Wednesday, June 30, 2004--I had some weird disease today. Here's how it progressed.
Phase 1: 1am to 1pm
Symptoms: Diarhhea, Vomiting,
Weakness
Phase 2: 1pm to 4am the next day (yes, I wrote this article on Thursday)
Symptoms: Fever, Headaches, more
Weakness
All in all, not a good experience. I had to cancel from my tutoring in order to recover. However, it reminded of the last time I was sick, I had this conversation with Jackie:
Me: I hate being sick.
Jackie: No no no, don't hate it. It's a fact of life. Just accept it.
Something like that. It made her sound like the wise little girl she is.
Stephanie: Hey, who are you calling little?
Me: Uhh... not you.
Either that or it was Lei. I can't remember.
Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 6) Total: 9
Good Night!
Tuesday, June 29, 2004--In the morning, I had to prepare the worksheets for the Algebra class because I'm a procrastinator like that. The worksheets came out on time, just in time for me to leave to Jumping Up and hand them to Mrs. Yaung for the photocopies. Class ran much better this time. Instead of me trying to figure out what to do, I actually had a plan. I also gave them a lot more homework, at the request of the parents. Hehe... parents wanting more homework for their kids... amusing. Well, so long as their the ones they pay me, I might as well listen to their requests.
Anyways, now I'm back at home. I've eaten dinner. I've updated my website. I intend on playing Xenogears some more.
Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 5) Total: 10
Good Night!
Monday, June 28, 2004--Today, after lunch, I went and bought Soul Calibur II, which is pretty good as far as fighting games go. My favorite character is Raphael, the left-handed fencer, because fencers are cool and lefties are cool, too.
Franklin: What? Raphael's your favorite just because he's a fencer?
Me: Yeah. Fencers are honorable people. What? Is it better if I like Xianghua best because she's cute?
Note: I don't actually like Xianghua, cute as she may or may not be.
Anyways, I also had to teach Franklin calculus. Later, I'll have to teach him Physics. It's
all good.
I was also talking to Lizzie today, about how a year ago today, we were in Japan. I was talking to her about some of my memories in Japan, including eating Tempura Soba at at least 5 different restaurants, getting completely soaked in the warm rain (yes, the rain is warm in Japan) in Kyoto while coming back from the Internet Cafe, and about the whole Lizzie/Beth incident that always reminds me what a good person Lizzie is. I miss Lizzie already... even though I talk to her on AIM pretty often.
Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 5) Total: 6
Good Night!
Sunday, June 27, 2004--Same as yesterday.
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 3) Total: 9
Good Night! (short entry...)
Saturday, June 26, 2004--Today is a huge blur. All I can remember is that I was playing Xenogears. Of course, part of the reason that today is a huge blur is probably because I actually wrote this entry on Tuesday the 29th. Hehe... whoops!
Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 4) Total: 9
I'll keep my endings plain and simple for a while, simply because I'm tired of thinking up good ones. Good Night!
Friday, June 25, 2004--
A Year Ago Today: I leave home for Japan with the SJYS.
(This is why I wanted to talk to Lizzie.)
Anyways, today, Justin invited the SSS gang to lunch at the Palace BBQ buffet, but Alan was stuck on a mountain (that's where his home is) because his car was jacked up, Mark was stuck at Berkeley, Ryan was doing something with his family, so it was just the JENG brothers and Justin. I drove.
Then, we went to Superstars, where there was this really good kid who had a mono-blue Control deck, a reanimator deck, and black kill deck, and that's all I remember. Justin fought those three decks and lost. Then, I played the reanimator deck, won one (I got lucky), then lost one.
Finally, we went back to my house where we did some shit... mostly played MTG, I think. *shrug*
Then, I played some more Xenogears after dinner. Man, these journal entries are getting boringer and boringer, aren't they? I should include more interesting incidences... provided that they exist. My life is boring... K[censored]!
Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 1) Total: 5
May the Night be Good!
Thursday, June 24, 2004--I believe my day started when I something something, I don't know... All I remember is that eventually, I went and borrowed Xenogears from Alex. Man, Xenogears is
so much better than Xenosaga. That and the graphics (this might make some of you graphics whores look at me funny), Xenogears is one of the few games whose graphics have impressed me. 2D sprites in a 3D
fully-rotatable world.
Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 3) Total: 6
Good Night!
Wednesday, June 23, 2004--To start, an AIM conversation:
Viltris: man, where's lizzie when i need to talk to her
[Justin]: lol
[Justin]: girls usually arent on at this hour unless they're studying
Viltris: true
Viltris: vincy's online, though
Here's another AIM conversation just for fun:
Viltris: k, plan B
Viltris: i can poke you
Viltris: *poke*poke*
[Kim]: eh...not very nice plan...i don't like getting poked
[Kim]: *stab*
(This happened on June 2, 2004, btw.)
And last, here's another one that happened today:
Viltris: why does everyone like you?
Auto response from [Sarah]: out
Yeah, Sarah is amusing.
Anyways, other than that, I played some Xenosaga (Drill game and Card game... it has good mini-games, remember?) and then after lunch, Justin came over to my place to try out his low-level deck (of leftover cards) against my low-level deck. At one point, he plays an
Argothian Wurm. I choose to sac a land to it. He then plays another one. Me: "Oh, shit! ...I sac another land."
Then, after dinner, I went to the
San Jose Fencing Center. It was good to fence again. I'm slowly getting back in the game after a month's break. These dudes are skilled. I feel proud to have gotten 8-9 points against 15 in these bouts against them. Of course, they might not have been giving their all, considering I'm new at the fencing center, but *shrug*. We take what we can get.
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 6) Total: 12
Good Night, dudes!
Tuesday, June 22, 2004--So after working on
Dark Fiends for a bit, I had to go to the Jumping Up place to go teach the Algebra class that begins just today (the kids were smarter than I thought, so I've decided to push the envelope) and to tutor this girl who needs help preparing for the SAT II Math 1c test in October.
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 5) Total: 11
Good Night!
Monday, June 21, 2004--I'll start with your daily dose of amusement:
No, wait, that's Alan's website. My bad. I'll start with your occasion interesting-but-not-in-a-perverted-way-like-Alan's-website AIM conversation:
[Lei]: eh?
...later, when I inform her of my plans to put that line on my Journal...
[Lei]: hey!!
[Lei]: gahhhh
Viltris: heh, sorry
Viltris: something wrong?
[Lei]: *grumble*
[Lei]: i dotn say eh that much!!
Viltris: which is why i must capture it whenever you do!
[Lei]: lol
[Lei]: so easily amused..
Viltris: yes i am
Yes I am, Lei, yes I am. (Lei is Canadian.)
Anyways, other than that, I had to go tutor at Jumping Up and prepare for the Algebra class Mrs. Yaung has assigned me to teach.
Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 4) Total: 6
Hmm... I think I've ended enough entries with "Hmm", hmm? Good Night!
Sunday, June 20, 2004--Heh, someone posted this in my ghostbook: "Another post about Karen! Hooray!" It sounds like someone is obsessed with Karen, huh?
Anyways, today, I beat Xenosaga. Here is my review:
You know how people often say Xenosaga is an interactive movie? Well, they
meant interactive movie. The game is about 20-30 minutes of cutscenes and FMVs at a time with about 5-10 minutes of actual gameplay in between. Yeah, it's not surprising considering Xenosaga was made with the storyline in mind, and all of its good reviews are based on the depth of its storyline etc etc.
Well, this may possibly be the first
bad review for Xenosaga you've ever seen... a review based off its gameplay.
Don't get me wrong, the gameplay wasn't
horrible. It's just that there wasn't any gameplay at all. Fine, there was, but there was so little that Xenosaga could hardly be called a game. I mean, there are so few dungeons that I could count them with my fingers, and of them, only about four of them qualify as
actual dungeons, and most of them were pretty short anyway.
The other major problems was the lack of random battles. All the enemies can be seen on the world map, and in the game, they actually
discourage you from fighting
unnecessary battles, which basically means you won't be levelling up much and it discourages you from exploring dungeons, thanks to the guard work of well-placed
powerful monsters. Honestly, for an RPG (and trust me when I say this, the main point of RPGs
isn't storyline, but character development, collecting items, and exploring) discouraging combat and exploration is pretty much gameplay suicide.
Ryan Chao asked me a good question when he asked if the storyline makes up for Xenosaga's horrible gameplay. Well, to tell you the truth, I'm not the right character to ask. Anyone who knows me knows I play games solely for the gameplay (I wouldn't play the game if it sucked), and storyline is important to me only as far as it drives the gameplay. Xenosaga does a good job at this, but then again, I've never seen a storyline fail to drive the gameplay in an RPG, so that doesn't say very much. To tell you the truth, though, I much prefer FF storylines than Xenosaga storylines, mainly because they're longer and more involved than a 20 minute cutscene focused on a single event. I dunno, maybe this just means I need to play Xenogears.
As to the music, the lack of a separate battle theme for bosses and for regular battles was annoying. They should have included an extra bossfight music. Would that have been too much to ask? Or had they filled up the disc with so many FMVs that they simply didn't have room for one more song?
Lastly, the game was much too short. I beat Xenosaga at Level 37 in about 39 hours. The back of the box promises "80 hours of gameplay". I beat it in half that. Now, if by gameplay they mean actual gameplay and not FMVs, then we can subtract the 5-6 hours worth of cutscenes from my game time and I'll feel
truly ripped off. No wait, Xenosaga only cost me $20, so it wasn't that bad.
To end on a positive note, though, Xenosaga has the best mini-games since FF7--possibly even better. The card game was especially good, better than any FF card game ever created. It's like a
real card game, like MTG, not like a stupid 5 card little thing like Triple Triad.
Overall...
Xenosaga:
-Bad gameplay
+Good mini-games
?People rave about the storyline--I don't particularly care
Depending on what you like in RPGs, I wouldn't know if Xenosaga is a blessing or a curse, but if you're anything like me, I'd whole-heartedly recommend it to you--the mini-games alone are worth the $20.
Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 4) Total: 9
Hmm... it's time to close this window and to come back another day. I hope you enjoyed my content today, although many of you will choose to not read it. Hopefully, the fact that I included no major spoilers so as to not have to put it in spoiler text will make it more accessible to all of you.
Anyways, Good Night!
Saturday, June 19, 2004--Finally, I buy the sword from
American Fencers Supply. I now have a saber and a full fencing suit. *burns-like* Excellent!
Other than that, I just played some more Xenosaga. I ate dim sum for lunch and cheap (and crappy, but edible) Costco pizza for dinner.
Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 2) Total: 6
Hmm... It looks like... Oh, hello! Good Night, persons!
Friday, June 18, 2004--Today, I was playing Xenosaga when Alan called and said he and the gang were on their way to my house. It was not a question. So they arrive, and Mark decides to play DotA on my laptop (which no one ever puts on top of their lap for some reason), when the phone rings (DSL has had problems lately), and he and Alan both lag out of
B.Net simultaneously. Damn!
Mark: I think we should get together as many Frozen Throne CDs as possible so we can DotA.
Alan: Are you suggesting we have a LAN party?
Me: Well, we only have 2 comps here that run Frozen Throne, so we'll need to get everyone else's laptop here. Justin, do you have a laptop that supports Frozen Throne?
Justin:
Me: Oh, wait, no you don't.
Me and Justin then duel in MTG, him using my slivers, me using his gobs. In one game, I had only 1 mountain in my opening hand, so I thought what the heck and I kept it. I didn't draw another land for at least 10 turns, but I drew pretty much all of Justin's 1-mana plays, and so I somehow managed to beat my slivers even though they got out so much more mana than me.
Then, we play an MTG 5-player ring-based, point-based melee. I think I'll need to tweak the rules (or look up Wizard's official rules) because both Alan and I lost first, but neither of us got last place. Instead, Ryan, using my Arcbound Deck, managed to pull off a Ravager/Disciple win against both Justin and Mark simultaneously, getting both the bonus for being last man standing
and winning by a good margin of 3 points.
Then, they left.
Me: They'll be back. They always come back.
Alan: Heh, that's what I said when the lady came to refill our drinks, and she refilled Ryan's drink all the way, but she only refilled mine just a little bit. Lucky for her, she came back later and filled up my drink all the way.
Me: Wait... you guys went to the Crazy Buffet?
Alan: Yeah, and it was crazy.
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 6) Total: 12
Hmm... hmm... hmm... hmm? Good Night!
Thursday, June 17, 2004--Today involved some order of Time Crisis 3, Xenosaga, and tutoring physics at Jumping Up. I don't really care anymore.
Now, for some content. Here are some dreams I've been having:
- I dreamt that my mom took me to the Asian ghetto to buy shoes and shirts. Problem #1, I've never been to the Asian Ghetto. We buy our shoes and shirts at Mervyn's. Problem #2, I don't need new shoes or shirts.
- I was giving a speech and I saw Maria talking to Karen. I don't think the two of them know each other, and I don't think I would ever give a speech to an audience big enough to contain both of them.
- I dreamt that I had to go to the bathroom, but the first bathroom I found had a faulty lock on the door, so I dared not to go lest someone open the door on me while I was pissing. The second bathroom I found was actually a kitchen. Then, I woke up and went to the real bathroom. Why is it that when you have to take a piss and you're sleeping, you always dream that you can't find a bathroom?
- (This entry was written on Saturday, June 19, but I wanted to consolidate the dream material.) Last night, I had a dream about straight lines. It probably has to do with the way I cut with my saber.
Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 1) Total: 6
Hmm... Good Night!
Wednesday, June 16, 2004--It's the last day of school for all the Lelenaders--I mean Lelanders--so... congrats, all you Leland dudes and chicks that I know!
Other than that, I played Xenosaga.
Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 6) Total: 10
Ahh... maybe I should stop ending my journal entries with an "ahh..." Good Night!
Tuesday, June 15, 2004--More Xenosaga for me today. (Don't worry, just because I play it a lot doesn't mean it has good gameplay. I just like playing new games... unless they're uber-bad, like Splinter Cell.)
A Year Ago Today: Lizzie decides to talk to me for once.
After picking up my little bro, we went to eat at Showgi, the Japanese restaurant. There, I saw little Stephanie (who's actually really tall Stephanie). Of course, when I saw her, she had her back turned to me, but I recognized her by the marshmellow thing, as usual.
Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 5) Total: 8
Yep, I decided to do a new format for the dice roll, mainly so it doesn't look like I'm writing obvious equations.
Ahh... no point in continuing this any further. The Night be Good.
Monday, June 14, 2004--On impulse, I bought Xenosaga. I heard it was a good game, so I've been wanting to try it for a while now. That and, at Circuit City, I could get a brand-new copy ("Greatest Hits") for only $20, so I thought what the heck.
Of course, before I even had a chance to play, I had to prepare and go tutor this dude for the SAT II Physics.
As to Xenosaga, when those people say that it's an interactive movie, they
mean interactive movie. That game is more cutscenes and FMVs than actual gameplay, which is a problem if you're a gamer who goes for the gameplay, like me (and
not the storyline). There is one good point about this game, though, and it's that Xenosaga has the best mini-games since FF7 (possibly even better, I can't decide).
Dice Roll of the Day: 6 + 3 = 9
Ahh... Good Night, everyone!
Sunday, June 13, 2004--I've gotten down to playing Golden Sun (the game, not the Dim Sum Restaurant). It's an RPG made by Nintendo, and it's pretty good. Storyline-wiese, it feels a lot like some of the older RPGs. So far, it seems to be a good game.
*GS*
For those of you who don't know, the game officially began when Saturos and Menardi, along with Alex and Jenna's thought to be dead brother Felix, stole the Elemental Stars from Sol Sanctum and kidnapped Jenna and Kraden and we had to chase them across the world map. My first quest took me to some city, the name of which I don't remember, where I met this psychic named Ivan, who joined my party (of Isaac and Garet) in order to find the bandit's who stole the shaman's rod, and thus, in my first boss fight (incredibly easy), I beat the bandits.
Later, I made my way to Bilibin, then to the Kolima Forest, where Tret, the holy tree, had become posessed by the Psynergy fragments and, in his anger, turned all the lumberjacks into trees. His peaceful side was dying, but I defeated his wrathful side, but he was still dying anyway and didn't have the power to turn the people back from trees.
Then, I travelled up north to Imil, where I met Mia, from the Mercury Clan. Apparently, the people of Imil have caught a nasty cold. After travelling up to the top of the Mercury Lighthouse (she had sensed intruders), she joined my party, we met Saturos & Menardi and their gang at the top. They had lit the lighthouse. While the others were retreating, we fought Saturos, but the Mercury power had weakened him, so he was easier (but it was still a tough fight... he's the first guy to KO one of my characters). But he got away, too. So Mia joined my party permanently to get the other Elemental Stars back and protect the world. With the Lighthouse lit, the fountain of Hermes was running again, so we could use the waters to cure the people. We also used the water to cure Tret, so the forest was revived and the people turned back into... uhh... people.
Then, I travelled down to Fuchin Temple, where I did the Waterfall Trial and got the Force... or rather "Ki", but the move is called Force for some reason.
The dude told me to use this power to reveal hidden animals in the evil Mogall Forest and then follow them, since animals never got lost, but at the other end of the forest, I was ambushed by this boss, a Killer Ape, which I beated quite soundly.
So I made it to Xian, this Chinese-ish place where the people were learning to use Chi, but then Feizhi, the grandmaster's daughter, ran out to look for Hsu, who was on his way back from Lama Temple, but never arrived. Unfortunately, the road is blocked, so I took a detour...
To Altin, the mining city, where spitting monsters have flooded the city. Extermination time!*GS*
Anyways, other than eating at Fresh Choice for dinner, that's pretty much it.
Dice Roll of the Day: 1 + 6 = 7
Ahh... well... Good Night... Sliver!
Saturday, June 12, 2004--Today, I worked some more on
Dark Fiends. Chapter 53 will be up on Wednesday. If not, then I have failed. Miserably.
For some reason, Joanna's at my house.
Joanna: *goes up the stairs, falls, screams*
Me: What the-- Are you people tripping over yourselves?
Joanna: No, I slipped.
Oh, wait. Joanna reads this website. Ah, whatever. (If I recall, I paid too much attention to Joanna last year.)
Dice Roll of the Day: 1 + 5 = 6
Also, I watched Naruto ep 87.
Good Night!
Friday, June 11, 2004--I worked on
Dark Fiends.
Dice Roll of the Day: 6 + 2 = 8
You know I'm tired of writing journal entries when this is all I write. Good Night!
Thursday, June 10, 2004--Blah blah blah, blah blah blahblahblah, blah
blah!
Dice Roll of the Day: 2 + 3 = 5
Good Night!
Wednesday, June 9, 2004--Today, I mainly wrote some shit for
Avalanche Online. I would have done some work on
Dark Fiends, except Franklin was using my laptop and his comp doesn't have Word. *shrug*
Dice Roll of the Day: 6 + 2 = 8
I've been researching AIM tricks. I've learned how to put hidden text that can only be revealed using F2 and how to make links that load URLs inside profile windows and chat windows. However, I still want to know all the AIM chatroom commands outside of the infamous //roll... the "Online Host" seems to imply that there are others, but I've never seen any.
Anyways, that's all I can think of. It's getting late and I just want to say Good Night!
Tuesday, June 8, 2004 - Addendum--Two things:
1. AIM convo with Elizabeth,
Viltris: hey lizzie
[Lizzie]: hey
Viltris: i was thinking about left-handed girls a while back
Viltris: only about 1 in 10 people are left-handed
Viltris: and only 1/2 the people on this world are girls
Viltris: so only 1 in 20 people is a left-handed girl
Viltris: and given any girl, there's probably a 1 in 50 chance that's she's cute
Viltris: so overall, the chances of finding a cute left-handed girl is 1 in 1000
Viltris: and look, i found you!
Viltris: what are the odds of that?
[Lizzie]: HAha
[Lizzie]: you're funny
Yeah, Lizzie's a nice girl. She'll laugh even when I'm being lame, like Jen.
2. I promised you a post as quoted from what I wrote at
Avalanche Online regarding FFTA and getting all 300 missions... in
spoiler text of course!
*TA*
"Okay, I finally beat all 300 missions, got Cid, and did all the Cid missions. These stats come from my save file where Marche is standing on top of Sprohm, ready to do the "Decision Time" mission.
Clan Level 66
Time: 91 hrs 48 min
My final party:
-Marche, Level 35 Paladin with Chivalry & Fighter Tech, Double Sword, equipped with Excalibur2 & Sequence (does about 400 damage per hit)
-Victor (Human), Level 36 Fighter with Fighter Tech & Hunt, Double Sword, equipped with Ebon Blade & Adaman Blade (does about 300 damage per hit)
-Cid, Level 35, equiped with Nagrarok
-Cochran (Nu Mou), Level 28 Morpher (with an Ice Flan that has stats at around 500)
-Malchelo (Nu Mou), Level 35 Black Mage with Black & White Magic, Turbo MP
-Tosca (Viera), Level 34 Summoner with Summon & White Magic, Half MP
And just so you know, Marche, Victor, and Malchelo can kill pretty much everything they encounter in a single attack. Cid can kill MOST things. As to Cochran, I don't know. (I never had a chance to use him in any of the last few missions, hence his low level. In general, everything in the battle was killed before he took a turn. Of course, I hadn't spent all that much time on Morphers...)
On another note, thanks to Dash Boots (I have 1 for every person in my clan) and the Ninja Tobi, and some items like Nagrarok, Sequence, Peytral, and Sapere Aude, my Marche and Victor have a Move of 6, and everyone else has a Move of 5. Yes, I do run Move really high. It was all the Move+2 and Battle Boots in the original Tactics that helped my characters REACH the darned enemies so that I could slay them.
---
On another note... MORPHERS!
You know what I like about them? They're mechanically unique. I mean, where else in an FF game can you capture monsters, train them, and use their abilities in battle. I mean, it's like FFX's Monster Arena combined with FF6's Gau. (For those of you who don't know, Gau is considered by many FF6 experts to be the SINGLE MOST POWERFUL FF6 character, but also the hardest to use and most time consuming to learn all his best abilities. From what I've read, the Morpher is also considered by some to be the most powerful of FFTA classes.)
Power issues aside, Morphers are quite interesting. They seem a lot like the Calculators of the original Tactics--a quirky and original caster class which, if abused, could overpower everything in the game.
It's only a pity that I didn't get them until so late in the game. Heh, GUESS WHICH OF THE 300 MISSIONS I DID LAST?
(That's all.)"*TA*
So... yeah. This is my 2nd Good Night tonight, even though it's the first night. Uhh... Good Night! (Oh, shoot, that was my
3rd.)
Tuesday, June 8, 2004--Today, I completely cleared FFTA, getting all 300 missions, getting Cid, and getting all the corrupt judge missions. I'll post my thoughts later, after
Avalanche Online starts working again and I can post my thoughts in the forums there.
Dice Roll of the Day: 4 + 5 = 9
Good Nights! I'll post an addendum laters!
Monday, June 7, 2004--*TA*
273 missions and counting. Heh, in one of the missions (save Bervenia), I had to fight Gukko, who came back from the dead, except he's now a Lucavi (or a Rukavi, as it was translated in FFTA... I don't know which one's the correct one, because there were lots of typoes in FFTactics). Needless to say, I killed him.
Anyways, at some point, I needed to level up like hell to make my chars strong enough to take certain dispatch missions. It was tedious, but yeah, I think my guys are strong enough now, because supposedly, the Thorn something mission has the larget required stats for my chars, and I have a guy who can already clear it.*TA*
Other than that,
Dice Roll of the Day: 6 + 5 = 11
*yawn* Good Night, everybody...
Sunday, June 6, 2004--I played some FFTA. I'm up to 248 missions now, I think.
Here's an AIM convo that may or may not be amusing:
Viltris: hey jen
Viltris: you know what i think we should do?
Viltris: gather up all the peoples from the 6th floor and hang out
Viltris: well... maybe not all of them
Viltris: just the cool ones
Viltris: and me
[jen]: haha
[jen]: you're not cool dwayne?
Dice Roll of the Day: 4 + 6 = 10
Yeah, this entry was meant to be short. Good Night!
Saturday, June 5, 2004--I should stop beginning my entries with "Today", shouldn't I? *shrug* Today, I visited the ARML. I arrived after they had already finished the Individual and Relay rounds, but before they did the super-relay. Then, I visited Lei, Ke, Bernard, Joanna, Kevin, Grace (and her sister mini-Grace), and Jongmin. SFBA-A won 2nd place again, losing to Thomas Jefferson by
16 points this time. SFBA-B won 4th place in the
B division. (Last year, they were A division, but meh...)
Later, we played Mafia, then I played the piano.
Bernard: Go play Fantasie Impromptu.
Me: Why? You know I can't play that song.
Bernard: Well, you play it better than most people I know.
Me: *plays the song*
Guy (I think it was either Darren or Yi): Wow... you make me look bad.
Kevin: Moonlight Sonata Movement 3, huh? Joyce has been practicing this song like hell.
Me: I'm out of practice. Can you tell?
Kevin: Oh, that explains it. Joyce was telling me how she learned from you, but today, you don't sound so good.
Then, Lei's dad was so generous as to give me a ride home. Upon arriving at home, I fell asleep because I had a headache (hadn't had one of those in a while... probably because I skipped breakfast today). Then, I played FFTA and discovered that Reserve Missions (the missions that require you to trade to do them all) don't count as part of the 300, so I can still get all 300 missions.
Dice Roll of the Day: 6 + 4 = 10
*shrug* Good Night!
Friday, June 4, 2004--Today, I had an appointment with the dentist.
Then, I played some more FFTA. *TA*
I won the clan championships, and I got Shara into my party. It's pretty funny, someone posted a mission at the pub saying that he had heard someone (Shara) scream, so I sent a dude out to go investigate. It turns out an antlion larva as big as your arm landed on Shara's head and she screamed. LOL, sucks for her.
Later, as my inventory of mission items got full, I decided to look online to figure out what I don't need, so that I could throw them out. While I was there, I discovered that it's impossible to get all 300 missions in FFTA without trading for items... which sucks. I'll have to post something about people who play FFTA.*TA*
Anyways, lately I've been thinking of cute left-handed girls. You know, 1 in 10 people are left-handed, and 1/2 of all people are girls, so 1 in every 20 people is a left-handed girl. Add in that any given girl has a 1 in 50 chance of being cute, so overall, there's a 1 in 1000 chance that any given person is a cute left-handed girl.
Lucky for me, I know quite a few. I will not name their names... unless they want to be named... of course, they'll never see this tangent, so they'll never know.
(Wow, I'm so lucky.)
Dice Roll of the Day: 6 + 3 = 9
Good Night, sir and/or madam!
Thursday, June 3, 2004--Today, I beat FFTA. You can read my thoughts, as quoted from Avalanche Online, in spoiler text, of course!
*TA*
"These last few days, I've been playing FFTactics Advance. I beat it in 55:05 with a Clan Level of 51 and 180 missions cleared. On average, my party (the 6 characters I used to beat the game with) was at around Level 25. (Mind you, Remedi/Li Grim is at Level 36.)
My final party:
-Marche, Level 28 Thief with Steal & Fighter Tech, Doublehand (did about 180 damage per hit)
-Montblanc, Level 25 Black Mage
-Victor (Human), Level 24 Fighter with Fighter Tech & Hunt, Double Swords, equipped with Ayviur Red & Ayviur Blue (can anyone say "The Hero Gaol"?) (did about 100 damage per hit, twice per turn)
-Madeline (Viera), Level 24 Fencer with Lunge Tech & Sharpshoot
-Tosca (Viera), Level 27 Summoner with Summon & White Magic
-Blanch (Viera), Level 23 Summoner with Summon & White Magic
Yes, I DO use a proportionately high amount of Viera. For those of you who don't know, I'm a big fan of Summoners. That and, I'm a fencer myself, so naturally, I'm inclined to use fencers in my party.
Here's my breakdown of the game.
GAMEPLAY:
A vast improvement over the gameplay in the original Tactics. For example, in Tactics, magic really sucked because of charge time. However, when they eliminated charge time, magic suddenly became really powerful in TA. Also, since MP regenerates automatically at a rate of 5 per turn, you can make some REALLY powerful mages. (Especially in combination with Damage > MP, which, unlike MP Switch in Tactics, ALWAYS reacted.) The only problem with the no charge time is that the Dragoon's Jump doesn't make much sense unless he stays in the air for a while. That and magic sometimes seems TOO powerful.
Personally, I liked the new expanded job system and learning abilities from weapons. I mean, it made more sense than learning abilities from Menus. ("Hmm... I think I'll save up my JP for a Level 8 Jump and don't need to waste JP on a Level 2, 3, 4, or 5 Jump...") I also liked the differentiation between the races etc etc.
I didn't like the Law system. I mean, it was a good attempt at innovation, but not one most players would be too pleased at. I can see that it was meant as an obstacle, but rather than inspiring strategy on the part of the players, the Laws mainly were just annoying. Besides, having random judges appear in the middle of the battlefield just doesn't make sense.
Another problem was the Jagds. I mean, under the old system in Tactics (with the meter counting down until a charater dies for good), it was easy to save your characters from death, but when I first played in the Jagds, I accidentally got Montblanc killed because I didn't realize that he would die if I finished the battle without him--I was expecting some kind of countdown. (That and, all my White Mages died, too.) Needless to say, I resetted.
SOUND/MUSIC:
It was pretty decent, considering that hand-held systems have one of the worst sound systems ever. Still, if anyone knows me, they would know that I prefer having bad sounds quality over silence during a game.
As to the soundtrack, there's only one song I remember as being any good, and it was the Totema battle music.
STORYLINE:
The storyline started out REALLY bad, and only in the last 5 missions or so did it get better. Other than 5 Totema battles etc etc, playing the storyline missions didn't get you much of a storyline. I mean, with all the optional missions going around, you would think they the 24 storyline missions would be concentrated in story... which they aren't.
I would have understood it if there were, say, 50 or so storyline missions, and only 20-30 were important (like how it was in Tactics), but with so few storyline missions, I'm surprised how the game designers wasted most of them.
This is one of the least developed stories in all of FF (with the FFX and FFX-2 being the other poorly developed stories). One might argue that those who play Tactics don't play it for the storyline, but considering its predecessor, TA was a HUGE disappointment storyline-wise.
GRAPHICS:
FFTA was 2D. So was Tactics, except one important detail. (No, not FMVs, those aren't important.) Tactics had 3D maps (which were basically 3D terrain with textures painted on them), but the important thing was that, since they were actually 3D rendered, you could rotate them. I remember when I first played FFTA, I was reaching for the L and R buttons trying to rotate the map to get a better view, but I couldn't, and this was because TA has purely sprite-based 2D maps.
I think this points out one side of Graphics that is often overlooked--function. While most games today use Graphics mainly to look pretty, Tactics used graphics for a gameplay function--rotating the map. Now, I know I'm going off on a tangent here, but I think we should think about all the other games that could not have been possible without 3D technology (FF7, 8, 9, X, X-2, and 11 NOT being these kinds of games), and I guess we old-school people shouldn't look at the 3D revolution so harshly.
Yet, that in mind, 3D has STILL done nothing to improve the Gameplay of FF.
OVERALL:
If any of you know me, you'll know that I play games mainly for Gameplay, and since TA had generally improved gameplay over Tactics (ignoring effects like the Law system and the Mission system), I'm pretty happy with FFTA. I recommend it to anyone who likes the first Tactics, or who likes the Job System, or who likes FF in general."
As I was playing some more, I got Ritz on my party after doing a mission with her. It turns out that the bullies who were throwing snowballs at Mewt turned into Vampires in the book-world, and we had to go pwn them.
Then, later, I got Babus after going with him to fight a ghost of Queen Remedi and finding Mewt's stuffed bear.
Oh, and Queen Remedi is hot!*TA*
Anyways, other than that, I had to meet the girl that I am to tutor Math Ic for the Jumping Up place something something to arrange the dates.
Dice Roll of the Day: 2 + 5 = 7
Good Night! Sweet dreams!
Wednesday, June 2, 2004--Same as yesterday!
A Year Ago Today:
Justin: What? You couldn't find your penis?
Me: I couldn't find my keys! What? Are you death or something?
Justin: What? Am I death?
Me: I said deaf, not death.
Justin: Oh, my bad.
Me: Naw, I really said death. Just kidding with you, that's all.
Dice Roll of the Day: 5 + 4 = 9
Good Night!
Tuesday, June 1, 2004--
My day:
- Playing FFTA
- Dice Roll of the Day: 1 + 4 = 5
Whoa! That was fast! Good Night!