Yu-Gi-Oh! Decks built thus far out of old collection and some new pulls:

Main Dragon Deck (Blue Sleeves)
Nephew's Deck (White Sleeves)
Blue-Eyes Dragon
Water
Fire
Dark
Exodia
Low Level
Insect
Machine

May update

S'all good here!

Love/hate 12 T.I.M.E Stories Under the Mask *spoiler-tastic*

I played the Ra priest who could lock an automatic success the whole way through and Ger played the soldier dude; Dave played the scribe and changed on one run while Donal played the healer and changed many times.

We scoped out the boat and acquired the transfer device, allowing us to change characters mid-game. There are two characters here but we opted to press on, leaving the boat behind for this run.

I think we went to the streets first, then the military barracks followed by the temple. We scoped out the dyer's market later. A villa was revealed on the map and led to a number of encounters.

Our second run was equally good for revealing more locations but much like the first run we had nowhere near enough time to complete it. We more or less found everything you possibly could and occupied all but one or two vessels (the priestess, the soldier and the other version of the servant girl).

The third and final run was the quickest, at about an hour or less. We chose a slightly less optimal path but ended up only losing a small bit of time before we had everything we needed to make a run for the end. The puzzle at the end was quite easy and the final encounter was even easier. It did the Prophecy of Dragons thing where what seemed like a tough encounter or two is not what it seemed. I had the mask ad the poison so was able to glide toward the tomb and the mission was accomplished.

---

The original four characters are pretty great but some of the ones you pick up later are better in some fields, the artisan when improved has the best dexterity and the servant girl has great charisma. The initial guard guy is great strength-wise and can hand-wave many encounters from happening. The priestess of Ra I controlled has a nice auto-success and the ability to buff allies was very nice too. Healer priest had a hefty TU price-tag which would be good if combat were a factor but there were very few fights in our runs.

This was much better than Prophecy of Dragons. It felt somewhat fresh each time and was not as frustrating to run through again. I'm really looking forward to Expedition Endurance now. Being able to transfer between characters was excellent.

Probably ranking them:

Marcy Case
Asylum
Under the Mask
Prophecy of Dragons

If you reverse that order it's probably how replayable they are. PoD is the most pick your own adventure like and can be grinded through like five different ways while the Marcy Case is pretty much spoiled forever. I've forgotten quite a bit of Asylum so would not remember the optimal path and the same goes for UtM. I hope EE tops them all from what we know thus far.

March update

2 exams at start of May, better study for those soon. Course was very good on balance.

Theo almost 5. Will be a nice weekend at end of month.

Currently playing: nothing, no time for vidya. Played a few emulators.

Itzacon soon maybe hopefully. Will probably do Saturday only. Warhammer probably wrapping up soon.

Finally acquired employment, 5 mins from house. That's it!

Got back into Yu-Gi-Oh! cards a bit and the Abridged series a lot. Stopped watching it years ago (2011?) glad to see only 20 episodes have been released since then. What's next, watching Zexal?

Wrestlemania: nice to see Jim Cornette will be presenting part of the HoF and also Kurt Freaking Angle being inducted; might even tune in to the event itself somehow and catch the Goldberg/Shane-AJ/Undertaker/JeriKO matches.

Fleetwood Mac doing farewell tour 2018? Will have to go when and if they're in Dublin.

Love/hate 11 Final Fantasy IX spoilerish

Super fun entry in the series, cutesy look but dark at times story line, probably more so than VIII, X and XII. VII could be pretty dark at times but this one is surprisingly more adult at times. I took a ton more screenshots this time around compared to the FFVIII review.

Plot

Like VIII in that it has a super tight plot in disc one which is superlinear and then it unravels a bit and the pace falls away after that. The war on the Mist continent is done quite well but after going away to the Outer Continent things slow down a bit in some ways. I did not even realise I had advanced into a new disc as it is all one big game on Steam. I’m used to changing the discs after certain epic scenes.

I loved all the characters in the FF games I have played so this is no exception. Zidane is a great main character, cheery and an apparent ladies man, a refreshing change from the others. The supporting cast all mix together well and have their various goals and get a good bit of screen time, though as usual this wanes toward the end of this long game.

All the characters are based off classic FF job classes, Zidane being a thief, Dagger the leading lady as a Summoner and Steiner (above) a Knight. I love using the four fighty characters, while I generally leave the four mage characters behind.

Unlike VIII which kind of tapers off into silliness toward the end, IX is pretty strong throughout plot-wise. You visit most places two or three times throughout the story and there is always something new going on and the locations change as you move through the story, some places are destroyed and the NPCs move along with the plot and so on.

Soundtrack

Not as good, though some brilliant ones in there. Many of the tracks have the same basis and tend to be the ones I don’t like while I really enjoyed the ‘unique’ tracks like Treno, We Are Thieves!, Cid’s Castle Theme, Pandemonium and Memoria and more. Some were based off earlier games but updated for this. Thankfully I didn't need any Roses and Wine app to fix the music as in VIII, the music here is perfect, if not even better.

I would probably put this after 7,8,12 for sure… not sure about 10 as I haven’t played it in a few years. This was the last of the pure Nobuo Uematsu soundtracks and apparently he was getting worn out and uninspired at this point but after doing all the prior soundtracks I can’t blame him.

Appearance

This one always looked pretty good, despite the ‘deformed’ appearance of everybody it looks great. The Steam version perhaps looks even better than the original, I approve of the remaster, as opposed to 8 which did not look quite as good (lots of pixelated shite).

Gameplay/mechanics

No Junction system here, and a return of arms and armour. Weapons and armour and add-ons each have an ability or sometimes a spell that can be learned off them after you acquire enough AP. Once you have the requisite amount of AP you learn the skill off and can change to a different weapon or armour if you wish and learn something else or just equip what’s strongest. It’s very satisfying to search for them as you progress through the game and each new piece of equipment you buy or find may add a new ability. Here's me after beating the timed boss fight versus book early in the game:

Combat is super simple, each of the eight main characters has two special command abilities - Zidane has Steal and Skill. The former is simple - steal stuff off enemies, with bosses having the best stuff. Many bosses you may stall fighting to death so Zidane can steal from them. Only a few have ridiculously low drop rates, the infamous Hilgigars and his Fairy Flute comes to mind. Zidane’s Skill is stuff like Flee! Which allows you to flee battle easy for a small price as opposed to manually by holding the shoulder buttons. Some commands are classic ones like offensive Black Magic and support spells in White and Blue Magic while others are very interesting and powerful too - Amarant’s Throw is great, fling a weapon at an enemy for ridiculous damage or Freya’s Jump allowing her to temporarily leave the screen and jump back into battle moments later with a Spear attack.

I try to level everyone as equally as possible, and there are plenty of story reasons for doing so, with the party splitting up regularly enough until later in the game. By that point I usually use Zidane, Amarant, Freya and that combat beast, Steiner, continuing my shunning of Summon Magic and trying to find ways around healing. Vivi’s Black Magic can be insanely useful for the first half of the game but fades away to just Attacking the enemy later on. You can use Auto Reflect or whatever and cast spells off that back at the enemy for double damage but you can also attack with four characters in a few seconds and do way more damage.

I never managed to beat Ozma, but I fought him for the first time. That's 0-3 to the super bosses of Steam FFs I have played; I couldn't beat Omega in VIII or Ozma here, while I will replay VII on Steam soon and see how I do against Ruby and Sapphire and so on. Seeing as I can't really be bothered to level up *that* much it may be a wipeout.

Side quests/mini games

I tried something different and played the Chocobo Hot and Cold to the death for the first time ever, and it was pretty good! I powered through it as made use of the Steam speed boost while playing it to squeeze as much of that mini game into a few play sessions. I cannot imagine what it was like to play at the slower speed but I guess the rewards are somewhat worth it.

The card game in this is pretty terrible, having no clear rules and being largely chance based. I made sure to grab any cards I could find and made sure to win the 'mandatory' card tourney halfway through but that was about it. It doesn't hold a candle to Triple Triad BUT Tetra Master looks good at least and unlike Triple Triad there are no insanely powerful items to be made from the cards so avoiding it doesn't matter.

In conclusion: The most 'fun' FF, the bombastic opening scenes are fun and the first disc railroads you nicely around the first continent but things slow down a lot after you leave there. Nice characters pretty tight interactions no one is wasted though as usual some of the quieter characters in your party get relegated to quick time events. Some of these are quite good and some even give you items but unlike Star Ocean 2 (which desperately needed its version of QTEs) they add very little. I kicked Hades around and easily beat Necron this time, as opposed to when I barely survived with one person left on the console.

Bonus:

Quotes buried on FB profile

"Fortiter et Fideliter" - "Bravely and faithfully". - Fallon Family Motto

"There's no I in team, but there is an I in pie.
There's an I in meat pie.
The anagram of meat is team, I don't really know what he's talking about... " - Simon Pegg (Shaun)

"Blow wind, come wrack! At least we'll die with harness on our back." - Macbeth

"The workers have nothing to lose but their chains, and have a world to win. Workers of the world, unite!" - Marx

"I cannot die ... What would happen to Germany?" - Kaiser Frederick III

"God has made us for civilising the world. Woe and death to all who resist my will." - Kaiser Wilhelm II

"The secret of politics? Make a good treaty with Russia." - Otto von Bismarck

"Hard pressed on my right. My center is yielding. Impossible to maneuver. Situation excellent. I attack." - Marshal Ferdinand Foch

"Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man." - Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski

"Nihilists! Fuck me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos." - Walter Sobchak

"If I went 'round saying I was an Emperor, just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!" - Dennis

"It is with much embarrassment that I have returned alive." - Shoichi Yokoi

"Let's do 'em, man! Let's do this whole fucking village!" - Bunny

"The greatest battle implement ever devised." General Patton, on the M1 Garand

"Countries do not exist where I am from. The discovery of the Higgs boson led to limitless power, the elimination of poverty and Kit-Kats for everyone. It is a communist chocolate hellhole and I'm here to stop it ever happening." - Eloi Cole

"I'd like to send this letter to the Prussian consulate in Siam by aeromail. Am I too late for the 4:30 autogyro?" - Charles Montgomery Burns

“I might have jumped into Normandy but at least I got some liberties in London and Paris. You gyrenes, you got nothing but jungle rot and malaria. Welcome home." - Cab Driver in The Pacific

"They taught me how to kill Japs... I got pretty damn good at it" - Eugene Sledge

"Point, Ray. I was one of those unfortunates adopted by upper middle-class professionals and nurtured in an environment of learning, art and a socio-religious culture steeped in more than 2000 years of Talmudic tradition. Not everyone is lucky enough to have been raised in a whiskey tango trailer park by a bow-legged female whose sole qualification for motherhood is a womb that happened to catch a sperm of a passing truck driver." - Sgt. Brad "Iceman" Colbert

"What makes us omniscient? Have we a record of omniscience? We are the strongest nation in the world today. I do not believe we should ever apply that economic, political, or military power unilaterally. If we had followed that rule in Vietnam, we wouldn't have been there! None of our allies supported us; not Japan, not Germany, not Britain or France. If we can't persuade nations with comparable values of the merit of our cause, we'd better reexamine our reasoning." - Robert McNamara

"Death is an acceptable alternative to Communism!" - Liberty Prime


“The 20
th Century was the century
of Physics and Chemistry
but it is clear that the next century
will be the century of Biology" - Robert F. Curl

"Extremely serious. It starts with a slight fever and dryness of the throat. When the virus penetrates the red blood cells, the victim becomes dizzy, begins to experience an itchy rash, then the poison goes to work on the central nervous system; severe muscle spasms followed by the inevitable drooling. At this point, the entire digestive system collapses accompanied by uncontrollable flatulence. Until finally, the poor bastard is reduced to a quivering wasted piece of jelly." - Dr. Barry Rumack

"If you mean a wealth tax; well, I invented it" - Garret FitzGerald

Frostgrave Warband after 7 games

Frostgrave Warband after 7 games I had meant to post this a lot sooner but here we go after 7 games. There were 2 more games in our campaign before this but my previous Elementalist got cut down in the Mausoleum scenario! So my Apprentice, Elrond, took over the role of Wizard and has been pretty successful so far. I looked at all the various combinations of spellcaster and decided to go with Elementalist again, the relatively high initial cost of their spells (10 minimum, Bolt is 12) made me go for that again. I also liked their Aligned schools the most. If I were to start over again I'd probably go for something like Enchanter/Sigilist/Soothsayer and pick some offensive spells as Aligned or Neutral and build them up over time. I really enjoyed having a horde of Warhounds, fielding 4 in two games and 5 in one! That was in my first three games with this new warband, after that I have brought a more diverse range of soldiers in, with the Treasure Hunter being an excellent addition. They are so good I had to get two. They are surprisingly good in defence but when they push up against the enemy they tend to go down hard. My solid 3 Archers served me in almost every game, with 1 of them being replaced by a Tracker in the last game who has yet to distinguish herself. I almost always have a single Zombie raised at the start or in the first few turns and my small Construct has always moved in and grabbed a treasure and left, the only soldier other than the Apprentice to never get reduced to 0 health. In future I may replace the Thief and the Infantryman with something more interesting. Sellsword Captains are OK but mine has never really distinguished himself, though he took out 3 wandering monsters in the last game. Hanging out where monsters spawn may be the best use for him really. Level 25 Elementalist ‘Elrond’i’ 2530 XP M F S A W H Notes 6 +5/+7 0 11 +4 19 Equipment - Hand Weapon +1 Fight, Dagger, Ring of Protection Apprentice ‘Gal-gilad’
M F S A W H Notes 6 +3/+4 -2 10 +2 15 Equipment - Hand Weapon, Dagger Spells: Chronomancer Fast Act 10 Elementalist Elemental Bolt 5 Elemental Wall 10 Scatter Shot 12 Elemental Hammer 8 Enchanter Construct 10 Necromancer Raise Zombie 12 Sigilist Absorb Knowledge 12 Soothsayer Reveal Secret 16 (new) Summoner Leap 8 Possess 14 Imp 12 Summon Demon 14 Thaumaturge Heal 12 (new) Vault: Grimoires: Dispel Draining Word Capture Incantation Home Base: Inn (+1 Soldier) Kennel (Extra slot for a Warhound only) Carrier Pigeons (-1 gc cost on all soldiers) Treasury: 59 Gold (had 800+, sold Philtre of Fury to get 1000+ and bought Heal and Reveal Secret, sold all Healing Potions, Toughness and Invulnerable Potion and Teleport to have enough for standard 3 Strength Potions) Level 2 Captain (Sellsword Expansion) 190 XP M F S A W H Notes 6 +3/+4 +1 11 +3 13 Furious Attack, Coup de Grace, Riposte, [one more] Equipment - Hand Weapon, Dagger +2 Damage, Leather Armour, Strength Potion Soldiers: (All base characters from the main rulebook) Tracker - survived one game, replacing an Archer Archer - survived 7 games, downed 3 times Archer - survived 6 games, badly injured once and missed 1 game Treasure Hunter - survived 3 games, downed 2 times (Strength Potion) Treasure Hunter - survived 4 games, downed 2 times (Strength Potion) Infantryman - survived 3 games Thief - survived 5 games, downed 2 times Construct (Small) - survived 7 games, possibly never injured Warhound (Kennel) - of 6 games with a kennel, downed every time, ‘replaced’ 3 times Also of 7 games, Apprentice never reduced to 0 HP but Wizard was once (full recovery)