Mate, I've been sending tons of mail to your idontgiveashit@comcast.net account and have yet to ever hear back from you. Check your emails duder!
Some people covered the pizza = Midgar plate thing so I'll not go into that again. One thing I did want to bring up is that Hojo did not "pit" Red XIII against Aeris. In actuality, Hojo was trying to interbred the two of them as Aeris is the last of the Ancients and there's not a whole lot of Red XIII's species left around. Basically, he's REAL weird and freaky.
Cloud: "What do you think you're doing'?"
Hojo: "Lending a helping hand to an endangered species... Both of them are on the brink of extinction..."
Hojo: "If I don't help, all these animals will disappear."
Red XIII, after assisting your party, even delivers the following line
"I have a right to choose, too. I don't like two-legged things."
Oh, right! As far Enemy Skills, (you're gonna love this...) the way it works is you have to acquire specific skills from specific enemies to fill out the material. What basically happens is that if you find an enemy that has a skill that is pre-programmed into the Enemy Skill materia, whoever has the materia equipped must be hit with that move and SURVIVE the attack in order to learn that move. You must then win the battle because if you lose, then you're going to have to do it all over again.
So let's say Thundershock is a move that was pre-programmed into Enemy Skill. If you have it equipped on Cloud, you must find the specific enemy that uses Thundershock and have the enemy use that move on Cloud in order for the move to be learned; Cloud cannot die from that attack or he fails to learn the move. When you beat the enemy and finish the battle, the move is considered "saved" to the Enemy Skill materia. Note that you must do this for each Enemy Skill materia you own. Good times, no?
I expected this. I wasn't able to catch much of your stream since I had to work those days, which saddens me greatly, but at least I'll have your blog series.
I will note your confusion about many aspects of the game, which I totally knew would happen. VII is a... very dense game, in all meanings of the word.
@humanity: Wow... I may just have to get my hands on that series somehow. Seems cheesy, but in a way I can get behind.
So since I last posted, I've gone through a fair bit of Gundam. I still have strong thoughts on War in the Pocket but haven't gotten around to transcribing what's in my head yet but I decided to push on with my Gundam viewing.
I watched the entirety of Gundam Build Fighters and it was pretty good. I liked that the series was more condensed than the usual Gundam series at only 25 eps long, and that helped push the plot along at a good pace. Stuff like what happened with Aila got resolved a lot quicker instead of potentially dragging out across half a dozen episodes and that won it a lot of points from me. Also, I kind of want an Exia Amazing gunpla now...
I also watched the first 3-4 episodes of Gundam Build Fighters Try and it picks up the ball quite well from Build Fighters. I do love the consistency with Ral still showing up at random Gunpla battles and I love the crazy martial arts stuff, like having a hurricane kick suck in missiles and causing them to explode. I'm... going to end up buying a Build Burning Gundam gunpla too, aren't I...?
I figured I should probably get around to watching Unicorn before getting too deep into some of the other stuff since it's pretty short at 7 hour-long OVAs and I'm up to episode 4 now I think. Strong start, albeit formulaic at spots, and some of the characters remind me strongly of those from Char's Counterattack, which is not a good thing. Thankfully, with Unicorn being 7 OVAs instead of 1 movie, the characters have time to develop and I'm coming around to them. Liking it so far and can't wait to see more. I friggin' want a Unicorn gunpla as well...
I don't think I've finished a single Tales game, despite owning a good many of them. I actually liked Abyss in spite of the annoying main character (who gets better later on) and it's the one I played the longest, followed by Xillia.
@xeiphyer: Thanks for the suggestion regarding Unicorn. Actually as of now I have actually finished watching both Char's Counterattack and 0080 War in the Pocket. I will probably be working on reviews of them soon but I might do an additional piece on 0080 as I have some strong feelings about it.
Yeah, Iron-Blooded Orphans is probably near the end of the list in terms of what I'm going to watch since, as you said, the season/series isn't fully out yet. Build Fighters seems like it'd be neat to watch and I will admit to having watched my fair share of mecha anime in the past, such as Gurren Lagann, Evangelion (a bit of a different camp I will admit), Aquarion, Escaflowne and some good old Voltron from back in the day.
My only issue with Build Fighters is that it isn't easily obtainable, which I might get into more detail at a later date. Suffice it to say that I couldn't even watch the trailer you posted because the message I get when I try is "The uploader has not made this video available in your country." Same goes for Iron-Blooded Orphans actually...
I might look into some RG at some point. I do enjoy the larger scale and greater detail that comes with MG, but I'm sure they've gotten pretty detailed with RG now since they even have that inner skeleton now. And thanks for the warning... for all the good it will likely do me. (I don't have good self-control when it comes to these kinda things.)
@killroycantkill: Currently I only have a MG Deathscythe Hell Custom in the pipeline and I'm waiting until the Tamiya tool set I ordered arrives before I get started. It's been well over a decade since I've built my last Gunpla though so I'm looking pretty forward to it.
I'm wanting to take a trip to Japan at some point this year and hearing that, I'm definitely taking a trip to see that 1/1 RX-78-2.
Haha, with how dangerous you both are making Build Fighters sound, maybe I shouldn't watch it. ;P
wchigo's comments