Final Fantasy 10 and 10-2

Final Fantasy is an exciting, ongoing series by Square Enix. All of the games are different but have certain aspects that tie them together. This review will cover the tenth game and it's sequel 10-2 for the PS2.

Final Fantasy 10 has you playing as a young man name Tidus, who is a star player on his team in a game called Blitzball. When his home, Zanarkand, is attacked by a monster called Sin, Tidus is thrown a thousand years into the future. It's here that he meets his friends; Wakka, the captain of his blitzball team the Besaid Aurochs, Yuna, a summoner in training to become strong enough to defeat sin, and Yuna's guardians, Lulu, and Kimahri, among a few others. Tidus decides to travel with Yuna and the others in an attempt to figure out what's going on in his life and how he could get back to Zanarkand, which is now destroyed. Tidus and the others run into trouble when they meet a guado named Seymore who tries (and almost succeeds) in forcing Yuna to marry him. A hint of romance between Yuna and Tidus make everything much more difficult for everyone, and eventually Tidus is asked to become one of Yuna's official guardians. Eventually, Tidus decides that the only way he can possibly hope to get back to where he belongs is to once again confront Sin. After doing so, Yuna defeats Sin making both him and Tidus disappear without a trace.

Final Fantasy 10-2 takes place a few years after 10 ends. This time, you play as Yuna who has now become whats called a sphere hunter. After finding a sphere that contains who she thinks is Tidus, she becomes a part of a sphere hunter team called the Gullwings, hoping to find more clues as to where Tidus could be. Yuna, and her new team involving Rikku and a mysterious woman named Paine, travel the world looking for these spheres that explain the history of Spira. Soon, Yuna discovers a huge weapon that has the potential to destroy Spira called Vegnagun. When they decide to try to do something about it, it disappears, as do the leaders of the main groups in Spira; Nooj of the Youth League, Baralai of New Yevon, and Gippal of the Al Bhed. Not only are they missing, but now Spira is split in two and each side is fighting the other. Among the chaos and disorder, Yuna has to find a way to bring everyone together and finally solve the mysteries that she's been confronted with.

Okay, so Final Fantasy is one of my favorite series in RPG gaming. As of right now (that I know of) there are 14 games in the main series, and more are always in the works. On top of that, there are the few that have sequels such as 10 and 13. Also, there are countless other spin off games such as Dirge of Cerberus,
which spins from 7, or Crystal Chronicles for the Gamecube. Also, the games in this series are continuously being re-released. 10 and 10-2 for example, are planned to be re-released for the PS3 in the near future.

Anyway, Final Fantasy 10 is a pretty straight forward RPG. Pretty much all you do is run around the world with your team, beat on some enemies, rinse, and repeat, until you get to the end. It sounds boring, but if you've ever played an RPG game, they're all basically the same, which isn't bad. In this game the battle system is your typical Final Fantasy sequential battle system. Pretty much, you wait your turn, choose an attack or an item or from another option you may have, hit the enemy, and repeat. Now, if timed correctly, this can be chained, which can be pretty epic, especially in 10-2 with the Gunner dress sphere. Another thing that makes these game fun are that the maps are huge. There are so many different places to go, it's ridiculous. In 10-2, you're living on an airship, where you can go to and then teleport to any place on the map, which makes things much more easy and convenient. But, if you want, you can still walk from place to place if you so desire. I know of a few people, my boyfriend included, who hates the fact that you always end up back at the airship in 10-2, but I don't mind it for I think it makes things easier, but that may be just me.

There isn't much of a difference graphics wise going from 10 to 10-2. There also isn't too much difference when it comes to gameplay. However, the leveling systems are very different between the games. You also have this nifty dress sphere system in 10-2 which can be complicated to those who aren't used to it. Again, this is a feature I like, but I can see it frustrating others since some are VERY difficult to get a hold of. These leveling systems and dress spheres are a little complicated to explain, so you're probably better off to Google it if you want to know the details. But overall, even if you play and you're not a fan of 10 or 10-2, this series is a must play for anyone, not just RPG lovers. Try them all, pick your favorites, eventually I'm sure more of them will make it onto this blog. Have a nice day. :)

Naruto

Ah yes, the bright orange, hyper active, knuckle-headed ninja of the Hidden Leaf village...Naruto Uzumaki. This show was created by Masashi Kishimoto and is featured in the Shonen Jump magazine.

Naruto is about a young ninja named, what else, Naruto, who is basically the worst ninja in his village. Naruto gets put into a squad with his teammates, the depressed, revenge ridden boy Sasuke Uchiha and flirtatious, super-genius Sakura Haruno. They're squad leader is a mysterious, care-free man named Kakashi Hatake, who always keeps his face covered. Naruto has to prove himself to both his squad and the entire village that he is a worthy shinobi and he's capable of become the Hokage of his village, the top ninja who watches over everything.

I personally love this show. I think it's well written and has plenty of violence and action with many humorous moments brought to use by Naruto himself. Not only is the show itself great, but the comic is also very entertaining and doesn't leave out that censorship we see in the widly televised anime. On the downside, this show is very based along Naruto having to find his lost friend Sasuke, which in turn leads to many, MANY filler episodes. Sure, some of them are pretty good but many of them are just...how to say it...Stupid and meaningless. Back to the positive things, another thing I really like about this show is the fact that everyone has a story behind them. It's very obvious that the writers took a lot of time and effort into creating a background story for even the smallest characters. I also love how all the characters are so different, both personality and appearance wise. Even people like the ramen shop owners or the nurses in the hospitals all have different, distinct personalities which prevents the show, in most cases, from being boring and always keeps you guessing. It's very obvious that everyone who helps create this show takes their job seriously and works hard to give it's viewers the best action/ninja show around, Naruto.

One distinct thing that puts Naruto apart from many other animes is the essential 'second half'. When the series ends there is a three year time jump when the three main characters, Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura, each train under one of three powerful ninjas known as sanin. Naruto trains under Jiraiya, Sasuke under Orochimaru, and Sakura under Tsunade. Now, you never see what actually happens during these three years, but the show picks up in a new series, Naruto Shippuden. In the first episode of this new series, Naruto is just returning to the leaf village. Everyone is older and stronger, and Naruto re-joins Sakura and Kakashi to make a new team. Naruto is now on a mission to bring back Sasuke, who has abandon the village to get revenge for his family and get the strength he needs to kill his brother. This show takes a new spin onto the show and essentially makes it more interesting since everyone is older, wiser, and significantly stronger. However, this show is ENDLESS. I swear, there has to be a couple hundred episodes in the original series and then a couple hundred more in the Shippuden...and it's still coming out with new episodes every week like clockwork. But it's an excellent show and deserves to be appreciated or watched entirely if you have a good year and a half and sit and watch all of the episodes....

This first video depicts the original Naruto series. The second one depicts the Shipudden episodes. 

Princess Mononoke

By Hayao Miyazaki,  Princess Mononoke is the super crazy movie full of spirits, forest gods, and a girl raised by wolves, where can you go wrong?

Okay, so Princess Mononoke starts out when a boy named Ashitaka has to protect his village from a dangerous demon. The demon touches him and leaves a mark on his right arm. The Wise Woman of the village tells him that soon, the mark will kill him all the while causing him great pain and suffering. She also tells him that he has to leave the village and "see the world with eyes unclouded by evil". Also, once he leaves, he can never come back and will be dead to the village forever (this woman is very positive). He leaves to look for the great forest spirit who is supposed to have the ability to heal his arm. During his travels, he comes across a town that creates iron, called Iron Town. The leader of the town is a woman who is destroying the forest simply to get more iron. Ashitaka stays in this town where he meets "the wolf girl" AKA, Princess Mononoke. At first, she hates him, since she hates all humans for what they did to her forest. But soon, she learns to like him and helps him find the the forest spirit and beg him to heal his arm before he dies.

Okay, this movie is great, I love it, one of my favorites. It has a great story line, is exciting, funny, romantic, full of action, and bloody all at the same time. You can't get better than that...I think. The only things that I would say badly about this movie are the blood and the mouth movements for the animals. There is A LOT of blood in this movie. I mean, Ashitaka is an amazing shot with a bow and arrow and decapitates people with a single arrow. He also cuts arms off and gets shot and stuff, so yeah, lots of blood (for a movie rated PG). Secondly, the gods (wolf and boar, there are a few more, but those are the most important) talk. Because they talk, obviously their mouths have to move. But it's sort of poorly done in this movie. Their mouths move like open and shut once or twice for every sentence they say, it's weird. But something you can get used to so it's not so bad. Other than those two things I have no more negative things to say. It's a great movie and one of Hayao Miyazaki's best films, I think. I suggest watching it.

Ghost Hunt

Ghost Hunt, the super creepy horror anime created by Fuyumi Ono. Nothing more to say, nothing less.

Ghost Hunt is a show that follows a 17 year old boy named Shibuya Kazuya, who owns and runs his own paranormal research facility. His co-worker is a quiet, mysterious guy named Lin. One day, while out doing research in an abandon school, a curious orphan named Mai enters the building where Shibuya and Lin are working. When Mai gets into danger, Lin has to move her out the way, and injures himself in the process. As payback, Shibuya makes Mai work for him while Lin recovers. Mai gives Shibuya the nickname Naru, because of how narcissistic he is. Soon, Naru begins to admire Mai's work and the fact that she has her own gift to have dreams that help with investigations. So Naru decides to hire her full time, even when Lin returns. Soon, they are joined by a monk, Bou, an exorcist, John, a medium, Masako, and a priestess, Ayako. Together, they travel around Japan and solve cases, that most of the time get weird, or dangerous...or both.

Ghost Hunt is, I think, the only anime I've ever seen that was actually scary. This show, in some episodes, is just really creepy, almost to the point of me not watching that specific episode. But, I love it because you don't generally see that in an anime or any cartoon for that matter. Of course, their are always downsides. One thing is you have to either speak Japanese fluently, or be able to read fast to watch it. This is because it has yet to come out in English and probably never will, so you have to read the subtitles...which I think isn't all that bad, but that's just me. I guess you can find it in English somewhere over the internet...but I haven't found it, just a few episodes. Also, this show has no real story line. It's just a week or so with them doing an investigation, then it skips to a few weeks or months later where they go on another one. I personally don't mind this because I think it keeps the show from becoming boring, but other people may not like it so much. Other than those two things I really love this show. It's exciting and spooky and just really fun. Plus, you get to learn all these cool, ghost hunting terms...it's great. So, overall I really love this show, it's one of my favorites and I highly suggest you watch it.