Flower City Comic (Mini) Con

This is a new one, the Flower City Comic Con is doing a mini-con, which I've never really heard of, I don't know what a mini-con is, and they haven't told me much, but I know this much, it will be happening at Greece Ridge Center Mall, which may be the closest possible venue to my home, and I signed up to sell my books, which got accepted so I don't really know what else will be going on around me, but I will be sitting there selling books all day both days, so if anyone wants to come along and buy a book or two, or all six of what I've published so far, if you happen to be in the area, please come by. Admission is free so just come on in. There will be a costume contest, a scavenger hunt, free comic books, and one of the cast members of the Walking Dead. I seriously don'tknow how this will work, but I'm still pretty excited about it, so Rochester fans please come by. As for everyone else, I will be posting pics afterwards so you can look forwad to the report then.

That's all for this week folks, I'm really busy getting ready for all that next week.

Mobius Final Fantasy, the end is the beginning

Recently I finished Mobius Final Fantasy, which is to say the main story, not counting all the extra crazy that they put in, that is literally infinite with constant updates soI can always login and find something to do. But I have always been a fan of the storylines, so finishing the main story felt like I accomplished something. I really doubled down on this game a couple months ago when my phone ran out of space and I had to delete an app, and as the only app that had back-up on my PC, it got cut, but then I just wanted to be done because it was kind of a wake up call that this had gone on long enough. It has actually been just over two years since I first downloded it shortly after it's initial release and since it was released in chaptes, it took time to finish. The extra time I dedicated to it recently pre-empted a lot of other things which is why my Twitch channel all but died, and next month is NaNoWriMo when I'll dedicate my free time to what may be my last NaNoWriMo novel, so I won't be hardcore gaming until December, but this was a huge part of the puzzle. Anyway, now that I finished the story, I want to review the game in full.

Mobius Final Fantasy is an audio visual spectacle to rival any of the numbered console games, but the mechanics do leave a little bit wanting and the story doesn't start out much better, but by the end, it does all make sense in it's own weird way. The game begins with Wol (or whatever you want to call him) awakening on the shores of Palamecia being called by the disembodied voice Vox along with many others to fight the fiends of Chaos. As you go forward, the momentum doesn't ever really slow down long enough for you to really figure out what's going on, you just meet a few random individuals filling the traditional roles of Final Fantasy telling you that you are meant to fulfill a prophecy as the Warrior of Light to defeat Chaos, proving yourself one minor fiend at a time. Garland, Mog, Echo the Fairy, Princess Sarah, and Cid all appear and elaborate on the prophecy, but the wierd thing is that other than these characters, Mog's fellow moogles seem to be the only native population of Palamecia, the world that you must save despite the fact that it all seems to be just one battlefield after another. Any player with any sense starts to wonder what the point is, but then Wol wonders too. As the script seems to get lazy, Wol goes a little meta as he waxes philosophical about just why he's fighting at all. Then Meia joins him, a witch who has been branded a heretic because she loved one of the past Warriors of Light and deterred him from his path costing him his life. As the story draws to a close, the mind blowingly horrific truth is finally revealed, none of this really matters, it's just a neverending cycle in which this world with it's own laws that may defy physics and every other science we know perpetuates the war between the Warrior of Light and Chaos. It just repeats endlessly with no real end, despite the theme of hope, the truth is palamecia has no hope because it actually is just a battlefield that relies on nobody ever stopping to think about it, compelled to just fulfill the prophecy to save the world as they have been told. Wol finally figures it out and the game ends with Wol, Meia, and Princess Sarah attempting to defy the prophecy...but did they really succeed? The gmae totally seems to make it up as it goes along and near the end, they actually admit that Palamecia warps to fit the narrative as it unfolds,that perhaps even the heresy to defy the prophecy is actually the prophecy merely testing the Warrior of Light as he reaches the same inevitable end as all the others who have come before him. The last scene is Wol, Meia, and Sarah each in a crystal foating in space, are they oing to a new world or just starting the cycle over again?

One possibility is that this is actually part of the time loop from the first Final Fantasy game. The story mirrors the original game with the same major bosses, and they say the hope of Palamecia goes to another world to help another Princess Sarah, which suggests this whole thing is actually just some prologue to the original game taking place in the time space in the middle of the 2000 year time loop. Of course, I've also said that's where Dissidia takes place, and we now also have to consider Record Keeper, Brave Exvius, Kingdom Hearts and World of Final Fantasy, so at this point I really don't know how any of this fits together anymore, the meta-multiverse is starting to collapse under it's own weight. But what a wild ride it's been and it is fun.

So I guess the question is, is Mobius Final Fantasy worth it? Yes, I would say it is. The mechanics take some getting used to and the PCversion proves this was made for a mobile device, not a console. It is largely a game of rock-paper-scissors with every enemy having an elemental affinity/weakness and every technique having an element to exploit that weakness or be foiled by that affinity. More often than not, the variety feels cosmetic, jobs limit your elements but you can just swap them around to fit the changing requirements of each battle. But speaking from experience, I picked my favorite job (Red Mage), my favorite abilitites (Fira from the Belias card, and whatever, though Cure, Flameshift, Fire Essence, or a selection of eggs from the gil shop work fine) and I just boosted everything with in game power-ups and I made it to the end and only paid real money twice, and both times it was just a lack of patience. Everything is available in game in abundance, so if you want to just play casually, this game is a fun romp through final fnatasy nostalgia that leavesme with just one question: why couldn't this have been Final Fantasy Spirits Within?

Reign of the Nephilim

Last week I published my latest novel on Amazon, Reign of the Nephilim. I talked about this book before, it was my NaNoWriMo project last year, and after a long editing process, I finally got it together and ready to publish. So now you can all read my take on the book of Genesis.

Reign of the Nephilim actually started out as a video game idea, God of War meets Darksiders. The central idea was an adventure regarding the Nephilim before the flood with a twist, the Nephilim were actually the gods of other world mythologies. What makes this twist so interesting is that I'm suggesting a world where all religions have an element of truth. The two main characters of the story are Shem and Ham, two of the three sons of Noah. These two men are important because Shem is the ancestor of the Jews, the Muslims and Christians as well, and he is a critical hero because he begins a legacy that affects the rest of the history of the world, so his role in this story is to be the first true hero of mankind. Ham on the other hand was the one son that Noah cursed, meaning that if the good guys are the descendants of Shem, the bad guys are the descedants of Ham. It's true, Ham's son Cannan is the ancestor of Cannanites who are the antagonists of the Jews throughout the Old Testament. This story explains that rivalry while mirroring it with the brother rivalries of other cultures. However, the biggest revelation is the true nature of God and the Devil, which I will leave for you to find out by reading the book.

I also throw in a little more obscure mythology that I didn't entirely make up. Actually, I made up rather little and just tweaked existing mythology to fit a narrative that made sense to me. There are two guardian angels, Kamiel from the Kabbalah and Kanjahiel one of the Ophanim mentioned in the book of Ezekiel. Kanjahiel spends most of his time singing God's praises in the form of the Tehil, the first psalm, actually part of Psalm 119, but before any of the other psalms were written so it is the only psalm and it is referred to in the original Hebrew.

The story begins with the building of the Ark, but Shem, Ham and Kanjahiel are sidetracked by Nephilim from the Egyptian Pantheon, then they are abruptly transferred to the Greco-Roman Pantheon, and finally face the nearly forgotten Mesopotamian Pantheon, all before the Flood changes everything. These stories are actually biblically relevant because much of the Bible shows the chosen people of God being antagonized and oppressed by these other cultures, so this narrative foreshadows what is to come.

The really big deal here is that this story takes place in a time when gods were real, meaning thta this is a world in which holy wars are not simply fought by religious zealots crying the names of their gods as they go into battle, the masters of the impossible are actually part of the battle reshaping the world around them and leaving mortals highly vulnerable in a realm of unrestrained chaos.

So, whether you are a devout believer who's looking for a more interesting take on the Book of Genesis or an agnostic who just likes high fantasy, this book has a little something for everyone.