Party Moth

Don't misunderstand me: many musicians in the pop industry are quite skilled. At the very least, you have to be skilled at bullshitting talent or have a mixer who can EQ the hell out of your autotune. But there is real talent there in terms of instrumentalists. It is also worth noting that I am not "looking down on simplified electronic music" as I have written similar material with electronic samples. If you are into electronic music production, the pop industry is a fantastic place to look for examples as there are absolute masters there as well as complete jokes. However, in terms of the compositions themselves, they are homogenized and have been in the steady process of homogenization over the past 30+ years. I listened to a Fall Out Boy song the other day on their new album and was legitimately surprised to hear an actual cadence rather than the standard Plagal-ish material pop music has been using for decades now. Don't even start with the "symphonies take too long to listen" argument. That is not where the problem lies (though attention span decline does have a lot to do with that particular issue). There is music (the soundtrack to the anime Madoka Magica, for instance) that is in increments of 30 second-to-5 minute tracks that does not require hours of your time to listen to and still catches the brilliance of a complex structure such as a symphony. Short songs can be masterpieces too. There are 45 second long symphonies as well (see Webern). If you want an example of our poor societal listening standards, go listen to Soulja Boy's "Turn My Swag On" and understand that this reached #19 on the US Billboard Top 100, topped the US Rap Charts and has been digitally downloaded over 1 million times, with the YouTube video having 30 million views. It's not even in tune! The point I was trying to make (rather than going off on this tangent) was that there are only two places I have seen no-talent hacks get recognition, and that is the internet and pop music. Pop music is not necessarily "dead" and there are some damn good artists there but the homogenization simply gets old after enough listens to I - V - vi - IV as a chord progression.

That's the spirit! If you want to go even further, the score as arranged in the film adaptation of the anime paints Mami in the key of Ab major (in the track "Credens Justitiam") with a pretense of G major (G being the key of motherly qualities). This gives her a tonal advantage over the witches who are forever locked in F and G minor, until Madoka's words in episode 3 put her into overconfidence mode (the track "No more fear"). She begins radically modulating until she finally lands on D major (key of the hero), a tritone away from her prior tonic. This coincides with the 18th and 19th century notion in classical music that to modulate to the tritone of one's key is a death sentence, and is effectively carried out by the cheese witch who enters in G minor ("Wo ist die Kase?"). Mami's D major is a cadential V chord in G minor, making her inferior and thus mortal. The death of the show's innocence and heroics is carried out again in a similar tonal manner in the sequel film Rebellion as the ultimate cadential modulation of Homura's character from E minor to A minor Other mediums take note you're being outdone by a show about little girls

So... "It's just a game. Making money is more important than character/game integrity, and good fans don't criticize games they like"? Wow. It's almost as if you don't want your favorite game series to improve upon themselves. You never implied every female should be heavily sexual in design, but by your logic, why would you care otherwise? You're a good fan, so you should overlook all the tits and panties and just buy it Day 1 anyway.

Fill my heart with song and let me sing forever more you are all I long for All I worship and adore in other words please be true in other words, I love you

While there's obviously some leeway that's highly dependent on inherent talent and learning curves, some things are simply not possible without a lot of practice. I don't know if that's the case with visual art; my experience is in composing and performing music as well as literary analysis and composition. But from my experience in the music world I have never seen a single person go from guitar tabs to Paganini in a month. In two years, maybe, if they're a prodigy. Nonetheless, as you said it's important to practice the right things, or else you end up picking up bad habits or not learning a thing. I agree with the rest of your post.

Beware the wall of walls of text! As to your question: Because most people's sense of anatomy and form haven't deteriorated to the point of pop music. The Zelda fandom is a great example of this: A lot of love goes into fanworks, and visual art is no exception to that. A lot of neat art, such as recreations of official art through watercolor paint, chalk, even cakes pass over the eyes if you look deep enough. Surprisingly enough, there is some recognition by fans that the ideas are cool and that they must have taken a lot of work. However, prove to the fan base that you are somewhat competent regarding playing a D minor scale on a violin, and woah you can play the Song of Storms that's so cooool!! Blame the decline of music theory, blame people's tastes shifting to electronic music, blame the radio, blame whatever you want. But I still think the overall problem lies in the general public's lax view on music. For example: I do agree that the barrier to entry is high. However, I think the rest of this is slightly unfair, especially to any musicians out there (myself included) who spend hours upon hours sitting on their ass practicing theory, harmony, technique, scale proficiency, and just plain practice. I did not spend 10+ years practicing bass and tuba and piano just for some schmuck who picked up a guitar last month to get the gig. Because, outside of the internet (and pop music, but that's a whole 'nother issue), people who don't practice, people who don't put in the effort to perfect their technique, people who don't internalize rhythmic patterns and scales and counting and communication, don't get the job. They simply don't. You can't just pick up an alto saxophone and learn Milhoud's Scaramouche in a month. Not even remotely. You can't play anything on the level of Snarky Puppy's Lingus without years (decades!) of practice, either. Those who are good musicians commit. They do not slouch and do not act lazy, for if they take a day off of practice someone better will get ahead of them. Their persistence can cause serious turmoil in their relationships, whether they're on heroin or cocaine or stone cold sober. To take the musician's path is no easier than any other road of life. Now, the issue you're seeing is that good musicians rarely have time to dedicate to fan works. I personally was planning to put together a Fire Emblem symphony, a tribute to the series that I'd end up releasing for free on BandCamp or wherever as an exercise in symphonic composition as well as to create tonal correlations between the games. However, it turns out this takes a lot of time. Hundreds of hours, even. Hundreds of hours just structuring it. And then there's the issue of having no orchestra that would feasibly record it for anything less than $40,000. MIDI isn't a proper solution, either: Basic MIDI simply isn't articulate or authentic enough to impress, and samples on the level of Native Instruments or East West take such an intricate level of detail and defining velocities of notes/articulations that even mentioning all of this is going to give people headaches. And the fact of the matter is, I just don't have time for that if I want to have food on the table. Yet, despite this, musical covers get more attention than fan art. Is it because it's easier to scribble together art of Link than it is to play his theme on guitar? Not necessarily, though the barrier of entry there is slightly higher on the musician's part since they actually have to buy an instrument. I would say it is because you can draw Link as much as you want, but if your anatomy is off, or your color palette is gaudy, or if Link's eye is a little too far to the right, people will notice. Anatomy takes skill to do, and people will come to the conclusion that if you trace you have no skill. On the other hand, with music, the fact that you even managed to replicate a song note-by-note is considered a miracle. People accept that mixing and recording and editing is hard and often don't question the content, and since the content is what they've heard before note-for-note it doesn't carry the same anatomy parallels. Anyway, I could continue, but we'd be here all day. TLDR; Errors in technique on the artist's part are more readily noticeable by people than musicians' screw ups, and good musicians don't have the time nor the money to dedicate themselves to fan projects more often than not.

Didn't mean to rag. Was just honestly curious on your perspective of the whole thing, and your point's fair. The overanalysis comment was also somewhat tongue-in-cheek since that's kind of the general reaction such analyses get from people. I swear, just try to write a dissertation on the analysis of harmony and tonal modulation in the original Legend of Zelda soundtrack and see how everyone just goes "It's just a game, man. For kids." or looks at you like you've grown a second head.

Considering how much thought and overanalysis you've put into things such as FE7, I'm surprised to hear you say that. How is Mami's death pointless?

Execution is everything. One example I find works well as a comparison: Puella Magi Madoka Magica versus Day Break Illusion. While, at their core, the ultimate goals of both shows are not the same, there is a clear motive shared between the two: To shock the viewer and differentiate themselves from other magical girl shows while expressing their knowledge and versatility. Both also have an emphasis on fate. Both take radically different approaches to this. Day Break Illusion decides to take the shock factor route. The characters are stick-thin and disgustingly cutesy, contrasted with intense violence and blood. The magical girls are associated with tarot cards (further tied to the Sephirot), and there are two animals, a talking cat and crow, who are named Schrödinger and Laplace. Problems immediately begin to arise: going the Higurashi route only serves to disgust the viewer with base violence, and Schrödinger the cat is cute but hardly conveys any real understanding of the actual "Schrödinger's Cat" concept. The tarot card information is interesting and accurate but the naming of characters and such is forced (Luna? Wonder which tarot card she falls under...). I won't spoil the plot, but it borderlines on all the brutality and beatings of self-esteem that just gives too many rape undertones for one to sit through the final few episodes comfortably. In the end, it comes off no real different from most magical girl animes save for its brutality. Madoka Magica, on the other hand, decides to tackle the magical girl genre and reconstruct it. There is a very clear tone, and the show itself is manipulative and versatile without resulting to bloody brutality. There is a clear inspiration from Faust here, and the show approaches the concept with carefully placed allegories, symbolic imagery, and true darkness. These magical girls face the darkest aspects of their own humanity, and this leads the viewer to merely watch as characters move along paths carved for them by their own inability to face themselves. The art, writing, and music are all cleverly crafted and push the viewer to the show's conclusion. The Faust comparison begins evolving into something far more troubling on a philosophical level, explored further in the sequel film Rebellion. There is a reason this magical girl anime is lauded by critics and fans: It is carefully crafted so that every action, every scene, every piece of music, every line of dialogue pushes the viewer to the next limb of the story. The fanbase clasps uselessly at how it could have gone, but the fact of the matter is that there was no other rational outcome. It is silly to argue that a character should have done something else because by their very nature they were never going to. All of this gives the show a constant motion, a notion of fate that can't be stopped, can't be undone without sacrifice. Both shows attempted to shock and engage their audience. One succeeded. Execution is everything.

Kamui's two left feet are perfection at its finest.

Awakening's soundtrack is primarily composed by Rei Kondoh and Hiroki Morishita. Based on some of the instrumentation and style in the January Direct trailer, it's safe to say at least one of them is still on board. Tsujiyoko, the original composer of the series, is also credited, but I'm unsure whether that's because she contributed much or just because they rearranged her primary theme for the series, her shop themes, and Tiki's theme.

Just wanted to nitpick: the final map theme in Awakening is the "Id" material, not the actual main theme. The main theme is the material that starts the opening movie when you turn on the game and then proceeds to drown out and permeate 75% of the OST. That said, I expect Kamui will probably get some primary material that may or may not correlate with the motif that the trailers currently use.

I agree with you that it should be used to enhance a story rather than for, say, otaku fanservice. However, I think you're dismissing the point of it in FE4. [spoiler=FE4 Spoilers]Alvis and Deidre's relation is important when considering the very nature of the game (Genealogy). Certain bloodlines have to be passed down carefully to preserve holy blood, so when one type of blood is frowned upon (Lopt blood) it becomes difficult to track down descendants of Galle. The reason the Loptyr Sect went with incest was because finding another person with Lopt blood would be like searching for a needle in a haystack, and the needle may or may not even exist. Alvis and Deidre were the easiest path to their goals. To remove the incest plot line would require either major retconning of FE4's lore or writing in some crazyrandomhappenstance that there's another Lopt blood carrier and they just happened to walk into the Loptyr Sect. It's also intended to show the Loptyr Sect's desperation and depravity after centuries of being outcast to the shadows. Just my thoughts on the subject.

The Oracle games were not built around a moral dilemma, though. There was gameplay incentive to choose one over the other, yes, but the Oracle games were not marketed as if you were to become invested between the oracles Din and Nayru and then had to make a choice whether to save one or the other. The Oracle games, not unlike Pokemon, were also based around the password system on the Game Boy. Really, it's not even a gameplay/content issue here primarily. It's an issue with story, player input, and creator vision. The Direct markets it as if you have an in-game choice, but that might not be the case. They claim that your decisions will matter on how the game plays out: Is that decision whether to spend $40 or $80? Do they want us to take their plot seriously? They even had to subtly apologize for Awakening's plot by announcing their new writer in a previous Direct, so I assume they want us to take their plot seriously. If so, then why does gameplay and marketing contradict the story instead of the three coinciding like, well, any well-made video game? It's just insulting to me to be promised moral choices and then instead be presented with fiscal ones.

The issue with Fire Emblem: If is that when it comes down to it, the game was marketed as one where you are forced to make difficult choices in-game based on picking a side. It does not make sense to market it like Pokémon (hence why they just plain didn't in the English Direct) nor does the moral dilemma in If suit the two version release. It's damned by its own marketing and release strategy. There's still no guarantee the Special Edition is going to release over here, but I hope some sort of physical copy releases in the 'States that at least delivers the moral choice the entire game and advertising hinges on. Otherwise this game is a joke. Sort of like Awakening's choice system on a larger scale: You can choose "yes" or "no" all you want, but that Exalt ain't gettin' down from that cliff safely. The difference is in how Pokémon's core gameplay mechanics function. Two versions may be a cheap marketing ploy, but it does create player incentive to trade with others who have the version you don't, and trading/communication has been vital to the series since the first game. Pokémon uses the two-version split to advance its core gameplay mechanics/marketing, unlike If which contradicts itself.

But Marrrrrrrrrrrs

This could be a ton of fun, and I need to build my writing chops back up anyway. I might wait until the second competition due to my schedule for this week, though.

Finally caught up again, and also read FESSUV in the meanwhile. You've really improved since then, and I can't wait to see more. http://nsider2.com/forums/index.php/topic/528591-path-of-radiance-the-unedited-version/

Just about anything Snarky Puppy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_XJ_s5IsQc Cory Henry on keys, man.

I would definitely take much fewer but higher quality Spotpass characters. Awakening's handling of Spotpass was rather crude, with the generic models and lack of any real dialogue giving 100 soulless shells of characters from previous games. Even little things such as level up quotes and tile event quotes would be a step in the right direction.

My ideal support system for the next Fire Emblem game is this: Retain Awakening's feature of being able to reach every A support in a single run. That aspect is one of the few improvements Awakening offered over previous games, so it should stay. However, supports per character should be limited to around 5-8, with varying ratios of male : female. Too many supports will lead to the issues of quality that plagued Awakening's supports. S supports should be retained and still be limited to one per person. Characters would have about 1-4 different characters they can achieve an S support with. However, they should not be limited to male-female supports, instead extending to male-male and female-female ones as well. S supports should not, however, be awkward marriage confessions; they should instead guarantee a paired character ending for the two characters and subtly hint at the eventual outcome. Paired endings should consist of a myriad of marriages, romantic relationships that don't end in marriage, love affairs, lifelong bonds of friendship, familial bonding, and a few tragic endings. This is the best mix between GBA-era supports and Awakening's style of supports I can think of that cuts down on both countless GBA playthroughs of "5 supports only" and the thin writing quality of Awakening supports.

The last thing I want is more waifus. Given the track record for avatar-esque characters the past two games, IS has clearly proven they can't handle a coherent story and a self-insert at the same time. Kill it with fire

"Male" shampoo smells like chemicals most of the time. I know many guys who use "female" marketed shampoo simply because it smells better.

Cowboy Bebop, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Space Dandy, Code Geass. Favorite is Madoka Magica; the next Evangelion, but riddled with far fewer problems and a more cohesive musical score.