Fire Emblem: Shin Ankoku Ryuu to Hikari no Ken

The very first Fire Emblem game has been remade for the DS in Japan. How the crap did I not know about this? Well, no matter. I know now. And now I can wait in agony while they decide to never send it over to the US.

The Fire Emblem series is one of my favorite game series. It's what got me interested in tactical/strategy games. I'm seriously a freak for these games. I have all the ones that have come out in the US, and have played through them multiple times. The first Fire Emblem game to hit stateside is actually the 7th in the series. It was a prequel to the previous game in the series, and stars Eliwood, Hector and Lyndis. If you've played Super Smash Bros. Melee or Brawl, you'll recognize Marth from the first and third games, Roy from the The Binding Blade, and Ike from Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn.

Since Fire Emblem for the GBA, they've been sending them over to America (mostly due to the popularity of Marth in the Smash Bros. games), so I hope they'll send this one along, too. I'd love to play the older games in the series, and since this one is a remake, that hopefully means they made the game more smooth (by doing things like highlighting a unit's movement range, and adding in the weapon triangle). From the screen shots and what-not, it looks like they have.

Please send the game over the ocean, Nintendo! I'll definitely buy one. I'll really enjoy it back on a hand held system. The console versions certainly have their advantages, but the game feels more at home on a portable.

Google Chrome

I am typing this blog post from the brand new Google Chrome browser.  

Just like most Internet nerds, I'm a big fan of everything Google.  They're going to take over the world some day.  :)

Anyway, what it seems they have done, is taken parts from Mozilla Firefox (the browser I currently use) and other browsers (they mentioned Apple's WebKit, and I'm sure they took some from IE as well) to create their own browser.  It's still a beta version, but it looks good.  It's sleek, streamlined, and fast.  There's not much else to it right now, though.  So for the time being, I'm sticking with Firefox.  I think it's safe to assume that Google Chrome will allow for applications and add-ons just like Firefox does, but I won't be abandoning Firefox and my precious add-ons until then (like the spell checking feature (which Google Chrome seems to have, but either it doesn't work properly or I haven't activated it yet), browser skins, and Foxytunes).  I would advise keeping an eye out on Chrome; go ahead and download the program yourself, port over your setttings and bookmarks, keep it in mind, watch the Google blog for updates.  But it's only available for Windows right now, so Mac users are (currently) prevented from checking it out.

Good things come from Google, and this should be yet another in a long line of great (and free!) products.  Anything's better than Internet Explorer.  ^_^

Last Exile

Created by Gonzo, released domestically in the US by Geneon in 2004. 26 episodes spread out across 7 discs. DVD extras include art galleries, commercials, trailers, a production interview, and creditless titles.
Better planning (like keeping two-part episodes on the same disc) could have (and should have) brought that down to 6 discs, not seven. 4 episodes for discs 1-5, and just 3 on the last two.

Should have written this up as soon as I finished the show, which was a good month ago, at least. I hope I can remember enough to write up a decent review here. I should start by saying that I enjoyed Last Exile, in that it entertained me…most of the time. I did get a little bored by it every now and then. And I had a lot of problems with the show as well. It is a decent little show, one that I would recommend watching at least once. If for nothing else than some fantastic animation (with some amazing airship battles) and a really great soundtrack. That’s the best the show has going for it, along with the Range Murata character designs. The story, while interesting, has a lot of flaws in its execution. It could have (and should have) been a much better show; all the potential was there, but it just seems to fall a little flat. I’m not sure why, though looking into the show’s origin and production could reveal some clues.

The main problem is that the story just feels so choppy, as if pieces are missing. I often felt as if the story jumped forward without explanation, leaving me a little lost and confused from time to time. Every once in a while there would be an unhelpful flashback. That’s the easiest way to describe the feeling – that pieces are simply missing from the story. As if they should be there, but were instead left on the cutting room floor. Within the rather complex story are the characters, who are at once simple and complex themselves. Their development leaves much to be desired. Often you think a character is going one way, and then they go in the opposite direction instead…or nowhere at all. This happens most often in regards to character relationships (particularly romances, if that’s important to you). Something starts to develop, and then it just seems to get tossed aside. On top of that, a character or two dies for unnecessary reasons; which is to say no real reason at all other than to exit them from the story (and it has no impact on anything). I’d like to explain more fully, but this would give away the story, so you’ll just have to see for yourself and decide if you feel the same.

In Last Exile, vanship pilots Lavie and Claus fly deliveries (it’s sort of like a mail service) in the vanship left to them by their deceased fathers. Several years ago their fathers left on an extremely dangerous mission to deliver a letter of peace from Anatoray to Disith. Unfortunately the Disith were on the other side of the Grand Stream, an extremely powerful and destructive stream of air, which proves destructive to fullsized battleships, never mind the small vanship that their fathers fly in. Only one man from a second vanship on the journey returns, and reports the death of their fathers. Orphaned and alone, they decide to sell their home and spend what little money they have to get their vanship up and running, promising each other to one day go to the Grand Stream to see what their fathers saw. During a vanship race they come across a crashed vanship, and pick up a young girl named Alvis whom they are told to deliver to the Silvana, a powerful, infamous battleship captained by Alex Rowe. Once aboard the Silvana, they discover the true nature of the battle that rages in the skies, and must decide what their own part will become in the quest for peace, in a world where the "freedom" of the skies is ruled over by the merciless Guild.

Lots of familiar vocal work in the English dub, which is well done for the most part. Johnny Yong Bosch voices Claus (Trigun, Wolf's Rain, Bleach), Kari Wahlgren is Lavie (Samurai Champloo, FLCL, Witch Hunter Robin), and Crispin Freeman is Alex Rowe (Blood +, Ghost in the Shell, Witch Hunter Robin).

As I said, I think it’s worth sitting through once, but I wouldn’t buy it (though I would definitely consider buying the CD soundtracks). Unless you’re just really into the animation, and if that’s the case, your money would be better spent on the Robot books. Though I do recommend buying any figure of the adorable Alvis you can find.

Sorry for the funky text issues; typed this up in MS Word and copied it over. The html coding didn't agree with it.

LOL Wal-Mart

I found this really amusing. And I don't just mean Kotaku's Mike Fahey's commentary on the issue (which is plenty entertaining on its own). The fact that Wal-Mart is so horribly out of touch with technology and yet desires a notable place within it is fairly humorous.

Via Kotaku: Wal-Mart Suggests Cardboard Packaging, Save Games

Wal-Mart has made the remarkable suggestion to video companies of adding a save game function to video games so that we poor gamers can save our games and turn them off when we go to eat or go to bed, thereby saving power! And not only that, they also make the useful suggestion of adding a standby feature to games! Gee, if only game and console companies would do that for us so that we could do our part in saving the environment! Oh, wait.

Now, in their defense (ouch, that hurt to type), they could simply mean adding more, easier save points. But I find that more and more games I play these days allow you to save pretty much whenever. So...I really can't give them that, either. As for the cardboard packaging...well, then we'd be killing trees.

Mercenaries 2 - Good PR

Edit (10:07 PM): It appears I wasn't the only one to think that this is a great commercial.
Edit 2 (11:04 AM, Friday): EA is giving away free gas now. That's right. Free gas. At a lucky (or unlucky) little gas station in California, mercenaries will be waiting to fill up your car all day today. From a PR standpoint it's a good idea; I mean, it fits the game really well. But I shudder to think of the mass chaos this could cause. I can just imagine a line of cars from one end of Cali to the other, waiting to be filled.


I don't really know much about Pandemic's Mercenaries 2, except that their TV commercial seriously rocks. If you haven't seen it, you can watch it right from the game's website. And you can listen to the incredibly catchy song. Because that's what really makes the commercial. Every time it comes on TV I chuckle or at least grin. I think it's a testament to great marketing that a game I don't give a shit about has grabbed my attention with it's commercial (because, you know, that's what it's supposed to do, but most commercials tend to do that very poorly). Though, unfortunately, even a brilliant commercial won't convince me to buy a game I have no personal interest in playing; which should in no way be a statement to the entertainment value of the game. It's just not a genre I'm into.

I'm not very interested in GTA style FPS games (or indeed FPS games in general, or, well, I guess they're technically 3rd person shooters), but it looks good (graphic wise, and gameplay wise), and it looks like it should be a fun game (lots of majorly destructible environments). Mostly I just want to comment on the excellent marketing. I hope whoever designed the commercial got a good raise.

Mercenaries 2 comes out on August 31st (...which is a Sunday, so I assume it will actually arrive on Friday or Saturday, with a street date for Sunday) for the PS3, PS2 (lol Sony), Xbox 360 and PC. It's rated T for Teen, so I assume the violence (and the language) isn't as graphic as it is in similar games. And there's nothing wrong with that. Battlefield Bad Company has the same rating, and it's plenty entertaining (and they also had some amusing commercials).

"Until I get my vengeance, I will never end this mayhem."

Vampire Knight Season 2 trailer

It's up on the official website. It looks great, and I love the new song ("Rondo" by ON/OFF, the two gorgeous twin brothers who did the opening for the first season). Very catchy. Though Still Doll (the ending from the first season) will probably always be among my favorites. The second season is called Vampire Knight Guilty, which is appropriate, as it's a guilty pleasure of mine. I'm actually a little embarrassed to admit that I watch it (and I read the manga as well, which is a little better as it gives you more story where the anime feels choppy, but I love the animation and the colors of the show). So please don't tell anyone. ^_^

At the end of season 1, pure blooded vampire Kaname murdered another pure blood for a mix of reasons. Partly to protect Yuuki, partly to free himself, partly for her power, and probably partly just because he felt like it.
He then offered his blood to Zero, which, if I understood the mythology correctly, should prevent him from becoming a Level E (although the character who revealed that could have been lying). We'll see, I guess. The manga that's been released in the states hasn't surpassed the anime (they're at about the same place, though I'm sure the anime will out pace it here once it starts up again; it's up to volume 7 in Japan, and volume 5 will come out here in September, but I'm not sure how many total volumes there will end up being).
Anyway, I guess we'll know come October.

I thought I had reviewed the first season, but it seems I didn't get around to it. I'll probably re-watch the first season before October, so I'll try to get a review up of it then.

All Around News 8-24-08

Microsoft is partnering up with Rock the Vote to allow gamers to register to vote on Xbox Live. Which is really great. Although I'm not sure how it will work. I haven't looked into it in detail, so I'm not sure if it will just take your Live information (like off your credit card or something), or if you will have to sit there and type all that shit in with your 360 controller. Which would be annoying. Still, good going getting the vote out to gamers. The gamer group is notoriously known for being categorized as lazy and politically unaware (or uncaring). So this is a great way to get gamers more involved in politics, and remind them that there's an important election coming up. We're a large forceful...uh, force, and we should use that more often.

And speaking of the election, Obama's VP pick has been announced (a little prematurely). He is Joe Biden, a senator from Delaware, and an outspoken critic of Obama's foreign policy experience who has plenty of said experience of his own. It should balance out the ticket rather nicely. Now all McCain needs to do is hire some young upstart (keyword "young") who's more in touch with the world than he is (not hard) to balance out his ticket.

If you've been playing the Fable 2 Pub Games, you may have noticed a small glitch that allowed you to exploit the betting system in Fortune's Tower. You may also have noticed that Lionhead patched (or is patching) the glitch so it can no longer be used.

Square-Enix, upon hearing that one of their Final Fantasy XI bosses took a high-leveled guild 18 hours to fight and they didn't even manage to defeat it (while suffering nausea, exhaustion, dehydration), scaled down their mega bosses to more manageable levels. One wonders why a company that reminds you in the game (or at least in in the book for the game) to remember your work, school, friends and family, ever managed to let such bosses slip past. Don't they play test these things?

If you're a fan of Dungeons and Dragons (check) and you have a Facebook account (double check), then you may be interested in Wizard's D&D application for the social networking site. It's a click based fantasy adventure gamed called D&D Tiny Adventures. I haven't gotten a chance to play with it myself (and I usually stay away from just about every app on Facebook anyway), because as soon as the game went up, its servers immediately crashed. In fact, it seems their servers are still down. The link above is a direct link to the app; here is a link to the game's page.

In other news, The World Ends With You is still fantastic, the Olympics are officially over (China stomped all over us with their gold medals, though I believe the legality of some of them is still in question), Infinite Undiscovery comes out in a couple of weeks, and Please Teacher and Please Twins are two of the most ridiculous and contrived shows I've ever seen.