[Gironika]

Q: If [unnamed company] isn't too busy with making Metacritic-based Business-decisions and TRON-swag, they tend to develop seven [generic RPG-name]-titles at the same time, cancel three, bring only two of them over and fuck up at least one out of two releases with weird decisions like putting a three where a six would belong. They are also buying a new company every twenty seconds and expect to sell twice the amount of the installed hardware basis for each game they release. And just some days ago, the Boss™ decided to hand over duties asap and change professions - Seppukuru*-manager is very likely his next job.

What am I talking 'bout?

You might have guessed it, it is time for

again.


"Wait", I hear you sayin', "didn't we already 'ave us un three some years ago?"
Indeed, right you are, but since this the sixth SQEX-week and a US-version of it, it's basically a no-brainer to slap a three there instead of a six and be as professional about it as only a Microsoft employee can be:
~~DEAL WITH IT~~



Flashback:
Last year

• we talked about Eidos and Taito,
  
• FF12 was emulated,
  
• we played some Chrono-games,
  
• had some excellent in-depth coverage about the end of the world in FF14
  
• and Youpi rocked us SBros with one of the most entertaining let's plays that isn't a let's play.
  

So, what's up this year?
Well,

• I'm going to take a look at barking, working and sleeping dogs
  
• jacking my mind in Mindjack™
  
• present an underground social network service that 99% have never heard of
  
• might write something about FFX before the PS3 HD-rerererererereleases are out
  
• will wait for the postman to deliver two (SQEX-)games I've bought recently
  
• will boot a reboot to have some booty boo… - some Raidin' Action.
  
• will devise and present some strategies how SQEX can be rescued from oblivion
  
• and I'll kick off a social media phenomenon that will take the world by storm. Heard it here first!
  

Alas, feel free to hop in and come along for a roller-coaster ride that's as bad as The Bouncer or Driving Emotion Type-S! Grab a cam, take some pixx, twatter around the world in materiabooks; be it Eidos, Taito, Enix or SQUARE, play to your hearts content.

And always keep in mind that

[Gironika]

[Gironika]

That is a pretty Rad Racer, if I may say so.




Soo~oo, if someone can tell me where I can upload a PSD-file, you can also make pretty stuff during this week.
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[Gironika]

have no webspace from my isp, forgot about sharehosters. Too easy! Will update tonight, suddenly got a bit busy, the first few days …
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[Gironika]

Sooo, have some two hours to spend? Why not watch some people talking about FF6/14 … and talking they do a lot. I skipped, tbh, and … uh, see for yourself!



In other news, round-up of the last few SQEX-W-days:

• talked with a colleague at work about some FFs and his experience with XII. Interestingly, he said that XII "feels" like an FF and reminded him of some previous FFs (interestingly though, he didn't like 9 and 8) … will be interesting to follow up on how he likes XII, since he's currently only two hours in.
  
• I will (maybe) get FF3 (DS) next week from said colleague. That'd be one off my list, hm!
  
• I listened to the Code Age Commanders soundtrack and wondered (once again) what-could-have-been and why, in the age of digital re-releases, it still-hasn't-been. They did shop around subbed cutscenes of that back in … 2005? already. Still, it probably wouldn't sell as a digital dl-only title. One of the few games that I wanted to play but pretty much never will due to language barrier. The soundtrack, however, is wonderful. Tanioka at her best!
  
• read a bit about the FFX HD-re-release and listened to some of the bgm-tracks … and I started to wonder about this game. What is it that makes me come back to it every so often? Mind you, I haven't played it for four years (or so?) but somehow it never fades away … in comparison to games I really liked or had a great time with, X takes up more space than it should … and last time I played it, I got killed brutallllllly on a SQEX-week-themed run. Maybe will follow up with a post!
  
• I tried to mingle with someone (re: TWEWY) via WiFi, but didn't even encounter an alien, jeez …
  
• took a trip around faux Hong Kong in Sleeping Dogs, took some pictures and thought about a number of things (re: upcoming GTA5-release ←→ SDogs). Will post soon!
  
• I realized that I promised to do some writeup-stuff for Chrono Cross, but seem not to followed through. Of course, I had to listen to the soundtrack as well, and things got a bit sentimental, me questioning things and thinking about CC again … will follow up with a post, this time for real. Yapp.
  
• I wondered whether SQEX will have the balls to go as crazy as they did back in their PSX-heyday again. Thought about this for a while, but with the recent shakeup of management/announcements a la "will investigate each business division" it slowly began to dawn on me that the recent fiscal report pretty much spells trouble for Drakengard III and other niche titles, and pretty much all the odd stuff that made SQEX the company it is today. Yes, we'll get Brave Default Fairies, but something like Drakengard? Nier? Code Age? The FF7(AC)-PS2-game featuring Vincent? I can't even muster up enough fandom to somehow see light at the end of the tunnel. Four valiant youths are all emo w/out crystals showering them with light, indeed …
  
• kinda weird that Enix survived the merger (see sqex-wiki-page for info). It'd be interesting to see where the core-staff of their hayday went …
  
• And who'd have imagined that things would turn out like they did … almost ten years later (remember that SQEX was created on april 1st 2003?)
  
• and last but not least, didn't get two friends of mine to play EINHANDER yesterday, such a shame ~~~~ still, we had a good talk about the FF-movie and The Bouncer™.
  

Will have a workshop tomorrow and won't be back till friday, so I wish you a happy SQEX-W6 finish bevor the after-show-party commences from friday onwards.
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[Gironika]

Thanks, that is some awesome SQEX-trivia there.
I spent some time upscaling (and searching) for traces of that awesome tile-job, but they did an ace job there … I want to believe that's the kind of dedication that made square become as big as they were back in 2000...
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[Gironika]

just dropping by to update that I have not forgotten what I wanted to talk about, but goddamn is Sleeping Dogs fun. And it's not even that good!
I just cannot put my finger on why I am enjoying this as much as I do, but it kinda has a vibe that can only be compared to "Vice City" back in 200…3? (end of 2002, 10+ years ago … woah!).

I mean, just look at that (dork a.k.a me):

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