So I finally killed Ucamulbas. Quest time was about 42 minutes, I guess. I was using the same Camellia/Butterfly setup as the last time. 
That was a pretty hairy fight - I ran out of every healing item, lost 2 lives, and my last Hot Drink cut out just before the quest ended.  But I killed it all the same.
The funniest thing is that after killing it I went to the armoursmith to use the new upgrades... and discovered that, other than my headgear, none of my armour had been upgraded at all.  Σ(ﾟдﾟ;)  Oops.
 
Edit: Here's my gear setup.
Weapon - Wyvern Blade Camellia
Armour - Full Butterfly X gear, 434 defense due to dumbass mistake
Jewels - 2 Artisan, 2 Expert,  2 Master,  1 Celebrity, 1 Hermit
Skills - Evade +2, Gathering +1, Reckless Abandon +1, Sharpness +1, Cold Increase [Lo]
 
Edit 2: Before you ask, no, I haven't done the Monster Hunter quest, and no, I haven't tackled G-rank Fatalis yet. All things in good time - anyway those are "extra" right? ;)

Ucamulbas is an interesting fight - thankfully so, since a lot of the Huge Monster fights are kind of dull (hello, Mr. Lao). It's also pretty damn hard at first. I've always fought Akantor with bows, but that doesn't seem to work too good on Uca, and my recent staple combination (Tigrex GS + unsheathe crit) doesn't work well either since it relies on burst damage, whereas Uca has huge damage windows that call for sustained damage.
 
I am finding that it's best to go back to basics with my old friend the longsword - Camellia plus heavily-gemmed Butterfly gear is working pretty well. Last try I managed to knock Uca down to about 15-20% HP (based on the time when I cut his tail off) but ran out of lives/potions - even bringing 7 maxes and 20 megas to the fight wasn't quite enough. Next time I'll have to try and take it a bit slower, avoid taking silly risks. This would be a lot easier if I had somebody to "spot" the monster's movements on a separate screen, since it's kind of hard to read Uca's animations when you're standing right underneath him.
 
Also, finished Prince of Persia (the new one) which I borrowed from a friend. It did seem to me like some parts of the game were a very deliberate deconstruction of/homage to Fumito Ueda's work, which was nice. Didn't seem like they were ripping him off, especially when there's a very obvious reversal regarding who saves whom from falling into the black stuff. I didn't find the "game over means you don't die" mechanic that bad - having been a long-time PC gamer, it's a valid "point of balance" between the save-anywhere system of PC games and the more regimented checkpoints of, say, Halo, and it also offers an amusing mechanic where you can bungee-jump into the void to grab items.  But you don't really expect a downer ending from a PoP game, so the ending was a little bit surprising - albeit not entirely unexpected. (I would have spoilered that last sentence, but Giant Bomb doesn't offer a way to spoiler stuff... *shrug*)

Entries are missing for the following games: Chou Soujuu Mecha MG, Tokimeki Memorial 2, Another Century's Episode 2. Must add them as and when I have time. Also, find out whether there's an entry for Robot wo Tsukurouze. (There isn't.)

Edit: Also, no entries for the characters of Sakura Taisen. This is a travesty. Must correct ASAP.

Edit edit: Sakura Taisen 3 entry is empty. Game is the best in the series. Must correct ASAP.

This is just a draft of material that'll be going into my profile.

I've currently set myself a challenge for my life (obviously I have other goals as well, otherwise I'd have no life at all):

"Become skilled in one thousand video games."

(1) What's the point of doing this? To answer that, I do in fact design games both for a living and as a hobby. Achieving a certain level of skill in a game demands understanding of the game at a tacit level. I believe that understanding many different game systems in many genres will make me a better designer.

(2) Why a vague term like "skilled"? Well, some games can't be "completed" as such (MMOs for example), and for others, "completing" the game once doesn't mean very much (arcade games, Civilization, etc). Furthermore, Achievements etc. are not a good measure of skill, since some games just throw them at you while others require you to get ridiculously skilled. So here's a more detailed list of rules:

- Only video games which are actually released for sale will qualify. No freeware games (although I'm proficient in quite a few), since otherwise I could do silly things like claim to be proficient in You Have To Burn The Rope. Indie games like the Touhou series are fair game, since they are sold rather than offered for free.
- For any game with a decent-length single-player campaign which is obviously NOT just a tutorial, completing the campaign on Normal difficulty or harder will qualify.
- For arcade-style games which require you to use "continues" to continue, completing the game once on Normal difficulty WITHOUT using any "continues" will qualify.
- For MMORPGs, getting to the highest level is not enough; a certain portion of the end-game content must be played. For instance, I feel that I'm done with WoW, since I've been part of several (successful) Kara raids and played in the Battlegrounds and Arena for a couple of months.
- Expansion packs do not count. (ack!)
- Sequels do count. Expandalones are handled on a case-by-case basis.
- Anything which falls outside of the above parameters is handled on a case-by-case basis. For instance, I would consider myself to have been skilled in UT '99 and Civilization 4, but not in Sins of a Solar Empire (despite having finished a successful single-player game in the latter).

I'll be starting a list to count the games for which I've met the above criteria. Just to compute a ballpark figure, most games will take about 20 hours for me to meet the criteria, meaning that I'd need to spend 20,000 hours to achieve this goal. At the rate of 2 hours per day, this will take 10,000 days, or about 27 years. I figure this is more than do-able within my natural lifespan, which is why I'm kind of taking it easy!

If anyone else wants to join in the challenge, you're welcome. :D