soul calibur 4 arrived today.

i was quite excited about it and was very happy when it finally got here.  so i popped it into my 360 and away i went.

after playing around with the options a bit, i dove into story mode with xianghua.  i noticed an interesting mechanic: the game shows you "cards" for other fighters on your team, and you can apparently switch between them at any time so long as your switch gauge is sufficiently full.  sounded like a nice deal, but since xianghua was one of my old mains from SC2 i didn't feel the need to switch.  so i played through on "Normal" difficulty.  it wasn't a breeze, but there wasn't much of a challenge.  hell, i even took out the hidden character challenge and the final boss without losing, and the final boss had two life bars.  but so far i was having a bit of fun, and i was happy about it.

a little red flag popped up in my head after i finished xianghua's story mode.  it was only five stages long.  i thought to myself "no, it can't be that short, can it?" thinking that there might be something else after the cinematic.  but no, that was it.  there is, of course, the chance that the game is screwing with me and maybe there is some ridiculous condition i have to fulfill in order to lengthen it, like "win the match with 15 seconds remaining and less than 1/3 of your health while standing on your head playing the trumpet."  anyway the short length of the story mode doesn't seem conducive to a "story," since everything has to be told in perhaps the span of 5 minutes.  but given that i am by no means sure that story mode is actually that short, and that there are about 30 characters, it wasn't that big a deal.

the second red flag popped up a while later, and it was a much larger and nastier red flag.  i spent about half an hour in the character generator, making custom Seong Mi-Na, Cervantes, and Sophitia.  i played around with them a bit, and at this point i started to realize how many of the character voices had changed.  not a huge nitpick, but kind of an "aww that kind of sucks" especially considering how used to the voices i was and how well they fit.  after finishing Seong Mi-Na i decided to take a whack at arcade mode.  after plowing my way through 6 challenging fights (this is on Normal difficulty, mind you), i walked up to The Apprentice.  this was one of the two characters included that can use the Force.  so i knuckled down and got ready to fight.

i lost.  then i lost again.  and again.  and many more times over the course of about twenty minutes.

about halfway through was when the red flag popped up.  i don't have a problem with challenge, i don't have a problem with unfair characters.  my only problem is when the AI is so punishingly difficult that the game ceases to be fun.  i don't enjoy getting my ass handed to me repeatedly.  i don't enjoy having to practice for ten hours just to get past one stage.  nothing about that fight was fun.  absolutely nothing.  the fights leading up to it were fun, but that stopped the minute i hit the apprentice.  there is nothing fun about a fight like that.

eventually i did manage to defeat him, only to have the process repeat with an even greater degree of frustration with the last boss.  this is not conducive to a fun game.  all fun immediately goes out the window when you must become a consummate master at the game in order to finish at any difficulty.  harder difficulty levels, i can understand.  but you would forseeably work your way up to those harder levels by playing on the easier ones.  find the lowest level you can win at, and play until it's a breeze, then crank it up a notch.

so after another set of embarrassing losses (including one that was so close to victory i yelled out when i was defeated) i quit and turned the difficulty down to Easy.

after playing through six other fights, i come to the apprentice again, which made me realize it wasn't random chance that i fought him the first time.  and sure enough, i started losing again.

enter red flag #3.

after another 6 consecutive losses having not won a single round, i shut off my 360.

dear namco: this isn't an arcade game, you have my money.  there is no need to milk me for quarters.  there is absolutely no reason to make the AI so punishingly difficult that it is impossible to beat arcade mode on even the lowest difficulty setting without spending half your life practicing.  it was very clear that the AI was reading my inputs, which is perhaps the cheapest form of AI abuse and should never be done on the easiest setting.

at this point, there is little continuing to attract me to SC4 other than character creation mode.  tower of souls or whatever is probably going to be just as frustrating as arcade mode, and story mode is too short to be entertaining.

i'm not going to chalk this game up as a lost cause just yet, but unless it manages to reign in the difficulty soon it won't be in my collection for very long.

i love it when spammers don't even try.  seriously, it's one of the few things on the internet i can truly laugh at with no regrets.

this arrived in my inbox a little while ago.  at first, it looks almost legit, which is more than i can say for most of the spam that gets through thunderbird's spam filter.  but the closer i looked at it, the more weirdness i saw.

first off, i don't even bank at Bank of America.  nobody in my family does.  second, that isn't my e-mail address, and i doubt BofA has figured out what the BCC function does.  third, the reply-to is horrendous.  fourth, the headers show this was sent from a personal comcast account using some random mail client, and not a business account.  fifth, the received-from field doesn't match up, which probably means the botnet is using comcast webmail with a phished account.  and last but not least, the link goes to a site in denmark which isn't even valid.

i had to laugh.  heartily.  and i had to post it here.

also as you may have noticed, seibaaaaaa has been replaced.  as awesome as she is, it was time for a change.  i think yuno fits nicely.

so.  i just pre-ordered Soul Calibur IV off Amazon.

i first experienced the Soul * series way back when on the PS1, when i spent many hours as Rock trying as hard as i could to beat my friend's Mitsurugi on some rare import called SoulEdge.  little did i know the game had an American release by the name of Soul Blade.  about a year later i picked up my PS1, and shortly thereafter acquired my copy of Soul Blade.  in the same vein as Guilty Gear, i spent many sleepless junior high nights playing that game until i had mastered every square inch the game had to offer.  i could beat the boss with any character on any difficulty, i had all the secret weapons, and i had pretty much filled the Time Trial high scores.  after this grandiose achievement, i ignored the game completely until many years later when my PS1 finally bit the dust and i decided to liquidate my old PS1 collection in favor of buying my PS2.

being one of those poor kids who had to buy his consoles and games with his own money, i never had the pleasure of owning a Dreamcast until about a year ago, and what little money i squirreled away for the arcades went right into a DDR machine.  as such i never experienced Soul Calibur first-hand until my sophomore year in college when i stared at one horrendously run-down Soul Calibur machine every morning before going to my ice skating class.

fast-forward a few months and you have me staring at a wall full of games at Game Crazy.  Soul Calibur II stares me down like a lion in midair getting ready to claw my face off.  i pick it up, bring it home, and almost like a copy-paste of junior high, i spend many alcohol-fueled nights playing that game.  i enjoyed it immensely, and still do to this day.

besides being a huge graphical overhaul from Soul Edge, the new characters and stages kept me interested in playing.  the soundtrack is fantastic, and the controls are very tight, as is usually the case with Namco fighting games.  the difficulty was rather unusual, however.  the settings ranged from "Very Easy" to "Extremely Hard," with many intermediate points.  changing from "Very Easy" to "Easy" added no noticable difference in difficulty, as was the case with most of the other intermediate points.  however changing from "Hard" to "Very Hard" allowed the computer to completely decimate me if i stopped moving for an instant, and "Extremely Hard" allowed for even less time before disaster struck.  however, whether this was intentional or not, the CPU players still made glaring mistakes in their actions.  sometimes these were very hard to notice in the higher difficulty levels, but it still meant you had a chance so long as you could exploit them.

the Adventure mode was a huge exercise in frustration.  after reading some completely optional text, you were presented with a dungeon map.  you pick a room and a fight begins.  sometimes certain restrictions were placed on you before entering a dungeon, such as "Struck with poison!" which meant your life would constantly decrease, or possibly "Unknown!" which meant anything at all could happen, ranging from fights in the dark to "hit the enemy with a specific move and it's a one-hit kill but we won't tell you which move."  however this was offset with the ability to change both characters and weapons from the map screen, which meant you could make the dungeons easier or harder, depending on which weapons you have and which character you decide to use.  the real ball-buster is that many of the dungeons are large and non-linear, meaning you could slog your way through many very difficult fights only to fight an equally difficult boss character for absolutely no reward other than a dead-end.  sometimes you would unlock weapons for your trouble.  there was no penalty for dying other than gaining a small amount of gold, which you could then use to purchase weapons, costumes, and other unlockables at various stores.

but that isn't all.  the adventure mode also contains an experience system.  the ranks include various and sometimes humiliating descriptions of your prowess at fighting.  at first i thought it was all for show, but after making my way through adventure mode, i traveled to all the shops and bought everything with my excessive amount of gold.  i soon discovered i was missing several key items for every character, and only after a consultation with gamefaqs did i realize i had to level my character up to "Edgemaster" before i could continue the fight and get the real ending.  and not only that, but i had to grind even more before i had enough gold to buy everyone's weapons, including the overpriced joke weapons.  all in all, it seemed artificially lengthened and in need of some refinement.

fast forward again about a year or so.  i'm waiting at a game stop to pick up my prebooked copy of Soul Calibur III.  given how much i had been playing SCII up to that point, i was really excited about this one.  however, in the long run, SCIII did not live up.

i found the core gameplay to be more or less the same as SCII, which is a good thing.  a few elements were tightened, some were loosened, and essentially all of the moves of many characters were changed, making old combos useless. but this is forgivable, because the game looked outstanding.  the graphics were improved over SCIII, the framerate went up a bit, and the character animation got a well-deserved facelift.  however the game tended to fall short there.

the story mode played out well, but many times it seemed the game was making arbitrary decisions as to where i was allowed to go next, and it seemed almost painfully clear that going in the direction i was not allowed to go would yield better rewards...most notably because the game tended to send me in the same direction each time.  the Character Creation mode had promise, but the only truly original character class was Dancer, whose idle animation made me laugh so hard i was unable to continue holding my controller and subsequently lost the match.  other than that you could create a gruff swordsman, a pretty swordswoman, a pretty swordsman, a gruff swordswoman, a monk, or KOS-MOS.  as well the difficulty curve on this game ranges from "kick you in the balls" to "kick you in the balls right before burning them with a torch and cutting them off with a dull butterknife."  many of the fight sequences will leave you smashing your controller in anger, only because the computer loves to abuse parry moves even when they are 2 character lengths away from you facing the opposite direction.  as well, the game just loves to dick with you.  every once in a while, they will ratchet up the difficulty of one fight so high that you can't help but lose, and once you have lost it tones it back down to where it was before you started, like it just wants to make you break your PS2 so you'll buy the game again.

and it has quicktime events.

but, for me, by and large the worst choice was Chronicles of the Sword mode.  it's a blend of RTS and something else, which is all i need to know since i can't stand RTS games.  that would not be such a big deal if completing this mode weren't a requirement for unlocking certain unlockables, like say for example, most of them.  jamming most of the unlockable content into a single mode is silly, and namco has been doing it for a long time now.  there is no guarantee everyone will like every mode, so there should be an equal opportunity to unlock everything by playing through arcade mode ten million billion times as there would be by playing through "arbitrary random game mode" mode.

as well, while SCII seemed to vomit gold at every encounter and prices were so low it didn't take long before you were able to buy out every shop in the world, SCIII is far more stingy with its money, and inflation has guaranteed you won't be buying your KOS-MOS parts until you have played through arcade mode at least ten million billion times.

all in all, SC is at a tie with me.  while SCII, despite its faults, is a game i still play to this day, SCIII has by and large done very little for me.  SCIV has, so far, been keeping far out of my view.  since this installment will be played on my 360, it has some real opportunities for growth.  my only concern is the online play, since in recent years game devs have taken to requiring some level of online play to unlock content, assuming online play is available.  as i will be several days late in acquiring this game, i can be certain the 14-year olds who populate Xbox Live servers will become consummate masters and will no doubt be able to pummel me to death with my own controller.

but then again i am putting the cart before the horse at this point.  it's due to arrive on the 4th, so we'll see how it goes then.

also yes i am home.  wahoo.

Persona 3 will have to wait.

tomorrow i'll be jumping on a plane and flying down to Anaheim.  as my graduation present, my aunt has paid for week-long trip to Disneyland for the two of us.  i will be bringing my laptop to watch movies on, and the hotel gives us free internet, so i'll probably post periodic updates.  or who knows, i may just get so absorbed in the moment i forget all about it.

either way, we'll be back on the 24th.  see you in a week.

about a week or so ago i got another graduation card from my family, and like most of the rest it had money inside.  so i cashed the check and went down to GameStop.  i looked around for a while, and spotted .hack//G.U. Volume 2 and Eternal Sonata.  nabbed them both along with reserving Gears of War 2.

G.U. is the same as it always has been...unfair bosses and a lot of grinding.  BUT i don't mind because pi is outrageously hot and the game as a solid storyline.  i started up Eternal Sonata a few days back, and so far i'm enjoying it.  the graphics are pretty, the music is amazing, the story is engaging and the combat is a fair mixture of turn-based and real time.  my only gripe so far is the Blocking combat mechanic.  enemies and players can block attacks, and if done at the right time the damage is severely reduced.  however much of the time the window to successfully block requires lightning reflexes or anticipation, and if you mistime it you leave yourself open.  as well, you can't block attacks from behind, so a lot of the strategy goes out the window as it becomes a race to hit everyone's backs.  however, the game also gains a few points by implementing a progressively-harder battle system.  in the beginning, the battle system is pretty simple: you have 5 seconds to act per turn, and time only goes down when you move around.  as long as you stay still, time freezes.  as you play, the battle level goes up, and the game throws more restrictions at you while at the same time increasing rewards (more items, more gold, battle mechanic changes, etc).  so it's difficult to fall into a niche and get tired of combat, as it adds a level of strategy beyond what was taken away by the blocking system.

another nitpick is the way the characters stand.  several of the characters stand not with their arms parallel to their body, but at near-45 degree angles.  it's nothing that would prevent you from buying the game, but it makes your arms tired just looking at them, and during most of the cinema scenes i kept wondering why they all didn't have huge muscley arms.  but since the main character is voiced by Aya Hirano, the game is awesome by default.

in other gaming news, i have finally come to my senses and started Persona 3.  i will talk about it tomorrow since i need to go to bed now.

In the midst of my computerlessness, I'm using any excuse I can to get on the internet - which basically means I'm running my blackberry ragged. Although I did boot my laptop today to check out one website...I ended up spending an hour upgrading Arch and compiling firefox.

Finished off prime 3 last night. Still need to finish my runs through Okami and GTA 4. And I think I still have an outstanding twilight princess run. Although tomorrow I have running around to do so I may not make any headway. We'll see...this heatwave is going to give me a lot of extra time for gaming.

Posting from my blackberry :3

There's something of a heatwave hitting fremont right now. It got up to about 100 today. That's pretty toasty for this part of the state, and neither my aunt nor my grandma tolerate the heat all that well. So I'm biting the bullet and leaving my computer off until the heat passes. I'll manage somehow. It's working pretty well - the A/C got my room down to 69 before I set it to a higher temperature. I guess when you're not fighting with a giant space heater things do get easier.

i...can't stop watching this

i watched the raw of Hidamari Sketch x365 episode 1 the other day.  i have to say i was damn impressed with the production values.  SHAFT has really put some time and effort into this and it shows.  it's hard for me to come up with something to say about it, mostly because it would all be positive.  i highly recommend x365 to anyone who has seen the first season.

watched Slayers Revolution 1.  loved it.  but now i have to go back and rewatch all the past Slayers goodness to catch up.

tired.  can't think of anything else to say.

caution: contains ;_;