Black Materia: Awesome Take On Final Fantasy VII's Cast

Image Description: Cloud Strife from Final
Fantasy VII drawn as a black male with
blond locs. Part of a fan art series by artist Nikolas
Draper-Ivey

Recently, comic artist and illustrator Nikolas Draper-Ivey had enough with random haters online. As he tells it:

...[S]ome people on my page had a problem with me drawing black people because I, a black man, was drawing far too many of them (and not as stereotypes or tropes) when I’m known for having diverse character designs in the first place. 

 I literally got asked, “Do you ever draw white people?” And “You only draw black guys. Why?” In the same morning and I’m like, “Oh so this is a PROBLEM now?” Anyone that has seen my work knows that I draw people from all over. 

...if me drawing people of color as characters and not stereotypes and over used tropes offends you, then get ready to hate my black ass then, because I’m not about to sit by and let us not be represented in a respectful, uplifting and positive light anymore...

Rather than letting the haters get him down, though, he used all that salt to work on some truly awesome fan art and give his take on the main cast of the Squaresoft RPG Final Fantasy VII. Why'd he chose that game? As Draper-Ivey put it, "I specifically chose FFVII because it’s already a diverse cast and to Square Enix’s credit, you could literally tell the same story with these designs."

Those designs are amazing. His work in the superhero genre was already pretty impressive, and seeing his take on a JRPG classic is awesome. He takes the source material and puts his own well-illustrated spin on it. You can see his art of Cloud Strife above, but I was also wowed by his fan art of FFVII's main villain, Sephiroth. Check it out:

You can check out his other FFVII fan art here, his fan art of FFXV's Noctis here, and feast on his deviantart gallery here.

Discworld Series Will End This Fall

Terry Pratchett in 2011. Photograph: Tom Pilston
Courtesy of The Independent/REX

The last book in the Discworld series completed by the late Terry Pratchett last summer, "The Shepard's Crown", will be released September 10th of this year in the United Kingdom. According to Rhianna Pratchett, Terry's daughter and custodian of her father's works, it will also be the last Discworld novel ever, out of respect to her father's legacy, as she explained in a series:

To reiterate – No I don't intend on writing more Discworld novels, or giving anyone else permission to do so. They are sacred to dad. I will be involved with spin-offs, adaptations and tie-ins, but that's it. Discworld is his legacy. I shall make my own.— Rhianna Pratchett 

There were rumors that a follow-up to "Raising Steam", which Mr. Pratchett announced he was working on last year but did not complete before his death, would be finished by a co-writer like Stephen Baxter, his co-writer on the "Long Earth" series. Pratchett did finish his contributions to the latest "Long Earth" series, entitled "The Long Utopia", which will be published in the UK tomorrow, with a US release date planned soon after.

Toyota Uses Chocobo Theme In New Ad

Photo illustration via autoevelution.com

Toyota's been making waves in the past past year in Japan by pairing its line of hybrid cars with iconic JRPG games. Last year saw the release of a commercial using the Dragon Quest 3 overworld theme:

In a cute touch, the car colors in the above commercial match one of the more common party configurations for the game: Hero, Priest, Sage and Soldier. So earlier this week, they debuted a new commercial spot to sell the latest model of the Toyota Aqua X-URBAN (known here in the USA as the Prius C): The Chocobo Theme! Personally, I think this marketing idea is genius? Want to target the gekky thirty-something market with some nostaligia, this is the perfect way to scratch that itch.

Final Fantasy X Revisited

The HD remaster and re-release of Final Fantasy X in last for Playstation 3 and Vita has led to a new generation to rediscovering the game, as well as those who played it the first time to revisit it again, years later.

To this day, FFX remains one of my personal favorites in the Final Fantasy series, and I was wondering what other people my age going back and replaying it might have thought about it now. After all, while we have changed-- grown older, changed jobs, careers, moved, etc-- the game, has stayed largely the same, fresh coat of digital paint aside.

Leigh Alexander used the occasion to reflect on her love of Final Fantasy X, both from when she first played it as a teenager, and playing it again over a decade later in an engaging personal essay for Gamasutra, "Let's Revisit Final Fantasy X! Anyone?":

"Yuna is not the protagonist of FFX, but she's arguably the "main character," in that most things in the story are to do with her. She was maybe the first woman in video games that I cared for. Before that I had "liked" all kinds of others, sometimes dutifully borrowing lenses from the men's eyes through which most games were intended to be seen. I was usually attracted to women characters when I was supposed to be, and I was on board with "saving" them when the game told me to. Sometimes I liked them well enough as concepts, or thought I might want to "be" them. But Yuna, I cared for."

It's really interesting read, and you really should read the whole thing.

Top 9 Easiest Boss Fights Ever (Retro Repost)

Note: This article was originally published as part of my time as an Associated Content Featured Contributor to the Video Games Section. Associated Content was later bought by Yahoo! and renamed Yahoo! Voices. Yahoo Voices shut down in July of 2014. This article is being republished here on The Code, backdated to its original date of publication to remain as a record of my writing.

In most video games, boss fights are used as a level's penultimate challenge. A challenging boss fight will give the player's reflexes and gray matter a good workout. A difficult boss fight will make you feel like you
 are climbing the rungs of the ladder of progress. The following nine boss fights, however, feel more like speed bumps. Read on for the ten easiest boss fights in video game history.

9. Mysterio
Game: Spider-Man 2 

Spider-Man faces a bevy of colorful and intimidating villains in Spider-Man 2. Mysterio makes a grand entrance-- or, as grand as you can be while holding up a convenience store. His metallic voice and outlandish costume recall classic science-fiction B movies, and while he dramatically declares his intent to destroy Spider-Man, you see his life bar fill up one, twice, and then three times. You'd be forgiven for assuming the battle might take a few tries.

However, just one swift punch will send Mysterio flying across the room, down to zero health-- and down for the count. He even begs you not to hit him again.

8. Old King Coal
Game: Banjo-Tooie

Some boss fights can be easier if you know what patterns to avoid, or the right weapon to use. The fight against Old King Coal takes this to new heights. If you stand on any of the half dozen or so large black coal platforms, his area-of-attack power to superheat the ground will not affect you. His erratic and random dashing attacks will always just barely miss you. And if you have any Ice Eggs handy, they will do a whopping 5 points of damage against him, more than even the powerful Grenade Eggs, reducing Old King Coal to dust in no time flat.

7. Chloe Walsh
Game: No More Heroes 2

Chloe Walsh seems like she'd be a challenge at first glance. She can spit poison acid, scream to unleash a sonic wave and even shoot laser beams from her eyes. However, these attacks are clearly telegraphed, easy to avoid altogether, and do very little damage. Her total health is so low that you can defeat Chloe in about 50 seconds. On the hardest difficulty mode in the game.

6. Lanmola's Shadow
Game: Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening 

Lanmola's Shadow is the second-to-last form that the final boss Nightmare takes in Link's Awakening. In the Lanmola's Shadow form, the boss becomes a very fast enemy that zips around the small room that Link is trapped in, and if you use Link's trusty sword, you will spend a sizable amount of time dodging out of the way and then waiting for just the right moment to swipe at its weak point with your sword. If you use any other weapon you have, though-- a Bomb, a swing of the Magic Rod, one hit from the Hookshot, or even a love tap from the humble Boomerang-- this form can be defeated in a single hit.

5. Flash Man

Game: Mega Man 2 

Flash Man has the power to stop time, but if you have the Metal Blades, this boss won't even have a chance to blink. Once you get the Metal Blade power up in Mega, the Blue Bomber can cut swathes of destruction, reducing regular enemies and mid-bosses in the various stages to a bucket of bolts easily. However, the Metal Blades also make fighting the boss Flash Man a joke. If you start the battle with the Metal Blades, you can simply enter the boss battle room, fire them in straight line and defeat Flash Man without having to take a single step.

4. Cloud N. Candy

Game: Yoshi's Story 

This boss is a large smiling cloud that takes up a quarter of the screen. His offense consists of a single weak hop that gives you plenty of time to dodge or slip under. And Cloud N. Candy isn't even good enough to be defeated by the normal method of throwing a baker's dozen worth of eggs at the boss. No, instead the way you beat this boss is by licking it to death, watching it get smaller and smaller. If you somehow bump into him and take damage, don't worry-- every single lick of Cloud N. Candy heals you!

Of course, as much as a walk in the park those previous six bosses were, they did offer a modicum of challenge. They were capable of dealing damage. At least the bosses you've read about so far could theoretically defeat the player. These final three have earned their spots because there is absolutely, positively no way that you can lose to them at all.

3. Bob The Goldfish

Game: Earthworm Jim 

Normally, when you bump into a boss or touch it in any way, you will lose health. In some games, any contact with the enemy results in instant death. But when facing off against Bob the Goldfish, bumping into him is the key to defeating him. You win the "fight" against Bob by making Earthworm Jim run into the table Bob the Goldfish's bowl is standing on, sending the goldfish's bowl careening off the table and shattering on the floor. And if you just stand there and do nothing? Bob is content to just stay in his bowl. He's a goldfish, after all.

2. Golem Overlord

Game: Chrono Trigger

This spiky, demonic-looking boss talks a good game. He start a 5 second countdown to a powerful attack... that he never executes. Why? Because he's afraid of heights. That's right, this boss will stop attacking you to

 tell you he's afraid of heights, so you can whack at him like he was a really ugly piñata until he dies. In fact, the Golem Overlord will never lay a hand on the party for the rest of the battle. And if by some twist of fate you have not managed to inflict enough damage to defeat him after a certain number of rounds, the Golem Lord will harmlessly self-destruct.

That's right, the Golem Overlord will actually defeat HIMSELF.

And while these previous two video game bosses were both incredibly easy and impossible to be defeated by, there's only one boss in the history of video games whose ease of defeat and inability to defeat you actually cheapened the impact of the game's story. The easiest boss battle in video games history goes to...

1. Sephiroth

Game: Final Fantasy VII 

The very last time Cloud faces Sephiroth, a battle that is mano-a-mano, Sephiroth is just a human. Cloud is fully healed with his Ultimate Limit Break, Omnislash, already enabled. It would certainly make sense that Cloud could vanquish in one hit his hated rival by using his ultimate attack. In fact, it makes this symbolic battle a little dramatic and poignant. Or, at least it would be if it wasn't also true that any attack you made at all would finish Sephiroth in one hit. The simple low level fire spell. A simple swipe of the sword. And if you just sit there and let Sephiroth attack you? Cloud will automatically launch a counter-attack, even if he doesn't normally have that ability. 

No matter what you do, Sephiroth cannot defeat you, and will fall in a single hit. This takes what could have been a more dramatically satisfying battle and robs it of its essential climax. It also makes the final appearance of Sephiroth in Final Fantasy VII the easiest boss battle in history. 

7 Hardest Video Game Boss Fights

Note: This article was originally published as part of my time as an Associated Content Featured Contributor to the Video Games Section. Associated Content was later bought by Yahoo! and renamed Yahoo! Voices. Yahoo Voices shut down in July of 2014. This article is being republished here on The Code, backdated to its original date of publication to remain as a record of my writing.

All that stands between your hero and the ending credits of a video game is the final boss. All of the reflexes you've honed, the tricks you've learned, the strategies you've practiced elsewhere in the game come down to
 one final battle. Not all final boss fights are created equal, though. Here's a look at the seven hardest boss fights the history of video games have to offer.

7. Ultimecia
Game: Final Fantasy VIII
System: Sony Playstation 

Final Fantasy VIII is a game that has been a point of contention with some Final Fantasy fans. Fans complain about the final boss as the game's true villain not being introduced until very late in the story. Fans complain the characters and their angst. Many fans even complain about the magic Junction system. However, all of these elements combine to make Ultimecia a formidable final boss. First of all, the final boss is actually three fights in a row as she phases between past, present and future. She seems like a pushover in her first form. She becomes a bit tougher in the second phase, stealing the hero's innermost thoughts to summon a very strong beast to fight the party before merging with it herself. But but the last phase of the battle becomes hair-pullingly difficult . Why? Ultimecia takes the Junction system that is also used to to boost the stats of your heroes and strips them away. Forever. That's right, the final boss permanently de-buffs your characters. Should one of your characters die, then they sucked away into a time void and can't be brought back. Talk about a game over.

6.Willy
Game: Double Dragon
System: Arcade 

This final boss fight in Double Dragon stacks the deck against you. Willy has a lot of health, and moves faster than any of the other enemies in the game. While you are stuck with punches and kicks, Willy uses a machine gun. While that sounds a little unfair, at least you have the advantage of pumping quarter after quarter into the game until you defeat him, right? Wrong. As soon as you get to Willy, you can only pay for three more continues. If you can't beat the final boss in under three continues, then you get an automatic game over and have to start the game all over again from the beginning.

5. The Origin
Game: Radiant Silvergun
System: Sega Saturn

Radiant Silvergun is considered by many shoot-em-up fans as the pinnacle of the genre. But for all of the unique elements that made Radiant Silvergun a stand-out space shooter, it was the game's final boss that made this game unique. Instead of a two dimensional alien boss that fills up half the screen as would be expected for a top-down shooter from Japan, Radiant Silvergun's boss is a giant 3 dimensional robot that runs around the screen along a flight path. This boss fight flips the script by now making you have to think in three dimensions while the screen is filled with so many bullets that you run a very real risk of blundering into a stray bullet if you so much as blink.

4.Mike Tyson
Game: Mike Tyson's Punch-Out
System: NES 

Just getting to Mike Tyson is a challenge. The boxers get progressively difficult as you advance through three circuits. Mike Tyson is leagues ahead of every boxer that you face before him. For the first minute and a half of the first round he will do nothing but throw jabs that, if they land, will knock you down in just one hit. What's worse is that his punches can't be blocked; a block still counts as a hit and down you'll go. His punches can only be dodged. Also, unlike every other boxer in the game, Mike Tyson has no one-hit weakness. You'll have to slowly chip away at his stamina, and hope you don't get knocked out.

3. The Boss
Game: Metal Gear Solid 3
System: Playstation 2

The final boss fight with Metal Gear Solid 3's The Boss serves as an endcap to not just the emotional arc of the story, but also requires the player to draw on every skill in stealth, camouflage, close quarters fighting, and gun play. The fight takes place in a rolling field full of white flowers that make absolute mastery of camouflage a must for having a chance at winning. And you can't just button-mash your way through any close quarters combat, because The Boss is Snake's equal and can easily counter most of the hand-to-hand action you throw her way. Also, you have to take her down in ten minutes, or the carpet bombing that's been called in will obliterate you, leading to a game over.

2. Last Boss
Contra Hard Corps
Sega Genesis

Contra Hard Corps was one of the few games that was actually made more difficult for its North American release. While the Japanese version gave the player a 3-hit life bar, the US version has one hit kills. The
 Japanese version gave the player unlimited continues. The US version only gave the player five. This game's final boss has several forms it transforms into, each more bizarre-looking and difficult than the last. It starts as a humanoid that hovers in the upper right corner, tosses a dozen deadly energy balls per second, then shifts to the left hand corner of the screen and does the same. When it lands, it can shoot energy beams half the length of the screen, and can dash across the the screen in a blink of an eye. After you defeat this form, it transforms into a two headed creature that can shoot fireballs and energy blasts from either mouth. The neck can extended the entire length of the screen and with a shake of the head, will also raining energy balls that will fall from above, scattered in the 1/4 of the screen you can move in. Beat this form and it tranforms once again, this time into a whirling ball of skulls and alien faces that can expand to fill most of the screen, leaving only the extreme lower right and left corners safe, having to shoot the "core" in the middle, with space to do so for a split second. Hope you have enough continues saved up.

1.Mushihimesama Futari
"Spiritual Larsa"
Arcade/X-Box 360

They say a picture can be worth a thousand words, but in the game Mushihimesama Futari , only a video can truly express how well deserved the final boss demonstrates the genre of "bullet hell":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70iFdnI-xfA

Featuring a final boss fight that requires razor-sharp reflexes, Spiritual Larsa will unleash wave after waves of bullets that fill the screen like rain. The only safe spaces for the ship are mere pixels wide, and those safe zones last for but a split second. Mushihimesama Futari truly deserves the title of hardest final boss fight.