I bought one of the first Nintendo systems and brought that home, and we were playing ‘Legend of Zelda’ at the time, and it was addicting, and I was playing it for hours and hours and hours.
-Robin Williams
Retro
We need to build computers for the masses, not the classes. -Jack Tramiel, founder of…
No thief, however skillful, can rob one of knowledge, and that is why knowledge is the best and safest treasure to acquire.
-L. Frank Baum, The Lost Princess of Oz
It’s the ship that made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs. I’ve outrun Imperial starships. Not the local bulk cruisers, mind you. I’m talking about the big Corellian ships, now. She’s fast enough for you, old man.
-Han Solo, Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope
What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams.
-Werner Herzog
Nintendo censorship, a story from my childhood I’ve never told, and playing Castlevania for the first time ever.
The emptiness of the cave where once his sweet but pilfered potassium-ey treasures lay put a mirror against the howling vacuity of his gorilla longing, and so DK and Diddy embark on a quest fueled by the awesome rage of revenge.
The point of me writing on this game over 25 years after its initial release is not to determine if it’s a good game or not, but rather, to spark discussion on its context in the wider setting of digital play, how its heartfelt story might resonate with players across cultures and generations, what its themes are trying to communicate.
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.
“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
“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
“A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.”
-Christopher Reeve
Chrono Trigger magnum opus: addressing questions of interpretation, authorial intent, hype/nostalgia, if the GOAT really exists.
“In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself within a dark woods where the straight way was lost.”
-Dante Alighieri, Inferno
“We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like.”
-Dave Ramsey
Hey, listen, NPCs! Happy October and happy anniversary to the love of my life,…
“As JRR Tolkien reminded us, the only people who inveigh against escape are jailers.”
– Neil Gaiman, The View from the Cheap Seats
“Mega Man has ended the evil domination of Dr. Wily and restored the world to peace.”
– Narrator, Mega Man
Welcome, NPCs, to the second to the last day of our month-long 31-Day Elemental…
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
-Søren Kierkegaard
“From everyone who has been given much, much will be required…”
-The Gospel of Luke 12:48 [NASB]
“But here I am in July, and why am I thinking about Christmas pudding? Probably because we always pine for what we do not have. The winter seems cozy and romantic in the hell of summer, but hot beaches and sunlight are what we yearn for all winter.”
-Joanna Franklin Bell
“The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.”
-Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings
“Criminals do not die by the hands of the law. They die by the hands of other men.”
-George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman
“When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams — this may be madness. Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!”
―Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote
“All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The…
“In a ravine she lived, and took shape as a spider of monstrous form, weaving her black webs in a cleft of the mountains. There she sucked up all light that she could find, and spun it forth again in dark nets of strangling gloom, until no light more could come to her abode; and she was famished.”
-J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion
