Christmas

[JoeQuaker]

Well, Christmas is soon upon us... I'm sure plenty of you agree way too fast at that. So what are you guys and gals hoping to get or are buying for yourselves? Are you playing any specific online games that have cool Christmas events planned?

[Gamemusicfreak]

I'm hoping Ys Origin arrives on Saturday 12/23.  I will be playing the heck out of it if it does.  Other than that, I'm looking forward to plenty of rest, visiting my mom and catching up on various projects.  I have no idea what gifts I could be getting, maybe some clothes.  
I hope you all have a Merry Christmas!

[TDOMMX]

Let's see... where to begin...

I have been a full-time intern for the past few months with a killer commute (2 hours each way), so my free time has been essentially non-existent.  During my commute, I have been able to finish New Super Mario Bros. and Castlevania - Aria of Sorrow entirely (every mode, every secret, etc...).  I am currently playing through Dawn of Sorrow (GREAT game, BTW).  If not for the commute, I would have NO game time whatsoever.  As of 4 pm today, my internship is over, so I finally have the time to go over my backlog of stuff (for the record, it's my lunch break right now).

I already know I am getting Portrait of Ruin, Kirby Squeak Squad, and a Wii for Christmas.  I already received my preorder copy of Twilight Princess, as well as the English translation patch for Tsukihime and another translation that I am supposed to beta test.  Throw in a mountain (not an exaggeration) of Hirameki visual novels I have yet to play through, and I have enough entertainment to last me 'til summer.  And that's not even mentioning anime, which I follow almost religiously.

All in all, I have plenty to do, and I finally have the time to do it.  I wonder what's worse:  being poor and not being able to buy what you want, or being well-off and not having the time to enjoy your purchases.  At the moment, I am putting off picking up Origin until my mountain becomes more manageable.  By then, the beta testing I have to do will be done, and I will not have to spend as much time resisting the urge to play Origin.

[X-Calibar]

as well as the English translation patch for Tsukihime and another translation that I am supposed to beta test.  Throw in a mountain (not an exaggeration) of Hirameki visual novels I have yet to play through, and I have enough entertainment to last me 'til summer.  And that's not even mentioning anime, which I follow almost religiously.

This sounds like my situation :P  I've only played through Phantom of the Inferno, one ending; Tea Society of a Witch 1 ending, and Ever17 2-3 endings [not going to stop till I get the final ending!]; While Yo-Jin-Bo, the Exodus Guilty games, Hourglass of Summer still to go~
The only time I've been able to play recently is usually in the dead of night/morning, which leaves me sleep deprived :P

But, even with my lack of time for games and having probably 20 games I haven't gotten to yet: Shadow Hearts 1,2; Digital Devil Saga 2; Paper Mario; Resident Evil 0,1,Outbreak; Link; Tsukihime; freeware games or mods for games I already have; The Longest Journey 1,2; dot hack 1-4; FFX etc etc; Not to mention anime series that I've gotten and haven't gotten around to yet...!

Yet, I am getting or hoping to get Animaundi, Exodus Guilty 3, FF12, the CardCaptorSakura movies, Tehxnolyze, Haibaine Renmei, Read or Die OVA...
So this is what it means to be a collector?  Sometime I want to be a player again :P  [And I bet it won't be long till Ys 3 translation is finished..! That means I'll have to play through 1,2 and then 3!  Sounds fun :P ;)]

EDIT: I wouldn't mind getting a new system, but really I have so much to catch up on...!  I'll probably wait till initial price drops :P
EDIEDIT: Also there are so many translated SNES games and such that I've been wanting to check out... really this could be a full time gig..!  Too bad the pay is nil :P

[JoeQuaker]

Yesterday, I received these in the mail:



(I've always wanted one of these! Now I got FOUR!!!!)

And this:



(Heh-heh)

I didn't even ask for this stuff. New gurlfriend = COOL

[TDOMMX]

This sounds like my situation   I've only played through Phantom of the Inferno, one ending; Tea Society of a Witch 1 ending, and Ever17 2-3 endings [not going to stop till I get the final ending!]; While Yo-Jin-Bo, the Exodus Guilty games, Hourglass of Summer still to go~
The only time I've been able to play recently is usually in the dead of night/morning, which leaves me sleep deprived

Whenever I play through visual novels, I make a point of starting them only when I'd have enough time to play it through to the end.  I do not like starting something, going to work during the week, then picking up where I left off 5-6 days later.  Especially when Phantom of Inferno takes a week full-time to finish and I do not have time to replay large chunks to refresh my memory.  As a result, Hourglass of Summer has been on my back-burner for 2 years.  Sad, but true.

Since you seem to like Hirameki stuff, I'll give you my comments for future reference:

Phantom of Inferno (Completed with all 10 endings)
-Definitely worth it.  I first played this 2 years ago, and I made a point of replaying it during the summer since two friends were interested in checking it out.  I only caught 7 of the 10 endings when I first played it (before I made a point of catching every ending -- this was my first, after all), and I had come across the PS2 version's official player's guide, so I decided to give it another whirl.  Definitely better than the first time around since I got to see everything.

Day of Love (Completed with every ending)
-Charming, but not really recommendable.  Extensively censored, to the point that only two of the endings actually feel complete.  Don't pick it up unless you have cash to burn.

Amusement Park (Finished with only 2 endings)
-I can't give a fair judgement this early, but so far, it seems alot like Day of Love, but with a better scenario.  I've noticed some censorship, but nothing seems too bad compared to DoL.

Ishika & Honori (Stopped playing after an hour)
-BORING.  Annoying characters, dumb premise, and the story changes are influenced somewhat arbitrarily by whether you attacked, used magic, or defended in its equivalent of a random RPG battle.  Not recommended.

Ever 17 (Completed with all 8 endings and all 3 epilogues)
-THIS is the reason why I make a point of playing through every ending within the same expanse of time.  The hype you have heard about the Final Chapter's ending is well-deserved.  If you enjoy endings like The Sixth Sense or The Usual Suspects, you will love the final scenario.  It's not my favorite scenario in the game (that would be reserved for Tsugumi's ending), but it's definitely unique in the best sense of the word.

I own every Hirameki title except Exodus Guilty Vol. 3 and Dragonia.  Hourglass of Summer and Exodus Guilty are at the top of my to-do list, once I finish with Dawn of Sorrow and beta testing.  Sucks that I return to university next Wednesday...    Fortunately, I only have class 3 days a week.  University life can be sweet. 

On top of that, I have Portrait of Ruin, every Zelda title released since Majora's Mask, Tsukihime, and the releases from Insani's Altogether translation festival left to go through... wait a sec... I already went over this.  Sorry.  I have a tendency to rant when I get into something.

As for fan translations, I have kinda phased them out unless the game looks really good.  When free time is scarce, you have to be discriminating.  That's why I've stopped playing RPGs that take themselves way too seriously (a serious tone can be nice, but when the story becomes cliche, it's time to move on).  Action-RPGs and Side-Scrollers are more my cup of tea.  I have never had the patience for Strategy games, despite the fact that I would really like to play through my copy of Growlanser Generations.

Nice mugs & shirt, Joe.  Kinda reminds me of the T-Shirt my brother got me.  It reads:  "1f j00 c4n r34d 7h15, j00 n33d 70 g37 l41d." 

[zaratus]

Growlanser Generations...  I got that when it first came out.  I've still only played Growlanser 2.  I enjoyed it a lot, definitely pretty challenging at parts.  Not overly long, and I meant to replay it to get some more of the character endings (with a guide, so I can get as many as possible on a single playthrough), and try for the alternate story-branch, but got distracted by other games, and ended up being really busy for a while, and just never got back to it.  I've not even touched Growlanser 3 at all.

It's definitely different from your standard SRPG.  It's definitely a bit refreshing, especially since you have some variety in the battle objectives, over 'Kill all the enemies' or 'Kill the boss'. 

*sigh*  I just have too many games to play, and not enough time.  I can't even remember all of them off the top of my head.

Lets see, right now, I'm working on Twilight Princess (Gamecube version, three dungeons finished), Ys: Origin (at first BIG boss), Ys: Oath in Felghana (Working through Abandoned Mines, on Hard, had to make a couple quick escapes), Final Fantasy XII (which was starting to lose my interest, hope the story picks up sometime soon, currently at Henne Mines, probably on hold until I'm done with Zelda, which looks to be a while), Shadow Hearts 3 (Not sure where I'm at, not too far, but got distracted by Suikoden V, which I had to play right away), Okami (actually very far into the game, I think FF12 came out around that time, and again, got sidetracked), Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, Grandia III, Tales of Legendia, Tales of the Abyss, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, Atelier Iris 2, all of which I haven't even STARTED yet, not to mention some older games that I've started and never finished, such as, Dark Cloud 2, Phantom Brave, and probably a couple others, including even a DS game or two, and a few translated ROMs that I haven't touched yet, that have been released that I've been waiting for.  AND other games that I'm interested in, but haven't bothered buying, since I know I'll never get to them, and that I know are fairly readily available.  The ones I know I won't be able to find in a few months, I try to pick up when I can.  Makes me so glad I got Suikoden II when that first came out, what with the insane prices it now fetches on eBay.  I'm definitely picking up the second Phoenix Wright game when that hits in a couple weeks. 

Oh, and don't even get me started on the games that I feel like giving another run-through to, even though I'll never get to it.

Whatever happened to the times when there were not enough games to fill your free time?  Now there's too many games to play, and not enough free time.  At the rate I'm playing games lately, it'll take me over a year just to play what I have, let alone any new stuff that catches my eye. 

And not to mention I have 5-10 big books (or more!) here that I'm working my way through.  I'm not even sure how many are in my queue right now, just that I need to get another bookcase, since I'm out of room for books. =P

My backlog is quite immense.  And it just keeps getting bigger.

Ok, I'm all typed out.  I'll end the rambling, and complaining, and whatever.

/WallOfText

[NightWolve]

Whatever happened to the times when there were not enough games to fill your free time?  Now there's too many games to play, and not enough free time. 

Tell me about it. Those days have been loooong gone for me.

[nunuu]

Guh, I give my friends and family lists of stuff they can get me.   But ... quite a few things that weren't on the list ended up showing up this year anyway.

So far, I got:

• Kirby Squeak Squad
• Potehamu plush & mini-bag
• cow plush
• penguin plush
• paper penguin
• wooden farm animal stickers (which I am converting to magnets)
• a ridiculous Disney plastic folder
• Stargate SG-1 Approaching the Storm book
• a really goofy old school SG-1 figure of Daniel
• Winnie the Pooh and the Hanukkah Dreidel book
• clothes
• Pucca keychain, markers, and pencil case
• $40 US eBay gift cert
• A ticket to see comedian Brian Regan on March 2 w/ the friend that gave it to me

I'll be getting (from folks that have yet to mail out the Chirstmas presents):

• Castlevania:  Portrait of Ruin
• Castlevania:  Curse of Darkness
• Harvest Moon sheep plush
• Stargate SG-1 season 8
• some music CDs
• buttons from nemu*nemu, a friend's online comic

I bought myself an 2GB SD card (yay!  I can take 1600 photos now!), SG-1 seasons 2 & 3, Kuraki Mai singles collection thing as well as Final Fantasy Pray with a Christmas/birthday CD Japan gift cert from last year.

Erm, that's it. ^^

[rocket]

That was quite a list. I was happy when santa put in new screens, installed a new garbage disposal, and fixed 2 faucets.