Let’s see, what have I been up to?
On a foolish whim I preordered a Japanese copy of Pokémon Heart Gold for myself. I don’t speak Japanese. Don’t let my 1 ½ quarters in college fool you. That preorder warranted a crash course in Japanese, so I have picked up my copy of My Japanese Coach in earnest this time. I have to at least be able to recognize the hiragana by September 12! (or shortly thereafter 5-10 day shipping and all). I am currently ranked a pre-schooler and am up to lesson 10. I don’t know how many lessons there are, but I think I’ve got quite a trek ahead of me. I am trying to do two lessons a day. They are so far fairly short, but I do worry about retaining the alphabet. I mean, I’ve forgotten it all once already.
I am still playing Pokémon Platinum auf Deutsch. Three languages in one head? How will I live at that speed? I got my member card to unlock Darkrai, but I haven’t beaten the game yet, so I can’t get him. That’t ok with me. I am still enjoying running around with Rotom in my party who is currently in Microwave form and just helped me stomp gym six (the steel gym).
I just sort of…stopped… playing Devil Survivor. That’s typical of me. I play a game, get towards the end and then put it down and never finish it. I keep taking it with me in my little DS card case, but I haven’t played it in a while. I should dust it off, beat it and call it a day.
I am (in my mind) 99% done with work, which means I might start playing Kingdom Hearts again. Probably in a week or two as I go on vacation next week. I am still excited about the Kingdom Hearts DS game that releases in September and finally got around to preordering it.
I found a strategy guide for Chain of Memories at my local used bookstore yesterday and picked it up. I may take COM with me on vacation and skip around a bit. I know they remade that one for the PS2. I don’t think I will end up picking it up though.
And lastly, for some unknown reason I have started playing The New Super Mario Bros. It’s hardly new anymore, but when it was I didn’t like it. I never got past world 1. I’m on world 5 now, and I think it’s a lot of fun, but I’m annoyed by the official guide:
- Hello official guide? Do you think you can tell me how to get to world 4?
- Um, no. But here are the maps for world 4.
- Maps are great official guide, but not if I can’t figure out how to get there to use them!
I had to go to gamefaqs to find out how to get there. Now where do I get a mini mushroom?
Still playing Devil Survivor. On day 6. Slooooowly leveling up my monsters for the final confrontation on day 7.
Today My Life as a Darklord came out as WiiWare. I couldn’t help it, I had 1100 points on my account (it costs 1000) so I bought it. I have recently become enamored with tower defense games (namely Crystal Defenders which I bought for my iPhone, not the WiiWare version). My Life as a Darklord takes the tower defense rather literally. You are a “darklord”—or his daughter as the case may be. You are charged with building levels to your castle to ward of attackers.
As the game begins your castle can only have five stories, but as you beat each stage you gain “karma points” and can purchase additional levels for your castle using those points. You can also buy monsters. In the beginning all you have at your disposal are goblins, but soon enough you recruit scorpions and mus to fight for you. I don’t know what else you get, that’s all I’ve scared up so far.
The music is great. The dialogue is funny. The gameplay is completely addicting. I love it. So much for playing Magician’s Quest which I picked up the other day (and am not sure if I like. It so wants to be harry potter meets animal crossing).
So, the video game front has been slow. I started working on a website which seriously cut into my play time. I haven’t turned Kingdom Hearts on since the end of June. I did pick up a game while I was in Los Angeles: Shin Megami Tensei Devil Survivor for the DS. It got good pre-release marks in Nintendo Power, and the BF has tried to find other Shin Megami games at Gamestop on several occasions and they’re impossible to find. So I thought I’d give Devil Survivor a whirl.
I don’t normally like futuristic RPG type games. I prefer my RPGs more in the realm of fantasy. That being said, this little game is kind of fun. It’s like a cross between an RPG and a tactics game. You don’t walk around and fight things. There are “sections” of Tokyo that you visit. You can talk to the locals or your party members. If an event will be triggered there is an icon there. If a battle will be triggered it warns you of that too. There are usually one or two places where you can battle without progressing the story.
Your party consists of a human character and two demons. You can buy new demons at the demon auction or create new ones by fusing the two together. I love trying to see what I’ll get when I cross demon X with demon Y.
You have 7 days to try and change the fate of the citizens trapped inside the Yamanote Line of Tokyo. I’m on day 3. I’m at the big nasty boss of day 3. And I’m getting stomped. So I’m doing free battle after free battle to level a bit and though it should feel like grinding it doesn’t. I’m enjoying it, because the higher your level the more kinds of demons you can buy/fuse and it’s so reminiscent of “gotta catch ‘em all” for me.
I’m still playing Kingdom Hearts. I’m not very good at action games. I’ve got two left thumbs. LOL. I play a little bit each day and take 6 tries to defeat each boss. OK, so the last two I have gotten lucky with and killed in one try. I’m reluctant to play the mini games though. I usually SUCK at mini games.
My german copy of pokémon platinum arrived and I started to play that. It works on my DSi (which I didn’t expect) and I was able to download the secret key over wifi (the ?-öffner—hehe!)
Casey broke out his Japanese copy of Pearl and downloaded a jirachi over wifi. It’s supposed to interact with heart gold and soul silver . I’m jealous!
Meanwhile on US Platinum I have been trying (unsuccessfully) for days to get a decent Registeel (good IVs, good nature).
Nothin’ much new in the realms of non-animal crossing pokémon related games.
I’ve always wanted to play Kingdom Hearts, but never have. 358/2 Days is coming out in September for the DS and it looks awesome, so I picked up the first one at Gamestop for $10 ($4 after the $6 card I had). I’m liking it so far, but the camera angles can be a little annoying.
Well, I feel cheated. After spending all that time breeding and training my team for the little battle, I found out it only goes up to rank four. I tried double battle and single battle. Unless I’m missing something, rank four is the highest. My strategy guide (yes I bought it…) says it goes up to rank eight. It lied to me!
I need a new conquest. What should I try now?
At least two of the eight levels anyway. By the end of EV training all of my Pokémon I gave up. The magnemite got a chunk of vitamins, a few fights, and then was sent on his merry way to fight. I think I need to take a break from breeding and training for a bit.
After beating the first level of the little cup I was slightly disappointed. I didn’t get a new pass or a new outfit or anything. Why don’t I get Sashay’s awesome ribbon thing?!
I have found that my team has a little trouble against bugs, which run rampant throughout the little cup (so far). I don’t have a single flying move. And since it’s a rain dance team, no fire either.
I’m new to low level fighting. I got killed by bide a couple times, which made me laugh.
I’ve even been slacking (no pun intended) on the Pokémon front. I haven’t done anything new with Platinum. I’m still working on my Li’l team. They’re all done except for the croagunk and magnemite. Hopefully by the end of the weekend I can take them for a spin on battle revolution.
I found out something this morning. It is best not to attempt the survival battle when seriously tired. That wheel is hard to hit. Nevertheless, I prevailed and healed everyone in time for my fiftieth battle. I took out Krueger and his evil shuckle and promptly saved. With fifty battles under my belt it’s time to finish my little team…
