The Many Adventures at Danny and Lachelle's

Well here I am again by popular demand (or rather Kristin-demand) without much to say. But I s'pose I could expound on my many adventures that occurred while Courtney and I housesat for Danny and Lachelle. Well...frankly nothing too exciting. But it was rather relaxing without having Mom there to nag on me and throw more chores in my face. I could actually play a video game without tensing up as I wait for my mom to discover me! And play video games I did. Thanks to all that free time, I was able to quickly progress further into Final Fantasy XII. I'm nearing the end! Yay! And I remember when I first got it a few months back (October, I think) I didn't think I'd ever be able to finish it. Boy, walkthroughs sure make games look a lot longer. I think I've logged in about 96 or so hours on Final Fantasy XII so far, but mind you a lot of those hours were spent on pause with the TV off while I was off doing something else. But actually for quite a while I did hang out in the Ozmone Plains and level up like mad. I think I'm a little overleveled right now, but it was kinda nice because I was able to breeze through other areas that would've been tough. I love the game though. It's just amazing. Definitely a step in a different direction from the other Final Fantasy games. For one, the battle system. In past Final Fantasies, you have your typical random battle system, with a few tweaks for each game of course, but same principle. In Final Fantasy XII, however, the random battles are gone and instead you have the Active Dimension Battle (ADB) system where you see all the enemies on the field, allowing you to pretty much pick-and-choose which ones you want to fight. There are a limited number of enemies on a field at once, but after a while some will respawn or if you move at least two areas away and then go back, all the enemies will be there again. You have three party members out at a time and they all run around the battlefield instead of having the main character run around like you see in many other traditional RPGs. Go here to see how some of the gameplay works, if you're interested.

Another thing very different about Final Fantasy XII is its storyline. It steps away from your average save-the-princess-and-then-the-world plot, adopting something more mature and realistic; instead, the plot of Final Fantasy XII deals a lot with politics and deception and all that good stuff. Here's a somewhat interesting thing I've noticed. Final Fantasy XII takes place in a world called Ivalice, but its not the first time Ivalice has appeared in a Square-Enix game. The first time we see Ivalice is in the game Final Fantasy Tactics (a favorite of mine) back in 1997. Again, the plot in that game is very different and mature from others as well, dealing with a psycho, corrupt church and corrupt governments. In another game taking place in Ivalice, Vagrant Story (haven't played it, but have heard about it), the story again is mature and I believe deals with more corrupt nobles and such. There are five games that all take place in Ivalice, forming the Ivalice Alliance: Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Final Fantasy Tactics A2, Vagrant Story, and Final Fantasy XII. Ivalice certainly seems to be a more realistic world than any of the others Square-Enix has created.

Also, there is no one main protagonist in Final Fantasy XII. Although Vaan is the character you start with and although the story heavily involves Ashe more than any of the others, most of the characters are equally well-represented and I enjoy them all.

First you've got Vaan, the 17-year-old orphan boy from Rabanastre who wants to be a sky pirate.









Penelo, a 16-year-old orphan as well and Vaan's best friend and babysitter








Basch, the 36-year-old ex-captain in the Order of Knights of Dalmasca who was deemed a traitor for supposed murder of the King Raminas of Dalmasca.










Balthier, the clever, charming, and sauve 22-year-old sky pirate.












Fran, Balthier's trusty Viera (rabbit-like race) sidekick who is a master of weapons. Her age is unknown.












And then Ashe, the 19-year-old princess of Dalmasca who is believed to be dead but strives to free her kingdom from Archadian rule and resume her throne. Yes, Ashe is a princess, but she's certainly not your typical timid princess who throws White Magic (aiding magic) from the safety of the sidelines like you see in many other RPGs. Ashe is so refreshingly human that it's awesome. She wants to regain her throne but along the way, she begins to question her intentions as to whether they are for the good of her people or for the good of herself. She is plagued, like many other humans, by the temptation of power. She's strong-willed, strong-minded, and can also come off as a bit snooty. As I said, I like all the characters, but I just had to point that out about Ashe because she breaks the mold of other typical Final Fantasy heroines.

Well I s'pose I've rambled enough about Final Fantasy XII for now. Aside from playing Final Fantasy XII, I also played a good deal of Guitar Hero 3 on Lachelle's computer with Courtney. It was only maybe my fourth or fifth time playing Guitar Hero 3 but I already advanced to Hard difficulty! I was rather proud of myself and now I admit it would be fun to get the game. I also played some of Team Fortress 2, which Danny so kindly downloaded for us to play. Courtney actually ended up playing it more than I did! It's good ol' bloody, shooting fun! Talk about wholesome! It has a fun, unique, comic-like art style, too. We were even able to play with Ryan online two or three times. Courtney and I decided that we also need to get Team Fortress 2, but first we have to get a danged computer that can actually handle it!

I also did a lot of knitting on some beanies I've been working on for a Personal Progress Value Experience and to send off to China ('cause Lachelle got too lazy, haha!) I mostly watched the anime series Samurai Champloo as I knit because Danny had it on their XBox. I've seen a few clips of some episodes before on Adult Swim and stuff, but I watched all 26 episodes there and I immensely enjoyed it. It's not your average anime and has a more mature feel to it than most, though it still does pack some good laughs. But of course it's good because it's directed by the guy who directed Cowboy Bebop! I believe his name is Shinchiro Watanabe. He needs to direct more animes because I really like his stuff. But now I'm kinda sad that Samurai Champloo is over because now I'm having a hard time finding a good series to watch that has that feel that Samurai Champloo does. But in fact, I'm listening to some of the Samurai Champloo soundtrack right now because it's got some groovy hip-hop beats. I think the music also separates Samurai Champloo from many other series. It's set in the mid 1800s I believe, but here you have all this instrumental hip-hop! It's a really cool effect, actually. The songs are pretty cool but tend to loop over and be a little repetitive on their own, but obviously they still work perfectly in Samurai Champloo. After watching all of Samurai Champloo, I've determined I need to set up my own little XBox streaming system like Danny and Lachelle have so I can download anime series and watch them on the TV.

One of the nights, Courtney and I watched the Cowboy Bebop movie which was pretty good too. Lessee, what else did we watch...? Ah, Corpse Bride is a great movie from Tim Burton. I hope Tim Burton makes more movies with that kind of animation in the future (also like Nightmare Before Christmas) because it's just so unique! And then we watched the first X-Men movie because neither of us had seen it before (even though we've seen the second and third, haha). I think then the next movie we watched was Spider-Man 3. Or rather, I watched it as Courtney was playing Team Fortress 2. It was during the day and I was just kinda waiting for Danny and Lachelle to get back but of course I found out that they got stuck in Yuma. Anyway, the movie was pretty corny at some parts. I definitely don't think I enjoyed it as much as the first two. Well when I finished with that, I still had a lot of time to kill because we already had everything cleaned up. And then I started to watch a movie I've been wanting to see for the longest time: Saving Private Ryan. Sure, there was a lot of blood but it didn't bother me so much. It is realistic, afterall. War certainly isn't pretty. Yeah there were some severed limbs, organs spilling out, guys getting sniped through the head, and a guy getting his eye shot out, but like I said, it didn't phase me. I don't get nightmares from seeing movies and I certainly don't have a delicate stomach. I've found that I don't throw up easily like other people do, or like you see people in movies do. I can see someone throw up and not retch myself, and in fact, I've even cleaned up a friend's brother's throw up because she didn't want to throw up (yep Kristin, that was you!) I've only known myself to throw up when I'm sick. Haha, I know it's probably weird to talk about throw up, but that's just something I've noticed about myself. Anywho, back to the movie, I'm glad I finally got to see it. I love history and I think wars are fascinating to learn about. I love watching war movies. Oh~! And their bed. Ahhh, the bed. I'm in love with Lachelle's bed. You sink in about half a foot, not even kidding. It's so soft and heavenly! I was definitely sad to say goodbye. I think one of these days when I housesit for them again, I'm going to have to steal in and lug it back to my room.

Sorry Kristin, none of this is probably stuff you're interested in reading, 'cause I know you're not really in to video games, hehe. But oh well. I had something to say so I got it out. Well I guess I should finish up now. I'm really supposed to be working on my online stuffs right now. Well yeah, my mom will be here any minute and she'll want to see progress. Au revoir!