Squall Isn’t THAT Bad of a Character

Finally approaching the end of my Final Fantasy VIII playthough; I have been picking it up on-and-off this past month (mostly off lately, but I hope to at least ummm finish the game at some point in the near future). There are several things that I really like about FFVIII: The pseudo-futuristic/modern setting, the characters (most of them at least), and the fact that it is ultimately a character driven story (versus being politically driven for example). That said, I had forgotten how odd and polarizing this game was. I am trying to think of another JRPG as or close to as polarizing as FFVIII and I really can’t think of any. I suspect the main reasons being: Bizarre gameplay mechanics/character progression, ludicrous plot, and Squall. Squall of course having been crowned as the gaming champion of emo.

When I had originally played this game as a teen I disliked Squall as a protagonist, but as an adult, I don’t really understand why Squall garners so much hate. He is sort of tactless if not a bit rude and definitely socially distant, but he’s not really all that emo or angsty in my opinion. He is a good student and works hard to complete the missions as professionally as possible. Amongst his peers, he’s probably one of the least emo given that the task of baby sitting a group of bipolar teenagers is suddenly thrust upon him. Let’s review:

  • Quistis, his instructor (he was not aware that she had been relieved of that position at the time), takes him aside out of class for the sake of hitting on him and using him as a receptacle for all of her personal issues. So awkward and inappropriate.
  • Zell “I need Ritalin” Dincht is unable to appropriately channel his bountiful energy and enthusiasm in an appropriate manner or direction that does not involve annoying people in the middle of a life-and-death mission.
  • Irvine, a horndog cowboy who clearly cannot keep it in his pants. Freezes up at the most critical point in the mission.

It is also worth noting that at least half of Squall’s dialog is in head. It’s unfair to judge him by his internal monolog as he does manage to keep most of his shitty thoughts to himself, unlike the rest of the cast. It’s not that he is cold hearted, it’s that he is an introverted character among a group of distinctly extroverted characters that in contrast make him appear more apathetic than he really is. That said, “whatever” is probably the most irritating quotation in the game…

ACNL Island Beetle Farming Guide

Want to make 300 bells in 15 to 20 minutes without using the stalk market or resorting to duping? Farm beetles on the island. The basic idea is that the island has a low creature spawn limit: As in, only about 4 to 5 bugs can be on the island at any time. You can increase the chance of an expensive bug spawning by decreasing the chance of a cheap but spawning. The expensive bugs only spawn on palm trees.

First off remove absolutely everything (trees, bushes, stumps and all) from the center grassy area. When you are finished, the grassy area should be bare. Next, remove the trees along the bottom of the island. These trees are way too close to the edge, making it difficult to sneak up to anything that spawns on them. This should leave you with a total of 8 palm trees, 4 per side. Now, you can do one of two things depending on your farming preference: 

  1. Leave all 8 palm trees, farm by continuously walking around the island. Pro: easy to check for and scare off hermit crabs and locusts that spawn on the top half of the island. Also makes it easy to check for large fish and shark fish, which are worth quite a bit. Con: you have to be really careful when looping back down to the bottom of the island. It’s easy to scare beetles off as they come into view.
  2. This is the method I use: Chop down the top two palm trees from either side, leaving two on the lower right and two on the lower left. Run/walk back and forth along the bottom. Pro: it’s much faster in my opinion. The bottom two trees on either side are very easy to se from the bottom of the island. Con: not very good for fishing and you still have to check the top half of the island for cheap bug spawns occasionally.

Tips and observations:

  • If you are hitting a beetle dry spell, run a circuit around the island/center and check for hermit crabs as well as other cheap undesirables. Remember that they are taking up a “bug slot” and will greatly decrease the chance of an expensive beetle spawning.
  • If I recall correctly beetles will spawn after 5pm but the best time to farm is after 7pm (locusts do not spawn after 7).
  • Golden Beetles and Horned Hercules’: Creepy slowly. Holding the stick all the way forward, even while holding down A is still too fast. If you hold it down about half way when you get within about 2 spaces, you should be okay.

If you are still having trouble catching bugs, try digging a hole in front of each tree, as the optimal bug catching distance is exactly 1 space. However, keep in mind that any hole sthat you dig will reset eventually (after about a day?). Any bananas and shells that you move will remain.

FFVIII (Steam) FMV Audio Stutter Fix

The Steam release of Final Fantasy VIII is a pretty terrible and lazy port. FYI, If anyone else is using an ASUS Xonar sound card and has been experiencing a sound stutter approximately every minute into any FFVIII FMV sequence (for example: At the point where the feather leave’s Rinoa’s hand during the intro movie and literally every minute after that): I was able to instantly resolve this issue by disabling GX DPS Mode in the Xonar Audio Center; No other audio setting that I tested (Dolby headphones, audio channels, etc) had any effect on the stutter. If it matters, I am using the UNi-Xonar drivers.

xonaraudio

If you are still having problems after disabling GX, then I have no idea what is causing it. Neither the Roses and Wine soundtrack mod nor the FMV replacement mod had any effect whatsoever.

A Year in Gaming: 2013

My very short term gaming resolution for 2014: I shall make no more purchases off of Steam until I finish some of the games that I already own; And by ‘already own,’ I am specifically referring to the 4 games that I had just purchased the other week. 

2013 was a fairly light gaming year for me. I am not sure if I could necessarily say that it was a bad year in gaming since there were a few decent titles (BioShock Infinite, Metro Last Light, etc), but I wouldn’t say that it was the strongest given the sheer number of unimaginative sequels, games teetering on the edge of mediocrity, and outright stinkers (CoD, Sim City 5, and friends). 2013 in general seemed like it was an awkward in between phase given that both the PS3 and XBox 360 are at the end of their lifespans. In general 2013 had its ups and downs.

I felt that it was a strong year for indie games: I find myself gravitating more towards indie releases and releases from smaller studios; Way more than any previous year. I like indie games because they are A. Cheaper than AAA titles by a considerable amount and B. They take risks and push bars that major studios are unwilling to touch and/or can’t afford. Nintendo also seemed to have a decent year in that they actually released multiple decent titles (more than 0!) and I either purchased or am planning on purchasing in the nearish future.

Keiya’s game of the year: Animal Crossing New Leaf
No game has occupied more small segments of my time or stuck more of a resonance with me this year than this odd game. It is cute, relaxing, and something that I can easily pick up and play in short 10 to 15 segments. The seasonal events are also fairly well paced. Renovating/expanding my house and building up my village to my liking has the  feeling of a long term project within a simulated persistent world, which is a quality that I enjoy (it is not truly persistent since the game does not continue to run when you quit out of it. ACNL does however take time passed into account when you load your town).

Dave’s game of the year: Hearthstone
This game was Dave’s pick for game of the year if closed betas even count. Well polished, easy to understand, and actually reasonably fun to watch for a card game in an eSports environment. It just feels nice to play and doesn’t turn into an incomprehensible pile of card abilities and combinations (I’m looking at you and that damn artifact deck).

Consolation Prizes:

  • Runner up: BioShock Infinite
  • Favorite 2012 games played in 2013 because they were on sale: FTL and Saints Row 3 (Dave’s pick)
  • Biggest disappointment: Sim City 5
  • Favorite multiplayer gun porn game: Battlefield 4, not that there were a whole lot of options in this category.

Papers, Please Cheat Sheet

I photoshopped all of the regional information and important pages from the rule book for the sake of having a quick reference guide to keep open on the other screen while I am playing Papers, Please. I guess doing so is more or less cheaing in the true meaning of the term, but whatever. Too lazy to memorize the seals and cities and pulling up the rule book every single time is tedious even though ‘tedious’ is kind of a core theme of the game…

papers-please-cheat-sheet_0

Oh and: Glory to Arstotzka.

Toy Day and What Not (ACNL)

I am glad that there are other people in this world who have spreadsheets and odd notes devoted to Animal Crossing and the like. It’s worth noting for future reference that the gift hints do reset when a villager moves in.

Villager Hint 1 Hint 2 Gift
Ava Orange Wallpaper Astro Wall
Baarbara Aqua Outfit Cloudy Tee
Cherry Yellow Toy Bingo Wheel
Chester Pink Furniture Lovely Table
Cousteau Yellow Wallpaper Cheese Wall
Freckles Black Instrument Upright Piano
Hans Pink Plant Plum Bonsai
Prince Brown Household Appliance Retro TV
Rudy Red Musical Instrument Electric Guitar
Tutu Red Plant Poinsettia

Thus far, Jingle is the only picture that I have :/. Sadly even with all of the hints documented, I still had to reset the game one time in order to achieve a perfect match for each villager. Mixed up Chester and Cousteau’s gift, whoops.
image_60

The frogs are pissed off at each other again (conflicting personalities, Prince is a lazy villager and Cousteau is a jock). I am pretty certain that Cousteau was dudebroing it up way too hard for Prince’s liking. We could also blame Hans…
image_61

Good riddance Hans and your creepy-ass stare. Please don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
image_62

The 2013 Steam Winter Sale

image_58

One of my personal mantras has always been, “just because you can does not mean that you should.” Just because you can you can light your groin on fire and dance in the streets, does not mean that you should: Within the scope of personal finance, specially say, Steam: Just because a game is on sale for dirt cheap on Steam, does not mean that you should buy it, as painful as it is for me to say. So this fall and Winter season so far has been fairly light in terms of gaming purchases.

It is always a bit of a gamble anyway when it comes to the holiday and summer sales in the sense that, unless a game is on sale for 75%+, there’s always a chance that it could go on sale for way more. So do you buy it now and risk it becoming the next Daily or Flash Sale or do you wait and risk it going up to full price? Such trying times. The haul this far:

  • Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons: TotalBiscuit and numerous other internet personalities raved about how exceptional this game was.
  • Super Hexagon: I don’t know anything about this game other than A. I heard that it was good, B. I know that’s it is a minimalistic action game or something, and C. It was under a buck.
  • Final Fantasy VIII: Teenage me absolutely loved this game to pieces back in the day, despite its gaping flaws. Adult me has a huge itch to play it again, even though I know it probably does not hold up to the test of time. It has been what, almost a decade and a half?
  • Papers, Please: A, “Dystopian Document Thriller”. I played this for about an hour last night and it is undoubtedly one of the most unique and thought provoking games that I have played in recent memory.
  • Left 4 Dead 2: Because it was free.

Not on steam but: Deus Ex The Fall (iOS) was 99 cents. Also picked up Battlefield 4 for $20 on Black Friday.

Animal Crossing New Leaf: House Tour

I am mildly obsessed with Animal Crossing New Leaf. Currently sitting at about 170.2k HHA points and working on expanding the rest of my house. The entry room contains the full exotic set as well as several other harmonious item sets. When I get around to building and expanding the right room on the first floor, I will probably turn it into a zen set + item set display room for the sake of decluttering the entry room

front 1 front 2

The second floor is reserved for seasonal furniture sets. I for the life of me cannot get the Ice Floor. So so so many snowflakes were gathered but alas, no dice
top

First floor left room with most of the modern wood set pieces. Haven’t quite decided what set I want to collect and display here yet. Actually, I love the cabana series but that’s a lot of medal farming…
left

My trophy room is located in the back room of the first floor. It is obviously influenced by Covet of Latte, the Nintendo SpotPass home that appeared in October. I will most likely move the bugs, both of which are December lucky items upstairs with the rest of the seasonal items and replace them with cafe set pieces as I obtain them from Brewster. Sadly as of yet, none of my villagers have graced me with the honor of possessing their pictures, despite running numerous errands. Y U NO LIKE ME? /sad.

back 1 back 2