Time and Eternity Rant [SPOILERS]

I finished Time and Eternity for PS3 yesterday and felt it's worth talking about.  I first heard about the game when NIS America released three trailers of games they were working on publishing: Disgaea D2, The Guided Fate Paradox (bought this one, but haven't played it yet), and Time and Eternity.  This was the trailer for the game:


The trailer is so silly, right?  But it seems like a very unique experience.  Exploration is with 2D images in a 3D environment.  Battles are in real-time with influences from action games.  And the game looked like it was strongly story driven.  I was mainly interested in the action-orientated combat system and the music.  As much as I love turn-based battle systems in JRPGs, I've played so many of them that I'm always craving for something new.  And for the music, I immediately liked when I heard them in the trailer and felt the composition to be familiar in style.  Sure enough, I looked it up and found out the music was created by one of my favorite composers, Yuzo Koshiro.  For these two main reasons, I kept an eye out for the game.  Shortly after it released, it got panned by critics and players alike.  It ended up getting a 42 out of 100 on Metacritic.  Ignoring the critic reviews to see what a game is like with my own eyes and hands, I finally bought a copy for around $25.  Considering my backlog, I didn't think I'd play it any time soon.  But I felt like I had to play it right after I had completed Hyperdimension Neptunia and so I opened it and started playing it.

Immediately, I started seeing problems with the game.  The game was advertised as a "Hi-def Animation RPG" and the graphics were truly bright, clean and beautiful; however, the animation itself was really poor.  Movements were anywhere from 2-7 frames, the lip movements didn't match the English voice OR the Japanese voice, the same animation sequences are used over and over throughout the game, and so on and so forth.  I think I might actually have to list everything out that went wrong with the game:

-Very few frames used for movement, making it look choppy and cheap when in motion
-Same animation sequences are reused quite often throughout the game
-Lip movements didn't match up to dialogue in both English and Japanese voice-overs
-The male protagonist is such a creeper
-Not enough variation between Toki and Towa's animations
-The same jokes are reused and they tend to stop being funny if they ever were funny
-Story is meant to be humorous yet it doesn't seem to fully achieve it
-Combat controls feel clunky BUT was meant to be in order to maintain the challenge
-Exploration involved a LOT of backtracking
-Side-quests are uninteresting and the rewards are often negligible
-Enemies are obnoxious and annoying to fight sometimes
-Characters felt shallow and forgettable (in the beginning)
-The game has a LOT of padding which means having to grind a LOT (mostly by doing side-quests)
-Side-quests were pointless if you knew how to manage your currency and grind effectively
-Fighting beginning level enemies gave close to the same amount of exp as high level enemies...

So by now, you must be thinking "man, he must've really hated the game".  When I started the game, I was thinking "what did I get myself into?"  But I kept going and got through the game and actually ended up really liking it!  Yes, the game is heavily flawed, but I don't think it's a "bad game".  It's not a game I can easily recommend to a friend, but I felt like the game deserves merit in what it did right which was creating a fresh and unique experience in a long running genre that so many believe to be dead now.

So let's start from the beginning again.  The game starts off with the wedding of the Knight (Zack) to the Princess (Toki) of Kamza.  As they make their vows, a band of assassins break through the church doors and attack the Zack and Toki.  Zack dives forward to protect Toki only to be fatally wounded with a stab to the abdomen.  As Zack believes he was cool in protecting the princess, Toki's personality suddenly changes as her Red hair and eyes become golden yellow and starts taking down the assassins.  It is then revealed that there is a second soul living within Toki's body with the name Towa (which their name means Time and Eternity in Japanese, by the way).  They go back 6 months before their wedding with Zack suddenly in the body of Toki's pet dragon, Drake.  The story continues with Zack in Drake's body, Toki, and Towa as they travel back in time to stop their wedding from being attacked over and over until they can finally have their wedding and their future.  Now, it's time to get into details.

[Graphics]
I like the art style of the game.  It's colorful, bright, vibrant, and easy on the eyes.  One of the biggest problems a lot of people have with the game is with how much assets are recycled throughout the game.  The same animations, environments, enemies, and NPCs are copy and pasted with new color palettes to signify a distinction between them all.  There are some different animations between Toki and Towa as they are two different people despite sharing the same body, but they also share a lot of the same animations such as the battle and exploration animations.  But being able to look past that, the graphics are "alright".  There are plenty of games that reuse assets to create more content with less work; this game just happens to overdo it and make it stand out as being cheap and uninspired.  I can't say that I hated the graphics because of this tactic, but I suppose I was disappointed.

I also want to note that the game does have some fan-service with 11 CG still-frames throughout the game that are triggered through certain events.  This is generally something I've come to accept in Japanese animé and games and don't really worry about.  But it seems to be a common topic many Western audiences argue about whether it should be in games or not.  I don't think any of them were censored.  The only thing censored in the game that I know of is the panty-shot animations in combat.

[Audio]
The one thing that everyone seems to praise the game for is the music.  A lot of the songs are quite moving and have a memorable melody.  The music really makes up for the entire mood and atmosphere of the whole game that it seems to lack visually.  Some of them are so good that I could listen to them for hours.
Marriage (Title Screen):

Palais de Kamza (Wedding Theme):

Wind of Hope (Plains Field):

Bout! (Towa's Battle Theme):

Memory Disorder (Last Boss Battle):


You can tell it's Yuzo Koshiro's work if you've listened to a lot of his work on the Etrian Odyssey series.  The music really played a big part on the whole experience.  There isn't much to say about sound effects other than that it was well executed (I appreciate the work put into sound effects ever since I've played Valhalla Knights Eldar Saga).  For voice-overs, I played with the English voices for about an hour before I decided to switch and stay with the Japanese voice-overs.  I can't say it was bad, but I felt more comfortable with the Japanese voice-overs.  The audio was definitely the stronger points in the game.

[Gameplay]
There's a lot to say about the gameplay.  The flow of the game consists of a cinematic, then dialogue between the characters, picking up side-quests (optional), and then going out onto a field to fulfill an objective.  So it's a typical "build a basis for the story and progress with gameplay" sort of RPG.  Objectives are straight-forward and to the point.  Despite that, the game does love to beat around the bush.  Following only the main quests will often have the player's level fall behind the recommended level to play in.  Thankfully, there is a difficulty setting that allows you to play between Easy and Normal.  Since I'm not too fond of grinding and excessive padding, I chose to play Easy which reduces the amount of grinding required by quite a bit.  Exploration consists of traversing large maps and triggering events.  You'll receive quests to fulfill, encounter different NPCs to talk to, and fight bosses to progress to the next main objective.  Scattered between the main quests are side-quests the player can partake in order to receive rewards and gain experience points to level up.  Enemy encounters are still the same as most JRPGs where you'll have a random battle encounter while walking around the field and then go into a battle phase.  One of the great mechanics within the game is a bar that tells you when you'll run into an enemy.  You won't run into an enemy until the bar is full.  With this, you can expect and anticipate a battle and not be frustrated whenever you run into one since you'll know when it's coming.  When leveling up, the player can choose between an assortment of "gifts" which are kind of like specializations that Toki and Towa can acquire to learn new skills and gain new attributes.  The "gifts" are linked in a sort of "skill tree" kind of way so you have to get certain ones before acquiring the higher level ones.  The player can only play as Toki or Towa at any given time until they switch off.  The two souls switch whenever they level up or if they use a "pepper".  Zack, who is in Drake's body, can't be controlled directly; however, the player can gain certain skills to influence him later on to work alongside with Toki or Towa's abilities.  For the most part, Zack just attacks and heals on his own free will.  Combat is in real-time, so there's no waiting.  Enemies will follow a general attack pattern and it's up to the player to learn them and fight accordingly.  The player controls Toki or Towa with these key mechanics: Running up to and back from enemies, normal attacking (blade: close / rifle: ranged), abilities, blocking/countering, dodging, item usage, time spells, and finishers.  Combat in this game feels a lot like an action game where you have to learn and memorize each pattern for every enemy to effectively fight against them.  Knowing when to block, when to attack, and abusing an enemy's weakness is the only way the player can defeat an enemy.  Enemies can be pretty obnoxious with their different abilities and patterns.  As mentioned before, a lot of enemies will look exactly alike with a different color palette and be considered a totally different enemy.  They might have the same abilities, but their timing, patterns, and stats (health and damage amount) will vary.  Besides knowing the timing of the enemies, the player must know the timing of their own characters' abilities.  Spells have a charge time and can be interrupted by enemy attacks.  The player can't dodge or block if they're in the middle of a combo attack.  The controls feel clunky at first, but makes sense in a design standpoint.  Were the player able to block and dodge at any given time or have extremely tight controls over every action, they'd be practically invincible.  This kept combat fresh and the player on edge every battle.  Yes, it's extremely tiring and sometimes tedious, but I found it to be really interesting since I'm always engaged with the fight rather than just mashing "confirm" to attack to get through a battle like most turn-based JRPGs turn out to be.  I found the enemies that silence, knock down a lot, or the ones that never stop attacking to be some of the most difficult ones to deal with.  Here's a breakdown of all the pros and cons I can think off on top of my head:
+ Objectives are straight-forward and very easy to follow (never get lost, I love it)
+ Exploration are never too drawn out (for main quests, at least) with decently sized maps
+ The enemy encounter rate bar was a great idea.  I liked knowing when I'll get into a fight
+ Combat is fresh, unique, and engaging. It's one of the game's most notable aspects
+ Fights (especially bosses) were challenging and memorable
+ I liked the plethora of items, abilities and time skills I was capable of utilizing in battle

- Side-quests are often boring and gave negligible rewards
- There is a LOT of back-tracking involved, especially with side-quests involved
- Walking towards an objective can feel like a real drag sometimes, mainly with side-quests
- There isn't a wide variety of enemies as a lot of them are recycled
- In order to get the "special ending" you have to play through "new game+" IOW 2nd playthrough
- The time skills can be pretty BS.  How BS?  It made the last boss stupidly easy

[Characters]
I'm probably not going to cover every character, but I want to review all the pivotal ones.

Ricardo, Lucy & Linus: These three are the comic reliefs of the game despite the game being mostly humorous (or tries to be).  Toki/Towa and Zack first encounter the three in the first chapter when they went back 6 months before their wedding to find out why the Assassin's Guild attacked them during their ceremony.  Thinking that they were from the Assassin's Guild, they fight them only to find out they're Assassin's Guild fans.  Even later, Ricardo is revealed to be a baker and a horrible one at that.  Ricardo is always seen proposing to Toki/Towa and refuses to back down while Zack (in Drake's body) keeps biting his head.  This on-going gag got old super fast and they stuck with it to the very end of the game.  A lot of the jokes and gags around Ricardo were often bad as the cakes he made, but perhaps that's the whole point?  Ricado and his lackeys feel very much like background characters you can forget about, but the amount of times they come forth to help out the heroes seems to say otherwise.  I didn't find these characters to be particularly interesting.

Makimona: I thought for sure she was the main villain and the main cause of this entire crisis.  The Jill-of-all-trades did everything from fortune-telling to being a spirit medium to protecting the gates to the guardians of the "something" treasures.  When Toki was about to be married, she asked Makimona her fortune and she told Toki that someone was going to die.  Later on, they realized she wasn't a fortune teller at all.  She just makes stuff up when people ask her what their fortune are.  She appears in every chapter of the game and tries to help the heroes as best as she can while asking for favors to help her in return.  In one chapter, she reveals that she's asked 328 men on a date but couldn't get anyone to go out with her because of her timid personality.  Out of all the bosses you had to fight in the game, she was my favorite one since it was the most difficult one that required the most planning and thinking.

Netherdrake: The last boss to the 2nd chapter of the game, who's afraid of the bad business bureau more than death.  That joke was actually kind of funny which is why I'm mentioning this character.

Enda: She's Toki and Towa's energetic friend that seems to love cake because she's seen eating one every time you go back home.  Enda was the first character I liked when I started the game because of how cute she was.  But by the end of the game, there wasn't much to her character past that.  She's known to have a strange taste in men and is often portrayed "head-over-heels" over Ricardo throughout the first chapter of the game.  When Ricardo finally asks her to go out with him after being dumped by Toki/Towa a dozen times, she said "no".

Reijo: Toki/Towa's rich friend who was born from a noble family, or so I thought.  I didn't like this character at first as she was immediately portrayed as the pompous "ojou-sama" type character that I generally dislike.  She calls Zack all sorts of different weed names and seems to look down upon him as being worthless.  She often emphasizes how rich she was whenever she was around Toki in the beginning.  In the beginning of Chapter 2, Reijo stabs Toki/Towa at their wedding.  When Toki/Towa and Zack go back in time to find out why that happened, they found out that she was being controlled by the Netherdrake to do his bidding.  Reijo had asked the Netherdrake to fulfill her wish and in return, she had to kill the princess at the wedding.  Reijo begged and pleaded to take back the contract, but all deals with the Netherdrake were final.  As the chapter unfolded, the heroes find out that Reijo was not of nobility, but rather of poverty.  She grew up without a father and lived with her mother in a small town and relied on the many various weeds around her home to provide food, medicine, and material for survival.  So perhaps, she's been complimenting Zack all this time as weed is often seen as strong since they don't die easily and it's obviously been useful to Reijo throughout her life.  She was happy with her life until her mother died from illness.  She was deeply upset with the loss of her mother, but was then confronted by a young Toki who comforted her.  It was then that Reijo wanted to be friends with Toki but didn't know how to.  With the desire to be rich so that she could be Toki's friend, she made a deal with the Netherdrake to make her unbelievably wealthy.  It turns out that she didn't care about the money and would often donate a portion every month to charity.  She only wanted to be friends with Toki/Towa.  The wish Reijo had asked for from the Netherdrake was for a flawless and happy wedding for her friend Toki/Towa as she cared very much for her.  But the Netherdrake asked Reijo to kill her.  With that contradiction, the heroes attack the Netherdrake and threatened to report him to the bad business bureau.  The love and dedication to her friend as well as her selflessness shown that chapter is what made Reijo my favorite character out of the game.

Wedi: Toki/Towa's clumsy friend who keeps tripping over herself.  Wedi is also the wedding planner for Toki/Towa.  She's forgetful, ditsy, but very kind.  With Reijo often insulting Zack and Enda playing along, Wedi is the only friend of Toki/Towa that treats Zack with a bit of respect.  There isn't much to Wedi's character as well, although her moment of glory in the opening of chapter 3 was pretty cool.  Makimona is the one to attack the wedding in the 3rd chapter and nearly kills both Toki and Zack; however, Wedi leaps out and summons a Golem to block the brunt of the attack.  That sort of confidence and courage surprised even Wedi when Toki/Towa and Zack go back in time to tell her what had happened.  She then goes out, risking her life, to befriend a Golem to prepare for the worst just in case something does happen.  She explains to Makimona that she had a boy that she liked but never found the courage to tell him and was soon taken by another girl.  Despite her sadness, she found happiness among her friends.  Her friendship to Toki/Towa is what gives her strength and is what made her decide to become a wedding planner to ensure Toki/Towa would have the best wedding ever.  Wedi is just a good-natured girl in general.

Toki: Toki is the sweet and more reserved one between the two souls.  She specializes in using the rifle and shoots much faster than Towa does in combat.  Her main magic ability is of the Fire element and has more of a focus on spells.  She's soft-spoken and very lady-like.  Considering how much of a pervert Zack is, the player has to question why she would want to marry him.  As the game progresses, Zack upholds a lot of action that is considered chivalrous and Toki exclaims that she fell more and more in love with him as time went by.  One particular story revealed that when her pet dragon Drake was sick, Zack was the one who went out and got the medicine to help nurse him back to health.  Zack confessed that he had his knight buddies help him find it when he couldn't when Toki was telling that story and she liked that part of him too, in that he was an honest man who respected others and helped those in trouble.  Despite being a princess, Toki wants a normal life outside the castle walls living with Zack and raising a family.  She's the type of person that cared for others before herself.

Towa: Towa is more wild and aggressive between the two souls.  She'll often speak her mind bluntly and isn't easily intimidated.  She specializes in daggers and closer quarter combat and thus does a lot more damage up close than Toki does in combat.  Her main magic ability is of the lightning element but still focuses more on physical prowess.  Despite her aggressive personality, she's actually quite shy and still acts like a girl when embarrassed.  In other words, she's a tsundere.  Towa had never really planned on letting Zack know that she was sharing Toki's body, but circumstances led her to come out.  Despite the surprise, Zack accepted Towa and even began to fall in love with her as much as Toki as she was just as considerate and caring as Toki was for her friends and others.  Towa spoke to Zack about her desires to be able to go on a normal date with him and be able to experience all the activities couples got to do.  She didn't want to be seen as just a part of Toki but rather an individual.  I think I might have liked Towa a little more because the contrast in her demeanor gave her personality.

Zack: I really didn't like this character at all in the beginning.  Right from the beginning, he was a total creeper with perverted thoughts.  He seemed very cocky and full of himself in the beginning of the game where he protects Toki and starts insinuating "man, I'm so cool for doing that.  I must seem like a total chick magnet right now."  It was very difficult to empathize with such a character that seemed so selfish and narcissistic.  But as the game progresses, he is portrayed as an upstanding man who still believed in chivalry.  He's still a pervert, through and through.  But there was more to him than just a man full of naughty thoughts.  Why did he want to marry Toki in the first place?  He saw the kindness and loyalty she had for her friends and those around her and wanted to be with a person with such ideals of raising a happy family.  When asked about his dreams, he replied that he wanted to be an upstanding knight who protected the country he loved and helped those in need.  And more than anything, it was the interaction that he had with Toki/Towa, their friends, and those who needed help that made me finally accept the character.  Throughout the adventure, it was never about the guy saving the girl or the girl protecting the guy.  It was a mutual bond of wanting a happy life together and so they fought alongside each other as equals for a future they both wished to share together.  Knowing that Towa was just as much of a part of Toki, Zack could not deny her and accepted her fully for who she was.  Despite the difficulties that Toki/Towa's friends presented towards Zack, he never rejected them.  Instead, he learned more about them and understood why these people were to important to Toki/Towa and why they were friends.  At the very end, he showed that he cared about the happiness of others as well as his own.

[Story]
There is a lot to be said about the dialogue and scenarios presented.  The game tried to be humorous, but a lot of the jokes were lame or were poorly executed because of the timing of the animations and flow of speech.  But despite it all, I came to really like the story as a whole when I got to the very end of the game.  It was a fun adventure with a sweet story of love and marriage.  Could it have been better?  Absolutely.  Along with character development, graphics, gameplay technicalities, and scenario writing, the game could have been significantly better.  But I'll accept what I was given and leave it at that.

-Opening-
Zack meets with Toki and gathers to see all of her friends: Enda, Reijo, and Wedi.  At their wedding ceremony, Zack and Toki are attacked by a band of assassins with Zack fatally wounded.  The two travel back in time and try to prevent the attack from ever happening.  The opening of the game wasn't too bad.  There was a LOT of talking before I got to get to gameplay, but it wasn't to the point of being unbearable.

-Chapter 1-
This might have been the weakest chapter in the game.  Toki/Towa and Zack try to find the Assassin's Guild and stop them from attacking the wedding.  Along the way, they meet Ricardo and his two lackeys.  Enda follows you a few times just to see Ricardo while Ricardo constantly keeps asking Toki/Towa to go out with him.  The jokes and gags revolving around Ricardo and Enda were pretty lame and they're used over and over.  I still think Enda is pretty cute, but wish she had more (if any) character development.  They found out that the Assassin's Guild attacked their wedding because they provoked them into doing so by saying "don't do it" when they never planned on doing so.  They ceased all ideas of them ever attacking and then went back to the present to return to their wedding.

-Chapter 2-
This time, their wedding is attacked by monsters and Reijo stabs Toki.  I really liked this chapter because of the character development around Reijo.  I think the whole game would have had a better story to tell if there were more character development among the friends to Toki/Towa to go beyond the reason of "I want to help because she's my friend".  This chapter also provided a bit more character development on Makimona as you ask her for help while she asks for help in return.  The last boss for this chapter was quite different, but I can't really say if it was a "good" kind of different.  I've already told a majority of the story in Reijo's description up above.

-Chapter 3-
Makimona is not happy that you're happy and she's not.  She makes this clear quite a few times throughout the chapter.  She crashes the wedding with the "Something Four" treasures and attacks Toki and Zack only to have Wedi protect them.  When going back in time, Toki/Towa's grandmother explains that they're probably stuck in a mobius loop; a phenomenon in time travel in which the destiny or outcome of an event can never change (Ever watched/read The Time Machine?).  In order to break the never ending cycle, they have to collect the "Something Four" treasures from the guardians with the gates being guarded by Makimona.  Makimona only knows that the treasure brings happiness to newlyweds and becomes more and more reluctant in letting the heroes have it for themselves.  After she takes the treasures from you after collecting all of them, you fight her and she gives them back only to have them fall off the floating island.  Makimona and Toki/Towa's friend make their own "Something Four" treasures in hopes of good luck as the heroes go back to the present hoping for the best without the treasures.

-Chapter 4-
The sand that's been in the hourglass attached to Toki suddenly bursts out and says that the heroes will continue to re-live this tragedy over and over no matter what and was prepared to send them into a perpetual string of tragic outcomes of their wedding.  Then the treasure that everyone made ceased the sand's attack and personified it into a human girl (even though it's a dude?  So confusing).  Fighting all the bosses in reverse order, the heroes take down mobius over and over until they learn that the reason why they're stuck in a mobius loop is because of a contradiction in vow.  Toki and Towa made a promise to each other when they were 5 years old that is akin to a marriage.  They would stick together no matter what.  This allowed the two souls to co-exist this entire time without having one being dominant and having the other one disappear.  But because of that promise, their attempt to marry Zack contradicts it.  Their solution was to have Toki/Towa's grandmother go back in time and tell them not to make such a promise and reserve such a promise to a man that they will meet and love.  The problem was that this will cause one of the two souls to disappear and not exist anymore.  A fate worse than death, Zack had to choose which soul remained and which disappeared.  Honestly, it was a heart-breaking decision to make.  I ended up making two save files and fought the last boss twice and saw both endings.  They were both great endings if not a little sad.  Choosing one or the other, Toki/Towa will lose all memory of one another when they break out of the mobius loop as well as losing all memory of ever meeting Zack.  Everyone loses the memories of the soul that disappears other than Zack and the grandmother (who returns back to the present safely).  Zack asks Toki or Towa (depending who remained) to marry him of which she refuses as she had only met him.  But then he asks again and she agreed because she felt that there was some connection to him in some way that time couldn't explain.  And so they spend a year together creating new memories before their marriage.

For Toki's ending, it's a normal and happy ending with Toki throwing the bouquet and Makimona furiously diving for it hoping for a chance to meet a man.

With Towa's ending, it was a little more humorous.  Towa gets embarrassed for having to kiss Zack in front of everyone and so instead of Zack holding her out the door, Towa holds Zack princess-style out the door for payback.  Then they cut the wedding cake, but Towa is so strong that she pulls Zack with the knife and cuts the cake in half along with the table.  With either ending, they wonder what to name their first child.  And they said if it's a girl, they want to name her the one that didn't remained (Towa / Toki).

Sadly, the special ending was not all that special at all.  Through some miracle, both Toki and Towa's soul remained.  But then it just goes to an image and said they lived happily ever after together.  I was hoping it'd be more fleshed out with a nice cinematic and everything, so it was rather disappointing.


And that about wraps things up.  I really wasn't expecting too much out of the game, but I'm really glad that I ended up enjoying it and felt so good about it at the end.

Torn between my work and finding one

I've been feeling rather anxious this month.  I want to be able to continue doing my own work and producing audio and other projects, but I should really be looking for a proper job right now.  I was hoping that Camera Obscura would bring about some sort of recognition to help bolster my resumé, but the game seems largely ignored and sales don't seem all too great.  What I'll probably end up doing is looking up for any open positions and then applying for them while hoping for the best and then go right back into working.  I just finished my first piece of audio work two days ago for the year and it annoys me that it took me this long just to get one remix done.  I started on three of them but stopped production on the first two when I realize I couldn't really achieve what I wanted out of them.  I had finally dove back into "The Guardian Legend Remix Project" which I had planned out back in 2007.  I brought back my notes out from then and realized the way I think of music is very different and is a lot more diverse.  I finished an orchestrated rendition of the title screen theme and was actually disappointed with how it turned out.  It doesn't sound as nearly as grand or free flowing as I imagined it.  I don't want to dwell on it anymore because it's the middle of March and it was the very first audio I've produced this year and I just want to produce more.  In other words, I'm moving on.  Then there's the case of wanting to work on other projects.  I want to make a game and I've been wanting to forever.  I remember how much time and effort spent on making games on my own back in High school, so I know it's not going to be easy to find the time to do so now.    I also want to start up a new comic and do an animation project or two since I have ideas for them.  I keep building up ideas but never really have the time to create them.  I have so many ideas from when I was kid up until now all built up with it being materialized so slowly.  But at the very least, I'm able to make it happen.  I didn't know I'd be working with music, art or videogames.  That's stuff I used to just imagine.  All I can really do now is take it one step at a time, and I think I want to work on my audio projects first.  But I'm finding it difficult to work with a clear conscience when I should be looking for a proper job and working at it right now considering I'll have graduated five years ago as of this June.  At the very least, I'm making more stuff I can show to employers rather than applying empty handed with no material to show.

In terms of gaming, I kind of slowed down on completions this month.  It's probably because I've started so many long lasting ones.  I didn't really finish FEZ as I gave up on completing the game.  It got boring.  The game's beautiful and the mechanic for the 2D/3D perspective is really cool, but it just wasn't enticing to play after the first two hours (I played 4 hours before I gave up).  Momodora 3 was significantly shorter than I thought, and so I completed it 3 times (or was it 4?).  It was a fun little action-platformer.  Guacamelee was fun at first, but then it got frustrating and I just wanted to finish the game (of which I did).  It was an interesting Metroidvania that had a unique combat system.  I liked it for the most part, but the game really frustrated me near the end.  Wrack finally went on sale at a price I was willing to pay.  I got through the short campaign and thought it was pretty solid classic First-Person Shooter.  I actually think it does a better job of being a old-school shooter than the new "Rise of the Triad" did.  I think the game did frustrate me at some points, but I don't recall what it was.

Megabyte Punch was an interesting yet unsatisfying action-platformer.  It plays like Super Smash Bros. with the ability to switch out parts and specials like other robot games (of which I can't really give an example of at the moment).  Here are some of the problems I had with the game:
- The reach of attacks are pitiful.  It's like you're playing a Pichu.
- In the last half of the game (adventure mode), you get juggled like crazy by enemies
- Enemies have ridiculous priority over your attacks, even if it's the same exact attack
- Adventure mode is really boring after a while
- Some enemy attacks are overpowered with its speed, damage, and priority
Despite all my complaints, I finished adventure mode to the end.  The game left me with a pretty poor impression of it.  Abyss Odyssey still does the best job of utilizing Super Smash Bros. mechanics.

I also finished Akiba's Trip: Undead and Undressed for the PS Vita earlier this month.  I kind of made the mistake of playing the game on the hardest difficult (that was available, I unlocked an even harder level after finishing it) and so I an aggravating experience playing the game.  I often get stuck in a corner and get juggled into a strip and die on the spot.  The game is as weird as a lot of people speculated with stripping the clothes off of "man-made vampires", but it wasn't anything too risqué.  The game definitely felt cheap with the clunky animations and low-res textures, but the game was still mildly entertaining.  I really didn't like the side quests and decided to skip all of them after the first two chapters as I got really bored of them.  The main game was alright and I was able to have fun with it, even though the difficulty drove me crazy.  I was getting taken down with one hit every time and enemies were incredibly aggressive.  I thought it was pretty cool walking around what is to be considered a rather faithful recreation of Akihabara.  Once I completed the game, I started over with New Game+ on the easiest difficulty.  It felt like a totally different game.  It was a lot less stressful to play, that's for sure.  I might revisit the game later, but I have moved onto a different game on my PS Vita for now.

I think I'm most happy about completing Hyperdimension Neptunia this month, though.  I bought that game 3-4 years ago and just didn't have the patience to get through it until now.  With the remakes coming out, I really wanted to get through the series this year.  I really like the theme, art style, story, music, etc. for the franchise because it's colorful, happy and fun.  The problem with the first game was that combat was really slow and the combo system was rather tedious after a while.  But the dialogues and events were so humorous and delightful that it kept me going.  After I finished the game, I wanted to start Hyperdimension Neptunia Mk2.  But I decided to take a short break and play something else first.


In February, I started Valkyria Chronicles on PC.  I kind of knew I wouldn't be able to finish it within the month.  I knew it was a long game, but I'm able to enjoy it even if it's taking so long to complete.  This month, I started Sleeping Dogs to play alongside Valkyria Chronicles because I've been wanting to play it for the longest time and decided not to wait any longer.  It's fun!  I don't I've been so into a GTA-like game before (other than Saint's Row the 3rd and 4).  On PS3, I started Time and Eternity.  The game got really low ratings and I was weary about getting the game, but I couldn't help it when I knew Yuzo Koshiro did the music.  I can see the flaws and downsides to the game, but I really like the combat system so far.  It's a lot more engaging than most traditional RPGs.  And as far as I know, the game isn't that long for an RPG.  I'm not sure what I want to play after finishing it as I have a lot lined up for PS3, but perhaps I'll playing an Action game next.  On PS2, I finally started Persona 3 FES.  I know it can be a short game from what I've been told, but so far it's super slow.  I've engaged in one fight, and it was tutorial.  I think I've played at least 2 hours of it so far.  Hopefully it gets more interactive from here on out.  On 3DS, I started up Final Fantasy Theatrhythm Curtain Call.  I'm getting kind of bored of it already, if not frustrated whenever I get near the end of a song and then fail.  I played a few songs on the easiest difficulty and then decided I'd only play the hardest difficulty and fall back on a lower difficulty if I cannot handle it at all.  Even then, I'm starting to get bored of the game and not want to play considering how many songs are in it this time around.  I might give up on it soon and start up Bravely Default.  On DS, I started Megaman ZX a while back and haven't really played it.  It's not as fun as the Zero series.  On PSP, I'm still working on Final Fantasy Dissidia and the game pisses me off every time I play it.  It's on such extreme ends on whether you win or lose a match.  I'm not sure if I want to fully complete this game either because I'm not fully enjoying it.  On PS Vita, I started Soul Sacrifice after I finished Akiba's Trip.  It has a strong sense of atmosphere and presentation.  The game is unique, but it's sadly already starting to get boring/frustrating with fights lasting 15-20 minutes.  Out of all the Monster Hunter-like games I've played on PS Vita, I think I liked Freedom Wars the most in terms of a Single-player experience.


I think that's enough ranting for now, haha.  I'm hoping to get some more audio work done this month.