Just updating with some pros and cons today.

Pros:
-Depth of menu options. Some things are listed in a couple different places when appropriate.
-Nice checklist notebook that lets you see what you are missing. It would be nice if they showed you where or how to get the item, something that could be turned on and off.
-Command board that allows you to level up
-Multiplayer! I haven’t used it yet, there are some shotlocks that are only available though multiplayer
-Expanding the possibilities and storyline of Kingdom Hearts, and so far, not making it worse.
-Extensive command list
-The keyblade graveyard. Something that seemed so rare in the first game, and there are thousands upon thousands of them just abandoned. I would hope that the keyblade wars could get a full game on a console like ps3 or 360, with multiplayer and single player campaigns. Though we know roughly how that would end, I’m sure there is still a story to be told there, and maybe some heavy foreshadowing that connects to the games they have made and maybe more games to come.

Cons:
-Any special states like spellweaver and d-links are lost in menu and transitioning between areas. Areas are necessarily big enough to make this seem a little unfair.
-Command boards: there are a lot of them and in essence have no real connection to the rest of the game. Suddenly, it’s Mario Party. And Cinderella beat the crap out of me.
-Command list could be shortened to dedicate more resources to other parts of the game.
-Some areas feel unnecessary, like the town near Thebes @ Olympus.
-A big clunky game that lags and grinds (but it looks so pretty doing it.)

SPOILERS!

Birth by Sleep is exciting and engaging to play. Being the chronological first game of the series, there is a lot to be expected from the story. Why are there keyblades? How are the wielders exactly picked? Did there used to be more, or less keyblade wielders. I think we all remember how exciting it was when Mickey showed up with a keyblade.

Little Sora and little Riku were in the opening of the game, we see them gazing at a falling star that is seemingly Ventus. And, Ventus’s clothing looks something like a mix of Sora and Roxas’s. Unfortunately, I have discovered no more information on that path. We also see all three of the characters at the crossroads that Sora later reaches. Again, nothing on that note. However, one of my favorite moments from KHI, when Kairi’s grandmother tells the story about light, is retold in this game. We even get to see little princess Kairi, whom we help protect with Mickey. The grandmothers story is more accurate than one may have thought. The people fighting over the light were keyblade wielders, according to Xemnas’ account.

I’ve enjoyed going to older Disney movies like Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, and even seeing a younger Hercules. There’s been a character from every world to d-link with, and though rarely used I think snow white may be my favorite. Her d-link powers are named after the dwarves. 

I’m a little concerned about playing through this twice more, and wondering how much will really be added to the story each time. Aqua is trailing the other two, so I think I’m glad that I picked her first. I don’t know much about the story, and neither does she. Always trying to track them down keeps this first segment exciting, and I am interested to learn why they went the places they did, and to hear these stories first hand to see what really happened. Also, with all these early details revealed, I’m excited to play the original game next to see how everything matches up.

I have played through Land of Departure, Dwarf Woodlands, Castle of Dreams, Enchanted Dominion, Radiant Garden, Disney Town, Olympus Coliseum, And Deep Space with my first Character, Aqua. I’m currently level 22 with 63hp. I’ve been a little obsessed with melding, so I’m constantly leveling commands. It’s great when I’m wandering around, but when it comes time to take on a boss I often die before I remember I need to change my deck. As a Kingdom Hearts fan, I was a little nervous at the talk of decks. It’s a good way to blend the horrible system from Chain of Memories with the action of the original Kingdom Hearts.

There are certainly a lot of ways to attack. I’m trying to keep everything evenly leveled. I only have one of two hearts for most of the d-links, though. I was trying to conserve commands at first, which really slowed things down. I think it’s best to go full tilt with the commands, then use attacks when they are recharging. I have five of the special modes, Diamond Dust, Firestorm, Thundercharge, Spellweaver and Bladestorm. Despite each being good for different enemies, I like Bladestorm the best. The reach is unparalleled, and especially for a mage-type character. The potions sort of seem useless, but they be more beneficial for the other characters.

I think I will spend some time backtracking to collect things I may have missed. I haven’t visited the Mirage Arena either. I like the collection pages to keep track of what I need, but the sticker book…. the sticker book I could do without. Hopefully there will be a nice prize when it is completed.

Day One:
I started Birth By Sleep last night, on Critical difficulty, which may have been a mistake. The game has an install feature, which I have never seen before on PSP. (I would have loved an install feature on Midnight Club LA.) There were three choices for how much to install to the memory card, the biggest being around 600mb. The load times have been very short, but I don’t know how long they would be without it either. I tried not to look up to much information about the game before I started playing, even though it has been out in Japan for quite a while. I watched the opening cut scene for the first time, and it was remarkable. I was surprised to see how smooth and detailed the images were. I have never seen any cut scenes like in on a PSP before. The quality also made me yearn for a Kingdom Hearts game on a current console.

I chose to play the first segment of the game as Aqua, because she was the character I was least interested in. I’m not much of a mage, but I figured this would keep me excited to play the other characters. I think it has been a little to my disadvantage. I might have liked a player with stronger attacks in the beginning so it would be easier to learn the basics of the game. However, not being able to breeze thorough will likely help me dominate with Terra and Ventus later.

Because I did not respect the difficulty of critical mode, I have already died about 15 times. Yep. 15. I really like to just run headstrong into the game, and was defeated by some measly little Heartless (or Unversed, I guess).

I like the D-link ability, especially because I can briefly embody fighting styles more comfortable for me. Since I don’t have a cure spell, d-linking is a great way to heal mid fight. I also like that the spells, or commands, are time based. I don’t fully understand how the spell caster and thunderbolt specials are triggered, but I like having enriched powers.

I have a lot of meaningless leveling up to do in order to stay somewhat matched with enemies, which is a little disappointing. I’m sure this would not be the case on easy mode, and I’m not to upset. I thought about restarting, but I’m enjoying the game so much that I don’t mind. The menus and options are a little complex, but I think that is something I will appreciate as I continue the game.

In the attempt to collect all my digital identities, I came across this blog again. I thought I would just delete it, but I read the last post and felt I should keep it going. I’m still at Gamestop, but in a different store much closer to home. I still want a different job, but still can’t decide exactly what I should do. So in a lot of ways, I’m in the exact same place. That doesn’t mean nothing has changed. I’m married and have a house now. The home is more of a responsibility than I could have imagined, and like many people will say a marriage is more of a change than you can imagine, not due to lack of preparation but somethings you just don’t see coming, or even if you did see them your spouse didn’t. But all that said, I am trying to organize my life so I can more cohesively move forward, and this blog is one of the more delightful discoveries.

I didn’t realize how many little accounts I have floating out in the web. I’m trying to create one profile for everything, I only wish there was one site that you could use to access everything. Sort of like Mint.com does for your finances, one site that you could enter all your accounts into so you could log into that one site and see all of your other accounts. I’m sure that is a lot easier said than done, especially given the growing complexity of sites like facebook. My phone features Motoblur, which sort of does this digital simplifying. It can manage most email accounts, as well as Myspace, Facebook, Google, last.fm, Twitter, Picasa, Photobucket and corporate sync, whatever that is. I found this page through Picasa, which apparently saved the photos I posted. I always feel a little uneasy about companies constantly merging and absorbing each other, only because we won’t have many choices as it continues, but it’s sort of nice in this case. Maybe the solution to these digital identities is that soon enough, there will only be a few separate companies with multiple affiliates so it won’t be difficult to manage at all.

Another nice thing about Motoblur is that you can easily view the location of your phone online. It won’t help you find it in your house, but if you left it in a store or in someone’s car, you could get a good idea of where it was. It’s a feature you can turn off too if you don’t like the possible invasion of privacy. I guess with gps on many phones now, this feature is maybe more available than I realize.

Anyways, hopefully I will keep writing updates here, and set myself back on the tracks I laid nearly two years ago.

So, I bought Monopoly for the 360 the other day, assuming that of course, a board game that can accommodate up to 8 players would certainly have online play.

I was wrong.

Maybe there is some sort of licensing that I’m unfamiliar with that doesn’t allow online multiplay. Maybe there is some good reason that they would leave this feature out of the game. I can’t fathom what that might be. The rest of the game isn’t that awful, except for the Monopoly guy following you around the board on every turn, and menus devoid of worthwhile options, and lacking in game options or player status information…
Alright the whole thing kinda sucks. But you can play on a lot of different boards, and it has achievements. That’s about it though.

Between Guilty Gear and My Japanese Coach, I managed to completely forget about Midnight Club and Guitar Hero. Additionally, I bought some used games, like GG Dust Strikers and Super Collapse for DS. I’ve got so much gaming to do; I hardly know where to start. I’ve officially banned myself from purchasing anything outside of pre-orders, but such bans are easily broken. Buying a GameCube certainly didn’t help. Right now, at GameStop, you can get one for $40, which includes an extra controller, two $10 games and a memory card. It’s like getting the game, controller, and a memory card free. After I bought that, of course I needed the gameboy player, and of course I needed a game like Croc to go on it… So there’s been a lot of reckless spending on my part. Somewhere in there I rented Devil May Cry, which was fantastic even though I had it on super easy mode like the slacker I am.

Hopefully I’ll have more reviews up here since I will be busy playing and working. The Japanese coach is off to a great start. I was placed in level 11, but they were still explaining SOV sentence structure to me. Super Collapse for DS is great, even with it’s thoroughly unnecessary quest mode. I like having the ability to use bombs whenever I want. Unfortunately it seems to be a requirement for far too many levels.

I was told today that Final Fantasy 2 and 3 both suck a little and I should skip them since there’s a lot of FF ahead. But, I want to go through them all naturally…. well, naturally as they were released in japan, anyways.

This month, I have Final Fantasy 2 and 3, Guilty Gear on DS, PSP and 360, Super Collapse on DS, Japanese Coach on DS, Midnight Club and Guitar Hero on 360 and miscellaneous GameCube games all waiting to be played, and not much time to play them, let alone keep up with this blog. Is it possible that I finally have too many games?

… nah

I’ve finally gotten around to playing Rockband2, and I’m surprised by how much I like it. I haven’t played drums or bass yet and have only played with two people so far (I’m waiting on the guitar hero band kit).

Song Selection
In every set there’s been at least one song that excited me. I can proudly admit that one of them was Livin’ on a Prayer, because that’s karaoke GOLD. Equally, there have been a couple that I hated, but that’s good diversity, I imagine.

World Tour Mode
This is all I’ve done so far, and I like the way it’s organized. It’s not at linear as guitar Hero (I never played the first rock band, so I don’t know how it compares). I like the option to jump all over the continent playing different shows, but I suppose that’s a little unrealistic. You seem to have more options regarding your tour: who to hire (which reminds me of the crew in Need For Speed Carbon) whether or to play for certain bonuses.

Gameplay
My favorite feature of the game play is the star rating filling up on screen while you play. In Guitar Hero it was a bit of a crap shoot; you didn’t know your star rating until you finished. I also like the separated solo sections within songs and the solo rating. The ability to save a band member is also nice, and better than the star power option in Guitar Hero. Again, these might be features from the first Rockband which I didn’t play.

Details
The character options aren’t stellar, but they are present. Making a rocker that looks like you, or the rock star you wish to be is better than picking one of Guitar Hero’s generics. As I continue to play, it seems that more customization options will become available through clothing and accessories.

I’ll keep doing the tour mode before investigating anything else, but you can color me impressed so far. The plan for tonight is to download some songs, which I believe I can incorporate into my tour set lists.

First Impressions take place in the first hour of playing a game. These list the excitement (or disappointments) felt initially. It’s like unboxing, but with gameplay instead. Ungaming? That doesn’t sound right…

I’m sure these dungeons are exciting for those who have already played Final Fantasy, but I’ve got a goal in mind. I’m not trying to blaze through all the games, but I am trying to finish them all. Therefore, I don’t want to take a lot of time fighting in unnecessary caves. So, the guy who says “chaos shrine…” who I thought was part of the final boss adventure is in fact superfluous.

The last time this happened to me was in the underwater shrine. I was fighting some pretty hard battles, only to realize that I didn’t need to be there at all. When I got back on track with the story, the bosses and enemies were *very* easy. Similarly, the last boss I beat before going to the Chaos shrine was easy, but then the shrine was difficult.

It’s nice that they include these areas, but it’s not so great that they seem to be integrated into the game in a way that suggests the are part of the main quest. For those like myself that have never played the game before, it would be nice if the side quests were more obscure. Now my party is excessively leveled into the 50s…

The original story can be found here.

Basically, one of the writers posed as an uncle wanting to buy a game system for his 15 year old nephew. He called 100 stores across America to see what the general public is told by game store employees. He only called Game Crazy, Play N Trade and GameStop stores.

A distinct majority suggested XBOX 360, with only GameStop employees suggesting the Wii. The other significant responses were Xbox 360/PS3 and PS3. The age of the child, and his gender, certainly guided the responses. The common demographic for Xbox 360 is young males (older males for PS3 and everyone else for Wii (women, young children, older people)).

When people come into my workplace and want to know what to buy, I ask them a lot of questions. Today someone was looking for a game for a girl, and I immediately suggested the Imagine series and Hannah Montana; I was stereotyping all the way. But the woman said she liked action/ adventure games like Jak and Daxter. That’s not girly, but it’s also not overly violent either. Since she was looking for a DS game I suggested Lego Star Wars instead.

The gaming industry is like a very popular secret to many. They know it’s out there, they see people buying it and using it, but they just don’t understand what the appeal is. The other day I explained to my dad that a gamer is like a reader or a movie-goer. Games are (usually) long like books but visual like movies. Some people keep all their games and others sell them after they play them – same as people who watch movies or read books. Some people just rent them, some share them with a network of friends. After I told him that, I could tell that he, an avid reader and movie fan, understood what gaming was about in a way he missed before. Though it’s a huge multi-billion dollar industry, there are MANY people who just don’t get it. Seeing the direction they are lead in the Kotaku survey is a telling indication of how the other half lives.