A Gaming Diary
Archive for February, 2006
Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max
Feb 12th
Just to give you an idea of ridiculously packed this is, here’s the list of choices on the main menu -
Arcade Mode
Variable Battle
Training Mode
Free Battle
Option Mode
World Tour
Edit Mode
Entry Mode
Vs 100 Kumite
Network
Survival Mode
Dramatic Battle
R. Dramatic Battle
Final Battle
Score Ranking
Arcade has a million different options you can tweak, Survival Mode has eight different types of Survival on its sub-menu, World Tour is pretty huge on its own, etc. etc. etc. etc.
It’s just huge a Street Fighter sandbox.
Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max
Feb 12th
Hooray, round four!
I’m getting better.
My dragon punches aren’t coming as easily as there were last night.
Also noticed a Street Fighter Alpha 3 strategy guide on a bookshelf earlier. It won’t cover everything, but it might be worth looking through. I’ve got an odd collection of strategy guides, actually. Starcraft, Xenogears, Suikoden II, even Crazy Taxi of all things. (I seem to remember that last one was being sold off for 1c in Toys ‘R’ Us.)
Animal Crossing: Wild World
Feb 12th
Well, I’ve got my new room. Given it a vague outdoors feel with stuff I had lying around. I’ve decided to set up a complete T-Rex in there, when I get the bits.
Frobert won the Bright Nights contest, even though I voted for Dotty. Bah.
Released my first bottle in ages. I bet it washes up on my own beach.
Anchovy’s moving out. I like him, but not enough to presuade him to stay. Frobert, Big Top, Dotty and Deena are the ones who I’ll try to keep.
Too late for trunips today, but the next mortgage is only 848,000 or so, so I should have that paid off within a couple of weeks if I keep picking my fruit.
Tried to go out, but nobody had their gates open. Ah well.
Dragon Quest VIII
Feb 12th
I’ve played for forty-seven hours and sixteen minutes.
That’s nearly two complete days of my life.
Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max
Feb 12th
Ohhhhhhhh, I think I see.
Each character can only appear in the high score table once. I wondered why it seemed to be letting me enter my intials after some games and not others.
I nearly got to the fourth round of Arcade mode just now. Nearly. But not quite. Fucking Cammy.
I’m wondering if I should learn to use a character who’s not Ryu. His basic moves are nice and simple and part of my gaming hardware after all these years.
Manual lists all the specials for all the characters, though, rather than telling you to go buy the strategy guide, which is nice. Good Capcom.
I remember buying UFC for the Dreamcast and the manual for that had biographical detail for all the fighters (height, weight, birthplace, etc.) and told you to buy the strategy guide to find out how to actually control them in game. I was, and remain, disgusted.
Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max
Feb 12th
So, I put it on for a quick go and choose random on the Arcade mode select screen.
The game gave me a V-ism Guile.
Gee, thanks.
I started it up and Blanka kicked my face off in the first round.
Dragon Quest VIII
Feb 11th
Hmm. I didn’t think this worked off the hard drive, but someone on a forum said it did, so I copied it and it does. Hooray for even shorter load times! Putting the disc back in its case I found the FFXII demo, which I’d completely forgotten about. I’ll have to try that sometime.
Anyway, another five hours. Started off with a boss fight that went on ages but which wasn’t too stressful. Lots of wandering around and exploring. I did one dungeon and then got to another one, but it was proving a little tricky and my resources were dwindling, so I used Evac to get out and then used Zoom to get back to Farebury, because I’m a cheapskate and it’s got the cheapest inn. I’ll try the dungeon again tomorrow. I got to a bit where I couldn’t progress and so would have to backtrack to try and find a switch or lever or cutscene or something to let me go on.
I did die once this evening, actually. Just out in the field. Wasn’t my fault. Some enemies have a spell that goes through your entire party and has a small chance of killing anyone it touches. I’m not sure what the odds are of it wiping out your entire party in one sweep, but I bet it’s high. Not high enough to stop it happening to me, though. I lost about 3,000 gold because of that, too. It’s not like I’ve ever got much cash, because I never sell anything. You never know what you might need. And I can never remember which items are greyed out when using the alchemy pot. Anyway, I did buy Yangus his first new weapon in about thirty hours this evening, so that was nice.
Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max
Feb 11th
I can get up to the third battle of Arcade mode when the speed’s normal using Ryu. Second using anyone else.
This is really, really good stuff. A reason to own the PSP again! Hooray!
Animal Crossing: Wild World
Feb 11th
Hooray! Another mortgage paid off with fruit profits. New room tomorrow!
And Deena and Egbert ran up and gave me their pictures. Which was odd, as I’ve only got one picture before and that was weeks and weeks ago. Oh well, you know what they say about pictures. Or buses. One of the two.
Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max
Feb 10th
So I found the option to turn the speed down to normal. Tried Arcade mode again. Won my first fight and then got my face beaten off in the second. I can’t even remember who by.
Then I, foolishly really, tried a Reverse Dramatic Battle. My Ryu took on Ryu and Ken and I beat them both. Then I had to face Guy and Maki, who beat my face off in double quick time.
Ah well. I’m losing and I’m rubbish and my fun hurts, but this is great. And the PSP screen makes the graphics look beautiful. (I have, of course, turned widescreen mode off so the fighters don’t look like they’ve been hitting the pies.)
