We don't always like being nonplussed

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Mother (Earthbound 0) - Day 15 (In which teleportation makes you blurry.)

Ok, let's see if I can give a detailed explanation of what the hell happened between this and last week's post, while power leveling... or trying to, at least.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Romancing Saga 2 day 17: Pray for a True Peace in Space!


Back in Avalon, I now seem to have the option of getting up at night when I sleep in Gerarl's bed- not sure if I mentioned that before or not. An empty, lonely place is Avalon castle at night. Even the beds are empty; only the guards remain.

Editorial: Text Size

Recently I got Monster Hunter Tri for the Wii. Fun game! It also has a feature where you can select the aspect ratio of your television set. And when you select the 4:3 aspect ratio for SDTVs, all of the text gets larger and more legible.

To the developers of Monster Hunter Tri I say: Thank you very much!

To the developers of absolutely everything else, I say: WAS THAT REALLY SO FUCKING HARD!?

Ever since the current, HD-ready generation of consoles came out I've been squinting at every dialogue box and HUD because somebody decided that it doesn't matter what these displays look like on an SDTV. Sure, some companies say they've adjusted their designs, but nobody, until today, has had something as useful, helpful and purely elementary as an option for making the text bigger. Did nobody think of this? Does nobody care? Does the art department get the vapors when you mire their HUD designs in tiresome legible information? I don't know, and I don't care any more than you care whether my eyes turn to mush squinting at your text. But Monster Hunter Tri got this right on the Wii, and the Wii isn't even HD-ready! What's wrong with you?

Okay, look: SDTV isn't going anywhere yet. There are millions of the things out there of various ages, they still work, and those of us who have working TV sets and no money to throw away on HD and electronics setups that we hate to rewire aren't going to upgrade unless forced. We do play games. That's where all the money we would've spent on HDTVs goes: to you! So how about you stop being such a bunch of stubborn Goddamn technophiles and give us games we can read?

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Romancing Saga 2 day 16: Worse than Metroids

Carl the Samurai may have been telling me something about the area I got TPKed in Tuesday. If he was mentioning Floor 2, that's where the Metroids live.


However, I still intend to check out Fort Pile o' Kanji first.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Romancing Saga 2 day 15: Carl the Samurai and his Fitness Celebrity Harem.

Okay, so in flagrant violation of the spirit of the game, I've loaded and brought my original party back to life, and I'm fine with this. This time Bear loses an LP clearing out floor 1, but otherwise I'm doing okay. We clear it and then save at the entrance to Floor 2 like I should've done in the first place. On our second try we manage to take out a couple of those damn Metroids, but the cost in LP is so great that it's not particularly worth it. So one more load, and we'll check out that other new area now!

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Romancing Saga 2 Day 14: Meanwhile in an alternate universe where I suck less...

There are a couple skeletons guarding the stairwell of floor 2, but nothing we can't handle. Gerarl's running low on MP since I've been spamming Lightball, but it works, as his Shininess goes up to level 7.


The top one is a Werefrog, and is one of the most get-off-my-lawn monster designs I've ever seen. They have some kind of group-stun attack, which James simultaneously devises a defense for! Nicely done, James!

Monday, February 7, 2011

Romancing Saga 2 part 13: Humanoid Ants with Lanterns and Shovels


Selecting the area I think is named "Barren" gives me a new section of the continent with two distinguishing features: a town to the south called "Nibel" or "Neebel" or "Kneebell," who knows, and what looks like a fort named Pile of Kanji. I guess I'll check out town first!

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Mother (Earthbound 0) Flailthrough - Day 14 (In all fairness, he does look pretty frumious.)

Alright, I now have to travel back across the desert, and I am not looking forward to this in the least. The monsters here are so high level compared to me, one wrong move could mean a total party kill. The thing I've noticed about this game is that the more insane a monster looks, the more likely it is to be a tiny god of death. And let me tell you,

Woof. Maybe it's not Hit Points but Sanity Points they're taking from you.
I do not like the look of this half leopard, half giraffe, half vuvuzela. I don't know what it is, but I'm going to call it a bandersnatch, because why the fuck not? I suspect that it's going to be dangerous, and I am pleasantly surprised to find that it attempts to murder the pants off of everyone, doing 60 points of damage to Ness in a single blow, which is almost half of his hit points. I did beat him, but only just barely. I now have to travel on foot through the rather large desert, because somewhere out there, there's a cactus with a face, and I think it's probably important in some way.