Big Hero 6 in Kingdom Hearts 3? Well played, Disney and Squenix. Well played.

So, between Nintendo releasing the original Mother in English on the WiiU Virtual Console, and Sony announcing FF7 HD and Shenmue 3, who do I need to ask to get my English release of Seiken Densetsu 3? (Secret of Mana 2? Fill-in-the-blank-here of Mana?)

For the record, I'm fairly neutral on the FF7 HD thing. I'm happy for people who really wanted it, but I'm not going to buy it because it was never really one of my favorite games. I like about 67% of the other FF main series games better than 7.

Oh man, the music for the Phoenix Wright and Professor Layton game sounds so *amazing*.  And no, I don't have it yet; my birthday is soon and I've been dropping incredibly unsubtle hints about it. ;p

So every so often I stare at this thing and I think, "Hmm, maybe I should post something." And then I don't, because I can't figure out what I want to say or I'm not in the mood to write or what have you.

Stuff's happened, some good, some bad. Work's been rather awful for the last month, but it's starting to get better. I'm continuing to enjoy FFXIV, although I haven't been playing quite as much in the past few weeks since I've started playing Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies. I really like it; it's very good to see Phoenix back, I genuinely like Apollo, and Athena's a good deal of fun. I'm on the third case right now and it's been super fun. (I also may have gotten a little too excited about the return of a certain prosecutor. What can I say, I've got a thing for blonds. ^_~)

There's more I could write about, but I've never been very good at summary posts and I'm starting to get stupidly tired, so we'll leave it here. At least I'm sort of back.

It's not that I don't love the current Red Wings, especially Datsyuk and Zetterberg, but the guys who played primarily in the mid-90's to mid-00's are really the ones that have my heart. So the Alumni Games today, especially the second one, were full of all the goodness that I remembered. Made me realize how much I miss those guys.

And Manny Legace ends up stopping everyone in the shootout. Yay!

I have too many of these stupid plastic store discount cards in my wallet, yet whenever I decide to remove one, I inevitably end up at that particular store.

I'd be happier with Boston winning the World Series if David Ortiz hadn't pulled a jerk move earlier in the season by smashing up a phone in the Camden Yards dugout. I hope the money to replace it came out of his paycheck.

I am really happy for Koji Uehara, though! I liked him in Baltimore and while I was sad when he left (though that was the trade that got us Chris Davis), I'm glad to see he's doing so well.

Actual content possibly coming soon. Possibly.

Professor Layton versus Ace Attorney coming in 2014.

WOO and HOO! That's my most anticipated game for 2014 right there.

(Now maybe you can do a 3DS download of the second Edgeworth game? Pretty please?)

Slowly beginning to extricate myself from the work vortex of the past few months. I knew for a while that June and July were going to be ridiculously busy, and that held true. I want vacation now, but it's not for a couple weeks, so I need to keep myself motivated. Soon, though, I get a break and a change of scenery.

So I keep meaning to make posts. Posts about games I've played lately (Journey was *amazing*), posts about fun things I've done lately, posts about things I'm looking forward to. But I haven't done that, because work has sucked and completely drained my will to write when I actually have time. Still, it's the last day of June and I haven't written a post for this month yet, so you get this. Yay?

I absolutely love this quote from an article on Jonathan Ericsson on improving his defense skills in the NHL: "That’s a process you need to learn, unless you’re Nick Lidstrom, where you don’t do anything wrong."

I still miss Lidstrom, but I think his successors are starting to show that the team is in good hands.

Recently I bought some e-short story collections from Amazon to read via my browser (I don't own a Kindle). I buy them electronically rather than physically because they're less expensive that way, the individual stories tend to be hit or miss, and the library generally doesn't get copies. What this also means is that I generally spread out my reading and do it one story at a time, so it takes a while to finish it as opposed to a regular book.

This apparently isn't fast enough for Amazon, as today I got an e-mail telling me to rate all my recent purchase and write reviews. No, Amazon, I am not done with these yet. Yes, I realize that I generally rate my purchases, though I don't write reviews. But I'm still working on these, and I *seriously* resent the implication that I'm not reading fast enough for your tastes. (The implication - or outright statement - that I am not doing something fast enough is one of my major pet peeves/irritants.) So shut up, leave me alone, and I'll finish these when I finish these, mmmmkay?

Edit: The exact title of the e-mail that set me off was "How many stars would you give [Title of Book]?" And my immediate reaction was, "I don't know, Amazon, I haven't finished reading it yet."

This article answers a question I've had for some time now: if Ferris Bueller's Day Off is set in Chicago, why is Cameron wearing Gordie Howe's Red Wings jersey? Detroit and Chicago are old NHL rivals, so it's equivalent to wearing Red Sox gear in New York.

Speaking of the Red Sox and the Yankees, rumors of their demise seem to be premature, as they're currently in the top two spots of the AL East, but right behind them are the Orioles, doing a respectable 16-11 for the month of April. Right now, I'm just so darned happy that the O's didn't go back to sucking this year. I'll worry about playoff positioning later. ;)

Going back to hockey, both the Red Wings and the Capitals are in the Stanley Cup playoffs, though this time it was no sure thing for either team. The Wings just barely made it. I admit that I didn't follow things as closely this season; the lockout killed some of my enthusiasm, and then when the season finally did start, it felt off somehow. But I'm still happy to have two teams to follow in at least the first round. Hopefully that will hold true for subsequent rounds as well.

I've spent most of my gaming time over the past couple of months with a Final Fantasy of one sort or another. Since my last entry, I've backburnered FF3 in favor of FF11's new expansion, Seekers of Adoulin, and FF13-2. I managed to finish FF13-2 in less than three months, which is actually the fastest I've gone through an FF game in a while. Admittedly, it's shorter than most games in the series; I clocked in about 45 hours, and that was including most of the optional content. But if I'd managed to play, say, FF12 at that same rate, I would've finished in a bit over half a year, not... four. Even FF10-2, probably the game most comparable to 13-2 in length, took over a year because I was distracted by FF11.

Distracted by FF11, by the way, is the story for my slow game completion rate for the past nine years. ^^;

Anyhow, I had fun with FF13-2, more fun than I was expecting. I'd heard that people who liked FF13 generally didn't like FF13-2 as much, while people who didn't like FF13 generally liked FF13-2 a bit more. Since I'd enjoyed FF13, I went in thinking I wasn't going to feel the same way about 13-2. What happened is that I found things I enjoyed more about 13, and things I enjoyed more about 13-2, and I think that in the end, I might give the gameplay of 13-2 a slight edge.

I liked the ability to have all the Paradigm roles available on my two human party members. While I appreciated the challenge of having three primary roles per party member in FF13, there were a few combinations that I really wish I'd had easier access to, like SAB/SYN/SEN. In 13-2, I could do that easily. Similarly, SEN/SEN/SEN came in handy for a few of the harder fights. Getting a monster or two of the appropriate role to fill in the third slot was fairly easy, and the monster leveling system was fairly straightforward. I had to farm for materials a couple of times, but for the most part I had everything I needed on hand just from standard fights. Battles went more smoothly, too. Taking the delay out of the first Paradigm Shift of a fight encourages swapping to finish things up more easily.

I also liked the increased exploration. While I didn't mind that large parts of FF13 were basically on rails and there were a lot of non-revisitable areas, "didn't mind" is not necessarily the same as "like." The constant need to keep moving forward fit the theme of FF13 very well, but I liked being able to go back to places and I liked the variations among the different time periods.

Finally, the more standardized shop weapon and accessory system worked much more easily than the upgrade system in FF13. I was able to get along just fine with the new buyable weapons in each chapter, whereas in FF13 I'm not sure I ever bothered to upgrade any of the weapons and it probably handicapped me later in the game.

Not everything was a step forward in 13-2, though. Going back to what amounts to random battles is annoying. I lost count of how many times I was *just* about to open a treasure or click on a target and then was attacked, locking me out. I did a reasonably good job with preemptive strikes, but then after a battle I had to reorient myself because I'd run in an entirely different direction to get that preemptive strike.

I didn't like the new Crystarium system for my human characters as much, either. While I know some people enjoy having complete control over how to customize their characters, I like more structure. I ended up using a guide to level them because I was afraid of irrevocably messing something up. The guide didn't completely mesh with my playing style, but it worked well enough.

Finally, while I know people complain about the "30 hour tutorial" that is the early part of FF13, FF13-2 pretty much assumes that you've played FF13. It makes sense - I can't really imagine too many people would jump right in to the second game of a series that has very strong plot ties to the previous one - but a quick refresher might have been helpful if you aren't coming right from FF13. (That's a *quick* refresher, though, not something like Kingdom Hearts 2's five-hour tutorial. Yes, I *have* played the first game and even if it's been a while, it's not going to take me that long to remember.)

( And now we talk about plot. Spoilers for FF10, FF10-2, FF13, and FF13-2 follow.Collapse )

I have wondered, though, if FF10-2 and FF13-2 are meant to take the place of FF11 and FF14 for people who aren't going to be playing an MMO. That makes a certain amount of sense.

Anyhow, for all I'm rambling here, I really did have a good time playing FF13-2. There were a few frustrating spots - the final level does a lot of weird platform-shifting stuff - but overall it was fun. Still, as much as I liked FF10-2 back when I played it, I sometimes wish that it hadn't started the trend of each numbered non-MMO FF game becoming its own franchise instead of simply the series being the franchise. I'd like them to start working on FF15 now, not FF13 Versus Returns Zero This Is the Last One We Mean It This Time.

* Disclaimer: While I have FF4: The After Years and FF12: Revenant Wings, I haven't played much of the former or any of the latter, so I can't really comment on them. But I feel it's important to mention that yes, other FF sequels exist, even if I don't discuss them here.

* Disclaimer Disclaimer: The FF7-verse is Yet Another Matter and I'm definitely not going into that here. ;p

One thing I meant to include in yesterday's entry is that I'm a bit annoyed by the post-job swap stat reduction in FF3 DS. If nothing else, it discourages repeated swapping to see all the characters in their cute outfits! I realize the original version had some sort of points restriction system, but the original version also had all the characters look alike. ;p

But yeah, the grindiest thing so far has actually been my need to fight a bunch of battles in Saronia so I could have everyone be on an appropriate job to fight the boss. Ingus the Surly White Mage is incredibly amusing, though.

...namely, the one that really is FF3 and not the original US release of FF6.

Post-FF13, I've been dividing my gaming time primarily between FF13-2 and the DS remake of FF3. My thoughts on FF13-2 may eventually get their own entry (short answer: I'm surprised how much I'm liking the game), but today I'd like to talk about FF3. Now, I'm probably about two-thirds to three-quarters of the way through the game, so my opinion may change (and more on that in a bit) but so far it's been quite fun. The game has been very well-balanced, with practically no need for grinding; I'm not sure if that's a feature of the original or if it was rebalanced for the remake. It's been challenging without resorting to being cheap for the most part with the exception of perhaps one boss fight, though I can't really complain too much when the optimal solution is more Dragoons. ;) On a related note, the game has also been good about dropping hints as to which jobs will be coming in handy for particular dungeons and boss fights, which is helpful given the sheer number of jobs available.

Where FF3 suffers is that because it was released in the US after almost every other main series FF game (save 13, 13-2, and 14), it feels rather vanilla in its plot and design. FF3 actually introduced a *ton* of classic FF series elements. This was the first appearance of moogles. The changeable job system and many of the standard FF jobs debuted here: Summoners, Geomancers, Rangers, Bards, Dark Knights, Scholars, and several others. Dragoons, while first appearing in FF2, learned how to jump in FF3. ;) But the "save the crystals, save the world" plot also happened in FF1, and FF5 offers both a more refined version of the job system and a more interesting version of said plot.

The DS remake of FF3 helps by giving the originally generic Onion Kids distinctive names and appearances, and a bit of personality, but it could have gone further. Sure, it's funny when Refia laments the need for another Toad transformation, or sweet when bullying victim Arc comforts the young Prince Argus of Saronia, but frequently the party is just going to a town, solving its problem, and moving on to the next without any sort of commentary at all. Even just a few intra-party discussion cutscenes would have been nice. We can assume that the group is okay with the idea of being Light Warriors and okay with each other, but I wouldn't have minded some elaboration. (Conversations with temporary party members help, but it's easy to miss them given how temporary said membership tends to be.)

What I'm finding most interesting about FF3 is a few very specific design elements that it has in common with FF4. This makes sense, given how close together the two were developed, but a lot of said elements disappear in FF5 and some never return. For example, there's the Fat Chocobo storage system. Also, both FF3 and FF4 have similar ways of hiding items in towns and secret passages. Despite FF3's original release on the NES and FF4's original release on the SNES, I feel like in some ways they might have more visually similar layouts than FF2 and FF3, or FF4 and FF5.

Unfortunately, there's one important design element that wasn't introduced until FF4: dungeon save spots. This hasn't really been a problem so far; most dungeons have been easy to finish in a single play session and feel far less meandering than the ones in FF1 (which also didn't have save spots in the original version). But I've heard I've heard not-so-promising things about the endgame, and given the other adaptations in this remake, just having a quicksave that doesn't erase itself once it's loaded would have been nice. I'll worry about that when I get there, though; right now, I have a lute to find.

Also? The Great Magus Noah is either a total SOB, or he's playing the long game... but is still a SOB.

Our printer at work is notoriously unreliable. I think any printer that gets used frequently for a variety of jobs tends to malfunction, but ours seems to break down pretty often.

This afternoon, I decided to take a chance and print out some meeting notes. The first few copies I made had some yellow bars across them, but were readable. Then the printer ran out of paper. While gathering the new paper, I cut my thumb on one of the edges. Undaunted, I loaded the paper into the printer. It worked perfectly after that.

I'm somewhat disturbed by the fact that the printer seems to be demanding a blood sacrifice now. ^^;

Oh. Oh hey, look. It's December 22, 2012, and we're all still here.

I give an incredulous "...really?" to people who were actually taking this end of the world thing seriously, and wish everyone a happy 13.0.0.0.1 today!

grysar and I finished decorating the Christmas tree last night. All we have to do now is set up the train, and decorating is finished. Despite getting a later start on decorating this year than we have in past years, we've actually ended up putting up more decorations. So this is partly a note to myself in future years that it's not about getting a super-early start but having fun when the time comes. (I was in a work-induced haze from after Thanksgiving to late last week, so this was not the year to be getting an early start on things.) I think I'll take pictures of everything because I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

Christmas shopping is mostly done, too. There's a few things still in transit that should arrive tomorrow, and I need to pick up a few gift cards (the perfect gift for older male relatives) and actual card cards, but that's easily manageable. My out-of-town relatives' cards will be a bit late this year, but they'll have been mailed before Christmas, so that counts, right? ;)