Tuesday, September 30, 2008--
On this day:
In 2002: Justin Kuo makes his first appearance on my Journal.
Monday, September 29, 2008--
On this day:
In 2006: I meet Brian, who reveals to me the existence of Tuesday Night Magic at Microsoft.
In 2002:
- Happy 6th birthday to my website!
- Alan Watson makes his first appearance on my bloop.
Sunday, September 28, 2008--Braid...
It's an awesome game. Some people say that it's not worth the 1200 Xbox Live points, but I think it totally is. Hell, I would have paid the price of a full game to play Braid. (But only in hindsight.)
Fortunately, I managed to play it for free. I just bummed off of my friends' Xboxen over the course of two 6-hour play sessions and solved the main game.
So Braid is just plain mindblowing. The puzzles are difficult, but difficult in a clever way. And each puzzle is unique and interesting, and each world has different gameplay mechanics. I don't think I've played a puzzle game this good
ever.
Not only that, but the music is just amazing. (And the fact that when you rewind, the music goes backwards too--brilliant! Just brilliant!) The artwork is fantastic as well.
And crazily enough, the game actually has some kind of story to it. (Not like we expect puzzle games to have stories anyway.) The last world has some pretty interesting stuff happen that will change your entire worldview of the world of Braid. But I can't tell you what happens, because it's a spoiler. You need to play through the game and see it for yourself. Trust me, it's worth it.
Some people complain that Braid is too short. I say to them: sucks to be you that you have no life and need to play a slow, boring video game to kill your useless worthless free time. No, I'm a busy man with a busy schedule, so I'd much prefer to spend my time on shorter games and get the most amount of awesomeness for my time invested. For those of you who wish Braid was slower and lasted longer so you can kill more time? You suck!
Seriously, Braid is awesome. I give it a perfect 10 out of 10. (The only other game to achieve that level of awesomeness for me was FFTactics.)
Saturday, September 27, 2008--Happy Birthday Conifer Yeeway Ho!
On this day:
In 2003: Cal pwns U$C! w00t!
Monday, September 22, 2008--Happy Birthday, Mom!
Sunday, September 21, 2008--Happy Birthday Feng Feng and Bon Bon!
On this day:
In 2003: I beat FFTactics.
Friday, September 19, 2008--I beat Disgaea 3 today (well, technically "tomorrow" since it's 4:30am right now).
Time on the clock: 46:44:57 (post-game save file)
Most of my team is in the upper level 50s or lower level 60s. Mao is level 58, and my highest level character *spoiler*
Sapphire, to whom I gave a gun*spoiler* is at level 66.
Anyway, I thought the game was worse than Disgaea 2 in pretty much every way, but I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. Let's break this down a bit:
GRAPHICS
Okay, I know that Disgaea hasn't usually been about good graphics, but if you're going to make the game in HD, you should at least increase the resolution of the sprites so I'm not looking at pixels all the time. (Though to be fair, you get used to the pixels after a few hours.)
VOICE ACTING
The English voice acting is particularly bad in this game. Basically, the only good voice actors are the ones for Mao, Almaz, and Salvatore. Raspberyl's and Sapphire's voice actors are particularly bad. Fortunately, you can just play the game with Japanese voices, like some hardcore purists would suggest anyway.
MUSIC
The music is bland. I mean, really really bland. I'm kind of surprised, actually. Given what I heard in Soul Nomad, I know Tenpei Sato can do better. Even the music in Disgaea 1 and 2 are way better than this.
My guess is that Sato was trying something new, and it didn't turn out so well.
STORY
At first, it seemed like Disgaea 3's story had a lot of promise. Mao and Almaz were much more interesting than Adell and Rozalin. Sure, they were still one-dimensional, but they were one-dimensional in a good way (the Disgaea way, the funny way). Mao is the number one honor student of the Evil Academy, the most selfish and evil of demons. And he loves experimenting on other people. Almaz is a wannabe hero with self-esteem issues, but he does it anyway to save the Princess he has a crush on, but she barely knows he exists. Hilarity ensues.
Unfortunately, simply having interesting characters doesn't make a story. We don't remember characters. We remember moments. And Disgaea 3 just didn't have those moments. Though the story was silly the whole way through, Disgaea 3 just didn't make us laugh the way Disgaea 1 made us laugh, and Disgaea 3 most definitely did not make us cry the Disgaea 1 made us cry (though they definitely tried in Disgaea 3).
One of the bigger problems with Disgaea 3's story is that they basically tried to copy Disgaea 1's story, but they did it wrong. Almaz trying to get Mao to open his heart just isn't as strong as Flonne trying to teach Laharl about love, not to mention the whole thing in Disgaea 1 about stereotyping demons and angels. (That and, in the end, Almaz and Mao just can't beat Flonne and Laharl in our hearts.)
But no, the single biggest problem with Disgaea 3's story is that the final chapter is just anti-climatic, and the ending is just blah. When you finish Disgaea 3, you finish it thinking, well, that was kind of pointless. Despite what people say about Disgaea 2's story, at least Disgaea 2 had an impressive ending with an impressive shocker. In the end, you walk away from Disgaea 2's story with a better taste in your mouth than Disgaea 3's story, and that's why I still say Disgaea 2's story is better.
GAMEPLAY
And now we get to the meat. The Disgaea series has always been about the gameplay (the S in SRPG), and Disgaea 3 is no different. At its core, Disgaea 3's gameplay is still the same as its predecessors. We still have Geo Effects and the Item World, and though its name has changed, we still have the Dark Assembly.
One of the major differences is that the battlefields are now littered with objects that you can stand on or pick up and throw. There might be blocks you can stack to make a staircase to climb to higher locations, or there might be barrels that explode when thrown. (Like a Prinny, except its inanimate.) Or most interestingly, the Geo Symbols are now Geo Blocks, which give their effect to anyone standing on top of them in addition to the Geo Panel they sit on, and you can stack them, too. Even more interesting is that when you throw a Geo Block so that it's connected to another Geo Block, they annihilate each other, like in some kind of puzzle game. In the end, the game is still just like previous Disgaea games, but the random stacking objects does add a bit of flavor to the game.
Another major difference is the skill system. Weapon masteries are now gone. Instead, if you want to learn weapon skills, you go to the skill merchant and buy and upgrade skills with Mana. (Mana is now more useful, hurray!) This also has the side effect of making characters more versatile (it's really easy to change a sword user into a bow user just by having them learn different skills), as well as reducing the grind (no more having to attack over and over again to get your Weapon Skill up). Additionally, the Mentor/Pupil and Extra Gain concepts are gone, much to the dismay of this old Disgaea fan. Fortunately, NIS replaced Extra Gain with a new way of transferring skills between characters which is more difficult to do, but more versatile in the end.
The last notable change is Skill Linking. Whereas Disgaea 1 and 2 were all about Combo Attacks (that is, chaining as many attacks in a row as you could to get damange bonuses), Disgaea 3 is all about sending in your attackers in pairs. Similar to using Combo Attacks, if you tell multiple attackers to attack the same target with skills, when you click Execute, two attacks will combine into 1 attack for an extra 50% damage. Throughout most of the game, you'll find yourself orienting your strategy around attacking enemies in pairs for massive damage.
Unfortunately, I can't really say whether these changes improve the gameplay or hurt it. I can, however, say that Disgaea 3 is quite unbalanced compared to Disgaea 2. (Though, it is still more balanced than Disgaea 1. Still, it's quite a surprise for them to take a step back after having a game as well-balanced as Disgaea 2.) Mages have been massively nerfed. Sure, they were overpowered in both Disgaea 1 and Disgaea 2, but they didn't need to cripple them as much as they did. Magic now does a pittance of damage compared to weapon skills, and its much harder to boost your mages' range, meaning its a lot easier to get your mages killed in battle. No more nuking enemies from long range with magic. Even worse, removing Extra Gain means you can't teach your healers offensive magic in the early game, so it's really hard to level them up. Also, magic can't be skill linked, which makes it even weaker in comparison with physical attacks.
Disgaea 3 took another step back with the story characters. Fortunately, they're not as overpowered as they were in Disgaea 1, but story characters are significantly more powerful than in Disgaea 2. Coupled with the increased versatility from the new skill system, this basically means you have little or no incentive to not use all the story characters you get. For every generic character, you can get a story character that does it better.
Also, Disgaea 3 is easier than Disgaea 1 and 2 ever were. You might chalk it up to my veteran skills after having mastered Disgaea 1 and 2, but even when I go back and play Disgaea 1, if I start from scratch, I still have trouble with some of the endgame boss fights. In Disgaea 2, though I won most of my battles on my first try, I felt like I had my back to the wall the whole game and was fighting for survival. In Disgaea 3, I never lost a single battle until the postgame, and I never had to struggle. Too easy. Not only that, but they still haven't solved the horrible AI.
Disgaea 3 does have its redeeming factors, though. For one, Statisticians (as well as other specialists) now stack, meaning you can get experience ever faster than ever before. There is now an item duping, which by the consensus of the community, is not a glitch and not a cheat. This means, basically, there is a lot less grind. To balance it out, the post-game has been made a lot harder, so even though you can powerlevel your characters more efficiently, it never becomes too easy.
Finally, the post-game is much improved compared to previous games. Whereas Disgaea 1's post game was too short, and Disgaea 2's post-game is too cluttered, Disgaea 3's post-game is as organized as Disgaea 1's and as massive as Disgaea 2's. You will undoubtedly have a lot of fun.
CONCLUSION
Don't let all the negativity fool you. That's what happens when you're compared to pure awesomness of Disgaea 1 and Disgaea 2. Disgaea 3 is still a good game. Sure, the story isn't as good as its predecessors, but it will still entertain you. Sure, the game isn't as balanced as Disgaea 2, but it's still stupidly fun and addictive.
I had previously given Disgaea 1 and Disgaea 2 each a 9.5 out of 10, for being near perfect. Disgaea 3 is a step back, but it's still a solid enough game to get an 8.0 out of 10.
Thursday, September 18, 2008--So I was watching TV the other day, and suddenly, this came on:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi1se9rH7S8.
So yeah. Feng is famous. (The girl who wears glasses, 9-10 seconds in.)
Wednesday, September 17, 2008--Happy Birthday, Lil Bro!
So today, Lois and me and Jon and Spiro and this new cutie named Lynn all drove down (with me driving) to see Phantom of the Opera. Unfortunately, I just couldn't take it seriously. (Was I supposed to?) The actors acted like actors and not like actual people. (Very stylized way of speaking.) That and, they were singing practically every other line. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with the idea of musicals. But if the entire play is just one long musical number, it makes the music seem less special.
Monday, September 15, 2008--
On this day:
In 2007: Zach the Intern (now Zach the Full-Timer) makes his first appearance on my bloop.
In 2006: MichCh makes his first appearance on my bloop.
In 2004: Little Vivian IMs me on AIM for the first time ever.
Incidentally, it's Zach's birthday. Happy Birthday Zach! (We celebrated by going to a Mediterranean restaurant and eating shewarma, which was comfort food for everyone there except for me, since I have no Jewish heritage.)
Wednesday, September 10, 2008--
On this day:
In 2006: I beat Disgaea 2 in a mere 11 days.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008--Happy Birthday, Conifer Rawnshen Chu!
Heh, it's been a year. This is the longest we've ever gone without getting mad at each other.
Monday, September 8, 2008--My first pair of earphones, which have served me loyally for the last 3 years, just died. Cause of death: loose connection in the right earphone causing sound to not happen on the right earphone.
RIP Earphones: June 25, 2005 - September 8, 2008
Tuesday, September 2, 2008--
On this day:
In 2003: Abhi makes his first appearance on my bloop.