FoxwolfJackson

According to this article, apparently Warner Brothers is working on bringing Harry Potter movies and playing them with a live orchestra. This makes my inner musician squee with joy. Anyone else seeing what I'm seeing? : D

I'm curious if Clinton gets the Democratic nomination if Bernie Sanders will run as a candidate for the Socialist Party of America or if he will merely concede back to Vermont. Having a popular third party candidate wouldn't be unheard of in US history (such as when Teddy Roosevelt ran for election as a third party in the Bull Moose Party).

I lol at Sakurai saying that, 'cause the only FE character without a counter is a tactician. I guess Robin didn't anticipate the enemy phase... xD

Smash 64: Jigglypuff Melee: Jigglypuff and Marth Brawl: Jigglypuff and Zelda Smash 4: Jigglypuff, Palutena, and Lucina. ... yes, Jiggs is my bread and butter troll/serious main.

I don't really remember his stats. I just remember that we were so glad when he left. I mean, yeah, Maddox wasn't great, but we didn't have him for long before Big Ben premiered. I mean, he went to the Ravens...

Be glad. Be very glad you weren't around to witness the Kordell Stewart years. Gods... it's like how the Dallas Cowboys were this year.

I was a huge fan of the Commander Keen series (although I only played 4 and 5), but it seems like no one else has barely heard of it. It'd be nice if they brought those games to Steam. : D Also, I have a guilty admission in that I actually like the new Star Trek reboot movies. Oh, and I also like D&D4e (and most other D&D fans will scoff at me for saying that).

I honestly really don't mind that, even speaking as a Steelers fan. He was a disappointment to the team, and with a nice, high draft pick this year, the Browns could easily pick up Carson Wentz or Paxton Lynch, who can do the team nothing but good. Honestly, hoping at least one makes it to the 13th round so the Eagles can pick them (I'm still iff-y on Bradford), but c'est la vie. ... I also want to believe this will be a good superbowl, but after the last time the Broncos made it in, I dunno...

How about Bomberman? That might be an interesting addition, a multi-purpose robot like Megaman, but with his own unique moves for his games? EDIT: OH! Preferably NOT the one from Bomberman Act Zero. Please...

It makes me wonder if Corrin has a purple color edit. That salt could be a lot closer than we think. What about Sephiran for mage types? Or how about Ashnard? He could easily be a tank type like Ike, but with Shulk's range, Ganondorf's speed, and Bowser's bulk.

Having played Shin Megami Tensei IV and Bravely Default, I can definitely see where you guys are coming from with those battle systems. However, one battle system that I really enjoyed and I'm slightly surprised that I didn't see anyone post about (or if you did, I missed it and I apologize for that) was the Skies of Arcadia battle system. The idea that the entire team shared the same Spirit Points meter instead of individual MP for attacks (I mean, everyone did have MP stats, but every magic spell cost 1MP) gave the feeling of having teamwork and support (one person could simply gather spirit points to help build the meter for someone else to cast a spell). Also, ship battles. Just, ship battles. They were very enjoyable (and some thing I always looked forward to, actually).

I disagree to some extent, partially because what also makes a metagame boring is when a combo is too broken and overused. I can understand a lot of the nerfs being annoying, but I personally think that nerfing Diddy's "Hoo-Hah" that ZeRo was famous for and nerfing some of Luigi's d-throw combos were necessary. You can buff characters all you want, but if a combo is too OP as to be broken, it needs to be nerfed. With that being said, I hope Sakurai will consider nerfing ZSS's combo of d-throw-->full jump u-air--->up-special. Seriously, that combo can kill someone who's at 15%-20%. (Video of aforementioned combo... I lose all three of my lives to the very same combo) Seriously, every ZSS player out there tries to do it (with varying degrees of success) to the point it's trite, boring, and predictable... but extremely frustrating when you're caught in it. In fact, ZeRo's first tournament loss in 50+ tournaments came from a ZSS abusing that combo (I think Leffen was the one who did it to him). EDIT: Also, another buff that Jigglypuff could have is that all Rest KO's are star KO's. I can't tell you how many times they get KO'd upward, but because it wasn't a star KO, they come back and kill me before I wake up. It's frustrating. Rest is already risky enough without being able to finally pull it off, only to be revenge killed.

So, as the title implies, post what your favorite battle system is. I always have had a soft side for good JRPG's and their battle systems, so I'm rather curious what kind of systems you all like and why. Doesn't necessarily have to be your favorite game, but if you really found the gameplay and mechanics and the like to be really fun, just give it a shout out!

I'm half-decent at rhythm games, but I guess that plays into being a percussion instructor. My specialty is JRPG's. I love them. It's what I excel at. It's my favorite. It's what I am passionate about and probably the genre I'm best and most comfortable with.

Biased toward my two mains, but I'd love to see some buffs on both Jigglypuff and Palutena. Jigglypuff: -I would love to see a kill-throw. Perhaps, is it too much to ask for, if up-throw can kill at ~135%? Maybe it's a low percentage, relatively speaking, but Jiggs doesn't do much ground game, so grabbing and throwing would be a risk-reward thing by going into a discomfort zone. -Throw combos. Adjust the knockback of d-throw so that at low percentages, d-throw--->short hop nair is a true combo. -Make the tornado effect of dair less erratic so that the dair--->rest combo can work a little better. -Rest would be nice to have a bit of a buff in terms of knockback. Palutena: -Widen the beam slightly for u-smash and give it a few more frames before it disappears. -Increase the damage of auto-reticle. -Increase walk and dash speed. She's a speedy glass cannon which requires precision and accuracy. Her movelag on a whiff is reminiscent of heavy characters, but she isn't heavy. There should be some more speed there to balance out that issue. -Increase KB on the counter. -Decrease KB slightly on d-throw. ------------------------ I'll think of more when I get a chance.

Lunatic is a "False Difficulty" (as my girlfriend puts it), because it artificially creates difficulty by jacking up the stats. Awakening itself is a broken game where you can, with minimal effort, OP your characters by chapter 5 or so (I forget the actual number) and a downfall of the franchise that I had spent a good portion of my life being a huge fan of. Radiant Dawn's hard mode was a real difficulty. It removed the Weapons Triangle (so you had to rely more on your own skill as a tactician in movement rather than utilizing this often forgotten mechanic), hid enemy movement, raised enemy stats marginally, halved the exp. that was gained, and lowered BEXP. Part 1 was cruel and punishing, but it was a rewarding difficulty. Lunatic Mode... hardly seems like it. The numbers are jacked up abnormally high, and personally, I think it had to do with the fact that the game proper was easy to break and very easy in difficulty compared to most of the US-released FE games (aside from Sacred Stones). Essentially, Lunatic mode is actually quite relevant, because it was Intelligent Systems' attempt at appeasing the old guard, while using the main game to bring in the newer crowds. As a marketing tactic, it's brilliant, I'll begrudgingly admit...

I wasn't exactly sure if this was the proper place for this thread. The board was "Creative", but there didn't seem to be a section for music compositions, so if this isn't in the right place, I apologize. https://soundcloud.com/jtmusic-7 Here is the portfolio currently of all original works that I use for applying to any open music composer position for video games. https://soundcloud.com/thesilentorator This is my "post anything else" soundcloud. Essentially, stuff that I have worked on, but doesn't really contribute toward getting me a job as a video game composer goes here. So, um, yeah, these are my compositions.

What's wrong with Common Core Mathematics? It takes the woman nearly a minute in video to explain why 9+6=15. This really circular, roundabout way of learning things may work in later maths (I remember my Calculus professor in college telling us to learn HOW and WHY derivatives work and how they are found before using the "shortcut" way of finding a derivative), but really, good old-fashioned memorization is far superior when it comes to basic arithmatic and there is very little room for error. A kid counts from 9 and goes up six more digits. Memorization is key. If they keep reinforcing that those numbers add together, it creates a base that a child can intuitively draw from (not unlike a coding library when programming) because it is so ingrained in their memory.Sure, multiple answers and multiple approaches, and all that is great for highly advanced equations. One might argue that it is even required in later maths. Granted, I didn't go much further into my math studies since it wasn't necessary for a music major to take more than two math courses, but I knew engingeering majors who say similar things that you do about higher level math. Fire Emblem: Awakening was so laughably easy in non-lunatic mode (and I don't touch Lunatic because it is what my girlfriend calls a "false difficulty"). Super Mario Galaxy is far easier than Super Mario 64. Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and Link Between Worlds were so much easier than Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. Every generation of gaming has grown increasingly easier than the last, so I beg to differ from the "things aren't much different". It is, in its essence, pandering to the audience... I HIGHLY doubt Fi would have existed if we had this video game technology in '85. Yes, gaming may merely be a hobby, but there is an underlying pattern that reflects in the attitude of the children of today toward actual, important things. Like studies.

Just because something is popular does not mean it is right. Twilight and 50 Shades of Gray are insanely popular books. High School Musical was a cult classic. By your logic, not liking any of the above is an "unpopular opinion". Does that mean if you make a scathing comment about Twilight's quality (or the lack thereof), I have the right to jump down your throat for "pretentiously" posting an unpopular opinion? Legit question and not rhetorical, BTW.

I looked through the first page of this board and could not find a related topic, so I figured I might start this one to get some discussion (that is hopefully not politically related). This idea came to me in recent months as I was working with some of my students. For those that don't know, I am a volunteer instructor at a local high school's pep band and jazz band. The idea came to me as I was working with my drumline and I was teaching them something cool they could do and the general consensus was, "I don't want to learn anything new. What we already do is fine." Many of the people who are on the drumline are people who are not interested in music or putting in effort, but love the idea that they can just swing the stick and make a sound. No work. No effort. When something comes up that actually requires work, effort, and practice, they will stubbornly fight back and try to stick to "play the same beat and part for every. single. song." Perhaps it is just me, but I have been seeing this pattern throughout our society. In our gaming, video games have seemingly become so much easier. There was a day where the gameplay and mechanics were simpler, but the game lasted a long time, because it challenged the player constantly. In this day and age, some games play out more like interactive movies than actual video games (and the first things that come to mind are Heavy Rain and Metal Gear Solid). One can argue that this is simply stretching the wings of the creative and technological advances of today's day and age, but I cannot help but nostalgically reminisce upon a time when "Nintendo Hard" struck fear in a player's heart. Even in our curriculum today, it seems like things are getting easier. The students of today seem to have become more of professional test takers than actual learners. In some universities, they even are beginning to have such absurd concepts such as "safe spaces", as if there is some mythical energy pervading this arbitrary location that nullifies the meaning behind the phrase of "sticks and stones". Between common core and No Child Left behind, it seems as though the education system is part of the problem of pandering and pampering people into having atrocious attitudes in regards to persistent, perplexing problems. In fact, from a personal observation, a lot of people today seem to give up too easily on anything that could potentially provide a challenge for them. When adversity comes up, instead of rising to the occasion to overcome it, it seems like more and more people nowadays are simply running away and hoping there is something out there that can take care of their problems for them. Many people, when faced with opposition, simply retreat... run away... or simply bury their heads in the sand. I have to ask the people here. Is this more of an outlier concluded from personal observation based upon the locale of where I live (Southern New Jersey) and the communities I inhabit (ie: video games, fanfiction, etc.), or is this a real, pressing, widespread problem in today's society that can and should be addressed?

There are many sociological factors today are not present in the 19th century that may give the internal pessimist some food for thought. The general individual today is somewhat more educated than an individual in the past. With schooling available to pretty much everyone in America, the general intelligence level of someone is a decent amount higher than it was back then. With that being said, a person who might be taken advantage of at one job can easily jump to another job. Without a minimum wage, the other job can simply say, "Hey, we will pay you an extra $1 an hour if you come over here. We'll even treat you better." and thanks to a lack of a minimum wage, payroll will hardly be as constrained as it is now to be able to hire such an individual. In fact, with lower wage rates, businesses can potentially hire more freely, driving down the unemployment rate. A win-win, if you ask me. The other factor is that wages are not the only compensation a job provides for an employee. The other major compensation is health insurance. Now, a company only has so much money it can spare to take care of an employee. If one of these factors is artificially mandated by the government, it upsets the balance of the other benefits. Perhaps a job at one place pays less than a job at another place, but the first place has better health insurance. Which place would you pick? I'm sure your answer might differ with someone else. With wages no longer hindered by regulation, companies can find creative ways to entice people to work for them and find their own rhythm on how to retain employees. Also, without a minimum wage, this would allow many startup businesses to be able to hire employees. Say, for example, a bunch of corrupt businesses tried to monopolize a town by working together to keep wages artificially low and not caring for their employees (say, for example, Wal-Mart and some other place)? What's to stop the locals from starting up small mom-and-pop shops to compete with those businesses? They can pay their employees the same rate (or potentially less), but give better benefits to the employees, including perhaps better health insurance (and health insurance to part-time workers like Trader Joe's used to), a better employee discount plan, private ownership stock options, etc., etc. Less government interference means the market can more naturally swing to equilibrate from any deviations in the balance between business and individual.

I admit, restaurants really weren't the best of examples, but the article was written right after Seattle passed its $15/hr minimum wage law and it was written in response to that piece of legislation. There definitely are better examples in the overall field that could help drive the point home better. There was a big discussion/debate going on over the rash of restaurants closing in the area and I figured it was a good time to write a little blurb on what my take was on the matter. The problem with having any sort of minimum wage is that it forces companies to set a standard for what it expects from its new employees from the get-go. No employee should be expecting much from a new employee that's just out of (or still in) high school and has zero previous job experience. I don't think it's wrong for that employer to hire a young kid and pay them only $4 an hour... and as wrong as that sounds, here's the logic behind it. Most only take up unskilled labor jobs for extra spending money outside of their allowances. Some use it to help them buy their prom dress/tux, limo to/from the dance, etc. What's the harm in hiring them for that rate? They're not desperately needing the money to live. Plus, the benefit to starting low is it allows more incentive for rewarding good work ethic. If a high schooler is paid $4 an hour, but shows a great aptitude for learning how the job works and is constantly driven to do the best job they can, why not give them a $2.50 raise at their 60-day evaluation? If a new worker can potentially get a huge raise, then naturally they will do their best to get the best raise they can. With a small base, it allows breathing room to really motivate workers to giving their all to get that huge raise. Not to mention, the good worker is given a good reference for their resume AND gets job experience on their resume for future job applications. If the person is a slacker who does the bare minimum, they can get a $0.25 raise on their 60-day and be done with it. Plus, without a minimum wage, it allows flexibility for a starting rate. Most of the jobs I worked, pretty much every employee starts at the same rate. Whether it's a 17-year old who just got their first job, or someone who has had years of previous experience in the field, unskilled labor jobs will pretty much hire everyone at the same pay rate and give them approximately the same raises (give or take a dime per hour). In the above example, sure, the high schooler can start $4 an hour, but perhaps a college student with two years job experience in a related field can be hired for $6 an hour. After all, they're expected to have a better starting point than the high school student, due to having prior work experience. 1: The goal of a minimum wage (granted, I'm not a historian, so I'm merely taking a stab at it) was probably supposed to be a failsafe to prevent businesses from abusing labor and paying artificially low wages to maximize profits and to protect workers from unfair business practices. 2: Granted, this whole question/premise is a logical fallacy, but I'll bite anyway. Hypothetically, yes, we do want our citizens to live comfortably, but there has to be a balance and a reality factor in this whole utopian premise. The harsh reality is, no, not every citizen is going to live comfortably, as much as we would like to see it. 3: Everyone deserves help at one time or another. It is virtually impossible to be successful every moment in your life. I personally don't believe in the phrase "doomed to fail", because it implies that no one has control over their situation and fate. Life is what you make of it. First of all, the data already has showed that it is a big problem, as multiple sources in the article have pointed out. Prices for goods have gone up, restaurants are releasing employees or closing down, etc., etc. Is $15 an hour a necessity in urban areas with a high cost of living? Of course. However, wages are a contract between employer and employee; there is absolutely zero reason to have a third party artificially tying an arm behind the back of either party. Is $15 an hour a necessity in other places? Not all the time. It's all case-by-case basis depending on the area an individual lives in. For the record, the term "living wage" is probably one of the most cliche terms used by the political left's rhetoric to garner sympathy from the listeners, despite the fact it is also a logical fallacy and thus leaves a bad taste in some people's mouths. To give a pragmatic, practical answer without sugar coating? Yes, essentially. Many people actually do work two jobs in today's society. Some out of necessity, others out of the want to have extra money as a "rainy day fund" or to have extra to indulge in on their days off. Again, the reality of the situation is that after high school, people should be ready to face the world at large. Either they can go to college and rack up student loans (or get scholarships if they are lucky enough) to get a degree in a decent-paying field, they can go to a trade school and pick up a craft, or they can join the workforce and attempt to move up the corporate ladder from within. Those that are ill-prepared should not have to burden the rest of society because of their ill-planning. Perfect example of a parallel to this situation: The Aesop fable of The Ant and the Grasshopper. I counter your question with a question of my own: Do you think it is fair for a zero-experience high school student to be paid the same wage as someone who lives on their own, who may or may not have prior experience in the job field, and is struggling to pay their bills because there is an artificial floor in what is the smallest amount a person can be compensated for their labor? Actually, it's the early 21st century, and we are making such questions because the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction. :P So, we punish the companies of today for the mistakes made of the companies of the past? That is like sending a caucasian male to jail for slavery because the whites in the past used to own slaves.

A while ago that I had written a hybrid news article/mini research paper on Minimum Wage and the effects it had on society. I updated some information in the article to reflect current times as well as served as my own editor to remove any grammatical/typographical errors. I will take a moment to say that I don't hate minimum wage workers or think they "deserve" to be where they are. I think most of them just had drawn the short straw and are doing much in their power to live a normal life. This article is written mainly for the purpose of observing the effects of the law and initiative on a macroeconomic and society-wide basis using logical conclusions and statistical evidence. So, here's a topic that we can hopefully have a nice, rational discussion over and a copy of the article that I wrote (and yes, there is sources in the form of footnotes). ------------------------------------------------------------- Imagine going to the grocery store to buy a gallon of milk. The price has always been approximately five dollars for a gallon of whole milk. Today, however, there is an unpleasant surprise. The cost has skyrocketed to eight twenty-five a gallon. When inquired about the recent drastic change, employees can only reply that recent government law has increased the price of milk to increase profits for the struggling farmers. The utter dismay of discovering such an impediment creates an artificial rationing of a product that would otherwise not be rationed had it not been for a minimum cost for the milk. For one who owns a restaurant, this increase in price of a basic culinary ingredient would facilitate a price increase for products to equilibrate with the cost increase. In fact, in light of the recent rash of restaurant closings in Seattle, Washington, many have started to question what could have influenced these businesses in an area ripe with tourists. There has been a range of proposed reasons from various sources including bad location, misappropriation of space, or change of ownership; however, one of the most prominent and logical reasons has come under fire as to its validity. The ideal of a minimum wage, while created with the intention to ensure a living standard for employees, is inherently detrimental to the development of businesses by perpetuating a crippling handicap and preventing them from functioning at optimal efficiency. The recently passed and soon implemented fifteen dollar minimum wage increase has been cited as a harbinger of condemnation for many businesses in the Seattle area. The increasing cost and diminished returns will both condemn current small business owners and deter future aspiring entrepreneurs, the inability to justify hiring an entry level employee to make a bottom line, and the link to increased prices and unemployment are all current and realistically detrimental issues that are enabled by the enactment and enforcement of minimum wage. The first reason why the implementation of a minimum wage should be reconsidered is the ever increasing cost and diminished returns for businesses that hire minimum wage employees. In a civilized society which utilizes a monetary system, wages are a charge a person imposes upon an employer for services rendered. It is affected by the productivity of the worker coupled with the amount of competition in the skillset the person is offering. A person who puts in effort to design and develop a website will have a higher wage than a person who works as cashier at a retail store by virtue of the lack of competition in that field due to a specialty in the person's skillset. If one tried to artificially inflate the rate of their work by charging more than the competition or more than the product is worth, the individual would find themselves without work due to employers hiring another with the same ability for a lesser cost. Having a minimum wage imposes an artificial floor for wages that is increasingly detrimental over the years. Comedian David Angelo released a concise and well-written, albeit slightly comedic, video about minimum wage. In one part of the video, he displays a graph of the ratio food service wages versus productivity in recent decades; he explains how to interpret the graph before he goes on to summarize: “[...]that is the hourly compensation over productivity. It's rising, which means the cost of a food service employee has been outpacing productivity”[1]. There will soon be a day where the productivity of a food service worker will not be enough to justify the wages required by federal mandates. The Seattle Eater has interviewed many of the restauranteurs in the area, gathering their opinion on the minimum wage and the increase. Brendan McGill, owner and chef of Hitchcock Restaurant has stated, “[...] we run a very slim margin. To pay my staff more, I need to either buy worse food or raise my prices, and I'm not willing to start buying commodity meats or fish from larger, questionably managed fisheries”[2]. He goes on to say that those who earn minimum wage will continue to patronize his establishment as before, but those who make above minimum wage will be deterred from eating at his establishment because their wages are not increased. An increased price point would become harder to financially justify. In fact, he goes on to say that even he barely makes fifteen dollars an hour in the current economic climate. What fairness is there that the servers and cooks make more than the owner himself. Angela Stowell of Ethan Stowell restaurants believes that “[some] people will be okay with that but I worry that our guests will start spending less and going out less as they adjust to higher prices and their own wage compression.” In fact, Washington Restaurant Association's Anton estimates, “[...]the average restauranteur in Seattle has been making $28,000 a year”[3]. Workers in SeaTac, a small city near the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport have all griped about how, because of the wage increase, many other benefits have been stripped from them.[4] Therefore, it is safe to assume that diminishing returns provide less incentive for current and potential entrepreneurs to pursue opening a business. Furthermore, the inability to justify hiring an entry level employee to make a bottom line continually antagonizes the precarious balance of profit allocation. A restaurant makes a set gross profit for each item sold. Notwithstanding the previous example of decreased business affecting profits and taxes, the increases in wages would cut a larger slice of the profit pie. YouTube personality Julie Borowski addresses in a video Obama's proposal for a nine-dollar federal minimum wage by displaying how minimum wage instigates unemployment by simulating a hypothetical, yet highly probable conversation.[5] While the creation of a minimum wage was created to help create a wage by which any individual could provide for themselves the basic inalienable rights of life, liberty, and property, the fact that life is unfair does not justify a transfer of wealth or a restriction private property rights, such as wages. Minimum wage is inherently price control, which is more efficiently addressed through the markets rather than through government regulation. The Cato Institute explains the inefficiency best: “[...]when government adopts a price control, it defines the market price ... since supply and demand shift constantly in response to tastes and costs, but the government price will change only after a lengthy political process, the government price will effectively never be an equilibrium price”[6]. A perfect example of government prices stifling the equilibrium is the recent price hikes by Chipotle in the San Francisco area. San Francisco is slated to incrementally increase minimum wage until it reaches a fifteen-dollar minimum wage in 2018. However, in the past year, while minimum wage has gone up by fourteen percent, prices of the products in Chipotle have risen in a similar fashion. One entrepreneur website has contacted Chipotle and has “confirmed both the price increase and the role that the minimum wage hike played in the decision to raise prices”[7]. Allowing the markets to establish wages on their own would allow businesses to freely conduct business as they see fit, up to and including compensation for employees. Opponents of this concept would argue that business employers would take advantage of a lack of a wage floor to induce quasi-slave wages upon their employees; however, the fast food restaurant Moo Cluck Moo clearly shows that employers feel otherwise. “Employees at Moo Cluck Moo make $15 an hour or about $31,000 a year. In comparison, a rookie Detroit police officer starts off at about $30,000. A newbie teacher in Detroit starts around $38,000. A cub reporter at a daily newspaper averages about $28,000 a year”[8]. Co-founder Brian Parker has the theory that “[...]if he takes care of his employees, they will return the favor through hard work, loyalty and improved customer service.” His employees understand that their wages are unique and do their job to the best of their ability to keep their positions. Through strategic planning, a little business ingenuity, and a willingness to take a risk, Moo Cluck Moo has provided excellent customer service by providing a novel twist on the fast food industry. Such a great example of market innovation would have been inhibited or even destroyed by the imposition of a minimum wage. Workers would be highly unmotivated to work as hard as they do if they could work at any job for $15 an hour. On the other hand, supporters of a minimum wage would point to their favorite example of a viewed success of minimum wage. Australia is a land that has been claimed in recent years to have a minimum wage of sixteen dollars an hour with an unemployment rate of five percent versus the American unemployment rate of almost eight percent. The first issue arises from the issue of measuring unemployment between the two nations. The United States measures unemployment as citizens who are not employed but are searching for employment; Australia measures its unemployment as a person who has been searching for a job up to four weeks before the end of the survey week and were available to work in that week. When surveying Australians using the unemployment measures that the United States uses, the unemployment rate was to be almost ten percent.[9] It is also worth noting that, unlike the United States, Australia has a tiered minimum wage based upon age groups. When the minimum wages were increased in Australia in July of 2013, unemployment rose from 5.7 percent to six percent.[10] Although the change is nominal, studies have shown that only two percent of Australians work on minimum wage.[11] Furthermore, it is important to note that the cost of living in Australia is the third highest in the world, behind Norway and Switzerland. Overall, the cost of living is on average about fifty-nine percent higher than that of the United States, as the Deutsche Bank reports. “[The] figures also showed that the cost of non-tradeables like restaurant meals, shoe repairs or education rose 1.3 per cent. The Deutsche research confirms that many things that cost a lot more in Australia - such as hotel rooms, a flower delivery or a beer in a pub - involve labour, reflecting Australia's high wages”[12]. It is worth noting that the average wage of a restaurant server is close to the minimum wage at $15.22 an hour.[13] In addition, it should be noted that with the increase in wages in Seattle, many of those whom work minimum wage have been demanding less hours. “Evidence is surfacing that some workers are asking their bosses for fewer hours as their wages rise – in a bid to keep overall income down so they don’t lose public subsidies for things like food, child care and rent”[14]. While the rhetoric for increasing minimum wage was to provide a “living wage” for minimum-wage associates, it has been noted that in conjunction with workers asking for reduced hours, very few are weaning off the welfare system. “Despite a booming economy throughout western Washington, the state’s welfare caseload has dropped very little since the higher wage phase began in Seattle in April. In March 130,851 people were enrolled in the Basic Food program. In April, the caseload dropped to 130,376”[14]. What does this spell for the restaurants still open in Seattle as well as other areas that are picking up the minimum wage trend? There is a plethora of consequences from the new mandated minimum wage. The first would mean that businesses would have to adjust their finances accordingly to cope with the larger labor costs. The second would mean that the job market would be more strict and difficult to enter for new entrants into the American workforce. The third would mean that customers would have to pay more if they would like to patronize their favorite restaurants. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction; in the blinding rhetoric of helping those in the lower classes, the real consequence is punishing everyone else. The best solution is to abolish the minimum wage. Workers should be paid not by an arbitrary rate dictated by the state as a means to manipulate votes from those who selfishly have the most to gain from these minimum wage policies, but by what their range of skills and talents are. Those with rare and valuable skills will have a greater ability to demand higher compensation. Those who choose to flip burgers at “Gotta Have Beef” will probably not make a whole lot, but then what skill does it take to ask if you want your order super sized at the drive through window? Footnotes: [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJR0DYs70f8 [2]http://seattle.eater.com/2014/6/10/6209999/restaurateurs-weigh-in-on-seattles-15-minimum-wage [3]http://www.seattlemag.com/article/why-are-so-many-seattle-restaurants-closing-lately [4]http://shiftwa.org/sea-tac-workers-not-happy-with-15-min-wage/ [5]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jJQJRKnu2I [6]http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/problems-price-controls [7]http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/248255 [8]http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20130911/BLOG006/130919957/moo-cluck-moos-15-an-hour-story-starts-with-a-lesson-in-minimum-wage [9]http://www.roymorgan.com/morganpoll/unemployment/underemployment-estimates [10]http://www.tradingeconomics.com/australia/unemployment-rate [11]http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/5601 [12]http://www.smh.com.au/data-point/rising-price-of-living-in-australia-20130426-2ik16.html [13]http://www.payscale.com/research/AU/Job=Waiter%2FWaitress/Hourly_Rate [14]http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/07/22/seattle-sees-fallout-from-15-minimum-wage-as-other-cities-follow-suit/

If it's called "Project Fusion", I wonder if that means we could fuse anybody with anybody else. Hell, a Vegeta/Frieza fusion, just for laughs.

I had honestly heard of this game through various internet memes and a .GIF that showed the very beginning of the game (with Flowey)...