Well, the wait for Phantom Hourglass is almost over! The game comes out on October 2nd. Seriously. I've had my copy of this game reserved at my store for about six months now. Of course that's nothing compared to the two years (practically) that one of the cashiers at the store has had it reserved. He set his name down for the game on the day the store started taking pre-orders for it. He's even had a chance to play it already. I'm all jealous now  It's been delayed several times and I'm really, really glad the release date is finally here. 

Okay, I apoligize for being gone so long. I wish I could think of some good excuse but I don't exactly have one. The real truth is that I've sort of been busy with other things and I just forgot all about my journal.

The good news is that I've finally got a job! Being gainfully employed once again feels really great. I was seriously getting tired of hanging around the house all day and doing nothing. Right now I'm a cataloger in one of the libraries around town. The only drawback at this point is that I've got about a 40 minute commute to work every day. Then 40 minutes at the end of the day too.... that's a lot of gas I'm using up in my poor little car. Oh well, I'm just happy to have a job again

Seriously! Yesterday I went out and bought the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. Don't ask me what possessed me to do this but I had to do it. And as I was watching it I remembered how much I loved it as a kid. Now, as an adult, I can see how incredibly cheesy it was. But it was still fun and I still loved watching it. 

Turtle Power!!!

Have you ever wanted to beat up Satan? Or maybe you'd like to perform a miracle and smite your enemies. Well then  Bible Fight is just the game for you! 

I'm sure there's something blasphemous about all of this but........ it's fun!

Unfortunately I've been sick again lately. I swear this is about the fifth time I've gotten sick since coming home from school. It's really annoying.

But here's something fun I found relating to my favorite FF game. The quiz is kinda funny too


Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7 Walkthrough

Hah! I saw on Shiva's journal that she plays Final Fantasy. I recently started my first FF game with Final Fantasy VII. I looked into the series  and found that this one was one of the most highly regarded. I traded in a couple of games, guides and my Gameboy Advance (I've got a Gameboy Player for Gamecube) to snag a copy at a local used game shop.

The game is, in a word, intense. I imagine most of that has to do with the story which is actually quite complicated. Maybe I'll write a review about it when I'm done.

The highlights so far are definately the FMVs. My favorite one right now is the very ending of disc one

Most insane sidequest has to be fighting in the battle arena for Cloud's Level 4 limit break  (complicated and I don't feel like explaining it). I swear, I spent at least three hours trying to get enough battle points to get it. Your character fights in an arena for 8 rounds and has to defeat every opponent or has the option to bow out at the end of any round with fewer points. If you die or get thrown out you get no points (that happened a lot). The crazy thing is that your character is handicapped in some way each round: your health is divided in half, you lose the use of your magic spells, you're reduced in power, etc.... Not only that but if you leave the building you lose ALL of the points you accumulated. So.... you can't leave to get more items and you can't save your progress. You just have to keep playing until you get the points you want.

Most bizarre sidequest is Chocobo breeding and racing. Chocobos are really large bird creatures like ostriches that are used for racing, traveling across rivers, mountains and even the ocean. The thing is only certain kinds of Chocobos can do those things. In a nutshell, what you have to do is catch some good, great, and wonderful chocobos, feed the good and great ones some greens to raise their speed/intelligence/stamina, go race them, breed certain ones, feed their young some greens, race them, breed them, feed  THOSE ones' young greens, race that one, breed that one with the wonderful one, and hopefully after all of that you've gotten the ultimate chocobo that can go almost anywhere on the map. Let me just say that this takes a LOOOOOONNNNG time because the greens and nuts you have to feed the birds cost a lot of money so you have to go out and get in a lot of battles to get more money. It's totally worth it, BTW, because it gets you the ultimate magical summon spell. I'm just glad it's all over with and I don't have to do it anymore.

Now all i really have left to do is raise my characters' levels so they'll be more powerful and will survive in the coming battles much more easily.

I finished playing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess a couple of weeks ago and it sort of left me with a feeling of ".... That's it?" I liked the game, don't misunderstand, but it just didn't really feel like there was much to it. First of all let's just say that it was probably one of the most beautiful games I've ever played. I just liked looking at the game. The story was also very interesting. There's also these ghost hunting and bug hunting side quess that were quite challenging.

.... but

The game was too easy. I didn't die once in a boss battle and while I'd like to attribute that to my mad gaming skillz, but I'd know it wouldn't be true. If I can beat a higher lever game boss without any problems then you know something's wrong. I died about twenty times the first time I faced Bongo Bongo in The Ocarina of Time, and I still have nightmares about that fish boss in Majora's Mask. *shudder* The dungeons themselves were also very easy and not terribly difficult to figure out. I was stuck in that water temple in Ocarina of Time for several days before I managed to puzzle it all out.

That ghost hunting side-quest I mentioned earlier-- that in and of itself was challenging and the reward you get for it is unlimited money. This sounds great but by the time you find all of the ghosts you've almost finished the game and you don't really need to buy anything any more as you find pretty much everything you need during the main quest. There IS this suit of armour that makes you invincible when you wear it but it eats up your rupees (your money) at a rate of about 1 per second. The only time you'd really need to wear it is in the Cave of Ordeals (a really hard dungeon I'll talk about in a minute) but it makes you run out of rupees too quickly (and you won't find ANY in the cave of ordeals) and should only be used in an emergency.

The Cave of Ordeals... Ahhhhh! The very name sums it up perfectly. This is without a doubt the most difficult dungeon and completely unnecessary to completing the game (Thank GOD!). It's fifty levels filled with progressively more difficult enemies. The really hard thing is that the enemies rarely drop any hearts, equipment, or rupees and you'll only find one golden chu to refill all your heart containers. If you're doing the ghost side quest you HAVE to play through this dungeon to at least level 48 (AAAARRRRGGGHH!!). Let me start off by saying that I suck at leveled dungeons like this but I managed to get all the way to level 48 and snagged that last ghost (with only one quarter of a heart container left ). What do you get for all of this? Every ten levels you'll talk to the Great Fairy and she'll release the life giving faries into the Spirit Springs around Hyrule and on level 50 she'll fill one of your bottles with fairy tears (fills all your heart containers and boosts your attack for a while). But wait, THAT'S NOT ALL!!! Play through the cave a second time and it's more difficult than the first time with more enemies than before. Make it all the way to level 50 this time and the Great Fairy will show up at any of the Spirit Springs and give you fairy tears whenever you want. That's Great..... but, like the ghost quest,  the reward doesn't matter because the game is so  easy you'll never need to use the fairy tears to fill your life or make yourself stronger.  Play the Cave of Ordeals for the challenge itself but keep in mind that it isn't important to completing the game.

The bug hunting quest is useful, particularly at the begining of the game, but by the end you'll just be finding the bugs just to find them. All around Hyrule (and keep in mind this is a HUGE world) there are 22 of these these itty-bitty golden bugs that like to hang out on cliffs, fly around, or just hide.They're usually very hard to spot and sometimes very hard to catch. But if you do manage to catch some of them then you can sell them to a character in the game and she'll give you a wallet and lots of cash. It's useful because you can use that cash to buy a piece of heart for 1,000 rupees early in the game. If you find them all the character will give you a bigger wallet but by the end of the game you won't really need it.

Like I said before, Hyrule in this game is absolutely beautiful and huge, but.... you don't really do much other than run around from here to there most of the time. IIRC, you have to fight on horseback (really cool, BTW) three times, there's one race where you have to avoid enemies when you're walking across the field, and that's about it. What good is having a huge world if you don't really do much with it. Even in The Wind Waker (also a huge world and traveling across it also felt like work) there was something to do on every single island. Unfortunately the pieces of heart, golden bugs, and ghosts were massively spread out. Like I said, mostly it's just running from here to there. There wasn't even a horseback race in the game and you'd think that would be a natural  thing to have in a game with a huge world, a horse and lots of room to run around

There's also a point in the game where you can travel to another world that looked really cool. Unfortunately you don't do anything there except go through a dungeon. You can't explore it. You can't even talk to the people there. A missed opportunity if ever there was one.

Lastly, the Spinner. It was single handedly the most fun thing in the entire game. It's sort of like a spikey floating skateboard that runs on tracks. Hard to describe. Just check this site out: The Spinner So what's the problem with it? After you find it and use it in one of the boss battles you'll rarely use it again in the game. A travesty! When I first got that thing and learned how to use it I spent about a half hour just hanging out in that dungeon just jumping from track to track, it was that much fun! There should have been a spinner mini game

I told a friend on another forum about how I felt about this game. I said that I liked the game but it kept giving me this feeling of "Almost.... but not quite."

I'm back in town now after spending Christmas with family. It was fun but like Dorthy says "There's no place like home." I actually really don't like to travel so being home is the real treat for me 

The best present I got was The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. It's got all of the traditional Zelda goodness: a huge world to explore, confusing puzzles, challenging dungeons, fascinating plot, really cool tools, and (of course) impossible mini-games that I'll never be able to accomplish. I'm not going to give away the plot for anyone who may not have played it yet but I will give these little tidbits. My guilty pleasure in the game is transforming into a wolf and running through the towns. It freaks everyone out and if you do it in Castle Town  in the town square all of the town guards will surround you with their spears. The thing is no one will attack you because they're still terrified Also, the coolest new item in Link's inventory is the Spinner. It's sort of like a spiked floating skateboard that runs on tracks around various dungeons. It's very

But it is an incredibly long game. I'm already at around hour 50 and still am not close to beating it I think I may take a break from it today and rejoin the rest of the world for a while  

Thanks to everyone who wished me a Merry Christmas! I'll be making the rounds to wish you guys a Happy New Year

For starters, Afton gets a cookie for this little comment: "Come join my clone army while I part the Red Sea!" 

I salute you my friend!

Now back to the books

---

I, Jedi-- Man! I sure love Drew Struzan's work. Not only does he give us an excellent rendition of a non-movie character but Luke's also lookin' pretty fine as well.
Specter of the Past-- Ahhh! Goat faced characters on a book cover always make me sit up and take notice. Props again to Struzan for painting a non-movie character and one of the rare aliens to grace a cover. But I don't like Luke, Leia, and Han's floating heads. This isn't Mount Rushmore!
Vision of the Future-- OMG!! Finally a decent picture of Mara on a cover! I think this is an excellent edition to the expanded universt. However, if you don't know, this is about the only time you'll see Mara depicted like this. I believe not long after this book came out there were some trading cards that came out that used a model to act as Mara for some pictures. That's pretty much what she's looked like since. Still this one's very nice too. And Luke's got a gun and isn't just aimlessly holding his lightsaber!!
Survivor's Quest-- Hah! Another excellent depiction of Mara. I rather like this one as well. And there's some random Chiss (the blue guy) on the cover. I forget who it's supposed to be, however.
Vector Prime-- I remember when this book came out I thought to myself "Why is there a tatooed skull on this cover?" But Luke looks old here! Props for that. All in all an.... intruguing cover.
Dark Tide I: Onslaught-- This really is our first look at what the Vong ships are supposed to look like. This was great for me because throughout Vector Prime I was having real problems visualising them.
Dark Tide II: Ruin-- Truth be told, I can't really remember what this picture is supposed to represent. Still, it looks cool.

Agents of Chaos I: Hero's Trial-- Ahhh! You can't go wrong with a scruffy Han, can you? I like the depiction of Droma but the Female Vong..... meh.

Agents of Chaos II: Jedi Eclipse-- Han looks really hagard, doesn't he? And I had been wondering what a Vong amphistaff looked like. The cape looks a little bit too colorful for a Vong, however.

Balance Point-- That person on the cover is supposed to be Jacen. I guess you could say it's all mysterious but I would rather have seen his face. We get Han again but the better stuff is on the back of the book. There we get a picture of Anakin (the first time we see him as a teenager) and a semi-naked Jaina floating in Bacta. Plus, if you look real closely by the bar code you can see the outline of an infant. Yeah. That was an easter egg put in there because Mara finds out she's pregnant in this book. Kinda lame if you ask me.

Edge of Victory I: Conquest-- Anakin again but look at those Vong! Beautiful, if you ask me. Wonderful renditions of one of the Shapers. Just look at the tips of her fingers Now THAT's detail.

Edge of Victory II: Rebirth-- A pregnant Mara! How.... original. I didn't really expect to see her drawn at this stage in her life. But Luke isn't going to win any beauty contests this time. Not only does he look old but he also looks like someone's kicked his face in a couple of times. Interesting Vong ship. It looks sort of like a Horta from that Star Trek episode The Devil in the Dark.

Star By Star-- Quite a stylistic cover, isn't it? I like the Vong here and the rest of it is quite colorful. Again, the best stuff is on the back. Leia is weilding a lightsaber and is in a fighting stance. Plus, Anakin looks all ghosty here. Appropriate since he gets bumped off in this book. But here's a new gripe. With the NJO series we've mostly been getting the Skywalker and Solo families, a few random Vong and one (that's Droma) Original character created in this series. I ask you.... will we be getting some different characters any time soon?

Dark Journey-- Jaina sure looks like a pasty-faced crack head.

Enemy Lines I: Rebel Dream-- Wahoo!! It's Wedge Finally a different character.

Enemy Lines II: Rebel Stand-- Han and Leia.... again. Still, I guess I like the interior of the Falcon's cockpit. Okay, maybe that's stretching.

Traitor-- I really hate this book. The cover doesn't impress me either.

Destiny's Way-- It's Jacen, Luke face, random ships here and there. Unimpressive and nothing we haven't seen in the past ten books.

Force Heretic I: Remnant-- Now THIS is original. At least as far as SW are goes. It's rather abstract and our heros (granted it's Luke and Mara again) are actually fighting with blasters. Quite cool.

Force Heretic II: Refugee-- I think this is supposed to be Jaina but.... when did she go all Emo? However, the attacking Ssi-Ruuk is a nice touch.

Force Heretic III: Reunion-- I'm reasonably certain the blond girl is supposed to be Danni Quee (Yay! a different character again) and the one rescuing her is Jacen. This certainly is a different sort of cover for Star Wars and gets my thumb up.

The Final Prophecy-- *gasp* Not a movie character (or someone related to them) in sight!!! It's all Tahiri (the blond) and Vong goodness. Plus, I like that really crazy look on that one Vong's face.

The Unifying Force-- *sigh* Movie characters and those related to them, and once again we get a crazy Vong face. And what's up witht that disembodied hand? The only interesting thing here is that the Falcon seems to be in flames.

Dark Nest I: The Joiner King-- An aging Han (props for that) in front of some huge bugs.

Dark Nest II: The Unseen Queen-- An Aging Leia in front of some huge bugs.

Dark Nest III: The Swarm War-- An aging Luke in front of some big bugs shooting Force Lightening (which he doesn't actually do in the book). I get the impression that there was supposed to be a pattern with these covers. First of all, good job for showing the characters ages. Not all artists do that. But come on! I know what the Big Three look like by now. I think the cover space would have been better utilized by giving less space to Han, Leia and Luke and given more time to showing what those creepy borg killicks look like.

Betrayal-- Wow! Jacen looks all evil and menacing here. Zebra3 approves. I know we've seen this guy a lot of times before but at least he hasn't been shown quite this way. I also happen to know that this is going to be the trend for the Legacy of the Force covers: portraits with one or two characters from that particular book.

Tempest-- It's Boba Fett. I don't really have much to say since I don't care about the character.

Tempest -- Absolutely beautiful rendition of an adult Tenel Ka. If you're familiar with the character then you know that this is probably the first time she hasn't been shown to be rather mannish or to have red worms snaking out of her head (the Young Jedi Knights books make her look like she being perpetually wind blown). A+ for making her grow up.