Tuesday, November 18, 2003

Now Playing #14: Zelda: Majora's Mask - Song of Healing

	Gah, I forgot all about this... But anyway, the song this time is the Song of Healing from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. This has always been one of my favorite songs in Majora's Mask, and hearing it in the Clock Tower when I played Majora's Mask again brought back all sorts of memories from when I first started playing the game. There's just something about the inside of the Clock Tower... When you first start the game, it's where you find out what's going on and what you have ahead of you. And after you've played through the game, it brings back memories of all that you've been through. For me, no other place in any other game has been able to convey that sort of feeling better than the inside of the Clock Tower. Majora's Mask is truly an amazing game, even if I do have a few gripes about it. Here's to hoping I don't forget to add a new song next Sunday.

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Friday, November 14, 2003

Nine Down, One to Go

	Whee, I finally beat Majora's Mask, with everything completed! The Fierce Deity's Mask is awesome -- I had Majora on the ground writhing for most of the end boss fight, lol. I think I lost about two hearts during the entire battle. But anyway, that's one more Zelda game that I've completed. And, like the title says, that was my ninth one, with only one more left to beat. (Currently, at least -- can't wait for Four Swords on the GCN and the TWW sequal). Next up is Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, which I'll be playing on the second GCN bonus disc when I get it. I wonder how many years it'll take me to beat it, heh. Hopefully not as many as Majora's Mask. I'd like to beat it before any more Zelda games are released, so I'll finally be able to say I've beaten every Zelda game. (Not counting the CD-i ones, that is. Bleghk). So yes, happy am I. That nagging voice in the back of my mind that was Majora's Mask is finally gone... Though it's been replaced by Zelda II. And I dread Zelda II's long hours of leveling even more than I did MM's aggravatingly slow dungeons. Maybe if I work up the determination I'll be able to plow through the whole thing in a month without stopping. That would be nice.

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Wednesday, November 12, 2003

Year? more like week.

	I played Majora's Mask some more today, and got four of the eight Heart Container Pieces I still had left. (One I couldn't get until I had the Light Arrow, two I was putting off, and the fourth I had forgotten about until I realized there was one missing). Now all I have left to do is go through the Moon Dungeons and get the four Heart Container Pieces in those, get the Fierce Deity's Mask, and beat Majora. So yeah, like the title says, I've changed my expectations on when I'd like to complete the game by. If I beat it before the week is over, that means I'll be free to enjoy Mario Kart: Double Dash!! without Majora's Mask nagging at me from the back of my mind. (Like it's been doing for the past three years, lol). That, and I really wasn't expecting the sudden urge to play one of the 3D Zelda games to continue past yesterday, but it did. ^_^ Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention it in my last post, but I finally beat Final Fantasy Tactics Advance yesterday. I still have about 55 missions left, plus the extra missions, but I've beaten it. I think FFTA is the one that I'm going to try to complete before the end of the year. The end fights were really easy, though -- I could have used only Marche and still won, lol. Though of course, Marche is level 34, and I had him as a Paladin equiped with all my best stuff, using two swords. If I hadn't been using a Sequence as one of them, which only has an attack of about 30 but has a +1 to movement and jump, his attack stat would have been over 500. For actual damage, with both hits combined, he was doing about 200. And with a movement of 7, he could get behind anything on the battlefield to maximize hit%. The end boss didn't stand a chance.

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Tuesday, November 11, 2003

Majora's Mask: Three Years and Counting...

	Three years after its release (Oct. 26, 2000), I'm back playing Zelda: Majora's Mask again, and I've just beaten Stone Tower Temple. I originally took a break for a few months because, not very long after I got MM, Pokemon Gold grabbed my attention and held it for those months. After that I continued, stopping when I could go no further without beating the Great Bay Temple; I don't like water dungeons, plain and simple. Then another few months later I felt like playing again, so I went and did the Great Bay Temple and everything else that I could up to Stone Tower Temple. Noticing a pattern? Basically, I just don't like the dungeons very much in Majora's Mask. Most of the puzzles and enemies just don't seem as fun as the ones in Ocarina of Time; even moreso compared to OOT Master Quest and The Wind Waker. (Garo Master strategy: sidestep, slash, backflip, repeat). The main enjoyment in Majora's Mask, for me, is all the sidequest stuff. That part of the time limit I like, since you have events happening in pseudo-real time, and you have to make sure to be there for things at the right time. On the other hand, however, the time limit made the dungeons more annoying than they already were. Except for Stone Tower Temple, I always felt like I had to rush through things in order to complete the dungeon in time. Stone Tower Temple, surprisingly, was the only dungeon that I didn't have to come back to again on a new three day cycle in order to complete everything else, like collecting the Stray Fairies. But, likes and dislikes aside, I'm determined to beat Majora's Mask before the end of the year at the longest. Only eight Heart Container Pieces, one mask, and the end boss to go.

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Monday, November 10, 2003

Now Playing #13: Luigi's Mansion - The Mansion

	Sorry it's late, but I was busy with other things on Sunday. But anyway, here's a new tune: The Mansion theme from Luigi's Mansion. The first time I ever played a GameCube was a Wal-Mart store demo with Luigi's Mansion. I remember being amazed at how comfortable the controller was and how I didn't even notice it while playing, even though it was the first time I had used one. And of course, I was humming this tune for days afterward, heh. New song next Sunday...unless I'm busy again. ^_^;

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Saturday, November 8, 2003

Single-Player Vs. Multi-Player

	Well, I figured out what I'm sick with, finally. It's just a head cold, thankfully, and not all that bad of one either. Yesterday my nose was itchy and plugged up for the whole day and it looks like more of the same today. At least it's not so bad that I have to breath through my mouth, though. I always hate having to walk around with my mouth hanging open, lol. A friend came over yesterday, and then we gave him a ride to the Friday night Bible study that I go to. We had a couple hours in between him getting here and having to leave for the Bible study, so we played some videogames. Despite having a GameCube, my Nintendo 64 is still the king of multi-player. I only have two multiplayer GCN games so far, and one of them's Animal Crossing -- which can't actually be played by two people at the same time. I can't wait till I get Mario Kart: Double Dash!! Wasting simulants in Perfect Dark was fun, playing matches with us on blue team, two easysims on red team, and an easy and normalsim on yellow team. (Yeah, I know, really easy matches. I've never been all that good, and he hasn't played very much, so shaddup lol). Rocket/granade launchers are always fun in the G5 Building, heh. That and automatics in the Warehouse. I found an awesome place to set up Laptop Guns in the Warehouse level. We also played Gauntlet Legends; dang it'd been a long time since I played that game. We went through the valcano levels, him on a new character and me on Ganon, my level 40 wizard (who went up a few levels while playing). For what it is -- a basic hack and slash game -- it's a lot of fun when you're playing with a other people. If I had more opportunities to play with others, I'd try and get Gauntlet: Dark Legacy for the GCN. I could probably get it used for not too much, since it's pretty old by now, but I doubt I'd get to play it with other people very much. Being busy with school, I can't get together with friends all that often, and my brother probably wouldn't be that interested. Sigh...such is the life of a solo gamer. Back buring the N64 days, I had more people to play with, so I actually have almost all multiplayer games. Now with the GCN, it's just the opposite. Times change I guess... I wonder whether single- or multi-player games will make up the majority of my library for Nintendo's next console? Maybe they'll have online games by then.

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Wednesday, November 5, 2003

Kind of Sick & A Weird Dream

	Well, I think I am sick...but I'm not exactly sure with what. My throat isn't getting any more sore than it was when I posted last, but now I've got sinus pressure...but my nose isn't plugged up or running. Also, sometimes I get a bit dizzy and sick to my stomach when I stand up or move my head quickly, but only sometimes. And then last night, my stomach was just sick no matter what, for about an hour or so. (And the even weirder part? It was while I was doing some chemistry work, lol). As far as I can tell, I don't have a fever, either. So right now, I'm just kind of wondering what tomorrow has in store. Now on a different subject entirely, I just woke up from the strangest dream. In it, I was playing a videogame that had bits and pieces from Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy VI, the Speed Arena minigame from Final Fanasy VII, Star Fox Adventures, Star Fox 64, Zelda: The Wind Waker, and F-Zero GX. Quite the odd combination, eh? Anyway, at the start of the dream (or at least what I remember), I'm flying around an FFVI-ish overworld in an airship. I was just before the end of the game, and I was going around finishing up any side-quest stuff before beating it. (As I like to do with games). Well, apparently I chose the wrong option from some menu, because the airship suddenly shot up into the sky and headed for the moon (from FFIV). As we approach, I see this weird space station that looked like the place out of F-Zero GX in the fourth story mode chapter. Now I hear Fox's voice saying something about asteroids. How we switched from an airship to the Great Fox, I don't know, but now I see a screen that's a cross between the multiplayer deathmatch in Star Fox 64 and the Speed Arena screen from FFVII. It's a four-way split screen like the SF64 deathmatch, and we're all apparently manning laser cannons to shoot the asteroids hurtling towards our ship. (There was my character, whoever it was, as first player, Peppy Hare as second, some weird octopus thing as third, and Slippy Toad as fourth, with Fox flying). The view moves about on a set course, while we all blast asteroids with lasers that look like the one out of the FFVII Speed Arena. They even had to recharge like in FFVII. Well, we make it, and now it gets into the Star Fox Adventures stuff. I'm controlling Fox from SFA, on foot and with Krystal's staff, and I see something like a Krozoa statue head thing talking to Fox in front of a trap door... Only the head is purple and shaped like Andross' head. I couldn't make out what it said, other than something about a portal, but when it was done, the trap door opened and Fox jumped through. I fall into a room that's all black and white like when you fight the bosses a second time in The Wind Waker, except that there's a blue force field looking thing forming a cicle around the center of the room. I think there was an portal like thing somewhere on it, like the ones in SFA that show how many enemies you have to kill in order to get through. And, all around the edge of the room, beyond the force field, I see various bosses from TWW and SFA. The one I remember clearly was Ganon, only he looked like he does in the Nintendo Power A Link to the Past comics. As I said before, I still wanted to finish up some side-quest stuff before beating it, and this was obviously the end boss place. I look up and hit what I think was the A button on a GCN controller, and I get sucked back up through the trap door. Then I see the same FFVI-style airship that I was first in shoot up out of a hole in the moon from FFIV, next to the moon palace place, and fly back towards earth. And that's when the dream ends and I wake up. Is that odd, or what?

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Tuesday, November 4, 2003

Ugh...

	...I think I might be getting sick. I'm getting a sore throat, and I just have that feeling of slight illness. In retrospect, it probably wasn't a good idea to go out in the damp cold and play basketball today. Bah. >_< Well, if I am getting sick, I hope it's just a cold. I can't afford to miss school at this point, since I'm already struggling to keep up with everything. *sigh* ... This is gonna suck.

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Sunday, November 2, 2003

Now Playing #12: Metroid Prime - Title Theme

	This is definitely my favorite song in Metroid Prime -- the title screen music -- so I thought I'd use it for this week's midi. I love how even just the title screen, combined with the music, can already start setting up the mood of the entire game. I don't think I've seen a single game that has done it as well as the latest three Metroid games. New midi next week, same as always.

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Thursday, October 30, 2003

Final Fantasy XI - World Pass

	Final Fantasy XI came out on the 28th, and I've been trying to organize a thread where people can share World Passes, so as to all play on the same server. And it's turning out to be a real pain, lol. Almost nothing's gone as I first had in mind... Though part of that is because I hadn't researched a couple things well enough. Right now I've got the thread all written, I'm just waiting for Zidargh or Sephiroth (whoever gets FFXI up and running first) to create a character and get a World Pass for others to use in order to get on the same server. From there, other people that have started characters using the World Pass can get more World Passes for more people, etc. A few times, I've wondered if all this effort is even worth it. I've literally spent hours searching through the official FFXI reading info so I know what the heck I'm talking about while organizing the whole thing. (Though admittedly, I do want to learn as much about what FFXI is like before I buy it). Not being able to get the game myself (not yet anyway) is definitely making this a lot harder. Mainly, I'm having to rely on other people for the World Passes and whatnot. If I could get the game myself, I'd just supply the World Passes myself, to anyone that wanted them. Oh, and if you're interested, here's a link to the current thread. We're basically just trying to figure out who can get the first World Pass right now, but once we do get it, I'm going to delete that thread and make a new one. The new one will have some basic info about FFXI, info on World Passes, the scheme for sharing the World Passes to make sure everyone that wants can get on the same server, the World Pass and any others created for the same server, and info on the different kinds of groups you can form between characters as well as a list of the characters that have been created using the World Passes.

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