“Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.”
2 years, 552 posts, and 1,132,132 words later… The Well-Red Mage is now entering Year Three!
Over two dozen wordsmiths lent their voices to this collaborative project, which must certainly be among the largest and most diverse undertakings ever to honor Final Fantasy in writing.
Few video game series, to me, have effectively transcended their native genres, journeying outside of their elemental roots into new territories.
I suspect that, like me, many of you were introduced to the Final Fantasy franchise through one of the main series, numbered titles. I am certain that when people talk about Final Fantasy Mystic Quest with less-than-favorable opinions, it is because they too had that same experience.
FFVI, it’s often cited as one of the best and the brightest in the Final Fantasy canon of titles. Why is that exactly?
People who play video games have been shaped and affected by the popular perception of that medium.
“When art is made new, we are made new with it.” -John Russell, The Meaning of…
“There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.”
-Aldous Huxley
“Historically, people move west more than east. People go east only when invited. When opportunity knocks. People go west when all bets are off: a reputation in ruins, a love gone wrong. When they need to save their sorry souls, folks head for the frontier.”
―Karen Hines, Drama: Pilot Episode
“God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—
Why look’st thou so?’—With my cross-bow
I shot the albatross.”
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Marine
“Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us;…
mage-splain
verb
1. “to make an idea, situation, or problem unlikely to be clear to someone by describing it in snide, jocular, or underhanded remarks, relevant facts or ideas.”they magesplained that one game with feigned disdain”
I sit beside the fire and think
Of all that I have seen
Of meadow flowers and butterflies
In summers that have been
“Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it,
or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it?”
-Isaiah 10:15 [ESV]
If video games are an art form (as the majority of those who participated claimed) then why is there this absence of teaching games critique respectfully and if possible correctly such as there is for other art forms?
“The chief beauty about time
is that you cannot waste it in advance.
The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you,
as perfect, as unspoiled,
as if you had never wasted or misapplied
a single moment in all your life.”
―Arnold Bennett
“Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible.” -Maurits Cornelis Escher …
“You can’t negotiate with a zombie. They have only one impulse – that’s to eat us or our brains.” – Stephen Graham Jones
Uh oh. Irresistible mirth is settling in. Christmas Day is almost here.
“We wake and whisper awhile,
But, the day gone by,
Silence and sleep like fields
Of amaranth lie.”
-Walter de La Mare
“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”
-Roald Dahl
“Never did the world make a queen of a girl who hides in houses and dreams without traveling.”
-Roman Payne, The Wanderess
Metroid Prime was able to combine FPS gameplay with an iconic Nintendo IP full of exploration, science fiction, and fear.
“Isolation is the sum total of wretchedness to a man.”
-Thomas Carlyle
“Life is for the living.
Death is for the dead.
Let life be like music.
And death a note unsaid.”
―Langston Hughes
“Sleeping on a dragon’s hoard with greedy, dragonish thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon himself.”
―C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
“A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.”
-Christopher Reeve
