straightforwardly: a black & white cat twining around a girl's legs; both are outside. (Default)
straightforwardly ([personal profile] straightforwardly) wrote2013-06-01 09:36 pm

0001 | in which there is fangirling & not much else

Yes, that's three zeros. I don't know if I'll ever hit 1000 entries on this journal— in my six years on livejournal, I only posted 705 entries— but I figured I'd be optimistic.

Life's pretty busy at the moment (although the way I spent my day today may suggest otherwise), as my mom bought a new house recently, and we're in the processing of slowly slowly moving into it. We've progressed far enough for my little brother and I to actually be living and sleeping in this new house, but there's still quite a bit to do.

I'll probably talk more about that later, but for now, our regularly scheduled fangirling (since that's the reason why I wanted to make this post in the first place):

► Yesterday, I caught up with Welcome to Sanditon. (And I just realized that there's not one single playlist with both Clara's videos, and Gigi's from Sanditon, only two separate ones. Which, what? That's not very convenient, especially for linking purposes.) Before this, I'd only seen the first episode, and while I did intend to watch more eventually, I definitely was in no hurry. As much as I love Gigi, I wasn't a fan of the Domino app videos in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, and the Sanditon videos seemed to have the same air to them as those did.

After watching the five-ish videos that I let pile up (I'm not sure if I should consider episode four, "Domino, Start Recording" an actual part of the story...), I have to say... while it doesn't seem like I'm entirely wrong with my first impression, it does seem worth watching. The start is slow, granted, but so was the beginning to The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. The last two uploaded videos in particular seem to be pretty promising, in terms of potential plot.

I really, really, really want Edward Denham to be an antagonistic role. I haven't read Sanditon yet (...some Jane Austen fan I am), so I don't know what the characters were like there, but as he's presented now? I think it'd be great to watch.

Finally, I think I may be starting to ship Gigi/Clara. There's something about those references to craft nights that just gets to me.

► Last night, around ten, I did something a bit stupid, something I also don't regret at all. I started played Final Fantasy IV for the first time. I have it on the PSP, so that's the system I'm playing it on, although my brother does own it on the PS1. Why was that stupid?

Because: I barely got any work done today, due to my playing it so much.

Some more thoughts below the cut. (Side-note: If you've played it, please don't spoil me for later parts of the game. ♥ Thank you.)

My older brother actually started playing this about a month or two ago, on the PS1, and one of the things he told me about it was that the beginning of the game just sucks you in. That... was a fairly accurate estimation. I mean, it does begin with the main character having just led his men in killing innocent people. That's... not exactly typical behaviour, at least not in my experience with JRPGs.

I do like Cecil, though my feelings about him have fluctuated as I've played through the game more. That scene with Rydia soon after they meet, when he tells her something along the lines of "you don't have to forgive me, but at least let me protect you"? Sent my pulse sky-rocketing.

(The relationship between Cecil and Rydia in general fascinates me, and I really wish there was more of it. On that note, she's not in my party at the moment and I want her back, game!)

I was a bit bothered by him becoming a paladin, though. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with being a dark knight, but the people of Mysidia acted like there was, and no one seemed to want to argue with that, not even Cecil himself. I can understand why the people of Mysidia weren't his biggest fan, but I hate how there was not even a little bit of resistance to the idea that dark knight = evil, especially since I thought it was pretty clear from the earlier portions of the game that Cecil has a good heart.

On that note, Cecil's appearance completely startled me. That was definitely not how I pictured him— he's so bishounen!

Of the other party members, Rydia's definitely my favorite. I need to find out how old she is, though. I keep finding myself wanting to ship her with characters (Cecil and Edward, mostly), but I'm skeeved out by the idea of her being a kid, because, um, no.

After Rydia, it's definitely Edward. At first I liked him well enough, but overall was pretty indifferent to him. But as time went on... well, while I certainly don't like having to battle with him, I do rather love him as a character. When he dragged himself to the harp, so he could incapacitate the Dark Elf's ability to hold up that metallic barrier— oh, my beating heart.

(I am curious how he knew to play the harp, or how he knew that it would be heard by & have that effect on the Dark Elf, though.)

As for the other characters, I feel pretty neutral. I do like most of them, but I don't really feel any passion for them, if that makes sense. Well, that's not entirely true. I did like Kain quite a bit at the beginning, but right now my thoughts of him are on pause until I figure out why he's associating with Golbez.

I'm pretty indifferent to Yang— after the initial introduction, there doesn't seem to be much more to him. I do enjoy using him in battle, though. There's not much to say about Tellah— I like him, and that's about it— and I keep forgetting that Cid is a part of the cast, despite him being in my party at the moment.

I wasn't too crazy about Porom and Palom, but when they chose to turn to stone to save everyone else, and Tellah couldn't cure them— and then his reaction to that— my emotions were overflowing EVERYWHERE.

Finally, Rosa. I want to like her... but it's kind of hard to when you don't even really get a chance to know her. She just seems shoved into the damsel-in-distress role. Is that supposed to count as characterization? I really hope not... I want to actually get to know her, not have her just be a cliché. Hopefully I get my wish later in the game.

The battle system was a little bit alienating for me, at least at first, but I did get used to it, and I can't say that I'm not having fun with it.

Overall? I'm a bit addicted to this game. I played it for maybe six or seven hours today, and the only reason I'm not playing it now is because I wanted to get my thoughts down. I'm almost to where my older brother is now, actually. He put his playthrough of it on-hold a few weeks back, but my absorption in it led to him picking it up again... and let's just say, we both beat the Dark Elf today, despite him having had a much longer head-start.

I do like that we're both playing through it now, though— we've been discussing the game (mainly the characters, but other things too) together throughout the day, and I'm enjoying the conversations.

And that ended up being even longer than I thought it would be. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, at least insofar as it being a useful account of my thoughts when future!me goes back to look at it. But if anyone else actually read through all of that... kudos to you. ♥

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