Mal

As far as the USA is concerned. They shouldn't get out of the group alive.

The PA Report is dead. I read PAR every so often and I didn't see this coming. Then there is this reasoning. PATV is dead too. http://penny-arcade.com/2013/12/06/changes

Night and day. I still have the original controllers at my place and man they are arkward to hold. I guess moving from the SNES and having kid hands helped.

Maybe for the final draft of my senior project or master thesis. All the other times its just a simple staple.

Binders are bulky (ask any professor) and those shitty folders are shitty. Though I suppose it is a possibility for reading papers. Stapling is just faster.

To me I think the chibi model are here due to one major reason. Sprites from back in the NES and SNES days looked awfully like chibi characters. Games like Lufia I and II even had chibi sprites (There is no other way to classify them). It was all pretty much due to the hardware limitation of the time. Even then it persisted into the PS era (and beyond? My brain isn't fired up at all). My beloved Final Fantasy Tactics character sprites/models are chibis. More for the Japanese crowd than Western markets but there might be quite a bit of nostalgic trip since it will seem very similar.

The more I look, the more games (Mainly JRPGs) that I want... I know that the 3DS is a goldmine for them but man, I underestimated just how much. I'm counting five games right now and I'm sure there are more (Oddly, no Mario, Pokemon or most other Nintendo franchises). That is about the amount of games I've been playing in a year (I buy way more but barely touch) mainly due to time constraints. 3DS is a good buy for sure. I still wish that the hinge wasn't so floppy. I want this baby to be a slow burner for me and with that said... it would be great for a more robust store/account from Nintendo.

I don't think the character designer is Amano since you can spot his artwork from a mile away. The artwork is by Yoshida (Another style you can spot), the same dude who did Tactics and Vagrant Story. Otherwise, good writeup FMW. Pretty cool SE is doing something like that. It'll be interesting to see where they take this series since they seem like they want to make it their own. Being so close to FF is both a good thing and a bad. Hopefully Second will mix it up in a good way... (Ugh... As a diehard old school FF player, I'm sounding really odd right now.)

Fuck you. Enough is enough. I'm not going to repeatedly mutilate my 20+ paged paper and hope one gets through or wait to go onto campus. This baby can eat 60 pages. I'll still have my smaller staplers but that start to fail at around 15 pages.

Forgot to strike that part out.

I just heard about this little gem by Square Enix, the company that I sadly look at with dead eyes. It has me intrigued. Bravely Default is in essence a spiritual successor to Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light (A game I know very little about so I'll be comparing it to games that I know) and well, the old style Final Fantasy experience. From first glance I can see influences of Final Fantasy V with the job system and of course the old styled FF battle system. What I've heard that is different is the multiple endings, which could mean anything but it is a change from the FF formula. Anyways, take a look: Game is dropping in Japan (Extended edition, they got the original back in 2012) and EU right now. NA release is scheduled for early February. Seems like there is a sequel in the making already, which is odd... My own personal opinions about this... SE is really trying to court us old school FF folks. They also seem to have high confidence about it since a sequel is in the works already. Sure, the game seems to be getting good reviews so far but man, talk about jumping the gun. Though I suppose it is a 3DS game so there is far less capital investment thus less risks involved. If it turns out to be a good game then I am all for it. My decision of getting a 3DS isn't bad considering just hold loaded it is with JRPGs. Got to add this game to the mix. Edit: I didn't realize that it had a 2012 JPN release. The coming release is for an update version with international release. Hurray! Edit 2: Striking out is easier than editing the sentence...

Wally lost his way. Seriously though, I blame Trigger hyping up the twist. They're going to diminish the twist by doing this. Anyways... Honestly though, it can go anywhere. This episode proceeded faster than I thought it would be and it had a twisting preview for the next. However, the stuff regarding Ryuuko and Senketsu seems pretty set in stone. Something is inbound. I'll post something with episode 11 or 12 since I suspect it'll take both those episodes to resolve the twist. It'll be interesting to see where it goes. --- In other news, I worked my way through the Patlabor OVAs in preparation for the movies (There is no third movie...). I expect typical Oshii. Venus Wars is also queued up. Edit: Revision to something...

Ryuuko sure have attracted tons of attention from outside the academy. Episode 11 is going to be interesting.

Honestly, they kept him alive for way too long. He was a pale shadow of his former self for years and I find it to be terrible to keep a person in such a state.

Whoa there. Nintendo has long ways to go on changing their e-shop policies before even considering other mobile platforms. Them offering their old games on other mobile platforms requires them to make a leap to an account system instead of the games being tied to a machine. Phones get replaced quite often and I would bet that someone could lose or break their phone within one year of purchase from Nintendo if they did this. As it stands now, they can all of the sudden offer steep discounts on their games in their e-shop but even then I'll have a tough time buying it from them because if I brick my 3DS XL, I'll have good chance on losing my digital games. I'm quite sure Nintendo will survive to Gen 9 but before then... they need new management or at least a new direction. I understand they want to be the alternative to the big two but they went way too low and they hold onto some outdated policies/practices. Diehard Nintendo customers will be diehard but I'm not one of them. I didn't buy a 3DS XL for Mario, Zelda and Pokemon (Hell, many people probably are not). Combining with the DS library, the 3DS has a huge library of games (Mainly JRPGs) I would play. The DS games I'll have no chance finding new from a retailer and if they are on the e-shop I would hesitate buying it from there. Similar thing is going on with the Wii/Wii U and older though the Wii U is an entirely different beast with other sets of problems. Me purchasing a Wii U is a big maybe since the Wii U is in a far weaker position than the 3DS. I guess what I'm trying to say is that one: they need a far better e-shop policies, selection and prices (Wii U and 3DS). This won't carry a system but it will only help strengthen it. For the 3DS, it could be a goldmine. Second is for the Wii U only... stronger hardware, stronger everything. I'm sure Mr. GOH can tell us everything. At this point in the console scene, the Wii U feels like nothing more than a knockoff brand by Nintendo. While I don't consider the Wii U part of the Gen 8 console war but I would rank the Wii U a bit higher than the X1 just for the fact it'll have different games but even then it'll be a tough sell to me.

This is why boys and girls that you should check this page everyday. I am looking to get Fire Emblem... oh well. Etrian Odyssey IV demo is giving me a run and I know the level cap is coming. FOE FOE FOE.

After one hour of play time, I find it being pretty charming and somewhat cute. Gameplay is straight forward with leading the girl and you whacking Asshai's shadow babies. Leading the girl is a good work around for the weak AI of that era (something devs still struggle with now and for the foreseeable future). Solid I think.

Playing the demo...

The Fellowship of the PS4 might be gods but they don't have power over the old gods; however, precautions must be taken to not be contaminated by their essence. It'll take time but we'll join them in their revel in pleasurable graphics. So soon...

Ico. This game is half as old as I am. This is a long time coming. I recall trying to find this for the PS2. Edit: Oh my, the girl can get captured while I'm in a entirely different loaded area. I manage to come back in time after I heard the spooky music.

... Okay. I can now personally see why people like PS+. I guess I have no excuses to not play Ico and Uncharted 3. Considering my time allotment... this is good.

This will surely not happen to them.

So, the console war front over here in PXODistan seems pretty overwhelmingly a rout on X1's part. Hell, I don't recall reading of anyone here having a X1... or at least my perceptions are clouded by the Fellowship of the PS4.