So Close Yet...

Suddenly, there's only a month left of the semester. There seems to be so much left to do in so little time. Yep, definitely feeling the pressure.


The main culprit of stress is, of course, school.

Major project: When you consider starting from scratch vs. working from someone else's CSS/code, you'd -usually- choose the former because everyone knows that working from someone else's just means you're setting yourself up for hell... but after seeing how badly Moodle's originally coded, working for someone else's is actually the lesser evil. :|

Grad show: Okay, so now we have the overall theme established BUT we lack the finalized visual theme. The whole class is still unable to move forward without at least a graphic standards manual. Mere weeks away from the campaign launch... oh *insert headdesk*

Mentorship: Oh yeah, the interview was a success. Ended up being interviewed by the senior designers of both sides of the company (the digital and the print) and the art director (aka. the mentor). Scary as hell experience but it worked out at the end. The first day was the 4th (Thurs) and I've been going in Thursdays and Fridays, whenever possible. The first few days were pretty exciting and interesting, though the excitement started to die down when I noticed they began to ran out of things for me to do. Meetings, researching to compile a marketing matrix, scrapbook making (lol!gluing)... The non-disclosure agreement aside, the meetings they brought me into were very insightful and interesting. More than once was I invited to join in on their meetings with their client. TENSE.

A few days back, my mom suddenly called me in the middle of the day and told me about this awesome Las Vegas deal. The next thing I know, I'm going to Las Vegas in late April. Plane, hotel, shows are booked. I am going. Yep. No joke. Even though I haven't fully absorbed this fact yet either.

Fortunately I remembered that my passport is expiring in late April as well, so it's in the process of renewal. BUT. The days following, fellow classmate informs me of her spur of the moment plan to go to Sakuracon with her friends. No big deal for me at first since I supposedly boycotted Sakuracon since my last visit. Did some research afterwards to find that NOIZI ITO, DJ SHARPNEL, HandMC (side note: and Luffy's seiyuu, Tanaka Mayumi) ARE GOING TO BE THERE. Felt like I shot myself in the foot. It's tempting but there's still some variables... like my passport? money? transportation? MY BIRTHDAY WEEKEND? H8 U SCON. DX

allergies, go away.

Final Fantasy X-2: Girl Power Rules

The second game I beat in a row that reuses old material... not my intention. Hello, FFX DLC aka FFX-2. Usually when a new FF comes out, it's a sign for me to catch up. 13 was X-2's wake up call, though I might get to 12 earlier than I originally planned considering X-2 didn't feel like a completely new game.

Girl power... GO!


STORY - 3.5/5
Yuna, Rikku and Paine go around Spira spreading love and peace, Sailor Moon style, under their team name Gullwings.

Oh wait, there was an actual story too.
Two years after the events of FFX, Yuna finds a sphere (which are video recordings) of a person who looks like someone she knows, and so she sets out to find more of those spheres to possibly discover more information. On the way, the team ends up getting involved in politics, the history of Spira, and concerts.

The story wasn't amazing and the end result (aka the ending) is only good if you get the good ending that is the REAL follow up to FFX... and even then, the good ending could have been in FFX without having to make a completely new game, but hey, seeing how Spira develops after the main events of 10 is somewhat worth a new game. Leaving FFX the way it is might have been a lot better though considering...

CHARACTERS - 4/5
Yuna's personality and style does a 180. Within two years, Yuna leaves her "good girl" behind and somehow, from somewhere learns to dress like a slut. I don't know about you, but hot pants, cleavage and belly buttonness are pretty slutty traits when put together in one outfit. But really, where does she learn to dress like that in that world? No one prior to their new appearance did people dress like that. Anyway, so about personality... okay, Yuna has gained confidence since 10 and is trying to fit in awkwardly into her missed out teenager years. She's been sheltered hasn't she? In two years time, she learns how to jump unbelievable heights, slide down chains (Tidus-style), dual wield guns, pose like a whore... She must be influenced by...

Rikku - was she always this air-headed and ditsy? Or perhaps she's moreso now than before.

Then there's Paine. The cookie cutter cool, mysterious, darkly dressed, tough girl who's essentially the opposite of the bubbly (Rikku), tries to please everyone (Yuna) and super girly personalities.

A "new" game comes with even more new characters. NewjNooj (who looks too old for his age.. his name is also ridiculous), Baralai, and Gippal. The three guys balancing the three girls, in a sense. There was potential to create pretty deep characters with these guys, but the length of "their story" was short and unsatisfying. And besides, this game's about the three kickass girls right... who cares about these guys who stand out way too much.

Ah there was also Leblanc's group and the not-so-secretive-anymore characters, Lenne and Shuyin. Deep? They don't know the word.

In additional to the main characters, there were plenty of returning characters. But they were there just for show, really.

SOUND 2.5/5
Nothing significant except maybe the two ballad pieces. Everything else was pretty unmemorable. Koda Kumi's vocal tracks were nice, though felt a bit unfitting with the rest of the music. 90% of the music consisted of upbeat but "silly" tunes. Just to reinforce that this game IS A JOKE. I kid. Maybe.

GRAPHICS 2.5/5
Reusing practically everything from FFX - NPCs, poses, places, monsters, animations. It felt cheap having to experience the same few places, see the same few animations, models, characters...

The FMVs are still your S-E quality and Yuna's teeth are really solid. I can't help but think they're fake. There are times when the in-game graphics are better rendered for some characters versus others on the same screen and that becomes a bit distracting.

GAMEPLAY 3/5
New game means new battle system. Well they tried and it kinda failed. So they brought back the job system in the form of "dresspheres" where the girl went through their Sailor Moon transformation when changing from job to job. Only about 3 jobs were the most useful (though a little dependent on preference too) and everything else was for looks - seriously. It was dress-up time - every time, all the time. Alchemist is your best healer as they don't cost MP, Dark Knights did massive damage, and.... wait, I can only think of two. Other jobs were easily substituted with party setups that took job abilities (e.g. stealing, buffs, debuffs) from those jobs without having to actually use the job itself.

FFX-2's overlimits came as special dresspheres which are unlocked after transforming into a certain number of jobs in battle. Useless. The girl transforms into this monsterous being and does pretty decent damage but the effort needed to transform into it isn't worth it.

They also added in this strange attempt to make the game more platform-like. Did very little to the game. You had to climb, fall, jump in certain places to get to places but there wasn't much of it. Speaking of new additions, the game mainly consisted of mini games and side stories galore. If you were to follow just the main story, I would imagine you can blaze through the game in very few hours. However, the mini games ranged from desert digging, action shooting games, monkey mating, protecting moving cargo, advertising, finding band members.... yeah you get the idea.

OVERALL 2.75~3/5
It has been enjoyable because I /did/ attempt at most sidequests (the game would've been 20 hours shorter if I didn't) and the new characters were pretty interesting though they felt like they stood out more than they should've, yet they didn't get covered as much as I would've hoped. Like Leblanc, she wears hot pink. No one noticed a blonde in flashy hot pink clothes two years ago?

The game was sidequest overload, with many of them useless and completely unrelated to the story. If there was more story-related content that was relevant, it would've made the game a lot more likable... so instead, this game felt like S-E was just trying to make some easy money by throwing in fanservice and a sequel attempt into a game that got a lot of success.

Delegating

You are working with a group of quite a few people, say 20, to setup a party but there are a few missing bodies. So, how does the group decide who to choose to be take on the important role of organizing the giant party? Oh, of course! Duh, one of the missing bodies! Damn straight because they know absolutely nothing about the party itself, being missing from the gathering and all. There's no need to consider what kind of person they are or their opinion for that matter. In fact, hey, that missing body can decide not to participate or show up to the party because, really, what would the party mean to them if they didn't even show up for the gathering to begin with. Alright, that's what you call being responsible people! That's how big kids decide and do things around here! Now, where's that party...