SO White Knight Chronicles has crossed the line from "eh this is okay I guess I'll keep playing it" to "hey I actually like this!"

This has 100% to do with the introduction of Caesar as a party member, and his brave decision to not wear shirts. Now of course in this game the armor you equip on your characters actually shows up on them ... but I can't bring myself to force Caesar to dress modestly, so he's TAKING THOSE HITS LIKE A MAN. Plus he really doesn't take this whole "epic quest" thing very seriously. As in he spins on the seats of barstools in the backgrounds of cutscenes. Or after boss fights, when the bad guy goes "OH NO HOW WHAT JUST HAPPEN!?" he says "I kicked your ass is what happened." Clearly the best character.

Anyway, the plot also crossed over from "some generic fantasy thing" to "HAHA THIS IS WEIRD ANIME SHIT." I laughed and laughed at this revelation:

( HA HA OH WOW SPOILERS I GUESS )

I'd also like to note that my enjoyment of this game has increased exponentially since I gave the main character a pair of thick-rimmed black emo glasses that he now wears in all the cutscenes.











... Everyone else is wearing monocles.

Soooooooooooooooooooooo ... White Knight Chronicles. It's pretty dumb, pretty generic, and they really phoned in the user interface by just emulating the barrage of unnecessary information that MMORPGS give you to obscure your view of whatever's happening on the screen.

But it's not offensively bad, just aggresively average, so I can only say that if you like high fantasy and also like giant robots and also have a PS3, you might not hate it.

The game has a pretty nifty avatar creation aspect to it; I actually got my little character to somewhat resemble me. You see they throw in your avatar as a mute character who follows the hero around and shows up in all the cutscenes. It's a cute idea, I guess? Anyway, I made the hilarious mistake as picking a smarmy ;] face as my "default" expression. I assumed that meant that my avatar's face would ever change expressions ever. This is not so. Moreover, while I was hoping ;] would read as "smug" or "I am so above this shit", in practice it looks like "so how YOU doin'?"

Thus far my little digital me has perved on everything from the protagonist to dancing girls to giant frogs. Now you are given the option to adjust your avatar at any save point, but I feel that would be some sort of travesty at this point.

Oh, oh and one plot point cracked me up: the villain (who resembles the Shrike) is informed that Our Heroes are gaining on him and shouldn't he do something about that? And he goes "bah, are they worth the effort?" and the villain's sidekick was all "dude. Yeah. Go kick their ass."

So you fight the guy as your like, third boss fight and when you beat him he says "OH NO! ALL I HAVE DONE IS GIVEN HIM BATTLE EXPERIENCE!"

I was hoping his advisor would then tell him to go and grind monsters to get his level up, but no they decided to turn goons into giant minotaurs with Yu Gi Oh cards instead.

. . . So I heard there was a football game today?

Dear The Final Fantasy Fandom,
( whoops I guess this is more FF13 spoilars )

ODA
ODA WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY HEART

!!!! The Secret of Kells was nominated for Best Animated Feature!

It'll probably lose to either Up or The Princess and the Frog, though. ... I get the feeling Up will win the 'Animated Feature' category to offset its inevitable loss to something else in the 'Best Picture' category. Although honestly I think Coraline should take the prize home for Animated Feature.

And my god let anything but Avatar win 'Best Picture.' Please.

My first and best love is for Legend of Zelda. It's imperative that you check out Zelda Reorchestrated's re-arrangements of the game OSTs. It's amaaaazing and makes me crave some sort of sound mod.

... And then there's Team Teamwork's Vinyl Fantasy 7 album, which asks the question "Why doesn't the FF7 OST feature Ghostface Killah?" I'm not really one for the whole "hip hop+whatever = EXCELLENT A++ CLEVER MASHUP" formula, but I must say that Jay-Z+"Mako Reactor" is oddly fitting. Perhaps the rest would be to your taste, as well.

............................................................. sob. I went and spoiled FF13 for myself. I'm not gonna discuss the plot or anything until I play the game for myself, though o/!

That being said, here are some context-free screencaps and an observation:
( :V )

((And just to note again: Out of deference to those on my FL who want to remain unspoiled, this is not opening the floor here to discussion or revelation of the finer plot points of Final Fantasy XIII))

I have resolved not to be bitter this Valentine's Day (I'm not even interested in dating again until I've got my shit together, anyway), BUT I am disappointed that I lack a boyfriend, because I would buy the shit out of this for him:

Me this morning: TODAY IS THE DAY I CONQUER MY WRITER'S BLOCK

*immediately gets distracted by CFUD music meme*

Follow-up of sorts to this post:

Downloaded the FFXIII OST. It's not quite as boring as Hamauzu's contributions to the FFX OST; there are a few jazz pieces that are rather nice; additonally there some really pretty guitar work in Hope's Theme that I rather liked. To clarify, I don't think that Hamauzu makes bad videogame music, I think that he makes safe, boring videogame music. Like ... I think the music in Final Fantasy X-2 is largely terrible, but I like the way it's structured better. Goddamn I really wish I knew how to actually talk about what I'm critiquing.

Also, there's no Victory Fanfare or Theme of Final Fantasy. Or the Prelude, either. I am disappoint :|

I actually liked:

- "Lake Bresha"
- "Blinded by Light" which I thiiiiiink is actually the main battle theme. I really, really like the bit that kicks in at 00:36, but it quickly disappears and goes back to Hamauzu's patented "buildupbuildupbuildupgoingnoooowheeeere" style of battle music. :|
- "Lightning's Theme" ... is a variation on "Blinded by Light"
- "The Sunleth Waterscape" Thus far the only track to actually get stuck in my head.
- "The Chocobos of Pulse" (the other Chocobo theme for this game, "The Chocobos of Cocoon" is incredibly irritating).
- "Can't Catch a Break"
- "Will to Fight"
- "The Archlyte Steppe"
- "The Yachas Massif"
- "Nascent Requiem"

Oh, and "Kimi ga Irukara" is the blandest, most forgettable ham-fistedly tacked on j-pop FF theme yet. It's pretty sad that they're just going to throw Leona Lewis into the international release's OST to take its place (between this and Avatar, is she trying to carve out a niche as a diva with geek appeal? Some sort of Apollo Smile on a grander scale?). Admittedly, I like "My Hands" more than "Kimi ga Irukara" but I'd rather they didn't bother with this sort of thing unless the song plays a role in the game, like "Eyes on Me" and "Melodies of Life."

Anyway, have sum downloads:
The Sunleth Waterscape
Can't Catch a Break
Hope's Theme
Chocobos of Pulse

SO! I beat Bayonetta.

I enjoyed roughly 3/4 of it and managed to not be offended by most of it, despite just how much the cutscenes really love vagina. But when I managed to rack up a pure platinum award and Bayonetta proudly exclaimed "I should have been a pole dancer!" things started going downhill.


Also that final boss has some of the most frustrating context-sensitive jumping ever.

IN CONCLUSION: heading back to Gamestop tomorrow to trade it in for credit toward Dragon Age: Origins

Bayonetta is really dumb.

It is also really fun.

... And I'm about as good at it as I am DMC, which is to say utterly horrible.

Masashi Hamauzu leaving Square-Enix!

Now, really, this means very very little (I mean, Kazushige Nojima left S-E in 2003 but that hasn't stopped him from contributing to Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts; Uematsu left some time ago, but he's returning for FFXIV). Well okay, Hiroki Kikuta left Square in the 90's to make SERIOUS GAMES (and ended up indirectly spawning the Shadow Hearts series ...) and S-E hasn't even reused his music since then. Which is a goddamn shame because Fear of Angels is one of the best pieces of music from the 16-bit era (and so is Meridian Child). But anyway I just want the excuse to say that I really, really hate Hamauzu's music. And I wish I had taken some sort of music appreciation/theory/what have you courses so I could intelligently identify and talk about what exactly makes me hate it so much. But listen. At his absolute most exciting, we get to hear the music "build up" over and over again with no discernable climax:





DANUHDANUHDANUHDANUHDANUHDANUHDANUHDANUHDANUHDANUHDANUHBLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAREDANUHDANUHDANUHDANUHDANUHDANUHDANUHDANUH!!!!

I will give him this, though, he can arrange someone else's music pretty cleverly:



I don't understand why S-E gave him two high-profile games in the series when they have Tsuyoshi Sekito. I think Sekito's "FUCK YEAH GUITARS AND EPIC VOICE SYNTH" style would have meshed well with Final Fantasy XIII's aesthetic but, eh. What can you do?

So things are stressful, disappointing, sad, and just plain sucky right now for many people for a grimdark rainbow of different reasons.

To you, and indeed, to myself, I bring Shiba Inu puppycam

I feel proud of myself for an extremely insignificant reason, but goddammit I'm gonna share.

I took this: and made it into this:

Oh CONAN ;A;!!!

Seriously. Leno, you monster.

Just when you thought that the internet could not produce a thing of perfect beauty.

"Two Gentlemen of Lebowski".

The Big Lebowski, as written in the style of William Shakespeare. This is the most glorious thing.



Nay! I do protest, and draw my sword;
It shall teach thee to disobey my word.
Mark none but none into that bowler’s frame,
Else thou shalt enter into a world of pain.
A world of pain, think upon’t; unhappy world!
A lake of fire, rich with damnèd souls,
Gulfs of anguish ‘twixt vales of agonies.
Mark me; we stand at twisted, jealous gates
Of cast-iron, above which, in vulgar tongue, reads
“Here is a world of pain, thou enterest thus.”
My steel before thee, ‘tis the last of keys
That might could lock these doors, and keep thee
From this world of pain, or with one flick
Ope its mashing maw, and summon winds
To cast thee down within; an excellent key!
Farewell to earthly delights, farewell to friends,
To fellowships and follies and amends.
The choice to spare thy passage through these trials
Is thine alone; take heed, I entreat thee,
And turn thy back upon this world of pain!