Well, I did a few speed paintings, something to loosen me up for work. Less then an hour's worth using Corel Painter 9. Their video game related, so I thought it was fitting also.
Eiji Aonuma, director of Legend of Zelda - Twilight Priness, Wind Waker, and Majora's Mask
Keita Takahashi, the creator of the Katamari Damacy series.
For those who don't know anything about Speed Painting, it's like streching before exercising. Just something fast, you don't regret your choices and focus on under utilized talents. I was thinking a lot about colors, and how they hit the skin. I think I went too far with Keita, but it helps give him more life since video seems to dullen colors.
Aside from that, I finished Children of Mana, Yoshi's Island DS and Castlevania Portrait of Ruins. First off Children of Mana...... don't know how to recomend it. I think it's interisting the whole 10 minute little dungeon crawls where you can save. It's not bad for bus rides, but it lacks a lot. To call it a "hack and slash," might insult Diablo and it's not even remotely close to a Zelda clone. It feels more like Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicals then Secret of Mana, but then again, I played a bit of an import of Dawn of Mana...... ugh, really feel bad for being a man fan at this point, since there was only 2 good Mana games ever made and now we got 5 mediocer games in the series.
Yoshi's Islands DS..... kinda good. I mean I recomend it for anyone who wanted more out of New Super Mario Bros, but man is this game seriously hard. The original Yoshi's Island was easy enough for anyone to play, but this one is hard for odd gameplay choices. There is this black void between the two DS Screens, which gets pretty annoying when you have to throw eggs or leap into that void. The Beauty of the DS is you got more room for a platformer to continue onto another screen, it's something that's taking the DS too literal, and you wish it wasn't there. The other thing is, there is still respawning characters when you walk away from the screen for a few steps. It really gets frustrating at the end. I had to not play the game for a month. Although the game is harder then the original SNES game, so it's debatable if that's better since when I first beat it back in 95 I felt like a cold heartless bastard for beating it too fast..... And no Yoshi tripping on poppie seeds, so it's a notch below the SNES version.
Castlevania Portrait of Ruins...... again, it's kinda like Yoshi's Island. I kinda recomend it but I got some complaints. I would say maybe an hour into the game you start to see repeating rooms and recycled sprites from previous Castlevania games. This makes you think at how rushed the game was, but the good news is the game is really well polished. I found myself playing the extra mode after beating it compared to other portable Castlevania games..... I don't know if that's why I didn't like the normal mode? But I'd highly recomend it for any Castlevania fan.