The project I described in my last blog entry is somewhere around half done now. It's a blue/white quadruple-paneled catalog with the website name, an eye-catching picture of the logo, and a description of some of Capcom's products. So far I've had a ton of fun with it. It'll be posted up after it's done, but I think it looks pretty good so far, if not a bit bare. Has a nice little picture of X & Zero in there, some of their games such as Breath of Fire III, Capcom Puzzle World, and more.

Basically, at my school, we have a project where we're supposed to do a catalog for a company. Naturally, I'm choosing Capcom for this project.

The project may take a couple weeks to complete because of a hectic school schedule, but once it's completely finished, I'll post it up.

In other news, I did an interview of a mod over at SNK-Capcom.com, and it'll probably become a staple for me, hopefully (I've had other things that were supposed to be "staples" for me but they got pushed back due to either lack of interest or just plain not having any time) since I love to do it. Interviewing people and learning about them is tons of fun. I may start something similar up here, but I'd have to get to know more of the members here before beginning to do that.

In other other news, I received a form showing how much in student loans I'll have to pay back. $76,000. That includes dorm, books, classes, the whole shebang. This means that most of my game collection will have to be sold off here shortly, probably within a week, to cover at least part of the cost, just to soften the blow of having to pay so much money every month.

This means that after the whole ordeal is done, I'll have to build up my Capcom collection......again...... for like the third time, but that's what the thrill of the hunt is for. I probably won't start truly collecting again until this debt is completely paid off.

So that's basically what's going on in my life right now. Oh, my birthday is August 30th, which is a day after I get out of school, so that's something to look forward to. I plan on getting a Wii then so I can finally play Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles extensively. =) That'll be way fun.

So lately, I've been playing a lot of Final Fantasy IV DS.

I must say, I like this way more than the original.

You see, the original was plagued with problems like the characters being too unbalanced (meaning, some were too weak, and others way too strong), most character abilities being very useless (Cry, I'm looking at you), and just a plain depressing experience all around. Though the music, story, and characters were and still are great.

But for the DS version, Matrix Software, the ones who remade FFIII almost two years ago, decided to remake FFIV and change a lot of things up.

Most notably, how the characters have been balanced. Characters who were seemingly mostly useless before, like, say....Edward, have been given entirely new tricks to help them compete. There is another new feature called the Augment system where, after an important character leaves the party, they give you one or several abilities of theirs depending on how many Augments you give them. This makes sure that each character that you actually keep can be customized with one or more abilities from the people who leave your save file permanently. Other abilities, even ones from bosses, can be found in hidden locations.

And the system works insanely well. Giving Cecil abilities like "Counter" help him to become even more of a powerhouse, while "MP+50%" on Rydia or Rosa increases the amount of spells they can do by 33%.

However, to counteract the usefulness of these augments (since if they were in the original game, the game would have been far too easy), nearly all the enemies and bosses have been rebalanced. Most of them seem to fight the same way as they did before, just more powerful, but other bosses have seriously had their patterns changed, meaning that any FFIV veterans expecting to win these battles with old tricks have to change their strategies around, 'cause they won't work here.

Outside of battle, the music, graphics, and overall style of FFIV have been given much care here. Some will decry FFIV for not looking quite as good as FFIII DS, but I say "phooey" to them :P (nah, just playing). The music has been redone and sounds great. The story is now partly acted out by voiced cutscenes, which are quite good, and many scenes are redone due to the new 3D perspective.

It seems that there have been some new story bits added in, which I won't spoil here. Maybe in a later blog entry. But I think these bits are the result of FFIV's producer wanting to add more story into the SNES version but being unable to, due to the limited capacity of a cartridge at the time. These new story bits are welcome and really flesh out the characters even more.

Also, there have been other changes made to the game. It now sports a New Game+ feature, which allows you to carry levels over into the next playthrough, as well as to get new Augments (some you can only get after beating the game and starting it over). There are two new bosses one can fight during this second playthrough, too, both pretty difficult.

All this comes at a price, though. The new stuff introduced in the GBA port/remake, like the new dungeons and the ability to switch your characters for the final dungeon, have been taken out due to memory issues. But that doesn't matter much as the new stuff introduced in the DS remake trumps all that stuff, in my opinion. All in all, FFIVDS is a welcome purchase even if you know the original game inside and out.

-capcommunist

Well, that was a long time for me to be gone, but I'm pretty much back and will start really updating the blog again. I'm not exactly sure what I'll be posting up other than the stuff I already said I'd post up, but I'll think of something. :D

Showing up in quite a few of Capcom's earlier games, the Yashichi, which looks like a pinwheel with an orange (or red, depending) circle behind it, is one of Capcom's oldest and most useful powerups.

However, it wasn't always a powerup. In Capcom's very first arcade game, Vulgus, the Yashichi was a deadly enemy. Now, to those who played Vulgus after playing another game where it shows up as a powerup, it probably came as a huge shock to see that something so useful could be so.....painful!

In Exed Exes, a later Capcom game, it fulfilled the same role. Capcom would break this tradition with the release of SonSon in 1984. The Yashichi in that game gave you bonus points. Another benign role would be taken in Gun.Smoke-- that game actually offered two types of Yashichi, the red one, which gives you a free life, and the blue one, which gives you invincibility for a few seconds. Pirate Ship Higemaru's version gives you bonus points, but in Capcom Classics Collection Vol. 1, it also unlocks Higemaru's art gallery.

There are many games in which the Yashichi shows up. Many, many games; probably too many to list here. It appears in Mega Man as an item which gives you all weapon energy and life back, which is probably the most-known appearance of it. Other Mega Man games like 8 and Battle & Chase would have cameos from it. Games like Final Fight and Street Fighter II would also have appearances from this elusive icon.

The last documented appearance of it in a more recent game so far (as in, not a ported game) seems to be Mega Man Battle Chip Challenge. It shows up as a menu icon.

Now, why am I doing this blog entry? It's basically because the Yashichi was the first memorable icon of any Capcom game, especially if your first Capcom title was Vulgus. For others, they may remember it from another early game. In a way, them putting it into so many games is a reminder of where and how Capcom had started in the video game industry (before they were a game company, they made coin-op games). Its appearance usually does have a meaning behind it.

So next time you see one in a game, think back to the first time you saw one and what you felt when you picked it up. You knew that it wouldn't be an ordinary powerup, and that it would become an icon for the company itself.

-capcommunist