Chapter 8 of Resonance of Fate.

I love this game.  Nothing is more rewarding than destroying an enemy.  It was difficult to learn at the beginning (I thing I game over'd my first battle twice before I actually won anything).
Leanne is absolutely adorable; she looks like a doll (lit?).
Vash is hilarious.
And...well, Zeph kind of falls behind with his emo attitude.  But I prefer it to my initial "kid hero" impression that we see time and time again in JRPGs.  He has attitude, but he's caring, mysterious, and has a pretty messed back story.  His "B" set of costumes annoy me with that stupid scene-kid zipper.

The Richard flash-back episode was probably the best in a while.  I was pretty sad when they went to a Kwon "flashsideways"... they just don't have the same pull.

I hope it picks up the pace again tonight.  With only so few episodes left, and so many more questions, I don't care about how depressed Jack is, or how fast Kate can run, or how emotional Sawyer actually is, or what marital problems surround Jin and Sun, etc...
There's been enough of that for five seasons!

Eww, I thought Men Who Stare at Goats was the definition of a "swing and a miss".  It was too silly; then went waay to serious.  The ending was nothing short on retarded.  There is no real justification for the "super powers" the one unit possesses, and it just feels like they were just a unit of idiots.  Some movies try to get you to believe in a "touch of magic" (or whatever), but I hated this flick.

I loved Fantastic Mr. Fox.  The red hues really started to wear me down, I saw blue for a while after since my eyes became desensitized to red haha.  I thought it was funny.  The whack-bat sport is awesome.

Ponyo...was a good one-time watch.  Aside from the numerous Little Mermaid remnants, I just thought there was something kinda missing.  The scene explaining breast feeding was just bloody awkward (I watched it with a little cousin).  Liam Niesen's character, the dad or whatever, looked absolutely too bazaar for me to consider classy or "arsty".  It was cute, but probably could have benefit from being longer.  Ponyo is a doll though, she brightens up the screen every time.

--

I watched Hot Tub Time Machine.  Perfect way to describe the plot.
I liked it!  The hah-ha's aren't there every single second.  Some of it was obvious.  But it was enjoyable.  Probably better as a rental.  But it does have probably the happiest ending you will ever see in a movie.   

http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2010/04/07/father-of-final-fantasy-stop-rehashing-final-fantasy/

Speaking of Sakaguchi - he's gettin pissy at Squeenix!
(Ads on link are NSFW!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yELOiYgR2aI

Wait for it (first half whatever; second half is genius)....  Monday... what an effective attack.

I'm pretty blue it takes virtually nothing (but grinding of course!) to get the final weapons.
At least (IMO) the game's battle system, music, and graphics are absolutely top notch... but then it still feels empty since its missing the good.  I was all happy when Vanille and Sazh hit that amusement park area... but not like there's anything to do there.  Man, I wanna boot up a save at the Gold Saucer.

While I am still happy with buying this game; and think its worth the $60 I put down on it and whatever hours I will end up putting in it... I'm surprised Square released an FF title thats...so empty.
Were the 4 (+?) years of development just for a [admittedly awesome] battle system, menu interface, and scenery?  The game is void of so much - it does really feel limited to fighting in battles only.

Fun fact I just noticed (and may be behind the times on).
Compact Scope B sells for more than you can buy it for.

Haha!  AT3 won't be much better....
Minor ending spoilers, sort of... Just basically the "picture" you get with the girls:

I love these games...the focus on stupid anime-themes really starts to get old, predictable, and in the way of everything else the game should focus on that's more interesting.

Um; no real prize for collecting every character from what I recall.  

I took the Human Route... Its easier, but by lord is the ending awful.  It's not much better with the human path.

But hey, here's my $0.02.

STORY
Starts cute- but then it gets all too serious all too fast and doesn't quite catch up.  
Can't decide to be light-hearted or a bit more political, or a bit more fantasy-esque.  The game could have actually benefit from a longer story to flesh out the potential.  Your sister and father *seem*like important characters before they're tossed to some political ploy for destruction or some stupid shit like that.
Thumb Down

GRAPHICS
Gorgeous!  No gripes - the characters are fleshed out beautifully.  Sad you get soooo little background on everyone.  I loved how the Warrior's guild was played out (you see nearly NONE of their faces, save out dear receptionist, and the lovely leader's friendbook picture).  The guild's people have their combination class of useless, cool, wacky, and ringer characters.

SOUND
Annoying to fuck.  Save a few lovely tracks - the rest get warn out fast.  And wow- there's is no great de-motivator to engage in a battle than it's fighting themes and raunchy victory fanfare.  The voices I suppose were okay.... but then the character who gets the last kill says "we won!" then zooms to the results menu with the *exact* same battle quote, "we won!".  Minor gripe; but seriously stupid.

BATTLE
lol- BLAND!  I barely remember it now, but I remember using more tactics in Bust-a-Move.  Another game with a gigantic roster of characters where something like 90% of them are useless.  THe right characters can take you to the end of the game with ease.

EXTRAS
Yeah, the 20 or whatever side missions were alright.  Some of the characters recruitments were a pain in the ass.  I don't know- to me this game wasn't worth the effort after.  I played it through to the end; I didn't mind it then...then I realised all that kinda lacked and it made for an unfullfilling experience

I heard one way people get around it is just by actually beating it within that time (apparently, with the right set ups, its not that hard).
I didn't get that far before getting bored with the game sadly.

Overall nostalgia, feel, fun, and characters, I suggest ToD.

Though not a sole factor; ToD's JPN voices reaaallly override the care early NA games put into their dubs.

While on the topic of jrpg character looks - which do you like?  Of course Western rpgs count - but for the most part it seems the Japanese are miles ahead in the "creativity" department.
But this creativity-factors seems to go two ways.  Sometimes you get an awesome looking design.  Sometimes you don't.

What say you?

Square's FMV models drive me nuts lately...
I always liked how Final Fantasy games nowadays seem to have some sort of odd hybrid between euro-faced people and asian looks.
That, or even despite how realistic the FMV models are trying to go for; something like this just doesn't seem like it could exist in real life.. 
I understand the Japanese's efforts to keep people "pretty" (hell, even the guys, technically); but I hate how their hair remains in place even with a huge gust of wind, or how the characters never seem battered up (there is a scene in FF13 where Fang gets a small facial injury and she still looks like a covergirl model).

I kinda walked away from the point - but hey, even in American cartoons; hair colour and styles are dramatically different then in real life.  I guess the point of a creative team is just that - so who would really want to create a cast of characters with all black, brown, blonde, white, or red hair?

And it seems the only thing that set apart what race a character in an anime is would be their skin colour.  Americans and Asians look the exact bloody same in anime (...ironic?).

I don't really care - but this is certainly a fun subject to dote on.