Well, the "big day" has come and gone, and I got some new games for my collection: Metroid Prime Hunters, Metroid Prime Pinball, and Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings, all from Dana and all for my DS. (I got some other good stuff from the rest of the family too, but hey, this is a videogame journal, and if you wanted to be in it, you should have gotten me games.) I gave each of them a spin this morning:

Metroid Prime Hunters: Seems like it's going to be neat, but the control scheme is going to take a bit of getting used to.

FFXII:RW: I had trouble quitting this one. It's going to be a lot of fun. I feel like I ought to hold off on it until after I finish Final Fantasy XII though, in case there might be spoilers.

Metroid Prime Pinball: This one is really fun. It's better than I expected, and I thought I'd like it to begin with. I expect to be playing it a lot.

So, thanks Dana! These should be wonderful additions to my collection.

ADDENDUM 12/27: I also got a $30 Amazon gift card from Miss Kati, and it is going to buy me Final Fantasy III for DS, and the strategy guide. Thanks to you too, Kati! (Also, Christmas thanks to everyone that bought me other stuff besides games. There's nothing wrong with curtains, fountain pens, mixed nuts, or jellybeans.)

Wow, so it seems I've fallen hard for Square-Enix's heavenly wares again. Not only am I totally engrossed in Final Fantasy XII again, but somehow it's hard for me to do that without getting all crazy about the whole series again. I'm buying Final Fantasy III for my DS as soon as the Christmas Moratorium is over, I'll be jumping for FFXII:Revenant Wings as soon as there's an open spot on the Now Playing list after that, then there's the other remakes...

Speaking of the remakes, that's how I know I'm a total Final Fantasy junkie. I have on my shelf the original SNES "Final Fantasy II" cartridge. It works, and everything. A few years back it got ported to the PlayStation as Final Fantasy Chronicles, and as soon as I heard that the port was based on the Japanese full version game and not the 'Easy Type' we got, I was all, "BOUGHT!" So now I have two versions of Final Fantasy IV. Now, I see the news that it's getting ported to the Nintendo DS with new 3D graphics, and Rosa looks like this now...

BOUGHT!! As soon as it comes out, that is. I don't know how I missed buying the GBA version, either, but I'll still have [at least] three versions of FFIV once it's all over. And I'll love all three [four] of them.

As an aside, one thing I could have done without is all the last names for everyone. "Rosa Farrell" isn't too bad, but "Cecil Harvey"? Harvey? Ugh. "Cecil the Dark Knight" (or, if you prefer, "Cecil the White Paladin") sounds bad-ass. "Cecil Harvey" sounds like some dude off of Comedy Central. Yuck. (But you know I'm totally buying it anyway.)

Hooray! I *finally* finished Okami! I'm not going to say that it didn't drag on a little bit in parts, but it definitely ended on a high note. The final battles were very cool and interesting, and the ending was just epic. The win unlocked a bunch of options for a New Game+, so I'll probably play around with that stuff for a while before I file it away. After I test out my victory spoils, I'll probably post up a review too. (Like it needs another player-review, but if I want to, why not?)

Then, I think I'll take on Final Fantasy XII again. I'd sort of like to have that one finished soon, so it's done before FFXIII comes on the scene.

I finally made it through that little section I was stuck on in Metroid Fusion. Between the run-from-death-incarnate section, and the nasty spider boss right before it, I've been trying to get through about a 10-minute section of the game for over a month. I was just about to put up the white flag on this title, so this victory came in the nick of time to salvage the game (for now).

Naturally, I find out the SA-X chase is actually a lot easier than I was making it, because I got some bad advice from GameFAQs. The room the FAQ told me to avoid (and that I finally tried going into anyway since nothing else was working) is actually the 'safe zone' to hide in to get the SA-X to break off the chase. Thanks for that, FalconZero!

Yet another reason why games are more fun if you don't 'spoil' them with guides. I'm sure I would have tried that a lot sooner if I were using my own creativity instead of 'cheating.' Ah well, lasting lessons are the ones learned the hard way eh?

Just a short note to let everyone know that I'm going to be dropping the 'weekly' format that I've been trying out in here. It just wasn't working out; it shouldn't feel like work to come up with something to write here.

Expect to see normal sporadic updates in the future; new game purchases, gaming victories, random musings, all that stuff. The same, just not on a schedule anymore. :P

Another slow gaming week this time around, even with the holiday. Work was busy with the short week; on Thursday I got to show off my new DX GekiFire (page 2) (page 3); and then I spent most of the rest of the weekend watching football and stuff.

I played Super Mario RPG this week for something lighthearted, since I never finished back when it was new. I didn't really hit any big milestones, although I did get the first star. Next week will probably be more of that, plus maybe back to Okami again. That is one ridiculously long game, there, which is why it keeps ending up on the back burner. I'll still finish it eventually, if for no other reason than then I can stop talking about it.

Friday started the yearly Christmas Moratorium for wishlist items, so I will not be buying myself any new games until after the holiday. I declare an exemption for imported goods, though, and sometime during the first of December I will be ordering the next round of Gekiranger toys. (That's my Christmas gift from me to me, right there.)

{Credit to Ooebi's Toy Factory for the linked pictorials.}

Addendum 11/28: Apparently, there is a part of my programming that prevents me from being able to casually drop $300 on Japanese toys. It's probably for the best; that's a lot of money. It's enough for a PSP with all the fixin's, for one thing.

Rhetorical question: If I'm so smart, why the heck am I so stupid? I could have had *all* the next-gen systems by now, easily. So where are they?

I finally defeated the final boss of Metroid Prime this week, on Friday night, I think. I won't spoil the ending, of course, but I did think it was a little disappointing. I'm not sure what I was expecting, in retrospect, but it definitely felt like an anticlimax. The win unlocked Hard Mode and the ability to use the Fusion Suit with the GBA linkup, but I don't think I'm going to bother with that stuff. Maybe I'll take a peek at what the Fusion Suit actually looks like in MP, but since a big part of the game is all about the exploration, I don't know that there's much point in playing through again now that I already know where everything is. I'd rather go get a used copy of Metroid Prime 2 and explore a new world, if I wanted to play it some more.

In other news, I officially hate the SA-X in Metroid Fusion.:evil: I'm stuck on a part of the game where I've got to fight my way past the indestructible thing, and I'm just about ready to flush the cartridge down the toilet. (Not that I'd really do that, of course.)

And for my random thought of the week, I was noticing that between the games (and next-gen systems) I have on my wishlists, a new computer that is overdue, and probably a high-def TV to go with the next-gen stuff, I probably have $5000 worth of stuff on my wish list. :shock: And that's not even counting the imported Sentai toys that I will most likely buy. Oh well, it wouldn't be as much fun if we could have everything we wanted. Right?

Okay, so I don't really have anything gaming-wise to update about, but I already skipped one week's "scheduled" entry so here we go.

I've played video games hardly at all for the past two weeks, which can be blamed on a big combination of being pissed off at that cheap bastard Metroid Prime (the creature, not the game), hectic days at work so I feel like just vegging out instead of doing interactive stuff, and getting caught back up on watching fansubbed Sentai to commemorate buying new toys. But, I'm ready to give it another go now, I think. I actually did play some New Super Mario Bros. this weekend, so I guess I re-started already. Say your prayers, Prime! Your days are numbered!

As a footnote, for non-native GameSpotters that followed me back over here again, the LiveJournal blog is officially dead. I don't really plan to explain it other than to say that no one needs to take it personally unless they just really want to. Don't expect too much "real-life" stuff to infiltrate this one, either; it's going to stay all about toys and games and definitely not about work or family.

I'm pretty much exactly in the same place I was last week, gaming-wise. I spent the first half of the week flinging myself at Meta Ridley over and over; I finally beat him when I figured out I could just cheese him off with my Wave Buster once he went to melee form. After that, I was flinging myself at Metroid Prime instead.

I haven't played as much over the weekend as normal--I think I'm just slowing down a little, which was inevitable, I guess. I'm going to try to keep going at a sustainable level... In other words, I don't want to burn myself out totally on games again, so I'm going to do my best to keep it fun.

That, and I distracted myself this week with some shiny Sentai stuff. I don't feel bad at all about spending money on those, because I could literally play video games for free for at least a year and maybe two. After I finish Okami and Metroid Prime, I could play Final Fantasy X-2, Final Fantasy XII, Ninja Gaiden, Soul Calibur III, Gran Turismo 3... and that's without dipping into my antique systems to play CV Bloodlines & etc. I don't see any reason I need to spend more money on games to have fun for the near future. To be honest, it might be better if I didn't, so I can finally finish some of those old games.

My plan is to finally beat Metroid Prime this week, before my eBay haul gets here and I need to shoot photos for the other blog. If I have game time left, I'm not sure what I'll do with it; probably Okami, I don't want to lose my place on that.

I got the steering-wheel controller I ordered this week. I'm going to be returning it. See, I was looking for something that would give me better control of the game, and I figured a controller that replaced a twitchy little thumbstick with a wheel and tiny pressure-sensitive buttons with foot pedals would be more precise. I didn't realize that the "Force Feedback" was less like a controller 'rumble' and more like a 'mind of its own' thing. Every time you hit a bump, this motor in the wheel tries to jerk the damn thing right out of your hand. I can see why some people like it for the added immersion, but it's not what I had in mind at all.

I took the week off from Okami while I was doing that, but I'm absolutely not quitting on it; I'd be surprised if I don't get back to it this coming week. Metroid Prime will almost certainly be finished by the time next Sunday rolls around--the Completion Percentage shows me at 97%, so I think I'll be fighting the last boss at the next 'target' zone. It seems like this is what the game was building towards, anyway. Once it's over, I might pick up Eternal Darkness in honor of Halloween. Hopefully it won't cost me too much sleep. :o

And yes, I really did play Clu Clu Land this week. :P It was another one of those that found its way onto my shelf without ever having been played, so I wanted to see what it was about. For a 22-year-old NES launch game, it's actually pretty good.