The Shrine

I got the game and have finally been playing it.

I'd call it a triumph. The battle system is so much fun that I've played ten hours without actually starting the game...

I just finished the sunstone mini-quest with Vaan and Penelo. But I haven't gone back to Lowtown yet. I decided I was going to beat that Saurian enemy in...the Westersand? Or maybe Giza? The big dinosaur-looking thing, anyway. I decided I'd do it with Vaan and Penelo and nothing else, before I started the actual game.

So far I've taken out the werewolves a few times, and killed two slimes in that dungeon off the Westersand. Perhaps at some point I will actually begin the storyline. But for now, this is fun! Oh, and I plan on casting a spell around a Gnoma Entite, when the sandstorm is around, just for shits and giggles, at some point, too...

So how many people have actually finished the game? I got caught up on work, and I don't think I will find the time to finish it until the end of next week; which is exactly what I plan to do.

Distracted by work, Gears of War, and Guitar Hero 2. I don't have the time or the devotion to finish it now (think I'm nearing the end).

Fun Fact: If you go back to the Garamsythe Waterway before you leave Rabanastre the first time, you can fight Malboro Overkings before you ever leave the city, and/or steal Dark Magicite from them. So far my merry band of Vaan, Balthier, Fran, and Basch has actually even beaten one...

I finished the game over 2 weeks ago (65 hours, average party level 45). Suffice to say while I fully agree with Don regarding the story, I found the gameplay to more than make up for that and the lack of stand-out music tracks (the overall quality is good, but not much that I could really listen to outside of the game).

I was 20-some hours into it and then Neverwinter Nights II came out...and I kinda fell in love with that ever since.

I'll get back to it eventually

I am determined to finish Final Fantasy 12 before I get into Zelda because of something that happened to me in the old day with a game called Lunar: Eternal Blue complete. I started playing it, and then Vagrant Story came out, so I went and played Vagrant Story instead (Vagrant Story turned out to be one of my favourite games of all time), and then the chain continued. It was more than two years (maybe three years) before I got back to playing Eternal Blue; and as it turned out, I ended up liking it MUCH more than I thought I would have, and I was already very impressed with the first few hours of the game I did play.

Speaking of Lunar: Eternal Blue, I have found that there is something delightfully perverse about Lucia's character: a goddess from the moon whose innocence (from living alone on the moon all this time) causes her to be almost completely ignorant to human customs and the idea of shame.

Speaking of Eternal Blue, I do miss the days of this board when we used to often talk about older games. I mean, we do talk about them now, but that is mainly only because they are getting GBA re-releases =P