I’m hooooome

It feels fabulous to be home. When I left for the USA I only played 3 hours of Tales of the Abyss. After I got home today, my in-game timer read 21 hours and my 3DS activity log says I played for 25 (lol 4 hours of dying against hard mode bosses before I said “fuck this shit normal modo go”). I also played at least 5 hours of Grandia. I played games for over 25 hours during a 4-day 3-night trip so it was obviously a very interesting vacation.

No, seriously. Visiting famous universities was just a cover for some middle-aged women to get their husbands to take them to the USA to shop. We looked at universities on Sunday because malls were closed and went shopping for the rest of the trip. I gotta say, until I got to visit GameStop, touching Harvard’s statue’s foot was more interesting than shopping. I like my stores to just have a simple list of items like in RPGs, thank you.

I bought Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch ($5) to complete the Gagharv trilogy for the PSP (now I gotta start playing), and also Arc Rise Fantasia for $15. What’s with me buying these games with bad translations recently? Since my backlog increased again, I gotta put off Xenoblade. I’ve also got Xenosaga I and III sitting in the drawer for over a year, untouched.

Once I get my laptop back I’ll start Kamidori. Alchemy + RPG + eroge? Do want.

Tales of the Abyss needs a Moderate difficulty level

I’m doing normal encounters on hard and boss fights on normal because hard mode boss fights are really hard. I only managed Liger Queen on hard and that was because it’s the first boss. Hard mode bosses have a lot of HP and too much defense, not to mention dealing more damage to you. For most of the bosses on hard, I did 1 – 20 damage per hit, out of their 20K+ HP in total. I would be managing fine, until ally AI started dying left and right because they can’t back up/dodge for shit and healers run out of TP. Life bottles are expensive, and money is harder to come by.

The battles usually go like this: Do well at first, then after depleting 5-10k of boss HP, Guy/Jade/Anise (whoever I’m using at the time) dies. I attempt to revive, but they die again. Then either Tear or Natalia dies (I usually use both in one party), and I try to revive but they die again, repeat until I’m out of life bottles, and then either the other healer dies and I die soon after, or I die and I have to watch the healer heal herself while dealing 1 damage to the boss for a few minutes.

After switching to normal for bosses, they suddenly become piss easy and I can pretty much button mash all the way through and never use a life bottle. Talk about switching extremes. A moderate mode would have been really good, since normal is really easy so far. Might as well call the difficulties Easy and Hard instead of Normal and Hard.

I have no idea what titles do in this game since I don’t see any skills or stats associated with them, but maybe I’m just stupid and blind. And despite my complaints (because I can’t help but compare the battle system to Graces), I’m actually enjoying the game. At least my healers no longer run out of TP during normal battles. I’m liking action RPGs more and more with each one I play…

(On a side note, I’m also 30 hours into Grandia. I’m playing it when my 3DS runs out of batteries, and it hasn’t hooked me so far. It’s like the slowness of Trails in the Sky FC, minus the interesting character interactions, awesome dialogue, detailed world and NPCs, and the plot that eventually picks up and becomes interesting. In other words, not very good. I can’t help but think that if it received a localization close to the quality of XSeed it’d actually be interesting. Unfortunately the dialogue is really boring.)

Oh yeah, and I got 2 streetpasses on my 3DS in America–I mean, Strahta in the not-desert. Neat.

I’m off to the USA + Tales of the Abyss

I’ll be away from my dear PS3 for 4 days since I’m going on a family road trip to the states to look at famous universities or something. I don’t really care about the universities since we’re gonna be visiting the ones that I’ll never be able to get into, so it’ll just  be me, my 3Ds, and my PSP for 4 days of campus-visiting and shopping (and by that I mean waiting on a bench while other females in the party go shopping).

I bought Tales of the Abyss to keep me occupied for the trip, since it’s the closest thing to Tales of Graces I can get on a handheld. It’s gonna take a while to get used to Abyss and the TP system, since TP runs out so damn fast. I also tried to sidestep in Abyss and stood  there like an idiot, wondering why I took damage lol. I prefer the CC system since CC recharges over time. Free run is fabulous though. I was having trouble with the first boss on hard, dealing 16 damage per hit to its 15k HP, but then I used free run and approached it like an Ys game. Despite not playing like Graces, Abyss is a solid game so far.

Also, Tear is hot.

I’m on my second playthrough in Graces, trying to get the “Defeat X Boss in under a minute” trophies and learning how to play characters other than Asbel. I love this game, I wonder if there are any other Tales games that use CC instead of TP?

I’m not particularly excited to go to the States at this point, since I can’t think of any games that I really want right now. My next purchase will probably be Atelier Meruru, unless some kind of impulse kicks in or I decide to get Xenoblade Chronicles.

…And to Sum Up 2011

It was a fun year, actually. I played quite a few games that were enjoyable, and finally managed to play eroge in Japanese. I also got a sexy new PS3, opening up my library to even more games. Dad got me a 3DS as a surprise gift, so I’ll be looking in the horizon for games for that. I’m pretty much broke now, and my trip to the US increased my backlog. What a great way to prepare for new handhelds, me. I guess the Vita can wait. I don’t really give a shit about processing power or online features or touch panel or whatever they stick in there, I just want to follow Atlus, NIS and Falcom and play their games.

KimiIta DLC comes on Nov 30th!

That’s the day of my presentation for English. C’mon, I can live through this as long as I work 24/7 until then and then some more!

FUUUUU– [+ YG0 Zexa1 ep 28]

My keyb0ard is screwed up. The c01umn 0f keys fr0m 9 t0 . 0n the keyb0ard d0n’t w0rk, s0 n0w I’m stuck typing in ha1f 1eet.  9 and . are fine because I can type them 0n the numpad, but my 0 and 1 have t0 be rep1aced with zer0s and 0nes. It’s painfu1 t0 type and painfu1 t0 read, but easier than c0py and pasting the 1etters each time I have t0 type them.

Anyways, this epis0de has Yuuma due1ing s0me midget kid wh0 fe11 f0r K0t0ri and 1ikes c0nstructi0n. He’s in the Due1 Carniva1 and they due1. His backst0ry is that he is a weak midget but then he saw c0nstructi0n equipment and th0ught “Z0MG s0 str0ng, I wanna be str0ng 1ike that!”

The midget 10ses and Yuuma gets his heart piece. He n0w has 3 heart pieces and te11s the midget that ATK p0wer isn’t everything and there’s sma strength t00.

Unimp0rtant epis0de is unimp0rtant. And I seri0us1y need t0 get my keyb0ard repaired, 0r e1se I’11 end up using ha1f 1eet f0r sch001 papers.

 

 

Damn you, school

Or more specifically, damn you, English. Why you give me so much work? Why you no let me play Altered Fable more?

I’m like a month and a half into the semester and this is the same workload I had towards the end of last year. Analyzing books and films = not fun. Especially since I can’t get MuvLuv Alternative out of my mind still and I’ve been comparing everything to it, even films and books that have absolutely nothing in common with it. I’ve also been behind on my gaming and haven’t beat Persona 2: Innocent Sin yet, and Fate/Extra is coming soon. Christmas break, please come soon so I can put my energy towards consoles again.

Oh yeah, and during this busy time, I’m having a huge urge to draw. I’m not a masochist, definitely not.

I wish I’m retired. I may be old and creepy for liking teenage girls then, but the older you are the less shit you give (and take from other people).

I think I need a new PSP

My UMD drive is dying. It scratches my UMDs and makes a disturbing high-pitched noise when it does (they still play fine, just stuck on infinite loading sometimes but removing and sticking back in usually does the trick). It also recognizes my UMD 1 out of the 6 times I put it in, and extremely frustrating when I try to switch games.

3k’s are cheap right now, but I think I’ll hold off until Boxing Day since I’m REALLY short on cash. I’ve still got CFW so I guess I’ll be running games off of my stick now. Goodbye, my sexy green PSP. I love you, but you’re hurting my games.

Also, just hit final chapter of Disgaea 4. Each Disgaea is decreasing in length in terms of story, but increasing in awesome post-game content. I remember spending 50 hours just to beat the story in 1, 30 in 2 and 3, and I just hit the final chapter of 4 at 15 hours. I’ll probably grind a little since I got owned on the first map of the final chapter, so I’m estimating to be finished the story at the 20 hour mark. Hmmm…maybe I should say that the game will be BEGINNING for me at the 20 hour mark this time? Hnnng I love NIS.

…I’m really good at getting off-topic in my posts. Since I’m already off-topic, might as well go even more off. On the eroge side I’m picking up Muv-Luv again. Extra isn’t doing anything for me, but I’m trying to push through to get to Unlimited and Alternative. At least Extra is quite lol as a cheesy harem.

Sora no Kiseki PC controls feel really weird. I have to play with a controller or a handheld console after all. Can’t get used to PC controls orz

Disgaea 4 GET!

It arrived in the strangest way I’ve ever seen. Normally, my package is left at my front door if it’s big, and stuff into my mailbox if it’s small like just a single game. I got the Premium edition so the box was too big and had to be fit inside the large section of the mailbox. Since my mailbox is joined with a bunch of other people’s there’s this one box that’s like twice as huge and it’s used solely for delivery of large packages. They put my game in there and then put the key to that box in my mailbox. I was extremely confused because normally they’d just leave it at the doorstep.

Anyways, I ordered from Amazon so there’s no NISA store bonus CD. I only have the Fuuka figure, artbook, and the game. The opening looks freaking fabulous on an HDTV and omfg HD sprites. Evilty system and buying your skills is back (sadface), and there’s a new ability called fusion. TIME FOR MY MANLIEST DREAMS TO COME TRUE!

Zero no Kiseki HK LE comes with Nendoroids…

http://www.qk123.com/archives/49219?variant=zh-hans

Traditional Chinese LE from Hong Kong comes with Nendoroids (or Chinese replicas of them) that came with Ao no Kiseki LE. This makes be somewhat rage, but I have no relatives in Hong Kong and I already got the mainland version. Nendoroids WANT. At least I get a sexy notebook…Anyways, the HK version is available through Play-Asia which actually ships overseas. Their price is actually not bad, as the HK LE cost 400 HKD which converts to around $50 CAD anyways. It includes artbook, CD set, playing cards, 2 Nendoroids and a tote bag.

Also, for bad news, the person who’s supposed to bring me my Zero no Kiseki changed her flight to December. WUT. I ordered from Amazon because her flight was originally in September, but FUUUUUUUUUUUU. Maybe I should’ve gone to Play-Asia and their HK version after all. Rageragerageragerage

On a happier note, I got my Sora no Kiseki Set that includes all 3 games. Time to replay while I wait for December, I guess. It’s a shame, because I get to go home early this semester which is like dream come true for my hobby.