Caught In The Whirlwind
Posts tagged final fantasy
The Nightmare in 3D
Oct 21st 2007
I went out to Syracuse with my friends yesterday to catch a showing of The Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D. It was my first actual 3D movie and apparently I looked very interesting with the 3D glasses over the top of my actual glasses. Bah! The movie itself was really good. The 3D aspect of it was pretty impressive and it was nice seeing that movie on the big screen in an actual theater where the kids were actually fairly well behaved. Amazing! It's definitely holiday movie season though…let the trailers for horrible Christmas themed movies begin!
After the show we went out to dinner and then back to their place to watch some more Resident Evil playing. As a side effect of this, I now really want to buy a Playstation Portable due to the fact there's a lot of cool RPG type games coming out for it (or things that have already come out, like the Final Fantasy Tactics remake).
It's this time of year where I really hate being a gamer. Everybody dumps all of their cool releases on us at once. It's not very fair.
In other news, apparently there was a guy recording the Porcupine Tree show that we went to earlier in the week. It's a really, really awesome sounding bootleg, probably the best I've heard that wasn't directly recorded from the soundboard. Of course I downloaded it immediately. It's a nice thing to remember my first Porcupine Tree show with.
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Final Fantasy VII, Reviewed 10 Years Late
May 7th 2007
Over the weekend (Saturday, to be exact) I finished Final Fantasy VII for the first time ever. I found it a couple weeks ago in a used game store and had to pounce on it considering it's one of the classics that I missed because of my late entry into the world of game consoles.
Overall, I enjoyed it. I found the plot to be interesting and very engaging…right up until the end. Like many games, it had a great ramp up, but they didn't seem to know how to end it. It felt a lot like they got into disc three and though "Oh crap. We need to find a way to end this now!" which resulted in a rushed feeling and a "what the heck was that?!?" question after the end game cutscene.
I'm going to have to play it again with a walk through though because I'm sure I missed some stuff. A lot of stuff probably.
The music in this game was really well done too. I found myself jumping over to the iTunes Store to buy individual tracks fairly often as I was playing the game. And One Winged Angel is one of the best songs I've heard in a video game…period.
Also, considering the timeframe in which the game came out, some of the FMV effects were stunning. It's nothing special these days but if you look at it within the frame of reference of when the game was created…wow. Some of the moving background shots like how the camera slowly zooms in during certain aspects, like when you're walking up the side of a crater to slowly reveal what's on the other side. Just little things like that. Very high production values from start to finish, although this IS square we're talking about…can't expect much else.
Two thumbs up from me, despite the "what??" ending. The rest of the game was strong enough to carry it through.
Next up on the list is to replay Xenogears as it was meant to be played (The past two times I played, I used an emulator on my PC) Mmmm…classic gaming.
But…But…It's APRIL!
Apr 16th 2007
I woke up this fine morning to the sound of howling wind. Then I looked out my front window:
It's April 16th! Snow should have stopped in March! April showers bring May flowers, not snowstorms! Sigh.
Anyway…spent the weekend doing fun and relaxing things. Went over to a friends place on saturday to watch The Prestige which I had rented through netflix. It's a very good, and very confusing movie. Just when you think you've got it figured out, they throw something else at you which changes things completely. Highly recommended. Although I didn't even realize Hugh Jackman or David Bowie were in it until it was pointed out to me.
After that, more anime, a stop at IHOP for dinner and then…more anime. Chobits is turning out to be very interesting. Awesome art and a fairly thought provoking story
Sunday was more relaxation. I started the process of cycling my aquarium in preparation for sticking some fish in there. I then played Final Fantasy 7 almost all day, finishing Disc 1 before calling it a night. It's a really good game so far.
My only complaint is that it leaves you hanging an awful lot as far as giving you some direction as to where you're supposed to go next. At this one point, for example, your party is all bent on rescuing this certain other member of the party that's gone missing.
"Let's go find her!" They say. And then it drops you out to the world map with no idea where to start looking. I had to look at a walkthrough in order to figure out that I had to go to the far northern continent, practically halfway around the world from where I was when they decided to look for her. A little direction would have been nice. Heck, I would have settled for "we should start looking north." They didn't even need to mention it was on a different continent.
I was going to run up to school today during my lunch break to try and work out some of my scheduling problems, but I think I'll have to put that off until tomorrow due to the weather conditions right now. Sigh.
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An Oasis in the Desert
Apr 5th 2007
My week, to put it mildly, has been horrible. Work related things…school related things…general blah like feeling. So I was glad when the opportunity came up to go out with my friends last night and relax a little bit. We went out to Zebb's and then went back to their place to watch some anime that Wassy is trying to corrupt me into liking. Chobits is actually pretty good. I don't like most anime, but certain things I have gotten into. This might be one of them.
I also picked up my PS1 memory card from her that she tracked down for me. I bought Final Fantasy VII over the weekend and forgot I didn't have a PS1 memory card to play it with, so I've been using their pocketstation temporarily. She stopped by a used game store on her way home the other day and found one for me. I was hoping the previous owner had some interesting save game files on there, but they only had two saves for Tactics Ogre, whatever that is. (UPDATE: I have been informed that this is actually a good game. Go figure.)
I've also got a copy of Xenogears coming my way from eBay, now that I actually have a memory card to use with it.
On the subject of fish…I'm wavering a bit. I'm not really sure if I have a good place to stick anything other than a smallish bowl and I don't really want to do that. But on the other hand, I really, really want to set something up. Arrgh!
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My Arm Hurts!
Nov 26th 2006
I spent most of yesterday with some friends at their place playing with their Nintendo Wii (as well as a little Guitar Hero II sprinkled in). I have muscles in my arms that are hurting right now that I didn’t even realize I had. But I had a ton of fun and it really sold me on the viability of the Wiimote for controlling games. I’m hopefully going over to another friends house to play some more. Rayman is definitely going to get bought when I get my Wii.
I really want a Wii. I’m thinking I’ll get one in January when the rush slows down a bit. Although if I happen to find one before then, I won’t have any problems buying it.
I also finished Final Fantasy XII yesterday. My final impression was that it’s a good game. The combat system ROCKS. More games need to use that combat system. Heck, every game needs to use it. And if it’s already been released, they should re-release a version of it that uses that system. It’s about as close to perfect a system as I can think of.
Now I’m working on Suikoden V which is being lent out to me. Oh, and the DS version of Trauma Center. I played the Wii version last night and had fun, so I bought the Nintendo DS version.
Consumed!
Nov 6th 2006
I’ve been completely sucked into the world of Final Fantasy XII for the past couple days. I said I was going to get it on Thursday and then hadn’t said much else since then. Well, that’s why.
It’s a really nice game so far. Really really nice. More games need to use the combat system this game has. It’s the perfect blend of real time action with a turn based feel to it. As someone who doesn’t normally like real time combat systems, me saying that says something, I think.
I could gush for paragraphs about this, but I won’t. I’ll save that for my review at the end, but needless to say, I’m enjoying myself.
General Work Happenings
Nov 2nd 2006
It seems they’ve finally fixed the AC. It was actually a decent temperature when I came in this morning. Which was good because I didn’t need anything to add to my not so good morning.
My bad day which began yesterday continued this morning. I thought I had fixed the e-mail problem, but it turns out, it didn’t work. So I spent all day morning working on trying to fix the problem. As it turns out…it was a setting in the program, and not my code that was causing the problem. ARGH!
Well, at least I think so. I’m still waiting to hear back from the customer if it worked or not. I think it will *crosses fingers*
Hopefully tonight I can relax a little bit though, since it’s been a rough couple days. I’m going to have dinner with some friends and then pick up Final Fantasy XII while I’m out and about as well. Hopefully the lake effect snow we’re supposed to be getting either misses or holds off until I get home. My car sucks in the snow.
QotD: Today’s Top 5
Oct 26th 2006
Books, movies, music; what’s in your top 5 right now?
- Porcupine Tree – Stupid Dream I just bought the remastered version of this off of amazon. The one with the DVD-A of the album included. Really nice, but kinda weird in that Porcupine Tree way. If you’re into progressive type stuff and haven’t checked them out, you should.
Steven Wilson does some of the best audio mixes out there. Everything he touches ends up being great it seems.
- The Dragon Reborn by Robert JordanBook 3 in the Wheel of Time series. I’m really digging this book so far. Like I’ve mentioned on previous occasions, I’m not sure why I didn’t read these before I did, but now I’m making up for lost time. From what I hear the series is best in the beginning and then kinda drags out a bit, but we’ll see…
- Walk The Line (DVD)I watched this last night after renting it from Netflix. Johnny Cash was an amazing man, and this movie lived up to his reputation. I had no idea about what he went through in his life and it made me respect him a lot more after watching it. The movie was incredibly well done, great script, awesome actors. I highly recommend it.
- Final Fantasy IV AdvanceOne of the classic RPGs of all time remade for the Gameboy Advance (and by definition, my DS as well) I think I’m almost done with it. It’s been a fun, classic-like ride so far
I can’t think of a number 5 right now though, maybe I’ll come up with something later
QotD: Three-Day Weekend
Sep 3rd 2006
What are your plans for the holiday weekend?
To me, this weekend is like a normal weekend. But longer. Yesterday, I hung around and relaxed a bit. Today I’m going to do the same thing, but with laundry thrown in (so I have clothes to wear tomorrow). Monday, more relaxing.
I plan on trying to finish Final Fantasy IV Advance though, and then maybe work on Tales of Destiny (old school playstation RPG).
But other than that, no real outing plans or special events. I’m boring.
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