OOC and Hangout thread

[Trashy Cinnabon]

Whoa, kickass pic, Ryu! BTW, what is Kyosuke's last name?(I never figured itout, and itis not in the bio)

As for FF12, I find it to be nothing like FFX. FFX was too linear, too long before you got any sort of freedom, and it was TURN BASED! And FFXI is something else, cuz it is just plain stupid, and slow as hell. I am already getting pretty up in the game, and it is not too easy for me yet. I actually spent a few hours training in the Lhusu Mines to get LP for the Licenses, and they still weren't enough since I am slightly under leveled. In the end, I discovered, you have to invest time in making the right choices as far as choosing which licenses to invest LP in, and also make sure to lvl by fighting enough monsters if you rely ONLY on Leveling, you will be a bit underpowered and underequipped. And if you rely only on Licenses(Which is possible, as Bosses give no EXP, only Gil and LP) You will be severly underpowered(As you gain your stats and such by lvling) Also, Acquiring Licensesfor equips, skills and magicksare not enough, even if you have the licenses, youstill must purchase the equips, skills, or spells from shops or find them in chests before they become available to you. The summons can only be licensed ONCE, as in, each summon can only be learned by ONE CHARACTER, so if you teach The Ultima and Zeromus summons to, say, Vaan, then NOBODY else can EVER learn those summons. Not to mention, ALL the summons in the game must be found, fought, and defeated before they even appear on the license board. And All the optional summons have some sort of condition during their battle that makes it challenging to defeat them. The battlewith Cuchulainn has a constantpoison effect on the entire map, Zalera hasa 5minutetimer, andonceitisup youlose instantly; a few have a field for NOITEMS, NO SKILLS, NO SPELLS, and even NO ATTACK, asinno choosing the regular attack. Ultima cycles through all of the conditions, and Zodiark pummels you nonstop with powerful spells that can Death the party and tends to go Physical and/or Magical Immune often once it gets HP Critical. But Ilike that, it offers me a nice challenge for once(I miss the days of FFV's ExDeath still) Another thing, I like how, despite still having a somewhat linear feel, you are not confined to only a few specific stuff. Once you get a little ways into the game, you get a lot of freedom, to do many different kind of sidequests and other events. The Hunts are nice, and the rewards aren't bad either. Searching for Rare Game for the extra exp and LP they give is nice too. And I just got the Dawn Shard, which is sort of the 1/3 way point in the game, and most of the sidequests are now opened up(Though many I can't complete until the2/3 waypoint in the game) The Battle System is ACTIVE TIME, and unlike FFXI, it is not SLOW AS ******** you can go into the config and set it to be slow) If you switch from Wait to Active in the Config, then the battle still goes on even with the menu up and choosing stuff, and you can apt to turnoff the target lines(Like I did)And of course, a nice addition was that they finallygot rid of BATTLE SCREENS.You just run up to the enemies and fight, or just simply(TRyanyway) to make your way past it or escape it without fighting(And hope it does not kick your a** in the process) And not all monsters are agressive; Elementals do not attack you unless you either attack them first or use magic in their vicinity. And some will only attack you if you attack them first, or if you are attacking another of their kind. And all monsters in the game have Desperation attacks they start pulling off when their HP goes into Critical. I actually diedand had to relaod when fighting the Flowering Cactoid in an early Hunt, cuz I did not kill it fast enough and it pulls off 1000 Needles when in Critical. I suppose, in the end though, it is all a matter of personal prefence, I found it to be MUCH MUCH better than FF 9-XI(And that includesX-2), I actually consider it to ALMOST be on Par with FF8(My second favorite only to FFVI)
Been checking out Armageddon,(Yes, I will admit that I used a Codebreaker to unlock all the character Creation stuff, but I think it is just plain stupid to have to UNLOCK them in the first place, therby FORCING you to HOPEFULLY pull off countless feats just to be able to make the char you want) I still think Soul Calibur 3's char creations was alittlebetter, it still in the end had more variety(Especially as far as the fighting styles go) Though you could build your own custom moveset, the weapon styles were crap, you only got a choice of a bunch of sword styles and a few Axe/Hammer styles. One good thing though, with the REPTILE style face, arms, and legs, I was able to make a near-perfect rendition of Zhalavidra, and though the Axe style does not have a double axe, it is close enough with the single axes to her weapons. Also made amuch better rendition of Cyrus and Megami. Still wish they would have had more options for body type. Big bulky muscly type for Cyrus, slightly fatter type for Patwinka(Think Bo-Rai-Cho) I am even suprised they did not add a Four Armed option similar to Sheeva, Goro and Kintaro. Loading times aren't as bad as Soul Calibur 3's, and I liked they fact they added the original Ultimate MK3 for playing.
So, in the end, gamewise currently I think I shall stick to FFV Advance.
In the meantime, how is everyone this evening?