Recent Buys: Episode 6 - The not-so-Final Maverick Hunting Fantasy

Yet again I am left with no cash. Why do you do this to me, videogames? Why? There is actually only one real videogame purchase in this post but the other items are videogame related, one more than the other.

First up let's talk about the videogame itself. Finaly Fantasy XIII is the game in question. I played the demo of Final Fantasy XIII-2 some time last and I was totally digging the battle system. From what I hear, aside from the joint paradigm shifting and the new "Pokemon" system, almost everything else in terms of combat is the same as XIII. Plus me not knowing what the hell is going on was another reason for me to play the first game. I heard about all the complaints regarding XIII, how it's just running through a straight hall and then the occasional unavoidable battles for the first 20 hours but if the game is fun then the game is fun. Who knows, I might get sick of mashing Auto-Battle for the next 20 hours but I need to actually try the game before giving proper judgement. Even if I end up not liking the game very much I will still push through to at least beat the main story so that I can grab a copy of XIII-2 afterwards.

On to the non-videogames but still related to videogames portion of the post. This one was a long time coming but due it's semi-ridiculous price range, I held off buying it for a while. That would be the D-Arts Rockman X figure from Bandai. Ever since the 8-bit days, I have been longing for a good Rockman/Mega Man figure.  Sure the early Bandai kits of Rockman 8 and the Rockman X3-6 were pretty good but there weren't very playable. The American toys that came out for Mega Man X8 and Mega Man & Bass (I think) looked absolutely horrible. Bandai finally listened to us and released 3 Rockman X figures from the first Rockman X game, those being X in his normal form, Zero without the blocky shoulders and lacking the Z-saber, and finally the X1 armor version of X. I do plan to get Zero and the X1 armor soon, also the soon to be released Zero with the Z-saber as Rockman is still one of my favorite franchises to date. I just hope Bandai makes a good figure of Rockman.EXE soon.

Finally, the not-so-videogame related item. Since I started playing SD Gundam G Generation World again, waiting for the enemy to finish their turn in a tactics game can get a bit boring. I was hankering for a possible stand for my PSP-3000 after seeing how PSP were displayed in shop windows around Greenhills. I think they were using stands normally used for displayer cellphones. Sadly they weren't selling said stands and the lady I talked too had no idea where they even got it. While looking around National Bookstore, there were a few similar stands but I couldn't just find the perfect one. I then came across this rather odd looking stand called the Sucker Stand. It's a little plunger that sticks to flat surfaces like a sucktion cup and uses the wooden end to prop up devices. Mainly advertised for iPhones and other smartphones that are known for widescreen video playback, this looked to be just the bizarre yet functional little trinket that I was looking for. For the most part it works. Since the PSP-2000, PSPs have had smooth and glossy backs as opposed to the rounded and flat/rough finish that the fat PSP had and since the PSP-3000 is rather light compared to older iterations, the little plunger seems to hold up rather nicely. Simple, quirky, but effective.