Current mood:	relieved
Current music:	The Chemical Brothers "Surface to Air"

Play log: Lumines & DQVIII
LUMINES
I finally reached level 100 in Lumines and unlocked the last challenge mode skin, Lights. It's semi-anti-climactic as the blocks are back to the standard orange/white combination, and the background isn't that amazing. I don't think the musics particularly high bitrate either. I was surprised to hear a fair bit of noise coming through on the sample, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't my headphones. I don't know if I'll ever beat the VS mode, but I might give it a bit more time to keep my skills warmed up for human VS games. It's easily one of the best puzzle games I've played, but I think it could have done with a little more polish in some places. The CPU VS mode is just brutal, and it would be nice to be able to create playlists of your favourite skins. Perhaps we will see a sequel in the future. I hope there is an official soundtrack release. Aside from the "big tracks" (by Mondo Grosso and Eri Nobuchika), most of the other tracks are fantastic - most musical genres are covered in a very convincing manner.

DQVIII
I only managed to play for a few hours before Christmas, but this weekend I've put a lot more time into it. At my current 22 hour point, I've made the following (spoiler free) progress:

The X is where I'm at now, the game starts at the point just east of there. I followed the path down to the port on the south coast of the first landmass, then ventured round the southern land before teleporting back to the port and making my way northwest to my current location.

I can see it's going to be a massively long game, as the story is really only just kicking into gear. I'm very impressed with how compelling the story is, and how all the characters have proper motivation. I guess it's quite novel coming from a mostly FF background. The levelling system is archaic, but the battles are fun and it's never too easy, at least not at the pace I'm playing. The story is told with cartoon-like event sequences, always very entertaining. There's lots of humour and a fair share of tragedy too.

The big draw is the exploration and landscapes. The PS2 is almost five years old, but this game is blowing me away. When you make it to the top of a hill and you look out over the next valley, knowing that you can explore everything you can see, you get a fantastic buzz. All the overworld is streamed, so you never have to wait for loading apart from exiting battles, and entering towns/dungeons. Exiting battles is the biggest pain in terms of loading times. The random battles are usually loaded in before they start, so you enter the battles instantly, but when you finish a battle, you have to wait for a noticeable few seconds before you can get back to exploring. Towns and dungeons aren't so bad because it's an expected pause while you get your breath back from the overworld excitement.

I've strayed away from using FAQs so far, and I'm hoping it will stay like that for the entire game. I'm sure I'll miss some stuff, but I know from experience that once I start using a FAQ, I can't help myself from using it at every available opportunity, and then there is the possibility for spoilers and all sorts of stuff. I'll just keep myself in the dark for this one, I think.