Star Ocean: First Departure

Star Ocean: First Departure is, of course, a remake of the first Star Ocean game which was released on the Super Nintendo. It is not unexpected that Square Enix once again did a good job at remaking an old game since they have been gathering as much experience as they possible can in it.

Talking of course about games such as Final Fantasy III & IV and even I and II.



This is not the best game they have ever made and it is highly reminiscent of the Tales of Phantasia game, which was also first released on the SNES, with it's main difference being that Star Ocean employed an eagle-eye (now isometric) view of battles.

Both these games seem to start out very similarly too, since you are just hanging out in your peaceful village when, out of nowhere, bandits (or other evil people) show up and start trashing the place. But that is where similarities end.



Compared to the old SNES system these graphics look like an impossible improvement, I'm a big fan of actually re-writing a game for a remake. It would have been fine for them to do the same as they did with Final Fantasy I & II, just update the pixelated low-res graphics a bit to be less pixelated high-res screens, but apparently this was not enough for them.

Even though they did this it still looks like it predates even the first 3D playstation games, which is kind of shameful after presenting a game like Crisis Core, which looked almost like it could have been one of the better looking PS2 games (FF XII), but then again you don't want to spend too much money on an easy money-maker, do you?



Gameplay is nice. The battles are never really hard as long as you train enough and the idea of specialties and skills (not to be confused with special abilities) has always been a nice addition in my opinion. These skills, when used properly, can very easily make your characters very strong in the usual way of nicely upgrading your stats, but also by giving you skills to get more exp and find more/less enemies and gain more skill points per level. These come in handy in almost any situation. Walking around an easy area where you only get 7 exp? Just avoid enemies. Need a copy of an accesory so that you won't be petrified all the time? Make one. Very nice.



Sounds are quirky. During battles there is a lot going on at the same time, which is not unusual of course, but the things they choose to play and keep out seem far too random to be intentional. When 2 people cast a spell only one can be heard, for example, but after every battle 2 people always have a little victory speech.

The music is nicely done though, in my opinion, it suits the game and during the somewhat more exciting parts of the game it will slightly elevate your adrenaline levels if you are susceptible to such things.



The FMVs they made are awesome. It has the perfect anime look and feel and it suits the game very well, my only regret and complaint about these clips is that there are not nearly enough of them. And they started out so very promising with the entire first scene having transformed from a gameplay scene to an FMV.

The characters really come to life in these in my opinion, kudos.



The game isn't tough. It is not even really annoying at any point. Though of course you can increase difficulty for yourself by not training as much as I did (I had train and look for enemies on almost all the time), or trying to solo it with your main character.



Private actions are another nice thing. They show funny/nice/intruiging/sad scenes between your party members, it is fun to watch them sometimes and they will affect certain scenes in your story.



All-in-all this is a very nice game and it is a nice distraction from your everyday dealings. If you are a star ocean fan then you can't allow yourself to leave this one and if you just like RPGs then your should most definitely give it a try. If you neither like Star Ocean or RPGs then you are probably better off not bothering.

These are some 30 hours that I have enjoyed very much.

Gfire on Fedora 9

Updating or installing software that does not come from the regular rpm repositories can be a big pain in Fedora. Especially if you don't have a lot of experience, like me.
I've only been using Linux for a few months now, and I don't have the time to find everything out from the beginning, I'm just doing what I can when I need to.



Now today I wanted to update my version of gfire, since I hadn't in a while and it had been acting up. Most likely since every time xfire updates it changes something in it's protocols which make all other things just act wacky.



I went to the website and downloaded the RPM, which started complaining about missing a certain rpmlib. This told me that I might be using an older version of RPM (which I found out after some googling), so I updated my system in the hopes of getting a new version of the RPM package manager, but alas this was not to be.

Found out later in the gfire forums that it was because the RPMs they offer are made for Suse.



Somewhere along this path I had already tried installing it from source, but the source files kept complaining that the pidgin package was not installed, even though it was.



The fix in the end was simple.

If you are having the same troubles as me then just install pidgin-devel and libpurple-devel and try to configure/make/install. This worked for me, it might too for you.

su -c "yum install pidgin-devel libpurple-devel
or
sudo yum install pidgin-devel libpurple-devel

Depending on which you prefer to use.

And then to install gfire from source go to where you extracted the source files (for me this was '~/Download/gfire/gfire-0.7.1/' and type:

su -c "./configure;make;make install"
or
sudo ./configure;sudo make;sudo make install

Non-presenter ServiceDependency

Well, ASP .Net developing can be a pain in the a$$ if you only have experience with windows applications in any language, but when the boss wants to use WCSF and the view-presenter model AND foundational modules, things can get even rougher. And don't even think about using Opf3 with that, it's fun, but you'll spend many hours researching stuff.



Case:

Opf3 uses an ObjectContext class to connect with the database and work with your business entities and such, so generally you should be able to access the static method you need to get this object from every single part of your application imaginable, right? So if you're working with WCSF you'll probably need to use a Foundational Module.
This all shouldn't really be a problem if you have presenters and views everywhere that derive from the Microsoft.Practices.CompositeWeb.Web.UI.Page class. Even if you have some pages that don't have a presenter you can make them derive from the CompositeWeb's Page class, so then your problem is fixed too. But what to do when you have a class that derives from MembershipProvider, or custom server controls?



Theory:

The ObjectBuilder goes through classes that derive from certain CompositeWeb classes and searches for attributes like ServiceDependency, InjectionConstructor, CreateNew and such. You can make a public property with a ServiceDependency attribute so that any dependencies are handled and your compiler won't complain about there not being an argumentless constructor.



Problem:

Classes that don't derive from CompositeWeb classes don't get the benefit of this ObjectBuilder.



Solution:

After many hours of trying, searching, researching and asking around I finally found out how to fix this. Being inexperienced as I am, though, doesn't make me at all certain if there's something wrong with this approach, but if you create an argumentless constructor and call the Microsoft.Practices.CompositeWeb.WebClientApplication.BuildItemWithCurrentContext(this) function, the ObjectBuilder will run through your class and use these attributes.



Code:

using System;
using Microsoft.Practices.CompositeWeb;
using Microsoft.Practices.ObjectBuilder;
using Chili.Opf3;

namespace Your.Namespace.Here
{
  class MyClass : SomeClassItDerivesFrom
  {
    private ObjectContext _objContext; // The ObjectContext Opf3 uses to work with the database.
    private IContextService _objContextFactory; // The Service you made with the static function.
 
    [ServiceDependency] // This won't work without the function we call in the constructor
    public IContextService ObjContextFactory
    {
      set
      {
        _objContextFactory = value;
        _objContext = _objContextFactory.GetObjectContext(); // The static function you should have made.
      }
    }

    public MyClass()
    {
      WebClientApplication.BuildItemWithCurrentContext(this);
    }
 
    private SomeFunction()
    {
      ObjectSet objectSet = _objContext.GetObjectContext();
 
      // Well, you should know what to do next.
    }
  }
}

Comments:

Well, having never done anything like this before in my life I hope this is all and it might help someone. I've searched the internet for hours without any luck really, so maybe it will be helpful

Damn Apples

I don't know if any of you remember or know the fiasco that was Windows ME (Millenium Edition), but it seemed to be pretty much a gamble on whether it would work. Of 4 people (including myself) that I know used it and of my own experience installing it, you had about 50% chance of everything working absolutely 100% fine (as far as possible with windows), and 50% chance that it would just barely start every morning.



It seems that Apple, known for their iMacs, iPods and of course the macbook air (among other things) liked this idea because they seem to have adapted it to their own stuff. I've had nothing but trouble with my aunt's iMac, which is of course mostly her own fault since she doesn't know the first thing about any kind of electronical appliance, so she messed it up a lot. But it was unfixable.

A friend of mine on the other hand has no trouble at all with his macs. Then my mom's fiancée can't get his macbook to work at all, my sis had 2 iPods die on her already within 1 year, though my girlfriend's old iPod lasted nearly 5 and her new one is already showing problems after a single day.



I seriously wonder how these things happen? Are they pressured so much as to bring unfinished products onto the market? Of course they're not the only ones who do this, Microsoft just did it again with their Vista.



Well, highly annoying, a brand new iPod given to her by me for her birthday and after a single use it seemed to have died (luckily it hadn't). They can't do this to people, it's shocking.



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Now playing: After All - The Shadow Wall
via FoxyTunes

I beat my boss at Tekken

And now I'm afraid he might fire me!



Naaah, but we have been playing Tekken on the train lately, he has to go a few stations in the same direction, so it's a nice 20 minutes or so of fun.

Usually, so far, he starts with winning big and often. But then when I've 'warmed up' after about 10 minutes or so, it becomes a real challenge for him.



I've always only had friends who were really good at Tekken, well, except in the beginning. When a friend of mine first got his Playstation and then got Tekken 3. We played that game to no end and he usually won, but after a while we played so much together that we did stuff we didn't even know was possible. I'd duck under a punch and grab him and stuff, it was crazy.

Now though I understand what I'm doing and we're up to Tekken: Dark Ressurection. In the beginning my boss would first beat me to a pulp and then I'd get my revenge after a while. Now he beats me to a pulp and only by the time he gets to his station I start winning some. But those few are very exciting. It's cool to finally have met an equal match instead of someone who's waaaaaay above me in skill.



I shouldn't beat him too much though I guess, otherwise he might just fire me, he got pretty pissed at me today because in the end I started beating him with a PERFECT. Ouch.



A lot of fun though!

The End of Final Fantasy III

After 30 or so hours I have gone through the Crystal Tower and the World of Darkness, I've met the 4 warriors of Darkness, got the ribbons and apparently beat the living hell out of a cloud that looked like a twinkling star and fought like medusa.



A friend of mine had already told me that you get some items that negate the annoying part about the final boss, and it's true. But it was pretty strong, so my heart was still pounding, because I was afraid that I could die at any turn, which I almost did a few times, good thing though that my Devout had enough agility to be one of the first to act, so even though it was close, it was pretty easy. I was only lvl63, which is pretty low for any FF game I've finished yet. FFX of course didn't have the conventional level system, but FFVII I finished somewhere in level 80's or 90's using Knights of the Round which made it a total piece of cake.



It was a fun ride, but not one I'm going to repeat any time soon. It's time for a little change now from the conventional FF style game, it's Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles time!

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Some Semi Pre-Emptive Thoughts

Over the last few days I've been playing 2 games almost non-stop. Final Fantasy III and the just recently released Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII. The only reason I stop playing is to recharge my battery or just because I'm so dead tired and need to sleep.



A friend of mine played the japanese version for a bit, because he couldn't stand to wait as long as we had to for it to be released in US or EU. I didn't even want to see the japanese version, I wanted to be totally surprised and awe-stricken. And now that I have it, I'm totally surprised and awe-stricken.

I knew that it was going to be an action-rpg, but when I first got my hands on it and fought my first battle, I have to admit that I was disappointed in how slow it seemed to be. The army of shinra look-alikes (who seem to be put there for some nostalgic reasons) shot at me and I stopped. At that point I thought I would be very disappointed and wished that I hadn't had so many expectations.



But then I got just a little further. I had just beaten the first Behemoth and they started talking. I'd of course watched the intro and I have to say that it is very possibly the best intro I've ever seen. They talked and talked and talked and I wanted to see more of the game, though I wasn't really aware of time since I was still ecstatic about actually having it and being able to play it.



Well, finally I could walk around myself, I met Kunsel, one of the other SOLDIER members and he gave me some tutorials and stuff and then I was told about missions. So I went for it, I tried a mission. I won. I'm hooked.

I've gone through maybe 1% of the story (I hope) or perhaps even less (hoping more), but I'm level 31 now, and already completed 25% of all the missions. I con't stop going through them, they give very nice items and of course the chance you get to level up in them is very excellent as well. I got some nice summons from it (Odin, Ifrit, Bahamut) and I already have Firaga materia and such (I think all things that are actually way too high lvl for this part of the game usually) and some very nice equips too.



The game itself looks absolutely perfect. The in-game graphics are atleast as nice as FF12's and the FMVs are of Advent Children quality. And the awesome part about that too is that all summons are shown in such FMVs. And that is totally kick-ass dude!
It's also fun to see that they tried to stay close to what the FF7 summons were, because that just plain rocks. Ifrit still throws a giant ball of flame at you (or is the ball actually), Bahamut still shoots from the sky like a madman, and Odin still cuts everyone in half and jumps down from his cliff. Very stylish.



The story seems pretty strange, though it's cool to see Zack (who I'd only seen in the main story in FF7), it's awesome to see Sephiroth back in his 'sane' days and to see the human side of him, Hojo is pretty funny to see what he looks like here with his oversized sideburns and his too-cocky attitude. The Turks are back again of course, they're pretty cool, they not nearly as annoying now that they're on your side, they're actually pretty sympathetic.



The voice acting is the only thing I'd like to change really. I don't like the english voices. Sure they're not as bad as they could be and most other games usually are, but still I've seen some japanese trailers and they just sound cooler there (very possibly also because I don't understand what they're saying). But they're not annoyingly bad in my opinion.



It's fun to hear some of the old songs in their new packaging. quality of sound has improved in games since FF7 obviously and it's nice to hear that.



The slot system that they use in battle is still a little vague to me. It's awesome, don't get me wrong, but I don't know if I do have any control over it or don't, I just don't know. But the way the memory thingies work and the summons and the 'Chocobo Mode' is all very cool and awesomely done.



All in all I just can't stop playing and if you like action-rpgs and the Final Fantasy VII world, you might not either... Must... Play... More...

The GOD of GW

Yesterday my girlfriend wanted to check up on her Guild Wars characters to see if she'd gotten any new birthday presents. She asked me if I'd like to join her, but I was right in the middle of a mission in Crisis Core so I was hesitant about leaving the most awesomest game ever made to get caught up in something that would involve me just standing still in a game and switching from town to town to see what she'd gotten.

But, since she did ask me and I knew she'd be disappointed if I didn't join her I thought 'what the hell' and joined her anyway. It helped that I'd just finished my mission.



After some 10 minutes of updating and then some more minutes of updating I was standing in Lion's Arch once again.

Damn did I like the look of it! Even thinking about it now makes me want to start playing again.



I asked her if she didn't miss it, we've both played that game a hell of a long time.
She said she did, but also she didn't like Nightfall or the Factions expansion and she hasn't played the Eye of the North expansion yet so she doesn't know if she likes that. That's why she quit. And eventually it was also why I quit because I didn't like playing alone even half as much as playing together with her.

But having revisited the past like that does make me long for the Good Old Days of Guild Wars.



But then I also think about Final Fantasy III on the DS and Crisis Core on the PSP and all the other games that I still want to play and finish. In that respect, I just don't have time to play never-ending games.



'It's better to burn out then to just fade away' is a saying right? It's better to love a game to death and be somewhat disappointed when the game ends because you loved it so much then to be able to play it endlessly untill it doesn't feel the way it used to. I like finishing my games. When I finished Final Fantasy VII I was excited because I'd been playing it for years without finishing it, but I was also kind of sad because that was the end of it. But because it ended where it did I kept loving the game. I loved Guild Wars, but because it didn't end, it was pretty much just waiting for me to get bored with it. 'Quit while you're ahead'

The Incredible Crashing DS...

I was just stressfully going about my business in FFIII on the Nintendo DS, stressfully because I'd been playing for too long without escaping and saving my game, when I got to the top of the Crystal Tower and faced Xande. My heart was racing because I didn't think I'd beat this guy the first time. Though as usual I stressed over nothing because even though my main character died, I did beat the crap out of him.



But then that Cloud of Darkness thing came, and when I saw the damage that thing did to me my heart nearly stopped. When my party died I was mad at myself for going so long without saving, but then I noticed that there were people still talking. I was relieved to know that my efforts had not been in vein again. We were revived and we were sent into the world of darkness (which I thought they'd called the normal world already).



Of course, me being the stupid idiot that I am, I didn't listen to my own advice to go and save before continuing. Didn't seem like a big deal though, the monsters were pretty much the same as in the Crystal Tower and they didn't seem to hurt me all that much. So I went on my merry way deeper into the darkness, when suddenly a fight broke out... And my DS crashed...



All my hard work to get to the top, my death and rebirth, all for nothing... Now I have to do it all over again... Great...

Japanese Food

We went to a Japanese restaurant today with the people from work. Everyone actually showed up, the boss who was at home because he had his wisdom teeth removed and was feeling pretty crappy and had this really swollen face because of his sedation and stuff. The Business Intelligence intern person even showed up for a day and the new kid actually ate!

It was one of those places where you sit around a big table with a cooking plate on one side that they cook the food on while you're watching and eating. It was very tasty, much better then I first expected, and we all had a lot of fun together.

We interns were all sitting in one corner as the 'associates' all sat in the other and our talks were pretty separated, I could hear them talking about mostly work stuff and such while we were kind of making fun of each other and laughing at the egg pieces thrown in our laps and the way they cut the shrimp's head and stuff. It was a lot of fun. We talked a lot about all kinds of stuff together too.



I was kind of surprised that one of the people at work isn't too fond of the new guy. I've spoken with him a little and even though he does seem somewhat socially awkward sometimes he seems like a nice guy, no qualms about talking to people about what he knows, possibly bragging a lot about what he's supposedly done.

He reminds me a lot about the way I was some years ago. Except of course that he knows more about programming then I do and especially then I did back then.



We'll see what happens over the next few weeks.

A New Face at Work...

We have a new intern, or whatever you should call it, at work since Monday.

A little 18 year old kid who seems really knowledgeable about programming. Supposedly he's been at it since he was 11. I don't know if he's a genius, savant, autistic or just someone who studies really hard, but the others at work are stunned along with me. The work they gave him and planned a week for was nearly done when I left Monday. Today was a school day so I don't know what's happened today, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's done by tomorrow.

He seems to lack in social skills, we nearly had to twist his arm to get him to go to lunch with us, he didn't eat a single bite or drink a single drop. 5 years ago I would have done the same thing, the first day at work I refused to drink anything as well, although when I was invited to go to lunch with them after my job interview I went with them.

It pains me a little though that he seems to know all the things that I want to know, well, not all of course. It's times like this that it hurts that I'm as lazy as I am. Though it also helps of course, it gives me an excuse to know less then he does.



I wonder if he'll stay with us long. The people at work are afraid that he might not be enough of a team player for them.

I don't know yet if I like him, he seems ok, but he doesn't talk much or interact with anyone, but that might be because I've only seen him on his first day of course, we'll see what tomorrow brings as always. I find it interesting to see others, maybe programming wasn't the right choice for me? Perhaps I should take up psychology? Nah, code is what I like and code is the way to go for me.



All I'm hoping for is that he'll loosen up. I hope to make a friend out of it, at least for the duration of his employment there or mine, depending on which might end first. Perhaps I can even learn some stuff from him, maybe he can give me some tips on what to read or where to start with certain things. Interesting times ahead.

It has come to pass...

Finally have I finished Tales of Phantasia, it is the first Tales of game that I have finished. Not the only one I've played, mind you, but I've never had the stamina to finish one (I was told they're extremely long games) and this time I decided I just had to.
It helped that it was the recently translated Playstation version and not the old SNES or crappy GBA version. It had some nice improved graphics, had a very nicely updated battle system. These things helped keep it interesting.

I wasn't sure if I could do it a few times, because there were some battles where the game would crash. The first time I remember was during the first fight with Dhaos. Which is of course a very bad time to have it crash, especially since it was going pretty well. I think then the 2nd time I died and the 3rd time I beat him pretty easily.
After that I only remember it in Dhaos' castle at the end of the game. Both SEAL EYE? fights were pretty annoying without the game crashing, I had to try some 5 times each before I could get past them.
I feel lucky that I didn't have any such problems with the final fight. If I had to do those all over again each time 3 in a row I'd have thrown my psp through the window I'm sure.

Though I was surprised. I was stuck on one of the floors of the castle and I scrolled down in the FAQ to see wat I was up against. I read that there's 2 forms that Dhaos comes in. So I was really surprised when the 3rd round started. Luckily I only died some 5 times or so in the first round, but once I beat him I was apparently on a roll because right after that I beat the living hell out of Feather Dhaos and the beat the angelic Dhaos form. Was fun, but it was a damn nerve wracking fight.
The end was nice, but I'm not going through that game any time soon again! It's awesome, but now I've seen it, I know the story and I'm just going to go on to the next game. Right now it's Untold Legends - The Warrior's Code is what I'm playing, but that's really only untill I can get my hands on Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII. I think it's good that Square Enix wants to start releasing games worldwide, I hate knowing these awesome games are out there and I have to wait till they're released here or in the US.

Anyway, it was an excellent game and of course I recommend the game itself, but go through some extra trouble to get that playstation version fixed for translation, because in my opinion it is worth it. Scenes like Thor's rising from the sea and Yggdrasil's healing have been improved a lot (from what I've heard). So try it if you like RPGs.

Marty Friedman - Simple Mystery

DMC 2 No More

As of now I've also finished the 2nd disc from Devil May Cry 2. I think that this 2nd disc was more fun then the 1st one. Lucia has a pretty cool fighting style and she looks cooler in Devil Trigger as well.

It was pretty easy though, seems she's pretty strong too since I got to level 1312 or something with her in Bloody Palace, sure I skipped 100 levels each time, it's still pretty cool, usually don't get past level 7 in such things.


Disc 1 had it's annoying moments, though disc 2 was really easy, no trouble at all with anything, probably for most action game lovers it's just way too easy.

----------------
Now playing: Eldritch - See You Down
via FoxyTunes

So much for Fate/Stay Night

I've now seen all 24 eps of Fate/Stay Night, which I started watching because according to AniDB it had a relation with Shingetsutan Tsukihime (aka Tsukihime - Lunar Legend). Which I suppose is kind of true, since the kid in Shingetsutan Tsukihime had this strange power that let him see an object or person's life lines, which were lines that would cause anything or anyone to fall apart if you'd cut them. With Fate/Stay Night it's kind of similar, the main character has an ability that allows him to do the opposite of the other dude, he can identify the structure of any object or person (or being really) and reinforce it. Here's it's just regular magic that anyone can learn, but apparently it's so weak that nobody takes the time to learn it. But he excels at it, and as he later finds out he also excels at 'tracing' which allows him to create corporeal illusions of objects.

Anyway, it was pretty cool, he's a bit silly in that he doesn't allow his 'servant' to fight for him, which is all she really wants to do.
It's pretty interesting, though I think the translation I had was a bit off, since they were all called heroes and their special abilities were noble phantasms even though there were some real evil beings among them, like Rider and Caster. Of course you might live by the notion that there is no such thing as good and evil, which would fit since even Rider can seem like a nice person at times. But I think probably Legends and Legendary Phantasms would work better, especially with the 'King of Heroes' making an appearance whilst being probably the most evil being in the show, I'd personally prefer to call him King of Legends because he is pretty well known (as are some of the others). But that's just my idea, nothing to do with the show beyond that though.

It was excellent, I enjoyed it, can definitely recommend it.

----------------
Now playing: Elegy - Poisoned Hearts
via FoxyTunes

Dante's Disc

I've finished the first disc from Devil May Cry 2, aka Dante's Disc. I still think the game is very under appreciated. Sure the game has no story at all, but then again I didn't think that DMC 1's story was all that great.
The game wasn't at all tough though, took me 2 tries to get the final boss, and only 1 for the one before that (final boss this time being both Argosax the Chaos and Despair Embodied, or whatever it's name was). The toughest boss was the one from the building.

Anyway, I've just started Lucia's disc and played 2 missions now. Her style of fighting is pretty cool, I always like dual wielding and the air-combo capabilities (which I was told was never introduced until DMC4).
I'm gonna play through Lucia's 13 missions as well, but I don't think that it'll change my current opinion of it being a pretty bad game, but still under appreciated.

Devil May Cry 2

Since I've finished the first Devil May Cry game I thought I'd start DMC2 as well. Even though I know that 90% of the people who liked DMC hated DMC2, I can't figure out why. Sure I've only just finished the third mission, but up to this point it's actually more fun then the first game.
I don't know maybe it becomes really bad halfway or something, but thus far nothing seems to be so bad about it that it warrants being called the worst sequel/prequel ever...

Devil Never Cry

About a week ago I downloaded the Devil May Cry 4 demo for PS3 and was shocked by the awesomeness that it showed.
Almost 4 years ago I bought Devil May Cry for the PS2 because my girlfriend liked it and wanted to play it (she'd borrowed it from a friend once). And I tried playing it a few times aswell, but after a while I just stopped liking it at all.

But when I saw DMC4's demo, I just had to try again, and this time I didn't care at all about any challenge. So last sunday I picked it up again, dusted it off and hoped it would still work in my PS2.
I played for a few hours and yesterday I finished it.

I'm glad I didn't try normal because I don't think the game is all that good anyway. Sure the fights are ok, but the voice acting and the story are pretty bad. Characters too.
But it was fun anyway and the horror theme is always appealing and they did that very well. I've already got DMC2 ready to be played, which everyone tells me sucks, but I've found more games that everyone hates or dislikes that turn out to be awesome.
Crazy really, but maybe I'll get to playing that too someday soon.

Sylph

Once again I am at that point in the game where you have to get your first summon. I remember getting stuck this early in the game a lot when I first started playing this game on the SNES.
This time though I know what's going on and what I'm doing.
I wanted to grab some good equipment before going after the Sylphs, but first time around on just another random encounter, my PSP crashed... And I had to start over again.

Did though later on, got the weapon which really eased the process of getting another 1600 gald to get 2 new berets. It's probably a little crazy to take all that time to acquire 2 pieces of armor that will only increase defense 1 or 2 points. But that's the type of person I am, I figure that if I fight those few extra fights I'll be just a little bit stronger, plus the equipment on it's own (the 1600 gald sword was damn nice) really helps me later on. Had this very same thing with Final Fantasy, but I haven't gotten through that one yet.

I have a feeling that I'm gonna enjoy playing this, I'm still pretty much stunned by the fact that it's so different from the SNES version.

Can't let go...

I picked up Valkyrie Profile again today because I just can't leave it be. I've played it and hated it at times, but it is still very cool and the enemies that are the problem can easily be fixed by just running away. I've also discovered that using weapons that are less powerful but have more actions help a lot, since they add to your overall combo score and can start those overdrive thingies. These thingies are very handy in taking down enemies.
That plus the fact that I've also found out that the CT is the amount of time (in turns) that it takes to be able to take certain actions all really helps.

Still having a lot of trouble though, the game doesn't get any easier, but at least now I have made progress, I went to Lezard Valeth and spoke to him and saw the cool cut scene in his crazy-ass basement and stuff. The fight was pretty easy, but suddenly the game seems quite a bit more interesting.

I don't know if I'll actively pursue finishing it again, because I'm having this much trouble and it's only chapter 4 (of 8 I think). But I will at least be playing it sporadically. I am quite happy to find these things out.

Last Monday...

Last Monday I went to the Helloween, Gammaray and Axxis concert in Tilburg.
And I think that the Gods of Metal were angry with my friend, because the way he had planned it we would arrive exactly on time, but in the end we didn't.

First the train from Amsterdam to Eindhoven (which we were told to take) was a few minutes late (not a big problem you'd think, it was only 3 minutes), but that caused us to miss our connection in Eindhoven, which we were 2 minutes late for.
Then the next train to Tilburg arrived 20 minutes later (also 3 minutes late, but not really a big deal at this point). We boarded the train and sat down and were waiting to leave. But then they announced that 'due to some technical problems we will experience delay of a yet unknown time'. Then 4 minutes later they announced 'due to problems with the railway, this train will not be departing today'. So... we missed one train and then another broke down. By this time we were worried if we would ever get there at all.
another 20 minutes after we were supposed to leave the 2nd time finally another train that would go to Tilburg came. This train did leave and we got to Tilburg.
We ran the rest of the way and found out were were 30 minutes late, which we thought wasn't a big deal, because Axxis would play first for about 30 minutes and then there'd be 30 minutes of break-time while the crew made sure that Gammaray's instruments were in working order.

When we got to there though we found that Gammaray was already playing, and this was the band we really went there for in the first place. So we were kinda pissed off about that, we were worried that they'd play first and then Axxis. But strangely enough, standing right next to us was a friend of my friend. He told us that Gammaray had just started playing and we came in during the first song. And also that they had apparently opened the doors and started the concert 30 minutes early, which he only got to see because he had arrived crazily early. He also told us to our great relief that Axxis had sucked, we weren't roaring to see them anyway, I only knew 2 songs and my friend didn't like them much either.

During Gammaray's show we were just standing and watching, listening, enjoying, when suddenly we were pushed aside by this girl that was standing behind us with her friends. She had been taking pictures over our shoulders with her phone for a while now and she decided that we (especially my friend) were too tall to stand behind so, drunk as she was, she took her place right between us and she took a lot of space. She didn't just listen and take pictures, she was kinda drunkenly dancing, kind of. We were kind of laughing on the inside because of her behavior and kind of thinking 'what the hell?'.
Well, we were too preoccupied with the concert to really care that someone was almost bothering us, so we just watched and after the show we kind of laughed about what happened and we talked a little with his friend about what was happening and why they were playing and such.

Then the Helloween show started and we were all ready to rock. But right before they started 2 guys were looking for a spot and decided that right in front of us was as good as any other spot, which I guess was true. We were again thinking 'what the...?' and were getting a little bummed because they pushed us back almost forcibly. Then it turned out that they were with the lady that had pushed us aside during the Gammaray show and they didn't like standing behind my friend because he's pretty tall and they weren't so tall.
So of course that drunken lady showed up again too and she took her space, and her friends gave her that space. She was also on the phone a lot with a friend of her, letting him hear the show through it, can't imagine he heard much though.

During Helloween show there was a dude standing a few steps in front of us and he was so drunk he could barely keep standing. So a few times he almost fell down on top of someone and one time one of those people got seriously pissed and pushed him back pretty hard. 10 rows of people, at least, were pushed back and probably most had no idea what was going on, but the drunk knew least of all I got the impression.

Helloween, like many (metal) bands had their drum solo halfway through, but these dudes decided they wanted to do a little more, I guess.
Right before the drum solo, the stage went dark and they apparently set up an arc with a curtain (like puppet shows). The drummer started his solo and after a few seconds the curtains opened and 3 of the band members were standing behind it on their knees in giant shoes, dressed like gnomes. They had high pitch voices and were complaining that they hated drum solos, so they challenged him to playing Smoke on the Water (which the guitarist then played and the drummer had to mimic). Doing this pretty well, they asked him if he could play 'this' and the guitarist started roaring away on his guitar, when the other guitarist (not behind the curtain dressed like a gnome) started objecting what was going on because he did like drum solos. So he took out his toy gun and shot the gnomes, giving the drummer his chance to play like crazy.

At the end of the show, during the 'encore' the members of Gammaray joined Helloween and they played a medley of the coolest songs Helloween has together. Which was absolutely awesome!

After the show we had to get home, so we went back to the train station, just barely missing the train we thought we had to take. By this time we'd lost track of that other dude and his girlfriend, thinking they did get on that train. So we waited for then next one we thought we needed.
But when the train before that arrived we saw that dude and his girlfriend get on, so we followed them because we knew that they had to go to Amsterdam too.

Turns out though that they read their planning wrong, he read the wrong time on the sheet they had. So we arrived at Den Bosch with no way of getting to Amsterdam or anywhere else.
My friend then saw a train which was headed to Eindhoven, where we remembered seeing a train that would go to Utrecht from which we could take a train to Amsterdam.

Unfortunately when we got there we found out that this train only runs on Fridays and Saturdays. So now we were stuck in Eindhoven and the last train had just left, but it went towards Venlo, which is the opposite direction of where we had to go.
So we were stuck, and then one of the employees of NS came and closed the station, so we would be stuck outside. We only had one option left, take a taxi home (staying outside and sleeping there was not really an option for us). A taxi from Eindhoven to Amsterdam would cost us €200. So we split it 4 ways and each payed €50. We drove past Den Bosch, so we found out that it would have been better to have stayed there.

Then we got to Amsterdam and each went our own way. I was home at 2:30 AM, so I emailed my co-workers that I wouldn't be able to make it to work the next day (didn't really feel like sleeping only 3 hours) and then slept for 11 hours straight.

It was an unforgettable show, not just because it ruled, but also because, of course, it was really expensive.

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Now playing: Trouble - Requiem
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Tales of Phantasia

I can't remember how long I have been trying to tackle this game or how many times.

I've always been playing it on the SNES, but a while ago a friend of mine finally got a translated version of ToP for the PSX. Sure it's not like the full-voiced version for PSP, but that only just got released really and we don't expect a US/EU release, so that will take a few more years to translate I'm guessing. Though translators seem to be getting faster, since a few months after Monster Hunter Portable 2nd got released they'd made a pretty comprehensive patch for that too.

Anyway, I've been playing it these last few days, mostly on the train home from work on my PSP and damn it's different from the SNES version. The characters look different, their status profile images look very different, the battles are totally different (friend of mine tells me it uses Tales of Destiny 2's battle engine), and generally it's just gotten some sort of face-lift or something.

Haven't gotten very far yet, still in the first part, exploring where Dhaos is supposed to be buried, or captured really. But so far it's going much better then it used to. And I don't know if the defend and combo-hit features are from the ToD2 engine or I just never knew about them in the SNES version, but Cless can now hit 2x and like I first noticed in Tales of the World he can defend, which is a big plus really.
I seem to generally understand more now then I did then (I have that a lot with games I played a long time ago). So I'm using a lot of abilities more now then I did back then and just generally know how things work better.

So I am confident I will at least get further in the game that my last try. And Looking forward to playing more too.

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Now playing: Wuthering Heights - A Sinner's Confession
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Final Boss Fight

A few days ago I made it through Beyond The Gate and got to Lady. I was then and still am grossly unprepared.
The first time around I forgot that Johnny didn't have anything equipped against ring abnormalities, so when Lady first used ring abnormality, I was kinda bummed out.

Then it got to be that she and her friend 'big ugly', aka Malice Umbral, got to use a combo attack. I don't know what the attack's names were, but total obliteration describes it pretty well.

I've been training a little almost every day since then, and though I can get a few more turns in before I die, once they use that combo I'm still dead no matter what.
So I decided to do some side-quests first. No biggie. But I couldn't really find many of them and I just want to finish this game and be done with it so that I can move on. So I looked them up on GameFaqs.

So now I'm working on getting everyone's ultimate weapons and armor and just get generally stronger. I'm only level 40-something, so maybe that is my biggest problem. We will see soon enough when I've trained some more.

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Now playing: Wuthering Heights - Lost Realms
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New chances...

My sis recently bought a Nintendo DS and yesterday for the first time she left it alone long enough for me to borrow it and play some games on it.

I say games, but really it was only one game. I played a little bit of Megaman ZX.
I was on some kind of mission in Area J, the watery place. Good thing I had the Lx biometal (of course) to ease my traversal of the water.
I got to some beast that I had defeated before, but instead of hanging in a semi-safe corner to in which I hacked down everything that came my way, I stood upon it's head this time and hacked away. Went a lot quicker this time around, he sent out 2 sets of fish before just attacking me with it's tentacles, and then it was dead, easy as pie.

Afterwards I ran into the 2nd model L pseudoroid, which has to be the easiest boss I have ever fought against.
I didn't really yet know what was going on, but I started hanging in a corner near it's head and the first attack just completely missed and the second attack pulled me closer to it and damaged me a little, only at that time I started swinging Lx's weapon around and it couldn't touch me anymore. It slowly died little by little and I no longer got hurt.
After maybe 30 seconds it was over and I had beaten another boss.

Then I decided to try some side-quests. The first being 'purify the water'. Which was really easy, just had to dump some crates into the water for the cleaning solution to spread and clear the water.
The one I picked after that though was a different story. I'm still working on that one. I have to find some kind of flower in area A-1, but I suspect it's on some kind of ledge that I just barely can't get to...
If I get a chance I might try and find it some more today, but I can't see me figuring out how to get there.

The Humanity...

So I'd entered the gate last time and had walked around a little to see what I was going up against. Later I turned on my PS2 to continue and the first fight I got in was against 3 Phobos all with 1 stock bar and more speed then me, so I had a few double attacks coming from those beasts, can't recommend it for recreation as it sure as hell will kill you and won't make you stronger.
But then finally today I got my nerve back enough to turn my PS2 on again to play this game.

I walked where I should, ran into a malice thing tree root thingy. Kinda weird to fight against a stationary enemy in this game. No real trouble though, but then Gilbert came along...

Not knowing what he was going to throw at me I was of course as always somewhat unprepared, but I never would have guessed that he would lower my SP so much as he did. I did find out before the fight with gilbert that Johnny is way stronger as Awaker and in healing too. His release ability combined with the flare brooch(?) reduces SP consumption from 4 to 2, which I'm sure was intended to be used in this way (used it with Shania first but she has a lot of SP).
So his increased power helped a lot and I found out that Tatan'ka's Howling ability is pretty nice aswell.
Even though I tried my very best, Shania and Johnny did go berserk 3x, which also is not so very healthy for the rest of your team.

With a lot of hard work and stress and feelings of loss, I did finally defeat him with all my characters sane and alive so they may bask in his experience. But I am glad I'm through with him, it seems that these bosses tend to get more annoying with each game, Shadow Hearts was just keeping an eye on your HP and SP and having the patience to beat god, Shadow Hearts: Covenant was easy most of the time and only the final boss gave you any real trouble, but this one here is just stress all around with every boss. I guess you could say that they are making the game more challenging, but being used to easy bosses and always getting stuck near bosses means that it's hard work for me not to just call it quits (but hey, I've finished both games before this one, I should be able to finish this one too).

As much as I hate these bosses and hate knowing the fact that I have 2/3 more on the way is really not boosting my morale, but I know that all games are finishable and if I just keep trying eventually I will get through it.

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Now playing: WASTEFALL - Sleepwalk
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