Final Fantasy VII Playthrough
Playtime 28:56-36:41
I played through the Midgar sequence ending in the boss fight with Hojo, thus ending disc 2, and of course declined to go right into saving the world in favor of doing more sidequests. Obviously, the nature of video games is such that suspension of disbelief is much more difficult than with movies, but there's something particularly amusing about the idea of flying your airship to the edge of a big hole in the earth that you're going to have to descend to the bottom of within a week in order to save the earth, only to decide to up and fly away to instead race some chocobos at an amusement park. I do, of course, appreciate that there's a lot more to do above and beyond the main storyline, although one thing I will say is that there's not really enough new areas where you can just level up and get more GP (chocobo breeding is expensive) without it being complete mind-numbing tedium. Once you kill Ultimate Weapon--which is one of the last things I did before writing this--you can access the Ancient Forest which helps, but other than that you pretty much have to go to the Sunken Gelnika or otherwise retread areas you've already visited as part of the main story, unless I'm really forgetting something.
I've made a couple of attempts at going for Omnislash and/or W-Summon at the Battle Arena, which is genuinely challenging. The most expensive thing I was able to commandeer was the "Stardust" at 8,000 BP, which if I was online at the time I wouldn't have bought because it's just a one use item that casts Comet 2. Somewhat confoundingly, it's more expensive than Speed Source Materia at 4,000, and Preemptive Materia at 1,000. I did get the Speed Shoes for winning 8 battles at least once, which are kind of awesome in and of themselves (automatic haste). To win all 8 battles with any sort of consistency, you're pretty much required to be at a high level with excellent materia, and even still you need a lot of luck. Going into it with a Ribbon can help tremendously, but of course one of the penalties is "accessory broken," which I got after the first round on more than one occasion. One of the possible 2nd round fight is a group of five little insect creatures which can all put you in berserk, so if your Ribbon is broken after the first fight, that pretty much screws you right there, unless you're overpowered enough to be able to muscle through the next 7 fights without ever having to heal. One of the possible first round fights is also a group with two little caterpillar enemies, who will always use Silk on you on their first turn, which slows you down and which your Ribbon doesn't protect against. Having a leveled-up Counter Attack helps, so does sticking an Added Effect-Hades pair on your weapon, as very few of the Battle Square enemies seem to be immune to much. Materia equipped Really, to get through all 8 battles, at least at level 58 which is where I have Cloud at, you need a pretty perfect confluence of events to happen. I suppose having First Attack materia would mitigate against some of this, but I don't have that at the moment, nor do I remember off hand how you get it. May have to check a FAQ after this.
I've been doing some chocobo breeding as well. Right now I have two that can win in the ultra prestigious Class C--where you can win such fabulous prizes as Potions--but that's it. I'm not sure if I'm going to bother getting a gold chocobo. I don't even remember all the details of how to get one, except that you have to steal the nut to breed one from the goblins on one of the isolated islands on the map. Gonna play that one by ear.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Square-Enix's Plot to Destroy America
"What the... no countdown? It doesn't seem the same without it!"
"We ain't no Ancients if that's what ya mean."
Final Fantasy VII Playthrough
Playtime 27:23-28:56
Hey, remember when I used to update this? After a long hiatus, I started up my playthrough again, starting with the last Huge Materia quest in that takes place (echo effect) in spaaaaaace. Granted, over the course of the story, the whole party sees all manner of strange stuff, but it's still a bit bizarre and rather amusing that no one in the party other than Cid really seems to care that they're the first people in outer space. Cid is pressed up against the wall peering out the porthole, arms clutched around it like he's trying to capture all of space in his hands, while everyone else just sort of sits motionless, wondering when they're going to be done with the whole thing. After the Huge Materia quests, the next plot point is going back to visit Bugenhagen, who tells you to take him to the City of the Ancients, where he conveniently finds writing scribbled by a scientist (who writes in riddles?) about where to find the Key to the Ancients. I guess they don't quite show how deep the pool is or if it feeds into flowing water or something during the cutscene at the end of disc 1, but it's a bit perplexing why Cloud is so dead certain that they're completely fucked when Bugenhagen explains that Aries's White Materia is the Holy power that can save the planet. Having just made it back from outer fucking space on a spaceship that was on an irreversible collision course with a giant meteor, does fishing something out of a big pool of water seem that impossible?
Before returning with the Key of the Ancients though, I've stopped off for a few more diversions first. I went to see Lucretia behind the waterfall, which is kind of a fun scene culminating in Vincent telling her the white lie that Sephiroth is dead. I also did the pagoda sequence in Wutai to get Yuffie's final limit break. I dunno if it's supposed to be a direct homage, but the whole "fight one guy with a different style on each level of a pagoda" thing is the same premise as Game of Death, the movie Bruce Lee was making when he died. Sadly, unlike Game of Death the final battle here does not involve a vampire Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. It never really occurred to before that Wutai could be seen as a commentary on post-war Japan. I mean, granted, it's obvious that Wutai's culture is supposed to be like the in-game equivalent of an Asian culture set aside from a largely Westernized world, but I think you could make the comparison more specific than that. There's a lot of ranting amidst the Wutaians about how after they lost the war, the country was opened up to a bunch of outsider touristy types who started messing up the place. At the end of the pagoda sequence, Yuffie's father tells her to steal the party's materia after their quest is over. Does Square-Enix have a secret plot to steal America's materia? I think it would irresponsible not to speculate.
Right now I'm saved in the Sunken Gelinka, where I'll get what is pretty much free XP from The Turks in a battle that has a really bad AI glitch, but then I'll have to fight some stuff that can probably actually kill me.
"We ain't no Ancients if that's what ya mean."
Final Fantasy VII Playthrough
Playtime 27:23-28:56
Hey, remember when I used to update this? After a long hiatus, I started up my playthrough again, starting with the last Huge Materia quest in that takes place (echo effect) in spaaaaaace. Granted, over the course of the story, the whole party sees all manner of strange stuff, but it's still a bit bizarre and rather amusing that no one in the party other than Cid really seems to care that they're the first people in outer space. Cid is pressed up against the wall peering out the porthole, arms clutched around it like he's trying to capture all of space in his hands, while everyone else just sort of sits motionless, wondering when they're going to be done with the whole thing. After the Huge Materia quests, the next plot point is going back to visit Bugenhagen, who tells you to take him to the City of the Ancients, where he conveniently finds writing scribbled by a scientist (who writes in riddles?) about where to find the Key to the Ancients. I guess they don't quite show how deep the pool is or if it feeds into flowing water or something during the cutscene at the end of disc 1, but it's a bit perplexing why Cloud is so dead certain that they're completely fucked when Bugenhagen explains that Aries's White Materia is the Holy power that can save the planet. Having just made it back from outer fucking space on a spaceship that was on an irreversible collision course with a giant meteor, does fishing something out of a big pool of water seem that impossible?
Before returning with the Key of the Ancients though, I've stopped off for a few more diversions first. I went to see Lucretia behind the waterfall, which is kind of a fun scene culminating in Vincent telling her the white lie that Sephiroth is dead. I also did the pagoda sequence in Wutai to get Yuffie's final limit break. I dunno if it's supposed to be a direct homage, but the whole "fight one guy with a different style on each level of a pagoda" thing is the same premise as Game of Death, the movie Bruce Lee was making when he died. Sadly, unlike Game of Death the final battle here does not involve a vampire Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. It never really occurred to before that Wutai could be seen as a commentary on post-war Japan. I mean, granted, it's obvious that Wutai's culture is supposed to be like the in-game equivalent of an Asian culture set aside from a largely Westernized world, but I think you could make the comparison more specific than that. There's a lot of ranting amidst the Wutaians about how after they lost the war, the country was opened up to a bunch of outsider touristy types who started messing up the place. At the end of the pagoda sequence, Yuffie's father tells her to steal the party's materia after their quest is over. Does Square-Enix have a secret plot to steal America's materia? I think it would irresponsible not to speculate.
Right now I'm saved in the Sunken Gelinka, where I'll get what is pretty much free XP from The Turks in a battle that has a really bad AI glitch, but then I'll have to fight some stuff that can probably actually kill me.
Sunday, May 09, 2010
Shorties
What say we try and get caught up
Death at a Funeral (***)
I never saw the original Frank Oz-directed, British version of this movie, which is probably a good thing since, other than the cast, they seem to be nearly identical, right down to the same actor playing the father's diminutive long-time "friend." So I can't really compare this to the original, but I can tell you that I found this version to be pretty funny, though some parts are most certainly funnier than others. Chris Rock is Aaron, our protagonist, a son burying his father--who stipulated in his will that his funeral take place at home--and is struggling to deal with both the logistics and financial reality of the funeral, while trying to deal with the various warring factions of his family. He mostly serves as the straight man, and mostly does a pretty good job of it. Martin Lawrence plays his brother, Ryan, a wealthy and popular writer (well, he claims he got hit hard by the recession) who moved out to New York and lives a playboy's lifestyle. His character's just really not that funny in the grand scheme of the movie. Most of the bits centered around him involve him creepily hitting on an 18 year old and kind of fall flat. Luke Wilson, perhaps snake-bitten by those God-awful AT&T commercials, isn't all that funny either as Derek, the ex of Elaine (Zoe Saldana), who spends the duration of the funeral ineptly trying to win her back.
Much, much funnier are Norman (Tracy Morgan) and Uncle Russell (a perpetually scowling Danny Glover), who pretty much steal the movie. Glover plays Uncle Russell as the grumpy old man archetype turned up to 11, spending the whole of the movie verbally and physically abusing Norman, who has the unfortunate task of having to look after him despite merely being a family friend. Tracy Morgan is... well... Tracy Morgan, showing off his unmatched comedic timing acting like the funniest possible type of complete crazy person. Also funny is the escalating comedy of errors involving various family members trying to detain the little person who was... involved with their father and is now trying to blackmail the family for what he believes is owed to him. The sight gag it all culminates in is somewhat predictable though.
Overall, Death at a Funeral is a well-executed, raunchy, dark comedy.
Sherlock Holmes (***)
Guy Ritchie, who has made a career to this point making British underground movies tries his hand at a crime story of a more classical nature in the form of the latest adaptation of the quintessential detective character, and the results are mostly enjoyable. Bearing only a passing resemblance to a lot of the very gentlemanly interpretations of Holmes, like the movies starring Peter Cushing in the 60s and 70s, Ritchie's film has a bit more of an edge, not skirting around Holmes' drug addiction, and playing up his somewhat anti-social behavior. Robert Downey Jr. brings his usual quirkiness to the role, at times making it seem like his character from Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang has been sent back to Victorian England. Jude Law's Watson is good as well, and the two playing off of each other produces a nice House-Wilson vibe, Gregory House, of course, being basically the modernized, medical equivalent of the Holmes archetype.
Mark Strong plays the villain, a cult-leader who has been murdering the cult's enemies by seemingly magical means, and whose ultimate plot is to kill all the non-cult-friendly members of parliament through a very steampunk-looking device that will flood the parliament chamber with deadly gas. As such, it leads to the old cliched ticking time-bomb scenario, but the detective story that leads up to it is intriguing enough and feels worthy of the Holmes tradition. The movie does an effective job of tying everything up, while teasing a much more iconic Holmes foe for a potential sequel. Rachel McAdams shows up as a old flame of Holmes', but doesn't really end up having much that's all that memorable. Despite not being used to this sort of big-budget, big-hype fare, Ritchie is able to inject a lot of his signature hard-nosed style into the film. Particularly cool are the fight sequences, in we first see Holmes planning out precisely how and why he's going to attack his target in slow-motion, blow-by-blow, then we rewind to see it happen all at once in real time. Compared to how slow-motion is used routinely in action movies nowadays, it feels much less empty and much more purposeful.
Holmes is enjoyable, and if a sequel is to be made (may have already been greenlit for all I know, haven't been seeking out news for it) I would have high hopes for it.
Fantastic Mr. Fox (***1/2)
As if Wes Anderson's movies weren't already quirky and surrealist enough, Anderson tries his hand at stop-motion animation in his adaptation of Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr. Fox. I don't have the slightest clue as to how close the movie is to the book in either plot or feel, but I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. George Clooney plays a fox who promises his wife, voiced by Merryl Streep, to give up his career of chicken snatching when they settle down and have a kid, who turns out to have the voice of Jason Schwartzman. Eventually, though, he falls back on his old habits, and pulls off his greatest caper ever, which causes three of the angriest farmers in the land to come after him and drive him and the neighboring animals deep into the sewers. Thus, Mr. Fox has to hatch a plan for them to escape, which involves, among other things, a badger demolitions expert voiced by Bill Murray. Funnnnn times.
Avatar (***)
Yep, finally got around to seeing it, though I'm not going to waste a lot of ink on it (pretend this is ink). I agree pretty much exactly with what the general consensus seems to be, that being that it's visually stunning, but the plot is derivative and forgettable.
Death at a Funeral (***)
I never saw the original Frank Oz-directed, British version of this movie, which is probably a good thing since, other than the cast, they seem to be nearly identical, right down to the same actor playing the father's diminutive long-time "friend." So I can't really compare this to the original, but I can tell you that I found this version to be pretty funny, though some parts are most certainly funnier than others. Chris Rock is Aaron, our protagonist, a son burying his father--who stipulated in his will that his funeral take place at home--and is struggling to deal with both the logistics and financial reality of the funeral, while trying to deal with the various warring factions of his family. He mostly serves as the straight man, and mostly does a pretty good job of it. Martin Lawrence plays his brother, Ryan, a wealthy and popular writer (well, he claims he got hit hard by the recession) who moved out to New York and lives a playboy's lifestyle. His character's just really not that funny in the grand scheme of the movie. Most of the bits centered around him involve him creepily hitting on an 18 year old and kind of fall flat. Luke Wilson, perhaps snake-bitten by those God-awful AT&T commercials, isn't all that funny either as Derek, the ex of Elaine (Zoe Saldana), who spends the duration of the funeral ineptly trying to win her back.
Much, much funnier are Norman (Tracy Morgan) and Uncle Russell (a perpetually scowling Danny Glover), who pretty much steal the movie. Glover plays Uncle Russell as the grumpy old man archetype turned up to 11, spending the whole of the movie verbally and physically abusing Norman, who has the unfortunate task of having to look after him despite merely being a family friend. Tracy Morgan is... well... Tracy Morgan, showing off his unmatched comedic timing acting like the funniest possible type of complete crazy person. Also funny is the escalating comedy of errors involving various family members trying to detain the little person who was... involved with their father and is now trying to blackmail the family for what he believes is owed to him. The sight gag it all culminates in is somewhat predictable though.
Overall, Death at a Funeral is a well-executed, raunchy, dark comedy.
Sherlock Holmes (***)
Guy Ritchie, who has made a career to this point making British underground movies tries his hand at a crime story of a more classical nature in the form of the latest adaptation of the quintessential detective character, and the results are mostly enjoyable. Bearing only a passing resemblance to a lot of the very gentlemanly interpretations of Holmes, like the movies starring Peter Cushing in the 60s and 70s, Ritchie's film has a bit more of an edge, not skirting around Holmes' drug addiction, and playing up his somewhat anti-social behavior. Robert Downey Jr. brings his usual quirkiness to the role, at times making it seem like his character from Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang has been sent back to Victorian England. Jude Law's Watson is good as well, and the two playing off of each other produces a nice House-Wilson vibe, Gregory House, of course, being basically the modernized, medical equivalent of the Holmes archetype.
Mark Strong plays the villain, a cult-leader who has been murdering the cult's enemies by seemingly magical means, and whose ultimate plot is to kill all the non-cult-friendly members of parliament through a very steampunk-looking device that will flood the parliament chamber with deadly gas. As such, it leads to the old cliched ticking time-bomb scenario, but the detective story that leads up to it is intriguing enough and feels worthy of the Holmes tradition. The movie does an effective job of tying everything up, while teasing a much more iconic Holmes foe for a potential sequel. Rachel McAdams shows up as a old flame of Holmes', but doesn't really end up having much that's all that memorable. Despite not being used to this sort of big-budget, big-hype fare, Ritchie is able to inject a lot of his signature hard-nosed style into the film. Particularly cool are the fight sequences, in we first see Holmes planning out precisely how and why he's going to attack his target in slow-motion, blow-by-blow, then we rewind to see it happen all at once in real time. Compared to how slow-motion is used routinely in action movies nowadays, it feels much less empty and much more purposeful.
Holmes is enjoyable, and if a sequel is to be made (may have already been greenlit for all I know, haven't been seeking out news for it) I would have high hopes for it.
Fantastic Mr. Fox (***1/2)
As if Wes Anderson's movies weren't already quirky and surrealist enough, Anderson tries his hand at stop-motion animation in his adaptation of Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr. Fox. I don't have the slightest clue as to how close the movie is to the book in either plot or feel, but I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. George Clooney plays a fox who promises his wife, voiced by Merryl Streep, to give up his career of chicken snatching when they settle down and have a kid, who turns out to have the voice of Jason Schwartzman. Eventually, though, he falls back on his old habits, and pulls off his greatest caper ever, which causes three of the angriest farmers in the land to come after him and drive him and the neighboring animals deep into the sewers. Thus, Mr. Fox has to hatch a plan for them to escape, which involves, among other things, a badger demolitions expert voiced by Bill Murray. Funnnnn times.
Avatar (***)
Yep, finally got around to seeing it, though I'm not going to waste a lot of ink on it (pretend this is ink). I agree pretty much exactly with what the general consensus seems to be, that being that it's visually stunning, but the plot is derivative and forgettable.
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