Niahak's Place

So the reason I haven’t been posting much of anything is… well.. no reason, really. I have no excuses. I’m going to try to avoid spoilers for S3 in the following paragraph.

I got up to chapter 4 in Suikoden III and am using Hugo as my main character. I thoroughly enjoyed Geddoe’s chapters, and actually have won all of the optional boss fights that I think are feasible (which is to say, all except the Chris fight v. Bishop, Sarah, Yuber, the fight with true runes against Bishop, Sarah, and Yuber, and Hugo’s Yuber duel). The strategy fights you can (hypothetically) win are much, much more difficult to do anything with, particularly when you can only control the growth of certain characters. So I’m not feeling too bad about the game difficulty-wise: from here on out it’s pretty much Juan, Main, Caster, and whoever else. I’m going to try and level up more characters than usual (i.e. Thomas, Cecile, maybe Melville) and try out some of the interesting characters I never did before (Edge, Futch). I figure maxing out Armor Protect will help me to win nearly every strategy battle without many problems.

Oh yeah, and I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten every optional character except Guillame. I can’t get him right now because the True Water Rune stuff is going on in that area. Haven’t consulted a FAQ yet, but he’s the only one left I can investigate , so I have to conclude S3 is the easiest Suikoden to recruit all 108 characters. It also seems to have the most optional side-things (like the plays, for example).

I don’t usually post anything about anime, because I find much of it to be bland and not particularly neat. But a friend recommended “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya” (Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu), and I have to admit it’s pretty neat so far. Bit confusing, but I think that’s the idea. Anyway, I’m guessing there are a bunch of random references I’m missing, because here’s one reference I got (which happened almost completely without warning – it lasts about a minute either direction). This is a big image, so I’m linking it, because I’ve optimized it as much as I can easily.

Image (2mb)

Yes, that’s right. Or, more precisely, Wright. I’m pretty sure Haruhi was made only a couple years ago, so Gyakuten Saiban would’ve been around. Fun stuff.

Anyway, one of the reasons I’d been thinking about watching Haruhi for a while is because it was recommended in a poll – “What anime would you recommend that everyone see” – conducted in Japan (#2, I believe). Not that the Japanese are infallible by any means, but they at least have a wider variety of anime that is released there to go from. And Haruhi is quite interesting, for its setting. Some may be put off by the random fanservice in the first episode; keep an open mind for the first 3 minutes or so and you’ll be able to figure out what’s going on.

Third item of the day: Gideon Zhi, of Cave Story (among other translations) fame, recently released a translation of the Super Famicom RPG Dark Law. If you like traditional pen-and-paper systems, where you get gold in the ones and tens rather than hundreds, growth is slower, and the game is more story-driven, you will probably like this game. It looks very interesting.