Combining responses. Some Xenogears spoilage follows as well.
On Mon, 8 Nov 1999, Miashara wrote:
1: You revealed a bit too much in my opinion. Quite a bit of that
teaser could have been used as a hook and just laying it bare like
that served no purpose.
You may well be right. There's enough other stuff going on that the
teaser really doesn't tell as much as it seems like it does, but it still
tells a lot.
2: Deus ex Machina.
That's actually on purpose, but as the pun's linguistically incorrect
(<waves to Rebeka>) and seems to get read as a typo more times than
getting through as intended, I'm probably going to just drop it.
Plot wise, Why on earth would Ranma be a painter?
Y'know, I have absolutely no idea. That one I typed without thinking.
<sound of an idea hitting the "probably toss unless it hits me better
later" pile>
Are you intending to completely replace his character with what's his
name's? Akane as a freedom fighter? Plausible but unlikely. Especially
not as a part of a team. Her anger would be a detriment no group could
survive. Total personnality revision in her too? If so, and I don't
see any other believable way to these changes, what remains of Ranma
in it? Whats the difference between this and Xenogears natural. Other
than the names, and that is just annoying.
*This* one I can answer.
The characters of Ranma 1/2 have an almost eerie degree of mapping to the
characters of Xenogears, in multiple cases. They also have a lot of
contrasts. I think this can be exploited to do a good deal more than
retell Xenogears with characters in different hats, even starting with the
same basic set of situations.
I could, of course, be wrong. This is the main problem with doing this
and the main way I can spectacularly fail. If, by about a quarter of the
way through the story, I haven't screwed up Xenogears' event track enough
to have players wondering what the heck's going on again, then I'm really
not doing my job.
As for the Akane bit.... you're fundamentally right, the way the character
starts out. This will be addressed in the story.
On Mon, 8 Nov 1999 AlphSailor@aol.com wrote:
I'd have to agree with this. While I'm curious about the prospect, what
you're doing is basically changing looks and names of some vital characters
in Xenogears (of which I've played, BTW).
If that's still what it looks like after I start posting actual content,
I've failed pretty completely. I think (or, well, at least hope) it won't
be.
I've got an even better suggestion; try to place Ranma characters *within*
the Xenogears storyline, but keep their personalities intact AND avoid the
same old thing thing we've read about in TOS Ranma, such as Genma and Soun
engaging Ranma and Akane, finacee problem, etc. You may try and keep them,
but try to give them a twist.
That's a really interesting idea, but it's not what I want to do. :)
Xenogears is a complete enough story that to me it's very difficult to
extend it or do true side stories (i.e., chronicling events that were not
at all chronicled in the game). People have pulled it off successfully;
all I can say is they're much better at coming up with this stuff than I
am.
However, it didn't go anywhere *near* full exploration of itself. There
are entire major plot points (El Regurus, what the heck was up with the
colony ship anyway, the former Elements' pasts, why Kuno/Ramsus is such a
screwed up little puppy, the Chu-Chus.... well, no, let's just leave the
Chu-Chus to sit quietly alone where they won't hurt anybody) and at least
one *main character* (Billy) that didn't get nearly enough exposure. The
game overflows with hooks crying out to be exploited further. If I hadn't
had this (sick, demented, twisted, *wrong*) fusion concept hit, I'd
eventually be writing a straight novelization of the game to explore
these.
The fusion, though, adds several other twists. And should make for some
genuinely interesting syntheses. And should even let me do some
interesting things thematically, if I can pull them off.
Of course, I might also fail spectacularly and produce something unworthy
of a single virtual dead tree. But I can't know without tryin'....
Matt