Oh maaaan that was good stuff. Star Ocean: The Last Hope is totally worth it despite the cliches, especially if you liked the previous games. It's coming out on PS3 soon so I shall attempt to contain my squee until tsukikoushi (and possibly chaobell and selie? That's the sum of everyone who cares, right?) get to play it.

Now I really feel like pulling out Infinite Undiscovery again and doing a totally obsessive completionist playthrough before Resonance of Fate comes out early next year. I also feel like drawing Stephen D. Kenny/Heinz but that's neither here nor there ohohoho

I applied for my master's degree last week and now I am anxiously awaiting an offer. I shouldn't be this anxious but UAC asked me to send them a copy of my marriage certificate as proof that I've changed my name and I don't trust a) Australia Post when I'm in a pinch, b) UAC to open their mail within the deadline they gave me, or c) UAC to tell me I have an offer via email. So I'm anxiously logging in every day until I hear something...

Of course this hasn't stopped UAC from taking my application fee up front via PayPal, never to be seen again.

I've run out of excuses not to draw so... oh look, Gyromancer!

Found kinda second-hand via nunuu, but...

WHY DIDN'T I HEAR ABOUT THISSSSS

OH MY GODDD I WANT ONE

(If only preorders came with a Naoki plush too, sigh :})

Work's still hammering me, holy crap. Maybe I'll catch a break tomorrow.

Good thing evilhayama's playing Borderlands, I'm pretty damn hooked on SO4!

12 hours in now, these posts have been spoiler free so far if that's what you're fearing.

( Cut to spare the uninterested )

Blah blah blah you probably need to have played at least one SO game to understand a thing I'm saying here.

( Blah blah blah )

Also, next-gen JRPGs are all about the bromance. Every - single - one (except maybe Blue Dragon). I'm just sayin'.

I finished Tales of Vesperia after 96 or so hours and the final dungeon and ending were wonderful! ;_; Would play again A+++++.

Even though I'm still chipping away at Star Ocean 2 on the PSP, I decided to start playing Star Ocean 4 as well. At eight hours in, I'm happy to report that it makes up for many past transgressions (barring any truly ridiculous plot twists later on).

But so far, PICKPOCKETING TEE HEE.

More detailed thoughts tomorrow!

I'm back in Sydney, aww... I forgot what arseholes we all are, the customer service I was getting on the Gold Coast was so amazingly good! Even the security guard at Coolangatta airport scanning me for explosives (YES AGAIN) was so cheerful I couldn't summon any animosity towards him.

The ball is pretty much rolling on my master's degree, so exciting. :DDD

I now have an active PSN ID so frieeeend meeee if you have one! I'm "bocconcini".

( But only one person is reading mirite )

ETA: I'm glad more than one person's reading! ♥ And Ashton and Welch seem to have multiple hilarious PA scenes together ohlawd.

Basically evilhayama takes the PSP to work during the day to play on his commute, brings it home in the evening and then I run down the battery playing SO2. \o/

I charge it overnight, I'm not that mean! I'm finally through the Hoffman Ruins. I'm a bit worried that my memories of specific dungeons and events are so fuzzy... oh, right, the Oracle skill tells me the game first came out in 1999 (I paid something exorbitant like $100 for the PAL version). >_>; Signs of old age?

Anyway, next I get to recruit Dias and then call me a bunny and haul everyone all the way back as far as I can so we can do nothing but PRIVATE ACTIONS for a week! PARTY! *gets thrown out of house*

VANISHING SWORDS O_O

I caught a cold at TINA so I played the PSP all day yesterday. Holy shit, I love Star Ocean 2 so much! How did I ever forget this fact?! ILU FOREVERRR TRI-AAAACE

( Cut for observations so far, mild spoilers for the overall series and griping about the retcon, THE RETCONNN )

Ohhh, I am still so bitter that the retcon ever happened though. DON'T POKE ME LIKE THAT WELCH.

I blame tsukikoushi for all this fangirly flailing and eeeee but she probably blames me!

Joystiq interviews Trent Reznor about music... and Decibel interviews Tim Schafer about video games!

If the next issue of Decibel has a Brütal Legend cover, renewing my subscription will be the best thing I've done all year. :3

evilhayama (after being given a pile of free Fez goodies for recognising the shirt): Why didn't we go to PAX earlier? I've been studying for this all my life!

---

fluffyduck (after... liberating several squares of No More Heroes 2 toilet paper from the ladies' room): That was the first time I have ever stolen toilet paper.
sjen: Oh, me too! :DDD
evilhayama: What the hell?

No posts for almost three weeks... how remiss of me! Lots has been going on. Work is exploding (in good and bad ways), there are some more cons coming up and I'm not ready for them, and our US/Canada trip is almost completely planned now. I also got a haircut after finding an awesome hairdresser unexpectedly close to where I work :D

I kinda sorta visited Adriano Zumbo twice in the past couple of months without even knowing that the man himself had been featured on MasterChef (several times). Wondered why it was so packed the second time we went! And since they finally decided to stop whining and start cooking on MasterChef we finally started watching it. Not super happy with the final outcome for multiple reasons, not least of which was the aforementioned whining.

The Tales of Vesperia release was delayed by yet another week, which was not a huge surprise after what, almost a year of delay? I picked it up two Fridays ago, tossed Persona 4 aside and racked up 60 hours on it... seriously, screw the haters, I love this game! It's so incredibly pretty, the voice acting's shockingly good, the design work on pretty much everything is both distinct and appealing, it's got all the elements I like in a Tales game and Yuri is the BEST MAIN CHARACTER EVER. I thiiink I am halfway through it but also suspect I have many, many sidequests ahead of me. Let me onto Namco Banda Isle already!

We saw my high school BFF's band live last night, which was a nostalgia trip in so many ways. It was a tiny, dingy venue with lots of character, the kind of place I haven't visited for a show in ages (think first stage of Guitar Hero, hahaha). It was so cool to run into said friend again, and it was even cooler to watch her do her thing on stage! I didn't particularly love my high school years, but she was a part of so many of the happy memories I do have; we went on so many adventures together and I think we had a unspeakably strong creative influence on each other in that time. I suppose drinking a bit and getting home at 1am is nostalgic too, but ehhh. XD

Speaking of BFFs, evilhayama and I have come up with a crazy zine concept which appears to have morphed into an exhibition of illustration and photography. The theme is "your parents' recipes" and we're hoping to have everything organised by the end of September for a mid-October launch in Sydney. I'll be setting up a site for it later this week, or bug me via email/IM/whatever if you're hungry (shutup) for details!

Is anyone interested in buying a copy of our spiffy BL artbook online? If so, I'll add it to my online shop... once I figure out postage costs to the whole world, argh.

Supanova is done! Sales were okay... not as great as I expected, but I think I've been getting spoiled by zine fairs. XD;

As usual, I caught up with lots of people and picked up some sweet sweet comics and art... for some reason I also picked up a gigantic bruise on my upper left arm. Not sure what happened there.

What I was totally not expecting to see there was The King of Fighters XII, playable on 360 and PS3. IT'S KOF TWELVE GUYS, KOF TWELVE. The changes are so weird (whatttt is Kensou's outfitttt?????), but it's soooo pretty. The release date for Australia (360/PS3) is the 28th of August, eeee I can't wait!!





The guy on the right in the above pics was an interminable tool who played Joe, Joe and Joe with little regard for fun or variety. I bet he plays Ken all the time in SFIV, too. >:( Thankfully every match on Sunday was a lot more fun to play.

The KoF distributor had Battle Fantasia too, but I already gave up on that coming out after Red Ant tanked and asked mirness to bring me a copy from the UK a few months back. I watched a bit of Tekken 6 being played at the Atari booth (they distribute Namco games here) and that was pretty interesting.

Here's a link to my flickr set that lets you view the friends-only pics - I wanted to hide the shots of my table from a certain social network lolol. Most of the public pics are under the cut if you are too lazy to leave my journal!

( Various fun pics, mostly cosplay )

I drew an amazing lot too. Rock Howard is suddenly in all of my pics again, surprise surprise. I'll have to scan them in during the week!

Now that that's over... I have more time to play Garou and The Sims 3 ahahaha :DDD;

Approximately a week ago:

mirness: You know how you really liked the cartoony aspects of Sims 1 and didn't really like Sims 2 because it was too realistic? Sims 3 kind of brings those bits of Sims 1 back.
fluffyduck: Hmmmm. Is there a Mac version?
mirness: Nah, I'd have to wait for ages.
fluffyduck: G-good. No Sims for me, then!

Approximately an hour and a half ago:

Good Game: Check out our review of The Sims 3, with footage highlighting its strangely cartoony aspects!
fluffyduck: ...
The Internet: Oh hey, you know the Mac and PC versions came out simultaneously, right? Also even your three-year-old laptop can play it.
fluffyduck: ...):I

Approximately ten minutes ago:



SHUT UP MIR I CAN HEAR YOU LAUGHING FROM HERE

Oh god I can't wait

We saw Battles tonight in the Sydney Opera House just like Brian Eno told us to!! And it was really, really amazing. We were sitting about FIVE METRES away from John Stanier and the guy is a machiiiiine. What an awesome show! *girly scream*

Damn it, friendslist, you are making me drool with all the E3-ing, but I'm going to be eating my way across Balmain tomorrow with some friends. evilhayama will have to give me the concise report when I get home!

G-god damn it Squeenix

Looks like I'm preordering it tomorrow (AND TALES OF VESPERIAAA), even if I end up waiting until after Vesperia comes out to play it. :V

I'm right at the endgame in Infinite Undiscovery and it's been a very impressive ride. Definitely replaying it in Hard mode later, I likes it that much.

Can anyone tell me if Persona 4 will make me feel like I've lost 100 hours of my life that I can't get back like P3 did (which is why I didn't bother finishing the game)? Can I finish it in like, 40 or 50 hours without it being so difficult that I'll want to stab myself in the face?

Note to self: read this epic Tim Sweeney interview when you get home.

Sooo I can still eat prawns, I have Virtual On: Oratorio Tangram and our Ruddbucks arrived today! $900 each, baby. :DDD

I must shamefully admit that after finishing The Last Remnant and Lost Odyssey within weeks of each other, I still felt like playing another stupid JRPG in HD so I moved on to Infinite Undiscovery... and I really dig it. I dig it so much that I might replay it before Tales of Vesperia comes out here in June, and I never replay RPGs (apart from PSP remakes cough) any more. If you want silly comparisons, it's a lot like Star Ocean 2 with FFXII combat? I dunno. Like just about every 360 JRPG released so far IU has several good-looking male characters in it and is suspiciously heavy on the bromance, so the fanart flood will start up again sooner or later.

Why hasn't anyone on my flist pointed to this yet? I may be jaded about certain games series of late but I guess I'll never kick my Edgeworth habit.

Somehow I can't help but feel indirectly responsible for this... hopefully they never find out about Megaten, right? XD

But I find the protest a bit confusing, since I learned pretty much everything I know about Hindu mythology from comics. Where does entertainment begin and end? On the other hand, Rajan Zed looks like he has a touch of the crazy.

Something I am actually prepared to claim responsibility for is this portrait of Matt Huynh for the Sexy Men of Australian Comics 2009-2010 Financial Year Calendar.



I'm relieved that he didn't burst into tears upon seeing it! Or maybe he did, I emailed the file to him so I didn't see his reaction in person. If you're in Melbourne, the calendar launch is at the Bella Union Bar, Trades Hall at 5pm this Saturday as part of Comic Book Funny. kinokofry is going, so you should go too!

I posted about this on Dreamwidth but DID YOU HEAR THAT GAROU: MARK OF THE WOLVES IS COMING TO XBLA? AAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA

(I am very happy about this shut up)

AAAAAAAA

Edit: Okayyy I was so happy I drew Rock ;_;

( Clickity! )

I grew up reading Chandamama, an Indian kids' magazine packed with comics about Hindu mythology, colonial India (oh boy the Brit hate) and assorted tales from "other lands". Dad used to pick it up for me from Indian groceries because I needed to learn about my heritage. He had no idea what he was doing.

Anyway... I must have signed up for their newsletter a while ago and forgotten about it, because I found this gem in my inbox today.



O_O;