FFV: Four Job Fiesta Pt. 2

Alright, adding in the new jobs, I notice "Mime" counts as a 'Water Crystal" job... even though you can't get access to the Mime class until after the Earth Crystal. Do I allow access to that job to be a 5th Re-Roll? Do I eliminate the possibility entirely?

-So I get the Water Crystal jobs, and re-roll the characters:

Phaze: Blue Mage
Reina: Knight
Galuf/Krile: Time Mage
Faris: Red Mage


This is a pretty damn good setup. It's too bad this is probably the shortest stage in the game, so I won't be able to take advantage of it for long.


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Mass Effect 3: "Extended Cut DLC"

...I can't speak for the additions/changes made to the standard ending choices. But they gave me my ending.

THEY GAVE ME MY ENDING, YOU GUYS

I'd been waiting for this to come out before reviewing Mass Effect 3. Now I'm starting to realize that, there's no way I could review the same game as you. All I can really talk about is My "Mass Effect", My "Shepard", and my version on these events. And I shall. A 3-part series of articles will loosely sum up my experiences with each of the games in the series, and my thoughts on them.


For now though, let's get back to the Extended Cut DLC:

No, it doesn't fix a lot of the stupid, contrived bullshit. It doesn't give satisfying answers to every question(even though it finally lets us ask those questions). And it's pathetic that it took this long, and this much banging of pots and pans just to get a complete fucking product we paid for months ago.

But they finally gave us a real choice to make. It's finally over for me. It's done.


"I can die free."


END OF LINE

 ~A.H.

Dragon Age II: "Prejudice"

I liked the characters and immediate gameplay in DA2 more than in Origins. So I don't think it's a terrible game the way everyone told me it was. But I still find it reprehensible for different reasons, reasons I don't think a lot of people really thought about. I was prepared to call it my favourite game of 2011, until it became apparent just how evil the writers' message was.


It's hard not to draw comparison between the Qunari and the spread of Islam during that whole Crusades business. The persecution by the Templars certainly supports this. The lead writer, David Gaider, even referred to them as the "militant Islamic Borg", so you know there's going to be a fair portrayal here, right? Comparing them to a vicious machine-race that forces a fascist life-style on everyone else. Surely the game will take a stand against such petty tribalistic assumptions, I thought.

And for the most part, I was right...

Via dragonage.wikia.com

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Final Bosses

I "collect" Final Boss tracks from video games. Either physically, or just listening to it over and over. Until it essentially becomes a piece of the life I've lived, listening to video game music instead of becoming a productive member of society.

I believe, with the exception of a strong opening or conclusion, the final boss of a game should be the best part of that game. Ideally, everything should be leading up to that moment, every trick you've learned, every weapon and ability you've mastered should be acquired in service of that inevitable confrontation. It should be what 90% of the game is preparing you for. A final boss ought to be the biggest challenge, and part of the biggest payoff.

Via mariowiki.com

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38 Spouse

Another interesting development in the 38 Studios craziness.

Mark my words: This is going to be EA one day. And what a sweet day that will be.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

FFV: Four Job Fiesta Pt. 1

-It is childish and beating a dead horse to make fun of the translation from a 90's video game. That said, anyone dumb enough to look at "Bat-su" in Japanese and think: "They must be saying BUTTS, LET'S MAKE THAT THE NAME OF THE MAIN CHARACTER" deserves to be made fun of. (I like how even the Wikipedia contradicts itself in the very next paragraph.)

With that out of the way, hee-hee. "Nut Eaters".

And there's two of them!

Alright, moving on.

-So I did the boring intro stuff, and who cares. This is not The Great Gatsby here.

...Why are they making a movie about that, by the way? Why is that a thing? What, were they itching to get in on some of that sweet cash that "Bonfire of the Vanities" and "Atlas Shrugged" DIDN'T make at the box-office?

Oh, right. Final Fantasy V.


-So yeah, I followed my rules, randomly decided their first jobs, and I got what you see above in the screenshots.

Bartz = Black Mage
Reina = Monk
Galuf = Knight
Faris = Blue Mage

Kind of an odd profession in a world without cars.

Faris is the only liability at this rate, since there's not really a lot(if any) spells a Blue Mage can learn at this rate, and also I forget how to get Blue Magic in this game. Something about being hit by enemies? And she can't even use healing magic yet either. But at least she can carry a sword.

-I like how the innocent, weak Princessy type ended up as the heavy-hitting martial-artist of the team. Her fists do more damage than the most expensive sword I can find at the time. Say what you will, at least she's not afraid to break a nail.


-The time comes to reveal that Faris is a woman pretending to be a man. They find out when, after they have to proceed through sunken ships to get to a safe zone, they have to dry their clothes by a fire. Because they think Faris is a man, she doesn't go with Reina into what would be the ladies locker room. Modesty dictates it and all.

But before they go into the water, Faris is the one who stops the group and says: "We'll get wet." I always thought that was just needless cautionary exposition, the kind that always pops up when you're about to do a thing. Now I see that it's there to show that Faris knows what will happen. She knows they'll have to dry off their clothes by a fire if they go swimming, and that will blow her cover.

Okay, one more.

Also, in the fan-translation, Faris' excuse for pretending to be a boy is that "a female pirate would be laughed at". Pirates of the Caribean 3 did not dispel this notion. But I forget if it was a separate fan-translation, or the updated GBA localization, but I vaguely recall the reason being changed at some point, to its more logical conclusion: A woman on a boat with a bunch of rowdy pirates would uh... not end well. Not that Faris wouldn't kick their asses, but still. Better to be on the safe side.

*flush*

-I also thought, in a game that's known for being badly written even by early 90's standards, that it was clever how they handled the scene with the Siren. There you are in the ship graveyard in the sea, and the Siren lures three of your party members under her control. She does this by tricking them into thinking their loves ones are beckoning them. The only one who doesn't fall under this spell is Galuf.

Not because the trick didn't work. The Siren somehow knew who his grand-daughter was and what she looked like. The only reason it didn't work was because Galuf didn't know. Because he had amnesia. The Siren knew that this girl was important to him, but to Galuf, it was just some stranger in a bad magic trick.

It's one of the few clever uses of the amnesia trope I've seen. The rest of the game is not this clever.

-Aww, poor Syldra and your hilarious "do-want" snake-face... It's amazing how much the right music can sell an otherwise dopey story... It's too bad that moment is ruined as soon as the upbeat overworld theme kicks in again.

"Aww, someone died and they're sad... CUE THE HAPPY MUSIC! =D"

END OF LINE

~A.H.

Capcom: "Yoshinori Ono"

So remember way back when Keiji Inafune, the guy behind Mega Man, Lost Planet and Dead Rising ragequit the company? And how he told everyone within earshot about what a bunch of cockbags they supposedly were?

Well now here's Yoshinori Ono, who's in charge of the Street Fighter series, with his rebuttal: "Capcom didn't even acknowledge that I had been in hospital."

...Wait a minute...


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FFV: Four Job Fiesta Introduction

There's this thing called "Four-Job Fiesta". It's sort of a cross between the Nuzlocke challenge and a charity speed-run, but with Final Fantasy V. Essentially, it's a fan-concocted Hard Mode for a game relying on the honour system.

Via finalfantasywikia.net

In that game, your party accumulated a series of "jobs" in battle. Samurai could use swords and throw money(?), Black Mages could use magic spells, etc. Every character gets to be a different class, or you can have duplicates if you want.

The idea here is that you tweet the guy running this thing when those jobs are available, and then he randomly decides which Job your party has to be.

You get to be a new job as the game goes on, and more are unlocked. But by restricting yourself from just picking whichever job you want, it's supposed to make an already tough game even more challenging. Or at least more interesting.


Here is why I think that is stupid:

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Gears Of War: Judgment

After 3 games, I finally started to like "Baird" and "Cole" from Gears of War. In fact, I wish we'd gotten more of them. They were a lot more tolerable to be around than the main characters of this series. I can't have been the only one who wished they'd gotten a spinoff. Maybe with "Sam" and "Carmine" to round out the team.

But with the Locust dead forever, they'd probably have to do a prequel or something. Ooh, and maybe they could get the Bulletstorm developer to handle it.

...Yeah, kind of like that.

END OF LINE

~A.H.