Incoherent Thoughts

The day has disappeared again. o.o;

I did get something done yesterday. I wrote...err...a prologue summary? =D; For FF4TA. I meant to do more but I got distracted. Nothing much happens in the prologue, and I'd gotten bored of it by the point I finished writing that. Most of the dialogue in it is just Biggs and Wedge teaching Ceodore the basics of the fighting system, and the Mithril villagers telling Ceodore the basics of the Blue Planet history. Those are not something to include in a story summary, so it turned out short. The first chapter is where things start to get interesting.

Today, I've just angsted over the endless amounts of information out there about FF7. Every time I try to start looking into it, I get overwhelmed. Not only did the first game offer a wealth of information that's been pored over again and again by rabid fanboys/girls in the ten years since it came out, but damn SE keeps adding more and more stuff to it...I was never all that familiar with the FF7 world to begin with, and it's never been an FF favorite of mine. It seems that waff is doomed to not have FF7 info for some time yet.
I'm in a rather similar situation with FF10, and although there's not quite as much info out there about that one as there's about FF7, it's still plenty enough that I can't easily absorb it in a couple days. Which is about my limit of intense concentration, after that it evens out, the amount of stuff I can stuff into my head gets exponentially smaller, and in a couple more days leads into a complete annihilation of interest in the subject for a long time. *sweatdrop* Although usually I manage to distract myself until the last step happens, and can renew my interest in the subject earlier than I would if I went to the end of it...

Maybe the amount of info already out there for Crisis Core is why I'm not in a hurry to get it. Plus there's the fact that I keep wondering if they'll release an International version in Japan. I want the Japanese voices (they'd keep the Japanese voices in an International version of FF7CC, right? o.o) but I also want the extra content, you see... For some time yet, I'm content with waiting. There's plenty of other new FFs to keep me occupied - and who knows, by the time I actually decide to get that game, my interest will have turned to FF7 instead of more obscure FFs.

I'm trying to decide which FFs to take with me to the train tomorrow. The train trip to Helsinki (where the Versailles gig is..) takes five-ish hours. Plenty of time to play. =D; Maybe I'll just take all my portable ones and decide along the way.
(but that presents the problem that I have detailed notes of my intended character growths for FFT and FFTA, and I'd need to remember to take those notes, as well as a pen, otherwise I can't bring myself to play the damn games. I always forget the notes, so...that's partially why I haven't yet finished either of those games)

Note to self: remember to charge the DS and the PSP and the cellphone and the mp3 player. @__@

Sigma Harmonics looks interesting. I like the look of the main charas. Kurogami Sigma hits many weak points, oh yes he does... *___*
(SE, please..stop churning out games like there's no tomorrow..I don't have time to play them all.. ;___;)

I have a feeling that I've learnt a lot in the past day. About kanji, I mean. I even went ahead and did today's exercises already... (I've gotten quicker. Already went through most common radicals enough times to know how to write them and apply to a new kanji) Hopefully I can now keep my hands off DS美文字トレーニング for the rest of the day and do something else, too.
...there's this section that gets new content every day that you complete at least one daily exercise. It tells about how kanji were originally formed, the pictures they're supposed to represent. I have a feeling I won't be missing a day for some time, that stuff is interesting. =D
There's also a list of what kanji the hiragana came from, and other interesting tidbits having to do with writing.

Read scripts of FF4TA from prologue up to chapter 2..so Kain did show up! Although very briefly, for now. And the situation got worse than I expected. Not getting spoilery here, but...something I didn't quite expect happened. Maybe it's just the uncertainty, that's making things look rather bleak.
Heh, there was a Palom/Luca reference. You know, in the ending of FF4? =D Not to worry though, feisty little (now 22 years old, so not so little anymore) Palom isn't settling down anytime soon. I suspect he's too busy having fun in Troia.
Can't wait to get to know what happens in chapter 3. But if past chapters are any indication, the release is still half a month away...and then it'll take some time before it's transcribed.

I'm suddenly up at a time like this again. How did this happen?

One thing I managed to ascertain was that DS美文字トレーニング takes a lot of time and effort. I spent hours on that thing. I barely managed to complete the exercises of one section before the day changed...and then I had more exercises to complete. And I still don't know what that other section holds. I did a few of today's before getting too tired to continue, so maybe I'll actually finish in time to take a look at it today.
I've even learnt to settle for the second-best grade instead of the best in all. Drawing the kanji so many times that you'll get it almost perfect is too time-consuming. (the thickness of the line doesn't depend on how hard you press. It depends on how slow or fast you draw it. Getting full points on a kanji means you need thicker lines, so you have to write slower)

...I still have a fever. A rather slight one, but...it's getting closer to seven days now, that I've been sick. It's getting really, really, really old.

Found a translation of a FF4 設定資料集, a world and background guide basically. It has some rather...surprising information. (long live Gilbert VII? All hail the great Sage Minwu? Visit Troia, with its irresistable tourist attraction?) Go read it, and you'll know what I mean. xD; (makes me want to get that FF4 world guide I meant to get a little while ago)

A couple things that I've forgotten to mention in the past few days...

Clannad! The anime series. Watched epi 22 (the last actual episode, 23 is an extra and 24 an OVA). It was...sweet. Well, after a certain little incident was over, anyway. Won't say anything more in case you haven't been following the story and don't want to know.
Finally wiki'd the series, and found out that it's a video game, too. Several, in fact. And manga, and novels, and whatever else there was. Besides the anime and the movie, that is. I'm tempted to get the PSP version wiki said is coming out. =D ......err. No, I don't play Clannad's genre of games regularly.

Seems that Final Fantasy IV The After: 月の帰還 chapter 3 will focus on Yang. Who...has a daughter now. Wow. o.O; A martial arts enthusiast if I got my Japanese right, but what'd you expect from Yang's kid. She's called Ursula. She has a pretty dress, that's all I'm willing to say... (it occurred to me...since Yang's full name is Yang Fang Leiden, that'd make his daughter Ursula Leiden, right? I keep wanting full names for people and they just give me first names..or no names at all, like 'Yang's wife'. Wtf, can't they at least call her Mrs Leiden or something? Do they change last names at marriage in Fabul? What about Baron? D: Can't they release a guide for these names or something..)
Oh, and did I mention Luca from chapter 2? It's really weird that you can now see her face. Yellow eyes, nice. xD
I keep wondering when Kain will show up.. no mention of him yet besides that he's not been seen since the end of FF4. Not as far as I know, anyway, and they'd update his profile at the official site when he shows up, right? Really need to find a fan site that reports FF4TA progress. I wonder if such a site exists. Should, right? Just need to find such a thing.

My Life as a King: FF Crystal Chronicles might just be set for May in Europe, along with the WiiWare service. =D We haven't gotten an announcement or anything (unlike US..and unlike Japan, who gets to play the game tomorrow) but the latest Wii update mentioned that it's in preparation for WiiWare, which is coming in May. As good as an announcement, right? Right? =D;

Still sick...I've sure eaten my share of painkillers these past few days. Still, they can't prevent you from feeling drained and uncomfortable.

Saiunkoku Monogatari... I've now finished watching the first season. Damn, did I miss Ryuuki there towards the end. He hardly showed up at all. .___. This series is tearing up my heart, why can't they just be together?
Of course, it keeps me watching. Hmmh.

I scanned that Kain picture from FF4 Official Complete Guide, just in case anyone's interested.

( It be here )

I didn't mention it the day before yesterday, but I was working on waff character pages, thinking how a finished page should look like and what it should include. Came up with something, and applied it to Cecil's page. Well, at least half applied it. The rest of it needs to be filled out. If anyone thinks it should include something that seems it won't be included (although I have no idea what that could be, as the basic info, his parts in the game and his stats are/will be all there) feel free to let me know.
...it's kind of discouraging, thinking how many characters there are in FFs..and then realizing how much work I have ahead of me. Cecil is only one character out of many, and writing these huge pages for all of the characters that require it will take a loooong time... Waff is an eternity project, that much I've known since I started it, but still. Kind of discouraging. =D; (maybe I should trim down on the details of what happens during the game. It all seemed relevant at the time, but..)

Due to watching too much Saiunkoku Monogatari, I now have 757 780 unread feeds in my RSS reader. Nice. *sweatdrop* This always happens when I find something new and interesting, it consumes my time and I don't remember such things as keeping up with the news. I did read some of the more important tags, like 'friends' and 'final fantasy' and 'japan'. =D But that's it. Going through even a small portion of a tag with so much content as 'science' or 'tech' (let alone 'news' itself) would require unacceptably long. I wonder what I'm missing...
See, that's the problem with being a news addict. If I don't have the time to catch up with the newest new all the time, it starts bothering me that there could be something important there.

Spent the whole day reading manga. =D But now I have something else to occupy my time with for a little while. I couldn't restrain myself from leafing through them before, but I hardly read any of them in the process. My FF4 Official Complete Guide and FF 20th Anniversary Ultimania File 1 finally arrived today! I was already expecting them on Friday, but they didn't make it by then... should know better than order stuff on a Sunday or early Monday. Makes the wait longer.

As has been mentioned before at many places, there's a picture of Kain's face in FF4 OCG, without his ever-present helmet. =DD Does any place have it scanned yet? I would rather not do it myself if I can avoid it. But I will, if it's not yet available. (heh...it has a couple words scribbled next to it. Roughly it goes "He's the pretty type. Because it's an FF" xD) There's also some nice production sketches and pictures, including some of the summons and the emblems of the countries (and Red Wings) from FF4 DS. I was hoping they'd include those, they were so prominent in the game...

Oh, and there's also this really clear drawing of Rosa's jewelry (parts of it are naturally obscured by her hair usually) and the design of the sleeves. Awesome. =D

And then there's the 20th Anniversary Character Ultimania. It's almost as thick as the FF9 Ultimania. xD; Lots of picture material, most of the characters have Amano art, a CG shot (if available) and in-game screenshots. And basic info of course. All in a compact book for easy reading. The index is huge. xDD
Naturally, not all characters that all that detailed a part for them. Those I described above are for main characters, and take up two pages (unless it's Luneth, Arc, Refia or Ingus, in which case there is only one page of each. The original Light Warriors of FF3 get two pages, though). Characters with smaller parts but that still matter to the story have about half a page each, and bit-part (named and some more important unnamed) characters have a couple lines, and only one picture. FF7 has two pages of those. FF8 has three. FF9 has 16. =D And what's the biggest section, in total? Well, that's gotta be either FF9 or FF11. Both are a bit longer than the other PS-era FFs, and much longer than the earlier ones.

Besides the character introductions, there are short features sprinkled between each game's section. An evolution of chocobos and moogles, lists of what character(s) in FFs fulfill a certain stereotype (guys that constantly try to pick up girls: 8 entries, cool people who don't talk much: 9 entries...) Those lists naturally mostly include main charas, but have some bit-part charas mixed in.
At the end, there's an interview with Yoshitaka Amano. Haven't read that yet, but it should be interesting.

One disappointment, though, is that Crystal Chronicles and Tactics games don't get proper sections. They get only briefly mentioned with the FF7 Compilation, Kingdom Hearts, and other games with FF characters. Such a shame...they even gave FF10-2 a proper section, but none of the Compilation, CC or Tactics games.

I'm not sure if I'm going to get File 2: Scenario. It's simply impossible to cram too much detail of all the main-series FF stories into just one book. Will have to see. Maybe just for completion's sake, if for nothing else...

Well isn't this nice. I just lost two hours worth of final dungeon in FF4. Was just at the save point, wondering which of the three doors actually leads to it. In case you don't know, the other two lead to monster-trap-with-rare-equip-as-price rooms. I, of course, picked the wrong one. Thankfully, I got out of the first room I tried, too. Then I tried the other (wrong) one, and took one step too far. Lunasaur killed me. But I didn't even want the Ribbons, you stupid dragon! .___.
I'd gotten up to level 71-75. Now I'm back to 68-72. Not fun.

It's March already. Suddenly the Versailles gig seems that much closer.

I feel like writing summaries for waff. The only problem is that I can't decide what to write summaries of. =D; Maybe FF Unlimited. People have a sad tendency to ignore it, even though it's a decent enough series at its core. Just remember not to stop at the anime and read/listen to the rest of the story, too. I can provide links to translations of the post-anime bits if it comes down to that, but they're easy enough to find just by googling, I should think.

I think I'd just reached the moon when I last wrote anything about FF4...
Now, I've beaten the Giant of Babel and cleared Bahamut's Cave. And naturally taken care of every sidequest I could think of that I could complete with little to no difficulty (that obviously doesn't include the Rainbow Pudding or the Onion gear)
I'm actually rather surprised I managed to deal with Bahamut. I'd run out of MP two Behemoths ago, and had to resort to Ethers to get through the last one. Not that MP would've done me much good at the Bahamut battle, he had Reflect up and had a Reflect-counter to magic attacks. Including Dispel. Managed to kill both Cecil and Rydia with my own attacks before I discovered those nice little facts. >.> (how? Well, Rydia went first and activated the first Reflect (didn't notice it was on counter). After which Rosa's queued spells were cast, and killed Cecil. Next time, I figured I'd just Dispel it first...proceeded to do just that, Dispel activated the counter-Reflect, and Rydia's second Flare was reflected back at herself. Nice) And even though I Hasted right at the start of the battle, he got down to 1 in the countdown before I managed to take him down. That one got rather close...
Not sure what I'm going to do next, maybe train at Bahamut's Cave a bit more (level 64-70). Or head forward in the story and train on the way. It's not likely my MP would last until a save point the first time I venture deep into the moon, anyway.
(I can sense my end-of-game reluctance to play creeping up on me. Boo. Must conquer this)

Didn't do any playing yesterday, since I remembered that I had one ebook queued up to read, so I did just that. It was Old Man's War by John Scalzi. You know, the current free ebook by Tor. Just letting you know of the offer, in case you're interested and didn't know about it, I think I forgot to advertise it when I signed up myself. The first free one was Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. This whole thing is a limited time offer (I think to advertise their ebook service?), so sign up quickly.
Come to think of it, the next ebook should be sent on the 29th...

It must be because I'm nearing the end in FF4, but I keep wanting to continue FFT finally. Might not be such a bad idea, but I should put more weight in beating the five games (FF1 PSP, FF4 DS, FF8, FF12RW, FFTA) where I'm at the final dungeon/mission or very close to it... how long has it been since I've touched FF8, one and a half years or thereabouts? Already? D:

I've found New Things To Hate. Prokaryote and its little companion, the green thingie. You know, the other one of the -ryotes. I didn't expect to get into this much trouble when I arrived at the moon.
I can deal with the local bomb variation just fine, Abyss Worms take long to kill but appear not to deal out much damage at all, Lunar Viruses are perfectly manageable with a little strategy, flans are a joke...but Prokaryotes? I just managed to get a game over 'cause they jumped out of a treasure chest and I couldn't run from them. The damn things beat me to death. One hit by a Prokaryote is around 700-900 (depending on the person, of course), and half of my party only has a bit less than 2,000 HP. Those would naturally be the ones who they hit for 900. And their attacks carry either poison or paralysis. Poison is manageable, but the paralysis kicks in way too often for comfort. With the treasure chest fight, Rosa and Rydia were out before the first round was over, Edge got stuck the second round, and then they just continued to pound Cecil to death. D: I should've remembered that the difficulty jumps a bit when you get to the moon. My levels are 59-64 or so, currently.
Odin was ridiculously easy, though. I even had to restart because I didn't have time to steal the Darkness DA before he died, the first time I tried that fight. Just Doublecast a couple Holy. *rolls eyes*

Once again I have to praise the graphics. I haven't mentioned them lately, have I? =D I was astounded by the Sylph Cave, Land of Summons was awe-inspiring, and the Mysidia prayer cutscene where the Lunar Whale appears from the waves...simply astounding. Lunar Whale's design is awesome, too. So many little touches that make it distinctive (just like everywhere else, but..), like the robotic Big Chocobo! It made no sense to have a live one, anyway. And the sleeping tube thingies. I wanted the charas to comment on them, but no. I wonder what they thought about going to these glassy upright pods to sleep... xD

Funny thing happened earlier. Went to check my order of FF4 DS Official Complete Guide (no, they still haven't sent it), and got distracted by a sale notice. Looked around a bit. Saw a world guide for FF4! =D (not on sale, you see, by that point was looking at other stuff) Thought to buy it, but then I noticed that I have a couple discount coupons for orders of more than 50 USD. Looked around a bit more, added another book to the order...and then decided that they cost too much combined, removed them both from the order, and bought the Final Fantasy 20th Anniversary Ultimania Chapter 1 instead. xD; I have no self-control, nor long-term attention. Must buy that FF4 world guide later, then.

Played through Sylph Cave and Cave of the Summons last night in FF4. When I saved outside of the Sealed Cave, my Cecil was level 59. I'm doomed. There's no way to keep him at a reasonable level at this point. *sigh*
Sealed Cave worries me. They have Chimera Brains there, and those managed to pretty much one-shot 4/5 of my party the last time I encountered one. Then again, that was 9 levels ago for Cecil, so...maybe there's nothing to worry about.
Tower of Babel monsters seem to be everywhere. I seem to have filled up most of the missing entries from there, wandering around Sylph Cave and Cave of the Summons, and just the regular underworld area. I don't have them all by any means, but at least there's no huge gaps in the list like there used to be. And then there's the fact that the Cave of Summons island seems to have a frequent encounter rate for Mystery Eggs, and they rather often hatch into dragons. Dragons that drop tails, which give you Onion equipment when brought to the tail-collecting guy in Adamant Grotto. =D I've been trying to fight many of them, but no luck so far, not even by stealing. Ah well...there's still time. For those tails, as well as for the damn Rainbow Pudding I need to bring to Doublebookingway...

Also discovered why I didn't see any new monsters at Mt Hobbs. I was at the wrong mountain. The missing one was at Mt Ordeals. Ooops. =D; Well, I'll look into it when I get out of the underworld again.

The Before Crisis soundtrack sounds awesome! I didn't even imagine it could sound something like that. I want that game, dammit. Port it to another platform, SE. Japan-only cellphone games suck. D:

Oh, yes! They're finally getting a Pirate Party formed in Finland! =D Message boards will open on Monday, and through discussions there more details on it will be decided. You can follow news for now through Piraattiliitto, if you haven't been doing that already.
The person who finally took up the formation plan and made it real is from Joensuu. :O

Finally continued FF4 yesterday. Wandered about Mt Hobbs trying to find that missing bestiary entry... I don't think I succeeded. I mean, I haven't gone to a Big Chocobo to check, but I'm pretty sure I'd seen all of those mobs when I last was there.. I'm not even sure what area to look in, I wasted tons of time in all of them and found nothing. And didn't even get a 呪いの指輪 (Cursed Ring?) for my troubles to fill up my rare item count. D:
Anyway, I'm in Eblan Cave now. My Cecil's level 50, which is total overkill. Edge joined at level 35... I have no idea how this has happened, those low-level monsters I've had to fight to fill up the bestiary shouldn't give that much exp.
Shouldn't there be a type of Vampire Lady in Eblan Cave? Or am I remembering things wrong? I've only seen two types of bats, and both of those only once. They seem to be pretty rare.

Gonna go continue playing now. I can finally even access Edge's Pochika minigame! =D I just need to get to a Big Chocobo. (and Rydia's comments about Edge have been hilarious thus far. The poor girl was even looking forward to meeting another prince, thinking him to be like Gilbart...xD Much approved!)

Porom...oh Porom, what's happened to you during all those years? o.o;;

(Final Fantasy IV The After: 月の帰還 certainly seems to be turning..interesting)

Sometimes I really have no idea where I get the files hidden away in musty forgotten folders in the depths of my computer. Was poking around and found an unorganized folder - what a surprise! I'd forgotten I had it. Usually I keep everything organized just so, no chaos allowed in my folders. While trying to move the files in it to their proper folders came across a dozen or so zipped manga (chapters? volumes? I have no idea) that I've probably never read - since, you know, they're zipped and all. Also came across some weird music files. Who the heck is this 'Jay Chou' guy? =D; I found a song by him (and the music video of that song!) hidden away there, too. Nothing to it, the song is really rather good, but who is this guy? How did I get that song and video? I have no clue.
Apparently the song was used in some movie soundtrack. Since parts of that video seem to be from a movie of some kind.

In FF4, I got 9,000 points in Rosa's minigame! :O I'm amazed, the most I'd previously gotten was 5,000, and before that some 3,700 or so. I either got really lucky or I have a really good sense of time when I concentrate. One of the three tries when I got that 9,000 points was the exact time required. Talking of the required time, is it just me or do the points earned go down insanely fast when you go off it for more than a tenth of a second either way? @__@ (no, I'm not using any aids in this one. I just count the seconds in my mind. That's why..I'm quite surprised)
The only other minigame I've gotten even close to that much points is Cecil's. 8,300+ points. Although I'm working on Rydia's minigame, some 6,000 points now. You have to calculate insanely fast and be very lucky to get any more than that...

[edit later]

Okaaay... There's yet another new Final Fantasy game coming. Although thankfully Crystal Guardians is for mobile only. I swear, if they don't stop announcing new FF games... x___x

My sleeping habits are really out of this world. I have no idea anymore when I'm going to be awake and when sleeping. Not even a good guess. It could be anything, really.
Not that I'm complaining. Much at least. After all, there is absolutely no reason to stay within a 24-hour cycle right now.

Played some FFIV. Heading to Baron now, and after that will pick up the Hovercraft.
Either the monsters in the Eblan area/Underworld/Tower of Babel have a really messed up order or I've missed way too many of them to feel exactly comfortable about being able to complete the bestiary in the first playthrough. I thought I'd caught everything in the levels of Tower of Babel that I could access, but there's some inexplicably missing entries in that section..I think around five of them. And more after the second bout of Eblan area monsters, but I think those are from the upper levels of the tower. I just...what the heck? I even fought enough Mystery Eggs to catch one Green Dragon, how could I have missed something there? @__@ Not being able to access the bestiary in the middle of dungeons is proving to be quite a bother.
Airship battles are so much more impressive with 3D graphics. The sprites couldn't do any justice at all to those scenes.

....I want a Battery. Really want one.

Ugh, I totally fail. I've now tried the Golbez fight in Dwarven Castle's Crystal Room twice. First time I died in the first five minutes. Second time I struggled on for 20 minutes before being quite soundly defeated. Wtf? D:

( Complaining )

My conclusion? (ARGHITWASN'TSUPPOSEDTOBETHISHARD!) ....I'm gonna need some luck to get through this one. .___. I don't think I'm under-leveled, either. Over-leveled, maybe. Rosa is level 33, the rest are 38-41. Except Rydia, I have no idea what level she is when she joins.