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FRONT LOAD MDS 1599.00T
Playing Xenogears in Japanese is pretty strange. I’ve known and loved the game for 10 years now, but never knew it in its original form. Part of the charm of the original game was its sometimes inspired, sometimes abysmal localization. It was fun to discover that the celebrated line “Master, sir, did you just see my MAD SKILLZ!?” came from the innocuous “Master, master! Didja see my technique!!”
I'm getting into parts of Xenogears that I don't remember at all. Everything past beating Redrum and winning the gear battling tournament in D Block seems new to me. I didn't even remember the existence of Sigmund, for instance. The game is really moving along, though. It being on PSP, I can play a bit here and there whenever I have a few minutes, so I'm already 25 hours in, on the 24th of 61 chapters.
As for the music system being used in the game, the article says that Tsuchiya and GUST have spent 10 months working with a beta version of ADAMS, in an unannounced title, and that this title will be the first product to use the system. So there doesn't seem to be much doubt that the next GUST game will have the ADAMS system in it. Also, the article is pretty specific in saying that this unreleased title will be announced within this year, and released next Spring.
As for a fan translation, if NISA doesn't take it on for some reason, it would likely have to be a text script to read along with (like the Xenosaga Madness Project or Kayama's Sakura Taisen scripts) rather than a patch. I don't think that PS3 hacking has gotten to the level of patching games yet, has it?
Julian came over and was all excited to have me finish Persona 3. Until he saw how weak my personas were, and how few minerals I had for buying cards. Now I'm running around lower Tartaros blocks, with enemies fleeing in fear, while I look for rare items to bring to Elizabeth in exchange for cards.
The condescending dotted red underlines were driving me insane. It seemed like nearly every time I typed anything, the computer was chastising me, “WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!” It’s surprisingly out of line with Apple’s usual hands-off policy for users’ content.
So few applications allow you to disable spell checking by default, and some (like Twitterrific) even reenable it every time you enter a text field. Nope, I do not want to teach Mac OS X every proper name, username, technical term, foreign word, and whimsical misspelling I may ever use. I do not want to right-click every text field and navigate a submenu before I start typing.
Despeller is a miracle. I can type in peace again. Thank you.
So close to the end, and P3 is really starting to feel like P2 did: the menace is working its way through society in the form of rumor and hysteria. Strega's message about Nyx is in secret areas on the internet, on flyers posted around town, and in the doomsday cult. Throughout most of this game, the isolation of the main characters, and the bizarre evil they're dealing with, from the rest of the world, felt too detached. I've already complained about the dungeon feeling too separated from the story, but now I think that's just a symptom of how P3 doesn't give a feeling of something foreboding and alive in society, but instead has its conflict quarantined off in this separate, secret world.
The zombification of people throughout the story was one little clue of what was going on. And now, finally, things are coming out into the open. But I would have enjoyed seeing what the setting and story could have been like with the intrigue of mixing world-ending RPG doom with modern, hyperconnected society. You know, like Persona 2 did!
Floor 254. Level 70. I love that the last floor before the gate to Nyx is populated by ever-replenishing enemies. I can just run back and forth, grinding all I want. Grind grind grind.
