Exfanding Review: Ran

This past Wednesday, Nathaniel and I continued the plunge into our brand new fandom: the films of Akira Kurosawa. For our second foray into the work of the internationally famous Japanese filmmaker, we watched Ran, which came heavily recommended by several friends.


"Ran" isn't a very descriptive title for American audiences. What is the movie about?

Alex: Well, after watching The Hidden Fortress, what with all of its walking around and falling down hills, going into this one I thought, well, okay, so maybe at least they'll be walking faster.

[Pause for drum roll and audience laughter.]

Seriously, though, folks, I think it might actually be easier to tell you what the movie is not about, since I managed to lose the plot a couple of times along the way. Basically, there's an old clan leader, Hidetora, who has three sons. In a dream, the warlord recieves a vision that leads him to step down from his position of power. This shocks his three sons, Taro, Jiro, and Saburo, and the rest of the Ichimonji clan.

The warlord gives his seat to his eldest son, Taro, and banishes Saburo after he argues his father's decision. From there, things get very ugly. Taro's wife, Lady Kaede, immediately pushes the once-obidient son to force his father into a submissive role in the new clan structure. Hidetora, of course, finds this to be insulting, and while he signs a contract pledging his loyalty to Taro, the former leader promises never to visit his eldest son again.

Hidetora seeks refuge with his middle son, Jiro, but finds him to want nothing more than power of his own. Jiro plans to use his father to become more powerful. Hidetora recognizes this, and leaves. When he and his men venture across the countryside, they find that Taro and Jiro have cut off all supllies.

With no other course of action, Hidetora leads his men to the abandonded castle of his banished son, Saburo. Shortly after their arrival, Taro's army and Jiro's army meet at the castle and a massive, bloody battle ensues. *SPOILERS* Taro is killed early on, and Hidetora is left to commit ritualistic suicide.

However, because his sword breaks while fending off the advances of Taro and Jiro's men, he cannot do this. Instead, he walks from the grounds of the castle--into the wilderness, and into madness.

The remainder of the film deals with the former leader's growing madness, and the power struggle between the now-broken clans of the three sons.

Nathaniel: What he said. Isn't the movie supposed to be a retelling of Shakespeare's King Lear? That's what the back of the DVD case said, and the box is never wrong.


Were you confused at any point in the movie, or did it all make sense?

Nathaniel: I do really well with convoluted science fiction plots, but as soon as I watch a movie where swords are involved, somehow things just stop making sense. Maybe it's because the people who carry swords are usually wrapped up in political intrigue and complicated family matters. I understood what was going on with Hidetora and his three sons, but as soon as blind men and concubines and people with suspiciously American-sounding names like "Sue" got involved, I started to lose track of them all.

Alex: I wasn't 100% sure who Sue was, and even though she was barely ever on-screen, she played a major role in the plot development. So, that made things a little tricky for a bit. Overall, though, I think I got the gist of things.


On a strictly visual level, what did you think of the film?

Alex: While this film was epic in nature, in a lot of ways, Kurosawa filmed this on a smaller scale than I expected after viewing The Hidden Fortress. What I mean is, there are many more intimate character close-ups throughout this film than there were in Fortress, and that adds a whole new element to the film.

That said, things opened up during the first and last battle scenes. But, Kurosawa made the (effective and powerful) choice to focus in on certain aspects of each battle. So, the scenes alternated from grand scale to small, intimate scale. And I think that worked quite well.

Also, the excessive blood during the battles was used symbollically, of course, but as big, red splashes tend to be, the blood was visually striking and interesting. It reminded me a lot of Frank Miller's 300 film, actually, in the artful and un-real depictions of blood. Very effective, though.

Nathaniel: Yeah, they decapitated someone at one point, and as they did so the camera cut away to the peoples' shadows on the wall, which were suddenly covered in about 17 gallons of blood, as though the dead person had just exploded. I'm not at all into gore, but that was a very neat, albeit gross-tastic, effect.

The first thing that struck me about the film was that it was so colorful. Not just, "Hey, it's 1985 and we can make films in color now" kind of colorful; all the major characters had very distinctive and brightly colored wardrobes, and I actually referred to the brothers as "Brother Blue" and "The yellow brother" more often than not. The colors blended quite artistically in the battle scenes, but even on the simplest level, it was much easier to identify who was who because everyone was color-coded for your convenience.

Like Alex, I was expecting more wide-open camera shots; I much prefer sweeping landscapes and gorgeous architecture over people and costumes. However, even though I missed the camera work of The Hidden Fortress, there were a few really neat shots, and I can see where people who really appreciate costumes and close-up shots would like this style better.


How does Ran compare to The Hidden Fortress?

Alex: Well, there's not as much walking in Ran as there was in Fortress.

Nathaniel: No, but there was a lot more running and charging. Actually, Ran didn't surprise me as much as Fortress did. Whereas Fortress did a lot of surprising things with stunts and dialogue and camera work that seemed so unique for its time, Ran rarely caught me off-guard. Of course, that could be because I don't watch many epic/war movies and just assumed that everything that happened was pretty normal.


How does Ran compare with American films in the same or similar genre?

Nathaniel: Jeez, Question Man, weren't you paying attention just now? I don't watch many epic/war movies. Go ask Alex.

Alex: I actually commented on the fact that the film just looked more American than I would have imagined. And I don't know if it's a matter of American films ripping off Kurosawa, or if the director was becoming more influenced by American films.

Either way, I thought it had a more Western cinema feel to it.


This movie came highly recommended from a whole group of people. Did it live up to your expectations?

Alex: I think that I've managed to build these movies up so much in my head that nothing could meet my expectations. The battle scenes were amazing, and I guess I just figured that the entire movie would be a battle scene.

Also, the length of the film--almost three hours--really took its toll on me.

Nathaniel: Ran was what I was expecting from a movie of the genre (in that there were huge battles and lots of exposition), but it wasn't what I was expecting from a Kurosawa film after having seen Fortress.

As I mentioned before, Fortress did things that were surprising and impressive to me considering when the film was made; for the most part, Ran didn't instill that sense of awe in me, perhaps because the impressive stuff was a lot more subtle. The aspects of the film that have received such great praise are certainly deserving of it, but I personally don't have the same appreciation for those aspects as others seem to.


What was your favorite scene?

Alex: This one's easy. That first battle was just epic and bloody and incredible to look at. Music played over the scene, and the viewer doesn't hear the actual battle. Very striking.

Nathaniel: Ditto, except what sticks out in my mind is how Hidetora sat in stillness as arrows sped past him in a room that was on fire. I liked how the old ruler was so completely detached from everything for so much of the movie; it was always interesting to guess whether he was alive or dead, in shock or insane. Also, it was visually striking how the brother in yellow unexpectedly got shot in the back with an arrow that landed dead-center in the emblem of the sun on his outfit. Poetic.

See? There are parts of the movie I liked! Fortress is just more my style, that's all.


What was your least favorite element of the film? (Direction of a certain scene, particular actor, etc.)

Nathaniel: The pacing of the movie felt slow to me; many of the scenes were quite long, and there wasn't a lot of motion in some of those scenes, which didn't help.

Alex: Um, I guess I'd have to say the length of the movie. I'm just a modern film kinda guy, and anything over that two hour mark becomes tedious for me.

Unless it's The Dark Knight, of course.


Fanpeople of what genre/fandom (other than Japanese film fans, obviously) might be most interested in this film?

Alex: Fans of Frank Miller's early work, with all of its Japanese-inspired art and story. 300, Ronin, his Wolverine mini-series, even a lot of his Daredevil and Elektra stuff, too.

Nathaniel: Is The Lord of the Rings an okay answer? I mean, Ran is a sweeping epic with lots of characters, a thick plot, and a lot of build-up to the action. Plus, there are talking trees. In Lord of the Rings, I mean.


Was it better than going on a ghost hunt?

Alex: Depends. Would there have been more action scenes during the ghost hunt?

Nathaniel: Wait, that was one of the options? Whoa, that was a close one.

Exfanding Review: Final Fantasy I

The original Final Fantasy for the NES is an RPG classic. Don't try to argue with me on this one; it introduced ideas that were rarely or never seen in video games of its day, it spawned an outrageously popular video game series, it's been highly influential in geek culture, and there are scads of people who consider it to be a good game, if not a great one.

Therefore, it's a classic. Q.E.D.

As I discussed in my recent post about movie and video game remakes, it is especially difficult to thorougly please both longtime fans and neophytes with a remake of a classic game. As a guy who likes the original game but isn't rabidly fanboyish about it, I felt I'd be pretty objective about the quality of the remake of the game presented in Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls for the Game Boy Advance.

Overall, I'll say I liked it. Not perfect, but definitely a worthy remake.

The premise of both games is the same: The world is falling into chaos, and a quartet of heroes known as the Light Warriors or Warriors of Light set off on a quest to restore the elements of earth, fire, water, and wind to their normal states and then beat up the Evil Bad Guy who's responsible for all this.

First you pick out a party of adventurers, which can consist of any combination of six classes, which include a combat-ready warrior, a nimble thief who never actually steals anything, a powerful martial artist, a mage who can cast healing and protective spells, a mage who can cast offensive spells (they do smell pretty bad), and a mage who can fight and cast spells, but not as well as anybody else.

Then, after picking out your party, you get to name them. This may very well be the most difficult part of the game.

Once the game begins, you talk to the likes of kings and commoners, witches and dwarves; you buy equipment and magic and goods from shops; you travel from place to place by land, sea, and air; you explore dark caverns and hot volcanoes and mystical towers; you eventually have the option to advance your characters to even more powerful classes; and you stop every 3 to 5 seconds to fight an assortment of diverse monsters, where everyone politely takes turns beating the stuffing out of each other.

...But you knew that already.

Though the remake is fundamentally identical to the original--story progression is the same; dungeon layouts are unchanged; monsters appear in the same locations; etc.--there are several subtle differences along with a number of changes so obvious that you'd have to lose your crystal eye to miss them.

On the surface, the graphics have been given a significant facelift and the audio has been remixed to look and sound more like Final Fantasy IV, V, and VI, which incidentally have also been re-released on the GBA, albeit with far fewer alterations. The graphical changes are almost entirely favorable, and the sound effects sound great, but the music is really hit-or-miss, just like my Lv. 1 White Mage and his wimpy wooden hammer.

Side note: I maintain that many of the classes, including the White Mage/White Wizard, can be male or female. Don't let 8-Bit Theater fool you into thinking that the White Mage must be a girl! Long hair is totally hip for fantasy guys to have. Here's a name for you: Legolas. Look her up.

::ahem::

The graphics stayed remarkably true to the original--put almost any building, townsperson, or enemy from both versions side-by-side and you'll notice that they look identical or tolerably close in the remake, except they're prettier. Well, except for the bosses. They just got fatter. I mean, uh, bigger.

Something that surprised me is that a few of the enemies that looked pretty frightening in the original game didn't look quite as scary in 16-bit. Creepy spiders? Not so creepy. Chew-your-face-off-in-your-nightmares Eye? Now a cheap Halloween decoration from Party City. Crush-your-bones-with-his-tentacles-and-make-you-disappear-at-the-bottom-of-the-ocean Kraken? Now made of plastic, with an uninspired paint job reminiscent of some recent D&D Miniatures (Troglodyte Bonecrusher comes to mind).

On the other hand, the coolness factor of many enemies increased. Big bad bosses Lich and Kary really benefit from all those extra colors. The chimeras no longer look like the lion head is eating the dragon head. The half-man half-cat enemies are now possibly frothing at the mouth, and it's creeping me out.

Maybe it's because music is more important to me than graphics, and maybe it's because so much of the Final Fantasy soundtrack is absolutely iconic, but a lot of the remixed music disappointed me. The basic melodies are intact, but the tempo of one or two themes isn't quite as perfect as the original, and the instruments used for a few of the songs are surprisingly lackluster, cheesy, and/or full of bagpipes.

The battle theme, of all songs, is probably the worst offender, if for no other reason than that it became generic filler when it used to be something tense and menacing. I noticed this with the battle music in FFV and FFVI for the GBA as well; whatever instruments they're using just don't give battles the oomph they need.

There are a few musical triumphs, however: the town theme now sounds like it's being played on acoustic guitar by a live performer; the non-bagpipey cave music is pleasantly catchy; and the music for the Sky Tower is no longer weird and obnoxious. There's nothing outright bad about the music, but having heard the original songs, I sometimes long for the "inferior" 8-bit tunes.

Perhaps the most striking change is how quickly I was able to progress through the game. It took me exactly 4 hours to get to the town of Melmond, whereas in the original game it would have taken me the same amount of time to, I dunno, beat up the pirates in Pravoka in order to get a ship that could take me across the ocean so I could grind for gold to go shopping so I can survive the Marsh Cave and bring back the Crown to the castle and fight Astos and get the thing that you give to Matoya so that she gives me the other thing that wakes up the guy on the other continent so he can give me the key that unlocks a bunch of places on different continents so I can find something to blow up the piece of land that's keeping my ship from reaching Melmond.

Translation: Game is easy. Now, I could have just spontaneously become AWESOMER at this game, but I'm positive they give you more money to start with, reduced the price of just about everything, and made you level up faster.

Furthermore, they've now thrown in Phoenix Downs, which can bring your slain party members baaaack from the deeaaaaad at any time, even during battles--a significant change over needing to use high-level magic outside of battle to bring someone back, or worse yet, dragging their corpse through slimy bogs and abrasive deserts to a town where some voodoo man could charge you to resurrect your disgustingly defunct ally.

Furtherly furthermore, your party members automatically target a new enemy in battle if the one they are assigned to attack somehow gets killed off prematurely. In the original version, if all four party members targeted Mad Pony #1 and your fighter defeats it right off the bat, the remaining three party members will worthlessly attack the space where Mad Pony #1 used to be instead of attacking Mad Pony #2. Talk about beating a dead horse.

Anyrapier, between this and the fact that the battle animations have all been sped up a bit, the game moves noticeably faster, which is part of how I could get to Melmond in 4 hours. On top of that, they graciously added a Run button so that you can backtrack through towns and dungeons at a more bearable speed.

Whoa, I'm getting pretty longwinded, so let me conciseify this up a bit.

The dialogue and even the names of everything have been completely overhauled, presumably to be more accurate to the original Japanese and to create a little more continuity with the rest of the Final Fantasy series. Also, to bug the purists.

Just to give you a small sampling: About a third of the monsters have been renamed to something out of Dungeons & Dragons (there are Mind Flayers and Purple Worms, and Kary is now Marilith); pointless townsfolk dialogue like, "Welcome to Coneria. I like swords." has been reduced by around 40%; weapons and armor now have more descriptive names (and actual descriptions so you know exactly what they do); Elfland has been renamed to something porcine like Elfham; and Nuke, the most awesome-sounding spell anyone has ever heard of, is now boring ol' Flare.

C'mon, one of the joys of being a Black Wizard is that you could, literally, NUKE EVERYTHING. Now your magical powers just flare up a little.

Players of the remake get treated to little cutscenes every now and again, which means a little more movement and a little more dialogue to break up the usually fun repetition of talking to people, shopping, and bashing enemies. Of course, they don't usually explain anything in any more depth, so the plot of Final Fantasy starts sounding a little silly with the cutscenes. "Wait, you guys have these random crystal shards! We don't know how you got them or why you're traveling together, but this means you have to rescue my daughter now!"

Yeah, did I mention the elemental orbs of earth, fire, water, and wind are now crystals? I'm all about crystals, but for this game, orbs were so much cooler. But I guess it just isn't a Final Fantasy game without some nonsense about crystals.

To that end, they threw in a line of dialogue about how this great guy named Cid designed the airship. I don't recall that being in the original, but then again, I don't recall any bonus dungeons, either.

Yes, that's the single most significant change in the remake: There are four bonus dungeons scattered across the world, and each time you defeat one of the elemental Fiends, one of the bonus dungeons opens up. The dungeons consist of 10, 20, 30, and 40 floors, respectively, and they're semi-randomized for the sake of replay value.

Treasure chests may be in different locations or contain different treasure each time, and many of the floors come up in a different order each time. You might go through an endless desert, then into a dark forest, then into a small cave, but the next time you might go through the forest first, then into a different cave, and then into the desert. There's some nice treasure that can't be found anywhere else in the game, and there are some truly creative floors (like the one where townspeople keep getting in your way, forcing you to sometimes detour through piles of enemies), but a lot of it is just a variation on places you've already been.

The bonus dungeons offer more powerful versions of the enemies you know, but with new names and different color schemes. That's right! A fresh coat of paint and you're a whole new kind of terrifying sand worm.

::shudder:: Sand worms.

Here's what's problematic about the bonus dungeons: Most of the enemies are not remarkably more powerful than anything else you've been fighting. I went through the entire first bonus dungeon without breaking a sweat. On the last floor of the dungeon was not just one, but four different bosses for me to fight. I saved my game (because you can now save anywhere--did I mention that?) and walked up to a random boss.

After many brutal rounds of pulling out all the stops, my entire party was wiped out. The boss attacked with spells that could instantly kill one or all of my party members, and when he wasn't doing that, he was dealing enough damage to almost instant-kill my party members anyhow.

I'm sorry, but there was no indication the boss would be so ridiculously powerful. Worse yet, once you enter the bonus dungeons you can't backtrack your way out without high-level magic, so if I wouldn't have saved in a different slot than usual, I would have been severely out of luck.

So I tried another boss. The first few rounds were quite reasonable, but then he also started pulling out all that instant-kill magic and started healing himself. Not cool.

Oh, it gets better. Once you defeat one boss, you have no option to teleport out of the dungeon. To fight the other bosses, you need to go back through the whole dungeon all over again. That's not so bad with the first dungeon, but it gets old really quickly with the later dungeons. Fortunately, the last bonus dungeon has only one boss at the end, which is why I have any time at all to write this post.

At least the bosses in the bonus dungeons are borrowed from Final Fantasy III-VI, so if you've played those games and remember what the bosses were like, you'll be better prepared to take them on. As was the case with Final Fantasy V (at least the way I played it), the bosses are the only truly challenging part of the bonus dungeons (aside from finding your way through the various labyrinths), so even at level 99 I found myself having a few battles that weren't complete pushovers.

The bonus dungeons could certainly use a little polish, but they're by no means a bad addition, and you don't need to bother with them at all if you don't want to. I'd say they're worth checking out, though I'd do so after you're a powerhouse team to be reckoned with.

Despite the bumps along the way, I like the GBA remake of Final Fantasy. I still enjoy the challenge of the original, and there's something charming about the 8-bit graphics and sound, but I also like how the remake looks quite nice and generally requires less time and effort to play. I'm just as likely to replay one as I am the other, though, so they both come recommended--though I would be sure to play the original at some point, as it is a classic.


[Credit to blue99, Polar Koala, and Dixet for enemy sprites from www.spriters-resource.com]

Waiting for Wednesday, Issue 38

Gotta be honest here, this is not going to be the easiest Waiting for I've ever written. Actually, it'll likely be quite the opposite. After Monday's depressing little post about my growing cynicism towards comics, it would be pretty hypocritical of me to launch into an overly-excited post about what I'll be rushing off to buy at the shop this week.

So, first, let's clear the air.

I still love comics. But, as things like this tend to go, and as many a broken-hearted teenager has heard at some point, I may not be in love with comics anymore. Comics and I are having a fight, you see. A rather large one, and right now, I'm not sure which one of us is winning.

But I don't think it's me.

What's the genesis of this new-found, falling out of love, you ask? Well, I think it's been building for some time, and there was a moment not too long ago that really got the ball rolling.

Just about a month ago at the Baltimore Comic Con, I had a rather rude conversation with someone I had previously spoken to online about possible employment, and I guess things have been steadily building up since then. I'd talked previously with this person, and I was rather pleased with the way things were shaping up.

Now, I'm by no means naive about the job market out there, and while I honestly did not expect anything to come from the talk, I still could not help feeling snubbed by this person. He was just plain rude, is all I'm saying. But, I shook the encounter off and moved on to the next thing.

Unfortunately, a couple of Not Good Things happened soon after, and I've since landed in a messy situation with a former business associate and a...well, let's call it a non-existent situation with another former business associate.

Both had to do with comics, and more specifically, with my getting into the comics industry. And both took a toll on me, since neither ended the way I would have liked. Actually, as I alluded to the other day, one situation is on-going, and costing me quite a bit of money and even more stress.

Add to all this the fact that I literally have to do a mathematical equation before entering the comics shop on Wednesdays to see what I can afford, and it becomes clear why me and comics are not seeing eye-to-eye at the moment.

Or, maybe it doesn't. Become clear, that is.

Certainly, in my head (and heart) it's pretty clear. And, for those reasons and a few more, I just don't have that same spark that I did in the not-so-distant past when it comes to my four-colored friends. So the Big Question becomes, how do I continue on with Waiting for, and not to mention, this blog where I talk about comics quite a bit?

And my plan to answer these questions was to basically start writing this post, and see if I would figure things out along the way. And I think I kinda did. Maybe. I'm hoping that Waiting for is just the thing I need to help spark that interest and passion I've carried with me since 2003.

As it currently stands, Wednesday is pretty much just another day of the week for me at this point, and that is not a good sign. I don't head over to the LCS until late in the afternoon, as I don't really want to run into any of the shop's regular Wednesday Warriors. Another not good sign. My hanging out time at the shop has widdled down to around 15 minutes or so, and it's become less of an escape and more of a nuisance.

I'd rather be on my computer, applying for jobs.

Maybe it's just circumstances, though, and once I have a steadier (read: not freelance) gig with reliable money, maybe I'll be back to my old self. I do still enjoy writing this feature, and I do still get that happy feeling in my stomach when I'm looking through Diamond's shipping list for the week. So, I figure, that's a good sign.

Now, once I've figured out which books I can buy, I go out and buy them. But, for whatever reason, they sit in a box under my bed and they don't get read. I pick up the same book that's been sitting at the front of the box for nearly three months, and I flip through it and put it back.

I've kept up with a few of my favorite titles, like Goon and Blackest Night and House of Mystery and Hellboy. But it's been a long, long time since I've read a Dark Reign book, and an even longer time since I've read a current Batman book.

What I have read are the books that made me fall in love with comics, and I'd like to share them here, in lieu of a proper Waiting for. As mentioned on Monday, this weekend I sat down with my all-time favorite Batman story, The Long Halloween and Dark Victory, and I read through both volumes.

Sunday night I read Garth Ennis' first Hellblazer arc, "Dangerous Habits."

Monday night I read Neil Gaiman's Death: The Time of Your Life, and Death: The High Cost of Living.

Last night I read the one-and-done, Hellblazer, issue 27, written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Dave McKean. Entitled "Hold Me," it is quite possibly the best single issue of a comic book written in the past three decades.

I'm not sure what I'll be reading tonight, but it'll be something that means something to me. I'm thinking it might just be The Copybook Tales, by J. Torres and Tim Levins.

I plan to continue on this way, ignoring the new comics and turning once again to the titles and runs that got me so hooked on this hobby, not long ago. And I know that, at the very end of this new/old comics journey, I'll read the entire collected Goon series, from the very first issue to the very latest issue. I'm planning for this to coincide with Christmas week, as it's somewhat of a tradition for me to read through The Goon once a year, during that (usually) stress free week.

So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to try and fall back in love with comics.

Wish me luck.

How Do You Remake a Classic?

Psycho. King Kong. Casino Royale. Planet of the Apes. Hollywood has a penchant for remaking movies, for good or for ill, but I can't say I blame them for trying. I imagine the temptation to remake a movie might be overwhelming.

Think about it: You could cash in on the success of something that's already proven its popularity. You could finally do justice to a story that suffered from a small budget, lackluster special effects, poor direction, or any number of shortcomings. You could introduce a new generation to a classic you love. The list just keeps going.

Movie remakes are nothing new, but there's another medium that has seen a definite increase in the number of remakes over the past several years: video games.

Resident Evil. Mega Man: Powered Up. The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition. Metroid: Zero Mission. All of the earlier games in the Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy series. Sometimes the remakes are relentlessly faithful to the original, and sometimes they might as well be another game altogether.

I suspect that the majority of video game remakes have the same practical foundation: old video games and old video game systems can be hard to find. If you want to watch a movie from the 1970s, you need only visit your local library or video rental store. If you want to play a video game from the same time period, you'll need to stumble across a yard sale or eBay auction just to find the game, and that doesn't guarantee you'll have a functional system that will play the game.

Beyond that, next-gen snobs might turn their noses up at a direct port of an 8-bit "eyesore," and it's doubtful that big-name companies would allow some of their greatest masterpieces to be lost and forgotten simply because they're old. (The games, not the people at the companies.)

That's probably why so many video game remakes entail little more than a graphical update and a new translation of the dialogue that's more culturally relevant or more accurate to the original Japanese; if age and availability are the only reasons more people aren't playing your game, why change more than you have to?

Of course, you need to take into account both the newer generation of gamers and the gamers who grew up on the game in question. Many people agree that retro games tend to be simpler yet more difficult than newer games; even if it's pretty enough for next-gen snobs to play, will the game be complex enough to hold their interest to the very end, assuming they can make it that far? And what would compel curmudgeonly old gamers such as myself to buy some newfangled version of a game they already own?

I can tell you from experience: Curmudgeonly old gamers are very sensitive about remakes. All it takes is a minor alteration to a "classic" line of dialogue to send them off the deep end.

That may seem unreasonable, but imagine the backlash if, in a slightly revised special edition of The Godfather, Vito Corleone said he would "propose an offer that would be unwise to turn down." The way I see things, it's quite a feat to remake a video game in such a way that changes very little and still makes everyone happy.

I bring this up because I recently completed the first of the two titular games in the Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls collection for the Game Boy Advance, which is of course a remake of the classic NES game that spawned more sequels than you can shake a Heal Staff at.

The original Final Fantasy was one of the first NES games I ever owned, and it instilled in me a love of RPGs and an appreciation for finding treasure and kicking butt with characters I customized myself. I didn't fall in love with it and become a diehard purist like I did with EarthBound and Chrono Trigger, which is why I didn't become volatile when I discovered they had changed the first town's name from "Coneria" to "Cornelia."



At least they didn't change "Garland" to "Garfunkel"; I think I might have developed a nervous twitch over that one.

The remake of Final Fantasy I has its merits, but it also has its drawbacks. It's an excellent case study for the phenomenon of video game remakes, and I look forward to reviewing the game later this week. Until then...