But really.

Um...okay so, was anyone else confused during their conference?

But seriously, they could've done the conference a LOT better.

Now that I had a chance to process what happened and read from OTHER outlets (ie Kotaku, IGN, GameTrailers, G4 had a great interview with Fils-Aime) what the hell happened and if Wii U is a just a controller or a controller and a console, I gotta say it's pretty cool. BUT, besides having first party titles in HD, what other reason is there for me to buy this? How else can Nintendo convince me? I don't know, I almost feel like it is too little too late. It better be cheap-ish too if I have to buy this for HD Zelda. 'Cause if it's going to give me an experience like the Wii did (read: non-existent), then I'm going to be disappointed. Again.

Now let us frolic in E3 show floor excitement!

- Celes

Hey Sony.

Thanks for saving this first day of E3. I was about to give up on E3 as a whole.

:D

Also, where are my achievements, GS!?

- celes

Wow you guys, wow. That was really hard to watch.

Btw, I'll be talking up a storm on Twitter. Follow me!

- celes

edit: If you decide to follow me on Twitter, please tell me who you are so I can follow you back :)

IT'S ALMOST HERE!!!!

Also, I've now been a member for 7 years. Crayzay.

Mkaybai

- celes

Hey ya'lls!

FINALS ARE OVER!!!! YES FINALLY. Actually they were over last week Wednesday. But I was busy doing fun things... since you know... it's Spring Break. :D

Anyways, got my grades back, two As, and two B+s, so I am somewhat content with myself. Also - my Typography portfolio got submitted for Best of Quarter. I am super excited. If I get it, it'll be my second one! Should get a letter in the mail this week if I get it.

Also... I've been spending some quality time with my new significant other... FINAL FANTASY XIII! :lol:

I love it! Yes... surprisingly so, I love it. I have a few gripes with it, but other than that, it is a good game. There are things about it that keep it from being GREAT, but I am enjoying it none the less. I am about 20 hours in, at Palumpolom with Lightning and Fang.
Which by the way, I love the fact that FFXIII has two VERY strong female characters. I appreciate that a lot, Lighting and Fang are quickly becoming my favs. Along with Sazh of course. Snow and Serah can go die in a pit - I like Vanille better than those two, THAT'S how much I hate Snow and Serah.

Does anyone else think that Snow is a major pedo for dating Serah? She looks like she's flippin 15. If my Photoshop was working I'd totally photoshop a pic of Pedosnow but alas, I cannot.

So things I like about the game:

- Most characters, and the excellent character development
- Story
- Battle system

Things I dislike about the game:

- Three characters that I wanna kill
- Music (it's not good, and REALLY not fitting at times)
- Battle System

You're probably wondering, how can you like and dislike the battle system? Well let me tell you...

I do love how fast-paced the battles are. Even though you run into a lot of them during the game, the most any one of them will take is about 2-3 minutes, which isn't a lot of your time. You get the option of picking Auto-Battle or to run the battle yourself. And of course you get the traditional options item and technique. However, upon thinking and dwelling about the battle system (probably too much too), I got a bit uncomfortable with Auto-Battle, and the fact that I rely on it so much (kinda like the heavy reliability upon gambits in FFXII). After this, I began playing the game sans Auto-Battle and found it to be a bit difficult because of said fast-paced battles. So upon relying on auto-battle, the only decisions you really have to make (and therefore strategize with) lie on setting up your deck of Paradigms and which deck to use in battle.

So this brings me to a thought: rather than really playing the battle yourself, are you, the player, more of an overseer? I feel like you are just watching over the characters, making sure to switch ****s at the right time, rather than picking and strategizing the battles yourself. And for some reason, I have a bit of a problem with this.
Even though FFXII relied heavily on Gambits, I still picked the Gambits myself, so in a way, it was me who was picking the abilites, and attacks that the characters did.
I also have a huge problem with relying on the AI so much. There are a lot of times where I have wondered why my Medic healed themselves instead of me - the party leader. And if the party leader dies, it's game over, regardless of how well in shape the rest of your party is.

With this in mind, I decided that I was glad that the battles are so short, since they mostly consist of you mashing on the X button (if you are on a PS3), and then hitting L1 whenever you need to switch paradigms. But I still can't irk away the fact that I am not in complete control of my party and their decisions. Even if I wasn't using auto-battle, the AI is in control of my teammates, and not me.

Also, I wish that the battle score system had more of an impact in your game. I understand that the better the score, the better the spoils that you get. But this is not so all of the time. There are countless of times where I've had a perfect 5-star rating and still didn't receive anything for a spoil. I don't know if that's just because I have bad luck, or if that is how the game works, but that almost makes me not want to care too much for my rating.
I also wish that the points would accumulate in some way (maybe the game would keep track of them in the main menu) and reward you after you hit a certain amount of points (say at 50k you get 10 potions, etc.), kind of like the Clan points in XII.

Also, the way weapons are upgraded could have been handled better. In FFVIII, you collected items (and used gil, I believe) to upgrade weapons. I kind of wish XIII would've gone in this direction. It would have been even cooler if the items used had to do with the weapon itself. I know that in XIII, organic items will increase your multiplier and give you little experience and non-organic items will decrease your multiplier but give you more experience. I see the strategy there but I still wish SE would have pushed this concept further.

Anyway... these are just SOME of my thoughts so far. My bf and I had a great conversation earlier today on the faults of FFXIII and our gripes with it (mostly, the battle system). I think once I get further in the game I want to write all my thoughts down and write a very lengthy and detailed review.

So now... tell me what you think of the game! And PLEASE remember that I HAVE NOT FINISHED IT YET AND AM ONLY UP TO PALOMPOLUM SO NO SPOILERS PLEASE.

Thanks guys ;)

- Celes

Hey All -

This is it. Finals week. And I feel like my eyes are bleeding.

Will post some cool stuff from school on my deviantart. I think many of you may be surprised in regards as to the direction my art has gone. Could also be a bit of a clue as to where my life is going and what my "big news" is, which is yet to be revealed to you.

But anyway, I'm trying to get all my finals done as FAST as humanly possible because I want to MARATHON FINAL FANTASY XIII all this weekend and next week. And the week after. :D

I owe it to myself.

Toodles,

- Celes

Hey all,

So this little game came out yesterday, maybe you know of it? FINAL FANTASY XIII.

Oh you do? Weird.

Well what are everyone's impressions so far?

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to play for as long as I wanted to yesterday, and am only about 2.5 hours into the game. Sad face.

So let's cut the junk and get straight to the good stuff:

SO FAR--

CONS:
It's a bit overdramatic, and the cutscenes remind me of FFX, which is NOT a good thing (for me). Terrible voice acting save for Sazh and Lightning (for the most part). Surprisingly, the linearity isn't really bugging me for now. But I can't shake away the fact that it's SO futuristic. Also, poor character design (IMO!).

PROS:
Fun battle system, fast-paced. The game does a good job of keeping you up-to-date with what's going on with the help of the Datalogs (which I enjoy reading, actually). There's definitely a good sense of lore and history within the game which adds to the game's believability in the storyline. Incredible cutscenes (in terms of cinematography and art direction), and amazing visuals. Music isn't too bad (although I must say, I really missed the Prelude in the beginning there. Couldn't they have at least kept that?)

For now, this is all I have to say. It is MUCH too early in such a gigantic game to make any serious judgements. These are just my impressions so far.

And also, please keep an open mind, you must understand that these are purely MY impressions and MY thoughts and opinions on the game. If your opinions are totally different, that's great. But please don't bash mine just because you do not agree with them. I am only saying this because I feel this game is going to be one of those games where you either love it to death, or don't care for it that much. Also, because I feel I personally have gotten some grief over my opinions about this game lately.

Follow me on Twitter if you wanna hear my impressions up to date.

- Celes

Hey all~

I found out I have some extra money this month, thus I will pick up Final Fantasy XIII this Tuesday, moreso out of curiousity than actual want.

Will post impressions and updates this week, time allowing.

- Celes

PS - RE5's "Desperate Escape" is excellent. I recommend it!

Hey all~

Now that they apocalyps3 is over, we can all rest easy knowing that our PS3s are running just fine. :) Although I do have just a bit to say about this.
Why hasn't Sony said anything about whether this will be fixed for good? Will this happen again if whatever calculation inside the PS3 says "this is leap year" (even though it is not) is still incorrect? The plot thickens. But for now, we should just be thankful that the PS3 was able to jesus itself, and come back. And in less than 3 days!

Amazing.

Now I think I'll take some time to do a bit of shameless self-promotion and let you all know that I have a Twitter account (for quite some time now). For those of you itching to know what the hell I may be doing on a day-to-day basis, and cannot wait for the next blog, follow me there. Username is celes_chere. No valentine this time.. I know, shocking.

For now, that is it for this update.

There are great things to come.

With love,
- Celes