January 2010 Archives

Yay! I'm finally done working on this. At least for now...

I'm going to go and record more footage for Let's Play Sandora no Daibouken.

I'm going to be restructuring the site, so just hang tight if some things don't seem to be working properly. Thanks!

Recently I've been working my way through a bunch of side quests that I missed in Final Fantasy XII. Sadly I could not obtain the Zodiac Spear, but I'm not terribly distressed about that. I just don't understand why they set it up the way they did. If you leave certain treasure chests unopened, you can obtain the spear later in-game. I'm confused. This IS Final Fantasy, right? Finding treasures was half the fun in previous installments. Who would have the mind to leave very specific chests unopened when they come across them?

That aside, yesterday I figured out that I would have to return to the Great Crystal for two reasons: 1) to obtain the Excalibur and 2) to hunt down a rare monster. As you might expect, I'm not terribly excited about this prospect.

I really felt that the Great Crystal was the most annoying and poorly designed area of the game. For one thing, it's really hard to navigate. The game doesn't even give you a map, so you have to go online to find one. Oh, and did I mention that this area is huge? You're not going to have much luck navigating this piece of work unless you've got a map; and even then it's a nightmare.

Secondly - I could be mistaken on this point - there's no easy way in to the Great Crystal. You pretty much have to make your way through Giruvegan all over again. Tell me if I'm wrong on this point, because I'd like to know if there indeed is an easier way in. In other words, you're pretty much hooped if you don't do everything you need to do the first time around. And really, who would think to fight an Esper, find one of the best weapons in the game, battle a rare monster, and then get out (actually, there's probably more to do there). That's a laundry list of problems for such a poorly designed area.

If you enjoyed playing the Great Crystal, tell me your reasons. Maybe it's just that I'm not a masochist, so I don't get much joy out of it.

Yesterday I defeated the Hell Wyrm in Final Fantasy XII. This battle was quite time consuming, but not as intense as I initially though it would be.

I read in an FAQ that if you had the gambits set up just right, you wouldn't even have to touch the controller. I decided to put this to the test, so I went and had a shower while my characters battled the Hell Wyrm. When I got out of the shower, sure enough Vaan, Ashe, and Fran were still at it.

Additionally, I was able to check my email, surf the web, and get myself ready for a drive across town. I didn't actually defeat him until I got home later that night, but I must say that whoever came up with this strategy is quite brilliant.

Hell Wyrm: not half as bad as he sounds.

Yeah, I know I said I wouldn't talk about Final Fantasy XII anymore, but after completing the Shadowseer hunt, I don't know what forces could stop me from ranting on.

Ah, the Pharos of Ridorana. Visually, it's one of the more stunning locations in the game. The Pharos is one of those majestic towers with seemingly unending depth (or rather, height, as the case may be). I'm reminded somewhat of the Fanatic's Tower in Final Fantasy VI. The tower was seemingly endlessly tall, and restricted your use of attacks. In fact, it forced you to fight with magic alone. This is remarkably similar to the Pharos: the ascent also restricted your party of physical attacks, magicks or techniks. The main difference being that you got to choose how you wanted to be limited.

The Pharos is also similar to the Fanatic's Tower in that it is quite monotonous. The Pharos is perhaps a little more interesting, but once you get to the Penumbra (and floors below) - the chief subject of this post - it gets quite repetitive.

But I digress. The Penumbra: an area only accessible after completing the various storyline elements of the Pharos (if I'm not mistaken). In its depths await swarming level 50 encounters, tragically monotonous puzzles, and otherwise annoying level design. Although the developers do provide you with a small map of the area, they decided to blur it out with static. Not that this should come as any surprise, since there are many areas later in-game where this is true.

The floor is basically a circle with four rooms at set intervals. Each room needs to be lit with the correct number of black orbs for you to get access to the floors below. This wouldn't be so bad, except that black orbs are a little harder to come by than you might think; especially when you end up needing over 160 of them (in total). Each room is a gateway to a larger area, where you are swarmed by enemies (oh, and these areas aren't lit all that well; you have to place the correct number of black orbs in the pedestals before you can really see in these rooms). Granted, there isn't always much of an incentive to explore these rooms, but occasionally you do come across some nice treasures (I found an Ultima Blade). Of course, you sort of have to go into these rooms anyway, if you're going to gather more black orbs.

What really grinds me is that there are another two floors exactly like this one. Each floor contains increasingly more encounters, and each floor requires more black orbs to proceed. My main characters were all over level 73, and I still died twice in my attempts to reach the Shadowseer at the bottom floor. The seer wasn't terribly difficult to defeat, but getting to him was annoying. The Pharos is definitely going up there with the Great Crystal as one of the more annoying parts of the game.

Apparently Jackie Chan is currently filming a Karate Kid remake, entitled Kung Fu Kid. Having been weaned on The Karate Kid and Jackie Chan in my formative years, I am quite excited to see how this turns out!

What happens when you cast Pat Morita and Hilary Swank in a movie together? You get The Next Karate Kid.

OK, I'm sure that's not how the movie came about, but it wasn't a terribly good idea to begin with. I can buy the idea of a girl who wants to learn karate, but it's a different story when there isn't much at stake. Remember Karate Kid II? It was definitely a better movie than the third Karate Kid, but if you remember, Daniel's final encounter does not happen as part of a tournament or an event. Rather, it is a personal battle. It's not an awful concept, but it's not earthshaking either.

That's pretty much where we're left with this film. Not Great. Not Horrible. Mediocre at best. An angry teenager, Julie Pierce (played by Hilary Swank) has only one friend: a hawk she named Angel. Her parents died when she was still young, and her grandmother isn't sure how to deal with her. Julie is thus left in the capable hands of Mr. Miyagi, while her grandmother (Louisa) goes on a vacation. Eventually Colonel Dugan and his goons (who play authority figures in the school) find out about her secret pet, and have it taken away to a shelter. Fortunately, Julie has allies in the form of Eric McGowan, an attractive young man who takes a liking to Julie, and of course, Mr. Miyagi, the wise karate master. After causing some trouble and being suspended from school, Julie goes to a monastery with Mr. Miyagi to learn the master's ways. Returning from her training, Julie goes to the prom with Eric, where Dugan and his goons once again come to wreak havoc. Julie has a final showdown with one of the goons and beats him.

This film is formulaic to say the least. Mr. Miyagi comes to Julie and Eric's rescue, much the same way he did for Daniel. Julie finds a love interest, much like Daniel did.

The movie also has trouble suspending disbelief, with monks coming to visit Julie in Boston, and a group of buff 20 year olds keeping students in line at high school. I've been to high school. I don't remember being pushed around or being told what to do by beefcakes in black shirts and blue jeans.

The one thing that saves this movie is the music, and elevates it beyond tolerable status. Bill Conti is simply a genius, and his compositions are too good for a movie like this. Still, I think it's better there than not at all.

Fortunately, this movie comes packaged in The Karate Kid Collection (on the reverse side of the Karate Kid Part III DVD). If you really want to watch it, just pick up this DVD set. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother.

I can't believe the amount of hype this movie has created. This James Cameron flick has probably garnered more attention than any other movie released in 2009. Does it live up to its hype? Read on.

I can't really talk about this movie without touching on the visuals. While I did not see it in an IMAX theatre, I did see it in 3D. Would I see it any other way? No. You have to see this movie in 3D. The visuals are simply stunning, and I felt the 3D experience only added to it. Now is there any point in CG-ifying (yeah, I just made that up) familiar actors and actresses like they did in this movie? No, I don't think so. This really just made things confusing. If you're going to use the likeness of a real actor, why would you need to recreate their image with CG? Granted, the cast is pretty awesome so since I don't really understand the technical side of it, I won't say any more about this.

The story is essentially one of understanding foreign creatures and their culture. Real life human beings are able to embody "avatars" thereby becoming the likeness of these aliens. This also enables them to breathe on this planet. Since the movie is 3 hours and 2 minutes, I shouldn't be able to sum up the movie in two or three sentences, but there really isn't much else to know. On the one hand, there are those who come to love and understand these alien creatures. On the other hand, there are those who would destroy them for the sake of resources (in this case, Unobtainium). Wikipedia defines Unobtainium as "a humorous name for any extremely rare, costly, or physically impossible material needed to fulfill a given design or given application." And that pretty much describes it to a tee.

I can't say much about the soundtrack because I really don't remember. I think it was pretty good, but nowhere near as good as Bill Conti.

All in all, Avatar was pretty entertaining. Is it an instant classic? No. Is it a movie that I will be talking about for years to come? Unlikely. Still, it definitely has its strong points. The cast is great, the visuals are awesome, and the story is at least tolerable. The various creatures in the film were very well conceived, and the overall esthetic of the movie is superb.

The Karate Kid, Part III takes the formula of the first two movies and rehashes the same ideas. What we have here is a movie far less creative and enjoyable than the original.

This time, John Kreese is out to get revenge on Daniel and Mr. Miyagi. With the help of his rich friend, Terry Silver, Kreese sets a plan in motion. Mike Barnes, the "bad boy of karate", is hired by Silver to challenge Daniel for his title. Meanwhile, Daniel, having returned from Okinawa, informs his mother that his girlfriend went to dancing school in Tokyo, thus conveniently writing her out of the plot. Hmm... where have we seen this before? Daniel decides to help Mr. Miyagi's dream of opening a bonsai shop come true, thus spending his savings on a shop.

At first, Silver appears before Daniel and apologizes for Kreese's actions, adding that Kreese is no longer with them. In the mean time, Mike Barnes harasses Daniel, to try to get him to sign up for the tournament. At first Daniel resists, but finds himself in a slippery situation and has to consent to the fight. Subsequently, Silver helps Daniel to train, but this derails Daniel's relationship with Mr. Miyagi. Silver's methods are violent in comparison to Miyagi's, and while Daniel feels that he is finally learning something useful, he soon discovers that it was not a path worth taking.

Daniel once again focuses on his karate training with Mr. Miyagi, and finds himself. Daniel goes to speak with Silver at the dojo, where he encounters a ghost from the past: John Kreese! It is revealed that Silver had been pulling the strings with Barnes and Kreese all along. Daniel is unable to battle all 3 of them, but Mr. Miyagi enters the picture and gives them all a beating. This isn't at all, familiar, is it?

You can probably predict the rest: Daniel enters the tournament, battles Barnes, and comes out on top.

Ralph Macchio (Daniel LaRusso) was quite good in the other two movies, but in this karate kid he is quite obnoxious. I'm not sure if it was in the script or not, but in practically every scene he rambles uncontrollably. It seems as though he was talking the entire time he was on screen. Bad.

Additionally, Terry Silver's (played by Thomas Ian Griffith) motives aren't entirely fleshed out. I understand that he is trying to help his friend John Kreese, and while he is sufficiently devious, he still comes across a little too nice to be evil. Lines like "revenge is my business" only make him more of a caricature than a believable villain. He's just not evil enough.

All in all, the movie isn't as bad as I remember it to be. Regardless, there's no way it could live up to the original. Fortunately, the music is really good and this is true of the whole series.