Tag Archives: Final Fantasy

C2E2 2016 Photos: Gaming and Animation Costumes!

March 22, 2016 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Final Fantasy VII!

The family that cosplays together: straight out of Final Fantasy VII, it’s Barrett, Vincent Valentine, and li’l Cait Sith peering into your SOUL. My favorite photo of the weekend.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife and I spent two days at the seventh annual Chicago Comics and Entertainment Exposition, where Midwest comics fans in particular and geeks in general gather together in the name of imaginary worlds from print and screen to revel in fiction and touch bases on what’s hot or cool at this moment in pop culture.

In tonight’s photo parade, we focus on artforms made of moving art, interactive or otherwise. I’m not the best guy to ask about anime or XBox games, but I’ve played my share of video games and seen more than a few animated features. The younger cosplayers are great at stumping me, but I love seeing other fans celebrate some familiar faces out there. And as longtime MCC readers may recall, Final Fantasy characters get preferential treatment here, but there’s more where they came from.

Right this way for more heroes and some Saturday morning flashbacks!

Indy Pop Con 2015 Photos, Part 2 of 3: More Costumes!

June 28, 2015 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Vincent + Tifa!

Vincent and Tifa from Final Fantasy VII. Longtime MCC readers know I brake for anyone from FF.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

This weekend the second annual Indy PopCon once again overtook our Indiana Convention Center with a festive mix of comics, gaming, voice actors, established actors, animation, podcasting, and various other manifestations of pop and geek culture in general. This year’s guest list also encroached upon a new entertainment frontier: the rapidly expanding world of YouTube stars. My wife and I had never heard of any of those who were invited, but we were outnumbered several thousand to one in that regard.

We attended Saturday only for a limited time for a number of reasons with a short itinerary and modest expectations, but we took photos as usual for You, the Viewers at Home.

Part One had costumes; Part Two has more costumes. Part Three doesn’t have costumes except as Easter eggs.

Right this way for all the other costumes we caught!

Awesome Con 2014 Photos, Part 2 of 3: More Costumes!

October 5, 2014 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment
Vince Glortho!

Louis Tully, a.k.a. Vince Glortho. Hobbies include Twister, Parcheesi, locking himself out, and warning us how we’ll all perish in flames.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

This weekend my wife and I attended the inaugural Awesome Con Indianapolis, the latest attempt to bring the geek convention life to our fair-sized city. [yadda yadda yadda] The important thing for now is, there were costumes! And photos of same!

Last time: half of our cosplayer photos. This time: the other half of our cosplayer photos. Regrettably, we didn’t attend the Saturday evening costume contest, but we like to think we saw our fair share. Otherwise, the same MCC disclaimers apply as last time.

Right this way for costumes, costumes, and costumes!

Gen Con 2014 Photos, Part 4 of 6: Costumes Around the Show Floor

August 18, 2014 By in Conventions & Events, Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , 4 Comments
Ms. Marvel!

The all-new Ms. Marvel!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife and I attended Gen Con 2014 and took pictures as usual.

Parts One through Three were folks in the Costume Contest. In Parts Four and Five: convention attendees who opted out of competition but availed themselves of the activities and walking space all over the bustling, crowded exhibit hall. More lighting, more time to concentrate, and no dozens of rows of chairs separating us from the cosplayers. Much better results in general.

Right this way for costumes. Yes, MORE of them.

Indy PopCon 2014 Photos #5: Gaming and Anime Costumes!

June 2, 2014 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments

The marathon continues! As promised in our first installment, please enjoy more photos from the first annual Indy PopCon convention. Same guidelines apply: we’re fans, not pros; corrections and comments welcome; hope they’re enjoyable.

Part Five: at last, anime and gaming! This is always the section where I can use the most assistance from You, the Viewers at Home. If you recognize a character I didn’t, please feel free to speak up so that others might learn and possibly discover a new universe to explore. Better still, help this old man become fractionally less ignorant of stuff you like. If some of these are original characters, introductions are always welcome.

Longtime MCC readers are aware of my soft spot for Final Fantasy, so it’s a logical starting point. Behold: Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII plus follow-ups, and Genesis from Crisis Core.

Sephiroth and Genesis!

Right this way for more, more, more!

C2E2 2014 Photos, Part 2 of 4: Costumes on the Show Floor, Not-Comics Division

April 27, 2014 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: photos from the fifth annual C2E2 convention in Chicago. In this installment: more photos from around the exhibit hall and other convention areas, but with fewer super-heroes than last time. If you recognize any of the unlabeled characters, pretty-please-with-sugar-on-top feel free to chime in so proper credit can be given. Thanks very much in advance!

Sharknado costume!

One of my two favorites from this batch: Sharknado!

This way for movies, video games, anime, and so on!

GenCon 2013 Photos, Part 2 of 6: More from the Costume Contest (Game Characters)

August 18, 2013 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 9 Comments

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: we commenced with the first installment of our photo collection from this year’s GenCon Indy. For parts Two and Three we’ll continue spotlighting the annual Costume Contest, but moving on from the winners to the other entrants, a most worthy and crowded field.

Part Two, then: characters from games of all types. Same rules apply as last time, especially the part about correcting me when I’m wrong. if you’d like to set the record straight, I solemnly vow I won’t cry.

As always, Final Fantasy receives preferential treatment here because I’ve actually played most of those. Forthwith: Fang, the dragoon L’Cie who shows up late in FFXIII and makes some of our older party members look sick. Here she’s questing for her lost teammate Hope. Lightning and Vanille also shared the stage, but Fang won our Most Decent Pic Award of that random moment.

Fang the Dragoon!

[orientation fixed in 2019]

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Wizard World Chicago 2013 Photos, Part 1 of 3: Costumes Not from Marvel, DC, or Star Wars

August 11, 2013 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

This past Saturday my wife and I spent quality time together once again at this year’s Wizard World Chicago. Due to multiple complications we had to settle for one-day admission, but we did our best to cover the territory and explore our entertainment options as much as we could within our limitations. We appreciated that the show floor was expanded across two levels to allow for much wider aisles and consequently a lot less congestion and personal-space invasions than we endured in years past.

We kick off our mandatory photo collection with, of course, a selection of costumes. It’s one of my favorite parts of any given convention. I’m frequently impressed by the effort and creativity that fellow fans pour into these lavish recreations, whether they select characters that everyone else is also trying on, or they go obscure and bring to life the characters known only to a few hardcore lucky ones.

The average movie geek knows of King Arthur and his knights, wielding requisite coconuts for accurate horsey clip-clopping sound effects, possibly retrieved from the beak of some nearby swallow.

King Arthur, Monty Python, Wizard World Chicago 2013

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E3 2013: Sony Unveils PlayStation 4 Console, Games, Lack of XBox One Fatal Flaws

June 11, 2013 By in Misc. Media Tags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Andrew House, Sony, PlayStation 4

Andrew House, President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, shows off his company’s amazing new baby.

This week is the Electronic Entertainment Expo (or “E3” for effort conservation), an annual trade fair held in Los Angeles for those in the computer and gaming industries to meet, greet, demo, impress, and preview their upcoming products. Since my gaming bailiwick is fairly narrow, I was only interested in one of the scheduled press conferences: this evening’s 100-minute presentation from Sony Entertainment, at which they finally allowed the new PlayStation 4 console to see the light of day. The largest physical advantage of the PS4’s new, sleeker, less angular design is that now you can stack things on it. This sounds silly, but the PS3 is built like a car’s dashboard and defies all attempts to use it as a temporary shelf.

Though the press conference began twenty minutes late by my watch, some of the news and notes were well worth the wait. The best announcement of the entire conference, as far as our household is concerned, was Square Enix’s assertion (with preview clip!) that the long-procrastinated Kingdom Hearts III is now in development, after years of stalling and inferior handheld offshoots. I’m hoping this is released long before I reach the age of arthritis attacks. The clock is ticking and the calendar is flipping.

Also generating intense enthusiasm here was a trailer for Final Fantasy Versus XIII, which has likewise been in limbo for years. Following it in the lengthy pipeline are the probably spectacular Final Fantasy XV, plus a retooling of FFXIV, which means less to me because the original FFXIV is one of only two main FF installments I never bothered to try.

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