Chrono Trigger

Toma, the Adventurer “If I don’t return, come to my grave and pour this on my headstone.”

The group arrives, some 400 years later, on an unnamed isle at the West Cape. There was a sole gravestone.

“The Great Adventurer, Toma Levine rests here… 3/6/634″

The group took out the pop and honoured the man the way he wished. A shining soul rose to the sky, pointing them the direction to the Giant’s Claw. It was where the Rainbow Shell was kept, his last adventure.

It is romantic sequences like this which makes Chrono Trigger such a wonderful and emotionally-charged video game, but not before long the depressing after thoughts that they just don’t make games like this anymore.

Filed under: Games

A rare luxury

Red. Customised. Mailed to order. Mine.

One thing about being in my profession, at least in our infancy years, is that our income rarely supports any luxury spendings. It thus took me quite a substantial effort to justify the decision. My iPod Mini, ever so reliable for the 4+ years, is finally due for retirement.

When it comes to gadgets, I go by a golden rule of thumb- Premium- because it’s always worth it. Apple, in particular, the 5th Generation of iPod Nano fits the bill well. It looks good (or at least, decent), is reliable, uses a familiar interface, has a radio function, contains a pedometer, and is packed with 16GB of memory.

And music, may I add, is quite essential in the near horizon, when I will spend my nights off making sure that the Trial Balances balances.

That always helps.

Filed under: Life

Taming the 3 Lions

To what makes competition desirable (to consumers) are 2 main reasons. First, better pricing. And second, better quality and/or variety. It is therefore amusing to see Singtel’s repeated assurance to the public that their foray in the Paid TV territory should be celebrated. This is despite their inability to satisfy any of the aforementioned.

While the statement “Content is king” is true to most businesses (and perhaps more so for the Media Industry), the bidding war between Starhub and Singtel for exclusive screening rights for the English Premier League football matches is at best cannibalising. Cannibalising the public, that is.

It would serve the Media Development of Singapore good to realise as soon as possible that sports content, in particular, football matches are a different animal to tame altogether. A little good-natured and well thought out regulation is never too much, nor late for anyone.

Filed under: Business, Commentary, Sports

Funnel

Society, unwillingly it may, can but be described as one giant funnel of ruthlessness. You see that everywhere- in school, in work, in life. The weak gets weeded out, the strong moves on. They arrive at the next echelon; the process repeats.

Sometimes I need to wonder if I am a mere victim.

Or just a self-righteous participant.

Filed under: Thoughts

Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones Review

Platform: Game Boy Advance

Genre: Strategy Role Playing

The Good: A lot of characters to choose from.

The Bad: Too many characters to choose from.

Axes: Are effective against lances, but weak against swords

Strategy Role Playing (SRPG) games are not a prominent feature in today’s gaming menus for good reasons. Most are slow, require too much planning, and too prone to trial and error- enough reasons to turn away for most. Perhaps because of the sheer lack of alternatives, the Fire Emblem series managed to shrug off the shackles of the aforementioned- its simple yet polished game play a difficult invitation to decline.

The Sacred Stones is the second Fire Emblem game that made it to the now defunct Game Boy Advance.

Fans of the series will find Sacred Stones right up their alley. The convenient excuse of terming rock-paper-scissors game play as strategic options are your usual made-to-order, while the much celebrated “If characters die, they are gone for good” feature needs no introduction. Bold, italic, and underlined.

Sacred Stones, though, could help with a little better balance. For a title that is supposedly heavy on strategies game play, there are too many battles, too many enemy units and too many expendable allies to focus on; while the lack of variety in characters, graphics and music undermined its production values. Yet for the starved, The Sacred Stones remains one of the better ones around.

Bad game? No. But I seem to have played better ones. [7.5]

Filed under: Games, Review

Slave to Atlus

The news.

I swear they can release the same thing over and over again, call it new, and I will still buy every single one of them.

Filed under: Games

Perk #1

One of the few, if not only perk of a 13 hours/day job (10 at work, another 3 at home) is that I get to occassionally rub shoulders with familiar people whom I have befriended on TV.

Professionalism?

More like: Must. Resist. Urge. To. Take. Pictures. With. Them

First week has been super tough, made tougher by my insane expectations. No, much tougher by a peer who is so obviously better at what he does than me. Between peer pressure, the constant stress that a novice should never put on his first ever assignment, and the overwhelming work that prides on its complexity, I am glad my first month ended on a good note.

Filed under: Life

Uplifting?

Pixar fools nobody. Its petty surface about a floating house tied to colourful balloons is a trick no one falls for. Beneath each of the skilled story teller’s colourfully pixelated film is a moving story that ease right at home with the predictable cartoon antics. In Up we get served the usual, though it’s by no means the animator’s best work.

The biggest flaw with the film is that too much of it seems ancillary. It could be the Wall.E effect, where simplicity was the rule of the game, and everything else was readily made redundant. Up seems too caught up in itself, willingly falling into the trap other animators are faulted for- trying too hard to be funny. Though the great opening was salvaged by a somewhat worthy conclusion, the journey there feels too draggy, and at times, noisy.

Still, the emotional story about dreams, told interspersely from the perspectives of a grumpy old man and a (overly) bubbly kid is worth exploring. It just wasn’t as good as it could be. [3.5]

Filed under: Review

Get drunk

Myth has it that a true hangover isn’t exactly best friends with memories. The movie encapsulates this rather well- you wouldn’t recall too much about what was going on in the theatre, but you sure remember well enough to know that it was a joy ride while lasted.

They say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Waking up with a baby, a tiger, and a bad headache as an aftermath of a really wild Bachelor’s party, the group traces the steps of the previous night to find the missing groom of a wedding ceremony due in a few hours. It is easy to dismiss The Hangover as flicks like Dude, Where’s My Car and Superbad, movies that thrives on crude, unashamedly in-your-face humour. But what is different about the humour is that it’s done almost tastefully, with much of its references unlost on local audiences.

The Hangover wouldn’t surprise you one bit, and that’s probably the best compliment for it. You wouldn’t get much out of the predictable plot and charming cast that induces laughter so effortlessly, nor would you remember much of it. Not that it matters. [4.0]

Filed under: Review

First sniff of a stress

Friday was a very difficult day for me at work. Having missed 4 days of training prior to it, the bulk of it involving important stuffs on audit procedures, it was tough for me to keep my mind on anything that was taught in class. There are a lot of administrative stuffs to get a hang on, something my less than perfect condition was able to cope. But well, it was all over.

Tomorrow marks my first job at the client’s place. Having not undergone some of the audit training, I don’t feel confident at all, spending part of the weekend speculating on how diasastrous things may turn out. It didn’t help that the course mate paired with me was an ex-intern in the firm, and who seems really accustomed to how things work over here.

Being part of an organisation such as mine makes it inevitable that comparisons are rife, and people are competitive. More often than not, these are where the stress comes from. I need to remind myself that I am my own barometer of success, and to take things slow.

Filed under: Life