This is one of our cats. Her name is Willow. Isn’t she cute?
Of course, while she’s being so cute and all that, she’s lying directly on my homework and my student loan paperwork, using my Literature book as a pillow, and resisting all subtle attempts to convince her that I’d really prefer she pick somewhere else for her catnaps / grooming sessions.
No other lifeform could get away with it.
Last time, it was for Shining Tears – this time, for the European-but-trying-hard-to-be-Japanese XBox RPG “Sudeki”
Just like Shining Tears, it’s an action RPG with fairly limited character customization. I’ve recently come to the conclusion that the degree of character customization that comes as a matter of course in big-name RPGs these days is actually something that puts me off playing them. FFXII? Disgaea? They’re on my shelf right now waiting for me, but I know that, if I start either, or anything similar, I’m looking at a Serious Time Suck.
I’ll put it more or less like this: I was looking at my Final Fantasy X saves the other day since I was organizing a couple of memory cards. The last save was at 79 hours or so.
I had a really depressing thought – how much of that was spent in the Sphere Grid? 10 hours? 20? I mean, I kind of enjoyed tweaking the heck out of Yuna and seeing how big of damage numbers she could rack up if you turn her into a nuker instead of letting her rot in the “healer” role, but the thought of doing anything like that again anytime soon puts me to sleep.
So: Sudeki. Very limited character customization – you get about 8 stats per character, maybe a half dozen spells they can choose from, you don’t buy armor, and every character uses the same weapon type throughout the game. Once you get past the first couple of hours – and let me tell you, they make those first couple of hours DRAG by throwing way too much character interaction and far too many box-pushing puzzles at you – you’re left with an enjoyable combat system and some really pretty visuals, and a bit of a plot, but nothing too ambitious. About the only overly complex thing is the bizarre range of healing items – you’ve got items that heal some HP, items that give you some mana, items that give you some hp AND some mana, items that give everyone some HP, items that give everyone some mana, items that give you a full heal AND cure your poison, items that give you a full heal and full mana but don’t cure your poison… I say, and you may quote me, “Huh?”
It took about 20 hours to play through. If I’d been warned about something in advance, it would have taken a lot less time. I will put it in a way that hopefully saves you from getting stuck in the same rut but doesn’t necessarily spoil anything: If you are ready, in this game, to go and confront the Ancient Evil That Wants To Eat Everyone, and you decide that you are going to put aside the Final Confrontation because you really want to go finish up the quests for everyone’s Final Weapon of Buttkickingness – just skip to the final confrontation. Do not muck around trying to hunt down those last couple of totems just so everyone can have their Final Weapon.
Also, when it gets to the ending – do not blink. The ending is about 30 seconds long and then you get a long credits scroll.
I think this game would have gotten a lot more attention if the developers hadn’t front loaded it with so much block pushing. It took a bit of an effort of will to keep going after the “oh! in this block puzzle, I need to MATCH THE COLOR OF THE BLOCKS TO THE COLOR OF THE PRESSURE PLATES! HOW UNHEARD OF!” point.
As it is – I recall that it came out, got a little hype in advance, quickly disappeared. When it came out at $50, I figured I’d pick it up at the $20 Platinum Hits point, but either it never went Platinum Hits or I missed it, because I didn’t get it until I found it for $4.50 used at ebgames.
For that $4.50, I got 20 hours of game out of it, enjoyed probably 17 of those hours, it’s got some eye candy for us guys who like to be pandered to (Even if Buki is the least catgirlish catgirl in the history of catgirls, she still runs around in an improbable skintight thong battle suit) – I’m happy enough.
I’m actually employed again as of this coming Friday, so this may mark the end of the Big Backlog Project. We’ll see.
Another game off the “to-play” stack, which is a good feeling.
P.N.03 was a game that got some pretty poor reviews, and I can see why at the same time I see good things about it. The main character certainly looks good, and the sterile / antiseptic play environments mixed with occasional futuristic cityscapes are very stylish, and that was enough to make me drop 10 bucks on the game when it went on clearance.
Music – also worth hearing. If you like the music in the new Battlestar Galactica series, the music in the later levels are very similar.
The actual playing part of it? Not so great. You look like a dancer, kind of move like a gymnast, but handle like a tank. There’s no shooting while moving, so you have to move, stop, aim, shoot, move, repeat. It just doesn’t feel right.
Also, it’s very easy to get bogged down in practice missions, that aren’t part of the storyline, in an attempt to buy new armor and upgrade it. The practice missions – very boring. I almost walked away from the game before I realized that the reason it was putting me to sleep is that I got sidetracked after the fourth story mission and I’d been doing nothing but repeat practice missions. Once I got back on track it got better, but I’m still glad it was a $10 game instead of a $50 one. I understand that, if you play through the game twice on the same save file (something like that, anyway) you get a really COOL suit of armor… I don’t think that’s reward enough for me.
I have the other members of the “Capcom 5” still on the to-play stack. It seems thematically appropriate to try another one next. Killer 7 maybe?
Edit: I have been mislead – to score the best suit in P.N.03, in the Japanese version of the game – beat it twice, done. Enjoy watching your character run around in a thong.
In the US and PAL versions, you have to do crazy stuff like beat the game in hard mode, finish all the side missions, blah blah blah. Why on earth?
OK, well, that’s up to interpretation.
But I did finish Ikaruga. Granted, I finished it by playing it until the “pity the shooter-impaired person” mode kicked in and the game switched into unlimited continues mode…
The best I was able to manage with NINE continues, which is the last stop before “Free Play” was this: I was able to see, and even damage a bit, the fourth end of level boss. There are five levels. The last level is almost all bosses. If you want no know what TRUE pity is: the only way I beat one of those was that eventually they give up and go away and hand you over to the next boss.
But, I watched the credits scroll. That fits my criteria of “finished”, and I’m sticking with it.
It boggles my mind that some people can play through this on one credit.
The only shred of dignity I have left is this – the game has several unlockables, and the first you can unlock either by playing for 5 hours or by beating the TRAINING level without continuing.
I unlocked it in under 3 hours played. That is the best I can do.
Also, this morning’s weight : 188.6 – I have officially hit my goal weight, and my BMI of barely-under-25 means that I am, by strict definition, now in the 1/3rd of Americans who is NOT overweight or obese. Now I just have to work on getting what’s left of me into a little better overall shape.
Shining Tears, while not a substitute for a new Shining Force game, turned out to be a really enjoyable experience. I don’t think I’ll be taking the offered “re-play in hard mode” option, even though I’m curious whether there are different endings based on which character you have the best affinity for.
I got a little mired down early trying to make sure all the characters were levelled up to about the same level – I had nightmares about being, say, two fights from the end and forced to play through a dungeon with Lazarus as a partner. I was rather relieved when that never happened.
Next up – probably Okami. I really ought to go back to P.N.03 too, hmmm.
Decisions, decisions.
As much as I have publicly mocked my wife for her succumbing to consumerism and the wiles of psuedo-Japanese fashion…
…I actually think this tokidoki-designed figure is kind of cute. Much ❤ for the heavily armed cow.
Got the email today from the travel agency saying that they’d charged us a huge sum of money and would be sending us travel documents, so come July we’re off for a bit over a week of hard core tourism in and around the inside passage. Which sounds dirty, but just means the little squiggly bit of Alaska that’s down in the south west corner of the state.
We have many activities planned. We’re going to ride dogsleds and take helicopter tours and go on day cruises and go looking for bears.
That last bit strikes me as insane. Bears are big and eat people. Unless they are Gentle Ben, but I understand Gentle Ben is retired, has a nice place in the Valley and lives off royalty checks. We won’t be seeing Gentle Ben in Alaska. We’re more likely to see his cousin, Homicidal Bill.
I have a contingency plan should we go looking for bears and find them. It involves screaming and running.
On another note, the Acer Vista “Express Upgrade” came in today’s mail, so that’s the end of my involvement with Moduslink. I do feel some sympathy for them – from the sounds of things, they had no bloody clue what kind of mess they were getting in to when they took the Vista upgrade contract and if they’re to be believed they’re both a) losing bags of money on the whole thing and b) staining their reputation for generations to come.
Our hero: Boy, that was a heck of a lot of killing just to get to this boss. Who’s evil now, even though he’s supposed to be a legendary hero and not evil.
Boss: Hi! (*keanu whoa*) Like, you’re still alive.
Our hero: Uh, I’m an RPG hero so I have amnesia. Comes with the package. Do I know you?
Our hero’s sidekick: Yeah, and why are you all like evil and stuff?
Boss: I could tell you, but I’ll make you beat it out of me.
Hero & Sidekick: That’s it! You’re going down! For being evil and like cryptic and stuff!
Boss: (wham wham wham)
Hero & Sidekick: (urgh)
Game: Now Loading. Time spent killing low level trash before you could fight that boss who killed you in 15 seconds: 29 minutes. Also, kiss all the gold you looted goodbye. Hah. Hah. Sucker.
…guess I need to level up a bit…
4 days ago, I had never heard of “Tokidoki” or “Harajuku Lovers”, and all I knew about Fossil was that they made watches.
Then someone handed my wife a 20% off coupon for Macy’s, good through today.
Since then…
Two “Tokidoki” bags. One is a “Portotelefono”, but that sounds like something you should put a cellphone in and this thing is big enough for about 3 cellphones. The other is a “Buon Viaggio” which I’m guessing means something like “good vegetables” in Italian.
One “Fossil” bag, wallet, and I’m not sure what the last thing is, it looks like a thing you put credit cards in but for men that’s a “wallet” – do women have different kinds of wallets?
Two “Harajuku Lovers” purses, one of which is being pressed into service as a very stylish case for her DS, and the other I don’t think has an assigned purpose yet but has a kitty print on it so it had to be added to the collection, and a “Harajuku Lovers” cellphone case. That last is actually only sized for one cell phone. I don’t think it has a cool name like “Portotelefono” or anything.
Neither “Tokidoki” or “Harajuku Lovers” have anything to do with Japan, other than cashing in on japan fangirls, but they’re cute and have good names and that appears to be enough.
The collection of shame:
I love me some classic gaming action. Unfortunately it takes up a lot of space, so stuff gets disconnected and put in closets and then just takes up space and never gets used.
Also, I have a couple hundred non-played games even if we just look at stuff for consoles released in the last 12 years. I am catching up on my backlog, but that’s still a lot to think about.
So:
Game systems I’m planning to keep around: The Saturn, Dreamcast, PS1, PS2, Xbox, 360, Gamecube, Wii, TurboDuo, GBA, DS, and PSP. Maybe some extremely select titles for earlier systems, but ye gods, that’s still a lot of systems being held on to. I’ll have to do some title trimming – how many racing games do I need? Do I REALLY need to keep Darkstalkers and Vampire Savior for the Saturn when I have the Vampire Compilation disc for PS2? That kind of thing.
What’s not being held on to (actual progress!):
Sold, paid-for, and shipped: The Atari 5200 and all carts, the Intellivision & all carts. All the Commodore 64 and Colecovision carts. Most of the random LCD handheld games.
Sold and waiting on payment: The Atari 7800 and all its carts.
Put-up on eBay and waiting for bids: All the Atari 2600 and NES carts.
Once those are gone I’ll have met my goal of reclaiming 1/4th of one closet.
That leaves, and some of these will take some thought:
Master System. Famicom. Genesis & Megadrive. SNES and Super Famicom. 3DO, Jaguar, Jaguar CD, N64, Virtual Boy, 32X (Ok, I only have one game, and no system), Atari 8-bit, SegaCD… Lynx. Game Gear.
Those will be more tricky. All the arcade compilations have made dropping pre-NES systems not too painful, and I didn’t own a NES until it started showing up in thrift stores, so I don’t have much attachment there… but starting from the Genesis on it’s going to be a bit harder to sell off in bulk.
Oh, the terrible problems modern fanboys must face, oh the anguish, oh the suffering.
Baud Attitude 