Spoony Bard

PersonaMUSH OC Application done and sent. Though I wouldn't be surprised if it needs revising, I haven't done an OC in forever. And I'm notorious for overlooking little details.

Still, we'll see where this goes! And if it goes well he'll be blazing a neon streak across the Mush in the near future. :D

As I mentioned in my last post I bought a few books yesterday. I'll be starting on a new one sooner than I thought because I actually flew through the final half of Storm Front last night in one sitting.

( Thoughts on Dresdan #1, minor spoilers )

So far in the past few months I've re-read H2G2, finished Ender's Game, read the new H2G2 book by Eoin Colfer, finished Snow Crash, and then read through Storm Front.

So now I have four books I could start on.

Dune: It's a classic that I've always wanted to read, and now I have it on hand. Though it's probably also the densest book and will take the longest.

Speaker for the Dead: I found Ender's Game more interesting than I thought I would when I read it earlier this year. Everyone who recommended Ender's Game to me suggested I follow it up with this one over the other related books.

Fool Moon: Second Dresdan book, I liked the first one enough to continue with the series. Trouble is if I finish this one and want more I don't have immediate access to buy the next book so I might want to save it.

Dirk Gentley's Holistic Detective Agency: I bought this one by Douglas Adams awhile ago, and I've been saving it for when I'm in the mood for something short and funny.

I'm leaning towards Speaker for the Dead right now, unless someone really really loves one of the other books.

Saw the new Christmas Carol movie, the CGI 3D one starring Jim Carrey. (my only other options were 2012, which was too long for the allotted time I had for movies, and Twilight which was pffhahahahahahahahahahahahaa-no). It actually was half decent, a far cry better than the Polar Express, and not nearly as obnoxious as The Grinch from a few years back. Though the original trailer for the movie sported lots of 'Carreyisms', the movie itself was surprisingly devoid of them. Unlike The Grinch where it was Jim Carrey starring as Jim Carrey in a green furry suit, this movie was Jim Carrey starring as Scrooge (who sometimes channeled Jim Carrey). It wasn't perfect (and to me the best version of this story is still the Muppet one. Because Muppets), but it was better than I think a lot of people were giving it credit for. Also surprise appearance by Bob frickin Hoskins.

Picked up some books as well. I love paperbacks, they're so cheap. I got book two of the Dresdan Files (currently half-way through the first), Speaker for the Dead (read Ender's Game a few months ago, interested enough for more) and Dune. Yeah, I know, I'm just getting around to this now. There's so much necessary nerd fiction I need to read, hell I only just now finished freaking Snow Crash.

And I picked up Person 3 FES, since the price was right and I guess I'm hungry for more Persona. Seems like I'm a few steps behind snotman regarding Persona. I finished P4 after him, I'm only getting P3 now, and my app for PMush is still a work in progress.

I think I'll keep the p4 tag for Persona stuff in general since it's already established, and I certainly can't be bothered to go back and add a new tag to my older entries.

I just beat the game. I know I only got it a few days ago, but it's still a 2D Mario platformer and they never take all that long to beat.

Of course I'm far from done, I still got all the levels I skipped to beat, all the Star Coins to find and a few other things to do.

I won't spoil the final battle, but I WILL say that it's something a little different than what we're used to in 2D Mario platformers, which is welcome. It was still easy enough for me to beat on my first shot, but I was wow'ed all the same.

The Koopalings kind of steal the show in this game, which is also very welcome. They sure beat that other little bastard that's been shoved down our throats ever since Mario Sunshine. This blog entry at 1up does try to present Scrappy Doo Bowser Jr. in a more favorable light, and I can kind of understand, I guess. The Koopalings were made for the classic style of Mario platformer with 8 worlds where they could act as filler bosses up till Bowser. After Super Mario World Nintendo just kind of stopped making Mario games that adhered to that format and they suddenly no longer fit. And Jr. does, at least, act as a better partner to Bowser than any one of the other Koopalings for the purposes of sports games and the like. We probably will see the Koopalings again in the future, but it probably won't be for awhile.

New Super Mario Bros Wii is Nintendo's answer to every type of gamer. It is much more challenging than the previous DS game, but still not insurmountably hard. For the people that can't get through a given level there's Super Guide. For people that love party games, the built-in Multiplayer is more than enough, and for folks who want a good single-player experience with a lot of stuff to find, there's plenty of hidden levels and star coins to find. Plus there were a lot of throwbacks to the older games, Yoshi returns to his old 'broken vacuum cleaner' sound effect he had in Super Mario World instead of the baby voice he's had ever since Yoshi's Story, and the Koopalings are finally actually given a voice and kind-of a personality. Even if they DID give Ludwig kind of a foppish voice, I can live with it I guess.

My copy of New Super Mario Bros Wii arrived today.

Yay.

I've already beaten World 1 (though I haven't gone through it again with a fine-toothed comb yet) and kicked Larry Koopa's blue-shelled butt.

It's fun. If you have a Wii, buy it. If you don't have a Wii, well, it had a price cut recently, so why not?

Today's Shortpacked! has one of the best images ever to make an icon out of. Seriously, it doesn't even need a witty caption.

And this monstrousity is the first new icon I upload since getting my limit upped. You hear me, faetan? THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!

How would you internet smiley this expression anyway? I'll go with...

B8

....nah, doesn't quite work.

...but I'll cut mine. Cause it long, yo.

And since I have a short supply of icons I improvise where needed. :P

( Big long iCon meme everyone seems to wanna do now )

1up has a Game Night where some of their staff play NSMBWii together. It's great. Watch Jeremy Parish screw everyone up by picking an Ice level, and Sharkey be a total dick because it's a co-op platformer and that's just what you have to do sometimes.

Part 1, Part 2

Seriously though, it looks like a lot of fun. Also: Airships and Koopa Kids.

And I finally get to go a post without mentioning Persona 4...

Crap.

'Kay done. Done twice, in fact. Normal ending and True ending gotten today. Turns out I had overleveled just a tad. The normal final boss went down like a chump, and the true final boss went down like a slightly tougher chump. Trumpeter and Yoshitsune are OP, for sure. But I guess you could say the hero being Lv93 is OP also. Come to think of it my total time for the game was 93 hours, which pretty much evened out to an hour per level. Granted there was a lot of idle time built up as I would pause and walk away for a bit, not to mention the Pringle King grinding in recent days.

While I really enjoyed it, long game was loooong. I haven't played a hyooj RPG like that since Dragon Quest 8, and even that didn't take 90 freakin hours. Xenogears didn't take 90 hours. (though I spent 120 on Dragon Warrior Quest 7 completing everything) I think I'll stick to way shorter games for the foreseeable future.

I kinda want to replay it eventually, though. Not right now, but sometime. If only to do a max S.Link run, and by New Game +. I may not get to keep the levels, but apparently I'll get to start with the maxed social stats (Knowledge, Expression, etc) which'll make maxing out S.Links considerably easier. Also the money, I think I get to keep the money. I suppose whenever I go to do this I'll do the Pringle Trick a few more times for as much cash as possible.

Since I've jabbered about the game as I played it (and probably far too often) there's not much point in going into great detail on post-game reflections. This was my first experience with Persona, and MegaTen in general, and it was a good one. I liked the visual aesthetic, it kinda reminded me of what the first opening video to Bleach was trying to be, before Kubo Tite decided he really, REALLY just wanted to do YuYu Hakusho. I really liked the music, the various vocal tracks were great. Making the main battle theme a vocal track was a gamble, since if it turned out to be annoying it could've ruined the game with how constantly you hear it, but it's not, so it's all good. The story might've taken a few detours at Predictable Anime Cliche Lane, but overall it was interesting and had a few interesting twists. (I'd say I saw the identity of the normal villain coming, but people might call me a dirty liar, or a cheater. But I also figured out the twist in Sixth Sense without being spoiled when everyone talks about how that came out of nowhere, so...) Overall the gameplay system was good, I liked the elemental weakness exploiting (and dodging when you were given the means to prepare for it). Fusing Personas became strangely addictive, and little things like the Rush button were awesome. At this point I'm willing to overlook the dick move of the instant game over via main hero death, but it still irked me to no end. Not enough to really make me think badly of the game though.

Now that Persona 4 has dominated my LJ for the past while, I guess it's just as well that come to an end for now. Though now it's time for me to start on that PMush application.

Most every RPG has some sort of easy leveling-up scheme. Whether it's hunting down Metal Somethingorothers in Dragon Quest, or taping down the A button on a turbo controller on Lete River in Final Fantasy VI. Persona 4 has one that's more of the latter, though it doesn't involve any button-taping due to the awesome Rush mode. Granted, it's worth noting that this trick is more for the rapid building of money than experience, though the extra EXP on the side is a nice benefit.

This probably isn't news to longtime Persona 4 fans, but if anyone who is also new to the game, like me, would like the directions...

( Description of the so-called Pringle King method )

( Further description of my current end game progress )

And since I never mentioned it yet, my hero's name all this time was Spoony Bard because, like litagemini, I first thought it was an Earthbound-esque thing wanting the actual player's name since it asked for last name too, and I didn't feel like using my real one at the time. This is especially hilarious to me because two characters featured in S.Links are named 'Kou' and 'Shu'. So seeing them refer to my character as 'Spoony' in text boxes cracked me up to no end. (for the non-WoW players on my FList, two characters in our guild are named Kousoku and Shuraa, usually abbrieviated Kou and Shu)

(EDIT: Forgot to mention above, I got into a relationship with all maxed girls. I'm a two-timing bastard, ho ho ho)

Persona 4 status (these are getting daily now, huh?):

Currently in the final dungeon (not counting the one for the true ending). The ...events at the dungeon before this and at the start of December were pretty crazy. Not to mention looooooong. I went and saw the Bad Ending first, for the sake of seeing it, but I kinda wished I just looked it up on youtube because the stuff leading up to it from the previous save took too damn long. Eh.

I actually had less trouble with the dungeon that followed the Secret Base than I had there, but the cheapness factor has ramped up again for the last place. Once again it highlights my big problem with the whole 'main character = ded, YOU LOSE' crap, because I had to restart Magatsu Mandala THREE times due to cheap shots from random enemies. Eventually I just started using a Goho-M and saving after reaching every new floor. Currently facing the second mini-boss of the place, stopping there for tonight. I need to level some more anyway, but at least I'm still early in December. I got plenty of time to grind where needed.

But, I gotta say, the aforementioned BS Game Over flag is probably the biggest black mark on the game as far as its combat goes. Not only is it entirely infuriating, it just doesn't even make sense within the context of the game, story or battle system. But I've vented about this before so I'll leave it at that.

It's just cheap, is all.

What. What what what. What. What?! I... what?

WHAT

Kanji: ...'sup.

Here I thought the enemies in Void Quest were difficult, sheesh. The Secret Base enemies were downright cheap! Especially those buggers that cast nothing but Ziodyne and ONLY on the main character, which exacerbates that whole 'main character = dead, GAME OVER' malarky that I hate. I got ambushed by them at one point and would've gotten a game over if Yosuke didn't jump in the way.

BUT, for all my frustrations I pushed to the end and beat the dungeon on the first day it unlocked! Haha! The time I spent grinding up in Void Quest beforehand certainly helped. Now I can tackle things for the next month of game-time at my leisure.

The Secret Base reminded me of Bionic Commando for some reason. I'm disappointed we didn't see an enemy modeled after an exploding Hitler head. Hey, given the rest of the foes in this game, it's not THAT far out there!

I shoulda known this would happen. There's another release of Watchmen coming out in a couple of weeks, this one being even MORE extended, and apparently having the Black Freighter bits placed into the movie as well. And here I already bought the initial special edition when it came out in the summer.

Dangit, if studios plan on doing stuff like this I wish they'd make it obviously known when the first set of DVDs come out, I would've waited if I knew. It was obvious when the LOTR movies were being released, but I never heard anything concrete about a real ultimate (honest!) edition of Watchmen, so I just bought the standard special edition.

Grumblemutter nerdrage.

I wonder if the same thing is happening for Star Trek...

Yup, more Persona 4 speak. Margaret's requests are kinda tricky, and are definitely something to use a guide for. But anyway, it's time for the ramble.

( The one where I fight an obnoxious 8-bit boss )

Champions Online had its free weekend just now. My opinion of it is a bit higher now since it seemed to run a lot smoother and I got more time to acutally progress a bit. I'm still not about to go out and buy it right now, but if the game hangs in there and more content is gradually added, we'll see.

I attempted a Castlevania marathon over Halloween which turned out to be a spectacular failure. Out of the four main CV games on the Virtual Console I only made it through Simon's Quest. I got near the end of the other three but, well, Nintendo Hard is hard.

( And the obligatory Persona 4 ramble )

Hiimdaisy's Big Long Persona 4 comic Part 2

I hope these go to the end of the game. Oh man. XD

The book. Just finished it up. I decided not to mention it while I was reading because I wanted to write a reflective post when I finished reading.

Non-spoilery bit:

It's a good book. You have to accept from the start that you're not reading something by Adams, but Eoin Colfer does seem to 'get it', when it comes to the style and characters. It's a better take on the series than the movie from four years ago (and hey, even that was still better than people tend to give it credit for), and it's nice to have an ending that's not 'rocks death lasers fall, everyone dies'.

One complaint I do have is that early on in the book it seems Colfer is a bit unsure of his own take on Adams's story, to the point that he's throwing in references to the other books in every other page. Remember Yahtzee's review of Tales of Monkey Island where he said a lot of it felt like it was written 'by fans'? It's kind of the same here. He probably mentions the Bugblatter Beast of Traal or the Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster more than they're mentioned in the entirety of the other five books. But that starts to settle down by Chapter 5, and it feels like he finds his legs, or whatever, and the story stands on its own. Which is, of course, entirely silly and entertaining.

( As for the spoilery details, well, this is why LJ cuts were invented )

Colfer leaves a few threads dangling in the event he would be commissioned for another book. And y'know what? I'd get it. In the end he's no Douglas Adams, but I think he did the story well, and I'd rather see the series continue with someone who knows what they're doing than fade away.

Another Persona 4 entry, maybe I should make a tag for these.

( Reach out to the Truth )

Unrelated to P4, but here are seven reasons why New Super Mario Bros. Wii will be awesome.

You guys. Zombies Ate My Neighbors on the VC today.

I can't even remember the last time a potential VC game made me go 'zomg must buy'.

There's also Golden Axe Arcade, and I also can't remember the last time we had TWO VC titles. But whatever, who cares about that one. ZAMN!

Speaking of spooky stuff, I'm starting on Kanji's dungeon in P4. My first thought when I saw his appearance on the Midnight Channel?

"Oh God. What."

Suffice to say I repeated that a few times as I actually went into the Bathhouse. This game, so crazy.

(thank god that scene wasn't animated like Yukiko's was)