Timewaster's Guide Archive

I'm at last back from a long hiatus. I'm eager to finally submit again, as well as critique. I should be more active in the future.

Here's the first chapter of the book. If anyone read the old, 2009 draft, I apologize. This is a much stronger scene, and for the most part I am pleased with how it turned out. A few minor things are annoying me (like Saril's dialogue), but that's okay. We'll see how you like it.

I don't know what else to say. I ought to sell the book to you, but I would much rather see if you like it without me telling you what to expect, because I'm sneaky that way. I hope you enjoy!

I just got out of the theater and absolutely loved this movie. It's supremely satisfying (yes, these adverbs are necessary ).

Go see it. Go see it now. If you love the very first frame (which was brilliant), you will love this movie totally and completely.

For those of you not in the know, Golden Sun and it's sequel are my favorite games ever. Last year at E3 they unveiled Golden Sun DS. Now it's called Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, which is a really ingenious title, given it's awesome logo. And because finding all the info on the title is a little difficult (hell, IGN doesn't even have the video uploaded yet. Shame on them!) I'm going to post some info right here!

The premise is this: the world was reborn in Golden Sun (spoiler warning ). New countries have formed and the world is very different. However, there are these Psynergy vortexes which are taking the magic away. So our heroes are going to try and push back the darkness. Hence the title, Dark Dawn.

As for characters, we knew from last E3 that our heroes were the "descendants" of the previous game. This worried me because these characters looked quite similar (especially our new main character to Isaac), and I think anything loses credibility when descendants look exactly the same as people a thousand years ago. Not to worry, though! Apparently the game happens thirty years after the end of the Lost Age, and these heroes are just the next generation. I don't have a problem with that.

The screenshots suggest that their names are Matthew, Karis, Terrell, and Crown. Matthew is the Isaac looking one, Karis is the girl with green hair, Terrell kinda looks like Garet, and Crown... well, he's only in a few screenshots, and doesn't have an awesome character art thing just yet, so I don't know who he is.

Quick analysis: Matthew is very similar to Isaac, Terrell is similar to Garet. As for Karis, she wears an outfit sorta similar to Jenna, so that's what I'm going from here. Though, none of the main characters from the original games had green hair, so that's quite odd.

So, discuss. Is Karis Jenna's daughter? If so, who is the father? Golden Sun's a good game because unlike other JRPGs, they remember that it takes two to tango. The main character didn't just have a mom, but had two parents. Shocking. Thus, if you recall, Jenna always had a thing for Isaac. If they got together, I'd imagine, then, that Matthew and Karis are siblings. Who was it that Garet liked again?

I'm not sure I'm sold on the names, but at least Karis sounds pretty cool.

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JhqdFxOyqc
Character art:
http://ds.ign.com/dor/objects/949592/golden-sun-dark-dawn/images/e3-2010-golden-sun-dark-dawn-screens-20100615105801158.html
http://ds.ign.com/dor/objects/949592/golden-sun-ds/images/e3-2010-golden-sun-dark-dawn-screens-20100615105749330.html
http://ds.ign.com/dor/objects/949592/golden-sun-dark-dawn/images/e3-2010-golden-sun-dark-dawn-screens-20100615105731471.html

One thing I didn't like about the new trailer is that the music felt... subpar. Mind you, I still listen to the originals' soundtracks to this day, so I'm hoping that the music in this game feels as iconic as the other two. Which means I sincerely hope Motoi Sakuraba is doing the music, as he did for the other games (he also did the music for Baten Kaitos, which had an excellent soundtrack).

Probably the most important fact is that Dark Dawn comes out Holiday 2010. Looks like this fall I'll be playing through the first two games again. My playthrough is overdue as it is.

Anyways, that's my rant for today. If there's other Golden Sun fans who come online frequently, let the theorizing begin

Also

Friendly reminder! Remember to save your submissions in .doc file format (if you can't open it, there's www.openoffice.org. Also, how is it you are surviving in the 21st century without an office program?), manuscript format for the text  (double spaced, Times New Roman or Courier font, but above all, consistency in formatting), but perhaps my biggest pet peeve is when people don't format their file names correctly. We've all managed to get the email subject lines perfect so I'd really like everyone to have their usernames on the file itself. Heck, cloning your subject header may work just as well.

Hopefully I'm not being too crazy here with the submission guidelines, but it is very important to have consistency. Above that, each of these guidelines has a rationale to it. .doc's are (unfortunately) the standard of saving office files. Double spacing is for readability. The reason I'm being picky with file names is because when you download a bunch of submissions, I now need to sort through them all. It's really, really nice to have a name with each file so I don't have to keep looking at the email.

Thank you everyone who already does this

(Also, most all of these things are in the guidelines outlined in the "Welcome to Reading Excuses" topic, so this isn't terribly surprising. Just wanted to make sure everyone remembers!)

I just thought I'd say that, from Friday's comic, Tagon's facial expression in the last panel is priceless. Boy, I missed him so much through the rest of this story.

Good freaking god every game that I've wanted is coming in March. Seriously, developers, what the hell. Let's take a look!

March 9th - Final Fantasy 13
March 14th - Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver (DS)
March 16th - Dragon Age Origins - Awakening; Infinite Space (DS)

I do not have enough freakin' free time to have four RPGs in a single week. Granted, FF13 can wait, but hell if I'm going to miss a chance to play that franchise on a system I actually own (I've never owned any Sony consoles, so the main series--with exception of its DS installments--are out of the question).

Seems like Pokemon will get first dibs. Gold and Silver were my favorite installments. I played that ancient GBC cartridge for years, all the way up to the GBA SP. It's the pinnacle of Pokemon, and ever since Nintendo made remakes of Red/Blue, I've wanted a remake of Gold/Silver to come out. Heck yes. It's the longest of the games, too, which makes it all the sweeter. I should probably start my preparations... Overall time commitment shouldn't be more than a weekend.

Then there's the Dragon Age expansion, Awakening. It's Bioware. It needs no other intro. Of course, I didn't really think Dragon Age was up to par to either Mass Effect game, but it is still enough to hold my interest. Pokemon and Dragon Age get my money first.

Infinite Space is a game I've been curious about for a long time. I'm anxious to see some reviews of it before spending some cash (which will be dismally low after this month), but the DS needs more hardcore RPGs. A space RPG with tons of customization? This may be really cool.

It just seems like--at least from my perspective--virtually every game I wanted in 2010 is coming out right now. Somethings messed up there.

Wait, Supreme Commander 2 comes out in March too?  I didn't play the first SupCom enough... I may either play SupCom 2 or skip RTS's entirely. (In case you're wondering, I have no intention to ever conceive of buying Starcraft 2. It's all more of the same Starcraft that I didn't particularly like a decade okay. Why should I care?)

Let's see, are there any other games that would hold my interest in the rest of 2010?

Golden Sun DS sure would. I'm crossing my fingers for a 2010 release on that. I suppose we shall see at E3.

So Mass Effect 2 is getting incredible reviews all over the place, saying it has improved over ME1 immensely, and just pushing the bar up for RPGs. Who else is excited? I know once launch day comes out, people won't see me for a while