Coming down...

[leene_chan]

I can't believe how warm it was today! All the little crocuses are out, but they're unfortunately covered by the debris of last year's garden. I really need to take some time this weekend to clear that out.

Our neighbors down the street hired a tree service to cut down one of the birches on the edge of their property. I'm always sad to see a tree go, but it was next in line to the one that fell on our utility pole a few months ago, and caused that fire. Our neighbors actually had to be evacuated when that happened, and they have a young child. I certainly would not want to take chances with that thing if I were them!

So...I finished typing Chapter Three last night. I wasn't sure how it turned out. Since I'm a busy woman I figured I should hand it off to my official Beta Reader and have her pick out the flaws rather than pore over it myself. And she did. She found a lot of flaws. Hopefully, it's nothing a hefty revision won't take care of! :O

I'm sorry to say I've temporarily bailed on Persona 2: Innocent Sin. It's a good game, but it has too many bugs and glitches to enjoy right now. The game would literally freeze once with every hour of gameplay! I've decided to play its sister game, Eternal Punishment, instead. XD I've never played IS the whole way through before, but I've played EP twice. IS has better music than EP, and it has the reputation with some Western fans as being the superior game, but I've always thought that EP was better. And it's not just because of Katsuya!

The story is darker and more adult. The character art is much, much better, especially for Maya and Katsuya. It's harder to get Tarot Cards because there aren't as many Contacts, but the Personae themselves have better abilities. The game has better loading times...the battles run faster because they cut down on the frames for the spell animation and you DON'T HAVE TO MANUALLY IMPUT THE MAGIC FUSIONS. The battle and boss themes aren't as good, but the sound quality is better. EP is much harder, it's freaking long (about 100 hours with the extras as opposed to IS at 60 hours), but you don't have to deal with the absurdity of fighting Hitler.

Of course, some people might prefer the younger cast of IS. (I don't) IS is a very cool game with a lot of interesting content, but I think the story is all over the place. Which would be tolerable if it weren't for all those bugs and glitches...

I feel bad about abandoning IS. I'll probably finish it later. Right now I would prefer to play a harder game that doesn't freeze all the time. I heard the game isn't 100 percent compatible with the PS2 (I'm playing it on a Japanese console, not a modded US console). Supposedly the Best Hits version doesn't freeze at much. It makes me nervous that it freezes when you try to save!