The sector seven plate was dropped as a desperate act to crush a dissenting voice ShinRa could not control. While it was an act of retribution, it was also an act of censorship and of control by intimidation- it was to serve as a warning so that no one else would attempt the act again.

SOPA and PIPA, the proposed Internet Security acts currently in the US congress, also seek the ability to control the flow of information, to be able to control and censor the information online, and this could be extremely problematic for website reliant on information that originates from other sources, including and especially this one.

Even in the reduced forms, these bills are dangerous and set a terrible precedent as far as free speech rights are concerned.

There is, however, a shiny golden wire of hope. Many sites, including Wikipedia, Google, Boingboing, and countless blogs, are going dark today as a form of protest against these bills, to demonstrate the terrible repercussions the ability to censor the internet would have. Many sites are urging their readers to contact their own congress members and urge them to vote against the bill.

We urge you to do the same. This bill would not just affect this site, it would affect us all, both here in the US and with possible aftereffects abroad as well.

So, The Lifestream stands with the Blackout and Against SOPA and PIPA, for a free and uncensored internet.

We just hope you stand with us all too.

Site translator hitoshura has been kind enough to provide us with a chapter-by-chapter summary of the newest official FFVII novel. Released on December 15th, the book was written by Kazushige Nojima, writer of the original FFVII, as well as Crisis Core, Advent Children and the On the Way to a Smile novellas. As such, The Kids Are Alright is an authentic entry in the world of Final Fantasy VII.

Sadly, however, it had no official release outside of Japan. So, while you could still import it if you lived elsewhere, you novel, FINAL FANTASY VII Lateral Biography TURKS -The Kids Are Alright-. Released on December 15th, the book was written by wouldn’t be able to read it without some knowledge of the Japanese language.

Were the contents of this newest tale in Cloud Strife’s world, then, to be kept from us indefinitely? Blessedly, no. TheLifestream.net’s hitoshura has already stepped forward to provide his fellow fans with a rundown of the book’s main events.

This is to tide us over until he is able to provide a complete translation of the 354-page novel — an endeavour that is already under way, so be sure to check back in the future for updates about that.

What you’ll also find in this article: scans I’ve made of all the book’s artwork (illustrations by Shou Tajima), and my translation of a page from the beginning of the book that introduces several of the characters featured in the story. Additional thanks go to hito, by the way, for correcting me on a word I had mistranslated on that page.

So, if you’re ready to get caught up on the latest events in this world we all love, click upon “Read the rest of this entry” below.

Read the rest of this entry »

UPDATE: All done, we’re now on a 1 GHz virtual PC with a fat internet pipe. Will do some more tweaks and optimizations to increase speed and decrease server load even more; keep an eye out on this thread.

We have experienced some downtime on the forums some time ago, in part due to peaked activity, in part due to shitty vB plugins, in part due to a restrictive webhost that blocks databases at times of peak activity. With that in mind, we decided to go forth and move to a new, better host – again.

This time around, we will be moving from a shared hosting account on Hostgator to a ‘virtual private server’ hosted by Leaseweb. The benefits of the latter are pretty big: A ‘dedicated’ machine, so no database blocks anymore, full control over the system (SSH / commandline control, w00t), and a lot more flexibility in what kind of software we can use.

The plan is:

* Close the forums for new replies at 3 PM my time – that’s 2 PM GMT and about… 9 AM eastern time? Something like that.
* Request a full backup from the host. This may take a few hours, depending on Hostgator support.
* Move the backup to the new server. This’ll take about as long as it takes to transfer a ~5 GB backup file – probably about an hour and a half to two hours, but it depends.
* Unpack and setup the backup. This should only take a few minutes
* Change some settings
* Test stuff
* Switch the domain name over to the new server. I set it so it should only take a few minutes for the DNS change to take effect, but results may vary.
* With luck, the whole move will take about three hours. But that’s with luck, so no guarantees, might take longer.

While we’re moving, feel free to head over to awesome sites like FFOF, SO, or goatse.cx.

Alternatively, join the TLS IRC at irc.ipocalypse.net, channel #tls.

Tis the season, whatever you believe, to get together with family and friends, and we at TLS would like to wish our readers the best.

So, whatever your belief or lack thereof, have a pleasant end of year holiday and may you have a happy new year, and remember, Aerith died on Christmas day, but Hojo’s death rang in new hope for the new year.

PS- If you’re playing FF7 again for the Christmas season and new year, though we can’t actually be 100% sure on what day each event happens, you should definitely have finished disc 1 by now and you’ve only got a week to finish all of disc 2. So keep on plugging away at the game, folks.

Today’s music arrangement spotlight features another character theme. This is a ‘debut’ song by YouTube user naomiCENSOREDv2. It is a fan-vocal cover of Yuffie’s Theme by Nobuo Uematsu.

She wrote the lyrics, arranged the arrangement, performed, and recorded the entire song herself. The lyrics specifically cover Yuffie’s character development throughout the Compilation, and they do an excellent job of capturing the core essence of her character. The lyrics can be found on the YouTube version of this song. If you like it, be sure to drop by her page to leave a comment to show your support and check out her other songs!

Without further ado, we present Descendant of Shinobi, and as always you can right-click to save the MP3.

Hello and welcome to the third in our continuing Final Fantasy Music spotlight feature.

Today, we’re back to something more specific to Final Fantasy Seven, Cid’s theme.

This particular arrangement is by SongLeReveur, who you can follow on facebook if you like his work.

Here, we’ll let the artist speak for his own work, where he says “Before I get any comment about the sound/mix/instrument playing: YES it’s supposed to sound like that. I decided to use some dirty and imperfect takes, with guitar out of tune (well, the vibrato bar helps) and bongos sometime out of rythm. It fits better with Cid’s character, I think.”

Without further ado, sit down and drink your goddamn tea for four minutes forty seconds as you enjoy the song.
You can listen to the song via the streampad application, by clicking here, or right clicking to save the MP3.

The Let’s Play commentary continues.
This time Jocalyn, who last participated in Part 27, makes a comeback. Newcomer is Shademp, author of the Unused Text Series, who lends his Swedish accent for some Scandinavian hijinks. Veterans Ryushikaze and Pixel return, joined by Tennyo from Part 45 and onward.

Enjoy as we explore a Mayan pyramid, enter a sleeping forest via a village of bones, then solemnly end disc 1 with a tragic visit to a city made out of dried up coral reefs and giant sea shells.

Read the rest of this entry »

As many of you may have noticed, TLS’s main site and forums have been going up and down a lot over the last several days. We’ve contacted our host and made some optimizations to the server, which should hopefully keep things up and running properly. We’re also looking into the possibility of dedicated hosting options to ensure that any future site outages are as brief as possible (pronounced: hopefully won’t happen at all).

Overall, thanks for bearing with us during the downtime, and we’re working hard to keep things running smoothly for all of our loyal fans.

Welcome back to the LP. Pixel’s quickly rushing to the end of the first disc, and while we’re not there yet, we’re getting close, so come join us as Pixel has a side trip over to the ethnically confused Wutai, goes on a date with a lucky lady (or possibly a massive man), grabs a final limit break, and gets ready to do some archeology.

More, as always, after the break.

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to the second installment of the music arrangement spotlight feature.

This week, we’re looking at the foundation of all Final Fantasy music, The Prelude. Largely unchanged at its core from its first appearance in 1986, the theme has nevertheless seen numerous arrangements, both official and unofficial, that take this simple rise and fall of notes and slightly change it, using a different cadence, changing the instrument playing the notes, or adding new musical elements to transform the simple song into something new and unexpected without ever being unrecognizable.

Today’s arrangement of The Prelude comes from the 20th Anniversary A Tribute to Game -Sounds for Music- CD Album released in 1998 to commemorate 20 years of video game music from Space Invaders to Final Fantasy.

This particular arrangement was created by Masaru Shimabukuro, who performed the Guitar and Bass for the song, and Hajime Mizoguchi, who performed the Cello segment. The song is much shorter than our previous installment, at a ‘mere’ 4 minutes and 55 seconds, and can be listened to or downloaded using the link below, or the streampad application at the bottom of the page. Once again, if you have any suggestions for future installments for music spotlights, don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments or on the forum.

Enjoy the song, and remember, this is the prelude. We’re only getting warmed up.
Click here to listen to the song (or right click to save the mp3)

What is it that makes Final Fantasy VII such an endearing title in the hearts of its fans? Is childhood nostalgia the strongest force at play here, or is FFVII a genuinely great game?

With this retrospective, “The Final Fantasy VII Letters”, written by two practiced video game commentators, Leigh Alexander and Kirk Hamilton, they attempt to answer this bearing question.

The contrast of Leigh Alexander being a long-time FFVII fan and Kirk Hamilton doing his very first playthrough of the game during their reflective letter correspondence, sets the stage for a nigh-to scientific venture into analysing just what it is that makes FFVII such an immersive experience.

The retrospective was published on pastemagazine.com and became ten entries in total, running from March 15th to May 6th, 2011. The game’s events and themes are presented pretty much in the order as the iconic Final Fantasy title itself presents them.

Begin the journey here. Warning, the sheer eloquence and professionalism found in these letters may blow the reader away. Leigh Alexander and Kirk Hamilton are well-versed in commenting video games and its industry as a whole. Follow the links provided in the letters to see more of their work.

This is the first installment where we look to bring some attention to some of the many remixes of Final Fantasy VII music that you may not be familiar with. The first song we’ve decided to feature is one that fits the theme of our site particularly well: The Lifestream Overture. This arrangement was created by OCRemixer, Reuben Kee.

Running at 18 mins and 26 seconds, The Lifestream Overture flows through most of the familiar Final Fantasy VII songs in a beautiful rendition of the classic tunes of the game. It provides a unique feel of passing through many of the different emotions and locations throughout the world of Gaia, much like the flow of the Lifestream through the Planet itself. You can listen to the song via download located below, or by using the streampad banner at the bottom of the page. Also, feel free to drop a comment, and let us know if you have any suggestions for a future Music Arrangement Spotlight!

In closing, we also wanted to this post to serve as a memorial for the song’s creator- Reuben Kee, who passed away four years ago today, at the incredibly young age of 23. I can think of no better way to honor the memory of this talented individual than to enjoy the music arrangement he created, named after the ever-flowing cycle of life.

Click to listen to ‘The Lifestream Overture’ (right click to Save As)