I might as well answer these comments that I have been getting about the new episode lately:

1) "The episode is too short. I'm really disappointed"
Most haven't complained about it, but I eventually found a handful of comments stating this. Personally, I don't care how long or short an episode is as long as it's good enough to satisfy the main audience. Guys, it's not like I submit 90 minute feature films on the site you know. If I make the episodes any longer, the content in it will grow stale and I don't want that. Some of you can get really spoiled, especially after ep. 6 which I admit that I got carried away making it a 19-minute episode. From my POV, there's no such thing as a perfect episode when everyone has their favorites

2) "Your humor is very childish and immature."
Most of my audience is usually 12 and up, so it's kind of obvious. And yes, that's what I was aiming for. The main cast is supposed to act like teenagers,though I prefer to keep them ageless to avoid any confusion. Just be glad that I don't focus on fart jokes and toilet humor. I don't mind that at times, it's just that I prefer to find other ways to make people laugh instead of adding a random fart joke in an episode. I'm not THAT desperate for a laugh you know...

3) "you're making too many references to other stuff."
For those who aren't aware, two of my many influences behind the series are "South Park" and the "Shrek" movies (the first two were better). This stuff gave me the idea to mix pop culture references within my own personal Zelda Universe, even if the content I used is something from a movie or a TV show, It's all for fun. Don't ruin it the flash for everyone else.

4)"Aren't you going a tad overboard with the anime references?"
Ok, I'll admit that the anime references in my series do seem to be a bit forced at times, but in my defense, ISN'T THE LEGEND OF ZELDA JAPANESE TOO!? I'm an otaku (anime fan boy), deal with it! besides, one of my buddies insisted on working on a Rozen Maiden type of ending for FSM 6.I was skeptical about it at first, but I decided to try it out anyway.

apart from anime I also referenced other shows like MST3K and Aqua Teen Hunger Force for example. Again, just for fun.

5)"Can't you be more original with your humor?"
For those who haven't noticed, I also mix a bit of my own original humor to the series, though it's sometimes not easy to grasp at first glance. Stuff like for example: the super cucco, the alcoholic milk, the broken magic mirror, pissing off the sign guy, Dark Link going on a one man coup d'état,Gossip stones spreading gossip throughout Kakriko Village, introducing Tingle as a possible villain,etc. need I go on? If that isn't Original, then I don't know what is.

Honestly, the people at Youtube are less picky about my stuff...
Oh well, this is Newgrounds after all. Everyone's a damn critic here.
*sigh*

What are you doing here reading this post? Watch the damn thing already!
Make sure to find all of the medals!
Enjoy!

This has been the hardest decision I had to make. I've been thinking it over and, after several delays with Four Swords Misadventures 7, I have decided to cancel the project completely and reboot the entire series from the very first episode. Trust me, it's for the best! The Four Swords reboot will be completely drawn, it will have no sprites, will have a better origin story by following the actual manga and it will have a completely different cast of voice actors! It's gonna be awesome! XD

Click here to see some exclusive material for the upcoming Four Swords reboot.

Update: it's obviously not true. Tom Fulp and his "Bacongrounds"gag kinda ruined the prank for me. Anyway my point here is this: what's up with Hollywood and it's constant reboots of old films these days? What's up with that?

OK, I'm not one to post on the front page very often but I have to point something out that's been happening last week in my country.

For those who aren't aware, Venezuela (the country where I currently live in) has officially started outlawing violent video games. In other words, any game that's considered aggressive, violent and/or gory are now going to be banned over here. I'm dead serious! Click here and here to read all about it.

They've been debating over this new law about as early as September of 2009. Basically the Venezuelan government is doing this to "tone down the violence in the streets" and whoever is caught selling these games will get fined and will be put to jail for at least 4 years.

Most criminals who live in the slums of Caracas are too poor to even afford these types of games or consoles, so I don't see much logic in this. Plus, attacking one source isn't going to stop the violence. Video games are not entirely the problem here. Violent movies, Violent TV shows, Violent/hateful music (to a certain extent) and domestic violence are some of the several issues that lead to this type of stuff. I'm no criminologist, but I don't think this is going to solve the issue of high crime and death rates over here. What we need is gun control instead! Why can't they understand that?

Anyway, now because of this new law, games like Call of Duty, Halo, GTA, fighting games in general and even possibly your typical Mario game, as ridiculous as it may sound, are going to be banned here! I may be stretching things by adding a Mario game as an example, but either way, I'm showing you guys how absurd and how fucking unfair this is for us gamers over here.

I'm no politician, but I'm completely against this move. Next thing you know, they're probably going to ban internet connections here, knowing how fucked up this country is these days. I really need to move out of this country someday.

This is just bullshit...nuff said.

Personally, I have nothing against James Cameron. As a matter of fact, I have a lot of respect for his work. From The Terminator to Titanic (even though I hated the annoying teenie boppers that went crazy over DiCaprio at the time, but I got over that).

But when it comes to Avatar,I was slightly disappointed with it. Yeah I saw the movie. Sure,the visuals are great, the characters are interesting, yet sometimes cliché, but the story itself didn't feel very original. Story-wise It's basically "Dances With Wolves" in space. It didn't feel that mind blowing to me like his previous films did. Hell, one scene of the movie, the sky mountain scene, felt like it came out of one of the recent Final Fantasy games(Don't know which cause I'm not a huge fan of the series).

Plus, the use of Michelle Rodriguez as a stereotypical tomboyish officer/army brat felt tiring. She already did that in previous films like S.W.A.T. and Resident Evil for God sakes and it feels like she's playing the same character over and over again. Sam Worthington, on the other hand, is really making a name for himself these days and I liked his performance as Jake Sully in the film. I'm surprised he wasn't nominated for an Oscar yet. I really look forward to seeing more of his movies.

All nitpicking aside, I wouldn't be surprised if Avatar wins all 9 Academy Awards. Supposedly, lightning can't strike the same place twice. But when it comes to James Cameron, he can make that happen somehow, someway...who knows?

Warning! Possible controversial topic!

What is a Console Emulator? Well, according to Wikipedia: "A video game console emulator is a program that allows a computer or modern console (cross-console emulation) to emulate a different video game console's behavior."

I'll have to admit that, since 2002, I've been experimenting with a wide variety of emulators and, in my opinion, I don't see console emulation as a bad thing. Now, before this post starts some kind of uproar(let's hope not :S ), I'd like to point out few things bout it.

1) Yes, it's Illegal to download a game ROM for an emulator if you don't have an official copy of the game, but when you think about it, downloading an illegal copy of a game is no different than downloading illegal videos and/or music from other sites.

2) If it wasn't for console emulation, we wouldn't have Xbox Live Arcade, The Playstation Network, nor the Wii's Virtual Console. The Video Game industry,in a way, owes it to console emulation for bringing back classic games and introducing them to a new audience but in a more traditional manner through emulated ports like the classic NES series on GBA for example.

3) Fan translations in video gaming play a pivotal role in console emulation. The perfect example of this is Final Fantasy V, a game that was never released outside japan during the SNES era due to localization issues among other things. The continual canceling of the localization pissed off many fans and a small team of programmers and translators decided to take matters into their own hands and make their own fan translations through emulation. Interestingly enough, Koichiro Sakamoto, a game producer from Square Enix, found out about fan translations and he actually considers this "encouraging" because this movement was mostly out of fan demand.

4. Sometimes poorly advertised games can get praise and even achieve a cult following over a certain period of time through emulation. Example:"Conker's Bad Fur Day"

Now, of course, Emulation does have it's drawbacks:

1) Some ROMs and emulators are known to be glitchy and can crash on rare occasions, that is, if they're not programmed properly.

2) Emulators can get laggy at times, especially if you're using an N64 emulator or higher like a Dreamcast emulator. This also depends on the type of PC you're using to play them

3)There will be occasions where you feel like you missed out on a specific game. I can relate to this at times with games like "Chrono Trigger", "Conker's Bad Fur Day" and "Resident Evil 2" (N64 port).
These games were so awesome that I sometimes wish I bought the original copies instead.

4) The controls are difficult to get used to at first, especially if you're playing a game with a keyboard instead of a USB controller. However, in console emulation, you can adjust the controls to your liking if necessary.

Overall, even though console emulation is apparently frowned upon by most of the gaming community, I don't have a problem with it. Don't get me wrong, I do support the gaming industry and I currently have an N64 and a GameCube at home (I want to get a Wii too, but money's kinda tight for me these days). I used to have an NES, a SNES, a SEGA Genesis and an old Game boy too, with a good collection of games I might add. But unfortunately, I had to give them away a long time ago. It's kind of a personal thing that I don't like to talk about very often, but it happened... :(

Anyway, I personally think of emulation as more publicity for other people's work. Also, I should point out that nowadays, I'm more of a Retro gamer and I like to check out and maybe even review games I never had a chance to play before. I've also developed my own gamer motto over the years: "Play it however you can".

Now apart from playing games, I also use emulation for flashes (obviously) and whenever there's something in a game that I want to use for an animation, I borrow a set of sprites or backgrounds from the game and later give proper credit afterwards. It's thanks to emulation that I'm able to entertain my audience.

In conclusion, whether you want to try console emulation or not, even though it's "illegal" depending on where you live, that's your call. However, I wouldn't reject the idea of buying an original copy of a game either, so buy the original game if you can and support the video game industry.

As for me, well, If I had the time and the money, I would probably have a huge collection of games like the Angry Video Game Nerd's video game collection, but one can only dream though...

Thanks for reading, and please don't make a big deal about it. This is my opinion after all.

I don't know if any of you guys had a tough time this year, but to me it wasn't very productive. This year a lot of things got in my way for some reason and the development on FSM 7 eventually collapsed on itself during the first 5 months.

Basically this is what I had to go through in 2009.

1) Me feeling burned out and unmotivated after making 2 back to back episodes in 2008

2)Having a few problems with some of the castmembers due to money issues (thanks to the global recession), thus causing them to "pull a Houdini" on me on a few occasions. I'm not giving out names here for obvious reasons.

3) My family going through a bit of a financial crisis.

4) I'm still unemployed despite going job hunting during the summer time. I mostly got offers from Herba Life, but I'm not interested in buying their product...

5) Ouka's Hard drive crash affected the development of the episode a few months back, that and other things are getting in his way. I don't blame him really. He's a very talented and busy guy after all.

6)My Laptop's hard drive also crashed on the 16th. It's hard to recover after such a loss, thankfully I made a backup of FSM 7 though. I also decided to inform my fans on youtube about the situation, and thankfully they've been supportive about it.

7) Me going through a bit of depression late this year due to financial issues and bad grades this semester in my university. I know each semester gets tougher, but DAMN! I was having trouble concentrating in class for some reason.

Now despite most of the bad stuff, some good things have come out of this

1) MK Mishaps Gold was made after much fan demand, though it only lasted 2 days on the front page due to Madness Day. Bad timing, huh?

2) Developing a few side projects, one was this one and there were others where Osuka was involved. We were both working on a top secret project code named "RR". Click here to check out what he's upto.

3) I got my first ad revenue payment this year. It may not be much, but it was something.Thanks Tom.

4) Working on another Queen+LoZ Flash, but left it on hold in favor of FSM 7. You'll see it eventually.

Overall this year was a pretty bumpy road for me and I hope 2010 makes up for it. I got to be optimistic about all this. Sorry for the long rant though. Just thought I'd explain my situation to the rest of my fans here and wish you guys a Happy New Year.

If things go well, you might see some pretty interesting surprises in 2010. You never know.
Again, happy new year.

I've noticed over the years that are two notable types of critics these days in and out of NG: the ones who enjoy someone's work for what it is and the ones who are aggressively constructive critics. I had may share of both.

But I must ask one thing. How Nit-picky can you get, people? There's always some A-hole that points out an imperfection no matter how big or small it is. I don't mind it every now and then,I do it too, but often it gets annoying when you're trying to please a specific audience.

When it comes to a person's work, critics would complain about stuff like for example the animation qualiy, the sound quality, spelling mistakes (damn you grammar Nazis!) audio & video editing and even the main plot. Why do people insist in searching for imperfections all the time?

People,we're humans! We make mistakes! It's part of our nature! We're not robots. Why do we strive for perfection all the time? Nobody's perfect in everything unless you're God and even he has imperfections, depending on how you look at it of course.

I understand that's the purpose of a critic, but do they really have to dig that deep just because something isn't to their liking? What ever happened to suspension of disbelief? Come to think of it, I'm being nit-picky myself just mentioning this stuff.

Do you go overboard as a nit-picky critic or do you prefer to accept things the way an author intended it to be? This question is simply out of curiosity of course.
What do you guys think?

For those who haven't noticed, I constantly update the episode's progress every week or so on the left side of my userpage. Most of the episode is almost done, however, a few things still need to be completed:

1.I need to finish animating one final scene for the episode.
2.Osuka's part for the flash is still in the works. It's a scene that was inspired by a rant that I was going through based on a certain anime (believe it!).
3. Kuro-chan's artwork for the ending credits is about halfway done. Initially, We had other ideas in mind for the ending, but they were later scrapped due to timing issues and other things.

I should also mention that FSM 7 will contain medals, about 8 or 9 total. The medals will be either hidden easter eggs, or bonus scenes that are scattered throughout the episode. This wasn't originally going to be in FSM 7, but Osuka kinda talked me into it and decided to include some random gags in there for the hell of it. In a way, I like to think of this episode as the "Majora's Mask" of the series. In other words, it has a short story but with a lot of hidden content.

When will it be ready? I really can't say. It's a question that I can never answer because anything can get in the way of this project and I had to put up with a 6 month hiatus at one point cause of events that were completely beyond my control. I am hoping to have it done before the end of the year, but anything can happen. In the mean time, have some patience with this. I'm not one to rush things cause rushed projects don't always turn out very well in the end.

Wish us luck with this episode. Here's a sample of what to expect for the ending (courtesy of Kuro-chan). Can you guess what the theme is this time around?

Over the past few months I kept noticing reviews in and out of Newgrounds saying that my FSM series is "underrated". If people really think that way, I don't mind at all. In fact, I actually have to agree with those comments. However, I've also noticed over time that I'm losing my audience for some reason and I find this very odd.

I mean, I dedicate my time to develop the story the way I want it and entertain my audience. Fans ask for more episodes and I give them more. However, every time I make a new episode, it gets even less views than the previous one and I don't understand what I'm doing wrong. If people supposedly like this series, then why are less people viewing the latest ones? Do viewers really have short attention spans these days or are users rejecting it cause it's a "sprite movie"? I don't want to get into that topic all over again... it blew up in my face twice before.

Let me give you a clear example of what I'm talking about: if I compare the views from ep. 5 and ep. 6 respectively, It's clearly noticeable that roughly 103,000 viewers either missed out or wasn't interested in episode 6. Seriously, so much demand for new episodes and in the end I'm busting my ass for nothing? What the hell? People ask for more, I give them more, but I get less in return. It doesn't seem fair, does it?

Just to point this out, I'm not the kind of person to make weekly or monthly episodes, even if I wanted to. I don't have the time for that, considering the fact that I'm studying for a career in telecommunications and that itself is time consuming. That and sharing a computer with 4 other family members can be a total pain in the ass sometimes, but there's not much I can do about it.

As for ep 7 well, I'm still developing it and I want to have it ready before the end of the year, but I fear it might end up sharing the same fate as ep. 6: critically acclaimed, yet completely overlooked. I'm not really sure what will happen with this one.

Overall, I sometimes feel disappointed and maybe even a little frustrated by this. I don't know whether to continue the story or let it phase out unfinished into oblivion like other flashes have over the years, but if you guys REALLY want this series to continue, spread the word about it. People are really missing out on something interesting here and I don't want to let all this effort go to waste.