Messages

181

Maps Of The Month / Re: 2012/06: Lufia & The Fortress Of Doom (Super NES) - FlyingArmor

« on: June 06, 2012, 09:47:47 pm »

It sure was a pleasant surprise to see this while unwinding after Anime North last week. Thanks very much!

This sort of makes me want to do charts for finding the Dragon Eggs the second and third times around. I had planned on doing that before, but never got around to it. It would certainly make the map set that much more complete.

182

VGMaps Social Board / Re: Did Flip Industries Really Create "Super Kid Icarus"?

« on: May 11, 2012, 08:07:39 pm »

Funnily enough, it seems someone responded to the latest question on Yahoo Answers... >_>;

It's really funny the person who responded should relate making screen shot maps to stealing a car; the analogy simply isn't valid. If someone steals your car, you no longer have it. If someone takes screen shots of a game and assembles them into a map, the creator of the game still has the game, and even so, you're not copying the entire game anyway by making maps from it (and even copying the entire game wouldn't be stealing either). So to call mapping a form of stealing is pretty ridiculous and goes to show they don't really know what the word "steal" means. Copying isn't synonymous with stealing.

183

Gaming / Re: Sent in my 3DS to Nintendo for repairs...

« on: March 22, 2012, 05:18:05 pm »

The thing that bugs me is simply replacing something without a second thought. What happens to the broken unit afterwards? Is it recycled? Or is it simply thrown into the trash?

The mentality these days is that if something breaks, don't bother trying to fix it, just buy another one (or in the case of a Wii, get a replacement). This can apply to pretty much everything. At home, if a piece of clothing gets a tear in it, I'm told to just throw it out and get a new one, even though it wouldn't take much work to mend it. This is the mindset that I'm objecting to. The complexity of the object in question shouldn't sway our judgment just because we don't have to deal with the consequences of mindlessly throwing things away, even if we don't do it directly.

This is where money becomes such a dangerous thing. Cutting down on expenses is favoured over protecting the planet from further defilement. Why should something as ephemeral as money (something that doesn't actually exist) dictate that we trash our planet just to save on expenses in the short term (this being from the perspective of a corporation)?

This is probably getting a little off topic, but it's some food for thought nonetheless.

184

Gaming / Re: Sent in my 3DS to Nintendo for repairs...

« on: March 21, 2012, 10:36:57 pm »

I've had a few cases of electronics breaking unusually quickly, one case in particular being ridiculously so.

I had bought an external hard drive case once so I could transfer recovered files to my desktop computer. However, after a week or two, the device just all of a sudden stopped working, right in the middle of me using it. I at first thought it was a problem with the hard drive itself, but having experienced a genuine hard drive failure once before (those dreaded clicking sounds...) I knew that wasn't it. It was the external case, something you'd expect would last a little longer than two weeks...

But Nintendo is indeed pretty damned good with providing quality hardware. It wouldn't make sense for their business to do that. My being able to play Japanese games on my SNES (with a slight hardware modification) even 20 years after first getting it, is I think a great testament to that. A Wii or a 3DS certainly can't be equated with a light bulb (a product that has certainly for decades been designed to fail sooner than it should).

I definitely agree that greater complexity can lead to a greater propensity for failures, and I see that as the more likely reason in this case. But them simply replacing the units instead of addressing the actual problem is something that bugs me though.

185

Gaming / Re: Sent in my 3DS to Nintendo for repairs...

« on: March 21, 2012, 01:05:11 pm »

...but is the quality of electronics declining?

My first thought was planned obsolescence, but that'd be a little silly for something like a console to break down in such a short span of time (like within one year). But even so, I wouldn't put it past Nintendo if they indeed designed their hardware to break down quicker nowadays.

186

Maps In Progress / Re: Final Fantasy VI (SNES)

« on: February 15, 2012, 12:25:29 am »

Instead of what I thought of earlier (with all paths open), I actually kind of like how all the rooms are separated like that. So I think I may just go with that for when I arrange my map (and add a note about the nature of that room).

The way this dungeon works is you step on those grey pressure plates to get teleported around. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to them, it's just totally random where you end up. And it's the same with the walls as well.

I use a walk-thru-walls code to help me move around which is how I completed those first two iterations (though its usefulness is rather limited). I don't think I'll need help with this cave. I just need to encounter the rooms in isolation as I'm playing and I should be good. Thanks for showing me what you came up with!

187

Maps In Progress / Re: Final Fantasy VI (SNES)

« on: February 14, 2012, 01:05:11 am »

I was working on Ebot's Rock a little bit ago and discovered that, apart from the start and end of the cave, the coral gathering areas are based off of one layout which simply changes which pathways are blocked off and which are open. I've included an image of what I've mapped. Some iterations are complete while I rearranged the incomplete ones to fit the basic configuration.

As for what to do now, I was thinking of maybe mapping this bit with all the paths open, to at least acknowledge the existence of this part of the cave. Or perhaps not bother with it at all. Not really sure what to do.

188

Maps In Progress / Re: Final Fantasy VI (SNES)

« on: February 08, 2012, 08:44:34 pm »

Yes, it looks like they do. The only obvious difference is the colours are brighter with the GBA version, which actually helps with distinguishing between the two maps as I'm filling in the holes.

Thanks for that! I'll keep you in mind if I run into a brick wall so to speak.

189

Maps In Progress / Re: Final Fantasy VI (SNES)

« on: February 08, 2012, 04:56:13 pm »

I got back into mapping FF6 last week, and I'm getting real close to completing the entire game. Since the update this past weekend, I've completed Umaro's Cave, the Phoenix Cave, and the Fanatics' Tower. All that's left to do is the Lete River, Cyan's Soul, Ebot's Rock, and Kefka's Tower.

Lete River: Still a pain in the neck, lol. I've tried using the remote viewing code that I found, but it's pretty much useless when riding the raft because it messes up a lot of the tiles on screen. But I've decided to use Troy Lundin's Lete River map as a template to fill in the extra areas that I can't reach.

Cyan's Soul: I've got it mostly mapped out. Just need to work on the mountain side areas where you're in the Magitek armor, and the interior areas of Doma Castle. I'm not going to bother mapping the castle exterior, because it doesn't relate at all to the scenario at hand.

Ebot's Rock: A very cumbersome area. Pretty much have to capture it all via save states since the visible area in game is very limited (and which cannot be remedied by toggling layers).

Kefka's Tower: Haven't touched it yet. I'm going to leave it until the above three maps are done. Looking forward to working on it!

190

Map Gab / Re: Sword of Mana (GBA)

« on: October 23, 2011, 10:40:12 pm »

No, it's all Japanese. Since Japanese writing mainly uses three different scripts (kanji, hiragana, katakana), there is a lot of freedom in how one can write words and phrases.

The first screen shot happened to use kanji and hiragana while the second used solely hiragana instead. The last line of the second shot where it says "Square Enix" had be baffled for a little bit, since that would normally be written as スクウェア・エニックス using katakana.

Japanese writing can be a little crazy at times, but once you get a handle on it, it can be lots of fun.

191

Map Gab / Re: Sword of Mana (GBA)

« on: October 23, 2011, 09:21:35 pm »

To translate those screen shots...

The first says:

Sword of Mana
On sale August 29th!
Let's meet in the Gameboy Advance!

And the second:

Sword of Mana
Now officially on sale~
Square Enix

A little strange having advertising for the game you're already playing, don't you think?

192

Maps In Progress / Re: Final Fantasy VI (SNES)

« on: September 24, 2011, 04:58:27 pm »

There's one thing I'd like to get an opinion or two on. With regards to the towns in the World of Ruin, I'm undecided about whether or not to include all the building interiors that were already shown in the World of Balance maps. On one hand, I find that they're a little redundant, especially if there's no new treasures to point out, but on the other, the maps might not seem as complete if they're not included. Any thoughts?

I've included two examples of towns without the already seen interiors.

193

Maps In Progress / Re: Final Fantasy VI (SNES)

« on: September 04, 2011, 01:11:38 pm »

Hey~ I'm nearly finished with mapping everything in the World of Balance, save for 3 areas: Lete River, Phantom Forest, and the Phantom Train.

The Lete River is coming along, though it does take a lot of time and several passes through the area to capture everything. But at least now it's not impossible to do.

Finishing off the Phantom Forest depends upon finishing the Phantom Train area, and the main problem with that area is not being able to separate the train from the background/black space. But just now, I think I found a solution to this problem (using vSNES), so I'll give that program a shot.

Aside from that, I've started working on the World of Ruin. I have no idea how many maps there'll be (it's been years since I last played this game to completion), but I'll just do them as they come.

194

Gaming / The Mario Marathon

« on: August 13, 2011, 05:22:44 pm »

Hey guys. Just thought I'd let you know about a Super Mario gaming marathon going on right now by Penguins Productions. The marathon is to help raise funds for Big Brothers Big Sisters in St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada.

I donated a painting as an auction prize (which is part of the reason I'm bringing this up at all, heheh) which you can see on the Prizes page of their website. It's the 12 x 18" acrylic painting just below the Bowser chair.

So far they've raised a little over $800. All info, like what games they'll be playing, prizes, etc. is over at their site. The marathon's gonna span over the next 4-5 days, so if you can, go on and check out what they're up to. And donate if you're able to do that too.

195

Maps In Progress / Re: Final Fantasy VI (SNES)

« on: March 27, 2011, 11:45:52 pm »

Topic revival after who knows how many months...!

Got around to completing the map layout and patchwork for Mt. Kolts, so that's finally done with. And also got the items for Returners' Hideout labeled as well. It's not much, but at least it's something.

I don't think I'll get much else done in the coming weeks. I'll be busy drawing pages for a few comic books that I'm preparing for an upcoming convention. So the ever-dreaded mapping of the Lete River can happily wait for now, heheh.