silverthunder | Entries tagged with gaming

I have to say that this right here is pretty awesome. Overly sexualized female armor makes me twitchy. It was one of my biggest pet peeves with Tera, although there were a lot of other reasons we stopped playing that game.

Work sucked so hard this week that I randomly had breakdowns into tears multiple times. I won't get into it. I hate that place with a passion but I need the money and given our city, I'd have to move to get comparable pay. That's not a viable option right now, so meh.

But! I've been spending my spare time either watching anime with Cody or playing Fire Emblem, and that has saved my sanity and kept me enjoying life in general.

Right now we're watching a series called Shingeki no Kyoujin, which is pretty intense! There are eight episodes out so far. When we started watching, we had seven downloaded. The idea was to watch one or two. Um, yeah. Seven episodes later, we were hunting for the eighth. The ninth should be out some time after today (since it airs on Saturdays in Japan).

Another series we're watching is called Hataraku Maou-sama!, and was recommended by

insaneneko. This one we're taking a bit slower, but it's very cute and funny. We also enjoyed the first episode of Suisei no Gargantia (also recommended by insaneneko), but haven't watched further yet (once we run out of Hataraku Maou-sama!, I expect we'll start on those episodes).

So, Fire Emblem.

I'm on chapter 14, and would probably be farther but I've been grinding like made because I AM ADDICTED TO THE SUPPORT CONVERSATIONS OMG. I want to see them all! I took advise from some folks and grinded all of Chrom's early so that I could watch the confessions and then reset, because I heard that you don't get to choose when he gets married (it just happens at a certain point in the story). Then I grinded a lot of my tactician's (left some out since I wanted to continue and get more characters - I'll get them on a different play-through, maybe) because I wanted her to marry Chrom. I almost gave that up when I saw Gaius confess, though! That guy is awesome! Maybe on another play-through...

I think that now I have all of the characters who can marry each other and have kids, though, because there's only a couple who have any blank spots in their support lists, and they're the ones who don't have supports with anyone else. So, grind ahoy and get those conversations! Then I'll marry the ones I like and move on. Hehe.

( Spoilery stuff )

All in all, this is probably one of the best single-player games I've ever played, and I'm anticipating many hours of fun with it. There's just so much you can do!

Crossposts: http://silverthunder.livejournal.com/590692.html

I've decided to buy Fire Emblem: Awakening for the 3DS! It looks super complex and might be a bit too much for me (I like a simple story with a manageable number of characters to keep track of - basically the opposite of this, haha), but Cody bought it and I tried it and it seems really fun, so... yup, gonna get it.

I know a couple of people on my FL have played it - if you happen to be reading this, any tips for a newb? (I'll be playing a female Avatar, of course!)

Current Mood: hopeful
Crossposts: http://silverthunder.livejournal.com/590098.html

Why do I read the FFXIV forums? Or any game's forums for that matter?

"If you're not playing the way I like to play, you are not a real gamer."

"If you don't agree with what I want to see in the game, you're obviously a complete retard who has no idea what makes a good game."

"If you can't master a boss fight in X amount of time, you are lame and not worth playing with, ever."

"If you say you're playing for fun, it's just to cover the fact that you suck."

"If your idea of difficulty differs from mine, you just want an easy button."

"Being amazingly awesome right off the bat is 100% necessary in order to have fun; otherwise, you're doing it wrong."

Paraphrased, of course.

VIDEO GAMES = SERIOUS BUSINESS. You are only having fun if you are l33t, goddamnit! Now don't suck, or else!

Current Mood: annoyed
Crossposts: http://silverthunder.livejournal.com/587580.html

So, besides the fact that I love the game and find it very fun, it turns out there was another good reason to stick with FFXIV so long!

Recently, they announced that all players who have paid to play for 90 days or more between January and the beta for version 2.0 (the re-release, which will redesign a lot of the game) will be paying the discounted rate ($10/month) for as long as the game is still going! The new comparable rate is going to be $15/month, so that's a $5/month saving. And since I plan to continue playing for as long as the game is still going and still fun, this is a pretty awesome deal for me!

Another thing: the Final Fantasy MMORPG games (FFXI and FFXIV) typically give you one character, and you pay extra for each additional character you want to make. This is because FF lets you play every class/job (like warrior, black mage, etc) on one character rather than making you pick only one class for your character like just about every other MMO out there. However, the new pricing system will allow you to make 8 characters per server without any extra charge. So I get to play with character creation more!

There's an option for new players to pay $13/month and only have 1 character per server like before, but I don't know if many people will go for that. For $2 more you get 8, after all. As a legacy player, though, I pay $10 and get 8 characters, so I win either way!

FFXIV is also doing a "welcome back" free trial, so anyone who had a character but is currently deactivated can come back and play for free for 10 days to check out the game and see if they want to pay for 90 days and qualify for the legacy program as mentioned above. I think that's a pretty good idea too, because there's a lot of good stuff in the game now as opposed to back then.

All the details are here: http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com/pl/campaign/campaign.html

Things that are still on my to-do list:
- get the last three Moggle weapons (must fight Good King Moogle Mog a bunch more times!)
- challenge and defeat the Aurum Vale (I haven't completed this dungeon yet)
- get the last achievement for Cutter's Cry (need to get all five chests on the way through)
- level weaver and leatherworking, and try to make gil off of them
- put more materia into my gear
- get the rest of my fighting classes to 50, and do the job quests for them

I'll have more on my list after this Thursday as well, because we're getting another patch with more things to do. Garuda fight FTW!

Current Mood: happy
Crossposts: http://silverthunder.livejournal.com/584517.html

So last night Cody and I went with a bunch of our friends to do the prerequisites for an endgame boss battle in FFXIV. After we'd done all of that, we decided to try the actual battle. Just to see what it was like, because there was no way we'd be able to beat it with our party setup.

Because we were all tired and having a lot of fun in the chat... the result was this.

So awesome.

Note: my character is Brynne Lagaao. Cody's is Messenjari Ankou.

Current Mood: cheerful
Crossposts: http://silverthunder.livejournal.com/583210.html

So I finished Final Fantasy VII! Beat Ruby Weapon (another golden Chocobo! I named my first one Pippin, so this one was Merry) and then Emerald Weapon (second set of Master Materia get!). Emerald Weapon was the hardest battle in the game! Sephiroth was a wuss by comparison (W-Summon and Knights of the Round finished him off pretty quick - didn't even need to use Mime).

I found some of the FMVs on YouTube and downloaded them to put on my iPod. Hehe. (I still cry at THAT SCENE, though)

I also watched Last Order, which was... okay. The battle scenes were cool. There was some messing around with continuity and such, and the ending was, uh, abrupt. But overall, not a complete waste of time. Catatonic!Cloud is always fun, I guess. Zack is pretty cool. Poor guy.

Cody talked me into playing FFVIII next. It's okay so far. I am just still in that euphoric stage of new obsession with FFVII right now, and there is no room for new things. So the new game gets about maybe 2% of my interest and enthusiasm. Oh well.

On the hunt for good Cloud-centric fic!

Current Mood: cheerful

So, yeah, almost finished playing Final Fantasy VII. Just the Ruby and Emerald Weapons and the final boss to go (I'll beat them all. Eventually).

I realize I'm probably at least ten years too late playing this game, but whatever. It was good.

Some things to note:

1. Sephiroth is a douche. I mean, seriously? Why does everyone love him so much? I can't wait to take him out. Asshole.

2. I got to like Cloud much, much more after finding out his REAL backstory (what can I say? I'm a sucker for the underdog)

3. AT THE END OF THE FIRST DISC? WTF? I mean, I knew it happened, but ONLY ONE DISC IN? Also, I cried...

4. Red XIII kicks so much ass. He pretty well never left my party.

5. I think I would be perfectly happy to never see another Chocobo again...

6. The Gold Saucer music is not that good the first time you hear it, much less the millionth.

7. Must. Read. Fanfic...

Sooo, FFVII fans on my FL. Cloud/Tifa? Cloud/Aeris? Cloud/someone else? Convince me!

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Gundam Seed - Mizu no Akashi

This is a random anime-viewing post, just for the hell of it.

Two more OVA episodes of Baccano to watch! I was pretty happy to find a DVD box set of the whole thing when I was at Otafest. I'm thinking I'll re-watch it in English - especially since I want to share it with a friend who has trouble reading fast enough to make subtitled anime enjoyable for her.

I'm about halfway through Mahou Shoujo Tai Arusu right now. I have mixed feelings about that show, but want to see it through to the end. I'm not watching it that often at the moment, but I'll probably try to work it into my workout/viewing schedule at some point again.

When I was at Otafest, I bought a new series called Neo Angelique: Abyss, which is a reverse-harem set in a fantasy-style world. So far I've watched two episodes, and it seems like standard fair as far as reverse-harems go. It's nothing special at all, but it's not bad either, so I'll probably watch through all 12 episodes.

I've also decided to check out Durarara, so I read the 13 chapters of manga that are out. It's... a very strange series. I am currently in the process of watching the anime (one episode in). Kind of hoping it'll be as fucked up as the manga is in places, but I think they'll tone it down a bit for TV.

At some point in the last month, I watched an episode of Black Cat. Still kind of on the fence about that one, but it did look neat for a slightly older series.

I started watching Eureka 7, but only got three or four episodes in and I'm finding it kind of boring. For anyone who's seen the series, does it get any more interesting? Do the characters become less boring? Right now I'm on the verge of dropping it.

However, I am thinking of picking up Pandora Hearts again, which I had originally dropped after three episodes. I think I will give it another try. Apparently the manga is ongoing, so the anime probably diverts from it somewhere. Not really sure, though. I might try out the manga and see.

I need to finish Mouryou no Hako as well... I've probably forgotten what was even going on in that one by now. But it's too slow-paced to watch while working out, which is about the only time I watch anime any more unless Cody is watching with me. And he has zero interest in this one, so... yeah. It's been slow going.

This weekend at some point, I will probably be watching the Summer Wars movie, which is like the expanded and refined version of the second Digimon movie, Our War Game. I'm pretty psyched for that!

To go a bit off-topic... While I was out of town, I purchased a game called Trails in the Sky for the PSP. The main reason I bought it is because it is an anime-ish RPG with a female protagonist who plays as a melee. The story looked good and all, but yeah. You don't see main female melee characters that often in RPGs. I am currently addicted to this game. The story is good, the characters are fun, and I like the style of gameplay (turn-based fighting tends to be my favorite).

I especially like the feature it has where if you die in a boss battle and get a game over, it gives you the option to retry the fight instead of having to restart at your last save point (you can save anywhere outside of cut scenes and battles, which is also convenient). The best part of this feature is that it has an option that can be configured in the settings to make the fight a little bit easier each time you retry it.

For a lazy gamer like me who doesn't like grinding my characters, this option is brilliant. The fights aren't ridiculously difficult, though, so I've only had to use it three times so far. But the fact that it is there makes me feel a lot more confidant.

Current Mood: mellow

Now that FFXIV is out, I've changed the top banner on my site, and I think it looks pretty cool.

Cody and I spent pretty much all weekend playing. It's a fun game.

( More on FFXIV )

Current Mood: happy

I'm trying to make a decision, and I'm hoping maybe someone on my FL will have some input to offer (I suspect maybe not, but it's worth a shot, right?).

Basically, I'm playing the beta for FFXIV with Cody, and I'm trying to decide on one character to go with for when the game is live. The Final Fantasy MMOs make it so that you only really need one character; with that person, you can play every job, do every quest, go to every place, and so on. And generally you have to put so much effort and care into the character that you don't really want or need another. Plus, each additional character is $3 extra a month ($1 if you buy them just to hold extra stuff for you - these are called retainers, and you get one for free automatically anyway).

When Cody and I played FFXI, I went with a male character - because I wanted to imagine a love story between my character and his, and he played a female character (believe it or not, he did go with a female primarily for the stats - the race he went with has no male options). Also, you can make hot male characters in FFXI (unlike WoW where they're all butt-ugly), which was kind of a plus.

Now, though, I'm considering going with a female character. It's easier for me to imagine myself as the character, for one thing, but also because I like kickass female characters. I play melee, and the idea of a badass chick with an axe warms my heart. Cody is still playing as a female character, but at this point, with more gaming experience under my belt, I'm all about my character being more than just an extension of his.

Thing is, though... I developed a whole story and character for my first guy and I'm not sure I want to let him go.

( The characters I've sorta created and reasoning under here )

I can't post pictures from the open beta (it's part of the agreement when you play), but both characters are cool-looking. At least in my opinion. Maybe when I get my copy of the actual game, I'll be able to make screenshots of whoever I decided to play as.

EDIT: Additional friends-locked post here about this.

Current Mood: indecisive

So, the Final Fantasy XIV beta is open to anyone now - yay! Cody was chosen as a tester in the closed beta, and I got to try it out on his computer, but now we're going to get to play together, which should be pretty cool.

If you haven't been introduced to the awesome that is FFXIV yet, take a look at this lovely trailer.

The graphics are actually like that in-game. Even on the lowest setting, they look gorgeous. I also adore the music and will most likely be buying the soundtrack. Character creation is a lot of fun; very customizable.

Gameplay is different... I like it! I'm fond of the leveling system they're using, too. Everything is weapon-based. If you change your weapon to something used by a different job class, you are basically switching over to that class. You have a physical level and a skill level; the skill level relates to how good you are with the weapons or abilities, and your physical level relates to your basic HP and MP amounts. You have a limited set of abilities you can access, and you can change and customize which abilities go in that set - for instance, if you have leveled your magic high enough to learn Cure, you can add that to your abilities even if you are playing a melee job and still be able to cure yourself.

It's cool. I really like it.

If anyone else wants to try out the beta, it can be found here. You need to register for a SquareEnix account, but that is free and not too difficult. I recommend putting the game on its lowest settings, as it's pretty graphics-intensive (as you can see from the trailer).

Current Mood: excited

Lately I haven't been watching or reading much. Cody and I have mostly been gaming. He had some MOD days on his last schedule too, which meant no evening shifts, which meant I wasn't reading manga in the evenings - I was spending time with him.

We did go to see Paranormal Activity on Sunday night. It was pretty creepy. The ending was a little cheesy in my opinion, but I guess it fit well. The guy in the movie was a complete idiot. It seemed the best way to get him to do something was to tell him NOT to do it. "This thing is dangerous. Don't try to communicate with it. Don't provoke it." Mr Macho is just so convinced that he can protect his house and his girlfriend without anyone's help that he does both of those things. Immediately. And repeatedly. He does not call for professional help as he has been advised. He does "his own research" and tries to act like an expert when he really knows nothing. They both suffer for his idiocy. God, what a moron.

Anyway...

One of the things Cody and I been playing together is Suikoden V. Which is a one-player game, so when I say 'playing together', I mean I'm reading the manual and telling him how to recruit the 108 stars while he plays the game. It's a really entertaining watch, though. I love the storyline. It'd make a really awesome anime series if done right. Now that it's been out a few years, I know it's never going to be adapted into one, but seriously, it'd be pretty cool if it was given the same treatment as Tales of the Abyss. I'm really looking forward to playing more, but I don't get to spend as much time with it as I'd like since we're going through the story together. I probably should've just played it myself. I wouldn't have gotten very far, more than likely, because I'm not the greatest gamer - but when I get involved in a story, I just want to keep going. Another reason that it would've been awesome if this was an anime.

Cody and I tend to have differing approaches to anime viewing, though, which sometimes makes it hard for us to watch stuff together. When I'm really into a series, I want to watch it all the time. As in, whatever else I do in my spare time gets shunted off to the side until I'm finished with the series in question. Cody is the same way with anime series as he is with games: he usually has a bunch going at once and switches around between them pretty frequently. So, if he's not in 'Suikoden V' mode, he has no interest in playing it, even though I'm dying to see more and find out what happens.

It kind of sucks.

We've also been playing some WoW lately. Cody and I started playing WoW because Tylor and Sarah play it and we agreed to try it. It's a really neat game, and a lot of fun. You can waste a lot of hours on it pretty easily. Thing is, Tylor and Sarah play on a PvP (Player vs Player) server. This means that enemy players can attack you whenever and you can attack them whenever. It doesn't sound unreasonable until you're a low level character trying to level up and some high level asshole comes along and kills you easily just because he's bored, and then sits on top of your corpse and kills you every time you try to get back up and run away. It is hella annoying and tends to ruin an otherwise fun afternoon/evening.

So, we've been getting more and more sick of this crap. We don't even play with Tylor and Sarah much because they're not really on when we are and they're also much higher level than us. Then

deitysend mentioned that she plays on a PvE (Player vs Environment) server, where enemy players can't attack you unless you have flagged yourself for it. We were considering moving, but didn't want to rush it. Then some random guy decided to kill us and camp our corpses last night, and we moved our characters right then and there. Goodbye, assholes.

Tonight we're going to watch an episode (or two) of Avatar: The Last Airbender. I've read a lot of reviews on it and it's supposed to have awesome plot and awesome characters and is reputed to be epic and wonderful. Since I've read all of this, now this series is going to have to be really fantastic in order to meet my expectations because they are pretty damn high. We'll see.

Current Mood: calm

I have nothing really to say about the Evangelion movie. It was okay. I'll probably go see the next one if it comes to theaters over here. If it doesn't, I'm sure Cody will download it and I'll see it anyway. I still have no interest in seeing the series, but I'm curious to see if the movies will change much about the story.

I have been playing a game on my PSP called Tales of the World. It's very good. It has a character creation system, so you can decide if your character is male or female and choose from a few options to determine what he/she looks like. It has characters from other Tales series, so my interest was piqued. I've already watched Cody play through some of Tales of the Abyss, and we've seen half of the anime. We also just bought Tales of Vesperia and played through the beginning - it seems kind of neat so far. I've never seen or played any of the others. I figured I'd download the anime adaptions that were made for some of the other games (Tales of Phantasia, Eternia, and Symphonia). So far, I've watched an episode of Phantasia and an episode of Eternia.

The Eternia anime seems boring so far and I hate the female protagonist. She's a bully and she gets angry over the stupidest little things. Her relationship with the main character is that girl-beats-on-the-guy-and-it-is-supposed-to-be-funny thing. I really find this irritating if the guy is actually way stronger than the girl and thus makes no attempt to really defend himself (which appears to be the case in this adaption). It's too bad because I really like Reid (the main protagonist) in Tales of the World; he's very friendly and is probably the only Tales character who never refuses an invitation to join your party. I wouldn't mind reading the manga for this one because the girl is more in-character (ie: less of a bitch) according to the game and it follows the main storyline instead of being a pointless side story, but it's only half scanlated and looks like it hasn't been updated in a while. Unfortunately, none of the Tales manga is available to buy in English.

The Phantasia anime is really neat - I read up on the story before watching it because I'd heard that it's hard to understand without some background knowledge of the game. The plot is really very good. I found the side characters - Arche and Klaus in particular, but Chester as well (mainly because of how he is in Tales of the World, since he wasn't in the first episode for long) - really interesting. Their dialogue is lively and engaging. The main characters, Cress and Mint, are kind of boring, but that's okay. The series appears to be crammed into far too little time - it begins partway through the game's storyline and leaves certain parts out in order to hurry through a fairly involved plot. The animation is very nice and the battle scenes are well done. I really wish they'd expanded this one into a 26 episode series, like Abyss. Even a 13 episode series like Eternia (which I really didn't think deserved it) would've been better. As it is, we have four OVA episodes, and I guess that'll have to do. After watching the first episode, I decided to buy the DVD on Amazon (this is the only Tales anime that was given an official English release). There's apparently a manga that has just started being published in Japan and seems intent on following the story from beginning to end without rushing, but only one chapter has been scanlated and releases are either extremely slow or completely stalled.

A side note about Phantasia: I've been leveling Chester (an archer) and Arche (a mage) to be steady members of my party in Tales of the World, and was kind of surprised to find that they came from the same Tales series. More than that, I was surprised to find out that there's a romance implied between them. They got one of those 'I hate you - no, wait, I love you' things going on, apparently, and I've heard that it works quite well. I like the idea. I'll be very interested to watch the rest of the series and see how it develops.

I watched the Phantasia episode with Cody (he's already seen the Eternia anime), and he wasn't as interested as I was. He does want to watch the Symphonia anime with me, despite the fact that I've heard it's not finished. I think there's another arc coming out in 2010 Spring - at least, that's what I've seen online. The nice thing about that one is that the manga is fully scanlated, so reaching a cliffhanger in the anime is okay. I can just follow the storyline in the manga to see what happens next. I've already read a lot of the major plot points online too (I love spoilers).

Incidentally, I'm looking for either Symphonia (GameCube) or Phantasia (Gameboy Advance) to play. After I finish Tales of the World, of course.

Current Mood: dorky
Current Music: Flow - Answer

I have spent close to 24 hours (not all in one shot, obviously) on Chrono Trigger, and I just have some of the quests to go through before I face Lavos (although I think I'm going to need to level a lot more before I try it, since the fight is supposed to be pretty epic).

I found a fun AMV. (spoilers for the game)

It basically merges some of the cutscenes with techno music. I like it (even though there needs to be more Ayla!), but I wish there was more footage to include. What I'd really like is an actual anime based on this game. A good one.

When I first heard about the game from Cody, I looked it up for more info. There were reviews out there calling this the best RPG of all time. Now that I've played it, I have to say I agree (and I've been exposed to a lot of them through Cody). The plot is pretty intricate, and totally engaging. The characters are well-developed. The music is excellent. The gameplay is straightforward and easy to get used to. I want to see the story animated.

Someone on DeviantArt started to make a comic but it's not finished and I want to see more of the story laid out like that.

Seriously. This game is epic. If you have a DS, Playstation, or SNES and you haven't played it, pick it up and play it. It'll be worth it.

The Opening of Chrono Trigger
The Ending of Chrono Trigger (assuming you beat the game)

Current Mood: enthralled
Current Music: E-Type - Here I Go Again

This response to a whiny post about how "no one will play with me on XBox Live is made of win.

It applies to life, too. Don't act like you own people's time. They will start to dislike you.

Current Mood: impressed

I've been working out on the Wii Fit (as well as sticking to my regular diet) for almost two weeks now. Thus far, I have lost about 3 pounds. Not bad at all for a half hour workout a day. And it's fun - I actually want to keep doing it. I have been full of energy almost all the time since I started, too. It's awesome.

I am also obsessed with my DS, which could also account for some of this weight loss (I forget to snack when I'm playing). At first I just played Harvest Moon DS Cute on it, but I found a game called Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard and got addicted to it as well.

( More stuff about the game )

In short, I really, really love this game (as you can see from the tl;dr blurb above). The website done by the company (Atlus) is pretty nice too - a fancy flash site with pictures of the characters you can choose for each class and even a section with some cute comics featuring some of the things in the game. If you're at all interested, it can be found here.

Current Mood: enthralled

MANGA/ANIME/GAME Meme - ganked from

nighteevee
- talk about the title
- add one title

( The Anime List )

Current Mood: tired

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FFXIV is awesome

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