Tales and Confessions

According to the title of this entry, it's going to be interesting, right? I mean, "Tales and Confessions" - it sounds like that there was originally one topic, but now we have twice the topics to talk about now! Let's go ahead and pile that stuff on!

And when you pile things onto a person, they double in size until they're so big, they're tomatoes.

It looks like the fun has been doubled! Huzzah!





CURRENT MUSIC:
Russell Brower, Derek Duke and Jason Hayes - "The Shattering"
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Soundtrack

The current main menu music heard by all World of Warcraft players out there (assuming no modding was done). Twelve minutes of aural goodness. It sets the stage and tells us of the great perils Azeroth is now under.

I should get started up again. Been a while since I played, and it'd be nice to get Gef to 85. (Yeah: he's still 84. T_T)


Hideyuki Fukasawa "Historic Distillery Stage (Scotland)"
Street Fighter IV Original Soundtrack

One of my favorite stages to fight in any Street Fighter IV game would be this one, and that's because it has a somewhat-dark pulse to it. I don't know what exactly sold it for me - maybe it was the slow-pounding drums or maybe it could've been the underlying bagpipe. *shrugs*

Outside of using it as fighting music, it has quite the sound for executing an ambush. In the context of the game, it kind of makes sense - after all, one of the last places I'd expect to fight someone would be some distillery over in Scotland.



"Speed has never killed anyone. Suddenly becoming stationary - that's what gets you."
- Jeremy Clarkson

Hehehehe. It's been a while since I slapped a quote on my blog entries, so to do so again, I decided to put a rather silly one on here. In case you don't know why "suddenly becoming stationary" gets you, then maybe you should learn a thing or two about car crashes...





Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Today's going to be quite the interesting treat for you. Now, I say "interesting" because depending on your views about things (and your correlating views on me), it might change the dynamics you and I possess. Things might get better, things might get worse... or things will stay the same. Up to you to decide how things get.

If you're expecting something drastic, then don't expect that. (Unless your definition of "drastic" vastly differs from the one I have down, I mean.) Instead, expect two topics of varying degrees of entertainment and silliness.

Enjoy!





Entering the Abyss
(The story of how wanting a new 3DS game can get you to go on new adventures.)

Namco's (sorry, Namco Bandai's) Tales franchise is a series of fantasy role-playing games. Since 1995 the series has created a baker's dozen of "mothership" games (games considered as the "flagships" of the franchise), an equally-large amount of "escort" games (the not-flagships), and at least four animated adaptations.

This section will be focusing on Tales of the Abyss, the eighth mothership installment in the series. Originally released in 2005 (or 2006 if you're too ignorant to remember that the Japanese usually get games first), it raised flags in my mind because it was one of the big games that my friends would usually talk about over the last half-decade or so.

Now, I've never been one to get myself fully into RPG games. I don't know why I never did - they present the gamer with a sense of strategy, and if the story/characters are interesting it can provide a wonderful immersion into something aside from reality. Maybe it's because most RPGs take a good amount of time to be able to play fully, and it could also be said that I crave full control of the action. "I want to be the one mashing the controller and what not so that the character I'm controlling performs that move." That might be the mindset I could have, and as a good portion of the RPGs out there involve the process of "selecting the move you want that character to do so you can watch them do it instead of you performing it."

When 2012 started, the list of RPGs I've played was quite slim. It comprised of the following (ordered from when I played it):

• Super Mario RPG (SNES)
• practically every Pokémon game imaginable (GB, GBA, DS)
• World of Warcraft (PC)
• Radiant Historia (NDS)

(Author's Note: This list only comprises of the role-playing games I tried and ended up getting into. Games I tried and didn't end up playing afterwards don't count to this list.)

Told you it was short.

Anyway, several weeks ago, one of my friends (who is a big Tales fan) heard about my "need" of a new 3DS game to play. I've been waiting for Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D for quite a while, and with it coming out at a date in the not too distant future, I needed something to pass the time. He then suggested I get the 3DS port of Abyss which was to come out on February 14 - Valentine's Singles Awareness Day. Like I said before: I had heard my friends talk about the Tales series for years (and this friend was one of 'em). I decided "frak it" and mentally prepared myself to play an RPG game.

So on Tuesday I went ahead and got myself a copy of Tales of the Abyss for the 3DS. I sporadically played it for a little bit - enough to see what was going on, but not enough to fully appreciate the time spent playing it.

Then yesterday came, and I told myself I'd get some proper gaming done. So I popped the 3DS open and continued my game.

Any decent RPG player knows that the process of level-grinding is essential to the success of your party. Apparently, unless you're actively looking for a fight, the number of "Encounters" shouldn't be that high at this point of the game.

Six hours in... and all I have to say is "Wow." This is a fun game. Why did I never get into RPGs as a teenager? I could've enjoyed this years ago when it was on the PlayStation 2, but noooooo - I didn't. Ah, well. The joy of playing a new game is always a moment I enjoy - especially if I end up playing it to the end. (Yes, I'm aware it's not "new" - shut up and lemme have my moment.)

So, I think I'm going to have quite some fun on here in the future. I'm pretty sure there will be an occasional post on how I'm doing in Tales of the Abyss - or, at the very least: screenshots.

Speaking of screenshots, let me show you one thing that I've found "annoying" thus far.

You said it, Luke.

Mieu. Yes, you read that right. Mieu. Well, not really. I'm barely beginning the game, so I haven't been exposed to him fully yet. As the game progresses, we'll see if I end up sharing the same mutual "hatred" my Tales-playing friends have for him.

The only thing that would make this scene funnier is if Tear facepalmed at this. Simply looking away out of annoyance isn't enough.

Luke presents a possible solution to eliminating anyone considered annoying. Minus that last part, of course.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll be talking about this game more and more, so yeah. Who knows - if I end up getting way into it, I just might make a "Tales" tag just for funsies. Onward with the rest of the blog!





Herd Assimilation
(The Truthful "Confessions" of a New Brony)

If you read the subtitle up there and had a reaction other than "I don't get it," then you know what I'm talking about. If you thought "I don't get it," then allow me to explain in excruciating detail what that exactly means with a sentence that shouldn't be on here for you to read if you've spent at least one hour a week on the Internet I shouldn't have to place here because the only people who read my blog are people who I've goaded into using my blog as a time-waster and/or an effective method of spying on me - and all of those people have some knowledge of Internet things and pop culture. *clears throat*

I watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and I am a fan of it.

Now, this "secret" hasn't really been a secret if you've hung out with me recently (read: within the past month). It's been subtly apparent in my real-life dealings. I've said things were 20% cooler, have bluntly answered a couple questions with "Eeyup," and have once said that "the fun has been doubled." (Yes: that was today. Shaddap.)

So what made me randomly decide to watch the show? To be honest, it was all curiosity. It began months ago when I first began browsing TV Tropes intently. I noted that quite a few tropes that I checked up on had at least one My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic reference in the Western Animation section. Eventually, it culminated with a YouTube video session that ended up with having at least one My Little Pony-related video in the "Related Videos" area and almost every fifth comment I read on a video making a reference to the show. I (being the naturally curious kind of guy I am) finally caved in and decided to investigate on why the show was able to grab an audience that consisted of people other than little girls.

I think the "What I Watched / What I Expected / What I Got" meme explains this section better than I can.

So one day in January I did a search and ended up finding a playlist on YouTube for the first season. I sat down, got some snacks, broke out some index cards and colored pencils (I remember making a bunch of cards for 1000 Blank White Cards), and hit "play" to begin my pseudo-investigation. For about the first seven minutes or so, I remember sitting there, wondering what I was getting myself into. But the next thing I knew, I was watching the fourth episode with an amused smile on my face.

I could now see why the Internet lovingly embraced the show. The characters are well-written and developed, and a good portion of the humor seems nostalgic of "child" shows interspersed with humor for every age bracket. Everyone was surprised - from the people at 4chan's /co board to Hasbro's executives to the show developers. Millions of people - many of them people outside the targeted demographic - found themselves fans, and now... I am part of the herd.

This chart's 100% accurate.

So, what does this mean for me as a person? Nothing, really. I'm still the same person as before, and there's absolutely nothing different about me with this revelation. There won't be a sudden massive abundance of ponies on this blog to annoy or hug (that's what Equestria Daily is for), and there isn't going to be any shocking change in my personal life at all. Life will just go on, so if you're a brony-hater: why so serious? Deal with this and move on. Nobody's forcing you to read my blog, anyway.

(Truth be told, I'm just wondering what my readers' reactions - yours, essentially - will look like. I'm bored, and I figured that revealing my status as a brony would make an interesting topic today. =P)





Well, that concludes today's broadcast. Until the 'morrow, everypony! Take care, now!