Work has been complicated. Many people are quitting and a few are being fired. Out of 40 something people, there are like 12 people left, myself included. We've gotten a couple of people back from vacation, and probably one or two new hires. Work conditions have not been at their best, and I just... really want to quit. That's basically my short foreword as to where I've been lately.
Perhaps I'll do a personal post one of these days updating that, but for now, we'll focus on the topic at hand.
I've been playing a couple of games on my PSP: Final Fantasy II and God of War: Chains of Olympus. It's been a while since I've played a new Final Fantasy game. New in the way of me never having played before and not as in new title. I'm enjoying the 2D graphics. I'm actually very much in love with them and the music (the mu~~sic!!). What I own is the 20th anniversary version. I've never played the original, so I'm not sure how different these two are.
I want to say that Final Fantasy II is difficult. And I'm not sure if it's me or what, but it actually is. Surprisingly, it's not the battles; it's just navigating around the world and between plot points in general. There's a lot of thinking for yourself involved and a good portion of the game is trial and error. I've wasted four hours, actually four hours real time, just wandering around trying to figure out what to do. That doesn't detract away from the game though. I actually still very much like it. Firion's scarf is pretty ridiculous though. I feel as though that needed to be said.
Chains of Olympus is a pretty fun game. According to some online ratings, the game is pretty short, but I haven't finished it yet. The game had a period where, after the battle with Charon, it would the longest time to load. It skipped and froze, moving a few frames every... twenty minutes if that. The first four times, the game wouldn't load past Calliope playing her instrument. It took thirty minutes before the game white-screened or I would have to quit to the PSP menu (which it would do without a problem). Three more tries, a setting change, and forty minutes of waiting on the final try later, and I finally managed to move on.
Now the reason why it froze I'm unclear on. I'm not sure if it's because the game is used or if it's because the PSP just wouldn't register the UMD, as has been a complaint with some users. But all in all, it took me two-three days to fix. Almost three days of me contemplating buying a new copy for myself, but now after that, I'm ready to play the game with full steam. Playing such a heavy fighting game on a PSP is had on my hands. I'm still trying to get used to that.
I've been playing a lot of BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger. And I have to say that I'm completely on the fence with that game. I originally started to enjoy it, but I'm completely torn because of the character types. I've been writing a review on it for a long time (since 7/16!), and I'm still trying to pull all of my thoughts together on it. On an unbiased note, it does present some pleasant difficulties, and again, it does put some unpleasant strain on my hands.
In the way of demos, I've played:Phantasy Star Portable, Valkyria Chronicles II, Dissidia Final Fantasy, and Worms Battle Islands. I'm enjoying them all, and I'll probably write a massive demo review on them all. I will say that Worms is 100% more fun with other people, so I probably won't buy it for the PSP. I want to play it on a console with friends.
For now, I'll leave you with this and very little images! Sorry about that, but something about my camera's latest actions spell bad news. Again, we'll see.
