1995 Nintendo of America letters about SquareSoft

Over the past few months, I have been going through my basement clearing out old boxes of things kept from my childhood home. I recently came across an envelope that just said “Nintendo” on it. Being an avid retro gamer, my curiosity got the best of me. When I opened the envelope, I found several responses from Nintendo of America to letters that I had obviously written them as a kid.

Out of the letters, my favourite one was from 19 July 1995 where a representative addressed my questions about the possibility of new Final Fantasy games (Final Fantasy IV is, to this day, the most special game to me). The part that makes this particular letter from Nintendo really cool, though, is that the representative, Jonathan, told me about some other games that Square Soft (nowadays, Square-Enix) had in store, including one of their most well-respected games:

The representative even stated that some of these projects “may actually surpass Final Fantasy III” (which was the name of Final Fantasy VI when released in the west).

This letter magically transported me back to better times; times when getting a response from Nintendo of America was undoubtedly the single best thing a kid like me could hope for. I didn’t have to worry about making the mortgage payment, completing those two competing massive projects at work before their respective deadlines, or counting calories to make sure I stayed fit. What I had was the sheer excitement and beguiling anticipation of new JRPGs heading my way.

1995 Nintendo of America letter about SquareSoft, Final Fantasy, and Chrono Trigger
1995 Nintendo of America letter about SquareSoft, Final Fantasy, and Chrono Trigger

If clicking the image for the full version doesn’t work for you, here’s a PDF copy of the letter (~1.5 MiB). 🙂

Cheers,
Nathan Zachary

Mednafen emulator save files when switching discs in multi-disc games

Throughout my adult life, I have always favoured the “retro” video games that I enjoyed during my childhood over newer releases. Nearing the end of my peak gaming interest (in my early adolescence), the original Sony PlayStation hit the markets. With it came multi-disc games where we had to switch discs at one or more points during gameplay.

I hadn’t really given this topic much thought since then, but recently I started playing some of my original PlayStation games on my computer via an emulator (in my case, Mednafen). When it came time to switch to the second disk, the emulator no longer recognised my save file from the first disc; meaning I couldn’t continue the game.

Had I followed the Mednafen documentation for Multi-CD Games, this wouldn’t have been a problem as I would have created an M3U playlist file for the discs. Unfortunately, I hadn’t even considered this potential issue when I started playing the game. Thankfully though, I devised a workaround that allowed me to continue with disc 2 instead of having to start over completely.

Though my explanation below focuses on the PlayStation game Final Fantasy VII using the Medafen emulator within a Linux environment, the process can be generalised to other games, other emulators (e.g. ePSXe or RetroArch), and other Operating Systems (e.g. Windows or Mac OSX).

The overarching problem is that the save files for disc 1 will not be recognised by the emulator as being applicable for any subsequent discs. So, the basic process to fix the problem is:

  • Before loading disc 2 (or later discs) in the emulator for the first time, go to the emulator’s directory for save files and make note of what is present for the game
  • Load disc 2 and use the in-game method for loading your saved game (they should all be empty)
  • Go to the emulator’s save directory again and make note of the placeholder save files for disc 2
  • Copy the contents of the save file entries for disc 1 to the name used for the save files for disc 2

Those steps might seem a bit convoluted, but I think the following example from my computer using Final Fantasy VII will make them clearer. As I played through disc 1 of the game, the only save files related to it were specific to disc 1:

$ ls ~/.mednafen/sav/ | grep VII
Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 1).27d95a6d7ef361c24909f0a5fdf72d11.0.mcr
Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 1).27d95a6d7ef361c24909f0a5fdf72d11.1.mcr

At the end of disc 1, I saved my game (as instructed), but when I loaded disc 2 for the first time, all of the save slots were empty. Thereafter, I noticed that there were new save files present:

$ ls ~/.mednafen/sav/ | grep VII
Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 1).27d95a6d7ef361c24909f0a5fdf72d11.0.mcr
Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 1).27d95a6d7ef361c24909f0a5fdf72d11.1.mcr
Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 2).7b24ee44b5b1f29f85d9e7e79a2b53d7.0.mcr
Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 2).7b24ee44b5b1f29f85d9e7e79a2b53d7.1.mcr

and that the new ones were specific to disc 2, but they didn’t have any of my previous save data in them. At this point, it’s important to recognise the different parts of the filename structure:

Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 1).27d95a6d7ef361c24909f0a5fdf72d11.0.mcr
Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 1).27d95a6d7ef361c24909f0a5fdf72d11.1.mcr
Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 2).7b24ee44b5b1f29f85d9e7e79a2b53d7.0.mcr
Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 2).7b24ee44b5b1f29f85d9e7e79a2b53d7.1.mcr

  • The red portion is the name of the game (and needs to match the .bin and .cue filenames, including the disc number)
  • The purple portion is the hash for the particular save, and will be randomly generated at initial load
  • The orange portion of 0 or 1 indicates separate save files (possibly because Playstation has two memory card slots)
  • The blue portion is the file extension MCR, which is short for ‘Memory Card’ (taken from the ePSXe emulator)

For the final step of the process outlined above, it is necessary to copy the contents of the two save files for disc 1 into the two save files for disc 2, whilst keeping the filenames for disc 2 as they are. The way I accomplished this task in Linux was to copy the .0.mcr for disc 1 to the name of .0.mcr for disc 2, and then repeat that process for .1.mcr:

~/.mednafen/sav $ cp -v Final\ Fantasy\ VII\ \(USA\)\ \(Disc\ 1\).27d95a6d7ef361c24909f0a5fdf72d11.0.mcr Final\ Fantasy\ VII\ \(USA\)\ \(Disc\ 2\).7b24ee44b5b1f29f85d9e7e79a2b53d7.0.mcr 
'Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 1).27d95a6d7ef361c24909f0a5fdf72d11.0.mcr' -> 'Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 2).7b24ee44b5b1f29f85d9e7e79a2b53d7.0.mcr'

~/.mednafen/sav $ cp -v Final\ Fantasy\ VII\ \(USA\)\ \(Disc\ 1\).27d95a6d7ef361c24909f0a5fdf72d11.1.mcr Final\ Fantasy\ VII\ \(USA\)\ \(Disc\ 2\).7b24ee44b5b1f29f85d9e7e79a2b53d7.1.mcr 
'Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 1).27d95a6d7ef361c24909f0a5fdf72d11.1.mcr' -> 'Final Fantasy VII (USA) (Disc 2).7b24ee44b5b1f29f85d9e7e79a2b53d7.1.mcr'

However one chooses to go about this, the goal is the same—to copy the MCR files from disc one over the MCR files for disc 2. The important part is to keep the name of the MCR files for disc 2 the same (including the hash). This will allow the emulator to use them for disc 2.

Using a GUI application (like Windows File Explorer or Mac OSX Finder), it could be done by making a copy of the disc 1 MCR file and then copying the full name of the disc 2 MCR file to use as the new name. There are certainly other methods of accomplishing the task, but the key is having the contents of the disc 1 MCR in the file named accordingly for disc 2 .

I hope that this information is helpful, but if I’m able to provide any further clarification, please just ask in the comments.

Cheers,

Nathan Zachary

The downloading and use of game emulators is legal, but downloading and playing ISO or ROM files is illegal. As such, make sure to use your own backups of games that you personally own in order to avoid any potential legal repercussions in certain countries.

Lukas Dhont’s Close – Film and Blu-ray review

Introduction

Director Lukas Dhont’s Close is simply one of the most powerful films that I have seen, not just recently, but ever. Before getting into my thoughts about the film itself, I’ll cover some of the technical aspects of the Blu-ray release by UK-based label Mubi. I have provided many of the details on the Blu-ray.com page for the film, but will go into a more subjective review of them here. If you’re not interested in the technical aspects, feel free to skip to my review of the film itself at the end of the post.

Close - Leo and Remi riding bicycles

Blu-ray details

Video Quality

The BD50 disc is encoded as MPEG-4 AVC with an average bitrate of 31.80 Mbps in 1080p with a resolution of 1.66:1.

I captured all of the screenshots in this post directly from the Blu-ray, without any modifications except to crop the black bars from the sides (down from 1920×1080 to 1800×1080). Click them to see the full-resolution.

Overall the video quality is outstanding throughout, and fine detail is excellent. The colour palette is expansive and vibrant, yet natural with only a couple notable exceptions. Firstly, some interior scenes have a yellowish cast to them. They tend to be scenes with natural light coming into an otherwise dimly-lit room, but the cast is not distracting. Rather, I believe it was likely an intentional choice to intensify the warmth of the scene. Secondly, many exterior scenes are shot in direct sunlight, resulting in some highlight clipping and, less often, washed out colours. As said, these are very minor nit-picks that certainly do not detract from the outstanding video quality on this Blu-ray release.

Close - Eden Dambrine - Leo picking flowers

Audio Quality

This release features 4 French audio tracks (DTS-HD lossless in both 5.1 surround and 2-channel, as well as lossy DTS), and 1 English audio track (lossy Dolby Digital 2-channel). I used the DTS-HD lossless 5.1 surround French audio track for my review, and found it to be centre-channel driven resulting in dialogue that’s consistently crisp and clear. The use of surround is subtle but very effective in adding nuance, especially to outdoor nature scenes where birds chirping can be heard to the left and right of the viewer. The surround was also successful in creating an encompassing sound stage in sequences with periphery elements, such as school scenes or during LĂ©o’s hockey games.

Close - Leo's hockey practice

Extras

Mubi’s Blu-ray release comes with 2 on-disc extra features, and 1 physical extra:

Both of the Q&A sessions are wonderful supplements worth watching, as they give additional insights into the writers’ perspectives on the film. The art cards are beautiful screen captures, but given their size ratio (1.26:1), they are cropped down from the original video format (1.66:1) which results in some of the scene being omitted.

Close - Leo and Remi resting at school

Additional Blu-ray Notes

This release by Mubi is locked to Region B, which is mainly EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa), but also includes Australia, New Zealand, and some other territories. That means that playing the disc outside of those regions will require a region-free standalone Blu-ray player or alternative method of video playback such as extraction.

The subtitles are in PGS (Presentation Graphic Stream) format, which is fairly standard for Blu-ray releases. However, since they are graphic-based instead of directly text-based, application playback enhancements (e.g. changing font size or weight) will not be available as they would be with SRT subtitles.

Film Review

Now that I’ve covered the technical merits of the Blu-ray release, I will share my thoughts regarding the film itself (no spoilers, but I will reference some particular scenes and dialogue).

Close focuses on two 13-year-old boy protagonists—Léo (played by Eden Dambrine) and Rémi (played by Gustav De Waele) —who, judging by their interactions on-screen, have been best friends most of their lives. After a schoolmate questions their relationship, Léo begins to distance himself more and more from Rémi, despite both boys missing what they once had. When a chain of events dramatically exacerbates this rift, the fragility of love becomes devastatingly apparent.

Close - Leo and Remi laughing

Though the premise of the film may be simple and undemanding, the execution of that premise is anything but. There are those films that one understands in the mind, and there are those that one understands in the heart. Close is exceedingly rare in that it gratifies both.

From the opening sequence illuminating the playful innocence of childhood, to the tenderness of LĂ©o’s impromptu story to RĂ©mi at a sleepover, to the connection between people who are hurting, the film eloquently portrays the myriad facets of human emotion. Further, the character development—especially of the two leads—is astonishing, in that I felt like I knew them and was a part of their world. Additionally, the juxtaposition between the boys’ affection for one another and their confusion spurred by the ignorance of others forces the viewer to relive the peaks and valleys of growing up.

There are two scenes that stand out to me as perfectly capturing the blissful aura of love. The first is the aforementioned sequence where LĂ©o makes up a story to help RĂ©mi fall asleep:

Imagine… you’re a very small duckling. You just came out of your shell. You’ve just opened your eyes for the very first time. All the ducks are yellow. And so are you… but you’re much more beautiful than the others. You’re special.

Close - Leo and Remi sleeping

The other is RĂ©mi’s oboe concert, which LĂ©o attends in order to show support for his friend. At the start of the scene, RĂ©mi is looking at his sheet music for the performance, and he’s visibly nervous. That is, until he looks up and realises that LĂ©o is there. Though this isn’t a pivotal scene in terms of plot progression, I find it to be incredibly important for two reasons: 1) it thwarts an element of societal gender normativity by showing that boys also need to feel supported; and 2) that the affirmation of a caring smile is all that it takes to completely quell someone’s anxiety and fears.

Close - Remi's oboe concert

Close - Remi's oboe concert - Leo smiling

To elaborate on the first of these two points, many gender ideologies define a divergent set of “appropriate” emotional needs and responses for girls as opposed to boys. Some examples of these differing standards are the notion that “boys don’t cry” or that the need for physical affection as a form of support is warranted for girls, but boys who exhibit this need are somehow weak, effeminate, and inferior. This disparity is such a common theme throughout the film, that LĂ©o even refutes his classmates who question his relationship with RĂ©mi by pointing out that two girls can be close without it being suspect.

Of equal significance is the second point that a smile or other simple gesture of care has a radical impact. All too often, people go about their business paying little regard to the opportunities they have to improve another’s day. It takes nothing more than a quick smile to shift someone’s bad day into a good one simply by showing them that someone outside of “their world” has taken notice. It costs nothing to the giver and yet can mean everything to the receiver.

Conclusion

Given the recent societal politicisation of personal identity issues such as gender roles, sexual orientation, and LGBTQ+ rights, Lukas Dhont’s Close is aptly timed. Whether LĂ©o and RĂ©mi’s relationship is a childhood friendship, a deep yet platonic love for one another, or would have developed into something more, the overarching message is that we as people need to show one another understanding, empathy, compassion, and love in every plausible situation. I’m reminded of Ralph Waldo Emerson who said “You cannot do kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late“. Our lives and the experiences we have are fragile and ephemeral. Though some of them fade prematurely—and those voids can be the sources of great pain—we can and should hold onto the memories, for those memories are mirrors that can reflect what’s behind us even whilst we try desperately to move forward.

Close - Leo looking at the car window into the rearview mirror

Perfect 10/10:
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Personal reflection

I have been fortunate enough to see many wonderful films throughout my life thus far, and a select few of them have remained pertinent to me and my life. Never, though, have I had one speak to me remotely as much as Close. Even having watched it countless times now, the message, the impact, the beauty… they all resonate profoundly and deeply within me. It has caused me to reflect on my past experiences and how they have shaped the person that I am today; and to come to terms with who that person is—the goodness that I can offer others; the areas for growth and improvement; and the pain of recognising my immense shortcomings, flaws, and ashamedly ignoble nature.

I can only hope that one day I may have the honour of thanking Lukas Dhont in person for his work and this beautiful microcosm of humanism that resulted. Thank you so very much.