Friday, June 30, 2006--Another totally boring day.
Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 6) Total: 8
Good Night, my dear!
Thursday, June 29, 2006--Absolutely nothing happened today. It was a really really boring day.
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 5) Total: 11
Good Night!
Wednesday, June 28, 2006--So yeah, I just beat Disgaea today. Here are my thoughts, as quoted from my post at
Avalanche Online.
*dis*
So yeah. I just beat Disgaea today. I like how the back of the box says 40 hours of gameplay, but I spent 92:47:55 on my first cycle, according to my Cycle 2 game save. Also, Laharl was only at level 72 when I beat the game, and my strongest characters were only at level 75, but don't let those low numbers deceive you. I managed to capture one of each monster at the Divine Prison and just sent them against Lamington for the win (everyone else, Lamington could kill in one hit). Fun times. Fun times indeed.
GRAPHICS
I have a thing for sprites on a fully-rotatable world. 'Nuff said.
SOUND & MUSIC
The sountrack was good, although by no means as good as Uematsu or Mitsuda or hell, even the FFTactics guys. Then again, very few video game soundtracks are as good as those.
STORY
Disgaea's storyline is a joke. I mean literally. The creators were making Disgaea primarily as comedy RPG, and they did their job well. I was laughing my ass off in Episode 6 ("We challenge you to a baseball game, dood!").
That said, Disgaea's story does get serious at time and it has some good character development. While not as intellectually stimulating as, say, FFTactics, Disgaea does draw you in emotionally. Chapter 8 and the final battle and ending were especially well done.
GAMEPLAY
Finally, the most important part of the review. I thought most of Disgaea's features were pretty interesting. The Dark Assembly is fun to play with until you get to some of the higher level proposals, which are really really hard to pass at my level. At the very least, The Dark Assembly put to use a lot of the crappy items I kept getting from bonuses. The Item World is interesting the first few times. After that, it gets really tedious. Fortunately, you don't actually HAVE TO fight each enemy--Item Generals, Kings, Gods, and Specialists are all that matter.
Geo Panels, however, is Disgaea's strong point. Many of the storyline battles become more strategically interesting when there are Geo Panels around. Examples that come to mind are the two Warp levels (incidentally, Warp usually works to my advantage) and the one Maze level in the final episode (that battle was HARD, but I managed to find an easy way to get over that wall). Geo Panels in the item world, however, are a mess and are usually only interesting as a puzzle to see if you can clear the board in one hit. (Or failing that, get some massive combo that will max out your bonus meter, and then kill off all the enemies to claim your prizes.)
Capturing monsters, something I didn't know until near the end of the game, is also quite fun. I always wanted my own dragon, but I never had the patience to fight 30 battles so I can get them for cheap, and even then, it'd take a while to get its levels up. So instead, I just captured one. Yay!
Disgaea isn't without its flaws, though. In a lot of the later levels, the challenge comes mainly from the enemy's high stats, rather than any kind of positional or tactical considerations (most, but not all, levels with Geo Panels are an exception). As a result, the battles usually come down to how much have you been levelling your characters rather than how good are you at making gameplay decisions. (Unless, of course, capturing strong monsters to do your bidding counts as a gameplay decision, but that's marginal.)
Not only that, but Disgaea's AI is really really bad. The incident that comes to mind is in the second Kurtis battle, I managed to kill off everyone but two lightsaber-wielding EDF soldiers, and then, those soldiers manage to kill off all my guys except for a single mage. At that point, I'm quite sure that I'm gonna lose the battle, but as long as I have a mage, I figure I might as well go down fighting. So I start bombarding the soldiers from 7 spaces away ('cause you know, that's what mages do). And the soldiers just STAND THERE AND TAKE IT. W T F?!? I mean, seriously, even I could write a better AI than that. FFTactics' AI, on the other hand, was pretty damn good. Even if you had the statistical advantage over the enemy, if you weren't careful, you could still get wiped out.
As long as we're comparing Disgaea with FFTactics, the character classes in Disgaea just aren't as interesting, either. In Disgaea, it seems like the only difference between the classes are just stats. As opposed to in FFTactics, most of the character classes have unique skills and abilities. It also seems weird to me that ANYONE can steal (although thieves are better at thievery) and that ANYONE can use a bow (although archers are better at archery).
So yeah. In conclusion, Disgaea is a great game, but it's nothing compared to FFTactics. Then again, FFTactics is something of a god.*dis*
Yeah. Disgaea's a good game, but not as good as FFTactics.
Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 5) Total: 6
Good Night!
Tuesday, June 27, 2006--So today, I played some more Disgaea. I finally beat that mission that I was having trouble with (the infamous Maze Level). Now, I'm getting my ass kicked by the final boss.
On this day:
In 2005: I met The Man at Dixie's BBQ.
Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 3) Total: 7
Good Night!
Monday, June 26, 2006--I don't remember what I did today. I think it involved working on my Izzet deck (which is turning out a lot better than I originally anticipated--I originally thought Izzet were a lost cause) and working on Demons Engine Architecture 3.
Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 2) Total: 5
May the Spirit of the Night be with you!
Sunday, June 25, 2006--Today, I played some more Disgaea. Gotta power up those items, ya know?
On this day:
In 2005: I buy the headphones I now use. Apparently, in the entry last year, I said that since I have two sets of earphones, I would be able to choose between the two. As it turns out, I have lost my old earphones. Hehe... oops!
In 2003: The SJYS Japan Tour begins.
Also, I went to Cupertino Village and had dinner with my friend Chao (not to be confused with Ryan Chao), whom I hadn't seen since I left Microsoft. Apparently, he's new in town. He's a Googlie now. (Or whatever the kupo Google employees call themselves.)
Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 4) Total: 9
May the Night be Good!
Saturday, June 24, 2006--Today, I went to KFC for lunch. Mmm... Mashed Potato Bowls...
I also worked on some more TBP stuff. Is it just me, or is web development so much easier than software development.
Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 6) Total: 8
Good Night!
Friday, June 23, 2006--Today, I worked on the Demons Engine Architecture 3, but the heat really killed my productivity. Damn!
On this day:
In 2004:
Viltris: k, plan B
Viltris: i can poke you
Viltris: *poke*poke*
[Kim]: eh...not very nice plan...i don't like getting poked
[Kim]: *stab*
Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 4) Total: 8
Good Night!
Thursday, June 22, 2006--The weather is soooooooooooo hot these days. Ugh!
Anyways, I spent today playing Disgaea. I need to power up my items for the final battle. 'Cause you know, you can do that in Disgaea.
Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 3) Total: 6
Good Night!
Wednesday, June 21, 2006--Today was so hot that I moved my laptop downstairs where we have working air conditioning and air conditioned myself. I also worked some more on the Demons Engine Architecture 3. There's not much interesting stuff yet. Nothing worth screenshotting.
On this day:
In 2005: I injure my wrist making a bad saber parry-riposte.
In 2004: Lei says "Eh?"
I also went to In-N-Out and ate a 4x4. It wasn't that big.
Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 3) Total: 5
Good Night!
Tuesday, June 20, 2006--So today, Justin, Frankie, and I went to Ariake Sushi to get some lunch. Then, we went to Baskin Robbins because I had a craving for chocolate ice cream. Then, we went back to my place where we played Alien Hominid, Mario Power Tennis, and Smash Bros.
On this day:
In 2004: I beat Xenosaga... and I give it a bad review... because it sucks!
Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 1) Total: 6
Good Night!
Monday, June 19, 2006--Today, I played more Disgaea. Then, Justin came to visit, so we played some MTG, watched Franklin play some DotA, and whatever else I forgot.
On this day:
In 2004: I buy my first saber.
Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 3) Total: 6
Good Night!
Sunday, June 18, 2006--Today, I mostly played Disgaea. Now, I'm getting my ass kicked by *dis*
angels*dis*. But I'm near the end. Yay?
On this day:
In 2005: I beat MGS3.
In 2004:
- I use Justin's Goblin deck and win with one mountain!
- Me: They'll be back. They always come back.
Alan: Heh, that's what I said when the lady came to refill our drinks, and she refilled Ryan's drink all the way, but she only refilled mine just a little bit. Lucky for her, she came back later and filled up my drink all the way.
Good Night!
Saturday, June 17, 2006--Today, I went to the Math Team picnic, which is good. I saw Stephanie, Joanna, Albert and his little sister Amy, Ke, Linda, and Mr. Yim.
Me: My memories of Leland will always be a snapshot of senior year. *points to Stephanie, Joanna, and Albert* To me, you guys will always be freshies. *turns to Amy* And I didn't even know you in high school.
Linda: Yeah. It's like you don't even exist.
There are prolly more highlights, but I don't remember any of them. (I guess that makes them
not highlights, huh?)
Also, I played MapleStory some more. I got my mage up to level 17. She's getting quite powerful now.
Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 3) Total: 5
Anyways, Good Night!
Friday, June 16, 2006--Today, I went online for a while for no reason in particular. Then, I uploaded
Dark Fiends Chapter 63. Yay!
I also did a little bit of work for Tau Beta Pi.
Dice Roll of the Day: (1, 4) Total: 5
Good Night!
Thursday, June 15, 2006--Today, I trained up my Disgaea healer some more. I wish I could carry more items to the senate so I can bribe more senators. But then, that would make the game too easy, yes?
On this day:
In 2005: I get my first paycheck ever.
In 2004: New style dice roll!
In 2003: Lizzie decides to talk to me for once.
Also, today was Franklin's Leland Graduation. Congraduations to all Leland graduating seniors! I won't name names, even though I really really want to. Heh, also, they were playing a remix of Numa Numa. Amewsing.
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 5) Total: 11
The Night be Good!
Wednesday, June 14, 2006--Today, I did more work on Demons Engine Architecture 3. It turns out that Java 5.0 (which is the current latest version of Java) has a bad bug in image displaying, which 'causes images to be displayed very very inefficiently. Fortunately, that has been fixed in Java 6. Even more fortunately, Java 6 has a beta released, so I downloaded that, and suddenly, everything runs, like, 30x faster. w00t! Now, what was using 100% of the processor before now only uses about 10% of the processor. (Yes, I know the math doesn't work out. It's not as simple as you think.)
On this day:
In 2005:
me: and college will be new and exciting for you
me: except that all your friends will be there
me: all your friends and me
vivchu: haha
vivchu: silly, you're a friend, too =p
Aww, Duckie is so sweet!
Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 1) Total: 6
Good Night!
Tuesday, June 13, 2006--Today, I played some more Disgaea.
*dis*
Eventually, I decided that my healer was falling too far behind in levels. ('Cause in Disgaea, you only gain experience by making kills, or by getting an experience bonus, but since my healer was at level 20 while Laharl was at level 37 (and Flonne somehow made it to level 38), and my next strongest character was at level 33, clearly, experience bonuses weren't doing enough.) So I looked at her weapon affinities and found that she had a B affinity to bows. So I gave her a bow and had her practice on old maps. She got real strong real fast. While nowhere near as strong as Flonne (everyone likes Flonne), so can hold her own in battle--especially since she can heal herself.
The one downside is she only has 4 movement points, so I'm trying to boost that. Basically, I'm trying to pass the Improve Movement proposal in the Dark Assembly, but it looks like I have quite a bit of work to do.*dis*
Apparently, healers make good archers.
I also played Mario Tennis for the GameCube. It's an amusing game, but Franklin hasn't unlocked all the amusing characters yet (like Birdo). Heh, Mario Tennis reminds me of Deanne and her Circle Dance.
Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 5) Total: 8
Good Night, dood!
Monday, June 12, 2006--Today, I worked on some stuff for
Tau Beta Pi. Much progress was made. Not enough to demo anything off yet, though.
On this day:
In 2005: I beat Xenosaga 2... it sucked.
Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 4) Total: 6
Good Night!
Sunday, June 11, 2006--Today, I played a bit of MapleStory. I dunno why.
Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 6) Total: 8
Good Hunting!
Saturday, June 10, 2006--Today was the Chinese School Graduation. I dunno why, but I went. I saw there (other than Frankie) Connie C and Stephanie Y. I had forgotten that Connie had Lucy Liu eyes (or, as my mother calls them, Phoenix eyes).
Also, remember the performance issues for the Demons Engine Architecture 3 I was talking about on Wednesday? I looked into it. It turns out a single call to the drawImage() function is taking 75% of my CPU cycles. Meaning that basically, I'm screwed. Fortunately, I did a little bit of research and discovered that there were ways I could speed it up.
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 5) Total: 11
Good Night!
Friday, June 9, 2006--First, I played some Disgaea. Then, I went to Kellie's place.
On this day:
In 2005: Feng makes her first appearance on my bloop.
Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 3) Total: 8
Good Night!
Thursday, June 8, 2006--Today, I did work for Tau Beta Pi's website. Nothing visible yet. And it won't ever be visible unless you're a Tau Bate.
On this day:
In 2004:
- I get all 300 missions in FFTA.
- Viltris: hey lizzie
[Lizzie]: hey
Viltris: i was thinking about left-handed girls a while back
Viltris: only about 1 in 10 people are left-handed
Viltris: and only 1/2 the people on this world are girls
Viltris: so only 1 in 20 people is a left-handed girl
Viltris: and given any girl, there's probably a 1 in 50 chance that's she's cute
Viltris: so overall, the chances of finding a cute left-handed girl is 1 in 1000
Viltris: and look, i found you!
Viltris: what are the odds of that?
[Lizzie]: HAha
[Lizzie]: you're funny
Good Night!
Wednesday, June 7, 2006--Today, I did some work on Demons Engine Architecture 3. It seems we have hit a problem. Somewhere, we're using more CPU cycles than we have available, causing tremendous lag to the whole project. Preliminary tests indicate that it has something to do with an inefficiency involved in images. I'll have to look into this a bit. Worst case scenario, I may have to reduce the frame rate to (ugh) 8 frames/sec.
Dice Roll of the Day: (5, 2) Total: 7
Also, I played some more Maple today.
Good Night, everybody!
Tuesday, June 6, 2006--
Happy Devilday!
It only comes once every hundred years.
On this day:
In 2004:
Viltris: hey jen
Viltris: you know what i think we should do?
Viltris: gather up all the peoples from the 6th floor and hang out
Viltris: well... maybe not all of them
Viltris: just the cool ones
Viltris: and me
[jen]: haha
[jen]: you're not cool dwayne?
Today, I worked a bit on the Demons Engine Architecture 3. Then, I played some MapleStory, where I worked on my new character--the mage. It was annoying until I got my first magic spell. Then, I breezed through the first few levels. Yeah, Maple is amusing again now that I level up easily. And mage is a change of pace from warrior. The one problem is that MP pots cost money. Good thing I have a warrior to fund her.
Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 6) Total: 8
Good Night!
Beware the liSSSt, my son!
Monday, June 5, 2006--
Happy Birthday to Tracy!
Today, I played Disgaea, and that's about it.
Dice Roll of the Day: (4, 4) Total: 8
Good Night!
Sunday, June 4, 2006--Today, I continued my apartment search... and that's about it.
On this day:
In 2003: "Anyways, lately I've been thinking of cute left-handed girls. You know, 1 in 10 people are left-handed, and 1/2 of all people are girls, so 1 in every 20 people is a left-handed girl. Add in that any given girl has a 1 in 50 chance of being cute, so overall, there's a 1 in 1000 chance that any given person is a cute left-handed girl. ... Lucky for me, I know quite a few."
Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 2) Total: 5
Good Night!
Saturday, June 3, 2006--Today, I first looked for an apartment for use up in Redmond, Washington. Then, I went to Kellie's place, where I played Alien Hominid and beat the game for the first time.
On this day:
In 2004: I beat FFTA.
Dice Roll of the Day: (6, 1) Total: 7
Good Night!
Friday, June 2, 2006--Today, I played Disgaea, and that's about it.
On this Day:
In 2005: Chao makes his first appearance on my bloop.
In 2003:
Justin: What? You couldn't find your penis?
Me: I couldn't find my keys! What? Are you death or something?
Justin: What? Am I death?
Me: I said deaf, not death.
Justin: Oh, my bad.
Me: Naw, I really said death. Just kidding with you, that's all.
Dice Roll of the Day: (2, 2) Total: 4
Good Night!
Thursday, June 1, 2006--This conversation occured a few days ago:
Justin: wat should i pack in my gruul deck as a finisher
Ryan Chao: lazor beams
Justin: wat makes u think i havent already packed those
Ryan: because u need chao's guidance
Justin: who doesn't
Ryan: chao
Let's see... Today, I did more work on Demons Engine Architecture 3, and that's about it.
I also played Yahoo Literati (online Scrabble) with Nadia. It was amusing.
Dice Roll of the Day: (3, 1) Total: 4
Also, allergies are godly annoying.
Good Night!