Well well, after venturing into the world of Final Fantasy XIII for 15 hours...(13 Chapters and I'm already done with 7 WTF?) I'm here to give my first impressions of this game.

Graphics:
Nothing to say. On a SD tv, although the words ARE SMALL, the graphics are DAMN NICE. Better than those shown on the movie, dammit! Makes me want HDTV. But nope. Ain't getting one. (:



See the pretty Vanille? :D She ran into the rain, just to hide her tears. ): -emo-

Storyline:
With my limited knowledge of Japanese (On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd only be on 2 >_>"), I actually understand a little of the story. In the world of Pulse, There's a floating utopia called Cocoon. The people residing in Cocoon, fears Pulse from what they heard, and those who are infected with something from pulse, will be exiled from Cocoon and into Pulse.

The story begins, with Vanille narrating about what happened in 13 days, that would cause the destruction of the world. Lightning, Snow and Sazh happened to enter an area to save Serah, who is in a ancient relic. During the rescue process, they met with Vanille who is bringing Hope along to find Snow.

They battled a machine, and they was chosen by the Fal'cie to become I'cie, to complete a mission. They'd have to go against the world, to complete their mission.

Character:
Compared to the previous Final Fantasy installments, although there are similarities in characteristics, but it's kinda different. Here's my deduction of their characteristic:

Lightning - Woman with little words, rarely showing her emotion, but she has troubles deep within her.

Snow - Cheerful, always wanting to be the "hero" that comes to rescue everyone.

Hope - Unexpectedly, he isn't like kids from any games. He hates Snow because he thought that he is the cause of his mother's death, and he wanted to kill him at one point!

Vanille - She looks cheerful, but she has tons of secrets within her. She felt guilty of Sazh's son turning into an I'cie. [I think she's the one who turned him into an I'cie.]

(I totally like the part where she wants to sleep, and ask Sazh not to cross the line. In the end, she went to sleep beside him. LOL-ness!)

Sazh - Comic relief. Seriously! Haha. I totally like the part where he's always talking to the little chocobo. Utterly cutteee and funny!

Fang - Seems to be the mature one in the group.

Emotions:

The emotions showed in this installment, is better than all previous installments. The anger, sadness, happiness, are really portrayed well...to make me feel for them. *touched* the only game that could make me feel like that, would be Shadow Hearts 2. This is the second game that made me feel like that.

Battle System:

The battle system is worth praising. You traverse on the map, in order to engage into battle, you have to touch the enemies. After entering the battle, each player automatically fill a role, and you'll be thrust into an ATB battle mode.

There are 6 roles:
Attacker - Delivers raw physical attack.
Blaster - Black mage, that have skills to increase the chain gauge.
Defender - Attract enemies attention, with skills to defend from their attacks.
Enhancer - Boosts your party with buffing skills like Shell, Protect, Faith, Bravery.
Jammer - Opposite of what an Enhancer is. Poison, Slow, it's the debuff job.
Healer - As the name says, a white mage. Cures status and heal party.

So, what if you want your attacker to be a blaster? Can you change only their role? No, and yes. Why no? Because, once you change a role, you have to change ALL your party roles at the same time. That's the new system they introduced, Paradigm Shift.

You get to fill out 6 pre-set roles in the main menu, and you get to change them during battle by pressing L1. Need to heal and attack at the same time? Set the roles to Attacker, Blaster, and Healer. You can actually mix and match! So, this is the battle system way of giving you the choice of what you want a character role to be.

Additionally, due to the fast battle system, the menu have an auto select option. The game will automatically help you select what moves to use. Trust me, you'll use this very often.

They also introduced a tactical point system to prevent abusing of summons and powerful skills. Tactical Points are used to use special skills such as Libra, Summon and Quake.

Summons:

Summons are re-introduced as Ediolons (The name used for summons in FF9). Each character will get one summon at some point of the story. You don't just waltz in and get a summon this time round. To get the summons, you have to BATTLE them!

During the battle, there is a countdown timer. You must fill the summon's gauge before the time ends, to change them into driving mode to obtain them. It's tough, I died 3 times while fighting Odin T_T

Summons are effective in battle, and costs 3 Tactical Points to use. After summoning them, they can be your ally in battle and fight with you, or you could change them into vehicles and use their special skills. They're powerful, save me from many boss battles.

Toughness of the game:

On a scale of 1 to 10, I'll rate 8. Boss battles need serious planning this time, and trust me. You'll be fighting boss with 300k HP, lvl 55, when you're just 15hours into game. LOL. And, different from all other Final Fantasy series, when the leader you're controlling dies, it's game over. Furthermore, the leader is not chosen by you. It's chosen by...the game. Until chapter 7, Which leader the game shoves to me, I can't change at all T_T

Is it worth playing?:

Yes. Definitely. Although I've seen people claiming that the map is too linear (I agree), no towns (yeah, you get to only battle in them), shops became save points (yes, both shops and save points are incorporated together), I still find it fun! It's the storyline and battle system that keeps me going.

One must remember that if either the story or the battle system fails, it's a failure for that game. But so far, both are keeping me very satisfied. So, I'll continue on and give a proper review the time where I complete the game. Which is soon, I suppose. Maybe mid-January, or end of year. Which is near.

Labels: Reviews and Experiences

This is a impression of the game, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, after completing the game.

First impressions: I've see tons of people claiming this game is totally fun when it came out. Being the dubious type, I decided to hold my breath in buying this game. Partially it's also because of the lack of funds to buy games.

So, one day, my mum agreed to buy this game for me. I sat down, inserted the game into my PS3, and then, I started to play. I was amazed by the scenery, and the mechanics of this game.

Firstly, I rarely play any games that involve warfare/guns/bombs. I remembered, the last game I played that involved modern warfare weapons would be...Metal Gear Solid 4.

So, after completing this game, I decided to give a quick review about it, separating into different sections.

Graphics: If you love scenery of towns being torn by war, snowy mountains, places of ancient civilization, this game is for you. The scenery is damn nice even playing it on my TV, which isn't HD at all. How I longed for a HD TV. So, I'd think that it'd look pretty much better on a HD TV.

Sounds: I didn't really notice that there's any music at all except for some fights. Somehow, I particularly like the music just before the final battle. Oh yeah. if they had that music on for every battle, it'd be great.

Gameplay: There's only one game that I could say the battle mechanics is quite similar. Counterstrike. But without shopping for weapons and bombs, you get weapons on bombs from the ground. It's kind of amazing that you can find weapons in ancient civilization areas too!

Replayability: There's multiplayer version, which I haven't tried yet, because I just completed the game. And there's 5 modes to play on, from Very Easy to Crushing mode. Find that Hard is actually darn easy? Try crushing mode! For a beginner in such games, I actually completed the game in easy mode. I've decided to play in normal mode, followed by hard, and then crushing mode. Just for the platinum trophy.

Conclusion: Uncharted 2 is actually a pretty good game to play, but the chapters are short. I could complete the game in actually 2 weeks with some days not playing at all. In total, there's 26 chapters, but it could be completed in such a small amount of time.

If it weren't for the trophy and multiplayer, I'd think the game is way too short. Maybe it's because I'm used to playing Role-Playing games, that's why I'd find it to be short.

Storyline wise, it's kind of like Indiana Jones, finding treasures, and killing baddies, with some romance inputted into it.

Overall, it's a short game, but I kinda like it. So I'd recommend it to people! Those who seriously love counterstrike should try this game. Seriously.

I'll rate it a 8/10, because of some shortcomings such as...each chapters are kinda short, and there's rarely any music at all, which keeps it hard to play ):

Labels: Reviews and Experiences

Introduction:

I've never played any Suikoden games after Suikoden III. [Which failed miserably in my aspect cause I hate the battle gameplay, which is a major issue in RPG games.] Undeniably, I had my doubts before starting playing this game, but oh well, there's a lacking in RPGs for NDS, hence I tried. And I finished it at one go, without touching any games. So, here's my review for this game.

Storyline:

The opening scene is animated, which shows one "Starbearer" left, fighting someone with the "invincible" skill equipped. Is it just me, or that person resembles the Hero (a.k.a main character but hero is shorter, so...yeah.), which after that, shows the Hero preparing to go to patrol, around his village.

The storyline is intriguing, but progresses quite slow. You start with the Hero seeing that a valley changed into a forest, but only you saw what's happening. The others thought that the forest has been there all along. And you ventured into a ruins, and found a chronicle, which you find yourself being a starbearer, along with your friends. After that, you decided to venture out of your village.

Which you found out that, there's an Order, where people believes in "One World, One Future." Where everything is predetermined, happiness, death, marriage. IT'S REAL CRAZY I TELL YOU. If that happens in reality.

Suikoden Tierkreis have the main theme as most RPGs have, which is "Saving the World". Cliche as it is, but it's the sub-theme that makes it interesting. In this game, "infinity" is the theme. Where there's an infinite amount of world, in this whole universe.

The story progresses quite slowly, and I actually played with the thought that after watching the Prologue, I'm playing the game of "Before what happened in the prologue" timeline. But alas, I only realised that it's not like that, after about 50% of the game. Geez.

Gameplay:

----
Battle:
For battle, it's kind of like Final Fantasy. There's 4 people in your party, with one supporting character.

There's no ATB, you select the commands, and after that, the battle starts. Who goes first depends on your speed. The magic and skills is quite limited, which is quite sad because you have so many characters, yet most of them have similar skills.

A nice skill would be the "Co-operation Attack", where you can use when certain specific members are in your battle party.
----
Travelling:
This is one heck of an annoyance in Suikoden, especially when you're frustrated, or you have to go and there's no freaking Save Point.

The monster encounter rate is actually very high, a few steps. BAM! Monster appears. It's an annoyance to the point I had to use Action Replay to set No Encounters, unless I pressed a specific button.

You have 108 characters to recruit, and sometimes you have to backtrack to dungeons, or plains to do such recruitment acts, and you have to fight monsters. There's no "repel" or something like that. Which I wished there would be one! Even Final Fantasy have "No Encounters"! [sorry if I offended any Suikoden diehard fans.]

Let's not forget, sometimes the game leaves you in the last screen of the dungeon after defeating a boss, and you have to backtrack all the way after a gruesome battle, which sometimes you might not have sufficient healing items. Try doing that, when the monster encounter rate is so high.
----
Levelling:
There's actually no need for grinding, you gain levels so fast! Which makes me wonder, since you could level so fast, why would you need to have such a high monster encounter rate?
----
Money:
Money is easily earned, via trading. You could earn a profit of about 100,000 easily just by selling stuffs from one town, in another town. No complains here. But just time consuming.
----
Characters:
108 characters, with about 15 of them as support characters, 95 as battle characters. With so many characters, you'd think it's enjoyable right? No! I barely used more than 30 characters out of 108, in the whole game. (: A vast variety is great, but when most characters have the same skills, how great would it be?

I know that in Suikoden, there will, and would be 108 characters, but I think the developers could create more skills. But the character art is nice! Oh and in the whole gameplay, I only remembered a small amount of names.
----
Skills:
Simple, no variety at all...which is sad. And I have to scroll through 95 characters whenever I gain new skills, just to set it for time. >_>"
----

Graphics:
The graphics for 2D is very, very, nice! Yet, the 3D lacks a little bit here and there, and look really childish compared to their Character Art. But I totally love the Character Art! *nudge nudge* Crodechild and Asad <3 Music: The music is nice, and enjoyable in certain scenes! But one music that I hate would be the battle theme, which makes me turning the volume to mute most of the time, except boss battles and field traveling. Don't ask me why I hate it, maybe it just doesn't appeal to me.

Replayablity: Generally like usual RPGs, you can, and would complete it around 40 hours, and there's actually hardly any replayability (No New Game +), and you'd actually only replay if you didn't recruit all 108 characters [Which is seriously difficult without a guide], to get the true ending. There's 3 ending : Bad Ending, Good Ending, and True Ending.

Conclusion: This is one Suikoden game that I had tons of complain it, yet I didn't give up, and played till the end, just because of the storyline. It also shows me that even when you have a variety of characters, you won't be able to use all of them. So, more =/= good! The game is comparable to Dragon Quest, and Final Fantasy, in my opinion. This game made me feel like trying Suikoden V on PS2. So...maybe I would try it!

Rating: 7.5/10 <- Not bad, per se.

Labels: Reviews and Experiences

I slept too early and woke up too early.

Now I finally understand what it means by...早睡早起身体好。 Hahaha. And I'm hungry...maybe I should scavenge for some food in the kitchen. Since the kitchen is usually without food but with tons of medicine and spices. I can't take medicine as food, or pepper as food right? Right?!

Recently I bought a book by Suzanne Collins called "The Hunger Games", which is a thriller. I didn't expect it to be that interesting that I finished the whole book in 2 hours. Just couldn't put it down to rest! (:

----
The story: (Extracted from the website)

Twenty-four are forced to enter. Only the winner survives. In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. Each year, the districts are forced by the Capitol to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the Hunger Games, a brutal and terrifying fight to the death - televised for all of Panem to see.

Survival is second nature for sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who struggles to feed her mother and younger sister by secretly hunting and gathering beyond the fences of District 12. When Katniss steps in to take the place of her sister in the Hunger Games, she knows it may be her death sentence. If she is to survive, she must weigh survival against humanity and life against love.
----

Basically, this story is focused on two people, Katniss and Peeta. The whole story focuses on how both of them manage to survive in the Hunger Games, where only the fittest and strongest survive.

The story is interesting because of the emotions of the characters, how angry Katniss is when she sees Peeta joining the others to kill her, how sad she is when Rue died (That's the best part in the story. Damn sad.), the rest of the 22 tributes battling out with each other.

Given the storyline, I'd rate the whole story a 8/10. But since it's only the first book, maybe I should get the second one too to see what happens to Katniss and Peeta. Damn it. Why can't Katniss realise that she really loves Peeta. !@#$.

Next Book: The Gift.

Labels: Daily Rants, Reviews and Experiences

My New Year Resolutions:

1.I will sleep early whenever I can.
2.I will never drink too much alcohol (Which I never did.)
3.I will go exercise.
4.I will lose weight and bid goodbye with my tummy.
5.I will try to save up and prepare for another overseas trip. (I love travelling...however I wonder how long would it take to travel again.)
6.I will not try to be desperate for anything.
7.I will try my best to understand what is love.
8.I will pick up some lessons like piano or drawing.
9.I will read more books.
10.I will control my temper more.

Does it sound like the ten commandments? I hope not. =x

Let me review what happened on 31st december...

Okayyyy. So I am damn happy during the afternoon because....



I got Lucia's Snowflake costume set in the lottery!! ^^ (I regretted I didn't bought her C.C. Code Geass Costume ):)



Tadah! My new Lucia~ *swoons* I called my character...mahou yukiko hime LOL. So funnyyyyyyyyy. 魔法雪子姫！＾＾

Okay after that...I went to meet chan, mt and jh for New Year Eve Dinner. Haha sounds so cliche...and you know whattttt. Okay I'm still quite mad that I waited them for 30minutes when I decided to be punctual for once. Pfft. We headed to Changi Airport for our dinner!

We chose Breeks for our dinner venue...the ambience is nice...and the food. NICE! Haha.



Accomplice #1 and #2.



Reflection hahaha.



Accomplice #1 and #3 at breeks.



Our drinks. I ordered Strawberry Lemon Tea. I can't taste the tea...only the strawberry flavour...and it's too sweet for TEA! ._." Although I love the strawberry pulp inside. =3

We were trying out each others drink until chan said..."want to try my pepsi?" rofl! Haha.



Smoked Salmon. Kinda raw...although it's a little bit cooked.



Potato Island...it's quite okay except I didn't really like the filling. There's just a weird taste which I can't describe well.



Pumpkin Cream Soup. I love this soup because it doesn't taste like pumpkin.



Chan's chicken =p It's a whole half chicken!



My rib-eye steak with black pepper sauce. The sauce is actually very spicy. I am happy that I didn't pour the sauce on the steak. I LOVE THE VEGGIES. HA!



Patties with cheddar cheese. This is definitely my favourite of the day. The patties is so crunchy, and the cheddar cheese increases the flavour of the patties. Let's don't forget the two banana-looking mashed potatoes. Haha! The mashed potatoes is tasty.



Jh's smoked salmon. Tasty with the sauce! I'd really say...the salmon is too small!



Mt's blackened fish with pasta. I love the fish. Tender and juicy.



All our main dishes and appetizers. Lol. I can't fit chan's chicken in T_T



After eating, we take a break before our dessert arrive. Me and accomplice #2. Haha. Playing actually. =p



Accomplice #1 and #3. Haha. Again!



Brownies with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream. Best combination: A little bit of the whipped cream + vanilla ice cream + brownie...deliver it into your mouth. The mixture of warmth and cold...and the walnut in the brownie = HEAVEN. Although without the ice cream...it doesn't taste that nice anymore.



Haha chan was like...not smiling until she smiled and I snapped this.



I wonder...why does mt looked so hungry. Haha. Her avocado with oreo...taste weird. I meant the avocado taste weird.



Viewing area disturbance = us. LOL.

Camwhoring session!









Chan with Mickey.



Chan with me pushing Mickey.



I poke Mickey. Haha.

New nickname for chan! Chan u nub. Hahahaha.



After we sent chan to the escalator and she left (because she wanna sleep =p)...we took the skytrain to T3. And this is mt pouting. Haha.



My smile went stiff. ^^



Yay!



Take 1 phailed.



Take 2!



Professional model shoot! Haha.



On the way to meet Xin, Benneth and Andrew and his gf...I stoned. And they took it. Haha.



The "jump".



I find mt looking like a POW in this picture. You know...getting tied to smth...haha.



Tried pole dancing and I got kicked.



My refusal the camwhore with them...



Rewarded with a punch. -.-



I shall continue to play my DJ Max hahahaha.



What's with leg fetishes? I wonder.



Reached One Raffles Quey and patiently waited...and waited...for the fireworks. This is the best I got T_T Meh.

And we hail 2009! ^^ After that walked a long way...and I went home with xin and ben while the rest when to slack at Marina Mcdonalds bcos they wanna watch the sunrise...and I just wanna sleep~

And that is the best end of year ever...because...being at the site seeing the fireworks is better than at tv...and for a moment...I am totally attracted to the fireworks. A moment of undescribable beauty...diminishing in a moment. It just feels so good just being there.

Labels: Daily Rants, End of Year, Reviews and Experiences

恋爱写真 - Read about 50 pages. It's a damn nice story. Because I got the manga first, then watched the movie. Then now it's the novel. Most touching story evah. Rawr. I'm still hunting the person who borrowed it and never returned it to me, and I can't find another copy of that book. May that person who forgot to return me that manga rot in hell. *rawr*

Lost Odyssey - At first it seems boring with the running and all those. Battle mechanics is turned based. Woots. The 1000 year dreams...some stories is touching, while some is plain boring. I wonder why? I love "The Little Liar" story. Damn sad. And it made me realise. Being immortal isn't that good at all. ):

The Last Remnant - TOTALLY. ROCKS. END. Haha. I'll wait for the guide before moving on.

Infinite Undiscovery - omg. It's like FF12 somehow minus the gambit system (damn it), which causes me some trouble in getting some achievements. Overall. Storyline is nice, with all the fanservice SE is giving.

Girls:
Aya - Bashful, emotional type. Easily jealous much?
Faina - "I'll do anything for Capell" And capell always went anything *bright eyes*
Michelle - The maternal type with...huge va va voom! LOL. Michelle is nice.
Seraphina - Ohh.She.Is.HOT. But she don't understand what's love. Sigh. She says it's illogical hahaha.
Dominica - The mighty warrior lady. Wooo suits those who love strong girls with a delicate side.
Vic - The girl who dresses up as a guy. Feisty.
Komachi - Certified stalker. Touma LOVE!
Rucha - For the paedophiles.

Guys:
Balbagan - The braws over brains dude.
Edward - Tsundere! LOL. No la. He is...emo somehow. I hated him at first, but I liked him now *my god*
Eugene - The planner. He somehow have some shady aura around him...
Touma - The innocent guy. He doesn't even notice Komachi loves him.
Sigmund - He died too early. *sob*
Capell - I totally love this guy. SUPER FUNNY. He loves Michelle hugging him, Faina willing to do anything for him. His real identity is a shocker. I never imagine he'd be...
Rico - Kid with an attitude.
Savio - Old guy. Hahaha. The studious type.
Kiriya - Wow. This guy is very harsh. Those who love being scolded...pick him!
Kristopher - The womaniser, yet he likes Seraphina more than other girls.

I only hate one part of this game. Cruising through towns and maps. GOD WHY CAN'T YOU HAVE A TELEPORT CRYSTAL LIKE FF12. - -

Okay. Gotta go. ANYONE WANNA WATCH THE SKY CRAWLERS?!?!

Labels: Games, Personal Opinions/Stories/Poems, Reviews and Experiences

Remember what I said about pre-ordering DJ Max Clazziquai Edition?
Well...I just received this and however, I already played last night after downloading iso =p

And to say the truth...iso version is choppy when playing. Well what does choppy means? Well it means that at some parts, it lags and actually when you hit judgement 100%, it became judgement 20% wtf - -" so if the umd isn't like that, I'd really recommend you to buy the umd instead. [wtf cpu speed 333 still choppy.]

Let's just pray that the umd version isn't like that.

Well let's go through my first impressions okay! (:
Basically it's quite like the previous DJ Max Portable 2, but it isn't, due to some new additions which made me irritated like mad.

-Club Mode
Club mode is a mode whereby you start at a very very low rank (Which I think, 199 or 200), and you advance through clubs playing songs, challenging CPU DJ [In the form of like previous mission modes but only one song, to unlock characters, functions, gears, notes, OST, videos.] You also earn club emblems by clearing all the songs in one club.


Example of a club in one avenue

Oh and one note for usual 4b players. There is no 4b onli nao. I advanced to one club, and once of the repetory playing section (repetory = continuous playing) songs is like this.

1st song: 4b
2nd song: 5b
3rd song: 6b

Heck, I died at that 6b song but I managed to pull through.



Example of all the club badges in one avenue. Area 1 is ridiculously easy ^^



Area 7 is the last area. I'm now at area 5 and I'm dying - -"



Moving through avenues. I'm at rock fest! ^^
----

-4bfx mode

I'd comment it as the toughest button mode evah. nao.[Well I didn't tried 8b yet hahahaha.] You play with the normal 4 buttons, with additional L and R buttons heck I tried Oblivion [Lv7 song] and I breaked like mad - -"

so...4bfx ain't easy. But maybe it could be easy for 8b players? I can't confirm that though.

-2b mode

Yay to 2button mode!!!! Hahahaha. Well basically you play 2 buttons with the analog. It's not really that easy as it seems. Rhythm still applies, where sometimes massive of buttons come crashing down on you. But it's really fun! ^^"

-Analog craziness

To people who doesn't really love analog spinning in DJ Max, well, good luck to you. Almost every song I play have tons of analog crashing down in series with the buttons! Talk about busy fingers. So...this time the difficulty of the songs is so much more than DJ Max portable 2.

-Fevers? Life bar? Auto? Where is it?!
Well, now...you can't get x5 fever straightaway. When you start the first club, you gained yourself a x3 fever effect. Equip it, and you can get x3 fever MAX. If you want x5 fever, you have to play through quite a number of clubs to get it. There's auto attain x5 fever, which saves you the time to press x. Which is not that good IMHO.

Auto +1? Well, you also must UNLOCK that through club battles. Increased life bar? Ditto. So mainly, no more mirror, random (I don't see that yet.) Effects are unlocked through club battles. Oh and 1 very new thing! The bar stacks. Meaning if you didn't press x2, the bar would stack and when it's 2 full bars, when you press X, it becomes x3 fever instead of x2. Stacko!

-Levels?
Levels are gone, in come the new ranking. You defeat DJ's in clubs to raise your rank. As you can see, I'm ranked 125 (Still so low wtf).

-Using gold to buy stuffs?
No more babeh! You unlock characters, gears, notes, effects, through clubs and clearing songs.

-Songs?
Sad to say, if you want new songs, it is mandatory to play club mode nao. The new songs is damn nice. As what the game says, "emotional sense", it's a game packed will songs of different emotions. Happy, sadness, despair, blissful, jealousy, etc.
And the songs is damn nice and sometimes too emo hahaha. But I love it.

-Recommended?
Totally. Can't wait for Black Sqaure (:

Labels: Games, Personal Opinions/Stories/Poems, Reviews and Experiences