muladhara | (no subject)

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A handful of things, because I do honestly want the next entry to be an FFXII liveblog (I'm feeling the discrepancy between where it and I am, and it's bugging me).

So, without further ado, here are some things!

1. As of today, and my student loan aside, I am debt free! You might remember that last summer I paid off my credit card? Well today, I finished off paying off a massive overdraft on a bank account, and closed the account down.

I've had that account longer than I had the credit card (though not by many years), and it's taken me so long to pay them off. But I've finally done it!

(I doubt I will ever get my student loan paid off, but i guess you never know?)

2. One of my brother's friends gave him his old ps3, and my brother said I could have it as a birthday present!

I didn't mention it on the previous entry, because I didn't have it, and I didn't know if it would work (it does, though). There were some games with it, but I got rid of most of them to ~~Game~~ CEX when I went to sort my bank account this morning. It was stuff like Medal of Honour and Tony Hawk's and that's not really my thing.

I did get some myself, so now I have the FFX/X-2 remaster, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Sleeping Dogs, and Tales of Xillia. Obviously also now I can play Persona 5 if i want to. I'm looking into getting Journey, and the Monkey Island games as well.

If you have any recs for ps3 games, that would be awesome.

3. I started playing Pokemon Go this morning. I didn't think there'd be much to do, but there are two pokestops in my village, and a mountain of stops and gyms in Burnley. I don't know what there is in town, but I can check that out after work tomorrow (I might check out the park and see what's there - a walk from the centre of town and round there might hatch me a 2km egg). There's even pokemon in my house! Mostly Spoinks, but I can deal.

Anyway, if anyone is still playing and wants to swap codes, hit me up? Or even if you have any advice for a noob, because the game is not great at explaining stuff.

I'm really enjoying it - I thought I might, but I also thought that there'd be nothing to do because I live in the middle of nowhere. But this not so! \o/

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Wooo! Yay for paying off overdraft. Those can be killer.

Lots of awesome PS3 games! Of course, if you got Xillia then I'd need to recommend Graces, which I think I may have enjoyed just a little more. The Last of Us is a game every human being alive should play as well. The PS3 has a lot of really great HD compliations too-- Metal Gear, Devil May Cry, Silent Hill and the like. All great stuff.

It's taken me fifteen years, oh boy. But I did it.

I think Graces is on my list. Funny enough, one of the games I sold was MSG 4. I'm not good at stealth.

Congrats on paying off the overdraft, I bet that feels great!

+1 for the suggestion for The Last of Us and Tales of Graces F! Plus there's Xillia 2 if you end up liking the first game. :)

I still enjoy some Pokemon Go, it's been my extra kick in the pants to go running for months now. My code is 6472 5422 5669 if you want a friend!

Thanks, it really does.

Thirding The Last of Us, which is fantastic. Portal 2 is a great puzzle game: satisfying puzzles, entertaining writing. And Final Fantasy XIII is divisive, to put it mildly, but I genuinely love it; it doesn't really allow for exploration, but it's got a great battle system and my favourite cast in the entire Final Fantasy series. I started a replay a few days ago and I'm having a great time.

Portal 2 is first person, isn't it? I cant play first person games as they make me nauseous :( also I am not a fan of Stephen Merchant.

That said, you are preaching to the converted wrt to FFXIII. It was one of the first games I got for my 360, and I've beaten it and the sequel (Lightning Returns remains unbeaten thanks to my arthritic thumbs). I really like it and can't understand the hate for it.

I have the same first-person problem! Portal 2 is actually the only first-person game I've ever managed to complete; maybe it's easier for me to handle in puzzle games than in games with non-stop action (Bioshock Infinite was unbearable). But being the first-person exception for me doesn't necessarily mean it'll be the same for you, so it makes sense to give it a miss.

I always forget FFXIII came out for the 360 as well! I'm delighted that you like it.

Ah okay, that would make sense - the first time I discovered first person games had that effect was playing Mirror's Edge, which is all about running all the time.

Hard echo for The Last of Us if you're into the post apocalyptic genre, it's my favorite game. Almost six years after its release, I still replay it several times every year, 'cause it's just that good!

If you can, you should pick up Journey's Collector's Edition, 'cause it includes fLOw and Flower (the latter was an international success, fLOw was not, but I personally enjoyed it a lot more than Flower)!

Silent Hill HD Collection includes SH2 and 3, but I hear they changed the voice actors, so if you're familiar with the original dub, that might be weird. I know it turned off a lot of people.

Some Resident Evil games are also available for PS3, and you can find used ones for relatively cheap!

Alien Isolation if you're into survival horrors with emphasis on stealth. It's terrifying. Best AI ever!!

Tomb Raider (2013). I have some issues with the story and the characters, but as a videogame it's really, really fun! It has some nice (optional) challenges and the game mechanic is just *chef kiss*!

That's all the recs I have for PS3, 'cause unfortunately the console was my sister's, and she (naturally) took it with her when she moved out, so I didn't buy many games for myself.

You're seeing a lot of Spoinks right now, because PoGo is holding a Lunar New Year event, and one of the Pokémon with increased spawn rates is Spoink (which is otherwise rare). If I remember correctly, the event ends on the 13th, but the time of day varies by region; it's usually 10PM for me, so it should be the same for you.

Oooh boy. The game is terrible at explaining things to newcomers, so I'm going to share the things I wish I'd known when I started playing. This is probably gonna be a lot of info at once, sorry about that!

First off: the combat power. CP is important, but it's not all there is. Each Pokémon has hidden stats, which you can either calculate online, or download an app that will do it for you (PokeGenie is the best because it's just an overlay, it doesn't ask your account credentials). Some people prefer not to use them to be on the safe side, but it never gave me, or anyone I know, any problems. Just never let anything log into your account, 'cause that could get you banned. If you don't care about the exact stats, you can use the appraisal feature ingame, where your team leader will give you a rough idea of how good or how bad your mon is.

Eevee evolutions can be forced! You can only do it once though, so try to find Eevees with high appraisals and high CPs. I wish someone had told me this early, 'cause I wasted the rename trick on really crappy Eevees. :( It's especially important for the three Gen1 evolutions, because once you use the names, they're random. But you can obtain Espeon and Umbreon anytime (and as many times as you want), by setting an Eevee as your buddy, walking with it for 10 KMs, and then evolving it during the day for Espeon, or during the night for Umbreon.

I would strongly advise against powering up Pokémon until you're at least level 30 or higher (it caps out at 40). This is because powering up requires a lot of stardust, which is very, very scarce, and the higher your level, the higher the level of the Pokémon you can find in the wild is. Sure, it may look cheap now, but it adds up real fast, so there's no point in using precious dust on low level 'mons. Of course, you can play as you please, but if I were to start fresh with what I know now, I would definitely hoard that dust like a dragon hoards its treasure.

Those are the main things I wish I'd known before I got into the game. I'm still learning myself, but if you have any questions, feel free to hit me up here or on twitter! :D My trainer code is 7525 4329 7249

Edited (typo) 2019-02-13 01:09 (UTC)

...I like survival horror to some degree, but don't actually play the games. I am a big scaredy cat.

I didn't know Flow and Flower were by the same people. I'll keep an eye out for that then.

I've got Tomb Raider as it came with the ps3, but no box, so I thought I'd keep it and have a look at it. I've played some of the older ones, and liked them, so hoping I will like this one.

OMG THANK YOU for all the PoGo tips! I found that Eurogamer did a bunch of articles on the game as well - events end an hour earlier for me than you, but i guess that's because you're an hour ahead? Anyway, yeah, if I get stuck, I'll shoot you a message :)

Congrats on paying off the overdraft, and on the new-to-you PS3! I don't have any suggestions for games since I never owned a PS3 myself, so don't know what's available for it.

Thank you!

Yay for conquering debt! Congrats!

Yes! I have to say, your monthly goals with the credit card payments have been my inspiration for the last year or so. So thank you very much for that.

I'm glad to have been of service! I'm not always assiduous at meeting those, myself.

Hooray for paying off debt! YOU. ARE. AWESOME.

And yay for getting the PS3! Tbh, I didn't play all that much on my PS3, so I am not super knowledgable about its library. The games I invested the most time in are games you are already versed in (Nier and the Kingdom Hearts collections, mainly). I also enjoyed Ni no Kuni at the time, though not sure how much I'd recommend it now.

Edited 2019-02-13 04:01 (UTC)

Thank you!

I debated getting KH1.5/2.5 and then I was like, nah, I can pick up the entire bundle when I eventually get a ps4. I thought about Ni no Kuni, but I'll probably see what it's about first.

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