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Chrono / Gameplay Casual Discussion / Re: My thoughts on the baddest girl in Prehistory...

« on: November 21, 2011, 02:53:32 pm »

However, it is obvious though that her character was not developped enough. She doesn't even have a sidequest at the end. We don't know how she became chief and have no idea how her relation with Kino evolved. This is I believe the reason she isn't so popular.

I always felt that prehistory in general could've been more filled out. I mean there is a story arc and some interesting stuff, but the whole eastern side of the map is left empty.

Glad to see I wasn't alone in noticing this distinct oversight.  Or was it an oversight?  It's been suggested elsewhere as being possible - and an idea that I agree with - that either time constraints or memory space prevented them from having as much content for each of the characters as they wanted, and for whatever reason, Ayla's stuff was the first one to hit the choppingblock instead of the rest.

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Chrono / Gameplay Casual Discussion / Re: My thoughts on the baddest girl in Prehistory...

« on: September 28, 2011, 09:11:28 pm »

She is the one reason that Lavos is afraid of being punched in the face.

Which says a lot, considering that he basically has no face.

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Chrono / Gameplay Casual Discussion / Re: My thoughts on the baddest girl in Prehistory...

« on: September 22, 2011, 10:58:15 pm »

What can I say? She's the baddest of Prehistory. =)

And possibly the rest of Time too, depending who you ask.

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Chrono / Gameplay Casual Discussion / Re: My thoughts on the baddest girl in Prehistory...

« on: September 21, 2011, 07:37:07 pm »

That's generally my interpretation, too.

Works for me too.  And BTW, nice sig, Lord J... very appropriate for this thread.

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Chrono / Gameplay Casual Discussion / Re: My thoughts on the baddest girl in Prehistory...

« on: September 03, 2011, 01:54:16 pm »

Though I will offer my opinion that a badass such as Ayla deserves a greater match than Kino, who is an annoying and troublesome character.

Agreed.  She's supposed to be all about strength and bravery and whatnot, yet she's inexplicably enamored with a cowardly weakling.

It makes no sense.  Makes me think of another unexplained pairing of hot badass blonde and utter dork - Cyborg 18 and Krillin from DBZ... which is another Toriyama-driven piece of work. Coincidence?

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Chrono / Gameplay Casual Discussion / Re: My thoughts on the baddest girl in Prehistory...

« on: August 31, 2011, 10:45:04 pm »

If you go to Ayla's time as soon as it's available and talk to the people there, you find out Ayla found Kino on a mountain when he was a baby and raised him. Chanting/Singing Mountain in the Prerelease was obviously going to be Ayla's post-Crono resurrection sidequest that was canned.

Ayla found Kino as a baby, raised him, then later married him...  I never knew that until now.  I thought she just had some kinda thing for young boys, not some kinda pseudo-incest thing with her adoptive son...
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WifeHusbandry
Even though it's reversing the trope's typical genders, it's still kinda creepy.  I'm honestly not sure how to react to that particular revelation.

Switching rails here... Singing Mountain as Ayla's sidequest... yeah, that would've been awesome.  Wonder what might've occured there, and why they nixed it?

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Chrono / Gameplay Casual Discussion / Re: My thoughts on the baddest girl in Prehistory...

« on: August 29, 2011, 11:58:03 pm »

I think contemporary fandom's indifferent reaction to Ayla stems from the fact that she isn't as well developed as the other main characters in canon. Another thing against her is that she never really gets beat up outside the mechanics of the game.  In short, tragedy never seems to touch her. Average fans view of Ayla is a direct reflection of her limited development as a character as opposed to her ability to dish out huge damage in fights.

Its taken more dedicated fans to explore Ayla's character outside of canon to make her compelling.

Fair enough.  I guess, after seeing the CE walkthroughs and seeing how brilliantly they handled all the various characters getting their "time in the spotlight", I supposed I was kinda riding the high and suddenly seeing the apathy of the fanbase was a bit of a downer.

Ayla has so much potential left unexplored (and like most of the rest of the series, Squeenix's lawyers seem determined to keep it unexplored, but that's a rant for another time), so it's just disappointing to see Magus Fanfic #2375 or Marle Portrait #117 while others like Ayla and Robo and such get left behind...

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Chrono / Gameplay Casual Discussion / Re: My thoughts on the baddest girl in Prehistory...

« on: August 28, 2011, 07:39:53 pm »

At first I couldn't get past the idiotic accent, but eventually she became my favorite CT playable character. Ayla's great. She's got the clearest and arguably best philosophy, she's the best physical fighter, and she pushed the boundaries for what female PCs in RPGs were allowed to do and what contexts they were allowed to do it in.

All around ace tops character.

Exactly.  Which is why the common fandom reaction of dislike at worst and indifference at best so baffles me.  Sure, the Hulk Speak was a bit odd compared to the others, but it fit her time-setting plausibly well - Frog was the only person in the game to talk like a reject from the Royal Shakespearian Theatre Company, and nobody seems to find that strange.

I dunno, maybe they just find her intimidating? I mean, considering that when the party first encounter her, she appears to shove Crono up against the wall and starts dryhumping him...

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Chrono / Gameplay Casual Discussion / Re: My thoughts on the baddest girl in Prehistory...

« on: August 28, 2011, 05:57:56 am »

As for her actual 'character,' I think she's interesting enough, but not exactly one that I'd write home about. I will admit that I've got an idea for a fanfiction between her and Flea, though. It's put off to the side, but only for now.

Do tell, do tell. Flea is my favorite NPC.

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Chrono / Gameplay Casual Discussion / My thoughts on the baddest girl in Prehistory...

« on: August 27, 2011, 11:42:49 pm »

I dunno why folks usually seem to dislike/ignore Ayla so much, if the usual comments in fandom-memes and "favorite character list" things are any clue - even Robo and Frog get more affection than her, who more often than not just gets a "meh, whatever".  I mean, she's a badass fighter, which was rare for female characters in those days, especially in RPGs.  She was to RPG's what Samus was to action games, in a way.

Plus, I mean, how can you not love someone who basically goes "Who needs weapons and magic? Imma beat your ass with my bare freaking hands!"  That takes balls beyond measure, especially when you're facing down monsters, mutants, and a cosmic horror intent on causing the Apocalypse, to say "I'm gonna punch that thing right in the face."

It always threw me, Ayla and Kino being a canonical couple, since judging from their official artwork, she looks to be around twenty, while he barely passes for fourteen or so. Guess the ladies liked boys young back then.  Seeing the two of them side-by-side, if I didn't know about their relationship ahead of time, I would've guess they were siblings, not romantically involved.

Explaining how Ayla has perfectly-smooth skin, shiny white teeth, and a salon-quality perm millions of years before the invention of razors and shampoo, however, is a puzzle I have yet to unravel.

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Kajar Laboratories / Re: Magus costume for Sakuracon

« on: August 25, 2011, 10:41:12 pm »

Zephira, you know I'll want to see the completed product. What? A girl as Magus? You mean Magus was a dude!?

And here we thought Flea was the only gender-mindfuck character in the series...

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General Discussion / Re: Um... where is everything?

« on: August 25, 2011, 09:03:21 pm »

CuteLucca, like many other fans have done over the years, is focusing more on life than on hobbies. Sucks for us, but I wish her luck all the same.

Can't fault that, but she could've at least left a farewell message or something somewhere instead of just abruptly vanishing.  I mean, hell, for a while there, I worried maybe she'd suddenly died or something.

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Other Topics and the Prerelease / Re: I did it! Solo Magus vs. Magus!

« on: August 25, 2011, 08:36:11 pm »

In conclusion, enjoy a shot of Maou with Crono's pallette when I had him fight himself at the cape:

Sorry for the revive, but... ...now I wanna see someone draw Magus with those colors.  From what we can see of the sprite, it looks like it might be interesting.

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Kajar Laboratories / Re: Magus costume for Sakuracon

« on: August 24, 2011, 04:27:09 am »

As a long long time fan of His Royal Darkness, I look forward to this immensely.

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General Discussion / Re: Um... where is everything?

« on: August 24, 2011, 03:59:47 am »

Only a tiny few things were missed, I think. Let me know if there's anything in particular you're searching for; I'll try to jog my memory.

Hmm... fanart, comix, oekaki, and demotivs... yeah, I think this is all of it.  Thanks for being so friendly.

On a sidenote, anyone have any info on CuteLucca?  I know her art's her, I'm just curious why she otherwise seems to have vanished off the face of the web - her site's been dead for ages, her DA's been wiped aside from two thumbnail images... and sniffing around the forums finds me the fact that she did the nigh-unthinkable and sold off her immense and irreplacable CT swag collection, including her ultrarare prerelease ROMs... what's up? Why'd she flee naked into the night?