Now that school has restarted and I'm taking a game design module again, we were given an assignment to do a really simple 2D game, which prompted me to research on really old but fun games I used to play. And then I fell into a rabbit hole of nostalgia, so I kind of just want to talk about certain small-time games that I used to love a lot.

Disney's Pocahontas (Sega Genesis/Mega Drive)


Image from: http://games4win.com/games/pocahontas

This was one of those unlikely games that I happened to have played because my cousin recommended us to. My siblings didn't really like it but I got obsessed with it for some reason. Basically, Pocahontas (the Disney character) walks around, jumps around, and platforms around, trying to gain the "spirit" of animals in the forest. Using these spirits, she gains abilities to do various stuff, such as swimming (Otters), running (Deer), etc.

It is pretty generic when I think about it now, but for some reason that I couldn't remember, it was really fun to me, but at the same time, it was really short.

Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle (Gameboy Color)


Image from: https://gamefabrique.com/games/the-bugs-bunny-crazy-castle

This crazy game has 50+ levels. I really want to make a casual game like this one. Basically, you are Bugs Bunny, you can only walk left or right or press "up" at stairs/doors to enter. All you have to do is to collect all the carrots in the room without being killed by the "bad guys". You can also push things into the bad guys to kill them.

It is really fun because the levels were so well-designed. I found myself cornered, facing near-death, and breathing huge sighs of relief in this super simple but difficult game when I was in primary 6, I think.

Neopets: Meerca Chase
This was essentially "Snake", but in Neopets theme.

Neopets: Potato Counter
This was esssetially counting the number of potatoes they print on the screen. But back in my primary school days when I had nothing better to do, even that was fun.

Neopets: Fetch!
I actually forgot how this game works, but it was one of the few non-flash games. My computer was so shitty that it didn't even have Flash, so I really appreciated it a lot.

Facebook: Typing Maniac
I wasn't that obsessed with this typing game. It's just the only typing game I ever played and it was recommended by my sister's English teacher, which somehow mattered.

Facebook: Restaurant City
I remember spending so much time building my restaurant, deciding which dishes to serve, arranging the furnitures, and visiting my friends' restaurants to look at how beautiful they made things. My restaurant was called "Super Restaurant". Yet, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't earn enough money to upgrade it into something as big as my friends'.

Mega Man __ (Game Boy Color)
My first exposure to this awesome series is, of course, Gameboy. But I can't remember which Mega Man it was and I couldn't identify through the videos online, so meh.

I'm getting pretty lazy. Let's stop here.

Labels: games, reliving those days

Animes and RPGs used to be quite important to me, much more than they are now. So, I figure it will be quite fun to talk about some of them that were/are really significant to me. These are the ones that either spark off a certain interest in my life or ones that I can't stop remembering now and then. Starting from the most significant:

1. Inuyasha



Basically, a half-demon got sealed to a tree by his human lover due to a tragedy, and hundreds/thousands years later, that human's reincarnation traveled back to this era to unseal him. And thus began an adventure to destroy the greatest demon, or something...

This is the first anime I've ever watched, and it made me start watching anime in the first place. Although now that I think of it, it has pretty good character backstories but pretty shitty overall story, it was still really important to me at the age I was watching it. I think I was around primary 6, and it was one of the few things I looked forward to everyday. Oh, it has a nice OST too.

2. Legend of Dragoon



This is a Playstation role-playing game (RPG), and the first I've "played". Technically, I only played a portion of its emulated version, which then stopped working halfway through. But, I watched my brother play the whole thing when we still had a Playstation, and it was fun and made me love RPG and games. I don't even remember its storyline or characters and stuff. What I remember is that it has an interesting gameplay, in which it makes menu-based combat more interactive by implementing a system in which you have to press buttons at the right time in order to execute certain combos. I know it sounds very "been there done that", but at that time, I don't think it is. Also, I think it's applied in the right place in the right pacing, since, instead of pressing random buttons during cutscenes, it forces the players to press these buttons halfway through attacking, at very precise moments. That was fun. And then it had transformations, elements, and, most importantly, a very unique and diverse fictional world for players to explore. This also sparked my love for adventures in games/shows, which leads me to...

3. One Piece


I'm not going to talk much about this anime since I've already written an entire post about it. One Piece is so high up this list because it's still ongoing, and it's still the best manga I've ever read, and it still contains the best fictional adventure and fighting, and it's still full of heart, and no other anime/manga/game/show matches up.

4. Mai Hime



This is considered a magical girl anime, but if you're watching it with the expectations of seeing a Cardcaptor Sakura type of stuff, then your heart will be torn to bits. Mai Hime is about twelve girls who are forced to be Himes. Each Hime has a unique weapon and is able to summon a creature (they call it Child) each. Via a crisis, they bond by fighting by one another's sides. They are then forced to kill each other's Child until one remains, or else the world will be destroyed. The catch is, when a Hime's Child dies, the Hime's most loved one (boyfriend, best friend, mother, etc) will die as well. At first, none of the Himes wanted to fight, but human flaws kicked in, and they were soon out for one another's life in a heartbreaking fashion.

This is what is so beautiful about this anime. What's really behind the battle royale isn't the fact that the world will end if they don't fight; It's stuff like jealousy, paranoia, greed, bitterness, emotional imbalance, overprotectiveness, etc. To go with all that, this anime's OST is composed by one of my favourite OST composer, Yuki Kajiura. Although it's quite old, I really recommend this anime to whoever likes your heart broken, and whoever is able to handle quite a bit of melodrama.

When I write my own stuff, I always feel like incorporating some aspects of this anime, but it's not easy. Mai Hime never completely leaves my mind.

5. NANA



NANA is one of the only four shoujo animes I've watched (the other three being Peach Girl, Diamond Dust Drops, and Penguin Drum).

Two girls of the same age who share the same name (Nana) sat beside each other on a train which broke down. So, they chatted while the train tried to start up again. And then, fate brought them together again and they find themselves living together and forming a really close friendship. One of them is an aspiring singer, and the other has no dream other than being with her boyfriend. And then, after the aspiring singer starts realising her dream, and after the other Nana's boyfriend cheated on her, a bunch of stuff happens and these two girls find their friendship broken piece of piece, and they try to fix it in the midst of all the chaos in their lives.

This anime is devastating. Broken friendships just get to me so deeply, and that's what this anime is mostly about. I guess that's why there's still a place for it in my memory.

6. Final Fantasy XIII



I know that this PS3 game received super a lot of criticism for being boring, being melodramatic, being linear, breaking the Final Fantasy traditions, not having particularly interesting characters, not having a lot of stuff, having the flattest main character ever (which I agree), and being beautiful, cool, but hollow. A lot of it, I actually do agree. But this game had really good soundtrack which stuck with me for a while, and it houses my favourite character of all time: Oerba Dia Vanille.


Let's not talk about this game and just talk about Vanille. She has orange hair (and all orange-hair anime/game characters are annoying), has unrealistically squeaky voice, is weak in combat, and does nothing in particular throughout the game besides narrating and feeling guilty because she blames herself for the unhappy events of the game. As her redemption, she is the kindest character in the party, has the darkest background, and appears to be the most cheerful. This makes her a very divisive character, in the sense that some people absolutely hate her while some really love her.

Let's just say I relate very well to extremely passive characters (excluding Orihime from Bleach), and Vanille is one of them. Vanille also shares a lot of my own weaknesses, and what resonates with me is that she's so passive that she doesn't fix them. Instead, she inflates her strengths to unrealistic levels, and hides the darkness behind them. It's comforting that the writers of Vanille understands this mentality, and it's nice to watch this character struggle with how she handles stuff. I've hardly seen guilt, passivity, fear, weakness, and masking of self to be handled this way in any anime/show/game/manga. Personally, I find Vanille to be very relatable, though exaggerated.

So, yup, these are some animes and games that connected with me more strongly than others. The end.

Labels: anime/manga, games

This final final week of school is going to zoom by. I feel like some JRPG character who's finally reached the final boss after going through many fake "final bosses". And of course, before the final battle, I must make an epic speech that shows my resolve and how I've changed from day 1.

I shall write a blog post about it, but not now though. Generally, it's been the best RPG I've played in PS3 so far. But considering that I'm not really a gamer, that's not really something surprising. It's really great, though. One thing I love about the Tales series is how they handle the characterisation. Love those random dialogues that they sometimes spam us with.

But back to topic, I'm serious about this week being the final boss of DTVM. FYP pitch this Saturday, and though Stella told us to sleep the night before... I'm having a sleepover at Wei Jian's house xD Which probably means no sleep :S

And also, there's law exam tomorrow. I shouldn't exactly be blogging or beating the final boss battles and stuffs, but then let's just say that exams and final presentations are meant to be tackled with a relaxed mind. Studying for media law had been pretty relaxing thanks to Xillia (^).

So, to recap what have happened the past few weeks, PCAP final report was over, PCAP test, which was almost as much content as law, cramped into 2 days of studying. Speaking of which, I must talk about that extremely packed period.

PCAP test + report + filming + research paper all due on Monday and Tuesday. That was one crazy period. After that, everything had been relaxing. It's kind of half a holiday for me now. Compared to my friends at DADP, we have it easy. From what I heard, they seem to be doing research papers 24/7 up till a few days ago.

In the meantime, thanks, again, those who helped us like our Lonely Fish page as well as our Forget Me Not page! And I'm pretty proud of our FYP website: sp-dtvm.com/forgetmenottv :D

Our trailer is not exactly done yet, but filming was done since last Sunday. It was fun filming weird and awkward scenes and enjoying some cozy crew + cast dinner and stuffs. Hopefully the video turns out great.

And in the midst of this last sprint thing, some of my friends have already confirmed their internships. In the meantime, I finally settled on what I ultimately want to do, not for the internship, but for my career. Sometimes I lied to myself.

Yeah, so that's it. Look forward to seeing my reflections of all DTVM times and/or review on Xillia! As if you will. But yeah, bye.

Labels: dtvm, games, things that happened

I'm not a heavy gamer, but many games hold somewhat special places in my heart. The open-world RPG, 'Dark Souls', which a friend Cx lent me, is one of them.

So Dark Souls is about a world that got taken over by demons, and is thus filled with despair. We control an undead who was chosen to bring hope back into the world. This is about all I know of the story. There are more to it, but we (players) have to dig them up by talking to a lot of NPCs, many times, interpreting certain things, and reading item descriptions. A unique storytelling method.

But in my opinion, the true hook to the game is its no-nonsense and unforgiving nature. It is a difficult game, such that right at the beginning, even normal foes can defeat you in around 3 hits. There is a stamina bar which prevents you from spamming attacks or wasting energy. So I'll say it's close to reality, in which we are not invincible people who gets killed only after the 1 millionth hit from an enemy, and we have to manage our stamina.

We're going to keep dying, and when we die, we risk losing all our experience points / money. They are the same thing in this game.

It's kind of sadistic on the player, but because of that, every step and every progress counts. Every time I got into a new area, I felt relief, satisfaction, and excitement. Every time I got to a checkpoint, the sense of comfort is immeasurable.

But that's not to say that it's the satisfaction and relief that makes the game fun. It's also the journey we take as we explore the world and its dangers. The Dark Souls world is a beautifully-crafted one.


This area, Sen's Fortress, is filled with traps that kill both the players and the enemies
Most areas are unique in their own way and the level-design is really good. It's not just a 'defeat every enemy who stands in the way' kind of game, but more of a 'anything can go wrong, but you'll be fine with a lot of caution, some skills, and some luck' game.

And speaking of caution, I'll have to say that this is anything but a fast-paced game, and I love it this way. This is possibly my favourite thing about Dark Souls. When we see a dangerous foe ahead, it forces us to stop, think through our actions, and think through our stakes. One wrong move and we die and lose our experience/money and we have to go through the trouble of redoing the area from the last checkpoint (which is usually far away). So do we run past the foe or do we find an alternate route or fight? Run left or run right? Use magic or melee? There are countless of questions that go through in our minds.

Let's say we chose to fight, we don't just slash a few times and win. We need to put up shields (because we dies easily), observe the enemy's actions, think of ways to deal with them, find openings to attack, and think of when to regain our stamina. If all these sound troublesome, it's not that bad, because we don't think them consciously. It comes naturally. We just adapt.

But if such slow pace sounds boring, you probably won't find it fun. But I love it so much.

Many a times, Dark Souls like to throw us off guard. Let's say we get into a T-junction and can choose to go left or right, chances are, there may be three melee enemies on our left (which is enough to ambush and kill us). And when you start handling them, you realise that an archer is at the other side, shooting away at you.

But good thing is, Dark Souls doesn't just throw us an impossible situation and expect us to deal with it. Instead, there would be methods to make things easier. Usually that includes separating enemies by luring one away at one time.

Another thing I like about Dark Souls is its boss battles. They are well-designed, aesthetically and experience-wise. Most bosses are different, and thus require different strategies and equipments. I keep finding myself looking up commentary videos of other players fighting these bosses after I defeated them myself, just because it's entertaining.


This boss, Gaping Dragon, has a ribcage thing popping out of its body and can bend its back so much it looks so disgusting
Like any other RPG, we get to upgrade our weapons, level up our stats, learn magic, and search for hidden treasures. The things I like about RPGs. And we can use items gotten from bosses to modify weapons as well.

The thing that annoys me most about this game is the distance between the checkpoints and the bosses. Usually, in other games, it makes sense that they put a checkpoint right before the boss so that if we die, we just try again. Dark Souls chose to put it relatively far away from the bosses, so if we die, we don't just retry the boss, but also some parts of the area. Irritating.

All in all, Dark Souls can be really frustrating but fun. The fun part usually comes when you get the hang of it. It's very different from any other RPGs, and, to me, it's the kind of game that will make you addicted enough to keep playing it but also the kind that will frustrate you so much that you stop playing it. Which happened to me.

Just for the sake of mentioning, I also like its previous series, Demon's Souls, and I feel that the atmosphere and boss-design were better in Demon's Souls. Some places felt creepier, some places felt more disgusting, some places felt more majestic, and the bosses were more unique in the previous one.

But anyway, when Dark Souls 2 comes out, I'm not going to borrow it. I want to buy it :)

Image source: darksouls.wikidot.com

Labels: games

Okay, an update of my life. The academic year is coming to an end! So, we had our last new media lesson, last journalism lesson, last web-publishing lesson, and last freaking GenEd lesson! Still have documentary lessons though.

Time kind of zoomed pass and next semester is already the final semester for my course. After that will be the ever-dreaded internship. Next semester is going to be crazy. There'll be on-location production (go overseas to film documentary), media law (study for exam), elective module (I chose film-making), media entrepreneurship (which I heard demands accounting and financing skills), and the final year project.

Ms Gamar said it's not the semester to be emo-ing over self and relationship issues because the academic workload is enough to tire us out :( But I'm pretty excited for it because it's a year to finally get to know one another better and there will probably be some real-life drama to watch :P (pray hard it doesn't happen to me). But then again, dramas are only fun to watch when it doesn't happen to your friends.

Anyway, we're going Melbourne this year end :D School trip~

So during this relatively crazy end of this semester, there was Chinese New Year, in which we were suppose to be coding our website during, but I just couldn't bear to :/ And pushed much of the work till the last minute, and last minute + me = inner explosion.

Anyway, on the topic of Chinese New Year, my family and my sister's boyfriend went to watch A Haunted House together. It's pretty funny. Kind of like a mockumentary on Paranormal Activity. Also went to Ru Wen's house to play cards and mahjong overnight.

On Friday, went to Ru Wen's mum's stall to eat and then Jt, Guang Yi, Wei Jian, and I went to chat at coffee bean for awhile. Wanted to chat longer, since Jt is hardly there, but meh.

I've been pretty obsessed with FF13's cutscenes recently (not the game itself). Can't stand the fact that they are so beautifully drawn, beautiful soundtrack, beautiful voice acting, and wonderful environment design. And Vanille is so adorable and relateable o.o Don't get why many players hate her.

And then back to school life today. I've got no idea what's the point of what I had been doing all morning. I was pointlessly walking about in Bishan. Wanted to cut my hair, so left house early. Realise I forgot to bring money, so headed back home. Finally went to the central area, and realise that the hair salon hasn't opened yet. Rot in the library. Go to school early. Slept on the table.

On a brighter note, Esman screened Sinister in class today. This feels like those Secondary School days when your exams are over and the teacher doesn't know what else to do besides screening movies. Some girls in my class were like screaming and crying over it :P Some other classmates were simply laughing at how ridiculous the movie is. All in all, it's pretty funny.

We were also suppose to be planning for our grad night. I hope it's fun, but I don't think it will be since I'm probably the only one who feels any slight enthusiasm over it.

Let's skip the part of the day when I stupidly went to Paya Lebar because of some misunderstanding :(

Labels: dtvm, future, games, things that happened

Christmas Celebration
So my school holiday has started. Honestly, it was a pretty unproductive one, in the sense that I've got nothing done and I've not really spent my time in a happy manner. In other words, I kind of wasted time. Anyway, yesterday was better because my class group celebrated Christmas together :D

Met up with Avelin at 4.45 at Simei to go get the drinks. We were shocked and confused that many people wanted us to get Ice Mountain aka plain water o.o Anyway, Ice Mountain was the only drink that got finished, so I guess it's the most popular drink ever :/ Got drinks and some snacks before meeting Stefanie and heading to Avelin's condo. She booked us a multi-purpose room where we could do anything we want, I think.

Waited for the rest (except Zi Wei) to come before starting dinner, which is super oily KFC chicken. Usually, I would be munching down on it because deep-fried stuff are always good, but this time I can't because of my super lasting stomach flu. Just for the sake of certain people: I'm not exaggerating my condition. Stop doubting me, seriously. It's not even funny. Ordered Domino's pizza, and they were late (I heard they like being late on purpose so that they can give people free pizza voucher or something). There was this weird bread thing which somehow everyone said look like a twisted D -.- Too bad I don't have a picture of it.

Chinese Chessed with Stefanie and Avelin, and this time Stefanie is a pro. Finished up dinner and played musical chair. There was music, and there was chair, so why not? It ended up pretty funny and violent, especially when Hazel or Matin were involved. At the last round, they were practically snatching the chair.

Did our gift exchange. We did a secret santa thing, which means that each of us drew lots and knew who we were getting a present for, but we didn't know who got the present for us until the end.


Avelin brought lightsticks, so Stefanie suggested that we off all the lights, get out of the room, and one by one enter to hide our gift. After hiding, we all entered to try and find our present. It was quite a funny experience o.o


Sat in a circle and opened our gifts one by one.


My secret santa was Avelin. She got me a One Piece notebook with lots of wanted posters of the characters inside :D I can't bear to use it :/ Anyway, I'm Pascal's secret santa and I got him a shirt. Quite glad that it worked. Everyone / most of us got gifts that we were satisfied with. Some were so cool, like that Harry Potter musical box that Avelin got.


Ate the log cake and took photos. And then cleaned up before leaving the room. Most of them went home, so Cx, Mj, Stefanie and I just walked around a little before heading home too.

That's all for yesterday.

Rest of the week
The rest of the week was pretty dull, aside from the fact that I got to rest. Mostly started playing Dark Souls and caught up on The Walking Dead and Arrow. However, there were days when I went out to buy stuff, one time with Guang Yi and one time with Jt.

Anyway, just for the purpose of extending this entry (which I have no idea why I'm doing):

Dark Souls is a difficult game created by the same company as another game, Demon's Souls. I'm not too sure about the storyline, but the hook is that its gameplay is interesting. It's not a hack and slash game with mindless action. It's actually rather slow-paced and you have to think it through before confronting an enemy. And a wild enemy is strong enough to kill you in two hits, so it's really exciting this way. The bosses are at a different level. It's really challenging and fun.

The Walking Dead is a zombie apocalypse drama series. From what I head, season 1 (6 eps) and season 2 (13 eps) are set-ups for season 3 and it's based on a comic series or something. My classmates say that season 3 is the exciting one. Till where I've watched, it's a lot of drama. It's made up of characters that are very flawed and human, in the sense that they are not perfect people but rather people who do the wrong things, make the wrong decisions, and quarrel with one another unreasonably.

Arrow is a superhero drama series. Pretty exciting. The first few episodes were quite repetitive, but the recent episodes are interesting, especially the latest ones. I'm quite excited for newer episodes. Anyway, it's about this man who got stranded on an island. He escaped the island after 2 years and became a vigilante to protect his city. The hook is that he became an extremely detached and secretive and lonely person in his quest to save the city while keeping everyone he loves safe. So it's quite touching when (spoilers) he and another vigilante woman fell in love but broke up because of a misunderstanding. (/spoilers)

Oh, by the way, I haven't mentioned that I got a new phone! :D It's HTC One X+. Quite cool. This time I'm so going to take good care of it because it looks so much more fragile plus the buying process was pretty painful. It's Android and now I have WhatsApp. I became less of a forever-alone person.

Labels: games, shows, things that happened