_hojo:30 Days of Gaming – One Day of Xenogears + Stuff I Was Forced to Not Answer with “Xenogears”

_I was talking to someone the other day about how I’m just not cut out for watching TV shows when they air. Waiting around in anticipation for new episodes is just…tedious and unbearable. When I reflected on this statement later, I came to the conclusion that my entire life is like that. I don’t like watching an episode of a show and then waiting a week for a new one; I like waiting for the entire season to finish, then buying it all on DVD and watching it in a day or two. I still like buying CD’s not just for the physical copy, but also because it semi-forces me to listen to at least 10 songs when I throw it in my car stereo. I prefer eating big meals every day as opposed to lots of small little ones. I’m better when I play a video game nonstop as opposed to digesting it slowly [See: Record of Agarest War for proof. I tried taking it slowly, and I’ve been playing it since August. Plus that game is long as fuck]. I read books in the same way, too, lest I forget the details from the beginning chapters. What can I say? I’m a marathon man. So…when it came to this whole “30 Days of Gaming” thing going around, I thought to myself “Really? ONE post per day? Sounds neat…but not happening. I’ll do it all at once, thanks.” [BTW, that thought came before my epiphany on how I prefer everything all at once and not spread out, so…that’s another example]. But, as opposed to just shooting everything out right at the start while nobody else had finished, I figured I’d at least wait a while before doing this…and it’s been a while now, so here goes!

_hojo:Super Pac-Man – Turbo Hyper Dot Eating

_Pac-Man Championship Edition was a fantastic game. It was the kind of game that made me say “I wish they’d made this sooner so I could have been playing it earlier in my lifespan.” Even worse is that the original was out for over a year before I played it for the first time. I was missing out on joy for that year. It’s because I don’t really care for original Pac-Man that much. I’m sorry, Pac-Man. I’m sorry for letting my opinion on your game from last century sway me against your game from this century. It was wrong of me, and I apologize. And yet…even after that, I wasn’t that excited about the sequel at the first announcement.

_hojo:Slaves Blog – The Future

_There hasn’t been a post in nearly two months, mainly because…I’m pretty much the only person still active here. That’s OK. However, I have a…bad reason! A few months ago, I looked at all of the group blogs we had going around, and only really saw one person [Or less] actively posting on all of them. I thought to myself “Hmmmmm…you know, if all the group blogs have disintegrated into solo blogs, why not take those solo’ists and form a supergroup out of them?!” That was…quite a while ago. Many months. actually. I mentioned it to Moku when he asked if I’d like to join a music blog with him. I threw him this idea about a superblog with everybody blogging about whatever, and he said “Cool. I like it.” More time passed, we sat on our hands, and eventually, Moku took action, threw it out to interested parties, we got together, and thus, We Fear Change was born.

_hojo:Eye of the Beholder

_Many years ago, I had 2 addictions. Actually, that’s a lie. I had a few addictions. Nothing like drugs or anything, don’t worry. Anyways, I had some addictions. The addictions I speak of, specifically, were Minesweeper and AIM. More specifically, talking to a girl I had a big crush on on AIM. Even more specifically, talking to her on AIM while playing Minesweeper. All the time.

_hojo:Mother[3] of Mankind

_Let’s get it out of the way in case you forgot or don’t know: I wasn’t a huge fan of Earthbound. Not really. Not much. Not quite. So why did I bother giving Mother 3 a chance? Because while I didn’t care much for Earthbound, Mother 3 was supposed to be a much tighter affair, and Earthbound was not without redeeming qualities. Just…the gameplay wasn’t one of those qualities. So I figured…since that was really the only thing that needed improving and Mother 3 was supposed to be an improvement…hey! I put 2 and 2 together. And thankfully…2 and 2 did indeed equal 4, and all was right in the world.

_hojo:Woody’s Roundup.06

_Well…obviously, there have been things happening in my life since the last roundup. I’m now in a new place of residency. My room is much smaller, but I have many new things to better maximize the space given to me. If I had this stuff in my old room, I’d have had a fuckton of space. Oh well. Once I’m FULLY settled in, I’ll have pics of the new rig up in another post [I actually am settled in, but I’m not really done setting up my room yet. Stuff is still lying around…I haven’t figured out what I’m going to do with a couple of my things yet.] Well…I was settled in during the FF13 post, but now I’m getting back into the blogging…thing. Well, no more than before. Not like I ever kept up a torrid pace of posts. But I do try to make ’em meaty, even if I have to combine single paragraphs about 10 different games to make ’em that way! And now, because you’ve got a friend in me…it’s time for another roundup.

_hojo:Final Fantasy XIII – revolutionizing the paradigm outside the box

_On December 17th, 2009, Final Fantasy 13 was released in Japan. The hype was huge and the internet was abuzz with “He said, she said” from friend’s brother’s cousin’s roommate who speaks japanese but can’t read it that well who was about 5 hours into the game, but already had written up their final impressions on the full game. After about 2 weeks, you’d have thought that the entire internet was fluent in japanese, had imported the JP FF13 and had played through the full game already, because if you brought it up, they’d tell you how linear it was, how the storytelling was weak, who the worst member of the awful cast was, and how the lack of towns ruined the gameplay. Because everybody had totally played it. “I can’t wait for this to come out and get torn apart by the US reviewers because it’s horrible!” All this from people who weren’t jaded anti-S-E revisionists who loved FF7 back when it came out, then when they found out that kids that went to Hot Topic were into Advent Children, they started telling people that FF7 was totally gay and K-ON! is hardcore. No sirree. Anyways…on March 9th, FF13 hit US shores, and shockingly enough, I decided for play it myself and judge it based on my own feelings. Novel concept, eh? These are those feelings put into words.

Gendo – Lost Odyssey, Disc by Disc: The First

I don’t think I made any friends with the last post I made here, so I figured for my next post I would try talking positively about something instead. When I first heard rumblings about Lost Odyssey I didn’t pay much heed, after all I didn’t own a 360 nor did I plan on buying one. Years after the fact I’ve grown to learn that was a mistake and I missed out on perhaps the best RPG of this HD generation. Directed by the father of Final Fantasy himself: Hironobu Sakaguchi; this feels like the true successor to the Final Fantasy line. As I play through the game I’m gonna give my thoughts on the game, disc by disc, and I’ll try and stray from spoilers until the last disc.

_hojo:Woody’s Roundup.05

_Phew…we’re getting there…is there even anything for me to add here that’s happened since last time? My life is so uneventful. Well…that’s not true…but it’s uneventful in the fact that nothing happens that I’d feel comfortable talking about it here. Though I suppose that might be a little bit of an insight into my life, cryptic though it may be? Nah, that’s bullshit. Perhaps…I’ll step a little bit into my musical tastes as of late? As black and white as possible, I’m usually in one of two moods: up or down. When I’m feeling down, I like listening to down music, and vice versa. My “down” albums of choice of late have been Alice in Chains’ self-titled album and Brand New’s “The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me.” My “up” albums have been the Beach Boys “The Sounds of Summer” and Spinnerette’s self-titled album. And when I’m in the mood for a little bit of both, the entire Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex soundtrack collection has been working pretty well. Maybe that’ll give you a little more insight on the inner working’s of Hojo? Or maybe not. In any case, it’ll just have to do. Deal with it. Now…the boot fits. Time for a roundup.

Gendo – My Love/Hate Relationship With Final Fantasy, and Why I Won’t Play XIII

With all the recent buzz about Final Fantasy XIII I figured I’d talk a little bit about why I don’t think I’ll be playing it. There probably is no possible way that I think I could sit down and enjoy Final Fantasy XIII, just from the information that I’ve gleaned from reviews it really doesn’t sound like a game I would like… but why? This won’t be an in depth discussion (it’s gonna come off as more of a rant), but more a casual glace at how I’ve come to hate the Final Fantasy series.