Video Games Live in Vancouver

Wednesday was VGL in Vancouver at the Orpheum, Downtown. That morning, Keith's class was canceled so I got to sleep in. Woke up and had McDix and then played Resistance 2 for the whole afternoon. Almost lost track of time, so I rushed out a bit after 6PM and got to the Burrard skytrain station a bit before 7. On my way down, I bumped into Simon and gang so I joined up with them and followed them to get some Japadogs. Unfortunately the Japadog crew had already retired for the night so they went and had some sort of donair variation. The food from lunch kept me full, so I just got myself a drink.

We then got a call from Tony C, so we went and met up with him. We took the food to the Orpheum and stood around outside and ate while waiting for the other half of the group. There were insane lineups by the time we got there and a rather lack of good cosplayers. We bumped into Lee there, who was also waiting for his gang of friends.

When the rest of the gang showed up, we headed in, did a quick pit stop (bumping into Matt) and then headed to our seats. I looked to my left and lo and behold, I saw Gar, Saboo and crew. It was just sad I had to sit with someone who was rather untalkative with me (but would rather talk to Tony, wah~).

As for the actual concert - it was your typical geek fest but the audience was relatively well behaved. The retro intro was pure nostalgica... There were a number of "Whoa, I played that game before!" moments, even though I don't remember what the heck the games were called. The MGS one was one of my favourites and I don't even play MGS, and yet I know the theme song rather well. I gots to see Raiden rekick ass in the MGS4 scenes.

There was a little Blizzard tribute. They featured WoW (duh) and Starcraft 2. I crossed my fingers and hoped they'd do a third and play Diablo 3, but sigh.

The Halo track was great and neither do I play that too.

The first encore song, One-Winged Angel, felt like the most boring song to me. Maybe because I've already heard of a billion remixes of the song, so it didn't feel particularly special to me. (Second most boring would probably be Kingdom Hearts' Hikari... again, heard a better orchestrated version of it song.)

After the concert, we bummed outside for a while before we figured out where to go. We ended up walking to Bubble World and chilled there for a while.

I didn't arrive home until 1 and I had class in the morning at 8. So tired.... however! Resistance 2 beta ends today! I must play until I can play no more! LBP servers are up now tooo~

Ugh why does work require me to work so much earlier this week. It's being an annoying obstruction. Work fast, work fast.

The End of October and FFXI

LBP servers are still unstable.
R:2 servers has been rather unstable since I started playing it a few hours ago.

I quit FFXI in 4 days, officially (for real this time). Well, technically today, since this'll be my last Limbus this week, and I don't do anything else in game besides that.

I think it's fair that I'm going to use up all my points for this last run to get whatever that drops. After putting almost a year or so worth of effort into Limbus, I deserve it. I see it as a parting gift.

EDIT: The run didn't even end up happening. We started losing people while we were waiting for a bunch of crucial players finishing up Salvage at the wrong time. They ended up doing an Apollyon run, while I went and had dinner.

Well, so much for FFXI.

Anime Expo 2007 Report

Hokay, so! I've been meaning to write up on it since I came back *cough*, so here's my year old report. The whole thing compressed into one giant post. Alright, here we go~

Wednesday, June 27.
This year's travel buddies consisted of Saboo, Gar, Nina, Shi2 and myself. We got up bright and early to catch an early flight down, arriving sometime before lunch. We basically had a whole day to burn, so we decided to take the opportunity to explore the Long Beach area. We ate at Chilly's and then walked the boardwalk near the convention. That night we had Pictochated away. Nina went to join her other buds the next night.

Thursday, June 28.
That morning, we needed to stock up on munchies and misc items, so we walked to a Walmart. On our way there we also encountered a GameStop where I picked up Gurumin. At Walmart, we split up - Shi2 and myself went and grabbed some (at the time) exclusive to USA wraps (grilled chicken with salsa or something was it?) at the built-in McDix and headed to the convention. The pre-reg line was, as usual, a scary snakey thing outside the side of the building. While we lined up, we enjoyed our wraps and played whatever mobile gaming devices we brought with us.

After we got our stuffs, we decided to be even more adventurous by taking the transit in attempt to "tour" around Downtown LA. We had to transit through scary town (the place started with a C) and a really open area that, due to the speed of the train, hurt your ears like there was no tomorrow. We got off in the Financial District, assuming all the other districts were relatively close to each other. That was where we were SO WRONG! We kept walking and walking (encountering number of interesting artefacts, mind you) but decided to give up when stores began to CLOSE on us. We at least found a mall or two, and Shi2 was able to do some shopping. I think we ended up as far as reaching the edge of Jewelry District or close to the Toy District. Then we started to get pissed and decided to return back, as it was already getting dark too. What a disappointment... Not the "Downtown" we had in mind, like ours. ;(

Oh yeah, on the transit way back, I experienced something horrific. Disgusting actually. While sitting on the outside isle, the guy had to stand when clearly there were a lot of seats for him to sit on. He was rather tall and wore shorts so his crotch touched my shoulder constantly. Constantly, as the train kept moving, he used the train's movements to his advantage to ... okay, you get it. AMG. That has never happened to me before, ever. It's because it's so rare, I remember it clearly, even now. SICksicksicksick... I tried not to be conspicuous about it by leaning more and more towards Shi2, and I think she noticed what I was doing too.

Moving on.

Friday, June 29.
Finally. The registration line was lololol long. Luckily it didn't concern us anymore. We went to grab some free tickets to the SKIN concert at the ticket handing out area. Then started the day with some good ol' Starbucks before taking on the infamous AX concert lineups. However, the first thing we did (or I did) was line up for a sneak peek of the dealers room. Shi2 joined me when I reached near the entrance.

The next thing on the list was that SKIN concert. The bloody concert gets postponed by oh just a FEW EFFING HOURS. They made us line up outside on the BLOODY HOT PAVEMENT of the parking lot Poor cosplayed Gar was dying in his costume. Well, the postponed concert totally ruined all the rest of my plans of meeting other people and such. When we finally got in, they TOSSED MY NEW SPLASH WHATEVER GUM. I didn't even get to eat the bloody thing. They were soo annoying with the bag checks, it was anger worthy. I regret not sticking the whole pack into my mouth so it didn't end up being another additional freebie for the door checking people.

The SKIN concert itself was pretty crazy cool. I swear Gackt is overrated (note: I don't particularly like him). Miyabi is the funnest guy ever. I'd want to marry a fun (and cute ;D) guy like him. Yoshiki looked like a man-woman, woman-man. And I'll just leave Sugizo as he is, because with Luna Sea status, he cannot be touched! They allowed filming so I basically recorded the whole concert (just comes to show how much I was really paying attention ;b). Due to the super delay of the concert, I ended up being unable to attend the SOS-dan panel, therefore unable to meet up with the ccsbb peeps, which was where I originally planned that we meet up. For some reason, I forgot that Shi2 brought her phone that worked over on this side, so it didn't occur to me to give them her phone number. Duurrr...

That night we ate at Bubba Gumps with Nina and her fanclub. We had a Forrest Gump quiz and I couldn't remember a thing.

So when I finally came to my senses, we went back to the hotel when I busted out my PSP and hacked (lol fluke) into the hotel's internet and went on the ccsbb and posted Shi2's number. Moments later, we got a call from Ray saying ToFu just read the board (what timing!) and contacted him who was still at the convention. We met briefly and stared at the room he was crashing at which was actually in the same hotel.

Saturday, June 30.
Attended the savage genius concert that morning. The kind of room she was given was SO unforgivable! I realize they're not extremely popular, but at least more popular than, say, ORESKABAND, I THINK YES?! I felt that her concert, and her presence in general was overshadowed by all the other major artists, mainly the SOS-dan. However, that applies to all the other concerts I went to too. More on that later. The setup of the ROOM (yes it was a bloody normal meeting room in a hotel) was rather awkward... some seats on the side, and a 'stage' up front. I'm glad Shi2 joined me in the concert, cuz the lack of people were rather depressing. I tried to stand for most of it, but it was tiring (did I mention awkward?) mainly because no one else was standing. Everyone in general weren't really "active" and just sat there listening which made the whole concert AWKWARD as HELL. Doing things by myself were way too out of character for me, but I felt so bad for them. She sang most of what was on their first CD - Uta-Kata, Erementar Gerad... I love 'Forever...' to bits, so the live was GREAT. It's also great when they try to speak English. XD They're really under appreciated and it upsets me a lot.

I missed the Ishikawa Chiaki panel.

Anyways, we met up with the ccsbb crew again and took our daily visit to the dealer's room. Me and ToFu encountered the famous foldy cardboard chair/couch. Then I was like AMG I need to go line up for the savage genius autograph session, so I ditched the gang and ran to the line up area. When I got there, I noticed there was another line that formed there and it was soon revealed to be the SOS-dan autograph line. The SOS-dan had a rather ridiculous VIP-treatment (what about all the other JUST AS important guests???) and were limited to their autographage to like 30 or something (I heard). And you weren't even allowed to SEE them, you only could hand them the item you wanted signed. BULL.

Either way, I didn't care for the line and only wanted my savage genius line to start. I asked around but the staff were CLUELESS and just told me to wait around. There were a bunch of other people who were waiting for the savage genius line and ended up waiting with me. Then all of a sudden, for some reason I recognized this one peculiar person's face from The World BBS forums (duh where else really) and was like... oh that must be Kozu. I wasn't sure how to approach but I just went and approached and was like hey I know you, you know me yoyo wuzzup (something to that nature cough). I waited with him for his highly anticipated autograph and at the end, he didn't get it after all. He was pissed the whole time but I had him come get a savage genius autograph with me anyway.

I brought Kozu with me back to the dealer's room where we met up with everyone again. He then split off from us to hang with his own group to get ready for the SOS-dan concert. We got ourselves ready and headed. I recall it being not so fantastic. They had the seiyuu do their theme songs, then the English VAs came and invaded the show. Then suddenly there were technical errors and the English VAs suddenly had to make up stuff on the spot, which ended up being completely confusing for the seiyuu who didn't know wtf they were doing. The coolest part was probably the winning SOS-dan dancing groups got on and joined in with the actual cast and did the song and dance together. The end. Nothing too spectacular imho. Overhyped as usual.

Sunday, July 1.
Happy Canada Day! I remember the Ishikawa Chiaki concert was that day. It ended up being me and Kozu going to the concert (c'mon, it's all about .hack y0). There was a lack of people for sure. Once again I felt even she was underappreciated. Maybe if people knew that she was part of See-Saw, it'd fill up a bit more. There was definitely SEED (anna ni issho datta no ni??), SEED Destiny (kimi no sugata wa, boku ni niteiru~), uninstall, could be the simoun op, at least three or so .hack songs (yasashii yoake, kimi ga ita monogatari - I think, and obsession as encore).

Later that night we encountered a fountain dolphin bleeding water out of its chest. Animal cruelty I tell you.

The ccsbb crew weren't staying the last con day so they left and we said our goodbyes. Until 2009...!

Monday, July 2.
Momoi's concert! I regret not getting some of her merchandise! The grand finale was her concert and hers was the MOST unappreciated. She's the QUEEN of AKIBA and the concert hall was empty. You ended up not requiring a ticket to go in and they basically tried to get as many people as they could to go. Once again, it was me and Kozu who went and we got super close seats (well we didn't even sit at all). Her concert was probably the most upbeat and fun out of everyones. She started breaking out in tears half way but we kept cheering her on! Ahh she's so cute. I'm glad she sang some of Komugi's songs. Afterwards, we were able to sign her little AX book where we were allowed to write comments. There were a number of reports saying she really disliked her stay at AX as the staff didn't treat her well it seemed and she generally had a bad time. Awww.. I feel so bad for her :( I hope she doesn't have a bad (she probably does) impression of us people on the west side.

Oh I also got to meet 8-bit from The World BBS as well.

OVERALL.
Generally it was a fun con. The 2+ hours lining up under the blazing sun of Cali, upset guests, underappreciated guests... the location wasn't that great but it was a nice change. Meeting up with everyone and just having fun is the best part really. I've learned my lesson and will prepare more properly for the next visit. I look forward to AX09 in LACC. :]

Gar's Annual (?) Halloween Party + Aftermath

Alright! It's that time of year again! Partying it up, Halloween style.

So who was I? Faith from Mirror's Edge and it's not even out yet! Free plug!

The day before, I was busy trying to get the last few essential pieces of my costume done. I thought it would speed things up if I used a sewing machine so I headed to Lisa's place to borrow hers. It didn't work out as smoothly as I hoped - at all. Firstly, for the top: the white strips I needed to sew on the sides were really thick with the tank top's own layer so the two layers kept stretching in the machine at it's own lengths and so it ended up completely uneven. I wanted it to be perfect, so I had her help me remove it so I can redo it. She got frustrated and basically violently ripped it out, resulting in an insane number of holes in the tank top. As a perfectionist, I decided to go and buy myself a new one and hand sew the stripes on instead. Secondly, the gloves: so I found a pair of red gloves finally at the Richmond Centre dollar store except it had a Christmas theme so it had a chunk of green at the bottom, plus a little bell and bow accessory. The bow was easily removable (minus the glue which I easily melted with some hot water) but the green part was grr-worthy. After I cut it out, I tried out a few ways to close up the gap it left. Finally I ended with something I was fairly pleased with. but still not as close as the real thing as I'd hoped. But I did so much red gloves searching the past few days prior, I was ready to give in to what I had available (and so I did).

On the actual day, a few hours before I trip there, I had Monica help me draw in my tattoos. The body paint I got was pretty crappy and it made an effing mess everywhere because of its crappiness. It was also very crayon, so you can imagine how that's like already. Looked like garbage so we took the Sharpie method and outlined it pretty and then followed to colour it in. Monica was getting stressed with the stencil I made and also because we were pressed on time, we rushed it and winged a chunk of it.

We left my place at 6 and went to pick up Sty at her place. Got to his place to find that Gar the host wasn't dressed up. Instead he was busy being Cooking Papa (his new nickname now). We found the usual SG crew already there getting their Rockband on. The night followed with Castle Crashers, more Rockband (The Paperboy and the Papers) and random other games. The night was also filled with lots of food, food and more food. We also did the random flavoured jelly bean game (gosh, I'm glad I only ate normal flavours and no baby wipes or earwax flavours). We ended up staying there until 5am. I got home and realized I haven't camera whored yet, so I did some quick webcam fun on my laptop and ended up sleeping at 7am.

I woke up this morning and headed to EB to grab mah LittleBigPlanet! They called me the day before, but I was getting my costume ready at the time. Also picked up SOCOM and headset set! Mmmmm headset~ Can't wait to use it during LBP and whatever else in the future. Still impatiently waiting for Zellers to get the 360 Holiday Bundle. BestBuy apparently has it now. GRR.

Halloween Costume Status and Takoyaki Party

Alright! So I'm mere pieces away from my costume for Gar's annual (I guess you can call it annual now) Halloween partay. The theme being Video Games, which was actually rather difficult for me! I went through all my games, did some serious surfing and found all the characters I wanted to dress up as were actually more difficult than it seemed. With limited time and being super lazy, I aimed for something simple and not too elaborate. My actual decision will be revealed on the actual day! I just need to get myself a pair of white pants (grr @ my old, missing pair), maybe grab a new top so I don't mess up my own when I sew on the little [easy] detail, some cheap red gloves (damn you daiso for not having red in stock!) aaaand that's it I think. It's a shame my hair's not my natural colour, or it would've fit in with the role a bit more. Either way, I'm rrrrdy and actually getting kinda hyped for it!

Ooh, on the weekend we had a takoyaki party at Romina's. She had her own takoyaki making machine so we (or rather, they) made their own homemade takoyaki (I didn't do any cooking). So we basically had takoyaki for dinner (nothing but waves and waves of takoyaki, srsly). We visited T&T for some extras like drinks. Man, that night was cold. We smelled big time when we left her house. There's been some brainstorming for the next gathering - jello, crepes, hotpot... mmmm.

PANTS

I should have these white pants from my dentist days... I remember hating them because I hated the job. They should be in a bag somewhere. I NEED YOU NOW - WHERE ART THOU?

Tales of Destiny 2: Beated

Alright, finally something more fast-paced!

Story - 3/5
Honestly, I disliked the story. It was like a mix-mash of all the previous Tales (Phantasia, Eternia, Destiny) in a not so good way. We have time traveling from Phantasia, alternate worlds from Eternia, and the chunk of Destiny's story to mold it all together.

So we have the offspring of Stahn and Rutee, named Kyle, who wants to be a hero just like his parents so he sets off to become one. He encounters a giant lens and out comes a girl. He chases after the girl to become the hero she's looking for. We get thrown into the future, the into the past, then back to the present. I personally liked the Swordian arc the best just because I liked the whole Swordian story altogether. But anyway, so this goddess gives 'birth' to two other goddesses. One of the goddess' ideals of a perfect world is retarded, which ends up changing history completely, so we basically have to stop her. What I don't understand is where these goddesses come from exactly. The power of lens evolves and creates its own conscious and then takes the form of a human? Someone tell me.

Characters - 4/5
Originally I never understood why Leon was such a loved character until there was Destiny 2... now I understand completely. Now I love the guy to bits. It's just depressing to know that he has to live in the dark for the rest of his life. But it was awesome how he brought out Chaltier at the right time but wait, there's a plot hole - if they didn't travel back in time to bring Chaltier, how did it end so smoothly at the end of Destiny? I thought they didn't have enough power without him?!?

About the other characters... I only liked Kyle, Judas and Harold out of the main group. Loni was annoying. Nanaly was annoying. Reala was exceptionally annoying. She had this strange personality change right after she spoke with Philia and became all hyper and happy. Annoying. However! The skits were humorous and fun as a whole cast.

Sound - 3/5
A lot of remixes and enhancements from the original Destiny. Nothing really special or memorable, sadly. Battles were really noisy, which isn't exactly a bad thing but it just reminded me about how Tales series are usually anyways.

I don't particularly like the theme "key to my heart" either.

Graphics - 4/5
I don't know but Destiny 2 kept reminding me of Ragnarok Online - in town sprites anyways. The world and battle views were very Eternia. Um, the spells were pretty?

Gameplay - 3.5/5
World map running is tedious. Boat rides are tedious.

Battles are fun. I had this habit of draining my SP meter really quick though. No visible HP total was frustrating. How much did you start the battle with? Will a 30% or a 60% gumi suffice?? I can't tell! If your controlling character ends up not located on the left side of the screen with your other characters, your SP and TP meters shorten and all the characters on the left screen will get their ass kicked. It was a weird battle condition that just effs you up.

The skill and equip enchant system is quite complicated. I had trouble with it so I just configured the essentials and didn't bother experimenting. I usually set my skills to Attack+, SP/TP recovery, and Hi-ougi's. Equipments were all focused on SP/TP recovery.

I don't think I even touched the refine option. I tried refining my savories, lavenders, etc to some reds but it didn't work out as well as I'd hoped.

Overall - 3.5/5
There's quite a number of dislikes for this game and too little likes for me to give it a good overall impression. Some of the boss battles were challenging, and that's a good thing. The last boss didn't turn out to be a wuss. The ending was surprising.. the whole [spoiler]it's all going to be just a dream! bs. And how Reala somehow comes back to life...[/spoiler] The last scene was obvious and I know they want a happy ending and all, but that just felt like they just to put it there to make the protagonists canon.

Judas unmasked was the highlight of the game, seriously.

I don't know what game to play next.

Eff You 360

So like... I decided to finally open the 360 for me to play on the long weekend.

It didn't happen as smoothly as one would have expected. How complicated would you think it'd be to hook up a new gaming system? Shouldn't be much right? Right? WRONG.

Apparently 360 players are a bunch of assholes. K wait I take that back. There's this one particular 360 asshole who decided to buy the 360 I bought, swapped his power block and resealed it so it looked brand new. Now the resealing part isn't really difficult actually as I put it all back together at the end "brand new" as well. When I tried to put it together, for some reason, the power cord that went into the console did not fit. I looked at the cord plug, then at the socket. The socket of the elite (which is the one I bought) had an extra square piece sticking out, whereas the plug had a blocker there instead. Duh! They weren't meant for each other. What was even more frustrating was that there was a lack of imagery online to check whether I was really hallucinating or not. I gave up at the end and figured it was easier to just exchange the bloody thing.

So today I went to do that. It was a relatively smooth process and I would've basically ended up returning and buying another one. The only other one available on the shelf looked like it got punched in by someone, so I decided not to grab that one either.

I read about that holiday bundle the other day so I've decided to wait for that instead (it also has two free games!). I've been hearing that it's already out though but I've yet to see it.

Super Stardust HD

I came home yesterday from school and was totally like, I feel like playing on the PS3. So I booted it up and decided to give Super Stardust HD a try, as the other option was the Nova one.. and Nova's style of shoot em up gameplay is even less my style.

Holy crap.

I've been playing it non-stop the past two days. I've gotten the trophies (minus 10x multiplier AMG!) without expansions, but I'm leaning on getting it really soon.

The game is GREAT. It's just missing the most essential feature: ONLINE CO-OP.

WHY. It would be PERFECT with ONLINE. WHY!

And 10x multiplier is hard.

The highest I can get is 8x.

My right thumb is a bit numb.

Now I'm tempted to open up the 360 just to play the closest counterpart on the XBLA. STILL. It's not.. the same! But I've been itching to play online on something... so I might just rip it open this weekend just to get my fill.

EDIT: My highest is 9x. DAMN.

Revelations: PerSAUNA - Finish!

Finally after that rather angry rant post, I forced my way through the end of the PlayStation One game, Revelations: Persona! So I thought it'd be best to start from the very first installation of the series just so you can see how certain things can relate and how the series evolved, which is cool to me. However, this one was a rather challenging one.

Story - 4/5
I personally liked the story even though it's actually not all that unique. So Persona is actually a poltergeist game (is that what they call it?) where you call upon the spirits of the dead kinda thing. So the kiddies who played the game become able to call upon different personalities within themselves, which they call Persona (different personas, get it?). These personas are actually spiritual beings that can fight/protect their owners and whatnot. And so for some reason after playing the game, the city becomes infested with monsters (aka. spirits/ghosts/etc that are similar to personas). So after researching around, they find out that this big company's behind all of it by researching and practicing forbidden ghost calling stuff all for the sake of taking over the world (haha). But he was a minor problem cuz in reality there was a BIGGER entity controlling what was going on. Spoiler: It was actually a close classmates dreaming up her own world, and the ideal her jumps from her world into yours to tell you to save their world cuz it's all messed up and you wonder why. At the end it's that girl's evil side of her personality wanting to destroy the world cuz she's unhappy with it.

Characters - 4.5/5
Haha the characters were actually all really fun. The translation's kinda funny in places which makes it that much more amusing. Mark danced crazy! And it made the whole game kind of a serious... joke. Cuz you'd be trying to amuse your enemy by dancing, singing, lying, everything just to get them on your side. I liked all the playable characters (in my party anyways - I ended up choosing Chris as my final optional). The character voices were not bad and it was interesting to hear that all the enemy voices were kept in Japanese and some of them spoke Japanese when you made contact with them (if not, they'd be grunting/screaming). I also realized that some of the monsters were based off of horror stories (like toilet monsters, scary geisha women, ...) and others were just spirit-related (angels, devils).

Gameplay - 2/5
It must be because of its age. First Suikoden 1, now Persona 1 - two turn-based battle games in a row is way too much for me. How AGI works drives me crazy - it's never consistent! It was cool to have multiple ways of attack: sword/archery, gun, persona. Each enemy has its own strengths and weaknesses, making that aspect the most challenging part. The last boss was a cheapass (read my previous post on this). The second most challenging aspect was PATIENCE. Each turn took about 30 seconds (the time before my PSP light goes into dim mode) and on average each battle was about 4 turns. Then you add in the action selection time, and then transition in and out of battle. The last dungeon that didn't have a save point at the end took my over 3 hours to get to the last boss (I started around 11pm and finished the game at 3). I also took a few extra hours in the afternoon to level up the guys. I the last 10 or less hours of the game was just dedicated to GRINDING, leveling up my personas and beefing up my guys. I seriously need a change of pace.

There was a steep learning curve with the controls as well. I had trouble figuring out how to change personas, then other troubles would be buying new equipment. The game's actually rather deep (especially with persona creation) but it becomes -so- complicated, you'd rather skip it... unless you're super dedicated to the game.

Dungeon crawling was annoying as it was an effing MAZE. Encounters were frequent (and I heard the NA version had encounters lessened too - unbelievable!) and dead ends suck big. But I loved the "sidestepping" with the R1 and L1, which makes no sense irl but saved time with the body having to face the "right" direction when walking like a normal person. At least the first person view was kinda interesting.

Music - 3/5
I like a handful of tracks. Though it felt like there weren't too many to begin with (but apparently there's a 4 CD OST... that I can't get my hands on). Most of them were whimsical and fun, and I particularly like the boss themes. I was also amused how they made the battle song end at any point by applying the same style ending no matter what part of the song you finished your battle at. The Yin-Yang store's BGM they kept in Japanese and was amusing to listen to.

Overall - 3/5
1996. Damn old games are hard. This game was challenging and frustrating. It was a great ride though (minus the effing grinding) and the story was fun. The last boss was easy when I got the proper spell to send all the damage back at her. Man, back-to-back B-Storm spell was cheap. The game's unbeatable without a proper reflect spell. This game required some pretty smart strategy and it was fun in that sense.

Alright, I'm ready for a new pace now. Bring on Tales of Destiny 2.

Revelations: Persona

No, this isn't my review (yet). I WAS hoping to get it finished tonight but I just got my ass kicked by the last boss. Wow she's hard. Finally, a last boss that's actually hard. Though, I'm not particularly happy the fact that I had to go through that last dungeon with like 10 floors without a single save point. SHIT.

Fuck you butterfly lady.

I need to fucking get MagicWall somehow and send her shit back at her.

The Lately Me on Manga & Anime

I recently (like, yesterday) got hooked on Tegamibachi by Hiroyuki Asada-sensei, who draws the cutest/hottest guys (a la I'll). And the crybaby cuteness and touching story reminds me much of Kimi no Kakera which I missed lots of... Plus his illustrations are so clean and crisp -- aah I love it! Another great series to add to my follow list!

And the following is for my own information (and if you care to read)...

Series I am following but have no intention on purchasing:
- Kaichou wa Maid-sama!
- Minami-ke
- Bakuman
- Koko ni iru yo!
- Special A
- Boku no hatsukoi wo kimi ni sasagu
- Pandora Hearts
- Bokura ga Ita [mangaka has this on hold! :(]

Series I am following but would like to purchase one day but the series is too damn long:
- Katekyo Hitman Reborn
- D. Grey-man

Series I finished following but would like to purchase one day but the series is too damn long:
- Shaman King
- Houshin Engi
- Black Cat

Series I, uh, need to catch up on but have no intention on purchasing but considered on purchasing it in the past:
- Gakuen Alice
- Soul Eater
- Nabari no Ou
- Arakure

Series I am currently following and am purchasing:
- Shugo Chara!
- DNAngel
- Lagoon Engine [mangaka has it on hold]
- Air Gear
- Tenjou Tenge
- Vampire Knight
- Ouran Koukou Host Club
- Tegamibachi (NEW! now, yes!)
- Shitsujisama no Okini iri
- Erementar Gerad
- Erementar Gerad -blue flag-
- FIVE
- SOUL GADGET RADIANT
- .hack//GU+
- Kimi no Kakera [mangaka has it on hold]
- WORLD'S EMBRYO

=

7 Shoujo
9 Shounen

Not bad.
Though, I think... that above last list is way too long.

...and on anime I'm currently following: NONE! I don't see myself returning to the world of anime for a while... unless it's Code Geass (and maybe Haruhi) related!

Speaking of Code Geass.. I've been mad reading theories and there has been some great debates out there. My conclusion is still Lelouch is alive with C.C. That's all there is to it! I also read about Taniguchi's struggles with R2 and I feel for him. It'll be sad to see him stop because of it. I love a lot of his works (Gun X Sword, Scryed, Mugen no Ryvius).... and that reminds me, I should watch Bamboo Blade to see his little guest appearance.