Involuntary Holiday

Although I didn't request nor expect any sort of holiday this year, I have come to accept this unwanted break. I've gotten to the point where I'm leaning on keeping this NEET status until the end of the month when PAX comes and goes, and I would've run out of any other major events to look forward to.

The timing of things have been keeping me rather busy in and out of the house so I'm not quite living up to the NEET title yet. I've have very few days of just pure home time which I ended up spending on playing Tropico 3. Buenas tardes!

A bit before my sudden lay off, I took a quick two day trip down to Seattle for a weekend early July for both Shi2's b-day and to meet up with online FFXI friend, Jiinn, visiting from Phoenix, AZ. Saturday consisted of some brief Downtown loitering, the Pike Place Market, the Space Needle slash French Festival thing, not awesome Chinese ayce hotpot and finally ended with a failed attempt at karaoke because the place was crazy packed. The rest of the night involved chilling out with liquor, chips and wasabi peas. Sunday encountered technical issues with online friend's mobile, so we ended up doing things ourselves with our gentleman guide, Garret, who followed us shopping ladies around when we shopped. Dinner was at none other than the Cheesecake Factory because no Seattle trip is complete without Cheesecake Factory!  Then finally we raided Walmart as usual before getting home at a ridiculous time in the morning for work the same day (me, anyway).

The Saturday following my termination, a group of us visited an anime-themed Summer Festival at SFU to do some "research" for a possible business opportunity in the near future. More on it if/when it develops. I also surprisingly bumped into LightingSabre near the end of our visit. After pestering people to do the surveys for us, we fled the scene and stopped by the night market for some eats before finally going to Industry for some many drinks, compiling the survey results and unexpected appearances by childhood friends.

Oh, MiniComi. Spent the day hanging out with Jenny who wanted to check it out and take some photos of her campus before she left for Japan later that month. A bit disappointing seeing that it was a gathering of artists which unfortunately didn't quite capture the artist quality we actually have here in Vancouver. That one room they fit the event into didn't seem to do the event enough justice. Assuming it was successful to them, I'd like to see them do a lot better next year.

The International Autonomous Robot Racing Competition was happening at the same time right outside the SUB building. Not so sure about the "international" part since the competitors were all from Canadian universities.  Watching the little guys move and recognize (or not recognizing) the road ahead of them was more amusing than what was happening inside the school.

It's the "Kinect" (top) VS the "PSEye" (bottom).

Tired and hungry, we left the campus when we were done with the photo taking.  Found Shi2 and gang free for dinner so we settled for some good old bar food at the Flying Beaver. Brought with her was fellow bRO player, Kaz, visiting from England for the two weeks.  Being the youngest group in the bar, we failed miserably at the songs-older-than-we-are guessing game.

And finally, went for a weekend trip to Portland during the last long weekend (last weekend of July). I sadly didn't end up getting anything but my parents (and aunt) got quite a haul. I spent most of the travel time watching Glee although I'm nowhere close to catching up. We followed a tour bus for this trip which also took us to some sightseeing places like the Point Defiance Zoo, but it was mainly all shopping. We sat in on a skit at the zoo which conveniently used the bad gamer stereotype vs the nature lover *rolls eyes* but yeah, compared to a video game, a real life lynx is a lot cooler.

 

 

To compensate for the lack of photos, here's some from Eat! Vancouver a few months back. Observe: beer tasting (with chocolates) and wine tasting (with cheeses).

 

Terminated

Why, hello there! Here's your last paycheque and your way out.

I expected the day to act out like any other day but had a lemon thrown at my face half way through. Having being informed that I was replaced by two others, I was relieved of my work then and there. Without given the time to process what had just happened, I was already being guided out the door.  Even now I still don't know what's going on.

Despite job searching the last two and a half months while still employed (and have had no luck). I can't help but feel pessimistic at this point.  And now without income, the pressure feels even greater than before.

I would have appreciated some kind of forewarning, seriously.

Torchlight: Click Click Click

Sick days are great for finishing up posts.


STORY 2/5
There was a story? Oh, yeah I guess there was.

You arrive in a town called Torchlight and was asked to help find her mentor who seems to have gone mad and disappeared. You were told he's in the mines so off you go. You, of course, do eventually find him after traversing 30 some-odd levels of this "mine". The lady who recruits you does not help you at all, although you don't need help anyway.

CHARACTERS 2/5
I have no background story so the character class really only determines your play style. The only person with some sort of background is the mentor, Master Alric who's, well, crazy I suppose. What drove him to his obsession with Ember, the main cause of all of this town's chaos, is played out through transcripts of his findings/thoughts when you descend the main story dungeon.

SOUND 3.5/5
The music and sounds in this game bleeds Diablo. I swear the original composer of the Diablo series who joined the team purposely made it Diablo-like. The town theme, especially, sounds just like Diablo's town theme. The sound effects are practically identical (e.g. the scrolls and gold sfx). I don't know if that's a bad thing but it definitely makes the game want you to feel right at home. Diablo's home sweet home feel.

Where's my Diablo... :(

GRAPHICS 3/5
Nothing impressive. If anything, it's outdated and cartoony but I've seen community mods available to possibly remedy this or at least update it a bit if you wished to do so. The simplicity of its visuals reflects the rest of the game quite well though.

GAMEPLAY 3/5
The deliciously simplified version of Diablo, keeping the formula that made Diablo so addictive. Unique to the game is a pet animal that's another additional inventory pack and can sell stuff for you while you're still dungeon crawling. You can also feed it different types of fish for it to transform into other monsters with different attacks and resistances. It's not particularly useful since it likes to die a lot. Speaking of fish you can fish at fishing spots scattered across the dungeon.

OVERALL 3/5
A great game reminiscent to Diablo in almost every way, which doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing but it definitely does make you yearn for more out of the game. Torchlight doesn't feel particularly polished nor incomplete, although its simplicity does do the job for what it is. The devs did mention that they had more plans for the game but due to time constraints, they had to take it out (e.g. multiplayer) which is where Torchlight 2 comes in to fill in the gaps.

The game was fun and plenty addictive but as a whole there was a lot of missing potential. We'll just have to see how Torchlight 2 does to make up for the first.

Change of Plans

計画変更
It's halfway through the year and I'm where I wouldn't of hoped myself to be at. My JET interview wasn't perfect but the positivity level was high enough for me to believe that I had a pretty damn good chance of getting in. Then the unexpected of all unexpected happened -- a whopping earthquake shook the country and created a shitload of other problems bigger than the earthquake itself which then lead to frightened parents and uncertainty. After receiving word of my [partial] acceptance (waitlisted), there was no need for excitement since I well already knew I'd probably have to reject it. Having actually rejected the position left me with my current issue: finding a new job. I got this current job keeping in mind that it was temporary since the pay was no way up to par and the working conditions are extremely less than ideal. I figured the relative convenience for travel and it's relatedness to my skillset worked at the time. Not to mention it was a well known company in the area but I didn't know what kind of company it really was until I started working in it... no surprise there, really. Now that I'm here to stay (in Canada), I've begun thinking about myself, my career, and my future in the long term.

No, nothing philosophical here.

I don't think I've had this level of stress since my JET application (yeah, that sonuvabitch was stressful). I recently plowed through 3 interviews for a prospective global corporation but didn't make the final cut due to the less experience compared to the other candidate. It was unfortunate but it /was/ my first multi-tier interview, so it was a pretty good experience. Other than that, it has been extremely quiet on the battlefront since I've been picking my battles carefully.

On another front, I'm currently looking to invest in a place out of town. In-town (aka. Vancouver) has become unreasonably unaffordable and at this rate, the cities surrounding Vancouver will end up the same. Burnaby (see: Sovereign) is a good example of ridiculousness (it even sold out on the first day) and its prime location justifies its desirability, which in turn, jacks up the prices as well. Then there's Richmond which has become out of the question ever since earthquakes have become an ongoing global concern this year. Doesn't help that we also have to fight with foreign investors (aka. China people) who have way too much pocket change.

Although the job hunting hasn't been very fruitful, I've been well occupied and entertained by life's other diversions. Regrettably, Fable 3 has been doing quite the opposite and I'm just looking to get it over and done with. The inner [selective] completionist in me is making that rather difficult though. I definitely wasn't thinking straight when I decided to play Fable 3 when I was in the mood for a JRPG. Fable 3's disappointment aside, life's still being sprinkled with small moments of joys. The near completion of my brother's new place is one. The family will be taking a look over it tomorrow. And more recently I think I won something... kinda big. More on it when I actually get it.

Okay, now back to the hunt.

Ar Tonelico II: vine en vine, zweie arsye yor

Erm, slight review backlog. This is from a year ago. Didn't have the time to put in the final touches. Allow me to finally dump this here.


Story 4/5
AT2 brings us another tale of Ar Ciel, this time in Metafalss where Reyvateils are being affected by an epidemic of unknown origins. Croix (ku-ro-a), an exceptionally skilled knight, wounds up becoming a bodyguard for Cloche, the holy maiden of the Grand Bell, when she gets attacked during her holidaying by a resistance against the church/organization (governing body) she represents. This becomes the start of his investigation into the source of the epidemic and uncovering the powers and history of his land.

Croix isn't complete without his trusty childhood friend, Luca, who's the perfect polar opposite of Cloche. The two ladies butt heads throughout the story but, of course, there's a whole huge reason behind all of the bickering. The two eventually have to come to terms with each other for the sake of the world and their loved one (aka. the lucky protagonist) after they find out their wield more power than they think.

Saving the world isn't a surprising story but the references from the first game definitely make this experience a lot more deep and interesting. Just like the first game, the second allows you to choose one of the two paths (the two girls) which opens up a different part of the story but closes others. There's also a third girl option which usually takes a bit more effort to reach but she's worth it. I played through the game twice again (yes, it's absurd) to get both paths and to finish with two of the three girls. Luca was not one of them, so now you know.

Characters 4.5/5
I really liked how the design direction of the characters in this game felt more mature (although I think they're about the same age as the prev series). Neither main girls really spoke to me, but Cloche was a bit more interesting than Luca. Still, her ending left much to be desired. On the other hand, the third reyvateil was pretty amusing with her sarcastic personality and her quirkiness makes her all the more interesting. I already knew what was featured in the ending from the Concert OST so watching the scene for myself just topped it off for me.

Unfortunately the protagonist is, again, an indifferent guy who is unaffected by the pretty girls who'd die to get in his pants. His (or I guess yours) feelings will change according to how you advance with the girls but it comes off a tad bit forced. The fortunate part, though, is that his character design is refreshing a nice change in comparison to the genericness of Lyner of AT1. His look is complete when he wears his glasses when he's in normal clothing (glasses fetish? me? no way!). Perhaps I'm a sucker for cool guys. Maybe.. yeah, probably. He even uses a giant lance and his strongest move is called, ahem, maximum penetration. Who can resist a manly scream like that. ;)

Overall it felt like there were more character sub-stories (some selective merchants) and more background stories to be uncovered (if one wished to pursue them).

Sound 5.5/5
AT music has always been known to be nothing less than amazing. I was already well familiarized to the hymns prior to the game and playing the game put the tracks into context. I fell in love with the distinct music style of the vocal tracks just the same as how I did for the first one. Always loved the duets and multiple singer tracks and without a doubt, my most favourite track is featured in the third reyvateil's ending as a duet with Croix.

Yusa Kouji makes such a cool and delicious Croix and out of character Suwabe Junichi as Chester in the optional Cosmosphere was the icing on the cake for this game's Japanese voice track. I avoided the English language track as usual and it's a good thing I did as I heard it's quite distracting and embarrassing to play when the girl shouting for you to insert the thing into them, telling you its overflowing from the inside, and that they demand for more. Ahem.

Graphics 3/5
Average graphics although there's definitely improvement from AT1. Areas have more dimension as the perspective adjusts and move with your character now. Your pixel character, however, continues to be its pixel self. The still portraits and full background images return to provide that dating sim feel but the cutscene animations seemed to have dropped in quality.

Gameplay 3.5/5
The gameplay probably received the biggest upgrade from the first. The battle system has evolved and every action you take now counts for something towards your reyvateil's performance. You now also get up to two beautiful ladies to protect during battle - 2x more work but 2x more powerful. Battles are divided into turn phases (attack and defense) and your offensive turn is to be used as efficiently as possible as you're under a timer. Songs now have branches and evolve depending on your battle action and with the right circumstances, you can synchronize your reyvateils for a powerful attack, call on a satellite for help, or just evolve the song to its most powerful level.

Other nifty [mostly optional] gameplay features include the Cosmosphere (from AT1 - diving into the minds of the ladies to uncover deep dark secrets), bathing events (no you don't get to bath with them but you can watch!), crafting (the ridiculous inventions return) and finding infected reyvateils (which you then recruit to do your bidding).

Overall 4/5
As a second timer into the Ar Tonelico series, I knew what to expect and it definitely lived up to its name. The typos and bugs aside (it won't let me fight Raki :( ), the obvious sexual innuendos are so amusing and that itself just continues to entertain. Having a bit more than just a bit of reference from the first game ([spoiler]The third reyvateil[/spoiler]), made this game all the more interesting as well.


Creepy bug I felt like snapshotting.
Looking forward to diving into AT3 and whatever else they have planned for the world of Ar Tonelico!