Tales of Time Murder

I was just sitting around trying to kill some time before I leave to go see Ultraviolet (which I’ve slowly started to dread doing all weekend, as I keep hearing how much it sucks…..which is always good), and I figured I’d make a stop in and throw a little pointlessness out here.  And with that irresistable introductory offer…

This past Tuesday, I finally finished Tales of Legendia.  So in right about three weeks, I finished it.  Turned out to be a much longer game than I had anticipated.  It took me almost 67 hours all told.  So, yeah, a pretty long game.  And even at the very end of the last character quest, there was still room for a sequel.  Moreso than ever, it seemed.  But I was very glad to get done.  I was starting to get frustrated with fighting the same enemies over and over again.  Glad to move on, I was.

Which brings me to Grandia III.  I’m about eight and a half hours into it, and it’s…well…still growing on me.  Or so I hope.  My two favorite characters left the game a couple of hours ago, so that sucks, in a few ways.  Obviously it sucks because they were my favorites, but it also sucks because I cared more about what happened to them than the so-called main two characters.  That’s shoddy storytelling.  Secondary characters are never supposed to unintentionally steal the emotional spotlight of the viewer/player.  The main story to Grandia III is cliche ridden.  I feel like I’ve played it once before.  The style of gameplay reminds me a ton of Star Ocean III.  Right down to the way Yuki runs on the map screen.  It’s a dead ringer for Fayt.  But there’s a long way to go yet, so it still has tons of time left to make its mark on me.

Now Playing in Dave’s Mental Jukebox:  "The Beast and the Harlot" by Avenged Sevenfold, "A Cross and a Girl Named Blessed" by Evans Blue, and "Judith" by A Perfect Circle

Given that all I’ve played for the last month plus is RPG’s, I started toying with ideas of my own.  Especially for characters.  All the time, RPG characters can fit into categories of cliches.  For instance, why can’t the main character be an older guy?  Or a girl who isn’t a healer first?  So I threw around some ideas there, but nothing would’ve ever come of it until last night, when I watched, "Banned From the Bible" on the History Channel.  This was easily the most interesting TV show I’ve seen in a very long time.  And some of the themes introduced to me here seemed like grand material for a game story.  Specifically was The Book of Enoch, with its ideas on why angels fell.  From this two hour show came ideas flooding like mad.  Now I wanna write this stuff….if I can keep the motivation and ideas coming.  We shall see about this.  I always get excited about a new idea, and it goes to crap pretty quick….which is always my own fault, because I get lazy with it.  So it’s up to me to get some motivation going, even if that means writing at my desk at work.  Because I will.

And yes, that’s right.  I’m skipping watching the Oscars for the first time in years.  And to go see a movie that’s likely going to suck large monkey testicles, no less.  What can I say?  I just don’t give a shit which movie wins what this year.  It was a sucky year for the movies, and I want no part of celebrating it…no matter how good the best of them were.

And speaking of which, it’s time I go get meself ready to go.  It will take long seconds of preparation to get my mind set to see such a heavy and groundbreaking movie as Ultraviolet promises to be.  So, before I drown in my own sarcasm, I go.  Review to follow at some point, as always.

Sayonara.