Hello everyone, it’s been a while!
I apologize for the radio silence, though I did warn that I might be away for a while after finishing Moby Dick. I thought I could do those weekly blog posts… but it didn’t really work out. Then I thought I could get back to reviewing games, and while I do like the ones I wrote, it didn’t really give me the same satisfaction as my deep dive into Moby Dick.
But, I had a thought the other day: what if I did an LP of that new version of FFT? That would be fun, I know it’s a game I can finish!
A What of Who?
Okay, let’s define some terms.
An LP or a Let’s Play is a type of media project that arose on the Something Awful forums in the ’00s. I discovered them back in high school, when I was going to that website for its funny articles. People still make them there, but it’s expanded, and become a phenomenon, mostly on youtube.
A Let’s Play is essentially someone else playing a game and explaining it. Sharing it with other people. In the earliest days, it was done with screenshots and text descriptions, in posts on SA. Then people started doing videos with commentary, and it was all over. One youtube became a big thing (this started way pre-youtube) then the form started to become popular and spread to people outside of SA.
I’ve been a fan of the format for a long, long time. I was procrastinating on college classes watching videos of old adventure games. Some of my favorites were Chip & Ironicus and supergreatfriend. They’re both still at it, though C&I much less often these days.
Recently, I’ve really been enjoying the Knights of the Old Republic II LP that Austin Walker has been doing, for the sister series on the A More Civilized Age podcast. That’s basically my direct inspiration for this LP: a solo RPG, with a lot of rambling and deep diving into themes and gameplay systems.
FFT is Final Fantasy Tactics, a tactical RPG that Square released in 1997 on the Playstation. It’s one of my favorite games of all time, but I haven’t played it in over a decade. There’s a new version that just came out, called Final Fantasy Tactics: Ivalice Chronicles. I’d been very excited to play it… but I knew it would be tough.
You see, it’s a game that requires… close attention. And that’s not generally the type of game I like to play these days. I like lean back games, where you’re just kind of running around doing whatever, that I can play while listening to podcasts. This is the opposite, if you just kinda play it without thinking, you’ll lose and have a bad time doing it.
So How Does This Work?
Well, there’s the video, so just go check it out!
Recording it was a lot of fun. I promise the production quality will improve over time, I’ve already got some plans for that. There are two problems here that will be obvious:
- The sound quality of my microphone is quite poor
- The video is slightly cropped on the bottom and right-hand side
The former I knew would be a problem, but the latter is rather vexing. A slight problem in OBS, I believe. I’ll get it sorted out. Very emarrassing.
But yeah, I’m gonna be uploading these, and I’ll cross post ’em here too. Aiming for one a week, but you know how these things go.
As always, I’m not trying to make this into a new career or anything, this is just for fun. I want to make something, and this seemed like a good option.
Until next time, shipmates!
The Beige Moth 