Special Place in My ♥ – Neon Shores http://neonshores.net/ a mess of creativity Thu, 25 Mar 2021 19:53:22 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.7 Revelations: Persona OST [SPimH] https://neonshores.net/2017/04/05/revelations-persona-ost-spimh/ Wed, 05 Apr 2017 00:44:51 +0000 https://neonshores.net/?p=363 So a little game called Persona 5 was released here yesterday and our household has already sunk a couple of hours into it (and we’re loving it so far). Playing it — as well as the excitement leading up to the release — made me think of the whole series and how much it has affected me as a gamer and all that nostalgic jazz. I first learned about the series in the late ’90s while I was crouched in the video game aisle at our local Blockbuster Video, trolling through so many choices (it wasn’t a lot… but back then it was SO MANY) to find something that looked appealing to me. I came across a game called Kartia, but when I turned the box over to look at the back to hopefully glean some more info about the game I just saw… ads for more games.

One of them caught my eye though. It was called Revelations: Persona and the logo was written in this red, badass font. There were a couple of screenshots and images of a few of the characters. The only one I definitely remember seeing was Reiji (who was known as Chris in the North American translation) and I absolutely fell in love with him right then. He’s wearing no shirt under his school uniform jacket and a collar with a giant chain on it??? HOW COULD I NOT LOVE HIM? Hehehe. Well, Persona was nowhere to be found in my Blockbuster… so I knew it would be my quest to find it somewhere else.

This was before games (and so many other things) were easily accessible (Amazon having everything in the world, Gamestops on every corner, etc.) so I could have ordered it from a few different sites on the internet but I would’ve paid way more than my middle-schooler budget would allow. Fast-forward a couple of months to a vacation I took with my family to Florida. We hit up a giant flea market near the town I was born in and I found a huge table of all kinds of video games. LO AND BEHOLD, THERE WAS REVELATIONS: PERSONA FOR THE PLAYSTATION. I bought it for about $20, which was much more reasonable than what I would have paid online, and when we returned home after vacation, I threw that baby in the PSX and was on my way to Lunarvale! (That was the city’s name in the original NA release okay hahahah)

I adored the game overall, even with the questionable translation issues, the choice to leave out a whole giant sidequest and some of the odd changes they made for the North American version — and I think it’s because Persona was my first real foray into what else games — especially RPGs — could be. I had played Final Fantasy VII, which was my introduction to the genre and had picked some others up here and there afterward, but they all had that sort of “fantasy” flare. FFVII did have some futuristic elements (I LOVE YOU, MIDGAR) but overall it leaned towards fantasy for me and I had always been a fan of things that Revelations: Persona actually pulled into their games. Alternate universes, occult-related backstories, people’s own inner demons…… aaaaand contacting enemies by dancing seductively for them! One of my absolute favorite aspects of the game was the soundtrack. I was used to sprawling epic fantasy-ish tracks — which were always good, but never exactly my taste (that’s not to say I didn’t like them, but I wouldn’t listen to them as much as other game soundtracks). Persona though, I was floored when I heard the music.

The battle theme got a little repetitive due to the number of random encounters (did I mention Revelations: Persona was long and got kind of difficult in spots — when I finally beat it, I wrote on the plastic cup I was drinking out of at the time: PERSONA CUP! And then the date and time I beat the game.) but so many of the other songs made up for it (not to say the battle theme is bad, I love it — but I heard it SO MANY TIMES) and I’ve listened to them hundreds of times by now. They helped to create the exact weird/unsettling atmosphere of the game that I love so much and were just a style I had never heard before in a game — I mean, some of the tracks were downright creepy. Others were positively gorgeous and some made me want to dance — it was just a mix of everything I love. The soundtrack was written by Hidehito Aoki, Kenichi Tsuchiya, Misaki Okibe, and Shoji Meguro (who would continue composing works for the series from Persona 3 on) and is definitely one of my favorite video game soundtracks of all time.

I asked for the soundtrack for Christmas one year (it was an import so I didn’t expect to get it — I guess my mom realized how obsessed I was with the game) and fell in love with it even more. It had a number of songs on it I had never heard because of the omission of a big sidequest in the North American release so it was like I was hearing it for the first time all over again! 😉

Below are some of my favorite tracks — if I don’t just start linking them I’m gonna go even crazier rambling about how much I love the whole thing and then never get there.

And I couldn’t leave out the Velvet Room theme.

AND SPECIAL SHOUTOUT TO THE PHARMACY SONG TOO, OF COURSE.

When the game was re-released for the PSP in 2009, a lot of the songs were remixed, redone completely, or scrapped for new songs. It was a great soundtrack (and an amazing remake/port of the original game — especially keeping with a lot more of the Japanese ideas/names/etc. from the original) but it never reached the level of love I had for the original soundtrack from the ’96 Revelations: Persona. I think it was because that game and the music had such an impact on me that it will always hold its own special place in my fandom heart.

Special Place in my Heart is a post-when-the-idea-strikes feature here at Neon Shores where (when said need/idea pops up) I’ll write about something video game-related or otherwise that holds a geeky place in my weird little heart.

]]> Tenel Ka Djo [SPimH] https://neonshores.net/2015/09/21/tenel-ka-djo-spimh/ Mon, 21 Sep 2015 01:03:04 +0000 https://neonshores.net/?p=831

Tenel Ka DjoWhen I start talking with other people about Star Wars, the inevitable “So who is your favorite character?” question comes up. I always have that split second of hesitation. Do I go with a movie character – the one everyone would know (Han Solo)? Or do I go straight to my favorite character in the Star Wars Universe? I always go with the latter. I usually get, “Who is that?” Because not all Star Wars fans know who Tenel Ka Djo is. It’s definitely understandable. I know many people have not read the books or waded into the Expanded Universe (and it’ll be even rarer to find EU fans now since the books/etc. are part of the Legends series) and that’s fine because then I get to describe Tenel Ka to them and why I love her so much.

When I first picked up the Young Jedi Knight books so many years ago, I was instantly drawn to the Solo twins. I wanted to go to the academy and hang out with them. I had even stronger feelings towards Tenel Ka. I didn’t just want to chill with her. I wanted to be her. She was such a strong character to begin with and got even stronger after the accident when she lost her arm. The fact that she refused a replacement as a teenager and grew up to be a Jedi and a Queen Mother – as well a mother to Allana – without ever having a replacement is something I’ve always admired. She blamed herself for the accident and always kept that reminder with her.

Tenel Ka DjoShe has always been a self-sufficient character and willing to go to great lengths for her friends. Straying from her beliefs though was something that she didn’t dabble with – like when Darth Caedus wasn’t willing to surrender himself, she threatened to open fire on one of her closest friends from childhood who was her lover and the father to her child because he had turned to the Dark Side. Tenel Ka was also thrust into a position of power that she never wanted, handling it with grace and dynamism, even through her meddling grandmother’s tricks and the murder of her mother (by her grandmother) and later her father (by Darth Caedus, whom her father actually liked when he was Jacen Solo – good going, Jacen. You could’ve had it all).

Tenel Ka always hides her emotions well and that’s something I’ve tended to do since I was younger, which is another reason I’ve always been drawn to her. It was nice to see a character – especially a “good guy” – who wasn’t so outgoing and jolly and friendly right off the bat but also wasn’t stand-offish and rude Tenel Ka Djoat first (who has a “heart of gold” and “comes around” later). She was just careful, collected, observant – always aware of her surroundings. I loved that she was a completely aloof character at times (most of the time, ha). I also loved that like Jaina, she was practical. She didn’t like to get all fancy with anything and she liked to get her hands dirty. She embraced her Dathomirian heritage and almost seemed to roll her eyes at her Hapan heritage.

Plus, it was really just plain awesome when she kicked Tamith Kai in the kneecap. Not to mention she has one of the coolest lightsabers (a hilt made from a rancor tooth) in the whole galaxy.

It’s really hard for me to put into words why Tenel Ka my favorite character. As you can see by this jumble of rambles there are many reasons. I was talking to Jesse, a friend of mine, about her — specifically about the accident with Jacen and her arm and she had this to say:

“Tenel Ka feels like she is just as strong a warrior and leader without it. It is a constant reminder to be humble about her abilities and to also rely on friends and not just yourself. And a strong symbol of her love and forgiveness for Jacen.”

Tenel Ka Djo

That right there pretty much sums up a lot of why I love Tenel Ka Djo. Her character arc, from secretly being a princess to becoming a Jedi to taking over the role of Queen Mother of Hapes to having a daughter, has been my favorite in the Star Wars universe. This is why you’ll see me costuming as her whenever I Tenel Ka Djoget the chance. Her range of possible outfits include her lizard-hide armor all the way across the spectrum to her royal garb and it’s always fun to mash up the two and try to figure out what an interesting character such as herself would wear – especially with the fact that she’s both a warrior and a queen at heart.

Special Place in my Heart is a post-when-the-idea-strikes feature here at Neon Shores where (when said need/idea pops up) I’ll write about something video game-related or otherwise that holds a geeky place in my weird little heart.

]]> Myst [SPimH] https://neonshores.net/2014/07/31/myst-spimh/ Thu, 31 Jul 2014 08:04:20 +0000 https://neonshores.net/?p=340 Last year, on the 24th of September in 2013, it was the 20th anniversary of the first game that took me to another world. Or worlds, technically.

Twenty years ago on that day, Myst came out in stores. I didn’t get it right away and by “me” I mean my mother, who was getting into computer games at the time. I had a Nintendo and I would play Super Nintendo at my friend’s house. When my mom got Myst and started to play it, she’d call me in the room because she thought I would like it. I was eight years old and instantly pulled in by how pretty it was, not to mention the music and the sound effects. Everything just came together in a way that absolutely hypnotized me. I had started playing on my own and had to fall back on a strategy guide for some of the puzzles, but I didn’t care. I mostly just wanted to get to every single corner of this universe and explore. I would stop and listen to the birds on Myst Island or the sound of trickling water in the Channelwood Age.

My favorite was the Mechanical Age, followed closely by the Stoneship Age. The Stoneship Age never jumped to #1 because I was terrified of the compass and the lights going out when you were underwater if you hit the wrong button. I knew there was nothing in the water but I was always afraid there would be something there. I was a bit of a wuss, and I was a bit of a wuss with a phobia of being underwater. :\

I couldn’t get enough of the characters either, and you rarely saw any. Sirrus and Achenar became staples of the geeky section of my brain and I thought it a little weird that I kind of had a crush on them as I continuously went back to the game in the years following its release. Their rooms were filled with all sorts of nasty (but nasty in such an amazingly creative way) and they obviously didn’t want to be your friend. But my first crushes were Raphael from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Bart Simpson, so I didn’t think too much of it. There was something so intriguing about them, and about Atrus and his kidnapped wife. How did this family get this way? How did the brothers become so corrupt and so horrible that their father basically put them in prison? I wanted to know these things. I wanted more.

Besides the family, there was this whole idea and skill introduced in the game – certain people could write books that opened gateways to different places. Completely different worlds that you could reach by placing your hand on the moving panel in the book. How many worlds were out there that had books written to take you to them? Only the ones on Myst Island? Were there more? Hundreds? Thousands?

Everything about this game completely captivated me. I had played video games before, but nothing like this. Nothing that I wanted to be a part of, nothing that I wanted to visit. This was different.

They released three novels that went through different parts of this family tree – I read them all when they came out. There was a comic book about Sirrus & Achenar’s childhood (and eventual corruption) that was released and then canceled after the first issue – I still have my copy safely on a shelf. There were subsequent games – Riven, Exile, Revelation, URU, End of Ages – all of them good (Riven was especially wonderful). I always come back to Myst though. Sometimes I’ll load up a new game, make my way to one of the Ages and just look around a bit. It’s kind of like visiting your childhood home, in a way. There aren’t many games that feel like that to me. (And you know how I feel about video games. <3)

I remember getting the From Myst to Riven book for Christmas in ’97 when it came out and I remember reading it all in one sitting. I remember sprawling out in an empty cubicle at my Dad’s office when I went into work with him on the weekends and working my way through The Book of Ti’ana. I was obsessed with Bush’s album Razorblade Suitcase and still to this day I can’t listen to the song “Cold Contagious” without thinking of Ti’ana & Aitrus. I always associate that album with that book since I was taking in both at the same time. There are all of these little things that remind me of how this game has trickled its way into my brain. Songs, sounds — even the weather. When it’s a cool Spring or Fall day and there’s a slight breeze it makes me think of the dock on Myst Island.

In the years following Myst’s release, I remember sitting and waiting for the dial-up to connect so I could sign on AOL and talk to all the friends I made in the Myst chatroom. We would talk about how awesome it was that these two brothers, Rand & Robyn Miller, got together and created an always expanding universe. We would talk about how awesome it was that they played Atrus (Rand), Sirrus (Robyn – who also did the music) & Achenar (Rand) themselves and quote the brothers and share puzzle ideas. I would sit in that chatroom for hours until it was bedtime (or well past it – whoops).

Out of all the video/computer/etc. games I’ve played, whenever people ask me for my favorites there’s usually a rotating list depending on what I’ve been in the mood for lately. But Myst is always on the list. And the older the game and I get, I still can’t see it leaving my top five. It drew me in, inspired me and it always calls me back.

I know it’s a little late, but Happy 20th Anniversary, Myst. <3

Special Place in my Heart is a post-when-the-idea-strikes feature here at Neon Shores where (when said need/idea pops up) I’ll write about something video game-related or otherwise that holds a geeky place in my weird little heart.

]]> Capes for Your Butt [SPimH] https://neonshores.net/2013/07/23/capes-for-your-butt-spimh/ Tue, 23 Jul 2013 03:14:55 +0000 https://neonshores.net/?p=681 Sometimes there are things I feel the need to write about; things I love that don’t fit anywhere. Therefore, I have added this tag/category to the assorted list of crazy here: Special Place in My Heart. Because some things video game-related or otherwise just hold special places in my cold, unforgiving tiny heart.

So welcome to the first post of the SPimH tag/category. I needed to talk about my love for waist capes – or buttcapes, asscapes, halfcapes – whatever you want to call them (I usually favor asscapes; IT JUST ROLLS OFF THE TONGUE) so here is the Special Place in my Heart tag and here are the asscapes.

I have always thought regular capes looked really slick, but wow okay, a half cape – a cape that hangs over your lower backside instead of upper where it can possibly restrict your shoulders. You still get the cool, flowing action just in a different place. I DON’T KNOW WHY I LOVE THESE SO MUCH.

Sydney Losstarot - Vagrant StoryI’m not sure when my love for them began. I feel like it was in 2000 when Vagrant Story came out for the PSX and the main villain, Sydney Losstarot, sported a super-fab waist cape. That was the first time the word asscape came about in our house. I was looking at him in the game and saying, “What would you even call that thing?” My sister almost instantly went, “Asscape?” And we both chuckled like the mature adults we never will be and that word has lived on in my vocabulary since then.

Kuja - Final Fantasy IXNext up, and during that same year year of the asscape? was Kuja from Final Fantasy IX – SO STYLISH, SO EVIL, SO… FLOWY AND MAGICAL AND ATTACHED TO UNDERGARMENT BITS? I think the asscape with the super tall boots is rad though, so rock it, Kuja.

Riku - Kingdom HeartsThen I played the first Kingdom hearts game in 2002 and gasp– do I spy another asscape? Squaresoft/Square Enix (whatever they happened to be way back when, still Squaresoft? It’s been too long) just loved handing me asscapes. It’s like they knew. Riku (while in Heartless/Dark Mode) wore a pretty awesome asscape complete with some belt action. WHO DOESN’T LOVE BELTS not Tetsuya Nomura!

Nitro - Galerians: ASHGalerians: ASH came along in 2003 and a favorite Galerian of mine, Nitro, happened to be sporting an asscape. Now, it started higher than some others but still fit the criteria. As long as it didn’t start at the shoulders and covered the region of the backside I loved it. Still can’t pinpoint why. This is also when I noticed that most of these characters that I loved with these draped lower backsides were villains in some form or another. Perhaps having an asscape makes you evil, who knows. Is it the wonderful butt fabric’s fault that Riku went into Dark Mode maybe it is. Fabulous accessory for being evil though. It must be up there with a curly mustache to twirl and amazingly arched eyebrows.

Tenel Ka Djo - Star Wars: Expanded Universe Tenel Ka Djo - Star Wars: Expanded Universe

I started subconsciously putting my love for asscapes into costuming. Miss Tenel Ka Chume Ta’ Djo (there’s a mouthful) of the Star Wars: Expanded Universe has been a favorite character of mine since I got into Star Wars (a long time ago in galaxy far– you get the drift) and she only has a few official images of her, most of which are from the shoulders up. So when making costumes and outfits of hers, I got to throw in some of my own ideas to round out the whole outfit. She’s not really a fancy-dress-up type (even while she’s the Queen Mother of a 63-planet consortium) so I brought asscapes in to make it somewhat fancy while still keeping it functional in case she needed to fight. Like a boss and all that. First was the Legacy of the Force: Tempest cover (which I’ve made a couple versions of a waist cape for). Then I ended up bringing a different butt cape – technically one that went on the side! SIDECAPE? – in to a costume I threw together for a younger (two-armed, pre-Lightsabers!) Tenel Ka in a week before Katsucon 2012 (you can see I reused the sleeves from the Tempest cover Tenel Ka – was not gonna sit and scale a whole new set of sleeves together NOPE).

Jasmine Jolene - BioShockAlso with a BioShock costume I made – Jasmine Jolene – I saw another opportunity for a fabric tail. There isn’t much official art of Jasmine so I ended up looking for inspiration from a few pieces of fanart of her and also realized I could buttcape the outfit up SO WHY NOT? I thought it worked with the setting she’s usually in and gave a new dimension to the outfit instead of just being the corset and shorts.

Jaryn - The Glitterati - Dance Central 3In October of last year, Dance Central 3 came out and it was like the heavens parted and light happened to shine all over my face and someone was singing something somewhere because my favorite Dance Central character, Jaryn, was… wait for it, wearing an A S S C A P E.

The Glitterati - Dance Central 3It was a sign! I mean, we knew we were going to costume as the Glitterati in their DC3 outfits (if they were in it, which they are, so YESSSS!) but after I saw the asscape, I knew it was meant to be. It was a pleated asscape too. Extra fabulous.

I’ve been fiddling with making some of my own waist capes (I’ll be proper and use the correct[?] term now, sorry) and have been getting a ton of different ideas for fabrics and patterns and so on, so you might see another post on these in the future! I just had to share this to start because these hold a special place on my backside in my heart.

What characters with butt capes have I missed? Let me know on Twitter (because I know I’m missing some)!

Special Place in my Heart is a post-when-the-idea-strikes feature here at Neon Shores where (when said need/idea pops up) I’ll write about something video game-related or otherwise that holds a geeky place in my weird little heart.

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