This week’s challenge was to write like yours truly. To wit, about a social work who travels through time in order to perform their job duties.
Continue reading Play With the Prose VII, Challenge 3: Beau
1. Vector
Finally, you reach the headquarters of the Empire where Gestahl resides. An, aw man, the fucking music. It’s simultaneously creepy and depressing. Go ahead and remind yourself why Nobuo Uematsu is a goddamn genius.
2. Phantom Train
While escaping reality, Cyan and his moody friends come across the phantom train, which acts as the RPG version of Charon on the River Styx. Cyan decides it’s worth a shot to try and find his recently murdered family and plop a couple of phoenix downs on them while they’re still just mostly dead.
At first the train seems really creepy, what with all the ghosts implying that you’re never ever ever leaving.
3. Opera house
There is nothing more to be said about the Opera House, is there?
4. Celes’ Lonely Island
So, what’s the first thing you do after watching the world fall apart because you were too powerless to stop it form happening? Starve an old man to death and attempt suicide, of course.
5. Introduction
I popped in Final Fantasy VI for the first time on Christmas Day, 1994. The Super Nintendo wasn’t entirely new to me, but I had played mostly Super Mario Kart, so I wasn’t prepared for the brilliant music and graphics that hit you during the introduction. And then, right when you’re settling in, you start to wonder. Is this girl with the green hair one of the good guys? Am I killing innocent people?
It was exhilarating to have my expectations for a video game story flipped upside down. It’s not just that you are forced to kill innocent people; you absolutely destroy them with a strange power called Magitek that shoots elemental lasers from your body suit. Who are these bad guys I’m fighting for, and what power do they yield? Without much exposition, it sets up how bleak the situation is for whatever heroes you wind up playing as.
It all culminates with a boss battle against Whelk (aka Ymir), your first test in the game. Ultimately, he’s not very powerful, but you can make the battle much longer than it needs to be if you don’t plan your attack. Time your attack wrong and he’ll absorb your pesky lasers and come back with a powerful attack that nearly destroys your party. If I recall, I almost lost to him my first go round.
My mind was sufficiently blown, and I spent a good part of the next two years of my life married to Final Fantasy VI.
Play with the Prose VII, Challenge 2: Matt Novak
For our second challenge, we had to simply write about religion. I had initially hoped to write about how the intergalactic pasta wars led to the rise of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Then I realized I only had 150 words and I’m not Douglas Adams. So I decided to tackle an older religion:
Continue reading Play with the Prose VII, Challenge 2: Matt Novak
6. Divide and Conquer
Several times during the game you are asked to split your party up into groups of three or four in order to win a long battle or take on separate tasks. The first time is right near the beginning, when Terra is passed out and Locke has to protect her with the help of the Moogles. It requires long-term strategy, a rarity in video games.
Play With the Prose VII–Challenge 1: Bret Highum
This will be my fourth Play with the Prose contest. I’ve made the semifinals once and the finals twice, but remain a bridesmaid. This time around we have 17 contestants. The moderator’s prompt this season is to write like previous contestants. There may even be a week where other people have to write like me! While that seems bound for lots of in-jokes, the themes should be general enough.
There will be 12 challenges, I think. Top 8 make the playoffs. This might be the strongest group of writers yet. Wish me luck.
The first challenge was to write like Bret Highum. Or specifically, about an emotionally repressed redneck.
Continue reading Play With the Prose VII–Challenge 1: Bret Highum
7. The Death of Doma
After Leo gets mysteriously called back to Vector, Kefka engages in some not-so-subtle foreshadowing for the player. What’s particularly great about this scene, however, is how truly evil Kefka comes across in such a short time. He tells one of his soldiers that he doesn’t care if the Empire has prisoners in Doma; he wants everyone dead.
Death By Troggles 
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