Editorial: Ladynadiad interview by Campingcam - RetroAchievements/RANews GitHub Wiki
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The following is an interview I had with fellow RA contributor and enthusiast Ladynadiad.
Campingcam - First I would like to open up nice and easy and get a lot of the natch questions out of the way. Please tell us about yourself. Who is Ladynadiad? You can give as much or as little detail or information as you feel comfortable sharing.
ladynadiad - So pretty much I’m one of those older gamers who has been gaming for close to 40 years now. I’m a big fan of RPGs and love the obscure gems the best. 8 and 16-bit systems are definitely the ones I like the best because they strike a nice balance between having a lot of the stuff I enjoy while not being massive or focusing too much on pretty graphics. Plus nice pixel art ages far better than realistic graphics does.
Campingcam - As a gaming focused interview I would feel remiss not to ask: What is your favorite video game of all time?
ladynadiad - Definitely can’t pick just one so I’ll run with my favorite game developer since all my favorites are made by them. Definitely a big fan of Falcom and tend to alternate between whether the Ys series or Legend of Heroes is my favorite.
Campingcam - At the expense of possibly aging yourself here: What was your first video game console that you owned or played extensively?
ladynadiad - You say that like I haven’t already done so. My first gaming system was Apple II. In fact all three sets I made for Apple II were games I played and enjoyed as a kid (and could remember the titles to). Lemonade Stand was actually the first game I remember playing. This was definitely in the 80s and owning a computer was still pretty unusual.
I actually had tons of games for the Apple II. Back then the idea of copying games from others wasn’t exactly frowned upon like it is now. In fact, the local library hosted events where people could give each other software for their Apple IIs. People interested just had to bring their computer, two disk drives, empty floppies and their collection of software. That’s how I had some really obscure stuff like Black Magic and Fix It.
Campingcam - Next is what I call a Pick 3: Pick your 3 most favorite genre of video games but ALSO pick your 3 LEAST favorite and why.
ladynadiad -
Favorite genres: RPG, Visual Novels, Puzzle games
Least favorite genres: Shooters, Sports, Platformers
As far as why? Best thing about games to me is the ability to immerse yourself in a fictional setting. That is done best with a good story, good worldbuilding and interesting characters. RPGs and VNs do that best. Sports games are too realistic and even outside of gaming I don’t care much about sports, to the shock of many. I’m also not much into guns, which confuses many when they find out I live in Texas where most households have multiple guns. Platformers tend to lack in story and frustrate me to no end when I press the jump button and my character fails to jump and I end up falling in some pit. Platformers seem to be made to frustrate and I don’t got patience for that any longer.
Campingcam - What, in your opinion, is the perfect setup for gaming? Comfy chair at your computer desk? Couch and a TV? GBA at the park?
ladynadiad - I got a laptop and tend to use my bed as a desk. Nice and comfy and then I tuck the laptop under the bed when I go to sleep. Overall I just love the flexibility of a laptop even if I don’t travel much because I can move it all over my apartment as needed. Definitely can’t go back to desktops ever since I got a laptop and my nice shiny new gaming laptop can emulate probably any system and play modern games quite well.
I also got a TV nearby I can use for playing on my consoles, but I admit I mostly play PS4 these days via remote play on my Vita because I actually like the smaller screen and the flexibility of a handheld.
Campingcam - What is a series of videogames that you wish they would bring back through either a remake, remaster or new entry?
ladynadiad - Suikoden. Please give us Suikoden VI and progress on the story started in the first game.
Campingcam - What is your favorite OST from a game? Either a single song or an entire soundtrack.
ladynadiad - This is such a hard question because there are so many awesome tracks in games. So I’ll give a few answers here with links to the tracks for some nice ear candy.
Favorite composer: Falcom Sound Team jdk
Favorite OST: Tie between Legend of Heroes Trails in the Sky the 3rd and Ys Seven
Favorite Falcom Track: The Perfect Steel of ZERO
Yep, my Falcom bias is showing, but seriously Falcom games have really awesome soundtracks.
Campingcam - Small curveball question: What is your favorite multiplayer game? Online or local.
ladynadiad - None actually. I am not really a fan of multiplayer and actually really appreciate that requiring it is deemed an unwelcome concept on RA.
Campingcam - What is a game you would most want to have achievements on RA? Any game from any generation or year. Modern or retro.
ladynadiad - Ys VIII and IX. I’d want both equally because they are similar in high quality, but admit it would be fun if IX was done as a huge collab between every dev who has done an Ys set since that would be absolutely perfect for that game with it being a culmination of the whole series’ plot and full of references to all the games. Though sadly I don’t think all us devs who have done Ys sets have actually played that one. Once X is actually localized I’m sure that will be added to the list.
Campingcam - What is your most proud accomplishment on RA? Maybe the most difficult achievement you earned or a game you were most proud to Dev.
ladynadiad - I was actually the first jr dev to claim a PSP game and graduated in one set. My set for Trails in the Sky the 3rd is probably still one of my best sets because that game was so easy to come up with fun and creative challenges with because of the sheer depth of the battle system and how each boss is designed to allow for multiple strategies and setups to work.. That was pretty neat to pull off and it’s still fun to show jr devs that set and make them think they need to make something like that to graduate (they don’t, but it sure helps).
Campingcam - Speaking of Deving, browsing your profile, I see you have been involved in the development of achievements for over 100 different games! What got you interested in Deving?
ladynadiad - Way back in 2014 when the community was much smaller and there was a pretty tight group of us in the site chat, the folks in there talked me into giving it a try and devving a set for Ys V. Didn’t end up finishing the set because I lost interest in the game and got drawn away from the site for a time. Didn’t end up coming back until late 2021 (just after PSP launch). It was actually a hard sell to get me back into it because I felt so much like I sucked at it, but televandalist eventually wore me down and convinced me to give it another try and gave me a lot of help in figuring out how stuff actually worked. Now I’ve taken much off his list of stuff to dev since the two of us have very similar tastes in games and are big Falcom and RPG fans.
Campingcam - What was the most difficult experience you have had developing achievements? Perhaps a specific game was giving you trouble and an achievement was fighting back.
ladynadiad - Shadow Hearts: Covenant hands down. Making that set was constantly fighting that game. I nearly dropped it many times out of sheer frustration. The memory was not great and the game had issues with random freezing upon screen transitions which resulted in me having to replay scenes. MId-development changes happened to the toolkit that made it so you couldn’t even see the full memory addresses and spot errors, which resulted in numerous typos in that set as well. The logic is put together with duct tape and bubblegum pretty much because of how awful the memory was. And then once I finished it turned out the PAL version broke parts of the set and I got actual harassment over unlinking it. It is because of that game that I refuse to do any further PS2 sets.
Campingcam - If you could Dev achievements for any game, what would it be? Again, we are talking about any game from any year.
ladynadiad - Tengai Makyou II: Manji Maru. This one is more I want it to get a translation so I could actually enjoy playing it while making a set rather than following a guide step by step and not understanding the plot and only being able to enjoy the pretty pixel art (Tengai Makyou games have gorgeous pixel art). It’s supposed to be the best game of the series too. I know enough Japanese that with a guide I could probably pull off making a set, but it’s far less fun to do when my reading ability is too poor to get the plot and especially a game that relies so much on things that don’t translate well. The day that gets a translation, I am claiming whatever version of it got the translation immediately.
And as an honorary mention, want to pull off completing a good set for Oriental Blue: Ao no Tengai someday. That game is really good, but is going to be very hard and time consuming to make a good set for because of the non-linear nature of the game and the sheer lack of info about it.
Campingcam - What is an interview without a little negativity? A little drama? Let’s see Ladynadiad’s sassy side. What is your gaming hot take? What gaming opinion do you have that makes everybody in the room point a sword at you?
ladynadiad - I definitely feel like the only one who doesn’t care one bit about Gamecube support. None of the games really interested me and I don’t like Nintendo’s first party games. I also dislike how most of the RPGs are full of stupid gimmicks like card based systems and don’t think Tales of Symphonia is the best Tales of game ever (which definitely makes Tales of fans mad when I say it’s the FF7 of the Tales of series see below for my opinion on that one).
Campingcam - What game do you think is the most overrated? What’s a game where you just don’t get the praise it gets or are tired of hearing about.
ladynadiad - Final Fantasy 7 hands down. Most overrated game to ever exist. Final Fantasy is honestly a mediocre series in general that has just grown worse as graphics improved and 7 is not as great as everyone thinks it is. It was definitely impressive at the time graphically, but everything else beyond the graphics and music was so average and there are so many better RPGs that didn’t sell anywhere near as well.
Campingcam - What is your RA pet peeve? Maybe you always bristle at a speedrun achievement or you hate it when games have missables.
ladynadiad - Users who report issues with achievements on the game wall, achievement comments or forum threads and don’t open a ticket or DM the dev. It’s annoying enough on your own sets, on inactive dev sets that’s just shouting into a void because the chances of a dev seeing it and deciding to address it are slim to none. A lot of complaints about devs not listening come from people not even informing us in a way we’ll for sure see. It’s also frustrating as a player because those comments remain after the issue is resolved and then I wonder is the issue still there? Plus it generally makes the dev look bad which makes it hard to believe it’s not done with malicious intent.
Similar to this is people who don’t even bother to read the posts above theirs that answer their question along with the first post in a forum thread. It’s sad how many times I’ve given useful info in the first post of a game forum only to be asked exactly what I posted there. I even outright give info on how to report issues along with a link to how to request a manual unlock. Never fails that I still get people reporting issues in comments or opening a ticket for network issues. It’s also sad how many times I answer a question for one user and then the next post is another user asking the exact same question and didn’t bother to read the topic to see if their question was already addressed. In general it’s just frustrating how often players just don’t bother reading and keep asking the same questions over and over again when the answers are already out there, sometimes right there in the recent posts or the last page of the thread they posted in.
Campingcam - Let's put gaming aside now. What other hobbies are you interested or involved in?
ladynadiad - I enjoy reading historical romance and fantasy. I also like crafts. I’ve also done some graphic art and am actually really good at coloring black and white art and love coloring manga panels. Can’t draw for the life of me, but I am pretty good at manipulating already created art to make new stuff which is why I actually can make decent badges for my sets. I also used to be into writing fan fiction and doing fandom roleplaying, but kind of fell out of those because of the very toxic communities involved in that stuff.
Campingcam - Finally, what's next for Ladynadiad? What are you most excited for? Could be about anything.
ladynadiad - A little birdie shared what the possible next rollout is and while I’m mum on what system it is, it’s one that I’m excited about if it ends up being true. It’s actually one of the systems I want the most.