Niahak's Place

I don’t usually post about this sort of thing, but we were apparently hit with Thor’s hammer Mjollnir pretty hard this week.  The temperature dropped severely since and it is now freezing.  My prediction is that with a few more weeks of this, the only individuals still hanging on to life in this forsaken frozen desert will be the most stubborn of Math professors (and they can be pretty stubborn!).

To explain: Tuesday, it was 70 degrees and raining.  Lovely weather if you like warm rain.  Said rain was preceded by an hour-long violent storm, lots of wind, rain, and thunder.  The kind of thing you just don’t see very often unless you live in Japan (and one reason why their $5 umbrellas are better than $20 ones here).  Wednesday morning it was freezing outside.  Maybe literally, I don’t know – but yesterday it was actually snowing.  Going from 70+, near-summer weather to sub-freezing temperatures is something I could only expect from Indiana.  Why am I staying here after graduation again?

To avoid the weather I’ve been playing too many video games as usual.  I got Puzzle Quest (DS) in the mail on Monday.  It doesn’t surprise me that this was the biggest-selling game at the end of March.  I’m playing it occasionally, trying to make the depth of the game last longer.  My roommates, meanwhile, have been borrowing the game and using the second save file.  I know one person who’s even considering buying a DS just for Puzzle Quest.  You have to give the game a try at least once.

I also am a bit into Suikoden V.  I really should’ve done a new game plus, but no helping it now.  The challenge is nicer without, but if I remember right you can run faster in a new game plus.   I’d forgotten just how slow this game runs.  Both in the early parts of the game, where 6 hours of story interrupt 1 hour of gameplay, and in general, when there’s a loading screen for each new area and battles take 5+ seconds to start.  The graphics aren’t even that impressive, so I’m wondering just how the heck they’re managing to make it load so inefficiently.  It’s still a fun game, but… seriously, I hope Konami makes Suikoden VI load as fast as the early Suikodens.  S3 is much better in terms of load times than V, and it doesn’t look a whole lot worse.

Leaving for Spring Break tomorrow.  Hopefully I’ll have time to do a bit more relaxing before graduating time.

I finished up Suikoden 3 late last night.  I was thinking that this time around it wouldn’t be as good but something about that game always seems to make it come together at the end.  The extra chapters you get for recruiting all 108 stars make the story that much deeper, and I’m planning to play through them all the way (not like it’ll take that long).

Skipping Suikoden 4.  I tried replaying it several months ago and was only disappointed.  I may try Suikoden Tactics eventually, but for now I’m planning on Suikoden V, then… I don’t know.  I had an idea but lost it.  Ah well, I’ll remember eventually.

I also received Puzzle Quest DS in the mail today.  From my playing so far, it’s essentially the PC version, but they cut down on space and animation quality.  It’s not as luxurious as the PC version, and doesn’t sound quite as nice, but it’s the same gameplay.  I’ll probably be addicted to it for a while.  It’ll be nice to have a DS game that I can play for hours on end.  Phoenix Wright is great, but I don’t see much replay value, same with Trauma Center (cripplingly hard).  Mario Kart DS cramps my hands to play for more than an hour, Rocket Slime becomes repetitive, and Brain Training is… well… Brain Training.  Puzzle Quest should give me that long-term enjoyment I usually only get out of a console.

Also, James has been restored at SoSZ.  Apparently the entire thing was unplanned on his part; one of the other admins banned him on the Ides of March as a joke, then they started the Roman Republic parody.  It was quite enjoyable.

The below was an April Fools’ Day joke, poorly executed and likely in bad taste (hey, that’s sort of like the rest of the internet…)

You have been warned.  If you take it seriously, that’s entirely your problem.

So my roommate checked the Wii Virtual Console thingy today.

Of all the games to get added… Romance of the Three Kingdoms 4 (SNES).  Besides being kind of rare, I don’t recall 4 having any particularly interesting qualities… but I see this as Koei testing the waters.  If they get a decent return on it, maybe they’ll bring us some of their niftier games, like Inindo, Gemfire, and Uncharted Waters.

Just thought I’d post about it.

So the reason I haven’t been posting much of anything is… well.. no reason, really. I have no excuses. I’m going to try to avoid spoilers for S3 in the following paragraph.

I got up to chapter 4 in Suikoden III and am using Hugo as my main character. I thoroughly enjoyed Geddoe’s chapters, and actually have won all of the optional boss fights that I think are feasible (which is to say, all except the Chris fight v. Bishop, Sarah, Yuber, the fight with true runes against Bishop, Sarah, and Yuber, and Hugo’s Yuber duel). The strategy fights you can (hypothetically) win are much, much more difficult to do anything with, particularly when you can only control the growth of certain characters. So I’m not feeling too bad about the game difficulty-wise: from here on out it’s pretty much Juan, Main, Caster, and whoever else. I’m going to try and level up more characters than usual (i.e. Thomas, Cecile, maybe Melville) and try out some of the interesting characters I never did before (Edge, Futch). I figure maxing out Armor Protect will help me to win nearly every strategy battle without many problems.

Oh yeah, and I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten every optional character except Guillame. I can’t get him right now because the True Water Rune stuff is going on in that area. Haven’t consulted a FAQ yet, but he’s the only one left I can investigate , so I have to conclude S3 is the easiest Suikoden to recruit all 108 characters. It also seems to have the most optional side-things (like the plays, for example).

I don’t usually post anything about anime, because I find much of it to be bland and not particularly neat. But a friend recommended “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya” (Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu), and I have to admit it’s pretty neat so far. Bit confusing, but I think that’s the idea. Anyway, I’m guessing there are a bunch of random references I’m missing, because here’s one reference I got (which happened almost completely without warning – it lasts about a minute either direction). This is a big image, so I’m linking it, because I’ve optimized it as much as I can easily.

Image (2mb)

Yes, that’s right. Or, more precisely, Wright. I’m pretty sure Haruhi was made only a couple years ago, so Gyakuten Saiban would’ve been around. Fun stuff.

Anyway, one of the reasons I’d been thinking about watching Haruhi for a while is because it was recommended in a poll – “What anime would you recommend that everyone see” – conducted in Japan (#2, I believe). Not that the Japanese are infallible by any means, but they at least have a wider variety of anime that is released there to go from. And Haruhi is quite interesting, for its setting. Some may be put off by the random fanservice in the first episode; keep an open mind for the first 3 minutes or so and you’ll be able to figure out what’s going on.

Third item of the day: Gideon Zhi, of Cave Story (among other translations) fame, recently released a translation of the Super Famicom RPG Dark Law. If you like traditional pen-and-paper systems, where you get gold in the ones and tens rather than hundreds, growth is slower, and the game is more story-driven, you will probably like this game. It looks very interesting.