Writing going well. Also Skies of Arcadia Legends is still cool.

Last time I updated on the progress, I was at a little under 3k words.

Now I'm at 5k words and going well. Noting that Too Many Pinkie Pies is a good episode, yes. It is. It just feels like a bad Pinkie episode. Or at least a bad "everyone else" episode. First of all, I know that G4, like every show in existence ever has ups and downs in quality, characterization, and tone. But they sure get characters a run around in regards for characterization. I like the idea of TMPP, it's a cute episode and all that. just Pinkie gets some rather unfortunate dumb moments- most notably that she thinks the echo of her voice is a different voice or something like twice in the episode. And the other major non-Pinkie dumb thing is that no one thinks that the one supposedly sad and out of character Pinkie might actually be their friend cause it seems like everyone forgot that Pinkie can be sad or angry (Party of One definitely comes to mind) and so Twilight decides to make the most boring challenge ever (and no, I will not in any circumstance recreate that stare at paint drying scene. That is almost too boring for the show- imo, it's impossible to write competently and be fun.) so that entire scene is scrapped and will be heavily changed.

On a completely different note, I have finally figured out how to emulate Game Cube games- or more precisely- my favorite Sega Dreamcast/ Game Cube ported game. Skies of Arcadia- or as the Game Cube says, Skies of Arcadia Legends.

It took me much of yesterday to get the emulator running- honestly more out of slight incompetence on my part lol, but finally I can replay a game that hooked me on the Dreamcast my brother had and somehow he had Skies of Arcadia, a fantastic RPG game that, outside of Pokemon, got me into RPG games in general. I mean the aesthetic of sky pirate dudes doing sky pirate things in a rpg that dark stuff does happen, but doesn't make me feel like I'm doing that 90s dark manly aesthetic like FF7 and the like. It's great.

I mean look at these characters dude. They don't look like the most brooding characters ever, the main protagonist has both of his parents alive, a community of people that like him, and like a world of adventure that has twists and turns that feel "like" FF7, sure with the story ideas but it's not so derivative that it's a rip off. Floating sky islands and flying ships are always rad- just see Treasure Planet for that. Also, it helps that the graphics don't look bad. I mean sure, some of the 3d environments look a bit dated at times, but it isn't FF7. (Note: I have played, and beaten, FF7 before. I have played and beat in different times, all of the final fantasy numbered games besides the mmo's, and the 13 trilogy. I still think FF7, while good, is overrated due to Square Enix milking that particular game so hard.) Final Fantasy 7 was good, but it can be jarring to go back to if you aren't prepared- missable items (and summons, which is a complete pain) if you forget to pick them up due to story beats, polygonal 3d characters that looked great at first release, but they look janky now. Timed sections that can be a pain. Sometimes the climb-able objects blended into the background. Puzzle sections that are personally confusing without a guide- Shinra Building had one point in the beginning few hours that still made me look up a guide cause it was confusing.

Skies of Arcadia so far doesn't have most of that. Sure, some of the locations look dark (might just be emulation on my end though since sometimes that can happen, but it's there), the traversal can be a bit janky with the ship, and while the Game Cube port drove down the random encounter rate, it's still pretty high. And maybe trying to get around is confusing (but maybe that's my memory since the last time I was able to boot up any version of this game was two entire decades ago.) But the battle system is deeper than it looks with you being able to switch the element of your weapon on the fly when you get the correct stones- six elements in total. And you can grind the elements so that you could in theory have all your characters be able to cast every spell. Which is always neat. I love when games let you do that. And while ship combat is a bit confusing at first (and slow honestly) I mean building up your crew and fighting ships can be difficult and rewarding.

And while I would have liked to do the original Skies of Arcadia and emulate that- it had like so much content in it, and like downloadable content in the 90s- decades or at least a decade or so before other consoles even really could go on the internet well. And there was a chip in the controller itself that let certain games have game relevant minigames- and Skies of Arcadia has one of those. Which seems to be, after googling, like impossible to pull off emulation wise due to how weird it is. And due to downloadable content impacting certain quests, some items to power up characters or side content just seems to not be on the physical disc. Or it might be on the disc but gated behind stuff that needs download codes. In effect, reading forums on how to get that to work on dreamcast hardware makes my head hurt lol.

So, Game Cube version it is. It streamlines the game's exp gain, encounter rate, and twenty years later still looks good for a game that originally came out in 2000 on the Dreamcast, and 2003 after an almost rebuilt version on the Game Cube.

Wish there was a sequel though, it might have been amazing. And no, seems like Sega has moved on in theory due to certain people that worked on the game diplomatically calling Legends the "director's cut" and so there doesn't need to be a remake. Which just sounds like Sega doesn't see the worth in doing it since the game is kind of a hidden gem that didn't sell the most copies (probably partially due to the original version being on Sega's last hurrah of a console. And the Game Cube not being known for RPG games since the Playstation systems had most of the market for a while.

And for those wondering, yes, I did own the original game, both versions, but due to moves and time and losing game consoles and the like, I am unable to play it and looking at the amazon and ebay listings for both versions- and realizing that hardware limitations and the change in tv sets in the last twenty years makes emulating this by far the cheaper option. Cause parts for the consoles get rarer with time, the controllers slowly degrade, and certain parts of the game are download required in the Dreamcast version and lol I doubt the servers or ability to download that data package is possible after 2 decades. And old compatible tvs, cables, and wiring get harder to find with the slow progress of time.

So yeah, while I do not like going yo ho ho in terms of games, sometimes this is sadly one of the only options since its not like this game has had a remake or rerealease since 2003. Which sucks cause this game is rad as hell.