audience. I really think the main cause of censorship in most games is what the game companies percieve to be "political correctness" for one purpose alone, money.

Why not? Who's most responsible for "political correctness?" Why... they are! That's their main tool of choice. Where do you think that tactic for culture policing came from?? And for that particular example with Lufia, I couldn't describe it as "pro-market" reasoning, so as to make the most or more money. I notice that explanation is thrown about at these sorts of things to rationalize it away, but it doesn't hold water for me. Well, I shouldn't say that actually; in truth, it's gotta be looked at on a case-by-case basis, but it is not a satisfactory explanation for my example.

I can't imagine anyone that would've been offended by the Shinto & Buddhism angle, but I didn't say there wasn't douches on the other side in the same business. Merely depicting it is not trying to attack anyone else's faith. I can understand if your faith is being attacked in some game/media, etc. But again, the point was it's mostly the games censored by-the-Right that are talked about, so you're left with the impression the true & blue Lefties would never dream of doing the same thing they attack the Right of doing; most of what you hear is about explicit sex scenes and what not getting filtered, because of the fear of the negative influence they can have, getting kids interested in sex at an earlier and earlier age, whatever the reason, etc. True, that to me would be more pro-market, cause you have all the parents worried about what is influencing their kids. However, it might very well be anti-market these days, with kids wanting more of it.

Hell, if anything, it's the Japanese seeing all this American influence in their games/media that are likely feeling the most disappointment/offense. This stuff permeates down into the popular culture, and that's why you're gonna have "culture police" monitoring the content. Now naturally, if I have kids, I don't necessarily want them exposed to extreme sexual/violent depictions at an early age, so either make them more kid safe or have an age-appropiate system that works. But tell me how seeing a church or a cross is profane, vulgar, pornographic to such an extent that it rises to the level of needing to be eradicated from view?? That's a Goddamn Bolshevik/French Off-With-Your-Head Revolutionary view!

Your "pro-market" explanation would make sense if the game was being localized for the Middle East, to majority muslim countries and all the Churches were turned into Mosques... How is it pro-market in America, or other Western nations when Christianity is the dominant faith?? This is what they told Mel Gibson and tried to savage him in the process while working on his "Passion of The Christ" movie. "Why, this is gonna be a complete failure! You can't do this!! Grrrgh! What are you thinking! America is secular, they're not gonna wanna buy a ticket to see this! They want more Brokeback Mountain!!! You Goddamn Nazi! You hate Jews, don't you?? Well, we got the scoop on your father, didn't we, and he hates Jews, doesn't he???"

My issue is this: Everybody has a desire to censor something to protect their interests, be it for power, culture, beliefs, or even just having an honest belief some subject matter will cause harm to society in the long run, even though there might be limited appeal at the time, etc. However, there's a lot deceptive phonies out there that claim and portray themselves as "anti-censorship" in the general sense, as if they're libertarian anarchists, but in actuality, you find they're just as willing to censor what they don't like when push comes to shove, in other areas. They need to shut up is my point. Maybe there was a time when I was fooled by "freedom of expression/speech" platitudes by these people, but no longer. When they say "freedom of speech," 9/10 they mean their freedom of speech, and not necessarily giving a shit about protecting their opponents'/enemies' freedom of speech. Cynical? Maybe, but I strongly believe that.

Oh, you know, this came to mind. You're aware of Howard Stern, right? Here's how a guy whose show I used to listen to completely lost all credibility for me. I listened to his interview with Sean Hannity and in it, Sean brought up that Howard is using the power of law to keep Opie & Anthony from ever talking about him/mentioning the name Howard Stern, etc. or something to that extent. I did not know this!!! All this time, this whining douche has been going on about his moving off to Sirius because of the FCC dishing out fines to him for his toilet humor, fighting the good fight against "censorship," but what was his answer to Sean about the Opie & Anthony thing??? "Oh, well, I'm gonna use whatever tools I can against my enemies." Hahahhaahah. You know how hard I laughed when I heard him say that, for an interview I was enjoying up to that point? In other words, I'm using the LAW to censor my enemies! What a douche, I thought!! I couldn't believe it. I do NOT fault him for that, understand. I do fault him for portraying himself as being against all "censorship," in the general sense, etc. then applying a completely different standard in other cases. You approve of censorship where you want douche, so STFU then! If you approve of censoring Opie & Anthony, then society can approve of censoring your douche toilet humor, so yeah, STFU! Heh. 

Don't get me wrong though, somewhere the douche has a point. The fact is there are those on the Secular Left that would love to destroy Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and forever ban them from the radio, as well as getting rid of FOX News. So Sean was correct to take Howard's side to an extent, because he knows if Howard can be taken off the air, he too will be next. But last I checked, Howard was never fined for his political commentary. If the 1st Amendment protects anything, it's that. Well, it used to mostly, until two douche senators by the name of John McCain and Russ Feingold launched the greatest assault on the 1st Amendment in modern history when it comes to political speech with their campaign finance "reform" scam!!!

[JoeQuaker]

Yeah, "political correctness" is definately not what I think to be correct in many cases. A big example is the politically corret view of general nudity (no pornography) in our society. It reminds me of the dark ages.

Censoring the statue in maniac mansion, (I did have one of the first 10k carts that you could blow up the hamster in the microwave in though heh), censoring crosses, etc is despicable. It's just... UNNESSASARY!! Why bother? Yes, "the left" is to blame for quite a bit of this, and GWAR wants Tipper Gore for dead Hillary Clinton and her GTA rants....

argh censorship.....

[cartman414]

Yeah, "political correctness" is definately not what I think to be correct in many cases. A big example is the politically corret view of general nudity (no pornography) in our society. It reminds me of the dark ages.

Censoring the statue in maniac mansion, (I did have one of the first 10k carts that you could blow up the hamster in the microwave in though heh), censoring crosses, etc is despicable. It's just... UNNESSASARY!! Why bother? Yes, "the left" is to blame for quite a bit of this, and GWAR wants Tipper Gore for dead Hillary Clinton and her GTA rants....

argh censorship.....

Actually, Tipper Gore, Hilary Clinton, Joe Lieberman and their ilk are decidedly centrist and/or wishy-washy. Cultural conservatives like O'Reilly are too busy elsewhere, with of course the exception of Jack Thompson, who occupies the same spot as Pat Robertson on the political map.

Regarding Faxanadu, I wanted to like it but couldn't due to clunky controls, mechanics and overall design. Zelda II, the Monster World games and Falcom's own Popful Mail did it better.

[NightWolve]

Actually, Tipper Gore, Hilary Clinton, Joe Lieberman and their ilk are decidedly centrist and/or wishy-washy. Cultural conservatives like O'Reilly are too busy elsewhere, with of course the exception of Jack Thompson, who occupies the same spot as Pat Robertson on the political map.

Nah, Hillary Rotten Clinton (D), Joe Lieberman (D) and their ilk are decidedly Left-to-Far Left (Hillary I feel comfortable calling a Socialist and wishy-washy appearances are just due to poor attempts at camouflaging extreme positions - John Kerry (D) is a good example of being terrible at it which is why he was able to be branded a wishy-washy/flip-flopper). As for Bill O'Reilly (I), he's a pretty moderate voice of reason (though is known for tastleless jokes at times, like against Matt Drudge (I) with this feud of theirs), but I prefer Sean Hannity (I) since O'Reilly (I) sometimes comes up with kooky liberal positions (or sides with them) that usually seem ackward to me. Well, that's my opinion, you know, cause yeah, I consider my political guaging accurate and superior to that of yours.

I'm a moderate btw, in case you didn't notice. So is everyone who agrees with me. Yeah, that's right! Everyone that agrees with me is a moderate-centrist. Simple enough. I am the center, and not you nor anyone else. Everyone is either too far to the Left of me or too far to Right of me. Now, if I ladies and gentlemen, say that Hillary Rotten Clinton (D) of New York is far far to the Left and not some "centrist," why, you can take that to the bank! See how that works? Good. Now JoeQuaker here is a self-declared anarchist, so I can respect his stance as such and amazingly we're still able to get along! He can call me out or anyone else out, cause he just doesn't care whoever's doing the censoring. Be it crosses, churches, big boobs, S&M, NAMBLA's rape'n'escape manual, Chairman Mao's Great Red Big Book of Bullshit, Humpback Mountain, The Passion of the Christ, religious speech, secular speech, it just doesn't matter with this guy; anything or everything, he'll defend your right to see it, to read it, to say it, and by golly, to LOVE it!

I guess that's what I admire about him because deep down even though I'm authoritarian in some cultural/social areas while libertarian in economic ones, I realize anarchy (maximum libertarianism) in all areas social/cultural/economic is the only fair position to have. In this way, nobody can claim you're attempting to "impose" your values/ethics/morality upon unwilling targets. You got the anti-Walmart Nazis, the environmental/global-warming kooks, PETA (they think they can turn us all into vegetarians in 2-3 or more generations), the Screwy Louie Ferrikhan (D) nutjobs along with Jesse Jackson (D), Al Slim-Shady Sharpton (D), Robert "KKK Sheets" Byrd (D) types and all their racial supremacy nonsense. I could go on and on and on. Oh yeah, who can forget this New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin (D) and his now infamous speech: "Now... I don't care what they say uptown, or wherever town, at the end of the day, this city will be a chocolate city! This here city will be a majority African American city, cause that's how God wants it to be!"... God wants a whole city to be mostly black? Apparently, Mayor Ray Nagin (D) talks to God, and God talks back, conveying some quite insensitive positions no less. Go figure... I mean, wowser. That was a doozy! Talk about the return of the KKK in "African-American" form. Great stuff though for the amusement factor of it all.

Anyway, my fault there Steve. I've gone and went and hijacked your seemingly innocent thread about a game most of us enjoyed in our boyhoods. I tried to keep the cheap shots to a minimum though. You understand, I trust. I do want a reasonable level of civility, of course, because I know from my experience and how I left another board I used to attend for about 3 years because I could no longer stand reading any of dribble by the Leftists there. By the end of it, I hated every last one of them. Total, complete, irreconcilable differences. There were other board members that split and formed another forum, but that lasted a good year or two, but now it's pretty slow last I looked. I didn't take their position in splitting the forum, and taking some members with them at the time, but about a year later, I realized they had a point. It just took me longer to figure it out. There was one stridently Marxist piece of trash there, in particular, and God, I hated his guts. The utter corrosiveness, the hyper-partisan hackery, I couldn't stand the mofo. You get to know a little too much about how someone thinks, and if there's no other positive aspects you can come up with for that person, there's nothing left but 'war'... Well, that's enough tangent.

Yeah, "political correctness" is definately not what I think to be correct in many cases. A big example is the politically corret view of general nudity (no pornography) in our society. It reminds me of the dark ages.

And yet, America is the porn capital of the world, and most responsible for the mainstreaming of things like homosexuality. Try another state, man. Hint: Head all the way west...

[JoeQuaker]

Again Esteban, sorry for totally hijacking yr thread heh... As the thread author, would you mind if the topic was changed to say... Faxanadu & censorship?

My wife showed me this today... EXACTLY the thing I'm talking about. Beyond stupid...


http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/07/22/news_6129609.html


"Sims 2 content "worse than Hot Coffee"
[UPDATE] Miami attorney Jack Thompson claims cheat codes make EA's life sim a pedophile's paradise by showing genitalia; calls for ban on T-rated game."

Umm.... when the censor blurs are removed it reveals.... Barbie and Ken doll anatomy (none). I've seen it myself because my wife plays this game a lot. You have to download and install mods made by individuals to see textured polygons of genitals and nipples.

And yet, America is the porn capital of the world, and most responsible for the mainstreaming of things like homosexuality. Try another state, man. Wink Hint: Head all the way west...

Excellent point and great post in general. Well, I have close friends who live and/or lived in California and everything they've told me only further demonstrates the first sentance of that quote. With the exception of say... things that go on in the desert heh-heh. Funny how a lot of polititions claim to talk to god these days by the way. God (s) call the shots.... but apparently these guys have the number to the heavenly hotline

[DariusBlah]

     I just want to say hey to Joe Quaker and Nightwolve.., aint seen you in a long time hehe.
     I believe political correctness to be a big ass escapegoat that is fitted to serve an individual's immediate nesscessity when deemed appropriate, in short a real fancy way of  allowing individual's, especially people of influence or power whom in my book can be equally as dangerous as one another. You see that alot out here in cali, people are obsessed with their individuality to the point that alot of times it overfuels one's ego and causes a person to be extremely arrogant. Being an individual and being proud of who you are is fine but it does not make a person invincible. I have noticed alot of people out here have'nt figured that one out quite yet. All I can say is "what can you do, might as well enjoy the sunshine and blaze...............".

[JoeQuaker]

Hah! Great to have you aboard man. Good post.

[NightWolve]

Did we know you by another nickname, DariusBlah ?

[cartman414]

While I don't quite agree with that response post, responding would be too much work and too much distraction from the post. Besides, I care more about your work in game translations. And at that, I thoroughly enjoyed your job on Ys I&II.

Sort of speaking on Faxanadu, any thoughts about translating the more recent Xanadu Next for PC eventually?

[NightWolve]

Hehe. I was being a bit silly, tongue and check, and of course I don't approve of anarchism. Enforcement of it against authoritarians of whatever stripes requires another set of authoritarians susceptible to corruption all the same, thus rendering it a worthless concept, not to mention the resulting chaos.

Anyway, as for Xanadu Next, no plans. People need to stop tempting me from my need to retire. I was supposed to retire after I finished off Felghana and Ys VI, later this year, but then I got tempted into doing Legend of Heroes VI. Maintenance I'll still do though. The Ys II patcher still needs that fix to work on the new '05 Popular Edition that Falcom released. I'll get to that after I release "TurboRip," a command-line PCE/TG-16 CD-ROM ripping tool I'm working on that rips directly to an ISO/WAV/CUE image file set. My plans are roughly this:

1) Finish up and release TurboRip by next week or a little longer. (1-2 weeks)
2) Update the Ys II Patcher, and create the separate Ys II page, just like Ys I. (1 week)
3) Finish up some offline concerns/issues. (2-3 months)
4) Work on the Felghana Patch. Target Release: Summer/Fall.
5) Work on the Ys VI Patch. Target Release: Christmas

I have a tendency to underestimate, though, so my new patches may very well come out at the end of the year. For Ys VI, I am purposely waiting till the end of the year. Now somewhere along in that time period I will pass along the large script for ED6 to some translators and let them play with that for however many months it'll take 'em. I really don't have room for Xanadu Next in there. I'll see years from now how I feel. Perhaps I may think about it some time down the road after I get my real career back on track.

[Seldane]

If you want to play Xanadu Next in English, consider getting the N-Gage version. It is nowhere near as good as the PC version, but a pretty good game nevertheless.

[JoeQuaker]

Did we know you by another nickname, DariusBlah ?

Nah, same name. He used to be on the old RIGG hub a lot.

Yeah don't get me wrong... of course I would not want to live in total chaos. There are plenty of 3rd world countries I can go to for that kind of action heh-heh. My main thing really is that I believe most government instutitions should be scraped and start all over again. Especially our pathetic public schools. End the "Drug War" we piss so much money away in, etc. I don't believe in political parties, and most of the only politicians I can halfway agree with are independants, like Pat Buchanen. Ideally, going back to the original constitution which gets ruined year after year would be part of my answer. That may make me an anrachist, moderate radical (is there such a thing? LOL) I don't know.

[NightWolve]

Moderate is whatever the mainstream press likes and proclaims as moderate. That's all it is. What they tell you. As long as you dress nice, speak softly, say you're a moderate and just keep repeating it when the cameras are rolling, saying, yeah, my position on this or that issue is the moderate position, etc. and as long as the media shares that position, you WILL be the moderate, my friend. This can easily be observed with John McCain. Whenever he sides with the Democrats, why there goes a moderate! McCain, the Maverick...

The moderate republicans they say would obstruct Bush's tax cuts. Meaning, the ones that would vote with democrats to raise taxes. Why is the "moderate" position raising taxes, that is, stealing more money from the citizens? Why is that the moderate position, according to them, and not stealing less of our money?? That one I can't figure out. Can you? They are the ones that keep creating the need for more funding, and then we have no choice but to pony up. What about the schools, you say? President Bush has increased education spending by some 60% from what it was during the Clinton years... "But they're still failing!!! THEY NEED MORE!!!" So Americans gotta potentially lose their homes cause they're getting buried in property taxes, live pay-check to pay-check, etc. because in all the government's budget, they can't find pork to get rid of?? Every last penny is going towards legitimate costs/causes/R&D/infrastructure/education, huh? Oh yeah, I believe that...



Reference

Seriously, look at this guy. He's completely destroyed the republican reputation of holding the line on spending. Clinton said the era of big government is over. Wrong! The spenders in the republican party have completely taken over. They might as well officially remove limited government & spending from their party platform.

[esteban666]

Whoa! A lot of stuff happpened since I was hear last. I don't have time to systematically respond to a lot of the stuff that was said, so let me make some general observations:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politically_correct -- OK, that says it all, and in a more concise manner than I could have done. It is at once upsetting and hysterical that this article's neutrality is in dispute (I don't have time to read the wiki discussion page, but I'm sure it's a hoot!).

I knew this would happen sooner or later, so I might as well let NightWolve know that my political compass is diametrically opposed to his. Sure, there must be common ground on some issues, but even then...



Don't worry, we'll have fun sparring. But I only want to do it as an occasional distraction

[NightWolve]

I knew this would happen sooner or later, so I might as well let NightWolve know that my political compass is diametrically opposed to his. Sure, there must be common ground on some issues, but even then...

No, not you steve!! Not you!!! Say it isn't so!!! And you always seemed so pleasant, completely different from nearly every liberal I've encountered in message boards. Seriously. You're too happy to be one. I refuse to believe it! You simply cannot be as happy as you come off as and be one....

[esteban666]

hahhahahahhahahaha