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It's become apparent to me that Square-enix (or Squeenix, or Squaresoft, now with 100% more Enix, or Square with the enix-y flavour, or whatever you call it nowadays) have staff members with very crappy jobs. Pity the poor fool who spends hours writing code for a monster that gets killed in three seconds flat. Pray for whichever poor sod it was that had to negotiate the deal between Square 'Nippon Ichi who?' Enix and Coca 'still no proof between us and diabetes' Cola. But the worst job of all has to belong to the guy who designs the weapons.

Imagine the party, where the beautiful young woman has to choose between Batchelor A), the benificent, sensitive half-a-million-pounds-a-year doctor, or Batchelor B) the guy who makes imaginary weapons for fictional people. I think that later on she'll be getting her regular weekly check-up, IF you know what I mean, AND I think you do. Meanwhile, Captain Cadelborg has to go home alone and cry into his copy of Arms and Armour. Sad.

Worse than that though, this poor guy has to see his great suggestions go constantly unchecked. For instance, in the creation of Final Fantasy VII, this probably happened:

Weapon designer (WD): I have a great idea for the main character's weapon. I've developed something brand new; an inverted 'A' shape where the cross bar of the 'A' acts as the handle, the point has tiny claws to intercept enemy weapons and the rear prongs can be used to cut and slash. I call it the Delta.

Chief Executive (CE): Actually, we were thinking we could equip the main character with...a sword.

WD: (heart sinking) Any particular kind of sword?

CE: Yes, one the size of Liverpool, England. Ta very much.

And this probably happened in later projects too.

Final Fantasy VIII:

WD: As usual, I've designed a sword for the main character.

CE: That's good, that's good. But we think that the sword shold have a gun built in.

WD: A GUN?!? But the recoil...and the...weight balance...but why??

CE: Cuz it'd be cool.

Final Fantasy IX:

WD: I'm thinking instead of swords, we should have daggers this time. You know, to have the dagger connection with the Princess. And then, she can like cut her hair with the dagger.

CE: Nice idea there. Um...did you see Star Wars Episode One at all?

(pause)

WD: Do you want me to design a double-ended dagger?

CE: If you could.

Kingdom Hearts:

WD: That's it! This time I've got a gun!! I'm in control! And I want the character to have a key for a weapon!

CE: Hey, I like that! We had this kind of keyhole idea going on. Of course, we were planning to call it a 'swordhole', that the main character sticks his sword into and turns to lock it. But yeah, I guess we could stretch that to be a keyhole.

WD: Uh...okay...

CE: You were talking about a front-door key, right? Cuz those things have sharp edges. I mean it'd be stupid to have a big blocky back-door key as a bladed weapon right? How dumb would that be? We might as well have Goofy using a shield as a weapon! Haw haw!

(Bang)



And so that's why it'd be sucky to have to design weapons, which is why I only ever designed one. Incidentally, the Delta is currently uncopyrighted, but if you do use it and make any money off it, please leave a portion in untracable notes in a Tescos bag behind the bins at Carlingford Court, Bognor Regis. Ta very much.

victoryusagi is a bored writer living in West Sussex. So far, that makes him lower on the desirability scale than 'guy who makes imaginary weapons for fictional people'.