Although each installment of the Final Fantasy series is generally set in a different fictional world with separate storylines, there are several commonalities when it comes to character design, as certain design themes repeat themselves, as well as specific character names and classes. Within the main series, Yoshitaka Amano was the character designer for Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy II, Final Fantasy III, Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI, Tetsuya Nomura was the character designer for Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIII, Yoshitaka Amano created and did the concept art for the characters while Toshiyuki Itahana was the final character designer for Final Fantasy IX, and Akihiko Yoshida was the character designer for Final Fantasy XII.
The series has often featured male characters with slightly effeminate characteristics, as well as female characters with slightly tomboyish, but still feminine, characteristics. This trend has generally increased as the series evolved. These characters are usually teenagers, which some critics have interpreted as an effort on the part of the designers to ensure the players identify with them. At the same time, some female characters have been increasingly designed to wear very revealing outfits. Square Enix has stated that a more rugged looking hero had been considered for Final Fantasy XII but had ultimately been scrapped in favor of Vaan, another effeminate protagonist. The developers cited scenaristic reasons and target demographic considerations to explain their choice. For Final Fantasy XIII, Square Enix settled on a female main character, described as a "female version of Cloud from FFVII." This aspect of Final Fantasy can also be seen in Sora, the protagonist of Kingdom Hearts, a crossover series featuring Final Fantasy and Disney characters.
Ancient is an album by Japanese new age artist, Kitarō, which was released in 2001.
The album was nominated for 44th Grammy Awards New Age Best Album in 2002.
All songs written and composed by Kitaro.
This is a list of characters in the Legacy of Kain series of video games, created and produced by game developers Crystal Dynamics and Silicon Knights. The franchise, which comprises five action-adventure games—Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain (1996), Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver (1999), Soul Reaver 2 (2001), Blood Omen 2 (2002), and Legacy of Kain: Defiance (2003)—takes place in the fantasy land of Nosgoth, and follows the protagonist, Kain, a vampire destined to preserve the balance of the world. He and Raziel, the series' secondary playable character, are supported by a variety of non-player characters and bosses.
Inspired by the literary style of playwright William Shakespeare, Silicon Knights president Denis Dyack and writer Ken McCulloch made an effort to subvert ideas of moral absolutism when conceiving Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain's main cast, feeling that the video game industry lacked a story addressing issues of good and evil, propaganda, and fate. Crystal Dynamics' Amy Hennig, who directed subsequent games, continued this trend in the sequels, aiming to avoid two-dimensional, uncomplicated characters. She felt it ideal to ensure that each one was given depth, flaws and realistic motives corresponding to their belief systems.
A sword is a bladed weapon intended for both cutting and thrusting. The precise definition of the term varies with the historical epoch or the geographical region under consideration. A sword in the most narrow sense consists of a straight blade with two edges and a hilt, but depending on context, the term is also often used to refer to bladed weapons with a single edge (also referred to as a backsword).
Historically, the sword developed in the Bronze Age, evolving from the dagger; the earliest specimens date to ca. 1600 BC. The later Iron Age sword remained fairly short and without a crossguard. The spatha, as it developed in the Late Roman army, became the predecessor of the European sword of the Middle Ages, at first adopted as the Migration period sword, and only in the High Middle Ages, developed into the classical arming sword with crossguard. The word sword continues the Old English, sweord.
The use of a sword is known as swordsmanship or (in an early modern or modern context) as fencing. In the Early Modern period, western sword design diverged into roughly two forms, the thrusting swords and the sabers:
A sword is a cutting and/or thrusting weapon.
Sword, Swords, or The Sword may also refer to:
Sword, in comics, may refer to:
Park West (Irish: Páirc an Iarthair) is a large business campus within greater Ballyfermot, notably Cherry Orchard, Dublin, Ireland, with some residential development.
There are over 300 companies with 10,000 employees.
Located just inside the M50 orbital motorway in west Dublin, the development comprises several million square metres of office and retail space, along with an Aspect hotel, a private hospital, and three apartment complexes.
Park West is in the administration of Dublin City Council, and Dublin postal districts Dublin 10 and Dublin 12, chiefly the latter.
Park West is home to Europe's tallest wind and water mobile sculpture, Wave by Angela Conner. It is a 39.3 metre (129 feet) tall sculpture made of polystyrene covered with layers of carbon resin. It is fixed into a 7.6 metre (25 foot) pit filed with 9.5 tonnes of lead.
The campus is accessible by road (primarily the (New) Nangor Road, as well as Killeen Road and Cloverhill), bus (routes 79A and 151) and rail at the Park West and Cherry Orchard railway station. At a moderate distance to the south is the Kylemore stop on the Luas red line.