Published on
Wednesday, May 27, 2009 in
Japan.
To toot my own horn very vigorously, something clicked in my head the other day and my enjoyment of browsing Japanese webpages has improved tremendously. I had seen all the pieces before but the puzzle finally was solved.
Basically, it was to set up a mouse button that when clicked opens up a drawer attached to the window that shows definitions for whatever word that may happen to be highlighted. I believe this should work in many applications but having it in Safari is more than enough for me, at least.
Continue reading ‘An Excellent Idea for Japanese Students on a Mac’
Earlier late posts! I’m getting almost better.
Nothing much but Final Fantasy 2 the past week. I’m not sure exactly where my gaming time is disappearing to. I’m not really doing much else. Time to bust out the old time management skills and see what is going on in my life.
Continue reading ‘These Are The Weeks of Our Games – 05/24/2009′
Last week saw me plodding a bit through Fallout 3, a good amount of Final Fantasy 2 and of course Street Fighter 4.
I’m starting to feel a bit “smoother” in SF4. Nothing special and still lots of losses. But something clicked on one level and a lot of the frustration has subsided. I’ve definitely gotten a better handle on Sakura and now I just need to actually start tying things together to keep my wins up. Alas, it is taking longer and longer for me to get matches in Championship Mode. And I still do stupid things while playing.
Final Fantasy 2 is just good fun. I’ve got a bunch of screen shots showing my stat progression day by day. Well, just HP/MP but it’s something. Weird how some characters can take a lot of damage but gain no HP. A bit frustrating, but if you travel to one of the later towns early on after acquiring some quick cash, you can get some good equipment to help the game go smoother. It’s fun to play something old again.
Fallout 3 is, well, Oblivion only a bit less terrible. Sometimes I get an itch to play a game I know I won’t completely like. I can’t figure out why this happens but if I fight it for too long I end up caving in anyway. Anyway, I always find myself picking up an open ended RPG and wandering around and eventually getting bored. If I raise any complaints I always get the “Do the main story” bit, but if I wanted to follow the main story, I’d play a game that does that route well. These games just don’t.
I’ve often wondered if it is too much freedom causing my distaste for the games. This sounds weird but oddly right at the same time. I’ll muse on it and write up something later.
On a train to Osaka, I wanted to get some gaming in so Eriko, in an attempt to not be bored, took my More Brain Training cart as usual to do a little bit of brain exercises. But when I took a glance over at her DS, rather than doing the actual training I saw her doing the Relaxation Mode, which is basically Dr. Mario with a stylus. She never really played games much as a kid, she tells me. Had a Famicom, but of course who didn’t in Japan during the ’80s.
Continue reading ‘Couples That Bust Together, Must Be Together? I Got Nothing.’
遣り逃げ [やりにげ] (yarinige) having sex with a woman and then breaking off contact with her (esp. after telling her that you love her), wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am, hit it and quit it, fuck and chuck
I love the things I find in the dictionary by accident.
Published on
Wednesday, May 13, 2009 in
Gaming.
So a few years back I played Final Fantasy 5, 6, 7, 8 and 10 during the summer and did some various challenges with it. This year some folks on GAF are doing the same so I’m going to join in for some games. Here’s the tentative list:
Final Fantasy – Pass. Just played the Famicom release last summer.
Final Fantasy II – Famicom. While I have the PSP version that I got for cheap, I just really want to play a Famicom game right now.
Final Fantasy III – Pass. Don’t feel like playing the DS version and the Famicom version is so damn rough.
Final Fantasy IV – Super Famicom, Easy Type. I just found a copy of this for cheap so why the hell not?
Final Fantasy V – Super Famicom. Can’t pass up the best Final Fantasy.
Final Fantasy VI – Pass. Just finished the GBA port this January.
Final Fantasy VII – Unsure. Watching Advent Children again a few weeks ago really made me want to replay it, but time is limited. We’ll see how many other people are in.
Final Fantasy VIII – Likely pass. I love this game but replays of it suck so much time out of me.
Final Fantasy IX – Playstation. I hate this game so I’ll play it again and see if I can figure out why or maybe even not hate it this time.
Final Fantasy X – Playstation 2. Love playing this game and it has been a while longer than any others. Played International last time Scarlet did this so I think I’ll do the original this time.
Final Fantasy X2 – Hrmpf. Really want to play International Last Mission, but the voices are all English. Hrmpf.
Final Fantasy XI - Lawl.
Final Fantasy XII Mystic Quest – Japanese version which is titled Final Fantasy USA Mystic Quest. I love this game and now can play the version of it that came out a year later than the original!
That should take up a good chunk of my time, but as I know most of these games well, it should be a breeze. First up is Final Fantasy 2!
Late update, whoops!
But basically, after finishing Devil Survivor I have been working on Persona PSP. I even got a night of Street Fighter 4 in with Alex and Jon, complete with Rose Ball madness. Hilarious good time. I was also doing pretty good at the street fighting, so that was pretty awesome.
As summer is coming along for a lot of the people who live outside of Japan that I talk with about games, many “Summer of X” projects are coming along that I’m going to kinda bandwagon onto. Updates to follow!
The bad Devil Survivor non-puns can stop now.
So, I finally finished the game laying in my hotel room Tuesday night while my girlfriend was bathing with a bunch of wrinkly old women. Culture, eh? But I was on the final battle before she left and I only finished it moments before she returned almost an hour later. It was a hell of a fight but it really sent me off with loving impressions of the games. Hell, I almost want to play another Strategy RPG right now. And if you know how much I despise the things, that should speak something to you.
So why do I hate most SRPGs yet enjoy Devil Survivor so much? Continue reading ‘The Devil Didn’t Survive, but I Sure Did’
Feeling a bit better this week, but that may be due to the amounts of pain meds that are currently flowing through my system.
Besides the aforementioned Street Fighter 4 videos, I have been putting lots of hours into Devil Survivor. I bought Persona PSP but I haven’t gotten past entering the name for the main protagonist. Day 7 in Devil Survivor, though. And there really can’t be much left.
There have been a lot of boss fights and a lot of them have been hard. Some left me with scraps of troops left and one turned everyone against me. Well, kind of. One fight is against Bel•Zebub, who is yes, the Lord of Flies. And after a few rounds into the fight he starts infecting party members with a fly-egg status. These eggs will hatch after a few turns and spawn into a new enemy on the map, right next to the character they came out of, taking a good chunk of health as they come out. This status effect can be healed away, but healing spells aren’t exactly abundant in this game. If the character dies before the eggs hatch, that also puts a stop to the annoying flies but on the flip side, one unit is down.
Took me over two hours to get the fight just right, but I did take the bad mother down only to find I still have a bit of ways to go before finishing the game. It is still the most fun I have had with a Strategy RPG in probably ever, so that’s a good thing at least. Once that gets done I hope to dedicate more time to Panzer Dragoon Saga which I started this week but only got a little bit into. It is supposed to be short, so that’s a plus.
