Power Up!

There's no real reason for this picture aside from the whole power theme of the first couple paragraphs.

So!  As you may or may not know, people on the east side of the States have been getting hit pretty hard with some pretty rough storms lately causing massive power outages and the like.  That is what's been up with me since, uh, Friday.  It was not fun.  It continues to be not fun because it's still hot as hell despite the fact that we actually have power and thus Air Conditioning again, and it will remain not fun because it's still friggin storming like every day.  It will continue to do that for a while, so some disruptions in Kupowered is still possible and if at all possible, I will actually forewarn of them this time.  Of course, the only reason I didn't this last time was because the Meteorologists with their fantastic weather machines that cost more money than most small businesses earn yearly didn't really predict that the storms would unfold as they did.  And they're like "Oh, how could we have ever expected it to be this bad?", to which I just have to kind of scoff at.  Because I don't know, it's kind of your fucking job.

Anyways, no power and also no internet kind of puts a damper on maintaining a thing which requires both power and the internet to run, hence why there was another one of these unplanned hiatuses (which is apparently a word, according to spell-check) that sucks.  It has also left me with kind of a clusterfuck of issues considering there was a ton of news in my absence and I am also sort of rusty after the whole not writing for six days thing.  Since for some reason I am just not as good writing things physically as I am with typing them.  That is....kind of an issue that I have never really considered too much since I -have- been able to write things physically before, it's just a little easier to lose what I'm going for.  Also it's almost never an issue unless it's a -big- issue which, well, if it's a situation wherein it's a big issue, it's a bit too late anyways.  Oh well, something else to think of in the future.

Anyways, living without power aside from the assist of a generator simply there to power a little TV with local channels available is about as interesting as it sounds in that it's not interesting at all.  Passing the time in the extreme heat was something of a challenge since it seemed to crawl by and my hobbies didn't really facilitate an expedition of the flow of time whatsoever in feel.  Putting together jigsaw puzzles, doing sudoku puzzles or simply watching TV shows that I don't like (aside from a few that I -do- like now, like The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson because it's awesome) made me feel like....well, that I wasn't actually myself, really.  Granted, I -like- doing all those things, but not because there simply isn't anything else to do.  The only Mogs-like thing I found myself doing was using the DS Lite's battery of the Gods to replay Chrono Trigger DS as my other DS games are all....well, a bit played out.  No less than Chrono Trigger, of which you all know my fondness for, but at least CT is one of those 'timeless' (no pun intended) things that I can play pretty much whenever thanks to my attachment to it.

Well, to the original, at least.  As you all may or may not know, my fondness for the Chrono Trigger DS port is well documented and playing it again basically cements that.  I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why anything that went into this port actually happened.  The new script, the new gameplay sections, such as they are in the loose sense of the word, none of it really makes sense in any shape or form.  The staple answer, of course, is simply "Money", but I have to question the validity of that when it was A.) simply an enhanced port of a well-liked SNES-era JRPG (making it more or less just a 'Cult hit' almost by definition) and B.) the same price (or more) as every Pokemon and Mario game on the shelves.  You know, the games that actually sell, thereby making it easy to have that price-point.  There is no reasoning, no actual logic (not even flawed logic) to have expected that Chrono Trigger DS, at the $40 pricepoint it was introduced at (and remained for....quite a while) would sell anywhere above moderately at best.

So if not money, then, what?  Brand loyalty?  One could assume that the intention of Chrono Trigger DS was an attempt to gauge the popularity of the franchise to see if it was further exploitable or something that was simply better left alone.  If that's your aim then, for the above mentioned reasons, it was a rather poor attempt, which suggests that that....might not have been the goal either.  It was certainly -a- goal, I should say, since Shinji Hashimoto, Senior Vice President of Squeenix or something was quoted as saying "If people want a sequel, they should buy more!" meaning that Chrono projects were certainly on a board somewhere, but only half-heartedly at best.  It almost seems as if it was an in-joke for the company; someone put down a bet that said a Chrono Trigger revisit would sell gang-busters and, if it did, they could build on that with even more unnecessary revisits and remakes and sequels that don't make any sense whatsoever.  Clearly he was wrong in that, as apparently everyone -but- him expected, and the end result is 2008 being the last time we've seen anything out of the franchise, both since then and likely indefinitely.

Which, for my part, all I can say to that is good.  If Chrono Cross and even the DS port of the game is any indication, Chrono Trigger is simply bigger than the sum of its parts.  It's lightning in a bottle and Squeenix has no idea what to do with it, if in fact, anything -can- be done with it at all.  I understand that I'm extremely biased in this, and it simply seems that the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia are clouding my perceptions, but for my money, Chrono Trigger in its original form is simply a level of quality that Cross, the DS port and even Radical Dreamers simply cannot compare to.  And it's not for any one particular reason, but, as I said, because it is just greater than all of its components.  The story isn't spectacular, the characters aren't as wonderfully developed as we've seen can be done, and the gameplay of it is, well, archaic -now-, considering how things have simply grown.  But it has a quality to it that simply cannot be harnessed to be placed into other things bearing the same moniker.  So I would surmise that anything new to be entered into the Chrono franchise would simply not be able to carry that, even if it was made by the Square of old.  Simply because the Square of old tried already and failed on most levels.  But we'll never really know for sure, as all we have is the original, the port, and the sequels (is it plural if one is a really really big re-imaging of the other?) will likely be the only things we have as evidence to either side.

Spring Disclaimer Version 2

Now, last year, I had to make a post that basically said that Spring (and technically Summer, but we're just focusing on Spring for now) is my arch-nemesis as the presence of an overabundance of electricity (lightning) generally makes all the other electricity unusable.  Like computers.  Also game consoles (but not handhelds).  Granted, I'd hoped to have had a Laptop by this point to make this all a moot point, but best laid plans and all that.  So really, what was said last year stands for this one as well.  Now would be the time to start getting yourself acquainted with the lovely twitter side bar as, thanks to LiveTweet on the Vita, I have the best access to that as possible, and will be using it to say when it's storming, when I'm sick (because I'm gonna be sick a lot this Spring, I'm sure) and the like.  Just basically when you should expect little to no content.

I figured it was about time to say this as, as you might have noticed, the last couple of days have been kind of taxing on me because I'm getting adjusted to the heat and the sudden shift to it.  Also there was a threat of Tornadoes today which are no good.  Thankfully, everything's fine and the storm pushed me back into Uncharted:  Golden Abyss to get a little further into my Hard playthrough which will in turn lead me to  my Crushing playthrough.  Random side-note about all this, by the by:  Why can't I transfer all my Clues and such to a new game?  C'mon, I've had to deal with the lack of unlockable 'cheats' since the last Uncharted, now I have to find everything over and over again?  Story/path-related things I can see.  The early charcoal rubbings, the things you pick up when you're going the way you're supposed to go, etc.  But there's no reason why I can't carry over my pieces of Turquoise and such.  Angryface.

Anyways, just so I can have something approaching content, I did also want to say that I tried the Shinobido 2 Demo and it was pretty great.  I was a bit surprised by that, actually, since I figured I would be terrible at it.  Granted, it was just tutorial missions and then one singular actual mission (which means the demo was way too short) so it was easy enough and was meant to be as such, I'm sure.  But moreso than that, I'm pretty happy with how it controlled.  It's not amazing, but it's not overly tanky.  The grappling hook makes for some pretty righteous movement, though the lack of a double jump was something that I consistently forgot about which bothers me for several reasons.  Still, the lack of the different animations for kills (at least, I performed three stealth kills in a row that were the exact same thing, not too happy about that) was kind of a downer.  All in all though, a pretty good demo, in the same way that the Katamari demo was a good one; it gave me a tiny, tiny chunk of the main game that was fun enough to make me want the whole thing.

So, yeah.  With any luck, Mother Nature will stop deciding to be such a bitch about stuff and I won't have to worry so much.  Because I worry so much, you guys.  You don't even know.  Still, I guess it's good that I'm concerned since it helps me prevent disasters rather than find myself stuck in them.  Hopefully I'll get stuff sorted out this Spring so it won't be so much of an issue; I'll try to do things to give me material for personal pieces rather than parroting off news all the time since that is almost impossible to rely on.  With a steady stream of content like that, any bumps in the road will barely be noticeable, or at least that's what I think I've learned about this for being at it a year and all.

Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy - Nightmare Chibis and Rhythm-Based Battling

 Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy is hardly new, but as we know, my reactions to Squeenix things are generally delayed if simply because I choose to ignore most Squeenix news like the plague for a while.  Of course, we all know this can horribly backfire if Squeenix puts out something genuinely neat like Type-0, but, hey, that's like a once in a blue moon thing, honestly.  The horrible backfiring thing...it ain't happening here with Theatrhythm.

It's hard to decide where to start here, in all honesty.  Of course, I'm lying, I know exactly where to start.

The character design is atrocious.  Now, I know Chibi style things have a place somewhere (my personal preference places it in the trash can, but 'opinions') but when you do Chibi, you have to do it right.  Those things up above?  They are not right.  They are soulless beings of pure nightmares.  Mostly because they're the exact same body dressed up in different outfits to denote the different characters.  The outfits are, admittedly, kind of cool, and there is something about it that works....it's just not the characters themselves, which is kind of an important distinction.

It should be noted, if it's not immediately apparent, that Theathrythm takes place in the Dissidia universe.  Which is just.....yeah.  I guess they just didn't want to make another universe wherein a bunch of Final Fantasy characters got mish-mashed together for....some reason.  Why they're fighting monsters instead of Manikins or, you know, each other is quite beyond me, and I'm sure there's a perfectly logical story behind this ga-hahahahahahahahahahahaha, yeah, alright.  Clearly, this has to take place in the 12th or earlier cycle of Dissidia, as we can clearly see Lightning above who was only in Duodecim because prequels get more characters for some reason.  (I know the reason, but, y'know, spoilers.)

The above pictured Battle Mode features putting four character in a party (dunno if you get to choose or what) and using a Rhythm game to.....fight monsters?  I guess.  It honestly seems like a handheld (Instrument) Hero/Rock Band game, skinned with nonsensical things for some reason.  The premise honestly escapes me completely and I just don't....know where they're going with this at all.  I can imagine it being addictive, of course, but I'm not about to expect anything approaching genuine fun unless something different comes about in the coming months.

As far as we know, there's only going to be three songs per game from Final Fantasy 1 to 13, one for each of the Field, Battle and Event stages featured in the game.  Rough math indicates that is only 39 songs, which, last I checked, was smaller than 50.  Definitely smaller than more than 50 in such a case.  Yet, all reports indicate that the game will contain over 50 songs, so I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that they're just kinda...holding back for now.  Which, hey, whatever works for them.  Just.....just saying.  I'm sure there's a lot more depth to the game than these early reports point to.

That's about all I cans ay on the game currently, as this heat is destroying me.  Stay frosty, folks.

Just a Few Things to Touch On

So, I can't exactly call this a Bonus Post, as, were I one to hold myself to updating everyday, I'd actually be down one.  But as we know, I only officially hold myself to a post every other day, buuuuut, eh, I don't really hold myself to anything, as I genuinely like posting here.  So, call it a bonus, call it catch up, it's still a post I wanted to make, because I have a few things to rant and brag about.

First, I will state that, as my Twitter showed last night, it stormed.  A lot.  Waaaaaaaaaaaay more than the Meteorologists predicted it would, as they figured around 5 EST would be the latest anyone in my area would see a storm, with everyone in the south end of the state I occupy being the ones wanting to look out for angry static seekers from the sky.  So it's no surprise that when it stormed, uh, at 5, at 6, at 7, all the way to Midnight that I was a little goddamn pissed at these fuckmuppets.

I hate harping on this subject, because it's not even fun anymore.  I don't usually take the time to get angry anymore, more as I just see them fucking up, getting no repercussions and sigh a little, wondering why they have jobs.  But a storm going on for seven hours longer than predicted is a pretty egregious fuck up.  So, I just -had- to bring it up.  Not only because of that, but because it leads into my next topic, which is a quite positive note..

Anyone who's played Valkyria Chronicles 2 knows exactly who this is, but for the uninitiated, this is Dirk.  Dirk is one of the big bads of the game.  Sorry, very minor spoilers I know, but, fuck it, you see him pretty early on in the game, so don't worry about it.  Anyways, the important part of this whole thing is that, last night, stuck with nothing else to do, and not feeling like grinding out another level in Phantasy Star Portable 2, I picked Valkyria Chronicles 2 back up, fully intending to just....er, grind out some more experience.  Because why not?  And then I remembered I was stuck at a mission where you have to go up against Dirk and went, "You know what?  It's time to take this asshat -down-."

So....after looking up a FAQ, trying the method described and failing miserably (Seriously FAQ writer?  Upload that approach to youtube, because I don't fuckin' believe that.) I took to 'the youtubes' to see a strategy in action.  It was, obviously, very different than the one described and when I put it to the test (with my own variations) it worked like a charm.  Just like that, level's beaten and I'm that much closer to finally beating Valkyria Chronicles 2.  Victory will be mine, game.  And though I'll likely never play VC3 since I'm not up for importing and playing a game I can't understand in the slightest (and Sega's full of jerkbags), I'll still be prepared to tout the praises of the series as a whole to anyone who'll listen, even though there's likely a flaw for every plus.

Quick Note About My Twitter

Back when I mentioned I would start using my Twitter for updates and such and linked it, I was just trying to think of ways to be able to utilize it in a way that doesn't force you, the reader, to follow me on Twitter or whatever should you not want to.  Following being the easiest way to get my updates and all, it seemed like an empty gesture until I had a thought tonight while looking over at The Word of Notch, AKA Notch of Minecraft fame's personal blog.  He has a little twitter updater gadget on the side which, were it not for it being inundated constantly with '@notch', would likely be useful.  Since I'm not popular in the lease on Twitter, I surmised that if I could have such a thing, it'd be easier to use.

And as it turns out, Blogger has one of those gadgets, so now I have it on my sidebar.  If an update is going to be late, well, now you'll be able to know easier.  Hope that's cool with everyone!

(I also might use it for silly things.  As you might notice currently.)

Blah Blah, Storms, but now an idea!

So, it kind of sucks when it storms and I can't, like, get around to post because I have to turn off the computer and such to prevent it getting all screwed up by a surge.  Especially when I just can't even post "Hey, will be late" or something of the sort.  So I was thinking how I could change that, and the obvious mobile solution came up as, well, so long as the power's not out, we still have internet.  It's just that I don't have anything powerful enough to keep on keeping on in the meantime yet.  I mean, sure, I could use my PS3, but if I don't have the computer on, I'm sure as hell not going to have the PS3 on.

So, I started messing around on my PSP to see what I could do on it.  Blogger doesn't work too well on it; I can write up a post, but it just won't....post.  Which is none too helpful.  And then I thought, "Hey, I have a Twitter I don't use, and Twitter is a mobile thing." and tried that out.  Hey, it works!  So, while it may not be an optimal solution, I at least have a fairly reasonable outlet to use if I'll have to be late in posting or such.  Which, hey, maybe you don't care that much and maybe I don't, even, but I get bored during thunderstorms.  So if you're interested, here is my Twitter.  Clearly, you don't have to follow me there (and especially don't -make- one to do so) and I'm not asking that, but just keep the link handy; if there's not a post up here around the midnight time (as I am just above the wire sometimes) I'll likely have a tweet (urgh) about it.

In other news, expect that "A Look Back" article about Rune Factory sometime next week.  I know I said 'in the next day or so' and even my 'next week' is flimsy, since you know, E3, but I've also run into a brick wall that I have to hammer through as per the games rules.  It is not a good idea by any means, and it's just frustrating in the worst way (trust me, I will elaborate in the article) but it's not bad enough that I have to slam the game for it.  Just get....really bitter about it.

Update!:  I also got the bright idea to use my Twitter to post about whenever I update a post with new info or fix broken pictures or something.  Productivity is rising, folks.

Yo Dawg, I heard you liked Storms....

You heard wrong, good sir!

...

Anyways, it's pretty funny how I said I wasn't going to timestamp-alter posts for weather issues and then, well, weather issues happened.  So, true to my word, this will be going up Thursday, which means hey, I missed a day.  Again.  Through no fault of my own.  Sigh.  And I hate to say that I'm not sure how content-heavy this post can really be, as there's just not a whole hell of a lot of news out there that really strikes me.

Chance posted about Marvelous' plans for NGP on Tuesday, which is really good news for me, well, for everyone really, but especially me, as it gives me hopes for a decent Harvest Moon game on a Sony handheld.  ...What?  Don't look at me like that.  I am a man who enjoys his Harvest Moon games!  Boy & Girl is serviceable, since it's just Back to Nature and Back to Nature:  Girl version on one UMD, but Back to Nature is the less-good version of Friends of Mineral Town for GBA, and it looks weird on the PSP.

I editted my last post with this update, but I'll say it here, too.  Minecraft "Pocket Edition" details were thrown about on Reddit by one of the developers from Mojang, which is actually a pretty common thing.  There's some sort of real weird, close relationship between Reddit and Mojang, from what I can tell, as I've been linked to a few different things of Notch talking personally(?  Is such a thing there really possible?) to the folks there, not to mention the large group of Let's Players of Minecraft there who have a ton of rather large projects.  If you need proof...

Invizimals: Shadow Zone was announced for PSP, which, Invizimals was one of the more obvious (if only for recent exposure) 'Pokemon clones' that I could have talked about when I talked about pokemon clones, and I didn't, specifically because of how little I know about the thing.  It seems obvious enough, walk around your house or other places you don't mind being seen interacting with AR technology at with the game on and try to catch different members of this rather large caste of monsters that have been developed for the series.  Beyond that, I don't really know.  Which is mostly why I abstained from talking on it, as I might take the plunge on it at some point.

So, there's that.  From one day to another, the meterologists don't know what's going to happen, but the general consensus is that the worst of the storm season should be over and maybe we can go a week or two without a storm (aside from one next week) comfortably.  We'll just have to see, though.

And it Continues.

So, hey, more storms this week.  I think we went, what, a whole week without them?  Yaaaay.  But no more.  After being woken up by one at 6 AM this morning, I was pretty sure that it was not going to be a pleasant week and considering that weather.com expects my area to have a chance of storms from 10 o'clock tonight to...1 AM Wednesday, well, I was pretty right.  But, eh, that's how it goes, I guess.  And at least with the time I'll have not doing anything else, I'll be able to continue doing what I have been doing; getting material for more posts here.

Seeing as Innocent Life did little to sate my Harvest Moon urge, I've moved on to Rune Factory once more with the overall goal of actually completing it this time.  This will be the third time I've started it, as my first attempt was the most successful, leading me to fall out of playing pretty much one or two dungeons before the end.  I'd completed a year, married, started a successful farm and had my house fully upgraded, as far as I can tell/remember.  And my second time ended in Winter of the first year, meaning I was close, but I hadn't married and wasn't quite fully there with the upgrades.  We'll just have to see how this playthrough turns out.

I also started Shadow Hearts:  Covenant on PS2 since I've never played it and, well, I've already mentioned the PS2 replacing the PS3 in favor of caution with the weather, so I will stop harping on that.  It's a rather nice game so far, really kept the mood from the first, which is essentially a strange mix of creepiness, general fucked up-ness, downer notes, and dark humor.  For anyone that hasn't played Shadow Hearts and could go for a rather classic style RPG right about now, I'd recommend it.  There is a rather nice Let's Play of it here as well, but I'm of a mind that Shadow Hearts is more of a game that you have to experience before watching/reading an LP of it to get the same amount of enjoyment.  Of course, that might just be my love for batshit crazy stories coming out again.

So yeah, this is basically just one of those update posts, and a heads-up that I may have to miss a post some night this week.  Of course, I'll be doing whatever I can to make sure I don't, but it may just be out of my hands.

It's Way Too Hot, You Guys.

Like, it is so hot.  You don't even know.  This is the time where I hate not having a fan, because, well, it is very goddamn hot and a fan would help.  I mean, I have a tiny one, but I don't have a plug for it, and it doesn't do a lot anyway.  Like, it's just a little better than those handheld ones.  I need a fan that will make my whole room like, 62 degrees.  Which sounds a lot like an air conditioner, which I don't have!  Of course.

Minecraft storms are 80% cooler than real-life storms.  FACT.

The downside of this heat in Spring is also that Spring can't just be hot.  No, it has to be a constant battle of Hot fronts and Cold Fronts taking their turn flying over head just to make everyone miserable.  Which means storms.  Which means I may be missing a post or two this week.  Just, y'know, throwing that out there as a warning.  If you find yourself going through Kupowered Withdrawals because of this, just, y'know, read my Chrono Trigger DS Posts.  "But Mogs, I already read those!"  Well, read them again.  But no, seriously, I worked pretty hard on those, so if you would read them, it would be appreciated.

This heat is also pretty much interfering with a good bit of my gaming.  I did dig out a PS2 over the weekend and start up Romance of the Three Kingdoms X again, and had some pretty good times with it.  But I'm too paranoid to turn on my PS3 since I don't want it to explode before the PSN comes back up.  Whenever that is.  Because damnit, I got the Trophy for Answering all of the questions in DW7 which rendered all of my other work completely useless.  Of course.  The guy never did get back to me, by the way.  There's the update on that.  Anyways, the point is, I don't want the PS3 to explode because then I can't synch my trophies and then we're going to have what is known as a problem.

But the PS2 doesn't need nearly as much fussing over it, as far as I'm concerned, so this is a good thing.  I might head over to Nobunaga's Ambition here soon on that, or I might power through a few PS2 games I've actually never played.  Or, y'know, play some old favorites.  I'll let everyone know what happens with that.  Or I might jump back into heavy portable gaming.  I have been playing Castlevania:  Dawn of Sorrow again for reasons I myself can't discern, as I don't even really like the game.  And Valkyria Chronicles 2 does remain unbeaten still.

All I know is that I'm still hot, cranky, tired and hungry.  So, this is probably a good place to stop.

April Fool's Day Sucks.

We all know what April Fool's Day is, when everyone is determined to make sure everyone else's day is pretty much as uncomfortable, inconvenient, and annoying as possible.  And, in most cases, simply for the goal of making an ass out of oneself.

Now, I'm sure we're all interested in The Origins of April Fool's Day, and I'm sure it's quite silly and fun and such, or maybe not, but really, who cares.  Why everyone clings to it so fervently is honestly a bit beyond me.  Which is to say, I'm not humorless, of course, you all know this by now.  But the problem with April Fool's Day is that 98% of the time, it just doesn't work.

Let's take Adult Swim for example.  A few years ago, on April Fool's Day, they decided, "Hey, let's get the worst movie we can find and play it.  It'll be hilarious!".  So, they played The Room.  Which, sure, it might have been okay the first year.  "Tee hee, oh this movie sucks, how unexpected is this".  But since, it's become a tradition, which is the antithesis of spontaneous, unexpected pranking.  Maybe I'm just lacking a pair of hipster glasses, but I can't bring myself to enjoy The Room ironically, as it's just awful.

 So, what are some other just, hilarious pranks that have been played on this day?

Cellphone ban: In New Zealand, the radio station The Edge's Morning Madhouse enlisted the help of the Prime Minister on April 1st to inform the entire country that cellphones are to be banned in New Zealand. Hundreds of callers rang in disgruntled at the new law.

Tower of Pisa: The Dutch television news reported in the 1950s that the Tower of Pisa had fallen over. Many shocked people contacted the station

In 2010, British newspaper The Sun ran an article about its new "Scratch and Sniff" paper, providing a sample of plain newspaper. This led to a lot of readers sniffing the paper in an attempt to smell the scent.

Assassination of Bill Gates: In 2003, many Chinese and South Korean websites claimed that CNN reported Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, was assassinated, resulting in a 1.5% drop in the South Korean stock market.

Truly, some fantastic things in there, with absolutely nothing that might cause people to have shitty days.  Still, I guess a few people get it right.  Specifically this:

MechQuest, an online RPG, replaces their sound systems (battle sounds include explosions and lasers), with home recorded human voices, startling many players.

 Honestly, that would be pretty hilarious.  "PEW PEW PEW"  "Uhhh".  That's the way to do it; something silly, funny, and easily changeable in case you're of the humorless type.

I guess the only reason why I'm angry today (aside from some stress things) is that apparently the weather is trying to prank me.  It snowed yesterday and the day before.  It heated up today.  Quite a bit in fact.  So much so that it will probably storm in an hour or so.  So, hey, thanks for that, Nature.

Weekly Wrap-Up in Gaming - Feb. 21-27

I meant to do this post yesterday, but Mother Nature stepped in and gave me some nice thunderstorms all night, so I didn't really get a chance.  For future reference, all "Weekly Wrap-Up" posts like these will be on Sundays since well, that's the end of the week.  And I might not do one every week, since my gaming tends to keep similar every couple weeks.

So, I've been finishing up Dynasty Warriors:  Strikeforce on PS3 this week.  I say finishing up because I've finished Wu's story and I'm not too sure there's a lot much else to do aside from finish the other two stories that I'm not too keen on doing, getting the last of the trophies, which will take forever, and some MP shenannigans, which I can do whenever.  So by being done, I'll likely take it out of my rotation for something else.

I'm not really sure how I feel about the game.  It does a lot of things well, like the battle system...when you get a handle on it.  There's absolutely no tutorial on it from what I can tell, but it's pretty intuitive.  In a lot of ways, it's like the Gundam games in that the dash attacks are vital to your success.  And fury mode is a genuinely interesting little feature even if it's practically ripped off of every action anime that ripped it off of every other action anime before it.  Also the sub-weapon mechanic (Which is clearly here to stay) is a few installments overdue, and I hope it continues to get refined.

But what the game does poorly, it does so in spades.  So much so that I don't quite know where to st-oh wait yes I do.  Those giant beast enemies you see in all the previews and the like?  Fuck those things.  At their best, they're annoying as hell and take forever to kill.  At their worst, like goddamn Death Tiger, they're deadly at the drop of a hat.  Level 50 (which is the max level) with fairly good Defense that I imagine I could only further increase with the in-game wheel of destiny thing, and that damn thing would take forever to whittle down while being an idiot the whole time.  And then, as soon as it was left with about a third of a health?  It would turn (By turn, I mean instantly be facing me.  There's actually no turning animation, so it just kind of changes direction) to me, charge attack and even with full health, instant death.  For the curious who pick up this game, the key to defeating Death Tiger is to stock up on Windstone +s, kill Diao Chan, and throw every Windstone into the tiger's face until it dies.  The face is key.

Speaking of things that take forever to kill, what the hell were you thinking, KOEI?  I mean, if it took forever to kill Lu Bu or Guan Yu or even Zhao Yun, I'd understand.  But the strategists?  What?!  That doesn't even make sense, since they're more likely to be fragile.  Yet fighting Sima Yi, Zhuge Liang, Da Ji (in her one crossover mission) and some generic strats with staves and bows was a chore beyond anything else the game had to offer.  In general, fighting officers is a crapshoot, since they all have the ability to enter a "No-Sell State" (wrestling fans will get that, but for the uninitiated) which means they'll take your attack, take the damage, but they won't be stagger'd at all until that barrier breaks, which does so with a set amount of damage.  Charge attacks are better for that.

And the grind.  Oh lord, the grind.  Everything takes so many materials and so many materials are things you can only get here from specific people and blah blah blah.  You've heard it before in just about every RPG or even most MMOs, usually as a time-padding mechanism and it's here with a vengeance.  Weapons, Orbs, Chi, they all require materials that you have to specifically get at one point or another if you're intending on getting everything, which, for the trophy/achievement whores means literally everything.  Every Weapon, every orb, every chi and every Officer Card (Which is not something that you have any control over getting in any way, shape or form) needs to be obtained for the 100%/Platinum, as well as knowing ten other people who play the game on your platform of choice.

Still for all its bad, there is good, as I said and even though I harped more on the bad than anything, the good is there, and it's something you mostly have to feel out than be told about.

Is there much else I can say about Valkyria Chronicles 2, really?  I've made at least half a dozen blog posts about the game, which is a clear testament to how much I like it, even if my overall criticisms of it come out more than anything else.  I've put over 100 hours into it, and honestly, I'm not even burnt out by playing the game.  What I am burnt out on is going up against the goddamn boss characters.  It's December, I know I'm going to have two boss fights, and I just don't want to do them.  So I haven't.  But I also haven't been able to progress through the game, either.  Which I want to do, since I want to sink my teeth into Post Game.  It's a pretty rough place to be in, so all of my playing has been grinding for some EXP (Which is better done in the Post game, of course) to get my Scouts and ATs up closer to my Godlike (but really not) Shocks.

Surprisingly enough, I decided to add a little more playtime to my Patchwork Heroes file, completely out of the blue.  And all of a sudden, I remembered why I liked the game in the first place when I completed a mission on my first try by starting out with cutting an airship right in half before chunking it down further from there.  Immediately after, I remembered why I fell out of love with the game when I had to retry a level five times since I kept getting one of my people killed by one of the myriad enemies the level held.  Also once because a guy was in the bottom part of a chunk and I didn't see it right away and cut the chunk right off.  =|

On the Flash Game front, I put some time into Boxhead: 2Play Rooms which, while being a fun concept and actually a fairly alright time-waster, I ended up leaving with a sour taste in my mouth from it because of rather shoddy (understatement) programming.  I admit that I am a pretty big Trophy whore which carries over into Kongregate with badges.  I don't know why, but I guess I just like having that to show off to....absolutely nobody.  Shut up.

Anyways, the problem with the game was that you got a badge from making it to level 42.  Which isn't a problem in itself, but the problem lied with the game not properly registering what level you were on in relation to earning the badge.  Looking over at the completion thing when I had made it to 42 made me double-take, as it informed me that, regardless of what the screen had just told me, I was on stage 24.  Uhh?  No, game.  No I was not.  Reading the comments, the advised course of action was to, of course, just wait for the game to catch up.

It took three hours.

So, yeah, if you're looking for badges, don't play that game. 

Also played this week was Thing Thing Arena 2, an off-shoot of the main series of Thing Thing games.  I have absolutely no clue how they got their names, but the premise is basically that you play the Thing of a main character who is apparently a former test subject as he kills pretty much everything in his path for some reason.  At first it was to escape, and I guess that's still the case, but in later Thing Thing games, it might have ended up being a vengeance mission.  Anyways, that's not the important part.

The important part is that the Thing Thing games are pretty fun!  For the simple art direction, they definitely did a lot of detail work, both on the scenery and the gore, which, essentially, is all the game has to offer.  It's a side-scrolling affair where you get a lot of guns and shoot other people who are less equipped than you.  And then eventually equipped just like you are.  I mean, it doesn't get much more simple than that, yet it still manages to scratch that gaming itch every now and again.

So that's been my week in gaming in a nutshell!  I swear the next time I do this, I will not be playing DW:  Strikeforce or VC2 again.  Or at least, I won't bring them up yet again.

Hiatus Part Two: Hiatus Harder

Well, we've got the computer shambled back to some semblance of life; Windows is working again, even if it's in a semi-strange manner. But, of course, right after I sort of got settled with the idea that hey, I have a computer again, Mother Nature steps in and went, "Hurr durr, nope."

We're set to have an ice storm for, uh, until Thursday, basically. (This is as of Monday's writing) So, I'm going to let that pass, given that power outages are common during, well, anything going wrong ever. Out here at least. So, yeah, barring anything else happening (which, our DirecTV DVR just went out today too. Again. DirecTV appliances suck dick.) Kupowered will come back Friday.

Thanks for all the support, guys. Let it be known that only acts of Vengeful Gods of Technology and Nature can keep me away from Kupowered! (Also maybe illness. I haven't been sick lately, so, hey, maybe that'll happen too. This was written with some sort of mock-enthusiasm and sarcasm combo somehow. Because I wouldn't be surprised. I'll keep you guys updated though!)