BABY PENGUINS

[effervescible]

Last night I had dinner with my parents at Tumebleweed restaurant (had cajun linguine with scallops--yumx0r) and saw March of the Penguins. All of you should go see this. It's a good movie, interesting and educational with good cinematography and music and narration (Morgan Freeman!) but most importantly, BABY PENGUINS. OMFG it blew out my circuit breakers of cute. It turns out that penguins are kind of dorky and that made it better. Also, BABY PENGUINS.

Gah. Can the day go faster please? It's crawling for the first time all week. My work here isn't tremendously exciting any day, but today I'm just bored and even the soothing balm of teh internets isn't helping much. Maybe I just know it's Friday.

Between working, internet shenanigans and sleep, I've been playing Final Fantasy VIII all week after donna_c_punk asked some questions about her first run-through of it and I felt inspired to dust it off and give it a try as well.

I really do love it--now that it's being refreshed in my mind, I think it might be my favorite RPG, though I've played technically better ones (Chrono Trigger remains the god of RPGs). I love the game mechanics--they're not perfect but they're different from anything else FF has tried, and that's refreshing. Even the sphere grid, my second favorite, was a glorified version of the standard "Learn this cool new power which you will use until the next cool new power"...I'm not phrasing it very well, but the junction system is neefty. It lets you kick MAJOR amounts of ass without having to level up for hours, and there's a lot of customization you can do in terms of your strengths. Once you master junctioning you don't need to summon GFs nearly as much as people would have you think, and in fact you get better xp if you don't.

I love the setting. Sure, it has its fantasy elements (it better, considering the title) but I relate to a world of military schools and rented cars and abandonment issues so much better than to a girl whose biggest problem is she's half-fairy or a guy trying to become a literal god. I think this game does the best job of creating a vivid, distinct world aside from FFX. I love the whole sorceress mythos--the parade FMV is especially cool with the dancers that really look like they're from a different culture and not just the standard fantasy setting.

I love the characters. Quistis would totally join the hot nerds comm. Irvine is yet another playboy I can't resist. Squall...is an ass, but it's funny when he gets embarrassed or others cut him down. I forgot how much I liked Rinoa--she does stupid shit because she's still a relatively naive teenager, but she does seem to learn from it, and I forgot about the times she tells Squall to, basically, STFU.

And of course my beloved Laguna. He's totally my sekrit RPG boyfriend. Ah, dorky men, how you attract me. ("I feel a breeze...on my butt.") Must be hormones or something because I got all sniffly in the Winhill scene--it's so sentimental and sweet and yet the taste of bitterness is on the breeze, knowing what's ahead. It also gave me a fic-bunny.

No word re: jobness yet. Dear editor dude, please call me soon, unless you've decided you don't want me. If that's true, don't call me and keep thinking until you decide otherwise. :P

Comments

[bejiin.livejournal.com]

FFVIII <3 ... I dunno though. I might still like FFX the best, but that's because I'm a necrophile ; ; (I so didn't know he was dead when I claimed him for my boyfriend!)
But I'm really liking FFXI too... the whole multiplayer element is really nifty.

[fonny.livejournal.com]

gah. i hated the junction system. and drawing magic?! WTF!!

[jaina.livejournal.com]

*g* It is definitely unusual, which I think is why most people don't like it, but the drawing/junction lets you have tons more customization and powering up than the standard beat the crap out of stuff until you level system does. And neither are bad--I wouldn't own as many Koei games as I do if I didn't like simply beating the crap out of things--but if you're a customization nerd like me it's v. v. fun.

[fonny.livejournal.com]

yeahhhhh ... i don't remember much about the system. i probably hated it so much i blocked it out of my mind. and i really disliked the plot and characters as well, so there's no way i'm going back to play it. i do remember, though, that my squall was at level 99 when all the other characters were at, like, 40. wtf? oh, and i remember tapping the R1 button.

you're right though, laguna is hilarious.

[donna-c-punk.livejournal.com]

I need to start playing again! I've been busy on the days I've had off this week. A friend of mine told me to go to the training area and fight the T-Rex, so I could level up quicker.

[jaina.livejournal.com]

Have you taken the SeeD exam yet? The T-rexaur is good for leveling if you can blind him, but don't worry too much about it; you'll level plenty as you go, and monsters change levels to match up with Squall so you can't really get ahead like in other games. Fight a few extra guys and make sure to draw--you don't need to go overboard, and it doesn't take too long to get a good magic stop--and you'll be just fine.