Level 3-1 Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance

   Time to dust off my Wii! To play a Gamecube game...

   Confession #7: I left work early to pre-order my Wii, but when I picked it up I left it in the package for a whole day so I could rearrange my room to maximize the playing experience.

   For my second unconquered game I decided to play another of my favorite franchises, Fire Emblem. I believe my first exposure to F.E. was in Smash Bros. Melee's 26 character roster. (14 more than the original Smash Bros.) The Fire Emblem series was represented by Marth and Roy (I preferred Marth). I read about their backgrounds in the Trophy room and eventually bought Fire Emblem for my GBA. three years later when it was first released in the US. In which the story revolved around neither Marth or Roy, but nevertheless I was hooked. It was probably the game that started my interest in turn-based Strategy games and eventually Advance Wars cemented that passion into my gaming soul.

Level 2-5 Gotta Catch 'Em All!

   I wanted to make a post on Sunday, but didn't get around to it until today, but I've got good news:

Progress: COMPLETE! Time- Pretty close to 6:66 (No kidding!) Hard to tell because you cannot save after the credits.

   It felt great to finish a game, a sense of accomplishment that you can only receive from beating a game with an ending, unlike most MMOs. I had all of the components to complete Auron's celestial weapon so I upgraded that and I decided to make some good armor for the end of the game. Boy, what a time consuming process! I had to catch some arena monsters a'la Pokemon to get the items I wanted for customization. The hardest part was the Light Curtain collection. I had to unlock a dragon called Fafnir and beat him 5 or 6 times. He had 1,100,000 HP! I saved that for last and did some Monster Bribing in Omega Ruins for my Auto-Hastes. I completed my armors late Saturday night and went to sleep; my showdown with Sin was coming to fruition.

   Now, let me say this: FFX's US version makes it waaaaaay too easy to over-level. (You'll find out why in a moment.) On my first playthrough of the game I could not beat Sin before he casted his giga-gravitas (or something like that). After the cutscenes about luring Sin in and getting up on the deck to confront him the battle began. Time to take out his fins! I had Tidus tell Cid to move closer, Yuna casted Regen on herself, and then Wakka freaking destroyed the fin in one hit... Okay, its just phase one I probably did a little extra training. Fin #2 I guarded twice and had Wakka finish that one off. -Cutscene of everyone jumping onto Sin- Repeat battle sequence with Sinspawn. Sin (without his fins) began to fall to the ground (maybe they should have been called wings). He sprouted some ethereal ones and flew up to the top of Bevelle and waited. The main gun was broken on the airship so they decided to fly into Sin's mouth. After wandering around for a while Seymour showed up again. Okay, time for a real battle. He had four big discs surrounding him. They were targetable so I made Wakka use his Overdrive on them. 0 damage... Yuna double casted Ultima- battle over. huh? Seymour does some whining and Yuna finally sends the jerk to the farplane.

Level 2-4 One Lucky Son of a Chocobo

Progress: Hour 52, Obtained all Secret Aeons, Completed 2 Celestial Weapons (for Tidus and Yuna), and now I'm working on playing hours of Blitzball for Wakka's Celestial weapon.

   I stayed up really late last night working on getting all of the summonable Aeons and getting Yuna's Ultimate weapon. (Which happens to be tied closely together.) By revisiting all of the temples I managed to get a lot of useful stat nodes for the sphere grid. Today I wanted to work on getting Tidus's Celestial weapon. To get the Sun Sigil the player must beat the Chocobo Trainer in a race with a finish time of 00.00 seconds. By collecting balloons you can deduct time from your total, but when a seagull decides to try and dive bomb into your mouth you receive a penalty. People complain endlessly about how hard it is. So I hunkered down, got psyched up, and beat it on the fifth try. It didn't seem that hard. Maybe I'm just lucky, but it made me feel like a good casual gamer at least. Wakka's weapon will take some time unfortunately. Then I think I might look into getting some decent armor and leveling up by killing Cactuars. Or.... maybe I'll take a swing at Sin and see how I do. Short post today, but in closing I think Cactuars and Tonberrys rock!

Confession #5: I spent hours grinding at the beginning of Final Fantasy VII because I thought you had to kill the Midgard Serpent before you could go on. I didn't try going back into the pass. Normally, when a game kicks me out of an area facing the opposite direction its because I can't go that way.

Level 2-3 The Wind Fish Conundrum

Confession #4: I reset if I get a puzzle wrong in Professor Layton games.

Progress: 45 Hours, just beat Yunalesca. First Game Over.
   I've been pretty busy lately, but eventually I got some time to play and write this post. I finally got my first game over today in Final Fantasy X.  It happened during my fight with Yunalesca. Her first two forms were really easy, especially with Yuna's Holy magic doing 9,999 damage per cast. Then when the boss went all Medusa's head on me her first move was to cast Mega Death. Even with a low accuracy, low probability move all three of my party members kicked the bucket. I was like, WTF! So I restarted and went to customize some armor with Deathward or Deathproof or something... Nada. Plan B was to summon an Aeon when she was almost dead in form two. Worked like a charm; Ixion almost finished off her third form too. This fight turned out to be easier than the one with the Sanctuary Keeper on Mt. Gagazet. (Even though I lost once.) So with the second round of rapid-fire boss fights over, I get to get back on the airship. Here I am, back at the end of the game! I don't think I can take Sin head-on yet, so I'm gonna try to level up and work on my equipment. All three characters have finished their sphere-grid sections and are just starting on new ones. Tidus is gonna start at the beginning of Rikku's and Wakka and Yuna are jumping into the middle of Auron's and Lulu's respectively. (Kimhari doesn't have his own section. He would've made a good black mage with Halberd's +20% Magic.) Now that the progress section is squared away it is time to talk about something I'm calling The Wind Fish Conundrum...

Level 2-2 Blitzball in Your Face!

Blitzball- Everything else is just a game.

Progress: 35 hours, yesterday's should have been 28. I played last night after Southpark ended and I played a lot today. It rained all day, so there wasn't much else to do.
   I think I have reached the halfway point. You wanna know how you can tell in a Final Fantasy game? The answer is this: When you have rapid-fire boss fights, save points every five feet, and 20 minute long cut scenes- then you're halfway there. At least that is what the standard seems to be. (Another big clue is when you get the Airship)
   Right before I fought Seymour for the second time I did some grinding with my team; Tidus, Wakka, and Yuna. Some walkthroughs suggested that you be twice as strong as I was. The battle went as follows: Grand Summon Bahamut, over 15k in damage, then Seymour Banishes him, mugged him a couple times, then Slice and Diced him to death. Very anti-climactic. Wakka is still on his side of the grid and was doing crazy amounts of damage. Nothing like a spiky ball hurtled repeatedly into the face of your opponent!

Level 2-1 Final Fantasy X

Confession #2: I was scared of Dodongo's Cavern in LOZ: Ocarina of Time

    The first game on my list of games to complete is Final Fantasy X. Previously I got to the end of it twice and put it away. (Don't even ask, because I don't know why I didn't just beat the game.) The same thing happened to me with FFIX, but when I picked that game up for the second time I continued the save file and beat it in less than an hour. On second thought I think this game may be the most appropriate of all. The main boss is a giant, whale-like creature called Sin. From now on Sin will be a representation of my own sins. I must begin to atone for my Gaming Sins by finishing this game. The memories of incomplete video games continue to haunt me and there is no better way to begin my endeavor than by playing this game. It is time to put the smack-down on my metaphorical Sin!

Level 1 - Prologue

*1st Post!
Who cares?*

   Before I can start having fun, I must inform you of the events that led up to the creation of this blog. I used to play video games constantly. Birthday parties were just excuses to have more that one friend over to play Smash Bros. and Goldeneye. My love of video games began when I was really young, less than five in fact. My babysitter's children all played Nintendo (NES) and even suffered through teaching me how to play. That year for Christmas my Dad bought one for me and while he read the instructions, I plugged it in. (Perhaps not the best parental supervision) My first game was the "Super Mario Bros. / Duckhunt / Track and Field" combo cartridge. Nintendo and I had great times with all of its systems, except the Super Nintendo. (Thank God for ROMs)
   Fast Forward to Middle School- My brother and I did chores for a whole year to save up for a N64. It came with "Mario 64" and we bought "Ocarina of Time with it". Chris A. introduced me to "Monster Rancher 2" and the Playstation. Then three of my friends: Garrett, Tom, and Matt got me hooked on Blizzard games. (I actually had played "Gobliiins" for DOS) Thus began my love for Starcraft, Diablo, and eventually Warcraft. I resisted the "World of Warcraft" craze until I was in college.