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Okay, I beat the game last night (though with two more endings to get and quite a few people left to unlock, I'm far from done), so I needed to vomit some feelings up.

Because god, for a stupid game about dead historical figures shooting laser cannons at a giant snake, I SURE HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS.

So have an incredibly disjointed list:
- Still asspained at how much Technique characters were nerfed, because a lot of my favorites are Technique. (Kanbei, Jiang Wei, Ujiyasu...) It's not stopping me from using them anyway, but. Sob.
- Changban is like Koei put a camera into my head and decided to write me an idfic. It tickles all my fangirlish "I NEED TO SEE THIS HAPPEN" places so well! Hanbei and Kanbei commanding a battle. Hanbei versus Zhuge Liang. Hanbei versus Nou. Awesome banter in both of the aforementioned match-ups; I'd need the localization to be sure but it sounded very much to me like Hanbei and Kongming were being all respectful of each others' talent as they prepared to lay the smackdown. Also the gaiden and then Changban Alter are awesome just for Dian Wei being moe and saving the peasants. Why is he so adorable.
- Admittedly, Mitsuhide and Sun Ce + his waifus showing up were "eh" moments for me, but everything else about Changban was so perfect that I'll forgive it for that. And actually, once we get the translation, maybe I'll be okay with Mitsuhide in this game. I don't mind him much in SWC, it's mostly just his SW3 cutscenes that trigger my eyerolling reflex.
- FUCK HULAO GATE OH MY GOD. fuck the miasma and fuck kiyomori.
- Shooting laser cannons at the giant snakes is kind of cool at first but becomes tedious when you have to kill eight of them in a row.
- Actually, the entire final battle sequence leaves me with mixed feelings. Orochi and Shin Orochi both feel like letdowns after the giant goddamned snakes, you know? The final stage with Shin Orochi does a nice job feeling epic in terms of the map and the music and general aesthetics, but the battle itself doesn't feel as climactic as it should. This is possibly brought on by my comparing everything to Koshi Castle in WO1, though, because god, I swear even on easy it takes like forty minutes to capture everything outside, and then Orochi wiped the floor with all my buddies and FUCKING CAO CAO DON'T CHARGE HIM, IF YOU DIE THEN IT'S -- oh. game over. CONTROLLER TOSS X(
- Taigong Wang is fantastic in this game. Hanging around, being awesome. I'm marrying him on the astral plane. X(
- Anegawa, man. Can I just glee for a moment about how amazing Anegawa is now? At night with the random chunk of Tokyo Skyline stuck in it, it's just so freaking cool looking I can't even. And then when Ryu shows up and we get that badass remix of his music...! Anegawa was the stage I used when my friend came over to show her WHY THIS GAME IS FUCKING AWESOME, THE END.
- I kind of hate how local co-op is handled, though; at least if you're in story mode (idk about free mode), player two has to rejoin after every battle, and reselect their characters. Given the 130 characters in the menu, this is a little bit annoying to have to keep redoing!
- Yukimura's :D face still looks like he's waiting for someone to stick a dick in his mouth.

I could go on but I guess I'll just leave it at OH MY GOD, THIS GAME. It makes me feel like

Things that are awesome:

( cut for photo the first. )

Finding this in your mailbox!

minister is amazing. I haven't sat down to play yet, since I won't be able to snatch control of the TV for a while yet, but I am super excited and just got the homework I had allotted for today finished so I can play guilt-free as soon as the opportunity arises.

Other things that are awesome:

( cut for photo the second. )

Getting this for about a quarter of the original retail price.

Patience does pay off; I've seen this (and a few similar ones in other colors/a larger style) at Needless Markup's clearance outlet for literally a year or more now, because every time I'm in the area for whatever reason, I stop and look at the purses. I always liked the look of them, but even after the first mark-down (from three hundred and something to...two hundred and something) I was always like NOPE!! because that's still way more than I'd be willing to pay for a purse that isn't even leather.

But today they had magically knocked that one down to seventy bucks, and considering how long I've been thinking "oh, I like that," I feel pretty content with that!

It's possibly hilarious how now that I've finally gotten in the habit of carrying a purse, I have become this huge purse snob and I buy designer brands and won't even look at the cheap stuff, but on the other hand: 1) I only buy off the clearance rack (the exception being the seatbelt purse, because it had no designer label bullshit markup and was just...that goddamned cool, okay), and 2) these are well-made purses that are going to last forever and will not just pop a seam and go to crap in the course of regular use. I think my mom has Coach bags she's had almost as long as she's had me, ffs.

So I don't feel bad about this! I don't spend much on clothes or fashion to begin with, I will enjoy my awesome purses. X(

I haven't made a personal entry in months, oh god what the hell it feels kind of weird to be doing this! Plurk eated me.

It also feels a little weird to be doing this on DW instead of LJ, but I've found that even after I pretty much stopped logging into my personal LJ, I actually continued watching my flist over here. Possibly because it's smaller and slower and just feels so much less intimidating when I'm tired and not up to giving very many fucks. (This is probably also why microblogging has all but replaced the real deal for me, although I am...tempted to fix that, maybe.)

And I still find myself trying to keep things short and sweet instead of actually putting down my many-paragraphed mental tangents on the things I really don't like about cruise ships (talk about first world problems!) and "why on earth does my grandfather pay out the nose to take the whole family on these vacations when he's just going to stay in his cabin the whole time and only emerge for meals" and how for all I hear about how amazing they say the shopping in St. Thomas is, it's only really amazing if you're there to drop a few thousand dollars on diamond jewelry, which from where I'm sitting is a whole lot of NOPE.JPG.

(But really, I did actually enjoy the family vacation.)

2011 was pretty good to me, all things considered - the things I was hesitant about all turned out amazingly well. Finally finishing my grad school apps had me shitting bricks, but I love where I am now and am quite glad I wound up at my second-choice school rather than my first, and hopefully I can keep up that straight-A precedent I've set for myself so far. I can finally drive! The only accident I have had so far was 100% not my fault! It was kind of terrifying but it's working out okay! ~~please don't snow when class starts on Tuesday...~~

I finally am enjoying RP again, after a long period of just treading water and making myself do it because it used to be fun and I wanted to have that much fun again. Part of that was coming back to CFUD, because while I think it was probably time for me to drop those characters and take a little break from it, I missed it like hell and coming back felt great. Part of that was getting back into Koei fandom, since that led me to Amat, which was another moment of terrifying "what the hell am I even doing" when I started writing the app, but the cast I joined is amazing and they are such a huge part of why I genuinely look forward to practically every thread again.

(Really, the reason I'm not bothering with that fandom year-in-retrospect meme? It can pretty much entirely be summed up with "revisited my love of dead historical Asians. awesome ensued.")

...I don't know where I'm going with this anymore! I guess "life is nice right now, please keep it up, 2012" will suffice.

Dear Yuletide Author:

Hello there! This is my first year doing Yuletide, and as such my first time writing one of these, so I hope I'm able to make it helpful. But I'd like to go ahead and put out upfront that I am already super excited just about the whole part where you're writing something in a tiny fandom I love, and that alone is pretty darned awesome from where I'm sitting. Anything above and beyond that is icing on the cake, as far as I'm concerned. ♥

(I'll also go ahead and say here that I'm going to be out of town and internetless when stories go up, and I won't be back until just before New Year's! So I won't be able to leave you a breathless thank you right away, sadly. Checking out what's waiting for me is going to me one of the first things on my agenda when I got back, so please don't feel unloved that I won't get there right away!)

Some general stuff to start this off: I am not a picky shipper, and I am usually willing to give almost any ship a chance if it's being handled with care. Het, slash, femslash, whatever, I won't be bothered. Gen is also completely fine, and I have a gigantic soft spot for characters who aren't family by blood, but make that kind of relationship between themselves and would jump on a grenade for each other even if they don't always (or often) get along smoothly. Although my own writing hangs out on the lower end of the ratings most of the time, I am fine with mature content and smut (just as long as bathroom stuff stays out of the bedroom).

I love bittersweet endings and tragic situations, though my choice of canons probably reflects that pretty well in itself. If you find your inspiration is going towards something happy and fluffy, though, that's cool too! Goodness knows some of these characters have certainly earned it.

If that's enough to get you going: awesome! Surprise me. It'll be a blast. :3 If you'd like some more specifics per the canons I've requested, however -- read on.

Samurai Warriors, Takenaka Hanbei and Kuroda Kanbei

Whether you treat it as a ship or just as two very good bros, either way is fine for me; I mostly just would love anything with Hanbei and Kanbei interacting, being themselves, and showing how important they are to each other despite the fact that they don't really say it overtly. I would also be totally down with Motonari showing up, if you're up for it (I loved Hanbei's SW3 ending and the event they had with him in Chronicles), but he's completely optional. Hanbei and Kanbei are the thing here.

I also love when Hanbei's illness is an issue to be dealt with (or willfully ignored), and doesn't just spring up seemingly from nowhere like in SW3. Kanbei's thoughts or reactions to it - noticing it, confronting Hanbei about it, or reacting to his death - would be gravy. But fluff is fine too! Basically I'm all about the personality clash the two of them have, and how they're a complete odd couple and yet totally important to each other and close despite that, so any direction you take that in will thrill me. Fic for these two seems practically nonexistent!

To expand a little on the illness thing, it's a big factor in why I prefer the storytelling in Samurai Warriors Chronicles over Samurai Warriors 3 - everyone has more time to show off facets of their personality and their backstory, especially. So we actually get to see Hanbei lose his temper and Kanbei smile, and we find out that Hanbei's clearly known that's he's got one foot in the grave for years before he finally bites it, and Kanbei raised one of his retainers himself after the guy's father died, but claims that it was just practical and Not An Act Of Kindness At All, Dammit Hanbei Shut Up. Everyone just feels more well-rounded, and I like seeing the hints of their other sides peek through the persona they usually display.

If you haven't played SWC or haven't gotten all the events (no shame there, I'm still only at 40% myself!), I have transcriptions for some of them hanging out here, and Hanbei and Kanbei's event sets both have some really cute moments that kind of illuminate everything that makes me love these two. (They do pop up in a few others, as well: Motonari, Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Nagamasa are it, I think.)

I'm trying not to write a lengthy essay on How Much I Love Hanbei And Kanbei, Holy Shit, but it's an uphill battle.

Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, Zelenin

I adore Zelenin, so I can think of very little that wouldn't make me happy here. Backstory before she joined the expedition, a look into her thoughts during any of her key moments, something examining the weird juxtaposition of ideals the story took by having the scientist be the one who sides with God and the angels, a look at just how much her ordeal in Sector B affected her through the rest of the story...

I do ship her with the protagonist, but in a very understated, "there is attraction here but we are way too professional to act on it because this ain't the time or the place" sort of way. And of course, I'm not holding anyone to that in a game where the protag's personality is so dependent on the player's choices and imagination! I prefer a protag who took neutral path, but I would be just as interested to see the impact of a protag who chose law or chaos, if your ideas send you in that direction.

I think that says most of what I wanted to say, really. One of my favorite things about Megaten games is the clash of philosophy and the way no option is ever presented as clearly The Best Path, because the ugly bits of both law and chaos are always clearly on display. So that kind of thing will definitely get me excited a bit more than zany antics with helping Anthony with still more girl troubles. (But Anthony's girl troubles were pretty hilarious and I am A-OK with those, too.)

Game of Thrones, Catelyn Stark

Hm. Despite it being listed under TV, I see a couple people on the character list who haven't shown up in the TV series yet? I'm a fan of both the TV show and the books, however, so whichever way you're more comfortable taking it is fine with me.

I just want something with Cat. Any details beyond that are so optional I can't even express it, I just really love Cat in all her mama bear, doin' things and taking no crap glory. I'm in the middle of rereading Storm of Swords as I type this, so I would love more exploration of the conflict between her actions and motives versus Robb's, and how they conflict even as they want the same things. But I would be just as thrilled with Cat early in her marriage, learning to adapt to the north and deal with all those conflicting feelings about Ned, or that so very strained relationship with Jon Snow, or that whole mess with Brandon and Petyr, or just Cat being an amazing mama bear to her children.

There's a lot I could say about how much I love Cat, but I'll try to keep it brief by saying that I love how she's complex and well-rounded, how she doesn't always make the best decisions and how she has her less shining moments (i.e. her pettiness re: Jon), and yet you can really see that love for her family shining through in everything she does, even when it leads her in a bad, bad direction.

Should you be working with book canon, I am...less than fond of the post-Red Wedding developments, so I'd rather not see anything past that point, if it's possible.

But as I said: that's all just in case you're stuck. All of these characters are very dear to me and kind of underwritten, so just reading something about them at all is enough to get me pretty excited. ♥

Thanks so much for your time, and I'm looking forward to seeing your fic!

Crossposting from LJ, since I like keeping my vidya posts with actual substance over here where they can easily be found. I wouldn't call this a review -- it's a little too informal and unstructured for that, I think -- but it is a pretty thorough dump of My Feelings regarding this game, so I suppose it could stand in as a review if you're willing to put up with the fact that it's disjointed and unedited.

Okay, so I've been putting it off, but I figure it's time for the promised afterthoughts on Dynasty Warriors 7. I've cleared all story modes and conquest mode, I've unlocked everything and gotten the platinum trophy, and I sat down to spend a little time with some old-school DW just for comparison's sake.

In short: I'm out of excuses, man, it's time to DO THIS THING.

I think

bardiche probably put it best in her own impressions post; whether you'll like DW7 largely depends on what you like about the series -- the story or the gameplay. I do think that DW7 would be a good introduction for someone who's never given the series a spin, but for veterans...well, let's take it point by point.

( some of this is rehashing points from my initial impressions, but that's how the cookie crumbles. )

All those complaints aside: I really did love DW7. It's a great telling of a story that the series doesn't always manage to tell very well; it's the first time I've ever cried playing story mode, and I did so on more than one occasion. There are plenty of manly tears to be had, and the Jin kingdom's story mode is a really fantastic follow-up to the pre-Wuzhang pieces of the story that DW games have already been retelling for years. I gained appreciation for characters I hadn't much cared for before, and I found some new favorites (I'm sure most of the fandom is busy cringing at his voice and will judge the hell out of me, but FUCK Y'ALL I freaking adore Zhong Hui). And if I had to recommend a DW game for someone new to the series, this is the one I'd hand them, and then I'd tell them to go back and try 3 or 5 when they're ready to exchange manly tears for frustrated ones. (Rant about archers goes here.)

They took some risks with the changes. They made some serious missteps. But if they can actually learn from the missteps and address the problems in DW8, they could have something really fantastic.

...but who am I kidding. It's Koei. I'd just as soon expect them to keep all the bad parts and bring back Renbu for good measure. :'(

It was probably inevitable that I'd do this sooner or later.

Since the port of Final Fantasy Tactics to the PSP, one cannot throw a stone into GameFAQs without ~~creating a small ripple~~ running into another argument over which version of the game is better. A number of points factor into these arguments, but one of the big ones is, of course, the script.

I didn't start this write-up with the intention of proving one to be better than the other, although the more I look at, the more frankly I wonder how the hell anyone could defend the original over the new script. My commentary is pretty obviously opinionated. Don't like, don't read; I'm sure there are plenty of dudes over on other corners of the internet who would be happy for you to join them in writing plot summaries where every i is replaced with a y and laughing over how hilarious they are.

Mostly, I just wanted to put things next to each other and look at the differences in nuance, and what kinds of interpretative changes those can make. This is the first chapter of the script; the rest (and the Brave Story/Chronicle) will be forthcoming as I have the time and energy for them.

I'm not quoting the entire thing, because that would be excessively dull. I'm simply putting down the things that I think stand out the most when placed side by side. In my notes, I use the PSP spellings and terminology; I also label scenes by the titles they're given in the PSP version's event viewer. This effort would be -- not impossible, but certainly much more of a labor -- if not for the efforts of Tsogtsaihan Baatar (PS1 script) and Revenant Things (PSP script), who transcribed the assloads of text that is FFT and put it on GameFAQs for all and sundry.

Let's rock and roll.

( 'tis my meager lot in this life. )

So by now, I think most of the Atlusfriends reading this have probably heard about Devil Survivor: Overclocked, an enhanced port of the original DeSu to be released on 3DS.

To say that I am somewhat frustrated at this news would probably be an understatement. Because the porting of a game that's maybe two years old is just one more example of the many frustrations I have with the current state of the game industry, but at the same time, I know I'll end up getting it sooner or later because 1) I'm a Megaten collector, and if it touches US shores (or often, even if it doesn't), I am determined to own it*, and 2) because I did really enjoy the original DeSu, got attached to the story and characters, and thus am very curious about that promised Day Eight.

* Well, okay, I'm still missing DemiKids and Last Bible, but let's face it, nobody cared about those anyway, and they're on my to-do list.

I'm not against ports and remakes on general principle, but this is really another example of too much, too soon. Atlus, I love y'all, but seriously, what the fuck are you doing.

So instead, let's talk about things that would be much better candidates for ports or remakes than Devil Survivor! Some of them may even be games that were actually made by Atlus. Many others are just me taking this convenient chance to bitch about things that have nothing to do with Atlus, and that simply should be remade but aren't.

( heaven or hell, let's rock. )

And all this is off the top of my head. I'm sure you guys can think of even more!

I lose things less easily when I put them in a journal I don't post in, and while my nice handwritten graph paper chart is indeed pretty, I want this backed up in case the cats decide to rip it to pieces. (They did this when Allen and I drew up a flow chart of boss/weapon weaknesses in Megaman 9. Cats know when something is useful and they look down on it.)

And since I tend to abuse elemental fusions because they're a nice no-brainer way of filling in the gaps in my demon compendium...

( elemental rank up/down list. )

updated 02.27.11, through after Mount Iwato/to link the Innocent Sin compilation. Everything through most of Monado Mandala is sitting on my computer, just need to...unlazy and format things.

One of my favorite features in Persona 2 is the party dialogue. Although only your main character appears on the map in dungeons, in non-combat areas the rest of your party will appear, standing around and available for you to talk to. Sometimes they offer commentary on the situation, sometimes interesting tidbits that flesh out their characters, sometimes they just make fun of each other. They have different dialogue in every area they appear in, and most of this dialogue changes after each major plot point. Sometimes they have more than one thing to say if you keep pestering them. It is, naturally, quite easy to miss this dialogue unless you revisit each location religiously after every plot point and keep jamming on the talk button, and I have been unable to locate a compilation of this dialogue on the internet. (The game script on GameFAQs has some of the dialogue, but doesn't seem to have all of it.)

Now that I've taken it upon myself to make such a compilation myself, I'm beginning to see why nobody bothered.

This is a compilation of the party dialogue in Persona 2: Eternal Punishment. I expect it'll take me a while to finish this, because I'm busy with plenty of other things, and typing this up does take a while.

I've done my best to keep it organized, with plot points set out chronologically and the dialogue split by ward and then location within that. I've done my best to be exhaustive, but these are incredibly easy to miss, and so I'm reluctant to make promises. (Current issues: I always forget to visit Kasu High and get dialogue from the roof and basement. Always. idk, man.)

Some of these dialogues do contain minor typographical or grammatical errors! I have opted not to correct them. I have also left names as they appear in the English language release, even though my own compulsiveness really wants to edit "Seventh" back to "Sevens" every time I see it.

I am taking Nate's path on this run, so his dialogue will appear here first. (Sorry, Ellen fans, you may be waiting for a while.)

And while doing this for one game is enough to kill me, if you're looking for Innocent Sin,

tatsuya has something going for that over here!

( is it that weird for me to be a cat lover? )

This may end up being where my overflow goes when I feel like I already spammed LJ today and shouldn't do it again. Or to catch some of these posts so my LJ most recent page isn't a parade of My Fandom Dear God Why. idk.

At any rate:

"I WANT to preorder from Amazon, but they haven't listed any bonuses outside of the Raiho plushie, which I can get from from my GameStop preorder."

"Hmm, I guess I'd be happy with a soundtrack, but I've already got that with a few of my other games, I'd like to get an artbook for once."

WHY ARE YOU GIVING ME THE WRONG FREE STUFF WITH MY GAMES

I cannot wait until Devil Survivor comes out and people stop asking when (not if!) they're going to announce the pre-order bonus.

I'm kind of doubting this will be much more than my way of keeping up with people who do leave LJ. I'm pretty comfy in my existing niche.

Should that change, however: I am pretty easy with access if I know you from somewhere, because I'm not the type to post anything so insanely personal that I'd feel the need to filter it to only my BFFs or whatever. I hardly touched filters on LJ and I don't expect I'll do it here.

That said, if I grant you access, it doesn't mean I expect the same from you! I will not be mortally offended if you're less open with the 411 than I am. Do what you feel is right; I'm cool with whatever.