Interludium

Decided to do a quick browse of Persona 3 english fen just to see if - in true fashion - it'd hate me yet again. It does.

So... am I the only one who thinks P3 main character is most seme? D:

And while I'm talking about P3, was there ever an "official" name released for the main character? I named my hero Suou Shura, because I am unoriginal like that, what.


In other news, World of Warcraft has finally spat my soul back out. There is only so much dailies you can take before you get sick and tired of doing them just for the gold when you no longer have anything to use your gold for. I mostly only log on for raids these days, as well as special events, like the Brewfest Festival this month. And so, I will regal you with a screencap of the best Brewfest quest there is. Getting rid of pink elephants, which you can only see when you're dead drunk.


The screen is fuzzy because I had to be drunk to see the elephants, I had the effects turned off (because looking for a tiny rabbit while dead drunk and having a fuzzy screen hurts your head), but I turned it back on to take the screencap. I was no longer in a drunken stupor when I took the cap, otherwise the screen would be fuzzier.

And the things one does when bored. Elyrianna (selfaro's paladin) was running my lowbie mage through ZF and on our way out we aggroed every damned mob remaining in the instance.


click to view
The Witchhunt addon was spamming like crazy, (the big yellow text on top) so it covered the huge line of mobs that was in front of me and running after Ely. It was rather funny to see. And excuse the messy UI, my UI is set up for my warlock (my main) who has a ton more skills at her disposal than a level 46 mage. Hence all the empty space at the bottom.

(I should really remember to go back and change my voice set next time I'm at HQ.)

♠ I did a search in google for my name to see what incriminating things people would stumble upon if they ever decided to search for it, and I happened upon really old ML archives, like the Pinoy Otaku Fanfiction Mailing List. Aaah! Those were the days. It was amusing to read posts from people I did not know back then and whom I've now known for years. kitsune_jade cugami (oh back in the days when you were using michiru) balatstar slaves team7 charlesatan, and a lot of other people that I'm no longer in touch with. This archive dates all the way back to 2000! It's almost embarassing to read. :D Man, I don't even want to dig through the POML or the PYML, I bet it'd be even more embarassing.

♠ Anyway, back to my initial dilemma that led me to this abomination of the past. I promised a cousin I'd share a bunch of stuff with him, except it's a bit too big to send via email, so I need to upload it to the web. I don't particularly want my cousin to trace my activities online (he knows I like yaoi, but he's younger than me and I'm trying to be a proper older cousin here that's trying very hard to keep from corrupting her younger cousin. He's asked me a number of times to see my yaoi manga, and I'm like just.. NO. My field of corruption has its limits.)

Back to the point, would anyone know of a free redirect service that hides even the URL while you're downloading stuff? It would be kind of useless for me to mask my main URL, when he'd find out my domain anyway once he downloads the files. I realize I'm being overly cautious, but well, I do like to keep some things in my life separate, this being one of them.

♠ So I finally got around to watching Advent Children, because I really needed HDD space. The moment I fangirled over the most? When Marlene hides under Vincent's cape. So cute. :D It's really just one huge, very pretty "canon fanfic" (gotta love how SquareEnix forces oxymorons on you), isn't it? Also watched the movies AonE released from the Dirge of Cerberus game. It was fun enough to watch, but I ask, wtf is up with that last scene after the credits with Gackt? =///// *is so disturbed!*

♠ Finished Suikoden V a few days ago. As luck would have it, my tv's picture tube gave out just as I was in the final dungeon. So I had to move rooms just to finish the game. I pretty much rushed through the last leg without bothering to level/fix equipment, since I just wanted to see the ending. The last dungeon was a bit of a pain to get through because of it, but at least I finished it. XD Though now without my tv, my gaming hours have been cut back considerably. Redoing the last leg to level characters up some more (I haven't played with everyone yet!), and to make more potch for new game+.

( minor ending spoilers )

Random commentary. Just as disjointed as the previous one, these were written as I went along my game.

( Spoilers right up to the recapture of Doraat, and your little visit to Yashuna Village afterwards. )

Forced to gameblog because I have nobody to fangirl this over with. *gnaws Mich for only getting her PS2 back now* And I have not fangirled this much while playing a game in so long. Konami has made up for GenSui III & IV a hundred fold with V. And I'm not even one of those people that disliked the previous two games, I just did not have overwhelming love for either (though I am one of the few who wanted to kill Luc in III. I'm still not sure why people like him in it. I liked him better in the first and second game). I can't really compare to I and II, since it's been years since I played both games, but I've not loved a Suikoden hero since McDohl. In fact, I'd go so far to say I like the prince better. ♥ McDohl gets + points in the way fond memories make your love eternal.

Did I mention I have a shameless schoolgirl crush on the prince? And this is the only game wherein I was even remotely envious of a videogame character BECAUSE. *__* And then I kind of laughed my head off silly a few moments later because I actually went "Waah! So JEALOUS!" at my tv screen while fangirling like whoa.

Also, IF YOU HAVEN'T PLAYED THIS GAME YET WHY HAVEN'T YOU?!~ omg. *shoots you all to play it*

Random, disjointed reactions all the way up to the Queen's Campaign. I have not gone beyond that, so no spoilers please. I'm currently trading before heading over to Sauronix Castle.

( !!! )

Ignore the subject. I just happen to be at that part on my current Fatal Frame 3 game. The line stuck.

1. Look at what I found. I was following a link for Eyeshield 21 plushies and then I saw that Alvis figure on the shops' front page instead. *_* It is different from the Al figure that was included on the limited edition boxset. But what is really making me want to cry is their Digital Devil Saga 6 figure set. Look at how nice they look. And of the demons! ♥ *covets* I would love to get it, except I really can't afford to spend on figures right now so I woe.

2. More Hero Heel on the December 2005 BexBoy issue. This makes me ridiculously happy, as of the very few BL titles I've liked enough to follow as of late, my BL sentai raburabu is right there on top with male pregnancy crack BL aka Sex Pistols. Oh, and everyone should go and buy all 26 volumes of Komatta Toki niwa Hoshi ni Kike! by Abe Miyuki. (I will now make it a point to say this every time I mention BL manga on my lj, as I have been meaning for over a year now to pimp this to my flist but I am always too lazy to write up a proper post.)

3. GIP my killer bunny icon, because once upon a time, Silent Hill was my favorite survival horror series. And SH3 (difficult puzzle mode) is still my favorite when it comes to game puzzles that will hurt your brain. Seriously, what other game requires you to be familiar with Shakespeare's plays?

Aaand brief gamepost. :P

Fatal Frame 3: Finished my first playthrough, currently on my second at the moment to fully power up the cameras and to familiarize myself even more with the game so I can breeze through nightmare mode (I have to play through hard mode anyway before nightmare unlocks). I can appreciate it more now that I can understand it. XD I can be very obsessive about unlocking new features and costumes for the Fatal Frame games, so I suspect I'll continue to play this well into the new year.

I can also officially say that it's much more fun to play these things with friends the first time around. First time playing of Fatal Frame 2 was still the best one yet. I end up being more relaxed when I'm playing on my own, so FF3 didn't hold as much of a scare factor for me, as compared to being really tense when I'm playing it along with friends. I'm weird like that.

Rhapsodia: Loving it very much. I've not played an SRPG in a while and Suikoden Tactics' battle system is simple enough that it's an easy reintroduction to the genre. As much as I like Kyril, its winning point for me is definitely the returning characters from SuikoIV. As disappointed as I was with some aspects of the game, I did like a lot of the characters in it, so it's great to see some of them return in Rhapsodia. Also, HeroIV (who I shall start referring to with the 'unofficial' official name for him as Lazlo) gains a much needed personality. I only wish I didn't have to dig for treasure so much though. I hate missing items, so I end up treasure hunting through the entire map 75% of the time.

Magna Carta: Well it's eyecandy I'll give it that, but the biggest thing it has going for it (for me at least) is its evil evil battle system. I'm in love already. With the battle system, not the game. <3 It is being ignored currently however while I play both Rhapsodia and Fatal Frame 3. Strangely enough, it will have the longest section written for it here, because I wrote impressions on it as a reply to someone on the forums so I'm copy/pasting.

( Spoiler-free. Mostly talk about the battle system. )

Link:
Fatal Frame 1 & 2 played in nightmare mode, finished within an hour and a half with an S/SS ranking. This was fun to watch. XD

I am behind on news but GRANDIA III FOR IMPORT. There is a god. <3 There's another game to add to the list of things that will eat up my time in the future. As you can most likely guess from the fact that I am (gasp!) posting in LJ, I haven't gotten my hands on FF3 or Rhapsodia yet.

Watched the Harry Potter movie last night with Eks. I wasn't really planning to watch it until at least 2 weeks after opening, but Eks wanted to see it and I haven't seen her in ages, so I ended up watching it on opening night. I barely remember the 4th book, which I suppose might be a good thing as I couldn't really compare. My biggest gripe is not being treated to more dragons. The Weasley twins steal the show and my sister's boyfriend insists that Harry is gay. So tell me something we don't know.

Has anyone else been watching the Extra Challenge episodes as of late? The one in Egypt? Wow. It's like, Richard Gomez x Joey Marquez vibes! Richard is more concerned over Joey who is on the opposing team than in his female partner. He tells Joey to be careful. He helps him up when he slips. He helps him out of the go cart... "I was really worried about Joey!" Uh-huh.

Gameblog:
Digital Devil Saga Avatar Tuner 2
Status: finished
Since I did all the fangirling over this game with Mich and Ari I don't really have anything left to say about it here. I really did rush through this game because I had a 'finish before Mich leaves for China' deadline. *slaps her* I'm planning to replay it again and to take the time to fight the optional bosses, but that won't be anytime soon.

Radiata Stories
Status: finished + optional dungeon + alternate path
Played. Started over. Finished. Optional dungeon. Replayed. Done. My first playthrough was scrapped 40 hours in because I discovered I'd missed being able to recruit all the charactersfor the human path by missing a few missions. So I did it all over again, this time correctly, which I don't really regret, because I personally think Radiata's lasting charm is in the characters you recruit and the headache of recruiting them (I kid you not), because the story isn't exactly the game's strong point.

You know the best part about the characters in this game? HEALERS THAT CAN KICK ASS. Seriously, Olacion Order had more useful characters (attack-wise) than any of the other guilds. You'd think that Theater Vancoor at least, being the warrior guild would have more useful characters. *counts*

Olacion: Fernando, Godwin, Kain, Miranda, Vitas, Alvin
Vancoor: Elwen (but she can seriously take anyone else in this game on), Gerald, Caesar, Alicia

Though I didn't really take the time to try all the characters, so I could be missing others.

Random impressions on characters and spoilers for the human / non-human paths.

Characters:
( Human characters )
( Non-human )

Story:
( Human path )
( Faery path )

Overall, I repeat that most of my enjoyment came from recruiting characters and switching between to see what each could do. I'll probably play through the optional dungeon a few times with different parties just to get a feel of the other characters that I have yet to play.

I've been a bit more conscientious about reading LJ, if not in posting. Though I'm still radically behind in comms, at least I'm reasonably caught up with personal journals.

Art link dropping.
♥ Heat and Serph by cugami
♥ Rabi and Allen by tongari

Gaming update because that's all I really have to talk about. I haven't gameblogged in a while, so this pretty much spans the past 2 months of gaming, but with more focus on the latest games I've picked up/tried/finished.

Digital Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner 2 [ english | japanese ]
Status: ongoing (final dungeon)
Last week was spent alternately screaming at cugami on AIM and screaming with her while playing. That is to say, the wench forced me to STOP PLAYING everytime there was a cutscene with Heat (and Heat and Serph!) until she could come over the next day so we could wibble through it together. Will try to finish this within the week, I didn't bother with optional bosses, as I'd wanted to replay DDS1 first before tackling DDS2, but I kept prolonging it so I was forced to play it without a proper clear save data from DDS1. But at least I have Heat in my party! (Yey!) Though this doesn't do me much good, as I never really used Heat at the final dungeon (though I did use him at the final boss) and I doubt I'll get to use him much this time around either. Haha. But the scene where Roland pushes Heat towards the others. Priceless. <3 Heat is the King of Dorks.

I'm surprised at how short the second game is though. I'm only 25 hours in, though I suspect the final dungeon will be hours and hours of learning the mantras I need to keep the final boss from kicking my arse. I'll spend a longer time playing it once I replay DDS1.

Genji: Dawn of the Samurai [ site ]
Status: finished
This game was relatively short and incredibly easy. It took me 11 hours to clear (others will probably be able to clear it faster) and the final boss took me one attempt to kill. What it is is great eyecandy and a fancy hack and slash game. It is addicting though, I started playing it because I wasn't feeling up to tackling the last DDSAT2 dungeon and ended up finishing it overnight. The hardest part I found in the game was trying to defeat all the bosses without using an item (I am an item hoarder alright, I normally end up with waaaay too many items at the end of every game I play). So it's a fun game, but don't expect much from it challenge-wise and storywise. Starting a new game with a clear game data allows you to choose normal/difficult or continue mode. The kamui system is fun, not only does it make your fights easy, but watching Yoshitsune perform the counters is great eyecandy. It can be horribly frustrating when you keep missing it during a boss fight though, as a miss means the enemy hits you and inflicts a crapload of damage. Though that's not much of a problem once you figure out the timing.

Radiata Stories [ english | japanese ]
Status: ongoing (early stages)
This game's battle system hates me! Aah, but the cuteness factor! I love Jack. Heck, I love the characters. The interaction, the dialogue, the fact that you KICK THINGS TO GET ITEMS. ♥ You can kick people too. Repeatedly. I haven't really played too far into it. I only played it during the times I had to stop playing DDS2. I am hoping that I get used to the battle system soon. It's not very difficult, but I get hit more times than I care for because the 'dodge' doesn't work too well if you don't time your hits and your dodge right. My biggest gripe with it is that you can't change target lock-on manually (or you can and I haven't figured out how to do so).

Kingdom Hearts [ site ]
Status: finished
Shuddup. Yes, it took me this long to finish this game. ;_; I picked it up again when news came out for the December release in Japan. I was very near the ending, so it didn't really take me that long. I was planning on defeating Sepiroth (I've not done so as of this writing), but after about the 9th kill I gave up and just went and finished the game. The nice thing about setting up for finishing the Hades Cup and taking on the Ice Titan and Sepiroth is that you're so powered up by then that the final boss is a walk in the park. I was level 77 by the time I fought the final boss. I was spoiled for the ending a long time ago, so I really just finished it for the sake of finishing the game. Since it doesn't have a clear game data, it seems it wouldn't have mattered if I had.

Shadow Hearts: Covenant [ english | japanese ]
Status: finished
Joachim is the best thing that ever happened to this game like wow! Never has one character made me laugh so hard and traumatized me so bad all at the same time. And god, the Man Festival? *was dead* Also, the extra footage on the Japanese release of Joachim, Lucia and Anastasia dancing was just... words cannot describe. Man, if I were Keith, I'd worry about having an older brother like that too. XDD The story was kind of bleh, but everything else was just mad fun. The highpoint of the game is the judgement ring battle system and the fact that there is never a boring moment with such an interesting and amusing cast of characters. I adore Yuri. One of the handful of videogame main characters that I can honestly say I like a lot. I almost pitied the Spirit Ring, if I hadn't been so amused by their interaction. I loved figuring out and completing the Solomon's Key map. I probably looked forward to those more than anything else in the game. XD Not too fond of the endings (both of them), but in the end, it's the getting there that makes this game a whole lot of fun and very worth the time spent to play.

Samurai Legend Musashi
Status: finished
If I had needed to play this game longer than the 25 hours it took to complete I'd probably be very pissed off. As it is, the short gametime nearly compensates for the kind of lackluster game that this turned out to be. I won't even go into the story (what story?) because that in itself is so poorly put together. The gameplay isn't half as bad but isn't really anything spectacular. I've been known for finishing a game for sheer fascination of the battle system (Legend of Dragoon anyone? But at least that had a decent story to back it up and a more interesting cast of characters), or just because I want to know what happens in the end. I finished this game for the sole reason that I'd started it, so I might as well finish it. Bad voice acting, useless plot, mediocre gameplay and a more than forgettable soundtrack. The only good thing I can say about it is that I found Musashi's attitude more amusing than annoying.


I hardly played any of the following games, if at all, I just watched Em play.

OZ [site]
Status: sampled (waiting for english release)
The game doesn't seem to disappoint. I am unclear about the Wizard of Oz references and whether it's vital to the plot, if at all. The battle system promises to be hours of frustration making sure you perfect your timing so that you can execute combos and specials. You can throw your enemies between party members to do more damage, fill up your gauge, gain more experience and 'money' (I forget the term they have for it). It's great fun when you actually get it right. XD TOTO IS THE BEST (*points at my icon*). ♥ I want so badly to make icons out of him, because his character images in the game are the best, but taking a picture of my tv screen doesn't make for great icon quality. I like the characters so far, but again, can't really say much about it yet. I did like the soundtrack for it though. Will try to upload a few songs from it when I get the chance and will talk about the game more once it's released stateside.

Rhapsodia [site]
Status: sampled (waiting for english release)
Ahahaha! Snowe and Hero4 (his name wasn't mentioned in the beginning...?) as cute little kids. Man, Snowe had an inferiority complex even back then huh? His reaction when whatshisname commented on Hero4 wielding twin blades. So jealous! I think I recall Maiki mentioning before that she got Snowe and Hero4 in her party, so I'm assuming you get to see them all grown up later on once you're controlling Kyril. I am really looking forward to seeing him with more of a personality than what he had in SuikoIV. Also, much amusement at seeing Sigurd get so mad at Hervey. XDDD <3 <3 Hervey: Hey pretty boy! Sigurd: Get your ass over here and let's settle this! (That's a gross mistranslation, but I find it more amusing. :P)

I like the little glimpses you get on some of the cast from Suiko4. Also, this is so much more enjoyable. I love that they've returned the skill system from Suikoden 3, as it's one of my favorite features from the Suiko3 battle system. Definitely on my list of games to play once the english release hits the stores. My only woe is that I will probably get my hands on it at the same time I get Fatal Frame 3. Which to play first! WOE.

+ Fatal Frame 3 & Drag-On Dragoon 2, but I'm lazy. I'll talk about those once I play the english release. BUT I CRIED SO BAD IN DRAG-ON DRAGOON 2! CAIMCAIMCAIM. ;_; And Fatal Frame 3 ending made me cry too.

This post brought to you by the fact that I'm supposed to be writing SerphHeat ficcage and I am procrastinating like hell.

Yes. I post only to pimp, but this is to be expected of me.

I demand that anyone with a sense of humor go here now and sign up:
http://www.kingdomofloathing.com/

I recall ririkit pimping this to me before, but that was when I'd just started MUDding, so my account got deleted for inactivity soon after. But I play now, thanks to a bit of successful nagging from lecheflan, so now I pimp.

The Disco Bandit boogies to and fro, hither and yon. Whence comes she? No man knows. Whither strikes she next? All men live in fear of her and her Moxie. The description for the disco bandit was too good to pass up. The 'avatar' for your character doesn't change when you wear equipment, that is just a very badly edited version of me slapping on my gear to the stick figure avi. Yes, that's a frilly skirt. She clubbers her opponents with her Gnollish flyswatter and that is a pail on her head to ward off enemy blows, as well as to butt heads with persistent Knobs. The hat is my Hovering Sombrero familiar, thusly named Tacochip. The game insisted on calling all my familiars (I only have 2 so far) Grog. Grog the Mosquito. Grog the Hovering Sombrero. So I had to rename the Sombrero.

Pros:
♠ The crack. It entertains immensely. You swallow the bottle of pills. Your weapon shimmers briefly and becomes engorged.You acquire an effect: Engorged Weapon <-- best game effect ever.
♠ Limited number of adventures per day. This is one of the things I love most about it. It makes the game addicting, but the limitation means you have no choice and won't be spending countless hours in a day playing it.
♠ Have I mentioned the crack?

Cons:
♠ Limited number of adventures per day. T_T Yes. We all know when I get addicted to something, I get addicted.

Now go hither and play! It won't require more than an hour or two of your time at the most.

Current pimp count: 6

RL stuff:
(Yea, I talk about boring RL tidbits more now because I have no interest in fandom currently.)
01. Ruined two routers in the span of 1 minute. I mistakenly plugged in the power source for the modem into the routers. >.> Never fixing cables again when half-asleep. Not only that, the brand spanking new Linksys router we got to replace it has the most hateful relationship with PLDT's DSL servers. I had the crappiest connection for the two weeks that I had it. Running on a D-Link now (thanks to silverhakai for the tip-off that PLDT and Linksys don't mix) and it's working just swell.

02. RL friends will be familiar with my tendency to misplace my cellphone. They are prone to receiving SMS messages going, "Oh look! I found my phone finally," a good day or two after they've sent me their message. Misplaced it again last week, but found it again a few hours later inside our refrigerator. I swear I don't know how I ended up leaving it there. Thankfully I have a habit of opening the fridge even when I have no plans of getting anything everytime I go down to get a glass of water (which is every few hours).

Phone messed up that evening and I couldn't send/receive text messages for a while. Was kind of going "Oh no!" already, because the last thing I needed was to have ruined something else again right after the routers by yet another stupid mistake. Thankfully leaving the battery out overnight seems to have fixed the problem.

03. And uhm.. a general hello to my flist? I'm sorry, I don't even bother to visit LJ anymore save for my feeds filter (it gives me my daily Bucky fix), so if anyone needed something and I have ignored, it's because I have been very neglectful of anything LJ related. Over 1 month of LJ comments backlog included. Anyway I'll just spilled water all over myself wtf get to those comments one of these days. Yea.

EDIT: Backlog complete! So alright, I deleted most of it, but some of them didn't really need a reply, especially one that was this late.

The digicam is perpetually by my side whenever I'm playing, because I take a lot of pics. So I'm going to start gameblogging like hell so I can start deleting files from my pc. Besides, I have nothing else to talk about. I don't talk about RL. I don't follow fandom. I'd rather be playing than watching anime these days (other than a very exceptional few). So that's exactly what I've been doing.

Recently finished:
[x] SMT: Digital Devil Saga
[x] Demento

Just bought:
[x] Arc the Lad: End of Darkness
[x] Lego Star Wars

[Gratitious Loki shot] from Valkyrie Profile (PS1), as I never got very far in the game but embai has been playing it and she showed me this scene last weekend. Loki is and always will be, my favorite Norse god. Tarantado siya eh. ;P

Drag-On Dragoon 2 makes me want to buy the original game. I know I wanted to buy it before, but whenever I saw it in the shops it was always after I'd bought about five other games I wanted more, so I never got around to getting it. I still like it if purely for the smirk on Caim on the original game trailer that came out. The sequel takes place eighteen years later, and sucker that I am for game sequels like that, time to get the first game before the second one comes out in english.

Oh, EGM had this to say about Digital Devil Saga: "A cutting edge, modern RPG... DDS is a great Final Fantasy alternative." OMFG WHAT!? Alternative?! *hisssnarlclawbite* I'm not a Final Fantasy fan. I really like certain games in the FF franchise (Tactics, FF4, FF7), but GRR. Most Megaten games just win hands down in my book compared to any FF game that's ever come out (yes, including Tactics, which is my favorite out of them all). It's just a personal peeve to have it compared to Final Fantasy. =/

And now, for the Demento game blog that really isn't. embai played through most of the game. She navigates through everything, and I just play during boss fights (save for the final boss, which she fought, and the omfg HARDEST BOSS OF THE GAME, which kitsune_jade (who is not even a gamer, fyi) defeated in normal mode without breaking a sweat, and which embai and I double teamed in hard mode). Great setup. ;D

( Demento mini-review and game impressions. )

( Fiona vs the Statue of Even Greater Doom. FIGHTO! )

( Random game caps featuring Fiona the Leaping Frog and Hewie the Stuffed Dog Wonder. )

Will do a DDS gameblog next. Hopefully.

1 » asungot: Takahashi Naozumi week at seiyuu! Wow. I'll actually be leeching things from the comm now! Couldn't have come at a better time as I lost all my Takahashi mp3s with the reformat. (Well, not really, but I currently can't recover them -plus 11gbs worth of various other music - from my sister's pc.)


2 » Permanent account rabu. <3 Took out the image cause it was so out of place it was annoying my OC. (Almost) four years after I was practically forced into getting a livejournal by friends, I now shamelessly showoff the fact that I have been suckered. I know three other people on my flist was planning to get a perm account. Come on! I want to know I'm not the only one stupid enough who got a perm account.

Since I had a paid account previously, all my paid time has been transferred to daeas. Hun, make use of it to put up your sparkly pink Wolfram layout. :P For those who got a perm and need (want) to transfer their paid time as well you can do so [here].

Also as an FYI, 100 icons will be available for paid users eventually, if this is the main reason you're getting a perm account, then it probably won't be worth it. I got one mostly because I hate having to renew my paid time and the $150 was worth it just for that. Even if I weep in a corner now and will have to delay buying an external drive.


3 » Finally got around to buying new games last weekend.

So, new game acquisitions:
[x] Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana
[x] Demento (english title: Haunting Ground)
[x] Dynasty Warriors 5
[x] SMT: Digital Devil Saga (FINALLY. FINALLY! ♥)
[x] Shining Tears
[x] Stella Deus: The Gate of Eternity
[x] Tekken 5

Have started playing all of them, as I always play at least 30 minutes into every new game I get to decide which I want to play first. DDS no questions asked, but I'm surprisingly liking Atelier Iris a lot. Also, the main character is voiced by Hoshi Souichiro. Now I've been really bad at recognizing seiyuu as of late, so I checked the official site, and it says that Arline was voiced by Hoshi, but playing the game I could swear he voices Klein so... -_- It's confirmed. I suck at recognizing Hoshi. ;P Thanks to kaoru_kamiya22 for confirming that Hoshi does indeed, voice Arline. His voice is so deep. *_* He sounds like Hoshi to me sometimes, but it's lower than I'm used to I just boggle. ( Atelier Iris impressions. )


4 » MMORPGs have been tempting me to play them ever since they started coming out years ago. The over abundance of it now just gives you way too many to choose from and very little to actually hold your attention. At least, if you have the attention span of a magpie like I do. So, there's rarely ever been an MMORPG I've liked enough to actually want to try, save for the likes of Lineage 2. [And this one.]

Though it's almost absurd to be watching girls in dresses running around fighting huge monsters that not only do they have no business fighting, also have no business being in that particular setting. It's 17th Century England meets The Spores from Hell. The female mage classes are complete h0s, wtf. I like the male scout, and the musketeer. I am personally expecting the game to be bad, but I can be swayed to try it because of the pretties.

!#%@$%&%@!!!! THEY SHOULD WARN YOU WHEN THERE IS AN UBER EXTRA HARD DIFFICULT YOU'RE-SO-GOING-TO-GET-YOUR-SORRY-ASS-KICKED-YOU-IDIOT! KIND OF BOSS UP AHEAD! THAT WAY YOU DON'T LOSE THREE HOURS OF LEVELING UP IN ONE NASTY SWIPE OF THE BOSS' UBER HUGE PHALLIC SYMBOL MIGHTY WEAPON OF DOOM!! notice my lack of grammar. i don't care.

Grr.

Wtf was that anyway? The final boss?! Checked Gamefaqs to see WHY MY PARTY HAD TO BE KILLED SO SUDDENLY, and that was indeed, the final boss. My playtime clocks in at only 24 hours. That's a really short game. >.<

( Why one should always save after an hour or more of leveling. )

Behold my new [userinfo banner], which I demand you look at, because I love that panel from the Gintama manga. ♥

So I reformatted my PC on friday, I didn't actually finish formatting until today. In the span of which I must have reformatted my PC about 5-6 times because there was always something wrong with installation. If not my registry it was my connection being refused by my browsers. It's fixed now, though to keep this up it seems I'll have to keep from running windows update and downloading/installing whatever it is that seems to be mucking up my connection. I'm behind two firewalls, have an anti-virus and three spyware utilities installed though. So hopefully that will keep away whatever risk not installing the XP security packs would entail.

To anyone who's finished Devil May Cry 3 on the flist. Has anyone actually managed to defeat the 100 enemies before the end credits finish? I want to see extra Vergil cutscene. =/ Anyone know if there's a clip of this available somewhere? (Btw Mich, I obviously lied on my last comment. :P) Because you know, the next time I have embai, kitsune_jade and cugami over, I don't want people screaming "HURRY UP!" and "DON'T STOP!" and "KILL THEM!" at me. This naturally causes a stream of curses while I'm trying to both kill the enemies and telling them to shut the f**k up. Lol. I always finish at 99. I would try my luck at it more but having to defeat Vergil over and over again isn't exactly child's play. But with that said, Vergil/Dante! Best DMC game ever (I wonder why). ;P

Dynasty Warriors 4
Have been playing more of DW4 (after having let it rot), mostly because the hack and slash was very therapeutic by the time my third PC reformat came about. I actually managed to finish most of Shu's musou mode campaigns that first day of reformatting (killkillkill!). That said, the Wu side is always my favorite campaign to play, mostly because Sun Jian, Sun Ce and Sun Shang Xiang are always fun to have around in the same campaign. (But I have favorites in Wei and Shu, so I like playing all the kingdoms. <3)

I play Shang Xiang for Wu and having Sun Jian (her father) going, "Let's go get them, tomboy!" amuses me silly. And Sun Ce's comments range from "Not too shabby!" to "That's my little sister for you!" which I just adore, because I love this family. :P

I would play DW5, but I haven't had the chance to go to the mall and buy it since it came out. And my DW4 Empires keeps hanging. >.< *borrows Mich's copy* Also, the art for the DW5 artbook is so much better. ♥ Must post some of those one of these days.

Still replaying first disc of Xenosaga 2, so I have nothing new to say about this game.

Let's start with Devil May Cry 3. This game is everything that DMC2 was not. NOT BORING! (DMC2 was really really boring I couldn't bring myself to finish it.) And it has Vergil.

DMC1 was fun. It had Vergil.
DMC2 was not good at all. It did not have Vergil.
DMC3 is fun so far. It has Vergil.

Am I sensing a pattern here? I like the fact that you can choose to go back to past missions on the load screen. Which means I can show Vergil to people who come over without having to replay the game. (Like I did with Xenosaga II just to show the verybrief Chaos and Canaan moment. *sob*)

Things that amused Arc very much (maybe too much):
1. If you see a dance pole, use it. Dante is all but happy to oblige, except it only works while he's fighting enemies.
2. If you see an enemy down, jump on it! Dante uses it as a skateboard. ♥
3. Dante is a complete badass dork. A very sexy one.

Also, Cerberus is beatable without upgrading weapons or styles, or without using a vital star to heal. A recent thread on dmc_yaoi has people talking about how hard this game is, specifically how difficult it's been to defeat Cerberus, which completely baffled me. 3 hours on 3 missions? o.O I went and took a look at my saved game (w/c was just at the beginning of mission 4) and I clocked in at 1 hour, 17 minutes. A lot of which was spent playing on the dance pole and monster!skating. And would you believe trying to get those orbs high up on that one building? I couldn't manage to jump to it for the longest time for a while there. >.>

Granted I did die twice before I finally got to beat him, but I wanted to do so without using the one and only vital star on me. I am too cheap to buy more. You can take out 3/4s of Cerberus' life in one combo run if you know how to do it. Now, the last 1/4th is a bit harder, but the dodge skill is your friend. He gives you a really nifty weapon in return for handing him his heads.


Ys: The Ark of Naphishtim (IS MUCH HARDER THAN DMC3~!)
I like the game, more than I expected to when I decided to pick it up on impulse. The style sort of reminds me of BL games, except not. Just in the way the character pic sometimes shows up on screen when they're talking, [like so]. I like that the gameplay is pretty fast-paced. You don't have a party, so it's just you fighting the enemies, which means no loading screens every battle. You fight them as you see them on screen, which gives them the perfect chance to gang up on you.

Now, the fighting itself isn't as hard as say... the jumping. omg the jumping is !@#$@#%^@!!! I once spent an entire hour in one room trying to get to two measly chests! Now see, I suck at all these jumping things, so people who are better at it may have better luck and not be as annoyed with it as I am. I tense up during these jumps the same way people tense up during a boss fight.

I SPEND MORE TIME TRYING TO GET TO TREASURE CHESTS THAN I DO IN BOSS FIGHTS!

The Pros:
1. It gives you the chance to play the game with the Japanese voices before you start new game. You cannot change this once you start, so you must enter the code for it before you start a new game. I would recommend doing this (I found this out by accident when I linked to the Ys site on a previous post) because every time you talk to a person in town it includes audio.

2. While being far from linear, the game makes it very easy for you to figure out if you're in the correct area or not. If you DIE then you're in the wrong area buddy (when your hits are doing 0 damage). So you won't have to fret whether you're going in the right direction.

3. The pretty art. The fast-paced gameplay. The fact that it gives you a generous amount of information about all the NPCs around you as you speak to people in the town. Everyone has a distinct personality to them; it's hard not to feel drawn to a character even when he's just someone who's sitting at the local tavern, because they all have a backstory to them which you learn as you speak to people. This must be one of the games wherein I actually enjoy speaking with everyone. I make rounds after every event.

The Cons:
1. CHESTS. JUMPING. CHESTS.

2. I'm sure there are other cons, but the chests and the jumping beat them all out.

My must buy game when it comes out: Lego Star Wars

Games I've bought in the past 2 weeks:
[x] .hack//infection
[x] .hack//mutation
[x] .hack//outbreak
[x] .hack//quarantine
[x] Onimusha 3
[x] Devil May Cry 3
[x] Xenosaga 2
[x] Ys: The Ark of Napishtim

Games I've finished this month:
[x] Suikoden IV

Currently playing:
Suikoden IV (replaying, new game+)
Xenosaga 2
Devil May Cry 3
Ys: The Ark of Napishtim

As you can see, my acquisition is to completion ratio is rather poor. I don't know why I keep buying these games. I seem to successfully delude myself each and every time that I have the time to finish all of these, not counting the unplayed games currently collecting dust on my bookshelf.

I was so tempted to get Tekken 5, but I don't spend a lot of time playing fighting games, so I stopped myself from buying it... for the meantime. Too many games, so little time. ;_;

Edit: The fact that you can play Ys with Japanese voices and with English text has me playing this game already. Just 30 minutes into the game and only exploring the first village, so have nothing to say about it yet.

;_; Lyric translations to the Oshitari and Gakuto duet NOW. PLEASE. It is a horrible horrible song. Not after you've listened to it five times. I am hoping for some utterly cracktastic lyrics, but even if it wasn't I don't care cause it's OSHITARI AND GAKUTO.


Also, to everyone who's played Suikoden IV, does anyone understand how Mao and Nao's mushrooms and mint actually work? I didn't bother with this much during my first playthrough because I kept ending up with gloomy mints and mysterious mushrooms that only worsened my status, but since I swore I'd do everything during new game + (like defeat that mouse mini-game in large-slippery!) I actually spent about a full hour in that cultivation room alone. And...

( Behold the bouncing minis. The mushrooms completely outnumbered me! )

The little mushroom and mint armies pwn3d me. This never happened during my first game, and after a whole hour of growing mushrooms and mint, this only showed up ONCE. I was growing mint at the time, and the mushrooms slaughtered me and my mint. =/ I was not able to take a pic of the little mushroom and mint angels rising up to heaven though, as I was too busy being much amused by it.

This is further proof that those bastards over at Konami are evil. They probably figured that nobody in their right mind would bother learning how to grow those stupid plants correctly, as defeating the game is easy enough without them as long as you know what you're doing (and possible even if you don't). So they had to think up a way that would make people want to bother, so they return us to the old (and much loved) Suikoden-esque strategy battle system and kills us with the cute. Complete with deadly mushrooms and mint with halos.

By gods I will defeat those mushrooms I will! And then I will switch sides and slaughter them mint! *cackle*

... despite the fact that she's no longer playing MUD.

Currently playing:
Suikoden 4
Xenosaga 2
Star Ocean 'Til the End of Time (optional dungeons)

Ongoing but put on hold
Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne
Silent Hill 3
Wild Arms 3

Just finished:
Xenosaga 1

I actually started on Xenosaga 1 right after finishing Star Ocean 3 (yea, it's taken me this long to get around to playing it), if only because with Xenosaga 2 just around the corner, I needed to finish the first game fast. So, game babble ahead (spoilers will be behind the cut):

-= Xenosaga 1 & 2 =-
Strangely enough, chaos ended up being my favorite character. I dislike angel motifs, something which is made very clear with chaos. Nearly every single tech attack he has had wings/feathers floating around, and the names (angel blow, heaven's wrath, angel wings..?). I adore him anyway, and is probably the only character aside from KOS-MOS who I had in my party nearly the whole time from beginning to end.

Personality-wise, Jr. should have been my favorite character, doubled by the fact that he uses guns, so my love for chaos confuses the hell out of me. Also, Gaignun is love, and was very happy to see more of him in Xenosaga 2. (Overshadowed by my gibbering shamelessly over chaos, of course.)

I've been told a lot that Xenosaga was a big disappointment, especially compared to Xenogears, and that the long cutscenes were dragging and boring. Expecting all this was probably one of the reasons I ended up liking the game as much as I did. For one, I pretty much knew I was going to sit down and watch a lot of cutscenes, so I made sure I was ready for them whenever I decided to play.

Now, Xenosaga 2's new battle system makes me happy. The zone break addition especially, makes me giddy whenever I kill a boss in one zone break round. >D Now, I can go on for some time about the new battle system, but I won't, since I doubt people would be as interested in reading that. I just think it's a vast improvement from the more simple one from the first game. Also, the fact that gear fights are now separate is something to look forward to. I never fought using my A.G.W.S. in the first game, cause I saw no reason to (and it was boring).

I've only finished disc 1, and haven't had to fight with the gear (save for the tutorial in the beginning), so I'm not yet familiar with its battle system, but just the fact that it has one (more reminiscent of Xenogears now) makes me happy.

Oh, and the GS campaign is a vast improvement from the annoying e-mails in the first game. At least the GS campaign is more interactive, and can actually be fun to do if you're not in a rush to finish the game.

( Xenosaga 2 babble. spoilers for disc 1. I wibble. I talk fangirl yaoi. I am shameless. ;P )


-= Suikoden 4 =-
Not much to say here. I've only reached Middleport for the first time (yes I know, I was playing Xenosaga more than Suiko4. shame.), so I don't really have anything more than initial reactions to the game. The battle system disappoints, especially after coming from Xenosaga 2, which I've already said I loved. It's back to old school Suikoden style fighting though, so I'm not so much complaining as I am just disappointed since the battle system's learning curve is very simple. (I like battle systems, I like learning them.)

The one thing I will gripe about though, is the four member maximum in your party instead of the usual six. (Unless if the game is pulling my leg and you can in fact, put in six people in your party later on in the game.) The only reason I don't like this is because it means I'll have to swap out members even more to level all the characters than I would have if there had been six slots open.

Also, I'm not... very fond of the hero, or of Snowe for that matter. So I need to find the rest of my stars, and fast.


-= Star Ocean 'Til the End of Time =-
It's so much better than Star Ocean 2! Hahaha~! *relief* If only because I liked the characters here much better. I'm not too keen on the story, but the gameplay all but makes up for it. The extensive use of item creation kept me satisfied for hours on end without fighting a single battle. (Though the Philosopher's Stone all but made me want to throw my controller at the tv before I was able to successfully make it.)

( spoilers if you find talk about the optional dungeons to be spoilers. )

But first, link courtesy of lucyjin. [http://www.e-thug.net/] It's supposed to have scrolling ASCII art and a song playing in the background. If either or both don't show up/play then try opening the site on IE (for those who don't use IE).

Lyrics so you can sing along: :P
You're my honey bunch, sugar plum, pumpy-umpy-umpkin, you're my sweety pie. You're my cuppy cake, gum drop, schnookem schnookems you're...the apple of my eye.


Also, [QDB: Top 100 Quotes] link courtesy of lyntek. Something fun to read during your free time. :D

< frank > can you help me install GTA3?
< knightmare > first, shut down all programs you aren't using
frank has quit IRC. (Quit)
< knightmare > ...

Because stupidity is funny when you aren't the one having to suffer through it. ;P


About a month ago embai and I started playing [Fatal Frame II]. We started late afternoon and we ended up playing late into the night. chibicharm, silverhakai, cugami and kitsune_jade were also present to share the fun with us. ;P It more or less became the game we played while everyone was together. Well, Em and I played while the others coached. :D Took us three nights to 'almost' finish the game (not consecutive nights mind you, we just got together when everyone was free). We wanted to finish it that third night because Em was going home for sembreak and wouldn't be around and we all wanted to see the ending! Except we reached the final boss (for normal mode) at around 5am and we were both tired and we just gave up after the fifth time we died fighting the Kusabi. You have to go through an entire passageway with Mourners before you reach the ritual area (where you fight the boss) and going through that passageway is more annoying than fighting the boss. cugami had two posts about the game that night we were playing it here and here. I pretty much left Em to play the latter part of the game that night while I flipped through her BeBoy ZIPS. >3 (Caveman smex ooga ooga!)

I love this game, even though it scared us plenty while playing. I've been relatively silent on this lj since I started MUDding. Given my attention span however, it was only a matter of time before I lost interest in the game, so now... I start pimping things to the flist again. Starting with Fatal Frame II. I'm assuming others have played this already, since it's been out for a while, so this goes out to the people who haven't. I can't finish the game myself because the game refuses to load on me! *weep* Maybe it doesn't want me to finish the game without everyone else present. I have a possessed game.

My opinion on FFII: There's no denying how good this game is, given the sub-genre it belongs to it's one of the best in its category. It's almost right up there with the Silent Hill series in my book, and for those who know how much I like the SH series that's saying a lot. So I might have a few issues with Mayu. No actually, I have a lot of issues with Mayu. If it weren't for her you wouldn't have gotten stuck in All God's Village to begin with. It is hands down one of the scariest games in its genre, if not The scariest. I like how bits and pieces of the village's history and what happened to it can be learned as you progress in the game. It's pretty much what keeps you playing, because you want to know what happened and you want to know how it will end. Doesn't hurt that it creeps you out silly in the process.

The story:
Mio and Mayu visit the forest one last time before the area is turned into a dam. While there, Mayu wanders away in pursuit of a Crimson Butterfly that flutters close by. Mio follows after Mayu of course and the two unknowingly cross the boundary into All Gods Village, a village that had once disappeared long ago on the night of a failed ritual. You now take the role of Mio, who along with your sister (who got you both into this mess to begin with) must figure out a way to leave the village.

Spoilerific ramblings to follow:

( The Crimson Sacrifice )

( The Amakura twins )

( The Kurosawa twins )

( The Tachibana twins. Male twins! They make Arc happy. )

( Tachibana Chitose )

( The Kiryuu twins )

( Freaky ghosts )

In a nutshell. Love this game. Go play it. If you actually read through all that then you've either played the game or are really bored. Or I forced you to read it. :P

Suikoden 3 makes me giddy! <3

I still have chapter 5 to finish, but ee! I went and peeked at the beginning of chap. 5 and oh I want to keep playing but I really need to sleep. ;_; I did majority of my leveling during chap. 4, but I guess I'll be doing more leveling in chap. 5 before I decide to advance the story. *twitches*

Of the new characters (characters that didn't show up in Suikoden 1 or 2), Percival is a definite favorite, followed closely by Caesar. I like Geddoe the best of the three main characters, and I love his team. ♥

I wasn't able to load a saved game from the previous games since the old memory card which had my GS2 save (w/c also had a GS1 save loaded on it) went poof that time my PSX got busted. bah.

And I should really sleep, but I had to post because caillen is no longer online for me to wibble to.

Subs for Yakitate!Japan have not been released yet. WHY!? *frets*

luminata. PLAY. Now.

Also, I will kill that damned Kusabi in Fatal Frame II once I'm done with GS3. He's not so much scary as he is annoying. Marathoning Fatal Frame II all night does horrible things to your motor skills. It makes you unable to play right. Honest.

( Link to MUD blog, because I wanted the username. )

Yo. I'm back on LJ. :P Not that I ever left it, only that I haven't been posting. Will be going through my friends list when I have time. Adding and deleting. As is obvious, I've more or less stopped following PoT, so anyone here only for the PoT posts are free to take me off, unless if you want to listen to me ramble on about other series'.

So, screencaps from the FFXII trailer. This 'trailer' was released months ago and I've had the file up on my server and the screencaps done for a while now, I just never got around to creating a post about it. For those who want to see the trailer, you can download it [here]. And for those who just want to see screencaps, click on the cut. I was lazy when I made the screencaps, so it's very minimal.

( might contain minor spoilers for the very picky. )

Gnash! Am I the only one who feels like she can't do anything when she's not using her own PC? Because unless I really have to (like when it's work related, but it's not like I have much choice in that matter), I really can't do anything if it's someone else's PC. I don't even want to read my friends list when I'm not using my own PC.

I've finally started to miss my net connection, mainly because I'm a week behind on downloads! FMA 9! ;_;

And there was something else I wanted to say, but I'm really fidgety when I'm using another PC and now I've forgotten what it was I originally wanted to post about.

Finished Shadow of Destiny today. Have already gotten the D and E ending. Took 4 hours the first time around, the second ending didn't take long to get (I got D first, and then E), since I still had a chapter 8 save, so I just brought Dana back the second time around. I'll have to play from the start to get the rest of the endings, as I don't know where the other endings branch off from (the Margarete scene I gather). Homunculus of course, rocks my world.

More on this game when I get my PC back.

lyntek! Be proud of me! I will squee with you once I get my connection back and catch you online.

And no, that still isn't what I wanted to post about.

So anyway, hope everyone's been doing great. ^^v