(no subject)
Update on Camp NaNoWriMo: 50,004 words, back of the net! \o/ Now I can play video games without guilt! Oh wait, packing for uni. Oops. At least I can talk about what I was using to procrastinate this month, right?
I caved and got a 3DS game to go with the 3DS - online Pokémon is all well and good, but to get worthwhile trades done I'd have to do a million more breeding projects, which gets dull. It came down to either Ocarina or Nintendogs, and since I liked Majora better, well. Here we are.
I have three dogs at the moment: Duster the white-with-funny-brown-splotches Maltese, Jeri the brown-and-white Sheltie (I had a brown-and-white Sheltie on the original Nintendogs too, so I keep accidentally calling her Iifa, but I'm getting better), and Ivan the ginger Pomeranian (looks exactly like Missile from Ghost Trick and I thought about using him as a namesake, only that would imply bad things in his future D:). Yes, I am hopeless at thinking up nicknames without stealing them from fandoms. That goes for nicknaming Pokémon, too. Also, there's a cat called Phoenix who I put in the hotel. Originally I thought the cat would help pull in extra owner points while I saved up for the third dog, but it's so time-consuming - you can't walk them, you can't train them, occasionally they'll point-blank refuse to look at a toy even when it's right in front of them... In the end, I just did Amateur Cup competitions until I had enough money.
The graphics are much better. They don't look much better than the DS in screenshots, but hell, screenshots of DS games never looked as good as the DS actually was.
Earlier this month, I picked up the fan translation of Rudra no Hihou, just because I'd heard it and its magic system mentioned a lot in conjunction with Square games I really liked. I wish I'd thought to play it earlier. Fun game, music almost as fantastic as FFMQ's, great story (three of them, even), some nice characterisation for the time... and in the translation, by prefacing every non-damaging spell with "tefa-", you can reduce the MP cost of all the high-end status buffs to 1 and rampage through the entire plot. Well, apart from the entire-party stacking Attack boost, which costs - gasp! - 2. That's my kind of game! My main complaint is that you can't freely explore the overworld even after you get the airship (that's not a spoiler! It's a Square RPG!), but it's a small gripe. Oh, and Riza's party is the best one. Couldn't we keep them? Or at least keep Garlyle?
Finally, just on a whim, I also had a look at the first two Advance Wars games - you know, the two that actually were on the GBA. I'm not that into strategy, generally - the only others I've ever touched are the GBA Fire Emblem titles, which are half JRPG anyway, and I still never beat even FE8 without a walkthrough. But at least these games are made by the same people, so they aren't completely inaccessible. I like rushing everything with tanks, flying things and anti-airs! Meaning that anything which isn't one of those ends up dying in a couple of turns. I'd be a terrible CO. :D Maybe I should start looking for the DS titles...
I caved and got a 3DS game to go with the 3DS - online Pokémon is all well and good, but to get worthwhile trades done I'd have to do a million more breeding projects, which gets dull. It came down to either Ocarina or Nintendogs, and since I liked Majora better, well. Here we are.
I have three dogs at the moment: Duster the white-with-funny-brown-splotches Maltese, Jeri the brown-and-white Sheltie (I had a brown-and-white Sheltie on the original Nintendogs too, so I keep accidentally calling her Iifa, but I'm getting better), and Ivan the ginger Pomeranian (looks exactly like Missile from Ghost Trick and I thought about using him as a namesake, only that would imply bad things in his future D:). Yes, I am hopeless at thinking up nicknames without stealing them from fandoms. That goes for nicknaming Pokémon, too. Also, there's a cat called Phoenix who I put in the hotel. Originally I thought the cat would help pull in extra owner points while I saved up for the third dog, but it's so time-consuming - you can't walk them, you can't train them, occasionally they'll point-blank refuse to look at a toy even when it's right in front of them... In the end, I just did Amateur Cup competitions until I had enough money.
The graphics are much better. They don't look much better than the DS in screenshots, but hell, screenshots of DS games never looked as good as the DS actually was.
Earlier this month, I picked up the fan translation of Rudra no Hihou, just because I'd heard it and its magic system mentioned a lot in conjunction with Square games I really liked. I wish I'd thought to play it earlier. Fun game, music almost as fantastic as FFMQ's, great story (three of them, even), some nice characterisation for the time... and in the translation, by prefacing every non-damaging spell with "tefa-", you can reduce the MP cost of all the high-end status buffs to 1 and rampage through the entire plot. Well, apart from the entire-party stacking Attack boost, which costs - gasp! - 2. That's my kind of game! My main complaint is that you can't freely explore the overworld even after you get the airship (that's not a spoiler! It's a Square RPG!), but it's a small gripe. Oh, and Riza's party is the best one. Couldn't we keep them? Or at least keep Garlyle?
Finally, just on a whim, I also had a look at the first two Advance Wars games - you know, the two that actually were on the GBA. I'm not that into strategy, generally - the only others I've ever touched are the GBA Fire Emblem titles, which are half JRPG anyway, and I still never beat even FE8 without a walkthrough. But at least these games are made by the same people, so they aren't completely inaccessible. I like rushing everything with tanks, flying things and anti-airs! Meaning that anything which isn't one of those ends up dying in a couple of turns. I'd be a terrible CO. :D Maybe I should start looking for the DS titles...