Entry tags:
Good New Year's Eve.
Today's been really very nice. We've been home, for starters: while the mattress on the floor at my parents' house works okay for about a week, there's nothing quite like one's own mattress with nice fuzzy flannel sheets to give one a good night's sleep. We were both so tired that we went to bed around 8-8:15 local time last night. Woke up around 6, dozed and lolled till, oh, 7:30 or so. So that was good.
We've done a good combination of "distinctly useful" and "just fun/pleasant" things today. The combination of having company coming tomorrow and being in a somewhat messy environment for much of last week inspired us to do a fair amount of cleaning. I tidied the dining room and coffee table (though the coffee table could stand more), cleaned much of the bathroom, and thoroughly vacuumed the dining room and living room rugs. The huz cleaned the stovetop and went through a pile of stuff on the kitchen table that's been collecting for quite some time. We went ice skating for the first time in a bit over a week (last time was Saturday of last weekend), we both played our Wii games that we're working on (one star for the huz, and unbepuzzlement on various paths in Hyrule Castle for me), we've done computer stuff, read, and I even lay down for a while this afternoon after skating. I beat Golem at card dueling in Chocobo Tales too. Oh, and we've spent time with the kitties, which is both fun and useful. Tazz is dozing on my lap even now.
The more I play FFF:CT, the more impressed I am by how generally kid-friendly it is. Sure, the little chocobo hero is generally saving the world from a nasty demon book-thing, but how threatening is that when the method of saving is to play lots and lots of little games? Especially when the worst that happens when you lose a challenge, either in a minigame or a duel is.. okay, fine, you lose, try again? Even in a card duel, if you lose, you lose all your HP and the duel is over. But the 'real world' chocobo avatar is just fine. It doesn't die; there's no Game Over. Golem (or whoever) just stands there and waits for you to challenge him again. Eventually, you must beat him to advance the plot, but it's entirely likely that there are several mini- and micro-games for you to wander off and beat in the hopes of changing the local environment (usually to access a new area), rescuing one of your chocobo buddies, or gaining a new dueling card with which to improve your deck. It's true that some of the games are kind of tough. The microgames are set up in such a way that if you get some moderate number of points, you get an okay sort of dueling card; if you get a much higher number of points, you get a rather cooler card. For most of the microgames, it's not hugely difficult to get that first level of card.. but of the many many microgames that I've come across, I've gotten the second level card all of twice, and there are two microgames where I haven't managed even the first level. All these games are short, no more than a couple of minutes, and almost all of them give the sense that if one tries just one more time, one could beat battle level five or achieve the hardest trial run. Just one more try, really! Frighteningly addictive, but straightforward in terms of its structure to play for five or ten minutes and then shut it off again - a really excellent setup for a portable system. Very very good investment, this.
We've done a good combination of "distinctly useful" and "just fun/pleasant" things today. The combination of having company coming tomorrow and being in a somewhat messy environment for much of last week inspired us to do a fair amount of cleaning. I tidied the dining room and coffee table (though the coffee table could stand more), cleaned much of the bathroom, and thoroughly vacuumed the dining room and living room rugs. The huz cleaned the stovetop and went through a pile of stuff on the kitchen table that's been collecting for quite some time. We went ice skating for the first time in a bit over a week (last time was Saturday of last weekend), we both played our Wii games that we're working on (one star for the huz, and unbepuzzlement on various paths in Hyrule Castle for me), we've done computer stuff, read, and I even lay down for a while this afternoon after skating. I beat Golem at card dueling in Chocobo Tales too. Oh, and we've spent time with the kitties, which is both fun and useful. Tazz is dozing on my lap even now.
The more I play FFF:CT, the more impressed I am by how generally kid-friendly it is. Sure, the little chocobo hero is generally saving the world from a nasty demon book-thing, but how threatening is that when the method of saving is to play lots and lots of little games? Especially when the worst that happens when you lose a challenge, either in a minigame or a duel is.. okay, fine, you lose, try again? Even in a card duel, if you lose, you lose all your HP and the duel is over. But the 'real world' chocobo avatar is just fine. It doesn't die; there's no Game Over. Golem (or whoever) just stands there and waits for you to challenge him again. Eventually, you must beat him to advance the plot, but it's entirely likely that there are several mini- and micro-games for you to wander off and beat in the hopes of changing the local environment (usually to access a new area), rescuing one of your chocobo buddies, or gaining a new dueling card with which to improve your deck. It's true that some of the games are kind of tough. The microgames are set up in such a way that if you get some moderate number of points, you get an okay sort of dueling card; if you get a much higher number of points, you get a rather cooler card. For most of the microgames, it's not hugely difficult to get that first level of card.. but of the many many microgames that I've come across, I've gotten the second level card all of twice, and there are two microgames where I haven't managed even the first level. All these games are short, no more than a couple of minutes, and almost all of them give the sense that if one tries just one more time, one could beat battle level five or achieve the hardest trial run. Just one more try, really! Frighteningly addictive, but straightforward in terms of its structure to play for five or ten minutes and then shut it off again - a really excellent setup for a portable system. Very very good investment, this.