Backloggery Banner

Yayy~ Look what I made for my backlog! It took me like five hours to make... And it was kind of worth it... XD Now my backloggery is pretty! I've never actually posted about my backloggery before, so might as well now! it's what I use to track my games... As to how much I've beaten and stuff. It's really useful actually, and gives you more motivation to actually play and beat your games. :D

You can click the banner to get there. Besides, if you want to see the full size, you have to click it anyway. :3

Anywho, the banner has Chroche Latel Pastalie from Ar tonelico: Sekai ni Hibiku Shoujo-tachi no Metafalica (Duh), Estellise Sidos Heurassein from Tales of Vesperia, Viese Blanchimont from Atelier Iris 2: The Azoth of Destiny, Mercedes from Odin Sphere, Amagi Yukiko from Persona 4, Micaiah from Fire Emblem, and Flonne from the Disgaea Series! Of course, there is tha Ralts evolution line on top of the text, but they were mostly accessories for my screen name. XD

Hope you guys like it...

Character Rant

Alright... I kind of have something to rant about today, and I'm kind of getting annoyed by people on GameFAQs because of this.

For some reason... There always seems to be unnecessary hate for some characters. Particularly, main heroines in the Tales series. For some reason, characters like Colette Brunel and Estellise Sidos Heurassein, both very sweet, kind, and adorable characters, seem to have fans that love to hate them. I don't understand why anyone has to hate any character at all... It just seems like people are saying in their minds... "I have to hate someone in my main party, I'll just go with the default annoying heroine."

First of all, I don't see how either Colette or Estelle are annoying... They are both really likable characters that look out for their friends, and try their best to help out with their best efforts... Seriously, even if you hated Estelle, she would have helped you if you were on the verge of death, regardless! She's instinctively helps people, when she sees someone hurt, she has to heal them right away. Heck, she even feels sorry for the monsters she has to kill! I honestly don't see what is so bad about being so nice... It's like people these days hate extremely kind and caring characters for no reason at all. All they give is that, oh Estelle and Colette are both annoying!

But... Why? Because Estelle drags the party around so she can find out the truth about herself? Yuri, Repede, Karol, Rita, Judith, and Raven don't seem to mind too much... So why does the player have to? Although Judith did speak out to Estelle about dragging out the party to do whatever she wants, and it's quite CLEAR in the game she does, I still don't understand how it is annoying if it's only something used to advance the story in order for the player and Estelle herself, to learn more about who she is. Estelle is a character that actually has flaws, she's selfless to a fault, and people are STILL calling her a Mary Sue! It's ridiculous.

Also, for Colette, sure she says sorry like... For the whole game. But Lloyd apologizes practically as much as her... People only notice Colette's apologies all the time because Lloyd points them out all the time... Sure she hides her pain from the whole party until it gets extremely bad, but it's because she's WORRIED about her friends being worried. She doesn't want to burden them with her problems. Heck, I'm like that... I hate burdening my friends with my problems... It doesn't really benefit them at all to worry about me, although it is nice to let things out once in a while... And I have some really good friends that will listen to my problems no matter how minor.

There's also hate for Shirley Fennes from Tales of Legendia, and I kind of understand that a bit more, she does go kind of crazy jealous. However, I do still like her, and the only reason she did go crazy was because she didn't have many friends, she loved Senel, but Senel was in love with Stella, who was her older sister. And when Stella died, Senel didn't exactly help comfort Shirley, as he was writhing in misery as much as she was... But Senel had Chloe, Norma, and the others to bring him out of his shell. Shirley had Fenimore, but... Well, it didn't exactly work out. T__T Poor Fenimore... So yeah, Shirley is a main heroine that is actually capable of hate, selfishness, jealousy, and greed. And people hate her for that. Yet... People hate Estelle and Colette for being extremely kind, caring, and selfless... Irony eh?

There is also seemingly hate for Micaiah of Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn fame... Although I still haven't beaten the game myself, I know the jist of the rest of the story. Sure, Micaiah is kind of perfect... But she does have one flaw... Blind loyalty to her country, and that blind loyalty obviously lead her to fight for the wrong reasons. FE10 was a disappointment anyway... One reason I did like it was Micaiah though. She's a great character in my eyes.

Tear Grants of Tales of the Abyss isn't AS hated... But she's been accused of being a boring character, and that under her serious and soldier exterior, her love for cute things is a bad attempt to make her seem like a real girl... She DOES open up towards the end... And, I seriously thought Tear was a good character. Her love for cute things made her more lovable for me, and it was a bit amusing to have the other main characters (particularly Anise) tease her about it.

I think that's enough ranting for now... Although, I'm sure I forgot to mention a lot of things... But on a lighter, but strange note...

Beryl Benito, a main character from the upcoming Tales of Hearts... Is 18 years old. *shock* I seriously thought she was 13 or something... >.>; Maybe there's a story behind her appearance.

Estelle avatar up there was made by domination. Picture and screenshot from Abyssal Chronicles. Thanks a745!

Oh, and my rant probably doesn't pertain to most people that actually read this blog. So I'm not really talking about any of my friends. Just stupid people on GameFAQs for the most part.

Oh, and I might as well show this off:


Yes, it's a boxart for a Tales and Gust crossover... Ar tonelico, Atelier, and Tales all in one! XD I know, marvel at my geekiness. By the way, if your favorite character is on this... And I talk to you frequently through IMs or forums. It was for you.

One more thing, Pokemon Platinum is looking to be SUPER awesome. Rebattling gym leaders, move tutors for better movesets, stronger Elite 4 after the National Dex. EEVEE AND RALTS BEFORE THE ELITE 4. It's all looking to be super exciting. And my Pokemon fandom is starting to be rekindled once again. :3

BON BON!

*Ahem* So I recently finished watching three anime surprisingly! The first one was School Rumble's second season! Seeing as how the first OVA for Sangakki comes out today, I'm hoping it gets subbed first so I can continue watching the awesomeness that is School Rumble! Tenma and Yakumo are awesome. :P

The next anime I finished was Lovely Complex, which was a really sweet romantic comedy that I actually enjoyed! The main character of Koizumi Risa's seiyuu is of One Piece fame! Nami's voice actress of Okamura Akemi! She also plays Sheena in Tales of Symphonia! Anywho, Risa's character and Nami's character are very very similar in terms of appearance and personality actually, it's quite surprising. The fact that they have the same voice doesn't really help with that situation. Haha, I ended up calling Risa, "Nami" for quite a while, until I started to get into this 24-episode anime more. The main story is mostly about, as my cousin had posted before, a tall girl falling in love with a boy shorter than him! it's actually adorable how the whole plot plays out, although Risa does cry a LOT! Practically every episode. Poor thing, falling in love with someone as dense as Otani. xD One thing I like about this anime though, is that it IS funny! Romantic comedy, rather than those depressing ones I've been watching. Actually School Rumble kind of counts as romantic comedy too, but it leans more towards the comedy side, while Lovely Complex leans more towards the romantic side. I recommend this anime to anyone who happens across it! Jasypants says that the live-action version of it is pretty good as well, so maybe people should check that out too, although I'm not sure if I will, maybe someday. Title of this post is a reference to one of Lovely Complex's ending songs by the way. :P

The last anime that I finally finished yesterday is none-other than Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru! The main plot is that of which a boy goes to an all-girl's school. He obviously has to dress up and BE a girl while staying over there. Of course, he does not go there because he WANTS to, it's his grandfather's death wish for Mizuho to go to the private academy that his mother attended. His mother was one very dear to Mizuho and his family, and he ends up doing a lot of the things his mother did back when she went to the school. It is pretty interesting how he ends up acting like a girl so naturally, of course, he is kind of feminine to start with. :P Translated, the title pretty much means, all of the maidens are falling in love with the Elder onee-sama. Which is what Mizuho ends up becoming early in the story. The Elder of the school is kind of like... The representative of the school, although not necessarily student council, she usually is admired and adored by all the other girls of the school, defined as the most beautiful and elegant student there. I actually do like a lot of the characters within the anime. Shion-san and Takako-san are both a couple of characters I grew rather fond of as I was watching this anime. It's quite interesting how this anime was displayed at one of the yaoi exhibits at Anime Expo though, considering the story is technically about girls falling in love with a guy, although they do not know that he's a guy at the time. Well, except Mariya. xD If anything, this shouldn't even be considered shoujou-ai, as Mizuho is really a guy anyway! My cousin pretty much wants nothing to do with this anime, which is sorta understandable... Although he shouldn't judge a book by it's cover. The anime isn't bad at all. It's rather light-hearted and funny at times. I enjoyed watching it! :D

Surprisingly, over the past couple weeks, I've also finally beat another game! Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift. I actually REALLY liked it! Although the characters of the story won't beat the first game's, I did actually enjoy a lot of the characters. Especially Adelle, she's a cool character. Frimelda as well, she's just great! Hurdy is fun too~ I'm not sure if I enjoyed this game more than the first FFTA, although I know I enjoyed it as I couldn't stop playing it for over seven days straight. Overall, I did really like this game. Although some of the laws were frustrating, it was fun in the end. In fact, I still have to finish about 30 quests to fully complete the game. I do also want to train my Vaan, Penelo, and Montblanc up, as well as my Frimelda a bit more... My Adelle, Hurdy, Luso, and Cid are already quite great. Well, so far, I've completed two games over the course of the summer. I still technically have two months left of my summer, so hopefully I can beat a lot more.

I've been playing Metroid Prime more recently. A lot of my files had gotten corruped last summer, so I have to rebeat quite a number of games! Mostly just Fire Emblem 9, Metroid Prime, and Tales of Symphonia though. I already beat FE9, and I'm almost done with Metroid Prime I think... I just got the Plasma Beam, so I must be kind of closer! Anywho, I'm also currently on a quest to get an Xbox 360. With the advent of news that came with E3 from Square-Enix of Final Fantasy XIII going to the 360, I ultimately decided that I need a 360 now. Tales of Vesperia is coming out next month, and Soul Calibur IV is coming out NEXT WEEK! Oh whatever am I going to do? I don't nearly have enough money for a 360... At least it recently got a price drop! Down to $300 dollars now, according to one of my friends that works at Gamestop. With the 360, I'll finally be able to play Eternal Sonata too, another game by Namco. They actually did something right in that game by putting in the Japanese voices too, which is great! Hopefully that means they added the Japanese voices to Tales of Vesperia. :D I guess that's enough ranting now though, so byeeee~

*Ahem*

Improvement

Like oh my goddess, I'm getting so much better at photoshop, it's shocking! Check these out and tell me what you guys think. ^___^

Ugh, it doesn't look like they transitioned too well. Oh well, I think if you click on them you can see better images of them. COMMENT PLEASE! Especially you Amanda-yan.

Anticipation

Brawl is less than 36 hours away now, and I am soo uber excited! So my banner is going to be Brawl themed again. This is a fun video with a catchy tune that is spreading like wildfire in the Brawl community, so I hope you enjoy it! :D

Yay banners, this is the old one that I am ever so fond of, but now is the time for a Smash themed one.

And a Meta Knight one I made for my clan. xD

New Banners/Sigs

Wow, I'm getting pretty quick at this! I made this Banner for Connie-sama's blog last night, it's up already, but I don't think she knows how to put it on correctly. xD It's Valkyrie Profile and of Silmeria, I believe the main character of Valkyrie Profile 2? Correct me if I'm wrong. :P

Everyone that knows me probably knows that I am absolutely obsessed with Super Smash Bros. Brawl right now. I recently joined a clan for the game on Brawl Central! It's called [R.E.D.] and stands for Renegade Elite Defectors, which pretty much means that we don't want to use just one character and are rebelling against the single-character clans on the Brawl Central forum. Anywho, I already showed it off to some of my clan members and they seem to like it! Give feedback pl0x. :P

Oh and you can visit the forums here!

EDIT: I just finished up one for the Zelda clan at Brawl Forums! They seem to like it... It's of Wind Waker Zelda. :P

Photoshop Stuffs

Sooo I recently changed my wallpaper and this was my previous one! I just felt like posting it because eh, why not share it? Ar tonelico II is awesome anyway! I'm still waiting for it's US release. Yay Chroche-sama and Luca! Reyvateils are awesome.

So... I was fiddling with Photoshop like the whole weekend, and I remembered that Amanda-yan made me some awesome images last year! Or was it the year before last year.... Oh well! This is one of them. It's actually being used as the background for my MySpace profile, so if you're my friend on there, check it out. It's pretty awesome. Ike is the featured character and the awesome picture of various characters from FE9 is there too! Amanda-yan is an awesome photoshop artist, as well as just an awesome artist! Isn't it pretty? I really need to learn how to make awesome backgrounds like this! How do people do it? It's a mystery to me right now... Hopefully I can get someone to help me out with it. :o

Now, this one is AWESOME! Yay Amanda-yan! It features Ike, Tokiha Mai from Mai-HiME, Vivi, Luffy from One Piece, and Sakura and Tomoyo from Cardcaptor Sakura, (although it seems like the art is more from Tsubasa Chronicle) as well as some other of the Mugiwara pirates, but yeah! I honestly think this one is awesome, but it must have been a pain to cut all those characters out. I know your pain now Amanda-yan! The background and coloring is so beautiful though, I seriously wonder how you do that! SOMEBODY TEACH ME! :[ But yeah, Amanda-yan is just awesome, I don't think I'll ever get to her artistic level. xD

This is version 1 of my "Best of Friends, but Rivals of Love" banner. I already have version 2 but I don't want to show it off just yet. I'm going to wait for it to be put up at the top of the blog for a while, since I just put a new one up yesterday. Anywho, this one has Yoshida Kazumi and Shana from Shakugan no Shana (obviously) and Chroche-sama and Luca from Ar tonelico II. You must have noticed that the Chroche-sama and Luca art is from the wallpaper I just posted up there... Well, it's the best art of them together like that so yeah. :D Oh well, I guess that's enough blogging for now. *waves*

Riviera: The Promised Land

So... It's finally December, and the end of the quarter is approaching quite quickly. Finals are next week, but that also means my three week vacation is coming up. School is becoming quite tiresome as it is, I have had to write at least one essay a week and I'm growing tired of writing. Why I'm blogging as this is still considered writing? I don't know, maybe it helps me relax though I haven't blogged for over a week. As life goes on people grow tired and want to relax with something they enjoy, maybe blog it out to release some anxiety. I don't know if that's what I'm doing right now... But yeah. Being away from home is a bit different, but I go back every weekend so going home doesn't seem as exciting anymore as it should be. I think next quarter I should hold off on going home so much, I don't know, saves my father gas and time at least. Going home less would make me appreciate it a whole lot more as well, and I do have to start living on my own sooner or later. Blah and I have to get a job next quarter, piled on four classes. Should be fun. x__x

Okay, so what I wrote above has absolutely no relevace to the picture I put above it nor the title I gave this post, but whatever. I felt like ranting. Anywho, when I did have time, I started playing Riviera over the weekend. I don't know why, I just felt like it. I still never beat Fire Emblem 10 either. I think I'm less into this one because it just jumps from one team to another, I would have liked to just stay with Micaiah's group throughout the whole game and get everyone else eventually, but this FE is different. I still like it all the same, just feels less satisfying, though I still absolutely love the characters. *shrug*

Anywho, I started playing Riviera, and it IS as fun and great as I expected it to be. Plus the art is incredibly beautiful, I love the art. Ahh video games with 2-D sprites, how thee hath taken my heartheth. The gameplay is simple, yet strategically complex. It also has a whole lot of replay value even though I'm still barely on Chapter 4, and the characters are great and likable. The only gripe I have, which is a tiny one, is that they changed Ecthel and Lyuri's names. Well at least they kept the Japanese voices in, but I read Ecthel as Ein and Lyuri as Lina, but oh well. I can call them whatever I like anyway. So yeah, this game is pure awesomeness. I'm not sure if I'm going to end up beating the game anytime soon, considering there ARE Finals coming up next week and also considering that I have many other games to beat that might eventually distract me from this one, but I should try though.

Goodness, I should really try to make my grammar on this as perfect as possible. I need to try to sound more professional, besides if I blog with proper grammar and spelling, it would help me on the many English essays I have to do throughout my college career. I really have to get my head in the game and start reading and studying more, and to actually TRY to do better. If I don't I'm failing my parents and wasting their money, but ultimately I'm ruining my future. Gah, such is life, always complicated, never giving breaks. *sigh*

Video Games of November

So... November is pretty game-crazy. Haha, I'm going to be poor because of this month, five games coming out for this month, it's quite ridiculous. I'm not really including the Wii Zapper either, which comes with Link's Crossbow Training but I'll probably get that anyway. *Shrug* Anywho, I feel like listing the games that I'm getting/have gotten this month, including a couple more games I have failed to list before because I was preoccupied. Anywho, FE10 is up first! I've already introduced this game in a previous post and I'm still loving it. I love Micaiah! Haha, but yeah. This game is awesome, I'm actually playing through FE9 again, and it's not that hard going through it at all. Probably because I played it like five times and I know exactly what to do. Lol.

Then there's Mario & Sonic at the Olympic games. I'm still not sure exactly how good this game is because I have like, nobody to play it with. I tried to get my sisters to play it with me, sorta, but they still haven't. Maybe I'll get to play it with them over the break, or I'll bring Elizabeth, Connie-sama, Stephanie, and them over or something. It's a cool concept though, bringing Mario and Sonic together before Brawl, it seems like a fun game too, I just haven't been able to give it a chance yet, partly because of school.

Super Mario Galaxy! Haha, this game is pretty awesome even though I only played it for like 15 minutes. Princess Rosalina is pretty cool, and I love the whole theme. The only part I don't like is how Peach gets kidnapped again. Well, the way Bowser kidnaps Peach this time is practically the same way he did it in Paper Mario! Haha, I was laughing about that, it was quite amusing because I love Paper Mario ever so dearly. Except Mario is still in space and being assisted by Princess Rosalina instead of Mario having to collect the Star Spirits in the Mushroom Kingdom. I heard the game was REALLY good though, so yeah I'm looking forward to playing it more.

Like oh my goddess it's Final Fantasy XII-2! xD Anywho, I have NO idea how this game is going to be, but I'm getting it because it's Final Fantasy. Vaan and Penelo are back, and I'm pretty sure Fran and Balthier are as well, but where's Ashe?! Anywho, I still need to beat FFXII anyway. xD

SOUL CALIBUR LEGENDS! I really can't wait for this game to come out, it seems so AWESOME. C0-op game play FTW. Sophitia is in it tooo~ Oh love and happiness. Haha, I have no idea when this game is going to come out though, it's either this week or next week, but I'm so excited! I still can't believe that Lloyd is in it though.

Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions, the remake of Final Fantasy Tactics for PS1! I absolutely LOVE this game, but I haven't been able to play because FE > FFT, oh and Zelda: Phantom Hourglass kind of took my time for this too. So yeah, I think I'll beat it eventually... I got this with my PSP, yes... I actually got one, it has Darth Vader on the back! But yeah. It's pretty awesome.

RIVIERAAA~ Yes, I finally got this game, and even though I really wanted it over the summer, and now I finally have it, I barely gave it any time at all. I know, quite sad really. I was so excited about it too and now all these other great games came out and I have to beat those too! UGHH! SO MANY GAMES! Oh well, I'll try to beat them all eventually. :o

Well yeah, that's pretty much all I wanted to say right now... Hmmm. Oh and thanks to the people that actually commented my blog! Mostly Amanda-yan, but other people too, I TRULY appreciate it. :D I really should talk more about my life than just my games and anime though. LMAO. Oh well, maybe if I feel like opening up more. xD

Micaiah for Brawl?

Newest main character for Fire Emblem, the only real Mage Lord, and a female main character of a moderately popular series. I think she has a good chance. Don't know how popular she is in Japan, but it would be nice to see her in the game.