I got farther in Xenosaga today. I encountered a few interesting plot points here and there, but I'm basically having more fun with the many ways you upgrade your stats and abilities in this game. The battles are good, too.

One thing I forgot to mention yesterday is the "skill" system. Here's the skill system: you can equip various accessories, and almost every accessory has either a stat boost or "auto-effect." If you've been into RPGs for long, you should know what an auto-effect is. Auto-effects are, simply put, effects that work on auto, and never end. That's unless, of course, you take the accessory off. Each character can have up to three "skills." At first, they start with none. For them to gain skills, they need accessories. They need to "extract" the skill from the accessory, and "learn" it so that they can use it at any given time without actually equipping the accessory. For example, if an accessory prevents poison, and you extract the skill, then set it, you won't need the accessory. To extract skills, you need S.Pts (Special Points). All these "points" are gotten from battle, by the way. A lot of people will probably be familiar with this skill system if they played Final Fantasy IX, or any games like it.

When I feel like it, I'm going to try and see what I can do about the current problem regarding the site. For now, the news section should be enough.

I played a little of Xenosaga yesterday, and it seems to be a very solid RPG. The plot is vaguely interesting, I guess. It's some sci-fi space nonsense. This game is very similar to the likes of Final Fantasy X, as every single cut scene has voice acting. The voice acting is really bad, though, and there's no voice acting outside of cut scenes. Unlike Final Fantasy X, where pretty much EVERYTHING had voice acting. Let's go back to discussing Xenosaga. You start out as a woman named Shion, who's working for some company on some ship. You're doing some project that requires you to "test" some android, and eventually develop it. To "test" it, your state of mind goes into a "cyber space" kind of place. In this place, everything happens just like it would in the real world, except it's much safer, because you can be pulled out if something goes wrong. It's questionable how they test products like this, but I guess you could say they do all the "what ifs" there. Then they actually make the android, and send it into battle in the "real" world. Obviously, something big happens while you're trying to do your normal duties, and you end up on some insane quest. This hasn't happened to me yet, but I suspect it will soon.

Now on to the music. There really isn't much music, just a bunch of sounds to make you feel as if you're really in a giant ship. The only music so far is the battle music, and it sounds pretty decent. Nothing mind blowing, but it's still pretty good. Speaking of battles...

At first, I was completely confused by the battles, as the game explained everything too fast, and in a complicated manner. Apparently, there's a lot of stuff you can do in battle. To take an action, you must wait for your turn, like in most sane RPGs, and press a button for the command. Each button has a different command associated with it, exactly like in Super Mario RPG for the SNES. For example, X is for the menu, square does a melee attack, triangle does long range attacks, etc. There's something called "AP," which determines how many things you can do in your turn; similar to "stamina" in the Wild Arms series. Anyway, the more AP you have, the more actions you can take. For instance, if you have very little AP when your turn comes up, you'll probably only be able to do a single attack. Normally, though, you have enough AP to at least perform two attacks each turn. Some attacks require you to have a certain amount of AP. Thus, you'll have to save AP by either attacking once, then canceling the rest of your turn, or defending.

For the most part, the extra AP you earn is used to preform "techs." These techs usually require you to preform three attacks in a single turn, and that requires extra AP. You can generally only do two attacks, but with enough AP, you have room for an extra attack. Depending on which attacks you use in that turn, you'll do a differen tech. An example would be if you do two melee attacks in a row (you press square twice) you'll trigger a tech, which you then use by pressing circle. You can trigger a different tech by doing two long range attacks in a row, and so on. It's pretty interesting, as you'll do different attacks depending on what order you used them. I can't remember any of the attack names now, but I'll make some up as examples. Let's say your first long range attack is "laser gun." Like I said before, you can typically attack twice in one turn. So if you use "laser gun" as your first attack, your long range attack name will change into something different, like "laser cannon." If you use your melee (which I'll name "kick" for this example) and then your long range attack, the name will change into "quick hit" instead of "laser cannon." Basically, mixing attacks will give you different results. Also, each attack is good against certain enemies.

Okay, now I'll talk about the leveling system. The leveling system is quite expansive, as there are many different things you can build up. Firstly, there are normal levels. Normal levels are acquired by gaining normal EXP (I'm not sure if they gave EXP a different name here). I don't exactly know what you gain from leveling up, but I think it's either only HP and EP (EP is Ether Points; I'll get to that later), or maybe all stats. What's more important than that are T.Pts, which I think stands for tech points. T.Pts have two uses: to boost your stats separately, or to strengthen different parameters of your techs. Such parameters include stuff like speed, which allows you to use less attacks to perform the tech (you usually need two attacks, but with this, you'll only need one), a parameter to determine how strong the tech is, increase the tech's level, etc. To boost a character's stats, you need a certain amount of T.Pts. If I wanted to boost strength, I'd need 30 T.Pts to boost it by one point, 60 to boost it by two points, etc.

E.Pts (not to be confused with EP, which both stand for Ether Points, I think) is used to transfer and evolve your "ether," which is basically a different name for magic. This is where things get interesting. To gain more ether, you'll need to "evolve" it. Each spell, or ether, can evolve into different ethers. Some require more E.Pts than others. When evolving ether, you usually have multiple ether to choose from. For example, Medica (I think that's the name) can evolve into either Analyze or GoodBye (this makes you run away), depending on what you choose. You still keep Medica, though, so you can evolve it again to get both GoodBye and Analyze. "Evolving" isn't really the correct term to use here, but that's what the game calls it. You can also transfer ether. This is an interesting idea. As you know, in most RPGs, only certain characters can have certain spells. They solve this problem via the "transfer" system. To transfer an ether, you need E.Pts, as well. Basically, you transfer ethers to different characters to balance things out. For example, I started out with Medica on one character (recovers HP). Obviously, HP recovering spells are useful, so I transfered this to a character who is based on melee attacks and not magic. There's one string attached to this, though. Transfered ether can NOT be evolved or transfered again. This means that, if I want my melee character to have all the spells my healer has, I'll have to transfer each one from the healer to the melee character.

At first glance, this all seems fairly complex, as they throw everything at you right from the beginning. Oh, one more thing: they have something called "A.G.W.S.," which stands for something, and it means "giant robot." At least, it does for me. If you go to the menu in battle, you'll see a command called "A.G.W.S." Picking this command will swap the character with a giant robot. This giant robot does more damage, has more HP, and more defense than any normal character. Obviously, it has one giant problem: it's slow. You'll probably only use it on huge enemies that do tons of damage while not taking much damage themselves.

The game looks pretty interesting so far, so I'll stick with it. It's been a long time since I played a modern RPG. As for the problem with the site, I've got something in the works, which will either solve the problem or further mess things up. We'll see what happens.

I picked up Dynasty Warriors 4 and Xenosaga yesterday. I haven't tried either of them out yet, but I'll get to them soon. In Golden Sun: The Lost Age news, I can go fight the last boss right now if I wanted to. There's really only two things left to do: find a good class combination for my characters, and defeat both the secret and last bosses. That's all. I already leveled my characters up to 99 and got their best weapons and armor.

Hmm... some other games I'm interested in playing right now are the Lufia games. I want to play all of them; the one for Game Boy, the two for SNES, and the one for Game Boy Advance, once it comes out. My favorite, though, seems to be Lufia 2 for the SNES. It's a mixture between traditional RPG mechanics and puzzles that resemble the ones in Zelda. Some of the puzzles in Lufia 2 are very difficult to solve. I've played that game about two or three times, and every time I play it, I get stuck on the same puzzles. This means that the puzzles in Lufia 2 are in no way easy, and they're done well, like that in Zelda. The RPG side of it is also fairly normal. You go through dungeons, kill monsters, level up, etc. The way you encounter enemies is like in Chrono Trigger; you see them wandering around, and you must walk into them for a battle. There's one twist, however; all the enemies move when you move or take an action. Some try to avoid you, while others try to attack you. It's mostly the same for many of them, though. There's a lot of games I want to play, and that's not even including Xenosaga and Dynasty Warriors 4, so I'll be pretty busy.

I tried uploading an SNES ROM today and it gave me the same error. This leads me to believe that I have very little space left. If I can't even add an SNES ROM, then this site is pretty much dead, except for the news section. The news section will also eventually come to an end, since it also takes up space... just not as much. Hopefully, the news section will be around for slightly longer.

I've got some horrible news today. Firstly, I'll reveal the "surprise" I spoke of: it's Nintendo 64 ROMs and emulators. I was proceeding to upload them, but then encountered a problem. My FTP software reported that I do not have enough space or something. This could possibly mean that XOOM does not have infinite space, and I've used it all up already. This error may also be because of a setting I switched on my FTP software... at any rate, if XOOM truly cannot hold any more Nintendo 64 ROMs, then I'm ruined. I'm entirely ruined. Yeah, that sounds about right.

I'll test several things to confirm that XOOM really can't hold any more, and see what results I end up with. Wish me luck, for if this is true, the site will eventually die off... unless I find another host. And that's highly unlikely.

A bunch of odd things have been happening lately, but they all seem to have stopped, for the moment.

I'm really far in Golden Sun: The Lost Age. Indeed, this game is very long. It's a lot longer than Golden Sun. Heh, it's longer than Wind Waker, too. That's expected, since both Wind Waker and Golden Sun are very short games. Golden Sun is slightly longer than Wind Waker, though, which is sad. The Lost Age is better in nearly every way than its predecessor. It feels as if the first Golden Sun was just to give people an example of how The Lost Age would be. The developers also probably wanted to find a way to earn money off of both games for a large period of time. For example, having the password from Golden Sun in Lost Age lets you in on some secret stuff, like your old characters' levels and such. The only fault with The Lost Age that I can think of is also it's strong point; it's long. Some people simply don't like long games. Also, since it's so long, it's a lot harder to completely map out the entire game in your head. This is easily done in the previous game. Some people like being able to easily map out every single task in a game. I'm one of them, but I still like my games long. I really like this game, though. I haven't played a new game this long before. I've played through a large portion of the game, and I still have a lot more to go.

The puzzles are Zelda-like, with each one bringing in a new idea or two. Unlike Zelda, instead of reusing the same puzzles over and over, game to game, there's only a small amount of puzzles used from the previous game.

As you know, the game also continues from the story of its predecessor. A lot of RPGs don't seem to do that, even in the old days. As for the actual plot and story, it all seems rather pointless so far. In the first Golden Sun, your characters have to try and stop all the lighthouses from being lit, or else some "bad" thing will occur. I've seen this type of thing many times before, in other RPGs. Some good examples are Final Fantasy IV and V. I'm sure there are other games, but I can't remember them now. Anyway, you obviously don't stop anyone from lighting the lighthouses, and thus, two lighthouses get lit in the first game. In The Lost Age, you play as characters who actually want to light the lighthouses. These are good guys, they're just interested in seeing what happens when all the lighthouses are lit. Oh, and the bad guys held them as hostages, because the bad guys want to light the lighthouses, too. They want to use their "hostages" to do the deed, as they're too lazy to do it themselves. It will be interesting to see what will happen when both parties from the first and the second game join up, since they both want opposing things.

Well, that's it for now. I'm going to go play more Golden Sun: The Lost Age.

It's time for a quick update. Visual Boy Advance has been updated to version 1.5a. The changes are very small, but there are changes nonetheless.

Yesterday, when my friend came over to deal with the router (it was a very simple problem, and I got close to solving it; I just made a single mistake that he corrected), he and some of his family ended up staying over for a very long time. I went to bed late, too. Anyway, after a bit, his little brother had a game for the PlayStation 2 he wanted to show me. I think this game is named Dynasty Warriors 4. I remember hearing several times about this game from 8-Bit Theater's Brian Clevinger. It's one of those new games that I usually ignore. I'm just old school; I can't get my mind out of the SNES era. The main reason I'm even interested in the Game Boy Advance is because it sticks to the old stuff, while still being new. I can't lie; I must engage in a new game every now and then. I just simply prefer older ones, like for the SNES.

Anyway, I tried Dynasty Warriors 4 out and such, and it seemed decent to me. Basically, it takes place in a war or something. Instead of controlling an entire army like in most strategy games, you just control the general. It's like an action RPG, but laid out like a strategy game. Although you don't control or command any units, the way they present the game with the menus and options resembles a strategy game. Why do I call it an action RPG, you ask? Well, for one, you can level up your weapon (I think). Two, you'll notice that the moves are fairly simple, and easy to do. RPGs are usually for people who lack skill with their hands, but excel with their mind.

I didn't notice the music much, so I can't say anything about that. Most of the graphics looked pretty decent to me. There were just a couple of glitches that came up because of the PlayStation 2's limitations. There are slow downs every so often (this only happened once for me, but the fact that it happened at all is enough to say something about it). The game seems rather difficult to me. That's not a good thing. The character I chose was supposed to be the best (he's like a legend for some reason; I think his name is Lu Bu), and he had most stats maxed out, weapon level 10, many items... I simply should not have come close to dying, like, at all. I guess that's what truly separates this from a real action RPG, as it does require some skill. I did the last level on easy and died, but I did nearly kill the leader or something.

The game seems to get boring after a while, though. Maybe it's just because it was already beaten, and all the characters have been unlocked and raised fully. Essentially, I mindlessly walked around while slashing people with my giant spear. I did pick two or three different characters, but they didn't seem too different. It's funny when you think about it; one man taking on an entire army. You can see that first hand here. There's a lot of soldiers to kill. To keep things a little exciting, you sometimes encounter generals, which are basically special characters with actual names. They're harder than the normal soldiers, and take a bit to go down. Of course, you can just avoid all the soldiers altogether, and just venture to the leader. I guess there's some sort of EXP system for the weapons, but I didn't have much time to check.

Overall, the game looked interesting, and I might pick it up one day. That should make this update a little less... short.

My Internet connection was down for a while, and I didn't really know how to fix it or feel like dealing with it. So a friend came over and dealt with it for me.

My e-mail was also down for a while, but it should be fine now. It has something to do with the ISP bills. Those are two reasons why I didn't update for quite a while. Other reasons include Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age. I finished Golden Sun and got to level 99, found most of the best items, etc. I was plainly ready to transfer my info to Golden Sun: The Lost Age, which is basically Golden Sun 2, if you will. What this means is, when I meet the characters from Golden Sun in Golden Sun: The Lost Age, they'll have all the gold, levels, stats, items, Djinni, etc, from Golden Sun. Yes, this means that the party of four you start with in Golden Sun: The Lost Age is different from the first game.

Anyway, I'm playing Golden Sun: The Lost Age and I've gotten... somewhere. It's not too far, but it isn't the beginning, either. The game is a lot longer than Golden Sun. There's several continents and they're all decently sized. In the first Golden Sun, there was only one or two continents, and you can pratically map them out in your head. In fact, you can map the entire game out in your head, because it's very short. It's probably 20 hours if you search for secrets and such.

The music in Golden Sun: The Lost Age is much better than in Golden Sun. The graphics are slightly better, but not by much.

That's pretty much it right now. I didn't update anything. It's not very important, anyway. Well, back to Golden Sun: The Lost Age.

You probably already noticed that I haven't been updating as frequently lately. That's mainly because... umm... I'm tired, yeah. I don't have much motivation to update the site now; too tired.

I'm nearly done with Golden Sun. It's been fun, even though this is my second time beating it. I'm getting all the secret items and such, so it'll take a bit for me to beat it.

I have many updates planned for the site, I just don't feel like actually... doing them. So, instead, I'll make a checklist here. That way, I won't forget (hopefully).

1) Change the name of various ROMs.

2) Divide the Game Boy and Game Boy Color ROMs section into two separate sections.

3) Divide the Game Boy and Game Boy Color Emulators section into two separate sections.

4) Add more emulators for the systems this site covers.

5) Add emulators for "other" systems that the site has yet to cover.

6) Add the next "surprise" in all its glory. This "surprise" will be two separate sections. I shall not tell you what it is, as it's a "surprise."

7) Add more 32X ROMs. Even though most other 32X ROMs are garbage and don't deserve the time of day, it's rather stupid to just have one.

8) While doing the many things above, I shall clean up some of my code as I see fit; correct any errors or mistakes.

9) Again, while doing everything above, I shall update the JavaScript of most of the pages that I will edit, as I found a better way to organize the JavaScript.

10) Find some way for others to take notice of this site. There's only, like, two people visiting this site. Those people include me and my cousin. So, yes, the webmaster and webmaster's cousin are the only two people visiting this site on a regular basis.

11) Add a little thing under the Gamers Tavern logo explaining that you absolutely must have JavaScript enabled to view this site. The few people who actually view this site, who are not me and my cousin, have complained that it doesn't work. Of course, they usually fix this problem by enabling JavaScript. I have tested my site on Opera and Internet Explorer and it works fine on both, provided you have JavaScript enabled. To prevent many annoying e-mails that will appear when others learn of this site's existence, I shall put a warning or notice below the main logo.

12) The last and final thing I'd like to do with the site... hmm... this is something really far into the future, really far, and I am almost sure not to do it unless I take care of the first few things on this list. Anyway, the last thing I have in mind to do is this: to use my new found JavaScript skills to make the image section easier for me to manage (it won't be easier for you, the user, but it won't be harder, either).

That's pretty much everything I currently have in mind to do at the moment. I'll look at this list every now and then to be reminded of what's left to do.

We've got a short, but good update today. Visual Boy Advance has been updated to Version 1.5. I quickly updated the links and files, so it's now on my site. Woo! Yay! I actually got this update before Zophar's Domain! Hooray! Once again, I have some plans for the site. So... umm... don't go away! Or something...

I have a surprise in store for the site (and the people who visit this site, which is nobody). It's not as lame as that last one, so don't worry. This will be official.

I haven't updated the site with what I had in mind yet. There's going to be a large update, dividing the Game Boy and Game Boy Color sections into two. I found out that GameFAQs listed them as two separate sections, so I'll do so as well. I'll go over there to see which games are for Game Boy Color and which games are not. This way, the site will be a tad more organized and professional. While I'm at it, I might change a few ROM names, as some aren't named exactly the way I want them.

I've been playing Golden Sun for a while. I think I'm near the end of it, or half way there. It's a short game. I've heard that Golden Sun: The Lost Age is longer, which might be good, I guess. That's really it for now. I'm going to work on Golden Sun and that second "surprise" I spoke of.

Sorry if things have been rather slow lately. Although I know no one visits this site, there's a slight possibility that if somebody does, they might check daily to see if anything new has happened... which rarely happens.

I'm still not quite sure what I'll do with the comic. It's possible that I might just forgo the idea and not do it, but I still have a hidden urge to make comics. Even though I haven't used Photoshop for quite some time, I've learned a lot from it. So if I were to make a comic, it won't look too bad. What I'm really worried about is the humor. I have to be in the right mood and state of mind to spout out good humor. 80% of the time, I'm not. That only leaves the small 20%. When making a daily comic, 20% just doesn't cut it. Another reason I haven't made a comic already is: I need to go all the way. I don't want to make a few comics, then stop for several months. If I decide to do comics at all, I want to go all out. That means doing comics daily, making each one worth reading, and never stopping.

One thing I might be better at is non-humor type comics, which are dead serious. Of course, no one really likes this style, and I can't seem to make this type of comic with sprites. This type of comic will need to be hand drawn, and with lots of skill, I might add. Hand drawing comics is usually best for humor when you suck at it, as portrayed in comics like Spelling the Vacuum. Drawing with a lot of skill is usually best reserved for more serious comics, which feature powerful "emotional" moments. The emotions portrayed in these moments are usually ones of anger and sadness. I sometimes feel like doing a comic like this, as I might be good at it. Sadly, I lack the drawing skill needed for such a comic. These comics need to be drawn very well, so that you can really show how much emotion is going on in each panel.

I have a similar problem with humor based comics. I can use sprites or drawings (sucky drawings equal funnier comics), but I lack actual humor. Sure, I sometimes come up with perfectly funny things to do, but such moments are rare, and half the time, I'll be sitting down for hours, trying to figure out what would be funny. What's funny to one person, isn't always funny to another. So things that seem funny to me, might not seem funny to anyone else. I suppose an easy answer to all this is to do a humor based comic, but with pure weirdness. Just go all out on how weird I can be. Weird stuff is sometimes funny. This is most prominently shown in an anime I like watching by the name of Excel Saga. I highly recommend you see it. I can probably go on and on with it, but in the end, will it really be funny? It could be funny to some people, maybe. The people behind Excel Saga stopped simply because of one fact: they ran out of ideas. The series was as weird as it could be, and anything else would just be considered small calibur to what was already there. Not only that, but the whole thing seemed to have just lost its point of existance. This can happen with comics based on weirdness that go on for too long.

My last option would be to combine all these styles into one; weirdness, humor, and emotion. This will probably combine two art styles as well, just like in some manga. Unfortunately, I can't get anywhere near emotional stuff, since I lack the skill for drawing it. I also have too much difficulty coming up with good humor. Weirdness may seem to be the only direction I can shoot for. Of course, this might all change later. I might not even do a comic. We'll see.

In completely unrelated news, I played and beat Sonic Advance 2 for the Game Boy Advance yesterday. It was a very difficult game, and I only barely got to the end of it. I have played and beaten the first Sonic Advance several times, but that game sucked. The levels were bland, boring, and slow paced. Slow paced design is an odd direction for Sonic to be aiming at. Then came along its sequel, Sonic Advance 2, which may have ruined things to an even greater extent.

Basically, the game is completely fast paced. You no longer fight bosses (Eggman is the only real boss I've seen thus far, mind you) in place, you instead run through an infinitely scrolling bit, while trying to defeat the boss. This makes bosses a lot harder and more irritating, as you can die by simple things like slopes, since they ruin your running speed, and you can fall right into the boss' weapon shot, resulting in many deaths. It's really only hard because of that. Slopes are known to mess Sonic and company up when running at extreme speeds. This is an unfair way of making things harder. They could have at least made the ground even when fighting bosses.

The levels are like races. When you start, you hear a count down starting at 3, and then a quick "go," which all sounds surprisingly good for the Game Boy Advance. After that, you get a quick boost in speed from some little gadget, and you're off. Most of the obstacles here must be crossed at extreme speeds, or else you'll die. If you don't have good reflexes and a high level of alertness, you'll have to memorize the levels. That applies to me. I must memorize the entire level, or I'll keep dying in the same place over and over. Or I'll die once in each new location, resulting in me losing all my lives and getting a game over before I finish the level. Having memory tests in place as levels is not good design. This make things hard in the wrong way. I only barely beat the game because of this. I have poor memory, my reflexes are terrible, and I'm never alert.

After getting a game over, you just don't feel like playing anymore, you know? I haven't seen the special stages that earn you those emeralds, but from what I've heard, they're very difficult. The ones in Sonic Advance were no better, really. Even though Sonic Advance 2 has more action, and the levels are less bland and boring, it's too hard and irritating in all the wrong ways. The level design is pretty good, though. You don't just run to the right on a flat road; you run up slopes, walls, bounce on springs, etc. It makes holding right a lot more interesting.

The next game I'm going to play is Golden Sun for the Game Boy Advance. I might check out the sequel, Golden Sun: The Lost Age, after beating the first Golden Sun. I might even use that code thing, too. That's all for now.

No update today.

I finished The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past yesterday. I got all heart pieces, items, etc. Everything has been done. I'm not exactly sure which game I'll play next.

It seems that Visual Boy Advance (the best Game Boy Advance emulator around) will update soon. ZSNES might update soon, as well. Once any of them do, I'll update the respective links and files on the site.

A little update has been made. I've added a new ROM. The ROM is Super Mario Bros. Deluxe for the Game Boy Color. This is basically a port or remake of Super Mario Bros. for Nintendo. It's basically the same game with a few extras added. They did the sane thing and reduced the difficulty a little bit, which I think is great. No game should ever be challenging. I hate challenges. I also updated the code for the Game Boy and Game Boy Color ROMs section while I was adding the new ROM. Remember, you absolutely must have JavaScript enabled to even be able to view and use my site at all. The latest version of Internet Explorer should help, too.

I started playing The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. I forgot how good SNES games were. It's not that all SNES games are perfect; it's just that today's games suck. I mean, they absolutely suck. Wind Waker is a perfect example. SNES was the prime of gaming, I think. The thing that angers me the most is, most of the "good" game companies, like Nintendo, have so many fans that they don't need to make any good games to earn money. Even then, a bad game by Nintendo beats nearly every other game on the market. That's even worse, as Nintendo has absolutely no intention of actually making a good game until they run into financial trouble, or some good competition crops up. From the looks of it, I doubt any good competition will challenge Nintendo. Square is doing fine on its own, and they might work with Nintendo at some point. Rare left Nintendo, or Nintendo sold Rare. Either way, Rare sucked. Even during the SNES days, they weren't that great. Now they just plain suck. Konami seems to be making some games, although I don't see any Parodius or Goemon games... no Sparkster, either. So I'm guessing they're not at their prime, either.

Square did pretty good with Kingdom Hearts. It's not the "best" game by far, but it was decent. To find a "decent" or "good" game in this day and age is a miracle. This is even confirmed by the new generation. Everyone who never saw anything below a PlayStation 2 will think that Kingdom Hearts is the best game ever. I'm not kidding. There are actual people like that. Most of them are on GameFAQs, though. Gaming's future doesn't look too bright, because of how much "power" the only good companies have, and how they take advantage of it. It's sad, really.

As for Link to the Past, I beat the first three dungeons, plus the mini-fourth one with the Master Sword, and I beat about three dungeons in the Dark World. Now that's a long game. If I beat it quickly, it's because I'm rushing through it, and I know exactly where to go. The difference is, I actually feel as if the game is long. Even if I wanted to rush through, the game will still take a good amount of time. Link to the Past isn't the best game in the world, but it's good. It's pretty darn good, if you ask me. Ocarina of Time is also pretty good, since it follows Link to the Past's footsteps. Basically, it's A Link to the Past in 3D. Can't go wrong with that, now can you? I'm really trying to rush through, though. There are other games I want to play and such. I also beat A Link to the Past many times before, and some of those times were during my childhood. So I really don't need to beat it again.

For my next update, I will change a few of the ROMs' names to make them more proper, and update the code of those sections. There's also some ROMs I want to add once I find them, so I'll leave that for the next update. That's it for now.

I made a slight update to my site's code today. Not for all the sections, just the SNES ROMs. I'll do the others later.

I haven't got around to playing The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past yet. I've been trying to collect the last three heart pieces I need in Wind Waker. I finally got upset and decided that I should do that... never.

I got a sudden interest to play Donkey Kong for the Game Boy. If you didn't know, this isn't just another game where you play as a kong and jump around. You're Mario, and you must rescue Some Girl (TM) from Donkey Kong. The Game Boy version is greatly upgraded from the original. I might play that later.

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is a huge disappointment for me. Here's what I think the fault of the game is: to put it plainly, there's very few dungeons. There are only the first three, plus the two "real" ones. Not only that, but there isn't much stuff you do to get to each one. Upon finishing a dungeon, you're instantly told exactly where to go, and you go there. There's never anything you are required to do before going there. You just go there. This makes the game even shorter. What about the side quests, you ask? Since the game is so short, I spent more time doing side quests than the main game. When was I finally ready to beat it, there were no side quests left to do. This is completely unbalanced. Oh well. At least those 7-10 hours were fun.

Right now, I'm just trying to collect the last three heart pieces. I've done everything else in the game, so I might as well get those. After that... I'll stop playing for good. I'm pretty sure I won't come back to this game for a while. There's so many side quests and treasure chests sunken in the ocean that starting a new game to do the figurine quest seems tiring. The only thing you keep when starting a "new quest" is how many figurines you've got, and the Deluxe Picto Box. That's it. I'd much prefer they let you keep all treasure charts, all heart pieces, all sunken treasures that usually contain 20 or 50 rupees, etc, so you don't have to do all of it again. It'd be like a New Game + feature that some RPGs had. If only that option were in every game that needs it...

The next game I plan to play once more is The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. I beat it several times on my original cart, but never on my emulator. I'm going to change that. I doubt I'll go back to Dark Cloud 2. It's just a waste of time. I might play one of the new Pokemon games. Although, after Pokemon Red and Blue, my interest in those games sort of died. They went too far, is all I'll say about that.

In other news, I don't really feel like changing the code of the site at the moment. It's not like it'll make a difference to you either way.

As you no doubt have noticed, I did not update for a while. Basically, I was doing many side quests in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. I'd like to announce that I've finished all the dungeons. That's right. Remember I said there were 3 + 4 dungeons? I was wrong. There's 3 + 2 dungeons. That's five dungeons in total, in case you can't count. Five short dungeons and most of them suck. This is Wind Waker's largest fault; lack of dungeons. Not only that, but there's a general lack of a main quest. If you sat down and did nothing but advanced the plot, you'll beat the game in less than a day. I'm serious. Of course, there's about 40+ hours of side quests... hidden, where most normal people like you won't find them. The main quest probably takes around 10+ hours, possibly less. It depends on the gamer. This is even shorter than Majora's Mask. At least in said game, you had to do a lot more stuff to get near a dungeon.

Oh well. I might as well say what's happened so far. As you know, last time, I acquired the Master Sword and faced Ganon... only to lose. After that, the boat makes a speech about how my sword does not have the power to "repel evil," and I must acquire this power by visiting two temples. On a side note, not sure if I mentioned it already, but there was a girl named Tetra, and she's the leader of some pirate gang. Around this time, she turns into Zelda. Wee! She had a piece of the Triforce of Wisdom. The king (also, the king talks to you through a boat form) has the other piece. Once combined, Tetra becomes Zelda, and fully remembers... stuff that she needs to know.

In these two last dungeons, I must find some sort of sage to enter. Unfortunately, the sages are both dead; killed by Ganon. So, upon entering a temple, you see the soul of one of the sages. The sage then tells you to find another person in the current world who uses the same musical instrument that one of the sages use. Obviously, these people are important characters, even around the beginning of the game. After learning the song from the sage, you must go to the other person who uses that same instrument, and teach it to 'em. Once done, they will remember some garbage that didn't happen, and become a sage. The way the last two dungeons play out is rather interesting. Someone comes along with you to help you get through the dungeons. Namely, the new sages. The first new sage is a bird girl, and the other is a... leaf thing. You can control them by playing the command song. You must use them to solve many puzzles. It was quite fun. I did both dungeons in the same day, as I was getting tired of side quests.

After acquiring the power to repel evil (the Master Sword changes its look slightly; the first upgrade changes the handle slightly, and the second makes the blade a bit longer, with a cool glowy light thing) the boat (who is also the King of Hyrule (R)) tells you that you need the Triforce of Courage to return back to sunken Hyrule. I have no idea why, really. We went in there several times before without the Triforce thing. To get the Triforce of Courage, you have to find the many broken pieces. It apparently shattered long ago, and spread all across the land, sunken beneath the seas. You must go and find them all. None are in dungeons, mind you. After finding all of them, you put them together, and the cracks seal away, reforming the original Triforce of Courage. It then rests on Link's hand, just like Zelda and Ganon. You can then freely enter and exit sunken Hyrule. This time around, the barrier that blocks the bridge is gone (you destroy it) and you can reach Ganon's tower. Yep, underwater. Although, you don't really swim or dive, nor lose air, as there is a magic shield around the area you're in, preventing anything like that from happening.

That's 'bout it, really. Before I go, I will say a little something for each dungeon.

1) Dragon Roost Cave (I think that's the name...): Honestly, since this was my first dungeon, I was rather excited. Once inside, though... it was just another fire cavern. I've seen too many of those. Frankly, I'm not too fond of them. For the actual dungeon, puzzles and such, it wasn't too bad. Not the best I've seen, but still semi-good.

2) Forest Dungeon (I forgot its name): I didn't like this one. It's a forest type dungeon; I especially hate those. Not to mention how boring the puzzles were. All the enemies were just plants and stuff... really boring.

3) Tower of Gods: In my opinion, this is the best one. It's got fun puzzles, the tower-like layout is cool... I just had fun here. The interesting use of the command song, and the rising and lowering water was interesting, too. There were a few new puzzles here and there.

4) Earth Temple: This one wasn't so bad. It was fun working with the bird girl, and many of the puzzles involved reflecting light using the mirror shield, and the bird girl's harp. Probably not as good as the tower, but still pretty fun. The enemies were a lot more fun in this one.

5) Wind Temple: I hated this one. I don't know why, but I always hate the hookshot dungeon in most Zelda games. Maybe it's because you must shoot your hook around...? Not only that, but most of the puzzles were boring, and stupid. There was only one bit I thought was nice, and it lasted for about a split second, and was never used again in the entire game. It also resembles a cave... caves are boring. I hate them!

That's 'bout it. All five dungeons. The game is good, it just loses most of its magic without the side quests. It's rather sad, really.