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Showing posts with the label Final Fantasy series

“Things Every Southern Woman Should Know How to Make”

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Alice clicked on the headline, mildly curious about what yet another stranger thought should be in her kitchen repertoire. Pictures of China plates mounded with crispy fried chicken, greens, cobbler, and a pile of biscuits a mile high flooded the screen, all set off with a pitcher of sweet tea beaded with condensation. The table was set; an apron draped off to the side next to a box labeled “Gramma’s Recipes” in fine calligraphy. She closed the browser and put away her tablet. She was born a Georgia peach, but she couldn’t make a cobbler to save her life. Did that mean she wasn’t southern? Or maybe just not “Southern.” For Alice, there was no recipe box full of family traditions. Her younger years were filled with rental homes in different states and her father’s voice coaxing her toward a text book rather than a cookbook. Metalworking and fabrication held more interest than learning to flambé or sauté. Did it make her less of a woman that her cooking skills consisted of fresh salads...
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Ramblings of a Gamer: Final Fantasy XII: Zodiac Age

I played the original FFXII way back in the day, and I didn't love it. The graphics were great, but Vaan annoyed the crap out of me, no one really stood out, the game battle mechanics were meh, and--a personal pet peeve--Ifrit and Shiva and my other favorite summons had been relegated to airships in favor of a new crop of espers. When Zodiac Age came out, I decided to give it a second shot--and it fell into my queue because my game TBP list is greater than my free time. But, at last, I found a moment, and I'm once again exploring Ivalice. And I still have mixed opinions. Vaan is still grating, though he doesn't seem as bad after he finally understands Basch didn't kill his brother. I didn't find much use for him in my original go-around, but this time, with the job system, I've been using him in battle a lot. As a shikari, so far he's fairly well-rounded when it comes to health/speed/strength, though I'm struggling with what I want his second job t...
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Ramblings of a Gamer: On the Final Fantasy VII Remake (from an FFVII Fanatic)

Happy 2016, folks! First off, I’ve decided to stop calling myself a casual gamer. I may not be a hardcore gamer, but I do take my games seriously; therefore, I am a gamer. What does this have to do with Final Fantasy VII? Everything. FFVII was the RPG that opened my heart to gaming. The immersive story pushed me to keep going even after I died repeatedly trying to get past that giant freaking snake. (If you’ve played, you know the one.) I was so in love with the characters that I didn’t want their stories to end, and when they were continued through spin-offs, I eagerly bought them to live in their world for just a little bit longer.. Thank you, Crisis Core, for the uncontrollable sobbing, by the way. Over the years, Square-Enix has teased us with demos for the new platforms, showing us glimpses of what a remake could be like, planting the dream of traveling through a HD Midgar with a detailed Cloud Strife and crew. And now it’s going to be real. I’m ...
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Final Fantasy XIII: Lightning Returns--Early Thoughts

I recently started Final Fantasy XIII: Lightning Returns to pull myself out of the rabbit-hole that is Skyrim. It's been a nice change of pace. Instead of leisurely traipsing across the countryside slaying dragons or whatever undead creature gets in my way, I'm now racing time to collect enough souls to populate a new world before the old one collapses. I'm pretty sure I'm going to fail the first time around. And that's okay, I think. I'm enjoying the open world and not being stuck to a rigorous linear path. The battle system is much improved over the paradigm shift from the previous FFXIII games, flowing smoother from one shift to another with a simple touch of a button. I'm still working on setting up effective skills, but I'm getting closer to having a good set for overall battle. The graphics are breathtaking, the world beautiful and rich. I like the way random battle is sort of back into play; sometimes you see the fiends wa...
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Ramblings of a Casual Gamer: Final Fantasy X Epiphany

Since the death of my 60GB PS3, I’ve been a little burnt out on games. None of my newer games have been able to pull me in. Trouble was, I wanted to play something. Anything. But the God of War games my new machine came with just couldn’t hook me. So, one day I thought, Why not an old game?   I switched on my old-school PS2. And I popped in Final Fantasy X. It’d been just long enough since I’d played it that I forgotten enough about the gameplay for it to be interesting. It took a bit to adjust my vision to the lower graphics, but then I was off, immersed in the story and enjoying some turn-based battle. As I played, I started thinking about the reasons I was enjoying FFX so much more than I had newer Final Fantasy games. Here’s what I’ve come up with:   Random Encounters They can be annoying as hell when you’re rushing across a map to reach a destination, but they add a sense of danger that non-random encounters lack. Random Encounter—I’m just gonna stroll ...
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