So, Whoops

That I didn't manage to pull myself away from Drakengard 3 last night to post is pretty much a solid indicator of just how happy I am with the game.  That I can barely even do anything -tonight- is just all the more of that, and I think what we should take away from all of this is that when I can finally talk about Drakengard 3, I will be very, very enthusiastic about it.  Until then, you will have to settle with this one quote from me:

It's fucking awesome.

-Me, in Regards to Drakengard 3

Someone can print that.

Anyway, if you'll allow me one more sojourn into the vast pleasures of the game, to fully savor what it has to offer me, I swear to you that I will eventually condense my enjoyment into text on this screen for you to imbibe, that you might live even a little bit vicariously through it.  In the meantime, I will share with you possibly my favorite song from the game thus far, which I have linked above.  It's called "Prevolt/Amaros" just in case the video gets taken down (or rather, -when- it does) so you'll be able to search it for yourself.  It's a really fast-paced, action-oriented song, which is fair because it's a boss theme, and I just really, really love it.  It gets me pumped and not since, well, probably REVENGEANCE's soundtrack has that happened, and NieR's before it.

Now, if you'll excuse me, once more I go into the beyond!

can you tell I'm excited?  Because I am, because the game is just so good you guys

Back Home

We all have those games that we just find ourselves coming back to one way or another, whether it be playing it long after you're -done- with it, or whether you just find yourself mentally comparing it to other games when you start playing it, or however it's done.  For Chance, it's Dragon's Crown.  For plenty of others out there, I'm sure it's Persona 4: The Golden.  Or perhaps it's Sorcery Saga: The Curse of the Great Curry God, Ys: Memories of Celceta, Ragnarok Odyssey (perhaps the Ace version), Disgaea 3: Absence of Detention, Conception 2: Children of the Seven Stars, Demon Gaze, Atelier Meruru or Totori Plus, Toukiden: The Age of Demons or any other number of games that offer long, engrossing experiences on the Vita.

For me, it's always been Soul Sacrifice.

With the introduction of Soul Sacrifice Delta to the Playstation Store (it's digital-only, it seems) and the stars aligning to deliver unto me my 64 gig memory card for my Vita far before the May 30th - June 20th window I was offered (likely because who knows with Customs), it was time.  Time to go back to the game I've said a hundred times that I'd rather be playing, or that I just -want- to be playing it.  So as I've been filling up my 64 Gig stick with games, I've turned to it and have been playing it again.

I'm not sure just what it is about the game that I love, but I'm inexorably drawn to it.  I want to conquer all that it has to offer (except the Forgotten Pacts, fuuuuuck thaaaaaaat) and then do it all over again in Delta, which, from what I've heard, greatly expands the universe and the setting of the game, which is exactly what I wanted.  It's not quite a world I can explore just yet, but it's bigger thematically and that counts for something.  I'm not going to know just by how much until I start it, and I've still got a grip of content to wrangle with on the vanilla game, but it's definitely something to look forward to.

In all honesty, though, I wish I could have people enjoy the game as I do.  I wish I could quantify just what about it makes me grin, what gets me pumped up and excited, what makes me feel like I'm bending the game over my knee without cheesing or breaking it.  I say it's dodge-rolling out of the way of a charge attack, turning around and unloading three volleys of arrows into my foe before he gets up.  I say it's sitting back and launching an egg bomb right in the cursed part of an archfiend and breaking it to expose it to some massive damage for the next five or so seconds.  I say it's throwing on armor and not even getting hit while I mercilessly slaughter a tier of monster that, at one point, was nigh-impossible for me to kill.  I say all of these things and I just get blank stares or "Well, it's good that you liked it" or something of that sort.

I wish everyone else played the same game that I did, I guess, because the lack of love for the series really, really bums me out.  Not that it's reviled, but rather that I think it's -big-, that it's a big deal game, a fantastic experience and it's something that I would suggest to anyone with a Vita.  This is not universally agreed upon like Gravity Rush or Uncharted: Golden Abyss (for the most part) or Persona 4 Golden are.  To me, it should be, because I've gotten so much fun out of this goddamn game, it's incredible.

But, well, that's just how it goes, I suppose.

also bastardizing Metal Gear Solid "You live on....THROUGH THIS ARM!" makes me giggle and okay, I'm sorry

Late to the Party - Red Dead Redemption

I understand that it's been a while since this game was released, but, well you know how it goes sometimes.  A game comes out and you decide to wait on it for a while and then a Game of the Year Edition is announced and you decide to wait for that and decide to wait for it to drop in price and sometimes you then wait for it to be gifted to you and basically there's a lot of waiting.  It happens.  And then sometimes you get it for Christmas and don't play it til almost the end of January because you suddenly have an urge to play a game that doesn't feature Winter in the slightest because you're in Winter and it's fucking cold, but it's nice because you like Winter, but it's still cold and cold is kind of bad and you try and warm up but playing games with Winter in them kind of doesn't help.  Even though you're not expecting something good, you pop in a game about being a cowboy in the desert because at least it's in a hot environment.

Then you discover, hey, this game actually -is- fun!

That has been my experience with Red Dead Redemption over the past couple days in which I've plugged in quite a few hours.  The bulk of it probably spent running around and hunting animals because oh man, hunting.  It's only when I run across it with a deeper mechanic than Tomb Raider offered - something closer to Far Cry 3 - that I realize how much I actually enjoy it despite the inherent 'issue' with it in that I'm not hunting for absolute necessity and/or survival, but for skins and such to sell.  But it's digital animals, so I don't -really- have to care too much about it.  No more than the people that I shoot, lasso, hogtie and drag around whilst on horseback are only digital people, thus I don't have to really care about them either.  It's just silliness in the desert.

As such, since I've spent the majority of the game dicking around, there's not a whole lot I can say about the game itself.  The story is something that's there, Marston is not the greatest character, but he's alright, and the mechanics are definitely from a Rockstar game, for better or worse.  I mostly just wanted to say that it's actually fun since I heavily doubted it beforehand - it was released close enough to IV that I worried it would be a bit stiff like IV was, not to mention the bad ideas from TLaD - and that I'm quite enjoying it.  And it is doing -something- for the perception of maintaining heat and such.  I mean, a space heater is probably doing the most of the heating task, but still.  Every little bit helps when your daily high temperature just barely breaks double digits Fahrenheit.

I kinda wish that the 'main encounter' would just happen already, I'm tired of doing side jobs for these ungrateful bastards

Outtakes in Blogging - New Years Stats Edition

Sometimes, trying to write a blog post ends up with hilariously poor results.  As an outtake, these are amusing to witness from the outside, of course, but there's a lot of frustration involved, as you might imagine.  Still, it's something that -I- can laugh at when presented with it, so it's not something I'm adverse to sharing and that's exactly what I'm going to do tonight.  You see, I -was- trying to figure out a very, very basic thing for an opening stat and, well, it kind of broke me.  I was essentially just trying to work with something without having enough data for it, which I realize now (and honestly realized at a few points, but damnit, I was going to try) and it just did not end well, as you can imagine.  But I'm welcoming you to enjoy my hilarious missteps in the process of trying to provide content because it in itself is content of sorts.  I'm inserting a page break, however, because it's a chatlog, which means it's quite long by nature without being -full-, as paragraphs are.  So, yes, hopefully you will enjoy it in lieu of actual numbers tonight.

good lord, did I wobble this one spectacularly

Well, I Like It

So I bought Terraria on Vita and wanted to mess around with it for a few minutes and then suddenly it was two hours later.
— Mogs (@DarthMogs) December 18, 2013

I'm not sure I can make a more ringing endorsement of the game than that, really.

I've watched my fair share of Terraria content in the past, so I knew the basics, but it is a wholly different experience actually being able to do it all yourself.  Obviously, task number one was creating a structure all my own after hewing the land to suit my whims.  I think we all like to think that, given the opportunity, we're going to create something magnificent right off the bat and I certainly thought this as well.

I did not.

I made the box you see above.  I made a three-tiered basement and enclosed it in stone walls.  I then set out to explore.  It's oddly liberating and strange that I would do that when all I -wanted- was a building game.  But I have to get blocks to do that, or at least that's the excuse I'm using while I'm cutting down slimes and seeking out the corruption of my lands to stem their creep with a sunflower.

I'm definitely satisfied.

words failed me, should've sent a poet, etc.

Remember, Remember

For those curious, it's pronounced Eece:  Memories of Cell-set-ah.  It's also quite good.

Way back when the Silver Anniversary Edition was announced, something in the back of my head piped up.

"You want that."

"Well yeah, I know, but-"

"You want that."

"I do."

So I decided I was going to get it.  I had not played an Ys game prior to my purchase, even though I was given ample opportunity to do so, considering three (four, technically?) of them are on the Playstation Network and are fully compatible with the Playstation Vita.  In truth, they were games that I always -wanted- to play, but never pulled the trigger on.  The hilarious part is that the day Memories came out, Ys I & II Chorincles, Oath in Felghana and Seven all went half-off, so I went from owning none of the Ys games to owning just about every one of them that I feasibly -can- own at the moment.  (Origins is PC-only and we all know how well that works out for me)  Of course, I still -hadn't- played Memories at that point, so I spent a ridiculous sum of money combined on Ys games on that same day without having an inkling to their quality in my own opinion.  It was a risk.

If Memories of Celceta is anything to go by, it was a risk well worth taking.  I've been spoiled with Action RPGs, I believe, as I always seem to pick the ones that nobody else would pick right off.  Phantasy Star Portable 2 (built from Phantasy Star Online, of course), Soul Sacrifice and NieR are probably my top favorite Action RPGs that I can think of at the moment, in terms of pure gameplay.  (Yakuza and Sleeping Dogs are more Beat-em-Ups than anything)  There's just something very...fitting for all three games that I enjoy in a way that only translates into pure Action games rather than other Action RPGS.  (Like REVENGEANCE and the two I just mentioned, of course)  However, Memories of Celceta manages to encapsulate this type of thing as well, and it does just work for me.

Perhaps it just feels responsive in a way that I get.  Which is a weird thing to question or quantify, but when I see reviews mention Assassin's Creed being responsive and LittleBigPlanet as -not- responsive, well....I sort of start to question what -I'm- doing differently.  In the end, I think it's just that I just approach games differently than some, which leads to a different playstyle which just sort of compounds these types of issues.  So all I can say is that it's snappy and fast-paced, I tap X to dodge roll, I slam square thrice for a mini-combo that I end with Rising Slash from a press of R and Circle.  For now, at least.  I find it a bit difficult to get back into the basics after I was, indeed, introduced to a little bit more of the complexities of the game itself that due to a misunderstanding between myself, three hours of sleep and a Vita system update to look at my profile information caused.  (As in, in my haze, I neglected to switch to Ys and save before I updated, meaning it closed the game....which hadn't been saved for -hours-)

Memories of Celceta is the type of game, however, where that quite large loss of progress wasn't an issue.  I would've liked my other skill back that I learned in that time.  I would've liked the better gear back that I finally got after finishing the four quests available at the start.  I would've -liked- to not have to do that again, however, I was not at all bothered that I did.  Memories is just -fun- to play, full stop.  Thus I was fine with playing that part over again with no fuss - in fact it was just as much fun as the first time through.  That's how you know you've got something special, that's for sure.

As far as the actual Limited Edition content goes, it's pretty great, actually.  The cloth map is nice and large and begging me to actually be put up somewhere, but I would have to frame it first and all that stuff.  I haven't had a chance to listen to the CDs just yet, but they are definitely CDs, and they come with 64 songs from the entire Ys franchise....which is damn impressive and almost worth the extra money by itself, I'm sure.  The bulk of them are Arranged versions rather than the original sound version but...well, in most cases, I'm going to consider that a good thing, since while music on classic systems is nice, it's not great for everything.  The compass....works, I imagine as I admittedly don't know how to properly read one, but it's rather nice looking as well.  And the 120-page strategy guide/manual/journal/art book is clever and beautiful, being something that I want to look at all the time, but don't want to ruin anything for myself - I would have preferred hard-bound, of course, but I won't be picky.  It was definitely worth the extra cash, like all the LE's I've gotten this year.  Publishers are really on the ball with these damn things lately.

that soundtrack shocked the hell out of me - that's how you do it, Aksys/Marvelous AQL!

Yes, I'm Talking About Dynasty Warriors 8 Again

Today, I have finally beaten the final Story Mode mission contained within Dynasty Warriors 8 and by my approximation, I'm roughly 35% complete with the game now.  Four full story modes and 9 or 10 unaffiliated "Other" Story Missions (basically taking the "Other" characters who are famous but not among the ranks of Wei, Wu, Shu or Later Wei/Jin and taking an a-historical account of a famous battle of their in most cases, generally one that they -lost- historically) all told.  The four story modes also had branching paths at the 2/3rds mark, meaning when you got to the branch you were...half done.  Since you had to do -both- branches eventually and combined they were usually like eight missions or so on their own.  All of that is pretty much only 35% of the game in terms of 'completeness' which I'm gauging by the Trophy List for convenience.

Basically what I'm saying is that Dynasty Warriors 8 is surprisingly packed with content.  Perhaps too much so.

With Story mode done completely, as in I've unlocked all branches, beaten every stage and gotten every star for performing special tasks (Which I don't think is actually necessary for a trophy in the case of missions where it's not necessary to do the star to unlock a branch, but, eh, completionist) I have Free mode and Ambition mode left ahead of me, neither of which I've even strayed into at all.  Free mode is unexpectedly daunting for what it honestly is:  in Free Mode, you just get to pick a battle, pick a side and play any character in it, meaning if you want to be Sun Jian fighting for Shu in the defense of Chengdu from the forces of Later Wei, then have at it, you can totes do that.  The daunting part comes into play when you realize there are a -ton- of stages that are mostly unique maps (granted, maps like Luoyang Castle and Xucheng get used for several missions, but you don't tend to notice right away) and you have to play each one at least once for one of the shiny silver trophies the game has to offer.  I'm -pretty sure- that means only once total, not only once as each possible faction, because the latter would be fucking insanity.

Ambition Mode is a complete unknown to me, however.  I can make an educated guess and say that it's likely like Legend Mode from Dynasty Warriors 7:  Xtreme Legends which I have bitched about in the past, but with less of a finite structure, given that there are trophies for winning 5, 20 and 100 battles straight within Ambition mode.  I'm...not entirely sure this is a good thing nor can I be certain it's something that will be unwelcome.  A bulk of the trophies come from Ambition mode, in all honesty which is a little strange - not only does Ambition mode seem to be something that would be in Xtreme Legends, but there's so few trophies attached to the actual Story mode (directly, the collection stuff necessitates them regardless) given the obvious effort put into it.  Honestly, it's almost a little disheartening, but on the other hand I'm hoping that much harder that Ambition mode proves to be worth it.

Now that I've played the story through, however, I've gotten a feel for the new characters and I gotta say, by and large, they're pretty good.  Jia Chong is top-tier along with Guan Xing (for his musou and rage musou) and Zhang Chunhua, though not especially for her moveset.  Li Dian and Wen Yang, however, are unfortunately bad on....well, most counts, really.  Their movesets are boring (Dian's is slow as well) and their characterizations are more or less off-putting.  Wen Yang is just bland and uninspired (mild play-ups to him being Later Wei's Zhao Yun when he has nowhere near the charisma needed) where Li Dian is just....so intentionally 'look how weird I am' that it's frustrating.  The other new additions run somewhere in the middle skewed more to the Jia Chong/Guan Xing side, thankfully, though Zuo Ci is disappointingly not as much of a beast as he was in Dynasty Warriors 5.

I'm still finding myself impressed with DW8 even if I'm not just blown away like I was with DW7.  Since 8 focused on a lot of refinement and addition, or at least tries to, it's obvious that it'd be more subtle with its great things, but they're still there and they're still great.  I almost cannot believe yet that every character is unique, something that I've literally been wanting from the series since I first started playing it, and it's finally happened.  I can only imagine that it's going to remain like this going forward - no real reason to migrate Sima Shi back to a regular rapier now that he's got a Lightning Sword and no reason to give Zhurong Throwing Knives again now that she's got her Boomerang back, after all.  Which isn't to say that I anticipate everyone keeping their -exact- weapons for Dynasty Warriors 9, just that I don't see them cloning anyone back up.  Huang Gai in particular is probably going to get his Cudgel back at -some- point since I don't believe anyone is just running around with a one-handed club.  And I can always dream about Pang De just using a goddamn coffin in battle.  Maybe one day.

it's wild that I'm already thinking about a Dynasty Warriors 9, because good lord that's a high number comparatively

Dynasty Warriors 8 is Damn Good

After my foray into Beyond: Two Souls that ended with me liking it, but not necessarily ready to jump back into it for the trophies, I turned to my backlog, specifically games from this year, and decided that I should probably play one of them.  Preferably one that I hadn't played yet.  There's an embarrassingly high amount of games that could be included in this, but in the end I decided on going to my comfort zone because I need comfort these days.  So I grabbed Dynasty Warriors 8 which I purchased way back when it came out in July, unwrapped it (yes, it was still in plastic, yes that kind of made me a little ill) and tossed it into my PS3 with the intent on cutting swaths through Feudal China.  Something I've done countless times before and will do countless times yet.

I got that with Dynasty Warriors 8.  I got that in spades.  Originally, you'll remember that I really liked Dynasty Warriors 7 because it changed up the formula immensely, bringing more and more cinematic bits into it and really incorporating them in a worthwhile way, while also completely overhauling the weapon system with weapon switching and such.  I eventually concluded, though perhaps not in a post, that Dynasty Warriors 7 is the best Dynasty Warriors since 3 which is the absolute best through nostalgia-rimmed glasses at least (since I haven't played it in a long time).  8 was shaping up to be 7, but with more stuff, which by all metrics should have put it at 'better' than 7 itself.

I'm not so sure I would put it on that level, however.  Initially, I definitely would not have, but the more I play it, the more I start appreciating it and the effort that went into it, while also slowly realizing awesome things about it.  Some things are a straight step backwards - the game is overall less cinematic and less story-focused if for the simple fact that the little text-dumps in-between missions are not narrated for the first time since...ever and the text is rather small to boot, and you can no longer equip new weapons mid-battle thanks to the Rock/Paper/Scissors mechanic they've almost arbitrarily added to weapons now - but everything else is either maintained or improved upon.  Including one thing that's like a fucking revelation after playing the games for as long as I have been.

You see, in previous iterations, there have always been some characters that simply have the same exact moveset since they share a tenuous weapon choice.  So Cao Cao would play almost exactly like Sun Jian who would play almost exactly like Liu Bei because they all wielded a Longsword and while there was some personalization, it wasn't a -lot-.  It's been in the games with varying degrees with Dynasty Warriors 6 being the worst of it where there were honestly maybe a dozen movesets spread across the 50-some characters in the roster.  In Dynasty Warriors 7, they tried to mitigate the clone issue by assigning "EX" attacks, which were attacks unique to that character with their preferred weapon.  So even though Liu Shan, Sima Shi and Yuan Shao all fought with a Rapier, they had different EX attacks assigned to a different charge, not to mention the different musou attacks.  Dynasty Warriors 8 has a more...elegant solution that is almost mind-blowing in the realization that they've finally done it.

There are no clones.  Everyone has their own weapon type which in turn has its own moveset with nary an overlap between them.  Liu Shan wields a Rapier where Sima Shi wields a "Lightning Sword" where Yuan Shao wields an "Extension Blade" which are all -basically- rapiers, but entirely different weapons in their own right with different moves and the whole spread.  Cao Cao wields a General's Swod where Sun Jian wields a Nine-Rings Blade where Sun Quan wields a Sword (seriously, just basic sword) where Sima Zhao wields a Striking Sword and they're all -wildly- different as you might expect from my previous mentions.  It's honestly a little surreal, having a scenario in which everyone has their own weapon, but it's been something that has needed to happen for a while and it's almost astounding that they finally managed it.  It's strangely liberating even.

All in all, Dynasty Warriors 8 attempts to be a complete refinement of 7 and in a lot of ways, it truly is - maps are nice, large and details, character models look nice (except in cutscenes where they're very...plastic-y), there's like seven weapons of each type and that whole non-clone thing is wonderful.  While it's a step back in a couple important areas, it's not -that- bad, even if it's enough to allow me to continue lofting Dynasty Warriors 7 up high for naught but the best of accolades.  It's enough to get me hyped up for Dynasty Warriors 8:  Xtreme Legends...which probably won't get a physical release over here.  More than a little depressing seeing as I can't reliably download a single goddamn gig these days thanks to what I'm assuming is Playstation 4 traffic.  Still...it has Zhu Ran, so I might just have to find a way.

when I realized that there were no cloned movesets, I literally had no goddamn clue what to do, it was that shocking

Rymdkapsel is Pretty Great

When I heard about the Festive Giveaway that is going on with Playstation Mobile, I just kind of went with it not expecting a whole lot.  I haven't dipped into Playstation Mobile much for reasons I believe I've talked about before (aside from a dip to buy Tokyo Jungle Mobile) and I've more or less just been waiting for the games to be incentivized with more features build right in and such.  Still, free games is free games and the first offerings for the five-week affair were a Soccer game called Passing Time and a strange game titled Rymdkapsel.  I've learned that you won't know how to pronounce it, but you'll have a hell of a time playing it if you're anything like me.

Rymdkapsel is billed as a "meditative strategy game set in space" that "combines spatial puzzling, tower defense and base-building" at the same time, which is far more compelling than it seems at first glance.  It eases you in nicely to the mechanics of it, offering tutorials to start you off that has you build a corridor, then a generator, an extractor and so on and so on so that you're left with the basics of a base.  Then you're more or less left to do that and keep expanding until you reach out to some of the platforms that dot the space about you.  On these platforms are monoliths that you can research to some nebulous result as I've never fully researched even a one, though I assume they're useful!  I would hope so, at least, for the amount of effort that they require.

It's a precarious balance, building things and managing your space station in-between alien assaults, since you have to figure out Defense coverage, make sure you have resources readily available and actually manage your time well since waves of enemies come faster and faster as it goes along, making it become quite difficult to actually get anything done.  I have not quite mastered the balance, but I'm getting some ideas of it, especially after not playing it.  Still, it's definitely worth looking into and refining since it's basically something that...won't end until you die, I believe.  The difficulty ramps up, but if you can find some way to mitigate it with brute force, then it should be pretty well sorted to keep you going for a while.  That's what I've got to try and figure out, I think.

For the nice price of Free, it's obviously a fantastic game, but I'm pretty confident that had I spent money on it, I wouldn't be disappointed.  There's probably a couple days left in the giveaway (I think PSM updates on Wednesday) so if you haven't already, make sure to grab it up.  Space stations aren't going to build themselves, after all!

at least not yet, but you know, future

Senran Kagura Burst is...Actually Fun

My love of XSEED is no small secret, and in fact I do believe I take every opportunity to shout it from whatever perch I can find.  I also like to express this love by buying their games since, you know, that's kind of what you do in this situation.  And I have been doing just that - From Rune Factory 4 to Ragnarok Odyssey to Killer is Dead to the upcoming Ys:  Memories of Celceta (Silver Anniversary Edition) and and so on and so on, I do believe I have purchased the bulk of games XSEED has released lately, with Valhalla Knights 3 being the only exception and that's because I just haven't seen a cart version of it.  When Senran Kagura Burst was announced a while back, however...I....well, I wasn't sure.

My reasoning is pretty blatant to see:  Senran Kagura as a series is pretty blatant fanservice for little other reason than fanservice and I'm not really interested in that.  So I was fairly willing to give the game a pass, even with the knowledge that if it sold well, XSEED would look into localizing a Vita game based on the series which is something that I know that at least one employee at XSEED would absolutely love to see happen.  Admittedly that did weigh on me - I want to support XSEED and help them get more and more projects, but I also buy games for the -game- aspect most of the time, and I just wasn't sure Senran Kagura Burst had it there for me.  Though, I began to sort of -hope- that there was.

Behold my surprise when word of mouth started getting around that yes, indeed, the game portion of Burst was actually fun.  It certainly wasn't from the critical community (as of this writing, there is merely one score for the game - a 70) but just from forums here and there.  Told as a solid, lightning-fast-paced beat-em-up with an actual passable story thanks in no small part to one of the writers being from Ace Attorney 5, it seemed...well, kind of impossible!  A thing that I never would have honestly guessed was possible.  But that, along with Hatsuu from XSEED drumming up the hype machine by retweeting people who said they bought it was enough.  Mine was among some of the tweets retweeted by her as I began the long and arduous download because I was an idiot and completely forgot that the eShop is terrible and doesn't let me just buy things to download at my planned convenience instead of some random interval deemed appropriate by the "Download Later" function.

Pretty much everything I'd heard about the game is true and then some.  If you can get past the fanservice bits (of which there are a -lot-) and just enjoy the game for what it is, you'll find an old-school side-scrolling beat-em-up that has a quicker pace than most 3D Sonic games which is really tantalizing and fun for some reason.  There's even an option to make yourself -faster- through the use of Frantic Mode, which almost turns the game into a Twitch fighter more than anything else, if such a thing is even possible.  By pressing L and R at the start of a mission, your character eschews their normal outfit for the basic swimwear underneath (yes, I know, I know) which offers a ridiculous speed and power increase for an equally ridiculous defense decrease for the entire mission.  It's supposed to be extra challenging because of the poor Defense, but I'm killing things far too quickly for it to cause a problem for me, though I attribute that to being in the early chapters of the game yet.

My only issue with the game, really, is that sometimes the camera jukes and jutters to the side like it's trying to go somewhere but is hitting a wall somehow.  It's disorienting, but most of the time I don't notice it because I'm following the action, however when it happens while you're just proceeding to the right to the next combat section, it is abjectly terrible.  It doesn't do it a lot, but it does it enough times that I figured it was worth mentioning.  My other complaint is more about the system - after being so used to the Vita's wonderful screen and the TV, I find that it's hard to look at the 3DS screen for long periods of time, especially as intently as I do to keep up with the action.  Which is the only reason, you jerks.  Otherwise, it's a fun little game that I put a few hours in the last time I played it purely by accident - I merely wanted to get a couple missions in while I was waiting on something and that just never really stopped until it finally did.  A whole chapter of progression later.  So it's got something going on for it!

I barely even pay attention to the jiggling anymore which I think is a good thing, right?

Split Your Lungs with Blood and Thunder

Continuing my Halloween/Horror-themed game playing to be season-appropriate that started with Sleeping Dogs' Nightmare in North Point, I put my PS3 to the test yesterday and found out whether or not it could just...you know, download the 3.1 Gig download that is inFamous 2:  Festival of Blood, which I had purchased last year for a cheap Halloween sale but couldn't play because reasons.  Reasons that include not being able to leave my old PS3 on for the fifteen hours that was required   Reasons that have since been resolved and thankfully so, because I honestly didn't know what I was missing from my life by not having played Festival of Blood and now that I have fixed that little error, things seem that much better.  Brighter and sunnier, even.  Just nicer all around.

Much like Sleeping Dogs, inFamous 2 was just an absolute joy to play and that still holds true to this day, having gone back into it for the first time in months and picking it all back up rather easily and happily.  That means that inFamous 2's fluidity and enjoyment translate well into FoB at base, not even counting the fun little bits that FoB adds, and does it ever add a doozy.  And much like Nightmare in North Point, Festival of Blood changes things aesthetically for the most part, but leaves the bulk of the main gameplay in standard.  Your amp is replaced with a cross from a coffin that still has a bit of pointy wood left on it and that does change the animations - to finish vampires, you need to stake them with the pointy wood, obviously, and it is satisfying.  But the bulk of Cole's moves are still in play here, or at least the main suite of them - Zapping, repulsing, grenades, rockets and gliding are all present and accounted for and they're your bread and butter powers anyway.

The funny thing is that inFamous 2 got a lot of praise (from me, at least) for having the best system for freedom of movement I've played, and that's up to current standards, but Festival of Blood even manages to one-up it there.  Admittedly, it cheats a little to do this, however.  One of the first vampire powers you get (if not -the- first) is the Bat Swarm ability which allows you to turn into....well, a swam of bats and actually fly.  No gliding, no hovering or anything like that - actual sustained flight.  It's fast flight too!  You zip around the city pretty wildly with it....which is why there's a fairly drastic timer set on it.  You see, in addition to your Electricity Gauge, you have a 'blood pool' or what have you, which fuel your Vampire Powers, obviously.  Flight drains it rather quickly and you only have so much to start with, though you can collect upgrades (think blast shards, but in the form of blood jars) that extend your maximum blood pool which gives you more flight time.  It is definitely worth it to track them down (100 of 'em) once you're able to, and it's made trivial if you find glyphs that unlock your Advanced Vampire Sense, since that will point them out on the map while you're in bat form.

The only issue that I have with Festival of Blood is that...it is rather short, unfortunately.  I started it sometime around 2:30 PM this afternoon and had nearly 100% completed it in under six hours.  All I have left to do for all the trophies is completing some User Generated Content missions which will unlock what I imagine is the final power that I don't have, triggering both trophy unlocks in a single stroke.  (One for doing the required amount of UGCs, one for getting all the powers)  It was a hell of a ride while it lasted, and granted, the game is still just fun to toy around with, flying about (literally now) and such, but I only have so much time for games and far too many games for that little bit of time, so I'm afraid I'll have to be moving along as soon as I mop up the last little bit here.  I can't help but feel as if there's a little disproportionate return on it as, while I got it for cheap (I think it was honestly $3 when I bought it) it still took more than two times the length of time to download it as I'm going to put into it play-wise...which is my ISP's fault and not the fault of the game, of course.

Aside from that, one more night in inFamous 2's New Marais was an enjoyable experience all told.  I'd definitely recommend Festival of Blood if you dug inFamous 2, and if you didn't dig inFamous 2 then you just hate fun, so I don't know what to tell you.  If you're interested, it's currently $3.99 for Playstation Plus users (and will probably stay that way til November 5th, 2013) and it's definitely worth that, no questions asked.  I do however feel like I'm kind of the last person who played inFamous 2 but not Festival of Blood at this point, so it might be a bit moot anyway, but it's still always nice to put a recommendation out there.  Never know who's going to check things out, after all.  And with something as good as Festival of Blood was, you're gonna wanna make sure it's known universally.

I was just so happy when I thought of the Blood and Thunder thing, you don't even know

I Finally Started Sleeping Dogs Nightmare in North Point

It's been a while since I played Sleeping Dogs properly (admittedly, I have tossed it in here and there to re-enjoy some of its virtues), so with Halloween just around the corner, it seemed like a good time to hop into what was definitely a Halloween-themed DLC pack.  It also just seemed like a good time to play Sleeping Dogs again aside from the whole "I have 20 other games that I haven't even opened yet" thing, but, you know, small, petty details and such.  Which is also ignoring the fact that any time is a good time to play Sleeping Dogs, which is something that I alluded to in the past and still feel is true now.  And even with the different framing of Nightmare, Sleeping Dogs remains Sleeping Dogs.

Admittedly, that's both a good thing and a bad thing in some different ways.  Sleeping Dogs had one real flaw with it, and that was the story-telling aspect of it, which did not improve with Nightmare, at least not at the start.  Indeed, "tongue-in-cheek" is what I'd use to describe what Nightmare in North Point cobbles together and calls a narrative for the story framing that it uses to set itself up.  They don't attempt to sell you the premise, but instead agree with you that it's ridiculous by its own merits (because Jiang Shi, or 'Hopping Vampires' have overrun Hong Kong thanks to Big Scar Wu, aka Smiley Cat, who has escaped from the underworld) and just run with it, which isn't a bad thing.  I just wish, like Sleeping Dogs proper, it had been fleshed out more, since it seems like I'm just fetching things and running around just because.  However, that's a flaw in the narrative's structure more than anything.

You see, Nightmare in North Point is supposed to take place in a single night (or so it seems), thus you're not really expected to play the game like a sandbox game, which is really weird since it -is- a sandbox game and they put things all around the map as a Sandbox game does.  The urgency is set up to max, making you want to play each story mission after another and doing that robs you of a little enjoyment that the game can realistically offer you with the free-roaming and exploring of the city.  As stated, there's at least three types of things scattered around the city - Hell Shrines, Energy Sources and Yaoguai - that encourage you to get around, but if you follow the narrative, you're merely concerned with chasing down Big Scar Wu and putting a stop to his shennannigans.  As a result, I suppose you -could- save all the extra bits for the part after you're done with the story, which might even be 'thematic' depending on the conclusion, but I think treating a sandbox game like a completely linear experience is an exercise in frustration.

However, all the good things about Sleeping Dogs come back in aces and spades because it is still very much Sleeping Dogs at its core.  After putting some time into Grand Theft Auto V (which I have yet to sit down and really write about in any real fashion, something that will be fixed soon enough) coming into another sandbox game is different, and I find that I've had to break myself of habits that GTA V ingrained into me, but it's honestly been a breath of fresh air.  It's surprising just how many facets of Grand Theft Auto V are just out-dated and, quite frankly, bad when compared to other games of the same genre.  It has everything to do with evolution, as so many of V's mechanics are just straight-ripped from games that we played on the early days of the PS2.  We have, indeed, evolved beyond furiously tapping X to sprint faster, and we have, indeed, evolved beyond the almost non-existent amount of ownership the game allows you to have on all things that are not simply your character and their actions (i.e. material possessions, really), but you wouldn't know it, simply playing GTA V.

Doing things in Sleeping Dogs is practically refreshing with the experience in San Andreas under my belt, and I'm honestly taken back by that.  Driving is, ironically, a big complaint for just about any Grand Theft Auto game, V included, and it's just so much easier in Sleeping Dogs, even if it is a bit arcade-y I imagine.  Combat is no question - Sleeping Dogs was built around it and it shows, where Rockstar's latest barely attempted to upgrade the piss-poor system from IV.  I'm even a little partial to SD's gunplay, but that is admittedly more because of my opinion of the system in general than me feeling it 'should' be one way or another - I really just like the slow-mo John Woo stuff over 'proper' cover-based shooting because I get that enough everywhere else.  One is also reminded of SD's evolution of the 'Collectible' aspect of sandbox games in terms of "being able to unlock the goddamn locations on the map" (other games have done this too, admittedly), which is something V also failed to join us with.

Basically, the point is that I'm really enjoying Nightmare in North Point because it's more Sleeping Dogs and Sleeping Dogs is really great.  The new variety of enemies is nice - Jiang Shi and Yaoguai both fight differently than the combatants the game already sported which are still present (as possessed people and/or spirits) - and the general aesthetic adds a new flavor to the game.  I'm not sure if there's been other additions aside from a slightly altered moveset (for when you fight Jiang Shi, since slapping a paper talisman on a thug's face might not really do a whole lot) and the obvious stuff, but it feels good coming home to my favorite game of 2012 in the way that I'm doing it.  Especially since I have something else to weigh my experiences against to make my favorite game from 2012 seem all the better.

some of the stuff is pretty bad like, "All chinese magic is based on Antifreeze!" because what the fuck

Gaming By the Numbers - Rune Factory 4

As I near my natural conclusion with Rune Factory 4 (by which I mean a point where I can comfortably pick up and start Hometown Story) I started looking back on some of the stuff in the game, new stuff, returning stuff because I am honestly thinking of doing a review on it.  Or rather, I already started one, but my words just came out sort of over-the-top kissing the game's ass, so I decided to step back until I could reasonably ground myself.  One way of doing that that helps, as always, is by pushing my sleeves up and rooting around inside the mechanics of certain things.  As we all know by now, I have a fair fondness for crafting systems in games and Rune Factory 4's is by no means no exception.  In fact, for my purposes (see:  breaking the economy in the name of Capitalism) it does very well, especially with some of the improvements to the system 4 added, so I thought it best to do what I do really well.

The video above so helpfully describes the method you need to actually get to a point where you -can- craft in Rune Factory 4 and it is just as simple as the video makes it seem.  You purchase a License for whatever you're attempting to get (Cooking License, Advanced Cooking License, Chemistry, etc.) which gives you a little mini-quiz (where the point is to teach you things by making you guess) and then blam, you can buy the piece of equipment so long as you have the materials.  Then you take it home (or, honestly, wherever the hell you want) and muck about with it so you get items.  Recipes are obtained (again, as per the video) by Recipe Bread or you can just be a jerk and look up the recipes and use them instead.  (Since you can just throw things together without a recipe)  It takes a -little- extra RP depending on your skill level, but what you can and what you cannot craft are fairly easily gauged.

One of the biggest boons of Rune Factory 4's crafting system is that almost everything can be procured for free in some fashion - some items are drops, whereas others are mined objects or fish, or things of that ilk.  The only investments you generally make (beyond the crafting pieces themselves which are a small investment all-told) are the costs of seeds to grow crops for cooking recipes, or flower seeds for pharmacy recipes and those are minimal.  What this means is that profit margins are generally huge.  As in, most all of it.  To counter-balance this, a lot of lower-tier items don't have a very high retail price which means you can't craft 15 Claymores and be rolling in bank...in theory.  This is where the additions of Rune Factory 4 specifically come into play and make things a lot more tantalizing.

Quality levels of crops are nothing new to the series or even to Harvest Moon proper, but the thing is, they didn't generally affect too much beyond the price of the crop itself, and I was never sure just how much.  Since I never bothered with it since it was never a necessity really.  However, in RF4, the quality of your items really friggin' matters and it affects the price in a -huge- way.  For instance, any recipe that calls for an egg will accept any size of egg, which helps because if you take care of your Chicken monsters, they will eventually lay Medium and even Large eggs which, naturally, sell for more and more at base, not even counting the level of quality because the more affection you have with a monster, the better quality the item itself.  The size of the egg -and- the level of quality both directly have an impact on the end-price of the dish or weapon or medicine, etc. that you craft.  It's easier to just explain with an example.

Take the basic Fried Eggs recipe which is literally just an egg in the Frying Pan.  A small egg sells for 280 G at base, and the Fried Eggs dish, at base, sells for 335 G.  However, if you make it with a Level 10 large egg that sells, alone, for 960 G, well, it shoots the sell price of the dish all the way up to 1,005 G.  That's a rather large increase of what is, more or less, an item that doesn't cost you a single G unless you really pedantically add in the cost of the brush, the monster barn and fodder (which you grow multiple harvests out of a single seed -anyway-).  That's a really simple example, obviously, and the hikes only get more and more ridiculous as you go along.  Take a Cake - the recipe is Flour, Butter, Sweet Powder, Strawberry, Milk and an Egg - and just -imagine- how it works with top-of-the-line ingredients.  At base, a cake sells for 4200 G, but if you have Level 10 Butter (900 G versus 300 G), Level 6 Sweet Powder (212 G versus 170 G), Level 10 Large Milk (1000 G versus 260 G for a Small Level 1) and a Level 10 Large Egg, then it goes for 5880 G easily.

It does get even better, however.  While I did whinge a bit about the Shop System (in that it's not really a shop) the fact of the matter is that it's really damn handy.  You sell everything at above-retail price in your Shop (rather, they offer you more than retail) for some reason or another and hand-made things with high-quality ingredients go for a ridiculous mark-up.  Case in point, the 5,880 G Cake I made just got an offer of 8,518 G with absolutely no insistence or extra pushing on my part.  (You can do things to try and push the price of an item up, even, if the mark-up wasn't delicious enough.)  This is how you make your mad bank in Rune Factory 4.  The only item I paid money for in that recipe was Flour which was a paltry 320 G, and the Sweet Powder, were I to buy that (because I often do, I just made a couple to try and bump my Pharmacy up a level) would just be an extra 450 G. 

So, for a full investment of 770 G (which is the -normal- cost, since I generally buy those two items) I make 7,748 G profit and that's just one item.  That Cake costs 108 RP to make at my current level, and I have a max of 1433 RP.  That's 13 cakes for one full RP bar (technically 14 since I can make one more and take an HP hit) which means 100,724 G profit (or 108,472 G) if I wanted to go that route.  Of course, that's assuming all my Cakes sell for 8,518 on the open market and not...you know, more than that.  Even if I just sold them through my shipping bin for regular price, that'd still be 5,110 per Cake, 66,430 per 13 (or 71,540 for 14) per RP bar.  I can, of course, head to the baths and get a full RP refill for 300 G (the first time), 500 G (the second time) and so on and so on.  At no point would it definitively eat into my profits and it simply allows me to continue making madd bank so long as I have the items to make the Cakes in question.  That's not even the most cost-effective recipe, no no no.  I haven't even looked for the most cost-effective recipe yet because I don't have to.

It will not surprise you to know that I have basically run out of things to buy at this point and thus I don't really feel a need to 'grind' out crafted items for a bunch of money since I'm sitting on 150K now that I don't even need.  I mean, technically, I could build up a lot, buy material pieces (if I could find them for sale), build up more money and expand all my things over and over again (get a whole new room and another farm space, for instance) but it's unnecessary.  It's almost unfortunate.  But making a ton of fucking money, even if it's fake money in a video game, is almost always its own reward because it gives you hope that someday, somehow you get to put all this terribly nerdy logic into play in a real-world scenario and make actual mad bank.  One of these days, maybe...

of course, I would be a lot less evil in pricing and such in a real-world scenario....probably

Let's Talk About Shop-Keeping - Rune Factory 4

Back when I was in a froth of excitement for Rune Factory 4 and didn't know what to expect, I came across a list of things that was new to the series or at least this particular iteration of it.  It was all excellent stuff, but one thing stood out to me because of just how I am was the mention of the ability to run your own shop.  This is something I've been excited to do if it hasn't been obvious with my picking apart of Animal Crossing's Re-Tail system and my hopeful babbling for Hometown Story.  Because of my terrible computer, I pretty much can't play any PC game which includes the wonderful Recettear:  An Item Shop's Tale which is basically the only game I want to play as a consequence.  Hometown Story looks as if it will scratch that itch for a real, wonderful storefront simulator, plus it'll have the trappings of a Harvest Moon game that I am constantly seeking as well.

Anyway, to call what you do in Rune Factory 4 "running a shop" is....charitable.  At the very best, you're just running a Garage Sale out of a Castle which I guess lends some weight behind it for reasons, but there's absolutely no management to it.  If you'll refer to the screenshot above, do you see that little booth thing next to the overly elaborate mailbox just off-center of the top of the picture?  That is where you sell things from.  You sell things from a box in which you have placed things you specifically want to sell.  All you do is stand there while people walk up to you at a meandering pace and speak to them when they're near.  They will either say "Oh, I want to buy this for this price" which you can accept or refuse, and I have never once had someone raise their price if I refuse, say "Oh, I dunno..." which allows you to employ your business savvy of saying it's a good item or smiling vapidly (possibly other methods as the skill levels up more) to try and sway them to buy it and/or buy it at a higher price, or say "Just looking", which wastes everyone's time.

That's not to say it's bad, of course - it's not.  In fact, it's a damn fine source of money when it finally unlocks and because of that, it's only more of a reason to delve into raising your skills via crafting, forging and cooking, since you can sell everything that you make at a price that will at -least- be what you'd get for shipping it, but in most cases, more than that even.  Sometimes a lot more.  Of course, sometimes you'll only sell a 200 gold potion for 215 gold, but that's still profit (since you're almost always just gathering the materials for crafting/cooking/forging) and by using the 'Shop', you're increasing your Barter skill.  And even though you only use your Barter skill for the 'shop', it gives you stat bonuses like every other skill, so you always want to raise skills when you can always.

Much like Animal Crossing's Re-Tail, the only thing missing here is depth and that's fine.  Neither Animal Crossing nor Rune Factory 4 were built around shop-keeping and were I not completely infatuated with the concept as it was, I might suggest they veer towards superfluous territory.  Because of that, it's a given that their uses are going to be perfunctory in nature and, as stated, you can still make good use of them but it's not a 'proper' set-up.  That's ultimately what I still crave, of course, is that proper set-up and I should hope for all our sakes that Hometown Story offers that as it appears to.  I won't be done with Rune Factory 4 by next Tuesday which will make it a rather painful day (compounded by the fact that I will be purchasing Pokemon X on the same day with the express intent of playing it "sometime in a month or two") but the pain will immediately be eased by more Rune Factory 4.  Because it's quite good, if I haven't made that known enough by now.

seriously, the booth like, cuts off the top of the character's head, could they have maybe done -something- else?

Rune Factory 4 is Pretty Fantastic

It's not surprising that this game that I've been looking forward to for forever is wonderful and definitely something that I wanted and the like.  It's not surprising that I feel compelled to tell you to pick it up if the Harvest Moon bits of the game tempt you because the Rune Factory bits are better than ever.  It's not surprising that it's got its hooks into me in a way that few games do, pulling me into playing it whenever and however, constantly luring me and calling out to me, pleading with me to play while I'm doing important things like writing a blog post about how it does all these things.  What it is, however, is refreshing.  Vindicating, even.  I hoped - I knew- the game would be exactly what I wanted, and even that level of certainty does grant a little bit of relief when it turns out to be correct.  I can enjoy everything about it while also enjoying the fact that I knew I would enjoy it.

It's hard to really know where to begin, other than the beginning, which is actually easy enough to do.  Every game manages to have the protagonist have amnesia to start with and, as tired of a trope as it is, it's not shoe-horned in and it -does- manage to serve a purpose.  RF4's method is perhaps one of the more spectacular the series has seen and ends up dropping you right into the thick of things in a light-hearted way that the series seems to just ooze.  You're then prompted to introduce yourself to the cast of characters this iteration boasts who are just as crazy and fun as they've been in previous games, making it hard to pick a favorite immediately.  Of course that's not where the end of the cast is, however, as more people (including more Bachelors/Bachelorettes) start appearing as you get more and more into the game for various reasons.  The cast is filled and rounded out well, to put it mildly.

The controls have been refined to such a degree that doing just about anything is fairly easy and intuitive, making it just as enjoyable to play as it's ever been.  The "Magical L Pocket" as it's referred to in-game lets you hit the L button and bring up a menu (that thankfully stops time) to allow you to go through your Weapons, Armor, Tools and holdable Items and manage them right there without jumping into the proper Start menu.  This cuts down on the tedium of switching between the various things that you have to manage to do simple tasks.  Planting and watering seeds, for instance requires you to equip a hoe, use it, equip the seeds, plant them, equip the watering can and then water them.  Imaging doing that in a quick-swap menu (ala Animal Crossing) and it's cumbersome, but just imagine going into the Start menu proper for all that.  It wouldn't be pleasant, which makes me thankful that RF4 had that amount of forethought put into it.

Some people tend to worry that these types of games are slow-starters and that's understandable, especially after Harvest Moon:  A New Beginning.  While generally considered one of the best straight-up Harvest Moon games in a long time, it nonetheless had a first season that I've heard described from anywhere as "a really, really long tutorial" to "a slog" before it really opens up and lets you do things.  Rune Factory 4 is not like that.  It's not like that at all.  On my second day, I walked outside of town, Forte came out and was like "So hey, it's dangerous out here, want me to come along?", I went "Okay", and then we partied up and I proceeded to rail through the entire first dungeon without so much as a "woah, wait, are you sure you wanna do that".  On my second day, I cleared the entire first dungeon, boss-fight and all.  It was a good feeling.  There have been absolutely no barriers since then aside from the one I'm self-imposing because I need to stop stumbling into things until at least Summer if I don't want to beat the game's story before Fall.  And I don't.  I think.

Finally, the translation is absolutely wonderful, but that's hardly a surprise.  There's a good blend of humor spiced into things, of course, but it's not excessive nor is it cringe-worthy (as some tend to worry when 'humor' is mentioned) unless it's in a good way.  Otherwise, it's handled quite professionally and everyone has a cohesive manner of speaking that's individualized enough to give them all their own character.  Dolce talks differently than Forte who talks differently than Amber who talks differently than Nancy and so on and so forth.  Things are just as they should be, I should say, so I can't find fault at all with XSEED's handling of that portion of the game.  If anything, I have to applaud them for it, because the experience has been uniformly great on that front.  Of course, the game is uniformly great on -all- fronts, and it's engrossing as all get out.  In fact, that's mostly all of what I wanted to talk about for the game, so I'm going to get back into it now.  Because it's awesome, you see.

actually I'm going to watch this episode of Attack on Titan first, then play RF4 as the next one pre-loads because oh my god, Attack on Titan

Interior Home Design - Animal Crossing: New Leaf Edition

It occurs to me that, for all the talk I've done about Animal Crossing:  New Leaf (and it has been a lot), I haven't really spoken on the other element that's kept me driven and such in the game.  Aside from going all Recettear on my townies and shaping Kupolis directly to my whims, my main goal is to establish a house that looks baller as hell on the inside, making me quite proud to have been the decorator of it.  Or at least, it was the original goal before I discovered the rest, which means I suppose that New Leaf -does- have some rather welcome additions to it since at least the former is new and the latter is fueled by reasons that I never would have gone to such extremes over in previous incarnations.  Still, one of my main goals from early on was to earn the Golden Exterior pieces (which you can see that I got) that I may live and drown in opulence the likes of which my peasant townsfolk will never even have a taste of.

That philosophy is echoed with my main entrance room, I think.  The entire Golden Series basically lives and breathes the mentality of "Allow the chaff to feel envy that threatens to strangle them" and I couldn't love it any more for that if I tried.  The issue with getting the Golden Series furniture, however, is basically the Animal Crossing mantra: "MUST.  BE.  RANDOM."  You get a stone in your town every day that you can break with a shovel that will give you an ore, which obviously has a random chance of being Golden Ore.  You also have a random chance of getting ores from your Money Rock with a Silver Shovel which, of course, all have a chance of being Golden Ores.  For a single piece of Golden Furniture, you need three Ores which you take to the local Refurbishing Fellow Cyrus, who charges you 10,000 Bells for, wait for it....wait for it....a random piece of the Golden Series.  Sigh.

When you're aiming for specific pieces to complete the set (I'm missing the Wallpaper as you might notice) or spares to make your actual design work, it's just a mite frustrating.  Which is why my room is simply not done yet.  So, this is the point in time where I help you visualize just what it's supposed to look like for your own amusement.  The broad strokes are already there, however (which is purposely on my part) so it's not -too- difficult.  The theme for the room is going to be a Throne/Conference room that's just filthy rich and terrible and gaudy and such.  The Throne (which costs 800,000 Bells) would be nice, but it's off-center (which means I would just buy two, honestly), so I went with the Golden Bench since I can quite literally sit in the middle of it and look like a fucking boss.  Two chairs are on either side of the bench, but I want two more, another for each side, to give the illusion of, you know, set meeting spots and such.  If I could set up a table in the middle without blocking off all access to the seats, you bet your ass I would do just that, but alas, it cannot be done.

Additional goals include getting another Golden Screen, getting the Golden Bed and Clock out (probably the bench on the right side as well) and symmetrically setting up the screen on the left-hand side.  An unknown machine (that the community basically refers to as "The button" ala a nuke switch) is behind my right screen and I'd probably just put some sort of music player behind the left so I would -have- music.  As for the entrance and doors, well, I want Golden Women (the Tiki Torch thing on the left side of the door at the bottom of the picture) to line the entrance (two on each side) and Golden Wall torches to go beside each doorway.  Which....is a lot of Golden pieces.  I don't know if I'll actually ever get those pieces.  I'm hedging my bets on "No", which....is what it is, I suppose.  But that is basically what long-term goals are, anyway!  Things that will probably never happen.

On the right of my main room is the room reserved for what the astute might recognize as Christmas time.  A custom design plastered all over the wall and floor as a place-holder and a few winter-y/Christmas-y themed items to get the mood started and it's basically just waiting til December for the Christmas Series (previously known simply as the "Jingle series").  You are all likely well aware of my enjoyment of Christmas stuff by now, since you're probably good readers of my blog here, but if it wasn't blatantly obvious already, then, well, there it is.  I am an absolute whore for Christmas and this goddamn room will be Christmas as fuck when I can actually get that done.  Either when I can touch them and order them through the catalog or, as stated, when December rolls around and I buy them from the Nooklings obsessively.  I don't really know how I'm going to set it up, but it's going to happen.  And it's going to be awesome.

The room on the left is populated with the Astro Series of furniture coupled with the Industrial Wall and Floor because they're far better than the Astro Floor and Wall, especially since I have these all recolored to Red/Black instead of the original Orange/White.  The original intent was just to have a cool space room because space rooms are cool, but, well, the Astro series looks a little goofy.  Luckily, there are assorted Sci-Fi odds and ends that I can spice up the room with, as well as traditional "Lunar" objects like Asteroids, Lunar Rovers and the like.  All told, there will be a lot of machinery and such going on, and it's going to be pretty great looking.  Possibly.  I think I'm going to keep it science-y regardless, since I don't know what else I would do for that room, since I have to split my design ideas between three different houses and that's going to get a bit messy to say the least.

The Basement.....the basement is literally a mess.  I have absolutely no idea what I'm actually going to theme the room on, and I'm basically just shoving shit down there while I figure things out.  I do, however, want you to take note of the Red Box Corner Sofa at the top of the screen that's attached to the normal Green-ish Box Corner Sofa.  That's going to be important for the next room that is slightly out of order because I wanted you to see that piece first.

The Sleek Series room in behind my main room is the room that is more or less 'finished' and I'm pretty happy with the way that it looks.  The sitting area is set up nice for conversation, there's good flow, and it just looks really nice.  The only things that I dislike are the wallpaper and carpet, as you cannot customize those to match the color scheme of the custom furniture, which seems a strange oversight.  The other issue is that I have a completely empty lower right corner, which I debated on just how to fill that.  And I decided, eventually, that the best idea would be to make -more- seating because there just isn't enough, clearly.  The Box Corner Sofa above in the red leather (it's slightly lighter than the sexy red of the Sleek, but still) will be in the corner, and the appropriate Box Sofa pieces, once I acquire one to order multiple will branch off of that for a nice corner sofa for people to theoretically have their own conversation away from the main one.  Because that's neat.  It can't happen in AC, because the max is 4 people at one time, but it's design.

Finally, the second floor room is going to be my Office outfitted with the Rococo Series of furniture.  It's going to be pretty swanky, what with two sofas (where the one is, make a corner facing the back wall), the desk area in the bottom left corner, and some sort of set-up going on with the rest of it.  I'm probably keeping the Modern Tile floor with the Rococo Wall (once I put that up) since the Rococo floor looks kind of dumb.  I think I'm also going to set up the coffee equipment up in this room because what's an office without a way to get some primo coffee for those long nights of doing things?  The Mannequins will be getting the boot, clearly, and the like, so that's a good bit of space which will probably be occupied by the bed.  I basically just have to order the furniture and set it up, which is...the easiest room of all of them since the rest of the rooms, I don't quite have all the stuff just yet, nor the means to get it easily.  With any luck, I'll get stuff sorted quick enough and can do an "After" post as well which will show off all the new bits and layout.  Because, that's....that's the point.

Showing you things now and how they'll end up, that is.

it's pretty weird trying to describe furniture layout in a basic video game design

Touch My Katamari is Pretty Good

Tonight was not my first exposure to Katamari since that honor was given to the demo for Touch My Katamari around when the Vita launched.  It was a really fun demo because the core mechanics of the game are pretty solid and the demo level had some really interesting layout and music that made it rather memorable.  It was because of the demo that I went "Yeah, I'm going to buy this game at -some- point", yet that point never came until today.  Thanks to the fantastic Japanese Game Sale going on, I grabbed the game for $3.75 and I do not regret it even a little bit.  (I also bought Atelier Totori Plus as I said I would, but I don't have 3 Gigs free and I need space for the Killzone Mercenary Beta anyway)  I thought about it and realized that even though I played the demo like fifty times, I didn't really say a -lot- about it.  Yeah, I mean, I said two paragraphs about it all that time ago, but now I have the game proper and it's fresh and new (to me) so I should go a little deeper.

If you're not quite sure what a Katamari is, I have to assume that you're not really up on the niche stuff which is sort of an assumption one can make because of the whole definition of that and whatnot.  Regardless, it was a series that I knew of for a while even if I didn't play a single iteration of it until this one on the Vita.  Basically what the game is about is rolling a ball that captures things on it to make it bigger so you can roll up bigger things.  Like a snowball effect, except you're eventually rolling up cars and people and being a general menace to society by making a gigantic ball of chaos.  Some missions there's a time limit to make as big of a ball as you can, some missions there's an amount of things that you have to collect, and some missions, it's just about getting to a particular size.  Eventually, I think there's a mode where you can just roll up everything and that will be amazing if it's true and I want it, but I'm good with what I've got for now.

It is very....quirky.  Quirky isn't the right word, of course, but it's the only one I can think of without saying "Japanese" and getting all sorts of negative connotations leveled at me.  Even though you all know what I mean, you bastards.  You're the Prince under the King of All Cosmos who is in a guy in too tight tights asking you to make giant balls of things that he can eat and turn into stars.  Please, go into your own minds and think of an appropriate word for that scenario as it lays out.  Try to blame me, I dare you.  Aside from that, there's all sorts of weird animated cutscenes that go on betwixt the missions, which are presented to you by talking to people who are standing on the hat of the King of All Cosmos while also ignoring gravity.  All the missions seem to involve bettering the King in some fashion, either by making a Katamari that has a lot of sports equipment to make him get out more, or a lot of rich things to make him look better off than he is, but really, it's all about rolling a ball around and making it bigger and bigger and bigger.

That works.  It's simple and it's far more enjoyable and engrossing than you might think.  All you're doing is rolling around the Katamari and picking up things so you can pick up bigger things as stated, but there's just something -to- it.  You roll by a King Chess Piece and say "No, too big for now", yet keep it in mind as you roll up about twenty toothpicks, six coins and some batteries that have been progressively larger.  By the time you see the Chess Piece again, you barrel right on through to pick it up because you're big enough now, and thanks to that, you're big enough for something else and so on and so on.  It's that sort of driving force that doesn't make it quite strategic, but distinctly gives the game structure that allows you to play around within those admittedly expansive confines.  Structure that you will eventually roll over to bring into your latest Katamari that will be as large as the day is long, and make a rather impressive star that burns twice as bright.

As stated, there's a demo of the game on the Playstation Store and while the game is $3.75 (only until the store updates on Tuesday) you should give it a shot.  Worst that will happen is the charm, the music (which is fantastic) and the game itself will fail to grab you and you won't spent less than four bucks on something.  Or, depending on your outlook, you'll love it and have to spend less than four bucks on it which is not that big of an issue either.  Basically I'm just saying that there's very little to be lost and potentially a lot to be gained here.  It's not a particularly big game, but it offers a lot of replayability once new modes open up and give you new incentive to try out the previous stages again.  And again, it's less than four bucks for a few more days.  I feel I have to stress that, while also reminding you that there are other games in the Japanese Game Sale that you should also buy like Soul Sacrifice which you should buy because I'm telling you to buy Soul Sacrifice.  Subtly.  Subliminal messaging.

roll up allll of the things!

Virtue's Last Reward is Sooooo Good

After playing a bit of Kisuke's story in Muramasa: Rebirth and deciding I just really don't like Chaos mode because block and attack being bound to the same button but needing a significantly longer hold for the former isn't particularly.....good, I decided it was time to finally play something that's been on my Vita for a good amount of time now.  I've had Zero Escape:  Virtue's Last Reward ever since the night it was made available to US Playstation Plus members and have not so much as opened up to the LiveArea of it, much to my own chagrin.  Too many other games to play.  Too many other things to do.  There was just too much going on before I could delve into the world of Virtue's Last Reward, which I knew would swallow up a good few days or closer to a week of my time.  But with Hotline Miami beaten, my desire to go back to Disgaea 3 with the knowledge that 4 is getting a long-awaited Vita port (and no doubt a localization sometime next year) shaken and my patience with Muramasa at a low-point, today was the perfect day to get into it.

Well, maybe not perfect.  After all, Dynasty Warriors 8 and Shin Megami Tensei IV, both of which I have on pre-order, will drop a mere two days from now and I'll be picking them up then.  I won't be able to play DW8 right away, but I will be sorely tempted to delve into SMT IV for curiosity's sake.  Regardless, sometime soon-ish, Rune Factory 4 will be a game in my possession and thereafter, I will not have what everyone calls "Free time" because my Free time will transmogrify into "Rune Factory time", so I sort of needed to get on this sooner rather than later.  In any case, I'm absolutely ecstatic that I did get on it, because if you couldn't tell, I think it is quite excellent from the short clip of it that I played.

I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be laughing with the game, considering the dire context of it - The Nonary Game, a game tied implicitly with death - but I simply cannot help myself.  I have no idea if Aksys meant to have done such a humorous localization with Zero III, the above bunny rabbit thing you see, nor do I know if Cindy Robinson was instructed to put as much....character into Zero III, but I'm erring on the side of believing they did.  Simply because it's so well done that I cannot help but think it was intentional.  Zero III simply revels in delight at the plight of our band of nine and the task of running the Nonary Game: Ambidex Edition that Virtue's Last Reward revolves around.  While I'm not far enough into it to give you an approximation of its worth in terms of impressions, I'm not overstating anything when I say it was worth the download for Zero III's dialogue alone.

It does seem to play a lot like 999, in terms of having puzzle sections and then story sections and switching between them, which is quite welcome.  The puzzles so far are clever - nothing that's made me go "Fuck it, I'm reading a wiki", even though I've gotten close, which I believe is pretty much the best it can be.  The story so far hasn't really gone places aside from wonderful things with Zero III as mentioned (And Dio, who is voiced by Liam O'Brien which is always welcome), or at least not in a way I can speculate off of, but as stated, I'm in it early.  I do miss 999 a little bit in that nobody really has a....well, a pronounced personality thus far, whereas in 999, you could tell what was going on in the very intro scene of the game when everyone was collected together.  Also 999's character designs are miles better than VLR's, but that's a little thing in the long run, I suppose.

Still, I'm thoroughly enjoying the game and I'm glad I finally found a bit of time for it since it's been sitting on my Memory Stick for a while now, just waiting for me.  If you haven't grabbed it yet, it's not going to be there for too much longer (if it's not gone already), so I definitely -do- urge you to grab it.  However, if you have access to a DS, even of the 3DS variety, do yourself a favor and track down a copy of 999 to enjoy, because it's quite a good game.  This all does remind me that I never did finish my "Explaining 999's Best Ending" series of posts (which I would advise you to not pursue unless you've played it already) which is something that I -will- rectify eventually.  Promise.

Zero III really is just so good

I Finally Get Muramasa Rebirth

I picked up the Muramasa Rebirth Collector's Edition last week when it released and it wasn't until some point earlier this week that I actually gave it a little play, mostly because good lord, I have so many games and Animal Crossing:  New Leaf requires about an hour a day at least and I want all of the bells to have the best house as well as, you know, things around town.  Like a Cafe'.  Though I have been tired a lot lately and it has, of course, impacted my ability to enjoy things so when I looked at Muramasa's LiveArea screen, I told myself, "I am too tired, I'm not going to like it because of that and it's going to make me all negative about it" but I tried it anyway.  And I was correct - I was simply too tired and grumpy to actually enjoy the game, given that I haven't actually played it before and knew absolutely nothing of it in the broad sense.  A couple save points in, I saved, quit and switched to something else - I forget what.

Despite that, I've steadily been putting time into the game more and more, tiny clips at a time, and it began growing on me.  I had hoped it would because I really wanted to like Muramasa Rebirth, even if I doubted I would love it with a fervor that someone else has.  It looked like something that would scratch all the right itches from the combat to the art and to the animations, and I can say with certainty that it does not disappoint.  That is definitely a relief, though it was only through my tiredness that I suspected otherwise and to be fair, when I'm tired/grumpy, I might find something like REVENGEANCE annoying, which is....well, it's saying something since you all know I love me some REVENGEANCE.

The thing that threw me off initially was the difficulty of the game, or rather the lack thereof.  Granted, I was starting from the beginning and using the "easy" difficulty so I could get used to it, but I expected....something to be able to hit me or cause me some form of issue or problem.  Yet every battle ended with "Flawless Victory" bonuses among others and I quickly began to wonder at that.  It wasn't until later that I realized that that is, indeed, the point in making it feasible to end every battle without getting hit because the most difficult setting of the game requires that.  It sounds daunting at first, and indeed likely is, but knowing that makes the combat feel better to me as a base.  Of course, getting more and more used to the combat system after that point or perhaps because of it helped the transition as well.  As did getting some rather sweet weapons and learning to eschew long swords even though I want to get my Kojiro on.

Played correctly, the moment the "!" goes off-screen, Momohime turns into an ineffable whirlwind of steel and destruction for approximately 5-15 seconds before everything that stood as a challenge is slain and the comforting "Shink!" of a blade being sheathed is heard.  It's wonderful in so many different ways that I simply cannot find a way to properly describe.  Yet, that's not the true beauty of the combat system for me.  The true beauty sets in when you find yourself in a boss fight, where the goal is to be that same whirlwind of death, but with a time limit that is considerably longer, in a sense, and thus makes it all the more impressive in motion and feel.  Juggling a lone samurai on a beachside in such a way that he doesn't get to do much before half his life is gone?  Satisfying.  Utterly, utterly satisfying.  There's frankly not many other words or descriptors that I could use for it here.

Something I do find odd, however, and it's the only thing really, is that I don't care one lick about the story that is in the game itself, since that story is generally impeding my ability to cut things up which annoys me because I just want to get to the cutty parts because they are so good.  That is not....how I usually operate.  Perhaps it's because my first dip into the story was through a tired haze, but I read yet don't manage to retain the story as it comes up, simply looking forward to the next boss, the next sword upgrade, the next batch of swords I can technically forge.  A demon dude possessed a girl and is being followed by a jerk-ass monk while the demon looks for a sword that'll let him pick a better body is what I'm getting from my basic perusal of the story and that's.....well, a story.  It's a thing.  Somebody tell me why I don't just decapitate the monk while he just sort of stands there and taunts me?  Anyone?

I need alllllll of the swords

The Fall of the Arisen

"Master, please don't!"

I heard the voice, but I couldn't place an identity to it.  Regardless, I paid it no heed.  My hand was already gripping tightly the hilt of my new sword and yanking it from its sheathe, perhaps a little faster than I meant.  I missed the heft of my old broadsword, I admit, but what this new blade lacked in density, it more than made up for it in sharpness and speed, impressing even me with the ease that it felled our recent foes.  For that alone, there was no chance that I would not turn this opportunity down, this chance to test my new weapon on an old foe.  Perhaps it was misplaced anger, but since that night that neither I nor my companions spoke of, I found that I could not control my rage when presented with an Ogre.  Seeing one now in the bright light of day, of the wide open space that this cliff-side offered us, it was my chance to slay yet another of them, if only to sate my own irrational distaste.

My feet were running long before I intended to and my blade was already thrust outward - I found myself standing next to my quarry with sword hilt-deep within its thigh before I knew what was happening, allowing me only a moment to pull back as it lurched in surprise and anger.  It wheeled on us in a hurry, growling and announcing its displeasure, but I simply didn't pay attention - I was much more focused on my sword as it re-entered the flesh of the beast again and again.  A frown drew across my face as I realized that it rent flesh from muscle and bone on this creature just as well as my broadsword did, or at least the improvements seemed minimal at best here.  Though this was not, of course, its most sensitive area to strike.  Only then, after realizing that much did I look up, did the voices of my partners start ringing in my ears loudly once more.  Only then did I feel a tinge of regret for my decision.

"They hold the advantage!  We must flee!"

'They' was the operative word, indeed.  I know not how, nor where a second Ogre appeared, but there it was before my eyes, real as the sky was yet blue.  My resolve weakened for but a moment before I gripped harder, set my jaw and grinned a grim smile.

I laughed.  I'm not sure why, really, given the context.

"Bring them all on!  We'll slay the lot of them if we must!"  My boast was near-hollow as I truly worried for our chances with the second Ogre, but as leader, I had to put up a strong front, I suppose.  Or perhaps I simply had to talk myself into it, into the realization that two of them were no match for us, seasoned as we were now.  Though the situation had changed, my desires had not, which I swiftly expressed through another slash at the ankle of the Ogre I fought before my feet left the ground and my hands sought purchase of its flesh.  As I had time and time before, I climbed my way up the creature as I heard the clashing and the clatter of my teammates fighting as well, feeling relieved that they were yet by my side even though my attentions had not been on them for some time.  My hand reeled back and I stabbed forth just as I heard Zero grunt with a similar attack below.  Our coordination sent him back in step, but my assault did not halt until I fell the strength leave my left arm and I toppled to the ground below, shaking my weary appendage to breath life back into it.

It was....a strange battle, to say the least.  I'm not sure how, but we had seemed to communicate a team effort between the four of us, with Zero and I taking one Ogre and Yoko and Aya taking the other on for a time.  After a series of particularly rough hits, I saw Yoko collapse to the ground and rushed to her side once more, finding myself able to bring color back to her cheeks and even life back to her bones.  It had something to do with the connection between Arisen and Pawns, I was sure, but that was where my assumptions ended, unable to surmise anything else about the phenomenon as it occurred.  We both had to roll away as one of the Ogres charged forth and I found myself then teamed with Aya and Zero teamed with Yoko for a time.  Our combat experience seemed to be paying off, as our efforts spoke of a trained unit and not of a mob which surprised me to no end.

I was the one to break rank first, however, as I saw Zero grabbed up in the large hand of the beast she fought, who then began to run off to do nothing I cared to think of.  I gave chase and counted myself and Zero lucky as it stopped and stood straight to gaze over its 'prize' in my companion held firmly in hand.  We were lucky, because it presented an opportunity that I capitalized on, leaping onto its back and climbing around to slash down with the express purpose of separating arm from body.  I failed in my task, unfortunately, but Zero found air in her lungs and ground beneath her once more with energy to spare in battle.  She let out a loud shout as her sword, my old sword, lurched back and struck forward, sinking in deeply to the bone of its knee, causing it to stagger back and even fall to the ground.  I moved swiftly as it fell and found myself level with the top of its head as it was dazed from the fall.  It was simple.

Much as Zero had, I found myself bringing my sword back for a strong thrust forward, sinking my blade deep into the skull, into the brain of our conquest, killing it utterly and completely in one decisive blow.  It had been showing wear, but I shuddered to think of the idea that such a blow would not have been deadly otherwise.  There was no time to rest, however, as the second Ogre was in a frenzy and I turned just in time to see Aya knocked through the air as if she weighed nothing, toppling to the ground with a thud and rolling before finally coming to an all-too-still stop.  While I still did not understand the link I had with these beings, I was thankful that a mere touch awoke them from what would be a deathly slumber otherwise as not only Aya, but Yoko again lay in crumpled heaps on the ground in the wake of the frenzied creature they fought.

I knew it was time to end this, and that simple thought surged through my mind, propelling my tired body forward towards the back of the beast that yet roared and fit, perhaps at the death of its companion or perhaps at its own wounds.  When my blade sank into its back, into its flesh, my thoughts went away as I cared not for its being, its reasoning, but only of its death. 

I was not prepared for how swiftly, nor how strangely, my desire would be met.

The beast lowered itself to all fours which brought vivid flashbacks to my mind of that night in the mines, but I did not get a chance to relive them as it charged forth towards the cliff-face that our battle had precariously took place near the precipice of.  My eyes widened in....surprise, fright, I don't know what, as we drew nearer and nearer.  My sword slashed viciously at the back, the spine of the beast I could not seem to let go of, trying merely to steer it off to the side or stop it altogether.  I knew what was coming, yet perhaps I didn't truly understand it, but then again, what happened was something that is perhaps simply not understandable in the first place.

I'm not sure what is supposed to flash through one's mind when they understand that death is not but a minute away.  For when there was no longer earth beneath the feet, the paws of the Ogre I rode, that is what I realized in an instant.

I was going to die.

I, the Arisen, the supposed hero of the land could see only water below myself and the creature.  Water that we were falling towards at an alarming speed.  Water that I knew held a creature, the 'Brine', would be the cause of my death all the same as it was the death of thousands of others who braved the seas, the oceans of the lands, perhaps foolishly in knowing such a beast existed.  I had seen the beast's handiwork up close when I kicked a goblin off of my sword, launching him into the sea only to witness as a pillar of blood erupted from the depths not a moment later.  It was....terrifying.  Because of this damned creature, that was to be my fate as well.

I suppose it would have been grander if my last visions of this world were of the expansive vista I could overlook from the sky that I was falling through, but my battlelust saw fit to ensure the thing I saw before my death was the demise of my foe.  I'm not sure if the repeated stabs I managed actually finished the Ogre off, but it was a way to vent the frustration I felt in the final moments of my life, in the final moments before our freefall came to a stop.  Though it came to a stop with a lot less of a splash than I anticipated and more of a bone-crushing impact that was thankfully cushioned by the newly-dead Ogre I found myself laying atop.  I stood, frantically looking around to let loose a cackle that surely sounded mad.  We had managed to land on a narrow bank of the massive, deep river that was no more than a foot away from my feet where they stood.  I hurried onto the land as the Ogre was drawn in and disappeared before my very eyes and did not look back as I ran along the narrow earth for I saw a shore and I was going to get to it.  My breath hitched and as my feet stepped in the solid sands of land that offered security from the depths, I allowed myself a reprieve, bending at the waist, hands to my knees as I wanted to laugh, to cry, to retch all at the same time.

I was alive.

I rode on the back of an Ogre as we fell through the air - a distance that I could only squint to see the top of now, it was that far - and managed to survive.  A chuckle escaped my lips after a gasp of breath that was as soothing as the hand that touched my shoulder just then.  I turned to look, expecting the face of Zero, but found that it was Yoko instead and as I straightened and turned fully, I saw only her.  There was a grimness to her eyes that made my question moot, but it had to be asked.  It had to be breathed, to exist, to be communicated that we both knew why it was stated.

"Where's Zero?  And Aya?"

When she said nothing purely because she did not have to say anything, anguish crippled my form and my face dropped into my hands.  Flashes of things I had seen but not registered finally seared into my brain now.  I had looked up during my descent and had seen my three companions similarly falling, though I could not, even now, assume to know why.  Nor how Yoko had survived it as had I.  The Mage spoke now, but I didn't hear it, at least not until her voice was firm, attempting to stem my despair.

"Sir...fallen pawns can be recovered at a Riftstone."

My eyes shot up to hers which seemed to hold confusion in my emotions, but in truth it was my turn then to be confused.  She spoke as if it was nothing, as if their lives were nothing.  I didn't believe her, simply, but I remembered all the times I breathed life into these beings simply by picking them up off of the ground and my doubt wavered.  I allowed myself to hope as we left the beach we had stumbled upon and headed straight for Gran Soren, to the Guild where many Pawns had congregated, had come together for the arrival of the Arisen.  To the Guild that was built around a Riftstone that I had every intention of getting to and nothing was going to stop me.  We made record time, I'm sure and as I saw the odd rock, I almost couldn't approach it.  No, I almost dared not to, fearing the worst.  Still, I drew near to the Riftstone and placed my hand upon it, causing a bright light to shine not only from the stone, but to my left.

I turned to see a form I knew all too well emerge from the light.  With something of a meek wave and a smile, Zero had appeared before my eyes once more, alive as could be.  The rush of emotions surged through me anew and I could not help myself.

I struck her.

She seemed genuinely confused as she straightened from the punch across her face I'd delivered, but that expression melted into one of understanding under my withering gaze.

"Of all the stupid things you could do...", I began, but could not muster the effort to complete the thought.  Nor did I have to as she looked down, understanding the level of disappointment I held in her lack of worth for her own life.  My hand pressed to the Riftstone again and moments later Aya reappeared as well, though I spared her the attack, merely expressing the same amount of disappointment to her in a steeled glare.  All three of the women I had surrounded myself with, entrusted my life with and protected in our travels were back together again.  Our party was complete once more, just that easily.

Yet I made it obvious as I left that I wanted nothing at all to do with them for the time being.