Final Fantasy VI - Day 7 (In Which We Learn New Uses For Cucumbers)

Back at the Moogle of Exposition screen, I think I'm going to go with Mash because... I dunno, Gibraltar.

I get my mission statement, which I can't read, and then pop up on the world map. I head into a little house and find... Shadow, or rather Kage, again! He asks me a question, and I say yes which ends up with him joining my party. Awesome. I talk to the guy in the house, watch him shriek and run around in circles, and then stand there as if nothing happened. Fantastico. Anyway, moving along. Some guy in green armor on a chocobo runs by and I manage to catch him and buy some... stuff. Don't ask me what it is.

So far the awesome thing about having Kage in my party is that occasionally his dog runs out and does over a thousand points of damage to the enemy. This is awesome and makes life much easier.

I finally wander into some little desert area, and this seems to be where I'm supposed to be, because there's a cut scene, and a bunch of Biggs and Wedges are wandering around talking to one another. There's a bunch of talking and suddenly Kefka pops out of tent. Awesome! He prances over, speaks to the soldiers and then prances off. From what I know of this game, I'm guessing he just said something to the tune of, "Well I'm bored... time to go poison the town of Doma!"

Romancing Saga 2: The Water of Life (Points)

Wow, it is monstery in here. I don't think Medea's group has ever faced a dungeon quite this densely packed. So as always, I'll be choosing my battles carefully and trying to conserve LP.
   

Oh all right. Just for you, dear reader, for being with us for FIFTY TWO installments of Romancing Saga 2 to date(!), we will take on a Mantis God.

Romancing Saga 2: Dancing in the Dark

So here we are, still in the Plant-and-Squid Cliffs of Toba. There's far too many ways for things to have tentacles here, and Medea and Audrey are not comfortable with this at ALL. Especially since, after some manuvering, we discover that the only way forward is through Squid Alley.

Romancing Saga 2: The Wight Cliffs of Toba

There's a narrow pass here with what I'm reasonably sure is a warning sign. Not that I recognize any of the kanji well enough to know, but a sign near a cliff with that many exclamation points can't be good. So guess which way I'm going!

Romancing Saga 2: To Toba!

We headed back to Avalon and got Enrique geared up. He's a hatchet man, primarily, so we gave him the Viking Axe we found a while back. It... kinda makes sense he'd use that, since we found it under his house. He has no Axe techs, and maces don't count, so hopefully he'll get up to speed quickly. He's got a robust 13 LP, which at the moment is the most any party member can really boast. Plus, checking in with our director of finance reveals that the treasury now gets 9600 Crowns for every fight we win. Nice!

Pokemon Black and White: Let's Play Pokenoid!

Okay, so the Pokemon Global Link is delayed a while longer. In the meantime, if you've signed up for the Pokemon Trainer Club, Pokemon.com has a Flash minigame you can play to get an evolved Eevee through the Dreamworld once the PGL goes live.

The game is a mouse-controlled Arkanoid clone. Arkanoid being a Breakout clone with the addition of powerups. Breakout being a game where you use a paddle to bounce a ball into bricks and break them, and if you need this explanation of Breakout or Arkanoid, you are making me feel seriously old right now. In addition to a small suite of modifiers- faster/slower ball, shorter/longer paddle, sticky paddle, extra life -some bricks drop a series of spheres that correspond to the seven Eevee evolution types. There are four stages which randomly select between a few patterns, and if you survive all four, the game offers you an Eeveelution which I suspect is based on how many spheres you've collected of each type. You only get one Pokemon, and the decision is final. Once you've picked it, it'll be waiting for you in the Dreamworld, whenever that opens.

It's not the best Arkanoid clone I ever played- the movement of the ball is kind of choppy, and in a game whose entire gameplay is keep your eye on the ball, that's a problem. Likewise, the game suffers from one of the most annoying Flash game problems of all time: cursor issues. See, your cursor is always active, but becomes invisible when it's over the playfield so you control the paddle directly. Problem being that if your cursor drifts off the top or bottom edge of the playfield you can no longer move the paddle. So annoying. I'm trying to get one of the later Eeveelutions, since I haven't had an Eevee since Gen 1, so I'm having to do this more than once. I definitely recommend a mouse over a touchpad for this, and because of some lag in the controls, my Tablet PC's stylus is right out.

Still, free Eevee, and supposedly they'll all have some kind of not-otherwise-attainable-for-this-Pokemon abilities, so it might be worth the frustration. Check it out!

Romancing Saga 2: The Demon Star Falls

The mine is well-guarded- gonna have to pick and choose my fights as usual. I find two sets of stairs leading down, but the one on the left has a guard so I pick that one. It leads down to a pair of chests, one with 100K in Crowns and one with an epee named Robuo-men, or something like that. But also to a dead end, so I sprint back up to the top floor and hit the other staircase.

Final Fantasy VI - Day 6 (In Which Biggs Keeps His Pimp Hand Strong)

Apparently I was wrong, and you get control of the Moogle of Exposition and get to choose which party to follow. I think I'm going to follow Locke because, well, he steals things... and this is vitally important to my item hoarding. After selecting Locke, I get some backstory, which I'm sure was my mission statement, and then I'm running from a guard... good times. That mission statement would have been REALLY useful...

I Solid Snake my way around the town (because it's a verb now) and head into a couple houses to try to loot the place, or find the person I need to talk to... I find nothing on either front, and have to deal with some fat blonde kid blocking the stairs... what a shit. I head into a shop of some kind and talk to a guy in a turban, who I'm pretty sure ran into a wall the last time I saw him. He seems to recognize Locke, and I'm drawn into a battle to find out that he is not, in fact, a man in a turban, but a traveling carpet salesman:


... and he likes to wear his wares.