Lifecast of Travis

My favorite thing to be asked in the chat, "How is college Travis?" Well let me just lay it all down for you here instead of wasting my breath there. We all know where I am currently enrolled, why I am not on often and the like. So I am not going to reiterate myself on those aspects of my life. This Christmas I will be in my hometown, which is thirty minutes from Davids. Hopefully you will see much more from me before I move... To my new college.

I am Transferring to UT at Arlington. Majoring in English. I am going to be living in an apartment with one of my friends in which I will finally have Internet that I can play live on.

Also, I will be going to the same school that Matt is going to. We have yet to decide what we are going to do. But I think together we can do something. Maybe now, with a real Internet connection, we can begin an actual broadcast. Only problem being, Need the equipment. Matt and I plan on making plans, we will see what happens. Needless to say though, I am excited to have the opportunity to be more involved, rather than just talking via the chat room leaving my tid bits of information on the forums.

OK. So I have news.

One of my Favorite games of all time, one that I have never completed. One that has haunted me for a good 6 or 7 years of my life. A beautiful game, which I believe to be overshadowed by its predecessor. Final Fantasy IX. It is on my top ten. And currently I am on disc three. Twenty Five hours of my life have been blended into that game, this time around anyway.

Now lets discuss why this game is better than VII. Final Fantasy VII is a good game, don't get me wrong. It is hard for a game to create die hard fans such that Zelda, Halo, and other various games have done. I know we all have at least one friend who knows absolutely EVERYTHING there is to know about FFVII, and could be yoru strategy guide. That is a fan for you, and those types of fans are all over FFVII. And thats nice. FFVII is a great game. With little problems other than the materia concept which I never liked. The story obviously had a lot of thought put into it, and the characters are everlasting in the minds of many.

So how could I possibly say that IX is better? Well, simple put, it takes the best of all Final Fantasy's. The story line is your "epic" tale of kingdoms waging war, saving princesses, princesses becoming queens. Kingdoms being destroyed, power being manipulated, and of course the evil man that creates it all. The item system is almost identical to that of Final Fantasy Tactics. When you equip an item, it has stats, and then it has magic attacks, skills, stat boosts, and the like attached to it, which if you wear them long enough, grow to learn. Then you never have to wear them again.

The skill system is interesting. The skills you learn, and the skills you begin with are all equip able, but you have a set amount of skill points in to which you can attribute these skills too. Making you choose between such things as Jelly, which keeps you from getting petrified, or Locomotion, which makes you immune to Stop.

While there is a large amount of things to do, they are not as frequent as FFVII. Not to say there isn't things to collect, places to run into unexpectingly and gain something valuable, nor any epic "quests" which are completely optionaly. This is all here, but not in such a great number as FFVII. I absolutely do not consider this a bad thing. A problem I had with FFVII was that there was way too many things for me to do. In a Japanese RPG, this really grinds my gears. I feel the absolute need to do everything, to get that best weapon possible, and in FFIX it actually seems possible.

The story in FFIX is so much more... immature. Not in the sense that it's made for kids, but in the sense that it was done in a light note. There are very serious issues displayed, such as racism, war, hatred, the like. But the seriousness of the game is not overdone, nor a complete mind fuck such as FFVII was. There are a many corny, cute lines which the characters shoot out. This game is funny.

The absolute best cinematics out of ANY Final Fantasy. Hands down. This game produces the most beautiful art, and the most amazing CG cut scenes. I don't have much to say about them other than these keep me going when the going gets... rough or something.

The battle system is simple, easy to master, and really basic. But leaving a lot of room for interesting attacks and sequences. Though definitely not as engaging as, say, Legend of the Dragoon. Though I absolutely dislike "Trance" which is basically Limit Break. You can't hold off your attack until the next battle. Once trance goes off, you have to use it. Though your trance attacks with your main character are tight.

With all that said, completely my opinion. Just trying to get a game that didn't get appreciated much some attention.

I will see y'all this weekend when I make the other 3 players cry as I destroy their childhood dreams and virginities.

Travis 08

Believe

Lifecast of Travis

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