Just as I was reading your comparison of the PSICOM troops to the helghast troops, in my mind I thought of the troops from Killzone, and lo-and behold you say "helghast". They are pretty similiar; I remember the developers saying that they took some aspects of FPS games and incorporated them into FFXIII, apparently they also took an enemy design as well to use as their's.
Funny what anger can lead a person to think, yeah? Either that, or it's just an annoying plot device for Hope and Snow...I'll assume that you probably think the latter. xD Hmm... Well, I'm not ashamed to admit that I dislike Vanille for the petty reasons that you've heard most people complain about. It's cool that you can look past that and find the real issues that some of these characters have in terms of being "flawed"...though I suppose that flaws like that make them more personable to the player. Ha... A l'Cie's focus... I almost started a thread about that. =P Not to ask what exactly the focus was, but just to point out that the fal'Cie would get a lot more accomplished from their chosen ones if they would be more direct as to what they need/want done. xD It really doesn't help matters if all a l'Cie gets is a very vague vision as to what needs to be done (if they even get that... I don't think Serah even got any sort of real hint as to what her focus was...) As for the things you pointed out...I didn't even notice that it was stated like that in the datalog. I admit that I sort of skim over the datalog, and don't soak up a lot of the info presented... It's just soooo muuuuch teeeeext!!!! I think it would have been more effective to have a character explain stuff like this to the player rather than have to read up on it. But eh...what can we do about it now? Or ever for that matter? Well, since we're discussing PSICOM...have you noticed that some of the PSICOM soldiers look an awful lot like helghast from the Killzone games? xD I stumbled across a discussion about that, and thought it was funny, so I shared it with you! The must have been trained by the same people who trained Stormtroopers then. They have about the same aim when it comes to firearms...or rather, the same lack of aim. P.S.- Why yes. It is 4:30 in the morning when I'm sending this message to you. Another sleepless night for me, and yet I'll probably be passed out for most of the day.
One more "interesting" thing about the death of Nora; Hope saw Snow carrying Nora to safety then the bridge collapsed. You saw the back of Hope's head and see a tiny Snow trying to get both Nora and him to safety. But Hope in his rage, ignores his mother volunteering and Snow not forcing anybody to join and Snow trying to save his mother. I've seen a lot of people be "annoyed" by Vanille's moans, voice-acting, and body language but those three things didn't bother me at all, it was that she held back information. Such as when, in chapter 3, when the party spots the Psicom ship, Hope says that L'Cie aren't human Vanille finally gets angry and grabs Hope at his wrist but quickly calms down probably because she didn't want to get serious which would make her think about facing reality. Of course that scene could have been great by exploring the racism theme (are L'Cie monsters or human) that was quickly and poorly done at the end of Chapter 7. There is also, I think, a bit of confusion in the story as to who gave the party their focus. It says in the datalog that after defeating the Pulse Fal'Cie - Anima - the party was transported to another dimension and some strange entity bestowed their focus upon them. I don't think it is Anima because the Fa'Cie, besides Barthandelus whom is the Fal'Cie of disguise and illusion, don't have different forms. The analect for the "Arks" reveals that they were created before Cocoon and that their purpose was to fight the "menace beyond". The gods left the world and are thought to be in another dimension - the beyond. Humans when they die open the gate to the beyond a little bit so with the huge sacrifice the gate would be open very widely. Some speculate that the Fal'Cie were trying to fight the gods. It would have been good if Vanille shared her experience when she was first branded as to give a clue wether Anima actually gave the party their focus or it was a mysterious entity from the beyond, as the datalog says. Of course then that would lead to how would Barthandelus know their focus; the entity from beyond could've "leaked" false information. As I said in my prior post, the soldiers (PSICOM and GC) use manadrives to use "magic" similiar to the L'Cie, such as the gravity bubble. I was suggesting that Yaag and Jihl could've had the strongest manadrives making them a threat even for L'Cie and that both of them would have great martial skill. But they seem inept whenever trouble comes up and it makes me think that even the elite PSICOM are pathetic - definitely not like SOLDIER or SeeD. Remember in Chapter 3 Snow said that PSICOM is an anit-Pulse task force and havent had to fight in a long time, Sazh then replies with that then the Guardian Corp are better trained and have more experience than PSICOM. Lightning affirms this but then makes that comment about PSICOM's elite. Apparently PSICOM soldiers are so bad that they can't hit an arm that is outstretched.
Yeah, what's the deal with JRPGs and nearly all the heroes being pretty much kids? There are a few exceptions, but mainly it's late-teens to very early 20 year olds that are doing all the heroic stuff... D=< Oh, well. At least I'm young at heart! Hmmm... I suppose I can do the Alka-Seltzer trick like what the kids did in the movie The Little Giants! Easy way to foam at the mouth. xD I did think that was pretty lame as well. I honestly didn't know why Hope thought it was Snow's fault to begin with. I suppose it was when Hope saw that Nora slipped out of Snow's grasp...so he probably assumed that he just let her fall to save his (Snow's) own skin... Honestly, the more I think about it, the more confused and frustrated with both characters I become. Oh Vanille... She is the ditzy character archetype that I never seem to ever really like in any game. She really is just a fanservice character...I think. Though I did see that she had potential to be great (or somewhat more interesting than what she is now). She hid her guilt with optimism that pretty much had everyone fooled...but it was ruined when she came across as a little too "hyperactive"...which annoyed me. Oh, and her sexualized battle groans? WTH??? I'm not a perv or anything, but seriously...what was her VA thinking when she was instructed to make those sounds??? Yeah, I was surprised to see Yaag return in that one CG scene after the crew escapes the Palamecia. Thought that he was gone, and got a worse send off than what Jihl got...but apparently he still has some sort of other function he has to carry out before he really gets killed off... Well, to be fair, the characters that we control are l'Cie, so maybe their power can stand up to "Psicom Elite"... I don't think that Lightning would have known that, since very little was known about l'Cie...especially about their battle prowess. Eh, I'm just speculating at this point, and your deductions probably hold more ground that what I came up with. I was actually wondering why we didn't get a boss fight with Jihl myself... I mean, she was pretty much set up to be an interesting opponent, but then just got shafted... HA! I wondered that myself as well. xD I was like "Okay, now this is just silly..." I mean, he could have held out his jacket with a stick or something, and it would have made a lot more sense. I don't care if the game is called "Final FANTASY"... You seriously cannot get away with something like that and expect the player to have a suspension of disbelief that his arm did not get shot off! Well, getting at least some semblance of freedom will be a heck of a lot better than where I'm stuck at now.
You would not be considered a youth, but a middle-aged woman if we are looking at it from a JRPG view. I'm still young enough to be the main character, as Cloud, Lightning and I think Cecil were 21, but not for long as my birthday is less than two months away. Whenever you get scared just act like a crazed woman who has rabies that will confuse and/or frighten any nasty out to get ya. If you have the ability to foam out your mouth that would help with the act. Well since I know where you are in the game, did you find a bit odd and/or stupid that Snow said it was his fault for Hope's mother dying (chapter 7) when it was the husky NPC who stood up and said, "hey we want to fight too" and Snow replied "Ok. Volunteers front and center" turns his [Snow] back then Nora gets a gun, Snow asks if she is sure which Hope probably could've heard and Nora responds with "Moms are tough". Snow let me down with that. With all the "reality checks" Lightning and sometimes others put on each other why couldn't they reality check Hope and say "SNOW DIDN'T KILL YOUR MOTHER YOU DUMB TWIT, PSICOM WAS GOING TO KILL EVERBODY IN THE PURGE INCLUDING YOUR MOTHER AND YOU!!!!" But noooooo, we get a story that drags out Snow and Hope's conflict and Hope never getting b!tch slapped figuratively. I also have a disliking of Vanille and her attempt to block out reality - she also needed a reality b!tch slap. I just got through chapter 8 and she aggravated me with how she just cried, "NO!" and ran off after Nabaat revealed to Sazh the truth. We see in the security cam that Vanille wasn't sure about Fang's plan and that Dajh stumbled upon them but apparently Sazh can't see that and Vanille just tries to see no evil. I don't like people or characters that try to deny the existence of evil or anything bad, that try to escape reality to the fullest so they don't have to worry about the serious stuff and Vanille is one of those to me. Also, about NPCs, Rosch at the end of chapter 7. How did he survive? He got lit up but at the end of Chapter 9 he is back. I don't believe that soldier used rubber bullets are their equivalent because the rubber wouldn't have harmed them. Sanctum soldiers appear as if they have some tough armor requiring armor piercing rounds. But somehow he survives and we don't get any reason as to how because the game focuses solely on the main cast. I also love how Lightning said "When Psicom's elite hit the field it is game over" and the game says otherwise. When Fang shoots the camera near Rosch, when Snow and her are rescuing Light and Hope, Rosch says for the ship to fall back. Then when somebody tosses the smoke grenades he is totally inept and gets gunned down -but survives. In chapter 9, all Jihl's plan to capture the other L'Cie was just amass a sh!t-ton of troops, how does that make her smart as the datalog says. They aren't fierce or scary at all. Now they're just humans but regular Psicom troops and GC troops have the manadrive abilities, Jihl and Yaag could've had some advanced manadrives allowing them to be bosses, but we get a let down with them. Another thing that happens in Chapter 7, why wasn't Snow's arm shot up when he stuck is hand out with his coat. His arm was visible but miraculously he is not harmed. I did expand Sazh into the Medic role because I hated how OP they made Hope as a Mage and I wanted Sazh to be more versatile. I did this just before I continued the story in Chapter 11. You are close to Gran Pulse, but the actual story is short just like the rest of the chapters and at the end of the chapter the revelation doesn't make sense and to me, comes to quickly. The reason behind staying/going into Gran Pulse is weak, if you haven't found out yet, and is just an excuse for the developers to allow the player to finally have freedom from this very controlling game.
Hmmm...methinks I may be taking a bit of a trip to Metacritic to see what's up so far. Sounds promising though. Renting eh? Haven't done that in ages... I think the last game I rented was a Mortal Kombat game for the PS2. Shoalin Monks, I think it was called. I never finished it, because I'm not big on fighting games, and not big on the MK universe either... So why did I rent it? Beats me... Well, if you wind up getting Nier, I hope you enjoy it. =) Last coffee cake I had, it had grapes in it. Don't know if all coffee cake is made that way, but I hated it, so it sort of turned me off to trying other coffee cakes. I can eat grapes alone, but usually not if it's put in anything...like cake. Ha! Sounds like a plan to me! Though I hope I'm not one of the youths who have to save the world though... I get skurred easily. =( I'll have to check that thread out. =D I only mentioned that the pacing might be too quick for your liking because you mentioned how the author revealed something that you thought was too soon to do so, but I'm glad that it's not the case. =) Ooohhh! YES! I wish the NPCs had more development as well! I was shocked when Jihl was killed off. I was like "We barely got to get to know her, and she...DIES???" Lame... I'm in the fifth ark, and that place is a CHORE!!! Fate tells me that I'm close to Gran Pulse though, and that's where I wanna be, because I want to have that exploration that I hear that GP offers the player. I also pretty much agree with a lot of the other things you mentioned: Like how the Crystarium gives the "illusion of choice". At first, you think that it's going to be like the Sphere Grid in FF X, but it's not... There truly is little divergence from the paths the Crystarium offers, and even if you want to level up other roles...why would you? I mean, it's easier to just keep everyone on the roles that they knew from the start. Though I suppose that if you had extra CP, and no more nodes in your characters' main roles to fill, that you could start on another role...but it's expensive (CP wise) to do so! Oh, didn't know it was your friend's oven. Yeah, it does make a difference when you're not used to an appliance. Ha! "Only two", you say. I don't drink, so knowing me, having "only two" would knock me out, or cause me to stumble over things. Well, I suppose my point with me telling you that is you can hold your liquor faaaar better than I could ever do. xD
There have been some reviews (16 on metacritic) but there hasn't been anything from a major gaming website or magazine. Out of the 16 professional reviews it has a 70 on the PS3 version; plus 13 users have graded the game 8.8. Renting Nier may be the way for you; how often do you rent videogames? I haven't in a long while. I remember that I used to rent World Series Baseball 96 for the Genesis when I was younger - it was my favourite game. Thinking about renting games, I think the last game I rented was... ... either Front Mission 4 or Kingdom Hearts. I think Front Mission 4 came out after Kingdom Hearts so I'll go with the former. I'm usually good about what games I purchase as I always like them, so I have faith that Nier will satisfy me as well. You don't like Coffee Crumb Cake? *Gasp* That's ok, I'll take your share and you can have my donuts. Donuts are ok with me, I just tend not to eat them; I really don't splurge on sweets though I have no problem with them, sort of a self-check. What is the exchange rate for gil to dollars? I would say that the gil is stronger than the dollar right now, even stronger than the pound. I think the world should convert to gil and then maybe someting will happen where some youths of the world will have to journey to save the planet from an evil person. I don't think the pacing is too quick, if you check my latest post in the "Currently Reading: Intellecual" thread you will see what I thought about the book for the 3 first chapters. I'll just say that what was revealed in chapter 4 was as unexpected as the three first chapters before. But I'm really like the characters and the world - it has its onw flava. I'm on my second-playthrough of FFXIII and am at the end of chapter 7. For me, there are more things poor with this game than in other FFs. Then another chunk of the game is mediocre and very few stuff is great. I was dissapointed in how Toriyama handled the supporting cast (NPCs like Rosh, Nabaat, Raines, etc.) and the plot was too thin for me. In the first two chapters stuff is going on, but then for chapters 3-6 it is character development with a dash of plot. If more happened in the game and two themes were explored, if they were done in the game it was quite poorly, it would've been better for me. Then there is Hope and Snow; Snow does say something about being the "hero" or "protecting something" a bit too much, but just by a little bit. If they had cut down on it, he would've been fine in that department. My biggest gripe with Snow deals with Hope (I don't know how far you are in the game so I'm not trying to spoil anything). One thing about FFXIII that makes it so much different from prior games is that it is restrictive - not just linear. In FFX the maps were pretty much the same as in FFXIII, but the player could go back to certain places early in the game and later on; in FFXIII there is only forward and the ability to go back to other places isn't available till chapter 13 - the final chapter. Going along the restrictive thought, the enemies will always be the same group, at the same place. The party leader will always be the same at a certain point of the game till the player is allowed to choose. Now I think there should have been some "new game +" options that would allow the player to choose their party leader in the early chapters and/or choose who's in their party to add some variety. The Crystarium grid for the most part is all show with little substance; the player can only go straight, the divergent paths are very small till chapter 11 and beyond but even they aren't that extensive. Once the character reaches a nod they gain that stat, unlike in FFX where the player could opt not to gain the stat or ability, adding an in-depth customization to the game. I know, I could've used oven mitts but I never get burned cause I'm careful. I just think it was my friends oven and not the beer - I only had two (Sam Adams) - that oven seemed reistant to me moving the pizza to the center; I don't have that problem with my oven.
Ha! You're right. =P You must have read my post in the "Do you talk about yourself" thread..or whatever it was called. Aww... Sorry to hear about your GF. =( Hope she gets to feeling better soon. I know how it is to be disabled from fever. Your whole body hurts, and everything feels like a chore to do, even little things like getting out of bed. It's best that she just stays in bed and not overexert herself. As for myself, I get sick sometimes, and I'm a big baby when I am. I swear...I am the worst patient ever, which is why I stay away from people when I am sick. Nier reference, eh? Has there been a review about that game yet? I read up a bit more on it, and I still don't think that it's going to top my list for "must-have games", but it doesn't look too bad. =D Maybe it will be one of those things that turns out to be really good! Mmmmm....Donuts... You can keep the coffee cake though. xD Not really my thing. I never do much of anything here lately, so even on one of your most unproductive days, I would bet you a million gil that you did more than what I did. :/ I need to find something to do with my time. New boss? So does that mean you have a new place of employment, or she was just hired on recently? I need to do more reading... Alther told me about a book series that he thought I would be interested in: the Artemis Fowl series. I looked a bit into it, and it looks alright. So as you can imagine, I haven't heard of the specific book you mentioned, but it seems the pacing is a little too quick for your liking. Ah, well. Hopefully there will be some more surprises in store for you. =D As for F XII, I really want to finish up my 2nd playthrough as well. I can't even remember where I'm at, it's been so long since I played it. I'm trudging through XIII, and I can honestly say at this point, this is probably the only FF game that I will not play through a second time. D= I haven't quite put my finger on it, but this game isn't as appealing to me as it was at first. Well...enough of that...good luck to you when you start shaping up your characters for their classes! =D That's one of the things I really enjoyed about XII was the high level of customization you can do in the game. I'm glad that your Mets are doing well! Though I still don't know that much about sports, so that's about all I can say about that. Ha! You should have seen some of the VMs that me and Fate send back and forth to one another. Those were REAMS of text! And we really didn't talk about anything! Yeah, you better change those out... They may be doing more harm than good. I invested in some Dr. Scholl's inserts as well. There was a machine in the Wal-Mart Pharmacy area that measure the pressure points on your foot, and then suggested a certain style for maximum comfort. The test was free, but the actual inserts were pricey....I think they were like 50 bucks or something... Worth it though, because my job is pretty rough on my feet, which also effects my back. As for your burns...you know that they make oven mitts to prevent such a thing...right? =p Something I've been meaning to tell you, but for some reason it kept slipping my mind: Congrats on your 2 year anniversary with your GF! =D I don't know how long ago it was that it was your actual anniversary, but I hope it was special for you both. =) Y'all come back now, ya hear?
Hey what's up? I'm just Barbabeeing ya; I know you don't like that question and for the most part I don't like it either. Anyhuma. How often do you get sick? When you are sick is it bad or pretty much nothing? My girlfriend is sick, again, and "disabled" due to the fever she has. I'm glad I don't get sick often and not too serious but even if it was more serious than normal I wouldn't break down in function.... unless my lungs were deteriating from the Black Scrawl Virus (Nier reference). Didn't really do much today. Went to work, had a meeting with donuts, coffee cake, and other goodies from Dunken Donuts. My new boss told us a summary of her life story. I found out she is half vietnamese and part italian - I thought she had hispanic blood in her but italian is pretty close I guess. I did want to read or continue with my second playthrough of FFXII but I did neither of those as of yet. My book is six inches away from my left hand as I type this to you. So far it [Shadowfall, Book One of the Godslayer Chronicles by James Clemens] is pretty interesting; in chapter 4 the author revealed something that I thought would have taken longer, it kind of ruined the suspense. If you are wondering about my FFXII file, I just got Penelo in the Giza Plains trying to get a sunstone so I can get into the fete. This time around I'm going to have classes for my characters. I'm pretty happy that the Mets have been done very well this homestand, they went 9-1, but tomorrow starts of 3-game series with the Phillies. That will test, partly, on how good the Mets really are, I'm excited and a bit scared. Excited because I want the Mets to win and "prove" that they are for real and scared that they will not be so good and crumble making for another long season. At least two of the games I'll be able to see; I wish I could watch more of the games but I don't have any special baseball package with my provider. This has turned out to be long for a VM. Bwahahahahaha. Do you have back problems? My back lately has been good except for this past tuesday where it was nagging me at work for some reason. I got some Dr. Scholl's a long time ago, like 2 years, and haven't changed them; I think their "life expectancy" is, what, 3 months? Hahaha. I stretched those out. I also got burned recently on the knuckle of my right index finger. I was trying to move the frozen pizza into the middle of the oven as it was a bit far back to my liking. The cursed pizza wouldn't budge and while trying to pull it forward my hand jerked back touching the oven. I also got a little burnt on the knuckle of my right middle finger as well. The bigger one isn't that bad, it is smaller than a pea. Then I got a random cut on the side of my right index finger, don't know how I got that. I'll end it at that for now. Ciao.
The episode from where my signature pic comes from is one of my favourite Venture Bros. episodes.
Your Brock Samson sig is fantastic. :3 Reminds me that I need to get around to watching season 4 of the Venture Bros. Caught a few online, but not all that have aired.
Haha! Tool academy is one of my faves. I watched all three seasons of it. I wish they would have reunion shows so we could see how everyone turned out. I'm also a fan of Tough Love. And yep... Couldn't think of a genuine answer for you, so I sort of skirted around the issue.
My girlfriend and I liked Tool Academy... for like a few episodes. Then we stopped watching it because we just never tuned in. You totally coped out in your answer. Though my premise was not metaphysically sound sometimes those questions that are "crazy" are interesting.
Ooooh... Tough question. Well...to be honest, I probably wouldn't get an abortion, even if I knew that my child could eventually commit murder. I...don't think I can give any other reason other than the fact that I think that life is a precious thing. I don't think that there's any set path for a person to follow, and that we make our own choices in life, so even if "fate" has deemed that my child become a murderer, there's a chance that it could be changed. Mtv? Man, you must be quite bored to wanna watch that stuff. Look who's talking though. I watch a lot of VH1 programming, and think it's entertaining.
If you knew your child would kill when he or she gets older would you keep it or get an abortion? Now you would be pregnant at the time of this revelation. And even if you gave the baby up for adoption it would still eventually find and kill you. There would be no escaping from this "fate". What would you do? I know a bit random but I currently have my tv on MTV - 16 and Pregnant. Haven't switched to another channel because King of the Hill is on Adult Swim - Bleh.
