How're y'all doing? School's back in for me, but today was just a 1 hour "welcome back" sort of thing. Tomorrow is pretty much going to be intros to my classes also (English, Spanish, Socials, Math 1st semester; Chemistry, Acting, Biology, and PE 2nd). My first semester isn't going to be fun. At least I have the status of a legend in Spanish class (literally, people use my name with reverence)...
In the games world, I've almost exclusively been playing Mana Khemia 2. It's an RPG set around an alchemy school, with an extremely heavy emphasis on item creation. The story is mostly there to keep the game going forward, but the characters are some of my favorites. Plus, my two favorite VA's, Yuri Lowenthal and Vic Mig-something-or-other, voice two of my four or so favorite characters (Razeluxe Mietzen and Peppercino (yes, they nicknamed him Pepperoni)).
The combat's tight, and the exploration is fun. Best part: no grinding. All leveling is handled through the Grow Book; a sort of encyclopedia of stuff you've made. You make something,and an entry is filled out in the Grow Book,which unlocks stat increases for you to purchase with AP. You get AP by fighting battles, and rarely do you need more than you get from fighting what attacks you.
The story is broken into two halfs: Raze's story and Ulrika's story. Thus far, I've finished Ulrika's story (at an impressive 30 hours), and started Raze's. When you finish both, you get an epilogue chapter that is supposed to tie up a couple threads, and generally be awesome. Also, the true last boss.
Finally, the OST is pretty good. It doesn't have my all-time favorite video game song ever (tied with Backside of the TV from P4, and maybe one or two other tracks...maybe), Wind Festival (which happens to be in Mana Khemia 1).
When not drooling over that game, I've been indifferent to my 360 bricking. RROD this time. Wierd this is, my first 360 came back from the dead...for a about a week. I've called up MS, but they're incompetant idiots who insist the problem lies in the power brick (in both consoles, brilliantly. The first one doesn't have video). Instead of being disappointed, I went out and rented MGS4 and Street Fighter 4 (Dan ftw). MGS4 is crazy, but I'll have to save that for another time [spoilers]why the crap does the game turn into street fighter at one point near the end? [/spoilers]
That's all that's been going on with me the past month. What's up?
P.S. I may get back to writing (from my on-and-off hiatus) but I need to find my old keyboard first. My laptop keyboard is so screwed up. People eat over it so there's crumbs under some keys (like my f-ing space bar), that makes it really hard to push them down enough to register. Plus, still missing the "g" key.
P.P.S. Probably getting back into making videos. That was a good, and productive, time waster. Probably putting Mario and Luigi 1, Yoshi's Island on the back burner. All of a sudden, they don't like being recorded. Thinking about Megaman Legends or Boktai 3 (english patch exists).