Early Birthday Present

MetallicA have given me a birthday present. They are coming to Perth the day before my birthday! Whilst I now listen to other types of metal, they were once my favourite band and I will still go, and secretly hope they play all their old stuff and magically forget their new stuff (although their latest album isn't bad).

First Impressions of Final Fantasy XIII

Pros

• Looks pretty

Cons

• No random battles. FF is not FF without random battles. (FF12 sucks too)
  
• The story is told through the datalog and not through the cutscenes/dialog.
• You only control 1 character in battle. The others are NPCs.
• If you get KO'ed in battle, then game over. Pheonix Downs are to revive NPCs only.
• Hard to keep track of how much damage opponents take. Numbers are flying everywhere.
• Battles are boring atm. It's just spamming "auto" mode.
• No towns to explore/loot.. wtf is with that?

It really seems like Square Enix have dumbed down the FF franchise, trying to open it up to a wider audience. But I don't think it has worked. It's too complex for non Japanese RPG gamers, but too basic/shite for "hardcore" players.

If Square Enix keep this up, they are going to lose their throne in JRPGs very quickly. Mark my words.

I wish I had these knife skills

...but I don't cook anywhere near as much siu yuk/char siu/siu ngaap to get the proficiency...