Festival Fantasy

Last week I did go to the festival that I mentioned last week. Along with half of Tokyo. The place was seriously crowded, but it was still a lot of fun! Saw the decorations, tried some of the food from the food stands and saw the lanterns float on the water down-river.

The decorations for the festivals are surprisingly elaborate for the few days they stay up, which surprised me. It's really great! The food at the stalls are also really good, but a bit more expensive than food you would find at other places.

I also went to the Square Enix offices and their shop nearby my school. I ended up buying a small Tonberry plushie as well. Inside the store they had a lot of stuff like soundtracks, games, plushies, food (as it was like a café in a small portion of it) and figures. It's been a pretty good week, and if you want to see even more of the pictures you can find them on my tumblr.

Time and Games.

I need a time turner...

I seriously need more time. My backlog is starting to fill up, as it usually does around October to January. This is after all the release time for a lot of games, with Christmas coming up in a month. Also doesn't help that I got three RPG's in the bunch to complete, and a fourth one when I get my PS3 disc drive fixed. Instead of just mentioning them vaguely, I'll list a few of the games here that I'd like to play more of, but I'm too scarce on time.

First off, there's Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen which I did a first impressions post about. I've gotten around to actually beating the game, but the post-game has so much new content, and I'm also in the midst of clearing out Bitterblack Isle. The difficulty has gone up a bit , but not too the point where it's impeding progress though. This I approve. It's also a lot darker without a lantern, meaning that oil is a lot more important now. Once I finish Bitterblack Isle, I'll mark this game as complete, as speedruns and such is more for the Mastery badge on my Backlog.

Secondly, there's Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F.  This may come out of left field, but I really, really like the Vocaloids. Sure, I wouldn't be able to name many songs for you, but when I listen to them I have fun and enjoy it. This is not something I can say for other music-genres. I've gotten through all the songs on Normal difficulty, and I'm working my way on Hard. Some of these songs are absolute mayhem and I can't keep up with the button-prompts on screen. I worry for the Extreme difficulty... Even so, I enjoy this game immensely, and I hugely approve that this game got a western release (unlike the earlier PSP version). Pick it up if you enjoy Vocaloids and/or rhythm games.

Next up is an impulse buy. Final Fantasy IX. That's right, I impulse bought this to my PS Vita. Luckily, since it is on a portable console, I'm able to find a few minutes here and there for it. I've gotten to Disc 2, but the entire squad is still under level 20. I hope this is normal, because of how story-heavy the game is in the beginning. Not a fan of the card-game gimmick included though, so I've purposefully avoided it so far. I'm enjoying the story as it has been presented so far, and the cutscenes look damn good even now.

The fourth game that I'd like more time to play is Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. A friend of mine got me into this game and it a fresh breath of air into MMORPG's for me. It's pay-to-play, but the first month is free (wait, isn't that what drug pushers say as well? Haha). Either way, it's a lot of fun and I'd like to get more time into it before I have to pay for more. The game also looks absolutely stunning. The weather changes from day to night,  from sunny to overcast, misty, thunderstorm, light rain, heavy wind and/or rain. It all looks stunning.

Raining sideways due to heavy wind. The sound to accompany this is great.

As if this wasn't enough games, there's Battlefield 4, War Thunder and the upcoming Ace Combat: Infinity, and a lot of anime to watch as well. Mix all that in with a visa-application for out-of-country studies and attempting to be sociable, there's not much time left to do nothing...

Anyway, that's a wrap for this post. Until next time, stay safe!