Changes: FOE

Latest revision as of 02:43, 10 October 2017

Happyft-foe — Even in Touhou fandom, FOE!

FOEs are wandering monsters encountered in the Etrian Odyssey series of RPGs for the Nintendo DS and 3DS, they differ from normal enemies in the sense that they are not encountered randomly. In the original Japanese manual, "FOE" is humorously elaborated as meaning "Field-On Enemy"; they appear as glowing orange spheres that, save for the 3DS games, only turn into the monster they represent when the party closes to melee range. The English version elaborates this into the Latin "Formido Oppugnatura Exsequens" (roughly, "ancient and terrible nature warriors"). Continuing the joke, their background music track is entitled "Foedus Obrepit Errabundus" ("the vile, wandering one sneaks up"). It is of note that FOEs are usually on the level of a boss, if not higher, when initially encountered; and that they can enter any battle currently in progress if close enough. Needless to say, it is of the player's best interest to AVOID them, specially if the common monsters are on par with the player's level.

In April 2007, a Flash animation by IOSYS satirized their annoying tendency to pop up at inopportune times during play. It turned them into a popular meme within Japanese imageboard culture. IOSYS depicts the FOE as a literal monster rather than a placeholder: tribble-like orange fuzzballs with the °д° emoticon for a face. This has become the standard way of drawing them, although the nature of black and white doujinshi means white is a common alternate color. It also bears a considerable resemblance to the common fan depiction of kedama, a PCB Stage 4 enemy, which may have been the start of their association with Touhou.

IOSYS's reputation for producing Touhou music and animations has led to FOEs appearing occasionally in Touhou doujinshi and fan art as well. The IOSYS Flash also makes references to "Help me, ERINNNNNN!!", "Marisa Stole the Precious Thing" and Let's Go! Onmyouji.

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 [[Image:happyft-foe.jpg | thumb | right | Even in Touhou fandom, FOE!]]
-'''FOEs''' are wandering monsters/minibosses encountered in the [[wikipedia:Etrian Odyssey|''Etrian Odyssey'']] series of RPGs for the Nintendo DS.  In the original Japanese manual, "FOE" was said to stand for "Field-On Enemy", but according to the English version, it means "Formido Oppugnatura Exsequens" (Latin for "nature's ancient and terrible warriors").  Their background music track is entitled "Foedus Obrepit Errabundus" ("the vile, wandering one sneaks up"), which is an additional source of confusion.
+'''FOEs''' are wandering monsters encountered in the [[wikipedia:Etrian Odyssey|''Etrian Odyssey'']] series of RPGs for the Nintendo DS and 3DS, they differ from normal enemies in the sense that they are not encountered randomly. In the original Japanese manual, "FOE" is humorously elaborated as meaning "Field-On Enemy"; they appear as glowing orange spheres that, save for the 3DS games, only turn into the monster they represent when the party closes to melee range. The English version elaborates this into the Latin  "Formido Oppugnatura Exsequens" (roughly, "ancient and terrible nature warriors"). Continuing the joke, their background music track is entitled "Foedus Obrepit Errabundus" ("the vile, wandering one sneaks up"). It is of note that FOEs are usually on the level of a boss, if not higher, when initially encountered; and that they can enter any battle currently in progress if close enough. Needless to say, it is of the player's best interest to AVOID them, specially if the common monsters are on par with the player's level.
-In April 2007, a Flash animation by [[IOSYS]] satirizing FOEs turned them into a popular meme within Japanese imageboard culture.  FOEs in the Etrian Odyssey games appear as glowing orange spheres that only turn into the monster they represent when the party closes to melee range.  For this reason, IOSYS depicts FOEs as orange fuzzballs with the °д° emoticon for a face, and this has become the standard way of drawing them.
+In April 2007, a Flash animation by [[IOSYS]] satirized their annoying tendency to pop up at inopportune times during play. It turned them into a popular meme within Japanese imageboard culture. IOSYS depicts the FOE as a literal monster rather than a placeholder: [http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Tribble tribble]-like orange fuzzballs with the °д° emoticon for a face.  This has become the standard way of drawing them, although the nature of black and white doujinshi means white is a common alternate color. It also bears a considerable resemblance to the common fan depiction of [[kedama]], a PCB Stage 4 enemy, which may have been the start of their association with Touhou.
-Note that FOEs are not directly associated with Touhou, but IOSYS's reputation for producing Touhou music and animations has led to FOEs often appearing unexpectedly in Touhou doujinshi and fan art as well.  The IOSYS Flash also makes references to [[Lyrics: Help me, ERINNNNNN!!|"Help me, ERINNNNNN!!"]] and [[Lyrics: 魔理沙は大変なものを盗んでいきました|"Marisa Stole the Precious Thing"]].
+IOSYS's reputation for producing Touhou music and animations has led to FOEs appearing occasionally in Touhou doujinshi and fan art as well.  The IOSYS Flash also makes references to [[Lyrics: Help me, ERINNNNNN!!|"Help me, ERINNNNNN!!"]], [[Lyrics: 魔理沙は大変なものを盗んでいきました|"Marisa Stole the Precious Thing"]] and Let's Go! Onmyouji.
 ==External Links==
+*[http://etrian.wikia.com/wiki/FOE FOE on the Etrian Odyssey Wiki]
 *[http://iosys.cc/mp3/IOSYS_foe.swf The original FOE Flash by IOSYS]
-*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM5MMqNgUzM Subtitled version on YouTube]
+*[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB_PVPyn6n8 Subtitled version on YouTube (the subtitles no longer show, however)]
+*[http://dagobah.net/flash/IOSYS_foe_translated.swf A translated version of the flash]
 [[Category:Fanon and Memes]]