Confused

Is the voice in Yuri’s head his mother or Halley’s mother?

Prague

Apparently Mayor Kevin is a dick.  This fact saddens me as I hoped that he’d be super awesome given his super awesome name.

Keith is a pretty good replacement for Yuri in all ways except it’s really difficult to time his first judgement ring hit.  I like the teleporting and sword skills though.

And apparently Yuri is back, although not quite right in the head.

Epic Finish to Shanghai

The fight with Dehuai was painstakingly slow.  Good thing I spent half the game farming up gold for mana seeds/leaves (3x’s healer in Yuri in light fusion mode, combined with the mana intensive skills of Zhuzhen and Alice) and saved up a ton of pure seeds/leaves to keep Alice from going berserk.  Those random graveyard runs finally paid off!

In the end, that AMV after Dehuai’s death was totally worth the time and effort.  It was an amazing end to the Shanghai Arc and was a result that I did not anticipate at all.  From what the narrator (Alice?) says, apparently she never sees Yuri again after he tries to fuse with the Seraphic radiance.  If that is the case, I’ve got to admit I’m more than a bit disappointed as I enjoy frontline melee characters and loved his contributions towards giving the story/world so much flavor.

And with that note, I should probably call it a night and go to sleep before exploring Prague.  That was some cliffhanger + hook though.

Random musings:

1)I’m curious as to whether or not the voice in Yuri’s head is his mother?

2)Finding an erotic book in a tower of unspeakable evil is extremely random…

I will probably sneak in some Prague tomorrow morning before the daily obligatory/mandatory 2 hours of thesis work.  I started playing this game trying to see if it lived up to the hype, and I am more than impressed at this point in time.  Granted there will be some misgivings if Yuri is truly gone for good.

Ghosts and Shanghai

Margarete and Zhuzhen are two of my favorite party members.  Their AOE abilities make farming much faster and my cast/blast + tent seems to be doing wonders.  Matching two rings instead of trying for three makes the battles go much faster and eases the stress of having a painfully slow play through speed due to hardware limitations.  This fact made the voiced sea mother’s story about what happened to Li Li drag out FOREVER.

The fishing town of Dalian provided a dark backdrop on an already dark story.  I really enjoy the gothic feel that has pervaded the game so far.  A few AMV’s later and I kind of understand what’s going on in the world of Shadow Hearts (and a little bit about the Valorization and the opening of the demon gate).

All I could think about while wandering through Shanghai was that the music is very reminiscent of the Chinese Music Assemble performance.  When the summoner’s daughter played the pipa (Chinese fiddle), it left a pretty powerful impression in my mind.

One thing that I know that I love about video games is the music.  I’m not sure if it’s because of my somewhat orthodox piano lessons or because of my aptitudes in auditory learning, but I tend to associate music with memories and objects.  There is little doubt in my mind that in the near future, whenever I hear classical Chinese music instruments, I will think about wandering the streets of Shanghai in a video game that has not been popular in forever.

As for problems with the game play, I hate going back to the graveyard every now or then to reduce malice.  It was interesting at first, but now is a grind now that I’m spending a considerable amount of time farming monsters.

Now that Alice has been taken out of action by Li Li and is now kidnapped by Dehuai, she is horribly under leveled compared to the other party members.  It sucks not having a talented healer, but the makeshift skills of Zhuzhen and the gold farming by running FOE’s will help me stockpile Thera seeds and leaves.

I originally liked how the judgement ring allowed for some actual interfacing between the player and the system in combat (much like how you could do extra damage in FF8 by hitting that button during strikes), but with the unstable FPS with the emulator, it makes it surprisingly difficult to time hits on the ring.  Someday I would like to try this on an actual console and see if there is a difference in gameplay or if my hand-eye coordination is to blame.

Total playtime at 9:45 PM amounts to  7h:49m:50s with an average party level of 17 (mode/median of 18).  Given my expectation that the final boss fight will have me around ~lvl 70, and assuming a linear progression in gaining levels with some consideration for diminishing returns (vastly outleveling the monster levels which slows down exp/level gain) I think I’ve got another 20-30 hours left in this game.

I am intrigued by what may occur in the next few hours (raiding the tower to save Alice) much less what may transpire in the end game.

The beginnings of a new adventure

This will most likely decrease the amount of spam that I send you via e-mail if I were to chronicle my journey through the Shadow Hearts world through this blog.

So far I have:

1) Watched the opening AMV

2) Killed two little goblin things (Wind Shears) with the ring of judgement wheel (which took me like 3-4 rounds to figure out)

3) Got 999′d by Roger Bacon

4) Sucker punched a distracted Roger Bacon and saved the girl by jumping off a train

5) Found that Rude hero = Yuri and Girl = Alice Elliot

6) Fixed a sluice gate

7) Got owned by yuri’s father (fox face, really?).

I have come up with the following conclusions:

1) Maybe I should buy the game just so I can read the instruction manual. I absolutely love reading GOOD manuals as not only do they usually hold some background story or lore, but they give another dimension of depth to the game in dong so.  I haven’t seen that much yet, but the world is rather dark and fascinating in the engine/mechanics of the world.  It’s definitely something I want to learn more about.

2) The battle system is interesting and quasi-technical skill based as well as strategic skill based. I don’t think I’ve played anything like this since Chrono Cross (And it was choosing between many light attacks or fewer heavier attacks instead of actually determining the actual attack strength), and definitely not so “demanding” by any stretch of the imagination.

3) I’m going to see Roger Bacon again someday. But when that time comes I’ll be level 99, maxed out with end game gear and hopefully the boss fight will be trivial.

4) I watched the rude hero with a “heart thought” that went like “Looks like I’m the one who’s gettin’ all tingly inside.  Maybe I should make a move. He. He.” when looking at the unconscious girl as well as “Wonder if she’d mind if I…”.  That’s some weird sense of humor either the Japanese or the translating team has.  It’s been ~half an hour and I already know I’m going to love this game.

5) Yuri seems to be a bit slow on the uptake while Alice seems to be on top of things.  I wonder of whom their relationship reminds me of..

6) Alice hits wolves with her book? >_>

7) Yuri has strange thoughts O_O

I’m going to attempt to update this daily with stories of my adventure and perhaps weird musings as well. Feel free to comment so that I can find out if you care (or not) and so that the blog won’t get deleted for me being a weirdo that talks about a video game all by himself.