I’ve been looking forward to Final Fantasy XIII for such a long time. I got it on the release day and I’ve been playing it as soon as I’ve come home from work.

I’m currently about 12 hours in and just started chapter 6. I probably did something wrong, but it took me 16 minutes to beat the Aster Protoflorian at the end of chapter 5. Normally the battles are a couple of minutes long, maximum.

You’ve probably read some mixed reviews of this game online (I probably read too much about this game before I started playing it) where people are complaining about this and that. I only have one major gripe with this game: on the back of the package it clearly says that it supports “DualShock3 Vibration Function”, but there’s no vibration in the game (edit: during cut-scenes and summons). I always found that it enhances the game-play, especially during dramatic cut-scenes. Also, if you want to get DTS audio, you have to disable Dolby Digital in the PS3 audio settings.

This game reminds me a lot of Final Fantasy X, which I really liked by the way. The beginning of the game is a bit… fragmented. Most of the background story is shown in flashbacks as the game progresses. It’s also pretty easy and tutorial-y for a long while - you’re introduced to new mechanics for battle and character and equipment upgrades little by little. The battles get harder pretty quickly after you’ve learned everything. I actually like the characters better over all in FFXIII than in FFX.

The complaints people have been having is things they’re missing in this game that was there in earlier Final Fantasy games, but most things they’re missing are things I didn’t like. Like countless “hunts” and side-quests a la Monster Hunter Freedom (puke) that make you forget about the story, towns where you have to go around and press X on every person to see if they have some important info and mini-games like, wait for it, Blitzball in FFX, and even more micro management for upgrading weapons and equipment. I think this game is good the way it is, as long as you’re patient in the beginning.

One nice detail in the game is that when you load a saved game you get a recap of the story while the game is loading.

A tip is to save to a new save game file after the big cut-scenes if you want to watch them again later.

Although I haven’t written much about figures, it doesn’t mean I’ve stopped blowing mone… collecting them.

These are the ones I’ve pre-ordered recently:

Rider (figma, Max Factory, May)

I have a bunch of Saber figures, including two figmas. I’ve passed on all other Fate figures I’ve seen, but this Rider figma looks great.

Hatsune Miku VN02 mix (1/8, Max Factory, June)

This is one of those “wow” figures. It looks nothing like the original character (but probably like Nagimiso’s “remix” illustration, which I haven’t seen yet), but it’s just so awesome. It seems kind of big, but I’ll just have to make room for it

Seena (Shiina) Kanon Swimsuit ver. (1/7, Max Factory, July)

I’m very happy with the long haired Orchid Seed Seena figure that I bought before. I try to limit the amount of bikini figures I buy, but I really like this one. The hair, face, body, colour.

I’ve ordered all the figures above at Hobby Search. Normally I use HobbyLink Japan, but they had a sale at Hobby Search, so I thought I’d try them.

I’m currently awaiting these two figures from hlj:

Sill Plain ~Rance IV ver.~ (1/8, Kotobukiya)

I’m expecting it any day now. I was eyeing the first Sill figure, but was scared off by the seams on the cast-off turned non-cast-off clothes. Then this came out, so I went ahead and ordered it.

Figures are very often delayed. Such is the case with Kiriko that I pre-ordered ages ago (should be out this month):

Also, I just watched the Hugh Grant movie Music and Lyrics, and I noticed that Cora’s first song (the one she’s making a video for at the beginning) has the exact same intro and ending as BoA’s song Did Ya. Must be the same composer or sampled from the same place.

BoA ~ Dakishimeru

59MB 3:52 H.264/AVC 480×272 PSP Ready

(download | thm | preview)

I’ve upgraded the web hotel account where I host this site, so that I can keep all the videos and stuff on the same server. For the past year I’ve been keeping big files on an external file hosting service, which has had some stability problems. The old service will go offline tomorrow, so there’s no turning back now

Here are some pros and cons with the server switch from my point of view:

Pros:

• (Hopefully) more stable (less downtime).
• I have full scripting (and database) capabilities on this server:
• I can make sure the file names display correctly on PSP.
• I can add support for download managers.
• I can shape traffic more effectively.
• I can be less restrictive with how you can use the links.
• etc.
• It’s slightly cheaper.
• I can automate the creation of web seeded torrents and other neat stuff in the future.
• More accurate bandwidth usage logging (the old server logged way too high bandwidth usage).

Cons:

• Less disk space (but enough to host everything I currently have on the site).
• Less bandwidth (should be more than enough according to my calculations).
• Uses same bandwidth limit as the rest of the site, meaning that if I don’t log the bandwidth usage carefully, the site could run out of bandwidth resulting in downtime (this shouldn’t be a problem though).
• It’s a permanent upgrade, which means that the increased cost is recurring.
• Might be slightly slower (seems to vary a bit).

I think, and hope, that this will be better for everyone.

As I already mentioned in the “help me test post” these are some of the new features you can expect:

• Tidy file names (no “%20″ in the file names).
• Clicking a link will prompt you to save the file (not open it in Quicktime or similar).
• If there’s an error when you click the link, you will be shown an informative error page (only on left-click).
• Background downloading is supported on PS3.
• Download managers are supported (only if they are integrated with your web browser, though it’s still recommended to use your browser’s regular download function - try keeping the number of connections within a reasonable limit).
• A single user cannot use up all the bandwidth available, so if you don’t download huge amounts you should hopefully never see the “bandwidth exceeded” message.
• Initial throttling (slowdown) of the download for a couple of seconds (this will help conserve bandwidth, leaving more bandwidth for you all to share). The download will then speed up.
• Transfer rate limiting (currently 1MB/s, but I will probably remove it completely).

I will continue to tweak bandwidth limits, initial slowdown and such when I see how the usage statistics look.

Let me know if you experience any problems. By “any problems” I mean, new problems that you didn’t have with the old download service.

I will update the FAQ when I have time.

So far I’ve tested the new download function with IE8, Opera 10, Safari for Windows, Chrome, Firefox, Firefox + DownThemAll, PS3 and PSP.

Now I need some help with the final testing of the new download function.

This is what you can expect:

• You’ll be prompted to download if you left-click the download link (PS3 will get special instructions for videos)
• No funny characters in the file name (%20 and such) on PSP or PS3
• If you left-click, you’ll also see error messages (if there are any)
• Resuming is supported
• Download managers are supported (as long as they are integrated with your browser - shares the browser’s cookies)
• Background downloading is supported on PS3
• It might be slightly slower than before if you used to have speeds around 1 MB/s or higher
• The first few seconds of the download will be throttled (slow), then it will speed up
• You won’t be able to download huge amounts (> 1GB) in a single day

I’d appreciate it if you tried the new download function on these files that have already been posted, and let me know whether or not things work as expected:

[testing period is over]

I’m going live with the new download function for the whole site on Friday, so I’d appreciate any feedback before then (and, of course, after too if you find something suspicious).

I watched the Korean movie Our School E.T. the other day. I bought it because Park Bo-young (from Scandal Makers) is in it.

The movie is about a gym teacher who goes the extra mile to take care of students who are having troubles. E.T. in the title first stands for his unorthodox/alien ways to handle things, but then it stands for English teacher once he is faced with the “choice” of being fired or start teaching English.

The story has a nice message and there are a few good moments - I got a little Great Teacher Onitsuka vibe once in a while - but the delivery of said story is not very good I’m afraid.

I’m a very patient person, but even I started thinking “what’s all this random stuff they’re showing?” during the first 30 minutes of the movie before the story takes off. I understand that they want to add some back story, and they’re referring back to some of it later in the movie, but it could probably have been cut out entirely. I guess a lot of people didn’t finish this movie due to the meaningless intro.

Spoiler warning! The end is also not very good. One of the guys who the teacher has taken under his wing wins the national amateur boxing championships and then everyone is cheering for the teacher… that felt weird. It’s like they ran out of time (due to the aforementioned intro) and decided to wrap up everything in one scene.

I wouldn’t say Our School E.T. is a total disaster, but it could have been so much better.

You can find it by searching for 소녀시대 in iTunes Store.

Unfortunately, what you can currently buy at iTunes Store is a “partial album”. It’s missing tracks 6, 7 and 12 for some reason.

I think this is the first time an Asian release of an artist I like is available through iTunes in Sweden. I already have this album on CD, but if they start loosening up on the whole “we only release songs in our region”-thing I might actually end up buying something on iTunes some day

They are all 1920×1080.

Have a nice weekend!

Girls’ Generation ~ Oh! Live@Inkigayo 20100207

32MB 3:11 H.264/AVC 480×272 PSP Ready

(download | thm | preview)

Credit: source video killerkim@jpopsuki