Here are the pictures that I promised. The school internet was being good today and didn’t feel like stopping my picture uploads. The blue pictures are due to the bus window tint. The sakura were really pretty there.
A friend from the states was visiting Japan with his family and invited us to join them, so we met up with them at Ginkakuji. So there is a picture of the sign with the whole layout of that temple, and there are some pictures of walking along the tetsugaku no michi (sometimes also seen as tetsugakusha no michi), or “path of philosophy”/”philosopher’s path,” which is near Ginkakuji. The koi in the stream were huge. I took a few pictures, but they are a bit hard to see due to the water’s reflection. Check them out here.
I bought this for the Trial version of FFXIII, and was kind of disappointed with the amount you get to play, however from what I played I want to play more. The battle system is pretty easy to understand. It’s interesting that if you chain attacks at an enemy and they die mid-chain, the rest of the attacks hit nothing. Also, as far as the demo is concerned, switching between characters to use their commands isn’t possible. There wasn’t a main menu available which I would have loved to have seen. It was also a bit pointless for there to be treasure “chests” available that offer Gil when you can’t even use it yet. But, if this is all the beginning of the game, I just want to know what happens next. To initiate battles, the enemies are on the “overworld” where your character runs around, and it is possible to avoid entering into combat. However, the area in the demo was often narrow pathways, so I was only able to avoid acouple of the battles. The end of battle screen gives you a rating on how well you completed the battle and would award TP based on that. You get to play as “Lightning” and “Snow” through the demo at least.
The added scenes to Advent Children don’t disappoint. I won’t spoil any of the scenes that they added because it’s fun to point out the differences when you spot them. The highway chase scene was given a bit more comedic value and the Cloud vs. Sephiroth battle was made a bit more epic. Also, it’s interesting that they changed it from being bloodless to having some blood. Most of the scenes have to do with Denzel’s part of the story, since in the original, the origin of Denzel isn’t explained. The added OVA, “On the Way to a Smile -Episode Denzel- Final Fantasy VII,” much like Advent Children’s original extra OVA “Last Order,” gives the backstory of Denzel pretty much in its entirety. The Japanese release has English dub as well as the Japanese, but only Japanese subtitles. The OVA has no subtitles or English. I was able to understand it easy enough though. If you don’t feel like getting the Japanese release, just remember that its release in other countries may not include the OVA or the FFXIII Trial. Which is what disappointed me of the US release of the original, that “Last Order” wasn’t included.
Here are some pictures since I don’t have a scanner at the moment.
I just got back from purchasing this wonderful piece of merchandise from the local Animate. I have classes still, so I can’t get to playing it just yet, however I plan on playing the Trial and watching the extra scenes added to Advent Children along with the other extras on the Blu-ray.
From April 5-7, we went to Kagoshima in Kyuushuu for a Gackt Concert. While exploring a little bit, we happened to see 2 guys playing shamisen in the middle of a mall.
There are a lot of pictures I need to upload, which will be part 2 of my post.
The Gackt concert was awesome. He is a really good performer and entertainer. I don’t listen to his music a lot, but from the songs I’ve heard compared to the concert, he is a good singer and gets my respect for his multiple talents and abilites. The concert was scheduled from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM, however it started about 15-20 minutes late and lasted until 10:00 PM. It was also interesting to see the diverse age range of people from late teens to middle age. There were some children there as well, probably because the parent (in this case the mother) brought them along.
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